“Nope, she’s here. She came back for Ridley. She’s going to take him home now. They will finally be able to move on.”
Kelsey nodded and turned to Desmond. She was devastated at his expression. Without another word, she crawled over to Josh, ignoring the agony in her leg when she moved it.
She leaned towards Josh so their faces were only inches apart. Desmond remained next to them, his hands pressed firmly onto Josh’s wound, but his effort was futile. Blood still continually seeped around his fingers.
“Stay with me, Josh, you hear me? We’re going to get you out of here as soon as we can.”
Josh’s breath came in short bursts. “Sure, Kid. Everything’s going to be just fine, isn’t it?” He reached out his hand and unsteadily pressed it to her cheek. “Look at us, me hurt and you trying to take care of me. Just like old times.”
There was the sound of pounding and shouts on a far door of the attic. With a loud bang, the frame split apart and Richard Bain and Gerald Cragg entered the attic and pushed through the clutter to their sides. Gerald stopped in his tracks when he saw the carnage. He discovered his father’s crumpled, bloody body, and fell to his knees.
“Dr. Cragg, we need you over here!” Kelsey called out.
But Gerald didn’t listen. Instead, he turned and moved to the bound girls on the floor and bent down next to them. He touched one of their cheeks. “Gerald, please, we need your help!”
Gerald glanced up at her, and from his expression, she knew he wouldn’t help. His aura rippled all shades of sickly gray. With a disgust too big for words, she turned back to Josh.
“You’re going to be okay. You hear me?”
“Sure, Kelsey. I’ll be… just fine. Bain, get your ass over here.” Blood bubbled from his mouth with each word. It was getting hard for him to speak.
Kelsey made room as Bain bent to Josh’s side, while Desmond continued to apply pressure to his chest. Josh grabbed the lawyer’s lapels and pulled him close until his lips were at his ear. “It’s… me,” he sputtered. I’m Mi-Misterio. I can prove it.” He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a key. “This is for a locker at the Cherrytree facility down in SOHO. Unit 1504. Inside is a container filled with bills of sale from a well-known arms dealer in the Middle East. I made all these transactions last year.” He closed his eyes for a moment.
Bain took the key. “Were you also involved in the biochemical killings in the Middle East?”
“Yes.” His chest heaved as he tried to catch his breath.
Kelsey pushed Bain aside. “Stop it! We are not doing this right now. It’s not the time to interrogate him. He must conserve his energy. Josh, please. You don’t have to say anything. You need to be still. Bain, leave him alone.”
“Kelsey, will you just shut up already,” Josh growled. “You’re always so goddamned bossy.” He coughed, took another breath, and turned to Bain. “I was developing toxic plants to wipe out those bastards who destroyed my unit three years ago. I owned the facility down by the piers and I changed the lease to Kelsey’s name just for the tax write-off. I did it all the time.”
Kelsey tried one more time. “Gerald, will you please get over here and help us?”
But Gerald ignored her. Instead, she watched him pick up Jenella’s gun from the ground, stare at the girls screaming for him, and then put the gun to his own temple and fire. Kelsey could do nothing but watch, horrified as he fell on top of his father’s body. The girls continued to scream.
The attic was filling with the dead. Kelsey wanted to go comfort the girls, but couldn’t yet. Instead, she searched for Billy, but he was nowhere in sight.
Josh squeezed her hand and she turned back to him. More blood dribbled from his mouth and fear spread through her. “It’s all over, Kelsey. I’m Misterio. I was the one that got into the fight with Desmond and punched him, not Ari. When you went to Egypt, I tried to kill him. I missed.”
Desmond’s lips were pressed into a hard, thin line. “So, that was you?” He still amazingly kept his hands firmly on Josh’s chest, but his eyes shot daggers.
Josh swallowed and closed his eyes. “It’s always been me.”
“But why would you do that?” Desmond asked.
Josh turned his gaze back to Kelsey. It took him a few seconds to speak and when he did, his voice was soft. “Because I love her. I’ve always loved her, and you were getting in my way.”
“So you took a bullet for me?” Desmond asked, incredulously.
Josh stared at Kelsey and his eyes softened. “I know how much she cares about you.” His voice was so soft it was nearly a whisper.
Kelsey shook her head. “Josh, please stop speaking. You’re trying to take the blame for everything and goading Desmond to let go of you so you can die with these lies on your lips. Just stop it, please. I know you’re lying. I can tell.” She could see his aura rippling with accountabilities and fibs, but she couldn’t tell which was which.
“I’m not lying about any of this, especially about you. The Middle East was payback and you know it. I always said I would pay back the terrorists, and I almost did it, too.” His chest heaved. “I would have wiped them off the planet and none of you would have been able to stop me.” He coughed, and blood spurt from his mouth and his wound.
“Josh, please be quiet.”
Bain leaned in. “So Mickie didn’t do a thing?”
Josh didn’t answer for a second, but then opened his eyes. “Nothing. Just the perfect idiot to blame everything on.” Suddenly his body convulsed and his eyes rolled back in his head. And then he went limp.
“Josh, no!” Kelsey turned to Desmond, her eyes wild. “I’ll be back.”
She instantly collapsed on top of Josh, unconscious.
Bain jumped back. “What the hell?”
Desmond swallowed hard and then just picked up Kelsey with his bloody hands and cradled her in his arms. He knew exactly what had just happened, yet could not say or do a thing until she returned.
Chapter 17
After Kelsey collapsed on top of Josh in the attic at Cragg Hill House, she took herself right to Xanadu. She woke up outside of her hut and called desperately to Ishu. “Ishu, to me! To me!” In a flurry of wings, her pet fedelia soared across the kingdom and landed next to her in the garden glen. Kelsey jumped onto her creamy white back and squeezed her lovingly. “Now, to the monastery! As fast as you can fly. We don’t have a lot of time.” Oh my God, Josh, I hope I’m not too late.
Ishu flapped her magnificent wings and they took to the sky. The fedelia flew Kelsey directly into the castle commons. Kelsey jumped off, ran across the front lawn and into the castle, racing through the hallowed halls until she met up with the Emperor and Empress in the receiving room. The Emperor appeared to have been expecting her.
Kelsey halted, breathing heavily from her run, and glanced around desperately until she found him. Josh lay in the corner of the room on a divan. He appeared to be asleep. Relief flooded her being and she nearly swooned. They had not yet moved him on.
The Emperor glanced at the Empress. “I told you she’d come as soon as we received him.”
Kelsey beseeched him. “Please, I beg of you. Don’t send him down.”
The Emperor raised his brows. “Why not, Kelsey? You don’t think he deserves it? He has built up enough negative karma for centuries to come. He’s been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people in this lifetime and had plans to kill millions more. We can’t just make exceptions because he’s your friend.”
She dropped to her knees. “Please, Emperor, I implore you. If you send him down, Mara will find him. He’ll torture him just because I care for him. Mara will feel my essence on Josh’s soul and feel his love for me. It will be worse than any of the hell realms and a punishment beyond what he deserves. You can’t do this to him. To me. Please have mercy.” She seldom cried, but felt herself on the verge of tears.
“You’re being selfish,” the Emperor said. “It’s his own soul that needs to be cleansed an
d evolved. By not sending him down, he will never learn and he will be destined to repeat his heinous actions for lifetime after lifetime. Is that what you want for him?”
“Emperor, please, there are other ways. You can teach him. He can do his penance here in Xanadu. I beg of you. I ask for nothing, but this. Just keep him safe for me.”
The Emperor considered her and then raised his brows. “I see you’re wearing your father’s pearls again. Interesting.”
Kelsey’s eyes widened in surprise and she put her hands to the top of her head. She felt the strands woven into her hair, just like she’d worn them for centuries in the Naraka kingdom.
“I... I didn’t know that they were there,” she stuttered.
“Did your father give them back to you?”
Kelsey seemed troubled. “These were once a gift and I discarded them when I left his kingdom the first time. They must have materialized without me realizing.”
The Empress chimed in. Her voice was quiet and restrained. “Kelsey, your feelings for these pearls were strong enough for you to bring them through the realms. You obviously wanted them greatly to do this. Part of that world is obviously still living deeply within you.”
Kelsey’s jaw dropped and she reddened. “I assure you, they mean nothing to me, Empress. Mara means nothing to me. All that matters is what happens with Josh. These pearls are just trinkets.” She tried to remove them from her hair but realized they were locked in place. She slowly dropped her hands.
She watched the Emperor and Empress exchange a glance, but did not know what it meant.
The Emperor put a finger to his temple in thought. “I think I have a solution. A deal.”
Kelsey squinted, unsure. “A deal? Like a bargain? Since when do you do that, Sire?”
“I have decided to start now. You want us to change Josh’s path, then there is something you will need to do for us.”
“You know I’ll do anything you ask.”
“Good. We need you to find something in New York City. It’s a mere bauble and it’s in the possession of a person that you need to find.”
Kelsey bowed her head, relief flooding her being. She knew immediately that the Emperor and Empress would keep Josh safe, and she would honor any commitment they asked.
“Of course, Sire. Anything you wish.”
#
Kelsey had taken Josh from the monastery and Ishu flew them to her little hut in the woods. She and Josh sat on the soft grass talking quietly. It was warm this early evening and a light breeze fluttered through the leaves on the trees. Exotic little animals skirted around them, jumped through their legs and yipped about the front yard. Kelsey rubbed the stomach of a squiggly creature with eight little legs and a furry, ferret-like body that was only still for moments before it spun and rolled about, frolicking in the wildflowers. If either of them had craned their heads to peer through the forest, they could have seen across the valley to the monastery. The golden stupa glowed brightly in the light of the setting sun.
Josh’s feet were bare and he played with the frayed rope cord that cinched the simple brown robe about his waist. He peered at the sky with a forlorn expression darkening his features. Ribbons of blue and red streaked across the expanse and moved with the winds, the way clouds moved with a storm. Delicate, colorful little aerial creatures flew around him. He held out his hand and a butterfly gently alighted on his palm. Feathery, wispy tendrils extended from its fragile lace-like wings and fluttered in the soft breeze. “I don’t understand, Kelsey. What am I doing here with you? Did I die in the attic from the gunshot wound?”
“Yes, you did.”
He bit his lip, considering. “Then, is this heaven?”
She shook her head. “No, it’s not. There really is no heaven. There are just the realms or nirvana. This place you’ve come to is Xanadu.”
He furrowed his brow. “Xanadu? Your Xanadu? The place where you say people go to choose their next incarnation? Am I supposed to decide where I should go next, then?”
She paused in answering. She knew exactly why he was there with her in Xanadu, and it was not because it would be where Josh would receive his next incarnation. He would have no choice in this and only had the luxury of even being in this realm because of her. Kelsey shuddered, knowing exactly where he would be existing had she not intervened. Exactly where someone who had already killed hundreds of people, and had planned to kill millions more, would be going in their next lifetime.
She hedged, knowing that he’d also eventually forget everything she said. Still, she wanted to spare him the truth, for her time with him was short. She wanted their remaining moments to be as idyllic as possible because soon things would forever change. “You’re here because this is your path, Josh. This will be your new home until it’s time to move on.”
“Oh.” He’d said it so softly that it came out like a sigh. With a frown, he placed his hand to his temple. “I feel so strange, like my mind is drifting. Have I been drugged?”
She reached out and squeezed his hand. The changes were happening more quickly than she’d anticipated. She’d thought she’d have more time with him.
“It’s okay, Josh. Don’t worry about anything. Just let yourself be.”
“Why am I here again? Did I die?” His memories were already getting cloudy. As time went on, he’d slowly forget everything about himself and would just exist in this bardo. They couldn’t have given me more time with him? But she knew there was not much more she could request of the Emperor and Empress. Still… She’d have to be satisfied with these moments, here and now.
She hedged further. “We all have different paths in the afterlife. This is just how yours is playing out. Please don’t worry. I promise you that you are safe.”
He stared at the ribbons in the sky, lost in thought. “Okay.”
Kelsey stood up from where she’d been sitting on the grassy knoll and swiped the dirt from her flowing green robes. For a moment, she just watched her friend while he stared at the colorful ribbons that drifted and weaved across the sky. She would remember him looking like this. This beautiful, impulsive man. A man who’d loved her since her youth, who was brave and strong, aggressive and fiercely loyal, and oh, so very flawed. He was a man whom she’d do anything for, including hurting his path to protect him.
For a single moment, a shadow of indecision crossed her features as she thought of the Emperor’s words. She wondered suddenly if she had made a grave error in judgment. Everyone suffered. Everyone had pain. Who was she to influence Joshua’s journey? Was she just being selfish? Her friends at home, Ari, Julia, Dennis, and Seung, would mourn Josh’s human death fiercely, yet Kelsey could always come back to Xanadu and visit him to heal the pain in her own heart of missing him. Even though he might not remember who she was, to her, he would still continue to exist. She would be able to see him with her own eyes. Hold his hand. Hug him. He might not know her any longer, but he’d still be alive. At least his soul would be.
And then for another brief moment, she thought of the Emperor and Empress agreeing to this deal. She’d never seen them do something like this before. Since when had they ever changed someone’s journey because they were asked for a favor? Now that Kelsey knew them better, she began to question why they’d agreed so easily when they could have moved Josh on as soon as he’d entered the bardo, as they should have. Josh would no doubt be suffering in one of the hell realms right now and she shuddered to think of him there.
Obviously, the Emperor and Empress had an ulterior motive and there was a very good reason they wanted this item she was to look for. Was it dangerous? Well, she’d find out one way or the other and she had no intention of backing out. It was the only way to keep Josh safe.
Kelsey pursed her lips, knowing that the Emperor and Empress had always been more than what she had thought. They were by far not simple Aranhats serving the bardos. They were part of a bigger plan, and for a moment she realized that they were probably using her again, even though they had prom
ised not to. But what choice do I have? None. She’d just have to keep her eyes open. But even if they were using her, it didn’t matter because she knew exactly what Mara would do if he knew Josh meant something to Kelsey. While her spiritual father held no sway over her any longer, that didn’t mean he had no influence on others in her personal journey. Mara would torture him, just to hurt her. To make her feel pain. Possibly to force her hand to return to his side.
Would I do that? Would I return home to Mara’s side if I knew he was torturing one of my friends? That was a sobering line of thought, and wondered what she would do if that ever happened. But what if it were Desmond? She’d realized if it were him, she’d go back to her father’s side in a heartbeat. She’d never let him suffer if she had the ability to help him. Still, she shuddered at the thought.
Kelsey was certain of her decision now. So, she changed Josh’s path. Big deal. Her path in this continuum had been changed many times without her consent. Look where it had brought her? Kelsey held out her hand and gave her friend a warm smile. “Come, Josh. It’s time for us to go. Let me take you to your new home.”
He glanced up and his eyes widened for a moment when he looked at her. For a second his cloudy, dazed expression became clear and sharp again. Just like she remembered him.
Josh smiled that beautiful grin that made her heart melt. “Kid, have I told you how beautiful you are?” They just stared at each other for a moment. “You know I love you, right?” He blinked fiercely, and she knew he struggled to stay clear-headed.
Her smile was bittersweet. “I know. I always have. I will always love you, too.” She leaned towards him and gave him the gentlest of kisses on the lips.
He kept his eyes closed and then frowned. “What’s happening to me, Kelsey? I feel… like I’m disappearing. Please stay with me.” His voice had a desperate, frightened edge to it.
She embraced him and held him tight, and he hugged her fiercely back. “I’m here, Josh. I will always be with you. Please don’t fight what’s happening. I promise you that you will be okay. You’re safe.”
The Haunting of Cragg Hill House Page 23