He rustled in the bag he’d set down next to them, pulling out something in a sealed hygiene bag and tossing it to her as he turned back to his patient. Danae ripped open the bag and knelt down, sucking up as much of the blood into the syringe as she could, before wrapping it carefully back in the open packaging and tucking it in her pocket. She watched as they loaded Jake into the back of the ambulance with Roni hovering over him, blood trickling down the side of her face.
‘I’ll ride with him,’ she told them bluntly.
‘I’ll follow in the car and meet you there,’ Danae replied. Roni nodded and climbed up into the back of the ambulance as they were closing the doors.
Danae stood watching in silence as they pulled away sirens blazing and headed towards the hospital. She retrieved Jake’s weapon from the foot of the steps and flicked the safety back on. Reaching into her pocket she pulled out her phone and scrolled through to the number she wanted.
‘Hello?’ a familiar voice answered on the second ring.
‘Louisa.’
‘Helga?’ she replied in confusion
Damn it, that name was going to haunt her for the rest of her life.
‘Louisa, listen to me,’ Danae answered patiently. ‘Are you at the hospital?’
‘Yes why?’
‘They’re bringing in Jake now.’
‘WHAT?’ she shouted down the phone, ‘what happened?’
‘The Soul Collector got to him before we could.’
‘Is he…?’ she couldn’t even bring herself to finish that sentence.
‘He had no vitals and he’s unresponsive.’
‘No…’ she breathed painfully.
‘Louisa I need you to listen to me, Roni is in the ambulance with him. She pretty much got to him immediately and gave him CPR until the paramedics arrived. There is still a chance to get his soul back and save him but right now I need you to use whatever authority you’ve got.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘They won’t let you work on him as he’s your brother. Whatever you do, whoever is treating him do not under any circumstances let them pronounce him. You have to get him onto life support as quickly as you can, do you understand?’
‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘I have to go they’re pulling up now.’
The emergency was a blur to Roni as they rushed him into the trauma room. She was barely aware of anything going on around her, all she could see was Jake through the window as they lifted him off the stretcher and onto the table so they could work on him, attaching tubes and monitors.
Louisa burst through the door and looked down at her little brother on the table. Sachiv looked up from where he was intubating him and glanced momentarily at her.
‘You shouldn’t be in here.’
‘Sachiv,’ her eyes were pleading.
‘Don’t interfere,’ he moved around the table confidently and full of authority as they worked to try and save Jake.
‘Damn it,’ he looked up at the silent monitors, ‘how long has he been down?’
‘Thirty minutes.’
He sucked in a deep breath.
‘Sachiv,’ Louisa stepped in close.
He turned his deep brown eyes on her.
‘Don’t let him die, please.’
‘He’s been down too long; his brain has been starved of oxygen.’
‘Please I need you to trust me, you have to get him onto life support.’
‘Even if I do,’ he hissed as he continued to work, ‘there’s no guarantee he’ll ever come back off it. Is that what you want for your brother, to live in a permanent vegetative state? Is that what he would want?’
‘Look I can’t explain it right now; I just need you to trust me…to trust I know what I’m doing.’
‘Dr Achari we have a rhythm.’
‘Please just give him a chance that’s all I’m asking.’
His eyes suddenly narrowed on Louisa’s, as if he’d seen something he’d missed all along.
‘Outside now,’ he ordered.
‘Not until you promise me,’ she stood her ground.
He gave the barest nod of his head.
She did as he asked. She knew him, she knew he would do whatever he could for her brother. She stepped out and noticed Roni staring numbly at the window, not moving. Louisa swore softly when she saw the congealed blood at her temple and her pale clammy skin.
She flagged down a passing nurse to bring her a kit to clean and dress the wound.
‘Veronica?’ Louisa touched her arm gently.
Roni turned as she felt a slight pressure on her arm and found herself staring into blue eyes exactly the same shade as Jakes.
Her heart clenched painfully.
‘You should let me take a look at that head wound,’ Louisa told her softly as she led her to the chairs.
Roni stared at her with eyes glassy with shock.
‘Danae told me you gave Jake CPR until the paramedics got there,’ she took the tray from the nurse and opened it.
‘He had no pulse,’ she whispered.
‘You probably saved his life,’ she began to clean the wound gently.
‘Is he…?’
Louisa grasped Roni’s hand tightly, ‘he’s strong he’s going to make it.’
They both looked up as Sachiv stalked out of the door.
‘He’s stable for now,’ he told them as they both stood, ‘they’re moving him to a private room. Miss Mason you can go with the nurses while they get him settled if you wish. I’m afraid I need to speak with Dr Linden.
Roni nodded and disappeared through the doors towards Jake as Sachiv grasped Louisa’s arm and pulled her firmly into the doctors’ lounge, checking they were alone before shutting the door firmly.
‘Okay what the hell is going on Louisa and don’t bullshit me.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘The hell you don’t,’ he scowled, ‘Jake’s eyes are drained of color like the other victims and you know what happened to them don’t you?’
‘Sachiv,’ she sighed.
‘Don’t lie to me,’ his voice softened slightly, ‘I can’t help these people if I don’t know what I’m dealing with.’
‘I can tell you the truth,’ she swallowed nervously, ‘but you won’t believe me.’
‘Try me,’ he folded his arms.
She blew out a long tired breath. ‘Alright,’ she shook her head, ‘just try not to have me committed or anything will you.’
‘Stop stalling and start talking.’
‘They all had their souls stolen by a demon name Charun who is also known as the Soul Collector.’
‘That’s not funny.’
‘Do you see me laughing?’ she sighed. ‘Look Sachiv you’ve been in Mercy long enough to start noticing that things around here aren’t exactly normal.’
He studied her face silently as if to try and gauge if she was lying or just delusional.
‘You actually believe that don’t you?’ he asked after a moment.
‘Do you remember back during the winter storms when we had patients admitted with all those weird diseases?’
‘How could I forget?’
‘You said to me that it was as if there was a Raksasha loose in Mercy.’
‘That was a joke, admittedly in bad taste but Raksashas are not real, they are a tale told by housewives to frighten children.’
‘No they really are real, and we really did have one loose in town making people sick.’
‘Louisa…I think maybe the stress is finally getting to you.’
‘Look I don’t expect you to understand or even believe me. You asked for the truth and I gave it to you. What you do with that information is up to you, but right now I’m going to see my brother.’
She stormed out of the room leaving him looking after her in bewilderment. It didn’t take her long to find Jake’s room as they had clustered all the coma patients together in adjoining rooms.
She stepped into the room quietly and watched as Roni sat staring at Jake’s ashen face, his hand held carefully in her own.
‘He’s going to be okay,’ Louisa stopped next to Roni and stroked her shoulder reassuringly.
‘You don’t know that,’ Roni whispered finally.
‘No, I don’t,’ Louisa swallowed hard, ‘but it helps to keep telling myself that.’
They both looked up as another familiar shape filled the doorway.
‘I’ve found a way to locate him,’ Danae told Roni.
Roni turned back to look at Jake before leaning forward and kissing his forehead.
‘Look after him,’ she told Louisa, ‘I don’t care what you have to do, but keep him alive.’
‘Where are you going?’ she asked as Roni headed towards the door.
Roni paused and when she turned back her expression had not only hardened but was filled with resolve.
‘I’m going to get his soul back.’
Chapter 17.
Olivia perched on the edge of a low cabinet staring at the empty circular table surrounded by four chairs. Her hands were propped under her chin and her elbows resting comfortably on her drawn up knees. Her fingers tapped out a restless staccato on her cheek and her eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
Sam and Theo had disappeared together in search of the gateway to the Underworld and Bridget was busy trying to find a spell to made the compass work. She’d tried to help Bridget but found herself unable to concentrate, and time and time again her unruly thoughts had been drawn back to Fiona and the Soul Collector. She supposed it had only been a matter of time before her preoccupation with Fiona would inadvertently draw her back to her eccentric friend’s home. She would have thought if there was anyone she could’ve communicated with from the other side it would have been Fiona. Unfortunately, as Bridget had explained to her, Fiona was not able to sense Olivia as she would another spirit simply because Olivia was not a true spirit. She still wore her mortal body which put her out of sync with everything else. Even so, there had to be some way to speak with them and even if she couldn’t sense her properly Fiona still had to be her best shot.
A sudden thought occurred to her, maybe there was a way after all. She swung her legs down and reached for the backpack which she always carried with her. Unzipping it she rummaged around until her fingers closed round the warm familiar leather of Hester's Grimoire. Pulling it out and laying it on her lap she brushed her fingers lightly over the cover, smiling softly to herself when she felt the low thrum of power running through it. She opened the book carefully and watched as once again the ink swirled and twisted on the aged pages until it settled into words. She flicked through the first few pages and then paused. There had to be a quicker way of doing this.
She slid her palms underneath the book so she was holding it loosely in her hands.
‘I need a spell to allow me to see and hear the real world,’ she whispered to the book.
The page twitched slightly and then suddenly, as if it had been caught by the draught from an open door, the pages fanned out flicking through the book until it reached the page it wanted and then it stopped abruptly. Olivia looked down and smiled.
‘Thank you’ she murmured as she read through the incantation. It was pretty straightforward.
Jumping down from her seat on top of Fiona’s cabinet she moved closer to the table. Pulling in a deep breath she spoke the words aloud. For a moment it seemed as if nothing had happened but then suddenly she caught a flicker at the edge of her vision. She tucked the book carefully back into her backpack. The strange flickering came again followed by a shifting of the light and a blurred shape emerged pacing around the room. Olivia blinked a couple of times and focused. Slowly the colorful blur began to sharpen and before she knew it she was staring at Fiona.
Fascinated she followed the woman around the room watching as she laid a huge roll of paper on the table. Olivia leaned over the table as she unfurled it and pinned it at each corner with a heavy object. It looked like a map. Her eyes narrowed as she leaned in closer and studied it. It was a map of Mercy. Even more curious now, her gaze turned back to Fiona who was bustling around the room lighting candles. When the room was bathed in a warm golden light Fiona turned to several bowls she had places at intervals around the room, each made from a heavy metal and filled with herbs. Those too were lit and left to smolder, filling the air with a sweet smelling smoke.
Fiona suddenly stopped and looked back towards the door, as if she’d heard something. She bustled out of the room and reappeared minutes later followed by two guests. Olivia peered around her and instantly recognized Roni and Danae. Even better, although they too didn’t seem to be aware of her presence Olivia found that, unlike last time, she could now hear every world they said perfectly.
‘Did you get everything?’ Danae asked.
Fiona nodded, ‘we’re good to go whenever you’re ready.’
‘I need a bowl and the ink.’ She removed her leather jacket and slung it over the chair, retrieving something that was wrapped in a disposable medical bag. ‘Is it India ink?’
‘Yes’ Fiona replied, setting the bowl in front of Danae and alongside it a small glass bottle filled with pure black liquid. ‘Are you sure this is going to work?’
‘I can’t see why not,’ Danae shook her head as she unscrewed the lid of the bottle and poured half its contents into the bowl. ‘I’ve used this spell many times.’
‘Ever used it on a demon though?’ Roni asked.
‘No, this will be a first but there’s no reason to think it won’t work in exactly the same way.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ Roni breathed.
‘Okay let’s get this show on the road,’ Fiona clapped her hands and rubbed them together eagerly. ‘I’ve never seen a tracking spell before.’
Danae removed the syringe from the opened packaging and expelled the blood contained within it, into the bowl of ink. Discarding the empty syringe, she picked up the bowl cradling it carefully in both her hands and swirling the dark liquid around, murmuring in a low voice. After a few moments she poured the ink out of the bowl directly onto the map in a giant black ink splotch.
Veronica and Fiona both stood staring at the black blot.
‘Is that it?’ Fiona asked suspiciously.
Danae resisted the urge to roll her eyes. ‘Give it a minute would you?’
Slowly the ink began to move, sliding across the page leaving no trail or dark smudge behind it. It rolled this way and that, changing direction at random as if the gradient of the map kept changing. Suddenly it split into two, gliding across the paper effortlessly then it divided again into four and again into eight. Now as it slid and undulated across the map it began to leave behind tiny dots of ink. Some spaced widely apart, some congregated together in a larger volume. This continued for a few more minutes until the ink disappeared and the dots were left spread all over the place.
‘What does it mean?’ Roni asked.
‘It’s a tracking spell,’ Danae replied as she thoughtfully studied the map, ‘it tracks every location in Mercy that the Soul Collector has been to.’
‘He’s been busy,’ Fiona mused as she looked at just how many dots were spread ominously across the town limits.
‘Look at this,’ Danae pointed to a section of the map North-West of the lake, deep in the woods.
When they looked closer they could see a large amount of dots, so many of them it congealed into a small black splotch of ink and blood.
‘He’s spent a lot of time at this location,’ Danae frowned, ‘but there’s nothing there. It’s just woodland which leads down to the shore of the lake.’
‘There must have been a reason he returned to this location so many times.’
Olivia leaned over the map and looked at the location they were discussing and recognized it immediately. It was the Bachelier place. Located close to the lake concealed by the woods stood the small cabin which Thomas Wa
lcott had taken her to when he’d kidnapped her the previous year. At the time he’d been using her as bait to lure her father in, so that he could kill him and after that he’d fully intended to kill her too. During the time she’d been there he’d kept her drugged and tied up in the small cabin which had belonged to his maternal grandmother Clea Bachelier, a hoodoo woman who’d moved to Mercy back in the day and married the former Chief’s Grand-daddy. Being an upstanding pillar of the community and the Police Chief himself, he’d insisted she change her name to Clare, in an attempt to hide her colorful heritage.
Why would the Soul Collector be drawn to that place in particular? Olivia wondered. She cast her mind back to the cabin, swallowing back the memory of the pain and fear. She’d been drugged most of the time so her recollections were still fairly hazy at best. But it seemed there was something, something she was forgetting, it tickled at the back of her mind dancing just out of reach. She’d been sitting in the chair she remembered, forcing her mind back to a place it didn’t want to go. Her hands had been taped tightly to the chair. She unconsciously rubbed the skin of her wrist as if she could still feel the pinch.
She’d heard a sound outside…a merrily tinkling sound like glass. She’d tried to look out of the window and she couldn’t so she’d scooted the chair forwards and strained her neck, trying to catch a glimpse and she’d seen…glass, brightly colored glass.
A bottle tree. Olivia stood abruptly and her mouth fell open slightly as her mind tried furiously to fill in the blanks. She’d seen a bottle tree outside the cabin. Dozens and dozens of brightly colored glass bottles suspended from the branches of the old gnarled tree. She remembered thinking she’d seen something similar on a trip to New Orleans. Bottle trees were old world magic which had come over on the slave ships from Africa. The bottles were used to trap evil spirits and they were supposed to be destroyed by the rising sun. She wasn’t exactly sure what was going on but it had to have something to do with that bottle tree, it was too big a coincidence for it not to be.
‘Right,’ Roni straightened up, ‘we should head out there then and take a look.’
‘Hold on there G.I Jane,’ Danae frowned. ‘I’ll admit you tackling a soul stealing demon was pretty bad ass but it was also pretty stupid, you got lucky last time. There is no point us heading out to the woods if we don’t know what we’re walking into.’
The Guardians Complete Series 1 Box Set: Contains Mercy, The Ferryman, Crossroads, Witchfinder, Infernum Page 107
