by Dale Mayer
Owen. Celina. And… Stefan, her friend. He bolted upright and cried out. The room swam in front of him and he lay back down before he fell.
Where was his phone? He needed to call them.
That was his last thought as he went back under.
Chapter 28
Celina moaned, rubbed her head against the pillow, and whimpered again. She lifted her hand to her head as the drums inside boomed and then boomed again.
The pounding changed to a sharp stabbing, a thin slice of pain directly into her eyeball. She screamed as that same knife edge came down again and again.
“Celina!”
Her shoulders were grabbed and shaken lightly. “Yeah, that helps,” she snarled, twisting to free herself. “My head is ready to explode.”
And she started weeping.
“Make it stop,” she sobbed, curling into a tighter ball, her hands over her head.
“Is it in your eyes again?” Stefan urged. “Can you tell if it’s him?”
She didn’t know how to answer – the pain was too severe. She tried to marshal her thoughts and breathe through the pain but her shoulders trembled with effort. Dimly through the red and black in her head she felt Stefan’s hands massaging the back of her neck and the corded ribbons across her shoulders. She moaned as his caring hands worked magic on her locked-down muscles.
She wished he could do something with the pain. He’d told her he’d be able to stop it, but it was back again and he hadn’t done anything.
Angry, desperate, and hurting, she cried out silently in her head. Help.
And damn it if he didn’t answer in her head. Shh. I’m here. Try to stay quiet. I’m tracking him.
*
Stefan stood inside Celina’s headache, watching the blackness around her eyes pulse and vibrate with a distinctive, unholy power. He’d never seen anything like it.
He sensed the emotion. Not outside the ball but inside, driving the ball with heavy intensity. And the biggest emotion behind it all was rage.
And it was directed at Celina.
He couldn’t get a reading on the soul behind this. And wished he could. There was one thing he could do though. He winced. It wouldn’t be easy.
But it was necessary. He closed his eyes, spread the little bit of energy he’d used to enter Celina’s mind, and rolled it out as thin as he could.
Then he spread it thinner yet again. Breathing into the energy he approached the red ball and touched it with a tiny flick of energy.
There was no reaction.
He did it again.
He needed to gain access to the energy, but in such a way that he was welcome.
The only way to do that was if the predator’s energy didn’t see Stefan’s energy as a threat.
And that meant the predator’s energy had to become used to it. Used to the feel of Stefan’s energy. Accept it.
Then become one with it.
With that Stefan touched the energetic ball again, letting it blend with his energy. And merge together.
He sank deeper into the experience, emptying his mind, emptying his very cells that he could fill with this other energy and finally know what it was and why it was targeting Celina.
He pulled his consciousness back to center and deliberately opened up to the other energy and let himself be a part of it, not just merging on an energetic layer but merging consciously.
Instantly his mind was filled with hatred – black, twisted, broken thoughts wrapped and wormed through him, filling his own emotions with dark thoughts of revenge and poison.
Stefan struggled to let the emotion flow through him and out of him. To release it before it tainted his own soul. He breathed deep, letting his cells fill, then empty, always keeping them in the light of his own joy. The only way to not absorb the nastiness was to keep surrounding it in light as it moved through him.
He travelled deeper into the ball. Surely he’d be able to identify the person, the circumstances surrounding this nightmare.
Instead, he could only feel the anger. Only feel the pain. And then the determination to make Celina pay. Stefan didn’t understand the other victims involved. There was no anger toward anyone else. He didn’t know if that meant the person used up his anger for the victim at the time, or if he had no strong emotional ties to the others.
If that was the case, then why kill them?
Slowly, as he sat there still in the river of emotion, words and phrases slowly formed.
Bitch.
Make her pay.
Make her suffer.
Like she’d made me suffer.
She did this to me.
She was responsible.
Each new phrase matched a pulse in the ball of energy, keeping the fiery anger stoked.
Whoever was doing this had learned the power of negative emotions. But who was he and what had Celina done?
Stefan waited. Hoping for more.
Need more power, the voice whispered. Need more. She’s not suffering enough. I want her to suffer!
More broken phrases and words, the litany a lighter fluid, but nothing new. Nothing to clarify it.
Stefan deliberately pulled a plug on the ball, giving the ravaging heat an outlet. The pulses slowed. The flashes dimmed.
No!
He widened the hole, letting more and more of the negativity and burning anger drain away. At the same time he sent cooling, healing energy to mingle with some of the energy on the far side. He didn’t dare let this energy understand Stefan was there or what he was doing.
He watched the ball reduce in size, in intensity, as the trickle of energy grew to a torrent. The small gap he’d opened turned into a large fissure, draining the nasty energy from this self-contained furnace.
Stefan kept a large energetic blanket around the whole mess so that this guy’s energy couldn’t slide away and take up residence anywhere else.
No! What’s happening? This can’t happen. The energy spiked, hitting outward into Celina’s eyes.
Dimly Stefan heard her cry out. He raced to extend the healing cushion he’d placed between the energy and her eyes, something to soften the blows this asshole appeared determined to inflict. Blowing cooling colors to combat the heat, he poured soothing energy toward her eyes, protecting, healing them.
And blocking the asshole.
I need more power, the entity sobbed, the words only bits and pieces, the emotions so much more than formed sounds. More. More. More. I need more.
Stefan sat still and listened. Come on, he urged silently, talk to me.
There are only a few more. But that will help. Cutting them loose will be enough. They need to be enough. They must be… the energy pleaded to himself.
Stefan heard the voice that reverberated in the ball. But it was the last sentence that chilled him though.
The energy said, Anything to make this one pay.
And then the swiftly sinking ball of energy, quivered once, twice, then it exhaled to a deflated balloon. No movement. No heat.
No force.
The predator was gone.
*
Sam bolted upright.
“What’s happening?” she cried out, twisting in pain.
“Easy, Sam. Easy.”
“No. My back. God, my back. It’s burning up,” she cried.
Brandt shuffled backwards in bed to see Sam’s delicate back. He flicked a light on. There was no redness. No injury. Nothing. He reached out a hand.
“Don’t touch me, it’s killing me.” And she started weeping.
Her wording had Brandt stop, his arm midair. He moved so he could look at her face. Her eyes, dark and swirling with emotion, glared at him.
“Do something,” she cried out. “Call 9-1-1. There has to be something wrong.” Her tiny frame twisted and she bent over her knees, weeping.
This was not Sam.
Oh, it was Sam, but she was caught in another vision – maybe. They’d never been like this.
Taking a chance he said, “Who are you?”
“What kind of a stupid question is that? I’m Vanessa, of course.”
“Sorry.” He picked up the phone to show her. “I guess I don’t have any practice with emergencies.”
“You just have to give them my name and address,” she whimpered as the pain once again had her twisting and crying.
Brandt pretended to dial. “It’s ringing.” Keeping up the pretense, he pretended to speak to the operator on other end. “Yes, Vanessa needs help. Her last name? Uhm…”
“Coller,” she cried. “Vanessa Coller.”
Brandt quickly relayed the information to the dead phone, all the while watching as his beautiful wife became someone else.
“Address. Honey, I can’t remember your address.” He turned back to her, his throat clenched in fear. Sam had flipped over to her stomach, now quietly weeping. But her back…Christ, it looked like it was on fire.
“334,” she gasped. “Hobbard Drive.”
He had a pen and wrote it down. Please let this be close by. Hating to ask but needing to know as much information as he could he said, “Honey, they want to know what suburb. That’s a common name. A postal code, a suburb would help.”
She struggle to answer. He waited. Inside his heart was breaking.
*
Finally. He snuck back inside.
She slept – or was unconscious. Good. He smiled and settled back inside her head. He hated that she was resting easily now. He wanted her to suffer like he had. And she would…wait…something was different.
Smoother, softer, calmer. No. He didn’t want her calm or happy or resting soundly. He wanted her tortured, tormented, grieving. What the hell had happened? He could feel the old anger rising up. The love-turned-hatred blinding his vision until he could feel the energy build inside. Enough to destroy her sleep.
He wanted to lash out, pouring his anger into the one spot in her head he had access to – the weakest part of her – her eyes. The one spot he could destroy.
He’d gotten good at that part. Only something had happened this last time. Something he didn’t understand. And he had to. He couldn’t afford another failure.
Nor could he afford to expend more energy trying to sort out the problem.
He gave a pained laugh, then choked it off.
He needed to save his energy – for her.
Chapter 29
Celina woke slowly. How long had she been out? Scared to move, Celina lay quiet, a thin film of sweat coating her skin. The breeze from an open window drifted across the bed, chilling her. Was it over? Or was it only over for now, and that asshole would come back to hurt her time and time again?
She knew she didn’t dare risk moving in case the pain started up. After a few moments shivers rippled over her cooling body. She rolled over onto her back. “Thank God,” she whispered. “The pain is gone.”
“Are you okay?” he asked gently, his voice deep, dark, caring.
“Now, yes.” She reached up to stoke his cheek. “That’s the worst it’s ever been.”
“Sorry about that. Lie there and rest.”
He got up and she heard water running a few minutes later. A shower would be good, but that took effort – energy she didn’t have.
Moments later she almost cried out in relief as a warm washcloth stroked gently across her forehead, easing the last of the tension. “That feels wonderful,” she whispered.
“It’s the least I could do.” Guilt twined through his voice.
“It’s not your fault.” She hated that he felt he’d had a part in this.
“I didn’t stop him in time before he hurt you and I said I would.”
She smiled. He stroked the washcloth down over her breast, sending shivers across her sensitized skin and making her gasp. After a night of heavy lovemaking followed by the horrific pain she’d just survived, her body should have been too exhausted for anything else. Replete and complete. Until now.
Her body uncurled slowly and turned toward him.
His slow strokes slid down lower and lower, drawing lazy circles on her ribs, across her stomach, and down the V of her legs. She lifted her hips toward him, wishing, hoping, pleading.
She rolled closer and cried out when Stefan kissed her hipbone, trailing moist kisses across her flat belly.
Still trembling with the memory of the recent pain, her body willing fell under the spell of Stefan’s ministrations, letting the peacefulness of being here together with him draw her away from all that horror into the sweetness of his embrace.
Yet the fear persisted. Stefan reared up and she sensed him looking deep into her gaze. Tired and worn out, but needing what only he could give, she opened up and welcomed him into her heat.
Still warm from their recent lovemaking, he settled into place and loved her. Slowly, carefully, as if she was the most precious thing in his world, he proved to her with the drugging kisses, his clever fingers, with the complete possession of her body that she was his.
She wouldn’t have it any other way.
*
Brandt drove to the address Sam had given. If Sam was correct, Vanessa hadn’t died yet and maybe… maybe there was something they could do for her. And maybe she could tell Brandt something about her attacker.
There were already two cop cars and the flashing lights signaled an ambulance off to the side. Damn it, he was too late.
He strode up to the first group of officers milling around and flashed his ID. They willingly shared the story. The young girl’s back has been badly burned but she was going to make it. They still had no idea what had caused the injury, but weren’t looking for an attacker in this case – at least not according to the victim.
Brandt nodded then saw the gurney coming out the house with a young girl, a woman who appeared to be her mother walking at her side. Brandt wondered at the wisdom of speaking with her.
He walked closer, showed his ID to the mother and asked her, “Do you know what happened?”
She shook her head, tears in her eyes. “Nothing we could see. She’s been fine for a long time. We thought it was all over with. Then this…”
“Thought what was all over with?”
“My daughter was in a bad accident. She was burnt on twenty percent of her body. She’d been through so many skin grafts and dealt with so much pain. Her back looked perfect. The scars were minimal. Earlier today she said her back was unnaturally warm. But this was a big evening for her, so she ignored it then out of the blue, she said it started burning up.” She shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know what to say. There’s no reason for this to have happened.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Vanessa whispered, her voice slow and heavy. The drugs must have kicked in. “For no reason my back got really hot really fast. There was no warning. It felt like I was in another accident.”
Brandt looked over at the paramedic and said, “And the physical damage?”
“Bad,” the paramedic said.
Brandt nodded and stepped back to give the men room. He would ask the couple of uniforms if there was any damage to her bedroom – with that kind of heat there must have been.
Her mother wrapped her arms around her chest as they both watched Vanessa being loaded into the back of the ambulance. As Vanessa’s mother went to join her she whispered, “She hated her recovery. It was horribly painful. I hope she doesn’t have to go through all that again.”
“She’s going to have to,” he said quietly, but the mother had gotten into the ambulance with her daughter and didn’t hear his words.
He opened his phone and made a call. When Dr. Maddy answered he said, “I need a favor. It’s related to the same case that involves Stefan’s Celina.”
“Tell me.”
*
He shuddered in the darkness. Shivering from shock, he felt a fear he hadn’t had a chance to experience before slide through him. Where was that killer anger, that burning heat that warmed him and kept him on the edge of clarity? That conscious thought he desperately needed to make this all
happen?
He finally admitted that this was moving too fast. He’d set something in motion that he probably shouldn’t have – at least not with the speed with which he’d gone at it. Something had happened that he didn’t understand. Likely wouldn’t have time to understand.
What had he done? He wasn’t quite ready to die yet, and for the first time he had to wonder if he really wanted to any longer.
Besides, if this wasn’t death, what was death? That it could be nothing – that he’d cease to exist completely terrified him now. Now that his consciousness was functioning again, now that fear was working its way through him.
Before the fear, anger, the justified anger had been easy to utilize to finish his project. Now he wondered if he wanted it finished. He now had a glimpse of a life he could live here – limited, but possible.
Did he want that? Not really, but the alternative completely destroyed him. Fear, now that it had raised its ugly head, threatened his plans.
If he could stay here he’d need to keep his strongest connection. That would have to be Celina.
Could he stay a part of her forever? If he pulled all his energy completely home to just her physical form? Would he be strong enough to take her over and stay there – possibly always in control, or possibly only sometimes? If he couldn’t, would he want that?
He almost laughed. If that attempt didn’t work then it wouldn’t make any difference anyway – he’d do what he’d planned to do in the beginning.
Take her out – permanently.
*
Dr. Maddy settled into her favorite yoga position and slipped free of her body. She stretched out her arms and rolled her head back. A huge sigh of relief welled up and floated free.
She needed this. She couldn’t imagine all those people staying in their bodies all the time when her soul craved this freedom. She gave a happy sigh then connected to the burn center, a place she’d had reason to go too many times in the last year now that her name was starting to spread.
She floated gently above the admissions desk. The center was quiet, busy but under control. She watched the intake being done on a patient until she realized it wasn’t who she was looking for. She carried on through the new admission areas, looking for the girl Brandt had told her about.
