Forever Mortal--A Shade of Mind--Book 2 Read online

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  The phone buzzed for the third time. A news reporter on the wall screen in front of the bed was still elaborating on the death of Detective Adamson.

  Madeline stared at the phone. ‘No Caller ID’ appeared on its small screen. “How do you know it’s Stefan? It could be Jo.”

  On the other side of the bed, Ciaran tossed his clothes on. Madeline winced. The two bullet wounds and the five gashes on his body hadn’t had a chance to heal. Not that she was one to complain about the explosive sex they’d just had—that certainly hadn’t helped his recovery—but she wished they had more time to let him rest.

  “If it’s Jo, she’ll leave a message,” Ciaran said.

  “Jo said she was going to your London headquarters. We don’t know if she was with Adamson when Stefan killed him.” She knew she was talking nonsense again. She tended to babble when she was nervous. And she had every right to be.

  Ten years in journalism should have taught her better than letting herself be used by Stefan to get inside Mon Ciel. Stefan had killed Mrs. Rutherford and had shot Ciaran and Tadgh and then fled without getting what he wanted.

  Stefan had arranged the kidnapping of Jo. Madeline should have anticipated what he would do when blackmailing Ciaran didn’t help him obtain the information he wanted. He would kidnap Jo again. Damn it! Madeline cursed to herself.

  “If he hasn’t had a chance to talk to me, he won’t get to demand anything. He will keep Jo alive because she’s his currency now, am I right?” she asked Ciaran again, more to reassure herself that she was doing the right thing.

  Ciaran headed toward the door, and she trailed behind him. He said nothing but headed down the hall toward the old section of Mon Ciel. The phone in Madeline’s hand had stopped buzzing.

  Ciaran stopped in front of a double-doored room. The rusty handles suggested it hadn’t had visitors for a while. He gazed briefly at the handles. A flash of pain crossed his eyes, so quickly that Madeline didn’t notice.

  Ciaran cleared his throat, a tell-tale sign that he was about to say something difficult for him. “This used to be my room,” Ciaran said and shoved his hands in his pockets.

  She nodded and waited patiently for the next bit of information.

  “Juliette died in here. I left Mon Ciel after that incident. The room—the whole place, in fact—was deserted after that. We still have maintenance staff. But the family rarely comes back here.”

  She pulled one of his hands from his pocket and rubbed her thumb in his palm. She didn’t know when or why she had developed that habit, but she often did it to herself whenever she needed to stay calm. She hadn’t realized she was doing it to Ciaran, but by the time she noticed, it was too late. He was watching her gesture with a twinkle in his eyes.

  “If the memories are too painful, why dig them up? What are you looking for here, Ciaran?”

  She pulled her hand away. But he grabbed it and held on for a short moment before giving it a slight squeeze. Then he sighed and let her hand go.

  “There are two places in the house that Stefan didn’t search. One is this room, and the other is the old lab. He believed Juliette hid the crucifix in a statue, which suggests she didn’t tell him much.”

  Ciaran turned, facing her now. “Before we enter this room, I need to tell you something.”

  He proceeded to tell her about the incident in which Juliette died.

  “I didn’t return to the room afterward. Mother told me it hadn’t been cleaned up because she thought I wouldn’t care for that. What I’m looking for in the room is a trace of the air bender. He had some kind of connection to Juliette. Maybe he controlled her in some way to learn our family secrets. He might be controlling Stefan now. If we can trace him, we’ll have the upper hand when we talk to Stefan.”

  Madeline nodded. “I didn’t realize Stefan had anything to do with aliens. Not that I know anything about him . . .”

  Ciaran smiled. “An air bender doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with extraterrestrials. It could be some kind of an earthly talent.”

  Madeline scowled. “I feel so stupid.”

  “Don’t. It would be strange for you to know about these sort of things.” Ciaran chuckled. “I know because it’s my field of interest, and I research the topic quite extensively.”

  “I know, but it still doesn’t make me feel any less stupid.”

  “Humm. How about this explanation? It has to do with dimensions. You know our standard three-dimensional world.”

  “Yes—vertical, horizontal, depth. And time is another dimension, I hear.” She grinned.

  “You see, you’re not too bad after all. Anything with a status of being that changes constitutes a dimension. Our mind is a dimension, for example.”

  “Like we are changing our minds all the time?”

  Ciaran laughed. “No. That’s an ingrained human psychological problem. Status of mind is more like a perception of the world in general. Let’s say you believe this world is heaven, and you behave accordingly. That’s your status of mind. When that status changes, it constitutes a dimension.”

  “Okay. I get it.”

  “There are people who have the ability to influence other people’s status of mind. They can use their talent to manipulate people and drive their behavior.”

  “Like hypnotizing people?”

  Ciaran shook his head. “I’d call people with that talent mind benders. They can change your mind’s dimension by simply wanting you to do so. They can see your mind.”

  “See it?”

  “Yes. If it’s their talent, the minds of others become tangible to them. They manipulate it however they want, just like you steer a car. The same deal with the air bender. He can see the air and manipulate it. That man turned the air into hands, and it did whatever he wanted it to do. It almost strangled me.”

  Madeline nodded, thinking about her psychic blue dots. “Are there many like that around?”

  “I don’t know, Madeline. But this air bender had a light circle around him . . .” He shook his head. “I haven’t given it much thought. I didn’t know much back then, but maybe the light circle was a holocast.”

  “A what?”

  “It’s like a broadcast of a hologram”

  “Like in Star Wars?”

  Ciaran chuckled. “Not quite. But yes, I can accept that explanation for now. Anyway, I think we have enough information to go inside the room.”

  She nodded. She wasn’t nervous or anything, but Ciaran wrapped his arm around her protectively and pushed the doors open.

  Holy cow! That was all she could think of. She froze.

  Chapter 4

  Thousands of glaring, bright, blinking blue dots flooded the room. They hovered and swayed like waves in the ocean. They hummed. “Little hummingbird, do you see the sky . . . ?”

  The dusty room swiveled and swung back and forth, zooming in and then back out again.

  The dots kept humming. “. . . It is free. It is yours. Fly. Past the mountains. Past the oceans . . .” Madeline’s vision blurred with the glare of the blue shade.

  “ . . . There. You will find love . . .”

  She couldn’t get a word past her mouth. She just wanted to tell Ciaran she saw the blue dots and they were singing to her.

  “Madeline!”

  She heard Ciaran calling out for her. But then she was flying. She tried to regain her footing, but she kept flying.

  When the world stopped spinning, she realized that Ciaran was carrying her. They were at the far end of the hall, almost out of the old quarter of the house.

  “Put me down, Ciaran.”

  He stopped walking and set her on her feet but still held on to her shoulders firmly.

  “I’m okay.”

  “You fainted, Madeline. That’s not okay. Was it because you spent a couple of nights down at the creek?” He put his hand on her forehead. “You don’t have a fever.”

  He gazed at her, searching for an answer. The worry in those intense gr
ay eyes bothered her. Should she tell him? After all, he’d just told her a secret that he had refused to revisit for many years.

  Hell, forget this! “Please don’t think I’m crazy, Ciaran,” she began. “I don’t have any magical talent. But I do see things. It’s very random. I don’t have a theory of what it is that I can and can’t see, or even what I’m going to see. Sometimes I hear things. But most of the time, I just feel things.”

  He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. She didn’t think romance was the reason for the kiss, rather that it was the only way he could stop her from ranting. She was babbling nonsense again, and she knew it. But then nothing was making sense to her at the moment.

  When he finished with the kiss, he spoke gently, “Now, tell me one thing at a time, Madeline. What do you think you can see sometimes, and what did you see in that room?”

  She drew in a breath. “I think I can see people’s thoughts. They appear as blue dots. I don’t know their meaning—they just hover in front of me. That’s how I found you at the creek. You thought of me, and I followed the blue dots, the trail of your thoughts.”

  Ciaran lifted her chin up and looked into her eyes. His intense gray eyes filled with curiosity and his face lit up with fascination. “You’re a . . .”

  “Don’t label me, Ciaran. I’m not one of your science projects.” She turned around and walked away. He grabbed her elbow to stop her.

  “I’m sorry. I’ll never do it again. Please calm down. Stefan will ring again at any time. We should try to see if we can do something to prepare.”

  She stopped walking. He was right. “I’m sorry. My head just scrambled a bit. Let’s get back to the room,” she said.

  “Not until I’m sure you’ll be okay. Tell me what you saw in the room?”

  “Lots of blue dots.” She looked straight into his eyes. “I don’t think you want to hear this, but if what I saw were thoughts, they had to be Juliette’s.”

  “Only living people have thoughts, Madeline.”

  “Well, it can’t be the air bender because I haven’t met him. But I do have a connection with Juliette via you.”

  “It’s not possible.”

  “Now you think I hallucinated it?”

  “No . . .”

  “When you brought me here the first night, as soon as I walked into the house, I not only saw the blue dots heading toward the old quarter, but I heard a woman’s voice welcoming you home.”

  Ciaran raked his hands through his hair. “Juliette died in my arms. I wish it were a mistake. But it wasn’t . . .”

  “Does she have an Irish accent?”

  Ciaran simply stared at her.

  Madeline hummed the tune. “Little hummingbird, do you see the sky . . .”

  Ciaran gestured for silence. He braced his hands on the wall. She couldn’t see his face, but she guessed he was wanting to bang his head against that wall. She must have gotten it right.

  He hadn’t told her anything about Juliette apart from what had happened in that room, and he certainly had never mentioned her accent. And the song did it. It was Juliette’s song.

  “Ciaran, you asked me what I saw . . .”

  “Yes, I know. I’m sorry. It was just . . .” He turned around. “Okay. Let’s just go back to the room. We’ll figure out what’s what later. But you have to let me know right away if you feel uneasy.”

  She nodded and headed toward the room. When they entered again, there were no more blue dots.

  Damn!

  The room was a mess as a result of what appeared to have been a massive fight, and nobody had cleaned up a thing. Ciaran glanced at the bed and then focused on the floor in front of it. He deliberately avoided looking at Madeline. She knew he was trying to control his emotions and didn’t want to create any awkward moments, so she kept silent.

  He crouched and pointed to the floor. “You see the circle here? This is where the light circle landed. It must have scarred the wood . . .”

  “Ciaran!”

  He traced his fingers on the floor in circles.

  “Ciaran!”

  “Yes?” He looked up.

  “I don’t see any circle marks on the floor.”

  “You can’t see these?” He pointed.

  “No.”

  He frowned.

  Then she saw a single lonely blue dot blinking in the corner of the room. She pulled at Ciaran’s sleeve and nodded her head in the direction of the dot. Ciaran looked and obviously saw nothing except a sturdy cabinet standing there.

  “Over there?” He pointed.

  She nodded and felt a chill run up and down her spine. The air seemed to have become hollow. She heard the voice of the woman again but couldn’t make sense of what she was saying. It was more like weeping or chanting of some sort.

  Madeline stood up and saw Ciaran examining the cabinet without any hope of finding anything. The temperature in the room seemed to suddenly drop several degrees. She was trying to tell Ciaran to get out, but she had a feeling if she spoke, he wouldn’t be able to hear her. It seemed as if they were in two different worlds.

  The weeping sound still echoed in her mind.

  Ciaran approached her and looked at her face. He said something, but she couldn’t quite hear him. He seemed to know she was in trouble. He held her shoulder gently. And then reality suddenly blasted back at them.

  “Ciaran!” a voice came from behind them.

  Madeline and Ciaran both jumped out of their skin. Ciaran turned toward the voice and saw Tadgh standing at the door.

  “Don’t you knock?” Ciaran growled.

  Tadgh raised an eyebrow. “This isn’t your room anymore. Why do I need to knock? What are you two doing in here? Doctor Thomas asked for you. He wants to check up on you. Your painkillers are running out soon.”

  Ciaran glanced around one last time then led Madeline out of the room. “Where’s Mother?” Ciaran asked Tadgh.

  “I have no idea. She doesn’t usually report her whereabouts to me. And after last night, I don’t think she’s ever told us anything real.”

  “What do you mean?” Ciaran asked.

  “How do you think we got you back home?”

  Ciaran shrugged. “I haven’t thought about it. We’ve been busy!”

  “I see.” Tadgh shot a glance at Madeline and rolled his eyes. “You put Mon Ciel on lockdown, remember? She unlocked the shield. We got you onto a chopper.”

  Ciaran stared at Tadgh for a moment then strode down the hallway. Madeline trailed right behind. “There are only two people who have the key, and she isn’t one of them. Mother didn’t unlock it by herself.”

  “You mean Father helped her?” Tadgh asked.

  “I don’t want to hear about two ghosts in one day, Tadgh!” Ciaran growled and punched a code into the security pad of a room that looked like some kind of control room.

  Ciaran’s phone buzzed. A text message read, “Meet at British museum in one hour.” The caller ID was Sciphil Two.

  “What that hell is Sciphil Two?” Tadgh asked. Ciaran shook his head. At the same time, Madeline’s phone buzzed.

  “It’s the same No Caller ID,” she said, looking at Ciaran.

  Ciaran nodded. She picked up the phone. From the other end of the line came Jo’s voice. “Madeline?”

  “Oh my God, Jo, are you okay? Where are you now?”

  “I’m fine. I ran. Stephen—no Stefan—got me, but I ran.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “In London . . . where are you?”

  “Can you find your way to the British museum? We’ll be there in an hour.”

  “I’ll be there. I never get lost in a big city, and I always find you.” Jo hung up.

  Madeline stared at Ciaran and Tadgh.

  “What’s the matter?” Ciaran asked.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Why? Didn’t you just talk to Jo? She escaped? Why isn’t that good?” Tadgh asked.

  “You don’t think Jo ran again, Madeline?” Ciaran as
ked.

  She shook her head. “I’m so sorry. I think I’ve just given Stefan our location in the next hour. Jo makes fun of people who use the words never and always. She wouldn’t say always with an emphasis. I didn’t catch it when we spoke. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay, Madeline. Stefan will be at the museum. We’ll get him and bring Jo back,” Ciaran said. But she caught the way he glanced at Tadgh. His eyes were too dark—they scared her.

  Chapter 5

  The British museum looked exactly the same as Madeline found it the week before. Groups of tourists were scattered around. It was an awfully busy place for a secret meeting with the person called Sciphil Two. Perhaps it wasn’t a secret meeting at all.

  She caught sight of Ciaran nodding at Tadgh. Tadgh responded with a wink and patted his pocket.

  “Jesus Christ, are you carrying guns?” Madeline spoke between her teeth.

  Ciaran smiled. “I like to refer to them as weapons. Guns sound too primitive.”

  “You can’t have them here! This is a museum!”

  “Says who?” Tadgh asked.

  “We won’t use them unless absolutely necessary. I don’t care to be at a disadvantage when we don’t know who we’re dealing with,” Ciaran said.

  They walked further into the ancient history section. Ciaran checked his phone and found no messages.

  Suddenly, the air seemed to stop flowing. Their hearts skipped a beat. Everyone else in the museum seemed to be oblivious to it. Madeline, Ciaran, and Tadgh seemed to be in a different world—a very quiet one. They could hear their own heartbeats.

  “John Dee’s glass! Look!” Madeline pointed toward a display of a golden plate. As they walked closer, the air around them seemed to thicken.

  Ciaran grabbed Madeline and Tadgh to stop their movement toward the display. Ciaran asked them, “You hear anything strange? Like an echo in the air?” Ciaran shook his head as if shaking away the noise in his ears.

  “No, I just feel strange, like the air is thick as gel and lacking in oxygen,” Madeline said.

  “It feels like the air has been vacuumed out of the room to me,” Tadgh said.