Haunted

by Kay Hooper

  “Hollis,” DeMarco warned.

  She didn’t seem to hear him. “Come on, Samuel. Haven’t we danced around each other long enough? Aren’t you tired of it? I know I am.”

  Sonny Lenox opened his mouth to say something—and then his face twisted, his skin reddened, the mad eyes glittered with a savage new intensity.

  “There he is,” Hollis said softly. “There’s the late, great Reverend Samuel.”

  “Bitch,” he snarled. “You think I won’t let this go? Won’t blow this sorry excuse for a man all the way to hell? It won’t hurt me. I’m energy. I’m power.”

  Trinity said, “Maybe so. But that sorry excuse for a man isn’t exactly in control of your little bomb.”

  The hand of Sonny Lenox lifted another inch—and then began to tremble. It shook as though a much greater force prevented it from doing its will.

  Deacon looked at Trinity, saw something in her eyes, an intent focus he recognized, and murmured, “I’ll be damned. You’re telekinetic.”

  “Comes in handy sometimes,” she said, clearly able to both prevent Samuel/Sonny Lenox from detonating the bomb and speak with no trace of strain in her voice. “Braden—truck.”

  The dog, who had been still and silent through it all, immediately obeyed his mistress, slipping from the room and the house to go and wait for her in the Jeep.

  Samuel wasn’t nearly so compliant.

  “Whore,” he muttered, rage building visibly in that once-human face. “Filthy bitch. I’ll—”

  “You’ll what?” she taunted. “Invade me? Possess me? I know what evil looks like. I know exactly what it is. What you are. I told you so the other day in the church. When I first saw you.”

  Hollis said, “We all know what you are. You can’t deceive us, and that means you can’t possess us. Any of us.” She smiled. “Especially not me. You couldn’t handle me, Samuel. On your best day on earth—or in hell—you could never handle me.”

  It might not have worked. As Deacon said later with some feeling, there were so many forces and personalities pulling at Samuel in those few eternal moments, it was a sheer miracle both he and the bomb didn’t blow off the top of the mountain.

  Instead, startling at least two of the people in the room, Samuel let out a tremendous roar of frustrated rage—and what looked, literally, like a thousand black snakes shot from his body, reaching out for the four people before him.

  Hollis moved only then, taking three quick steps, putting herself out in front of the others, her hands half lifted as though forming even more of a barrier. And even as his furious roar became one of pain, the many snakes writhed together and struck Hollis squarely in the middle of her body.

  She never flinched.

  It lasted only seconds, though to those watching it seemed much, much longer. A lifetime.

  The blackness surged or was pulled into Hollis, and as the others watched, her aura became visible.

  There were colors at first, bright and clear, a pulsing rainbow wrapping her body. And then the colors shifted, sparkled, and suddenly her aura was pure white and silver, extending out from her body at least two feet, an incredibly bright shimmer of clean, positive energy.

  The last of the dark energy snaked out of the body of Sonny Lenox and into Hollis, and they could all hear the hissing and crackling and popping, smell the ozone as though lightning had struck too close for comfort.

  For an endless moment longer, they were a frozen tableau, only Hollis’s aura moving, gradually fading as it drifted outward from her body and vanished into nothing.

  Hollis took a step back, shaky for the first time, and DeMarco was there, his gun holstered, his arms around her.

  “You two got this?” he said to the others, nodding toward the apparently still frozen and now blank-eyed Sonny Lenox.

  “We’re good,” Trinity said. “Take her out of here.”

  “Don’t waste time,” DeMarco told her. “There’s other darkness here besides what he was, hiding for now. You don’t want to be here when it all comes out to play.”

  DeMarco didn’t hesitate a moment longer. He lifted Hollis into his arms, cradling her slight body easily, and got her out of there.

  Deacon said to Trinity, “We’ve got this?”

  “Yeah.” She holstered her weapon, then walked over to the still man and carefully pried the dead man’s switch from his hand. Holding it, she stepped behind him, and in no more than a couple of minutes was unfastening the explosive-laden vest from him and stepping into the dining room to lay it carefully on the table.

  “Wait, the switch—”

  “It’s okay,” Trinity told him calmly. “I worked the bomb squad in Atlanta. The only thing remotely fancy about his bomb was the dead man’s switch, and they’re actually pretty easy. It’s safe now. Though I won’t feel entirely comfortable until it’s all dismantled and out of here, if Reese was right about that other dark energy.”

  She glanced toward the ceiling, and her face tightened as she watched the blood still dripping. Another friend dead. From Hollis’s reaction and all the blood . . . A friend butchered.

  I’m sorry, Toby. I should have kept you safe.

  Deacon, unaware of her thoughts, was still warily eyeing Sonny Lenox. “What about him?”

  “The only thing holding him up,” she said, “is me.” She turned her head, looked at Sonny Lenox—and he dropped like a stone to the wide plank floor.

  “He’s dead?”

  “Arguable whether he’s been alive, at least for a long time. But, yes, he’s dead. And this time there’s no EMS squad and trauma unit nearby to put his body on life support.” She looked down at Lenox with a singular lack of remorse in her eyes. “This time, both Sonny Lenox and Samuel are dead for the last time.”

  —

  IT WAS COLD outside, and a few flakes of snow were beginning to drift downward. DeMarco carried Hollis to their SUV. Instead of placing her in the front, he opened the back door and set her carefully on the seat so that she faced him as he stood in the open door.

  “Hollis?”

  Her gaze was looking past him, through him, miles away. And her eyes were still dark.

  “Hollis, look at me.”

  Nothing changed. DeMarco reached out, surrounding her face with his hands. He felt her flinch back, as if she would have pulled away, but his hands were large, and though he made sure she wouldn’t feel trapped, he also held her steadily.

  Something flickered in her eyes, and she went still again.

  DeMarco hesitated, then said quietly, “Now you know. Now you know how bad it had to be before your mind felt the need to build walls, a shield. Because you’ve got one, Hollis. But it’s not for you to hide inside. It’s not for you to use to shut out the people who care about you. It’s only . . . to give you a private, safe place to be. Sometimes.”

  Again, something flickered in her dark, dark eyes.

  “He tried to hurt you, and he did. But you won, Hollis. He’s dead and you’re alive. You won.”

  “You . . . don’t understand,” she whispered.

  “Yes,” he said. “I do. I understand that you’ve survived more horror and agony than any human being should ever have to bear. I wish I could take away the pain, at least. But, Hollis, everything that’s happened to you has made you the woman you are today, right now. The bad as well as the good. You know that.”

  “I know . . . I didn’t want to remember. I didn’t want to think about the monster who took my eyes. But when I saw her—her face. When I saw her eyes were gone, I remembered.” She drew a sudden, deep breath, and her eyes began to lighten.

  And fill with tears.

  DeMarco didn’t hesitate. He stepped closer and pulled her into his arms. She was stiff for just a moment, resisting. And then her new walls . . . slowly came down, and her arms went around him.

  And for the first time, Hollis Templeton cried for everything she had lost.

  And everything she had gained.

  “What I want to know,” De
acon asked some time later as they all gathered in the conference room of the sheriff’s department, “is when the parsonage stopped being red. Because it was red when we went in, and white when we came out.”

  “My guess would be that when Samuel finally died—really died this time—the red vanished,” Hollis said, sounding tired but steady. “It was his bubble of energy we were in.”

  “Not another dimension?” Trinity asked.

  “I don’t think so. No way to be sure, of course, but I think he used some of his own energy, combined it with the weird natural energy up there, and . . . built himself a home. He was enough in control of it to open a door and let us in.”

  “That wasn’t you?” Trinity asked.

  “No. He’d already figured out he couldn’t get to me outside his bubble, but he believed he could once he got me inside. Especially after I saw . . . her.”

  DeMarco’s arms tightened around her. He was actually sitting on a big, slate-topped desk that had been shoved into one corner of the conference room, and Hollis stood between his knees, leaning back against him.

  She looked very comfortable.

  “Maybe he thought the shock would do it,” she continued steadily. “Seeing another woman dead the way I was supposed to have died years ago. Seeing what he did to her. But that didn’t make me vulnerable to him. If anything, it made me stronger.”

  “I think we all saw evidence of that,” Trinity said, her tone a little dry.

  “You were the surprise,” Deacon said to her. “A born telekinetic?”

  “Umm. Runs in the family.”

  Somewhat indignant, he said, “And you didn’t think we needed to know that?”

  Smiling faintly but unapologetic, Trinity said, “It’s always been an ace up my sleeve. I use it sparingly, to say the least.”

  Hollis looked at her. “Is that why Bishop hasn’t recruited you?”

  “I’ve tried, believe me.” He came into the conference room along with Miranda, and it probably spoke volumes that no one was surprised to see him.

  Mildly, Trinity said, “I like small-town life. Especially when there isn’t a resurrected maniac killer murdering my friends.”

  Hollis looked at Miranda and asked, “Where are the others?”

  “Tying up loose ends in the mountains. We found the last two girls before she could kill them.”

  “Ruth?” DeMarco guessed. “She was always his most devoted follower. I always thought she’d probably kill for him if he asked.”

  “I gather she was supposed to kill the last two while he was busy here in Sociable,” Miranda replied. “To keep most of the heat off him here as long as possible. He’d killed the others, but not even Samuel could be two places at once. He needed to be here. He also needed those girls dead. What he didn’t count on was that Ruth was convinced she could persuade the girls to become followers of Samuel.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” DeMarco said. “Though I do wonder . . . Did she recognize him despite his shiny new body or because he went looking for her and proved himself?”

  “The latter,” Bishop said. “She was still in North Carolina, so easy to find. And apparently all he had to do was touch her to cause her to remember everything.”

  “Yeah, that was his thing,” DeMarco said with clear distaste.

  Miranda was looking at Hollis steadily. “You aren’t okay,” she said.

  “No,” Hollis agreed, “but I will be. Now.” DeMarco’s arms tightened around her, and Hollis smiled at Miranda. “I’ll be fine.”

  “About damned time,” Miranda responded solemnly.

  “Yeah, now you can spend your time and energy worrying about some of the others. I’m sure there’s enough to occupy your time.”

  “True enough.”

  “What I want to know,” Deacon said, his voice a bit louder than, perhaps, he intended, “is what about Braden?”

  Trinity looked at him, brows rising. “What about him?”

  “Oh, come on. If he’s an ordinary dog, I’m—I’m—” Apparently, he couldn’t think of anything weird enough, and settled for a glare.

  “Ask Bishop,” Trinity suggested.

  The SCU unit chief smiled faintly, the expression making his very handsome but scarred face look more dangerous than amused. “You figured that out, huh?” he asked Trinity.

  “I know you’re all kinds of subtle and Machiavellian,” she told him gravely, “but a strange, beautifully trained, and eerily prescient dog shows up on my front porch just when I’m thinking about getting another one—something I had recently said to you—and I’m not supposed to guess he’s here because of you?”

  “He’s here because of you,” Bishop said firmly.

  Deacon scowled at him. “What’d you do, ask him where he wanted to live?”

  “Yeah,” Bishop said.

  Deacon blinked. “Didn’t know you were telepathic with animals.”

  “Neither did I. Until I crossed paths with Braden.”

  Miranda spoke up then to say, “An old friend contacted me. He’s a sheriff in a small Tennessee town. Braden turned up a stray, Alex recognized there was something . . . unusual . . . about him, and figured he should probably be with us.”

  “Why isn’t he?” Deacon asked.

  “I told you,” Bishop said. “He wanted to live in a small town, and he wanted to be a sheriff’s dog. Alex already has three; Braden is the sort who prefers to be an only dog. I thought of Trinity and her desire to get another dog and—”

  Braden got out of his chair, walked across the conference table—neatly avoiding numerous files—and sat down, offering Bishop a paw.

  Bishop accepted it. “And he did something like this. Clearly, he’s happy here.”

  Braden’s tail swept across the polished surface of the table, sending a file skidding toward the edge. Nobody minded.

  “I’m not a telepath,” Trinity reminded him.

  “Actually, you’re a latent telepath,” Bishop told her. “And your energy signature is the closest to Callie Davis’s I’ve ever come across. Since she can communicate with animals, dogs in particular, it only made sense to me that you might be able to as well. With time and practice.”

  She eyed him. “Like Braden, I prefer small-town life. Don’t think you’re going to rope either one of us into joining the team.”

  “It never crossed my mind.”

  Trinity made a rude noise, but all she said was, “Well, for Braden and for all the other help, I’m more than grateful. I have friends to bury and a town to soothe, but I know it could have been a hell of a lot worse than it was.

  “Look, I know you all must be exhausted—and we’ve got a storm about to hit. You could try to make it to the air strip, but I have my doubts about that, and these roads are really mean when they’re slippery. So why don’t you all stay at the hotel for the duration. I’m sure you could use a few days off. Rest, good food, interesting people.”

  Her gaze returned to Bishop. “And we can talk a little more about just how much you really know about Braden.”

  Before Bishop could respond, the black dog sitting on the conference table did, startling them with two sharp barks.

  “Two barks for yes?” Trinity asked politely.

  Braden barked twice more.

  Deacon stared at him. “I’m trying to think of a no question. One bark for no, Braden. Can we make it to the air strip before the storm hits?”

  Braden barked.

  Once.

  “You’re sure?”

  Two barks.

  To Bishop, Trinity said, “We really need to talk about him.”

  Braden barked. Twice.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Please indulge me as I take a few pages to speak to you about my second vocation in this life: animal rescue, in particular dogs and cats. And about the inspiration for one of the main characters in Haunted.

  The canine character of Braden in this story is based on a real shelter dog with that name and likeness who was handed a f
ew lousy breaks in life—and then was granted a second chance.

  No one can know, really, why Braden ended up where he did at a young age, not a puppy but barely an adult (most dogs in this country never live to see their third birthday). Sometimes a stray is brought in, with absolutely no one able to provide information on the animal. Quite often, dogs and cats are “surrendered” by owners; sometimes an owner-surrendered dog comes with a story, but more often than not, background information is at best incomplete, and human reasoning for the abandonment is, to some, inconceivable because we view our pets as lifelong companions.

  But sometimes a reason is provided, and it rarely has anything to do with the dog’s temperament or behavior. A gift puppy grew up and wasn’t “cute” anymore. There was a divorce. Someone went off to school. There was a marriage. Someone new came into a relationship with their own better-loved dog or medical issues, such as allergies, that made having a dog in the house a problem. There was a new baby. There was a move. A change of job. There was something that made the poor dog an inconvenience. And the bewildered, frightened dog is ripped from, probably, the only home he’s ever known and abandoned by those he trusted, surrendered to a shelter or pound, often guiltily and with totally unrealistic “hopes” that he will somehow land in a better home instead of being euthanized, which is far, far more likely to be his fate today in twenty-first-century America.

  Especially if he’s a dog like Braden.

  Braden had three strikes against him. He was a mix most commonly recognized and referred to as a pit bull, or pit bull terrier, the most misunderstood and mistreated dog “breed” in this country; he was black, the coat color most overlooked in shelter dogs and cats by potential adopters; and he was abandoned at a small, high-kill, county-run rural facility too often forced to kill healthy, adoptable animals simply for lack of room and funds.

  His chances of making it out of that stressful, frightening, lonely place alive were virtually nil.

  But this particular shelter had and still has a highly active group of volunteers (Clifford’s Army Rescue Extravaganza—CARE—in Shelby, NC; Facebook.com/Cliffords.Army) who work hard to see to it that as many dogs and cats as possible are rescued, or at least have a better shot. They take attractive photos of each animal and offer its story and information about its personality as observed by them. They work with rescues to help, sometimes providing temporary fosters until a rescue can make arrangements within its own group.