After Moonrise: Possessed\Haunted (5 page)

“So, basically, you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Basically, you’re correct. With your case I do not.”

“Well, then, what am I going to do? Just fade away with Aubrey
where we’ll exist forever somewhere between agony and darkness?” This time a
tear escaped Lauren’s eye and rolled down her smooth cheek.

“Not if I can help it,” Raef heard himself say.

Lauren threw up her hands and repeated, “How?”

“By doing something I hate like hell. I’m going to call in the
cavalry and ask for help, even though it’s a damn annoying cavalry and she’s
going to be obnoxiously pleased that she’s going to have to bail me out.”

CHAPTER FIVE

“She’s way too small to be the cavalry,” Lauren
whispered from beside Raef.

They were sitting at his huge old desk peering into the
big-screen Mac as the redhead answered the video call. She raised a scarlet brow
and turned clear green eyes on Lauren, saying, “I don’t know what you mean by
cavalry, but
she’s
not deaf.”

“Hey, I’m sorry,” Lauren began. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Yeah, yeah, stand down, tough girl,” Raef interrupted. “Milana
Buineviciute, this is Lauren Wilcox. She’s a client of mine and
I
called you the cavalry, she didn’t.” Raef moved his
gaze from the quick-tempered little redhead to Lauren. “Lana is the head medium
for our Oklahoma City branch of After Moonrise. She’s a pain in the ass, and
even though she claims to be Lithuanian I suspect her of being a Russian spy,
but
she knows more shit about ghosts than anyone
I’ve ever met. Not that that’s a compliment.”

“Atsiknisk,”
Lana told Raef
blandly. “Which means ‘fuck off’—in Lithuanian,
not
Russian. Try moving into the twenty-first century, Raef. The Cold War has
been over for longer than I’ve been alive.” She looked at Lauren. “Good to meet
you, Lauren.” Lana glanced back at Raef. “Hey,
sudzius,
she’s not a ghost.”

“I’ve worked with you long enough to know you’re calling me a
shithead, and I know Lauren isn’t a ghost, Nazi. It’s her twin sister who is
dead.”

“Nazis were German, not Russian or Lithuanian,” Lana told Raef
smoothly before turning her attention back to Lauren. “A twin’s death is always
difficult. Her ghost, she is with you?”

Lauren nodded. “Yes, quite often, actually.”

“What you are doing with this girl?” Lana snapped the question
to Raef, her accent suddenly becoming more pronounced with her annoyance. “She
should be working with a medium. If Vivian Peterson isn’t the right choice there
in Tulsa, bring her here to me.”

“Her sister was murdered—that’s why she’s here with me, not
because I’m into overtime or trying to poach someone’s clients. You should know
that,” Raef said, not caring that he sounded as pissed as he felt.

Lana’s expression softened and she brushed back a strand of
bright red hair from her forehead. “Sorry, Raef. You are right. I’ve been going
through my own
sudas
lately.”

“Which makes you the shithead?” he said with a quick smile.

“
Taip
. Definitely. And now that
we’ve established that, I am ready to listen.” Lana picked up a legal pad and a
pen. “Tell me what has happened.”

Raef quickly recapped Aubrey’s death and the events that had
followed, reluctantly admitting everything, even the fact that he could feel her
softer emotions, and ending with her latest manifestation in his living room.
While he talked, Lana took notes, asked just a few pointed questions and looked
grimmer and grimmer. When he was done she sighed and ran her hand through her
fiery hair again.

“Do you know what he is? This murderer who steals souls?”
Lauren asked into the silence.

“I do, but only through rumor and what amounts to fairy tales
used to frighten children.”

Lauren looked confused and Lana smiled. “I should clarify and
say fairy tales used to frighten
psychic
children.”

Raef felt a sliver of shock and sat up straighter. “The
murderer is a psychic.”

“Taip,”
Lana agreed. “But more
specifically, the murderer is a psychic whose Gift has to be much like
yours.”

“Mine?” Raef shook his head. “What are you talking about?”

“You said you felt her emotions, and they were all softer,
positive emotions. That’s not the norm for you, Raef.”

“To say the least,” he snapped.

“And this ghost, she seems to be filled with positive
emotions?” Lana said.

Lauren nodded. “Aubrey was full of joy and positive energy in
life—she still is in death.”

“When Aubrey tries to talk about her murder, when she gets
anywhere close to darker, more negative emotions, like the fear and pain and
even anger or hatred that remembering what happened to her evokes, that’s when
she dissipates, correct?” Lana asked.

“Yeah, it’s like he has a hook into her that he can reel back
whenever he wants,” Raef said.

“Not
whenever.
” Lana continued,
“Lauren, if Aubrey manifests and says nothing about her murder, if she simply
visits you, does the killer pull her back to him?”

“No, but we always end up trying to talk about her murder.
She’s being drained. Even when we don’t say anything about her death at all.
She’s still being drained,” Lauren said.

“Because he’s feeding off her emotions—the negative ones—fear,
pain, panic, hatred. He can’t tap into the softer emotions. My guess is he can’t
even Trace her spirit when she’s feeling them.” Lana met Raef’s gaze. “He’s a
psychic like you gone bad.”

“Shit. I knew this was a cluster fuck of massive proportions,”
Raef said.

“Why? If he’s like you, then it should be easier for you to
find him,” Lauren said. “Can’t you use your—” she paused and made a vague
gesture with her hand “—your Gift or whatever and Track him down?”

Raef jerked his chin at Lana. “Ask the cavalry. She’s the ghost
expert.”

Lana’s green eyes sparkled and her smile reminded Raef of a
ginger cat who had just lapped a bowl of cream. “Oh, Raef can find him, but he
cannot use his Gift like he usually does. The murderer has that way blocked. You
already told me what happens whenever your sister tries to speak of her
death.”

“He knows it. He stops her,” Lana said. “And he hurts her
more.”

“Which proves Aubrey does know who killed her and could lead us
to him—if he let her,” Raef said. “Damn! It’s frustrating as hell!”

“Aubrey can still lead you to her killer, she just has to do so
through positive emotions. Use them to Track him.”

“Positive emotions?” Raef snorted. “How the hell do I learn
about Tracking with those? Joy isn’t gonna lead me to a murder site and a serial
killer.”

“You don’t have to learn about positive emotions,
sudzius.
I have told you before, if you let go of your
attachment to negative emotions, your soul will naturally reset itself and begin
to accept and understand their opposites.”

“And I’ve told
you
before—I’m not
like the rest of your touchy-feely gang,” Raef said.

“Great, you mean
he
has to get
happy to find my sister’s killer?” Lauren said.

“What the fuck is this, a motivational speech? I don’t have any
attachments to negative emotions. Negative emotions are my damn job. I don’t
need to get happy. I just need to find a murderer,” Raef told the two women.

Both women smiled knowingly back at him.

He considered pouring more Scotch into his tea. Instead, he
faced Lana. “So, that’s the bottom line? I have to move through positive
emotions to find this killer?”

“That’s the bottom line,” Lana agreed. “Like you, the guy is a
fish out of water when he’s not attached to hate and fear and pain. Let Aubrey
show you how to flank him through joy and love and happiness.”

“Flank him, huh? I knew you were a Russian spy,” Raef
muttered.

Lana grinned. “Here’s the good news. All human soul are
designed to accept love and happiness and joy, or at least they are if they can
let go of their attachments to hate and fear and pain. And you’re human, even
though you are a man. Good luck. You’ll need it.” Lana waved a goodbye to Lauren
and then disconnected the Skype call.

Raef and Lauren sat in silence, watching the screen saver come
on—a series of pictures of a North Side beach house in Grand Cayman where he
vacationed every year. At that moment Raef wished desperately he had his ass in
the sand and a cold beer in his hand.

“Do you think that’s true?”

Lauren’s question seemed loud and out of place, but weirdly
enough Raef thought he knew exactly what she was asking.

“You mean the part about all human souls being designed to
accept love and happiness and joy?”

“Yes, that’s what I mean,” she said.

“No,” he said. “I don’t.”

“I don’t think I do, either, but I can promise you Aubrey would
think it’s true—even now. Even dead.”

He looked at her and saw how tired she was and how dark and
sunken her blue eyes were. “I guess it’s a good thing Aubrey’s leading this
hunt, then.”

“She won’t be doing anything for a while. When he jerks her
back like that, so hard and so painful, it takes a lot out of her and she
doesn’t manifest for hours, sometimes a whole day.”

“It takes a lot out of you, too,” Raef said.

Lauren shrugged. “I’m still alive.”

“You need to rest. Let me take you home, or to your mom’s.
Whichever you’d rather,” he said, disconcerted by how hollow the thought of
Lauren being
not
alive made him feel.

“Thanks. You’re right. I’m exhausted. You can take me to my
home. Not my mother’s. Never my mother’s, no matter how out of it I am.”

“You’re not out of it. Actually, I think you’re doing pretty
damn well for someone who’s being soul sucked by a serial killer.”

Lauren smiled as they walked back to the car. “That shouldn’t
make me feel better, but it kinda does.”

“Hey, that’s me. Mr. Warm and Fuzzy.”

Lauren laughed then, and Raef was taken aback by how much she
suddenly reminded him of Aubrey—so taken aback that he didn’t have much to say
as he drove the short way to Lauren’s house, which was in the Brookside area of
Midtown Tulsa, just a few miles away.

When he pulled up in front of the neat little bungalow, Lauren
said, “Thanks, Raef. I guess I’ll see you soon.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow. Let me do some digging about this
soul-sucking crap and then you and I will take another whack at working with
Aubrey.”

“Sounds like a good plan.”

Raef went around and opened her car door for her, and when she
hesitated, obviously gathering her energy to get out of the car, Raef took her
arm and guided her to her feet.

“Thanks,” she said. “I’ll be fine from here.”

“I’m going to make sure you stay that way,” he said.

Lauren looked up at him, and as their eyes met and held, Raef
felt a sensation deep inside him—one he hadn’t felt in a very, very long
time.

“I believe in you,” Lauren said, eerily echoing her twin. Then
she went up on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek softly before turning away from
him and going into her dark house and leaving Raef to drive away rubbing his
cheek and muttering, “Cluster fuck…a total goat-herding, cat-roping cluster
fuck…”

CHAPTER SIX

Raef didn’t go home. Instead, still muttering to
himself about
un
natural disasters, he stopped by his
After Moonrise office and grabbed some Psy books from a very surprised Vivian
Peterson, who was their resident expert on ghosts.

Raef didn’t like her. Never had. She was just too damn
ooie-ooie. Her hair was green, for God’s sake.

On the way back to the house he stopped for take-out pizza at
the Pie Hole and a six-pack of Blue Moon beer—both the liquor store and the
pizza place were within walking distance of his house.

“Which is just one of reasons this place is so perfect for me.”
Raef sighed with contentment as he chugged the first bottle of beer between
bites of the Everything Pie Hole Special. He didn’t open the first research book
until he’d worked his way through half of the pie
and
half of the six-pack.
Then
he
started reading.

Within fifteen minutes he was shaking his head and opening
another beer. He flipped through the chapters of the first book,
The Spirit Hunter’s Guide,
reading quickly.
“‘Possession, succubus infestation, poltergeists, noxious aroma invasions…’”
Raef read aloud. “This ghost stuff is some seriously not right shit.” He swigged
another beer and tossed that book aside, picking up a slimmer volume titled
Shamanic Retrieval.
Paging through it Raef found
essays sectioned off with the titles “Soul Theft and Loss,” “Souls Lost to Love”
and finally “Retrieving a Stolen Soul.”

“About damn time,” he said under his breath and began to
read.

Retrieving a stolen soul must be done with skill and care.
Remember, we must act in harmony with the universe—harming others, even others
who have stolen souls, puts us out of harmony.

Raef snorted. “Like I give a fuck?” He kept reading.

Soul thieves usually take spirits because they believe they
need the power to live. This is rarely true. Only one psychic in thousands can
actually feed from the energy of another’s soul. The problem is some less than
scrupulous psychics can convince themselves that they can use the power of
another—therein you find a soul thief.

“The problem is the asshole I’m dealing with
can
feed from souls.” Raef continued.

Because of the power attachment to the stolen soul, it is
complicated to convince the thief to release it. There are two basic ways to
attempt, with responsibility to universal order, to retrieve a stolen soul.

Then in bold writing Raef read:

1) Offer the thief a gift to replace the
soul. Sometimes an animal spirit can be traded for the human
soul.

“That sucks for the poor dog,” Raef said.

2) Trick the thief by distracting him or
her, and then pull the soul away yourself. Of course, this takes the
well-honed skills of a shaman or a medium, and should not be attempted by a
psychic with a different Gift. To do so may cause harm to the thief and,
possibly, the stolen soul, as well as the inexperienced psychic.

Raef sat back, sipping his beer and thinking. Should he bring
in another psychic like Lana? He didn’t give a shit about the thief’s safety—the
guy was a killer. Even though he’d rather not get his own ass in a bind, he
wasn’t particularly worried about himself. Raef had been handling his own shit
for decades. He did care about Aubrey, as well as her sister—which was almost as
irritating as it was unusual.

It just wasn’t normal for him to care.

“Hell, this isn’t a normal case,” he reasoned aloud. “And this
isn’t a normal soul stealing, either,” Raef rationalized aloud. “It’s a murder.
The soul part is only secondary. So, the ooie-ooie crap needs to take second
place to the murder. And I’m the right man to take care of the murder part.” He
reread number two. “‘Trick the thief by distracting him or her, and then pull
the soul away yourself.’
How ’bout I do the
distracting, like get this guy arrested and put away for life, and Aubrey just
runs like hell—so to speak.”

Nodding to himself, Raef paged through, skipping the sections
on “Restoring a Soul’s Light”
and “Finding Shattered
Souls,” but stopping at the heading “Retrieving Souls from the Land of the
Dead.”

The Land of the Dead is not the equivalent of a Christian
heaven or hell. It is not one of the three layers of the Otherworld. It is a
place for lost and broken souls—be they dead or alive. It is a dangerous place,
even for a trained shaman or medium. It’s filled with hopelessness. Sometimes
shattered souls can be found there. Sometimes soul thieves choose the Land of
the Dead as a holding place for their victims. Whether you are healing a
shattered soul or retrieving a stolen one, enter the Land of the Dead without
protection and experience, and you risk becoming lost, too.

“Jackpot!” Raef said. “Definitely sounds like the place I need
to go.” He skipped the rest of the warnings and went straight to the heading
titled “Entering the Land of the Dead.”

Begin by lighting a candle. You are seeking shadow and smoke,
death and darkness, you will need to keep a light close to you, both
figuratively and literally.

Reluctantly, Raef got up and went to his bedroom where he
always kept a vanilla candle ready to burn. He used to like the way the
candlelight flickered off his wife’s smooth skin. Kathy had been lush and sexy,
and the warm light of a flame used to make her look like a love goddess come to
earth. Of course, he hadn’t actually burned the damn candle in years, not since
his wife had decided she couldn’t live with his job—or in her words,
I can’t stand what your job does to you, Raef. It makes you
sad, and nothing I do ever changes that.

Raef paused halfway back to the living room, candle in hand.
“Why the fuck am I thinking about that? Kathy’s been gone five years. The candle
only stayed because I like the way it smells.” Raef stifled a sigh of annoyance.
So, yeah, it would be nice to see another naked woman in candlelight, but that
hadn’t happened in a long time. “Too long,” he said as he lit the vanilla candle
and picked up the book and the beer again. “All right, what next?”

Shamanic battles of life and death can happen in the Land of
the Dead. If you attempt to go there you must be skilled and courageous and well
protected.

“Yeah, yeah, get to it,” he mumbled.

The Land of the Dead can be found past the Otherworld
boundary. Think of the Otherworld as if it were an ancient map when man believed
the world was flat, and if you went too far you fell off into nothingness. That
nothingness is the Land of the Dead.

To find it, keep the light of your candle strong in your
mind’s eye. Then begin to meditate upon the reason for your quest. A shaman or
medium can Track a soul with the help of his or her Gift.

“Huh.” Raef snorted. “I’m not an ooie-ooie shaman or a medium,
but I can Track things. Usually murderers, but whatever. Nothing is normal about
this case. Maybe I can Track more than I thought I could, or at least when it
comes to Aubrey and Lauren maybe I can.” He kept reading.

Know that once you have Tracked the soul to the Land of the
Dead, your psychic Gift will cease to work. You must use mortal guile and your
own wisdom to retrieve the lost one.

“First good news I’ve heard yet,” he said, chuckling
softly.

Raef closed the book and looked at the candle. He stared at the
flame until it seemed as if the light was burned into his mind.

Then he began thinking of Aubrey.

She made him feel joy.

She laughed. She laughed a lot, especially for a dead girl.

She was blonde and beautiful and had a sparkle that even death
couldn’t dim.

She called him Kent. No one called him Kent.

Raef closed his eyes, held the light in his mind and Aubrey in
his heart and, just as he did at a murder scene, began to feel around with his
Gift…seeking…questing…searching.... Only this time he wasn’t trying to Track
rage and fear and pain. This time he was questing after a sparkling blonde whose
laughter reminded him of champagne.

When he actually found her it jolted him with surprise. Murder
victims he’d Tracked before had led him to their killers with dark, smoking
trails—or rivers of pain and hatred like oil slicks. Aubrey’s trail was a
shimmering thread of joy that flickered bright and then dim.
Why?
he wondered.
What’s going on
with her?
Then he recognized the dimming—he’d seen it before; it was
worry. Raef reached with his Gift to grab on and Track the illusive, glittering
thread, but instead of Tracking he felt an already familiar sensation pass over
his skin, and her voice, somewhere between annoyed and surprised, sounded in the
air around him.

“Kent, what are you doing?”

He opened his eyes. Aubrey had materialized in front of him,
between the couch and the old steamer trunk he used as a coffee table. It had
gotten dark while he’d been reading, and the living room was dim—the only real
light cast by the vanilla candle. The lack of light agreed with Aubrey. She
looked almost substantial, and Raef noticed she was wearing only a slip of a
dress, one of those silk things that laced up the front and hugged women’s
curves so well. And Aubrey had some serious curves to hug.

The joy that had been dimmed by worry sparkled alight as Aubrey
cocked her head to the side, studied him and then began to laugh. Her laughter
skittered across his skin, raising the hair on his forearms, and calling alive
sensations that had been dead within him a lot longer than Aubrey had been.

“What?” he said, scrubbing a hand roughly across a forearm.
“Why are you laughing?”

“’Cause I just realized what you’re
doing.”

She grinned, but didn’t continue until he prodded, “And what do
you think I’m doing?”

“It’s not think, Kent. It’s know. I know
you’re checking me out.”

Raef frowned, trying to ignore the crackle of humor that lifted
around her and washed against him. “That’s not what I was doing before you
showed up, and why does that make you laugh?”

“Because it means your love life is even
deader than me.”
She giggled.

“That’s not funny,” Raef said. “And before you showed up I was
trying to Tr—”

“No!”
For a moment she sounded
frantic, and the humor that had been bubbling around him faded. Then, she
reached up and took hold of one of the diaphanous laces that held the front of
her dress together. Aubrey smiled teasingly at him.
“No,
let’s not go there. If we go there, then I’ll have to leave, and neither of
us wants that. How about we go here instead.”
With one deft pull, she
undid the tie and the lacing fell open, exposing her naked flesh.

“You’re naked!” Raef blurted, and then mentally smacked
himself.
Were boobs all it really took to make me forget
she’s dead?

“No, I’m naked under this.”
Aubrey
slowly ran her hands down the front of the silk dress, lingering over her
breasts until her nipples began to harden. She gasped in pleasure.
“Wow
—
”
her voice was a
breathy whisper
“
—
I feel
amazing.”
Still touching herself, Aubrey half walked, half floated
closer to him.
“You can feel me, Kent. I know you
can.”

She was only an arm’s length from him, and she was so fucking
sexy there in the candlelight, all skin and lush curves and nipples that were
tight and ripe and ready for his tongue. Raef reached for her, and felt a shock
and a chill when his hand met with nothing but air.

Her laugher bubbled around them.
“Not like
that, silly! Feel me in there.”
Aubrey took one hand from her body,
leaned forward and pressed her hand against his chest, over his heart.

He didn’t feel the pressure from her hand. He didn’t feel
anything except her laughter and his raging hard-on. “I don’t feel shit! You’re
a ghost. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.”

“I’ve made you feel before. I can do it
again, and it’s important that you do. It’s the only way we can move
forward. The only way we can fix what’s wrong.”
She was standing
right before him. Her hands went to one of the loosened laces of her dress. She
tugged again, this time harder, and the silk slid through, opening the dress
completely. With a teasing smile she shrugged her shoulders and it slid from her
body to pool in a semisubstantial puddle at her feet.

“Oh, God. You are so damn beautiful,” Raef couldn’t stop
himself from saying.

“Then feel me, Kent. Let go of all of that
baggage you have because of the past, and allow yourself to feel pleasure
again.”
Aubrey caressed her breasts. Then slowly, she moved one hand
down her body, over the curve of her belly, and slid her fingers under the
triangle of blond curls between her legs.

Raef couldn’t take his gaze from her. His body was aching in
hot, hard response. Automatically, he rubbed his hand over his jeans and down
the long length of his swollen cock.

“Yes! Let me see you. Let me watch
you.”

“Then let me feel you!”

“Kent, baby, you can do that yourself.
Just let it happen. Let go of the past and be willing to feel pleasure in
the present.”

“Yeah, okay. Anything,” he said. “I let go of all that
crap.”

“Why? Tell me why,”
Aubrey
whispered.

“Because I want to feel pleasure. With you!” He almost shouted
the words.

As soon as he’d spoken it hit him—her emotions. He’d felt her
laughter before. He’d even felt her joy. But what he was feeling now sliced
through him like a sword: joy, laughter, lust, desire, pleasure, all wrapped
together. The emotions entwined and implanted within him. Raef ripped open the
front of his jeans and took his cock in his hand, stroking himself as he watched
her blue eyes widen.