Slow turns eventually evolved into abnormally fast spins. My eyes crossed, trying to keep up. Lavie looked like an obscene marionette someone was twirling in a sick dance of death. A demented circus act only something demonic could enjoy.
“What’s happening to her?” Carleen yelled.
“Sierra, do something,” Ebony added.
“I don’t know what…” My voice caught in my throat when blood cascaded off Lavie’s body as she spun uncontrollably. The crimson drops flew around the room splashing our clothes, the desk and wall.
Carleen screamed, trying to cover her face with her tailor-made shirt.
What the hell was happening?
My heart beat so loud that the sound her dress made as it flapped against her legs was lost in the background. My head was throbbing to a different beat, one resembling an ancient tribal drum that wouldn’t let up. It increased in intensity, louder and louder until it became the soundtrack to this insanity.
The tips of my fingers felt numb and the room started to slant before me. My vision was dropping in and out as I tried to stay in control. Something warm leaked from my nose, but it was no use. I couldn’t stop any of this.
My head hit the side of the desk as I stumbled. I became vaguely aware of a cool sensation sweeping over my body and every one of my vital organs ached. I’d never felt anything like this. As if someone or something was trying to squeeze itself into my body, trying to take over.
“No!” I couldn’t hear myself scream, didn’t feel like this body was mine to command any longer. It felt so crowded. I was being forced into a tiny section beneath my own skin. This was nothing like the empowering feeling I experience during my spook catching. I wasn’t even astral projecting anywhere. I was trapped without access to any bodily functions. Lost.
“Stop now, you horrid entity!” someone yelled. The male voice sounded familiar, but my mind felt too fuzzy to recall who it belonged to. I was having trouble seeing what was going on. My vision was limited to a square. I was watching through a tiny square of sight.
I pressed my eyelids together, hard. Until so much darkness surrounded me that I thought I was going blind. I lifted my eyelids again in time to watch Lavie collapse to the floor like a lump of cloth and flesh.
The drumming was still going on inside my brain—faster and faster, in time with my raging heart. I couldn’t hear anything else.
I snapped my head sideways, barely catching a blur of Carleen covered in blood. She slid down along the wall as Ebony moved towards me in slow motion, her lips moving soundlessly.
Just before consciousness was ripped away from me, my eyes settled on the wall Lavie had been inspecting seconds before insanity crowded this room. The edges of my vision were crumpling into static black-and-white dots, but the symbol was too bright to ignore. A symbol made from Lavie’s blood sprang from the white wall. It looked familiar but I…couldn’t remember where…I’d seen…it.
Blackness spotted my vision.
The senseless images and frantic drumming switched off simultaneously.
Suddenly, everything stopped but my heart.
Chapter Fifteen
When my eyelids fluttered open, I had a hard time keeping them that way. I was so tired, so…something.
Exhausted, that’s what I was. Every inch of my body ached as much as if I’d spent hours at the gym.
Had I spent an entire night drinking alcohol or snorting drugs while lifting weights? Nah, that didn’t sound like something I’d do. Still, my head felt as if it were stuffed with cotton wool and I didn’t remember much about the day before. There were bits and pieces floating inside my head—blood, Lavie, coldness, more blood, loss of control. It was all so insane, I wasn’t sure it was worth reconnecting all the dots. Maybe it was better to just lie back, try to forget about everything, and let the jigsaw pieces stay as far away from one another as they could.
Maybe I’d been hit by a truck.
I blinked several times before realizing I didn’t recognize the room.
The ceiling was high, white with little flower trimmings. The walls were peach-colored and bare. Sunshine shimmered in through the matching vertical blinds.
I struggled to sit up, but my arms were aching and my legs refused to respond. Was I in one of the Hocking rooms? I suddenly remembered coming out to visit Carleen Hocking the evening before. She was a client, and we’d been hired to help track down her dead husband. Lavie offered to come along to help with the demonic seed.
Goose bumps raced along my arms and legs as a disturbing memory tried to spill back into my head. When my consciousness tried to grasp it, the memory was lost in the thick, warm air inside the room.
I took a deep breath. Even that hurt a little.
Standing up was a chore, but I concentrated on every move. It was the strangest thing, having to visualize the movements before my body reacted. I focused on the immaculate white furniture inside the room as a distraction. It resembled a museum more than a lived-in bedroom, which would never look this way, or have the odd scent of mothballs and cleaning products so strong in the air. The fancy, white bedside table held a single drawer and ended in tiny dainty feet with a matching chest of drawers along the side wall. A large, mirrored built-in wardrobe reflected someone.
It took me a few seconds to recognize myself.
I sighed, feeling my ribs complain with the exertion.
“What the hell happened to me?” I whispered to my disheveled reflection.
My brown hair tumbled over my shoulders in a long, tangled mess as I stared into dark eyes that seemed hollow and haunted. A smudge of color had dried below my left nostril. My clothes were creased and covered in red paint. I looked down and pressed my finger to several spots. They’d hardened to an almost black stain running off the fabric’s edge and down my arms. I ignored all the telltale signs confirming they weren’t paint stains and limped towards the closed white door.
My head was throbbing with a vicious headache.
Turning the door knob was a challenge—my fingers refused to cooperate. They fumbled and slipped when I tried to grasp it. Finally, after several attempts and feeling as if I were stuck in some nightmarish world inside a dainty room for all eternity, I managed to get the door opened.
My legs were wobbly and my head danced with a pulsing beat, making me blink once I was out in the bright hallway, but I moved on. The light carpet reflected the sun streaming in through a huge side window and I had to cover my eyes. This was the Hocking house. Why was I still here? I should be able to remember.
Think, think.
“Sierra, you’re up!”
I kept my eyes shaded but recognized Ebony as she rounded the top of the staircase. I’d never been more excited to see her, even if she was wearing a pair of tailored khaki shorts with a matching sleeveless shirt. There was no makeup on her face, none at all.
I tried to smile but my cheeks resisted. “What happened to you?”
“What’d you mean?”
I pointed a shaky finger at her outfit.
She looked down. “Oh, this? It’s a long story, but I couldn’t stay in my bloodstained clothes. This belongs to Carleen, something she hasn’t worn in a long time. No sleeves.”
The stains on my clothes were blood and there was no use denying it now. Who was I kidding with the paint thing? I remembered blood, but whose? “Why was I sleeping in there?”
“You don’t remember?”
“Remember what?”
“What happened in Roger’s special room?”
An image of Lavie spinning uncontrollably flashed inside my head. “Lavie, is she all right? Where is she?”
“Calm down, she’s resting. She hasn’t woken up yet.”
Panic raced along my limbs. Something terrible had happened to us but my head was concealing the memory.
“Sierra, what happened to you?”
I looked into her worried eyes. “You’re asking me? I just woke up. I know something awful happened to all of us but can�
��t remember what. The details are all scratchy, disconnected and locked away somewhere inside my head. They don’t want to come out yet. I don’t think I’m ready to remember.”
She sighed, taking a step forward. “I know it was really freaky, but you have to remember, Sierra. We need to find out why this happened to you.”
I shook my head. “Not ready.”
“That doesn’t sound like you.”
“I don’t feel much like myself at the moment.” And that’s the truth. I wasn’t easily frightened. Being a spook catcher able to draw mild and dangerous spooks out of the shadows to be cast aside into the ghostly patch or dealt with accordingly, I didn’t do freaking out. That had always been my mother’s job. What an odd time to think about her. Maybe I was looking for something to comfort me. Whatever happened was so terrible I didn’t want to remember just yet.
A claustrophobic feeling swept over me, and my arms reacted by wrapping around my chest, cold fingers digging into the tops of my arms. It was so cold in this house. I needed to leave this uncanny influence. Maybe it was a bad idea to help this woman. Her husband had done something bad enough to alter the atmosphere—even the hallway felt odd. There was something disjointed and awful inside these walls.
“We need to get out of here,” I whispered, looking over my shoulder. Somehow, remembering Roger Hocking made me even shakier than I’d been only seconds ago. I didn’t want him anywhere near me.
Ebony shook her head. “We can’t just leave Lavie.”
“What do you care? Didn’t you say she was weird and creepy?” I asked, my pulse throbbing against my temples.
She looked at me like I was nuts. “Sierra, that was before I knew what she was. Before I saw what the demonic entity did to her.”
Tears were burning behind my eyes, hot and stinging. “Don’t, I’m not ready.”
“That thing tried to kill her from the inside out, and almost did. It tried to use the demonic seed against her, except it didn’t count on her being strong enough to fight back! Don’t you remember what it did to her? It made her spin around like a top in midair, like something out of a horror film. Lavie spun until she was able to break the spell, but not before losing so much blood she needed a transfusion.” Ebony’s breath was coming fast, but she pushed on. “Please, Sierra, we need to figure this out. Work out how and why the demon had access to her body, and determine how Roger Hocking accessed yours.”
Every word hit me like a simultaneous cold slap to the face, and a punch to the gut. “Roger had access to what?” My lips trembled. I didn’t want to hear this. Where was he now? Was he waiting around a corner to ambush me? I never wanted to feel so detached ever again.
Ebony grabbed me by the shoulders, forcing me to face her. “That’s right. I don’t know how it happened but he was able to tap into your body. He used you as a medium to help get the demon out of Lavie—”
“Lavie doesn’t have the demonic seed anymore?”
Ebony shook her head. “She’s still got the seed inside her.”
“Then what are you talking about?” I was so disoriented, everything was hard to comprehend. None of this should’ve happened. I’m not a medium.
“Sierra, some other random demon temporarily possessed Lavie,” she answered. “But Roger used you to banish it. He also got the chance to talk to Carleen one last time and apologized for all the suffering he’d caused her. Roger claims that the only way to bury what he did is to acquire the aid of a holy man, burn the entire house down, and trap the thing under this earth so it can never cross again.”
“I don’t wanna hear any of this right now.” I shook my head, looking away at the carpet, at the window—even when the sun burned at my eyes.
“I know you don’t, but you have to!”
“I need to see Jonathan.”
“It’s okay, I’ve already contacted him. He knows what happened and wanted to rush over, but I didn’t let him.”
“Why not? You should have let him come to me.” All I wanted was to feel his strong, warm arms around me.
“Because we don’t need to involve any more people in this mess,” she answered. “That’s why.”
I took a deep breath to fight back the tears. This wasn’t like me. I should be strong enough to deal with this on my own. At least, I used to be until a ghost managed to invade my body. How had he done it, and why didn’t I resist? I wasn’t a damn medium, so my body shouldn’t have allowed the intrusion. There was no explanation to why Roger was able to do what he did to me. No wonder I felt dirty and disoriented. The toll an unwanted invasion like this had on a body was enough to chill you to the bone for life.
That’s why I felt rattled and cold, seeking the comfort of Jonathan’s warm touch along my spooked skin.
Thoughts of our unexpected lovemaking inside my office filled my mind, allowing a little warmth to spread inside my veins. As great as the memory was, it also reminded me of the dark patch, which led to the Prevette kitchen demon, and right back to this house. I was still convinced those three things fit in together somehow.
Even if my heart wasn’t in it, I had to try to figure this out. It was too personal to ignore. “You said Lavie needed a transfusion—how?”
“We contacted her aunt. She got in touch with a healer of some sort. Lavie’s in pretty bad shape. I don’t know how long it’ll take for her to heal completely, but she will hopefully get better real soon because she’s receiving supernatural treatment,” Ebony answered. “The healer checked you out too but couldn’t find any internal damage. I’m sorry you had to wake up to all this crap, Sierra, but you needed to know. And more importantly…”
I caught her eye. “More importantly what?”
“Do you remember the symbol?”
The symbol? A clear white wall with a symbol made out of blood. Goose bumps broke out along my body again. “I remember.”
“Do you remember seeing it before?”
When did Ebony get so together while dealing with this much bizarre crap? Had my invasion caused her to grow a little into the supernatural shoes she was forced to wear at birth?
“Well?”
The symbol had looked so familiar. I did recall seeing it before, but where? My heart hammered wildly. “Oh my God,” I whispered, “the amulet!”
Ebony nodded and released her grip on me.
Lavie’s aunt was keeping a bedside vigil. She was a small woman with frizzy hair much like her niece, but gray had taken over most of its original color. Her face was etched with wrinkles, which made it hard to place her exact age. She shared the demon hunter’s hazel eyes too.
Sally Grye smiled at me. “My niece is strong. You don’t have to worry about her, she’ll pull through. Lavie’s survived a lot of hard times in her life—this is just another obstacle she has to face. She’ll be stronger for it.”
I stood in the doorway of the bedroom Lavie had been placed in, trying not to lean on the doorframe. Even though my legs struggled to hold my weight, I didn’t want to have any contact with this house’s foundations. My gaze was glued to her motionless body on the bed. The rise and fall of her chest suggested she was still breathing, and even though she’d been cleaned up, Lavie looked more awkward than ever. Her eyes were shut to the world. I didn’t want to get any closer, in case one of those awful creatures moved below her skin.
“I don’t know her very well, but I’m positive she’ll be all right,” I managed to whisper.
The smile remained on Sally’s lips. “Yes. Now, why don’t you go and get on with your day? I know you have much to do.”
“Will she be able to attend the meeting?”
Sally nodded. “She’ll be fine by then. Samson is a wonderful and trusting healer. I have faith in him.”
“Okay, I’ll see if I get a chance to visit later.”
“Don’t fret if you don’t. There are many things going on at the moment, things that will no doubt keep you busy in your line of work.”
“See ya.” I turned from the open door
way and found Carleen leaning against the opposite wall. I hadn’t even noticed her standing there. Dark circles shadowed the pale skin beneath her eyes and her hair was an unruly mess. She wore thin gray linen pants and a long-sleeved shirt. No wonder it was so cold inside this house—not only was there the disturbance of something strange, but she’d have to keep the air conditioning up pretty high to wear long sleeves and long pants during an Australian summer.
She looked like she wanted to say something but didn’t. “I’m sorry,” was all she managed.
“There’s nothing for you to be sorry about,” Ebony said, coming out of the adjoining room. “What happened wasn’t your fault. Was it, Sierra?”
I looked into her insistent eyes. Ebony certainly was maturing by the second while I was desperately trying to feel like myself again. I still lacked my usual composure—my hands were shaky, head aching. At least I’d washed off my bloody nose and arms.
“Sure.” What else could I say? I couldn’t even look the woman in the eye for longer than a few seconds. I didn’t blame Carleen, not really. “We need to get going.”
“Where are we going?” Ebony asked.
“To get some answers about the amulet. You need to tell me more about the person who gave it to you,” I said, walking past both of them.
Carleen trailed behind me. “Please, wait a few minutes while I get a check for all your troubles.”
“We don’t take checks,” I answered.
Ebony caught up, silent, but sneaking glances as I raced past the foyer, headed towards the front door.
“Ah, okay. I can get you cash then.”
I stopped to finally meet her gaze. “We can’t accept your money, Carleen. Our job here isn’t done yet.”
Chapter Sixteen
“You didn’t have to be so rude to her, you know?”
I tried to ignore Ebony just as I had during the drive over to Prologue. She was starting to grate on my nerves. I appreciated that she was trying to help. One of us had to keep it together, but she was going overboard and I wasn’t in the mood for dealing with anything.
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