Skeptic

by Denise Mathew

  "It's going to take some time," Elise said, pushing in closer to Dakota. He enfolded her in his arms, protectively.

  "She doesn't have a body, how much can she really do to us?" Dakota whispered into Elise's ear.

  "It's better if we don't find out," Elise said under her breath.

  Tansy's face contorted into an expression, that made the blood in Dakota's veins go cold. Without warning, Tansy rose into the air and flew at him. Her attack was as vicious as it was quick, and before he could think to move, she had clawed several strips of flesh from his forearms, and blood gushed from fresh wounds. By the time he had brought his fist up to punch her, she had retreated.

  "Stop it," Elise yelled, lunging at Tansy, but her hands passed right through the woman.

  "How did she do that?" Dakota said, incredulously.

  His mind was working to comprehend the impossibility of what had just happened, but the lines of missing skin on his forearms, did wonders to speed up the process. Tansy glided away from them, laughing a high-pitched cackle, that sent fresh shudders through him.

  Still locked on Tansy, Dakota hadn't noticed that Elise had moved away from him, until he saw her race toward him again. She held a perfectly round, highly polished ebony colored stone, in her shaking hands, and had it positioned like a shield in front of her. Snatching a handful of Dakota's t-shirt, Elise nudged both of them toward Tansy. Tansy held her ground, but as the distance between them closed, she threw a long-nailed hand in front of her face, as if she was in distress. Then it was Tansy's turn to back away. Her face became a mask of agony, and she moaned like she was in pain. Seconds later, her image flashed like a badly tuned transmission, then dissolved.

  Elise stayed board stiff, with the mirror held tight in her hands, long after Tansy had disappeared, as did Dakota. When it appeared as though the witch was really gone, Dakota gently pried the mirror from Elise's white fingertips. As soon as the stone mirror was out of her grasp, she shivered uncontrollably and Dakota hauled her into his arms, hugging her to him. Blood from his scratches smeared her silk blouse, and he cringed when he realized he had ruined her shirt. Elise buried her face in his chest, not seeming to notice or care. For a few minutes they stood in the middle of the lavish apartment, holding each other.

  "What just happened?"

  He glanced at his arms. The slashes were beginning to clot and stung like hell. Elise stared down at his shredded flesh, broke free from his embrace, then disappeared into the bathroom and returned with what looked like a brand new first aid kit.

  "Sit down on the sofa, okay?" she said, then snapped the clasp on the box, and pulled out a few gauze squares, some iodine, and a topical antibiotic.

  Dakota did as he was told, and felt like a little boy who had skinned his knees and was getting fixed up by his mom.

  "Sorry, this is going to sting," Elise said.

  In a few expert strokes, she cleaned the slices that ran the length of his forearms, with an iodine-saturated gauze square. As soon as the iodine hit his open wounds, it burned like Hades, and Dakota bit his tongue to keep from swearing an oath at Elise. After she had cleaned the cuts, she dabbed ointment on the wounds and wrapped gauze bandages over everything.

  "That should do for now," she said.

  Before she sat down again, she plucked up the black stone mirror from the coffee table. She laid the disc on her lap, ran a fingertip along the polished edge, gazing down at the surface. An expression of concentration lit her face, before she turned her attention to him.

  "The obsidian mirror repelled her once, but I'm not sure it will again," she said.

  "Are you saying that she left because of that thing?" he asked, leaning forward, and touching the cool surface of the stone.

  Elise nodded.

  "Nanny Flo gave it to me years ago, I have no idea where it came from, only that she had gotten it from her grandmother when she was a small child. It's obsidian, a naturally occurring stone that is almost like volcanic rock, it was supposed to be a scrying stone, like a crystal ball, but I was never very good at scrying, so its been collecting dust in a drawer for years. The interesting thing about obsidian is that it supposed to have a protective property against psychic attacks and Astral magick, so I figured..."

  "Astral magick? Is that what you call what just happened?" Dakota said, shaking his head. "I call it nuts, I mean how can anybody do that?"

  Just a few hours before, none of this shit had existed for him. Magick, ghosts, all things supernatural, were nothing more than inflated beliefs that had no scientific basis, and now he was hip deep in a world so foreign, that he felt like he should pinch himself to confirm that he was still awake.

  Elise's blue eyes fixed on his. "She has some very powerful dark magic to be able to do what she did," she said, tightening her jaw.

  Dakota shook his head, feeling the beginnings of a headache nudge at the back of his skull.

  "Shit Elise, can we rewind this day so I can forget about all this and go back to ignorant bliss, damn, I didn't know how good I had it."

  Elise's face crumpled, and she looked like she was about to cry again, but instead she threw back her shoulders, and jutted out her chin.

  "I tried to forget it once, and look how that turned out."

  Dakota shook his head. "I'm not like you, I don't want to see ghosts, and whatever else is out there lurking in the dark," he said, grimacing. "I'm just an average guy."

  Her face turned to stone, and her lips pulled into a hard line.

  "I made a mistake dragging you into this...it's my problem not yours, I'm the freak and..."

  Dakota grabbed Elise by the shoulders, and she braced at his touch, but he didn't care and tugged her toward him. As soon as she was in his arms, she relaxed a little. He skimmed his cheek against her hair, breathed in, then kissed the top of her head, before tilting her face to his.

  "You're not a freak," he said, cupping her chin. "And you're not alone. Ignore what I said about forgetting everything. I'm just dealing. You can't blame me after everything... I was blindsided..."

  The corners of Elise's lips curved slightly, and he felt her muscles uncoil beneath his fingers.

  "Thank God," she said, then planted a chaste kiss on the lips.

  Greedy for more, Dakota pulled her closer and pressed his lips, feather light against hers. Elise's eyes closed and she slanted her head back, offering him her throat. He kissed a trail down the curve of her neck, stopping just before the dip between her breasts. In a quick move, he nipped her bottom lip with his teeth, and when she opened her eyes and lifted an eyebrow playfully, he pried her lips wide, with the tip of his tongue, and took her mouth with his. Eager for more, Elise linked her hands behind his neck, and thrust her tongue deep in his mouth, then reclined against the sofa, taking him down with her. Dakota's head swam with excitement, and only went into overdrive, when she encircled his hips with her legs, and bucked her pelvis against his. It had been so long since he had been with her, that her touch set him almost mad with desire.

  "You like that?" she murmured against his throat, gliding her fingers across the taut muscles of his lower stomach, before slipping her hand into the waistband of his jeans. When she took him in her grasp, all he could do was nod his approval.

  He ran his hand down the cool silk of her sleeve, then slipped it beneath her shirt and found a perfect breast, warm and satiny. Sneaking his fingers under her silky bra, he traced his thumb across her nipple, already hard with arousal, and heard her breath hitch, then quicken into short bursts of heat. With nimble fingers he unbuttoned her blouse, and reached around her, unhooked her bra, then tugged the thin material out of his way. He stared down at her beautiful breasts, small and perky, and inhaled, before clasping his mouth over one, scraping his teeth over a nipple lightly, until she groaned, and arched her back.

  "I want to make love to you," he said, and even before he had finished speaking, she turned her head to the side, and shoved him off.

  Confused and breathless, Dakota
just stared at her.

  "We can't," she said, still breathing hard.

  "Why?" He studied her, searching for a sign that said she didn't want him, but there wasn’t one. She had responded like she was into it, just as much as he was, so what was the problem?

  She bit her lip. "I want to be transparently honest with you and that means that there's one more thing I need to tell you." She sucked in a long breath. "I can't have sex with you," she said, and turned her gaze away.

  "I understand, you're tired, damn, we were just attacked by some freaky witch, and besides we haven't even discussed if we want to make another go of it..."

  "No, it's not that Dakota, with everything out in the open there's nothing keeping us apart...unless you've met someone else and moved on."

  She looked at him expectantly, her long lashes shadowing her eyes. And with her face still flushed and her hair tousled, he couldn't find a time when she had looked any more beautiful, than she did right then.

  "Of course I want you back Elise and no, there's no one else, but I'm human and I'd be lying if I said that I didn't care about sex. I mean you're twenty-four years old, it's not like we're teenagers, sex is one of the perks of being an adult," he said with a chuckle. But the expression on her face made his smile drop away, and he knew there was more to her statement.

  Elise shrugged and crossed her arms.

  "My mom got pregnant with me when she was just sixteen, and in our small town it was quite a scandal, especially since nobody even knew who my father was..."

  Her voice trailed off and she stared at the wall for a few moments.

  "Nanny Flo took it hard, especially since my mother never told anyone including her, who my father was. Nanny Flo always worried that I would get myself into the same mess, so she was quite strict about dating, and pretty much everything that involved guys."

  "Are you saying you're still a virgin?" he asked, his voice laced with suspicion.

  Elise nodded. "Pretty much, yeah... Nanny Flo always reasoned that there was magick in being a virgin, you know like the Vestal virgins of Rome who tended the sacred fires, and who were revered priestesses because of their chastity?"

  Dakota shook his head. He didn't care about Vestal Virgins in Rome. He wanted Elise, and he couldn't understand why she would deny herself something as natural as sex. He massaged the back of his neck.

  "That seems a little extreme don't you think? I agree, it probably was an effective deterrent when you were a teenager, but that was years ago..."

  Not that he would ever tell her outright, but in his opinion it was ludicrous to stay celibate just because your mother got pregnant when she was a teenager.

  "There was more to it than that," she cut in.

  "My mom was a gifted Seer, some say she was never wrong with her predictions."

  Elise's expression grew solemn.

  "She died when I was born, but she left behind a diary with all the prophecies that she had made over the years. I found it hidden under a floorboard when I was a teenager. Some of the prophecies were about me, but I never really got a chance to read it through, since Nanny Flo took it from me as soon as I showed it to her. But before she did, I read a few entries, some were silly like when I was twelve I would cut my knee and need stitches..."

  "Did any of them come true?" Dakota asked, not sure where Elise was going with this new line of conversation.

  Elise locked eyes with him. "Every one I read did."

  He angled his head to the side and squinted, then started to cross his arms, but aborted the motion when he remembered the scratches on his forearms. Now it all made sense, how Elise had always stopped just before they had full blown sex, and all the excuses she had made to dissuade him.

  "But what does that have to do with...sex," he started.

  "My mother's vision said that my blood, the blood of a virgin, would someday save someone I loved very much...and I know it sounds crazy but every time I think about having sex, I wonder if it's true."

  Dakota stared at her in disbelief. Difficult as it was to wrap his mind around the whole Astral magick attack, Elise's reason for celibacy seemed just plain stupid. Blood was blood, whether she had had sex or not.

  "Do you seriously believe that your blood is going to change that much, after you have sex? I don't have any communicable diseases you know."

  Elise's eyes flashed with sudden anger. "How can you be so cavalier about this? Don't you get that it was a message from my mother, and that those words on paper, are the only thing I have left of her. I mean, Nanny Flo didn't even keep a picture of her, so I don't even know what she looked like," she snapped. Dakota reared back as if he had been struck.

  "Sorry I didn't mean..." he said, but she threw up her hand for him to stop.

  "And for your information staying celibate has never been a problem," she said, then licked her lips. "That is, it wasn't difficult before I met you."

  Dakota quickly recovered from his slight, and his grin was wide. He more than appreciated the confession, but it also made his need to have her even worse, and his jeans suddenly tugged in all the wrong places.

  "So is this a lifelong thing, or is there an expiration date?" he asked.

  He wanted to be supportive, but knowing that Elise was as tempted as he was to consummate their relationship, made him want her all the more.

  "I wouldn't expect a man to understand," she said with a note of irritation.

  He almost laughed, and wanted to say that she would be hard pressed to find a man, or woman for that matter, alive, who would buy the virginal blood rationale. He put his hands up in front of him.

  "Okay, okay fine, but can I ask you one question?"

  She nodded, her mouth a thin line of annoyance.

  "Besides it being your mother's vision, what other facts back her theory up?"

  Dakota was sure that his question would set a firestorm of fury on him, but he couldn't help asking. Prophecies and predictions seemed tough enough to swallow, but her virginal blood saving someone, seemed too far-fetched, even for Elise to believe, without solid backing.

  She rolled her eyes, which was a far cry less than he had expected.

  "In medieval times, virginal blood was used in very powerful spells..."

  "So you're going to start doing spells now?"

  "No," Elise said with acid in her tone. "I don't want to talk about this anymore. Right now, I have to figure out how I'm going to get rid of Tansy."

  Dakota wasn't satisfied with Elise's answer about her virginity pact, yet he knew that pushing her anymore on the subject, would likely blow up in his face.

  "Well, that's easy enough, do a retraction piece, it wouldn't have to be a whole show, just a small blurb at the end of a regular show."

  Elise's face darkened, and Dakota braced for the explosion.

  "I will not retract anything," she growled. "How can I continue being the Skeptic if I admit that I made a mistake? This job is all or nothing, and I'm not about to toss it away for some witch, who thinks she can bully me."

  Her reaction to his suggestion was yet another response he hadn't expected. He shook his head.

  "But it's all lies, you've just admitted it. I don't understand how you can continue doing the show."

  "I can, and will, continue," she spat, with so much bitterness that it pissed him off. Ambition was one thing, but how you got there was just as important as the success, and Elise's achievements were built on a foundation of lies. Dakota never thought of himself as a righteous person, but right then, the thought of Elise continuing to spin tales, and discredit people, felt wrong.

  "Elise, this isn't right, I mean I've got your back all the way, but what you're planning doesn't seem straight."

  Rage drained from her face, and her body relaxed.

  "I know," she said. "But I can't just let it all go, I need time to think."

  She brought her hand to her forehead. “I refuse to backtrack and revisit any of my investigations, too many people will suffer if I do th
at. The Skeptic has elevated the studio, and if I admit that I was lying all along, it won't be just me who'll be screwed. I can't do that to everyone. What I can do though, is make this my last season. My contract expires soon. I won't re-sign. It's the only solution I can come up with."

  Dakota nodded. He wasn't sure that he completely agreed with her decision, but she was right, any admittance of wrongdoing on her part, would be devastating, and he was sure that it wouldn't just be jobs lost, there would be lawsuits, and hell knew what else.

  She glanced down at her Cartier watch.

  "Damn, it's six a.m. I've got to be at the studio by nine," she said, switching the gears of her emotions faster than he had thought possible.

  "Always the professional," Dakota said.

  Elise stood up and reached for his hand. "Sleep with me," she said softly.

  "But what about you're virginity pact," he said with a chuckle.

  Elise smirked and tugged him to his feet.

  "I meant sleep," she said, and brushed her lips across his. He caught her waist in his hands, pulling her toward him.

  "You sure you won't reconsider?" he said in a husky voice, waggling his eyebrows. Elise shook her head, and sighed.

  "Right now falling asleep in your arms is all I can manage."

  Dakota swept her up into his arms. "Fine, I'll take what I can get," he said.

  She draped her hands around his neck, and rested her head on his chest. He carried her to the bedroom, and laid her gently on the king-sized bed, and still fully dress, she slipped under the snowy duvet, and rolled to her side. Dakota unbuttoned his jeans, and let them fall to the floor, then pulled his shirt over his head, leaving just his boxers on. As soon as he slid in behind Elise, he drew her body against his, until they formed a perfect S. He buried his face in her hair, and as he drifted off to the sound of her steady breathing, he had a brief image of Tansy again, and a shudder ran through him. Inexplicably he knew that the witch wouldn't be satisfied with what Elise planned to do, what that meant for Elise, he had no idea, but he did know one thing, it wouldn't be good.