Haunted Years

  “Right now I don’t know you at all and I’m wishing you had left me rotting where you found me.”

  He turned on his heel and stomped up the stairs. After he’d made it about halfway up, he turned back to stare at Foy. The other man’s eyes had gone hidden again. All evidence of there being a real live emotional human being had vanished.

  “What’s your cover story? I don’t want to get it wrong.”

  “I’m a devil worshiper who has raised demons but I want to know more about Pendleton’s work with the mentally ill. How he uses them to bring out more demons. Possessions. He’d be dead already but I’ve been searching for where he keeps them before he kills them.”

  Possessions? His mind itched, the way it did when awareness crept in on him. Maybe it was part of his gift or whatever had made Foy pick him out of a crowd for a lifetime of being lied to.

  “He picks on the weak who are so run-down they have no barriers against whatever it is he’s doing to them,” Foy finished.

  Heather. He’d left her with the man. Braxton took the stairs two at a time.

  Chapter Eight

  Heather examined her fork. She twirled it between her fingers, loving the way the metal made her skin tingle.

  “Forks are remarkable items. Really, we don’t give forks enough credit for being works of art.”

  “What is she talking about?” A woman spoke from the end of the table. Heather didn’t bother to look up to see who’d asked the question. She’d been introduced to five different people when she’d entered the dining room. But really, who could identify one person from another anymore? And why bother when there were forks to play with?

  “Oh, don’t mind her.” Pendleton. Now his voice she knew very well. He spoke through his nose and the resulting pinched sound made her skin crawl. Maybe it was just Pendleton in general who brought out that response in her. He’d drugged her. Or something. She was pretty sure. Heather rubbed at her eyes. Not that she cared very much when there were forks all over the dining room table.

  She giggled.

  “This is a terrible idea,” shouted someone with a Scottish brogue. She tried to look to see who had yelled but the light from the mini-chandelier swinging above the table made the lights in the room too glaring for her to tolerate. One second she could see, the next the room turned white and too bright to handle.

  The Scottish man continued speaking. “Didn’t you tell us that she came with the demon raiser? Is he going to be okay with you messing around with his property?”

  “I think he’ll be relieved not to have to do it himself. Why else would he have brought such a person with him if not to use her in his ceremony later tonight?” The woman spoke again. “Maybe she’s his girlfriend.”

  “She sees ghosts. Not a strong talent. She’s nothing but a vessel for tonight. He’s going to thank us.”

  “He really drones on and on, doesn’t he?” Heather jolted in her chair before looking up. Whoever had spoken had done so right in her ear. She braced herself for the onslaught from the light but none came. Instead she stared straight at a ghost sitting to her left. He was a young man, probably still in his twenties when he died, with brown hair, brown eyes and a slit throat.

  “I can’t help you.” She should lead with that even if it wouldn’t do any good. In her current state of… Her mind wandered off. There were bubbles in her drink and each one looked slightly different from the others. How completely fascinating.

  “Did I ask you for anything?” The ghost held out his hand. “I’m Taylor.”

  Heather stared at his hand for a second before reaching out to place hers in his. “Well, this is a new one. I think I must be hallucinating the whole thing. You guys never talk. You just order me to do things I can’t do.”

  “For real? Then you’re doing something wrong. You’re a ghost-talker. Hence the talking bit. It’s a pretty useless skill if you can’t, you know, communicate.”

  “That’s what I always thought.” She shrugged. “But it doesn’t work that way. Lots of screaming. Lots of look at my death, do something, when obviously there’s nothing I can do about any deaths that took place before I was born.”

  Taylor laughed. “Except for what’s happening to you now. Getting dragged into the past.”

  She scratched her nose. “How do you know that?” For that matter, she was having a conversation with the ghost in front of a table full of people. Were they all staring at her?

  The group at the table chatted on but their voices were far away as if she was hearing them through a wind tunnel. All interest in her fork disappeared. What was happening to her? What had Pendleton done?

  “I know you were dragged back in time because I watched when Pendleton—well, the ghost version of him—did that to you. I followed to see what would happen next. Not much happens around me that’s as interesting as this. We ghosts, we tend to follow people around for the course of their lifetime. It’s like watching a very long movie. But what else do we have to do? I’ll watch you for a while. You seem like you have a pretty good storyline going on here.”

  “That’s nice of you to say. Or maybe it’s not. I don’t know. I can’t figure out how this is happening. Ghosts don’t talk like you do. Why are you different?” Taylor grinned broadly. “Maybe I’m not. Maybe you are.”

  “What do you mean? Other than whatever Pendleton drugged me with I’m exactly the same as I’ve ever been.”

  “Heather.” Taylor shook his head. “You’re not drugged. How and when could

  Pendleton have done that to you?”

  “I don’t know.” Her head pounded. “I can’t think.”

  Taylor grabbed her face. “You can. With me, here in this place where we can communicate like this, you can. You’re a ghost-talker, but all of that is happening in your own head. You brought me in here. To you. You can do that, and in this scenario we can speak like this. I’m not going to harass you about witnessing my death or whatever I would do to you out there. So use this time. How did Pendleton do this to you?”

  She stopped and thought. This whole thing with Taylor was really weird but figuring out the how and why of it was not the most pressing thing on her agenda. Taylor—whether he was real, a figment of her imagination, or the demon Pendleton had mentioned now disguising himself as a ghost—had a point. What had Pendleton done to her?

  “He must have some ability to cloud the mind. It must be his power. Like the way I can speak to ghosts and Jim can send demons and spirits away.”

  Taylor paled, rubbing at the red mark that showed where his throat had been slit open. “He can do that?”

  “I thought you were watching.”

  Taylor shook his head. “I didn’t go down into the basement to see the demon. Even ghosts don’t want to mess with those things.” He paused for a second. “Where does he send the ghosts he messes with?”

  She shrugged. “Beats me. I’m just relieved when he can make it stop.”

  “I hope I can stay away from him. I’m not always in control of myself if I try to communicate out there. Sometimes…well, I sort of lose myself. I’m there and I’m not there.”

  It might be interesting to listen to Taylor’s musings on the subject of being a ghost. But at that moment she really didn’t care. Pendleton had done something to her. She had to figure out exactly what that was before she moved on to anything else.

  “He held my arm in the hall. Looked at me strangely. I didn’t think that much of it at the time. He’s always got a weird look about him. Both in life and death. I can see why someone is going to kill him.”

  “I know who did that, by the way.”

  She jolted. “You do?”

  Goose bumps broke out on her arms. She shivered, and Taylor raised an eyebrow. “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know. I suddenly feel…funny.”

  “Funny good or funny bad?”

  Heather was thrown back into her body with a snap of her neck. She rubbed the back of it and tried to catch up with what h
ad happened while she’d been busy talking to Taylor. The light was too bright again and her attention tried to waver back to the fork on her plate. She rubbed at her forehead. How long had she been out of it?

  “I’ll kill you, Pendleton, if you don’t undo whatever it is that you’ve done.”

  Jim. He must have come in at some point and seen her out of it. “I’m okay.”

  Her words didn’t have the desired effect, as they came out slurred. She wouldn’t have believed her either.

  “Help me.” Taylor floated in front of her looking more like the traditional ghosts she dealt with and less like her chatty companion from moments earlier. She let out a shaky breath. It had been too much to hope that her ghost friend would last. Life didn’t work that way for her.

  “Go away if you can’t behave like you just were. I can’t do anything for you.”

  “Help me.” Taylor pointed at his neck.

  “No.” She swatted at him as she might a fly. It didn’t work, which made her clench her jaw. This day had turned into one strange, scary, hectic, mess-with-her-brain kind of an experience. If she’d wanted chaos she would have stayed home with her parents fretting over her well-being all the time.

  Jim dropped Pendleton. He stood too close to the other man, clearly trying to invade his space. She shivered. If she could go her entire life without ever being on the other end of Jim’s rage, she’d consider herself lucky. Venom seemed to radiate from his every pore and all of it was directed in Pendleton’s direction.

  “I’ll kill you if you mess with her again. I can make you blow up using my mind alone.”

  He could? Heather really didn’t think that was the case. If Jim could do that, she’d yet to see it. He’d passed out making a demon vanish.

  She struggled to her feet. The room swayed and Taylor got in her way. “Help me.”

  “You were so nice to talk to a few seconds ago.” She groaned. How hard could it be to make it across one dining room?

  Jim rushed to her. “You okay? I don’t know what I was thinking leaving you with him. I’m a jackass.”

  She rubbed his arm. “You were thinking this day couldn’t get any worse. Apparently neither of us had enough of an imagination to realize just how low things could get before we actually hit bottom.” “Help me.” Taylor again.

  “Strangest thing, there’s this ghost and I could actually speak with him. But now he’s gone all ghostlike again and all he can say is help me and it’s driving me crazy.”

  Jim furrowed his brow. “There’s a ghost bothering you?”

  He waved his hand in the air. She realized too late what he meant to do and grabbed at his arm but he’d made the gesture already.

  “Be gone with you.”

  Just like that, Taylor vanished. A weight settled on her shoulders and she schlepped back down into the chair she’d struggled to stand up from. Well, it looked like Taylor would be finding out what happened to spirits when Jim sent them packing. For the first time ever, she didn’t feel utter relief at the lack of ghosts in the room.

  * * * * *

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Braxton paced back and forth across the bedroom. Heather looked as if someone had kicked her dog. At least her head seemed clearer, her words weren’t slurred and she could hold eye contact. If he ever got the chance to harm Pendleton, he’d do it. Slam the man’s face into the wall. Or, hell, maybe he’d take the initiative and slaughter the bastard.

  “Just because I mention a ghost doesn’t necessarily mean I want you to do anything about it. Okay?” She took a swig of water from the glass set out in front of her.

  “Are you serious? You’re mad because I took care of your ghost problem?” She had to mean something else, because if that was it then he was going to officially declare that the woman made no sense whatsoever. Why on earth wouldn’t she want him to eliminate the nuisances that plagued her day in and day out?

  “This was different. Something happened. Pendleton did something to my brain to make me amenable to the demons, and for the first time I could speak to a ghost. Actually talk to one. And you sent him somewhere, which frankly he was scared you were going to do.”

  “Well he should have been afraid.” He could hear himself shouting at her and toned it down. She didn’t deserve his bad mood. She wasn’t responsible for Foy turning out to be something completely different from what he’d appeared to be. Heather hadn’t thrown his life into a spin that he was afraid he’d never get out of. “I send things that don’t belong here away. What happens to them afterward is really not my problem.”

  “How can you say that? You have a power. The consequences of it should be important to you.”

  “Really?” Enough was enough. “Do you consider the consequences of your gift? What about talking to that ghost? Maybe something changes somewhere in the universe because you chat with a person who shouldn’t be here anymore. Do you stop and wonder about all the ramifications of your actions? We’re all in uncharted waters here, Heather. Don’t sink the boat with what-ifs. I have enough crap to deal with.”

  He turned his back on her. If she was going to get upset because he’d spoken nastily to her—or preferably mad—he couldn’t handle it at that moment. Fuck Foy and his lying, conniving ways. An angel? What. The. Hell.

  Heather touched his back. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.”

  She pinched him. “Liar.”

  He turned around. “You’re supposed to be ranting or crying right now.”

  “Because you raised your voice? Get over it, big guy. I’m a big girl who has spent her life being harassed by ghosts. It’ll take more than your nasty temper to give me fits.”

  “I do have a nasty temper. You should stay away from me. Go find a nice guy.”

  She laughed, covering her mouth with her hand. Her eyes were alight with some joy he didn’t share. What the hell did she find so amusing about what he’d just said?

  “What?”

  She shook her head but didn’t answer.

  “Come on. What’s funny?” Sometimes humor eluded him.

  “You. You’re very amusing. Go find a nice guy. Please. I’m a ghost-talker and I’ve spent most of my life under psychiatric care. You’re exactly perfect for me, nasty temper and all. Besides, I have been known to have a temper tantrum on occasion myself.”

  Heather shook her head and he reached out to stroke the side of her face. The universe had really pulled out all the stops when it had made her. She had the highest cheekbones he’d ever seen. Braxton ran his finger over one of them just to feel the softness of her skin under the pad of his thumb. “Beautiful.”

  She moved her head until her lips caressed the inside of his hand. After a second, she kissed him there. “What’s wrong, Jim?”

  “Everything. But right now, here with you, I don’t care.” “Tell me.” Her voice had gone husky.

  He was glad he wasn’t the only one affected by the moment. Hell, it seemed even without the Incubus in the basement he couldn’t be around her without all thoughts immediately turning to sex. Or not even that—he wanted to be close to her. Shit. He was in so much trouble.

  “Foy just dropped a proverbial bomb on me.” Or maybe it wasn’t proverbial, maybe his world had actually exploded around him and now he had to figure out how to pick up the pieces. Maybe that was why nothing made sense.

  “What did he do and how did he get here?” She pressed her head against his heart and he felt his blood pressure drop. Heather calmed him. He didn’t know when or how that had started happening but it had.

  He took a deep breath. “He’s not from the future. He lives here, in the now. He’s searching for the mental patients Pendleton is experimenting on. I should probably be helping him with that.”

  “Jim.” When she spoke his name it made shivers travel up his spine. “How is that possible?”

  He couldn’t believe he had to actually say the words out loud. He hardly believed them himself. “According to him he wasn’t alw
ays human. He was some kind of bad angel who got sent here to fight. He’s trying for redemption, which I guess he hasn’t achieved yet, and dragged us into this battle without ever really explaining to us the hows and whys of it all.”

  Heather leaned back to stare at his face. She had creases on her forehead. He could practically see the thoughts moving through her mind as her eyes darted left and right in their sockets.

  “That’s kind of nice, actually.”

  He hadn’t expected that response. A throbbing formed between his eyes. Napping would be out of the question. Why did he suddenly feel a thousand years old? “How do you figure?”

  “Well, it’s nice to know you’re not alone. You spend your days having to do what you did in the basement. How much nicer to think there’s some divine intervention going on.”

  He shook his head and stepped away from her. The absence of her warmth immediately struck at him and he almost pulled her back against him just to reclaim the feeling. This was a hard life. He couldn’t afford to forget that, ever.

  “I don’t have time to think about stuff. Demons are evil and they don’t belong around people. Neither do ghosts—even the ones that can somehow speak to you in reasonable ways. They have to be sent on to somewhere else and that’s what I do. Whatever else is going on in the universe is way above my pay grade. I’m in the trenches. I’m not going to start looking up for some kind of meaning to it. It’ll just drive me crazy.”

  She nodded but he doubted she really understood what he meant. For all that Heather’s lot in life had been horrific, she’d been relatively sheltered. Their current situation probably constituted her first venture into risky waters. And he’d almost ended her by sending her off with Pendleton. Guilt stabbed at his back and he rubbed the spot. He was always doing that. Poor decisions got other people killed. It was better when he stayed alone.

  “It doesn’t help that you feel lied to.”

  She’d hit the nail on the head. “Yeah.”

  “All right. Time to stop feeling sorry for yourself about it.”