Eyes to the Soul (39 page)

He shuddered in
the darkness. Shivering from shock, he felt a fear he hadn’t had a chance to experience before slide through him. Where was that killer anger, that burning heat that warmed him and kept him on the edge of clarity? That conscious thought he desperately needed to make this all happen?

He finally admitted that this was moving too fast. He’d set something in motion that he probably shouldn’t have – at least not with the speed with which he’d gone at it. Something had happened that he didn’t understand. Likely wouldn’t have time to understand.

What had he done? He wasn’t quite ready to die yet, and for the first time he had to wonder if he really wanted to any longer.

Besides, if this wasn’t death, what was death? That it could be nothing – that he’d cease to exist completely terrified him now. Now that his consciousness was functioning again, now that fear was working its way through him.

Before the fear, anger, the justified anger had been easy to utilize to finish his project. Now he wondered if he wanted it finished. He now had a glimpse of a life he could live here – limited, but possible.

Did he want that? Not really, but the alternative completely destroyed him. Fear, now that it had raised its ugly head, threatened his plans.

If he could stay here he’d need to keep his strongest connection. That would have to be Celina.

Could he stay a part of her forever? If he pulled all his energy completely home to just her physical form? Would he be strong enough to take her over and stay there – possibly always in control, or possibly only sometimes? If he couldn’t, would he want that?

He almost laughed. If that attempt didn’t work then it wouldn’t make any difference anyway – he’d do what he’d planned to do in the beginning.

Take her out – permanently.

*

Dr. Maddy settled
into her favorite yoga position and slipped free of her body. She stretched out her arms and rolled her head back. A huge sigh of relief welled up and floated free.

She needed this. She couldn’t imagine all those people staying in their bodies all the time when her soul craved this freedom. She gave a happy sigh then connected to the burn center, a place she’d had reason to go too many times in the last year now that her name was starting to spread.

She floated gently above the admissions desk. The center was quiet, busy but under control. She watched the intake being done on a patient until she realized it wasn’t who she was looking for. She carried on through the new admission areas, looking for the girl Brandt had told her about.

There was no sign of her until a new ambulance unloaded a gurney. She floated closer, seeing a beautiful young woman, her aura thin, flat against her body, anguish and pain rippling down her sheet-covered form. The energy worker in Maddy understood the trauma had already affected the woman’s psyche. The shock, the pain, and something akin to despair. She didn’t understand the full story yet as she’d only gotten the little bit Brandt had to offer.

The sheet had been tented over the woman’s back. As it was pulled back Maddy gasped. Poor girl. It was one thing to hear the details, but quite another to see the actual damage. She couldn’t help herself. She immediately poured cooling, healing energy down the woman’s spine on the inside, sending the energy to the underside of the injury to stop it from burning through the underlying tissues.

The girl moaned but was no longer in agony. Instead, there was a teary gratefulness to the sound. The girl’s mother reached out to clasp the girl’s hand.

“Vanessa?”

“It feels so good,” she whispered. “I don’t know what it is but it’s helping.”

Her mother frowned and stared at the several nurses working on her. A doctor came over to assess the damage.

Maddy laughed. It was the same young doctor who’d asked her to consult on a case last week. She smiled and whispered inside the doctor’s head,
Hello, Dr. Vitner
.

The doctor jerked, looked around then smiled. “Vanessa, this just might be your lucky day.” To the nurses she said, “Let’s get the treatment started.”

She turned to the mother. “I’m so sorry. As you’ve been here before, you know the routine.”

“I’d hoped to stay…” Her voice trailed off at the doctor’s head shake.

“Sorry. This is a tough stage for your daughter.” She led the mother to the doorway. “We’ll let you know when it’s done.”

Maddy whispered in the doctor’s mind,
Let me help.

Dr. Vitner looked over the nurses. “I’ll handle the beginning of this.”

Surprised, they nodded and backed away. “Do you want us to stay or go and start on the next stage?”

“Go and set up for the next stage. I want to take a closer look at this case. The police are going to be involved in this one as well.”

They nodded, understanding in their eyes. With sympathetic glances to the young woman now lying blissful on the bed they left the room.

“I hope I’ve done the right thing and that’s really you,” Dr. Vitner said.

Maddy laughed.
It’s me
.
Let me take a look.

The doctor walked closer. “This doesn’t make any sense. The burns stopped and started with distinct lines as if a sheet of burning metal had been placed on her back.”

Where were the original skin grafts?

Maddy could see many grafts and the energy from before, but there was also that same damn blackness she’d been seeing on too many sad cases.

“They were all over the place, really.” She motioned to many of the areas so Maddy could see. “Some took better than others. Some became almost invisible, but some – there were a few that didn’t graft as nice.” She took a deep breath. “We replaced the initial grafts as soon as we could with her own skin as per normal treatment.”

Maddy pulsed more cooling energy through the woman’s back, easy and healing as she sent the energy upward through the bone and tissue to heal from the inside out. She considered Dr. Vitner’s comment. Had the original skin donor been the origin of the black energy? If so, why was it still here? That would have been months ago, and the original skin would have been removed – thus removing the black energy – and been replaced with Vanessa’s own skin.

Could the original skin – the remnants of the energy from that donor – have blended into Vanessa’s tissues? Healing and growing stronger. Would that have been enough to have allowed the energy to stay? Or was something else going on?

Dr. Vitner frowned. She studied the woman’s back. “I don’t understand how this kind of damage could have happened.”

I might.
And she did. Unfortunately Dr. Maddy was starting to really understand. And the tracking and finding of any and all other potential victims could be almost impossible.

As far as she could see the grafts that had been damaged were beyond repair, and she didn’t dare heal them if they were the ones causing the trouble. The last thing she dared to do was let the asshole behind this know of her existence – or what she could do.

I’ll work from the inside up. You can work from the outside in. I’ll see how far up I dare go.

“Dare go?” the doctor asked.

Yes.
And Maddy left it at that. How could she explain that she was afraid the donor of that original skin graft might just be alive – living an energetic existence – and killing people?

Especially when skin donors were usually dead.

C
elina walked out
onto Stefan’s balcony and tilted her face to the sun. It was a beautiful warm morning. She’d have brought a change of clothes if she’d had any idea that she’d be spending the night. There was such a sense of peace here. She loved it. Going home to her cozy apartment where everything had a place seemed confining all of a sudden.

She smiled as Stefan slipped his arms around her shoulders and tugged her gently back against his chest.

“Okay?”

“Better than okay.” With a happy sigh she reached up to clasp his hands. “Thank you.”

She felt his start of surprise.

She laughed. “No, not for the night of wonderful sex, but more for the level of acceptance. And for showing me how much more there is to learn out there. When I lost my sight I closed off inside, thinking I needed to focus on controlling my world to keep safe. My life became very limited. An end to so much. I hadn’t realized how much. I’d figured learning ‘out there’ was over, and how the only learning I was ever going to do was how to survive as a blind person in a visual world.”

He hugged her gently and rested his chin on her head. “A natural reaction. I’ve crawled inside at various points in my life, just to be able to heal. When life became too much or a hurt too great. By doing that we narrow our focus to control what we can when our life is out of control. Then, when we regain confidence, we widen that circle of experience at a rate we believe we can handle.”

She laughed. “I’m not sure I’ve made it to that point. It widened without my permission.”

In a serious voice he said, “Everything happens for a reason. Sometimes it seems as if we’ve become victims, but it’s a chance to get out of victim status and take charge again. From where I stand you did a wonderful job.”

She turned her head so his heart pounded against her ear.

“And I am grateful that you let me into your inner circle,” He said in a deep caring voice.

“I’m not sure I had much choice there either,” she teased.

“You always had the choice. Some rules, even personal ones and energetic or karmic ones, just
have
to be obeyed.” His voice deepened. “Whether we like it or not.”

Sensing something deeper, darker, she twisted slightly to see him, an instinctive reaction she couldn’t stop even after a year. “What do you—”

The phone rang in his pocket.

He hesitated as if he wanted to say something, but she knew how many different things he had going on. She stepped back slightly. “Answer it. Maybe it has something to do with this nasty predator.”

“True.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Hello, Maddy. What’s happening?”

Celina bumped up against the railing at her back. She turned and stared blankly out over his property. She didn’t want to eavesdrop but the tiny snippets were worrisome.

“Right. It would have to be someone very close to her,” Stefan said.

Celina wondered if she was the “her” in question. Stefan ended the conversation and said nothing for a long moment. She could feel questions as if they were actual items floating on the air.

“What do you need to know?” she asked, trying for a light tone of voice but failing. Her stomach clenched with nerves. He reached over and stroked her back gently.

“A few questions have arisen. One, you said you’ve lost everyone in your life. Can you give me a list?’

Surprised but willing she said, “Caslo, both parents, and my fiancé – in that order. There might have been others, but those were the ones I was extremely close to.” She frowned, remembering some of his confusing discussion about dead entities and possession. She shook her head. “Don’t even think that they could possibly be involved in any of this. For one, they’re dead. All of them.”

“Are they?” he murmured. She sensed more than saw that he quirked his lips.

“Yes,” she said sharply. “I see ghosts, remember? I haven’t seen any of them ever.” She stopped, remembering Caslo, and sighed. “Okay, so that’s not quite true.”

“Which part?”

“Caslo. He was an old friend. My best friend. I had thought he’d become so much more, but he was taken away to a special institute when I was like twelve.” She instinctively slipped her hand into her pocket to hold the soothing rock that Caslo had given her. “He had some weird things he could do – honestly I can’t even remember the specifics, but this place was supposed to help him. I’d hoped I’d hear from him, I prayed every night that he’d be able to contact me – somehow – to say he was okay and would come home one day.”

She wrapped her arms around her chest. “I loved him. God, I loved him. Losing him was my first lesson that life wasn’t fair. And about the perfidy of humans. I’d asked his parents over and over again where he was and when he was finally coming home. They always gave me this pitying look and said ‘maybe soon.’ He never came home. They moved away soon after and I lost touch. Then years later I’d almost forgotten about him, but every once in a while he was there in the back of my mind.”