by Rita Vetere
With the slightest motion of his hand, he signaled to the chanting spirits. He regretted the fact that the woman could not see the grotesque souls. The sight of them would have served to increase her terror. He watched as the dark ones pummeled the woman, and laughed at her feeble attempts to fight off her unseen attackers. When she began to sputter and gasp, Ahriman picked up the handset of the telephone next to him and depressed three buttons. Then he placed the open line next to the woman, who was now making hideous gurgling noises, and waited.
Moments later, the sound of a screaming siren cut through the night, and he gave the final order. “Finish her. Quickly."
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Chapter 4
Dora stopped dead in her tracks as she took in the scene playing out in her living room, one worse than any nightmare she could imagine. What was left of her family, her only sister, lay on the floor, pale and unmoving, in a pool of blood. A paramedic was in the process of cutting into Lilli's stomach.
"Stop,” she screamed, bolting for her sister. A uniformed officer stepped in front of her, holding her back.
"Please, that's my sister,” she cried, alarmed to see the medic paid no attention at all to Lilli as he continued to cut into her. More blood gushed to the floor beneath Lilli. Her sister did not move or make a sound.
"Miss, stay back. There's nothing you can do for her,” said the officer as he continued to restrain her. “She's dead. They're performing an emergency C-section to try to save the baby."
A cry of despair escaped Dora. A moment ago, her taxi had pulled up in front of the house to the flashing lights of an ambulance, fire truck and police car. Her heart in her throat, cursing herself for having left Lilli alone, she shoved some bills into the driver's hand and raced past the emergency vehicles into the house, only to be confronted with the terrible news this man had just imparted.
A hush fell over the room, and the air was thick with tension as the medic finished making the incision. Within seconds, he had the baby out. Dora could see, even through her frightened tears, it was a girl. The medic cleared the infant's mouth, but the tiny body made no sound, not even when he slapped the infant's bottom, twice. The slaps rang out loudly in the quiet room, but they were followed by absolute silence. The room was well-lit and Dora could not help but notice the bluish-gray pallor of the infant's skin through the placenta clinging to it. One of the attendants uttered a single whispered word that pierced Dora like a dagger. “Stillborn".
"No,” she sobbed, refusing to accept that both her sister and the child were gone. “Please, do something!” The medic turned to look at her.
Suddenly, the baby let out a keening wail, and everyone cried out in relief and surprise. Dora wept, for the sister she had lost, and out of relief that the child had been delivered safely after all. She watched as the attendants bundled up the baby to transport her to the hospital.
Still numb with shock, Dora could only look on as the ambulance attendants placed her sister in a body bag and put her on a stretcher to carry her out. She whispered a promise to her dead sister, hoping somehow Lilli would hear it. “I should never have left you alone, Lilli. I'm so sorry ... I'll take care of your baby, I promise. I'll love her enough for the both of us."
* * * *
As she sat in the waiting room on the third floor pediatric unit, anxiously waiting for confirmation that the baby had suffered no complications, Dora fought to keep her grief for her dead sister under control. She blamed herself bitterly for having left Lilli alone. She should have tried harder to persuade Lilli to seek medical help, even though her many attempts over the past months had been met with stubborn refusal. She recalled their last conversation about it, just over two weeks ago.
"You need help dealing with what happened, don't you see that? You were raped, for God's sake. You witnessed your husband's murder. You've suffered a terrible trauma, and you need to speak to a professional, someone who knows about these things."
Lilli had just looked at her. The dead look in her sister's once-sparkling green eyes frightened her as much as the words that had come out of her mouth. “I'm not crazy, Dora. And there's nothing a psychiatrist can do for me. In fact, there's nothing anyone can do for me. Just leave it alone, all right?"
Then, last week, Dora had awoken in the middle of the night to the sound of Lilli's raised voice. When she had rushed to Lilli's bedroom to make sure her sister was all right, she found Lilli crouched in the corner, crying.
"Lilli, what's the matter? Who were you talking to?” The sight of her sister cringing in the corner of the dark room, and the fact that she'd been too frightened to do anything but sob hysterically, caused Dora to bring up the subject of getting help again.
"No,” said Lilly, when she was able to speak coherently. “I had a nightmare, that's all. It's nothing. Go back to bed,” she said, her voice shaking.
Not knowing what else to do, Dora got into bed with her and remained there until Lilli had fallen back asleep, worried sick that her sister was becoming delusional. The signs were there, and I didn't act. I should have found a way to get help for her.
A heavy-set nurse in rubber-soled shoes came walking toward her, interrupting her sad thoughts. In her arms, she held Lilli's daughter, all cleaned up and wrapped in a pink blanket.
Dora took the tiny infant carefully into her arms. The baby's eyes were open and staring directly at her. The child resembled Lilli, she realized, causing tears to flow again. Dora searched the child's face for any signs of resemblance to Charlie, but found none. Not for the first time, she wondered whether the child was Charlie's or whether it had been fathered by the man who had raped her sister in Morocco. She decided it didn't matter. She'd made a promise to her dead sister and she intended to keep it. She would raise Lilli's daughter as her own and would give her all the love she had.
"Have you thought of a name for her?” the nurse asked, not unkindly.
"Jasmine,” Dora said softly, not taking her eyes off the infant. “It's the name my sister had chosen for a girl. She's beautiful, isn't she?"
The nurse smiled and nodded. “I have to take her back now. If you want to stay for a while, she'll be in the last bassinette on the left in the nursery."
Dora spent the next couple of hours in front of the glass partition separating the nursery from the visitors, studying the little miracle that had entered her life and wishing with all her heart that her sister could be here to see the beautiful child she had given birth to.
* * * *
On the following day, as she prepared the house for the baby's homecoming, Dora went about her work with a heavy heart. She had done her best to remain stalwart throughout the ordeal of her sister's passing, but unanswered questions remained about the manner in which Lilli had died. Even though the cause of death was listed as heart failure, Dora picked up on the fact that bruises had been found on Lilli's body, and she overheard one policeman speculate that they had been self-inflicted. The police had conducted a thorough investigation and found no signs of forced entry to the house. The doors and windows were all locked. Neither had they found any injuries or evidence to indicate her sister had been trying to defend herself against an attacker. Dora refused to believe Lilli would try to harm herself, even though her mental state had not been the best since Charlie's death. Lilli would never have risked harming her baby; of that, Dora was absolutely certain.
It wasn't until she was on her hands and knees, scrubbing her dead sister's blood from the living room floor, that Dora finally broke down. The act proved more than she could bear. She sat back on her haunches and sobbed, letting out some of the emotion she had held back until now. She cried for a long time, and when her outpouring of grief was over, she felt cleansed of the worst of it, at least.
Wiping away the last of her tears, she was about to turn back to her repugnant task when she caught a glint of sunlight reflecting off something on the side table. She got to her feet to investigate, and found a striking-looking antique silve
r necklace resting there. Must be Lilli's. She picked it up to examine it, although she could not remember ever having seen her sister wear it. Even so, once she looked more carefully at the piece of jewelry, something about it struck her as familiar, and then she realized why.
She went upstairs to Lilli's room and, in the closet, located the box where her sister kept her photographs. Dora flipped through them and found what she was looking for near the bottom, the photographs of her sister's fateful trip to Morocco. Only two pictures had been taken in Marrakesh, where Charlie had died. One of the snapshots showed Lilli and Charlie on a terrace overlooking a square. The other was of the two of them in a marketplace. The second photo had been shot fairly close-up. Sure enough, in the picture, Lilli was sporting the pendant Dora now held in her hand. Why had her sister taken the necklace out after almost a year of never having worn it? It made Dora shiver to think Lilli had been wearing the pendant on the day Charlie died and had not taken it out again until the day of her own death.
Doubt began to creep in again. Had Lilli tried to kill herself? Was that why she had taken out the pendant? Had she planned the whole thing?
Dora understood she would never know for sure what had happened to Lilli, and the thought sent sadness flooding through her. Not knowing the truth just made everything worse. She decided to put the pendant away for now and placed it in the box, along with the photographs. When the time was right, she would give the necklace to Jasmine, along with the other things that had been important to her sister.
Back downstairs, she completed the odious task of scrubbing the living room floor of her sister's blood, and then placed calls to the people she and Lilli were close to, to deliver the sad news of Lilli's death. The last call she placed was to Tom. Dora knew Tom had been in love with her sister at one time, and thought he would want to know.
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PART TWO
Immortality
Chapter 5
Tampa, Florida-Present Day
Jasmine Fairchild stared at T.K.'s handsome face as he slept. Predictably, the sound of his gentle snoring grated on her nerves, and she found herself becoming annoyed. A few minutes ago, caught up in the ecstasy of their lovemaking, he had captivated her, and she thought maybe, maybe this time would be different. But it wasn't. After it was over, T.K. had flopped back, exhausted, telling her he'd never been with anyone like her before, and that she was amazing. Instead of feeling content to remain close to him, she found she couldn't wait to get out of his bed, his apartment and his life. Just like all the others.
She lifted back the disheveled sheets and got up quietly, not wanting to wake him or to engage in the awkward conversation she knew would ensue. After slipping on her panties, and while looking around for her jeans, T.K.'s head popped up.
"Hey, where are you going?” His eyes betrayed that he desperately wanted her to stay.
The look only caused her irritation to increase. Why did she have to be like this? So hot before and so cold after.
"Can't,” she said, offhandedly. She had learned from experience it was better not to drag it out. “Aunt Dora's probably waiting up for me. Look, it was great and all, but I've gotta go."
"When will I see you again?” he asked, too quickly.
"I dunno. I'm pretty busy what with mid-terms and working at the Blue Flame...” She knew how lame it sounded. She never had been any good at pretending.
T.K.'s look hardened. “Okay. I get it. The earth didn't move for you. Sure had me fooled for a while there, though."
"It's not that.” She caught the annoyance in her tone and softened a bit. “It was great, actually. I just don't—"
"Don't what?"
"Nothing.” She couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence. I just don't feel anything for you, was what she had been about to say. She wanted nothing more to do with him. She pulled up her jeans and, under his scrutiny, collected her bra, hooked it up in the back and slipped her cotton t-shirt over her head. Stepping into her sandals, she hurried out the front door of his apartment without a backward glance, leaving T.K. to wonder what he had done wrong.
The red numbers on the digital clock displayed on the office building across the street told her it was nearly four in the morning as she exited the air-conditioned lobby of T.K.'s apartment and stepped into the steamy, sultry night. Home was fifteen minutes away, and despite the lateness of the hour and Aunt Dora's constant lectures on not to walk the streets late at night, she decided to do just that, and headed south on Willow. The air was thick and still, and so laden with moisture that halos formed around the street lamps. Jasmine enjoyed the sweltering heat almost as much as most people found it oppressive. The sauna-like humidity never caused her to perspire or wilt. Like an exotic flower, she seemed to thrive on it.
She passed a coffee shop still open for business and stopped to buy a large cup of Columbian, black. She'd had too much to drink before going home with T.K. and didn't want any grief from her aunt on the off-chance she might be waiting up for her. Back outside, stopped at an intersection waiting for the light to change, she rummaged through her purse for her cigarettes, brought one to her lips to light it, then jumped when a man's voice spoke close by her ear. She hadn't noticed anyone nearby.
"Looking for company?"
She turned and came face-to-face with a man in his late twenties, dressed in jeans and t-shirt with cut-off sleeves, a look no doubt designed to show off the musculature of his biceps which, admittedly, was impressive. His dark hair was cropped short and gelled, giving him a tough, dangerous look. He looked her up and down with wolf's eyes.
Jasmine said nothing for a moment as she studied him, sizing him up. Her appetite for sex was large, and she found the prospect of taking him up on his offer tempting, but something about the rapacious gleam in his eye caused her to reconsider. She narrowed her jade eyes down to slits and she stared back hard at him. Forget it, asshole, you don't want to do this. Walk away while you still can.
The man's head jerked back in surprise. His expression quickly changed from salaciousness to one of confusion. She had not spoken a word.
The light changed to green and Jasmine continued to stare at him. That's right. It's all downhill from here, buddy. Walk away.
The man turned from her and hurried in the opposite direction as if he'd seen a ghost, looking back over his shoulder at her before picking up his pace. Jasmine crossed at the light and continued on her way home.
She was used to it. What had just happened had happened countless times before. She had come to think of her particular ability as “pressing". Some were more susceptible to it than others, but it was something she had always been able to do, pressing her thoughts on people. She tried not to take advantage of the talent, generally preferring to play fair, but she had to admit, it came in pretty handy sometimes.
Once, when she was nine, she had tried explaining it to Aunt Dora, but her aunt had not believed her. And when she first confided in her best friend, Carla had looked at her like she was a couple of cards short of a full deck.
"Prove it,” Carla had demanded. When Jasmine pressed a thought on her, Carla had stared back at her in amazement.
"That's freaky,” she declared. “Can you do it all the time?"
"Yes. But I don't like to. Especially with grown-ups."
After that, she had experimented with her ability on one of her teachers, with disastrous results. Miss Richter had insisted she be transferred to another class, telling the principal there was something “off about the girl". Jasmine, hurt and angry after she'd heard some of the kids talking about it at recess, had cried herself to sleep that night. The very next day, Miss Richter was permanently injured in a car accident and never came back. That was the other thing about Jasmine, the thing that convinced her she was, indeed, a freak. Bad things happened to people who crossed her.
All she wanted was to be like everyone else, to fit in. But she didn't, and she never would. Especially after what she'd come to thin
k of as the incident. What had happened when she turned sixteen had cemented her suspicion that there was something inherently wrong with her.
Getting used to high school had been difficult enough, and the first two years without Carla, whose parents had sent her to a private school, had been hell. The boys pursued her relentlessly and, as a result, the girls despised her. In the cafeteria, she always sat alone, her previous attempts to sit with other groups of girls having been met with icy stares and silence. Except for the snickering afterward when she walked away.
The real trouble started with her first sexual encounter, a boy named Brendon Walker. A sad smile touched her lips as she remembered the heady sensation of that first experience with what would soon become an addiction. The first time with Brendon had awakened a latent and powerful emotion in her. She remembered how the act itself had felt sacred to her, an awakening that had affected her profoundly. After that first time, Jasmine sought out sex at every opportunity, for she discovered it was the only time she felt truly in her element. She craved it the way most people craved salt on their food; she needed it as much as the air she breathed.
Brendon had been a willing participant in her search for sexual ecstasy. Unfortunately for Jasmine, having been shunned by the girls in school, she had no way of knowing that spiteful Sharon McGillivray, who was one tough cookie and ringleader extraordinaire, considered Brendon to be her property. The day came when, returning home late from school one afternoon, Jasmine found Aunt Dora on her knees, scrubbing away at the sidewalk in front of the house they shared. Even the solvent and scrub brush Aunt Dora was using had not managed to completely erase the words whore and slut painted in large red letters on the walkway.
One look at the dismal expression on Aunt Dora's face had been enough. Something snapped in Jasmine. A kind of slow burn began inside her, something that grew and grew, until it became too huge to contain. Frightened by what was happening, feeling she would explode if it continued, she directed her growing rage outward with her mind. Immediately, a blast of energy flew from her body, so powerful it rocked her. It all happened so quickly, she'd not had time to think about what she was doing; her reaction had been instinctive. Once she expelled the strange energy, no trace of rage remained, only the empty feeling that had been her constant companion for as far back as she could remember.