Echoes Through the Mist: A Paranormal Mystery (The Echoes Quartet Book 1)

by K. Francis Ryan

  Julian looked at his friend. Bridget smiled and he could see those ancient, wise and kind eyes clearly. Now they did not sparkle, they were troubled. She said, “You did not believe me at first when I spoke to you of evil. But it is different for you now. Now you know this evil do you not?”

  “Yes,” he answered and closed his eyes as he felt again the palpable malevolence.

  Bridget continued. “This village of yours, this entire valley, there is a darkness here. I do not have the words that will capture what I am sensing.” She stopped, her frustration clearly marked on her face.

  Julian’s tone was calm and even. The cadence of his words was measured and his voice soft. Without turning he said, “Perhaps I can help.” Bridget turned to look at her companion. She watched him closely, but he did not return her gaze.

  She noticed his eyes seemed heavy and darker. He blinked slowly and infrequently. The muscles in his shoulders and neck were relaxed. His face wore a placid expression. He seemed absorbed as if his thoughts were far away.

  “Please do,” she said. Her voice was hushed. She tried to control her breathing and contain her thoughts and feelings. The air around Julian was electric. It rippled and pulsed with subtle energy, but there was a raw vitality to it. She knew she was witnessing something she had never seen, something few had ever seen before. Awakening. The voice was Julian’s, but he was removed, detached.

  “Please keep in mind my thoughts, feelings and my opinions are worth exactly what you paid for them.” He smiled but still did not look at her. She added her own smile.

  “Forgive me, I know it is not for a student to say such things to his teachers, but both you and Moira are wrong. Rather than sensing or feeling what is there, you are trying desperately to find what should be there. Your senses report back findings that don’t make sense. Rather than investigate the findings, you assume your senses are somehow faulty.

  “It is easier for me to see this clearly than it is for you. You both are accustomed to dealing with higher levels of sophistication so you look for what you expect to find, what you have always found. You feel the immense power and so suspect a powerful, dominant force must be its source. You cannot get a clear fix on the source so you expect a certain level of adroitness and vast experience is being used to cloud your vision.” Bridget sat stunned.

  “Forgive me again.” Julian continued. “It is not my wish to play the pedant with you. This is not an exercise in semantics, I assure you. The words we use have meanings and carry with them deadly consequences. I can see that now. The power is raw and immense, I will grant you. It is not a dominant force, however, but a force that needs to dominate. You are looking for a presence that is fully formed. You will not find it because it is a presence being formed.

  “You cannot easily define it or get a fix on it because it morphs as it grows and it is growing because it is feeding off Moira. If you were to stay, I believe it would consume you too. Through dumb luck, I managed to deflect a major assault on Moira. This has changed the dynamics of the situation.” Julian thought a moment before continuing.

  “Dear Bridget, you are not looking for a teacher but a student. He is self-taught and all the more dangerous because of it. He has no discipline, no control. This is evidenced in the viciousness of the attacks. The intensity is maintained by sheer force of will combined with an intense hatred, anger and fear.” Julian closed his eyes.

  The air was heavy with the scent of Irish dog roses. The creak of the swing was the only noise that breached the silence. After several minutes, Bridget spoke, choosing her words with care.

  “You have grown more than you know and so, have made yourself a larger target. Julian, you must guard yourself and those around you. It sounds like melodrama, something seen in a very bad play, to be sure. But you, and those you love, are in tremendous danger. The sharper your senses become, the larger the threat grows,” Bridget said.

  Julian turned to his companion. His eyes were still heavy and he was tired. “Bridget, I worry about it all the time. I’ve worried about it from the beginning. Will I be ready? Will I be good enough? Sometimes, like just now, I’m as focused as a laser. I frighten myself actually. At other times, I’m just,” Julian paused, his forehead wrinkled heavily as he looked for the words. “Just so off balance, confused, distracted.”

  “That is rather the point, don’t you see? Your confusion is part of the mist that shrouds the truth. Mankind accepted the darkness as light long ago and has suffered for it since. You must not do the same.

  “You ask if you will be ready. I tell you, do what you’ve been taught to do, but more importantly, be fully who you have become. Be as true to yourself as you know how to be,” she said.

  “Calm your thoughts, focus, listen, and become the moment. Through the mist of false reality, you will hear echoes of the truth. The nearer you get to the source of truth, the more your mind will rebel as it tries to reconcile the dark to the light. However, know that as you approach, the echoes will become louder and clearer.

  “It is then you will understand the present moment is what matters Julian, and what you do with it is what counts.” Bridget smiled.

  “I want you to carry this with you always. At every instant you stand on the brink of a limitless expanse. The past is the past. You would not be here without it. As for the future, you are making it, one moment at a time.

  “It begins and ends with you. Right now is what you must claim as your own along with each moment you experience. You, Julian, you are the moment. In this instant, you are everything you ever were and everything you are. Believe and trust in your courage at the moment you are most frightened. Listen for the truth because it all begins and ends with echoes through the mist. You will be as ready as you need to be. However, your vigilance is necessary for you to protect those you hold dear. You may trust me on this.”

  The older woman touched her companion’s face, touched the scar on his cheek again while she looked deeply into his gray eyes. “Julian,” she said, “there is no need to worry. Moira has her concerns, but no doubts of your ability. It is right for a teacher to feel this way. Whatever the task, Moira and I believe you are ultimately and uniquely capable of handling it. You are not alone in this Julian. When the time comes, you will find there are others who will lend you their strength should you need it.

  “Moira knows there is something crucial that needs to be done but it has been made clear it is not she who will accomplish it. Another had to be found, someone special.

  “That did not happen, so when you turned up, she decided you would have to do,” Bridget said. The mischief was back in her eyes and she smiled shamelessly.

  “That’s it,” Julian said. “I am going to report you the Irish Tourist Board. The lot of you are supposed to be charming and fun loving and drunk much of the time. You’re here to provide me with a bit of local Irish color. I am a tourist. I want a refund.”

  “This, Mr. Julian Blessing, will teach you not to tease my very dear friend, the doctor.”

  Bridget laughed and Julian moaned.

  ***

  The night breeze whispered above them and cleared away the clouds, leaving a starless ink-black sky. Bridget Bragonier turned and walked toward the house leaving Julian with his thoughts and the night sky.

  When he eventually entered Ailís’s house, he found Bridget beckoning him toward the best room. They were all asleep. The professor had dozed off and snored occasionally. Timothy was stretched out before the fire. Ailís slept in her chair with a book in her lap.

  Julian smiled and put his arm around Bridget’s shoulder. “What a group,” she said simply and shook her head. “Can you get the boy?” Julian nodded his head and went to Ailís’s chair. He looked at her placid face, and then gently moved a lock of hair aside. She stirred and woke slowly. She smiled lovingly at Julian, then scanned the room. Julian kissed her forehead and then moved off to scoop up Timothy and carry him up to bed.

  He heard Bridget say to her husband, “
Reginald, I’m afraid we must go to bed so Julian here can go home.”

  “What? What? I wasn’t asleep.”

  “No, of course. Come along.”

  “Oh, if it pleases you, I suppose I must.”

  With Ailís’s assistance, Timothy was put to bed. Julian kissed the doctor deeply before making his way downstairs where he checked the doors and windows, banked the fires and secured the front door before he left.

  There was something heavy, angry and dangerous in the air. Julian stepped into the street and felt it immediately. Closing his eyes he forced himself to do the opposite of what nature demanded. He let his mind and body relax. Julian was very still for a short time, then opened his eyes and smiled a hard smile.

  He thought back on the conversation he’d had with Bridget. Phrases played in his head over and over and through out. There was an overlay of wisdom and the power wisdom brings. This was a wisdom he could use. He knew that for the first time, this power was one he was ready to wield.

  As Julian approached the police station, he noticed there were no lights on. The desk lamp had been left on and the turf fire should have been throwing its soft warmth and light.

  “Jimmy,” Julian said into the shadows.

  “How is it you always know, Mr. Julian? You and the professor’s wife and of course, Mrs. Hagan?” Jimmie crossed himself. “Nobody else ever sees me. And, aye, it’s them no good ones again. You can see their truck parked in the shadows beyond the station. I was just on me way to get you.”

  “Run up to Sean Maher’s and tell him to come quickly. Tell him not to interfere unless he thinks I need help.”

  “Aye, Mr. Julian, but the last time it, well, it didn’t go in your favor overly much.”

  “Jimmy, last time wasn’t this time. Now off ya go.”

  Jimmy Grogan took off at a run for the far end of town.

  “Every instant you stand on the brink of a limitless expanse,” Julian said to himself and exhaled deeply as he wondered what the very near future would look like. “Believe in your courage at the moment you are most frightened,” Bridget had said. Julian took another breath.

  As he walked up the path, Julian could feel them. Three men. He stopped a meter short of the door. Julian cleared his mind, reached out his hand and without touching the door, opened it. He stepped inside the darkened station and the door closed behind him.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  “What!” Sean Maher said.

  “He told me to fetch you as the three bad’ns were inside the police station waiting for him.”

  “What!” Sean Maher said as he pulled on his boots.

  “Mr. Julian. He didn’t seem at all flustered. I was scared shitless, pardon me, Mrs. Maher.”

  Kathleen Maher nodded without looking up as she knitted in her chair before the fire.

  “What!” Sean Maher said as he got into his shirt.

  “He said you’re not to interfere unless it looks like he needs help,” Jimmy said.

  “What!” Sean Maher said as he pulled open the front door of his cottage and ran down the empty main street of Cappel Vale with Jimmy Grogan on his heels.

  ***

  Julian could see the outline of his attackers. One leaned against the desk. Julian knew this would be the man with the spider tattoo. Against the back wall stood the man’s two assistants.

  He could sense them all easily and clearly. The assistants were bigger men, older, sadder somehow, but dangerous and experienced. He remembered them well. The redheaded man was a bagful of vicious thoughts. The man spoke and Julian could feel in every word the rage, the malice and the man’s constant pressing need to cause pain.

  “Ah, and if it isn’t our own little American. How goes it Yank? Oi understand you mixed it up with the wrong sort and came away the poorer for the exchange. Feelin’ better now?” The man chuckled.

  “Oh, Oi thought Oi might mention it Yank, ya know your little slag, the doctor? Well, Oi’ll be givin’ her a special medical examination of me own afore this night is out. Don’t you worry none. I’ll dedicate the first fuck I pour into her to you. And no worries, I’ll have her beggin’ for more like the cheap whore she is. But you’ll be dead long afore any of that.”

  All three men went silent and their breathing stepped up considerably as Julian leaned against the station door casually. He communicated a thought slowly, deliberately, a thought filled with stark malevolence.

  “What a monumentally stupid thing to say. You and I will discuss that later. But first I have to arrest you all. Or destroy you all, which ever comes first.”

  The voice the men heard was very quiet but the high voltage hum below the surface was palpable and Julian could feel their anxiety and that made him smile.

  All three men facing Julian started to move slowly.

  Julian thought to himself, “Listen for the echoes through the mist,” and with that, he bowed his head, took a deep breath and then he heard it, “Go now.” When he opened his eyes, his movements were synchronized with the moment. It looked as if time had frozen all three attackers. He knew they were simply moving in a separate reality, one clouded in a thick mist of ignorance and anger.

  Julian took another deep breath and stepped back into normal time.

  The man who had taunted him seemed disoriented for a moment before he crumpled to the floor screaming, his left knee shattered, his right bent at an acute angle. He clawed the air like a mad thing, thrashing in agony and begging. His companions against the back wall were writhing on the ground, holding their groins and retching.

  Julian Blessing, with a pleasant smile, was now sitting on the station’s desk twirling the borrowed cane he no longer needed. He turned on the desk lamp and waited for help to arrive.

  ***

  The station door opened and Sean Maher filled the room with an explosive and murderous presence. Jimmy Grogan followed and was fully prepared to mix it up and give far better then he got.

  Two steps inside the room, Sean noted the two men on the ground behind the desk. Being an authority on impromptu warfare he knew the men had each been incapacitated, ‘nutted’ was the technical term, and would be out of action for the remainder of this exchange. “Ach, sorry Oi am lads, but you’ll each be pissing blood for a week.”

  Sean turned his attention to the redheaded man on the floor. The man’s face was contorted in terror and an anguish that made Sean wince as he said, “Ah, Julian?”

  Julian looked at Sean Maher and Jimmy Grogan and said, “Hey, thanks for stopping by. I’ll be with you in just a moment.”

  Sean closed his eyes and winced again. He could feel this coming. “Jimmy Grogan, if you have sense, turn your head away. You shouldn’t have your entire life ruined because of this. It is going to be passing ugly. In fact, I’ll join you for the sake of me immortal soul.” Neither man looked away. Sometimes you just have to look.

  Julian pointed the walking stick at the thug on the floor. The man whimpered in pain and his terror and cowardice were plain to see.

  The man felt not only the words but also the force of Julian’s malice. “Now, it is time for you to confess. If it’s necessary I’m going to grind my boot into what’s left of your knee – just to keep you focused. You see, I’m going to show you all the mercy you showed George Sullivan, Farmer Monahan and Tommy Ryan and the rest.” Julian’s thin, twisted smile removed all hope for clemency. “Let’s begin, shall we?”

  Sean and Jimmy had been watching transfixed. The room seemed to hum and pulse with an electrical charge. Julian sat on the edge of the desk and without a word was still pointing his stick at the redheaded man. The lethal smile had not left Julian’s lips, but for all the world to see, he had said not a word.

  Sean’s eyes narrowed and Jimmy’s went wide when the panic-filled voice of the redheaded man suddenly blurted out, “Don’t do it! Don’t! For the love of God, not me leg! Oh God, the pain is something awful. I can’t tell you nothin’. Oi don’t know! Oi don’t know!”

  His
scream tore the air. “Get me a doctor, please Jaysus, Oi’m dying with the pain! Make him stop. As Christ is me judge, Oi don’t know anythin’. We get our orders from Big Tom Lynch. That’s all Oi know. He gets his orders from some rich bastard in Loath.

  “Please make him stop,” the man wept. “I’m sorry I said what I said about the doctor and I kilt George Sullivan, and Oi hit the priest and yes, yes we beat the others too. But those were our orders! We couldn’t help it! You gotta believe me! Please, please don’t kill me! Please God help me!” The man reached out to Sean and Jimmy for assistance and knew instantly there would be none.

  Julian thought it and the redheaded man heard it and horror gripped his soul, “God is busy, but I’m here. Listen well and never forget. I will forever be in your head. Do not think about the doctor again because if you ever think of me or mine again you will feel far more than this.” Julian smiled a hideous smile.

  The redheaded attacker went rigid with an uncontrollable, all encompassing panic. His muscles contorted in pulsing, crippling spasms and he screamed as he entered a cyclone of blinding pain. The horror-filled shriek ripped the air and was thereafter known as the loudest sound ever heard in Cappel Vale.

  Sean and Jimmy crossed themselves.

  The man with red hair and a spider tattoo passed out.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  After a comprehensive search for weapons, the assailants were deposited in the cells.

  “I suppose we should send for the Garda,” Julian Blessing said.

  “I suppose we should send for the doctor,” Jimmy Grogan said.

  “I suppose we should go get a pint,” Sean Maher said.

  They agreed that before making any difficult decisions, Sean’s suggestion was the best course of action so they secured the prisoners and the police station and headed off to O'Gavagan's Pub.

  ***