The Lurkers Within: (A Havenwood Falls Novella)

by Danielle Bannister

  “That’s my partner. That thing under the covers beside him? That’s me.” It was weird seeing myself outside of my own skin. Though it was only a lump under a duvet, I knew if I pulled back the covers, I’d see my own lifeless body. “Adam is still alive, in that his organs are still functioning. He’s breathing in and out . . . but his soul—” I fought back my emotion. It was still too hard to think about. “He’s never going to come out of that vegetative state. They took his soul. The thing that made Adam, Adam.” It was so hard to think I was never going to be able to talk to him again. “That’s what is going to happen to me if the Indrori has his way.”

  “Right. Let’s not fail, okay?” Her shoulders rose back as though she fully understood the stakes now.

  Letting out a breath, Harper went over and unzipped the bag with ease. She lifted a trap up and shifted it to her other hand.

  “Wow, it’s heavy,” she scribbled with her right hand, as the trap remained in her left.

  “Yeah, you’re gonna want to grab a second one. One for each hand. Just to be safe.”

  Harper lowered the trap and looked in my general direction. Her eyes landed about a foot lower than where my eyes really were. A spot I was accustomed to men staring. She wasn’t ogling me, even though her eyes were wide. She just didn’t know how tall I was.

  “You think I’ll need two of them?”

  I didn’t have the heart to tell her she’d need to likely fire fifty of them at a time to take this thing down. That’s when it hit me how big the stakes were for Harper. All this time, I’d been focusing on this being the only way to stop the Indrori, but what about her? I was sticking her in the same situation Roman had put me in. This was a bad idea. I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t put her life on the line.

  “You know what?” I said. “I’ve changed my mind. This is too dangerous. You need to get out of here before it comes back.”

  “I’m not leaving you. I can help. I’ve been working with demons for almost a year now. Besides, I have these traps. I’m not some defenseless kid, Tasha. I can do this.” She dropped her notepad to the ground, effectively cutting off our communication.

  “Harper!” I shouted. “The plan won’t work, okay? Even if you hit this thing dead in the center with both guns—it won’t be enough. I was a fool to drag you into this. You need to get out of here before—”

  At that moment, I felt a shift in the air. I knew Harper could feel it, if not see it too, because her posture stiffened.

  “Get out of here. Now!” I hissed.

  She stood there, like a deer stuck in headlights for a long moment. She held only one trap in her hand. Her entire body trembled as she lifted the gun toward the vibrant violet aura that merged its way into the bedroom from all around us.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, Agent Young,” the Indrori began. “I had to make a quick trip to the bus stop. Couldn’t let your boy-toy miss out on all the fun. He was delicious.”

  No. Eduardo. The fucker took him, too. He was tracking down anyone that was close to me.

  “You bastard!” I shrieked. I felt my insides rattle against the pent-up rage. I was about to lurch for him when Harper shouted.

  “Get out of the way! I got this!”

  The Indrori shifted slightly to my left to take in Harper. The trap was raised between her two shaking hands.

  “Agent Young, you brought me a snack. How delightful. But really, after devouring you, I’m not sure I could eat another bite.” The laughter rose from the Indrori and reverberated across the room.

  “Leave her out of this!” I yelled, essentially sealing her fate. It was a fatal slip of the tongue. I had just let the Indrori know who he should go after next.

  “Harper, put the gun down and get out of here,” I shouted at her. Couldn’t she see how much danger she was in?

  She ignored me and lifted the gun higher. Though she likely wouldn’t be able to make out the exact shape of the Indrori as well I could, she must have seen its general direction, because the gun was pointed in the right spot. She closed her eyes and shot.

  Chapter 11

  Harper stood there, arm outstretched, eyes pinched tight, likely too afraid to open them to see the reality of the situation that I saw all too well. She had missed her mark by a mile.

  “God damn it, Harper, run, now, or I’ll kill you myself,” I spat, at the exact same time as the Indrori moved in on her.

  I forced my aura in front of the large mass. It halted as though amused.

  “Rule number one: You don’t get to touch my friends,” I said.

  “Friends? Oh, Agent Young, you don’t have any friends.” It was a childish retort. One that would have normally bounced right off me, but for some reason it stuck there like glue. The monster was right. I’d never had a friend. Not a genuine one. Ever since I discovered my gift as a child, people have only wanted what I could give them back—a loved one’s life. I had gotten used to being used and, as a result, became suspicious of anyone who wanted to get close to me.

  How could the Indrori know that I had always been a loner, though? Their tone indicated that they had intimate knowledge of my life.

  “Tasha, get out of the way. I can handle this,” Harper said. Her eyes were narrowed. Thin fingers danced through the air as though she were writing on an invisible sheet of paper. She was writing words that I couldn’t decipher, but it seemed to be doing something, because the room grew darker then. Shadows appeared from the corners, and I began to panic, thinking the Indrori was doing this.

  “Foolish girl. You can’t control us. One demonic soul, perhaps, but united, we are too strong for you.”

  Harper didn’t seem deterred. She continued to write in the air as more shadows emerged. It was only then that I realized Harper was summoning the shadows.

  “What are those, Harper?”

  “Spirits,” she grunted through her efforts. “I’m summoning them to help from the Infernum.”

  “Spirits? Harper, no! You can’t—this thing absorbs spirits! You’ll just make it stronger!”

  “I’ve got control of them, Tasha,” she strained. “Now stay back.”

  But it was clear to me that this was a losing battle. Already I could see violet tendrils reaching out to the dark shadows, wrapping themselves around the spirits Harper had summoned. Within moments, the shadows were gone, and the Indrori was even larger.

  “Enough games!” the Indrori shouted. A wave of energy rocked through the room, bouncing Harper and me backward.

  “Are you okay?” I asked. The energy blast had knocked her straight off her feet.

  “It’s too strong. I need to find Desi. I’ll be back, Tasha. I’ll bring help!”

  A moment later, she was on her feet and bounding down the stairs. I didn’t have time to ask her who Desi was, but I knew that whoever it was, it would be too late. There would be nothing left of me to save.

  Scrambling to get my aura centered, I followed after Harper. I knew I couldn’t escape the house, but I was stalling for time. I needed to think of something to do to weaken this bastard, and right now the only thing I could think of was trying to force it to use energy to chase after me. This was a game of cat and mouse that I didn’t want to lose.

  Downstairs I stopped in the living room. I heard the front door slam. Harper had made it out. That was a small comfort. Though we barely knew each other, I felt like we were friends. She hadn’t wanted anything from me. In fact, I had been the one using her talent.

  It didn’t take long for the Indrori to drip down from the ceiling. The purple aura looked no worse for wear despite my efforts. Figures.

  “Looks like it’s just you and me now, Beetlejuice.”

  The thing was stronger than ever now, thanks to Harper’s help. I had no idea how I was going to get out of this alive. The only thing I could think to do was try to stall for time. My mouth got me out of plenty of sticky situations. Maybe I’d find a way to talk myself free.

  “Before you take my soul,” I began, “I h
ave a question or two.”

  The Indrori stopped its advancement toward me and hovered as though curious what I might want to know. I took it as permission to keep going.

  “What’s your end game? You take my soul and then what? Your revenge is over. Whatever will you do with your time? Off to the Bermuda Triangle, are you?”

  “I’m disappointed, Tasha. I would have thought you had figured it out by now.”

  I didn’t answer, because I didn’t have a clue as to what he was getting at. He was playing a mind game. I just didn’t know the rules. Still, I wanted to keep up the talking to give Harper as much time as I could to get far away from here.

  Seemingly frustrated by my stupidity, his aura came closer. So close that I could feel his energy forcing itself against my own.

  “You’re the last of your kind, Tasha. The last Recoverer in the world.”

  I had no idea where he was getting his intel, but he was wrong. “No, I’m not. There are at least five of us, dipshit.”

  A small laughter surrounded me.

  “Actually, there were six of you. Were being the operative word. Now, it’s just you. Naturally, I saved the best for last. You are the end of an era.”

  “Bullshit,” I hissed, but I couldn’t help but wonder if they were right. I had no way of knowing if they were lying or not. Recoverers were so spread out, in different time zones. It’s not like we kept in touch. We all had our own missions, but if they were all gone, surely, I would have heard something. Right?

  I shook my head, blurring my aura as I did. I was fading. The Indrori’s proximity was draining me.

  “Fine, so you put an end to bringing back a few dead, so what? There are other spirit agents. We can still take you down!”

  The Indrori split apart just then. Gone was the purple mass, in its place a sea of red with a few blue auras still clinging to what little humanity they had. I realized then, it was this combination of the demonic and the confused spirits that gave the Indrori its coloring.

  “Your Spirit Agents can handle one of us at a time, Agent Young,” the Indrori screamed, “but as one, we are unstoppable.” A moment later, the auras were assembled again. Their power was in their numbers. I had to find a way to break them apart.

  “Our teams are smart. They’ll figure out a way to stop you.”

  More laughter. I was really getting sick of that sound.

  “If they live long enough.”

  I couldn’t help it. I let out a chuckle of my own. “What? You’re going to take down every human spirit agent, too? There are literally thousands of us, with more being trained by the minute.”

  His reply came all at once, hot against my ear as if he was standing in the flesh beside me.

  “You underestimate our power. We’ll get every last human who wishes us harm. Once you are gone, there will be no one to stop us. After you, the endgame is simple. Every single person in Havenwood Falls. And then every single supernatural in this world, including the one known as the Collector. Their days of imprisoning our kind for merely existing are over.”

  Before I could react, their aura pulled away from mine as they circled what was left of my spirit in the same tornado-type motion they had done before they took Adam. I wasn’t long for this world, whether the Indrori took my soul or not. There was no way out of the end game. No way to warn anyone else what the Indrori was up to after he took me down. I could only hope that Harper got herself out of Havenwood Falls before he had time to carry out his plan.

  Wait. Maybe she could warn the others.

  “Harper!” I shouted, knowing she wasn’t here in the house, but praying she would hear me again. She did before, and I hadn’t even been knowingly trying to reach her. “If you get this—get out of the town. Get everyone out! I can’t stop it. The Indrori is going to take you all! Run!”

  “It’s too late, Tasha. Much, much too late.”

  His anger pulsed through all of their auras, causing the air around me to grow hot. It felt like I was at the gates of Hell. The cold of the spirit realm had become hotter than a sauna.

  “Before we finish this, don’t you know why we saved you for last? Why we didn’t rip your soul out from your mother’s womb thirty-two years ago when we first felt your presence?” the Indrori asked.

  “Because that would have been impossible?” I spat.

  “You underestimate our power!” the Indrori shouted as the spirits circled around me again and again. My head felt dizzy watching the skulls dance around me. “You humans always have,” he went on. “What you fail to realize is that spirits know the moment their destroyer is made. It’s a twist of cruel fate that we are not strong enough on our own to do anything about it. But together, as one united front, we’ve been able to stop any new Recoverers mere weeks after conception.”

  “What?” I gasped. That couldn’t possibly mean what I thought it did.

  “Oh, don’t give me that look. Miscarriages happen all the time.”

  This thing really was evil. While I didn’t care for kids myself, I would never want to harm them, let alone smother them completely.

  “Why would you care about Recoverers?” I gasped. “We help humans stuck in the spirit realm! We save them from becoming lost between two planes for the rest of their existence. Why would you want to prevent us from that? I can see why you’d be pissed at us for trapping your ass, but why would helping save them from a life in purgatory tick you off?”

  The Indrori pulsed with what I could only assume was anger.

  “Did it never occur to you who might be pulling those lost souls to the other side in the first place? Souls stuck in purgatory are the easiest for us to manipulate. They require minimal energy to absorb. It’s how we grew so strong so fast. Each one you rip away is another strike against us!” the Indrori raged.

  I wasn’t about to be intimidated. Not when I was already a goner. I would get my answers one way or the other.

  “All right, fine, so why didn’t you do the same to me? Why didn’t you take me while I was still in the womb?” I shouted.

  The swirling of the vortex slowed, but the grip on me didn’t lessen.

  “Because you, dear Tasha, are special. You have an aura that has been virtually impenetrable to us since your conception. Every time we’ve tried to take your soul, we have failed.”

  “How many times have you tried to kill me?” I heard myself ask.

  “Three hundred and eighty-seven.”

  “Jesus,” I whispered. That rattled me and gave me hope all at the same time.

  “What makes you so confident you’ll succeed this time, jackass?”

  It probably wasn’t smart to taunt this thing, but maybe this wasn’t the end for me. Maybe I was stronger than they were?

  “Why will we succeed this time?” the Indrori asked, forcing my attention back on the swirling spirits. “Because we finally figured out what the issue was. Your bloodline was too strong.”

  The Indrori’s auras danced close to me again. Though they weren’t physically touching me, I felt like I was being pinned down by a cement truck.

  Just then, the Indrori’s shape changed. A long branch broke away from the rest of the mass like a smoky tentacle.

  “Sorry, this might hurt a little.” The Indrori laughed.

  Unable to move, I watched in horror as the tentacle slinked its way around my waist, mirroring the pattern of my snake tattoo. The smoke against my aura felt like a branding iron everywhere it touched. I let out a scream as intense pain enveloped my core. The tendril tightened around my spirit, and I heard a loud crack, followed by another. From the location of the pain, I knew it was breaking my ribs one by one. Because I was within two planes of existence, I could feel not only the heat of the aura’s touch, but the physical pain of my human form crushing within its grip.

  “I can destroy you now, Tasha, because I have absorbed your bloodline.”

  If I hadn’t been in so much agony, I would have asked him what he meant, but as it stood, I was little
more than a ragdoll. I couldn’t see anything against the blinding white-hot pain. My thoughts were splintering, just like my spirit.

  “You thought you could keep your parents safe from me, simply by cutting ties to them? Or maybe you just didn’t know?” The Indrori waited for me to reply, but there was no way I could speak. I was in too much pain. I just wanted the pain to stop. Please, make the pain stop. “Foolish girl. Did it never occur to you that you inherited your dual ability from someone?”

  I knew they were messing with my head now. My parents weren’t like me. Far from it. My dad was a mailman, and my mom was a librarian. You couldn’t find two more boring people on the planet. They didn’t have the ability to bring back the dead. And they sure as hell never saw the spirits I did.

  “It’s rare, you know, to have a Seer and Recoverer marry, but to have both mutations passed down to their child? Unheard of. It’s what set you apart, Tasha. That’s what made you untouchable all these years. You had both of their DNA to protect you. We were most displeased.”

  I made a pathetic attempt to escape the vise grip I was in, but it made no difference.

  “Think of it this way—at least you don’t need to send them a Christmas card this year.”

  I shook my head violently, refusing to believe their words. My parents were fine. This was just a way to break down my spirit. Yet, at the same time, I knew the Indrori was telling the truth. It was the only thing that made sense, in a sick and twisted sort of way. My parents never really freaked out about my visions. They only told me to keep it secret. They never even took me to a doctor to get my head examined. Could they possibly have known what I was, because they had similar abilities?

  “No!” I cried. A wave of anger shot through me, and the Indrori’s grip suddenly lessened just enough so I felt a bit of relief.

  “Interesting,” the Indrori said. “You’re stronger than we imagined. Even with the help of your parents’ spirits inside of us, you are still proving to be a worthy foe.”