Ice Maiden

by Dale Mayer

  “But he came across as useless?”

  “Came across as blowing hot air,” she said. “So that didn’t sound very good, but I don’t know what else to call it.”

  “Well, it’s an interesting theory anyway,” he said.

  “Still doesn’t help us.”

  “Maybe not,” he said, “but maybe we’ll get some answers from these cold cases.”

  “I hope so.” As they pulled up in front of the house, she got out, looked up at the big house, smiled, and said, “You’re really lucky to have inherited this.”

  “I know,” he said. “I had a small condo. Actually I still have it,” he confessed. “I’ve got it rented while I’m here, but again it’s all part of that not sure what I’m doing with my life thing.”

  “Well, there are worse things to fuss over,” she said.

  “True, very true.” As he walked to the entrance, he unlocked the door, pushed it open, and said, “Welcome.”

  She stepped inside and gasped. “This is gorgeous!”

  “My aunt was an interior designer. She knew where all the fabrics and colors and stuff should go, and I have to admit that I always loved her choices. It’s very serene here.”

  “Makes a nice haven for you, when you get off the hard, ugly workday.”

  “Isn’t that the truth? Nothing quite like humanity to keep you on your toes, which makes you wonder how we even survive all the crude violence that we do to each other.”

  “I hear you,” she said softly. “On that note, I guess you have nothing new about my friends, do you?”

  “No,” he said, “not at all.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I just keep hoping.”

  “You and me both. Everybody’s been interviewed around the second murder scene. Nobody heard anything. Nobody saw anything. The cameras in the hallway were glitched at the time, so nobody was filmed coming or going.”

  “Parking lot cameras?”

  “They’re out of order,” he said.

  “It seems almost like this entity, this person, had some kind of electrical vibration that sent all the cameras offline,” she said. “I mean that’s a pretty cool trick, if you’re a thief. But I don’t know how realistic it is for something like this.”

  Just then a golden sphere formed in front of them.

  She gasped and stepped back. Damon, however, handled it much better.

  “Hello, Stefan. How are you doing tonight?” he said in a humorous tone.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Gabby stared at Stefan’s glowing energy form in amazement. “I still don’t get it,” she said. “I mean, I saw it before, but I almost deluded myself into thinking it was fake, but here you are again.”

  “Absolutely,” he said out loud for both of them to hear. “And, if you think about it, this is where I need to be.”

  “Why?” she asked in confusion. “Why do you need to be here?”

  “Because lots of action is here,” he said, “of an entity kind.”

  “Do you think it’s related to the cold cases from a long time ago?” Damon asked him.

  “Absolutely,” Stefan said. “When things cycle around, you know that you’ve got to go back to the beginning to find out what’s going on.”

  “Would a spirit even stay around that long?” she asked in confusion. “I thought they were supposed to leave the planet after death.”

  “Well, that’s true in most cases,” he said. “But oftentimes they hang around because they don’t want to be separated from somebody.”

  “So, like my boss’s wife, if she really, really cared about him, she might still be hanging around, waiting for him?”

  “Possibly, yes,” he said, “but you never really know the reason for somebody to hang around.”

  “Revenge, you mean? Do they do it for the wrong reasons?” Damon asked.

  “All the time,” Stefan said in a soft voice. “Unfortunately they do that all the time.”

  “Is there anything you can do to help them?” Gabby asked.

  “Sometimes there is, and sometimes there isn’t. What I spend a lot of my time doing is helping entities leave.”

  “Do they ever not want to leave?” Damon asked him.

  “The ones trying to regain a chance at life? Absolutely,” he said. “They never want to leave.”

  “Okay, so that’s scaring the hell out of me,” she cried out. “Is it even possible that they can avoid death?”

  “They’ve already died,” Stefan said, “but, every once in a while, they find a way to try and live again.”

  “Well, that’s the epitome of what everybody wants, isn’t it?” Damon asked. “If you think about it, eternal life is the goal.”

  “For some of them, they lock into this way of finding another way to live,” Stefan said. “We’ve got all kinds of people who study the occult, looking for a way to cheat death, but it doesn’t work—well, so far, I haven’t seen any be successful.”

  “And you’ve seen lots of people try?” she asked softly.

  “Many, and they use other humans to attempt to continue their existence.”

  “That’s scary.”

  “It’s not only scary but it’s also dangerous for the other person,” he said. “Because, like with evil possessions, it’s draining their system at the same time. They’re essentially feeding off the host’s body, like parasites.”

  “And the host can’t sustain it?” Damon asked.

  “No, it makes them exhausted, tired, ages them easily, and they look, feel, and act way older than they would if they were just themselves.”

  Like Jerry? Gabby wondered. But the man was in his seventies, after all.

  “But,” Damon continued, “what about Gabby? She was superenergized after her near-death experience. And you thought she might be possessed. That’s the opposite of the draining you just talked about. So how is that possible?”

  Stefan laughed. “Welcome to my world. Yes, you can have a healing possession of sorts, a rejoining of positive energies of a sort. But, in Gabby’s case, she seems to have two souls fighting for her, one evil, one benevolent.”

  “Oh my,” Gabby murmured, her eyes wide.

  “Can you see these extra entities?” Damon asked Stefan.

  “Sometimes. Lots of times not. Sometimes they blend so well with the person—because they love them or care about them—that it’s really hard to find them. Sometimes you’ll find humans are perfectly willing to carry them out of love, thinking that they’re doing a good thing. Often they carry around a piece of somebody who’s died, thinking that they’ll carry that piece with them forever because then they never let go. But it has the opposite effect. These evil possessions are ghosts somehow finding a way to be strong enough to take over a host and to halfway live their ghostly life with them. And not to the benefit of the host.”

  “So like a parasite-and-a-host relationship?”

  “Yes, and, at some point in time, that parasite ends up taking over the host and taking the energy from the healthy person.”

  “That’s a scary thought too,” she said. She walked into the living room and sank into the nearest chair. “That’s just something I don’t really want to think about.”

  “Well, somebody’s in your sphere, who you think is normal and completely free and clear and safe, but she isn’t,” he said.

  “Who are you talking about?”

  “Your friend, Wendy.”

  Gabby stopped and stared. “What’s wrong with Wendy?” she asked, bouncing to her feet. “What’s wrong with her? I need to help her, if I can do something.”

  “There’s nothing you can do,” Stefan said. “Not only do you not have the same relationship that you thought you had with her but she doesn’t have that relationship with you.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t understand,” she said.

  “The only reason she came here was because of you,” he said. “And the only reason she’s with Meghan right now is because of you.”

  She stared at
the golden orb in shock. Gabby sat down again, shaking her head. “I don’t know what you’re getting at. Why are you being so cryptic?”

  “Ah,” said Damon, nodding slowly, a light of comprehension in his gaze. “I get it.”

  Stefan agreed. “Exactly. Wendy came here because she loves you,” he said in that musical voice of his. “And the only reason she’s with Meghan is that you don’t love her.”

  *

  Damon watched the shock and awareness filter across Gabby’s face, as she sagged back and burst into tears. “I gather that you didn’t see it?” he murmured, walking over and sitting beside her.

  She nodded slowly. “How could I not have though? How could I not have known that’s how she felt?” she asked. “What’s wrong with me that I can’t see this stuff?”

  “There was no need to see it,” he said, “so why would you? You were happy in the relationship as it was, and you didn’t realize that she was looking for or needing more.”

  “No,” she whispered, “I didn’t. Oh, my God, I don’t even know what to say.”

  “There’s nothing to say,” he said. “You’re where you’re at right now. But maybe it’ll help you understand why she’s gone back to Meghan.”

  “No,” she said. “That makes it worse than before because now I know why she’s doing it—because I’m not interested, so Meghan is like settling for second-best, a fallback option.”

  “So,” he said, “what do you want to do?”

  “I want to find out if it’s true.”

  “I understand why you feel that way,” Damon said, “but wouldn’t that just embarrass Wendy, make her feel even worse?”

  His words made Gabby pause. “That’s what it would do, isn’t it?”

  He nodded slowly. “I think so. When you fall in love with somebody, who doesn’t love you back, … but when they don’t even know how you feel, … well, that’s harder yet again. She already knows you don’t feel the same way, but asking her about it will only bring up more hurt feelings.”

  “God,” she said, “I’m absolutely devastated. I had no idea.”

  “And you shouldn’t feel guilty about that. She obviously didn’t approach you about it, or you would have known earlier. So she just stayed on the sidelines, kept hoping.”

  “That’s not making me feel any better,” she cried out.

  “I understand,” he said, “but now we have quite a bit to deal with.” He turned to look back at Stefan, but the golden orb was gone. “In case you hadn’t noticed, Stefan is gone now.”

  “He dropped a bombshell and walked,” she said, her tone bitter.

  “Not his fault,” Damon said. “You can’t blame the messenger.”

  She reached up and rubbed her eyes. “I just feel like coming here was such a mistake,” she whispered. “Everything’s gone wrong since we arrived. And we’d planned it, dreamed of this winter for so long.”

  “But has it all gone wrong? Or just in this last little bit?”

  “Maybe just this last little bit,” she said. “We loved being here for December and January and February.”

  “You’ve almost made it through the season,” he said. “So you can understand why Wendy’s questioning when you’re going back, if you’re going back, and what you’re doing.”

  “And I have no answers for her,” she said. “And here I sit, undecided as always.”

  “I don’t know that you are undecided. You certainly have decisions to make, and you probably should make them relatively soon, but, like I said, I need you to stay in town while the investigation is ongoing.”

  She nodded slowly. “And that gives me an out for now, doesn’t it? So I don’t have to go home right now.”

  “Are you looking forward to leaving at the end of the season?”

  “I wouldn’t go if I had a choice in the matter,” she said.

  “If you love it that much here, why don’t you try to find a way to stay here then?” he asked.

  “Because I would need something other than a minimum-wage job,” she said. “I used to work for a large company as a buyer, but nothing like that is around here that I could take on temporarily, and I do have a job potentially if I go back. I was maternity relief where I was.”

  “Was it well-paid?”

  “Yes,” she said with a nod. “With that job here, I could afford a decent place to live in Aspen, and I could survive quite nicely. Remember that I don’t get tips. I’m working strictly for minimum wage,” she said. “Tips in some of these places in town are great—like the bars, the restaurants—but, if you’re working at a bookstore, like I am, it’s a whole different story.”

  “Does the bookstore make money?”

  “For all Jerry’s complaining, I think it must do well,” she said, “considering he’s had it for so many years. But a lot could be done to make the business better, and he’s just not too interested.”

  “No, and, if it was his wife’s store, you can kind of understand that.”

  “I guess,” she said. “It’s kind of depressing to think of it, you know? That it’s not his dream. It was hers. Yet he won’t talk about her. There’s no pictures of her. There’s nothing.”

  “There’s also his guilt,” he said. “In this case, Jerry couldn’t save Andrea. So he’s doing what he can to keep her dream alive because he couldn’t keep her physically alive in order to live out her dream. And if he’s worried that she may have jumped, that just adds to the level of his guilt.”

  “Wow, we humans are so messed up, aren’t we?” she murmured.

  He nodded. “Absolutely.”

  “There’s so much to adjust to right now,” she said, getting up and walking around. “It’s almost impossible to handle it all at once.”

  “It’s a bit overwhelming,” he said, “but come on. Let’s get some food, and then you can get a decent night’s sleep.”

  “I could use that,” she said. “I didn’t sleep well last night.”

  He quickly finished cooking, and then the two of them sat down to eat. She smiled in amazement. “This is lovely.”

  “Good,” he said, and the two of them turned their attention to the meal.

  As soon as she was done, he escorted her to the garage suite. Turning to walk away, he said, “Lock up behind me now.”

  “I will,” she said. “So you still think I’m in danger?”

  He looked at her and, with a reluctant smile, nodded and said, “Yes. I do.”

  At that, she winced. “You could have lied.”

  “No,” he said. “You need to know as much as you can. Frankly I’m not sure if you’re a danger to yourself or from others, but I really don’t want any more dancing in the cold without a coat scenarios.”

  “Me either,” she said. “I don’t want to have any time where it feels like I’ve blacked out again.”

  “Have you ever experienced something like that before?”

  “I don’t think so,” she said, “although maybe Wendy would say differently.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know, but she’s the one who always kept watch over me. Which just adds to my guilt now. She was always looking out for me, but I apparently wasn’t even seeing what she was there for.”

  “Stop the useless guilt,” he ordered. “You can’t conjure up those feelings when they don’t exist.”

  “I know,” she whispered. “The trouble is, I love her. I really do, but I love her as a best friend, the friend I thought was always there.”

  “So continue to love her that way,” he said gently, “and don’t make her feel that it’s anything less or different because of what you now know.”

  She nodded, as she sagged into the couch by the living room window. “I still wonder if I should say something to her.”

  “I wouldn’t,” he said. “I can’t imagine a scenario in which a conversation like that doesn’t go terribly wrong right now.”

  “Great, that just piles on to my guilt.”

  “You get so
me sleep,” he said, and he turned and walked out. He waited for the click of the lock and then walked down the stairs. As he stood outside, he looked up at the sky. It was clear and crisp, a beautiful spring evening in Aspen. But it would be a long time before it really got warm. He was good with that because he loved winter. Not everybody did.

  So many people came here just for the ski season and then left, and he could understand why. That was what Gabby had planned to do, but, if she liked the city so well, she should stay. He wanted to say that to her but didn’t figure it was the right time for something like that.

  As he walked back toward his house, his phone rang. He looked down to see that Jake was calling. “What’s up?”

  “Coroner’s report just came in on the two deaths.”

  “Cause of death?”

  “He says they were garroted.”

  “Seriously?” He stopped in his tracks. “How the heck could he tell?”

  “He found residue of some rust from a wire draped around the neck of the first one and, on the second one, where she was decapitated, he found indentations of the digging-in lines from where the wire was.”

  “Somebody had to be strong to do that,” Damon said.

  “He said that may be the case, but also wires with handle grips that twist and tighten the noose make it easier to kill somebody.”

  “And chopping off the heads?”

  “He still says a long blade. Wouldn’t be at all surprised if we were looking for something like a sword. It was a clean cut.”

  “Any precision needed?”

  “Not necessarily, no.”

  “Damn, so it still could be anybody.”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “No forensic evidence? Nothing found to point to someone different, something different?”

  “The women’s apartment, the first crime scene, was full of fingerprints,” he said. “But apparently they hosted lots of get-togethers and had a lot of people over. So any number of people visited with a completely viable reason for their prints to be there, even if they were the killer.”