Vision of Darkness (D.I.E. Squadron Book 1)

by Tonya Burrows

  Give it a rest, inner cynic pleaded. Let’s lay down right here. Just for a sec.

  Overhead, a shadow crossed the hatch door, blocking the light. Pru.

  “Fuck off,” he told his inner cynic. He wouldn’t rest until she was safe.

  Alex forced his drooping eyes to open, compelled his shaking muscles to move, his numbed fingers to wrap around the next baluster. If his damn legs didn’t want to hold him, he’d crawl the rest of the way.

  One step at a time.

  Blood trickled, soaking his shirt, plastering his jeans to his leg.

  One step at a time.

  His dead leg screamed and his arms shook with each jerky movement.

  Almost there.

  One. Step. At. A. Time.

  Dragging himself onto the landing at the top of the stairs, Alex stared through the opening five feet above his head. She was out there on the catwalk, hiking up her skirt, fitting her bare foot onto the lower railing. She was going to jump.

  “Pru…no!” With a surge of adrenaline, he lurched to his feet, grasped the edges of the opening and hauled his body onto the narrow catwalk. Fresh blood spurted from the gunshot wound, gushing between his fingers as he pressed a hand to his side. “Come…down from...there.”

  She spun and snarled at him, blue eyes as wild as the frozen ocean wind whipping at her hair. The lighthouse beam twirled around, spotlighting her. “Silas! You’re supposed to be dead.”

  “Please, stop. Let’s…talk.”

  “I’m all talked out, bub.”

  Desperation propelled him to his feet and he limped a step toward her. “Don’t do…this. Please…I love you.”

  Her expression changed for a split-second, softened and filled with emotion. “Oh, Alex.”

  Then the change was gone. Lovie regained control. She shook her head hard. “Don’t feed me that line, Silas. You love her!”

  Lie to her. C’mon, man, you’re good at playing a role.

  Straightening as best he could, feeling the heat of his blood gushing out underneath his hand, he met her gaze. “No, I don’t.”

  “Oh, yeah! That baby vamp, Prudence. I saw you necking with her, petting her all over. God, first that quiff Olivia Mae and now her?” She spat the pronoun as if it tasted rancid. “I guess that’s what I get for marrying a big six like you.”

  God, he hated this, feeling this helpless. If he could just…do something…

  He shuffled closer, tried to grab her, but his depth perception was out of whack and his fingers only brushed the soft cotton edge of her dress before she stepped out of his reach.

  He groaned. “No. Lovie, please. Come…down.”

  “Uh-uh. I’m gonna bump her off. Then you’ll have to come back to me.”

  Pru swayed on the railing. The beam swung around again and Alex’s vision wavered. He blinked hard as a cold heaviness settled into his muscles and the pain faded. Going into shock, he thought. Lost too much blood, too fast. He stumbled forward another step and gripped the railing by Pru’s foot with fat, numb fingers. If he could wrap his hand around her ankle, yank her down off that ledge…then he could die and not worry Olivia would topple over, following him into the afterlife.

  No—no, not Olivia. Pru. It was Pru standing barefoot on that railing with the rose tattoo on her ankle. It was Pru wearing that ugly-ass green dress. It was Lovie making this all happen again.

  He sagged, wrapping his arm around the railing to keep upright. Below, waves cracked in white clouds against the jagged rocks of the beach. He couldn’t let Olivia fall down there. He loved her too much to—no, not Olivia. Pru.

  Pru!

  The world tilted sideways and he collapsed, whacking his head hard on the railing. No pain. There should be pain.

  She stood over him on the thin, wet railing, balancing with a hand braced on the limestone wall of the tower, a smirk on her face. Lovie was still going to jump and kill Pru and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

  Helpless. Like the boy he’d been, hiding from Granddad’s temper, he was completely helpless again.

  Alex shoved himself to his side, watched as his heart, beating clumsily in his chest, pumped his life onto the weather-washed wood of the catwalk. The lighthouse beam swung around again, showing him how much blood he’d lost. Wide, oil-slick streaks of it. Darkness ebbed in the corners of his conscious.

  You’re an idiot, inner cynic said faintly. You hear me? A fucking idiot for not believing Pru’s ghost stories.

  He couldn’t even tell the cynic to fuck off this time. When you’re right, you’re right.

  He looked at Pru as his vision went out of focus, holding her face in his mind as his life faded away.

  ***

  “Which way?”

  Nick stopped moving among the old, chipped tombstones, halted Mischa with a lifted hand, and let his senses reach out, searching. He may not have an extra sense like Mischa or Alex, but the five he did have worked pretty damn good. He felt the rain thickening into sleet as it pattered over his head, smelled the promise of snow and the rot of autumn leaves, tasted the metallic zing of his own fear. He focused on the rows of graves. With better than average night vision, he could make out most of the names on the closer tombstones, but the graveyard was big enough that it would take too long to search through them one by one.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “You pickin’ up anythin’?”

  Mischa snorted. “Dude, I’m a telepath, not a medium. How the fuck should I know?”

  Medium.

  Well, shit. Nick whipped out his phone and hit speed dial. “Jacob, need some help here, pal.”

  “Alex?” Jacob said.

  “Ghost with a massive grudge against him possessed Pru. We need to salt and burn her bones, assuming that’ll even work, but we have no clue where she’s buried. Got any tricks to find out? Her name’s Adeline Barnett True.”

  “Oh, it’ll definitely work. Hang on.” He muttered away from the phone in a one-sided conversation, then came back. “Case can do it.”

  Nick opened his mouth to protest but snapped it closed again without uttering a word. Now was not the time to argue over whether K.C. Archer was still kicking around this plane of existence eight years after a RPG blew him apart in Iraq. Nick was an open-minded guy—had to be considering he hung out with psychics and had a couple of his own special idiosyncrasies—but boy, was it a kick in the gut to hear Jacob refer to Case as if he was still alive.

  Still, he trusted that Jacob wouldn’t put Alex in danger with wishful thinking. “All right.”

  “Watch for signs from him.”

  Nick pressed his lips together and hung up the phone. Waited until his skin started to itch with the urge to do something. No signs.

  “Well?” Mischa asked.

  “I think we’re on our own.”

  Mischa nodded and hoisted a ratty backpack up on his shoulder, jerked his chin to the left. “I’ll start over here. We’ll meet in the middle. Good luck.”

  Nick jogged to the right, reading each stone, feeling each precious second as it slipped from present to past. Running out of time. Even if they found Lovie True’s grave in the next few minutes, it was going to take forever to dig her up. Providing she was buried. Above ground tombs were in style when she died. If they were lucky, she’d be in one of them instead of six feet under.

  The wind picked up a candy wrapper and flung it across his path. He brushed it aside, and bent down to scrape a pile of leaves away from a gravestone. No go.

  “Dammit.”

  The candy wrapper floated up again and smacked him on the nose. He peeled it off, looked at it, and his heart bungeed.

  Cherry Tootsie Pop.

  K.C.’s favorite snack when he’d been alive. Holy hell.

  “Case, that you?” Holding his breath with a mix of dread and anticipation, Nick let the wrapper go and followed as it twirled and dipped in the air as if it was dancing. It plastered itself on the backside of a mausoleum and Nick moved around to the front, loo
ked up at the name engraved over the door. TRUE.

  “God, K.C.” His voice cracked. “You really are still here.”

  A cold breeze brushed by him and for a second he thought he felt the pressure of a hand on his shoulder. Then it was gone. He shook his head and whistled through his teeth, signaling Mischa.

  ***

  Pru watched the life seep out of Alex and screamed. And screamed. And screamed. But no sound came from her throat.

  “Now it’s your turn,” she heard her own voice say instead. Lovie dug into her mind with long, icy talons, forcing her to let go of the tower’s wall and balance on the railing.

  Did Alex know she hadn’t killed him? He had to know she loved him back and would never voluntarily hurt him.

  Oh God, please let him know.

  Lovie turned her body toward the ocean. Her heart thundered as a gust of cold air whipped rain-sleet into her face. Goosebumps prickled over her skin. The railing was so cold it burned under her bare feet like a hot iron.

  How could she feel her body so keenly and not have control over it? She struggled with the other presence inside her head and felt the pain of a headache as Lovie silenced her again. No use. Eighty-nine years of anger and jealousy had made her far too strong.

  Her feet moved, slipped on the railing. She wanted to squeeze her eyes shut but was unable to make them obey.

  ***

  “Great.” Mischa dropped his bag on the ground and circled the tomb. “But how do we get in?”

  Nick tried the door, found it sealed shut. Standing on his toes, he peeked through the stained glass window at the top of the door and made out the vague outline of one coffin, though there was space for two. Made sense. Silas’s body burned up in the fire.

  Running out of time.

  “I don’t—” He turned to see Mischa on his knees, digging though the bag, coming up with a regular supernatural arsenal. Economy sized can of salt, lighter fluid, small ax, hammer, a glass bottle of water….

  Ah. Perfect.

  Inspired, Nick grabbed the bottle and started to dump it.

  “Wait!” Mischa said. “Shit, dude, you know how hard it is to get holy water?”

  “Holy water?”

  Mischa snatched the bottle back and tucked it safely inside his bag. “You never know.”

  “You’ve done this before.”

  He snorted. “A couple times. Run into lotsa shit as a P.I.”

  “Got another glass bottle in that bag of tricks?” Nick asked.

  He shifted things around, came up with an empty forty. “Don’t know, uh, how that got in there. This work for what you have in mind?”

  Oh yeah. Perfect size, easily breakable. Nick jerked his chin toward the crypt. “Think tossin’ in some salt and a Molotov cocktail will do the trick?”

  Mischa eyed the stained glass window. “Might. But it’ll take longer than salt-barbecuing just the bones.”

  Running out of time.

  “Unless you got a better plan,” Nick said, “it’s our only option. Hand me that hammer and put a Molotov together.”

  Mischa slapped the hammer handle-first into his hand and he climbed the two shallow steps to the crypt’s door. Shielding his face with one arm, he smashed the business end into the stained glass window. It barely chipped. Reinforced. Damn.

  And they were running out of time.

  ***

  “Lovie, don’t do it. Don’t jump off there again.”

  Pru felt her body turn. The words came from Alex’s bloodstained lips, but he wasn’t moving, wasn’t breathing. It was Alex’s voice, but…not his Boston accent. Not him.

  “Silas?” Lovie whispered.

  Maybe with Lovie distracted….

  Spurred by a fleeting hope, Pru locked onto the spirit’s confusion and held, fighting for control of her own body. Lovie squelched her efforts with one mighty act of will, like a wet blanket tossed on a sputtering flame. She again fell helplessly silent, locked inside her own mind. Aware but not in control. Oh God.

  “Don’t condemn yourself to living this horror again and again,” Alex’s unaccented voice said. “I betrayed you. I hurt you and I’m sorry.”

  “Silas, is that really you?” Lovie climbed down from the railing and knelt beside the man that looked like Silas True. But it wasn’t…couldn’t be…

  “This has to stop.” His words were soft, urgent, compelling. Velvet chocolate. His bedroom voice. “I loved you so much, but I made a mistake. Please don’t jump off there again.”

  “You think I jumped? That bitch Olivia Mae shoved me! She killed me.”

  “I’m sorry, baby. I made a mistake, but it’s over. It’s been over for a long time. You need to forgive her. Forgive me.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t—I don’t know how.”

  “Take my hand. I’ll show you.”

  Alex’s hand didn’t move, but Lovie compelled Pru to reach out. Cold, deep and elemental, flooded into Pru’s veins as her warm skin touched his cold hand. A force slammed into Pru with so much power she was dizzy with it, then it ripped away, leaving her breathless, weak, and completely in control of her body again.

  You tricked me!

  The wail sounded like ocean wind. Pru gazed up from where she’d caught herself on her hands and knees. Silas True stood on the railing, his coat whipping about his legs, his hat blown away in the wind. He really did look like Alex, so much that her heart clenched.

  Maybe Silas and Alex were one in the same? But that meant if Silas’s spirit was free….

  Pru scrambled to his side and felt for a pulse. “No! No, no, no.” Frantic, she fisted her hands and began CPR.

  Silas grimaced as the first compression broke a rib in Alex’s chest. Wait. Not yet.

  “No! I won’t lose him—you. I can’t.”

  Wait. His eyes turned hard and cold as he stared down at his wife squirming in his arms. This has to stop now.

  You bastard! You tricked me! Lovie screamed, slamming her hands against his chest. He caught her fists and pinned her body with one thick arm around her waist.

  Tough, babe. You’ve killed too many members of my family as it is. I’m sure as hell not letting you kill my great-granddaughter too.

  You can’t stop me!

  No, but I can stall you.

  A flame hissed to life inside Lovie’s vaporous body. Wha—what’s happening? She clawed at it, but he held her tighter, pinning her arms to her sides. Stop it, Silas! What are you doing?

  Ending this.

  He flashed Pru a disarming smile—Alex’s slightly crooked, disarming smile—then winked, leaned backward, and pitched himself and Lovie off the railing. Lovie’s horrified shriek continued for several gut-wrenching seconds, then faded into the howl of autumn storm winds.

  Pru lurched to her feet and peered over. Violent waves white-capped against serrated rocks below. A twist of smoke lingered in the air for a heartbeat before the wind whipped it away.

  No, no, no. Where was Silas? She needed him to stay. Without him, Alex—

  Gasped for breath.

  Pru whirled and her knees gave out as his eyelids fluttered. He stared at her for a long second, his pupils working to focus. That crooked half-smile ticked up the corner of his mouth.

  “Pru.” His voice was so soft, she had to read his lips to know he’d said her name.

  “I’m here.” She crawled over and gathered up his shivering body, shielding him as best she could from the cold rain that was thickening to a wet snow. He wrapped his arms around her, curling into her like a small animal burrowing for warmth. She pressed a hand over the wound in his side. Blood, the precious little he still had, oozed between her fingers.

  God, was he pale. His eyelids and bloodless lips had a blue tint. Tears blurred her vision as bile rose in a horrible, all-too-familiar way, but she blinked and swallowed hard. This wasn’t a repeat of Portland and she wasn’t going to let anyone else die of a gunshot wound in front of her.

  Especially not Alex.

&nbs
p; She pressed her hand harder to his side, eliciting a half-conscious moan of pain. “Alex, you stay awake, okay?”

  “Ghosts…” he whispered.

  “Shh. She’s gone. Lovie’s gone.”

  His head lolled, his eyes fluttering as he drifted away. Distantly, a siren started its lonely wail. Nearby, Triton barked and feet pounded up the iron steps within the tower. Two men. She could feel the vibration of each footfall.

  “Alex! Pru!” Nick’s voice.

  “Here,” she shouted and gave Alex’s face a light smack. “Hey, stay with me. Help’s coming.”

  He struggled back to consciousness and raised a shaking, bloody hand to her cheek. She clasped it there, held onto him tight. Warned herself not to cry, but tears slipped out anyway.

  “Y-you were right.” Through chattering teeth, he smiled again—Silas’s smile. “Ghosts…do exist.”

  CHAPTER 34

  A luxurious château tucked deep in the snow-frosted mountains of middle-of-nowhere Montana wasn’t what Pru had in mind for a “safe house”. She always figured such establishments were clapboard houses that barely passed as a lean-to on their best day, located in shabby neighborhoods where nobody knew or cared what their neighbors were up to. Never in her wildest dreams in which she went into some sort of witness protection program had she pictured a gorgeous five-story house at the end of a secluded cul-de-sac.

  “Alex is here?” she asked as Nick’s truck came to a halt in the paved driveway in front of an underground garage. The stonework making up the face of the garage was breath taking alone, and Pru couldn’t even find words to describe the rest of the house. Ribs of dark, textured wood supported pale, stone walls and decoratively cased each tall, crystal-clear window. Bronze-finished sconces partially hidden under the eaves of the roof gave the mansion a soft yellow blush that beckoned like a seductive finger.

  Nick nodded. “Sully, paranoid bastard that he is, built this house as neutral ground. There’s a suite for each of us—and a fully functional medical center in the basement. Nobody but the guys of D.I.E. Squadron know of the house’s existence. It’s the best place for Alex now that he’s stabilized.”