Chapter 27 #2
‘No, listen to me. It knows you. It wants you. I felt it reaching up out of the earth and the stones, out of the darkness below. There’s a – a temple.
But not a holy place. That’s its centre of power.
Right there beneath you. It’s still there, Alex, waiting.
A broken god of lost places. The woods have tried to hold it back but they can’t.
Not now. Not with you there. I tried to reach out and focus on you, to strengthen you, to help guard you.
I tried to raise a dome of protective light and I-I—’ Daphne coughed, tried to clear her throat and her voice changed, gravelly and agonised.
‘Omnes contra omnes, quos amabant, convertam—’
She didn’t get any further.
All Alex heard was a dreadful, guttural choking noise and then a thud. ‘Daph?’ She sounded like she was having some kind of fit. ‘Daphne!’
The line went dead.
Shit. She didn’t know what to do. Something had happened to Daphne and she was stuck on an island an ocean away. She held the phone so tightly she thought she might crush it.
Gabe lived closest to Daphne. Minutes away. Alex dialled his number and was rewarded by a wall of noise which indicated he was in a bar somewhere.
‘Darling,’ he drawled. ‘How are your ghosts?’
Oh, she didn’t have time for this.
‘Shut up and listen. Daphne’s in trouble. You need to get to her now.’
That sobered him. Instantly. ‘Trouble? What kind of—’
‘We were on the phone. Gabe, she collapsed. I think she was at home. You have a key, don’t you? Please, go find her.’
For once, he didn’t argue. He was already moving. The background noise changed from bar to street and then he was in his car. ‘Possession?’
‘I don’t know.’ She wasn’t lying. She wasn’t sure about anything anymore. ‘It sounded bad. Really bad. She just collapsed while we were talking and the line went dead.’
‘It’s okay, Alex. I’m on the way. There in minutes. I’m going to hang up and I’ll ring you back, okay?’
And then he was gone as well.
A laugh rippled through the air around her. It was nasty and cruel.
‘Alexandra, my love. See what you do just by being here, the power you give me…’
No. No this was not happening and it was not her fault. And she was not listening to the voice.
That voice from the past, from her nightmares.
From the night that Dad died.
Tears burned her eyes as she stared at the phone screen, willing it to ring again.
This was stupid. She had to do something. She sent messages to Arnold and Eduardo and waited again, staring at her phone. Willing it to ring. Praying for it to ring.
‘Alex?’
She twisted around so fast she almost sent the mug of cold tea flying, ready to run or to fight. Ready for anything.
Nick stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the boot room, the outer door still open and the gardens dark behind him. He was bare-chested, his hair falling to his shoulders and a pair of pyjama pants hanging low on his hips. Had he been outside like that? In the woods? What had he been doing?
She opened her mouth but nothing came out.
‘Are you okay?’ She flinched as he took another step into the room and he stopped as if he saw something in her which alarmed him. He raised his hands, as if to show he wasn’t a threat. He was barefoot, grass stains on his skin. There were leaves tangled in his hair. ‘Alex? What happened?’
The phone rang behind her and she snatched it up. ‘Gabe?’
Please, oh dear God, please…
‘I’m here. She’s okay. She’s coming back to herself. I’m going to get her to an urgent care clinic as soon as I can but she’s okay. It’s okay. The guys are on the way. What did she say to you? She’s not making a lot of sense right now. She doesn’t remember what happened.’
Alex was aware of Nick still standing there, listening bemused to their conversation. He’d be able to hear Gabe. He wasn’t being quiet.
‘That we… that we were in danger here. Something about a guardian and…’ She looked up, met Nick’s steady gaze, and tried not to flinch.
The walker in the woods, Daphne had said.
He couldn’t protect her. Did she mean Nick?
‘She said she reached out, to help protect me and… something attacked her, Gabe. It sounded like something was trying to choke her.’
Alex recalled the sensation of hands tightening around her own throat in the study.
‘Her phone’s completely drained,’ Gabe murmured, and she could imagine him examining it as he spoke, drawing his own conclusions as to what had done that. ‘So’s her laptop. Everything here with a battery, I imagine.’
Gabe believed that ghosts could do that, drain power from batteries to steal the energy and manifest themselves.
And they had found cameras, recorders and other equipment drained in just such a way on more than one of their investigations.
It wasn’t evidence of ghosts, as far as Alex was concerned, but Eduardo couldn’t explain it.
He was diligent about charging everything up.
Yet it still happened. She’d put it down to faulty equipment or some kind of electromagnetic interference they didn’t understand yet.
Now she wasn’t so sure. It seemed like a flimsy excuse, a desperate grab at rationality.
And it didn’t matter. Not right now.
‘Are you sure she’s okay?’ Alex asked through a tight throat.
‘Yes. Here, do you want to talk to her?’ His voice was warm with reassurance. Gabe had always been good at that. And right now, she needed it.
‘Alex? I’m fine.’ Daphne sounded very small and tired. But she was herself again. ‘Really. Just a bit wobbly now.’
Wobbly. What a word to use. ‘You’ll go to a doctor, right?’ Alex didn’t mean her tone to come out so harsh but it did and she couldn’t help it.
‘I promise,’ Daphne murmured. ‘Gabe’s going to take me in the morning.
It’d only be an ER now. Better I see someone who understands.
’ Because if she turned up in the average ER claiming to have been attacked by a ghost, they’d probably medicate her and lock her up while charging her a small fortune for the privilege.
Daphne had confessed that was one of her greatest fears.
Alex suddenly understood it far too keenly. ‘Gabe’s looking after me. Don’t worry.’
Gabe took the phone back. ‘I’ll keep you updated,’ he told her. ‘I’ll stay here with her tonight and we’ll make sure she’s fine. Stay safe, okay? You aren’t there alone, are you?’
Her eyes met Nick’s again. They were darkly beautiful and they watched her intently, bright with concern.
‘No. Nick’s here.’
‘Huh, right.’ That didn’t sound positive. But at least he didn’t argue this time. He had concerns enough of his own. ‘Be careful, Alex. I don’t like any of this.’
Neither did she. And she didn’t like his implications either. ‘Nothing is going to happen between me and Nick, Gabe. Nothing at all.’
It felt like a lie even as she said it.
He wasn’t buying it either. ‘Yeah, so you say.’
‘I do. And anyway, it’s none of your business anymore.’
She hung up and steeled herself, ready to turn around and apologise.
Nick didn’t need to be in the middle of her, Gabe and whatever overly protective thing her ex had going now.
It was excruciatingly embarrassing, with her coming to oust him.
Being stuck in this wretched building, and all the weird attraction and strange goings-on, was just heaping in on top of that.
But he didn’t need to have overheard that. Or her outright rejection of him.
She really ought to apologise. She really ought to explain.
But when she looked for him, Nick was gone.