Paranormal After Dark: 20 Paranormal Tales of Demons, Shifters, Werewolves, Vampires, Fae, Witches, Magics, Ghosts and More

by Rebecca Hamilton

  Kale watched him adjust the IV attached to his arm. “You a doctor?” he said instead of answering.

  “Yes.” He laid the back of his hand on Kale’s forehead. “What happened to you? Utah said someone was after you? Care to explain that?”

  “Not really.” He looked at the girl again. “Utah?”

  “Dude, you scared the crap out of me. I mean I went to take the garbage out and you know, found my bike gone and then damn, there you were looking like, wow, bad dude. You didn’t want me calling EMS and I didn’t know what else to do so I called Jude.”

  Kale’s eyes flicked to the man next him. “Jude?”

  The guy gave him a quick nod. “And your name?”

  He couldn’t think how it would hurt to tell them. “Kale, my name is Kale.”

  Jude didn’t look happy. “Okay, Kale. Let me explain something to you. I didn’t take you to the hospital against my better judgment and because I have a soft spot for my baby sister. That doesn’t mean I don’t think you shouldn’t be in one. As far as I can tell, someone, pretty much beat the crap out of you, fairly recently. If I start from the top and work my way down, you have a serious concussion, your nose is broken, you have two very impressive shiners, not a clue if there is any eye damage. Ribs? Without x-rays hard to tell but I would bet more than one are broken. Your midsection is a patchwork of bruises and you’re pissing blood so let’s put a little internal damage on that list.

  Your wrists? Jesus, I don’t even know if I want to ask. It sure as hell looks like you were restrained and not in a nice way. The wounds are severely infected and I am fresh out of antibiotics. You have a fever and, until I started the IV were pretty dehydrated. All I’m doing is putting a Band-Aid on one big fucking problem.”

  Jude stood, and Kale could see the frustration in his face.

  “So, do you want to rethink that request about not going to the hospital? Because I’m telling you pal, there’s not a whole lot more I can do for you here.”

  Kale braced one arm across his ribs and tried to sit up, Jude pushed a pillow behind him. He grimaced as he moved but managed to keep the groan to himself. “Where am I?”

  “My apartment. Manhattan, a few miles from where Utah found you. No one saw us bring you here.”

  “How long have I been here?”

  “Since last night. Twelve, fourteen hours.”

  Kale didn’t want to get these people involved, not with Tanya. Jude was right, he needed help. It was a very big world and he had no idea how to navigate it. He needed Cross. So like it or not, these people had just adopted him. He only hoped he was up to protecting them if it came to that. Knowing Tanya he had no doubt it would come to that. Twelve hours and he still hadn’t been found, meant that Tanya had no clue to his whereabouts.

  Yet.

  That was good. He wondered how Utah and Jude were going to take what he was about to tell them.

  He held his wrists up. “Rope,” he said. “And yeah, they weren’t very nice about it. After they tied me, they hung me by my wrists. All that weight bites pretty deep. That’s when the real fun started.”

  “Holy fuck,” Utah said.

  “I don’t remember much of it, but when they were finished they left me hanging there for a few hours, until Tanya finally had them cut me down.”

  “You mentioned her before. Who is she?” Utah said.

  “Complicated answer,” Kale wiped a hand over his face. Every now and then his vision would blur or double. “How prepared are you for a story you probably won’t believe?”

  “The ball of light,” Utah sounded like she was talking to herself.

  “The what?” Jude turned to look at her.

  Kale grinned. He had forgotten what he had shown her. A simple manifestation. A party trick. It had taken barely any effort and had obviously impressed the hell out of her. He wondered if he should do something more impressive to convince her brother he wasn’t crazy. “Yeah, the ball of light.”

  “I thought I imagined it. I didn’t, did I?”

  Kale shook his head.

  “Mind telling me what you’re talking about?” Jude was looking at Kale like he was an escaped psych patient again.

  “Okay, this is the ‘You aren’t going to believe me’ part,” Kale took a deep breath and jumped off the cliff he had been standing on. “My name is Kale Delancey. My twin brother, Cross and I were born and raised in what we called the Department. Officially it’s called the Department for Paranormal Research.”

  Jude raised his brows. “Paranormal?”

  “See that’s where all the ‘You don’t believe me’ part starts coming into play. Hang on. It gets way better. So Cross and me, we have these, abilities. Talents, if you will. The Department is very interested in learning how we do what we do. Tanya runs the place. She is, shall I say, quite protective of me.

  “When Cross and I were fourteen, he convinced me we should try to escape. That didn’t end well. They shot Cross. When he didn’t die, Tanya and Coben- he runs the place with her- decided Cross was way too dangerous to bring back the way he was, so they wiped his memories and reprogrammed him. For the last ten years, he believed I was dead and his life was anything but what it had been.

  “Except last week Cross started remembering his real past. So Tanya brought him in. The short version is Cross escaped and I wouldn’t help Tanya find him.” He motioned to bruised and beaten body. “She was just a tad disappointed in my decision.”

  Jude’s face turned a violent shade of red. He looked like he was about to rupture something he might need later. “Wait a minute,” he said to Utah. “It’s gotta be the head injury. Or the fever. He’s delusional.”

  “Show him,” Utah said.

  Kale let out a quick breath. “This is really a lot more impressive when I’m stronger.” He scooped the ambient energy surrounding them and formed the glowing ball of light between his hands. He wanted to do more, but he was tired.

  “Technically this is called psi energy. I take energy from whatever surrounds me and use myself as a conduit.” Kale let the ball of light grow. The look on Jude’s face was pretty hysterical. It always hit the scientific ones the hardest. “Like I said, this isn’t very impressive, but I’m not exactly working at my best here. I can do pretty much anything I want with it, this will have to do for now.” He gestured the light up and left it drift to the ceiling, and then made a small flick of his wrist. As it had in the alley, the energy dissipated into a million tiny sparkles that rained down on them. Kale closed his eyes and rested his head back. He really was feeling pretty crappy, but the day he couldn’t do that- would be the day they buried him.

  “See?” Utah sounded like a proud parent. “The light thing.”

  “How did you do that?” Jude said.

  Kale shrugged. “How do you know how to breathe? I just do it. That’s one of the reasons Tanya wants me back.”

  “What else can you do?” Utah said.

  Kale was feeling lightheaded. “I can push people.” He closed his eyes wanting very much to go back to sleep.

  “What’s that?”

  “Utah, he needs to rest, let him be.”

  Kale suddenly remembered Cross. “Pushing is how I got out. That’s my big thing. It’s why Tanya wants me back. It’s also why she thinks I’m dangerous.” Kale attempted a laugh. He didn’t feel very dangerous.

  “Back up for one minute. You said you and your brother tried to get out when you were fourteen. How long have you been there? How long has this Tanya had you?”

  “All my life, man. All my life.” Kale slid down inside the warm covers, but before he stopped resisting and slid into oblivion, he made one final request. “I need to find my brother. I need to find Cross.”

  “Cross, is he like you? Can he do things, like the light?” Utah said.

  With his eyes still closed, Kale smiled. “Cross makes me look like a bad street magician.” His voiced slurred a little and he fought off the oblivion. “I need to find Cross.” He tried t
o sit up.

  Jude kept him in place with one hand. “How far do you think you’re going to get like this? Come on, you have my word, I won’t tell a soul you’re here. You know Utah is tight. So rest. Let me take care of you. When you’re better, we will all look for your brother together, okay?”

  Kale was sure he had heard him wrong. “You’ll help me?”

  “Yeah, now sleep.” Kale felt Jude’s hand slide over his eyes, closing them. He couldn’t stop the slow slide into sleep this time.

  Jude rested his arms on his knees, his hands clasped. He stared at Kale Delancey for what felt like a long time. Utah disturbed the silence.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know.” It was an honest answer.

  “Are you really going to help him?” Utah sounded like she thought he might go back on his word.

  He didn’t like that. He turned to face her. “I told him I would. I have never gone back on my word before and I don’t intend to start now.”

  “But?” Utah knew him far too well.

  He didn’t like that either. Jude wiped a hand over his face and continued to stare at Kale Delancey. “But, what are we supposed to do with him, Utah? The guy is hurt and sick. This isn’t a hospital, I don’t have the things he needs here.”

  “You found the IV. Maybe you can find some antibiotics. You can help him, I know you can.”

  “He needs more than good intentions. I happened to have a liter of saline for a class I was giving to my pre-med class on starting IVs. That was luck.”

  “So write a prescription. You’re a doctor, so you can do that, right?”

  Jude stood and looked to the ceiling, briefly trying to rein in his frustration. “Ever the eternal optimist.” His little sister never changed. “Yeah, I can do that.”

  “So write one for me. It might not be exactly what he needs, but it’s better than nothing, right?”

  Jude just stared at her. “Well, yeah. Why didn’t I think of that?”

  Utah stretched and yawned. “Sometimes the smarter you are, the more difficult it is to see the simple solutions.”

  Jude grunted out a laugh. “Apparently. Hang on, let me find the number I need to call this in.” It didn’t take long, to call in a prescription for an antibiotic in Utah’s name at a local pharmacy.

  “I’ll pick it up. Are you going to be okay alone with him?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be? I can handle him.” Jude paced around the apartment. Not being in control never suited him well.

  Utah seemed to sense his mood. “Okay, what is it?” She sat at the bar in his kitchen and looked totally at ease. Like she found half-dead, men on the run and hiding from subversive organizations every day.

  “What is it? Seriously?”

  “It’s the glowing ball of light thing. Isn’t it?” She nodded as if answering her own question. “It freaked me out at first, too.”

  “And yet you failed to share that little piece of information with me when I brought him home.” He nailed her with a looked that he hoped told her how unbelievably blasé she was being about this whole thing.

  “I knew you wouldn’t have believed me. I mean, really, Jude, you saw him do it and you still don’t believe it, do you?”

  “I don’t know what to believe. I really don’t. Maybe it was an illusion. Granted a hell of a good illusion, but it had to be just an illusion.”

  “Why does it have to be? He called it psi energy. I mean I don’t have a dual degree, but I’ve heard of psi energy. It’s a real thing.” Utah opened his fridge and pulled out a carton of orange juice that she started to drink from. He snatched the carton out of her hand, poured the juice into a cup and handed it to her.

  “Psi energy is something that strange people on the internet believe is real. Like some people like to believe in Hogwarts.”

  “He’s not crazy, Jude.”

  “It’s a theory, Utah. That’s all it is. It isn’t real.”

  “I don’t know, it sure as hell looked real to me.” She put the glass of juice down and leaned forward.

  Jude knew that look. His sister had the clueless thing down to a science but he was one of the few people who knew just how brilliant she truly was. Utah wasn’t comfortable with it, so she downplayed it – like totally. She wasn’t downplaying now.

  “Look, I know you Jude. You require all these facts and logic for you to confirm that something has merit.”

  “It helps.”

  “Yeah, but it isn’t everything. Are you going to try and tell me that we, as a species, know everything there is to know? You always told me seeing is believing. Well you just saw what that man did and you still don’t believe him. The problem is, you can’t put all your facts in a neat little algorithm, so you simply dismiss what is right in front of you. I think it actually physically hurts you to stretch yourself into the realm of what if.”

  “That’s not true. As a scientist I ask myself, ‘what if’ all the time.”

  “Yes, but the answer only satisfies you if you can prove it.”

  “What’s wrong with a little proof?”

  Utah walked around the bar and squatted next to where Jude sat. “Facts and logic aren’t everything. Five hundred years ago we were convinced the earth was the center of the universe. Three hundred years ago we were burning women at the stake for being witches. Two hundred years ago we thought it was a fine idea to enslave our fellow human because they were a different color. A hundred years ago people were dying from diseases that don’t even exist today. Twenty-four hours ago you were convinced that using your own body as a conduit for manipulating energy was just a preposterous theory.” Utah took Jude’s hand. “We are highly fallible creatures, Jude, prone to misconceptions, misdirection and prejudices. Facts and logic only go so far. When they fail, sometimes all we have to go on is faith.”

  Jude held her hand and gave her a tired smile. “Says the agnostic.”

  “Doesn’t mean I don’t believe in anything. We both saw what he did, Jude. If we choose to believe in that, that we choose to believe the rest of his story.”

  Jude took a deep breath and glanced over at his sleeping patient. “Is it really that easy for you?”

  She raised her shoulders. “Right now, you’re wishing you never picked up the phone when I called you, or that you had called 911 when I did. The facts, Jude, are that you didn’t. You brought him here and you agreed to help him. He can’t not exist now, just because it’s uncomfortable for you.”

  “So in other words we do the right thing even if it doesn’t make any sense.”

  She stood and kissed him on the head. “Exactly.”

  “I hope this Kale Delancey understands just how lucky he is, that he collapsed in your alley.”

  “If he doesn’t, he soon will. I’m going to go get his medicine. You try not to let him die before I get back.” She took some money from his wallet on the table, blew him a kiss and walked out the door.

  Jude watched her go and then turned back to the still sleeping Kale. “I’m not supposed to let you die, so how about you help me out and keep breathing.” He propped his feet up on the bed, closed his eyes and waited for his sister to come home.

  Chapter 30

  THEY NEEDED SUPPLIES. Maizey was the logical choice to leave the tunnels to get them. In a pinch she could be anyone, or no one at all. She didn’t mind, in fact she volunteered. She understood the necessity of living the way they did, but she couldn’t say she liked it. Knowing there was all that rock, and dirt and buildings just above her head made her a little bit claustrophobic. She could handle it but she didn’t mind leaving when she had the chance.

  Armed with a pocket full of cash and a list, Maizey headed off to the nearest CVS for medical supplies. She was also searching for any clues to Kale’s where abouts. Since he and Cross were identical twins, it would stand to reason that their energy would read the same if not very similar. So as Maizey walked the streets of Manhattan, she searched for Kale. She looked for a person’s unique
energy signature like a dog homed in on a scent cone. But instead of a scent, Maizey sought the unique trails of energy people left in their wake.

  If Kale was anything like his brother, he should have left an extremely vibrant trail. She cast out her psychic feelers, but all she got was the chaotic rush of the people nearby. Flat dull auras, nothing remotely interesting and the psychic noise was giving her a headache. She lowered the intensity of her search as she walked into the CVS and grabbed a basket. She had started filling it from her list when a girl entered the store. She had short blond hair streaked with purple. The psychic energy surrounding her nearly overwhelmed Maizey, even at the subdued level she was receiving. But the energy she sensed from the girl was not her own. It was cast off and a very recent cast off.

  Maizey closed her eyes and let the energy envelop her. This girl had recently been exposed to an incredibly powerful psychic and its signature was familiar. She opened her eyes and smiled.

  She had just found a trail of bread crumbs leading directly to Kale Delancey.

  Part of her was elated, the other part was worried. If Maizey could detect Kale’s energy this easily, she was sure Tanya had people at her disposal who could do the same. She needed to get this girl off the streets. Better yet, she needed her to get to Kale.

  Maizey kept an eye on the girl. She was in line to pick up a prescription. Maizey paid the cashier and left the store. Once outside she bought a hot dog from a corner vender and ate it while waiting on a bench.

  The girl left the store a few minutes later and headed, at a leisurely pace toward the Upper East Side. Maizey could have followed her with her eyes closed. That’s how strongly Kale’s energy permeated her.

  She finished her hotdog and then started to gradually close the distance between them until she was directly behind the girl. Sending out a delicate tendril of psychic energy, she confirmed two things. The first, was that she had definitely been exposed to Kale. The second was that she had no idea Maizey was following her. She learned quite a few other things about the girl as well. The girl had a strong, open mind. All of her feelings were right on the surface. Maizey read her as easily as words on a page. She learned the girl had helped Kale, and she was returning there now. As the girl slowed to cross the street, Maizey stood next to her. Just another face in the crowd.