Vision of Darkness (31 page)

“Pru—”

She glanced over her shoulder and smiled. “If you’ll excuse us, Silas, Prudence and I have a date on the tower with the catwalk.” 

CHAPTER 33

Nick blinked awake to the feel of a wet tongue lapping ice-cold rain from his face. Triton whimpered, nuzzling his cheek as if to say,
Get up!

“Good boy.” His voice came out a croak. He cleared his throat, knotted his hand in Triton’s scruff, and tried to push the dog back and sit up, but his head whirled.

Goddamn Alex.

He looped his arms around Triton, inhaling the scent of wet fur and smoke, and let the dog pull him upright. “Good boy. Good dog.”

Triton stiffened, a low rumble rising in his throat as he peered toward the house. The silhouette of a man jogged down the porch steps, too short by a couple inches to be Alex.

“You’re alive,” he said as he approached, wiping the sleeve of his white button-up across his soot-smeared face. “Good. I could use the help. Let’s go.”

“I’m not goin’ anywhere but inside that house.”

The stranger shook his head, his blond ponytail flicking off rainwater. “The kitchen’s on fire. Tried putting it out, but that’s not happening. Alex and Pru are gone. There’s a big puddle of blood on the floor.”

Fire. Shit. Nick’s gaze shot to the lighthouse tower. He didn’t see anything, just the light circling, but his gut told him it was too late to prevent the past from repeating itself. Time to go on the offensive, move to plan B, and hope to hell it worked. He shoved himself to his feet and wobbled, his stomach threatening to heave. Goddamn Alex to hell and back. His jaw flamed with every word he spoke and he was no doubt slightly concussed. Driving in this condition was an unnecessary risk, one he refused to chance, but he had to stop Lovie before she hurt anyone.

Nick considered the stranger. His pricey clothes jarred with his week-old beard stubble and wavy, dark blond hair pulled back in a tail. Whoever he was, friend or foe, he was the only option Nick had at the moment.

“I need you to drive me to the grocery store.”

The stranger’s face scrunched up. “Dude, your friend’s in serious trouble wherever he is. Now’s not the time for a case of the munchies.”

“I need salt.” Nick went to his truck, grabbed his bag from the seat and a shovel from the bed. He eyed the beat-up old muscle car that had blocked him in. “That death trap yours?”

Without waiting for an answer, he opened the GTO’s passenger side door. It squeaked loudly. Inside, the leather seats were faded and ripped and the ash tray overflowed with butts. Stale cigarette smoke clung to the interior like a layer of city smog and rosary beads swung from the rearview mirror. In a clear-front leather case on the dash next to a holstered gun was a private investigator’s license for Mikhail Harkov.

“You’re the P.I. Alex spoke with about the missing girl?” Nick asked.

“Not missing anymore,” Mischa muttered and slid behind the wheel. “Fuck me, I hate finding them like that.” He crossed himself then fired the engine. “Mind telling me what the hell’s going on here?”

“No time right now.” By his reckoning they had fifteen minutes, at most, to get to the cemetery, dig up Lovie True, and salt and burn her bones before history made a repeat performance. If it wasn’t already too late. He looked at the rosary and thought of Alex’s little crucifix. He wasn’t much the praying type, but he sent one up anyway.

Please, please, let him not be too late.

Nick felt an odd probing sensation in his head and touched his temple, squeezing his eyes shut against it. The sensation stopped and three words whispered through his mind:
The operator’s dead.

His gaze whipped over to Mischa, who was watching him with hard gray-blue eyes. “You’re one of us?”

No shit, Sherlock
, Mischa said inside Nick’s mind.

A telepath. Holy hell. Sully was going to shit a brick. “So you know about the Sierra Group?”

“Know about them? I’ve been chasing down those motherfucking killers for years,” Mischa said out loud and crossed himself again. “But the operator after Alex is dead. Someone flattened his skull.” He scanned the lighthouse grounds. “It’s that ghost, isn’t it? I knew she was up to no good.”

Nick didn’t bother trying to figure out how Mischa knew about Lovie. The man was a mind reader, after all. “She’s tryin’ for an instant replay of her death, starring Alex and Pru.” 

“I got the salt.” Mischa slammed the junker into reverse, threw his arm over the seat, and backed out of the drive like the devil was chasing them. “Where’s her body? Let’s burn the bitch.”    

***

Each step was a mile. Alex hoisted himself up the twist of cast iron stairs, muscles quivering as he hand-over-handed it up the railing, breath coming in short gasps.

Stupid
, inner cynic said, but at least he sounded like he was in just as much pain.
You’re making it worse.

“Don’t care,” Alex said through his teeth and kept his eye on the prize: the little square of light at the top of the stairs. The hatch door leading to the catwalk. Pru was headed up there. Lovie too. Her footsteps vibrated through the iron into his arms. She was almost to the top. Too close, and he lagged too far behind.

No. He bared down and commanded himself to keep moving. One step at a time. As long as he was breathing, history would not repeat itself.

Rain spattered through the opening, turning the iron staircase into black ice, and his numb foot slipped out from under him on the next step. He went down hard on his bad knee, the crack like a gun’s report.

Forget it. Keep moving.

Something jarred loose. He tried to yank himself upright, put pressure on that knee and collapsed again with a groan. Blinding pain knifed up his leg, so bad it overshadowed the ache of the gunshot wound. Cold sweat poured into his eyes. Or maybe that was rain. Gasping, he hooked his arms over the railing and hung there, boneless, energy drained.

So this is what pain feels like
, he thought semiconsciously as shivers wracked his body and shook the whole staircase. It had been so long since he’d really felt physical pain, not since Granddad scarred up his chest with a butcher knife and put him in ICU when he was twelve.

The knife had hurt. After that, bare-fist beatings and leather belts paled in comparison.

Theo never got knifed for mouthing back. He barely got grounded. How was that fair? He’d sit by Alex’s bed and talk about how wrong Granddad was and yet never did a damn thing to stop it. Even the ICU staff had done nothing. They all looked at him with sad eyes and whispered about his yellowed bruises and healed broken bones, but they took Granddad at his word that he was “clumsy” and did nothing about it. How was that fair? It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t.

Damn, the knife had hurt. About like this pain.

Tears blurred Alex’s vision as his rambling thoughts mashed into unintelligible sludge.

Give it a rest,
inner cynic pleaded.
Let’s lay down right here. Just for a sec.

Overhead, a shadow crossed the hatch door, blocking the light. Pru.

“Fuck off,” he told his inner cynic. He wouldn’t rest until she was safe.

Alex forced his drooping eyes to open, compelled his shaking muscles to move, his numbed fingers to wrap around the next baluster. If his damn legs didn’t want to hold him, he’d crawl the rest of the way.

One step at a time.

Blood trickled, soaking his shirt, plastering his jeans to his leg.

One step at a time.

His dead leg screamed and his arms shook with each jerky movement.

Almost there.

One. Step. At. A. Time.

Dragging himself onto the landing at the top of the stairs, Alex stared through the opening five feet above his head. She was out there on the catwalk, hiking up her skirt, fitting her bare foot onto the lower railing. She was going to jump.

“Pru…no!” With a surge of adrenaline, he lurched to his feet, grasped the edges of the opening and hauled his body onto the narrow catwalk. Fresh blood spurted from the gunshot wound, gushing between his fingers as he pressed a hand to his side. “Come…down from...there.”

She spun and snarled at him, blue eyes as wild as the frozen ocean wind whipping at her hair. The lighthouse beam twirled around, spotlighting her. “Silas! You’re supposed to be dead.”

“Please, stop. Let’s…talk.”

“I’m all talked out, bub.”

Desperation propelled him to his feet and he limped a step toward her. “Don’t do…this. Please…I love you.”

Her expression changed for a split-second, softened and filled with emotion. “Oh, Alex.”

Then the change was gone. Lovie regained control. She shook her head hard. “Don’t feed me that line, Silas. You love her!”

Lie to her. C’mon, man, you’re good at playing a role.

Straightening as best he could, feeling the heat of his blood gushing out underneath his hand, he met her gaze. “No, I don’t.”

“Oh, yeah! That baby vamp, Prudence
.
I saw you necking with her, petting her all over. God, first that quiff Olivia Mae and now
her
?” She spat the pronoun as if it tasted rancid. “I guess that’s what I get for marrying a big six like you.”

God, he hated this, feeling this helpless. If he could just…do something…

He shuffled closer, tried to grab her, but his depth perception was out of whack and his fingers only brushed the soft cotton edge of her dress before she stepped out of his reach.

He groaned. “No. Lovie, please. Come…down.”

“Uh-uh. I’m gonna bump her off. Then you’ll have to come back to me.”

Pru swayed on the railing. The beam swung around again and Alex’s vision wavered. He blinked hard as a cold heaviness settled into his muscles and the pain faded. Going into shock, he thought. Lost too much blood, too fast. He stumbled forward another step and gripped the railing by Pru’s foot with fat, numb fingers. If he could wrap his hand around her ankle, yank her down off that ledge…then he could die and not worry Olivia would topple over, following him into the afterlife.

No—no, not Olivia. Pru. It was Pru standing barefoot on that railing with the rose tattoo on her ankle. It was Pru wearing that ugly-ass green dress. It was Lovie making this all happen again.

He sagged, wrapping his arm around the railing to keep upright. Below, waves cracked in white clouds against the jagged rocks of the beach. He couldn’t let Olivia fall down there. He loved her too much to—no, not Olivia. Pru.

Pru!

The world tilted sideways and he collapsed, whacking his head hard on the railing. No pain. There should be pain.

She stood over him on the thin, wet railing, balancing with a hand braced on the limestone wall of the tower, a smirk on her face. Lovie was still going to jump and kill Pru and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

Helpless. Like the boy he’d been, hiding from Granddad’s temper, he was completely helpless again.

Alex shoved himself to his side, watched as his heart, beating clumsily in his chest, pumped his life onto the weather-washed wood of the catwalk. The lighthouse beam swung around again, showing him how much blood he’d lost. Wide, oil-slick streaks of it. Darkness ebbed in the corners of his conscious.

You’re an idiot,
inner cynic said faintly.
You hear me?
A fucking idiot for not believing Pru’s ghost stories.

He couldn’t even tell the cynic to fuck off this time. When you’re right, you’re right.

He looked at Pru as his vision went out of focus, holding her face in his mind as his life faded away.

***

“Which way?”

Nick stopped moving among the old, chipped tombstones, halted Mischa with a lifted hand, and let his senses reach out, searching. He may not have an extra sense like Mischa or Alex, but the five he did have worked pretty damn good. He felt the rain thickening into sleet as it pattered over his head, smelled the promise of snow and the rot of autumn leaves, tasted the metallic zing of his own fear. He focused on the rows of graves. With better than average night vision, he could make out most of the names on the closer tombstones, but the graveyard was big enough that it would take too long to search through them one by one.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “You pickin’ up anythin’?”

Mischa snorted. “Dude, I’m a telepath, not a medium. How the fuck should I know?”

Medium.

Well, shit. Nick whipped out his phone and hit speed dial. “Jacob, need some help here, pal.”

“Alex?” Jacob said.

“Ghost with a massive grudge against him possessed Pru. We need to salt and burn her bones, assuming that’ll even work, but we have no clue where she’s buried. Got any tricks to find out? Her name’s Adeline Barnett True.”

“Oh, it’ll definitely work. Hang on.” He muttered away from the phone in a one-sided conversation, then came back. “Case can do it.”

Nick opened his mouth to protest but snapped it closed again without uttering a word. Now was not the time to argue over whether K.C. Archer was still kicking around this plane of existence eight years after a RPG blew him apart in Iraq. Nick was an open-minded guy—had to be considering he hung out with psychics and had a couple of his own special idiosyncrasies—but boy, was it a kick in the gut to hear Jacob refer to Case as if he was still alive.