The Haunting (Immortals) (7 page)

“I want her—Mai—the new tenant in 14-B.”

“No way. She’s way out of your league. Why waste your one wish on her?”

“Wrong.” Will spoke in a firm tone. “I get as many wishes as I want.”

“I told you before—it doesn’t work that way. There are rules.”

“To hell with your rules,” Will snapped, his good humor vanishing to be replaced with a white-hot rage. He was in
charge here—not the genie.
He
was the one who’d found the ancient spell book among his grandfather’s possessions when the old man had finally kicked the bucket. And
he
had conjured the genie. It was time the genie learned who was in charge. “Your only job,” he said loudly, jabbing his index finger in the air at the mirror, “is to make sure that
my
wishes come true.”

“Not for long, you pathetic excuse for a man.”

A hand shot out of the mirror and grabbed the collar of Will’s shirt. He was jerked forward, off his feet. His head was almost halfway through the mirror before he thought to fight back.

Uttering the words of the spell he’d found in his grandfather’s book, Will braced one hand against the wall beside the mirror while he desperately reached with the other for the ritual blade on the nearby table. For several—long—seconds, his fingers sifted through thin air before finally finding the cold metal of the blade. Spurred on by this small victory, he fought the genie’s pull and dragged the knife closer.

When he was able to grab the hilt, he raised the knife and, turning the hand braced against the wall enough to expose his palm, dragged the blade across it.

Pain sliced through him followed by the warm ooze of blood. Chanting louder, he slapped his bloodied palm against the mirror.

Suddenly, he was free and the hand that had grabbed him disappeared back into the mirror. The portal that never should have been opened, closed once more. Will fell silent, his mind numb with shock. When had the genie become so powerful? From now on, Will was going to have to be much more careful.

Mai was late by the time she arrived at the Blackhawk Securities office. The receptionist was busy answering a barrage
of phone calls, which gave Mai a moment to collect herself while she waited.

“May I help you?” the receptionist finally asked, greeting Mai with a smile and a curious look.

“Yes, I’m here to see Mr. Blackhawk. My name is Mai Groves.”

“Oh yes. I’m glad you could make it on such short notice. Please follow me.”

She got up from her desk and led Mai down the hall. Stopping at the second door, she knocked once and then opened it. “Ms. Groves is here to see you, sir.”

At her gesture, Mai walked through the door and heard it close behind her.

The man behind the desk looked up, and Mai felt she finally understood the meaning of “stunningly good-looking.” His coffee-brown hair was styled short but looked in need of a cut and there was a rakishness about him that left her feeling breathless. But it was his sparkling golden brown eyes that captivated her.

“May I help you?” he asked, sounding amused. It was no doubt because she was staring at him like some schoolgirl.

“You’re Nicolas Blackhawk?”

“You can call me Nick. I’ve been expecting you.” He stood and went to her, towering over her five-foot frame. “Come in.”

“I appreciate you seeing me on such short notice.” She took several steps into the room but felt she should wait for him to gesture to a chair before she sat.

Instead of making that gesture, he stood smiling and Mai had the distinct impression that he’d been studying her outfit. Imagining what he must think of her made her inwardly cringe. She debated whether to explain herself.

“You’re a wood nymph, aren’t you?”

She didn’t see the relevance but answered, “Yes, I am.”

He nodded and went to the closed door. “Happy birthday to me,” she thought she heard him say. The sound of the lock turning was more pronounced. Her face must have shown her confusion because when he turned and saw her watching him, he said, “I don’t want any interruptions while you’re here.”

She supposed she appreciated the gesture, though it did make her a bit nervous to be locked in the room with him.

“Where do you want me?”

“Excuse me?” Mai asked, confused.

“I didn’t know if you had a preference,” he explained. “We could do this on the couch, which will be more comfortable than the floor. Or, hell, we could use my desk. You pick because I’m game for anything.”

“How about the chairs at your desk?” Mai suggested, wondering why he could possibly think she’d want to sit on the floor to conduct an interview. And because he was making her uncomfortable with his odd behavior, the couch was out of the question.

“The chair it is,” he said, gesturing toward his desk. “This should be interesting.” He went around to the far side while Mai went to take the chair closest to her. “Not that one,” he told her just as she was about to sit. “It’s too small. Let’s use mine.”

He was standing beside his chair, hands at his neck, loosening his tie. “Mr. Blackhawk, what are you doing?”

“Nick, please. I apologize for rushing things, but I have a luncheon in an hour. We should be finished by then, don’t you think? Anyway, I don’t want to get this shirt wrinkled, so I thought I’d take it off now. You look surprised. I’m sorry—did you want to do it?”

Mai knew she was in shock because she was having a hard time putting two thoughts together. There was a misunderstanding here somewhere and she felt on the verge
of piecing it together, but damn it, he was taking off his shirt and she just couldn’t think.

When he reached for his belt, she finally found her voice. “Stop, please. This is all wrong.”

He smiled seductively and closed the distance between them. “The only problem I see here is that you’re still wearing clothes.”

“Wh-what?”

“You heard me. Take off your clothes.”

“Who the hell do you think you are?” Mai was outraged. She shoved at his chest and then headed for the door. Her fingers fumbled uselessly with the lock because she was upset, more so because he was someone she might have been interested in under other circumstances. “How the hell do I get out of here?” she shouted in frustration.

He put his shirt back on and followed her to the door. Just as she managed to flip the lock, he put his hand against the door to prevent her from opening it. “Please, wait,” he said, no longer sounding as cocky and sure as he had a moment ago. “I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that you’re not the stripper Dave hired to entertain me for my birthday.”

She was intensely aware of how close he was standing. “I don’t know anyone named Dave,” she said as formally as she could. “And I am
not
a stripper.”

He didn’t look too happy. “I see. Well, this is embarrassing. I’m afraid there’s been a misunderstanding. It’s really pretty funny.” He started to chuckle, but immediately sobered when she gave him a raised eyebrow look. “Well, you probably wouldn’t think so. Please. I’m very sorry.
Can we start over? I’ll leave the door open.” With a gesture, he invited her to sit down in the chair facing his desk.

Only because she felt like what he could tell her might help her with her hallucinations did she agree to take a seat. By the time he walked back to his desk, he’d buttoned his shirt, though left it untucked. As he sat at his desk, Mai cast a quick glance back to make sure the door was open. It was—and that made her feel safer, but did nothing to dampen her anger.

He held out his hand to her over the desk and said in a very businesslike tone, “Nick Blackhawk. It’s very nice to meet you…Ms. Groves, was it?”

Mai hesitated before accepting his offer. His hand was so large, it swallowed hers. His skin was warm and rough, like a true outdoorsman’s, and the rasp of it against her skin was arousing on a primal level. “Yes,” she said in a voice that sounded a little breathless. “Mai Groves. I’m a reporter.”

“A reporter? Mai Groves. Mai Groves.” He tested the sound of her name. “I don’t think I’ve heard of you.”

“Probably not,” she replied with a saccharine-sweet smile. “My stories don’t normally appear in
Penthouse
.” The words were out before she could stop them.

To her surprise, he laughed. “I deserved that. I’m sorry I assumed you were—”

“A stripper?” she finished for him.

“I can explain—”

“This should be good.”

“You see, every year for my birthday, my friend Dave sends me a stripper. Sometimes, it’s obvious who they are, but sometimes they come posing as something else. One year, it was a policewoman. Anyway, today is my birthday and, well, I thought
you
were this year’s birthday treat. It was an honest mistake and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little disappointed to find out you’re not.”

Mai remained quiet, unable to sympathize with his dilemma.

“In my defense,” he continued, “your outfit is a bit…misleading. Most women dressed like that are sending a message.”

“Well, in my case, that message is that I just moved into a new apartment and everything—I mean everything—is still in boxes. So when I got a call from your receptionist telling me to come in ASAP or I’d miss this chance to talk to you, I grabbed the first thing I could find. So it was either come dressed like this—or not come.”

He gave her that rakish smile again. “Then I’m very glad you made the decision you did.” She wasn’t sure exactly what he meant by that. Fortunately, it turned out he didn’t expect her to say anything. “You came to interview me—what do you want to know?”

Mai pulled her notebook and pen from her purse. “I read an article about a case you helped the police with involving the disappearance of the…” Mai consulted her notes. “The Rollins children.”

He looked thoughtful. “Yes. I remember that case. We were lucky to find the children still alive.”

“The article said you went into the spirit realm?”

“Yes.”

“My article has to do with spirit walking and how it relates to dreams and nightmares—I was hoping you could tell me more about it.”

He seemed surprised by her question. “All right. Well, as you may know, spirit walking is the ability to transport one’s spirit outside one’s corporeal form into the spiritual plane. My people are known as Los Paseantes de Espíritu, the Spirit Walkers. We are born with the ability to enter the spiritual plane and have been trained from birth on how to use that ability.”

Mai conjured an image of hippies tripping on LSD and
talking about out-of-body experiences. “What’s that like—having your spirit float around outside your body? Can you see your body?”

He smiled. “In a way. Think of time and space in our universe as being like the human body. We have the corporeal form—the body as a whole and then all the sublayers, like organs, blood, muscle and tissue. But we also have the mind with all its various levels of thought—conscious and subconscious. Most people know that other dimensions exist. Some have even traveled to or through them.”

Mai thought of Lexi and Darius living in the Immortal realm of Ravenscroft and nodded.

“The spiritual plane is more like the dimensions of the mind. They are less tangible, and when we go there, we don’t take our corporeal form.”

“I had no idea there were that many dimensions out there. So to find the missing teens, you went to the spiritual plane and what? Searched for their thoughts?”

“Their residual energy, actually.” She must have looked confused because he went on. “Okay, think of it like this. When you touch something, you leave behind fingerprints. Most of the time, you can’t see those fingerprints, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there. Because the spiritual planes are interwoven with the physical ones, we’re all moving through them and leaving behind our prints, only these prints are made of residual energy. When I’m in the spiritual plane, I see people’s residual energies as patterns of light. Even after someone has come and gone, they leave behind an energy trail that slowly dissipates over time.”

“And the teens last year left behind energy patterns?”

“Yes. We got lucky because I was able to get to the place of abduction within hours of the event. Violence and fear give off strong energy patterns—as do Thesas demons. I started searching at the spot where the teens were believed to have disappeared and was able to follow the energy patterns
straight to the cemetery. The demons were preparing a spell to sacrifice the kids. Fortunately, we got there in time.”

“What happened to the demons?”

“The death magic they had unleashed was contained, and they were destroyed.”

Mai knew from having read the article that the incident had been a little more involved than that. “So this spirit walking—is that how you go into people’s dreams to help them?” She hurried to explain her question because there was a confused expression now on his face. “I read another article that talked about how you also go into dreams to help them with their troubles, nightmares”—she shrugged—“hallucinations.”

He shook his head. “Only the shaman of our tribe performs dream healing.”

Mai stopped jotting down notes long enough to look up. “I thought you were the shaman.”

“No, that would be my father. Nicolas Blackhawk, Sr.”

She had the wrong Nick Blackhawk after all. “Thank you, Mr. Blackhawk, for taking the time to meet with me. I appreciate it,” she said, putting her notebook back in her purse.

“Is that it? No more questions?”

“That’s it.” She stood. “I know you must be very busy and I don’t want to keep you.”

“Anytime, Ms. Groves.” He opened a drawer and removed a business card. “Please feel free to call me. My direct number is on the front.” He turned it over and jotted another number on the back. “And this is my cell phone number—just in case you have any more questions.”

She never intended to use it, but tucked the card into her purse anyway. He got up from his desk when she rose and walked her to the door. There, he took her hand once more into his. “Again, I’m very sorry for the misunderstanding.”

The contact of his skin against hers was just as deliciously disturbing now as it had been earlier, and mumbling something incoherent, Mai fled his office as soon as she could. His touch burned long after she left.