The Prophet

the shadows, watching us.

“Are you ever going to tell me what happened that night?” He glanced toward the stairs, and I shuddered as memories assailed me. His lips pressed to my pulse, his fingers skimming my thigh…

“Please let me go,” I whispered.

“I’m not holding you. I just want to know what happened that night. The way you looked when you ran out of the bedroom…it’s haunted me. I’ve been over it a million times in my head. What did I do to frighten you? Did I hurt you somehow?”

“No. No! It wasn’t anything you did. Please believe me. The timing was all wrong. And you said yourself, you weren’t ready to let go of the past. You didn’t want to let them go… .” My babbling trailed off. “I’m sorry I couldn’t explain it better at the time. I don’t think I really understood it myself until later. Until I had time to think—”

I never had a chance to finish that lame excuse. A loud crash from the parlor startled us both, and Devlin’s hand flew to his back where he’d slid the gun into his waistband. He drew it now and motioned for silence as he eased across the foyer, me at his heels. Taking a quick sweep of the parlor, he dropped his arm and turned on the light.

Mariama’s painting lay facedown on the floor.

“What happened?”

“Damned if I know. The wind couldn’t have knocked it off. That thing weighs a ton.”

“Then what caused it to fall?” Dumb question. I already knew the answer.

“The fasteners must have loosened.”

“The glass is broken,” I said inanely because I didn’t know what else to say at that moment. Mariama’s message was perfectly clear.

“It can be repaired,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to take it down, anyway. I just never got around to it. I rarely come in this room. It’s always so cold in here, even in the summer. I’ve never been able to figure out where the draft comes from.” He looked up as the chandelier stirred. “See what I mean?”

I was standing in the archway and could feel that same current sweeping down the stairs. I looked up, expecting to see Mariama once again, but instead, the darkness on the galley pulsed and throbbed with shimmers, like tiny strobes, where the Others were trying to come through.

I stared wide-eyed and terrified as the flickers intensified. I had to get out of that house, away from Devlin, away from the emotions that drew those ravenous entities like moths to flame.

“I have to go.”

“Amelia, wait.”

I was out the front door and all the way down the veranda steps before he caught up with me. Once again he took my arms and turned me, searching my face in the darkness. “What’s wrong? Why did you run out like that?”

“Just let me go. Please.”

I tried to wrench away, but his grasp only tightened. “What is it about this house that frightens you? What is it about me?”

My gazed went past him to the house. I could see Shani in the window and Mariama hovering in the doorway. Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I saw the glimmer of faces in every other window. “You know why,” I said breathlessly.

“What are you talking about?”

“You know, John. You just refuse to admit it.”

He dropped his hands and took a step back from me. Even in the dark, I could see the look of horror that flashed across his face.

Chapter Eleven

As soon as I got home, I let Angus out into the backyard. Then I poured myself a glass of wine and gulped it. Poured another and gulped it, wishing I had something stronger. The third glass I carried out to the garden and sipped while I waited for Angus to get on with his business. He took his sweet time as he always did, and as impatient as I was to get to my computer, I didn’t have the heart to rush him. He’d spent most of his life cooped up in cages and kennels, suffering horrors that I could barely comprehend. The least I could do was indulge his curiosity.

A mild breeze stirred the wind chimes, but I felt no ghostly presence in the garden. Thankfully, Shani hadn’t followed me home tonight.

Shivering, I zipped my jacket all the way up to my neck. The night had turned chilly, but at least the storm seemed to have passed us by. Or maybe the clouds had only gathered over Devlin’s house. Here, a few blocks away, the moon was out and the thunder had faded. I even saw a few stars peeking out.

I wondered if the hazy ring around the moon was an omen. Fishing for the talisman I wore around my neck, I rubbed my thumb across the smooth surface. The polished stone had come from the hallowed hills of Rosehill Cemetery, my childhood playground. How many afternoons had I spent curled up in the shade of an old, drooping live oak or with my back pressed against the warm granite of a weeping angel, devouring the pages of my favorite Gothic novels, fueling an imagination already primed by the ghosts? Back then, I’d dreamed of someone like Devlin. A darkly charismatic man with even darker secrets. As a lonely teenager, nothing had seemed more romantic than doomed love, nothing more beautifully melancholy than unrequited passion.

How stupidly naive I’d been. There was nothing remotely beautiful or desirable about being denied the love of one’s life, as I had been so cruelly reminded tonight. Even without the threat of the Others, Mariama would always find a way to keep Devlin and me apart.

The wine was going straight to my head, making me slightly hysterical and borderline maudlin. Hovering just outside the door, I watched Angus amble around the yard as my thoughts raced and images flashed in my brain— the almost kiss…the falling painting…Mariama in all her dead glory.

Shani clutching my hand.

In some ways, the ghost child’s attachment to me was the most disturbing development of all. Not because I was actually scared of her—at least, not the way I feared Mariama—but because it seemed a direct manifestation of Papa’s broken rules, a terrifying reminder that I had inadvertently crossed a threshold from which there would be no return.

I’d brought all of this on myself, of course. How many times had Papa warned me? By allowing a haunted man into my life, I’d made myself susceptible to his ghosts. And those ghosts had drawn other ghosts. By letting down my defenses, I’d opened myself up to an invasion. Not just from Shani and Mariama and Robert Fremont, but possibly from spirits that had yet to make their way to me.

It was all well and good to contemplate a higher purpose, but when delusions of grandeur became stark reality, I didn’t know what to do. I had no idea what would be expected of me, what lay in wait for me. I didn’t have an inkling of where all this would lead me, but I thought perhaps it was a very good thing that Clementine Perilloux hadn’t been able to tell my fortune. More than ever, I had no wish to see my future.

With another fortifying sip of wine, I tried to shepherd my thoughts from ghosts to the overheard conversation between Devlin and Ethan. Robert Fremont’s murder investigation had taken an unexpected turn tonight and Devlin’s involvement was an added complication. Suddenly, something Fremont had said came rushing back to me. We follow the clues no matter where they lead. Understood?

Even if those clues led to Devlin? Had that been his implication?

I played that conversation over and over in my head because it was easier to dwell on what I’d learned from my eavesdropping than to delve more deeply into what had happened in Devlin’s house.

Finally, Angus finished his business, and we went back inside. He prowled through the rooms for a while before settling down in his bed. I took a shower and changed into my pajamas before returning to my desk.

Wineglass within easy reach, I ignored all those dark windows and opened my laptop. I typed in Darius Goodwine, almost expecting the same sparse results yielded by my previous search. But instead, a dozen or more links popped up. Excited by the prospect of immersing myself in a project, I began to click through the pages.