"So you think one of those things is up there?"
He raised an eyebrow. "What do you suppose is doing it?"
"I think I wish I was back in Maine, on our island, protected by Marina's spell casting where we held a fighting chance."
"Don't dwell on it." He looked up again. "You were going to tell me why you thought the demons can't hurt you. Something you did."
"Are you trying to distract me?" She couldn't help the smile in her voice.
A loud bang sounded above them. They had only a moments' vibration on the cord before it went slack. Charma realized the wire had come loose—or someone had made it that way. A loud thud shuddered through the shaft. For a split second they fell like a stone. Without warning the cable suddenly stopped slipping through the pulleys.
"A counter-weight must have caught at the pulley box. Hold on to me."
Jason's instructions were the last thing she heard as the sound of metal groaning filled the air. She was aware of screaming and knew it came from her own mouth as they plummeted towards the bottom of the elevator shaft towards certain death. Tears wetted her cheeks. There was still so much to do. She'd just found Jason. They had made no headway against the Darkness, not since Kal had found Isabelle.
If they died, she'd failed and everything would go to hell.
"Charma." She felt her body shake and her eyes flew open. Standing on solid ground, she looked around, alarmed. Blinking twice, she tried to figure out where she was. What was going on? Where was she? Something had happened. Had she dreamed something up? She looked around. Inside an elevator, that much was clear. How she had gotten in it, and why there was a hole in the ceiling, were questions she didn't have answers to. Jason held her, his face lined with concern.
"Where did you go?"
She shook her head. "What?"
"You vanished into yourself. Your eyes were open but you stopped talking, and I couldn't reach you."
Biting her lower lip, she tried to understand what he said. "I guess I blacked out when we fell." And had somehow managed to land unscathed inside the elevator?
Jason ran his hands through her hair and rubbed the back of her neck. "Charma, baby, we never fell. We were about ten feet further up when your mind disappeared on me. Do you even remember how we got here or were already gone?"
She sucked in her breath. "The demon, Self-loathing, she said she was going to trap us in our own fears."
"Looks like she found one of yours right off the bat." He scratched his head. "It's not like we were doing much to hide how uncomfortable you were." Looking up at the elevator, he seemed to be considering something. "Do you think this thing still works?"
Charma blinked. The elevator was still there. The line was still present. It hadn't fallen. Wow, she'd been made to imagine the whole thing.
She shivered. "I'd really rather not find out." Just the thought of the clunky, elevator taking them anywhere at this point was enough to make her ill.
"Shh." He put a hand up to his mouth to indicate she should be quiet. "Not even in telepathy. I don't want her knowing anything about what makes either of us nervous."
"It's kind of weird, actually. I spend three quarters of my life soothing the fears of others and the other part recovering from it. Now I'm going to be destroyed by my own." At least she hoped they were her own and that she hadn't picked up other people's issues.
"That's going to stop. Big time." He pressed the lobby button and the elevator shook for a moment. Charma's stomach lurched. Then, disgustingly slow, it started to crawl to the ground floor.
When she could swallow through the lump in her throat, she smiled. "It's my special gift."
Jason grabbed her hand. "The whole 'you hate your powers thing' is ridiculous. What you can do is fabulous. Plant memories, take away pain, and then whatever it is that you did that makes you think you can't actually get hurt now. To me that speaks of power."
"None of it is offense."
"Seems to me that if we were designed by the Fates to work as a team then all of us have our uses. Not everyone should be blasting through walls."
Charma watched the way Jason narrowed his eyes when he spoke and wondered when he had seen someone actually do the last action he described.
"That's true, we need defense too. I watch sports. But, it might be nice to have something I could do, some way I could actually defeat a person who was coming after me as opposed to stalling them or putting them temporarily off."
He touched the side of her face. "The demon that attacked me for months and months in my mind couldn't do a thing to you. In fact, you drove it out of my mind where I had let it endlessly abuse me."
She sighed. It occurred to her that now would be a good time to tell him about what she had done the day before that had allowed her to acquire that power and some of her anxiety about it.
As he raised his eyebrows, she wondered how much of her private thoughts he was now privy to. "I'm getting the feeling that your ability to handle that demon is a new thing?"
"You could say that."
The elevator dinged and the doors creaked open. Charma looked around. It was clearly not the lobby.
"What floor do you think we're on?" She realized that she whispered and decided not to question the instinct.
"Four."
Charma widened her eyes. "How do you know? Did they bring you here when you were unconscious and somehow you remember?"
A slight smile appeared on Jason's lips, it was more of a sideways smirk than anything else. Raising one eyebrow, he pointed to the wall in front of them. On a large, shiny brass sign was the number four.
Charma groaned and shoved at Jason's shoulder. The man was teasing her. They were running for their lives from two demons, trying to rescue a member of the Outsiders who she had stupidly left in the lobby and he was making fun of her.
"The better question is why did our half-dead elevator open here?" He tapped his fingers on the wall and then walked forward leaving her in the elevator. Charma rolled her eyes. Jason might not have known what he was until that morning but his male Outsider genes were showing themselves in abundance. Walking into danger without thinking as if he was invincible was so typical she could have gagged.
Instead, she followed him into the hall. If he was going to get himself killed, she could at least be there to witness him do it. The thought made her chest tight. Even in sarcasm she couldn't deal with the idea that anything might happen to Jason, which meant that in reality she was going to have to work her hardest to keep him safe.
"So you were saying, you did something to make yourself immune to Self-loathing?"
"I never said I was immune. I bet she's found a way around my temporary resistance by now."
"Okay." He turned around and grabbed her arm pulling her closer to him. "Stop stalling."
"I heal things. It's what I do."
"That much I know, Charma."
Something banged behind them and she leapt three inches into the air. She gripped his arm tighter and bit into her lower lip. Jason remained calm and unfazed. She blinked a couple of times, trying to steady herself.
"Jason, why did we get off the elevator?"
"I wanted to see why it stopped here."
If she weren't so terrified and had something she could use, she would throw something at him. "That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard."
He shrugged. "I'm doing my best here to approach this destiny stuff with a certain amount of logic."
"Because Gods forbid you leave that behind."
Jason's laugh startled her, and she couldn't help the grin that crossed her face. "Look, I am who I am. That's not going to change. Even if I can take and give back life at will."
"You can bring back life?" If her words sounded like a gasp, she didn't try to hide it.
"Drew helped me discover my ability to do this. That's why the demons can no longer scent me."
"Kind of gross, isn't it?"
"I'm a doctor, we don't use words like gross."
r /> "You just think them."
"Maybe." The dimple on Jason's left cheek appeared for a moment, showing Charma how hard Jason was trying to not be amused. Trying, and failing.
"So you were explaining why we are walking around this deserted hall at dusk when we should be making our way down to the lobby."
"Right. Here's how I see it. There is more going on here than just us, meaning you and me, versus them."
"Meaning the demon."
"Plural."
She nodded. "Right."
Jason had a way of looking at things that was so literal. In retrospect, she was lucky he'd come to believe in any of this at all. In his position, with his upbringing and natural tendency to only believe what he could see or feel, they should all be thanking their lucky stars he hadn't demanded to be drugged up for even having spoken with her to begin with.
"But there has to be more to it than that. Someone picked us for this job, designed us, and placed us here. So I took a chance that the reason the elevator opened was because the 'right side', if you will, wanted us to come down this hall for some reason."
"Why Dr. Randall, you're an optimist."
"Let's just say, I'm conducting an experiment."
"I don't have your positive outlook or belief. I think they dumped us down here, and we've basically been screwed ever since. Or maybe worse. It's just possible that it was an impossible task to begin with. Maybe humanity was always doomed, and we came down here knowing we were screwed."
"Charma." Jason pulled her into his arms and against his hard chest. She placed her hand on it and could feel his strong heartbeat under her fingertips. "You spend too much time in the head's of people who are having a hard time. I think you're going to have to start limiting your exposure."
"It's like asking me not to breathe."
He nodded, and Charma saw compassion in his eyes. "Then I'm going to start limiting it for you."
Jason's mouth came down on hers. Charma gasped before she melted in his embrace. His lips were warm and soft against hers, but she was not misled about what his kiss meant. In no uncertain terms, the meeting of their mouths—breath-to-breath, heart-to-heart, soul-to-soul—was a claiming. He was letting her, and possibly the entire universe, know that she belonged to him, and he was taking his rightful possession.
Part of Charma, the sane part that still remembered he'd all but cut her off completely when they were younger and not believed in her after they'd been intimate, wanted to rail against his gall. How dare he grab her in the middle of this stressful situation, and then silently pronounce that she belonged to him. But having spent enough time in the delusions of others, Charma knew better than to lie to herself.
She loved that he had done it. If it meant she was attracted to the side of Jason that stormed out of elevators and pronounced things nonsense just because he couldn't believe them, then so be it. For eighteen years she'd lived without his presence in her life, she wasn't going to do it anymore.
Sex was what that kiss promised.
However, even she was not going to have their second sexual encounter in the hallway of the mental health institution while they were very possibly being pursued by two demons. Pulling back, she stared into his blue eyes and wished she could get lost in them. Reaching up, she stroked his cheek.
"Jason, if you can find a way to keep me from absolutely having to help each and every person who needs it, I would be thrilled." She shrugged. It was as good a time as any to tell him. "In fact, last night I sent myself out into the darkness to heal the very evil that dwells naturally here on earth."
The blue depths she'd been swept away in only moments earlier looked confused for a second before they clouded over. "You did what?"
"The earth called to me. It needed soothing and healing."
"Explain this to me so I can understand it."
She shook her head. "I don't know if I can."
"Try."
His tone, steely and cold, told her in no uncertain terms that he was not going to take "never mind" for an answer. She ran her hands through her hair as she tried to find a way to explain to Jason something she wasn't sure could be explained.
"Okay. When I pass a person who is in terrible emotional pain, I have to stop and heal them. Their soul calls to me for help, not in words, just in feelings. I stop and heal them as best I can. Obviously, I can't fix everything and it's not usually a permanent fix. But for a moment I can give them a little peace, take some of their pain."
"Internalize it for yourself. I remember from when we were children. It drained the hell out of you then, and it seems to me nothing much has changed."
He wasn't wrong, but she narrowed her eyes. It wasn't like she'd picked this particular power. She couldn't imagine that she'd been presented with a list and checked it off as what she wanted to do with her life on earth in the middle of a demon fight for humanity. She'd have to be an idiot.
"Don't give me that look. You know that I'm right."
"I don't like your tone."
"Then I guess it's a good thing you're not my mother."
Putting her hands on her hips, she resisted the urge to scream. "For many reasons, I imagine."
Jason's mouth opened but no words came out. Charma tried not to laugh. She'd just found out she could make him speechless. Shaking his head, he pulled her close again. His breath beat down on her face.
"Maybe we shouldn't start discussing things that neither of us can do anything about at the moment."
Evidence of how much he thought about the idea pressed against her, and she grinned. In her life, she couldn't remember ever feeling quite so powerful. She could reach out and grab him if she wanted to. He wanted her, and she desired him beyond belief.
Her cheeks heated but not with embarrassment. "The same thing happened the other night—as it has before. In the past I've been able to resist it. It's the earth, this dimension. I can't explain but it screamed for relief from the plague that all of this evil is placing on it. It's like its absorbing all of this negative energy. I had no choice but to offer help."
"And how did you help it?"
"I took some of its energy and gave it some of mine."
Jason let go of her and stormed a few feet away. "You're walking around with part of it inside of you. When will it go away? How long does it take?"
"That's just the thing." The tears filling her eyes surprised her, and she tried to swallow them. "It should have done that already, but it's not. I'm afraid it's a permanent addition to me."
In two steps, he re-crossed the distance. His eyes clear and his face stoic, he grasped her shoulders. "How do you feel? Any pain? Physical signs?" He looked up and down her body as if he assessed her for physical signs of the darkness within her.
"My body feels fine. It's my soul I'm worried about."
"Is your head going to start spinning around?"
"What?" Charma paused for a moment until it occurred to her that he was joking. "You said that with such a straight face."
A whisper of wind blew over Charma's left ear. She jumped and Jason drew her closer.
"I felt that too. Something is here." I'm not going under again. That thing is not putting me back into the garden.
Charma nodded, it was an unusual feeling to have Jason communicating in her head. Sensual, personal, and it made her want to take a deep breath in relief. It was as if she'd been waiting for this intimacy for eternity—all of which were the wrong emotions for her to be having at the moment.
"Hello, you two. I've been searching everywhere for you. Good for you, Jason, for getting your powers in line. I can't find you so easily now."
Self-loathing walked out of the darkness still surrounded with red light.
"I've readjusted myself, Charma. I know who you are. I know what you're capable of."
Charma felt a jolt of electricity fill her body and she screamed. She heard Jason yell as blackness filled her vision. Falling, it was the only sensation she could name. Her head swam and she wanted t
o vomit.
"And now I own you."
Self-loathing's laughter filled her mind until she saw nothing at all.
Chapter Thirteen
Sebastian tore through the front door of the mental health institution that he was going to burn to the ground in a matter of moments. His palms sweated in far too human a manner, and he wanted to throw something. That little sneak Drew was inside.
The little shit had sent him to the North Pole. Melting glaciers, drowning polar bears, and Santa. The fucking North Pole. It had taken him precious time to arrive there and then catapult himself back. In the mean time he couldn't be certain what his bitch of a sister had done and how many of the pesky creatures she had accumulated while he flapped around in the snow.
Narrowing his eyes, he saw the perfect victim for venting his not so subtle fury on. It was always good to have minions when you needed to unleash some rage. He vaguely noted this particular human was on the small side. Dark, with greying hair and a potbelly, he'd obviously not been taking care of himself. It didn't matter. Soon he'd have things to worry about other than whether or not he was overweight. In about five seconds, he'd have to start considering the question about god and an afterlife.
He smiled at his little joke as he picked up the man by the back of the neck. Humans were good for some things. Thanks to the little concoction he'd taken before he left New Orleans, Sebastian did not need the food, but it would make him feel better. If Drew was still in the building—and it pissed him off to no end that he could no longer tell—then he was a dead Outsider. Drew and whoever else had the misfortune to be of that heritage and hanging out in New Jersey on this particular evening.
* * * *
Truth was she'd never expected Dr. Jason Randall to move quite that quickly. One second she was breaking into the annoying blonde's mind, the next he was tugging the woman out of her range and disappearing down the hall.
Oh well, it wasn't like the woman would live very long. Not with the nightmare scenario she'd set up in Charma's unconscious. In a matter of hours, Charma, the Outsider, would scare herself to death.