“I don’t know what you find so amusing,” she stated as if she were talking to Nigel but knew immediately that she wasn’t.
“You cannot trick me,” a deep growl laughed. “I know that it is I you seek.”
Jorden’s heart raced. Using the meditation technique Isis taught her she managed to calm it somewhat but she could not curb her fear. “And who are you?” she asked steadily.
Another laugh carried on a growing breeze. “That would be too easy.”
“Coward,” she snipped, though she hadn’t really meant to. She wasn’t to the point where she wanted to antagonize the entity surrounding her but she couldn’t stop herself. “You know who all of us are, why are you so afraid to let us get to know you?”
Another laugh though she wasn’t fooled. There was very little amusement in the tone and the air grew even colder. “You think your mordant tone and words will anger me in such a manner that I might reveal my identity,” it stated instead of asked. “You are young and stupid. I do not fool so easily.”
“Perhaps, but you are still a coward. Something about us scares you into hiding away in our friend,” she accused. “Are you afraid that if we know who you are we’ll be able to cast you out of our friend?”
The evil laugh filled the air once again. “Even if you knew who I was you would not have the time to save your friend or yourselves. You follow the rules interpreted by mortal men and for that you will pay dearly. By this time tomorrow you will all have met your fates.”
“And what fate is that?” Jorden questioned, now more fishing for information than serving as a distraction.
A wave of burning air swirled around her and seared the skin on one of her arms, forcing her to cry out. “That’s just a taste,” the growl laughed. “Would you like more?”
Jorden’s arm burned but it was still dark and she couldn’t see it to know what the damage was. “Show me your face,” she said. “Prove to me that you’re not just a bully and a coward.”
“You act like a very brave woman, but you are not so brave…are you?” the growl questioned then seared her other arm with another blast of hot air.
This time Jorden expected such an attack, though the knowledge didn’t make it hurt any less. Still, she managed to keep from giving the demon any more power over her than it already had by keeping from screaming out.
“You wear your fears on your sleeve, perhaps so I would find them there and try to scare you,” the demon growled. “You are not so smart…and I know what truly frightens you.”
A face suddenly filled the space in front of her but it was not a face she expected and she jumped back.
“This is the face you fear…or rather I expect that you fear to lose.”
Jorden fought not to cry out Matt’s name.
“Perhaps your hell would be spending an eternity watching his torment,” the growl suggested. The dark space around her filled with the fires of hell and in the center of the room was Matt as he hung from chains over a boiling pit of liquid fire.
Jorden tried to turn from the image but everywhere she looked she saw the same thing and she heard his tortured screams. She wanted to cry out to make the demon stop but knew that it was exactly what it wanted so she did the only thing she could and faced the demon’s grotesque threat. “I still don’t see your face,” she coldly pointed out. “You truly are a coward.”
Flames whipped around her like a tornado but she held her ground in spite of the fear in her heart and the pain from the fire burning so close. “Is this what you want?” the demon angrily growled then before she could catch a breath its face was ahead of her; full of eternally burning flesh and bone.
The image was enough to make Jorden want to vomit but she held her own. “What are you?” she questioned.
The demon smiled and bared his gnarly, yellowed fangs. “This is my dominion.”
“But you do not rule here,” Jorden said, though wasn’t sure how she knew; it was more a feeling than anything else. “You are a servant.”
Flames whipped around her again and in the demon’s anger she saw something she didn’t think that she was meant to see; hundreds, if not thousands of souls being herded to a lake of fire somewhere in this hell that the demon exposed her to.
The image was brief but enough and Jorden couldn’t have been more relieved when she was returned to the frigid blackness, though unlike before, she was truly alone. It was clear that the demon was no longer interested in her and she could only hope that it was because she’d angered him into retreating and not because it might have detected Isis’s presence or felt the need to torment Nigel even more.
A hand grabbed onto Jorden’s shirt and yanked her backwards and she fell. When her eyes opened she found herself looking at the ceiling of the cellar and immediately she jumped to her feet and looked around in a panic.
“It’s all right,” Isis insisted. “You’re back. Just breathe.”
Jorden did as she was told but was still confused and still felt the pain of the demon’s rage. Immediately she looked down at her arms and found nothing but her lightly tanned skin. There was no sign of the burning the demon inflicted upon her.
“Jorden,” Matt said as he rushed to her side, though she stepped back and away from him. “Jorden, it’s me. Are you all right?”
Jorden closed her eyes and took in a deep breath where she could smell the musty odor of the cellar and feel the moisture of the fog outside. This was real.
Jorden opened her eyes and focused on Matt. “I’m fine,” she said finally and allowed him to take her into his arms. After a moment of allowing herself to revel in the comfort of his embrace she turned to Isis, who looked just as worried. “I hope you got what you needed because I am not doing that again.”
Isis gave her a nod and grabbed her hand. “He’s in there and hanging on, but I don’t know for how long,” she said. “What did you find out?”
Jorden didn’t want to think of the experience and knew that it would give her nightmares for some time to come, but there was a reason they both did what they had and she needed to share what she learned. “I didn’t get much out of it, but it did show me its face,” she said and stifled the chill that ran up her back. “I can’t be sure, but I think that it’s been collecting the souls here on the island but I don’t know why.”
“I think I can help with that,” Syd said from the top of the stairs by the cellar door, which caused all three of them to spin around in surprise. “And we don’t have much time.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Caretaker’s Cottage Cellar – 11:45pm…
Syd descended the stairs and joined Matt, Jorden and Isis in the cellar, closing the door behind him for privacy.
“Exactly where have you been for the last three hours?” Isis questioned. “We’ve been…” Her words faded and her gaze grew curious as she stepped towards him. “You’re not alone,” she said evenly.
The room grew cold and a mist swirled about until their numbers grew from four to five. A slightly hunchbacked woman dressed in rags stepped out from behind Syd. She was a portly woman with short silver hair, a chubby face and showed a mouth only half full of gray teeth when she smiled.
“Who the hell is that?” Matt questioned.
“Isobel Petrelli. She’s a refugee from the village massacre,” Syd briefly introduced.
Matt exhaled sharply. “Funny,” he sneered.
“It is no joke, I assure you. She stowed away in the body of someone visiting a relative at Doctor Klaus’s hospital nearly a hundred years ago and has been haunting a ghost town on the mainland ever since,” Syd explained.
All eyes turned to the old woman. “And why should we believe her story?” Jorden asked completely unmoved by the mystical appearance of the woman, because after what she’d just experienced, she’d believe just about anything…and she did not trust this woman.
The woman’s face expressed her offence but Jorden didn’t care and she muttered something in Italian.
Syd tra
nslated, “I speak the truth.” The woman said more and Syd continued his translation. “I come here only to help free your friend,” she said and looked at Syd, “and face my own fate.”
Jorden didn’t fully buy it; there was something in the woman’s silver eyes that warned her but to or from what she wasn’t sure.
“I know of the demon which possesses your friend and I have come to help release him,” Isobel said through Syd’s translation.
“What can you tell us about this demon?” Isis questioned.
Jorden looked from Isobel over to Isis, who seemed equally skeptical yet hopeful at the same time.
Isobel went onto describe the demon as a grim reaper sent earthbound to collect souls to take to the underworld, which put Jorden’s flash from her confrontation with the demon named Ankou into perspective. She’d seen it leading numerous souls to a fiery lake and now she knew why. What she didn’t know of yet was if she and the rest of their group were to join them.
“It wants as many souls as it can collect, though I am unsure why,” the old woman said. “I know only of his purpose here and that is to take the souls to Hades.”
“Do you know what it plans to do with us and Nigel once its task is finished?” Matt questioned with skepticism in his otherwise friendly voice.
The woman looked at the others, her unearthly silver eyes masking her true soul. “No,” she said finally.
Jorden didn’t believe her any more than she believed that they would get off the island unscathed.
“But you have its name now, you can cast it out of your friend and back to hell where it belongs,” the old woman said.
“And exactly how do we do that?” Isis questioned. “Exorcisms are done by priests and we don’t have the time to find one.”
“Exorcisms are a matter of faith, whatever faith you may have. In the end, all you must do is believe in your friend and believe in yourself. Whoever has the greater faith in their task will prevail,” the old woman advised then seemed to grow weak.
“What’s wrong?” Syd asked.
“It takes a great deal of energy to maintain this form…I cannot do it for long. And if I continue Ankou will know that I am here and I am not yet ready for that. I must go for a while though I will remain here at this house until I am needed again. She started to fade away but stopped before she was completely out of sight. “Remember, you have until the dark moon to save your friend. If you have not done it by then, you may not be able to do it at all.” Those were her last words before she faded completely out of sight.
“What do you think?” Matt asked as he turned to face both Jorden and Isis.
“I think she’s hiding something,” Jorden stated candidly.
Isis’s expression was conflicted, but she nodded anyway. “I hate to say this, but I agree. I can’t shake the feeling that she had the answers to our questions but just didn’t want to give them.”
“And why would she do that?” Syd questioned.
Jorden shook her head. “I don’t know, but I want to find out,” she said then turned to Syd. “What did she tell you?”
Syd took a seat in an old chair in the corner and regaled them with the tale the old woman told him back on the mainland.
“Do you think that this demon…Ankou…inhabited the body of Father Santorini for the years up until the burning of the village and the massacre of the monks? And that’s how he collected souls for so many years?” Isis questioned.
“As unbelievable as it sounds it tracks,” Jorden said. “The father is the only constant in this entire mess and from what I saw when I was in the trance there’s no way the demon could exist outside of possession of a human body. Once the villagers burned Father Santorini, Ankou had to find another body.”
“And he did,” Matt said blankly with a thoughtful gaze. “It’s in the EVPs we got; when Doctor Santini killed himself by throwing himself out of the bell tower arches.”
“And it was in that…reenactment, if you will, that Nigel was possessed,” Isis said with startling realization. “We saw it all and didn’t even realize it.”
Matt’s brows creased. “Saw what?”
Jorden looked at him; sick with the feeling that they were there when Nigel was possessed and didn’t do a damned thing about it. “It’s like I explained to you earlier. The second night we heard the bells in the tower,” she said evenly. “The night Nigel seemingly pissed off whatever was in the bell tower and we were hit with the gust of wind that knocked us all to the ground. That’s when it happened. That’s when this Ankou thing entered Nigel.”
“Are you sure?” Matt questioned.
“It’s the only opportunity the damned thing had,” Isis insisted then rubbed her temples and shook her head with frustration. “And all we did was sit there and do nothing. We just let it happen.”
“What could you do?” Syd asked from his corner. “You didn’t know what was going on and even if you had, it was inevitable.”
Matt switched his gaze to Syd. “How do you figure?”
“Because the demon needed a host. Think about it. There were four of you out there that night. Isis and Jorden…the two of you have the ability to block a telepathic attack and while the demon might have succeeded I don’t believe that it would have been able to completely take control of your bodies. Then there was Matt…and please don’t take this the wrong way when I say this, but you are too stubborn and strong willed to be taken over easily. Then there was Nigel…who has faced disappointment after disappointment on this investigation and was still trying to find some meaning to his survival after a near-death experience to his being here now. Nigel just happened to be the most vulnerable during the encounter. If he hadn’t been there the demon would have found someone else, but in the end he was really the only choice the demon had at that time and it seized the opportunity,” Syd explained.
Silence engulfed the room while everyone thought about Syd’s explanation.
“What’s done is done,” Jorden said after a moment. “How it happened isn’t near as important right now as how to free Nigel and get off this island with our lives and souls intact.”
Matt nodded. “She’s right. We need information and it’s going to take a while to get with just one computer in working order so I suggest that we get started.”
Matt led them up the stairs to the cellar door and back into the main house. The hour had grown late, yet when they returned everyone but Nigel and his companion were still downstairs in the living room.
“What are all of you still doing up?” Jorden asked as they entered the living room.
“We didn’t know what to do,” Saph said, seemingly uncertain for the first time since arriving on the island.
“I think that you’re right,” Jesse said. “Nigel isn’t right. I…” he hesitated, “…I think that he is possessed.”
Jorden knew just how hard an admission it was for Jesse to make, though it was going to be even harder to do something about it.
“We need to research methods used in exorcisms and I don’t want to limit our options only to what is advocated by the church,” Matt said. “I want all options and we don’t have much time to figure this out, so let’s get busy.”
“What about the mainland?” Syd asked. “Someone should head out to the local libraries and see if there’s something available there.”
“I’ll do it,” Saph said, still reeling from the night’s events. “I’ve already been to all of them so I should be able to find the info a bit quicker.”
“I’ll go with her,” Jesse said. “After all, I’ve been there too.”
Jorden nodded. “Take the satellite phone and call in a ferry and get out there now.”
“At this hour?” Ana questioned. “I don’t think that they’ll get very far.”
With all that was going on Jorden had lost track of time and she was surprised when she glanced down at her watch to see just how late the hour had gotten. “Fine, first thing in the morning head out and see what you can f
ind at the libraries. Tony, you and Ana go too. Head to a couple of the churches and see what they have to say.”
“You got it,” Tony confirmed in his deep tone. “We’ll be ready at sunrise.”
“Be ready an hour before. I want that boat off the dock here before the sun fully rises,” Jorden commanded.
Tony didn’t argue, in fact none of them did.
“Now I know that none of you are going to like this, but I think that it would be best if we all stayed down here together tonight,” Jorden continued.
There was a low grumble that filled the room but no one really complained, though there were a couple “whys”.
“We don’t know exactly how this entity attacks but there’s some validity in the old adage ‘safety in numbers’, and I know that you’ll think that this is paranoid, but I want just half of us to sleep while the other half stays awake and keeps watch,” she concluded.
There was another grumble though again, no protests. Instead of complaining, the group decided who would sleep first and who would take first watch. While they did that, Matt pulled Jorden aside and into the dining room. “Are you going to tell me what you saw when you were in your trance?” he asked.
Matt’s dark eyes were shadowed with worry and she knew that they should be. Still, she managed to give him a weak smile. “I’ll tell you when this is over,” she said in hopes that she would actually have the chance.
“Are you sure you didn’t see anything that I need to be worried about right now?” he questioned.
It was hard for her to maintain her smile, because there was plenty to be worried about both inside and out of her vision but she nodded in spite of herself. “I’m sure,” she lied though was truthful when she added, “let’s just put all our strength into getting Nigel back and getting off of this godforsaken rock.”
Matt pulled her into a warm embrace and she held him as if she never would again.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Caretaker’s Cottage – 4:30am…
The Haunting of Isola Forte di Lorenzo Page 30
