Possession

by Linda Mooney

  J waved a hand as if brushing away a fly. “It’s not the owner of this complex or this particular apartment who had a hand in those killings.” Lifting her face slightly, she held out her arms and began walking toward the hallway, back to the bedroom where the triple homicide had taken place.

  Both men followed her. They could tell she was picking up something, but what they couldn’t tell. They knew, however, that she would let them know when she was ready.

  “You doing okay?” Sam whispered to his brother as they followed behind. They had parted company a little past one that morning when Kiel had gone back to the hospital room to spell him and let him go home to grab a few winks.

  Kiel nodded. “This place gives me the creeps.”

  “Still getting that suffocating feeling you had the other day?”

  “Yeah. Not as bad, but bad enough.”

  They entered the bedroom to see J standing where the bed had been. The room was bare now. Before they could ask her anything, she abruptly swept past them and walked into the master bath, using her arms and hands to guide her and keep her from bumping into the walls or door. Suddenly her head jerked back. Her eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling. “Up there.”

  “Where?” Kiel reached her first as the blood drained from her face. He looked up but couldn’t see anything unusual. “What is it, J?”

  “Up there. The guy last night. He was killed up there.”

  Sam immediately understood. “Next floor,” he almost barked, and ran out of the room. Grabbing her arm, Kiel quickly led J out of the apartment, into the hallway, and back to the stairs. They reached the fourth floor in time to hear Sam trying to kick down the door to 416.

  “No! Not that one,” J called out to him. “The one behind you.”

  “Huh?” Sam turned to see 415 with the door slightly ajar, as if someone had left and forgotten to close the door all the way. He had pulled his gun when he’d entered the fourth floor. Holding the weapon close to his face, he carefully moved into position and prepared to enter the other apartment.

  “Let me go first,” Kiel hissed.

  Sam quickly complied.

  Dropping J’s hand on his brother’s arm, Kiel melted through the wall and disappeared from sight. Less than a minute later he reappeared in the hallway. “It’s clear, but you’d better hold on to your breakfast,” he warned in a wavering voice.

  As homicide detectives with many combined years of experience, they both had seen enough carnage to last them a lifetime. Sam often commented that there was no comparing what they saw to wartime kills because in most cases those were times where the body count was tallied by the number of bombs exploded. Or by the number of bullets sprayed by whole platoons. Homicides were like war fatalities, only they occurred because of human nature’s darker side. They weren’t committed in self-defense, or per the orders of a commanding officer. The large majority came about because one—or in rare cases more than one—killer sought retribution for a wrongdoing.

  Serial killers were the worst. Most often those killers had no motive for their actions. Or, if they did, they used factors such as mental disease or revenge to justify their brutal acts.

  Many times the revenge they thirsted for was due to one person—one individual who had turned their normal life into a sadistic one. Unfortunately many people would have to die for the sake of that one guilty person before the killer was caught. But if their revenge was the result of the deeds of many people, the results could be wholesale slaughter.

  Killers the police could handle because at some point the murderers would make a crucial mistake. Insanity and brilliance rarely became permanent partners. And, given time, the killers would be found. Given time.

  Too bad so many innocents had to die before that time came.

  Walking into the apartment, Sam halted in the living area and fought the acid rising in his throat. “Jesus Almighty,” he swore softly. Laying a hand on top of the smaller one clutching his jacket, he could feel the iciness of her skin. “You okay, J?”

  He felt her nod. Slowly.

  “It’s bad, isn’t it?” she whispered.

  “Yeah. Pretty bad.”

  She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “It reeks of blood in here.”

  Staring at the walls washed in the substance, Sam nodded. Kiel emerged from the back rooms. “Back is clear. No sign of violence there.”

  “So the killer did his work in here.”

  “That man last night died here,” J said almost too softly to hear.

  “And the killer transported him away to that alley where he was found,” Kiel concluded.

  Sam felt a sudden jerk on his arm as Kiel’s expression became one of alarm. As he turned to look at J, he could hear his brother ask, “What, J? What’s wrong? What’s wrong?”

  She was backing up until she hit the wall beside the doorway. Her face was the color of paper. Her eyes were enormous hazel pools, so wide Sam could see the gory room reflected in their surface.

  Suddenly she took a deep breath and let out a terrified shriek. It was enough to make their skin crawl. “He’s here,” she gasped, and bolted through the door.

  Sam heard her slam against the opposite wall in the hallway before he had a chance to catch up with her. He glanced back over his shoulder to see Kiel standing rigid as a statue, hands clenched by his sides, and facing toward the kitchen area. “Kiel?”

  “Go, Sam,” the man ordered through gritted teeth. “Get out of here. Get J out of here.”

  “But—”

  “Get out, Sam! I’ll take care of him.”

  Sam ran, snatching J, then dashed past the apartment once again to reach the stairs. As he passed the open door he could barely made out a dark shape hovering like a cloud over Kiel’s head as his brother faced the killer one-on-one.

  Neither he nor J made a sound as they half-ran, half-stumbled down the four flights of stairs and burst through the door into the apartment lobby. He paused a second to get his bearings, slightly disoriented because of the way they had been forced to go the back way this time. J started to say something when he tightened his grip around her waist and almost dragged her out the rear entrance.

  The second they crossed the threshold and were at the rear of the building, the heavy weight lifted. It felt as if they had exited into a sudden burst of spring. Sam took a deep breath almost as second nature before realizing he had nearly succumbed to the killer’s presence. Bent over and grasping his knees, he drew the fresh air deep into his lungs as he fought the dizziness. Something clattered, and he looked up to see J stumbling over to the back wall of the yard. She appeared disoriented, her arms out in front of her for protection. She was in the middle of a virtual mine field cluttered with chunks of broken brick and slabs of concrete. He watched her bounce off a portable cement mixer, then turn to continue fighting her way out of the debris. He started toward her to give her his arm when she suddenly went down with a little cry. Running over to her, he bent forward to help her up when Kiel materialized between them and grabbed her outstretched hand. J hesitated a second.

  “Kiel?”

  “It’s okay. As long as we stay out of the building, we’re safe,” he murmured, drawing her into his arms and holding her tightly against him.

  “Wh-what happened? What did that thing do to you?” Her hands were wiping over him, searching for any sign of injury.

  Sam remained frozen where he was, observing in silence. Something had happened in that building. Something terrifying. His brother looked positively ill. He hadn’t seen Kiel like this since they had discovered he was dead.

  Kiel gave a humorless chuckle. “He ordered me out.”

  “He who?” Sam finally spoke up. “That thing I saw hanging over you? That black shape?”

  The look on Kiel’s face was his answer. “What matters right now is I’m fine, but we can’t go back in there.” Giving his brother another warning look, he added, “The sooner we get away from this place, the better off we’ll be.” />
  “She’s bleeding, Kiel,” Sam commented, noticing the red rivulet running down her arm.

  Kiel drew back to find where she was hurt. She had landed on a section of the concrete wall that had been torn down and left scattered about in jagged chunks of cement. The wound to her palm and wrist was serious, but nothing that would require stitches.

  “I fell on that,” J commented, pointing downward. “I…” She paused to stare. Giving a little wiggle, she pulled away and bent down to touch the place where she had fallen. Her hands fluttered over the rough slabs. “Kiel?”

  “What?”

  “This.” She stopped and glanced in his direction. “I told you if I felt it, I would recognize it.”

  Sam grasped what she meant. “The murder weapon?”

  J nodded. “Not the weapon, but some of what he used.”

  Both men stared at what she was holding onto with both hands.

  Round, like a pipe, but without the hole inside. It was solid, like a gigantic piece of spaghetti. Oh, and it had curves on it. Grooves. If I felt one, I would recognize it.

  It was a length of industrial rebar.

  Kiel sat in the backseat with J leaning heavily against him. She was asleep, or almost asleep. The past couple of days had been rough on her. She was wiped out and needed rest. Solid rest, not that pseudo chemically induced rest she’d been forced into accepting at the hospital. There was no way she could get any decent soul-cleansing relaxation when people were coming in and out of that room every two to three hours to take vitals or deliver meds, or whatever nonsense they deemed important.

  And there was something else she needed. Something more critical than rest.

  I need to get out of her life. The thought went through his mind for the twentieth time. Or maybe it was the hundredth time. He had known it from the moment he had seen her lying on the sidewalk like a broken doll after she had screamed and fainted. J wasn’t pursuing this case like they were. No, her reason was coming from a totally different direction. He and Sam may be wading in hip-deep because it was their job, but this woman was putting herself at needless risk because she wanted to be with him and to prove herself to him. Why she felt she had to do such a thing, he couldn’t begin to guess. But the truth, when he finally accepted it, had just about done him in.

  She shifted slightly, moving her head against his shoulder until she found a comfortable spot. Her left hand slid down his jacket sleeve until she reached his hand. Gently he clasped her fingers.

  That river of warmth he had felt the first time she’d touched him was now a lake. No, an ocean. Fuck it. Every damn one of the seven seas! Her life force fed his emptiness, reminding him of the impossibility of their relationship.

  She doesn’t need this. She didn’t need to get any more involved in a relationship with him, not when it could end at the next full moon or whatever.

  Kiel barely managed to stifle a groan.

  J had said the killer had a black aura. He finally knew what she meant. He thought he had been ready to face the attacker, ready to protect them as they fled the apartment building. He didn’t know what he would do, only that he knew deep in his gut he was the only person who could face up to it and possibly survive.

  It had approached like an oncoming car moving at a hundred miles an hour. Its blackness was a living energy so thick it ate up everything in its path. Ate, swallowed, then regurgitated hatred in bile-filled chunks. And he’d stood there, ready to deflect it if that was the only choice left to him, to keep it from going after the only two people who meant anything to him.

  There was a wind of sorts that preceded it. A wind that blew danger, warning at the beginning with little breezes and steadily getting stronger until it was of hurricane proportions, and the signals were clanging and screeching with ear-splitting intensity. Stoically Kiel had stood there, ready. Willing to take whatever it wanted to throw at him.

  Fear? Had he felt any of the terror that thing had thrown off like radio waves? Hell, yeah, but not the kind of fear he knew he should have felt. His fear had not been the self-preserving kind. Kiel hadn’t felt any fear for himself. He was dead. What did he have to fear?

  The fear that nearly petrified his bones had been for Sam, but more so for J because of her handicap. And because she didn’t have the training Sam had. Sam knew how to fight, how to shoot, and how to run when all other options were spent. J didn’t have any of that. Neither did she have that innate ability to be self-sufficient. She was able to live in today’s world because there were people willing to help her. Some woman read her mail, and did her banking and shopping for her. Her own family had made sure she would be financially stable throughout her lifetime, since it would have been difficult, if not nearly impossible, for her to find any sort of decent paying job. At no time had they considered the fact that she would find someone to love her—a man or lover who would take over the responsibility of caring for her.

  All of this had flashed through his mind as the entity approached him. The sound of its anger was louder than the blood-curdling roar of a tornado reverberating off the walls of the room. Mixed within it, he was aware of an overwhelming rush of sorrow. The emotions had crashed into him long before the killer came to a sudden stop directly above him.

  Unable to move, unable to think, Kiel had stared upward at the formless mass until a rumbling thunder of sound in his head demanded, “Why are you back?”

  Why are you back?

  You were a mistake.

  You are not one of them.

  You were not to be.

  A shudder jerked him so roughly, J’s face was dislodged from his shoulder, waking her. “Kiel?”

  “Shhh. Go back to sleep. We’re almost at your place.”

  “My place?”

  It was after one, maybe closer to two. He had wrapped her wounded palm with Sam’s tie and instructed her to clean it out good and rebandage it once they got her home.

  Got her home, kept her home, and kept her away from him.

  How in hell could he justify entertaining ideas of loving her? What right did he think he had believing he could just waltz into her life, when there was no telling when he would blink out of existence?

  “Kiel, what are you thinking?”

  “Mmm?” He bent his head slightly and nuzzled the top of her crown where it was resting on his collarbone. These last few moments were so precious. So fatally precious.

  “You’re too quiet. The both of you.”

  Her voice was fuzzy, yet slightly accusing. Kiel knew a tiny smile would be pulling at the corners of those full lips.

  “Umm, Jewel.”

  “Huh?”

  “Jordan. Joselyn. Or maybe it’s Jodi.”

  Her soft laughter bubbled out of her. “Oh, God, you’re not starting that up again, are you?”

  “Hey. New day, new attempt. Maybe you’re named after one of the months. Is it July? Or June? What’s the other—oh! January.”

  A hand came up and playfully whacked him on the thigh. Pure hunger shot straight to his groin, heavy and demanding, and it took everything in him not to groan from the sensation. Unfortunately a bit of his discomfort leaked out, forcing him to cover for it.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Damn her. She’d heard and gotten concerned.

  “Don’t tell me it’s something totally outrageous like Jakaweela.” He tried to sound horrified.

  J lifted her face and literally shrieked with laughter. The sudden reaction both surprised and delighted him.

  “Jaka-what?”

  “Okay, so it’s not Jakaweela. Maybe it’s something old-fashioned like Judith. Or Josephine.”

  “Heaven help us.”

  Sam’s smooth baritone warbled the tune unerringly. When he stopped, J gasped.

  “You have a beautiful voice!”

  “Thank you.” Sam grinned.

  “How about you?” she asked, turning back to Kiel.

  “Sam got the looks and the talent in the family. I got the leftovers.
The dregs.”

  A slight furrow wrinkled her forehead. “Why do you cut yourself down?”

  “Why not?”

  She answered him with a harder slap on the shoulder. “Make the most of what you were given, dammit,” she replied. “Do you hear me doing the ‘poor, poor, pitiful me’ act?”

  “Well, excuse me, but I’ll take your blindness and up it one death and a missing corpse!”

  The moment the words were out of his mouth, he regretted it. “J, I’m sorry. I—” He stopped when she reared back and moved away from him. Glancing over at Sam he noticed the man keeping his attention on the road. Fortunately they had arrived at the big Victorian house. Getting out, Kiel hurried over to help J out of the car. She allowed him to walk her to the front gate, where she halted.

  “I can go the rest of the way by myself,” she said coldly.

  “J, listen.”

  She whirled on him. Her face was flushed with rage, her whole body stiff. “No, you listen. Okay, you’re dead. You’ve returned, you don’t know why, and you have no friggin’ idea where your body is. Okay. But you’re here, Kiel! You’re here for however long, only God knows. So why…” She gazed at him with those hazel eyes that reflected her soul. Tears were welling up in them, tears that roughened her voice. “Why are you being so negative? Instead of rejoicing in the fact that you have this opportunity?”

  She sniffed as she stared a moment longer at him. It was uncanny how she could pin him down with a glare, even though there was no way she could watch his reaction.

  Kiel bowed his head. He knew she wanted to say more, maybe to ask him why he wasn’t grateful for the fact that they had been given time to be with each other, to share it. Hell, he was more than grateful. He could practically drop to his knees and kiss her feet for the blessing. Yet for some reason he couldn’t tell her so. Something was holding him back, and when the look of expectancy on her face slowly died, he mentally slapped himself.

  Realizing he wouldn’t answer, J turned and searched for the gate with outstretched hands. Finding it, she let herself in and proceeded up the walk. Kiel watched until she had climbed the short steps to the porch and let herself into the house. After another minute, he muttered a select word and went to sit in the front seat of the car.