Chapter Twenty #2
“That’s wild,” Bishop stated. “You crossed paths with it before, so it’s familiar to you.”
Well, putting it that way really made Julian twitchy.
It was also why they couldn’t run.
It would keep finding them.
“Yeah, tell me about it. I don’t like that part,” he admitted. “If that’s the case, that tells me it likely knows how we work. It’s not only been studying Genesis, but it’s been studying us for years, and likely because it knew we’d help her.”
Yeah, that was bad.
For all of them.
When Tori covered her ears, and Julian did the same, both cops stared at them.
They were hearing something they weren’t.
“What?” Honor asked.
Julian cringed.
“Jesus! The sound!”
Both Honor and Bishop had no freaking clue what they were talking about. The mansion was absolutely silent. Before they grabbed their heads, the only noise had been their talking.
Tori grimaced.
“It’s so loud.”
Again, nothing was there.
As Tori began walking away, both cops followed, and they pulled their sidearms.
Would they be of any use?
No, but they had to do something. Dealing with all of this made them both feel…unsafe.
As they followed, Tori led them right to the master bedroom. Bishop knew where they were heading, only because she’d been upstairs in Ridge and Wynter’s home.
When Julian pushed the door open, their skin rippled with goosebumps.
“Oh, I don’t like that,” Honor stated, pulling the rosary out that she grabbed as a spare. “It feels dark.”
Yeah, it did.
Tori moved into the bedroom, and not far away, where Wynter had died, they both saw it.
Julian grabbed his wife’s arm.
“Don’t!”
Both cops were freaking clueless as to what the two were seeing.
“What?”
Tori explained.
“There’s a black hole in the floor. There’s something in it and moving around.”
Jesus.
H.
Christ.
That didn’t sound good. In fact, that sounded absolutely horrible to both cops.
“What?” Honor asked, her finger on the trigger, as her gun was pointed at her feet.
Well, there was only one way to find out.
She began moving closer, much to her husband’s horror.
“Victoria!”
She ignored him.
As she stared down into the inky black stain, what she saw horrified her.
There were so many twisted faces looking back up at her, clawing to get out.
Before she could get any closer, Julian grabbed his wife and pulled her back from it.
“What?” Bishop asked, looking around. “What do you see that we don’t?”
Honestly, they were damn lucky they weren’t seeing this—especially Bishop.
She was living next to this.
“Holy fuck,” Julian muttered as they both saw hands appear, as something tried to claw out of the tar-like stain that was both a hole and wasn’t.
Tori told them.
As the sound made her ears want to bleed, she somehow got the words out.
“It’s like a pit of souls. They’re being absorbed into this darkness. Like dissolving like they would in a stomach. They’re trying to get out.”
Jesus.
That was horrible.
Now they understood when Avalon said if they got out, they wouldn’t be the same.
“Wynter is in there?” Honor asked. “In that hole of souls?” she inquired, crossing herself for good measure.
Tori nodded.
“I think so. I think they’re all in there. There’s a tear in that plane, and they’re trying to get out.”
Immediately, she crossed herself, and she wasn’t even catholic.
Oh, and that told them how bad it was. When you were borrowing from other religions to protect yourself, there was a desperation in that.
There was one thing that Tori and Julian knew for sure.
Ridge could never live here again.
“This place is dangerous,” Julian admitted. “That’s a portal of some sort. A foul one.”
Tori kept catching those flashes from her peripheral, and she had no idea what they were, but they were getting wilder the closer she was to that inky hole.
“Well, may I suggest that we get out of here and somewhere safe. I don’t like this feeling,” she admitted.
Well, if his wife didn’t like the feeling, and he didn’t like the feeling, staying was NOT an option.
Not.
One.
Bit.
As they made their way out of the house, Bishop was sick to her stomach.
Her home wasn’t far away, and while she couldn’t feel that darkness here, Lucian would be able to. It scared her that it would be drawn to him.
He was psychic, and the last thing she wanted was for her children to be near this.
Trust and believe, they WOULD BE moving.
Outside of the mansion, Tori could finally take her hands off of her ears.
“Bish, you can’t live here. If that thing escapes us, you and Lucian have to get the hell out of here. Salem might just be swallowed whole.”
Oh, well, if that happened, Bishop somehow knew that where they went wouldn’t matter. If it followed the Littlemoons, and could move around freely, none of them would be safe.
This thing, riding some psychic human, would come for them.
They’d be hunted because they were tied to Oracle.
This was going to end.
BADLY.
* * * L I T T L E M O O N * * *
Littlemoon Investigations
Twenty Minutes Later
Afternoon
When they returned to the office, it was pretty quiet in there. Julian was damn grateful for that, too.
After seeing that darkness, he wanted nothing more than to get as far from it as possible. If it was ever possible, he wanted to climb into one of their witches to lay low.
Yeah, that said it all.
The energy here felt a million times better, and for that, he was damn grateful.
Only, they had to share what they’d found.
Avalon and her ‘team’ were sitting on the couches, and they were meditating. She was moving between Genesis and Lucian, placing her hand on their heads, doing something Julian didn’t understand.
“Are they okay?” he whispered to Nate, hoping the man could help him understand what this was all about. While he was all over the woo-woo, being psychic, this looked…
Different.
Nate explained.
“She’s clearing their energy. At some point, they are going to have to go back in, and she’s worried. My wife feels like the energy in town is turning. That’s never good.”
Oh, shit.
Well, yeah.
They’d felt that too as they were out moving around in Salem. The darkness felt…looming.
Something was coming to a head.
He’d bet on it.
As there was a giant crash of lightning, everyone jumped. Well, everyone but Lucian and Avalon. Genesis on the other hand broke out of her meditation and looked around.
“It’s okay,” Avalon offered. “It’s just a storm.”
Only, no one there felt like it was ‘just a storm’. With each passing minute, it felt…like it was coming for them.
When Bishop and Honor disappeared into the conference room, Julian wasn’t sure if they were running or legitimately needed a place to work.
But he didn’t blame them.
He wanted to run for his life.
They felt the energy pulse in the room, and everyone glanced over at Oracle.
“He’s about to take another life,” Avalon admitted. “He’s found her, and I can feel his intent. Once he takes this life, he’s going to be stronger than me. I might not be able to hold up in the static.”
Well, no one wanted to hear that.
Especially her husband.
Tori felt like she needed to know what they’d just encountered, and since this was no longer their area of expertise, she hoped Avalon could help them.
“We felt it as we moved closer to Ridge’s home,” she admitted, and as she did, Lucian came out of his trance. He broke his mediation and focused on her.
“What did you find?” he asked. “Because what I just saw didn’t make me feel good.”
Oh, well, welcome to the club.
Only, before she could tell them, Avalon went there.
“Lucian, stay out of the static. It’s waiting for us. We’ll have one chance to get in there to distract it and find it.”
He was aware, but he could feel it calling to them. The voices were in danger, and he didn’t like not helping them. It was his job, after all.
“I didn’t go in deep. I can’t. I feel so helpless against this.”
Well, Tori shared the rest.
“We saw where he’s putting them. I’ll use the words that best explain it. Hell’s mouth.”
Well, that didn’t sound good.
Tori kept explaining.
“It’s in the same room where Wynter died. There’s this black, inky hole. Like something is torn open. They were trying to climb out as they looked like they were being…absorbed.”
Avalon stopped moving.
“It was in their room?”
Tori nodded.
“Yeah, INCHES from where Wynter pulled the trigger. No wonder she couldn’t fight it. It wanted me to fall into the tear.”
Now, Avalon was curious.
“You saw an opening?” she asked. “A legitimate opening into the darkness?”
She nodded.
“Yeah,” she admitted. “Let’s just say, it’s horrific.”
Avalon moved closer. Now, she was thinking about what she could do to help stay ahead of this entity. It was odd that they’d been able to see it.
That wasn’t normal.
She couldn’t even ‘see’ it. This mistake might be a way to beat it.
“Mind if I touch you?” she asked the woman. “It’s better for me to see it in your head than to hear about it.”
Tori shrugged.
“Sure.”
Approaching, she placed her hands on Tori’s shoulders, and the woman stared into her blank eyes. All of a sudden, Tori felt like she was falling into a field of soft, cotton-y snow. Flower petals tumbled around her, and there was melodious laughter.
Until there wasn’t.
Once more, she was back at Ridge’s home and standing in that bedroom.
Someone was damn good at astral projection, or as her husband’s people called it, dream walking.
Just.
Like.
The.
Killer.
Tori was beginning to believe someone else could dream weave with the best of them.
“Show me,” she heard, and Tori did.
She walked her through the mansion and to the space. The static sound was less painful, but she could still hear it.
As she showed the woman, Avalon whispered into her mind.
It can’t get you. I’m in control.
If she said so.
As she gave her the tour, Avalon moved closer to the inkiness in the master bedroom and stared down into it.
“What are you doing?”
Oracle explained.
It doesn’t know about this tear. The dead opened it up so that someone would see it and help them. They needed you to find it, so you could tell me.
Tori watched, and that’s when Avalon did something she hadn’t expected.