Knock, knock...

by Dale Mayer

  "There was no smell, then there was a cinnamon scent…or maybe nutmeg." He ran his hands through his hair. "I don't know. I can't explain it. Before she looked lifeless, now there is life, but it's not nice. Like she's scared?"

  "I'll take a look." Stefan hung up.

  Roman stared down at Shay, the dead phone cold in his hands. "I hoped you’d say so."

  The air in the apartment chilled. Goosebumps rose on his arms. He rubbed his hands up and down his arms. He searched the room. It's not like he expected to see Stefan appear in front of him. But he hoped Stefan arrived quickly.

  He shivered.

  What the hell? Everything was the same except the air temperature. He could almost see his breath. He blew out a full breath and stared in amazement. He could see his breath. What was going on? He was a plain talker, and this was not normal. He stood and walked over to the thermostat. It registered 72 degrees. A normal temperature for inside on your average sunny day.

  And definitely wrong. There is no way this could be right. It had to be broken.

  He turned around, wanting desperately to give Shay a good shake and wake her up. Get her the hell out of here. He wanted her at his place...where she belonged.

  Chapter 22

  Shay strode confidently forward across the park-like setting of the cemetery. She'd had no problem finding her way. The funeral was in progress. She studied the energy as she had before. Because she was looking for a killer she had to open herself to the private dark energy of all these people, look under the surface at who they really were, to see what they didn't want anyone to see.

  Horrible things. Often things that people didn't let others, even themselves, know about. Their deepest, darkest secrets were hanging like dirty laundry for her to see.

  And as much as she didn't want to look, she had to. Lives depended on it.

  So she did. Yet nothing triggered any alarms.

  She followed her old path back toward the car with Roman at her side. She paused, caught that same whiff of energy, and stretched out, searching for the source. She thought the energy came from a cluster of people talking with heads bent together, in front of her, but when she moved toward them, they headed to their vehicles and took off. She watched as her body raced down the path toward the trees, only now she'd lost the trail. Damn it. How could that be? She ran to catch up to the energy before she lost it altogether.

  Ahead and slightly off to the side, she thought she caught a glimpse of the same energy that she'd followed earlier. It was moving down the parking lot, parallel to the path she'd taken this morning.

  That made total sense. She hadn't seen it earlier because she assumed she'd been following it. But she'd been following only one strand of that energy – as if the person had walked back and forth along the same path. That had allowed the person to keep track of her...somehow, and they’d circled around to catch her by surprise.

  She ran faster. And came around the trees to find another group of people in her way. Damn it. Why were there so many people here? She was ready to scream. Had she been so focused this morning that she hadn't taken note of them? She whipped around the tree.

  And ground to a stop just in time to watch her body fall. It appeared to be dragged under a tree bough. By itself.

  She stared in shock. She couldn't see the person who was doing the dragging. She saw a weird, pinkish energy, as in her own energy distorted. As she couldn't see the other person, she had to assume they were either invisible, God she hoped not, or like Stefan had suggested, they were using her energy to hide themselves.

  Maybe wrapping her aura around their body.

  She stood in shock, watching. Her energy chilled, yet kept her rooted to the spot.

  Only barely understanding, she studied the energy around her body, hoping her attacker would show himself. The pink vision was dispelling, the energy fraying at the edges. She concentrated, pulling more of her own energy into the vision to try and see something useful. As she stood there, desperate for anything meaningful to be revealed, she reached out a hand, and watched in horror as a hand reached toward her.

  Oh God.

  Stefan.

  Shocked, she stared up at her best friend's face.

  "Shay." His hand reached out and touched her. "Time to go home."

  "No. I haven't found what I need to find."

  "And you can't. Not now."

  "I have to." She reached further, spreading her fingers and clutched at a wisp of the distorted energy, sucking the very essence into her space, hoping to examine it later.

  He shook his head. And with an odd flick of his fingers, Shay was snapped back through time to land with a heavy groan into her body on the couch.

  She opened her eyes to find Stefan, in astral form, leaning over her. "Are you okay?"

  She blinked. Confused and disoriented, she murmured, "What happened?"

  "That's what I'd like to know." Roman leaned over her. His energy blended with Stefan's. What the hell? She blinked and tried to clear her vision. Then Stefan moved. And she could see them both.

  Thank God.

  ***

  "Would you like to explain what the hell happened just now?" Roman carried Shay’s full mug of coffee into the living room and set it down on the coffee table. "I don't understand that...but I want to."

  Shay sat up in a movement reminiscent of his grandmother’s before she passed away. Slow and sluggish, like every muscle had to work overtime to make her body do what she wanted it to do. Eventually Shay reached forward to accept her coffee then slumped back into the corner.

  "Is it always like this?"

  She looked up in surprise. "Uhm, no. Usually I recover much faster. But I was pushing the limit this time, got confused, and didn't exactly have an easy homecoming."

  "Why not?"

  "Stefan sent me home, actually. And that was probably a good thing. I seemed to have been frozen there – as in, locked in place and unable to move."

  "There?" Roman took a deep breath. "Please, tell me – what is there?"

  She stared at him with a hypnotic expression in her eyes that made him want to reach out, snag her up, and hold her close. Yet he’d been warned not to touch her while she did energy work and when she was recovering.

  And the sharing of her experiences was all new to him. He suspected Stefan was a special friend because he understood her and what she went through. To do the stuff she was doing and to be alone, with no one to talk to about it, couldn't be easy.

  He wanted to be one that she could talk to. Open communication was important to him. Or was it?

  Inside, he winced as he thought about his paintings and what he kept from her.

  ***

  Shay wondered if a washing machine felt as worn out after a busy wash weekend as she did after this trip. She hadn't even had a chance to sort through what happened. She'd been paralyzed on the spot. Hadn't been able to move, was barely able to think, and had been getting colder by the second.

  The first attack had been on her body, but the attack while she'd been looking for more information…that attack had been on her ethereal body.

  Like how freaky was that?

  And if she felt like she'd entered the twilight zone, she could only imagine how Roman would feel if she told him details of her experience.

  He said he wanted to know. She just wasn't sure he could handle knowing.

  And she wanted to know about that energy she'd tried to grasp. She'd caught a touch of it, enough to know something about it, but she needed to be sure. She stared at her closed fist and stalled...

  The phone rang, giving her a chance to put off making a decision. She dragged her cell phone out of her pocket. "Stefan? What the hell happened?"

  She gave Roman a reassuring smile. "Stefan, I'm going to put you on speaker phone. Roman needs to hear this, too."

  His voice filled the room. "Except I don't have an answer. I found you frozen at the scene where you were hit. There was no one around. At least not any longer. Not on an
y plane that I could find, but your energy was draining off too fast for me to do anything to stop it, except to break your trance and send you home."

  "And how did you know to find me?"

  "Thank Roman for that." Stefan paused then added heavily, "I think whoever did this was related to Darren."

  She gasped. "Are you sure?"

  "Yes. Look at what you're holding in your hand. Like really look. Drop all your fears, your insecurities and see what is really there. You brought home a piece of that energy. The only way you could have done that was if you had some kind of connection. Darren."

  Taking a deep breath she opened her mind and switched on her inner vision and looked. There was something there, but… Grabbing onto her fears, she breathed love and light into them, releasing the fears to the ethers. Then she went deeper than she'd gone before.

  And saw it. She gasped as a familiar signature shimmered in her hand. Familiar…and yet not. This signature was similar to Darren's but wasn't his. It filled her palm, quivering in place. She whispered, "It is a family member."

  "It's got to be the twin." Roman said. "There is no one else."

  Oh God. She bowed her head. Damn. "Ronin needs to know what's going on. He needs to find the twin. He has to be in this vicinity. In the city, close to me."

  "Ronin does know."

  "Is there nothing to be done? It's hardly safe with this person running around."

  Roman put his coffee down very slowly, but Shay watched the temper building on his face.

  "It's all right, Roman," Shay said. "This is the first time something like this has happened. It's bizarre enough that it's not likely to happen again."

  "But it could. Right?" He stared, narrow-eyed, at her. She tried for that reassuring smile again and was about to speak, but Stefan beat her to it.

  "Yes. It could," Stefan said. "Any time we do energy work, there is a chance of something going wrong. The same as you could have an accident any time you get behind the wheel of your car."

  Roman frowned at the cell phone in Shay’s hand.

  She raised it higher and smiled grimly at him. "He's right. It's very unusual for us to have a problem, but nothing is without risk. And rarely are we fighting off attackers."

  He sat back and glared at her. "But this time you are. And I don't like it."

  She answered tartly, "No, and I understand that. But you have to let me do this. It's what I do."

  She stared him down, watching resignation and then acceptance slip into his gaze.

  Stefan added, "It's what I do, too."

  And that seemed to settle Roman. He stared moodily up at the ceiling.

  Shay felt for him. Talk about being pushed out of his comfort zone. And she knew he didn't really understand what they were talking about. Would it help for him to have a different type of demonstration?

  Stefan spoke in her head. Go ahead if you want to.

  She grinned, watching Roman's frown deepen. I don't think Roman is ready for another one of those displays.

  "Maybe he needs it. How else can he understand?"

  Again Roman’s deep blue gaze fixed on her. "Need what?" Suspicion laced his voice.

  "It doesn't matter." She shrugged. "You don't need a demonstration right now, and I'm too tired for one anyway."

  "What kind of demonstration? Stefan already gave me one." Roman leaned forward. "And how invasive would it be?"

  "Not. And this would be what I can do." She said with a smile. "I could just walk in your footsteps today and tell you what you did."

  He shook his head. "Like that would help. I was with you all day."

  She laughed. "Good point. Then I'll read your energy and tell you about where you spend it."

  He tilted his head. "Spend it. What does that mean?"

  She leaned forward until they were eye level. "I can tell where your energy goes on a daily basis. It doesn't have to be too personal. For example..." She paused and shifted her viewing angle. "You have a close relationship with Gerard, and even though you pretend not to worry, you generally call him several times a day."

  He smiled. "Of course I do. Look at his age and the personal loss he's sustained lately."

  She smiled. "But you didn't have that same relationship with your grandmother or your aunts and two uncles."

  "Two uncles?" he shook his head. "I believe I have only one."

  She studied his energy again. "Two males and one female on that level."

  "One male and one female," he corrected. "But that's all right, what else?"

  Wanting to avoid an argument, but knowing he'd ask his grandfather, she studied his energy again. "You enjoy your job, but for you it's a nine to five commitment." She frowned. "Your painting is your joy. And..."

  "Again, that's all superficial and has been discussed before."

  "And I'm not trying to invade. Remember? However, if you want more… I can see an incident in high school that badly affected you. You lost someone you were very close to."

  He straightened, a look of surprise coming over his face. "You spoke to my grandfather about that," he accused.

  "No," she said gently, "I can see you dedicate a certain amount of your energy to honoring her."

  "Her?" his voice was hard, stiff. "How could you know that this person is female?"

  "Because you funnel soft, gentle energy in that direction. Loving energy that goes way into your past. Not to a child. Not to an animal, and yes, I can see those, too. Like your golden lab you grew up with, called Rex."

  He sat back. What else could she know? Did she know about his paintings of her? Damn he should have told her himself. He didn't want her to find out this way. And yet this so wasn't the time.

  Or was it?

  She smirked. "Convinced?"

  And the moment passed. Relieved, he smiled. "Well, I certainly am convinced you can access information in my past. How accurately, I don't know. Rex was my dog – a wonderful dog. He died when I was fourteen. I thought my world had ripped apart back then."

  "But nothing compared to the loss you sustained when you were seventeen." She couldn't help but soften her voice. His pain had been real, his honoring of that special person a daily fact. One he continued to expend energy on her every day. "I can tell she's still important to you."

  He said starkly, simply, "She is. She was my sister."

  ***

  Goddamn it, Shay. What the fuck were you doing there The walls glared back, providing no answers.

  How had she been there – like that? In that form. It wasn't possible. I only went back to the area to see if you'd been found – and what did I find – you in astral form.

  Try to follow me, would you? Not likely.

  Not in any way. There were limitations to energy work. But there was no way Shay was anywhere close to them. It wasn't possible that she could be that good.

  No way you did that on your own. It had to have been a fluke. I've tried to do something similar to shadow walking – and I failed. There's no way you're better than me. You had to have help.

  There could be a few others who could do this energy work – maybe. But not Shay. Not like that. Never that bitch. Darren had explained about Shay's holier-than-thou attitude to life and money and how it pissed him off. He'd loved knowing how superior he was to her. Knowing that she had no idea how he fooled her. That his skills were strong and that knowledge gave him a sense of power.

  A power that was somehow false. He'd died. Shay didn't.

  And that had to be fixed. Shay couldn't be allowed to live.

  Darren had planned on killing her. That he had died in her place was a wrong that had to be righted.

  But how? There hadn't been enough time to kill her at the cemetery. Not with so many people around. So I went back to see if I could finish the job.

  And saw Shay. On the ground where I left her…but standing up in astral form as well, now that had been...bizarre. Shay had been so clear. Easy to identify. How? What happened? There'd been another sort of energy there, t
oo. But that wasn't recognizable either.

  Another person? Part of Shay's energy, even though it looked different? It would be great to think Darren's ghost had been going after Shay, but it hadn't felt like him.

  No one else understood both the freedom and the sadness of living like this.

  No one cared.

  There had to be an outlet for this rage. Now.

  Someone was going to die.