“If what is going to work?” He asked.
“The exorcism. We have to expel your mother as soon as possible. Due to the nature of their ability, necromantics are extremely vulnerable to possession…and unfortunately prone to suicide, but we’ll save that for later.”
“Necromantics?” His eyes sought Cael.
“Dominic…Eden is adept. Her gift has to do with calling forth and communicating with disembodied spirits.”
“Our psychopathic mother’s, for instance.” Gideon injected a bit of the macabre.
Greyson looked up from his journal. “Uh, no, I don’t actually think it is that simple.” He explained. “The souls of the departed are confined to either Heaven or Hell. The evil that we are dealing with has to have a demonic component as well. What I believe is that-”
“Now, isn’t really the ideal time to flesh out your theory, is it?” Ethan looked askance, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
Gideon pinned Ethan with a wooden stare. “Perhaps it’s more appropriately discussed next week, at the celebratory dinner…or rather the funeral services, depending, of course, on the outcome of tonight’s…festivities.”
Ethan winced. Cael exhaled a long-suffering sigh. Greyson glanced from one brother to the other, undecidedly.
“Gideon, please, don’t be flippant.” Gabriel reproached his twin in a quiet beseeching tone. “A woman’s life is at stake here.”
“Yes, and we could be helping her along to the netherworld with this profane witchery. Tampering with her soul is blasphemous.”
“Enough.” Dominic ended the discussion with blunt authority that no one dared question. “I will decide what is best. Cael?”
Cael ran his hand through frustration-mangled hair, “Dom, if we don’t evict Lillian and whatever demon spawn she is in league with…He, she or it could permanently displace Eden’s essence.”
Greyson concurred, “And you should know, the process is fatal. Her body will die without its rightful soul.”
“How much time?”
“Exact stipulations are difficult to—” Greyson began.
Dominic cut him off. “Cael, how long?”
“We don’t know. It could be happening already.”
“Then what are we waiting for, Where is Eden?”
Ethan pointed downward. “Beneath you on the floor. Luckily, she fainted when the heat intensified.” He said, then added guiltily. “I chloroformed her just to make sure; we could not risk her coming to before we were ready.”
Gideon stood in silence, an unfathomable expression masking his thoughts.
“The pianoforte will need to be moved.” Gabriel, ever the practical twin, stated matter-of-factly.
“Allow me.” Dom blinked to the astral, disintegrating the massive instrument the same way he’d dispensed with his mother’s bindings.
“We could have moved it the normal way.” Ethan chided when Dominic collapsed back on the empty circular platform beside an unconscious Eden. “You’ll do her no good by pushing yourself to the brink of exhaustion.”
“Don’t astral again.” Cael ordered with a hint of foreboding. “We need you lucid and your ability in tact. Once she comes to, it will take all of you to keep Lillian’s ability at bay long enough to exercise her.”
A harried Greyson lay sprawled at the fringe of the platform clutching his journal and eyeing Dom. “You might have warned me.”
But Dominic’s mind was riveted to Eden. Her slim, be-robed figure lay facedown, the mass of blonde hair skewing his view. Her dainty arm once a clean and translucent pale reached out, limp and dirtied with soot. He ached to hold her, comfort her, and confess to her how much she meant to him. He’d never gotten the chance and now, perhaps he never would.
Just then, his mind seized on her hair. Blonde. “Her hair…” Maybe the exorcism wouldn’t be necessary. He turned pleading eyes on the professor. “Doesn’t that mean she is normal again?”
“In my experience, uninvited guests do not leave voluntarily.”
Dom’s face fell. “Tell me what to do to get her back.”
Chapter 45
Eden’s limp unconscious form lay upon the center of the circular platform, with Ethan and Dominic kneeling beside her. Gideon and Gabriel stood like sentries, each stationed as points of a human triangle at the outer edge of the platform…while Cael backed away from the third point. “It’ll have to be Ethan or Stephan. I am not adept.”
Stephan spoke from a shadowy corner of the room. “If Lillian breaks loose I have to be able to contain her. My control is dubious at best; it will require my complete focus. It’s the only way we have of combating her mental abilities.”
“And we need Dr. Raine poised to attend to any injuries that might arise.” Greyson explained. “Any one of us might be in dire need of medical attention if anything…unexpected, happens. I need hardly add that we’ve no idea what condition the young lady will be in once we’ve evicted her uninvited guest.”
“Yes, I appreciate all that, but we may not be able to evict Lillian at all unless she is surrounded by forces as powerful as she… adepts.” Cael warned. “I would be a weak link in the chain.”
“Not necessarily.” Greyson posed. “I have done extensive research on heredity, insanity and adeptness. All five of your siblings are adept which means more likely than not, you are a strong latent. There is a school of thought that suggests all non-adepts are merely latents who have yet to manifest, but that’s neither here nor there. For our purpose a strong latent is a workable substitution for a manifest adept. It’s a risk, yes, but a calculated one.”
Dominic forced himself to pull his gaze away from Eden’s lifeless form. He was half afraid she would fade away from him if he averted his attention even for a moment. The fear was crippling almost. All his will and his energies were focused on keeping her alive even as he looked to his worried brother. “Cael, I suggest we trust him. Like you said, we are out of our depth.”
“Dominic?” Gideon addressed his brother, with a pointed look.
A charged silence hung between them, before he answered. “I know, Gideon, but I have to try.”
“Hurry, she’s coming to.” Ethan rose.
Resigned, Cael ambled into position as the third point in the triangle. Greyson nodded for the remaining three to take their positions around the room. Stephan remained out of sight, obscured in the murky depths of one of the corners, where he could keep a watchful eye. Ethan stepped just outside the triangle, off the platform. Greyson, too, stood just outside the circle, but was a ways from the doctor. Dom positioned himself in the eye of the triangle and carefully scooped Eden’s wan form into his arms. The flowing silk of her hair tickling the skin of his chest and shoulders where her head rested. He glanced down at the gentle moan from her to see her eyes twitch beneath her lids.
“She’s coming to.”
“Start the verse.” Greyson directed immediately.
And they did, but instead of the sinister mumble of foreign syllables he had awoken to earlier, the four of them, Dom, Cael and the twins, recited a clear and resonant rendition of the twenty-third Psalms. Dom chose a scripture that had always brought him peace. He prayed that it would provide a powerful force of good, born of God’s Holy Spirit that would protect and strengthen them as they fought to expel the evil spirit threatening to devour his Eden.
Her lids fluttered open in the middle of the second recitation. Dom willed himself to stay focused, continuing to repeat the verse along with his brothers.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I will fear no evil…”
For a moment, Dom relaxed as Eden’s warm hazel eyes blinked back at him. He let his arm under her knee slide down until her feet touched the floor. He kept both arms around her to make certain she had the strength to stand on her own.
He broke off the recitation, as she stood by herself, serene, blinking up at him, both of her pale slender hands rested lightly on his bare chest. “Eden…�
��
“NO! Don’t stop. You must keep repeating–”
Greyson never finished his sentence. In a split second, the pupils of her eyes pooled outward, a spreading blackness that engulfed the irises. Her lips curled back to reveal teeth poised to bite. She unleashed a vampire’s hiss at the same instant she clawed at his chest with hands that had just moments before been almost caressing. Dominic stumbled backward at the suddenness and strength of the attack.
Inky black, rope-like hair flew wildly about as they wrestled, her a seething harpy, all claws and biting teeth. She came at him kicking, and screeching, with unnatural strength, while he strove to contain her without harming her person. Within minutes, his chest and upper arms were regaled with swollen bite marks, and long welt-like scratches oozing blood…most in various stages of healing. Ethan, powerful enough that he did not need direct skin contact, effected immediate repairs as new injuries appeared.
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want…”
Cael, Gideon and Gabriel continued to recite. The three of them were stationed around the struggling pair like sentries protecting the king.
“Keep it up! Don’t break the trinity!” Greyson barked out. “It’s the only hope we have of keeping her confined.”
Ethan watched the tussling twosome, worried. “He will not be able to control her forever…not without hurting her.” He said, looking to Greyson.
Stephan spoke for the first time. “Something is off. Why isn’t she using her telekinetic abilities like before?”
“Eden’s fighting it.” Ethan concluded aloud. “Look, the hair, there are streaks of blonde threading through it. There must be some sort of power struggle going on.”
Greyson frowned as he acknowledged the brothers’ astute observations. “In order for this to work, Lillian has to surface…completely. Otherwise, it might kill them both.”
Dom caught the grain of the conversation. “Greyson?!”
At the seventh recitation of the twenty-third psalms, a current rippled through the room. Dom could feel it surrounding them. A wall of pure psi energy, invisible, intangible but as real as any brick and mortar barricade…impenetrable. Its emanations resonated with his own as well as his brothers’ psychic ability, creating a pyramid of both protection and imprisonment around the four brothers and Eden.
“I can’t heal him anymore.” Ethan announced. “Something is blocking me. Greyson?”
“It’s working.”
Dominic managed to encase both her wrists in a semi-quelling grip…pausing the onslaught temporarily. “The wall is up…I can feel it. Tell me when?!”
“Not yet.” Greyson stayed him. “Your mother’s essence has to take full possession…to maximize exposure.”
“Eden!” Dom shook the she-thing, on the off-chance that Eden had even the tiniest level of awareness of what was happening to her. “You have to let go. Don’t fight it. Let her take over, Cara.”
* * *
She felt…faint, weightless. Her consciousness ripped away from her body with a violent, disorienting tear. The darkness, a spreading evil, seeped into her mind like blood soaking a crisp white cloth. She clawed for a lifeline, an anchor, some thread of reality to which to cling…even as her thoughts began to fade away like dreams forgotten in the morning, her emotions deadened, her sight dimmed. Her very breath hitched, the darkness was so suffocating.
You have to let go. Don’t fight it. Let her take over, Cara…
Her last vestige of hope died…She, the soul called Eden, was lost. No use fighting anymore. Perhaps she would find peace in death. The void seeped in, unbidden. Everything around her deadened…her hold on life was so slight. Colors paled to grey, voices faded to silence, the pain and pleasures of life numbed to nothing. No landscape…no time… Her mind screamed at the horror of knowing she would soon be no more.
* * *
The next instant, Eden stilled…struggling no more. Dom doubled over from a telekinetic knee to the stomach.
“Now, Dominic! Do it, NOW!”
He vanished into invisibility, temporarily pre-empting any further telekinetic strikes. In the close space inside the triangle, there were few places to hide, even invisible as he was. Lillian shrieked and struck out blindly with telekinetic probes, one of which glazed his hip as he dropped down to the floor and rolled left to avoid her. He’d only have one, maybe two attempts before she located him…
“He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake…”
Dom inhaled deep, gathering all his psi energies, and focused them on Eden. He’d never tried to send anyone to the astral realm unaccompanied before. Centered, calm and focused, he felt the simultaneous waver in both his hearing and vision that signal the beginnings of Astral travel. He reached out his hand, grasped her ankle, projecting her onto the astral while keeping a thin psychic ‘rope’ around her ankle so he could pull her back. Amazing…He felt a violent psychic ripple wash over him, and reverse ricochet back over him like river rapids crashing against rock. The force knocked him forward. His energy flickered dangerously close to winkling out. He concentrated his efforts into one final surge, to jerk the rope…just before he collapsed in a dead faint.
Chapter 46
“Dom? Dom, can you hear me?”
Consciousness prodded at him. The first thing he became aware of were someone’s fingers poking him in the throat, just beneath his jawline…Ethan checking for a pulse, no doubt. Then palming his forehead, peeling back an eyelid, and finally tapping his wrist. “Hmm…his pupils are non-responsive.”
He kept his eyes closed.
“I know I saw him move. His eyes shifted under the lids.” He recognized Eden’s worried voice. “This cannot be normal. He’s been unconscious for three days.”
“Asleep, not unconscious–” Dom heard Greyson’s airy tone launch into a scholarly explanation of the differential between the two states. He was further from the bed, judging by his voice. Egads! The man was exhausting. Did he always speak with such…encyclopedic depth, as if he must give every last detail of his knowledge to even the most mundane of topics. “Do not worry, Ms. Prescott. I can assure you, it is quite common among adepts. He is not just recovering from a physical exhaustion, but a psychic burnout as well. He needs rest, mind and body. I have seen adepts on overload sleep for a full week.”
“Is that true?” The angle of her voice changed, she must have turned to speak in another direction, Dom thought, possibly taking a step in that direction.
“I don’t… tired, easily.” Ahh, Stephan was present…holding up the wall in a corner as usual. “I have never required sleep beyond a normal night’s rest.”
“It is different for everyone, Ms. Prescott.” Greyson again, speaking from further away.
“If that’s true then how do you know this is normal for Dominic?”
“Eden, what Professor Greyson means, is that it’s too early to panic. He has seen cases where this amount of sleep is not harmful.” Cael, and he was to the left somewhere close. Dom inclined his head to get a better angle.
“Dom?” Cael’s voice redirected, closer still. Of course, Cael would be the first to notice he was awake.
“Cael.” His voice was hoarse from non-use. He slit his eyes open. “E-than… everyone well?”
Again, he felt a shift in the voices, their locations. Someone moved closer to him. He couldn’t see who…couldn’t see anything but shadowy blurs.
“Dom?” Cael hovered, the blur on the left.
“Dominic?” Ethan sounded worried, confused. “Dom—”
“Too bright.” He closed his eyes deliberately, hoping Ethan would get the hint. “Light is too bright. Stephan, dim it please.”
He had no idea if Stephan dimmed the lights or not; the only thing he could make out was blurred lateral movements. Damn, he wished they would stop playing ring-around-the-rosy.
“Better?” Stephan spoke a moment latter from the same position. “Ethan has your spectacles,
would you like them?”
“Yes, and yes.”
Thankfully, he felt Ethan put the specs in place on the bridge of his nose. The rest of his body seemed to be in perfect working order, he noted as he sat up in the bed. “Ethan, I’m hungry. Have Nell send something up.”
“Of course.” And then footsteps. So far, so good. He’d be willing to bet that Kathleen was not present. Nothing would have kept her silent this long. That left Cael, Stephan, Greyson, Eden…and possibly the twins. Neither twin was chatty so their lack of conversation did not necessarily mean they weren’t present. He’d have to get rid of Greyson before he addressed Gideon or Gabriel just in case.
“Dom, are you alright? You’ve been out for three days.”
“Yes, cara, I am well.” He reassured her, smiling, lulling his head. “Just tired. Stephan, I trust you have been attending to my affairs during my convalescence?”
“Yes, shall I catch you up?”
“Later, after I eat. Also, can you let Kathleen know that she is needed here, please.” Dom angled towards where he last heard Greyson’s voice. “Professor, I trust you will not report Ms. Prescott’s momentary lack of chaperon to the social reformers? I would hate to have a repeat of your previous visit.”
A chuckle followed his good-natured jibe. “I didn’t see anything…compromising.”
“All joking aside…Thank you.” He did not like being beholden to anyone, particularly a man whom he knew so little about. “I have not forgotten our gentleman’s agreement. You may have an audience with me at a later date. I will receive you, on the estate, whenever you like, with a day’s notice. Is that agreeable to you?”
“Certainly, Conte Ambrosi.”
“There is no need for pomp and circumstance. Call me, Dominic.”
Just then he heard someone enter the room.
“Aye, tha rascal is awake, is he?”
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