Donn's Shadow

by Caryn Larrinaga

  “I get it. I never even knew your mom, and it’s still fascinating stuff. I can’t imagine what it’s like for you.”

  She pulled open a letter and skimmed its contents. I dove back into my mother’s history. A few months after her first date with my dad, she wrote to Gabrielle from Seattle with news that she’d met another medium named Anson Monroe who could help develop her powers.

  He’s been doing this for decades, just like you. He’s studied all over the world. Between the two of you, I think I can cross over.

  My eyebrows drew together. Cross over to where? She couldn’t mean the other side. The living couldn’t go there… could they?

  That was exactly what she meant. In her next letter, she vented about the difficulties of astral projection and complained she didn’t feel powerful enough to do it. That was one of the few supernatural things she’d talked to me about when I’d been young: the magic of the astral plane.

  “I thought she was kidding,” I muttered aloud.

  “What’s that?” Daphne looked up from the letter she was reading.

  “Oh, nothing.”

  I read on, and more details about my mother’s journeys and personality emerged. She drank her coffee black and loathed tea. She celebrated every time she found a new job by saluting the sunset with a gin and tonic and fortified herself against the jobs she really hated with a nightly glass of red wine.

  The lump rose in my throat again. She’d had a glass of red wine every night until she died. She must have hated her job, but she’d kept it.

  For me.

  Daphne poked me in the arm. “Hey, I think I’ve got something. Listen to this.” She read aloud from a heavy sheet of ivory-colored paper:

  “You owe me a night on the town next time I see you, darling. I was right. The so-called ‘Banshee of Braxton’ was a hoax. The red-eyed demon was nothing more than a prank. Of course, you were partially correct. There was an element of the paranormal involved. The young Betsy, as it turns out, is a psychic of prodigious skill. She bypassed the locked doors via astral projection.”

  “Wait, I just read something else about that.” I pulled the letter from Daphne’s hands and skimmed it. It was dated in 1975 and signed “affectionately yours, Alfie.”

  “What do you know about it?” Daphne asked.

  “Not much. I didn’t even know astral projection was real. But look at this.” I passed her the letter from my mother where she shared how difficult it was to do. “My mom was studying it before I was born.”

  “I didn’t think it was real, either.” She frowned. “But this thing about a ‘red-eyed demon’ really being an astral traveler….”

  She didn’t finish her sentence, but I immediately knew what she meant. Horace’s eyes had glowed red at the cabin, and though they’d faded to black the next two times I’d seen him, they’d started out red then too.

  It fit. Daphne had been able to see him but had never seen a ghost at one of Gabrielle’s séances. Did you need some level of psychic ability to see someone traveling through the astral plane and a higher level to see ghosts?

  The questions piled up in my mind like a mudslide. If Horace was astral projecting, where was he projecting from? Was there a limit to the distance? How did he know who I was? And how did he know where I was so that he could project right into whatever room I was in?

  “Mac, your phone’s ringing.”

  “What?” I ripped my attention away from the letter and checked my phone, which buzzed on the coffee table where I’d left it. Graham’s name blinked on the screen, and I stepped out onto the landing to talk to him.

  “Is Striker with you?” he asked without preamble.

  “Yeah, why?”

  He sighed into the mouthpiece. “I could have sworn I left her in my apartment when I left this morning, but she wasn’t here when I got back. After last night… I was just worried.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. My emotional feathers were still ruffled by his cold anger the night before and his absence all day today. An awkward silence stretched across several long moments.

  “Where are you?” he finally asked.

  “I’m at the inn with Daphne. We found a box of Gabrielle’s old letters in the attic.” I paused, wishing he and I weren’t fighting so this moment could be full of pure happiness instead of muddled with sadness and regret. “A bunch of them are from my mom.”

  His voice was hesitant. “Do you mind if I join you?”

  I sagged against the banister, relieved to hear him ask. “I would love that.”

  “I’ll be there soon.”

  When I came back into the room, Striker was darting excitedly around the suite with a slightly puffed tail as though chasing an invisible bird, and Daphne was climbing out from beneath the bed.

  “Find anything else down there?” I asked.

  “No.” She put her hands into her hoodie pocket, pulled out a tissue, and blew her nose. “Sorry. Allergies. Striker got all hyper, and I was worried she might try to climb in the hole, so I closed it up.”

  “Oh, thanks.” I settled myself back on the floor and pulled the box of letters onto my lap.

  “I hate to leave you, but I should be going.”

  “What? But we’re so close!”

  She dusted her hands off on her jeans. “We’re more than close. We’ve solved it. This Horace guy isn’t a ghost. He’s just some psychic messing with you from somewhere.”

  “But we don’t know who he really is or why he’s doing it.” How she could walk away in the middle of this baffled me until I remembered Horace wasn’t stalking her. She had the benefit of some distance from the problem. But still… I would stay for her.

  I’d stay to help a friend.

  A flash of annoyance warmed my face. This was the curse of the jewelry box all over again, but subtler. Even my newest friends were abandoning me. Well, fine. I’d finish this alone then.

  Almost alone. Striker still zoomed around the room like a pinball in a machine, threatening to knock over the lamps on the night tables and the desk.

  “Thanks for your help,” I forced myself to say, turning my back on Daphne to focus on the shoebox in my lap.

  “Let me know if you find anything else.”

  Her footsteps crossed the room. A moment later, a loud THUMP and a crash jolted me to my feet, sending the box of letters flying. I spun around to see Daphne sprawled on the floor in front of the door.

  “Oh, my God!” I rushed to her side. “Are you okay?”

  “I think so.” She let me pull her into a sitting position, rubbed her ankle, and winced. “I think it’s sprained.”

  “What happened?”

  “I tripped”—she lifted her chin toward my cat, who was now cleaning one of her front paws with cool detachment—“on Ms. Jetpack.”

  “I am so sorry.” I rounded on my cat. “Striker! You could’ve killed her!”

  Striker ignored my scolding, forcing me to walk over and pick her up. She’d been sitting on something; the glass face of a cell phone reflected the bright light above us. I bent down to retrieve it, telling Daphne, “I think you dropped this.”

  The other woman struggled to find her feet on her twisted ankle and hobbled over to me, hand outstretched. I turned the phone over in my hands, moving to give it to her, then stopped.

  Raziel’s face glowered at me from the back of the case. I recognized the stylized art style from when I’d seen his phone at the cabin, and it had the same red flames and blue “veritas vincat” lettering I’d noticed when he’d been texting Amari.

  “Is this Raziel’s phone?” I asked.

  “No, it’s mine.”

  She reached for it, but I stepped away from her.

  “You hated Raziel. You’d never have his face on your phone. Why do you have this?” My eyes flicked to the bed. “Was it in the hidey-hole?”

  “I told you, it’s mine. I changed the case.”

  The lie was obvious to the point of being insulting. I backed away
from Daphne, Striker in one arm and the phone in the other, and swiped to unlock the device. It asked me for a code, but the lock screen featured a photo I recognized from the news coverage of Raziel’s death: a rare picture of Raziel smiling with his mother at his side.

  “Cut the crap, Daphne. This is definitely Raziel’s phone. Why did you take it?”

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “It doesn’t matter. Just give it back.”

  “No.” I slipped it into the pocket of my jeans and circled around her toward the door. “Deputy Wallace was looking for it. The police need it.”

  “I need it,” she growled, wobbling slightly as she took a few steps toward me. “Don’t make me hurt you, Mac.”

  I edged closer to the door. Would she really hurt me? An hour ago, I’d have been sure she wouldn’t. But this woman in front of me didn’t wear the face of my friend. Her eyes held no light, and her mouth was set in a determined line.

  “Just talk to me.” The door was only a few feet to my left now. “Let me help you. Whatever’s going on, we can work through it.”

  “No. We can’t.”

  She dove for me.

  With a surprised shriek, I lunged for the door. Striker launched off me, landing on the desk and sending the lamp clattering to the floor. Daphne had the benefit of a long reach and grabbed my hair, yanking me backward. I stumbled and lost my footing, toppling to the ground.

  She was on me in an instant, knocking my face into the hardwood floor and kneeling on my back. Her hands fumbled at my pockets, then she grabbed the edge of the phone and pulled the device to freedom.

  As soon as her weight lightened on my body, I rolled, knocking her off balance while she tried to stand. I yanked on her injured ankle, dragged her to her knees, and knocked the phone out of her hands. It skittered across the floor and under the bed. Striker soared after it, her dark shape distracting me long enough for Daphne’s good foot to smash into my chest, knocking the wind out of my lungs. As I gasped for air, she scrambled around on the floor and got behind me, grabbed the string that held the crystal around my neck, and yanked.

  Lights popped in my eyes. I scratched at my neck, trying desperately to find a finger-hold. Then, the braided leather snapped, and she flew backward, hitting her head on the displaced coffee table with a thump.

  The instant the little black stone left my neck, the migraine that’d been plaguing me for the past week and a half surged back into place. Pain flooded my sinuses, squeezing my skull from every direction. I cried out, pressing a hand against the back of my head, and Daphne did the same.

  The door to the attic suite banged open. Graham’s tall figure momentarily filled the doorway, and shock registered on his face as he loped toward me.

  “Police,” I croaked. “Now.”

  He wasted no time pulling out his phone and dialing. Daphne’s limbs collapsed beneath her body, and her defeated sobs filled the room.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The Driscoll County Sheriff’s Department buzzed with activity. From my seat in the waiting room, I watched through the heavily tinted windows as Sheriff Harris fended off reporters on the front steps. He kept holding up his hands and shaking his head, and I wondered what he might be telling them about my involvement with the case.

  At least now, I was confident he wouldn’t use the word “suspect” to describe me.

  We’d been sitting here for over two hours. Graham had tried to convince the deputies to let us go home until they were ready to take our statements, but they’d insisted we stay at the station. Soon after we got there, Kit and Amari had arrived and been immediately whisked into a conference room. Every time I got up to use the bathroom or the drinking fountain, I’d slowed my pace at the conference room windows, trying unsuccessfully to hear any snatches of conversation.

  After a long while, Kit and Amari emerged back into the open. I intercepted them as they left the station. Kit wrapped me in a hug, checked my face and my neck for any lingering signs of injury, then punched me on the shoulder.

  “Ow!” I rubbed the spot where her small fist had connected with my bone. “What was that for?”

  “For being an idiot.” Kit glared at me. “That nutbag could’ve killed you!”

  Amari’s face bore the signs of strain and exhaustion, but she shot me a weak smile. “I’m so relieved you’re not injured. I hope they don’t keep you waiting much longer.”

  I nodded toward the conference room. “What happened in there?”

  Kit opened her mouth to answer, and Amari rested a hand on her arm.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “They asked us not to speak to anyone about it until all the interviews are completed.”

  “I get it,” I said. “Go home, get some rest. We’ll catch up later.”

  They left, and we continued waiting. To kill the time, I watched the deputies at their desks as they pored over case files and made phone calls. The hum of their conversations filled the air, their words merging into a mass of unintelligible chatter. I rubbed my temples, wishing they’d taken us straight to the conference room or even that cold interrogation room. Either place would be quiet. It was difficult to think with all this noise.

  “Is your migraine back?” Graham asked from beside me.

  I shook my head. “No, thank goodness. This just feels like a regular headache.”

  “You must be exhausted.” He put an arm around me and inclined his head toward the piece of black tourmaline hanging from my neck. “That’s new.”

  “Yeah.” I pulled away from him and lifted the stone from my chest, taking care not to break the leather cord again. I’d hastily re-tied it in the attic suite before the deputies had escorted us out of the inn, and the large knot jutted awkwardly outward at the back of my neck. “Elizabeth Monk gave it to me after my massage. Jeez, that was just this afternoon. It feels like days ago.”

  “I like it.”

  “Thanks. This will sound crazy, but I think it’s the reason my migraine is finally gone. I think….” I bit my lip. Here, in this busy place, my theory seemed too ridiculous to say aloud.

  Graham nudged me. “You think what?”

  I shook my head. “It’s stupid.”

  “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but whatever you’re thinking, you’re probably right. I’m sorry for calling you reckless. I just worry about you.” He shot a glare toward the door to the holding cells where Daphne had been taken. “And I won’t apologize for wanting to know you’re safe, because trouble seems to follow you around. But you have good instincts, and I’m always here to listen to your theories, okay?”

  “Okay.” I let the stone fall back against my t-shirt and took a deep breath. “Before Daphne attacked me, we found some letters Gabrielle had hidden in her attic. One of them described a person who was astral projecting as having red eyes, and I think that’s what Horace is doing. He’s not a ghost. He’s not dead. He’s just a psychic. A really, really powerful one.”

  Graham’s eyes went wide behind his glasses. “What? How is that even possible?”

  “I don’t know. I guess it’s something my mom was working on before she had me. I’m not super familiar with it, but from what I understand, it’s possible to displace your own spirit. You can disconnect yourself from your body and use the astral plane to travel around.”

  “That sounds… dangerous.”

  I nodded. “I know. I can’t imagine doing it. But that’s what Horace was doing. He said he’d been looking for another psychic like me. What if everything he told me was at least a half-truth? He claimed he’d been drawn to me while I was calling out to Richard Franklin’s ghost. What if that’s true, and Horace just happened to hear me while he was on the astral plane?”

  He frowned. “I guess that makes sense.”

  “I think the same thing happened when I reached out to Raziel. Horace heard me, and then he found me. Then he sent me to Cambion’s Camp after that jewelry box, and that’s when the migraines really started.” I rubbed the back
of my head. “You know how you can sort of feel eyes on the back of your head when someone’s watching you? It’s like that, but so strong it hurts.”

  I paused. We were now leaving “I think” territory and barreling straight into the truly unknown. Until I could confirm my theories with someone like Gabrielle, all I had from this point forward was pure conjecture.

  “What if he was spying on me somehow, maybe watching me from the astral plane? And that’s how he knew everything that was going on? And this”—I lifted the black tourmaline necklace again—“stops him from seeing me?”

  Before Graham could react to that, the door to the interrogation room opened. Deputy Wallace stepped out of the room, glancing toward us before motioning to someone behind her. The pale, shaking figure of Stephen Hastain followed her to her desk, where she handed him a business card. Then, with a clap on the back, she pointed him toward the door.

  Instead of heading for the exit, Stephen raised his hand in greeting and made his way toward the row of chairs where Graham and I sat.

  “Hey!” Wallace barked. “Not ‘til I’m done with them.”

  Stephen winced, glanced back at the deputy, then tossed us an apologetic shrug.

  “We’ll see you later,” Graham called to him.

  The rune caster nodded and left the station, and Deputy Wallace beckoned for us to join her at her desk.

  “Sorry for the wait,” she said. “There’s a lot to sort through. Follow me.”

  I expected her to lead us back into the same interrogation room where she’d just met with Stephen, but instead she led us to a small conference room at the back of the station. It was the same room where I’d told her about my psychic abilities earlier that year, and I smiled at the memory of her warm reaction to the news.

  She flopped into a chair at the head of the oblong table with a deep sigh, tossing a laptop and a manila folder onto the surface in front of her. “Lord, I’m tired. You guys want coffee?”

  “We’re okay,” I said, speaking for Graham as we sat down beside her. I’d had the station coffee before and loved him enough to spare him from it.