by Janean Worth
It had been almost too easy to get the open position at the cell phone store when he’d decided that he wanted it. He’d been hired on the spot, without even having an interview.
He’d been strolling down the sidewalk when he’d looked into the cell phone store and had seen Bella. Bella the Beautiful—once they were married, she wouldn’t be able to stop him from calling her by the nickname he’d given her when he’d first seen her. He’d known immediately, of course, that he had to have her. He wanted to own her, possess her, dominate her.
And so he’d gone inside and had suggested, mentally, that Mr. Bouthar should hire him. And he’d been hired immediately, and had started the same day. By lunch, he’d been talking to his sweet Bella.
He’d gotten his new apartment, in that most coveted of buildings, the same way. He’d only had to strongly suggest that the fine, upstanding landlords needed to rent the apartment to him, and that no, they didn’t need to check his references or background, and they had agreed instantly. No questions asked. No deposit. And, he grinned, remembering, no rent payments, either.
And, using his talents, he’d gotten rid of Bella’s fiancé, too. He hadn’t been sure he’d be able to influence the man’s thoughts, or stoke his anger through the barrier of the apartment door, but he had given it a try. He’d had no idea that it would work so well. Bella’s fiancé must have been very, very angry deep inside. And now he was gone, leaving Bella free to marry Lucien.
Yes, life was looking up since he’d started to show these strange abilities.
On a whim, he decided to test them further, wondering just how far he could push his will upon others.
He stopped on the sidewalk and looked around.
Seeing a young mother walking close by, pushing a stroller, he approached her.
“Hi,” he said, smiling.
“Hello,” she answered, looking wary.
“I want all of your money and credit cards. And your baby. And I want you to give them all to me, with no questions asked.”
She looked startled at his suggestions, then horrified. She started to shake her head and back away, but he caught her gaze and stared into her eyes.
You will do as I have asked. You will do it now. Give me your money and your baby.
Lucien knew that a mother’s instincts were nearly primal in their strength. No mother would willingly give up her baby to a stranger. This would be the ultimate test of his control.
The woman looked pained, but she opened her purse, took out her wallet, and handed it to him.
“Now the baby.”
Give me the baby.
With a sob, she reluctantly reached down and removed her child from the stroller.
“I don’t know why I’m doing this. Why am I doing this?” the woman whispered fearfully. “I don’t want to do this. Why am I doing this?”
A huge shadow rose up out of the sidewalk, grinning. It reached for the woman and she shuddered.
Crying, tears tracking silently down her cheeks, she handed Lucien the baby.
He took the child, feeling a thrill of victory run through him. If he could convince a mother to give up her own child, what couldn’t he do?
He grinned as the baby began to cry. The mother did not ask for her child back; she simply stood there, looking lost, the shadow clutching her entire head in its massive hands.
Lucien stared at the shadow, unafraid. “Are you helping me, or am I doing this on my own?”
It didn’t answer.
The baby screamed louder.
Lucien smiled wider.
“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name . . .” a strong voice said from behind him.
At the sound of the words, three things happened simultaneously.
Lucien immediately felt the power being stripped from his compulsion upon the woman; she gasped and reached out to snatch her baby from his arms, and the shadow disappeared, without even a puff of smoke to signal its passing.
Incensed, Lucien turned to face the owner of the voice.
A middle-aged woman, graying around the temples but still beautiful, stood a few feet from him. Her hands were on her hips, an expression of challenge on her face.
“Begone with you,” the woman said. “I will tolerate none of your kind stealing babies from their mothers.”
“One of my kind?” he asked, arrogantly. “And just what kind is that?”
“A Quisling,” the woman hissed, distaste written clearly upon her face.
“I haven’t joined them yet.” Lucien asserted.
“Oh, but you are thinking about it, I can tell,” she said.
“And who are you?” Lucien asked, unperturbed by her assumption. She could think what she liked.
“You know who I am,” she said. “I am a soldier in God’s army. I seek only to do His will and help others.”
Lucien smirked, shocked that the Quislings had actually told him another truth. Perhaps it was time that he started trusting them after all.
“Ah, so the Invisibles that they spoke of are real, too. Interesting,” Lucien said, staring her down.
He caught her gaze and thought, you will now bow down before me and kiss my feet.
The woman laughed.
“As if that paltry trick will work on me, Quisling.”
Lucien frowned. Was she somehow immune to his new abilities?
“Leave. Now. And trouble that woman and her child no more,” the woman demanded.
“And if I don’t? What will you do?”
The woman gave him a smile. “Me? I will do nothing. It is the Lord’s power that you have to worry about.”
Lucien snorted. “Sure.”
“You don’t believe in His power?” she asked.
He just glared at her.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for the Lord is my shepherd . . .” the woman began to recite.
For a moment, Lucien felt nothing. And then a strange tingling began in his mind, at the exact spot that he thought of as the center of his strange abilities.
He tried to impose his will upon her again, glaring into her eyes, nearly shouting commands inside his head, but the power of his abilities would not come.
He stared, feeling a fission of fear. Had her words taken his powers?
He backed away, the fear turning to a strange kind of panic. What if he didn’t get them back? He was just getting used to them. She couldn’t take them from him now. He needed them.
“Stop what you are doing,” he said, annoyed that his own voice sounded so afraid.
To his consternation, she stopped, immediately. And then she smiled sadly at him.
“His words have power, and so does prayer. If you truly have not yet joined the Quislings, then you still have a chance. Do not join with them. Cease using your gifts for evil, and come with me. We will help you adapt.” The woman held out her hand.
Lucien stared at it for a moment, and then he spat upon her upturned palm and turned to stalk away. He didn’t need her help to adapt. He didn’t need anyone’s help. He knew what he was doing, and he had his plans well under way. He scowled as he stalked toward Bella’s apartment. Who did the woman think she was, anyway?
Chapter Eight
“You have nothing to fear from me, Bella.”
Bella looked into the eyes of the man who had spoken, searching his gaze for truth. And it seemed to be there. But, after her experiences the past twenty‑four hours, she really couldn’t even believe her own eyes anymore. She couldn’t trust her instincts either. Everything seemed so off kilter.
I can’t trust him, she thought.
“Yes, you can trust me. And few others,” he said.
How did he know what she was thinking? Was he just good at guessing, or was her expression so transparent that it was obvious?
He made no threatening moves toward her, and his face, lined with only a few wrinkles and topped with graying brown hair, seemed friendly. His eyes, the irises a b
lue so light that they looked frosted, were both frightening and very direct. It seemed that she could see into his soul—almost—when she looked into those unusual eyes.
The man chuckled.
“That’s nice, but you really can’t see the soul in a person’s eyes, Bella.”
She gasped, and took several stumbling steps backward.
He was reading her mind? How could that be? No one could read minds. It was impossible. Her thoughts were supposed to be hers alone, and no one else’s.
“That’s true too, but you have left your thoughts open for all to read—at least those who are attuned to the spiritual realm.”
“Stop it,” Bella said, angry despite the man’s friendly appearance and unthreatening manner. She didn’t want anyone reading her mind. It had to be some kind of cheap parlor trick, but she still didn’t like the act. Not one bit.
“My apologies, but your thoughts are so loud, I cannot help but know them. You are projecting them, allowing your emotions to amplify them. They’re like radio waves, Bella, and your frequency is quite strong.”
She clenched her teeth and backed away a few more steps. It was crazy. It was just too crazy. He couldn’t be reading her thoughts, and she couldn’t have just lost her job after fainting because she’d seen a shadow with red eyes grab a man’s head and squeeze. She couldn’t have lost her fiancé, and all of her wonderful plans for the future, the night before.
That all just couldn’t be happening.
“Bella, I’m sorry that you’re frightened, and I’m sorry that these things have happened to you. If you are already seeing the demons—the shadows—then your abilities are progressing rapidly. I tried to locate you before this happened, and I’m sorry that I was not able to find you sooner so that I could have helped you through this transition.”
“No, no. I’m not listening to this. I’m sorry, mister, but I’m just going to go back to my apartment, brew a strong cup of coffee, take a few aspirin, and pretend that the last twenty‑four hours never happened. And please don’t try to follow me, or I’ll have to call the police,” Bella huffed out a sigh and moved around the man, setting off along the sidewalk at a fast clip.
“Going back to your apartment won’t help. The others have already found you. They’re after you. They covet your abilities, and they will not stop until they have acquired you as one of their own.”
Bella wanted to put her hands up and cover her ears, but instead she just walked faster. What he said sounded like madness, and she didn’t want to hear any more madness that day.
Had the whole world gone mad, or was it just her? She didn’t know. Perhaps her headache had scrambled her brains.
The man began to follow her.
She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket, and looked over her shoulder at him.
“I’ll call them. I mean it. Don’t make me.”
“I’ve been sent to help you because we have similar abilities, Bella. If you call the police, they will not be able to help you as I can. They cannot protect you from the others.”
What others? She wanted to shout, but she didn’t. She wouldn’t buy into his madness. She wouldn’t. She had enough of her own to deal with.
“The others, Bella. The Quislings, they call themselves. They’ve been looking for you as diligently as I have. And it seems that one of them found you even before I did. Your new friend Lucien. He is one of them.”
“Stop it! Stop flinging my own thoughts back at me! Or whatever you’re doing. I don’t know how you’re doing it, but stop it,” she snarled at him, walking faster.
She looked down at the face of her phone and contemplated dialing the police. But when they came, what would she tell them? That the man on the sidewalk was talking crazy, and she’d seen red‑eyed shadows, and been fired from her job after being accused of being on drugs and she’d lost her fiancé after a huge fight because she wouldn’t have premarital sex? How did that sound? They’d cart her away to a room with white padded walls, surely.
She sighed, stuffing the phone back in her pocket.
“Good choice. Good choice,” the man said. “But, really, I didn’t need to know any of that. TMI, if you know what I mean. Much too much. And, your fiancé is a fool, for what it’s worth.”
Bella stopped walking, the now‑familiar feeling of foreboding skittering up her spine as another, more unsettling thought occurred to her. She turned to face the man, giving him her full attention.
“Have you been spying on me?”
“Well, yes,” he said.
Shocked at his blatant admission, Bella just stared at him. He admitted that he’d been spying on her? Who did that?
How long had he been doing it? What else did he know about her?
She shook her head to try to clear her thoughts, but it only made her head hurt worse. This was truly horrible. She’d never had a stalker before. And, on the worst day of her life, she suddenly picked one up?
The situation, in fact the whole day, seemed out of her control. She needed help. Extraordinary help.
Dear God, she prayed silently, please help me.
The man grinned at her, then, strangely, gave her a thumbs‑up sign.
She frowned at him and took a few steps, walking backward, away from him.
“Well, look, um . . . Please stop spying on me and leave me alone,” she said lamely, wondering what she’d do if he didn’t. If she wasn’t going to call the police, then there wasn’t much else she could do, especially if he knew where she lived.
Over the man’s shoulder, Bella saw Lucien approaching, his face set in an angry scowl.
She groaned. She didn’t want to deal with him too.
This day just couldn’t get any worse, could it?
The man looked over his shoulder.
“Well, that’s not good. He’s a mean one, that one is. His abilities are young, like yours, but he’s been figuring out how to use them easily enough. And he uses none of them for good. And, what’s worse, I’m afraid that he’s fixated on you, Bella.”
Fixated on her?
Bella shook her head. This guy was certifiable. But then, so was she, with the shadows and fainting and screaming and hallucinations lately.
“He is, you must believe me. We must leave before he gets here. His thoughts are quite dangerous. He feels possessive of you, and wants to know what I’m doing talking to his future wife.”
Bella gasped, too astounded to remember that she wasn’t trusting this man. “His wife?”
“His future wife, yes. That’s how the thinks of you.”
“But, I’m not . . . I’m engaged. I mean I was engaged. I’m not marrying Lucien . . .” she stuttered, stopping once again in the middle of the sidewalk.
“Well, he’s sure you are. He is thinking that he rid you of your fiancé and that you’ve got no business talking to a man on the sidewalk when you should only be talking to him. He’s thinking that he didn’t go to all that trouble of getting you fired and making you feel vulnerable just so that some old dude—an unflattering opinion of me—can try to pick you up on the street.”
Bella gaped at him, not caring that her mouth was hanging open. This couldn’t be true. Lucien had gotten rid of her fiancé and gotten her fired? But no, that wasn’t possible. Just not possible.
“I don’t believe you,” she said.
“Well, believe me or not, he has his own plans for you and your budding abilities, and his thoughts toward you are not pure and selfless, but evil and possessive. You are in danger from him. He will surely deliver you to the Quislings as soon as he joins their ranks.”
The man had moved closer to her while he was speaking. He hovered a few feet away, his manner almost protective.
Were middle‑aged stalkers supposed to act protective? She had no idea.
Bella couldn’t take it anymore. She threw her hands in the air and turned around, walking swiftly away.
Maybe her new stalker and Lucien would take care of each other. She’d had enough.
<
br /> “But you can’t go back to . . .”
The man called after her, and so did Lucien, but she ignored them both and walked faster. When she heard heavy footfalls on the sidewalk behind her, she broke into a run. She just wanted to get back to her apartment. Where it was safe. Beyond accomplishing that, she didn’t know what she was going to do.
Sprinting, she took a left on Eighth Avenue, which ran right in front of her apartment building, grateful that she only had about a block left to go before she could enter her building, ascend to her apartment like a princess to her safe, high tower, and try to escape the insanity that had seized her day.
She’d only run a few more steps when a burly man, wearing a full‑length black trench coat, of all things, stepped out of a doorway right in front of her.
Unable to stop in time, she ran right into him. Her breath whooshed out with the impact, but his arms came up to catch her, gathering her in an unwanted embrace, his reflexive gesture so fast that it almost seemed as if he’d been expecting their collision.
She hadn’t seen him in the doorway, but that didn’t mean that he hadn’t seen her.
She put her arms out to push away from his too‑close chest, set on apologizing and thanking him for his efforts to prevent her from falling, when she looked up into his face.
He was smiling. A self-satisfied, wolfish smile.
Her words of apology died in her throat.
“Well, hello, Bella,” he said, his voice a smug purr. “Fancy meeting you here.”
She put her hands up to push against his chest, but before she could do more than that, he reached up a hand to press a folded rag over her mouth and nose, forcing her closer with his other arm.
She gagged at the stench of it, turning her head away violently. It was wet with some fluid that stung her mouth and nose.
She tried to hold her breath as she put every ounce of strength that she possessed into trying to get away. She kicked, pushed, punched, wiggled. She screamed behind the cloth, but then realized that only made going without air worse, because she’d emptied her lungs and they ached for oxygen.
The man held her with ease, one powerful arm locked around her middle, the other hand keeping the cloth pressed tightly over her airways, leering down into her face as he watched her struggle helplessly. She was like a butterfly caught in a web, and he was the spider waiting to devour her when she could no longer struggle against his trap.