“What do you sense?” Adlai asked quietly.
“A rip in the Veil. It’s damaged right through the middle of the room. I think even I could step right through.” It felt like the Veil had been hacked open with a machete.
“I would not advise it, Rowena. Is the tear in the Veil all you can find?”
“You tell me. I’m not the one who’s an angel.”
“Some things are only possible to one with human blood in their veins. Though there are many things I can do that you cannot, sensing the Veil as you do is beyond me.”
Rowena raised her eyebrows at that news. She hadn’t really understood why Adlai had brought her along with him when he should have been able to deal with the father on his own. But now it made a bit more sense. He needed her ability to feel the Veil, as well as needing her body as a breeding chamber, which, no matter how she tried to avoid thinking about it, she just couldn’t get away from.
Turning to leave the room, Rowena didn’t even look in Adlai’s direction. She wanted to find as much information as she could from the internet, so she ran down the stairs. The computer was in exactly the same place as in Hannah’s real house, perched in a corner of the kitchen. Rowena jiggled the mouse and found a toolbar across the top of the screen. Instead of Google or Yahoo, the name Beyond was emblazoned on the toolbar.
Rowena started by typing in the address she was at. What came up was a list of every person who had ever died in that location, going right back to The Dark Ages. “Okay, so how to refine this,” she muttered to herself, thinking for a second. She adjusted the search to female deaths, specifying only the last five centuries, thinking the father must have been wearing the clothes he did for a reason.
What she got was yet another long list, but this time it was all of young women, all of them unmarried. At the top of the page, the number of results was three short of one hundred and eighty. A hundred and seventy seven young women had died on the plot of land where Hannah’s house stood. How could that have escaped the notice of everyone in the living realm? Okay, the deaths covered five hundred years, but someone should have noticed it before now. It was the sort of thing that fuelled folk tales.
The next step was to check the male residents for the few decades Rowena thought covered the period the father’s dress seemed to be from. Having a working knowledge of historical fashions was a natural byproduct of her work.
“Got you,” she remarked quietly, reading the first result. “So, your name is -”
“Don’t say it aloud,” Adlai warned her. “Names have power. He has kept his concealed for a long time for a reason. If you speak his name aloud, you might summon him here.”
“So now what? We know how he got through, and what his name is. But we still know nothing about where Hannah’s soul might be.”
“Which is where I need you again. You must try to find the others he has sent through.”
Pushing away from the kitchen counter, Rowena stood and faced the angel, scowling at him. “So what exactly are you here for if I’m doing all the work?”
“To carry you from one side to the other and ensure your safety while we are here.”
“Not very much then.” She gave a sigh and shoved her hands in her pockets. “Where am I meant to be looking for these lost souls?”
“I would suggest you search here first. Souls do tend to linger around their former homes.”
“And what if they believed in reincarnation?”
“Unlikely. I should imagine most of them were Christians, so they would only believe in the reincarnation of the Son.”
It made sense. Rowena closed her eyes. Tuning in to spirits on the death side of the Veil wasn’t like doing it in the living realm; she could feel so many spirits, more than she would have thought possible. Narrowing her focus, she tried to find those within the house.
When she opened her eyes again the room was full of young women, their ages ranging from younger teens to later twenties.
“Who are you?” she asked of the young woman closest to her.
“Bessie Ramsey, mistress.”
“What happened to you?”
“I don’t rightly know. I was cleaning the kitchen floor and then I was here.”
Rowena thought that sounded like Bessie had been killed. Murdered. “What year was that?”
“Seventeen hundred and three, mistress.”
“Call me Rowena, Bessie. I’m no one’s mistress. So you don’t know how you died?”
“No, miss- Rowena.”
“Anyone else know how they ended up this side of the Veil?”
“I was sent here,” one girl replied. She didn’t look more than about fourteen or fifteen. She wore a plain, simple smock dress, meaning it was impossible to work out what period of history she was from. “He sent me here. I didn’t want to come, but then I couldn’t get back.”
“Your soul was ripped from your body and sent here by force,” Adlai stated neutrally. Rowena wanted to punch him for putting it so bluntly. She would have broken that news a little more tactfully herself.
“What’s your name?” Rowena asked gently.
“Hannah, miss. My name’s Hannah.”
Rowena frowned a little. Was it coincidence or was this the soul they were looking for? “How long have you been here?”
“A long time, miss. Centuries. I know why you’re asking me this. You want to stop him. He’s sent a lot of girls here since me, but I was the first. He’s my father.”
That certainly explained a few things. Rowena’s client having the same name must have been the first trigger, then Hannah’s intention to get married had put her on the father’s hit list. It would also explain why Hannah had given her haunter the moniker of father: she must have somehow tapped into this long dead Hannah.
“So who else was sent here by Hannah’s father?”
Two of the crowd faded from sight, including Bessie, meaning the rest were the father’s one hundred and seventy seven victims. Rowena had no intention of allowing her client to become number one hundred and seventy eight.
“Okay, I’m going to need help from all of you. Because he sent you all through before your time, he’s tied himself to each of you. That’s something you can use against him. But first we have to find the soul of Hannah. Another Hannah. She’s still alive at the minute, but she won’t be for long if I can’t find her. Once she’s back together, I’ll try and repair the tear so he can’t get through again.”
“No, miss. We can’t let you do that,” Hannah said solemnly. “We don’t want the devil trapped this side with us.”
“Devil?” Adlai remarked. “Do you mean he’s a demon?”
“He’s the devil.”
Rowena looked at Adlai quizzically. She’d never believed in the existence of the devil, as in Satan, Lucifer, or whatever name was currently de rigueur. She knew the old story of an angel disagreeing with God and falling because of it. As an angel, if she recalled correctly, he had been called the Morningstar.
“It is not the Morningstar,” Adlai told her softly. “He would not neglect his duty simply to chase the souls of innocent young women. He is charged by The Presences with punishing those who commit the worst sins in their mortal lives, ensuring they do not commit them in another life.”
“So he’s still on this side with The Presences?”
“After a fashion. Considering the sins of the father, it may well be the Morningstar will offer us some assistance. He does not like to lose sight of those in his prisons. It does depend how the father came to be this side of the Veil though. It could be the Morningstar has no knowledge of him.”
“How do we contact him?” Rowena enquired. She couldn’t help wondering what a prison beyond the Veil was actually like, thinking it wasn’t likely to be an easy ride for any spirit incarcerated in one.
“By phone, of course.” Adlai gave her a slightly smug smile.
~* * * *~
Rowena studied the angel as he spoke quietly into her phone. Quite what s
ort of network he was using she had no idea. Just the thought he knew the Morningstar’s personal number was freaky in the extreme, and her whole life revolved around the freaky. She silently prayed the network wouldn’t show up on her monthly bill as an astronomical charge. Could it be claimed as expenses from The Presences?
“Then we will see you soon,” Adlai finished and handed the phone over. “He is concerned. And he seems aware of you, Rowena. You did not tell me you had had previous dealings with the Morningstar.”
“Because I don’t. Until today, I’d always just assumed his existence was more of a Christian fiction than a real fact.”
He shook his head at her. “With all your abilities, you still dismiss things as myths?”
“If I believed everything I’d ever heard, I’d be locked up in a padded room wearing a jacket with very long sleeves. The way I live now I can just about be written off by most people as just another deluded idiot pandering to gullible fools.”
“And that contents you?”
“Not really, but it makes life easier, believe me,” Rowena told the angel wearily. The fact she got lumped in with the multitude of fake mediums had always grated.
She turned away from Adlai, coming face-to-face with another man, one almost identical in appearance to the angel. He made her jump out of her skin. Her heart thumped on her ribs so hard she thought it must be heard in the living realm.
“Rowena,” he said softly, just like Adlai had. “You are all grown up. I fail to keep track of the years. It seems like only yesterday I met your mother.”
Her chin dropped.
“I have missed so much of your life.”
“Morningstar, are you saying you are Rowena’s father? What became of the one sent to create her?” Adlai demanded, sounding shocked, possibly the most emotion Rowena had heard in his voice so far, apart from when he’d been trying to get her not to think about fucking his brains out.
Reaching out his hand, the Morningstar touched Rowena’s vibrant red hair. “The one sent to father her was killed before he could complete his assignment. When it came to my attention, I thought I would see his work was completed. You see, it was my fault he died. The demon who killed him was meant to have been in my custody. I did not expect the feelings that came from fathering a child. It changes your perspective, Watcher. Bear that in mind before you take your own assignment any further. Walking away from your own flesh and blood is not easily done.”
Rowena took a step back, trying to process what she’d learned. The bloody Morningstar was her father? Holy crap on a cracker! To put it mildly. She was, literally, the spawn of Satan!
“You bastard!” she spat angrily. “Do you have any idea what you did to my mother? She loved you and you just walked away? How could you? You killed her in the end. Do you know that? She died pining for you. She made herself keep going long enough for me to grow up and then she just gave up!”
“I know. If I could have returned to her, believe me, I would have. I loved your mother, Rowena.”
“Save it!” she spat furiously. “You can tell me any shit you like now she’s dead. Adlai called you here to deal with the father. His daughter said he was the devil, so make with some answers. Who is he really?”
The Morningstar gave a heavy sigh and said nothing.
“Nothing to say now? Come on, Daddy, spill the beans.”
“Rowena, you cannot speak to the Morningstar in that way,” Adlai warned quietly.
“I’m not talking to the Morningstar. I’m talking to my waste of space excuse for a father. And I want some bloody answers from him.”
“Rowena, you have your mother’s spirit.”
“Only I wouldn’t know that, because you killed that in her before I had a chance to find out who she really was!”
Adlai’s arms closed around Rowena, giving her the comfort she really needed from someone in that moment. But the fact he was doing it because he was responding to her need, combined with the reason he could sense that in her made her push him away.
“Take me back through the Veil. Right now. I want out of this. This shit is way past what I can deal with, so I’m walking away. I just can’t deal with any more revelations at the minute.” She refused to think about the fact she was deserting Hannah. There was only so much one person could be expected to deal with, and Rowena was way past her limit.
“Rowena.” The Morningstar put a hand out to her, but Adlai blocked him.
“She needs to be away from you,” he said firmly, tucking Rowena behind his back. “Please, she needs time, Morningstar.”
Wanting to scream at both of them, Rowena clamped her hands over her ears and sank to the floor. In the last twenty four hours her entire life had been sucked down the plughole. She screwed her eyes tightly shut, praying to the Goddess to wake her in her own bed with her life all put back the way it had been yesterday morning. She wanted to open her eyes and find she had nothing worse than a bit of guilt and regret that she’d ended up shagging Stephen again.
Four
“Rowena, you are home now,” Adlai whispered beside her ear, his fingers stroking over her forehead.
She turned away from him, pulling the duvet over her head. All she wanted was to be left alone, to have peace and quiet to think through everything. She’d worked so hard to get past her childhood, the constant pressure of caring for her own mother, a woman who’d lost the will to live; the guilty relief when her death had finally put an end to both their suffering. Finding out the one her mother had eventually killed herself over had been around and aware of Rowena’s existence was like a kick in the gut. She wanted to beat the crap out of her father for putting her and her mother through the years of torture.
She wondered why she hadn’t just ignored all the weird crap she’d always seen and got a normal job, one where all she had to think about was staving off tedium so she could keep collecting her pay cheque. She should have listened to her mother and pretended to be normal. But Rowena had thought she knew best, telling her mother grandly that she had her gift for a reason. Turned out she had been right about that, but her mother had been the wiser of them with her advice to pretend to be just like everyone else.
The bloody Morningstar! Dress that up however you could, it didn’t change the fact she was quite literally the daughter of the Devil. How was she ever meant to get past that? The old saying that ignorance was bliss certainly wasn’t a lie. Rowena wondered for a minute if it was possible to get a lobotomy on the NHS.
Goddess, what she wouldn’t give to talk to Stephen right now, to just pour everything out of her, knowing he would help her work through it all until her head was straight again. She had a feeling she would never have that freedom with Stephen again though, not if she was going to avoid fucking up another relationship for him.
“You could talk to me,” Adlai suggested.
“Hardly,” Rowena mumbled. “You’re part of the problem.”
“Why? You made it clear you want more than I am able to give, and I do not know how I can change that. You can make me more human, less likely to give in to your every whim, but I cannot change what I am, Rowena. However, what I can do is listen. We both know you need to keep your distance from your friend Stephen.”
“Thanks for reminding me I’ll only screw his life up.”
“You should not be afraid of the truth.”
Throwing the quilt back and sitting up, Rowena glared at the angel. He really wasn’t helping one little bit. Goddess, what she wouldn’t do just to have someone normal in her life, someone straight, someone human, someone not planning on putting a bun in her oven at the first opportunity.
“Just get out. I don’t want you here. I don’t want to see you ever again.”
Adlai dropped his head. “Rowena, I do not want to leave you. Your need for someone more human is changing me. I . . . I have feelings and I do not know what I am supposed to do with them. You have made me feel.”
“I don’t give a fuck what you feel! Get the hell out
and don’t come back!” She grabbed the alarm clock from beside the bed and chucked it at him. It smashed off the wall where he had been, not hitting someone who wasn’t even there. Adlai had vanished.
Screeching in frustration, Rowena threw herself back down on the bed. Now he’d gone, she wanted him back so she had someone to vent at. Stewing on her own wasn’t going to do a thing to improve her mood.
Getting out of bed, she grabbed her phone and brought up Stephen’s number automatically, then hesitated. She had to wean herself off him or neither of them would ever have more in their lives.
She went back to the home screen, then checked the readings from Hannah’s house. No matter what crap was going on in her life, she did still have a job to do. She had run away when she should have been ignoring her own issues, no matter how fucked up everything was. Hannah’s very existence currently depended on Rowena doing her job. This wasn’t about the money, it was about a young woman’s life being snatched away before she’d had a chance to live it.
“That is so not good,” she mumbled at the temperature results. The temperatures in the house were all below zero. Something was going on there and she had to find out what. But her car was still at Hannah’s, so she’d have to get a cab there and see if Bob was still around.
“You cannot go alone, Rowena.”
She froze when she recognised the voice behind her. The Morningstar wasn’t exactly on her list of people she wanted to see for the foreseeable. A rewind switch would be good, so she could backtrack to before the part where she found out who her father was.
“Why are you here?”
“To see you.”
“You’re about twenty five years too late for visiting. If you’d showed up when Mum was still alive and stuck around for her, I might have been able to forgive you for dumping both of us. Not going to happen now.”
“Where is the angel assigned to you?”
“Gone. He’s the last person I need around.” Rowena turned on her heel and studied him. Lucifer. The Devil. Satan. Her fucking dad! “Finding out I’m the daughter of the devil hasn’t really done much for my ego, and I’d appreciate it if you left now. I’ve had enough of angels, fallen or not, to last me a lifetime.”
Voracious Vixens, 13 Novels of Sexy Horror and Hot Paranormal Romance Page 155
