Welcome to the Dream (A Celeste Cross Book, #1) (11 page)

He looked slightly distracted,
and it took a while for him to say goodbye as he walked towards the
door. Again she found herself leaning on the door-frame, waving at
him as he drove off. When the sound of his tires crunching against
the gravel of the driveway had finally subsided, she closed the
door, and instantly started to frown. ‘You are unlucky,’ she told
herself quite loudly. Seriously? Every single time she invited him
in for something, his phone rang. If she hadn't clearly heard
ringing each time, she would assume he was just trying get away
from her.

As she walked to the
kitchen, she paused, an unavoidable smile pressing across her
lips.
No,
that's not right, because he'd looked disappointed, hadn't
he?

Celeste actually gave a soft
giggle as she walked up the stairs, intending to finish her shower.
As she undressed and checked the hot water was on again, she
thought once more of the rather endearing Jack West.

Jack West

Seriously, every single time
she invited him in, his phone rang. She probably thought he was
trying to avoid her or something. Still, this was important. It had
been Gustaf telling him that the archaeologist who’d received the
amulet from the church had given it to one of the local second-hand
stores, swapping it for some other trinket.

Cindy had already looked
into it, apparently, and though the second-hand store had only had
the trinket since last night, they'd already sold it. Which was
horrible news. Though everyone was trying to convince Jack that the
amulet was just a fake and would have no possible connection to
Solomon Clarke, and therefore no possible connection to the
Yaoguai, he had to be careful. He would prefer to have the amulet
in his own hands, and figure it out for himself.

The
amulet . . . .

His phone rang again and he
answered it quickly, negotiating the wheel with one hand as he
continued to drive fast towards base. ‘What have you got for me?’
he asked quickly.

‘
We have CCTV,’ Gustaf said,
voice triumphant. ‘We also have a statement from the owner of that
second-hand store, describing who bought that amulet. We're having
the CCTV footage cross-referenced against all existing identity
databases, and we should have a name for you by the end of the
night.’

‘
The person who bought it, what
do they look like?’ Jack asked, driving far too fast considering he
only had one hand to latch onto the wheel.

‘
She said it was a young woman,
wearing a white summer dress with red flowers on it. She said she
had a black handbag with a brown leather strap that had a torn
buckle on it.’ Gustaf supplied quickly. ‘She was very good at
telling us exactly what the woman was wearing and what her
accessories were, but not fantastic on what the lady actually
looked like.’

Jack stopped his car. He
knew that handbag. He'd seen that handbag on Celeste's table barely
five minutes ago. What was more, now he wracked his brain, he'd
seen a small stone trinket next to it, shoved up to the side, next
to a bunch of books and cables. He hadn't thought anything of it at
first, as it had been mostly covered by the junk around it. Now it
sent a chill down his spine.

It was the amulet. It had to
be the amulet.

He turned his car around
quickly. ‘Gustaf, I think I may know who that is. I'll call you
back when I can confirm.’ Jack ended the call and chucked his phone
onto the seat next to him, then he gunned the engine as he drove
quickly back down the road. He tried to ring Celeste, but she
didn't answer.

Though he had no reason to,
his heart started to quicken with fear.

There is no
chance that the Yaoguai are around here.
He tried to convince himself.
That amulet is a
fake.

Plus, if there was any
Yaoguai activity, the very sophisticated device that had been
loaded into his mobile phone would be able to pick up their energy
– and there was nothing to indicate anything was wrong.

Still, as Jack drove up her
driveway, too fast considering how loose the gravel was, his breath
was quick and tight.

He kept on trying to call
her, but she didn't answer. When he skidded to a halt next to her
car, he opened his door, jumped out, and he froze. His head snapped
towards his passenger seat.

His phone had just given a
beep, a very special kind of beep. It was quick, pulsating, and
rang loudly – it was the kind of insistent noise you couldn't
ignore and it meant one thing.

For a moment Jack didn't
move, he took stock instead. He still had his holster on; he hadn't
taken it off yet. He grabbed at the butt of his handgun, pulling it
out in a jerky move. Then he twisted his head to the side,
surveying the trees that pressed up close around the house. In
another second he dived over the driver's seat, free hand grabbing
at this phone, snatching it up.

It was starting to flash,
and the beeping was getting louder. It kind of sounded like an
insistent Geiger counter. The longer he held it, the more insistent
it became.

It meant one thing. Just one
thing. There were Yaoguais in the vicinity.

His phone rang, but he
already knew who it was before he slammed it up to his ear and
answered it.

He closed his door, pressed his
back up against it, and kept surveying left and right as Gustaf's
worried voice rang in his ear. ‘We've got—’ the Frenchman
began.

‘
I'm here. I think I'm at the
epicenter,’ Jack whispered, voice as quiet as he could make it.
‘It's my old house. Send a team now.’

Gustaf swore quietly, the
sound of his frantic typing clicking over the line.

‘
West out,’ Jack said as he
turned the phone off and stowed it in his pocket. He needed two
hands now.

Carefully he pushed forward,
his phone still in his pocket, still beeping. Just like a Geiger
counter, it would become faster and louder the closer he got to a
Yaoguai. The further he moved away from his car and towards the
house, the faster it became.

His brow compressed with
tension, his fingers so tight around his gun that it would take a
blow from a mallet to loosen them.

He kept flicking his head to
the side, surveying the long, dark shadows for any sign of
movement.

Though it wasn't entirely
dark yet, dusk was settling in around him. It elongated the shadows
coming in from the trees along the side of the house and
accentuated the smell of the sea wafting in from past the paddock
behind.

Slowly he got to the door,
latched his fingers onto the handle, and tried to turn it – it was
locked.

Rather than call out her
name, he reached into his pocket, grabbed his keys, and rifled
through them until he found the right one. This was his house,
after all. He quickly opened the door, but he did so as silently as
he could.

Loud music was playing
from the kitchen – he recognized the song:
Figlio Perduto
.

The drawn-out, mournful
tones and somber singing shook through the building, rattling the
floorboards.

Jack moved into the house
very slowly, gun at the ready, eyes darting around.

Technically he should wait
for back up, but he wasn't going to do that. Because even the din
of the music couldn't drown out the sound of his phone beeping
frantically. In another second, he plunged a hand in and turned it
off. If he'd been properly equipped for this situation, he would
have a radio in his ear, relaying the same information without
giving his position away.

Slowly he pushed his way
into the dining room, rounding the side of the room, gun leading
the way as he twisted towards the table.

The amulet was no longer
there.

Jack swore
bitterly.

His breath now came hard and
quick. If he'd been able to find the amulet, he could have dealt
with it swiftly, stopping the Yaoguai in the process.

Despite the fact he'd been
sweating all day, his brow suddenly slicked wetter, a trickle
escaping down his temples. He wiped it away with the back of his
hand, and then kept moving slowly and methodically through the
house.

There were no signs of
struggle yet, no screams, broken furniture, nothing. As he made his
way to the stairs, he suddenly heard the faint tinkling of water
over the sound of the music.

It sounded like the
shower.

Quickly Jack took to the
stairs, though he tried his hardest to muffle his
footfall.

When he got to the
second-floor landing, he saw that the door to the bathroom was
open, steam drifting out.

He prepared himself to walk
in there, to see the shower empty, or to see her limp, lifeless
body crumpled on the floor.

When he rounded the door,
gun still held in his hand, it was to the sight of Celeste in the
shower, singing loudly and badly along with the music. At first she
wasn't facing him, then she turned and she screamed.

He directed his gun down,
shifting his weight, trying to show her that it wasn't aimed her
way.

‘
Oh my God, what's going on?’ her
voice screeched above the music as she fumbled backwards in the
shower, back hitting the wall with a wet slap, arms moving up with
a snap.

In another moment what was
going on became abundantly clear.

Something heavy and quick
snaked into the half-open doorway next to him, splintering
wood.

Jack pushed himself to the
side, dodging out of the way, twisting on his foot, his boots
squeaking on the clean bathroom tiles. He saw the unmistakable
electrical blue energy of the creature just beyond the doorway. He
began to shoot at it, strafing to the side, trying to get the best
aim he could.

The thing was quick, they
were all quick. It jumped forward, its claws scraping against the
bathroom tiles as it landed, whipping its tail around, bringing it
smashing towards Jack's face.

Jack backed off, legs
catching against the bath behind him. He toppled backwards as he
lost his balance, shooting as he fell.

Just as the thing pushed
back on its feet, looking as if it wanted to jump his way, and slam
right into him as he lay there in the bath, it stopped. Its head
yanked to the side as it looked at something near the shower, then
it shifted its weight, claws scrabbling as it ran from the
bathroom.

Jack didn't stop. He
scrambled out of the bath, ran to the doorway, and closed what was
left of it, even though most of it was a shattered mess. Then he
took several steps back, facing it, keeping his gun
raised.

He could go after it, but
there was no point; he could hear the sound of a chopper outside,
even see out of the corner of his eye as the tops of the trees
beyond the bathroom window were starting to flatten in a downward
draft.

To her credit, Celeste had
stopped screaming, but in an erratic, quick, desperate voice, she
kept asking him what was happening.

He turned to her, checking
to see if she was okay. She was huddled up against the other side
of the shower, arms tightly pressed around herself, face deadly
pale with shock.

Keeping one of his hands on
his gun, he leaned over to the rail beside him and grabbed one of
the towels, chucking it to her over the top of the
shower.

Then he turned
quickly.

‘
It'll be over soon, you'll be
all right,’ he managed.

He gritted his teeth,
listening as he heard the sound of gunfire echo from
outside.

The door to the shower opened
behind him, he could hear it as it rattled, probably as Celeste
latched a very shaky hand onto it. ‘What's going on?’ she asked yet
again.

He didn't have time to
explain. He had to keep his attention on one task only, and that
was ensuring that the Yaoguai didn't rush through the bathroom door
and catch them both by surprise again.

‘
Put some clothes on,’ he said
quickly.

He heard her shuffle about
behind him for a while, then she took a step next to him, eyes wide
as she looked down at the gun and across at the shattered remains
of the door. She hadn't bothered to dry herself, and her hair was
sopping wet. Her clothes were already dripping from where they
touched her skin.

After several minutes of
bullets and shouts, the noise of battle abated. Then Jack heard the
familiar and ever so welcome sound of human footfall as it came up
the stairs.

He didn't relax until he saw
McDougall, a massive Scotsman who knew how to handle himself in a
fight. He was a member of Jack's own team. McDougall gave Jack a
nod, and Jack knew exactly what it meant. With a short breath, Jack
slackened his grip on his gun, switched the safety on, and finally
put it in his holster.

Then he turned to Celeste
Cross.

He had a lot of explaining
to do.

Celeste Cross

She was sitting in what
could only be described as an interrogation room. The table in
front of her had a heavy-looking metal loop soldered into it, and
she'd seen enough thriller films to know that was where they
handcuffed you when they wanted to ask you questions.