Dead, Undead, or Somewhere in Between (19 page)

When Disco and I arrived, everything was set. Goose moved the rug from the center of the living room to reveal a large intricate pattern painted into the wood. It wasn’t like those depicted in the movies. This circle consisted of three interlocking patterns. The first design was a normal red circle, which formed the base. The second pattern, above the red, was painted white. The final design was painted black.

Goose informed us we would attempt to contact Jacob first. If we got lucky, Sonja would work as a medium, offering to channel his voice to answer crucial questions. If everything went according to plan, this would be easy.

Naturally, I knew it was too good to be true.

Goose pulled a tiny vial from his pocket, unscrewed the lid, and put a finger on top. He flipped it over in a fast motion, down and back up, and placed the finger on his forehead, drawing a cross with the shiny liquid on his finger. He said something in a foreign language and walked to Sonja, who did the same thing. She returned the tiny bottle to Goose, and he walked to me.

“Take some of the oil on your finger and make the sign of the cross on your forehead.”

Goose extended the vial to me. Inside, there were sprigs of what I distinguished immediately as mint. I took a sniff and wrinkled my nose at the potent aroma. The liquid was thick and clear with a gold tint. I made the sign of a cross on my forehead as instructed.

“The words you speak need to carry conviction so you’ll need to say this in English. Repeat after me—protect me and keep me, thus no harm shall befall me.”

“Protect me and keep me, thus no harm shall befall me,” I repeated dutifully.

Nodding, he took the vial and screwed on the tiny black lid. “No matter what happens, stay outside of the circle. Understand?”

I frowned at him. “If it’s Jacob, what’s the worry? Isn’t he a good guy?”

“Not all spirits can resist the pull that comes from body snatching. If he communicates through Sonja, his soul will remember what it was like to live. He’ll see through her eyes, smell what she smells, and feel everything she touches. That’s why we light the candle in the center of the circle. It acts as a tether. If he refuses to withdraw after our questions, we will force him out and back to the flame. But if you cross the circle, you become the tether, and his spirit will remain until we can exorcise it.”

He narrowed his eyes at me in a clear reprimand. “Just stay out of the circle.”

“No problem.” He didn’t need to worry. I wouldn’t enter that circle if Ed McMahon was holding my million dollar Publisher’s Clearinghouse check inside.

Goose walked past the circle and lit the candle in the center. It was a large, black pillar with a dark, well-used wick. He watched until the flame was strong, and then took his seat at the edge of the circle. I thought he would hit the lights and do this wacky shit in the dark, but he left both floor lamps as they were, and I could see everything clearly.

Goose and Sonja closed their eyes, and I mimicked them. I read the pages from the journal that spoke about this, so I wasn’t totally unprepared. An incantation was sometimes necessary, but not always. You started out by singling out the spirit, forming a mental picture of the person, and calling to them with your mind and necromancy. I drew on my past memory of Jacob, which was crap. All I could remember was dark hair and shooting off at the mouth.

Nothing happened. The minutes slowly ticked by.

As with anything, being in a position that required silence and concentration made me doubly aware. A trickle of cool air breezed across my skin, carrying a mild electrical current. I opened my eyes and gasped. Jacob’s face was inches from my own. His eyes were blue but looked opaque. His face was blank, as all spirits’ faces were, and being up close and personal helped me appreciate just how scary that was.

“Jacob Newman,” Goose said the name evenly, without emotion. “We summoned you here in an effort to bring your killer to justice. Aid us in this, so that you might rest peacefully.”

Jacob stood, and the motion brought his empty chest cavity directly into my line of sight. Even without the truest clarity, it was revolting. His black shirt was cut down the middle and parted like a vest, skin peeled back and ripped away. I could see that some of his ribs were cracked in half and few were missing. The sternum was shattered, the lower portion completely gone. I could see his spine—the pink meat of muscle and cartilage infused together. The heart was missing, leaving behind a clumpy mess of veins and arteries mashed into a goopy blob of thick and thin strings dangling from the mass. His wound extended to the gut below, revealing the sausage-like strands of his intestines mixed with shards of white bone that flashed starkly against the pink tissue.

I gagged, covering my mouth, holding my breath to fight back nausea.

“I invite you to use my voice to speak,” Sonja said calmly.

I watched as she closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

Jacob vanished—there one second and gone the next—and Sonja’s body started to twitch violently. I peered at Goose in a panic, but he was calm. Sonja’s stopped moving, and when her lids lifted, her eyes were as white and as opaque as Jacob’s.

“What happened to you, Jacob?” Goose asked.

A detached, male voice came from Sonja’s mouth. “The dark man appeared and I followed. I don’t remember how I got on the ground. The chains holding my hands and feet burned. I couldn’t move.”

“What is the dark man, Jacob?”

“Evil.”

“Who is he?”

“He is death.”

“Where did he take you?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you remember?”

“Pain.”

Joseph called out from the other room, “Why can’t he answer these questions?”

“Because he doesn’t know.” Goose kept his tone level and quiet, as if addressing someone next to him.

“We need more information than this,” Joseph vented in frustration.

“Jacob,” Goose addressed him again, “we have someone that can communicate directly with you by touch. But she is not a gateway, and you must leave her when she obtains the information necessary. If you fail to do this, we’ll be forced to exorcise you, and your spirit will remain locked between the two dimensions. Do you understand?”

Time elapsed before he answered, “Yes.”

Everyone, with the exception of Sonja, stared at me. I shook my head, laughing uneasily. “Nu-uh. No way am I doing that shit again.”

“He won’t have access to your memories this time,” Goose said. “That only occurred because of Baxter’s unique ability. All you will share are his memories and thoughts, and more importantly, you will see the face of this person he calls the dark man. We have to know what he looks like, Rhiannon.”

I groaned, closing my eyes. I didn’t want to wimp out with everyone watching.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Enter the circle,” he instructed.

“What?” I snapped in disbelief. “You just told me not to enter that thing.”

“The plan has changed.” Goose’s eyes were slitted in annoyance, but his voice stayed steady. “Stop being a baby and enter the circle.”

“Why can’t he just step out and come to me?”

“For the same reason Disco and Joseph were instructed not to enter. This entire room is blessed.” He lifted his index finger and rotated it around his head. “He cannot leave the circle. That is the only area in the room in which he is allowed. He’s borrowing Sonja, but only so long as she allows it. She can break the contact at any time.”

“This is some fucked up shit,” I muttered, rising to my feet.

I wished Ed was inside the circle with my check now. I deserved that kind of compensation for walking into a magic circle with a “possess me” bulls-eye centered on my chest. I didn’t look at Disco. If I saw anything less than total confidence from him, I wouldn’t have the balls to do this.

I held my breath, closed my eyes, and stepped into the circle. The room changed, a heavy and oppressing atmosphere shrouding me. My breathing increased and the tempo of my heart accelerated. I removed the ponytail and let my hair fall free, running my fingers through the tangles to soothe my nerves.

Sonja slumped forward and back. Her eyes opened; the normal icy crystal blue greeting us. The pressure inside the circle intensified and I had to fight the compulsion to step out. Jacob’s form reappeared inside the circle. His dead eyes focused on me, and he started over. I realized why I didn’t notice his injuries before at Shooter’s. His shirt was black and blended with the hole in his chest. His short sleeves displayed the wounds on his wrists clearly, the flayed flesh spread outward to reveal solid bone.

“Oh God.”

He didn’t lift his hand, stopping mere inches away. I stared straight ahead. I didn’t want an up close view of his innards again.

“You will have to touch him, Rhiannon.” Goose’s voice sounded miles away. “Baxter reached out because his ability dictated touch. Jacob didn’t have an ability that required physical contact.”

“Oh man!” I squirmed, extending my fingers. My shoulders crowded my neck and my spine curved in revulsion. I decided to touch his face. It was as good a place as any. At least the skin remained unmarred by injury.

At the first tentative contact, I saw a face I couldn’t place, but it was one I’d seen before. The man was dressed in a simple black suit and tie, his body tall and thin. His black skin was dark and smooth, a narrow face distinguished by perfectly proportioned features and large oval eyes a lovely shade of jade.

A frame of blackness, then another image quickly replaced it. I was face up on the floor of darkened room, no windows, no doors—just concrete and the strong fragrance of Clorox and blood. My ankles and wrists protested in agony. I could feel the burning as the thin metal strand melted away the skin and grated into bone. I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten there. I was missing a block of time. I struggled against the bindings and stopped; each movement sent the chain into the bone.

The dark man came, wearing nothing but solid black pants. He began to chant in a strange dialect, and I struggled against the bindings, fear seeping inside my chest when he produced a silver blade from behind his back. The blade shimmered in the blackness, glinting with each rotation of his wrist. The tip was sharp, a clean edge meant to slash. The thick silver spine was etched in a circular design that ran to the silver bolster, the handle a deep black material, like stone.

I looked into the face of the man with the milky green eyes. He was smiling as he brought down his hand with the knife. The razor edge slid into my welcoming skin like butter. I screamed and the dark man closed his eyes, head falling to his shoulders as he looked to the ceiling.

He lowered his face with the movement of the knife. I felt myself splitting—a painful slicing that stung and tortured. Pressure radiated from my chest in a dull agony when he contacted bone. I screamed again, thrashing against the bindings. The blade was placed on top of the fresh skin on my chest, and I opened my eyes in horror.

He brought himself to his knees, plunging the metal into my sternum, tearing through the skin and bone in a horrible crunch that reverberated through the room. I wailed, screeching in anguish, each new broken bone as painful as the last.

A deeper slice took my breath away, somehow more devastating. A slurping sound followed and my life began to ebb. The blackness surrounded me, but not before my dying eyes saw the heart cupped in his hand—my heart—and it was still beating.

“It looks terrible, doesn’t it?” Jacob’s voice was much deeper then Sonja could project.

I snapped to attention and I saw him standing across from me. He was perfect, no hole in his chest, his black shirt intact. His dark hair was actually deep brown and his eyes were light, sparkling champagne-hazel. I glanced around. We were no longer where he died. Instead, we stood next to a table at Shooter’s. There were no sounds of wood meeting cues, or balls colliding. We were the only two people in the building.

“What is this?” I spun around, confused. “Where are we?”

“I’m afraid I’ve taken liberties with you,” he confessed, smiling just the same. “I’ve done what Ethan asked me not to and merged into your body. Don’t worry. It’s only so we can speak. Right now, we’re locked together in your mind. See”—he motioned at the area around us—”I let you choose a familiar location.”

“So we’re having an actual conversation?” I felt like I was in the twilight zone. Everything felt so real. I could even smell the talcum powder.

He nodded and smiled. “It was the only way I could speak directly to you. It’s difficult to formulate words through a host body. The brain functions differently. Sort of like two hard drives working with different software. Not to mention, this is a private conversation, two separate entities sharing information independently at the same time.”

“Wow.” I walked to a table and lifted a cue. It was solid, as was the table. I could shoot a game if I were so inclined.

“Don’t get too comfortable,” he warned. “That is how you’re tricked and the spirit takes over. You’ll begin to believe all of this is real, and eventually, you’ll forget all about how you got here.”

“Sorry.” I placed the cue back on the table and faced him.

“I’ve imposed on you for one reason.” He feigned a wince. “I have unresolved business here, and even if you attempted to release my soul, I would remain because of it. I’m asking you to give your word that you’ll do as I ask so I can finally get some rest.”

The request wasn’t unreasonable. “What would you like me to do?”