“It’s not working,” Claire added, “because I’m not impressed. I don’t think I will be until I see him standing in front of me. What’s his name, anyway?”
“Tadin,” Shelley told them, and just the sound of it rolling off her tongue brightened her mood. Too bad he wasn’t there with her, shopping in the Old Port. He’d be sure to impress.
“Ooh! That’s a fancy name,” Claire leaned over to Shelley and lowered her voice. “Are you sure he’s not gay?”
Shelley laughed, and the other two joined in this time. Finally it felt like things weren’t so covered in gloom.
“He’s not. I promise.”
“Well, when do we meet him?” Lisa asked. “At the party?”
Shelley stopped for a moment, nerves flaring up again in the pit of her stomach.
What should she say?
There were no guarantees, of course. She hadn’t even discussed the prospect of Tadin being able to attend the opening with her. As far as she knew, he could only appear as a semi-transparent being — and even that took a lot of effort on his part. It took him forever to help her stock the shelves. She could only imagine what would happen if he showed up at the party half-visible. It would terrify the guests and throw a stigma upon the gallery. The only bright side to that scenario was that it could make Macyntire & Hough a booming hub for lovers of the paranormal.
She didn’t really want the gallery to be a desirable destination because of its haunting. She wanted it to be attractive because of her art, because of the books and the love of old-fashioned stories that people could escape into.
She looked back at Lisa and Claire, who waited expectantly for her answer.
At last she settled on, “Maybe,” and left it at that.
“Well, I hope for the sake of your gallery that he shows up,” Lisa finished. “How can you put your name on a sign in the Old Port and not show up to support the grand unveiling of your own business?”
Yes, Shelley thought to herself, mulling over those lingering words. How indeed?
Chapter Five:
Wednesday - 6:30pm
Later that evening, Tadin sat in his usual haunt in the corner of Shelley’s room with a battered copy of Carrie.
Shelley arrived home shortly after he settled in. Her hair was windswept and tangled and she looked very exhausted.
“Busy afternoon?” he asked. He set the book down and watched as Shelley dropped the collection of bags she was carrying onto the bed. “What’s all of this?”
“I picked up a few last-minute things,” she said, brushing her hair out of her face. “For the gala.”
Tadin raised an eyebrow. “Clothes?” he asked.
Shelley nodded. “Yes.”
“Wait a minute — let me just wrap my head around this... You bought clothes? I just want to make sure that this isn’t a dream or something, because you never buy anything fancy.”
He got to his feet and went over to inspect the bags. They looked expensive, the kind that are plain white with the logo of the store on the front.
“You didn’t have to take out a bank loan for this, did you?” he teased.
“It’s just a few things,” she shrugged out of her coat and folded it over the bed. “Claire and Lisa said I should look nice, since this is the first impression I’m going to make.”
“Well, yeah. That’s true,” Tadin settled back into his chair. When he looked up from his book he saw that she was holding a sleek red dress which she’d taken from one of the bags. She looked at him with a penetrating stare.
He tried not to look so uncomfortable.
“What?”
“Do you think it’s too much?” she asked, nodding her head slightly at the dress. “Claire and Lisa picked it out.”
He studied the dress for a moment, imagining her in it. He felt his neck redden.
“It’s nice,” he replied. “You’re the one everybody’s coming to see, right? You’re the mastermind behind this entire evening, so it makes sense that you should be the spotlight.”
“No, the gallery should be the spotlight,” Shelley looked through the rest of the bags. “I tried to explain that to them.”
“Well, you’re also the embodiment of the gallery. You said so yourself. Something fancy is more than appropriate.”
She nodded, a vulnerable aura settling over her. “I’m just nervous, I guess.”
An image of her in the dress floated through his mind once more and sent goose bumps down his arms. He shook his head a few times to clear it. It did no use.
“What?” Shelley asked.
“I think it’s beautiful,” he said finally. “You’ll do fine.”
Shelley was quiet for a few moments.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “I know I’m not the most convincing man when it comes to complimenting fashion. I mean, if you were wearing what I thought was stylish back in the seventies, you’d have big hair and padded shoulders.”
When Shelley responded, she looked down at her feet.
“Claire and Lisa both asked if you were going to be at the party,” she said.
“What?” he sat up. “Coming. To the opening?”
She nodded. “Your name is on half of the sign,” she added.
“Of course it is, but — Shel, how would that work?”
“I don’t know. I told them I’d ask you to be there.”
“I’m not a physical being! I can barely make myself solid enough to hold this book in my hands.” He laughed. He knew this topic would come up. It should be a dead issue by now. “I hope they aren’t seriously getting their hopes up?”
“I told them maybe.”
She was pressing really hard for him to say yes, but he didn’t see how that could ever work. He turned back to his book and shook his head.
“You know that’s not happening. I’ll just spend the night up here like I always do. It’s safer that way.”
Shelley folded her arms.
“What?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she was looking at the floor again. “I was hoping there was something I could do.”
“Shelley, there’s nothing you can do to fix this. I don’t have a body. Can you imagine a ghost showing up for a meet and greet in the middle of the evening?”
“I thought you said once that you could appear as a physical being,” she pressed.
“No, I said that some spirits can appear as they did when they were alive, but that takes a pretty much impossible amount of energy. I’ve never even tried it.”
“You could at least try,” she said, and for the first time he realized that she really had her hopes up. Kismit slinked into the room, moving defensively over to where she stood.
“Look,” he continued, “I know that you want me to show up. People expect it. But, I’m saying ‘no’ for your own good. I’m not ready to make an appearance. Maybe in a month, when things settle down. I can help in the gallery during the day. Right now, all it takes is a single slip-up on my part, and the entire business will have a stigma about it. We can’t afford to go bottom up on this one, Shel. We really can’t. You can’t.”
“You’re not really getting the point,” she said, her eyes taking on a glassy glaze. “I don’t dress up in these sorts of things. You know that. I was hoping for some support from you.”
“You already have it,” he tried to soften her mood, but it didn’t work. “I’ll be watching, I promise. I just can’t physically be there. If anyone asks, just say you’re sorry, but I’m there in spirit.”
He tried to end on a joke, but this time the tears started to brim over Shelley’s eyes, and she let out a laugh that twisted her face for an instant into a grimace. She wiped away the tears with her thumbs.
“What a joke,” she said. “This whole thing is a joke.”
“Shel, come on.”
“Don’t call me that,” she snapped, a few more tears rolling down her cheeks and dancing along her jaw line. “It’s true. My life is just a big joke. I mean — lo
ok at everyone. They’re all so happy, living the dream, making money alongside people that they love. They have someone there with them, but what do I have?” She motioned around the room. “A shitty apartment above an art gallery.”
Now Tadin felt like a knife was stabbed in his gut. He wanted to speak, but didn’t know what to say.
Kismit purred against Shelley’s leg, and she scooped up the cat into her arms.
“I’ll be all right, Kismit,” she said into the cat’s black fur.
“Shelly,” Tadin tried to start, “I’m really sorry...”
“If you were sorry, you would have just figured out a way to be there tomorrow,” she said, wiping her eyes once more. “Since you really can’t be bothered, I’ll just do everything on my own.”
And with that, she took Kismit and hurried out of the room. The door slammed behind her.
Tadin sat in the now total silence.
“Great,” he said to himself, wringing his face in his hands. “I blew it.”
Chapter Six:
Wednesday - 11:15pm
It was a long time before Shelley fell asleep. Tadin watched her get up at least a dozen times, pacing the room, grabbing books off the shelf quickly and just as quickly swapping them back for different ones.
He remained invisible in the corner of the bedroom, watching, until he couldn’t stand the negative energy that permeated from Shelley any longer. He stepped through the wall and into the back stairs. He held his breath as the bug-spattered insulation passed through him. Once he stood completely in the back stairwell, he sighed.
Perhaps some time apart would do them both some good. At least it gave him a chance to think, and apparently there was a lot to think about.
“She wants me to go to the party?” he asked aloud as he descended the lopsided stairs.
How could he ever pull that off? Maybe if he stayed invisible, then he could attend — but that wasn’t what Shelley wanted. She wanted to introduce him to people.
The idea made him dizzy and he braced himself against the wall.
Down in the gallery he was thankful for the darkness. He sat in one of the lounges by the bookcases. So many books surrounded him. Entire walls of thoughts, hopes and dreams stretched from floor to ceiling. Behind him was the plate glass storefront window. He glanced out at the dancing lights on the bay and tried to figure out a solution to his dilemma.
There had to be a way to attend the party. The problem was just that his brain couldn’t wrap itself around the idea completely enough to find a loophole. Sure, he could make himself completely visible to a group of people for, say, ten minutes. But, to remain visible for an hour or two? In front of a crowd?
An exercise like that would require an exorbitant amount of energy. The entire gallery would feel like an ice box by the end of the night!
Angry at the entire situation, he reached down for a small stack of books on the floor. He gripped them in his hands, but halfway to the shelf, his solidity flickered and the books tumbled to the floor with a thud.
“Shit!” he said and hurried to collect the books, some of them open, pages splayed against the hardwood floor. Even trying to help organize — with the criticizing voice of Shelley’s mother in his head — he couldn’t manage to carry a measly stack of books across a room. He could barely hold onto one when he was reading!
And Shelley expects me to have drinks with people?
He gauged the temperature of the room.
“No wonder,” he said, straightening his back. The room was already chilly. Shelley hadn’t turned on the heat yet, even though October was halfway done. Such a harbinger of denial, that woman.
“Might as well turn it on myself, since her guests will freeze if she waits for tomorrow night.”
He headed over to the thermostat when it dawned on him.
Crank up the heat! Of course!
He quickly turned the old dial up to ninety and waited, listening for the creaking and bubbling of water surging through the ancient piping. The bubbling sounded, and he waited for the heat to kick in.
It wasn’t instantaneous, but after a few minutes the room started to get toasty. Now was his chance to test out his theory.
Drawing on the heat with all his concentration, he reached down once more and gripped the books. With a single motion he lifted them up and placed them on the highest shelf of the bookcase.
It worked!
He reached down and lifted an entire stack of books from the floor, marveling at how it felt so natural, as if he still had a physical body. It took barely any effort at all now that he had a steady heat source to draw from. He set the books on the next shelf down and continued on with the organizing until he finished a few boxes.
Suddenly, he was taken out of his own thoughts by the sound of someone — or something — moving around outside on the sidewalk.
Moving as little as possible, Tadin passed through the nearest bookcase and peeked around the corner to see who or what was outside. He hoped it was just a restless teenager, perhaps skateboarding at night to burn off some steam. But then he saw the shape of the shadow and a chill ran through him.
It was a demon. There was no mistaking.
At first he thought it was Aleister, but it couldn’t be Aleister again. A demon could heal that quickly, but still… He didn’t recognize this one. The creature shared all the same characteristics of Aleister, except he was skinnier and taller. His horns were straighter, only flaring off in opposite directions at the tips.
The demon inspected the walls of the building.
Tadin watched for a few minutes as the demon crouched down, checked the point where the walls met the sidewalk, then got to his feet and looked up at the apartment beyond. Tadin wasn’t sure what the demon was looking for — weaknesses, perhaps. He didn’t know much about demons, other than what he learned from past scuffles with the disgusting beings. He felt a twisting sensation deep within his gut that everything he knew about demons wasn’t enough to keep them out forever, let alone out of Shelley’s apartment.
The demon outside grunted then loped off down the street.
Once the coast was clear, Tadin walked over to the window and peered out at the city beyond.
Sure enough, the sidewalk was deserted.
“Okay,” he muttered. That was strange. What was that demon doing?
Suddenly it dawned on him.
The demon wasn’t sent to attack. He was sent to gather information to plan for a future attack.
He brought a hand up to cover his eyes and rested against the wall. How stupid could he be? Of course Haures wouldn’t be fool enough to send a single demon to collect him again — not after Aleister was so brutally defeated. Haures had to be planning a mass attack to ensure that Tadin would not escape again.
Paranoid now, Tadin checked the front door to be sure it was secure, then hurried upstairs. He needed a plan to counter Haures’s inevitable attack. To cover all his bases he would have to involve Shelley. He hated to ruin her naiveté, but it was becoming too dangerous to act without her. Haures knew who she was now.
On the kitchen counter he found her cell phone.
He brought the phone up to his ear and he tried to remember how the device worked. There was no dial tone like the wired phones he was use to, and there were so many buttons! He wished he had a good, old-fashioned rotary. At least the number buttons on this thing were self-explanatory. He fumbled through the kitchen drawer until he found an abused piece of cardboard backing, the kind that was usually attached to a notebook, and scanned down the list of handwritten phone numbers until he found the one he was looking for. He dialed it successfully after a few failed attempts.
The phone sounded so strange, even though it wasn’t the first time he used the high-tech gadget. Everything sounded so far away and tinny. The phone buzzed in his ear a few times until finally a voice on the other end spoke up.
“Hello?” the man’s voice, raspy with sleep, said.
“Maris?” Tadin started.
“It’s Tadin.”
“Tadin...” Maris said on the other end. “Of course. I should have known it was you calling so late. My phone makes this really annoying, high-pitched screech whenever you call.”
“Why is that?” Tadin humored his friend by allowing him to ramble.
“Because,” Maris went on, sounding like he was shifting the phone from one ear to the other. “When you call me, the lines go all haywire because you’re zapping energy from the electronics. It’s really annoying in the middle of the night. I wish there were a way you could warn me, you know? Beforehand? Because, I gotta be honest with you, this whole Mothman Prophecies thing can really freak a guy out —”
“Maris,” Tadin interrupted him, trying to be as gracious as possible.
“Sorry,” Maris said. “Was I rambling?”
“Yes, you always do,” Tadin went to tap his fingers on the doorframe, but instead of stopping at the wood of the frame, they went right through the border and disappeared. He sighed. “I need some advice,” he said.
“Oh?” Maris stopped. “You? Need advice? What a surprise. When do you not need advice, I ask?”
Tadin rolled his eyes. “I haven’t asked for any in a long time.”
“But, that’s all you ever come around for! You never call to say something like, oh, I don’t know — wanna go grab a drink?”
“Maris, I’m a spirit. You know I can’t drink anything!” he replied.
“Oh yeah, that’s right. I knew that!” Maris snorted into the phone. “I’m just kidding with you. So, come on. You’ve let me guilt you long enough. What do you need advice on? I’ll do my best, but just be warned — my business card does say ‘professional,’ but, sometimes I get it wrong.”
“I would much rather discuss it in person, if that’s all right,” Tadin started. “I need to find out how to protect a mortal from demonic influences.”
“Oh, the big D?” Maris’s attitude became infinitely more serious. Tadin expected it. After all, it wasn’t every day that he called and mentioned the word demon. “What are you doing messing with those bastards? I thought you were keeping a low profile?”
Macyntire & Hough (A Paranormal Romance) (The Macyntire & Hough Saga) Page 4
