by Kate Wendley
He was instantly irritated when his phone rang. He felt like he never had enough time alone with Kaia to talk through the things they really should be talking about, though some of that was his own fault for not knowing how to bring up certain topics. Work, ringing phones, and just plain old emergencies always seemed to be interrupting their private time, though.
He sighed in resignation at the unknown number on his caller id. He’d figured out how to block most telemarketers, so now the calls that rang through were usually either legitimate business or an emergency.
He snapped a little harshly, “This is Anthony.”
“Master Anthony, this is Harmony. There’s a vampire named Echo here at Wild Woods and she’s screaming her head off. We’re not sure what’s going on.”
Anthony went still. All hopes of a few quiet hours with Kaia tonight were gone. “Who else is there? Tell me what happened.” He listened to the brief, confusing story as he led Kaia back to his car. “I’m on my way. Ask Ethan to keep her safe. She doesn’t always know what’s going on in her surroundings when she’s having her visions.”
“She’s having a vision?”
“Yes. It must be a strong one for her to just appear unannounced. I’ll be there soon.”
**
Anthony brought Kaia with him since she actually still lived at Wild Woods, and because Echo had never been one to physically, or even magically, hurt anyone. Her power was all in premonitions and visions, nothing more, so he wasn’t too worried about Kaia’s safety.
Echo wasn’t screaming when they arrived. Instead she was sitting on the front step with Ethan beside her. His arms were around her in a comforting gesture, but he also looked ready to hold her down if needed.
She was nearly hyperventilating as she sat distraught and fidgeting, constantly glancing past Ethan as if to see around the corner of the building. She turned her attention on Anthony as he approached, relief clearly showing on her face as he joined them.
Anthony took a moment to look up to see shifters watching the scene out their windows, from the comfort of their homes. His gaze traveled down again to Harmony standing on the sidewalk with her arms crossed and a frown on her face a few feet away from Ethan and Echo. She eyed Anthony warily, though he got the feeling he wasn’t the only person that disturbed her tonight.
Anthony gestured for Kaia to stay put a little ways from them and then joined Echo on the step. He sat on her other side and took her hands delicately in his.
“Tell me what’s wrong.”
Her attention was now riveted on him. Her breathing began to calm, though she shook as she desperately said, “Don’t let it take me. Please don’t let it take me.”
Anthony carefully asked, “Don’t let what take you?”
Her eyes went wide and she harshly whispered, “Death.”
Ethan quietly said, “She showed up and pointed to Nala, repeating over and over again that the answer was in her death.” He shook his head in confusion. “Do you know what that means?”
Anthony frowned. “I think the question is, do you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Anthony put a sound barrier around himself, Ethan and Echo. “Her abilities can be forcibly directed by a powerful Master, such as yourself. You don’t even need to speak out loud for her power to respond. Did you ask for her help with something recently?”
Ethan looked away in agitation.
Anthony asked more firmly, “Does her answer make sense to you?”
Ethan stubbornly said, “No.”
Echo grabbed Anthony’s hands. “Master, that thing! You must get away from it! We all must!”
Ethan appeared less than amused by Echo’s ramblings. “Just because Nala’s a ghost sometimes doesn’t make her evil.”
Echo went still and stared at him for a moment, then gave Anthony a look he knew all too well from his years of life with her in his family, besides that she was his friend. Her look told him there was much more to this than what Ethan understood.
Anthony took his sound barrier down since he could tell it was bothering Ethan and Harmony both. He briefly glanced at Kaia as he thought about his new ability to get into her dreams and wondered if his power would work on Echo’s awake mind as well. “Echo, I think I should try to see what you saw in Nala.”
She gave the barest of nods and pensively said, “Yes Master.”
“Do you feel like it will hurt you for me to do this?”
Her heart thumped harder. “I don’t think so, but I’ve never encountered a creature such as that. I don’t know what powers allow it to exist inside her in that state of being.”
Ethan jerked. “In her? What are you talking about?”
Echo solemnly turned to him. “There’s something living inside your friend, Master Ethan, and it looks like death to me.”
Ethan’s face blanched and Anthony got the feeling this wasn’t going to turn out well for anyone.
**
Echo agreed to let Anthony try to see in her mind what she’d seen in Nala, and Anthony immediately felt Kaia’s intense attention on him. He cringed inside as he stared at Echo. He hadn’t told Kaia he had this new power and he could feel her irritation, even over her curiosity, about what was going on. She’d never outright asked him what all of his abilities were, but she was already hurt he hadn’t told her his father was returning, and he hadn’t meant to upset her even more tonight.
He turned and caught her eye, wanting to tell her he was sorry… wanting to talk to her about so many things, but settled for a shared look before he inclined his head and turned his attention back to Echo. There was nothing he could do right now about the recent tension between Kaia and himself, so he focused on the problem at hand instead.
“Ethan, please be sure nothing happens to Kaia.”
Ethan grunted and gestured for him to get on with it, so he took Echo’s hands in his, then closed his eyes and tried his new power on her.
He concentrated on seeing what Echo thought she saw in Nala. Her mind wasn’t as easy to step into as Kaia’s sleeping mind had been, though, and he had to spend a lot of energy focusing. The longer he tried to read her, the more he worried that perhaps his power wasn’t what he thought it was.
He felt Echo relax finally, and then he was slowly allowed into her mind. With Kaia he’d just appeared in her head and bore witness to her entire dream in secret, with Echo it was very clear she knew he was here, and she would control what and how much he saw.
A very old memory popped into her mind of him talking to her when they’d first become friends, soon after she’d joined the family. She’d just started having visions again after years of being too afraid of her old Master for her abilities to work right.
He saw himself talking in her memory. They were in town, at the office he worked at with his father, but they were alone as they sat in two wooden chairs just inside the front door. He’d been frustrated with her, mad at her, actually, because a vision she’d just had was about a personal issue to him and he hadn’t liked that. He’d blown up at her about it, a rarity for him, and was trying to calm himself down because he knew his problems weren’t her fault. She was just a seer, after all.
In the memory, his eyes were closed as he sat with his head tilted back, resting on the top of the chair. Without looking at her he tiredly said, “I would like to trust you, Echo. I would like to feel like whatever you see, or hear, or feel, or whatever it is your power does, that you’ll be discreet. And if it’s something personal about me, that you’ll keep it to yourself. I’m part of this family but I need my privacy or I’ll go insane here.”
In the memory, Echo said, “You have my word that I’ll keep anything and everything confidential between us. I would not last long as a seer if I didn’t know how to do that, but I’d especially like for you to trust me.”
He opened his eyes and looked at her. “Very well. You have my word, then, that I’ll always do my best to keep you safe.”
The memor
y disappeared, nothingness replacing it, and he had the feeling she was questioning him again about his promise to keep her safe.
He thought back to later that same night all those years ago when they’d arrived back home together before dawn. Just as they walked in the front door together, an overzealous shifter who thought vampires were Satan’s spawn rushed them. There had only been time to either get out of the way and let Echo be attacked, or wrap himself around her and become the victim himself.
It hadn’t been a question as far as he was concerned. He immediately wrapped himself around her, taking a stake to the back, then another one. It’d been a planned attack by more than one shifter, though he hadn’t known that at the time. Regardless, he knew he’d recover from it and that Echo might not since she was so physically weak. He’d take the stakes to the back again, too, even if she didn’t have this power of hers, because it was the right thing to do.
Echo’s mind in the here and now suddenly opened up for him, and his appreciation for her skills went up another notch. Not that he didn’t already respect her abilities.
In her mind’s eye, he saw Ethan open the door for her tonight, then come outside with Harmony following behind. There was another strong tug on her personal magic and she went to that dream-like place she sometimes did when her visions took over. Being so near Ethan while he wordlessly requested her assistance nearly overwhelmed her, but he’d reached out to her for her unique abilities, and she was proud of what she could do, so she willed herself to let her magic flow freely through her.
The answers to what Ethan wanted to know formed on her tongue, then, and she spoke words aloud, though she wasn’t really sure what she was saying. She was just the conduit as his power drew what it needed out of her. And when the vampires Seth and Nala joined them, she felt like they were an important part of the answer. Or at least Nala was. She wasn’t the entire answer, but she was the catalyst for whatever Ethan was seeking.
Something about Nala seemed off, though. Her presence was fuzzy, like a camera lens that needed to be focused. When Seth pulled her into his arms, Echo finally saw what was wrong.
Anthony jerked in shock but kept ahold of Echo’s hands, forcing himself to keep watching her memories. Echo saw someone, or something, living inside Nala. It was a ghostly figure inside her body, clinging to her like cobwebs trying to stay attached as a gentle breeze blew them back. Every time Nala moved, her movements threatened to shake loose the being inside her.
It was a barely there ghost of a person with only partially formed bones, muscles and tendons… and skin. Its eyes were deep in shadow at first, but as Echo kept staring at it, it finally realized she could see it and looked at her straight on. The heaviness of its gaze was terrifying.
She screamed. Its eyes were bottomless pits that kept its unformed face in shadow, and the longer she looked at it the more it felt like she was looking into the eyes of death itself.
Anthony jerked out of Echo’s mind in alarm, then quickly grabbed her and held her tight. He attempted to calm her screams even though he wasn’t feeling all that calm himself after what he’d just seen.
Ethan worriedly asked, “What is it? What did she see?”
Echo frantically cried over and over as she tried to get free of Anthony’s grasp. “Don’t let it get me! Don’t let it get me!”
Anthony embraced her against himself as he kept trying to calm her down. He whispered in her ear, “Shhh, relax. I won’t let it get you. I’ll protect you, remember?”
She whimpered helplessly, “But you can’t protect me from death.”
He didn’t know what to say to that because she was right, of course. He could protect her from a lot of things, but he didn’t know what that thing was and had no frame of reference to understand what he was dealing with. Those were the kinds of things Echo knew more about than him, and if it upset her, it definitely worried him as well.
Still, he was the Master here. “Shhh. You’re going to stay out of this now. Go home. Get out of here and don’t come back, ok?”
She whimpered, but nodded and stopped trying to fight him. “You’ll take care of it?”
“I’ll take care of it.”
He slowly let go of his firm grasp on her and she shakily stood, then wiped the tears from her eyes.
“I’ll stay here. With Kaia.”
He flicked a look at Kaia. She was watching him with a mixture of confusing emotions, and over it all was jealousy sprinkled in with irritation. He now knew he needed to bring up all those topics he’d been tip toeing around with her. He needed to do it soon, too, but once again his work was getting in the way of his personal life.
Right now he needed to focus on the situation at hand. He was angry that there was an unknown creature in his territory and that he’d unknowingly let it be near his family when Seth and Nala recently slumbered in a room below the club for a day. He was even angrier that he hadn’t sensed it, and had possibly put his family at risk.
He firmly told Echo, “No. I want you to leave and take her home with you.”
Kaia frowned, worry plain on her face. “I’d rather stay here with you.”
Anthony calmly went to her. He took her by the arms and looked in her eyes, then spoke to her in her mind, something he’d never done before. Another thing he needed to apologize for not telling her. Her eyes went wide and she tensed as soon as he started speaking telepathically to her.
‘Kaia, I need you to let me do my job as Master of Atlanta. There’s something living inside Ethan’s friend Nala, and I either need to find out what it is, or tell Ethan’s dear friends to leave my territory and never come back.’
She stubbornly frowned, flicked a look at Ethan, then back to Anthony. As she started to protest again, he cupped her cheeks and spoke again in her mind. ‘Please, Kaia. I love you but you’re not vampire yet. I can’t risk you getting hurt, just in case.’
He said out loud to her, “Please go home.”
She went still, then glanced in confusion behind him, at the building she lived in.
He shook his head, then mouthed the word slowly and firmly, “Home.”
Her expression changed as his definition of where he thought her home was sunk in. A wary smile lit up her eyes. “Ok, but be careful.”
His heart unclenched and he once again felt secure with his place in her heart. He gave her a sudden, fierce kiss that left her breathless, and he felt even more satisfied at the look of love in her eyes as he backed up and let Echo join her.
Echo still seemed shaken so he said to Kaia, “Perhaps you should drive.”
Echo obediently gave the keys to her, and she silently took them before nodding and finally walking back to the parking lot. Everyone was quiet as they watched Kaia drive away.
As soon as she rounded the curve in the road and was out of sight, Ethan snapped, “What did you just do? Did you put her in a trance before she left?”
Anthony turned and gestured to Harmony. “Would you mind? I need to speak to Ethan in private.”
She looked confused but took a few steps away from them. Anthony calmly watched her for a moment, then punched Ethan. He didn’t go flying across the yard since Anthony hadn’t put all his force into hitting him, but Ethan did end up with a bloody lip that quickly healed.
“You son of a bitch.”
Anthony quickly cut him off. “I’ve put up with your insults for over seventy years. No more.” He more dramatically said, “I. Did. Not. Kill. Your wife.”
He stared Ethan down as that fact hung in the air. When Ethan angrily frowned but didn’t say anything for a time, Anthony finally said, “Something is inside your friend, something that doesn’t look at all friendly. I’ll either help you by trying to communicate with it through Nala’s mind to decide how dangerous I think it is, or Nala has to leave for good. Tonight.”
Ethan frowned in worry, but when Harmony snaked her arm around his waist, he sighed and said, “Please try to help her. I don’t know what Echo saw, but it probably has
to do with Seth bringing her back from the dead all those years ago. Whatever’s inside her must be how she stays alive.” His eyes went wide then. “You can’t let her die! And that thing… it can’t be evil. Nala’s not evil, so that thing can’t be either.”
Anthony considered his words. “It’s not Nala I’m worried about. Something’s inside her, though, and we need to find out what it is.”
Ethan pulled Harmony into a hug.
Anthony focused on her and tried to remember something he’d thought, or felt, while he was in Echo’s mind. “Nala… felt like a big part of the answer to your question. Nala and Harmony. A chain reaction.”
Ethan snapped in irritation, “What?”
Anthony struggled to find the right words. He took a deep breath and more certainly said, “We need to figure out what’s going on with Nala if you want to figure out the answer to your question.”
Ethan scoffed as if insulted. “You could read from Echo’s mind what my question to her was?”
“I’m not sure Echo even knew what your question was, she’s only a conduit for answers. All I saw, or heard, was her trying to put words to the answers that were made known to her.”
Ethan’s angry frown turned into a look of resignation.
Anthony more quietly said, “Please show me to Nala.”
Chapter 24
Anthony tensed as soon as he stepped inside Seth’s apartment. He gazed around the room, not quite sure what he was sensing.
He looked to Nala first. She clung to Seth as he gently rocked her back and forth on the sofa in the sparsely decorated apartment, quietly whispering that everything would be fine.
Her pale cheeks were streaked with bloody tears and her long, platinum blonde hair was a striking contrast to Seth’s nearly black hair and mahogany skin.
Ethan and Harmony seemed oblivious to whatever Anthony was sensing as they walked into the apartment like they’d been here many times before. Ethan had his arm lovingly around Harmony’s shoulder, looking like his normal fashionable self. Harmony was almost the antithesis of him with her knee high boots, curvaceous body in figure hugging clothes, and sassy expression clear on her face.
