Paranormal Realities Box Set (12 page)

I leaped to my feet and hurried to his
side, not wanting him to say anything that would reveal my lies.

“I’m ready to go.” I linked my arm
through his and turned him around before proceeding back to the door.

“Was a date already planned?” he asked in
a whisper. “This plan seems to have eluded my notice." He arched an
eyebrow and smirked again.

“Kizzy, no,” Mom said. “I meant it. You
can’t go out. I’d be too worried.”

“There is no need." Rom turned a
brilliant smile on Mom. "I will attend her presence every moment.” Charm
oozed from his every pore. “I vow she will come to no harm while I have
breath.”

“We’ll just be driving around in his car,
Mom. If we see anybody weird, we’ll drive away and call the police.”

Mom sized Rom up for a few seconds. “All
right." She sighed. "I’m trusting you with my baby. Don’t let me
down.”

An indecipherable expression crossed
Rom’s face before he nodded.

Mom turned to me. “But ten p.m. curfew.
Not a minute later."

“K,” I said with a smile and kissed her
cheek. I scooted us out of there before she could change her mind.

Rom walked me to the passenger door of
his car and held it open.

“You don’t have to drive me,” I said,
hesitating. “That was just an excuse to tell my mom so she’d let me out of the
house.”

“I came to you because your presence is
my desire.” He swept a hand toward the open car.

I tried to hide my pleased smile as I got
in. But before he could close the door, Petra’s Buick came screeching to a halt
beside us. The window lowered.

“Hey, where you two going?” Chase asked
through the passenger window.

“And can we come along?” Senji requested
from the backseat.

“Yeah.” Petra leaned over Chase to yell
out the passenger window. “We wanna come.”

The bad news was the three of them would
be a buffer between Rom and me. The good news was the three of them would be a
buffer between Rom and me.

“Whether there is room is uncertain,” Rom
commented.

“Sure. Get in.” I nodded. “You three can
cram into the back right?”

“As long as I don’t have to sit on
Senji’s lap,” Chase jumped out of the Buick.

“Don’t worry, sweetie. I’ll sit on your
lap,” Petra said.

Judging by the scowl on his face, Rom wasn’t
exactly thrilled about the company. He wasn’t any happier about going to Harold
Anderson’s house, but he did it anyway.

The historian’s old farmhouse didn’t
appear any more inviting at dusk. The five of us mounted the stairs and the
dogs I’d heard earlier barked again. This time when I knocked, Anderson opened
the door almost immediately. I would have considered this progress except he
stood there holding a revolver.

“Kizzy Taylor,” the historian greeted me.
“Born October 26, 1995. You have a 3.2 GPA. Mother is Sarah Taylor now Moreno.”

I’d left this guy my name and telephone
number. Apparently, he’d been doing a little homework.

“You had a brother named Adam. Your
father is Stephen Taylor now in jail awaiting trial for—“

I held up a hand to ward off his words.
“That’s enough,” I said.

 
He turned his gaze on Senji.

“And you, Senji Matsuki, were born on
October 11,1995. Your dog’s name is Pokemon and you have a 3.9 GPA.—”

“Woohoo! 3.9? Way to go, bro.” Chase gave
him a high five.

“My father doesn’t think it’s so hot,”
Senji muttered

“What?” Petra said. “It’s practically
perfect.”

“Hello? Japanese,” Senji drawled. “He
wants perfect not practically.”

“Are we gonna keep talking about this
guy’s GPA?” Anderson asked. “Don’t we have better things to talk about?”

“You’re the one who started it,” I
retorted “What’s the point?”

“The point is I know about you,” he said
to me. "And I know about you, and you, and you,” he said pointedly to
Senji, then Petra, then Chase. “You don’t want to mess with me.”

“What did you find out about me?” Petra
clapped her hands while giving an eager hop. “Am I adopted? That would explain
why I’m treated like Cinderella BP at home.”

“BP?” Anderson's brows converged in
confusion.

“Before Prince.”

“You’re not adopted,” Anderson replied.

“This man can provide us no assistance,”
Rom said with disgust. “This exercise has the ridiculous about it.”

Anderson walked onto the porch and stood
directly in front of Rom. “I don’t know about you, though.” He examined Rom
from head to foot. “Why don’t I know about you?”

“Listen. We’re here because we need help
with some monsters. Not to indulge in some kind of paranoia fest. Can you help
us or not?”

He considered me for a few moments before
nodding. “I suppose I can handle a few teenagers. All right.” He turned,
shrugged and headed into the house. “Come in.”

I expected to see dusty books and papers
and certainly the halls and rooms confirmed my expectations. Through the arched
entry into the parlor, I saw the sofas and chairs were covered with books as well.
A variety of antiquarian weapons were mounted on the walls. Just on my quick
scan I noted a battle-axe, metal spiked mace, longbow, musket and lance. But
what surprised me most was the array of sophisticated computer equipment lining
one entire wall of what would have been the dining room in a normal house.

No dogs attacked us which was explained
when Anderson switched off a CD player and the barking stopped.

“Mr. Anderson, what—” I began.

“Call me Zen.” He led us into the parlor and
pushing books from the sofa. “It’s a nickname from my days in special forces,”
he said. “It was supposed to be ironic.”

Ah that explained a lot.

“I take it you kids were in the tunnel
when a vortex opened?” Zen asked

“Rom, Senji and I.” I replied.

“And two monsters came out?”

“Yes.”

“And what else?” Zen asked me.

“I’m not sure what you want me to say?”

“Say nothing,” Rom said. “Let us leave
this place.”

“No,” I insisted. “We need him.”

“He can tell us nothing.” Rom's face was
set in angry lines.

“I can tell you what you won’t say.” Zen
stared into my eyes. “Those two monsters came out after two of your friends
went in.”

"How did you know—" Senji
started before I elbowed him in the gut.

Zen smirked and added, “I also know how
you can find those lost friends.”

“It’s called a psychomanteum,” Zen said
as he led us up the stairs of his home.

We entered a room illuminated only by the
light from the hall. What was probably meant to be a bedroom contained no
furniture except for a giant wooden easel at its center and a table along one
wall. Three candles topped the table. Mounted on the easel was a frame covered
by a drape. The room’s walls had been painted black and the two windows
obliterated by heavy, dark shades.

“The basis for the psychomanteum dates
back to ancient Greece.” Zen lit the candles. “The Greeks had the practice of
gazing into a still pool of water for the purpose of producing visions,
communicating with the spirits, and seeing into other dimensions.” He crossed
to the door and closed it, leaving the room lighted by only three small flames.

“But how will this help us contact Franky
and Juliette?” I asked.

“I think your lost friends and their life
forces are somehow entangled with the monsters who came through the vortex.
I’ve seen this kind of thing before but could never prove it." Zen added.

"I don't understand," I said.

"Trying to understand earned me a
dishonorable discharge from the military. Those sons-o–bitches!" Zen
shouted to the ceiling. "They just couldn't get past their narrow little
tiny minds. I could—"

“You were saying about our friends?” I
asked trying to bring him back to the topic.

“Oh yes. Five years ago, I saw a thing
appear as if out of thin air and take the place of…a person.”

When he said the word “person” it was as
if he had planned to say something else. Perhaps someone’s name?

“She vanished without a trace,” he
continued. "About a year ago, after further investigation and study, I
concluded this person had been forced into inter-dimensional travel."

“Inter-dimensional travel? That’s
whacko,” Chase said.

“And what we’ve seen so far isn’t?” Senji
drawled.

It was whacko, but hadn’t Mr. Hutson
theorized something similar?

“I didn’t exactly see anything,” Chase
commented. “I have to take Senji's word since Petra and I weren’t there when
they disappeared.”

“You also have Rom and Kizzy’s word,”
Senji pointed out.

“I don’t know Rom. And Kizzy is
cr—” He was probably about to pronounce me crazy. Petra shot Chase a
stink eye glare and applied a twisting pinch to his side. “Credible. Kizzy is
credible,” he finished.

Petra smiled at him and then popped a
kiss on his cheek.

“Which one of you opened the vortex?” Zen
moved to the easel.

“That’s a stupid question. None of us
would open a vortex,” Senji said.

“Not deliberately, maybe. But one of you
did open it,” Zen observed.

“It was me,” I admitted. “I don’t know
how I did it but somehow I did.”

“There are people, not many but some, who
have the power to open doorways into other dimensions. And if you can open a
vortex you may have the power to see into that dimension with the
psychomanteum.” Zen pointed to the draped frame.

“The absurdity of you astounds me,” Rom
said to Zen. Rom took me by the arm. “Let us depart.”

 
“No." I shook him off. "If there's a chance of
finding out what happened to Juliette and Franky, or of contacting them, then I
have to try.”

Rom grunted and stomped off to the corner
where he took up a position leaning against the wall with arms crossed over his
chest.

“Let us see this thing you call a
psychomanteum,” Rom demanded.

Zen walked to the easel. He lifted the
draping with a flourish.

“It’s just a mirror,” Chase said.

Rom barked a laugh. “Has this contrivance
ever produced a vision for you?”

“No," Zen admitted. "But it should."

“Theory only,” Rom scoffed.

“Everyone against the wall and out of the
mirror’s reflective area.” Zen directed. “Except you, Kizzy. Come forward.”

When I hesitated, Petra touched my arm.
“You don’t have to do it.”

“Yes, I do,” I said, offering her a wan
smile. “It’s okay.”

I inched forward to a point about three
feet from the mirror.

Zen took me by the shoulders and pushed
me up to within a foot away.

“Now, stare into the glass and
concentrate on your desire to communicate with Juliette and Franky,” he
whispered into my ear. "If my information is right, they’re not able to
open the contact to you but they’ll be able to speak to you once you've opened
the lines of communication." Zen stepped away.

Conscious only of the flickering light of
the candle in the darkness and the blackness of the mirror, for long minutes I
chanted within my mind: Juliette, Franky, Juliette, Franky. Please. I’m so
sorry. Where are you?

“It’s not working,” Chase said.

“Why isn’t it working?” Petra asked.

“Isn’t there anything else we can do?”
Senji practically shouted.

“Yes.” Zen opened the door to the room.
“You can get out since you are incapable of being quiet. Wait outside.”

Complaining, but clearly happy to be out
of there, Chase, Petra and Senji filed into the hall. Rom didn’t budge.

“Do not think you will force me to
abandon Kizzy,” he said in an almost growl.

Zen threw up his hands, grimaced and shut
the door plunging the room into the candlelit darkness again.

Turning my attention back to the mirror,
I concentrated on my memory of the whirlpool of the vortex. Minutes later there
was still no result. I decided to make my mind blank and thought only of my
breathing, as I did when I meditated. Long breath in. Long breath out. Long
breath in…After my mind quieted, I allowed the images of Juliette and Franky
into my thoughts.

A wisp of fog appeared in the inky
blackness of the mirror. The fog expanded until it filled the entire area
within the frame. After a few seconds, the fog separated and began to seep
away, but it didn't leave in its place a black reflection. Instead, I saw an
ornate room, lavishly furnished with an enormous crystal chandelier at its
center, oriental rugs, columns with gilded capitals, and cream-colored settee
sofas. A room fit for a palace.