Tortured Souls (The Orion Circle) (16 page)

“Old hinges,” Rebecca whispers the answer to my unspoken question. “All the doors in the house have them.”

“That’s just plain weird,” I comment, wondering why someone would go through a remodel just to use old rusty hinges on new doors.

“This is only part of the weird,” Rebecca says in a conspiratorial whisper. “Once the bat and her husband go to sleep, I’ll fill you in.”

“Is it anything I should know before opening myself to the spirits?” I ask, not sure if Rebecca understands the dangers a medium faces. Lack of information is seldom a good thing.

“Oh, no. Don’t worry,” she says, placing her hand on my shoulder. “It’s more about the changes she made during the remodel. Weird secret passages with spy holes looking into the rooms… that sort of freaky thing. Oh, and you’d expect the place to have new wiring, right? Well it doesn’t. Makes the lighting a bit erratic at times, not to mention it screws with the EMF.”

My curiosity is piqued. It’s like Mr. and Mrs. Anders created a haunted attraction rather than an inn.

“They also didn’t fix the floorboards before putting in the new carpeting, so the stairs creak a lot,” Rebecca adds in a whisper.

Standing next to Rebecca on the porch, I watch Logan and Carl lug the equipment from the van. My pulse leaps when Mrs. Anders appears again. She’s like some scary English butler, skulking in the shadows and popping up when needed. We follow the guys into the living room, watching as they deposit the equipment on the coffee table.

“I feel like we just did this,” Carl mutters under his breath.

“I’ll set up the spirit board on the table,” Mrs. Anders says in a dramatic whisper.

She glides from the room, leaving behind a cloud of her cloying perfume. Covering my nose, I glance at my friends, wondering if I’m the only one affected by the eye-watering scent. Carl lets out a loud sneeze. Nope I’m not alone. She breezes back into the room, the board tucked under one arm and a reluctant Mr. Anders towed by the other.

It’s odd. Mr. Anders has a look of… I don’t know… perhaps fear… in his eyes. I watch his gaze dart between his wife and the tray in his hands. As edgy as I am right now, I know what edgy looks like, and that man in most definitely edgy. Maybe he doesn’t like spirits.

He places a tray of lemonade on the table and pours glasses for everyone. I drain my glass in seconds and he pours me another. We watch in silence while Mrs. Anders sets up the board on the dining room table. I keep waiting for Logan to say something. We aren’t going to let her use the board, are we? My pulse races at the thought. Nothing good comes from opening a portal. If Mrs. Anders uses the board the same way most people do, we may be in for a dangerous night.

“Okay, it’s all ready,” Mrs. Anders says in an excited whisper.

We join her around the long, oak table. Our host sits at the end with her husband to her right. The spirit board is ancient, beautiful. It looks like an antique. I wonder how many spirits have been called across the veil with her board. The planchette is light ivory in color, almost white. Marble I hope. My mind whispers
bone
, and a shiver races through my body.

Logan takes my hand under the table, caressing my knuckles. My psychic power reacts to his touch, flaring to life. Though I’ve never been able to see auras before, I watch my blue aura tangle with Logan’s red. A strange fuzziness fills my head, but when I shake it, the feeling disappears as quickly as it appeared.

“Without touching the planchette, tell me how you usually go about using the spirit board,” Logan says as his fingers tighten around mine.

I have to stifle a laugh at the grave expression in his narrowed eyes. He’s glaring at the board like it might leap from the table and attack. The angry red aura swirls around him in pulsating waves. Mrs. Anders stares at the board for several moments then her hand snakes out toward the planchette, stopping in mid-grasp. She makes a fist then places both hands in her lap.

“Okay, well, uh. Are there any spirits that wish to communicate?” she calls out in a theatrical voice.

“Stop,” Logan shouts making the stupid woman flinch. “What you just said should never be said.”

“I don’t understand,” Mrs. Anders says, her eyebrows arching above her bangs.

“You just invited anyone around to invade your home,” Logan says, shaking his head. When she still looks confused, he sits back and stares. “Would you waltz into a prison and invite all the convicts to visit?”

“Of course not!” she replies as her cheeks turn red.

“What makes you think that all spirits are good?” I ask, meeting her shocked gaze. “People are good and bad, so it makes sense that spirits would be that way too.”

“Not only that, but there are some truly malicious entities out there just waiting for some poor, unsuspecting sap to invite them in,” Logan adds. He pulls his hand from mine and crosses his arms over his chest. “Now care to tell us what’s really going on here? I may not know you, but I’ve been doing investigations since I was five. Something isn’t right here.”

Mrs. Anders stares at the table, her mouth in a thin, grim line. Her husband rises from the table and darts from the room without a word.

Just what the hell is going on here?

Rising from the table, I wander from the ornate dining room back to the comfier living room. The ceilings are low as was the norm a century ago, but it feels stifling now that I’m used to the twelve foot ceilings in my house. As I pass the ugly floral sofa, a strange feeling flows through my entire body.

“Logan,” I call out in a hoarse whisper.

“What is it?” he asks when he arrives at my side. I turn my head to glance at him, and he gasps. “My God, you’re so pale! Are you okay?”

Unable to reply, I shake my head. Vertigo seizes me from the motion, and I shut my eyes in the hopes that the room will stop spinning. My heart hammers, each rapid beat echoing painfully in my ears. Logan helps me over to the sofa, and I collapse against the garish fabric. Within moments my stomach roils as my nose fills with more of the cloying perfume Mrs. Anders seems to love so much. The entire couch reeks of the stuff. My head reels. Coughs wrack my body, and I clutch at my stomach.

“The EMF is going crazy!” Carl shouts. “How can that be? There was no activity at all last week.”

“Logan, what’s wrong with her?” I hear Rebecca’s voice, yet it sounds so distant, like she’s speaking through a paper tube.

“I need to get her outside,” Logan says before picking me up in his arms.

He cradles me against his chest and races to the door. Once outside, he lays me down on the ground under the willow tree. I roll to my side, rubbing my fevered cheek against the cool grass. Now that the perfume is gone, I take deep cleansing breaths. Logan runs his fingers through my hair, the gentle strokes soothing.

“I think I know what’s going on now,” I murmur, my throat raw from coughing.

“It’s not paranormal,” Logan says, releasing a small growl of frustration. “Other than a raging headache, I didn’t sense anything paranormal.”

“I found the source of the EMF spike,” Carl yells, running from the house. “Mr. Anders was playing with all sorts of electronics and generating the spike.”

“Rebecca, call Mr. Kincaid,” I say, pushing myself to a sitting position. “That smell I thought was perfume, it made me sick. I think it’s some sort of incense she’s using to try to make us hallucinate. That and the lemonade. I drank more than the rest of you…”

“Crap,” Logan mutters, glancing toward the house. “She was so desperate for a paranormal business rating, she tried drugging us?”

We listen as Rebecca relates our suspicions to Mr. Kincaid, her voice reaching a fever pitch before she’s through.

“He said to call an ambulance and the police,” Rebecca says as she dials her phone. “We don’t know what she may have drugged us with…”

She continues ranting at the dispatcher, but her voice becomes more and more distant. Black spots swim in my vision. A sharp pain lances through my skull, but when I try to grasp my head with my hands, I realize I can’t move my arms. My pulse races as panic sets in. I turn my head to look at Logan, and my vision narrows. Blackness takes over, and my frenzied mind is dragged into nothingness.

Chapter Fifteen — Nightmares

Chapter Fifteen

Nightmares

Everything hurts. My arms are wrenched behind my back, and I’m curled up in the fetal position on my side. When I try to move, to ease my screaming muscles, I realize my arms are tied together. Panic surges through me as I squirm against my bonds. Shivers race along my body from the frigid cold. A sharp pain bites into my cheek. As I shift my head, I realize a small rock is embedded in my cheek. My eyes open to inky darkness. Though I can hear shuffling and scraping, I can’t see anything. My heart races and I choke back a sob.

Where am I?

Light flares to life, burning my eyes and leaving me blind for several moments. When I can see again, I cringe at the ghastly vision. Several spirits surround me in vivid corporeal form. They appear as they did in death—bloody, mutilated, bright images of a horrible tragedy. I recognize the raven-haired girl. I’ve seen her broken body numerous times in my nightmares. She teeters on legs shattered beyond any hope of repair were she still alive.

Two spirits flank her, both boys around ten years old. Their forms are so solid, they appear alive, but the grievous injuries make it clear these boys couldn’t possibly be among the living. No one could survive such extensive injury. One boy’s head hangs to his shoulder, only attached by a band of sinew. His blond hair is soaked in blood where it brushes his chest. Bile rises in my throat. I wonder if I can vomit during a vision.

My eyes move to observe the other boy. It’s hard to tell anything about him because his face has been destroyed. The right side is concave and his nose is missing. Gulping down a breath of air, I hold it in, willing the overwhelming nausea away.

It’s just a vision.
I repeat this over and over in my head until I can breathe again.

“Help us,” the girl rasps in a voice that sounds like she’s gargling gravel. “He won’t stop hurting us. You can save us. Please!”

“I’m so scared,” the boy with the dangling head whispers. “He’s getting worse. What will happen if he destroys our souls?”

“I-I don’t—” Before I can continue, an angry voice cuts me off.

“You left!” The accusation comes from the boy with the smashed face. His voice echoes all around me, loud, furious. “You were here and you left! You left us alone with the monster. How could you?”

“Where?” I ask in a hoarse whisper, flinching at the raw pain that sears through my throat. “Where are you?”

“Be quiet!” the girl orders in a whisper. “He’ll hear us.”

“Who will hear you?” I ask becoming desperate. “Where are you?”

“The manor,” the girl replies, her head darting around in frantic movements. “He’s coming!”

“What manor? Who’s coming?” I ask in an urgent whisper.

“Foxbl—” The girl disappears in a flash before she can finish.

“Kassandra Ramsey,” a deep male voice says from the shadows. “How nice to see you here. You can’t help them, you know. Soon you will belong to me and my reign of terror on the mortal plane will begin.”

“Who are you?” I shout to be heard above the sinister cackling. Someone has been watching too many melodramatic old movie villains. “What do you want?”

“You, my dear,” the voice says in my ear.

I jump, trying to scramble away from the phantom’s breath against my face. With my arms tied behind my back I don’t get far. A hoarse scream leaves my throat, but it seems to make my tormentor laugh harder. Pain sears through my ankle, such horrible pressure. I can feel the outline of fingers ending in what feels like sharp claws.

“Soon, Kassandra, soon.” The dark voice is hollow in my ears as I slip into blessed unconsciousness.

Chapter Sixteen — Repercussions

Chapter Sixteen

Repercussions

Pain lances through my head. Sharp, shooting sensations. Darkness replaced by light, and yet…

Why can’t I see anything?