Chapter 10 #2
“Did Debbie ever take drugs?”
Eden grimaced. “I don’t know. I would have initially thought no, but, after some of her choices in men, now I’m not so sure.”
“Right,” he muttered.
Just then, the voice—hard and angry—ripped across the air behind them. Eden.
She stood up, staring around. The sun was already setting, and she saw nothing ahead of her or around her, but there was absolutely no mistaking the sound of somebody calling out to her.
Beside her, Eric stood up too. He studied the garden, the areas around her, and whispered, “Seems to be time to go.”
She turned to him and nodded. “Yeah, let’s go. I just heard my name again, and the voice sounded … angry.”
He nodded. “I know—”
“No, I swear I heard—Wait. You’re agreeing with me?” She was shocked. “How did you know?”
“Because I heard it too.”
“You did?”
“Yes, but the problem is, I’m not sure it was human.”
*
At about midnight, Eric slipped out of their suite. As he got downstairs, somebody was at the front desk.
The clerk looked at him and asked, “Can’t sleep?”
“No, I’ll just go outside and get a breath of fresh air.”
The front desk clerk frowned and suggested, “After last night, we’re not really happy with the concept of anybody going outside at this hour.”
“I get that,” Eric noted, with a smile, “but no reason for me not to, unless you’re telling me it’s dangerous out there.”
“No, it’s not dangerous,” he stated. Then he winced. “But if you come back dead—”
He laughed. “If I come back dead, I won’t care.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” he muttered, groaning, “but it’s always been a peaceful place here. We’ve never had a death in all these years that the resort has been here, so this has got us in a bit of a tizzy.”
“But it was under natural circumstances, right?”
“Yeah, and that’s the only thing that makes it somewhat better,” he added, shaking his head.
“Otherwise this whole thing would be shocking and would stop me from sleeping at night. Yet I’m just sitting here, doing the books, trying to take care of all the lovely paperwork I get to deal with as the accountant for the hotel,” he explained.
“So go ahead for your walk, but I’ll stay out here until you come back in.
Be safe out there, and please come back as soon as you can. ”
“Good enough.” Eric smiled, then stepped outside into the fresh air and headed back to the bench where he had been sitting with Eden earlier. As he sat down again, he waited, waited for some energy sensation to hit. When nothing came, he slowly opened his senses.
Massive waves of energy hit him. He was buffeted by the strong pull, wondering what the hell was going on, when suddenly he heard Stefan’s voice in his head, bearing a warning.
Be careful.
“Yeah, I’m trying to be careful,” he muttered. “What the hell is this?”
That, Stefan began, is the opening of a pressure valve. We don’t see very many of these, he murmured, but it’s unmistakable.
“And what am I supposed to do with it?”
For the moment, now that you’ve opened it, you’ll need to sit there and try to assimilate some of the energies that are swirling around you.
Try not to take on too many at a time, without letting them go, he explained, his tone sharp.
Let them in but send them right back out again.
You don’t want to mess with them, not ever.
“And if I don’t?”
They’ll grab hold, and they won’t want to let go.
Without thinking anything about that, Eric tried to close the energy, but it was too much, too strong for him. He struggled against the heavy winds battering him from left to right, when Stefan stepped in.
Hold tight. I’ll see if I can help you shut this down a bit.
And it took both of them several long minutes working together before it was safe to relax ever-so-slightly.
I don’t know what you just landed yourself in, Stefan noted, his voice breathless as he spoke, but that was a training program I would love to have available, but I want it under my control, not something that can go wild like that.
“Yeah, you’re not kidding,” Eric muttered, as he straightened up his clothes. “That was a little more than what I expected.”
Are you okay?
“Yeah, I am,” he replied cautiously, “but I still don’t know what that was.”
Yeah, we’ll have to talk about that. Is she with you?
“No, she’s not. I left her back in her hotel room.”
Smart.
“Why? Do you think she’s part of this?”
No, she’s not a part of this, he snapped, but she’s part of whatever this overall problem is. And that is starting to sound as if it may be a much bigger issue than I thought.
“I wasn’t thinking that at all,” Eric admitted. “I came to investigate the center and to help her sort out the fact that Debbie may or may not have been involved in something here.”
Does Eden think Debbie was involved?
“I don’t think Eden has any clue. She’s still trying to reevaluate what her friend was to her and whether they were even friends at all.”
That’s always fun, Stefan noted in a dry tone. Not exactly the thing anybody wants to do.
“Especially when they were friends for a very long time, so anything I say doesn’t hit quite right.
Eden’s got all these memories of how her friend was, but, after a little bit of time, Eden will finally see and feel the reality and will then discover that what I’m suggesting is quite likely the truth. ”
I hope you can get to the bottom of things sooner rather than later.
“Me too. What did you think about Eden’s abilities?”
I don’t think she has any clue. She’s just instinctive …
“Powerful?”
Yes, but I’m not exactly sure in what way, he admitted. I really want to spend some more time sorting her out, but I don’t think she’ll be interested in that for quite a while.
“It depends on this weekend,” Eric replied, “and it depends on how bad things go south.”
You need to watch out because, based on what was going on just now, things could go south in a big way. Stefan muttered, I also want to talk to Dr. Maddy about it.
“Dr. Maddy? Who’s that?”
Someone who’s been doing this for a long time.
“Great. Any help you’ve got to give, I am here to listen.”
Stefan snorted. You might be there to listen, but something is happening at that place, and it’s happening in a big way. I’m just not sure that it’s contained to that place, or if it’s much bigger, like … an Origin.