Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Mike
Damn she could scream.
The ghost finally stopped her tantrum and stomped soundlessly over to where we stood, glaring daggers at us. “Have you not yet learned your place?!”
“Our place?!” Marcus spluttered. “You’re the unwanted ghost in this castle! You’ve even hurt one of the other ghosts!”
She crossed her arms and huffed, turning her head away from us like we meant nothing to her. “I did not appreciate his concern. He is not the one I wished to harm, but men always seem to believe that they know better.”
I sighed. “You’ve proven to be ill tempered and a threat to other ghosts and humans, and because of that, now we have to banish you.
” I didn’t want to waste more time on her, it wasn’t as though bad people turned good by dying.
A rotten soul would still be rotten without their physical bodies, and this ghost proved it.
She huffed out an incredulous laugh. “Banish me? How utterly preposterous. I fail to believe you three have the abilities to make me do anything.”
This ghost had hurt my man and was now taunting us.
I was so over this case, and one quick glance towards Marcus and that one subtle nod he gave me, was all the permission I needed.
We’d already agreed that I should be the one to banish her, simply because I’d yet to try it.
I was also the one with the hurt anchor, so I needed this.
With my hand firmly on Dylan’s wrist, I raised my other hand, grabbing her energy, essentially locking her in place.
Her eyes widened in shock—she’d truly not thought us capable of doing anything to her—and then I focused all my energy into crushing her soul, killing what was left of her.
A black mist formed where she’d once stood, and then everything around me whitened.
I saw glimpses of memories, but not my own, it was the ghost’s memories that flipped through my mind.
I felt her emotions, saw her looking at herself in the mirror, getting ready for a date with Lars, felt her smugness over it and her excitement.
She’d bought the red dress specifically for this date, and she felt so beautiful as she continued to fix her red lipstick.
Then her gaze lifted from her own face to her sister walking up behind her, holding a knife.
Holy… I was seeing Kristina’s last memories!
Her sister smirked as she held the knife to Kristina’s throat, whispering cruelly into her ear as the pain of the knife registered, “You thought you could fool me, sister? I know what you’re playing at.”
More memories flooded Kristina’s mind as she realized she would die.
I felt everything. Her fear, the surety that she was going to die right there.
I felt her remorse of getting caught sleeping with her sister’s husband.
Then I saw Lars and her in bed together, her telling Lars she was pregnant, when it wasn't true. Kristina looked into her sister’s eyes and saw a flicker of something pass through them, but then her sister pressed the knife in further and dragged it across the skin.
“Mike!” Dylan shouted next to me and suddenly I was back in the attic, having somehow landed on the floor. “What happened?” he demanded, his eyes so wild and fearful, it broke my heart.
I’d just been through something truly traumatic and I moved to my knees and sobbed, letting out all the emotions as Dylan held me without even knowing why I was so shaken up.
“You have to call Rino,” Dylan said, but it sounded like he was ordering Marcus to do it, considering his arms were still holding me tight. It would have to hurt his stitches, but he was ignoring his own discomfort to soothe me. I’d never felt more cherished as I did in that moment.
Marcus had his phone on speaker, Rino’s voice loud and clear through my quieting sobs. “Marcus, is everything okay?”
“It, um,” Marcus began. “Well, Mike banished the ghost, but he collapsed as soon as she was gone and just stared into the air, his eyes vacant before he blinked and broke into tears. We fear something went wrong.”
Rino’s startled intake of breath was enough for me to stop my tears momentarily. I seriously feared what he was about to say. “He’ll be okay,” was all Rino said.
“That’s all you have to say?! He’s still shaking!” Dylan snapped, clearly not liking Rino’s dismissal.
“And he’ll need your support as he works through whatever it was that he just experienced,” Rino advised cryptically. “Leave the castle once he feels better and then call me tomorrow. I’ll make sure it’s all explained properly then.”
Marcus said his goodbyes but I ignored it. I felt so drained, both emotionally and physically. I just wanted to sleep cuddled up to Dylan.
“Sweetheart? You up for saying goodbye to Fritz and Hanne, or do you just want to get in the car?” Dylan’s worry was evident in his tone, and I scolded myself for being so weak.
He was hurting and likely in great pain.
My body was fine, what I’d just experienced wasn’t anything physical like Dylan’s. My turmoil could wait.
I wiped my eyes and nodded with fake confidence. “I want to see this through properly.”
Dylan’s eyes swam with emotion, but he just nodded and respected my decision. I rose from where I’d landed—on the thankfully glass free floor—while holding Dylan’s wrist and walked with them downstairs.
Fritz was smiling widely as we walked into the library, sitting comfortably in his leather chair with a book open in front of him. “You succeeded!”
If he noticed my red eyes, he didn’t comment, focusing on the fact we’d managed to banish her instead.
“We did,” Marcus confirmed. “But it has left us feeling rather drained, so we’re off in a few. We just wanted to share the good news before we left.” That had been a polite way to explain what had happened to me, but I was glad Marcus didn’t tell Fritz any details.
“Understandable,” he nodded with a soft smile. “I cannot thank you enough for what you’ve done. But thank you. You do not have to check in with Hanne before you leave.” He rose from his chair. “I will meet up with her and tell her the good news.”
“We appreciate that,” Dylan smiled politely.
“I wish you all the best.” Then Fritz was floating through the floor, heading to Hanne.
Marcus turned to face me and Dylan. “Let’s get out of here.”
Back at the hotel I all but fell on the bed, my drained body shutting down immediately.
When I woke up, Dylan had removed my clothes and draped the cover over my body.
I instantly felt guilty all over again. His poor hands must’ve struggled removing my clothes, but he’d suffered through it because he wanted to make me comfortable.
And he’d yet to truly understand what had happened.
I doubted even Rino knew. Dylan deserved to know, and yet, he hadn’t prodded on the drive back to the hotel.
We’d all just sat in silence, each of us tired and glad to have the case closed successfully.
Because I still wanted to say a proper goodbye to Erik, we’d planned to meet up tomorrow and I looked forward to it.
I sat up in bed as Dylan came back into the room, hands full of takeout bags, the scent wafting from them so enticing that my stomach growled in anticipation.
He chuckled and handed me the first bag. “I found a Thai place just around the corner. I figured we could go out to eat some traditional food tomorrow when we were both up for it.”
“You truly do love me,” I sighed dreamily, looking through the offered bag and securing the Pad Thai I craved. “You even got me extra peanut sauce.”
“Anything for my sweetheart,” he winked, then sat down next to me, his own dish in hand. Knowing him, it was likely something with oyster sauce and roasted cashews, perhaps with chicken and some beans mixed in, too. I would need to taste his as well because it smelled divine.
“After we’ve eaten, I’ll tell you what happened,” I promised, already dreading it, but it needed to be talked about.
He simply nodded. “Rino called while I was waiting for the food. The mediums who’d given up the case are all meeting tomorrow at the medium headquarters here. Rino wants us to attend and tell them how we managed to get her banished successfully.”
I let out a groan. “They’ll all hate us for it.”
He laughed. “Rino said the same thing. But luckily for us, we’ll have Marcus and Erik there too.”
“True. I just hate to face more experienced mediums and lecture them on what to do.”
His warm hand brushed my cheek in a soft gentle caress. “We don’t have to linger if they’re nasty about it, but maybe they’ll be thankful to learn how we did it. You would be eager to learn more from others, they could very well feel the same way.”
Letting out a deep sigh, I smiled at him. “I hope you’re right.”
Dylan wasn’t right, or half-right, as one of the mediums had sneered at Marcus as soon as we walked into the meeting room, demanding to know why a medium would have a ghost tagging along.
According to her, that was abusing his power as a medium and something to be ashamed of.
It seemed working with ghosts was frowned upon here, but it was because of Erik we’d managed to do what they’d failed at.
“Ashamed?!” Marcus snapped, Erik looking just as pissed next to him.
“Yes, ashamed!” she snapped back. “Don’t you have any morals?”
“Kimmie!” one of the men behind her scolded. “They haven’t even introduced themselves before you’re harassing them. Let them at least say hi before you voice your opinions.”
I liked the man already.
“I’m Mike,” I started with an awkward wave.
“And this is my anchor, Dylan.” I pointed to Marcus next.
“This is Marcus and his fiancé Erik.” I wasn’t about to keep their relationship a secret for these people, and it was pretty obvious with their hands clasped together.
If Kimmie had more issues we’d better get all the information out of the way at once.
We were here for their benefit and not our own.
I had no qualms about turning around and leaving.
The man who’d snapped at Kimmie stood and offered us his hand. “My name is Carsten and this is Thor.” He pointed at Kimmie. “You’ve already met Kimmie and this lady to our right is Elise. Niels is still in the hospital.”
“Nice to meet you,” Dylan said with a polite smile. “We weren’t told much other than to show up here today.”
“Neither were we,” Carsten shrugged. “But our boss is joining us in a few to give us more information.”
And with those words, the door opened behind us and a woman in a flowery dress walked in, smiling widely at us.
“So, you’re the men who saved the day! I’m Heidi, the leader of the Danish medium team.
” She ignored the grimaces from her employees as she fixed her gaze on all of us.
“I must say that I’m impressed. The case was a hard one and I doubted I could entice others into facing that ghost if you’d given up as well. ”
“We had help,” Marcus said, offering her his hand. “My fiancé’s presence protected us against her. With him there she couldn’t touch anything.”
Heidi held her chin, looking to think it over. “I’ve never once thought about having ghosts as partners before. We only have two at this property who help train new mediums, otherwise we don’t really tend to work with ghosts other than on the cases we get.”
“They’re disgusting!” Kimmie snapped again, drawing all our attention.