by Linn Chapel
“I had to find a place where no one else could overhear us. It’s about Operation M.”
Brendan’s eyebrows shot upward and his expression softened. “Dangerous business, that Operation. Tell me what happened.”
Briefly, Tressa described the strange undercurrents within the organization, and then she gave him an account – highly edited – of her dealings with Holt on the night of her mission. She described her subsequent meetings with Holt, too, but even though she gave Brother Brendan carefully whitewashed versions, the old friar’s eyes still narrowed as they watched her face, no doubt seeing more than she wanted him to see.
Quickly moving on to the details of Holt’s disappearance, she ended with a plea for help. “Can you search for Holt in the mist, and see if he’s alright? He has a second body in this world, doesn’t he?”
“A second body? Of course he does,” Brother Brendan huffed absentmindedly, for he was obviously still pondering her revelations. “Whenever it was that he became a vampire, that would not have changed.”
“Can you find him, then? You can see so much farther than I can.”
Brother Brendan frowned in thought. “I haven’t met him in person... and that makes identification difficult. Tell me something about him.”
“He’s tall and has black hair down to his shoulders. He looks like he’s a few years older than me, but he’s really much older. The aging process stops whenever a human is turned,” she reminded him.
“Yes, yes. I’m familiar with the facts,” said Brendan. “How long ago was he turned?”
“About two hundred years.”
“Hmmph! He’s older than me, then,” muttered Brendan. “Let me get this straight: tall, dark-haired, more than two hundred years old. But what’s his nature? His personality? I’ll need to know that, too.”
Tressa thought of the furious way Holt had torn Stix from her on the night they’d attended the Willoughby Theater. She could still remember the sickening sound that the thin vampire’s body had made as it had hit the wall. Then she remembered waltzing down her hallway with Holt, hearing the sound of his voice as he sang, and feeling his hand wrapped tightly – possessively – about her waist. What could she say about Holt that wouldn’t cause the old friar to worry even more?
“His nature? He’s well-read,” she began, “and very opinionated. He’s English, and even though he lives in America, he loves his native land – at least in memory. He doesn’t like modern times at all. He doesn’t like lots of things, in fact. He never talks about the past, but I know that he used to write poetry before he was turned.”
“Poetry? Is he the dreamy type, then? Sweet-tempered?”
A burble of laughter emerged from Tressa. “No, he’s too critical to be dreamy. His poetry must have been critical, just like him. Definitely not dreamy.”
Brendan shook his head. “He sounds like a difficult person. Maybe dangerous, too.”
“Not dangerous to me, Brendan. Only to others.” She reminded him that Holt had come to her rescue more than once.
Brendan stroked his long, white beard, looking mollified for the time being. “You’ve given me enough details that I might be able to find him,” he said thoughtfully. “Wait for me here, Tressa. And for heaven’s sake, light a candle for protection. Have you forgotten everything I taught you?”
Bustling away, the old friar disappeared into the mist.
Alone now, Tressa brought her palms close together. Soon a tall, white candle shimmered into being between her fingers. She pushed energy through her palms, all the way up the candle to the wick, and a small flame burst into view. Protective light surrounded her, brightening the mist.
Turning around in a circle, she kept watch, but she saw nothing to alarm her. Only more mist floated past her in great, soft, slow-moving billows.
It wasn’t long before Brother Brendan reappeared. “I found someone who fits your description. He’s not very far from you, in this world. Of course, there’s no way of knowing his location in the Earthly world.”
“Did he seem to be drugged?”
“No, his body has no distortions. He’s lying in the mists, not standing or walking.”
Holt must be sleeping then, in the Earthly Realm.
Brother Brendan went on. “But he was tossing back and forth... whether from nightmares, or illness, I couldn’t tell.”
Symptoms, Tressa thought. The expected symptoms were appearing.
“He could be unpredictable when he wakes. If he seeks you out again, you mustn’t meet him alone.” Brendan bent a wise and kindly look upon her. “It’s a good thing he’s planning to leave town. You never told me what a handsome fellow he is, did you? But don’t let that make you forget the facts, my dear. He’s lived his life in darkness for two centuries.”
Tressa looked down, unable to meet his eyes.
Brendan spoke briskly. “Now, before you leave, I want to know if you’ve been keeping up your protection petitions.”
She had remembered the petitions each morning, but the last few nights she had felt so anxious and distracted that she had forgotten them. “I, well...”
“How many times do I have to remind you that you’re more vulnerable than other people? You must guard yourself,” Brendan huffed, exasperated. “I hope that at least you had the presence of mind to enter this world from a place of safety in the Earthly Realm!”
She assured him that she had.
“St. Cecelia’s – that’s good,” he muttered to himself. “Now it’s time for you to go back to the Earthy Realm. Let your candle dissolve, Tressa. I’ll hold my own candle up to help you make a doorway.”
He raised his free hand to bless her with the sign of the cross and then he stepped back and lifted his own candle as an aid.
Focusing on the small flame, Tressa made it grow larger and larger until it had widened into a bright doorway. She moved forward, knowing that soon Brother Brendan would make another doorway for his own passage and emerge thousands of miles away in his Franciscan friary in Ireland, where his Earthly body would be sitting or kneeling in some quiet spot, waiting for him.
Tressa passed through her own doorway then, and as she traveled between the worlds, she could see nothing but brightness for a few moments. Then, suddenly, she could smell incense and candles. In another moment, she could hear the muffled sounds of traffic and feel the pressure of the wooden pew beneath her. Opening her eyes in the Earthly world, her gaze fell upon the cool blue shadows of the church.
Even with Brendan’s help she hadn’t learned very much, but at least she knew that Holt was alive. And not drugged. If he didn’t wake up soon and find her, she’d go back to the Unseen World – very briefly, and with a protective candle. If Brendan was right, and Holt wasn’t far from her in the mists of that world, then she’d have a chance of finding him by herself.
If she did, she’d try to rouse him with her voice. His eyes would probably remain closed, but she’d urge him up to a standing posture in the mists so that he would awaken in the Earthly world.
Keeping her own eyes open in the mists wasn’t hard, but it required a conscious passage from the Earthly Realm. That passage, in turn, required a doorway... and making one was the hardest part.
But once a doorway had been formed, passing through it into the Unseen World was just like waking up in her second body. With her eyes fully open, she could peer into the mists or travel slowly and cautiously about, wading through the heavy blanket of vapor that drifted over the uneven terrain.
It was too bad that most people were only dimly aware of their lives in the Unseen World. She had seen them walking through the mist with eyes closed, moving slowly across the unseen landscape as they traveled through the bright and dark regions.
She had seen for herself the spirits that caused the brightness. Sometimes they appeared as bursts of light, while other times they cloaked their light and appeared to have a form, usually that of a bird.
She had spotted white eagles soaring through the fog wi
th curved, pale beaks and broad wings. She had been entranced by the passage of snow-white doves. Once, while walking with Brother Brendan through a silver-green woodland, she had noticed a white owl on a silver branch, watching them pass. During another journey with the old friar, she had seen a tiny white hummingbird hovering near a blossom in a blur of iridescent wings.
The spirits that caused the darkness were more difficult to see, for they hid in the shadows. They made the shadows that they cast about themselves. But in her walks with Brother Brendan, she had observed a few of them – from a distance. Once she had gotten a good look at them, the old friar had always drawn her quickly away.
She had seen the edge of a great wasteland, too, where the mist lay thin on the rocky ground, and where hardly any vegetation grew except for some straggly gray vines. Brother Brendan had called it the occult plane, and had warned her that it held many hidden traps and various paranormal energies that were unhealthy, even malignant.
Under Brendan’s tutelage, she had once caught sight of some paranormal sources herself, from a distance. Budding on the sparse vegetation, the sources had looked like ripe pods. Brendan had told her that they were just as firm and tangible as the trunks of the silver-green trees and the blossoms that grew on the arching shrubs of the safer regions. She had touched some of those safe rocks and vegetation from time to time, marveling that they felt so solid when her own body did not.
But touching a pod in the wasted occult plane was a very bad idea, for the slightest touch would cause the pod to burst open, Brendan had explained. Perfumed pollen would drift upward in the misty air. Breathing in the pollen would give a heady thrill and grant unusual powers, but only for a short time, and the dangers were great. Springing open a pod always attracted the dark spirits which lurked in the crevices nearby, waiting.
Tressa knew that it wasn’t enough to avoid the occult plane, for countless demons roamed throughout the mists of the Unseen World. Having your eyes open was very helpful, of course, but it also increased the dangers. Her brother Luke had once given her a long explanation about the mist, and how it was not really mist at all but some substance more like thoughts. But even Luke had been having trouble understanding all of the features of the Unseen World.
One fact was certain, though, for it had been proven by experience. The more clearly you could see the dark ones, the more easily they could spot you.
And so, the dangers increased for someone like herself. The very differences that made it easier to create a bright doorway to the Unseen World also made her more attractive to the demons.
Was being different a blessing – or a curse? When she was a child, she had thought it was all blessing, but by the time she was a teenager, she had realized it was both. Now that she was twenty-one, she was trying decide if the blessing outweighed the curse, or if it was the other way around.
What would Peter say? Mostly curse, she thought wryly. She knew that her oldest brother was disappointed that he had never received any of the psychic talent that ran in the family, for that was part of the blessing. And of course, there was the terrible incident that had befallen him when he was younger.
Peter had always been headstrong and sure of himself, even at a young age. By the time he had turned thirteen, he had decided he was savvy enough to secretly explore the misty Unseen World on his own, a land he had already stumbled upon a few times by chance.
By his own account, his first foray had gone well. But on his second venture, he had just begun to explore a region of darkened mist when he had promptly attracted the attention of a voracious diabolus. The sudden attempt on the part of the demon to invade his body in the Unseen World had sent him into a panic. Instinctively, he had held his breath in the Unseen World, blocking the normal intake of that vaporous air, and the infiltration of the diabolus had been slowed.
The rest of the family had known very quickly that something was wrong when Peter’s physical body had fallen to the floor in the Earthly Realm. Their father had cried out and abruptly left the room, and later Tressa had learned that he had raced to enter the Unseen World. With his greater experience, he had been able to outwit the diabolus.
Tressa had been very young at the time and had barely been able to grasp what her father had later explained to her about demonic possession. But she had realized that her brother had escaped a dire fate.
Peter had remained in a coma for two weeks. Their parents had brought him to a hospital for life-support, claiming he’d suffered a sports injury. Finally, Peter had regained consciousness. Later, after a long talk with their father, Peter had been sent to Brother Brendan in Ireland to learn the skills of protection.
Luke was two years younger than Peter, and the frightening incident with the diabolus had alerted him to the dangerous elements of the other world. But when he had turned fourteen, curiosity had gotten the better of him at last. Entering the Unseen World with his eyes open had been simple, for Luke had gleaned from Peter’s unsuspecting comments a reliable method for creating a bright doorway.
Night after night, Luke had secretly formed a doorway to the misty Unseen World when everyone else was sleeping. But then, one fateful night, he had nearly met his doom, for he had slipped into a hidden chasm that had yawned under the moving blanket of mist. In such a rift, demons often lurked, and Luke’s peril had been great. But at the last moment, he had grasped onto the silvery rocks at the lip of the chasm. With a burst of strength born of desperation, he had just managed to pull himself out.
Soon after that incident, Luke had traveled to Ireland for his own private retreat with Brother Brendan.
Tressa had successfully avoided the mistakes of her older brothers – until one day, when she had gone to a gathering at a friend’s house.
Thirteen
Tressa had been fifteen years old when it had happened.
The gathering had taken place in the evening, and after a few hours the conversation had dwindled. That was when one of the other girls had seated everyone around a table and announced that she was planning to try out a “spell” that she had learned at an occult bookstore.
Tressa had been alarmed, for she had been warned by her father that occult practices were not as safe as they seemed. Especially for someone like her. But she had been too embarrassed to say anything or to quickly leave the house. Feeling a bit cowardly, she had remained in her seat at the table, hoping all would be well.
All had not been well.
As the other girl had chanted a series of strange words, some kind of natural separation between the two worlds must have become fragile and thin, for the room was suddenly invaded by an energy from the occult plane. Tressa could still recall the horror that had come over her at the sight of the dark cloud that had formed overhead, just below the ceiling.
She had screamed a warning, but when the other girls had cast startled looks of confusion in her direction, she had realized that none of them could see the invasion.
Then a funnel of dark vapor had swirled downward from the bottom of the cloud and she had seen the figure of a man emerge. His legs had descended first, and then the rest of his body had become visible. Moments later, his feet had landed on the middle of the table and he had stood there, with the top of his head touching the dark funneling cloud.
With a shock, Tressa had recognized the face of one of the teachers from their school, a man who had died in a car crash a few months ago.
Even though none of the other girls had been able to see the intruder, they had all cowered when a voice had thundered in anger, trying to silence Tressa’s warnings.
The strange figure had dived for her, then, and its fingers had felt like ice-cold knives plunging into her skull. It was a pain she had never forgotten.
The room had swum before her eyes and then she had fainted. But instead of sinking into oblivion, she had experienced a rush of gray light. Suddenly, she was in a nightmarish land of withered vines and gray vapor, where she was running faster and faster. Glancing frantically behind h
er, she had been terrified to see that the figure of the dead teacher was following her. He was now wading quickly in her direction, ankle-deep in gray vapor at the border of the shadowy wasteland.
Then she had caught sight of her girlfriends from the gathering. They had all been moving away from the angry figure, stumbling along with their eyes closed. She had called out to them again and again, urging them to keep going.
Suddenly, the scene had disappeared in a rush of nausea, and Tressa had awoken to feel the pressure of the floor underneath her back. Cries of fear and confusion had come from the other girls as they had rushed to turn on the lights and help her up from the floor. To Tressa’s relief, the dark cloud near the ceiling had disappeared.
Her father had been overwrought when she had told him about the incident. He had gone on to explain that her nightmare vision had been an open-eyed visit to the Unseen World, with no protections in place. The figure of the dead teacher must have been an impostor, he had said, the kind of dark spirit that was able to take on the likeness of a person, living or dead. As for the gray wasteland, that had been the occult plane.
He had gone on to remind her that any demon would notice her very quickly because of the differences in her make-up. The impostor had been unable to possess her like a diabolus, but it had apparently tried to silence her by striking her down. At least she had been able to warn the other girls in time, her father had added. Their confusion had saved them, for confusion always dispelled the kind of paranormal cloud Tressa had seen above the table, and enabled the barrier between the occult plane and the Earthly world to heal.
Soon after that disturbing episode, Tressa had gone on a private retreat with Brother Brendan in Ireland. Her mother had been so alarmed by the series of dangerous episodes that her sister Brianna had been sent to Ireland when she was only eleven, and plans were underway for Tressa’s two youngest brothers to make the trip together very soon, before anything bad could happen to them.
Tressa suddenly became aware of her surroundings, and the fact that she was still gazing up at the image of St. Cecelia within the stained-glass window.