by Dale Mayer
Now that he was almost on safe ground, Hunter grabbed a hold of Sebastian’s arm, pulling him to safety.
As soon as Sebastian stood on solid dirt again, she threw herself into his arms, hugging him tight.
He held her close, his heart slamming against his chest and her ear, and said, “That was not fun.”
She leaned back to look up at him. “What happened?”
“As soon as we freed the stupid thing from the ground, it’s like everything underneath it collapsed,” he said. “The ground has fallen another good twenty feet deep, as if another big cavern were underneath the first cave-in.”
“Which doesn’t make sense,” Hunter said. “But I can’t say I feel like going back into that hole again.”
“It’s not just a hole now. Anybody who falls in that will have a hard time getting back out again without a rope and a friend to help,” Sebastian said. “We have to put up warning signs to stop the tourists and even fence it off so animals can’t fall in.”
Lacey crouched at the edge of the hole. Instantly her shoulders were grabbed, and she was pulled back.
“You stay away from there,” Sebastian ordered, holding her hand as the trio moved several yards away.
She turned to look at him and gasped when she saw blood streaming down from his temple. She reached up to touch him. “You’re bleeding. You need to get that looked at,” she said.
“Maybe,” he said, “but I’m not doing it right now.” He dug in his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, which he held at his wound to slow the bleeding. He glanced at Hunter. “Do you have it?”
Hunter reached into his shirt and pulled out a dusty metal object.
She grabbed the mask. “Oh, my God,” she whispered in awe and involuntarily shook. “It’s exactly the same as what I drew on your face.”
“Exactly,” Sebastian said. “The question is how did you know what it looked like and what relevance does the mask have?”
She lifted it up high and studied it. And then, unable to help herself, she placed it over her face.
Both men yelled out, “Stop! Don’t!”
But it was too late. The mask wrapped around her face and sucked her in. She cried out and tried to rip it off, but it wouldn’t budge. Both men reached for it, but it wouldn’t move.
She screamed, “Help me! Help me!”
“Calm down,” Sebastian said, gripping her fingers in his. “We’re trying to help you. I don’t know how you’re breathing in there,” he said, “but you need to stay calm.”
She closed her eyes, hating the claustrophobic feeling as the mask covered her nose and lower jaw. Her eyes were uncovered, but the mask came up to her temples. She tried hard to breathe slowly, but it was hard to breathe at all. “I hate this thing,” she whispered, her voice trembling.
The men gripped either side of the mask and pulled, but it only pulled her skin away from her face.
She could hear them discussing what to do about it until a voice spoke in front of all of them. “She has to get it off herself.”
She stared at a faint white outline of a male. “Why?” she asked cautiously, not sure what or who she saw.
“Because it’s your challenge,” the newcomer said, “not that that’s an easy answer.”
“They use this for their prisoners,” she said suddenly, getting an inkling of Linnea’s panic.
“Exactly,” the ghostly figure said. “And they too had to free themselves. It was a trial to discern who had abilities and who didn’t. Or who was a witch and who wasn’t. Who was guilty of the crime and who was innocent?”
She stared at him. “Who are you?”
Hunter supplied the answer. “His name is Stefan Kronos. He’s one of the most capable psychics in the world and my boss.”
“Well, okay. I guess,” she said cautiously, not knowing what to say in this situation. “Have you seen masks like this before?”
The golden figure shifted. She’d take that as a nod. “Some civilizations have a similar test. In the witches’ trials, they used to throw the witches into the lake, and, if they drowned, they were deemed innocent. But, of course, nobody knew how to swim back then, and they were flung in fully dressed and sometimes weighted down. So the chances of them being a witch were pretty slim. History has many other examples used to determine guilt or innocence.”
“That’s possible I suppose,” Hunter said. But he looked at the mask now. “It’s on very tight. And it’s metal.” He tapped the side with his nails; a sharp ping could be heard.
“I want this off,” Lacey cried out.
“Then take it off,” Stefan said gently. “The mask is your connection to another world. It’s like a directional map. If you can utilize it to see those who came before you, plus whatever it is you’re meant to see with it, then you’ll be acknowledging your own skills and your own abilities, and you’ll be able to pull it off.”
“And if I can’t?”
“Then you would not be psychic, and you would suffocate. Or in other words, you’d be guilty of whatever transgression you were accused of.”
“But …” Then she fell silent. She could almost see something.
“The trick is to stay calm,” Stefan said, “and to not let your panic overwhelm you.”
A broken laugh escaped. “Too late,” she murmured. She could feel everything splintering inside her, a sense of captivity, being the victim, taking over. She hated the weakness already infiltrating her system. “I feel funny,” she whispered.
Sebastian helped her to a sitting position.
She could see the worry and panic in his eyes. She reached out and clung to his fingers. “How long do I have?”
“Longer if you don’t panic. Possibly a long time. We don’t know,” Stefan said. “But honestly, if you sink into it, sink into the energy that comes from it, you should be able to get the mask off faster.”
“And how do I do that?” she whispered.
“Close your eyes and breathe in your white loving energy and exhale into the mask. Don’t suck your breath away from it. Understand that many people before you have worn this as well.”
She took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay. Let me try it.” She bowed her head, hating the sensation of having everything around her head confined and constricted. She tried to inhale then exhale as instructed, feeling the warm air bathe her face as she told the mask, I’m here. What is it you need me to see?
Instantly she could see things all around her. She could see back to the time right before the eruption, the people, the villages, faces upon more faces. And there, on one side, was Linnea’s face. Linnea stared at Lacey in worry, her hands wringing, as if waiting for Lacey to do something. She mentally called out to Linnea. What is it you want from me?
To survive, Linnea answered.
To survive?
Not knowing what the hell that meant, Lacey kept seeing other visions and other faces. She could feel her body swaying. She didn’t know if she was about to faint from all the sensory overwhelm or if she was ready to pass out from lack of air. Yet it seemed like she had air. She was breathing normally, but she had dizzying moments, seeing and feeling so much going on around her.
Finally she closed her eyes and reached up to touch the mask. “I acknowledge that I have these abilities. I am one who gets to wear the mask.” And she grabbed the mask on either side of her cheekbones and pulled.
The men’s cries of surprise rose up around her as she pulled the mask free of her face to stare up at them. She very carefully placed the mask on the ground beside her. “The next time I go to put that sucker on my face, stop me.”
Sebastian grabbed her hands, helped her to her feet and tucked her tight against his chest. He stood there with her, rocking, swaying slightly side to side, holding her close. “Oh, my God,” he whispered. “That was way too scary.”
She gave a muffled exclamation and squeezed him tighter to her. When she could, she slowly turned around and looked at the mask on the ground. “I don’t know wh
at that looked like from the outside, but, from the inside, it was terrifying.”
That faint outline of somebody remained, the ghostly spirit. “Thank you, Stefan. I don’t think I would have gotten it off on my own.”
“Which is also why many people died in that mask,” he said calmly. “But you do have abilities, and you did see many things while you were in that mask, did you not?”
She nodded. “I also saw Linnea, and I asked her what I was supposed to do. Her answer was even more surprising.” Her gaze went from one to the other and then the other. “She wanted me to survive. She said the whole focus of this was for me to survive.”
“To survive?”
She nodded. “The message was very clear. She was looking at me with the mask on, wringing her hands in worry.”
“So maybe that room we were talking about,” Sebastian said, “was where those were kept who were chosen to wear the mask. That’s why there was no door.”
“Possibly,” she said. “But how they got people in and out, I don’t know.” Then she stopped and smiled. “No. I do know. They were lowered down with a rope. The mask had to come off, and the only way to get the mask off was to acknowledge your abilities,” she said softly. “So they would leave them in there to die. If the mask came off, then they could call out for the rope, and the rope would be lowered.”
“And Linnea’s sister?”
“I think she might have been the one in the closed in room,” she said softly. “And Linnea was trying to help her survive.”
“But she didn’t?”
Lacey shook her head. “No, she didn’t, because I was the sister of Linnea. I was Sabine.” The truth was painful as she realized how Sabine’s life had ended. Her heart filled with pain and dread at what Sabine had done to the others.
At that Stefan spoke. “Good. Recognizing a past life is huge. To interpret the symbols and your surroundings, as you do so, is even more helpful. Linnea is caught in a time warp. She still thinks you’re a prisoner. That’s why she cannot leave this Earthly plane,” he said gently. “You can teach her to let go, so she can leave.”
“And the mask?” Lacey asked. “What about the mask?”
“I suggest it go into a collection,” Stefan said. “Where somebody can look after it properly. It’s dangerous. Write up some history on it because it will be important.”
“But that doesn’t say anything about the darkness,” Hunter said. “A lot of dark energy is here. In that pit, it surrounded the mask at the time it was buried.”
“Think about it,” Stefan said. “Think about the type of people who’ll allow somebody to die a slow death caught within the mask. Imagine how many hundreds died wearing that mask and how few would have survived.”
“And that energy?” Sebastian asked. “Are you saying that’s the energy of the souls who survived or the energy of the souls who died?”
“In a way it’s none of the above,” Stefan said softly. “It will be the energy of the anger and the fear of what was done to them, the energy of the person who did this to them. It’s full of emotions. It’s hatred. It’s anger. It’s panic, and it’s terror because death has no survivors.”
*
Sebastian didn’t know what the hell had just happened, but he knew it would show up in his nightmares for the rest of his life. Seeing that mask form, then lock around her face was … absolutely terrifying. He’d seen her drawings of himself in the mask, and that had felt extremely uneasy to view, but to see something like this happening to her, well …
He exchanged a hooded look with Hunter. The two of them had no experience at this level. Sure they’d had a horrific time in the Mayan ruins, but they hadn’t seen any masks. That didn’t mean they weren’t there but he hadn’t seen them.
A disturbing thought.
He stared at the mask with loathing. “That sucker is dangerous,” he whispered.
Stefan agreed. “But it’s energetic. So it needs a special case to hold it. While it’s in metal form, it’s all well and good, and we must ensure it doesn’t come in contact with somebody with psychic abilities. Apparently it’s attracted to that, for starters.”
“And yet, it didn’t come after me or Hunter,” Sebastian said, his arms clenching tighter around Lacey.
“No, I think you’ll find it’s after the innocence, after the unaware, after the pure of form,” Stefan said softly. “It might need that.”
Lacey’s head reared back, and she stared at the man. “Me? Is that what you’re saying I am?”
“It tends to be those who have not utilized their powers much. Yours are just awakening,” Stefan said. “And it’s attracted to that pure energy. Maybe sensing the power there. Maybe it has more control over those who are unawakened. Maybe because it senses you were Sabine and it knows—recognizes you.”
Her gaze flew to Sebastian’s gaze, remembering what he’d said about the energy signature recognizing him again in the future. So did the mask want her more than him? Obviously, but that should mean it wasn’t the same energy here as at the Mayan ruin, which should have him feel better but it didn’t.
She asked in confusion, “But what can it do with that energy?”
Sebastian stiffened. That was, of course, the crux of the matter. If it wanted all this energy, what would it do with it? And he was afraid the answer would terrify him. He could see from the look on Hunter’s face that it was bad.
Silence took over for a long moment, but she wouldn’t let it go. “I don’t understand,” she said. “How is this related to Linnea or me?”
“It’s possible this person was after Linnea before,” Hunter suggested.
Lacey shook her head. “Wouldn’t think so. Her sister wore this mask, and either she didn’t have abilities or she didn’t figure out how to unlock it.”
“Well, Linnea is connected,” Stefan said. “And, therefore, you’re connected. But the energy has found you now. And it wants what you have.”
Sebastian watched the puzzled expression grow on her face.
Stefan hummed in place for a moment, and then he said, “The energy wants to feed on it. And, whether you accept it or not, there are ways for entities to come back to life. They can move in and take over others. As long as Lacey has an energy it wants.”
Lacey stepped out of Sebastian’s arms and cried out, “Are you saying it can possess me? Because …” She shook her head. “Because that’s not what it felt like. It felt more like it was draining me.”
Hunter nodded. “Yes, absolutely. Draining you is a good word for it. Because they can’t step into your system because you’re full of light. It repels them, but, if they can drain away that goodness, they can step in the void left behind.”
She took several deep breaths, her hand patting her chest as if hyperventilating.
Sebastian clenched her shoulders. He needed her to know she wasn’t alone. “We’re here to help protect you,” he tried to reassure her.
She just stared at him. “I presume, if somebody drains my energy, I’m going to die. Is that correct?”
Sebastian stiffened, but there was no denying Stefan’s immediate “Yes.”
She asked Sebastian, “Is that how the people died in the Mayan site?”
“We don’t know for sure how they died,” he admitted.
“Meaning, you woke up to find them dead?”
“In one case, yes,” Hunter said, “but not in all cases. Remember those, Sebastian? You’re the one who told me about them. There were accidents, lots of accidents. And if severely injured, possession is much easier. But some people are weaker anyway, in heart, mind, or soul making them more susceptible to otherworld entities.”
“Did you stop that entity back then?” she demanded. “Because that has to be stopped. We can’t have spirits running around injuring people and then stealing their energy.”
Hunter shook his head. “We left. We were hoping the entity would dissipate with no other victims to prey upon.”
She stared at him, and her
hands trembled. She brushed her hair off her face. “But it could feed on animals, isn’t that correct?”
“Potentially, if it had enough of its own energy to do so, yes,” Stefan said calmly. “But it’s unlikely. They were tuned into human energy. Once they fed at that much-higher vibration, animal energy wouldn’t be the same.”
Chapter 21
Lacey didn’t even know what to think anymore. It was early in the day, although it seemed like she’d lived a lifetime in just a few days. Her time here in Pompeii was passing so fast, and yet, when weird and scary things like this happened, it seemed to slow time to a stop.
With Sebastian’s help, she sat on a large rock near the barrier and the caved-in find. He passed over a bottle of water.
“I’m not sick, you know,” she muttered as she drank nearly all the water at once. She caught sight of Sebastian’s hard look at Hunter. She then asked the glowing ball in front of her, “What does my thirst and hunger have to do with any of this?” As long as she acted like everything was normal, she figured her reality would catch up with what was happening soon enough.
“It’s often a sign of your energetic systems being under attack,” Stefan said gently.
She turned to stare, hearing almost a weird echo. “Talking to you like this is so bizarre.”
Laughter rolled freely around her as Stefan chuckled.
“It is,” Stefan said. “But only for the first couple times. Once you get used to it, you’ll find it becomes the norm.”
“Is there some kind of secret underground society of people who know how to do this?” she asked. “Because I’ve never even heard of this, and yet, here we are, discussing topics so far beyond normal that any rational person would consider me ready for the nuthouse.” She took a deep breath. “I’ve heard and read of people like, you know, repeating mantras and stuff, will that help protect me?”
“The best way is to surrender your energy to one of love,” Stefan said. “In this case, however, you also need to lock down your energy because that love energy is attracting this darkness. It needs your light, your energy, because it can do so much more with it than it can with its own dark energy. And, in order to protect yourself, you must create a sensor to alert you when somebody is after your energy, or one that will rebuff them completely.”