She looked at me askance. “Who’s Dara?”
“That demon you saw.”
“No, that’s Lily. Or Lilith, I guess.”
“No, that was Dara. Lilith was the other girl in bed with her.”
“No,” Olivia insisted, “Lilith has horns and a tail.”
“Not anymore. Look, it’s really complicated but your soul is trapped inside Dara, who’s Lilith’s sister, and Lilith is currently human. How did you get out?”
“I don’t know. I just woke up in that bedroom. So I’m not in Hell?” She walked over to the DVD racks, although the motion looked a bit strange, as if her feet weren’t actually making contact with the floor.
“No, a demon hunter bound your soul so that Lilith couldn’t take it.”
“I thought you said Dara had my soul.” Olivia ran a ghostly finger along the titles.
“Lilith took it originally and then gave it to Dara. I said it was complicated. Do you remember what happened?” I asked cautiously. “Before you, um, died?”
“Hm. Lily – Lilith – came to visit me in the hospital. It was kind of weird, you know, seeing her like that with the horns and eyes and everything and no one else noticing. I thought maybe the drugs were doing something to my head. Oh!”
“What?” I looked around but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Other than her, of course.
“Can we watch this?” She tried to pull a DVD off the shelf but her insubstantial fingers just passed right through it. I sidled up beside her and checked the title.
“Captain America: The Winter Soldier?” I asked incredulously.
“Yes! I was too sick to see it when it came out. Chris Evans is so hot! Please?” she begged.
“Um, maybe later,” I hedged. “So why would you sign your soul away like that? I mean, you were about to, well, die soon anyway and you’re a good person. At least you seemed like one from your videos. You would have gone straight to Heaven, right?”
“Well, maybe,” she agreed sadly, “but Momma and Poppa didn’t have enough insurance to cover everything, so they had to mortgage the house and cash in their retirement accounts and run up their credit cards to pay the doctors. I told them not to do it but –” She shrugged helplessly. “When Lily promised to pay for everything, I had to agree. I couldn’t let my family suffer because of me.” A wistful smile teased her lips. “They were so relieved when I told them.”
“You told them you sold your soul to a demon?”
“No, of course not! I just said that someone contributed a lot of money to the fund they set up.” Her brows drew together in a frown. “Except that man seemed to know about her.”
“What man?”
“Someone came to the house after I left the hospital to – to –” She waved her hands helplessly but I knew what she meant. To die. “I was pretty out of it by then but I remember him sitting beside my bed and touching me.”
“Touching you?” I asked carefully.
“Here.” She brushed her forehead with her fingertips. “I don’t remember much after that. I just slept until I woke up here.”
“That must have been the hunter. Do you remember his name or what he looked like? We think he’s still after Lilith.”
“No, not really. He was really good-looking,” she said shyly, “and he had dark hair. That’s all. Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. So I guess you can just go, then.” She blinked at me. “To Heaven. Now that you’re free from Dara. Right?” I nodded encouragingly.
“How do I do that?”
“Well, you just ... go, I guess.” I mimed someone rising up into the sky.
“I don’t think that’s going to work,” Olivia said, shaking her head.
“Why not?”
“Something’s keeping me here. I can feel it.”
“Damn,” I sighed. “It’s the hunter’s artifact. He bound your soul to it so Lilith couldn’t take you to Hell.”
“No, it’s that.” She pointed and I looked down at the Philosopher’s Stone gleaming in the darkness. “It’s pulling me.”
“Uh-oh. That’s not supposed to happen.” Mrs. Kendricks spell was meant to block the hunter’s trace, not take over the entire bond. I wondered if Susie had made a mistake somewhere. “We need to break the link and get you out of here!”
“Oh.” She didn’t seem too enthusiastic about that plan. “Now?”
“Don’t you want to go to Heaven?”
“Sure, except –” Her voice, still just a whispery breath, trailed off into nothing.
“Except what?”
“I was sick for a very long time,” she said, looking embarrassed. “I didn’t get to do anything. I couldn’t go out to the movies,” she waved her arm at the DVDs, “I couldn’t meet up with my friends, I never,” her eyes dropped as she awkwardly tucked her hair behind her ear in a gesture that mimicked Melissa’s nervous habit, “I never even had a boyfriend.”
I suddenly realized I was standing there wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts and a comforter. I fumbled around for my pants and pulled them on hastily, nearly catching Little Peter in the zipper. “So?” I asked, searching around in the dark for my shirt. “What difference does that make?”
“I want to do things before I go. It’s not fair to make me leave until I get to do all the stuff everyone else does!”
“Except you’re dead,” I pointed out. “You still can’t do those things.”
“I can do some of them!” she argued. “I can watch that movie if you put it on for me.”
“You’d rather do that than go to Heaven?”
“Yes!” Olivia’s jaw had that same stubborn, pugnacious set to it that I’d seen many times before on both Susie and Daraxandriel. I was starting to think it had something to do with me. “If you don’t let me stay, I’ll – I’ll haunt you!”
“How is haunting me different from what you’re doing now?”
“It just is!”
“Oh my God,” I breathed. “I can’t deal with this. I need to call Mrs. Kendricks.”
“Who?” Olivia asked suspiciously.
“She’s one of the witches who bound you to the Stone.” I patted my pockets for my phone and then felt around on the floor for it, finally finding it under the coffee table.
Olivia snorted skeptically. “There’s no such things as witches,” she stated flatly.
“There’s no such things as demons and ghosts either,” I countered, “and yet here we are.” I checked the time on my phone. It was 12:44, in the middle of the witching hour but probably past Mrs. Kendricks’ bedtime. I just hoped she left her phone on.
I listened impatiently to the ringing as I kept an eye on Olivia, who stood there pouting at me with her arms crossed. The sound cut off abruptly and I thought the call was going to roll over to voicemail, but then I heard Mrs. Kendricks’ sleepy voice.
“The door’s unlocked, Peter,” she murmured. “Just come in and try not to wake Anastasia.”
“What? Oh, no, that’s not why I’m calling,” I stammered. “Sorry to wake you up but I have a little problem.”
“Then come in and I’ll take care of it.”
“I’m not there. I’m at home with Olivia.”
“Olivia?”
“Olivia Benard. The dead girl.”
“Oh,” she said with a resigned sigh. “That kind of problem.”
14
There’s a guild in Lorecraft called Virtual Reality with an unusual set of rules for its members. All characters have to be regular humans with regular names. They can’t be magic users and their weapons have to be something they could actually acquire here on Earth. They’re limited to just basic attacks in combat and they’re not allowed to use any scrolls or magical items, although other players can buff or heal them, within limits. All deaths are permanent, no revives allowed. If the character dies, it’s deleted and the player has to start again from scratch.
Basically, Virtual Reality is a group of ordinary people pretending to be a
group of ordinary people trying to survive in a magical world. They’re almost completely useless when it comes to completing any quests above level 15 or so and they pretty much top out at around level 20 before they get killed. Most of them stay inside the major towns where it’s safer, focusing on crafting and trading and a few other mundane roles.
I never really understood the appeal of playing a character who has absolutely no special characteristics or skills. Real life is boring enough without having to play a game that acts just like it. I don’t want to grow cabbages and mine ore. I want to throw fireballs, slay dragons, and go on adventures with elves and fairies. I play Lorecraft to forget about my life for a while, not recreate it.
Of course, now that I’m up to my eyeballs with witches, demons, and ghosts, I could use a little more mundane in my life. I wonder if Virtual Reality is accepting any new members.
I paced back and forth on the sidewalk waiting anxiously for Mrs. Kendricks, keeping one eye on the house in case someone woke up and wondered what I was doing outside at this time of night.
Olivia sat on the hood of the Mustang with her arms wrapped around her knees, giving me the silent treatment as she watched me pace. She was almost incandescent under the light of the full moon and her outline seemed quite a bit sharper but every part of her was still just translucent white.
Finally, a pair of headlights appeared down the road and approached quickly, blinding me as the vehicle pulled over to the curb a short distance away. The lights and engine cut off and Mrs. Kendricks got out. It looked like she’d just pulled a pair of slacks over her sleep shirt but her hair was pinned up with her wands as usual.
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” she said dryly, coming closer.
“It’s not my fault,” I grumbled.
“She doesn’t look like a witch,” Olivia complained. “She’s too young and pretty.”
“Trust me, she’s a witch,” I told her.
“Who are you talking to, Peter?” Mrs. Kendricks asked, looking around with a frown.
“Olivia. Can’t you see her?”
“No. Are you sure she’s still here?”
“She’s sitting right here, bright as day.” I held my hand over Olivia’s head and she tried to swat it away. I thought I felt a faint tingle when her hand passed through my arm but it was probably just my imagination.
Mrs. Kendricks squinted right at Olivia but she shook her head. “I don’t see anything.”
“Some witch,” Olivia snorted.
“She’s here, I swear!” I protested. “I’m not imagining things!”
“I believe you, Peter,” she assured me. “People respond to manifestations in different ways. What does she look like?”
“Well, like her video, except she doesn’t look sick. She has hair now.” Olivia fluffed it out with a disdainful sniff.
“An apparition, then,” Mrs. Kendricks nodded thoughtfully. “That’s good.”
“It is?”
“If she looked dead, she’d be a wraith and we’d have to, ah, deal with her very quickly. Apparitions tend to be less destructive.” She tapped her lips with her forefinger for a moment. “Does she know why she’s here?”
“I told her about Lilith.”
“No, I mean, does she know why she’s still on this plane? Ghosts usually have some unresolved issues.”
I looked at Olivia and she shrugged diffidently. “I want to watch The Winter Soldier,” she grumped.
“I don’t think that’s what she means,” I told her. “We need to figure out why you haven’t gone to Heaven.”
“I told you, your necklace is pulling me, but it doesn’t matter.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to go! I want to have some fun first. You can’t have fun in a hospital,” she muttered sullenly.
“You can’t stay here! You have to go to Heaven so that demon hunter leaves Dara alone!”
“That’s not my problem,” Olivia sniffed.
“It is your problem!” She turned her back on me and pretended not to hear. “Oh my God,” I breathed, rubbing my forehead.
“What did she say?” Mrs. Kendricks asked bemusedly.
“She doesn’t want to leave,” I told her heavily. “She says she wants to do all the things she couldn’t do while she was sick.”
“Well, that might be a bit difficult, considering her current condition.”
“I already told her that but she won’t listen.” Olivia made a hmph sound and scooted over to the far side of the car. “What are we going to do?”
Mrs. Kendricks shook her head. “The only thing I can think of is to somehow get hold of the artifact binding her soul and destroy it. Since she doesn’t seem to have any unfinished business here, she may just ascend on her own.”
“That’s not going to work,” I said glumly.
“I admit it’s not going to be easy –”
“No, that’s not it. Olivia’s says she’s bound to the Stone now.” I tapped my chest where it rested under my shirt.
“Oh? Oh.” Mrs. Kendricks looked concerned.
“What’s wrong?”
“We talked about this earlier, Peter. We have no way to destroy a Philosopher’s Stone.”
“But we can undo the binding spell, right?”
“Possibly, but I’m not sure it would help.”
A knot started forming in my stomach. “Why not?”
“That spell wasn’t meant to keep Olivia here. That fact that it seems to be doing just that means that she’s probably drawing life energy from it through the bond. I think that’s why she’s able to manifest now and that’s probably why you’re the only one who can see her, since you’re connected to the same Stone.” Mrs. Kendricks nibbled the corner of her lip as she considered me in a way that absolutely didn’t give me a warm and fuzzy feeling.
“What are you thinking?” I asked nervously.
“The more energy she pulls from the Stone, the more substantial she’ll become. At some point, she’ll be able to interact with the physical world.”
“And that’s bad?”
“That depends on your opinion of poltergeists,” she smiled. “Other people may be able to see and hear her, too.”
“Really?” Olivia perked up hopefully.
“That’s not a good thing!” I told her. “What are we going to do?” I asked Mrs. Kendricks plaintively. “I don’t want to be haunted for the rest of my life!”
“It won’t come to that, I promise, Peter,” she said firmly. “We’ll figure something out. Somehow,” she sighed. “My friends are going to wonder why I keep asking them all these off-the-wall questions about demons and souls.”
“Could Dara do something?” I asked doubtfully. “She can capture souls, can’t she?”
“No!” Olivia gasped, waving her hands frantically. “I don’t want to go back in there! I just got out!”
“You don’t belong here!” I insisted. “It’s Lilith’s fault that you’re even here at all.”
“I don’t care, I want to stay out here with you! I’ll be good,” she promised, crawling across the Mustang’s hood to reach out to me. “I won’t haunt you and I’ll do anything you say! Please!” she begged. “Let me stay, just for a little while!”
“Where’s Dara now?” Mrs. Kendricks asked, oblivious to Olivia’s pleading.
“In my room sleeping, I guess,” I said. “Why?”
“I’m a bit surprised Olivia was able to break free from her in the first place,” she mused, “even with the Stone’s help. I’ve never heard of that happening before. I wonder if Dara’s demonic hold on her soul is weaker when she’s asleep.”
“So if we wake Dara up, Olivia might go back to wherever she was?” I eyed Olivia hopefully.
“No!” she recoiled in horror. “Don’t you dare!”
“Possibly,” Mrs. Kendricks acknowledged, “although not for much longer if she stays linked to the Stone. We’ll need to work quickly.” She shook her head with a sigh. “I h
oped this would just take a quick banishment spell. I’m sorry, Peter.”
“It’s not your fault,” I told her, raking my fingers through my hair. Between Lilith, Daraxandriel, Susie, Melissa, and now Olivia, I wondered if I was ever going to get a moment of quiet, let alone a decent night’s sleep. “Why does everything have to be so complicated?” I asked woefully.
“That’s life,” she said with a philosophic shrug. “It keeps things interesting.”
“Interesting is not the word I’d use. Frustrating, maybe.”
She laughed. “Good night, Peter. I’ll call you tomorrow if I learn anything.”
I followed her back to her BMW and opened the door for her. “Thanks for coming,” I told her as she slipped into the driver’s seat. “Sorry I keep waking you up.”
“I’m going to have to start charging you for house calls,” she said with a tired smile. “Good luck with Olivia.” She was seated on the end of the Mustang’s hood, watching us with a suspicious frown.
“Any advice on what to do with her?” I asked hopefully.
“None, I’m afraid. I don’t have any experience with ghosts.” She started up the BMW. “We’ll figure it out, Peter, I promise.”
“Thanks.” I closed the door and stepped back as she waved at me through the window and drove off. I stood there in the street watching her taillights vanish in the distance.
“You were talking about me, weren’t you?” Olivia demanded.
“Of course we were,” I sighed. “We’re trying to figure out how to help you.”
“You just want to get rid of me,” she accused.
“We want you to go to Heaven where you belong!” I retorted.
“I don’t want to go.” She crossed her arms defiantly. “I’m not ready.”
“Look, it’s late and I’m tired and I don’t want to argue with you right now.” I opened our gate and walked towards the front door. Halfway there, I realized Olivia wasn’t following me. “Aren’t you coming?”
Soul Mates Page 17