by Lynde Lakes
Madam Nola smiled. “You pay for an hour even if you don’t use all the time available to you. And it’s dangerous to hurry the spirits.”
Damon squeezed Angela’s hand as though to silence her. “Of course,” he said. “I’d like to see what your crystal ball can reveal to us.”
“Good,” Madam Nola said. She whispered something to her Cockatoos and, in a white flutter of wings, they flew to twin circular swing-perches. From there, they watched with beady eyes. Madam Nola gestured for Angela and Damon to take a seat.
Angela noted all the furniture in the house was small except the table and the three chairs around it. Madam Nola brought a small stepping stool and climbed up. Her chair had a booster seat on it.
She wiggled around until comfortable, then touched something under the table and the room darkened and more incense sprayed from a nearby plant. She removed the velvet cover from the crystal ball sitting in the center of the table, muttered some Egyptian gibberish, and floated her hands across the globe.
Suddenly, a scene of the wild, hilly acreage behind the mansion filled the flashing orb. It was followed by an image of a cross-section of the earth beneath the surface of the ground. A center layer of mud, bones, and floating ash broiled in fury. Without warning, a blob of muddy crud, shaped like the head and shoulders of an ogre, shot up from the depths to its waist. They all flinched. It reached toward Angela with slimy arms and claw-like fingers. “I don’t know what that horrible creature is, but it isn’t why we came,” she said past the constriction in her throat.
“The crystal ball revealed the image to warn you. It’s prudent to trust the vision. TV reports by experts confirm the problems in the ground behind your mansion—those scientists claim the earthquake initiated ground-instability at the foot of Mt. Baldy and it set off a chain of events that’s triggering strange species to form in the stratum.” Madam Nola looked up with her luminous emerald-green eyes and met Angela’s gaze with a frightening intensity. “That ogre has fixated on you. In addition, there’s a new dark aura around you that’s growing darker. Have you heard of the devil-chosen dead whose life force dwells with them forever?”
Angela shook her head. An icy shiver slithered through her. Damon put his arm around her shoulder. They exchanged glances. His face looked gray, his eyes worried.
Madam Nola lowered her voice to a chilling whisper. “For the chosen evil ones, everlasting life begins with a journey through the underworld. The ka, or life force, leaves the body, followed by ba, or soul.”
Angela gripped the chair arms and clung to reality with all of her might. This was simply a part of the psychic’s show. She’d even named her Cockatoos after the life force and soul. “What about our girls?” Angela asked, forcing herself to stay on point.
“It’s too early to tell anything significant about unborn souls. But the spirits suggest the threat aimed at you may actually be revenge against Damon. You and Damon are no longer alpha wolves, however, both of you have retained the alpha characteristics. Two alphas leading a pack in the wilds works, but—” She cleared her throat. “My point is, you must cling together and grow stronger to fight the darkness.”
Angela folded her arms across her breasts and held herself rigid to keep from running out of the building screaming. She took a deep, fortifying breath. “But you must tell me something about our unborn girls.” Was Madam Nola stalling to extract more money? Angela frowned. She had to remember it was Madam Nola who’d disposed of Reeves’ body and kept Damon out of jail. That alone was worth her outrageous fees, so she mustn’t resent the mystic’s hunger for money. But the wily dwarf straight-out scared her, and she definitely didn’t trust her.
Madam Nola frowned. “You still don’t trust me, do you?” She looked at Angela long and hard. “I forgive you, my dear. It takes some people longer than others to accept the truth.” She switched her probing gaze to Damon. “Handle the now. Bigger trouble will raise its ugly head soon enough.”
Damon withdrew his arm from around Angela and leaned forward, his intense gaze matching that of the cunning psychic’s. “What does that mean?”
Once more, Madam Nola waved her hand across the crystal. Again, the images churned in the ground. The muddy ogre opened its mouth and a stream of flaming ashes tumbled out. Madam Nola paled. “I can’t tell you more today.”
Angela shot out of her chair and placed her hands on her hips. “But you haven’t said anything!”
“I’m sorry, my dear. We’re delving into dangerous territory and an urgent darkness is blocking the projections. Until your girls are born, I cannot tell you what you want to know.”
Damon stood and once more put his arm around Angela. Looking resigned, he asked, “When should we come back to find out about our girls?” His deep monotone tugged at Angela’s heart.
“Wait until the first full moon after their third birthday for prime results. Until then, even when the world comes crashing down around you and you get all bloody diving for cover, love will boost your will, presence of mind, and strength to survive. Build on what you have and strengthen it—or it may not last.
Damon didn’t start the car right away. He just sat there, inhaling Angela’s faint, shower-fresh fragrance and empathizing with her disappointment while trying to come to grips with his own. Shedding the curse was supposed to free him from his torment. Now he had to wait to find out if he’d passed it on to his daughters—and if so, exactly how the curse would manifest itself. If passed on, would it be Angela’s yearly curse or his moon-controlled curse? In his family, only the men were affected, in Angela’s, only the women. Could he count on that? Combining curses may have changed things. Damn. Damn. I must keep Angela and my girls safe.
The dread inside Damon deepened. He could feel the adrenaline surging. Was Reeves the blob in the mud? Taking a few deep breaths, he struggled to control the blind rage that threatened to explode as he recalled his brother’s attack on Angela when she was helpless in the hospital. He forced himself to unclench his fist and ease his hold on the steering wheel as he stared out into the deceivingly innocent afternoon light. Even now he could sense evil lurking in the shadows. Gooseflesh prickled along his spine. He had to come to grips with all of this.
Failing to get answers was enough to drive even the most stable man mad. His letdown wasn’t all he had to deal with. He had to face and make sense of his chilling personal experience earlier that morning. Knowing state scientists would be digging around in the hills behind his home, he’d dug up Hugo’s grave. His intention had been to move the body to the graveyard on his property to protect it from violation. But when he dug into the ground, there was only a hole full of broiling mud, lending support to the possibility of the dead rising. And that scared the hell out of him.
“What a waste of time and money,” Angela finally said. “I must have been out of my bloody mind to think Madam Nola could help us.”
Angela’s choked voice and quivering lips told him she was on the verge of tears. He drew her into his arms. When he felt her body trembling against his, an aching lump formed in his throat. He kissed Angela’s forehead and took a fortifying breath. He had a strong urge to tell her about Hugo’s missing body. But she already had enough to deal with without heaping his hellish concerns and fears on her—and it wouldn’t accomplish a thing. Not even make him feel better. “Don’t give up on Madam Nola yet. Let’s stay strong and united like she suggested and see what develops.”
Angela glared up him. “But I expected answers. Today.” She sat silently a few more minutes. “There’s something else I need to ask you about.”
He kissed her forehead. “Ask away,” he said, relieved to escape a subject that presently had no solution.
“What do you know about the holes in the eyes of your parents’ portrait and the holes in the wall behind it?”
Her statement was so unexpected and so far from left field that he reeled from it. “What are you talking about?”
“Are you telling me you didn’t know ab
out the holes or that someone was spying on us?”
“Are you kidding? Of course I didn’t know.” He wondered who and why. The likely answer, someone on his staff, wouldn’t make her feel better. He clenched his hands into fists. This was another issue to investigate, prove, and then fire the guilty.
“Then you don’t mind that I asked Kyle to fill the holes and re-paint.”
“Why would I? It saves me the trouble.” He didn’t want to tromp on her confidence by admitting he would’ve preferred to do it himself. He might have found evidence to point to the guilty. Without evidence, it might take a little longer, but he would locate the spy. And he planned to find out exactly what was behind that wall. He’d heard of tunnels. But he thought they were located behind the storage room just off the dungeon and had been sealed off. “Probably the holes are something from the past and nothing to worry about.”
“If you think that makes me feel safer, you’re wrong.”
He drew her into his arms while trying to come to terms with his uneasiness and concern about the dark world he’d drawn her into. Before he’d met her, he only wanted to be left alone and hide his family’s past from the world. Now, much more was at risk. He feared the cloak of danger seeping into their tumultuous consciousness would send them into conflict with each other, themselves, and their surroundings—and he didn’t know how to stop it.
Finding Hugo’s empty grave was as unnerving as hell, but not as much as seeing that open-mouthed ogre reaching for Angela. He tightened his hold on her soft, warm body, feeling her vulnerability and aching to be her shield. The flaming ashes tumbling out of that muddy mouth screamed that the blob was Reeves. His evil half-brother had been burned to ashes and the area of turmoil was where Madam Nola scattered them. Damn it. He’d think he was drudging up the impossible, except deep in his gut he believed that, given time and the right circumstances, nothing was impossible—not even the dead rising from ashes. Even before Madam Nola mentioned it, he’d heard of the concept of the chosen dead receiving a life force that would dwell with them forever—and the theory terrified the hell out of him. What horrors were in store for his family if Reeves’s life force remained with him forever? Damon tried to ignore the icy chill that slithered down his back. He had to discover if his home still had unsealed tunnels. And if it did, he had to seal them.
Angela looked up at him with liquid moss-green eyes, shook off his hold, and escaped his arms. “We went to Madam Nola for answers and left with nothing but more questions.” Frustration rang in her words. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared out the window like somehow the lack of answers was his fault.
Perhaps it was. But assigning blame wouldn’t help. It was his job as the man of the house to fix the impossible. Fate had plunked him into another tension-filled chess game and forced him to brood over his next move. He made himself breathe in and out while trying to gather his wits.
He had resources. Relentless determination had assisted him in rescuing his family’s dwindling importing empire and building it into the top-producing corporation it was today. But those feats were child’s play compared to the miracle he’d have to pull off to protect Angela and his unborn girls from the evil awakening dead.
He sat for several more heartbeats before starting the engine. Angela didn’t trust the crystal ball as much as he did. But he’d seen the airplane’s image explode, warning him. And, if he hadn’t taken action, the plane would have exploded. Now, he felt strongly that the crystal’s image of that ashy, open-mouthed blob was yet another warning he dared not take lightly. For his family—and even the community who had scorned him most of his life—he must be prepared to fight and, if necessary, suffer the life of the damned.
Several days later, sitting at her desk at Derrick Simons and Associates where she worked as a research analyst, Angela fought a tension headache. Damon had promised to find the spy and fire him. Would he do a probing investigation or just ask everyone if they did it? It made her uneasy that he trusted everyone and accepted them at face value.
On top of the worries already weighing her down, her new division chief, Dudley Knox, was giving everyone trouble and shooting the tension level in the office off the charts. With a cocky gait, he strode into her office, digging the heels of his cowboy boots into the carpet. He stopped in front of her desk and glared at the bookkeeper, Louise.
“Louise and I are going over the figures you had questions about.” Angela felt if Louise hadn’t been there, he might have been civil. Her muscles tensed as she waited for the usual cruel barrage to start. No one was safe from his insults.
The staff should join together and file a harassment charge against him, but with being shorthanded, no one had the time to document his offences.
He glared up at her with nasty, squinty blue eyes. When she refused to wilt under his scrutiny, he raked his thick, brown hair with violent fingers and shifted his glare to Louise. “This is a working place, not a bitch hangout. Lumber back to your office, fatty, and do some work for a change.”
The cruel, raw words were totally undeserved. Angela ached to take him down a peg. He turned his attention to her without quite meeting her gaze and asked, “And where the hell are those specifications I requested?”
She intensified her glare, hoping he felt her contempt. “On your desk, sir.” She would quit, but she liked the big bosses and, besides, her sudden absence would burden her co-workers. She stood and looked down at the little Napoleon. “Do you need something else, Dudley?”
He growled something under his breath and stomped away.
She tried to make herself believe the little toad couldn’t be all bad. He’d told her his story. He’d pulled himself up from a harsh, poverty-stricken childhood with a cruel and violent alcoholic dad. Dudley had worked hard and made something of himself rather than becoming a gang-banger like many of his peers. And she’d seen his human, protective side a few times where he became an entirely different person. Which was the real one? With two or more people in a room, he seemed compelled to put on his employee-debasing show. Although she understood what made him tick, she couldn’t forgive his cruelty. She shook her head. How could she admire what he’d achieved, yet despise him so much?
His success was another lesson in networking, the power of association, and a determination to work toward one’s goals. Unfortunately, that grit, along with his intelligence and quick mind, had put him in a position of power—and in a position to humiliate and crush.
She was glad he’d left before Katrina slinked up to her desk. Dudley always attacked Kat’s low self-esteem, overt sexiness, and called her the office whore. Katrina dished it right back in aces. Angela feared one day Kat’s quick comebacks would get the hip-swaying, long-legged seductress canned. She was a hard worker, but she had to be the center of attention when there was a good-looking man nearby. She’d flip her long, silky hair and flaunt her wares in a sexy super-model walk. Then she’d run her hands along her tiny waist to emphasize her big boobs.
Oh, here it comes, Angela thought, watching her friend shift into her look-at-me mode. Angela glanced past Katrina. Sure enough, the slinky walk had been for Jeff, the new delivery hunk-of-muscles who’d just come in the door.
Angela ignored him and turned her attention to her friend. “Whatcha need, Kat?”
Katrina laughed. “A package from him would be a good start.” Then her expression turned serious. “The real question is what do you need, kiddo? You look like hell. Is that what marriage does to you?”
Angela shook her head. “It’s just that I haven’t been getting much sleep lately.”
“Ooooo, pounding the springs that much, huh?” She paused and chewed hard on her wad of gum. “Guess what? My hot Italian stallion asked me to marry him. Can you believe it?”
“What was your answer?”
“I said, yeah, when elephants fly. Think I was too flippant?”
“Maybe. Are you falling for Deeto?”
“I don’t know. He’s been differe
nt lately. He’s signed up for some college courses and he’s been hanging around more, helping me keep the place in order. He’s even started vacuuming and doing the laundry.”
The deliveryman glanced Kat’s way and winked before leaving the building. She bent and straightened her hose, displaying her full cleavage for him. Her low-neck sweater left little to the imagination.
Angela laughed. “Your actions suggest you’re not quite ready to settle down to one man. Besides, I didn’t know educated and domesticated men turned you on. I thought it was strictly guys with hard bodies that rang your chimes.”
“Why can’t I have it all? You hooked yourself a smart exec with a sensational bod, and it’s working out. Maybe I need a brainy guy. You know the type—a gorgeous, bright guy who lifts weights and runs a couple miles before satisfying me in bed.”
“Where’s the love and trust is in that equation?”
“Dullsville. Give me passion, excitement—and throw in a sprinkle of doubt to keep him interested.” She paused. “Are we on for lunch?”
Angela laughed again, her headache gone. “Definitely.”
“Ye Ole Tea Shoppe across the street gets us in and out quickly,” Kat said, “and I took a shine to their apricot-chicken salad. Now if they’d only get some bare-chested, hunky male waiters, it’d be my favorite hangout.”
After Kat went back to her desk, Angela wondered if her friend would ever change. After nearly losing her life to a brutal werewolf attack, one would think she’d look at her world a bit differently and perhaps reevaluate her priorities. Angela laughed. What was she thinking? Kat would always be Kat, and she loved her just the way she was—a fun, energetic original who always brightened her day.
Not ready to settle back down to work, Angela grabbed a newspaper and thumbed through the pages to the horoscope section. She trailed her finger down the page to the Cancer sign, June 22 to July 23, the most likely time for her twins to be born. It said only that those born under the Cancer sign would find changes in the wind. She froze at the word change, thinking of morphing. She slammed the paper with a whack into the trash. Boy, she’d really lost it. First she consulted Madam Nola, and then horoscopes. Next she’d be playing with her mother’s Ouija board.