Geist (13 page)

There wasn't even dust. 

After a moment of silence—well not utter silence 'cause I could hear something dripping—I turned and faced the others. 

Joe was on his ass, leaning against one of the gurneys where one of the carved up young women lay. Jason was picking Dags up off the floor. He was awake and rubbing his face. The door slammed open behind me as Tel, Nick, Rhonda and Umayma came charging in. They stopped on the other side of the line of gore. Finally Tel and Umayma picked their way over the parts and helped Jason with Dags. Nick zeroed in on Joe and helped him to his feet. 

"I'm fine...really. Just a little...woozy," Dags' voice was a quiet relief to me. 

I felt something behind me and turned. Rhonda was staring...at me. Hard.

"Well..." I said in a half-joking voice as I looked around the room at the mess. I looked down at myself and realized I was half dressed in armor and half dressed in black. One bunny slipper on. "That went well." 

-19-

Newsworthy

"Somehow..." Dags said as we piled into the penthouse. TC was there in the living room on the couch eating grapes and watching the flatscreen. We'd stopped at the Atlanta diner and had a meal—or Joe, Jason and Dags had. I couldn't eat...and that sucked ass. I wanted coconut cream pie sooo bad. Or baklava. Dags had put away a pound of pasta, Joe had a hamburger, and Jason? Fish. Apparently his human host was still able to digest real food though Mephistopheles admitted to me that would fade away pretty soon. 

Jason was over a hundred now. 

Tel had left with the others—reassuring everyone that he'd make a call and put the morgue to rights. "Somehow what?" I prompted. 

"You used my ability to heal. I felt it when you pulled on it." 

Me—I was back to looking normal again. And feeling...

Quite good.

You have a very interesting power outside of the Throne. 

I had to agree with Geist.
"Yeah, I kind of miss it. I was surprised I can still do it. Even as a Familiar." 

I felt the Geist was pleased. 

And that made me feel...good. 

Rhonda was pissed off though. Or so I assumed because the whole way back she never said a word. She'd insisted she ride in the limo with us and wanted to get in the back to be with Dags. But he'd insisted he was fine and wanted me beside him. 

She sat in the front with Nick who periodically glanced over at her. 

Those two had never really gotten along, or so I'd heard. At least not well. 

Once we were all inside the penthouse, Dags plopped down on the couch and instantly fell asleep. Alice appeared beside him and started acting like a nurse. Checking his pulse, putting a hand to his forehead. I came closer and sat on the floor beside him and her. "Can you feel it? His temperature?" 

"Yes and no," she said in a quiet voice as the others moved about the penthouse. "I can't feel his skin—as you've discovered. Touch isn't a luxury we have anymore as Familiars. But I'm tuned to him. So if I touch him, I can feel what he feels internally. If I touch him and he's tired, I feel tired. If he's running a fever, I feel the fever myself." 

Oh! 

I know I brightened up. "Can I try that?" 

"You should be able to do it." 

Should. Key word here. 

I rubbed my hands together and then reached out to touch his forehead. There was no sensation, just like before. Nothing. Frustrated, I focused on him and me. And then...

I was exhausted. Beyond the point of keeping my eyes closed. 

Alice moved my hand away and smiled. "I knew your connection would be stronger. The two of you are closer. He loves you." 

I rocked back on my knees and heels but kept my hand in Alice's. "I—why is he so tired?" 

"A lot of reasons. Me. You. The
Grimoire
. His body is rejecting the book, Zoë. You saw him disappear? That was him winking out of existence when you pulled on his power. We have to get that page back in the
Grimoire
so he can access its energy again."  

"I don't understand. I think I healed him when he was stabbed by Tattoo-Chick, right? In the side? And I don't think it tired him out then." 

"I'm guessing because that was an internal self-healing it didn't have the same consequences. But this time you healed someone else." 

I nodded. I suspected that healing Dags' side wasn't me at all, but something Geist had done with his own energy. But I didn't say anything. 

Alice continued. "When Dags pulls on us, when he becomes a Guardian, Maureen and I would usually disappear from being corporeal. Because the energy to do that taps his own. It's a give and take. He taps us then. I've noticed your power isn't coming directly from him, but from your connection to your body, where Maureen is keeping the gears working. All that power you used to fight—none of it came from Darren. But," and she held up her hand, the other one still grasping mine. "When you used power to heal? That was all Darren." 

"So the Abysmal throne can't heal?" Joe asked as he sat down in a nearby chair. 

I looked up to see Rhonda talking quietly to Umayma. Jason was in the corner with Nick, who was leaning in close and Jason was at his neck—

OMYGOD—

Yes. This is my new word. Deal. 

I turned away and stared at Dags. Yeah, I'd seen Jason feed before. He'd fed on my mom right in front of me because he needed it. I'd seen him part flesh and drink from the wound. But what I saw in the corner...seemed a bit more intimate. He was drinking from Nick's neck. Embracing him. 

I wanted to stare—to look. 

But it was so...
intrusive
. 

I knew Jason the human was straight. And I knew Jason the human had loved the previous host, which was how he became the next host. And I knew Nick loved one of the hosts as well, the one that'd made him a Ghoul. I was wondering...to see them like that...

When I feed from Nick like this, I can return memories to him. I can give him a bit of Romina back, Zoë. As I feed, he relives those memories. 

I hadn't expected to hear Mephistopheles in my head.
I'm sorry I didn't mean to pry.
 

No, it's quite all right. Expending that much power makes me...hungry. 

Oh. Kay.
Next
. 

Joe and Alice were talking and I'd missed a bit of it. 

"...basically not within its capacity. It's not that the Abysmal is evil—that's a man-made concept. It's more like creation and destruction. Two sides of the same being." 

"So if she wants to heal someone—" he leaned toward Dags. "Then she should really just let Dags do it." 

Alice nodded. "I would think so. Got that Zoë?" 

I nodded. No, I didn't really get that, but hey. I was happy everyone got out alive. 

In a manner of speaking. 

"That
bitch
!" 

Well... and then there was TC. 

That explosion had come from him where he sat on the couch. Only now he was standing up and pointing at the screen. "She's not right. There's something wrong with her. Don't you guys sense it?"

After looking at him we all looked at the screen. 

I didn't recognize the woman talking. But I read the name under her. Tamera Moultrie. I'd heard her name on the news a few times just in the past twenty-four hours, since I'd found myself as a Familiar. I was about to ask what the fuss was about when I saw my mom's face on the screen. 

MOTHERGUPPY! 

Under my mom's image it read, "Local Occult Ringleader" and gave her name as Nona Domas-Martinique.

"Turn it up," Joe said. 

TC complied. 

"...needs to be taken in for questioning. Unfortunately the local authorities still have their hands full with recent 'ritualistic murders' they're trying to keep under wraps. And they have repeatedly ignored my public cries for an investigation into this woman's dealings in the Little Five Points Community. In my opinion, anyone selling or teaching occult practices should be brought under suspicion as having ties to these local groups, such as the Society of Ishmael," she leaned in close. "And I have it on high authority that this woman is actually the great-niece of that Society's founding member, Abraham Domas." 

What. The. Fuck? 

"Who is this woman?" Tel said as he moved to the television. "She's been at the forefront of all of this; all up in people's faces. She's done more to destroy the possibility of any occult suspected groups from getting a fair trial then anyone else." 

"She's a Power perhaps," Umayma said. "Or a Virtue?" 

"No," Rhonda shook her head and joined Tel. "Not a Power. But she's clearly got contacts if she can figure that out. Nona's been very careful not to let anyone know about her family, or her links to that Society. Hell, she'd even had her birth records changed." She put her hands on her hips. "She might be a Virtue though." 

"Aren't Virtues by their nature not filmable?" Umayma said. "They're not corporeal. And I don't think the Seraphim allows them to overshadow or possess. But that could just be a rumor." 

"Then how did she find this out?" Tel said. 

"More importantly," Jason began, his voice carrying over the television. I turned to see him standing behind the couch where TC was. Nick wasn't in the room anymore, and I assumed he'd moved off to rest. Losing blood...dead or alive...wasn't a very healthy thing. Funny...how a human drinking a Ghoul's blood made a monster. But if Jason drinks it—

A monster cannot be made a monster anew. 

I sighed.
Would you stop that?
 

You are quite loud, Zoë. 

Sigh.
So I'd been told before.
 

Jason continued. "If she is a Virtue, then by exposing Domas and his great-niece it seems to me that she's hampering what the Ethereals are trying to get, does it not?" 

"Well their goal is to get the
Grimoire
," Alice said. "Nona is by rights a primary source for them to get information." 

"And if they expose her like this, and she's arrested," Jason held out his hands. "Or her shop is seized like the Society's compound, then how is that helpful to the Virtues?" 

"You mean Miss Moultrie is not working for them?" Umayma said. "She's a loose cannon, so to speak." 

"She looks...familiar," Joe said as he rubbed at his lower lip. "Can't place her...but I've seen her before." 

"She's all over the news, dude. Former attorney and now advocate for that dumbass church," Tel snapped his ringed fingers. He hadn't changed since the last time I'd seen him. Still in the suit-hoodie combo. He pulled his phone from his back pocket and answered it. A few words in a language I did not know and he disconnected. "That was Shane. Cleanup's finished at the morgue." 

Shane? 

"Do you guys have your own cleaner?" I blurted out. 

Tel looked at me. "Yep. We do. But it's something Shane likes doing. Oh," he grinned. "You would know him as Re." 

Re. One of the First Borns. Yes I remembered his name from Inanna's book. 

"...just in," Tamera Moultrie said as someone handed her a piece of paper. She glanced over it. "Well well well—it seems the Dekalb County Morgue was hit just a few hours ago—a break in where body parts were dumped all inside. A worker at the place caught these pictures on his camera and with great risk to himself, sent them here to us at the CCE. Take a look at these—" 

My mouth fell when I saw clear as crystal pictures of the room we'd just been inside of. I recognized the body parts, as well as the blood smear all over the room. 

"Uh...Tel..." Rhonda said. 

"That's..." the Revenant answered. "That's not possible. Shane said it was cleaned." 

"Then someone got in there and took those pictures before Re's team got there," Alice said. "This is bad. Very bad." 

"And it's getting worse," TC upped the volume again as the scene came back to Moultrie. 

"We here at CCE have just received a statement from the Dekalb County Morgue—" she looked down at a sheet of paper in front of her. "Ha—it seems they're denying such an event took place. That investigators and employees have been in the building in the past half hour and there is nothing wrong." She looked up at the camera. "Viewers, I'm sure that the police and local law enforcement will once again paint us as the culprits. We've also learned that a cop-killer—one of Atlanta's Finest—who escaped from a mental institute four months ago has been seen in the company of this woman. His name is Daniel Frasier and is believed to responsible for a string of brutal murders in Atlanta, as well as the death of Captain Ken Cooper..." 

Joe's phone went off just as they flashed a picture of Daniel on the screen. Joe reached into his pocket and answered it as he moved to the sliding glass doors and stepped outside. 

"Where's Daniel?" I blurted out. 

"He's watching the house in Between," Umayma said.

Rhonda went pale. "No...he's not. Two Society members are. Daniel went to see Nona," she reached out and grabbed Jason's arm. "Call Daniel and warn him." 

"Mephistopheles will tell Inanna," Jason said. 

I watched this Moultrie woman rant and rant about the dangers of occult groups in Atlanta and all over the southeast. A plague on humanity! Spreading lies and misinformation that leads people astray from the true word. Groups full of criminals and murderers! 

Once she devolved into a televangelist I tuned out. I wasn't sleepy, but I could feel Dags sleeping. He stomach was full, and he'd exerted enough energy—well—I'd taken enough. 

So my power didn't really extend to healing—that was kind of a no-brainer really. Never had. I'd always been a little bit of a soul vampire since becoming Wraith. The idea of healing—

You are the opposite of one another. 

I sighed when I heard Geist's voice.
"You're kinda always there, aren't you?"

I protect the Potential as I should. Now that we have touched on the Astral Plane, there is resonance. 

Resonance. I knew what it meant. And I believed I had it with Dags.
"Will I ever get out of this, Geist? Will I ever have a normal life, and just live and love as a normal girl would?"