by Eve Paludan
I glanced at the door and then at her, fear forming a knot in my stomach. “There’s something in there. Something evil.”
“I know, but they have Pauline’s ghost friend. If you want to save him, you’re going to have to open the door.”
“There are these dark, shadowy things with golden eyes in there. They’re evil.”
Allison said, “If you hope to save Mack the friendly ghost, as you called him, we’re going to have to go in there, too.”
Whatever those things in there were, I knew I didn’t want anything to do with them. “I’m too scared, Allison.”
“Of course you are, dear. I’ll take point.” Allison shouldered me out of the way as she opened the door and went inside.
I had no choice but to follow her in. As I stepped into the gloom of the basement, I breathed a sigh of relief to find that none of those golden-eyed things were there.
As I followed Allison, I was amazed at her sense of direction. She’d never been to this house before—at least not to my knowledge—and yet, she seemed to know exactly where she was going.
We passed the wine cellar and I wondered if Bogart and Cagney were still in there, whooping it up with a couple of chorus girls. Allison continued down the corridor and took a right. We ended up in front of a doorway with a closed door.
“They’re inside this room now,” Allison said.
“What do we need to do?”
“You need to do nothing, other than stay out of my way.”
“I can do that.”
“Be sure you do. What’s behind that door is nasty business. Stay behind me.”
Allison reached down to the knob and opened the door, nudging it inward with her foot. What I saw when the door opened nearly broke my heart. Mack was chained to a wall and in front of him stood two dark, shadowy creatures holding whips. He looked beaten and exhausted. I didn’t know that ghosts could feel pain, but Mack looked like he was really suffering.
My empath gears started turning. I felt his pain and moaned. It was terrible, what they had done to him. I cried out his name and he looked at me.
“Pauline?”
“No, it’s Amanda in Pauline’s body.”
Allison ran into the room chanting something weird and the shadow creatures shrieked and scuttled backward like spiders from my powerful friend. Whatever the hell this witch was packing, I wanted some of that.
“You came,” Mack said. “As much as I was enjoying their company, I was beginning to think you’d never show up.”
“Why are they doing this to you?” I asked.
Mack grunted a laugh. “It appears they don’t appreciate me working with Pauline to help souls go into the light. They wanted me to switch teams and go wreak havoc with them.”
“Quiet, the both of you!” Allison snapped. “I’m trying to cast a spell here.”
“Sorry. Who are you?” Mack asked.
“I’m Allison Lopez, the witch who’s come to free you.”
“Please do!”
Now, she was chanting and I watched as she was enveloped in a soft glow. The two shadow creatures shrieked and rushed at her. At us. Which made me shriek.
Using a dagger that seemed to appear out of nowhere, Allison sliced her hand just as her chanting seemed to reach a crescendo. She flicked her hand and several drops of her blood arced through the air and connected with the shadow creatures. They howled as if they’d just had battery acid thrown on their skin and then…they were gone. Just like that.
They left behind two greasy-looking puddles on the floor, but other than that, it was as if they’d never been there.
I looked over at Allison, who was already wrapping a bandage around her hand and humming a few bars from that old Eagles’ song, Witchy Woman.
“How did you do that?” I asked, unable to keep the awe out of my voice.
“There’s power in the blood,” she replied and tipped me a wink.
“What’s so special about your blood?”
“If I told you, I’d have to kill you,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“Forget I asked,” I said quickly.
“Done.”
With the shadow creatures gone, the bonds that had held Mack to the wall disappeared and he joined us, already looking relieved.
“Thanks and nice to meet you!” he said to Allison.
She flashed him a smile. “No problem, Mack. Nice to meet you, too.” She let out a soft breath. “Onward!”
“What’s next?” I asked.
“The three of us need to find your misbehaving medium friend, Pauline, in your Amanda body.”
“Yay! Thanks!” I said.
We left the basement and walked up three flights of stairs and around to the front of the house. And there, on the third-floor balcony, stood Ramon and Pauline, who was looking awfully comfortable in my body. And with my boyfriend.
Seeing them in such a passionate embrace, locked together in a sensuous kiss that should have been mine, broke something within me.
I snapped, “Get your hands off of my boyfriend!”
The people standing on and around the front porch of the mansion—at least three dozen by my quick estimate—glanced up at where I was screaming and then at me. The look in their eyes ranged from shock, to amusement, to pity.
“You do know that’s Amanda Jordan and Ramon Santiago,” a woman whom I didn’t know said to me.
“Who are you?” I demanded.
“I’m from TMZ. I’m sure you must have heard of our web site.”
I gave a little scream. Who the hell had invited TMZ to this Hollywood Hills party?
“They’ve been together for a while now,” the reporter continued, trying to upset me more so she could whip out her camera and catch some drama. “And you’re almost old enough to be his mom.”
“You should probably leave,” I said.
She frowned. “I was invited by a cameraman, Benny. And I know who you are. You’re that crazy psychic who came to do some ghostbusting.”
I stared daggers through her and the woman melted back into the crowd.
Ramon looked down at me and shook his head, his annoyance plain. And Pauline, in my body, looked downright ashamed. As she should have.
“Hey, wait,” one guy said. “Ramon told us something about you. Aren’t you that psychic chick who is gonna clean the house of all the poltergeists?”
I turned to him, wanting to smack him upside the head. I was Amanda Jordan, hot YouTube movie director and star. I wasn’t Pauline, the middle-aged ghost whisperer.
“Yes,” I replied. “I’m Pauline Ocean.” Okay, so I am in her body.
“I heard about you,” the guy said. “You’re supposed to clean this place of restless spirits so we can shoot the film without any supernatural hassles on Monday, right?”
I wanted to scream. Curse. Break things. But instead, all I could do was nod my head and mutter, “Yeah, something like that.” I pointed to Allison. “And this is my witchy-poo backup, Allison. She came to help.”
“There are more spirits here than anybody expected,” Allison said. “This place has more than I’ve ever seen in one house.”
“What’s that mean?” the guy pressed.
“It means,” Allison said, “that things are going to get really weird and really dangerous until the place is cleansed. I think everyone who is capable should leave the premises so we can do our work.”
“This is a party, Miss Ocean,” Ramon said. “No one is going anywhere. Just go about your business.”
“Just a minute, now,” Allison said. “I don’t quite like the way things are going. So, I am sending you two lovebirds back ten minutes in time. We’ll catch up with you and meet again.”
“I don’t understand,” Pauline said from my body.
“You’re missing something,” Allison said, clearly frustrated.
“What?”
“A little more accountability and personal responsibility this time, please, Miss Medium.”
Allison pointed at Ramon and Pauline in my Amanda body. There was a flash of light and popping sound, and then they were gone.
Chapter Twelve
Ten minutes ago…
Pauline in Amanda’s body…
“Amanda, what’s that thing up there?” Ramon screamed.
“Some sort of entity. But why does this feel like déjà vu?” I said, wracking my brain.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ramon said.
I felt like I’d run from this thing before. “Go Home!” I ordered the fierce fireball creature. “Go Home and go in peace. Go into the light, find it and go!”
The fireball with teeth that dripped blood looked at me with beady eyes, snarled and passed through the wall, leaving Ramon and I alone. For now.
“What was that horrible thing?” Ramon yelled, wiping the dripped blood on his shoulder with the sheets. “And what were you telling it to do?”
“I don’t know for sure what it’s called, but I think that it’s controlling me…us. Everyone. This whole house. Everyone at the party who’s acting out their wildest romantic fantasies, I believe is being controlled by that thing. Including us.”
“What was it?” He visibly shuddered.
“I’ve never seen anything like it. My guess is, some sort of succubus.”
“Where were you telling it to go?” he asked.
“I was telling it to leave this Earth and go into the light, to the next plane of existence.”
“What makes you think the light would come for it?”
“Good point,” I said. “That thing was evil, but hey, what I said got it out of our hair, for now.”
“Do you think it left and went to some other world?” Ramon asked.
“No. It’s too evil. Get dressed. We’ve got to warn everyone to get out of here. At least until we know what we’re dealing with.”
“That’s not your job. Where is that medium you hired?” Ramon asked.
I cringed. “We’ll find her.”
Ramon was dressed before I was. But then, a terrible thing happened. We found out we couldn’t leave the house. No one could. Those that listened to us found all of the doors stuck or locked or barred. And we also found out we were still under some sort of weird control from whatever that creature was called.
Now, Ramon and I were on the third-floor balcony, kissing. Damn it.
“Ramon, this lovely affection has got to stop. We need to get out of this house. We need to get everyone out. It isn’t safe yet. It’s full of bad spirits that make us do things we shouldn’t.”
“We tried to leave and we physically couldn’t. None of the doors would open and I don’t want to break windows or we’ll lose our deposit. Just let the psychic do her job.”
“She’s called a medium.”
“Whatever. It’s not your job, Amanda.”
Yes, it is!
And then, he kissed me again. And again.
I was powerless. Everyone in the house seemed to be in the same boat, all latched onto someone else by the lips.
I knew I should have been working, trying harder to get the spirits to go into the light, and figuring out what to do about that malicious one that was so powerful; she was controlling an entire mansion of people and spirits, but I was unable to pry myself away from Ramon. He was apparently nuts about Amanda, and I was in her body and he was just…so…persistent.
In Amanda’s gorgeous, leggy, lanky body, with the perfectly engineered breasts (I’d checked them out and they were gorgeous, but very fake) and a supermodel face, I was unable to tell Ramon to stop touching, stop kissing, and stop telling ‘me’ how much he loved me. It was far too…pleasant.
In Amanda’s body, I felt like a fraud. I felt like a thief. And I felt completely loved. I also felt controlled by something evil. And I could not fight it alone.
The spirits in this house were tugging my hair, pinching me, doing everything they could to bug me. I wanted to switch back bodies with the real Amanda, but I couldn’t. Not right now. Not while I still hadn’t released all of this evil from the house. And not while I was…guiltily enjoying all of the bounty of love that Amanda had built with this most passionate guy. He was the Romeo to her Juliet. I had never felt such adoration in my life, as the adoration I was basking in right now. It was ever so incredible. But it was not really for me. I knew that.
But I didn’t want the sweetness to end yet. I was flooded with shame, and also with happiness, to have experienced this unexpected lover…Amanda’s hot Latino boyfriend. Before we’d left the bedroom, he’d kissed me, everywhere. Everywhere. Okay, well, he had kissed Amanda’s body everywhere. Not me, per se. It was her he loved, I reminded myself. I was being a thief of hearts and I knew it and was chagrined.
The words ‘medium ethics’ swirled in my head and I pushed them away. Help! I pleaded with the powers-that-be to give me back some control.
I saw my own body come stumbling up the stairs, the haggard face looking upset. Amanda was with a woman I didn’t know but she had a blazing purple aura, and with Mack’s very faint diaphanous form; his face looked very much like he wished he were anywhere but here.
Um, okay. Now, I felt sick. Mack! What the hell have I done? I felt as if I had been caught cheating and yet we had no claims on each other, except as friends. And I was here doing my job as a medium. Well, sort of. I wasn’t having much luck banishing evil spirits to hell or even enticing them into the light. With my powers divided in half, I needed the equivalent of a car’s jump-start.
And I needed to distance myself from Ramon so I could do medium things. I kept getting distracted from my real purpose here and I was feeling the burn of knowing that I had messed up. Big time.
“Earth to Pauline. I see you in there,” I heard a voice say.
I pried myself away from Ramon’s lips and realized I had an audience. “I have to use the bathroom,” I said to him.
“Hurry back, querida. I’ll be waiting.”
“Okay, but—”
This woman with the blazing aura, Mack, and Amanda in my body, herded me into a huge upstairs bathroom.
Allison waved her hand, the door shut behind us, and she clicked the lock with a finger in the air.
“Whoa! Who are you?” I asked the woman whose purple aura was blazing with supernatural power. It hurt my eyes, in fact, to see that ultraviolet color in that intensity. She was that powerful.
“Amanda called Julie from your phone. Julie sent me. I’m Allison Lopez, a witch.”
“Are you a good witch or a bad witch?”
“Very funny, Pauline. Look, this is the second time we’ve met, if you must know. Anyway, I came and saved Mack.”
“What happened to Mack?”
“Tell ya later,” Mack said.
“Now, hold hands, you two,” Allison ordered.
I held out my Amanda hand to my Pauline body. Although her eyes communicated a deep desire to strangle me, we joined hands, knowing that we needed our psychic powers to be united. Medium and empath. What a crazy combination. When we held hands, I could see Mack clearly.
I smiled at him, but he simply glared at me, seriously upset. He must have seen me kiss Ramon. Oh, how thoughtless I had been. I wanted to…die. I seriously wanted to die. Not only had I hurt Amanda, but I had hurt Mack, too. I briefly thought of suicide. Shocked, I banished the thought. I had never imagined such a thing, not in my entire life. But I had never done anything like this before either.
Someone banged on the bathroom door.
“Go away,” I said.
“It’s Ramon. Open up, querida.”
I opened the door and he barged into the bathroom with us.
“What’s all of this about witches?” Ramon asked, puzzled lines creasing his face. “I was listening at the door.”
“It would take too long to explain, but we needed a witch, as well as a medium,” I said.
“I know of a witch. Her name is Mercedes,” Ramon said.
“Well, you’ve got Alli
son Lopez. At your service.”
He gave her a polite nod and put protective arms around me.
I gently extricated myself from Ramon’s encircling arms. “Ramon, I need to talk to Pauline Ocean, our official medium, who will be on set all week.” I pointed at my real body with my free hand.
He nodded. “Miss Lopez, there was a creepy fireball thing with teeth that dripped blood down on us in the bedroom while we were…engaged. Can you go get it out of here?”
A heartbreaking cry escaped Amanda.
Oh, no, this is bad.
“You slept with him!” she accused me.
Ramon chuckled. “Amanda’s my girlfriend. We do that a lot. We do other things, too, not that you need be concerned with that. Are you okay, Miss Ocean?”
“No!” Amanda wailed from inside my body. “I am not okay!”
Oh, crap.
I swallowed nervously. “Ramon, I need to check out the house with our wonderful ghost whisperer and get the place cleaned out. Will you please excuse me while we go and thwart evil in its tracks?”
“Sounds crazy, but sure. I’m just going to sit outside again and catch the night air.” I walked outside with him and he sat on the ledge of the balcony and looked into the night. “I’ll be waiting right here for you, querida.”
“Sit tight, hun,” I said, tearing myself away from him.
As I was walking away, he chuckled and replied, “Hun? Did you just call me hun?”
Oh, double crap.
Amanda dragged me into the dim rec room, where a few people from the movie crew were drinking margaritas and another one was playing bartender at the wet bar and running the blender.
“Ow,” I hissed. “Stop pulling my hair.”
“That’s my hair I’m pulling because you slept with my boyfriend!” she hissed back.
The claws are out! I could tell she was restraining herself from smacking me. “I’m in your body!” I said. “He’s your lover!”
“You don’t see me sleeping with Mack!” she retorted.
“Wait just a darn minute. What in the hell are you talking about? Me and Mack? We don’t do that.”
“I’m out of here. Once again.” Mack used that moment to disappear through a wall.
I was mortified. “Look, I want to explain, Amanda. There was this sick entity thing, I think a succubus. And it is controlling everyone and getting them to get busy with each other.”