Revelations: Book One of the Lalassu (17 page)

“Yes. No. Sort of.” She shook her head. “We both wanted Redneck to pay for hurting Tanisha. For threatening you.”

“And in here?” he asked cautiously.

“No. That was me denying both of us the use of this body. I didn’t want it to hurt any more people.” Dani winced as she touched the bruise forming on her temple. “If I surrender, it gets to move in full time. I become a sideline act in my own body.”

“That’s terrible,” Michael gasped.

“That’s the Babylon legacy. It’s what everyone expected me to do. My mother was High Priestess for a time. We moved all the time, staying out of public attention. Most
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do. Coming home, I’d never know if the trailer would be hitched up to the van and we’d be leaving. Mom used to scare the crap out of me when she was in Goddess mode. We never knew what she was going to say or do. We mostly took care of ourselves and tried to stay out of her way.” Her voice might be flat, but Michael caught the tremors.

“But your mother is okay now?” There had to be a solution somewhere.

“Not even close.” A bitter laugh escaped her cracked lips. “She spent years barely coming out of the trailer. It wasn’t until we moved to Perdition that she started talking to us again and then only to demand that I take up my appointed role. She’s relentless.”

Michael could feel the echoes of abandonment and horror in Dani. He wanted to hold her, but he forced himself to focus as she continued.

“I think she feels guilty because she burned out her connection to the gods when I was a kid. It blinded her, and that’s when she retreated. I had to go through the transition of the Huntress becoming part of me all on my own. I knew what I was supposed to do but the idea of surrendering to that thing… Well, you’ve felt it.” Dani stared at her hands. “Our ancestors were the temple harlot priestesses in ancient Babylon. Our touch could bring a man or woman face to face with the Goddess. That’s how it’s supposed to work, but that’s not what it feels like to me.”

He couldn’t pull together the words to respond to what she’d revealed. Knowing she had a monster inside her, that it would eventually consume her. What could anyone possibly say to alleviate such knowledge?

Her phone trilled, forgotten on the cracked tile floor. Dani picked it up wearily to answer it. “Hi, Mom, what is it?”

Tinny screams and smashing came through the miniature speaker. Dani straightened, energy returning along with purpose.

“Dani, you have to come home. Now!” A woman’s voice came through clearly.

Followed by the click of the line going dead.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Michael didn’t ask any questions, matching Dani stride for stride as they hurtled out of the club, leaving a shocked Raoul and Ruby in their wake. But he was careful to avoid any accidental contact with her. It hurt, cutting deep into her soul, but she couldn’t blame him, not now that he knew what was inside her. If only the pain could slash out the Huntress, slice into its coils to leave it to bleed to death.

Reaching the convertible, Dani barely gave Michael time to slide into the seat before her foot slammed the gas pedal to the floor.

“Do you think they found your family?” Michael struggled with the seatbelt.

Dani’s only answer was the tightening of her fingers on the steering wheel and the increasing thrum of the engine. She refused to arrive too late again. This would not be a repetition of Vincent and Eric.

“How long is it going to take to get there?” he asked.

“Not as long as it usually does,” she replied grimly.

The trip may have defied the laws of physics on several levels. Dani kept the gas pedal firmly pressed to the car floor, ignoring stop signs, stop lights and all other traffic. Fear threatened to cloud her mind and her focus, so she ruthlessly suppressed it—or so she told herself.

If the people who held Vincent and Eric tracked down the rest of the family, this could be a trap. Chewing at her lip, Dani discarded the possibility. They already held Vincent and Eric, leaving Gwen as the next logical prize. They wouldn’t care if she was insane as long as her visions could give accurate information.

Each second ticking by grated on her raw nerves. Knowing she was traveling as fast as humanly possible did nothing to reassure her.
Hold on. Just hold on.
She didn’t believe in her family’s gods, but she still prayed.

To her right, Michael’s knuckles and face blanched in stark contrast to the dark seats. Each glimpse added to the thick stew of guilt and fear.
I did the right thing.
The assertion rang hollow, even to herself. He would never understand.

I should be glad. If he hates me, he’ll be out of range. Nothing further to explore.
She tried to spin the night into something reassuring, but nothing changed the memory of his face after seeing what she’d done to Redneck.

She’d disillusioned him. Part of her wanted to be angry about her guilt for failing to live up to his white-hat hero expectations. But all she felt was the shame. She’d pulled him into something ugly and nasty, showed him the monsters in the closet and under the bed… and the ones inside her.

Dani risked a glance at him. He leaned against the door, clutching the oh-shit bar and staring out the windshield. As far from her as it was possible to get in the confines of the car. He didn’t want to be anywhere near her.

Shoving self-pity and introspection away to reexamine at a time when she wasn’t hurtling down narrow country roads at four times the legal limit, she scanned the countryside with a predator’s instincts. Any movement, any deviation caught her attention.

The disguised turn-off loomed in the distance. Dani spun the car hard, spraying gravel and ripping away concealing foliage. Forced to slow down to avoid becoming a crash-test on the winding lane, she resented every tap of the brake.

The engine roared as they broke through the protective forest into the family’s clearing to find…

Nothing.

No goon squad. No black-ops helicopter. Just slumbering country scenery.

“What the fuck?” Dani swore as she stepped out. The lights burned peacefully in the house windows. No gunplay interrupted the silence of the woods. Granted, her arrival probably scared every woodland animal into shock, but from the call, she’d expected more. Her instincts screamed that she must have missed something.

“Where is everyone?” Michael asked.

Dani stood perfectly still, outlined against the yellow light beaming from the windows. He could see her inhaling deeply.
Testing scents
, Michael realized.

“There’s nothing here.” She frowned, chewing on her lip.

You mean you nearly turned us into road pizza or tree sculptures for nothing?
He’d never been more sure he was about to die than in the last half hour. He wanted to yell, vent the tension drawing his skin down tight, but he kept quiet.

The door of the house opened, and a man in a wheelchair came onto the porch. His broad shoulders and strong arms gave him a strong, commanding presence despite the chair. From the thick dark hair and olive skin, Michael guessed this was Dani’s father. “Thank the gods. You’re here,” the man sighed. “Both of you. Hurry inside, she’s waiting.”

“What’s going on?” Dani asked, hurrying up the ramp.

“We can’t be sure. Gwen had an incident—”

“You called me out here because of a tantrum? She has them every fucking day, Dad. She begs me to save people who died in the Civil War!” Dani stopped in her tracks.

Michael blinked, not sure he’d heard correctly.
Who’s Gwen?

“This is different.” Walter’s quiet assertion allowed no possibility for argument. His dark eyes studied Michael carefully as they stepped into the house. Wheelchair or not, Michael knew Walter would take care of any potential threat personally.

Dani’s irritation snapped loud and clear with each clicking footstep as she crossed the kitchen floor. Michael worried that one more stress would permanently break her.

The sound of a soothing lullaby broken by whimpering caught his attention. It was close. He slid around Dani and her father, the two of them still arguing. A short dimly lit hall opened off the kitchen. The sounds were coming from there, from the dark room at the end.

As his eyes adjusted, he could make out an older woman kneeling on a mound of quilts and blankets. Her long hair fell over her face in streaks of gray and black. She stroked something on her lap, something he couldn’t quite make out.

At first he thought it must be a child, but then he took in the proportions of the long pasty limbs curled into themselves, the size of the close-shorn head.

Disbelief struggled to quash the revelation. It was a young woman, in her late teens or early twenties. From the stale scent of sweat and the pallid gleam of her skin, one who lived entirely within this room. A room made of inexpertly mortared irregular stones, floor, walls, and ceiling. No window broke the craggy expanses. The only light came from a few scattered candles burning in empty soup tins. A heavy ceramic pot in the corner told him he wasn’t mistaken.

“You keep her trapped in here?” Despite a lifetime of maintaining professional composure, anger sharpened his voice and narrowed his features.

The woman raised her head and her milky eyes met Michael’s horrified gaze. “Not trapped. Protected.”

“She needs to be protected from you.” Michael fumbled for his phone, plans of calling the police or protective services running through his mind. She would need a guardian. The state would provide one.

Walter’s hand darted out, snagging his wrist, trapping the mobile in his pocket. Michael hadn’t heard him or Dani approach, but he absorbed the man’s exhaustion and long-held fear. He couldn’t help comparing it to Martha, Bernie’s mother. Neither of them felt hope for the future any longer, yet kept fighting anyway. But this family had fought a futile battle for much longer.

“You did this to her,” he whispered, comprehending.
Not trapped. Protected as well as they could.

“We had to. She’s a medium. A powerful one. Probably the most powerful one in history.” Walter let him go. “They wouldn’t leave her alone.”

“It’s why we moved to Perdition. We needed somewhere safe to build a solid structure to keep the dead out. Stone and salt are the only things that work and there can’t be any chinks or gaps for them to slip though.” Dani took up the narrative, gesturing to the thick line of white crystals around the door. “No electrical wiring to ride in. No plumbing. When we carried her in here, it was the first time she’d ever known silence.”

“Until she broke the salt,” Dani’s mother snapped, still not ready to forgive the trespass and accusations.

“She broke the salt?” Dani paled.

Michael knelt by the doorway. Sure enough, there were a series of thin gaps in the crystals as though someone had clawed them.

“She’s been agitated all evening. I was trying to calm her down but she ripped right through the salt line. Then she started screaming for you, Danielle.” Her mother transferred her blind glare to her other daughter.

Gwen moaned. “Did they come? Tell her she has to come. Both of them.”

“I’m here, Gwen.” Dani’s earlier irritation vanished completely. She knelt by her sister’s bed.

Gwen groped blindly, her skeletal fingers clutching at Dani’s strong hands. “Did he come? Did you find him? The invisible man?”

“I found him.” Dani glanced over her shoulder at Michael.

Me?
This was beyond anything he’d expected. He couldn’t quite begin to process it.

“He should leave,” Dani’s mother insisted.

“Virginia—” Walter held up his hand.

Gwen writhed as her body curled with pain. “Won’t leave me alone. Won’t take no for an answer. Screaming in blood, everything shimmers.” She continued muttering nonsense about blood and illusions while the rest of them exchanged helpless shrugs.

“She was so insistent that we call. But then she ripped the phone out of my hand, screaming the shadows would trace it.” Virginia cradled her lost daughter. “Whatever has her is strong.”

“What did she mean about the invisible man?” Michael asked, keeping his attention focused on Dani.

“Something the dead showed her. I needed to find the invisible man who sees hidden truths, or else the stars would be blotted out one by one.” Dani pushed her hands through her hair.

“That’s what you meant with Vapor. This person hunting
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, he’s capturing them but no one realized. But how on earth am I supposed to stop him blotting out the stars?” He looked around as if the answer might be written on the walls or floor around him.

“Help me find him and stop him from taking anyone else,” Dani replied bluntly.

“Who are you?” Walter’s steel-eyed scrutiny eloquently established his mistrust far better than any mere words could have managed.

“My name is Michael Brooks. I’m a behavioral therapist.” Even as he said the words, he knew the answers were inadequate.

“He’s a psychometrist,” Dani explained. “He gets impression through touch.”

“I am aware what a psychometrist is.” Walter’s eyes never left Michael. “I’ve never heard of him.”

“He’s not part of the community, but he is one of us.”

A frantic scream from Gwen interrupted the interrogation.

“Let me see if I can help her. Please.” Michael took a step toward, her but Walter blocked his path.

Gwen screamed louder.

Michael shoved his hair back with both hands, fighting a nearly physical compulsion to help. “Please. This is what I do.”

“Let him, Dad. He won’t hurt her.”

Walter wheeled back reluctantly, his chair teetering on the uneven surface.

Michael ignored him, kneeling beside mother and daughter. Gwen clung tightly to Virginia, her eyes flickering over unseen things, just like Bernie’s did. He wanted to take the time to chase down the implications of that thought, but Gwen needed his help now.

“She’s lost in the voices.” Virginia’s voice thickened with tears.

“Then let me see if I can help her find her way home.” Michael took a deep breath and reached for Gwen’s hand.