by Amie Gibbons
I knew it wasn’t. Otherwise they’d never fall in love.
So what made the difference? What made it just two ships passing and both cool with it, and what made it a connection, and how did both parties make sure they were both on the same page when it came to that?
And how did people end up with one sided connections, like AB? Where she said she felt like this was meant to be with a guy who said he wasn’t planning on it being anything more than friends with benefits.
I couldn’t answer any of it.
Carolyn looked at me and she nodded.
Like she was reading my mind.
“You can hear me,” I said.
She nodded even though it wasn’t a question.
“I don’t know how to reconcile these two sides,” she said. “Sex is intimacy. It is just for a bonded couple, bonded by whatever means they believe makes it forever, but… what if that’s not real?”
I held up my hands. “I’m still dealin’ with my issues. Right there with ya.”
She looked back at Carvi. “I feel that having sex with more people is wrong. The more people you add to it, the less it means, the less special it is, and the more you are treating yourself like trash, like something to be used. That’s what I was taught. And yet… I want to.”
“It’s not wrong,” Carvi said. “You see it as you being used? Why? Because you were taught men use women for sex. That’s all. But now, you see yourself as the user in something you feel you shouldn’t want in the first place. It is not using. It is not bad or sinful or anything else you were taught, if both people are willing and go in knowing what will happen.
“When you were a virgin, you went in not knowing what to expect. And you had these warring voices in your head. That is where your problems came from. Because you did love him. And you were married, like you were taught you were supposed to be, and you felt lustful, like you were taught you shouldn’t be.”
“How do you… how do you know I had problems, and I have medical issues?” she asked. “Can you read my mind?”
“We talked to Stewart in limbo,” I said. “We were interviewing all the victims. You came up as a potential suspect because of how things went down and because you’re still in Nashville. Carvi?”
He shook his head. “She’s been suppressing so hard, there’s no way she’s dabbled in magic. But accidently setting the siren half off, by praying it out… maybe?”
“I don’t get it,” I said.
“Mind over matter, lea,” he said, holding her hands and looking into her eyes. “If she wanted it gone enough. If she prayed, wished, thought, whatever, enough, she could remove it, but if she did, it could be a specter. An entity unto itself. If she did that, she wouldn’t still be sucking energy though. She would not still have the siren part in her.”
Holy crap on a cracker and kittens too.
“Um, Carvi,” I said.
He still didn’t look away from her.
“Carvi!” I said.
“I’m talking to her right now,” he said. “Same way I talk to you.”
“Fine,” I said. “But I need you to listen for a minute cuz I don’t know if this is even possible. Think about what you just said. What if someone else did that?”
He shook his head. “If they cut out a part like that, it would be a magical lust being. The worst… or best, it would do would cause an orgy. It-”
“What if they cut out a different part!”
He jerked straight.
Yep, that had his attention.
He pulled away and stood up, turning to look at me.
Carvi said something in his old language, understanding flashing across his face. “But if it was someone trying to cut out another part?”
“If it was,” I said. “Is it possible?”
“I just told you it is. You can do anything with the power of the mind. With enough belief, with enough power, or just with sheer stubbornness over time, you could.”
“What exactly are we talkin’ here?” I asked.
“Based on what the ghost is doing,” he said, “it would have to be someone who cut the vengeance… the desire for it, and the pain at what happened, out of her. But I can’t even imagine what that would take for an amateur.”
“But if they did it, would it run loose? Would it, possibly, create something that went off on its own and started acting out like this?”
His eyes were wide and he nodded.
“And that would… what? Create a ghost out of those feelings?” I asked.
He gulped. “No. Worse. It would be much worse.”
What the quack could make Carvi gulp like that.
“What?” I asked. “Why would it have EMF showing up?”
“Because it would still be a spirit, just not a ghost.”
He met my eyes.
“If I’m right,” he said, “it’s not a ghost, lea. It’s a fucking tulpa!”
He said that like I should’ve known what that was.
“Oh,” a voice that sounded close to Carolyn’s said outta thin air.
I hopped off the desk, looking around, arms up.
“Look who figured it out,” the voice said.
“Carvi, where is it!” I snapped, turning in circles to make sure it couldn’t sneak up on me.
“All around you, little psychic,” she said. “And, here’s a little tip, the more you dig into this, the more these feelings come out, the more hurt you pile onto this, the more pain caused by my vengeance-”
“You sure do like to talk a lot,” I said. “And that’s sayin’ something coming from me.”
She laughed and it cut across my skin like broken glass.
“The stronger I get!” she finished.
The figure appeared in front of me.
Naked and lookin’ like a strung-out Carolyn with drawn, pale skin and greasy, limp hair, the sparkle gone from her eyes like someone had sucked out all the hope.
Carolyn screamed, scrambling outta her chair and running back for the door.
The tulpa smiled, showing too perfect teeth, like a movie star with veneers.
And backhanded me so hard the world went black.
Chapter thirteen
“…and help!” came through the fuzz in my mind.
“I can’t!” a high voice screamed.
“You can! You’re a siren. Pull on that power. Accept it. You’re a sex fiend, join the fucking club and help me fight this thing.”
I giggled to myself.
Fucking club.
Pun intended.
It was funny to my blurred mind.
“So this thing is from me?” the girl screamed.
Something shattered.
“No!” Carvi yelled. “Does that magic feel like you? That’s somebody else! Does it matter? Step up, woman. You’re a siren. You have power. Use it.”
“I don’t know how!”
“Figure it out, or we all die.”
I forced my eyes open.
The tulpa…
That was the right word, right?
She traded blows with Carvi in the small office, slipping through the desk and chairs like they weren’t there, hitting him, and dancing back through solid things that blocked him and slowed him down.
He roared and grabbed the desk, shoving it so hard back against the wall the room shook and dust fell from the ceiling.
Carolyn huddled next to the door, hand on the doorknob like she was tryin’ to run and couldn’t.
“Power,” I said, voice coming out in a rasp. “Carolyn, go grab a guy and draw power. Pretty sure he won’t mind.”
Carolyn nodded and yanked the door open, slamming it behind her.
What were the odds she’d be back?
I watched Carvi fight with the tulpa and thought about what I’d just said.
I could draw on power. I just had to figure out how.
I’d felt the power pounding through the city earlier.
Nashville had an energy. It’s what drew me here in the first pla
ce. It was hundreds of thousands of souls, like any city. But on top of that, it was the power of creativity, of dreams, of optimism, and of kindness.
Nashville had hope runnin’ through her veins.
The lines of energy turned on, layering over my vision.
They went through walls that were suddenly opaque, showing all the moving bodies, all the bundles of energy, all of those souls.
Most good and genuine, if a bit afraid.
They had energy they were here to exchange freely.
I saw it. Tasted it like sweetness on my tongue.
And I pulled on it.
Power inched into me, burning my nerves and making me gasp and drop it.
Ouch!
It was like grabbing onto a power line.
“Don’t grab it,” Carvi grunted, slamming in a lucky punch on the tulpa as it looked back at me.
The tulpa went sprawling and Carvi pounced, pinning her to the floor.
She vanished and he dropped the few inches to the floor.
“Shit!” Carvi screamed, on his feet and whirling around just as the tulpa appeared behind him.
How were we supposed to fight something that could just become corporeal and not at will?
“Touch the energy,” Carvi said, swinging wildly. “Don’t grab it. Just dip a toe in.”
The tulpa clocked him and he went down.
And he didn’t get up.
She turned her grin on me.
Her eyes were Carolyn’s pretty blue, and they weren’t dead and drained now. They blazed with insanity. With righteous indignation.
I drew a deep breath.
I always got energy from being on stage, from singing, maybe that was how I needed to think of this.
I wasn’t fightin’.
I was performin’.
The energy buzzed against my skin as I fixed my eyes on the tulpa, imagining the power coming from her.
She snorted and disappeared.
Oh no.
I wanted to close my eyes to focus but kept them open. She’d popped up one too many times for me to think she was gone.
The door opened and I screamed, tossing my hands up.
Carolyn froze, eyes huge.
She pulled the man she’d been dancing with in and looked at me, then Carvi.
“Behind you!” she screamed, pointing.
I ducked and ran without thinking as something soared over my head.
I turned, throwing my hands up, imagining the energy of thousands of people watching me sing flowing through my blood.
The tulpa flew backwards, slamming into the wall.
“Get Carvi up!” I screamed.
“How?” Carolyn’s voice was painted with panic.
But she’d come back.
She could do this.
We both could.
“Use your powers, imagine your siren powers coming from that man and pouring into Carvi. He feeds on sex so I don’t think you even need to know what you’re doing. Just do something sexual.”
The tulpa pushed off the wall, lips pulled up.
“You think you can win?” she scoffed. “You aren’t leaving this room with this information.”
She didn’t want us telling everyone else!
That’s why she’d attacked.
Maybe because knowing what she was was the key to beating her?
That would’ve been good to know while she was fightin’ Carvi. I could’ve just texted it.
“Carolyn!” I tossed her my phone. “Call Mender, tell her it’s a tulpa.”
The tulpa hissed and disappeared.
I didn’t have to be psychic to know she’d appear next to the woman she was mimicking.
I ran up to Carolyn, wishing for a weapon.
I grabbed an ugly brass paperweight in the shape of a ball mounted on a stand from the shelf and held it up like the world’s stubbiest bat.
And swung soon as the air shimmered next to Carolyn.
I slammed the tulpa straight across her stupid face as she reformed and something cracked.
“Ah-ha!” I yelled, bringing my hands up and smashing the paperweight down on the tulpa’s head with everything I had.
She fell to her knees and I clocked her on her head again.
“No,” Carolyn said over my yell of triumph. “I’m with her, she said to tell you it’s a tulpa. The tulpa’s trying to stop us. So we’re fighting, and I’m going back to that.”
She hung up.
“You go, girl!” I yelled, hitting the tulpa again and again.
Nothing had caved in or bled yet, but the blows obviously kept it from pulling anything. If I could just keep hitting it.
Energy rushed through the room and I grunted as things low in my belly tightened.
Carvi made a rough noise that made it worse and I missed on my next swing.
The tulpa rolled out of my way and disappeared again.
The weight in the room I didn’t even realize was there vanished, like the tulpa took the bad energy with her.
“I think she’s gone for now,” Carvi said, voice weak.
I looked over at him.
He lay on the ground, straight out like he was just catching a moment’s rest.
Carolyn stood next to him, clinging to her date.
And the poor man just looked confused.
“I did it?” she said.
“You tell me,” I said, smiling. “He’s awake.”
“I ugh…” she blushed so hard it made me laugh.
“There is so much I could teach you,” Carvi said. “She touched me and poured the energy into me. You are so open, so easy, if you’d just let yourself be, Carolyn. I could teach you.”
She made a face. “I’m not easy!”
He coughed a laugh. “I meant your personality. You gave your power out with no reservations. Most people can’t put power out because they hold onto it instinctively. You don’t. That giving of yourself like that is a power in of itself. Something to be embraced. You are not easy when your uptight side rears up, like right then. Relax. Go with your powers. Start letting your instincts guide you.”
“Can we use her to help with the power gathering later on?” I asked.
“That’s up to her,” he said. “I don’t think so, because she has no control, but I would like to stay in touch.”
Carvi sat up and pulled a card out of his pocket. “You want to learn how to control this, how to embrace it, I’m offering my help. You want to see what good sex is like, I’m definitely offering my help.”
She blushed.
“Oh, I’m totally up for that,” the guy who’d just been kinda standin’ there like a potted plant said, raising his hand. “I must’ve drank more than I thought, but I’m in for whatever you want tonight, woman.”
“I…” she looked at Carvi. “Will I hurt him? Will I take too much?”
“Ohhhhh,” Carvi said. “That’s what you’re worried about. You may, but too much just means he’ll sleep really heavy and you owe him a good breakfast in the morning. You’ve been through a lot. I don’t think we can use your help. Not with how unstable you are. Go do your thing. Give me a call in a few days when we have this all sorted out.”
“Um,” I said as Carolyn looked at her meal for the night. “Are we sure the tulpa won’t go after her? Considerin’ it’s made outta revenge, I’m thinking that’s a worry.”
“I don’t believe so,” Carvi said. “It was made to go after a specific type of man. I don’t think it can break that, except for direct threats to itself. It is like a ghost in that sense. Until it is strong enough to break free of that, at least.”
“Wait, what?” I asked.
“A tulpa has to build a great deal of energy to be its own entity, untethered to its creator and its purpose. She’s strong enough to manifest, which is far more than I’ve heard of on this side of the world, but she’s not her own person, not yet.”
“What will make her a real person?”
He looked me in the eyes. “Well,
the energy from those men’s deaths did this much, and the more she kills in the name of revenge, the stronger she’ll get. And we still have an entire night in a city of hundreds of thousands, more with the tourists here.”
“How many would it take?” I asked.
“No clue,” he said. “But the fact that she’s already an entity unto herself after maybe twenty dead, that’s terrifying. It means she had a lot to start with.”
“How do we stop her?”
“We find the woman who made her, and get her to take her back.”
“Of course we do.” I sighed, putting my face in my hands. “Is there anything else?”
“Well, it’s a tulpa, she is trying to become a person, so no matter what, nobody name her.”
###
“And what exactly is a tulpa?” Mender asked, voice strained over the phone.
We’d called asking for a conference call after I got a few visions off Carolyn to make sure she wasn’t our girl even though we already knew she wasn’t. We’d sent her on her way with her date after a bit more talkin’ to make sure she was okay.
I was pretty sure she was in shock. And her date probably just figured he drank more than he realized.
“Tulpas are creatures created by psychic energy,” Carvi said. “They are usually created by monks who have such great control of their mental energies that they can make a separate being. Those are great forces of whatever the monks want them to be. I have seen tulpas whose entire purpose is to heal cancer. I’ve also seen ones created specifically for war. And ones created by accident. The last time I ran into one was in Auschwitz.”
“To kill Nazis?” I asked.
Carvi gave me a look. “No, it was created from the force of thousands of minds in utter despair. It sucked hope out and fed off the despair, and the deaths.”
I couldn’t say anything.
“I thought you said they could become their own beings if they fed enough,” Mender said. “You’re saying one created in Auschwitz couldn’t do that with all that pain?”
“No, I’m saying the opposite. It became its own person pretty fucking fast. It was weak to begin with because no one was purposefully trying to give it life, like the tulpas created by monks, but it did build up its energies fast with that much to feed on.”
“What happened?” I asked.
He grinned. “Once a tulpa is human, it is a powerful one, a magical one, yes, but it can be killed like anything else. After it fed enough to break away from its owners and original purpose, it went out to see the world, causing pain and despair in its wake because it could. Because that was all he knew. Because he was a dick of a human being. And he was tracked down and killed by a couple of Nazi hunters who knew how to take out magical beings. One of which was one of the men who was in Auschwitz and saw its creation.”
