Her eyes grew wider with the horror of remembering. "The bald one hurt me—he took.—he shamed me." She clutched at her blouse and looked down at the ground, embarrassed. "The beautiful one tried to turn me into another evil demon. She drank and drank from my neck."
Marie lifted her hand to touch the bloody marks that still showed where Eleanor had fed from her. "Have I passed on?" I couldn't look at her. "Please. I am dead, am I not? She did not succeed did she? I do not wish to be one of those horrid devils."
I nodded, and she asked, "Mother and Father and Garrett? Are they dead as well?"
Suddenly it was too much and I began to weep, my heart breaking for this sweet woman. "Your parents have passed on, but Garrett's alive. He still feels—feels responsible." Leaning against the wall, I sobbed while she watched me, looking more confused than ever. Isaiah handed me the handkerchief which had materialized in his hand, his expression showing only irritation at my display.
With wonder in her eyes, she asked, "He lives?"
I managed to gain some control. "Eleanor made him a vampire, but to avenge you and his parents, he killed her in a duel."
Her eyes grew wide with shock. "My brother, my sweet knight, an evil blood-crazed vampire?" Her expression sank into despair as she turned away, beginning to drift back toward the cells.
"No, he isn't evil. He protects other supernaturals and humans from creatures like Eleanor."
"Is this possible?" She was looking at me curiously.
"I'm a cheetah shapeshifter, like you and your family. Garrett can still shift into his cheetah. We're lifemates. I swear this is true. He's helped so many people. You'd be proud of him."
"Green." She reached her hand out as if to touch my aura. She no longer had an aura, probably because her soul had moved on, if what Isaiah had said about shades was true. "So rich a green. Are you with child?" She'd finally noticed my rather large belly.
"Yes."
"But surely a vampire cannot..."
"I was—raped." It wasn't an easy word to speak out loud, but I wanted her to know the truth. "Garrett and I are raising Charles together."
She smiled at me for the second time. "Charles, for Father? He would like that. My nephew." Her eyes grew wider. "Have you perhaps seen my children? My mate?"
"No, but I believe they're alive and you have many grandchildren and great grandchildren."
"What is the year?"
"2012."
"I have been lost for so long. Is Garrett present in this house? May I see him?"
"He doesn't want me...I mean, he doesn't know you're here."
"Please, Jacqueline. Please tell him." Her shape began to waver. "Ask him to meet with me. I beg you." She was gone, leaving behind only a faint scent of cheetah.
"Her energy gave out." Isaiah answered my unspoken question. "Shades can only hold their form briefly. You'll be able to call her back later if you wish."
I looked toward the door that led to the cells and shivered.
CHAPTER EIGHT
A few minutes after that, I was seated on a bench at the edge of the garden facing the ocean, trying to sort out my jumbled feelings. Isaiah sat silently beside me, staring at the pelicans diving for fish. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to pound him into the ground for scaring me half to death and putting me in a very difficult position with Garrett, or thank him for giving me the chance to meet this lovely spiritual entity.
I sighed, totally exhausted. "You can be a real piece of shit sometimes, Isaiah."
"We're not finished with today's lesson, so you might want to watch what you say to your trainer." There was a slight growl to his voice, but I'd heard it before and it didn't freak me out.
"I don't really have the energy..."
He grabbed my arm roughly and turned me to face him. "Now that you've come in contact with one, you must learn to block the shades, otherwise you will be bombarded by them, especially here where there was so much violent death. Near the cells, I held the others back, but I think to encourage you to learn quickly, I won't any longer."
As if to prove his point a slightly blurry-edged man limped over. I say 'limped', but wobbled or stumbled might be more correct. He had no feet, only raw, red stumps where they used to be, although somehow he managed to move forward. His face was mangled as if someone had stomped on it repeatedly or used a rock. He groaned, reaching out toward my general direction in a zombie-apocalypse kind of way. I jumped up and tried to put some distance between us, only to come face to face with a pale, naked woman, her flesh ripped open inside her left thigh and then again across her throat and at both wrists. When the shade reached for me, her hand passed right through my arm, leaving behind an icy chill that made me gasp and feel ill.
"Isaiah! Make them go away." I almost didn't recognize my own voice, I was so frightened.
He had the goddamned nerve to smirk at me. "So you've changed you mind? You've now decided you want me to teach you about them? Will your overly protective matey-poo allow it, or are you going to be a grownup and take charge of your own life?" He waved a hand and the two spirits froze in place, both of them reaching out desperately toward me. I was so relieved, I felt tears well up as my heart pounded in my chest like a jackhammer. But my new sense of relief vanished as quickly as it had appeared when I noticed other gruesome shades farther away, walking toward me, all of them reaching out.
Isaiah looked at me sternly. "Answer." I nodded, furious with him, but feeling like I had no choice.
"Say it out loud."
"I want you to teach me about the shades," I growled out from between my gritted teeth. At this point I was so angry that I thought about sending him back, but then I might never be able to shake off these creepy spirits. He'd backed me into a corner and I was trapped there.
"They cannot hurt you or even truly touch you. You'll feel them as a chill and sometimes you might catch their scent or hear a faint noise like a sigh or a grunt. They are simply shadows of what once happened here."
"Why are they reaching toward me and not you?"
"Because you hold enormous amounts of life energy within you. They sense it and yearn to feel it again, so they turn to you."
"But Marie..."
"Marie is unusual. Because she has a direct blood connection to Garrett and Charlie, and also because she was a powerful cheetah herself, she was able to hold her form by using some of your energy and then allowing it to loop back to you. Shades with a personal tie to a necromancer are rare and quite strong and can often be useful, especially for your team of investigators. She may even be able to get information from other shades."
He pointed to the two frozen in place near us. "Do you notice how their edges blur? They are weak."
"I don't want to bump into shades all the time. They scare me."
He was looking closely at the male. "This one was tortured. I wonder what he did to piss off Eleanor?" He circled the female. "She was simply food for the nest. I wonder if Garrett had a taste of her."
"I don't give a crap, Isaiah. I don't want to see them." I'd turned away and buried my head in my hands, closing my eyes.
He laughed at me. "You've seen much worse."
"Please, Isaiah." The ones who'd been on the outskirts had gotten closer.
He nodded, obviously enjoying my distress, waving his hand to make the others freeze in place. "In order to block them, you must believe that you can."
"Gee thanks. That tells me exactly nothing."
"All magic works that way. When you were on the island with Rob and you shifted the second time, without the drug, you believed that you could. When you were Kennet's prisoner and you unraveled his block after I'd been sent back, you believed that you could do it. You had faith in your ability."
"Faith is a strange thing for a demon to talk about."
"Why? I have faith in the strength of my power, in my connection to my magic, and in my will to combine the two flawlessly." He grinned. "You were born with an incredible gift which you can enhance magically. All y
ou need to block all of these shades is your will. Decide not to see them, and they will be gone."
"But will they still be there, even if I don't see them?" I asked.
"They will be in stasis. Somewhere none of us can see. A place not of this world."
"I'm afraid to look at them."
"Fear will disrupt the flow of a demon's energy, unless you flip it to anger, as you have many times in the past." Isaiah said with a wry smile.
"Garrett and Liam will vouch for that." I mumbled. " Can you walk me through it?"
"Look at me. At this moment you are using your sight."
"I can see them...is that what you mean?"
"A demon connects to the dead by using his sight. Yours kicked in when Marie approached you, so now it is..," he hesitated, searching for a word, "...online, so to speak." He grinned slyly, apparently happy with his choice.
"So normally, I'm not online?" I asked.
"Today with Marie was the first time. Do you remember anything different happening right before you noticed her?"
"Besides you being all in-my-face?" I growled.
"Besides that." He arched an eyebrow in amusement.
I thought back to that moment. It was cold and Isaiah was annoyed and holding my arms and then—then there was heat: a hot breeze, as if I stood in front of a furnace. And a spice, some kind of scent that reminded me of my grandmother.
"A scent and a hot wind. The heat is gone, but I think I can still smell the spicy smell. It's not unpleasant."
He nodded in understanding. "That scent is your personal trigger. Command it away, and you will be free of them."
"And how do I do that?"
"First, do you think you will be able to recall it again, if you need to?"
"Yes."
"Then bring up another scent, one that has significance to you."
That was easy. I filled my mind and my nose with Garrett's yummy scent, picturing him smiling at me in his teasing way. The shades surrounding me peacefully dissolved into a mist which floated along the ground and then was sucked into the earth, leaving no evidence of their existence.
"Are they gone for good?" I looked around, not completely successful at hiding my anxiety.
"If you go online again, they'll be back. However it is possible to schedule private time with only one by calling up your trigger scent, but still shielding yourself from the others. Learning that skill will be difficult, but I am here to help you with whatever is necessary."
As he grinned at me, my knees started shaking from exhaustion, and I landed on the bench with a thump, then turned back to glare at Isaiah. I was furious to see that he was looking rather proud of himself, in a very pompous way, adding to my deteriorating mood.
"I'm on the verge of sending you home right now. You manipulated me into speaking to Marie, which woke up my powers and then forced me to ask you to teach me necromantic skills. You went against our agreement."
"Uh uh." He wiggled a finger back and forth. "I didn't teach you anything, until you asked me to. Out loud. In fact you practically begged me, didn't you, little demon?"
"Stop calling me that. You left me with no choice and I was scared shitless." I threw my arms up in exasperation. "Why did you have to go and make my life crazier than it was already?"
His brow wrinkled and he tilted his head curiously. "That's a rhetorical question, right?"
"Yeah, yeah, I know. You were being true to your nature. A scheming chaos-loving creep."
"Ouch. No one's ever called me a creep." He was enjoying my anger, actually soaking in some of my energy, probably hoping I wouldn't notice.
"I could come up with a few more descriptive words." I directed another blast his way and he laughed, realizing that he'd been busted in the act.
"Knock yourself out. I'm going down to the private beach for some nude sunbathing. I'll see you at dinner."
"And keep your damn talons off of my magic!"
"Your claws are out, not mine. It's a good thing your sweetie pie is back from feeding. He'll make a good scratching post."
"I hope you get arrested for indecent exposure."
"Jacqueline." Isaiah's voice commanded my attention. "You did well today." He disappeared before I could say anything else, frustrating me even more. When Garrett materialized by the bench, both of my hands were clenched into fists and I was growling. Somewhere in the distance I heard Isaiah laugh.
CHAPTER NINE
Stretched out on the couch with my feet in Garrett's lap and an icepack on my head, I mulled over how I was going to tell them what happened without starting a major war. Liam was watching me like a hawk, positive that Isaiah had caused some kind of trouble, while Kellaine sat at the piano playing soothing music, perhaps sensing what was to come.
"Perhaps you'd feel better if you just talked about it." Garrett was massaging my feet and it felt like absolute heaven, but I knew I couldn't put it off for much longer. I'd promised him that I wouldn't learn any necromantic skills.
But how could I have ignored Marie? Plus once the cat was out of the bag, I definitely couldn't handle bumping into shades constantly, especially those tortured ones. I felt myself shiver, so Garrett tucked a blanket over me, giving me another concerned look.
Twisting my mouth into a frown, I stopped myself from wasting my energy on guilt. The fact was, now that I'd seen it, I wanted him to reopen the lower level. The thought that there were shades trapped underground, and also wandering the property, was distressing. I understood why he'd done it, but the villa needed to be wiped clean of these unhappy spirits. Maybe I could get in some help and we could take care of it together.
Of course the most important thing was for Garrett to agree to talk to his sister. She'd appealed to me to ask him, and I would. Just as soon as I got up enough courage to open my eyes and look at him.
"Jacqueline, please talk to us." He brought my hand up to his mouth and kissed my palm, a sweet gesture that always made me feel loved.
"You're going to be upset." I made myself sit up and look at him.
"I can take it." He smiled.
"Will you two stay?" I looked at Liam.
"Of course."
"Now I'm getting worried. Did he hurt you?" Garrett's eyes were anxious.
"No. I'm fine. He didn't break the agreement." They waited. "He took me to the cells in the lower level."
Garrett hands clenched on my feet. "They were sealed. That shit! We're going to send him back."
"No. Please, just listen." I pulled my feet away and reached out with both hands. He grasped them and scooted next to me as I turned my body to face his. I had to whisper, because somehow my voice was choked with too many emotions. "I met Marie. Your sister."
Garrett sat frozen in place as I told them of my heartbreaking, yet incredible encounter with my ethereal sister-in-law. Liam moved behind Garrett and placed a hand on his shoulder as I spoke, while Kellie stopped her playing to listen.
"She wants to see you. She said you tried so hard to get out of your cell, that you were burned down to the bone." I stroked his face, which looked even paler than normal, then leaned in to hug him.
"I'm so sorry I broke my promise, but Isaiah really didn't teach me anything, at least not down in the cells. He brought me to the cells, but she just came to me on her own. He says it's because of her blood connection with you and Charlie." He still wasn't speaking and that worried me. "Please don't be angry with me."
His voice was husky with his own emotions. "Could this be a trick of Isaiah's?"
"She was the grown up girl from the picture over the fireplace, with your mom's hair and your dad's eyes. She called you her sweet knight."
He clutched me harder against him, trembling slightly. "Can you—can you call her to you?"
Startled, I pulled away from him. "Are you sure? I thought you didn't..."
"I came here to make an end. I'll face her wrath or gain her forgiveness, but there's no turning away from this incredible gift."
As if he wou
ld have done anything else, my mate, who always faced the world head on. "She's trapped down in the cells. You need to open them up."
He looked shocked at first, but shook it off, moving into gear in his usual efficient way. He turned to Kellie. "Would you please stay with Jackie? Liam and I have to un-spell and tear down a wall."
She laughed, a sweetly musical sound. "Go ahead, boys. Show us weak little girls how strong you males are." Garrett hesitated, not sure if she was actually offended or just joking. "Garrett, go. I'm teasing."
She poured us honey wine and sat across from me on the love seat. "I have to say, this is exciting. I don't come into contact with the dead often, not even shades."
"Hanging with us is always a freakin' roller coaster ride." Kellie laughed at my sarcastic tone, but she could also sense my fear.
"Try to breathe slowly. Your heart is beating like a rabbit's."
"I just hope I can do this. I don't want him more upset."
She took a sip from her glass, observing me closely. "I watch your auras together. Sometimes it seems his covers yours like a soft warm blanket, other times it's more like Kevlar or steel. But no matter what his is doing, your emerald aura pushes through and intertwines your energies, making the two into one." She'd woven her fingers together in example. " I can still see the separate bands, but each touches the other. I wonder if he knows how fortunate he is?"
"He does." Garrett was back, his black shirt and pants looking a little dusty, but smiling at me with love in his eyes. He dusted himself off and sat next to me, then reached for my hand. I relaxed against him and he leaned his cheek against my head, both of us needing this small moment of contact because the next few minutes would be very difficult for us both.
Liam spoke. "The wall is down and I've broken the wards. I have no access to the dead, so I have no idea whether the shade has moved somewhere else in the villa or if she's still there."
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