Unmasked

by Dale Mayer

  “What the hell?” Sebastian tried to think, tried to clear the glorious fog he’d been in all morning. “Did you recognize it?”

  “Normally, I’d be able to, yes,” Hunter said cautiously. “But, as you know, you cannot always count on what you thought you could.”

  “Explain,” Sebastian demanded.

  “Sometimes energy can mask itself, which is appropriate in this nightmare. Sometimes spirits or people have the ability to take on somebody else’s energy, so it looks like theirs. If this dark energy is possessing somebody, then I wouldn’t recognize it because it would have merged its signature with the person it was possessing.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Sebastian said, staring at Hunter. “So is there any way to know where and what that black energy is doing and who it is originally or who it is possessing?”

  Hunter slowly shook his head. “Not for sure. Not unless we have a confrontation with it.”

  “I need to talk to the rest of the team.”

  “Most of them left to go to the festival downtown,” Hunter said.

  Sebastian stared at him blankly. “Oh, right. I forgot about that.”

  “You haven’t been thinking clearly lately,” Hunter said with a wry smile. He nodded toward the bedroom. “How is she this morning?”

  “She’s fine,” Sebastian said absentmindedly.

  “There’s a chance she’s the one carrying the dark energy. You know that, right?” Hunter said.

  Sebastian froze. He thought about it and then shook his head. “No, that’s not possible. I would see her aura changing. I would feel her energy changing too. I’m so close to her, my energy knows her. More than that my heart knows her.”

  “I’ll trust you for that,” Hunter said. “But then you need to consider it could be one of the team.”

  “Maybe, but who? I’ve worked with these people for months, some for years. Why would they or the energy do this now?”

  But he and Hunter said the same answer at the same time. “The masks.”

  Sebastian focused on Hunter. “One of the things that came out last afternoon was that the mask was attracted to that piece of metal I brought back from the Mayan ruin ten years ago,” Sebastian said. “It was just a small piece that I kept in my pocket. I took it out a few days ago and put it safely away.”

  “I don’t remember you mentioning this piece before.” Hunter leaned forward, studying Sebastian’s face.

  “No, I probably didn’t. Certainly not back then. There was no time or thought for something as unimportant as that when we were in constant danger,” Sebastian said. “It made no sense to me at the time. I thought someone dropped it, whether on purpose to salt the site or to discredit the site or some lazy visitor did it without malice. Lacey suggested someone who’d been at the Mayan ruin might have previously been to Pompeii, had taken it from here and had lost it at the Mayan site.” He winced. “And then she noticed something on the photos I have on my wall from that trip.” He quickly explained about the carving in the one and not on the other.”

  For a long moment Hunter just stared.

  “Wow. That means someone scratched that on the wall and that someone was down there at the same time as you were. Which limits the options tremendously.” Hunter nodded. “Lots of theories, now we need to prove something. Also we’ve seen things we can’t explain numerous times, and, when it comes to this type of energy, time has no meaning.”

  He nodded. “But I don’t understand something. Why that mask? Why did Linnea want the mask awakened?”

  “That would explain maybe why we found the mask. Did you have that piece in your pocket while we were in that other part of the Pompeii dig?” Hunter asked.

  Sebastian nodded. “I kept it with me every day as a memory of what happened to those men in the Mayan ruins. To remember to be grateful that I survived and to make something out of my life. But, when I saw what was happening to Lacey, I put it away for safekeeping.”

  “Jesus.” Hunter rubbed his face. “Why?”

  “Everything was so strange. I wasn’t sure whether Lacey was the catalyst or whether this was all intended to happen the way it happened, I don’t know,” Sebastian said. “It certainly seems that the two wanted to be together.”

  “Was one energy attracting the other?” Hunter asked.

  “Lacey says the little piece of metal that the mask wanted to be with was part of the other mask she drew. With your face.”

  Hunter stared at him. “Do you have the sketch of that?”

  Sebastian walked over to where her sketchbooks had been dropped last night when they returned home. He brought one back with him. He opened to where the masks drawings were. Hunter looked at it, a frown forming on his face. “So the question is, where’s the rest of that mask?”

  “Honestly I think it was destroyed,” Sebastian said. “I had just a small piece. I don’t know for sure it’s from that mask. I only have Lacey telling me it is, from whatever source is telling her.”

  “That’s good enough for me,” Hunter said.

  “Me too. But she also said Linnea wanted that mask to be found.”

  “So what we have here is a mask that, if it’s with a psychic, then it’s all good things. They can control it. They can take it off. But, if a person who is not a psychic gets this mask, they can turn into a vicious killer, correct?” Hunter asked.

  Sebastian nodded. “Yes, that’s true as far as we can tell.”

  “So that doorless room we found likely had somebody’s energy there who had on the mask but didn’t have the ability to take it off, and they turned violent?”

  Sebastian thought about it and then nodded slowly. “That makes sense. The person would have been walled-in there, jailed, and either a friend, family member or somebody who cared for them kept them alive, but they couldn’t figure out how to get the mask off. Not forgetting that it would have been a witch hunt most likely, victims chosen for a reason and forced to prove themselves.”

  “True. And the person who wanted you to find the mask was Linnea.”

  “I think,” Lacey said from the doorway, “that Linnea wanted us to find it and to keep it safe. She must have known the energy had reawakened and was dangerous.” Lacey smiled at Hunter as she walked forward. She leaned over, gave Sebastian a kiss on the forehead and sniffed the air. “Just in time for coffee.”

  “So, if Linnea’s sister was in the doorless room, was Linnea trying to protect her?”

  “She was,” Lacey said. “Linnea was the psychic. But her sister had told everyone that she was the one with the abilities—in her own misguided way to protect Linnea—so the tribunal set up a test, and Sabine failed in a big way. She was then put into this room. If she could take it off it would prove she was the one with the abilities. At the same time Linnea’s pleading kept Sabine alive while Linnea tried to figure out how to help her sister get out of the mask. But, the longer Sabine wore it, the more out of control she became. In the meantime somehow she got free from the room and murdered a group of women as Pompeii exploded.”

  Lacey brought the cup of coffee over to the table and sat down. “So Linnea was hoping, when we found the mask, it would release her sister’s spirit, and she could be freed once and for all. And if possible, keep it locked up and safe from everyone.”

  “Commendable on Linnea’s part,” Sebastian said. “But why the other mask?”

  “I don’t know anything about it. Neither does Linnea presumably.” She frowned. “Unless it’s because of the same usage, same energy, same something,” she said, “they were attracted to each other. Maybe they needed two and she only saw one.”

  “True,” Hunter said. “Maybe forged of the same metal?”

  “Is it over with now?” Lacey asked with a smile. “Because I really want to hear both of you say, Absolutely.”

  Sebastian looked at Hunter. Hunter looked at him. They both turned to look at her, and her smile fell away.

  “It’s not, is it?”

  Hunter shook his head. “
Last night I left, and I tracked dark energy complete with glowing psychic footprints from that nightmare yesterday afternoon at the security facility to this apartment building. It came up the stairs to the hallway. It also came down here to the apartments.”

  “What are you saying?” she asked hoarsely. “Because it’s not me.”

  Sebastian gripped her fingers. “It’s not you, and it’s not me.”

  Relieved, she settled back. “It can’t be my cousin, and I can’t see it being any of the other workers.” She turned to look at Sebastian. “You would have recognized that energy. And so would Hunter.”

  “Possibly, yes,” Hunter said. “There are ways to disguise the energy by wrapping it around another person. It’s also possible this energy was masked for a long time, and we’re just now seeing the reality of who it really is.”

  She turned her gaze on Hunter. “Who is it then?”

  He stared at her, opened his mouth to say something, when another voice came in the kitchen behind them.

  A man spoke. “Funny, you are all specialists, and you still can’t figure this out. It’s me,” Mark said. “It’s always been me—at least the me inside.”

  And there, right beside them, Mark stood, with a silly grin on his face, but laid over his physical form was another entity—Jeremiah.

  Sebastian’s partner who died at the Mayan expedition.

  Chapter 24

  Lacey stared at the man in front of her, her mind confused with what she saw and with what she heard. “I’m sorry?” she asked. “What are you saying?”

  Mark sat down at the table with the rest of them—his gaze going from one to the other.

  She studied his face to figure out what was wrong with it. It looked like somebody needed to tug it into place properly. She leaned forward and stared at him.

  “Can you see me?” he asked.

  She nodded slowly. “Well, I can certainly see something. What is it? I’m not exactly sure.”

  He laughed. “That’s because I’m using Mark,” Jeremiah said. “Poor Mark, he doesn’t even know he’s being used. He looked so confused that morning after he had damaged some of the tools and had taken others. At the time he had absolutely no problem busting them up. You’ll find the stolen ones hidden in his room too. And he’d be horrified to realize he had nudged you into the street and into the path of that vehicle. But, of course, he knows nothing about it.”

  She shook her head in confusion. “Why? None of this makes any sense.”

  “Well, it does, if you understand what this is all about.”

  She sat back, her hand sliding over toward Sebastian. He gripped her fingers hard in reassurance. But she wasn’t sure there was anything to be reassured about. “Then please explain,” she said. “I’m new to all of this. I don’t understand what I have to do with any of it.”

  “I’m not so sure it’s you as much as it’s Sebastian. You see? I went on that Mayan trip with him. There were three of us. Callum didn’t make it. He died. Callum’s brother, Colin, inherited his brother’s share of the foundation.”

  “So you were one of the four men who died on that trip?”

  “Yes, both of Sebastian’s partners died. Very convenient, huh?” His laughter rang through the room, but there was a horrified twisted cackle to it.

  She winced at the sound. “I highly doubt back then the foundation was very big or worth enough for anyone to be interested in killing off his partners so soon. It would have been much better to wait until millions of dollars were involved. Then kill you both,” she said smoothly.

  The men froze.

  Mark/Jeremiah looked at her and chuckled again. “I like you,” he said. “That’s very smart.”

  “So why are you using Mark right now?” she asked. “You know you don’t need to. I’ve seen you before.”

  Instantly Mark’s face smacked into the table as Jeremiah stood separate from Mark. She looked at him clearly for the first time. This time she recognized that, for all the incredible job he’d done appearing real, she could now see he was indeed only a shadow of his former self. She stared at Mark, who appeared to be breathing but completely unconscious.

  “Did you hurt Mark?”

  Jeremiah shook his head. “Nope. I’m decent at getting in and out of bodies at will. Of course they have to be the right ones—the weak ones.”

  “I have no idea why I didn’t recognize that before,” she said. “Of course you’re a ghost.”

  “But I fooled you at the beginning, didn’t I? It took lots of energy. And, by using your energy, I could keep you confused and distracted.”

  Slowly she nodded, her hand instinctively going to the back of her neck and the hook she’d removed. “But what have you got to do with these masks?”

  “You see? I wasn’t very happy to be dead,” he said bitterly. “Even worse, to see Sebastian go back home again safe and sound, on top of the world, having survived the most horrific events we’d ever seen.”

  “And you blame him for that?” she asked incredulously. “Why the hell wouldn’t you want to see your best friend and partner survive? It’s not like he wasn’t completely torn up over everything that happened. Terrified too, I’d imagine.”

  “Sure. But he got to live, didn’t he? He got to carry on as if nothing had happened. Whereas Callum and I were dead.”

  “It was the masks, wasn’t it?” she asked suddenly. “Did you find a mask?”

  He glared at her. “No. I had found several small pieces of metal here in Pompeii. I took them on the Mayan trip, hoping the others could help me figure them out. I tried to put it together. I accidentally put it on my face one night, just laughing while I was in my tent, all alone. But it caught hold of me. Before I understood what the hell was going on, Callum was dead, and the last of our guides was dead. I can’t remember his name now.”

  “You killed them?” Sebastian gasped, staring at his best friend in horror. “All this time you’ve been coming here, visiting the site, visiting me, and you’re the one who killed them?”

  “But I didn’t mean to,” Jeremiah protested. “You know that.”

  Sebastian sank into his chair, staring at his best friend’s spirit.

  “Then why are you haunting Sebastian?” Hunter asked. “And why are you here now?”

  “Because he took the piece I had of that mask. The one I had taken to the Mayan site. After I died the mask kind of disappeared but that was one of the original pieces. I recognized the design on it. I’d actually carved it on a rock down there as a joke. So I guess it’s a good thing that whole area collapsed so my meddling didn’t show up for the history books.” He gave a deprecating laugh. “I never was a good archeologist, was I?”

  He glared at Sebastian as if daring him to agree. When Sebastian stayed silent he continued. “I didn’t realize why I was following him around until I saw that piece of metal again, and I recognized what it was. If he had one, there was a good chance he had others as well. There was a lot of power in that mask. Maybe with his help I could have controlled it. I could have taken it off. Maybe it wouldn’t have been a slaughterhouse that night. Maybe I would have survived.”

  “How were you killed?” she asked slowly.

  He turned to look at her. “The mask suffocated me I think. I remember the killing spree—the rage. I think it must have shattered around the same time. It seemed like an ugly explosion all around me. The cave-in happened at the same time but that’s all I remember. I woke up the next morning as a ghost.

  She stared at him. “So you found several pieces of this second mask at Pompeii, took it to the Mayan site and, as a joke put it over your face. Even though it looked innocent enough, it locked down on your face, and you couldn’t get it off. You went into a mad frenzy. You ended up killing several people, and, when you couldn’t get the mask off, it continued on its bloodthirsty quest and killed you. It’s only in ghost form, some ten years later, that you saw Sebastian had a piece of the same mask in his pocket the whole time, and realize
d that’s why you’ve been unable to leave him. Because you connected to that powerful mask energy back then and it’s still dragging you around as it tries to return home. Only you’re blaming him because you think he should have helped you years ago. That if he’d come to your rescue you’d have been freed from the mask and you’d still be alive today?”

  He sat back in his chair and stared at her. “You laid that out pretty well. Surely the mask wasn’t functioning properly, and the more pieces available, the better it would work. He’d found one piece that I dropped. So if he’d contributed that piece then I’d be alive.”

  “It worked for psychics.” Lacey snorted, shook her head. “But why here? Why now? What do you have to do with Linnea?”

  He looked at her in astonishment. “Nothing. Linnea’s trying to save her sister. Her sister wore the mask and was suffocating, but she was dangerous, so she was forced to stay there until she could free herself of the mask or die. By chance that happened to be when Pompeii came crashing down. Linnea went to save her sister, hoping that, in the chaos of the volcano erupting, she’d get her out of that room, and they could find a way to get the mask off.” His lips twisted. “She did release her sister. You don’t really understand how Linnea died, do you?”

  Lacey stared at him. “She said she got caught as she ran back to her own home.”

  “Oh, she got caught, all right. But guess by whom?”

  She stared at him, feeling sick to her stomach, her hand going up to her throat. “Did her sister catch her?”

  He slowly nodded. “She did indeed. Sabine killed Linnea, plus several other women. But Linnea also wounded her sister. They both fell into a pit and were burned by the lava flow. Where you found the first mask was where the sister died and so did Linnea. I have no clue where I found the pieces of the second mask or how it was destroyed. Likely the volcano.”

  “She doesn’t seem to know she died in that pit though.”

  “That’s because she’s terrified of the mask living on and hurting someone else, and worried about her sister’s fate.”