I touched the spot in the sink. It was warm. Apprehension shivered down my spine.
Biting her lip, Blythe turned on the water and splashed some on the stain. “I think it’s permanent.” She shut off the water, looked up at me and blinked. “I’ve never seen that happen. I think it would take a lot of evil.”
“Well, you did see the demons.” Cradling my throbbing arm to my chest, I briefly closed my eyes. “What do you need for this agrimony bath?”
“Boiling water. Not that much. Just enough for a sponge bath.”
“Can you zap some?”
“I try not to zap heat.” Blythe grinned and stepped toward the items spilling over the table and onto the floor. All the little baggies from her purse.
I smirked. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t want to do that.” I pulled out a stew pot and filled it with water before setting it to boil. The crawling fire in my arm was starting to make movement difficult. I rubbed it and turned to find that Fred had returned.
He stood behind Nikolos, his shoulders slumped. Something in my belly eased upon seeing my constant companion. It tightened back up when I saw his expression. His normally tan farmer’s skin was so pale I could nearly see through it. I lifted an eyebrow, silently telling him to spill.
“Their spirit guides didn’t return.”
His words, murmured so low, didn’t compute. Knowing he would go on, I waited.
He shuffled his feet, tugged on his untucked blue chambray shirt before smoothing his hand over one of the faint char marks that drove him crazy. “The people in the hospital, the ones the demons came through… Beri, I went to find them, to see what I could learn. They’re not there. Their souls are just gone.”
I looked at Phro, who was back in her white satin evening gown, her hair now short and gelled in spikes all over her head. She had been drawing new, feathered tattoos on her arms with one fingernail but she stopped and aimed that fingernail at Fred. “Not possible. You must be wrong.”
He shook his head. “I’m not the only one who’s been paying attention. Others have noticed. There are extra spirit guards on some of the coma people. Guards who thought the spirit guides were just trapped in the coma. They expected them to return to our dimension when the victim died.” He shuddered. “They didn’t. None of them.”
I looked at Nikolos. I’d sensed he’d seen my guides earlier in the hospital. Fred had said he could. Now I waited for the proof.
Just as the water came to a boil, Nikolos turned to Fred. “I have two questions. Did you pick Beri or were you assigned?”
Fred glanced at me, bit his lip then frowned as he crossed his arms. “And the other?”
“Why are you traveling with the Goddess of Love?”
Chapter Six
Fred didn’t answer right away. Instead, he turned to me. His boyishly handsome features twisted into a grimace as he picked at one of the smaller charred spots on his jeans. I was used to the play of emotions over his face, but I wasn’t used to the gut feeling that he was keeping something from me. I could see it. Could see the deliberate wipe of his expression. Something I hadn’t seen in years passed through his eyes. A dark and furious protectiveness I hadn’t needed since I came into my strength—into my ability to take care of myself.
My breath caught at the realization that not everything with Fred was black and white. Okay, we’re all individuals with dips and curves and secrets, I knew that, but my Fred—and yeah, he was mine—he was the proverbial open book. Probably the inspiration behind the cliché.
Or had that been another one of my dumb assumptions?
From the beginning he’d been like a playmate—a trusted best friend—someone who was there for me throughout the absolute hell of my childhood. He’d laughed and cried with me, had done what he could to protect me with his limited reach into the physical realm, but he’d always made sure I was completely aware of my surroundings whenever danger lurked.
And it had. Often. I’d been a magnet for the monsters from my earliest memory—not all of them supernatural.
I wasn’t sure when I’d become the adult and he the childhood playmate again. He was—without doubt—an adult, but something about his boyish reticence always made him seem young. Immortally young—which was a sad fact, but true nonetheless.
But right then, there was a hardness to his face I remembered from childhood. It was an expression he’d tried to keep from me, but one I’d seen whenever I’d failed to get away. When I ended up hurt, curled up in some dark corner…
Sleazy, black memories clawed into the outer reaches of my head. I shivered, my breath releasing with a moan I couldn’t stop in time.
Swallowing back the bile that had risen into my throat, I turned to Phro. My other constant. Since I was nine, anyway. She had one pierced, black eyebrow quirked. That silly piercing yanked me back into reality. A tiny, silver ankh dangled from the corner of the loop. She’d never worn this before.
I reached up to cover my own. My talisman. The ankh, which was the only thing that still connected me to a life I knew nothing about. Outside of a ratty blue blanket, the ankh had been left with me in that swamp. Bergdis Hildegun was etched onto the back.
The symbol of life, or spirit protection depending on where you went for research, I did know the ankh was of Egyptian origin and that in some circles it was believed to be the key that unlocked the secrets of death. It was then I saw Phro pointing at Nikolos’s chest.
I frowned at her. Yeah, so his bod was nice even with all the scars. Now wasn’t the time. I tried to glare this with my eyes but she just rolled her own and pointed to her eyebrow. I blinked at her.
Muttering about idiots, she jumped from the counter and stomped to Nikolos before jabbing her finger at his throat. He watched her, a frown pulling his dark eyebrows close.
I followed that finger and felt the world shift beneath my feet. I strode to him on shaky legs and reached up to wrap my hand around the ankh nestled in the hollow at the bottom of his throat. His skin was hot against the back of my hand.
How had I missed this?
Okay, well, the chest was damned impressive.
I completely forgot about Nikolos’s question to Fred and Fred’s avoidance—I even forgot about my wound briefly, shocking as that was. His ankh was like mine. Just like mine.
Our gazes clashed and I let go to pull my ankh from under the T-shirt where I wore it. Mine was on a longer chain, but the design was the exact same. Hand-flattened silver with an intricate honeycomb pattern etched onto the surface. I’d spent years researching books on jewellery, asking jewellers about it, and had never found anything like it.
“Where did you get that?” The demand in his voice rattled my nerves.
“Don’t know. Where did you get yours?”
“It was a gift a long, long time ago.” He ran his finger down the center of my ankh, then he curled his hand into a fist around it and squeezed. His eyes closed, his chest rose and fell faster and faster as his breathing picked up pace.
I watched him struggle for control. His eyes opened and my chest froze. A lifetime of pain passed through that nearly-black stare. He pulled away and stepped back, knocking the chair into Blythe in his haste. She dropped the sponge she’d been using to wash his back.
He didn’t take his eyes from me as he reached down, grabbed his shirt then thrust his arms into the sleeves. I held my breath, unsure how to react to what he was letting me see. Devastation, despair…I’d never seen anything like the hell I was glimpsing here. I blinked as my eyes burned and that strange connection I’d felt with him became a physical thing. It snapped taut, pulling me toward him.
He held up his hand, shook his head and left.
Just like that.
We all watched him leave and I couldn’t move. My legs felt mired in wet cement, my belly hollow. My heart lay in pieces on the floor. I didn’t know what had just happened but I knew I never wanted to see it happen again. I’d planned to drive him back to get his vehicle, but I didn’t go after
him. He wouldn’t want me to—that was obvious.
No one said a word as we went about taking care of my arm and leg. I sat in the chair, still warm from Nikolos’s body, and let Blythe make a fresh batch of whatever-it-was she’d mixed with the agrimony. I didn’t much care because I desperately needed some alone time to think.
It took me forever to fall asleep. For one, I didn’t feel like I had any right with my sister lying helpless in that damned hospital. I wanted to keep looking, wanted to hunt down Nikolos and demand an explanation for what had happened in Elsa’s kitchen. I wanted to grill him, then jump his bones and make his sadness go away. The crazy mix of needs was so bad my body actually ached as if a new emptiness had taken root—one I hadn’t known existed.
I felt on the verge of tears, pissed and turned on all at the same time.
This made for a lot of tossing and turning.
I needed the sleep. The wounds still hurt despite all the mumbo jumbo Blythe had performed. It had helped, I’d give her that, but a low ache remained as did that creepy crawly feeling. Man, I hated that part. It was like bugs crawling under my skin.
I flopped onto my back and cursed at the ceiling. Heavy curtains blocked out all the light from the streetlights. Elsa, knowing my dislike of the city, did her best to make it feel not city-like here in my room. The bed wasn’t as big as I liked, but fitting a king into this room would have been asking a bit much. I loved the soft, fluffy blue comforter. I normally didn’t have trouble sleeping in this little haven Elsa had made for me in her home, but then today had been so far out of normal—even for me—that I shouldn’t be surprised. Something was nagging the back of my mind, something big, but hazy and until I worked it out I wasn’t going anywhere near Snoozeland.
Sighing, I turned to my side and shoved one foot out from under the covers.
“We must move fast. Find the host,” Nikolos had said. Before his heartbreaking disappearance, that is. If it was so damned important, how could he just walk away like that? But then, I’d seen that expression. Had recognized it.
It had been eerily similar to the expression I’d seen reflected in a mirror the first time I’d been shoved back into the children’s home. That first set of fosters had done a number on me—one that set the tone for my expectations every single time I’d set out to try a new one. Only once had things been good. Only when the traveling had given me Elsa. She was my greatest gift.
And I needed sleep so I could be strong enough to save her. I had no choice.
When I did finally sleep, my dreams were fractured. Images of Elsa superimposed over those of every monster I’d come in contact with over the years. The image changed to the room where I slept and I quickly realized I was no longer dreaming, but very awake and very aware.
And very not in my body.
Shit.
This had happened to me before. I knew it was some sort of astral projection, but frankly it creeped me out. It had been happening a lot more in the last few months, but I had yet to learn to control it. Learn what to do with the thick, silver line that connected my spirit to my body. The last time this had happened, I’d awakened in a tree, the silver cord tangled so badly in the branches it had taken me over two hours to get myself free. I had looked up astral projection on a few websites and quit reading after seeing that no one ever talked about getting their cords tangled. Ever.
At least this time, I was still in the room Elsa kept for me in her house. It was strange hovering over my own body, seeing how I look asleep—my hair in a wild tangle over my face, my breath pushing up strands in rhythmic pulses. One bare foot stuck out from the covers.
A sudden noise made my metaphysical body jump.
Oh my God, had that been a mini snore?
And where were Fred and Phro? The slackers weren’t doing their job and watching over me…though technically, it was only Fred’s job.
Another noise sounded but it didn’t come from my body. It came from the corner of the room.
I couldn’t turn my head to look. My metaphysical body felt weightless, without muscles, organs or tendons. But I could feel air touch my skin. Normally when this happened, I could just float around wherever I wanted. This time was different. I tried to shift my eyes toward the shuffling noise, but my body was frozen. The sound grew louder, sandpapery, sliding—like a sack of wet dirt dragging across the floor.
The noise stopped, but it didn’t ease the terror my spirit shouldn’t even be able to feel. It wasn’t a comforting silence.
An invisible caress brushed over my skin, as if someone softly blew evil across my body.
I could still see myself lying there on the bed, helpless. A shadow crossed my exposed foot. I could only hover and watch as a misty, sinuous form crawled up my legs to straddle my waist. It sat there, staring down at my face.
Now intellectually, I knew that a spirit couldn’t hurt me. They can sometimes get angry enough to shove power at something to move it or at someone to push them out of the way, but physically damage? No. But something about this spirit pulled my knowledge through a sieve, split it all up into tiny pieces and left nothing but cold doubt and fear.
I held my breath as it leaned forward and ran its tongue over my face. Ew.
My hair wasn’t moved out of the way—no tell-tale wetness left behind. My breath let out, or it would have if I had any. It was just a poltergeist. A mischievous spirit, ornery but harmless.
Then it slowly turned its head to look up at me and grinned. It took on face and form and my metaphysical self shuddered in terror. Wispy, out of place features slid around as the being solidified into something out of a childhood nightmare. A small, yet powerful creature with pointed ears and teeth. Sharp and shiny and too numerous for a normal mouth. This mouth, however, wasn’t normal. It stretched wide, like the Dweller Demon’s had, but this grin pulled the demented elfin face into a gruesome parody of a child. The kind of evil child from a 1970s horror flick, only worse.
It still grinned and before I could do anything, it pressed knobby hands down on my chest and pushed.
Pain shot into my metaphysical body, breaking my paralysis. I did the only thing I could think of. I started raveling the silver thread. I watched as a part of my physical chest dented, yet felt the crunch of the broken rib here in this plane. Shuddering, I pulled on the chord, faster and faster until I saw the end. I didn’t wait.
I dove into my body.
My eyes flew open and I stared into the space over myself, making out the shadowy outline of the thing sitting on my chest. I couldn’t breathe—couldn’t move my arms or legs. Agony flushed through me, turned the edges of my vision dark. I tried to heave my torso, to knock it off but it only crouched closer until it felt like the entire length of it was on top of me. It couldn’t be—it wasn’t that tall. In my metaphysical state, I’d been able to see it in solid form, but here I had to stare hard into the space. Slowly, I began to make out a face with lips stretched over pointed teeth. It shimmered, twisted.
Ghostly hands came around my throat. They shouldn’t have had this much power! I closed my eyes and concentrated on relaxing and trying to breathe. Breaking free of the ghostly paralysis would take everything in me. I’d done it before. When I was a kid. Or I could try to just hold my breath until Fred or Phro returned—
And with that thought, it was gone.
I gasped in air, blinking up at Fred. Absolute fury molded his features, turning him into a stranger. In the place of my mild-mannered, sometimes smart-aleck spirit guide, I saw a man. A different man. He went hazy, eyebrows looking darker, bushier, then it was him again, only furious. He turned and heaved something toward the wall. A shadowy hole opened, there was this sucking noise, then the hole quickly closed.
I sat up, chest on fire. Dizziness spun the room in circles twice before it settled. I put a hand on my chest, feeling the spot where that creature had broken a rib. It didn’t feel broken now, though. Just really, really sore.
“Where did it go?” I managed to gasp past
my sore throat.
“You don’t want to know,” he said, rubbing his palms on his jeans.
I nodded slowly. “No, guess not.” I rubbed my eyes. “Goddess, that hasn’t happened since I was a kid.”
Phro, who’d just come into the room, looked at the dark, shadowy place still fading into the wall. She frowned. “What hasn’t happened since you were a kid?”
“She was hagged,” Fred said.
She scowled at the wall. “Glad you got rid of it.”
He nodded, his expression drawn. “Didn’t have a choice.”
“You shouldn’t feel bad, you know,” she told him. “It made its choice. Beri comes first.”
“Hey,” I said, still taking deep breaths. It felt as if my lungs had been turned inside out. “I’m still here, ya know.”
Phro came farther into the room and stopped by the end of the bed. “This happened when you were a kid? Before I came along or after?”
I shrugged. “Before and after. But I wasn’t—what do you call it? Hagged? This was different from before. When I was a kid, I never saw that thing sitting on my chest.” I rubbed my throat. The sore areas were going to make one hell of a bruise tomorrow. “What happened to me as a kid was a sleep paralysis thing. Saw a show on it.”
Phro snorted. “Sleep paralysis is the scientist’s way of explaining hagging.” Her eyes narrowed. “How old were you when it started?”
“I don’t know—three or four, I suppose. What exactly is hagging?”
Fred cleared his throat. “Just what you saw. A spirit sitting on your chest. Some suck up energy, some press down. But they all make the victim feel as if they can’t move.”
Phro sat on the edge of my bed. “Doing that to anyone is cruel, but to kids? It can kill them. Scare them to death.”
Fred stared at the clear wall. Nothing but two pretty ocean prints there now. “Kills adults, too. Remember that whole SUNDS thing after the Vietnam War?”
Dweller on the Threshold Page 9