by Claire Marta
Mark had finally decided to lay everything they had out for the rest of the team. It was a relief for Jasmine. With everything she’d witnessed so far, their experience and support were needed. Working together, they had a better chance of figuring what was going on.
“And that’s where we are right now.” Mark finished going over the details. Now everyone was caught up.
“Something’s hunting the ghosts, and I think it’s Della...the angel from my dreams,” Jasmine told him in the ensuing moment of silence.
With a groan of exasperation, Mark rubbed the bridge of his nose in tiredness, knocking his glasses to the side in the process. “She’d see them as open sport. Having fun hunting them while she bides her time.”
“Wait, you’re telling me we have ghosts, werewolves, and now a homicidal angel to deal with?” Fergus had been grumpy since the incident in the garden.
Jasmine suspected he had a case of growing blue balls. She hadn’t missed the way he kept sizing her and Gemma up in sexual interest, a primitive male heat in his amber eyes. His beast was closer to the surface. She could sense it rousing.
“This trip just keeps getting better and better.” Gemma grinned. Feet up, crossed at the ankles on a wooden coffee table, she had made herself comfortable on the sofa. “Twitch is going to be pissed he missed it. He loves all this stuff!”
Somewhere, she’d managed to get her hands on a fresh pack of chewing gum. Jasmine suspected Mark had brought a backup stock. The huntress had once confided in her that it helped her keep certain impulses in check. It was some sort of oral fixation. Gemma would go through packs and packs of sugar free gum to stop the urge of killing things.
The table was smothered with shiny aluminium wrappers. The way she was blasting through them, Jasmine was surprised she didn’t have lock jaw.
“But they’re not tangible. How can she hurt them?” Jasmine persisted, ignoring her friend. It bothered her that they’d exhibited pain. If they were no longer living, how could they experience that and things like fear? She’d always thought that once you died that was left behind. You were free. That you escaped the chains of mortality. The soul, as she saw it, had to be made up of energy or consciousness.
“If she destroys them in that state, they’ll become nothing at all,” Mark explained.
“But their souls...”
“Are in limbo for some reason. They’ve never been able to cross over to where they’re supposed to go. If their consciousness is snubbed out before that happens, they no longer exist in any capacity.”
Eric sat across from her, over the table, studying the group in silence. After returning from his duty on the monitors, the vampire had been strangely subdued. Jasmine wasn’t sure why it bothered her. She shouldn’t care about what he felt, but she did.
“Why can’t she help them cross over?” she asked, shaking off the unsettling thought.
“She won’t see that as her job. Like an assassin, she’ll be focused on her target.”
“And we still do not know who that is,” Eric spoke, finally, his intense gaze sharp on the Detective. He was magnificently daunting. An undercurrent of something Jasmine couldn’t define zipped between the two males. A silent battle of wills.
Mark stared back for a beat, showing no signs of intimidation from the vampire’s dominant attitude. “She’ll only reveal her hand when she thinks she has an advantage. Fergus, Eric, I’d like you to secure the premises both inside and out. Make sure we have no unwanted guests tonight. We can take shifts on guard duty.”
“You really think the Budapest pack is after the artefact that’s hidden here?”
“We can’t take any chances Jasmine, and I’d rather be prepared for any eventuality.”
“I shall start with the garden and around the outside of the building,” Eric spoke decisively as he rose, uncoiling his tall broad body from his chair.
Fergus groaned. “Great, you leave me with the creepy fucked up museum.”
“I thought such things did not bother you.”
“That was before I knew it had ghosts,” he groused back at the vampire.
The sound of hushed whispers tore Jasmine’s attention from the rest of the conversation. They spilled from the walls. Within, around her. Turning slowly, she tried to pinpoint the source. It was a need to know the cause. A deep founded urge against something rationally she knew she couldn’t see.
A chill gripped the air. Releasing a long breath, she watched a puff of white escape from her lips. It wasn’t Eric wintry powers. At its essence, it lacked a spark of life. Something Jasmine had begun to recognise in the vampire’s ability. He didn’t mimic winter. Eric was the season at its core. What she felt now was more macabre. Jasmine’s eye caught movement. Detaching from the wall, a dark and murky shadow oozed towards her. Its shape was darker than the darkness itself if that were even possible. Moving across the floor, it split down the centre becoming two. Forms took shape. Two small figures.
Even before they began to solidify Jasmine recognized them as the phantom children. Black, inky liquid overflowing from their empty eye sockets, their mouths were wide in silent screams.
Taking three stumbling steps back, she could feel tension mounting within her head. A pulsing rhythm. Disembodied words, melding, screaming inside her skull, echoed through her thoughts. A swollen unstoppable river. Remnants of lives cut short. Victims of horrific crimes. Most of them innocent souls who’d been caught up in unstoppable situations.
Images flashed in an unwanted reel through Jasmine’s mind. Experiences, emotions, a melting pot of human beings who’d once walked the world as they did now. Whole, flesh, breathing.
More ghosts materialized. They floated through the very fibre of the building. Arms outstretched, they implored her to help them. Protect them.
Cradling her head in her hands, Jasmine made a sound of distress. An urgent need to run pounded through her. It was not safe here. She needed to escape. It was so overwhelming.
“I…I need some air.”
Not waiting for a reply, she raced from the room and along the hall. What she sought was an open space. Somewhere she didn’t feel trapped.
Feet leading, she instinctively found herself moving towards the back door.
“Are you unwell, Miss Hunter?”
Jasmine’s heart jerked to a standstill, sending he breath out in a frantic gasp. The flesh beneath Caroline’s face rippled where she stood on the stairs. It was if something under it was shifting. Flexing.
“Jasmine?”
Spinning, she found Mark by the entrance of the kitchen. His face was writhing. The flesh of his cheek bones hollowed in. As if a mask had slipped from his face, it showed a grotesque skeletal creature that resided in its stead.
Dragging in air, Jasmine rushed for the door leading out into the garden. A haven in the sunlight, it lacked the same feeling of peace and comfort it had in the day. The darkness brought fear. Shadows oozed from the museum, which pulsed dark and deadly. Again, she felt as if the place was somehow alive. A consciousness within the bricks and mortar. Insidious as the presence that stalked her.
“Jasmine, are you okay?”
She hadn’t even been aware that someone had pursued her.
Turning terrified eyes on Gemma, Jasmine shrank away with a shriek. Her friend’s face was covered in blood. Flowing freely from her mouth and eyes, it streamed down her beautiful features drenching her top.
Jasmine pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes trying to dislodge the disturbing hallucinations. All she desired was to blot out the horrors.
Strong hands gripped her forearms. “Concentrate. You can shut whatever your seeing out.”
“It looks so real...I can’t do this,” she whimpered at Mark.
“I know, but it’s not. Trust your instincts and listen to your heart. Breathe, just breathe. You can deal with this. It’s your mind not theirs.”
Rapid, shallow, she wasn’t sure she had the control to prevent it. Everything spinning, Jasmi
ne squatted down. Things needed to slow. The voices. Fear. Anxiety that was paralysing. She couldn’t function. Fingers squeezed her arms, grounding her and letting her know her boss was still there. A rock in a drowning current threatening to swallow her.
“I believe in you, Jasmine. Dig deep, find what I’ve always seen in you. You have the strength to beat this.”
She barely registered his words. They were distant and muffled as if her head had been immersed under water. Shaking uncontrollably, she clung to Mark’s solid form, which was now her life line. A cage of pain imprisoned her. It throbbed through her skull so violently it felt like her brain was being crushed from the inside. The insistent cries were now a roar. Beings desperate to be heard. Understood. acknowledged. So many languages fused together. Men. Women. Children.
Jasmine resisted the urge to clamp her hands to her ears. She refused to let go of Mark. She knew instinctively it would be the wrong thing to do. Instead, she kept her eyes screwed shut.
How the fuck was she meant to protect herself from so many souls, yearning and frightened. Their feeling were suffocating her.
The grip on her forearms tightened. Focusing on the sensation, she found a slice of composure. They had no right to try and take possession of her thoughts. Her will. For right or wrong, they had to understand they couldn’t trample all over her. With that truth, Jasmine found the power she needed. Welling up, it ballooned outwards, projecting a mental barrier she visualized and kept it locked in place. It was instantaneous. The voices were silenced, cut off from their invasion. Only the thumping of her accelerated heartbeat echoed in her ears.
Not daring to move and still raw from the telepathic attack, Jasmine remained immobile. Seconds, minutes, hours could have past before the effects of what she’d just experienced began to wear off.
Her hearing was the first to return. Murmuring reassuringly, Mark was crooning to her softly over and over in a mantra. That he had her. She was safe. How brave she was and how proud she’d made him since she’d joined the team.
Opening her eyes, she peeked from beneath her thick eyelashes. There was no sign of the spectres that had been haunting her. The garden was steeped in darkness. The smell of something flowery teased her nose. Some kind of night bloom she hadn’t noticed during her panic attack.
Gemma stood watching them. For once, she looked lost. Uncertain of what she should do. It was the unfamiliar helplessness on her friend’s expression that twisted Jasmine’s gut with an echo of anxiety. She’d never witnessed such an emotion from the huntress before.
“Mark, whatever’s happening here, it’s getting more intense.” Jasmine couldn’t hide her embarrassment. She’d been overpowered by the psychic link she’d unwontedly forged with the place. Let it choke her. Tremors still rocked her body. They were lessening as the minutes ticked by, leaving her weak and shaky.
Distractedly, he glanced towards the building, which was cloaked in deceptive calm. “I know.”
“You feel it, too, don’t you?”
“I’ve had a nagging headache since we arrived, and it’s only been getting worse,” Mark admitted quietly. Turning his head, he gestured for Gemma to leave them. “The red moon is tomorrow, and its power is growing as it draws closer. We’re all experiencing it in different ways.”
They were still kneeling on the grass, facing each other. Loosening his comforting hold, Mark released her gently. Concern shone in his hazel eyes.
Accepting his hand as he rose, Jasmine allowed herself to be tugged to her feet. “We need to figure out what the fucking is going on before then.”
“I can see if the medium will return, but we need Caroline out of the house. If we hold a séance tomorrow evening, we can hopefully make contact with John. With the wealth of supernatural and magical items in this place, it’ll take us years to work out which one is the root of the problem. We need his guidance. He’s the only one who can tell us what it is.”
Jasmine nodded her agreement. “We’ve barely scratched the surface, and from what I’ve seen, there are layers upon layers of centuries worth of things we haven’t even started to cover.”
Mark looked to be in no hurry to go back inside. As if he too were reluctant to face what awaited them within its burdened walls. “John was always a hoarder. That never changed as he got older.”
“You can say that again.” The sensation of being watched prickled Jasmine’s body with awareness. She was still conscious of entities close by. Impressions of minds brushing past hers like cobwebs. Was she truly strong enough to keep them out for good? Somehow, she’d found the strength this time, but with everything coming to a climax, would that last?
Eric stood by the window of his bedroom. Beyond the glass, the city lay in darkness. He was a picture of calm with his hands linked and resting behind his back. Only the depths of his cerulean blue eyes hinted at the tightly leashed emotions, which seethed beneath his gentlemanly veneer. He was contemplating the events of the day.
It appeared everyone was being affected by the approach of the red moon. It was fortunate for him that his kind was not stricken by its sway. Vampiria were far too superior.
Lingering in the garden, hidden in the shadows, he had borne witness to Jasmine’s distress. The terror in her lovely eyes as she’d experienced something that had sent her heart beat sky rocketing.
Seeing her suffer was something he didn’t enjoy. She was brave, yet still fragile. It worried him that what was happening here was still building. Would his kitten be strong enough to face it? Yes, her powers had flowered, and he had a suspicion still in the middle of doing so but they still left her vulnerable. Would take its toll.
He was prepared to stand at her side. Whatever was required he would give it to her all. Prove he could be trusted. Show her his worth.
Werewolves were a foe Eric could easily protect Jasmine from.
Ghosts and angels were enemies however that were unknown to him. Something he did not relish coming up against but in the situation, they were in at present he deduced it wouldn’t be long before it was a fight none of them were going to be able to avoid. Not with everything they knew was now at stake. Things did not bode well.
Eric had taken the opportunity to contact Damien back in London. This particular Vampiria rarely left the haven of their home. A scholar and the oldest of their breed in their nest he was never far from his beloved library and books. When things ever became direr his attention to detail and comprehension of the world was invaluable.
He saw beyond the boundaries of what they knew. His perceptiveness brought enlightenment to tricky situations.
Eric was sure any gleam of wisdom he might have now would come in handy. It would take time, but Damien would work tirelessly. His only hope was whatever his comrade learnt it came before it was required.
Lowering his frame into a chair Eric reached for another book as he settled back to study it.
The professor’s hidden library was most informative. An academic’s dream. It was a pity he had not gotten to meet the man in person.
Flipping through the pages he prepared himself for a long night ahead. Fergus was on guard duty. In a few hours he would be obligated to relieve him and take up the post.
Sleep was something not vital for Eric. He was far more content to arm himself with knowledge. Sharpen his mind. Anything useful any scrap of information they could use to their advantage. Being equipped for what was to come was something he intended to be. It was disconcerting to lack such data. He’d always prided himself on his intellect and hard cold logic. With the stretch of his long immortal life he had witnessed and experienced many situations but nothing like the one they were dealing with now. It was exhilarating.
Attention focused resolutely on the beginning of a new chapter he began to read quietly.
He would not fail Jasmine. Not this time. Eric would do everything in his power to keep the woman he loved from harm. Perhaps she would come to look at him with different eyes when it was resolved.
; Punching her pillow for the hundredth time, Jasmine rolled onto her side, trying to get comfortable on the narrow mattress. The humid heat of the night wasn’t helping. Even with the window ajar, she felt stifled in her own skin.
She was also suffering through a bout of homesickness. Jasmine missed Twitch and the home she’d created with her quirky cousin. Routine was something she lacked here.
The fact she’d barely touched her dinner also wasn’t helping. After witnessing the hallucinations caused by whatever evil presence had the museum in its grip, it left her feeling nauseated. It churned in her stomach and made her head ache.
Peeking over her shoulder, she stared at the sleeping form of Gemma.
One hand tucked under her cheek, she looked practically angelic in the soft lamp light. Beautiful features slack in slumber. The wild tumble of her tight black curls was in contrast with her porcelain skin.
Jasmine experienced a prickle of envy. She’d barely slept at all since they’d arrived. Grumpy and grouchy were becoming her current moods.
If only she could switch her sensitivity off for a while. Be unaware of the invisible entities, which even now, she could sense haunting the room. They were constantly there now. As if they’d attached themselves to her side. Did they think she could protect them from Della? Or were they waiting for her guard to go down so they could attempt to take her over a second time? Were they still hoping she could stop the angel from destroying them one by one?
Jasmine sat up, abandoning any attempt at sleep. Attention bouncing to the table by the window, she inspected the contents of the glass vase. The roses had already wilted. Shrivelled and dead. the husks hung limp all their vibrancy gone.
They’d died impossibly fast and should have lasted more than a few days at the most. It was as if something unnatural had touched them. Sucked what little life they sustained right out of their fragile, deep red blooms.
