by D. N. Leo
Luckily for them, the dinner was Zach’s idea. He was their mutual Australian friend. Zach would turn twenty-one soon and planned to put the cozy kitchen of the small guest house to good use to celebrate a double birthday.
Blood.
It was all she could see in the reception room—amid the broken furniture.
Hesitating no more, Madeline yelled, “Jo!”
A cacophony of sounds—crashing glass, pots, pans, and other kitchen objects and a bloodcurdling scream—came in response, sending Madeline racing toward the kitchen.
More blood.
That was what she found. At the corner of the kitchen, Jo was on the floor, unconscious. Zach stood next to her, guarding her immobile body.
Zach’s shirt was soaked in blood. He didn’t look like he would be able to stand for long.
Larry, the host of the guest house, brandished a knife with one hand and held the other hand to his ear, screaming as if his head was going to explode. He reeled back and forth, crashing into the kitchen furniture and knocking it over.
There was no sign of his wife and children, but Madeline saw blood trailing out of the kitchen and through the door leading to the family room.
Larry was in his late sixties, a soft-spoken man and kind father and husband who had housed them for three days. That had been Larry before she’d finished her fishing lesson. But it wasn’t the Larry before her now.
Zach was cornered. “Run, Madeline,” Zach yelled.
She stood right at the door, not moving. She knew what was going on. “Is Jo alive?”
“Yes. Run, Madeline! He’s insane. He’s not listening, so don’t even try to talk to him.”
Larry directed his bloodshot eyes at Madeline. There was no humanity in him that she could see. The devil had taken over. An explicable smirk crossed his face as he approached her.
“Run, Madeline!” Zach yelled again and this time he captured Larry’s attention. The old man swung his head back toward Zach.
Madeline threw the fish basket at Larry, hitting him in the head.
As soon as the basket left her hand she could smell it—the metallic stench from her ghost.
Larry turned to walk toward her, and Zach took the opportunity to charge him from behind. Larry suddenly swung back, and the knife in his hand slashed at Zach’s abdomen. He grabbed Zach’s neck with one hand and waved the knife with the other.
He was going to slaughter Zach.
Madeline knew Larry’s strength was not his own. It was not his soul inside his body. “Larry, stop!” Madeline said firmly.
He released Zach instantly, dropping him to the floor unconscious to lie next to Jo. Then he turned to Madeline. Smirking, he walked toward her like a zombie. He didn’t even threaten her with the knife to give her an excuse to kill him in self-defense. He simply staggered toward her with a crazed smile on his face.
In his eyes, she could still see the pledge of the kind old man who had been their friend for the last three days. She knew he was innocent.
He must have been the one who killed his wife and kids. But his body was only doing what it was being told to do.
The metallic stench of her ghost grew stronger. It was not the first time the ghost had possessed men to kill. All she had to do to end all this was to kill the man in front of her.
Once and for all, it would end.
But the old man was innocent.
She had never been able to do that, to end it, and the ghost kept coming back. Disaster after disaster. And people would continue to be murdered until she killed the host the ghost possessed.
Larry continued to approach Madeline.
“Don’t come any closer.” She stepped back.
Larry kept coming. She could see his eyes had started to clear. Once that happened, he would return to normal and see what he’d just done. Most often, the men, after being possessed, went insane and eventually killed themselves.
“Your last chance, Madeline. Keep your virtuous soul, and more people will die,” an ancient voice echoed in the air.
She had to kill this innocent man for the craziness to end. The ghost had been telling her that for years—it would continue to kill until she killed an innocent man. But no matter how she tried to justify it, in front of her was a helpless man whom she had no right to kill.
Larry took another step toward her.
“Time is running out, Madeline. Next time, it will be worse,” the ghost chanted.
“Stop, Larry!”
She yelled at the old man, but he kept advancing. She raised the fishing spear, pointing it at his heart.
Chapter 74
Ten years later.
* * *
It was after six in the morning, but Madeline couldn’t find any sign of the winter sun. She overanalyzed the humidity, the feel of the air, and the sound of the wind, concluding that England winters and New York winters were the same—cold and bleak.
Ciaran turned away from the window and looked at her.
Madeline should have gotten used to the sight of Ciaran by now, but it never happened. God must have been in a very good mood indeed when he created such a gorgeous human being. She could hardly believe that every inch of that six foot three slender yet muscular warrior’s body belonged to her. His face—that of a dark angel—continued to make her stomach quiver. Those deep and intense gray eyes focused on her as if for him no one else existed and nothing else in the world mattered.
Suddenly a bullet hit Ciaran’s chest, exiting from his back. Blood splattered onto the glass window. Madeline gasped as the image of Ciaran flickered and disappeared.
She shook her head and snapped back to reality. A few days ago, her life had changed forever.
She still remembered the sensation of Ciaran’s blood on her hands, the commotion in the operation room, and the emptiness when she thought her world would exist without him in it.
She couldn’t get the memory of his beautiful eyes, glassed over and lifeless, out of her mind. And she couldn’t ignore the lingering fear that she would have to experience that incident again in the future. Ciaran said he had left the memory behind to move on with life, to be with her. But that was before she told him the truth behind his recovery.
It wasn’t a miracle that he was back with her again.
Jennifer had wanted her to tell Ciaran, and she had. But regardless of how much she tried to spin the story and make it golden, the naked truth was that his mother had swapped the drug. And, as a result, Juliette had died, and the real drug had coincidentally saved his life.
Jennifer had told her that Juliette never let go of anything, and Madeline wagered she would cling to Ciaran this time more than at any other time.
This ordeal wasn’t over yet. Not by a long shot.
The air seemed to thicken a bit. Madeline spun around, surveying the empty room around her. She didn’t care for what she was feeling. This wasn’t her familiar psychic blue dots. It wasn’t the appearance of Juliette’s hologram, either.
It was the unmistakable metallic stench of her long forgotten ghost. Who was it going to possess now? Fear rose in her mind like tidal waves.
“Madeline!”
Madeline startled and cried out.
“Are you okay?” Tadgh said from the door. “I knocked.” Tadgh stood, puzzled, his hands in his pockets.
“Huh?”
“Can I have a word with you?”
“Of course.” Madeline smiled. "Where's Jo?"
"Planning a new game in the game room . . .”
Madeline was a bit disturbed by Tadgh's apparent agitation as he rolled up and down on the balls of his feet. "What's up Tadgh?" she asked.
"I don't know. Something feels strange."
"Why wouldn't it seem that way, especially after all that’s happened?"
"I called Dublin. They said Mother hasn't arrived home yet. She left ages ago. Where could she be?"
"Is there anywhere she might go to take some time off? Be by herself? She's been through a lot lately.
What about your cousin George’s in France? Jennifer mentioned him before."
Tadgh shook his head. "You don't know my mother. She's an authoritative figure in the family. She would never take shelter anywhere or protection from anyone—no matter how mad Ciaran might be at her. I even searched for air traffic info just in case . . .”
"There might have been an accident?"
Tadgh nodded. "Air, road, water . . . I looked everywhere. I even rang George, although I knew it was entirely unlikely that she’d gone to France. I couldn't find a hint of her. What did she say to you?"
"Nothing. She just cried."
"Do you . . .” Tadgh cleared his throat, “Do you think Mother did the right thing, you know, regarding Juliette?"
“I won’t judge her, Tadgh. One day, I will be a mother, too, and I don’t know what I would do or what I will be capable of when it comes to the welfare of my own children.”
Tadgh nodded.
“Let me see what I can do,” Madeline said and closed her eyes. She tried to catch a sense of Jennifer’s mind—a trace, a feel, a hint of even a single blue dot somewhere.
A dot suddenly appeared at the back of her mind, quickly expanding and exploding like a bomb, spraying dark blood particles all over her. The metallic stench engulfed her senses.
Madeline yelped and slumped to the floor.
“Madeline, are you okay?” Tadgh ran to her, holding her by the shoulders and sitting her up.
“Do you smell anything strange in the room, Tadgh?”
He squinted his nose, sniffed, then shook his head. “Why? What’s going on?”
She shook her head. “I can’t see your mother, Tadgh.”
“That’s okay.”
“I’ll keep looking,” Madeline promised.
“Where’s Ciaran?” Tadgh asked.
Madeline smiled. “He said he was going out for some fresh air . . .” Her voice trailed off. She could swear that she had just seen the white Mountain Avens flowers she’d picked this morning bleeding. She’d watched as a drop of blood formed at the center of a single flower, rolled down a white petal, and landed on the table. She blinked, looking again closely.
Ciaran had said this was Juliette’s favorite kind of flower, and he’d had them brought here from Ireland.
Tadgh frowned. “Are you okay, Madeline? Tell me what’s going on.”
“What color are those flowers over there, Tadgh?”
“They’re white. Why do you ask?”
“Was Juliette by any chance buried near here?”
Tadgh cocked an eyebrow. “You want to buy her flowers?”
“Was she cremated or buried?”
“She was buried. The family’s cemetery is nearby. Why?”
She wondered whether her ghost was able to possess an already dead body. Her mind’s eye kept seeing the Mountain Avens dropping blood onto the table—it seems like an omen or a warning to her. She closed her eyes, concentrated, and traced Ciaran’s thoughts.
Madeline muttered. “Ciaran is at the cemetery at the moment. Trouble’s coming. I can feel it. He didn’t bring his cell with him. We have to go there right away.”
“Can’t you channel to him, talk to him in your mind? You know, using your psychic trick.”
“It’s not a trick, Tadgh, it’s an ability. And yes, I can channel and try to communicate with Ciaran. But he’s not a psychic—he can’t hear me and can’t respond.”
“Okay. Let’s go then. Hope it’s not too late. What’s he thinking, not bringing his cell with him?"
“Nostalgia,” Madeline muttered.
Tadgh led the way, and they rushed out of the room.
Chapter 75
The bleak morning couldn’t possibly weigh down the air at the cemetery any further than it already was. Rows and rows of graves lined up neatly in the grass. Even in death, the LeBlancs protected their privacy, and their private family plots were located at the far corner of the cemetery. Ciaran squinted at the sight of Tadgh and Madeline racing toward the tomb.
It started to drizzle.
Madeline rushed into the tomb and glanced around. She looked nervous—and she should be. He had managed to drag her into the tangled mess of his past in no time. He pulled Madeline into his arms as soon as she ran inside, holding her tightly until every muscle in his body quivered with emotion. In the corner, Tadgh shook rainwater from his coat.
Suddenly, the air thickened. Ciaran knew what it was, and he didn’t care for it one bit.
It meant trouble.
"Tadgh, get out of here. Now!" Ciaran called out to his brother.
As the candle in the tomb flickered, and the faint but sharp smell of burning electrical current rushed through the room, a hologram of Juliette appeared. Ciaran wasn’t at all surprised to see it—someone had simulated her image, and he had seen it in the hologame.
But he was stunned at how the raw emotion flooded back to him, seeing her this close and this real again.
She wore a red dress and stood next to the altar, smiling graciously at him.
"You killed my brother, Ciaran."
"He nearly killed me, too." Ciaran moved Madeline behind him protectively, almost squashing her against the wall.
"Yes, you're right. You told me that before. But in battle, someone always gets hurt."
"What do you want, whoever you are?"
"I'm Juliette,” she said. “Your Juliette. Or I was once. I died on Earth because of you. My father traded his life to get me out of here. And now you’ve killed my brother. So it’s only fair to ask you to come back to me, isn't it? All you have to do is to go through the gate."
"What gate?"
"The Daimon Gate. All of the information you need is on the disk I hid at Mon Ciel. Process the disk, and then you'll be able to see the gate. Come here and be with me."
"I don't have the disk.”
Juliette nodded. "Oh, it’s that old man Richard again, isn’t it? He got the disk, didn’t he? But he won’t know how to decode it. Not everyone is as smart as you and me, Ciaran. You need to find the disk and decode it." She smiled again. "I miss you."
"And what if he won’t go through the gate?" Madeline asked.
Juliette laughed. "Oh, sister. Of course, you’d ask such a foolish question. You do think you have a claim on my man."
The holographic Juliette cast an evil eye at Madeline. Ciaran moved forward slightly.
"You're no competition for Madeline,” Ciaran told the hologram. “You can't compare yourself with the innocent Juliette I loved years ago. You're an electronic profile. Nothing more. Juliette died. You might be able to simulate her emotions and experiences, but you can't simulate the real love we had for each other."
"I am your Juliette! I didn't die!" The hologram whirled back and forth. Its skin grew radiant and red.
"You just told me that you died on Earth because of me. That was a lie?"
"No. I did die on Earth. But I live elsewhere now. You have to be with me. You have to go through the gate."
Tadgh sneered. "So you're in hell now? I would say heaven, but given what you did, I wouldn't think heaven would take you."
"Tadgh!” Ciaran warned him. He didn’t want to make the hologram angry. He had a feeling it wasn’t just a simple hologram with familiar properties. This hologram was something more, something new and more tangible. It might be able to do some real damage.
Tadgh continued. "As far as I'm concerned, Stefan shot my brother, and he got a bullet in return. That’s a tit for a tat. You see, in battle, as you said, someone always gets hurt. If you had told Ciaran your motives from the beginning, you would never have been in a relationship with him, let alone in love and married. You cheated first. Unfortunately—like brother, like sister—you paid a consequence. I can't see that my brother owes you anything. We're done here."
"Tadgh is right. I owe you nothing, Juliette. Let me have my fond memories of you—and you stay wherever you are. I can't—I won’t—join you." He tried to be firm, but Ciaran knew it wa
sn’t going to work.
He pushed Madeline toward the door. The burned smell in the air thickened and grew stronger. They heard the faint sound of crackling wires and dry wood burning. "No one walks away from me." Juliette's face turned dark red, and then purple. “Including you.” Her eyes filled with rage. “I won’t allow it!”
Ciaran grabbed Madeline and called out for Tadgh, "Run!"
Madeline and Ciaran charged out of the tomb.
The hologram whirled and spun. The light circle around it extended until it became a gigantic cylinder.
It grew larger by the second, turning into a small tornado. It stirred the air and sucked everything loose inside the tomb into its vortex. It spun objects around and ejected them randomly in different directions.
It lifted a tombstone and threw it to the ground, breaking it into pieces. It unearthed a coffin and spun the lid away into the air. The tornado grew and exploded the tomb. Shards of rock and concrete rained down on the cemetery grounds.
Madeline, Ciaran, and Tadgh ran. They heard the explosion behind them, but they did not look back.
The tornado built up size and speed quickly. It rose into the darkening sky.
It grew. It chased.
Ciaran looked back and could see the tornado’s need to devour. It would indiscriminately suck everyone and everything into it. But he knew its quest—it wanted only him.
Chapter 76
The funnel of wind and suction followed right behind them. Ciaran knew Juliette wanted him. He slowed down and shoved hard at Tadgh's and Madeline's backs. As they fell forward, the tornado drew him in.
Suddenly, it stopped expanding. It withdrew at high speed, away from Tadgh and Madeline.
Ciaran could feel every bone in his body rattling as he flew around in circles inside the wind tunnel of the tornado. It spun him around, and his body crashed into the various objects whirling around with him—trees, walls, stones.
As he came around each time, he could see Madeline in the distance, trying to run at the tornado. Tadgh held her back.