The Soul Summoner (The Soul Summoner Saga Book 1) (16 page)

By some miracle, I made it to my room but bumped into my bed before falling on top of it. Something was wrong. My phone buzzed in my hand. I looked down at the message on the screen, but most of the words and letters were missing. It was impossible to read. I tapped out a response the best I could and hit send just as it seemed that an invisible ice pick was jammed into the side of my skull. I crumpled onto the covers.

My phone rang. I knew I had to answer it. "Hello?" I drew my knees to my chest and rolled onto my side.

"Are you OK? Your messages aren't making any sense. Half of the words are missing or are misspelled," Nathan said. 

I cringed. It was like he was screaming at me over the phone.

"I'm not OK," I said. "Something's wrong. I feel like my brain is bleeding."

"I'm on my way," he said. "Where are you in the house?"

"In my bed," I answered. "I can't see to make it back down the stairs and I locked the door."

There was a lot of noise on his end of the line. I held the phone away from my ear. "How can I get in? Do you have a key hidden?"

"Stop screaming," I begged.

"Sloan, I'm not screaming," he insisted.

I was rolling back and forth in pain. "No key," I choked out. 

"Stay with me. I'm on my way." 

I was in and out of consciousness, but sometime later I felt Nathan lift me off my bed. He was shouting at someone as he carried me down the stairs. There were bright lights flashing red and white, and each flash felt like a butcher knife to my brain. He laid me down and someone strapped a belt around my middle. Everyone was screaming. 

"Shhh…" I cried. I covered my eyes with my arm to block out as much light as possible.

Someone was holding my hand. Whatever I was lying on felt like it was being knocked into walls and slammed against the ground. I tried to roll over onto my side, but the belt around my waist prevented it. "Sick," I mumbled.

"Are you going to be sick?" someone shouted just as I began throwing up uncontrollably.

Everything went black.

* * *

When I opened my eyes again, I was in a dimly lit hospital room. My mother was seated next to me on the bed. Nathan was asleep in a chair in the corner. I heard my father's voice some distance away. I tried to raise my arm, but there was an IV in my hand that hurt like I had been shot. My head was throbbing with pain.

I tried to blink away the hazy film that covered my eyeballs. "What happened?" 

My mother turned and leaned toward me. Nathan bolted out of his seat like he had been fired from a cannon. 

Mom smoothed my hair gently with her hand. "How are you feeling?" she whispered.

Nathan came around to the other side of my bed and wrapped his hand around mine. 

"Head hurts," I replied with a voice so raspy I hardly recognized it as my own. "What's wrong with me?" I asked as another figure appeared in the room. 

It was my dad. Mom got up and moved out of the way so he could sit down beside me. "Hey, sweetheart," he said as he leaned down to kiss my forehead.

"Am I dying?"

He laughed softly. "No. You're not dying. You had a really severe migraine."

"A migraine? I'm in the hospital with a headache?" I groaned with embarrassment.

Dad rubbed my arm. "Sloan, you experienced a hemiplegic migraine. One of the most severe and serious forms of any migraine headache. You were paralyzed on your right side and couldn't speak," he said. "Nathan was right to call an ambulance and get you here."

Nathan squeezed my hand. "I thought you had been poisoned or that you were having a stroke or an aneurysm. You scared me to death."

I offered him a weak smile. "I'm sorry."

He kissed my fingers and held them against his lips. "I'm just glad you're OK."

"We already did a CT scan and it was clear. I'm thinking of ordering an MRI just to be on the safe side," Dad explained. 

"Did the hospital call you?" I asked.

He shook his head. "No. Nathan did."

"I took your phone and called them on our way to the hospital," he said.

"Thank you," I whispered. "Can you let Mary know I won't be at work tomorrow?" 

"Today," he corrected me. "It's almost 11 am." 

I looked around the room. "What? Seriously?"

"You've been asleep for a while," Mom said.

"Part of it is the drugs. Part of it is just the headache," Dad explained.

I groaned. "Nathan, shouldn't you be at work?"

He shook his head. "They can live without me for one day. You're much more important right now."

I squeezed his hand.

The hospital released me with a prescription for a migraine medication that I was instructed to keep with me at all times in case another headache began. They said that the ripples and holes in my vision that I experienced was usually the first sign of the onset of a migraine. Dad gave me strict orders to spend the day in bed. He and Mom drove Nathan and me back to my house, since Nathan had left his car there to ride with me in the ambulance. Dad went back to his office, and Mom decided to spend the day as my personal nurse.

Nathan kept his arm tight around me the whole way up to my bed. I was feeling better, but my knees wobbled all the way up the stairs. Dad said it was the drugs still in my system.

I stretched out across the bed, and Nathan sat down next to me. My mom stood in the doorway. He gently brushed a loose strand of hair off my cheek and smiled at me. "Are you going to be OK?"

I nodded and reached for his arm. "Thank you for everything." I tugged on his sleeve. "I don't know what would have happened to me if you hadn't shown up."

He bent over me and kissed my forehead. "You may not be so thankful when you see what I did to your back door." 

I laughed, but it hurt my head. "I don't even care."

"I'll come by and fix it later," he promised. "Or, do you want me to stay? I can. We can curl up right here and watch movies or just sleep. I don't have anywhere else to be."

I shook my head. "I know you've got work to do, and you've been up all night, I'm sure." I glanced at my mother who was still waiting quietly by the door. "I'm in good hands."

He nodded, but he looked a little disappointed. If my mother hadn't been supervising, I might have changed my mind and invited him to crawl under my covers with me. He reached into the pocket of his fleece pullover and handed me my phone. "Will you call me if you need anything at all?" 

I forced a smile as he laid the phone beside my pillow. "I will." 

He leaned down and kissed my forehead again before getting up and walking across the room. 

My mother hugged him at the door. "Thank you so much, Nathan," she said.

He shook his head. "No thanks needed, ma'am."

When he was gone, she looked at me. "If you don't marry that boy, I will disown you and cut you out of the will."

I had two missed calls and a text message from Warren.
Finally made it home. Had a pretty messed up night. Call me when you can.

Later, while my mother was downstairs, I dialed his number.

He picked up on the first ring. "Hello?" He sounded a lot like I did.

"Hey, sorry I missed your calls," I said. "I've been in the hospital since last night."

"What? Are you OK?"

"I had this really debilitating migraine after you left. I was paralyzed and everything," I said.

"So did I," he said. "I actually blacked out when I stopped at a rest area."

"Oh my gosh, me too." I draped my arm across my forehead. "What is going on?"

"I have no idea," he said. "I've been sick all day. Feeling better now, but I never made it to work today. I guess I could've just stayed another day with you."

"Do you think we would've gotten sick together?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said. "But it felt like I was detoxing off of you or something."

He was right. That's exactly what it felt like, though the only thing I had ever detoxed off of was caffeine. This was exponentially worse.  "Warren, what do you think this means?"

He was quiet. "Either it means that we shouldn't be apart or that we never should have met in the first place. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty pissed that we haven't met until now."

"Me too," I agreed.

He sighed. "I think I need to pass out for a couple more hours. Can I call you later?" he asked.

"You don't have to ask," I said.

"OK," he said. "Take it easy and get some rest."

"You too," I said and hung up the phone.

The ceiling fan blades were spinning slowly overhead. I still felt like hell. But I knew I would rather feel that horrible for the rest of my life than to never feel the sensation of Warren's presence ever again. I had an even bigger problem than the migraine when I considered the events of the night before. What was going on with Nathan McNamara?

10.

THERE WAS A smiley face balloon and a smiley face coffee mug full of chocolate candy on my desk when I returned to work the next day. Along with them was a note from my boss.
Hope you're feeling better. You gave us all quite the scare. - Mary.

I smiled and sat down at my desk. A dull pain still throbbed in my skull, but my dad said it was normal and that it might take a couple of days to completely subside. My email inbox was full, and my voicemail light was showing nine new messages. I groaned and started sorting through the emails. 

About halfway down the list was a bulletin from Catawba County. The subject line caught my attention.
Human Remains Discovered May Be That of Missing Hickory Woman.
I clicked the email open and read it aloud.

"Human remains were discovered on Monday underneath the home of Myrtle Allen, 82, of Hickory, N.C. Air conditioning contractors, working in a previously sealed off section of the home's crawl space, unearthed pieces of a human skeleton. Police believe that the remains may be that of Crystal Jennifer Dumas, a local woman who disappeared in 2005. Dumas was the girlfriend of Myrtle Allen's grandson, Logan Allen, 32, also of Hickory."

I picked up my phone and dialed Nathan's cell. A phone rang down the hallway, and a moment later he appeared in my office holding his phone. "You rang?" he asked.

I ended the call and pointed at the screen. "Come here. Have you seen this?"

He sat down in one of my chairs and put his feet up on the edge of my desk. "Christy Dumas?" 

"Yes!" 

He nodded. "Yep. I've seen it. They arrested Logan last night. I was coming by to see if you were up for a little road trip."

My eyes widened. "Nathan, I've got so much work to catch up on."

He pointed to the balloon. "I think Mary would understand if you said you still weren't feeling well." He plucked one of the chocolates out of the smiley face mug, unwrapped it, and popped it into his mouth.

I shook my head. "You're going to get me fired."

He leaned forward with his palms on my desk. He lowered his voice. "Do a little catch up work till lunch, then tell her you're not feeling well and take the rest of the day off." He knocked his knuckles against my desk. "I'll pick you up at your house at"—he looked at his watch—"two o'clock."

He was gone before I could protest.

At five minutes till two I was sitting on my front porch steps feeling terribly guilty as I waited on Nathan. It was the first time I had ever lied to my boss to get out of work. 

My phone rang. "Hello?" I answered.

"Hey, it's Warren."

"Hey there." I quickly forgot about my guilt and broke out into a smile. "What are you up to today?"

"I was wondering if you had plans this weekend," he said.

I thought for a moment. "I don't think so. What did you have in mind?"

"I was thinking about coming back to Asheville," he said. 

An uncontrollable giggle bubbled out before I could stop it. "I think that is a brilliant idea. You can stay with me as long as you promise to not tell my mother. I have a guest room."

He laughed. "OK. I promise not to tell your mother. I'm usually done with work by noon on Fridays, so I should be there around five or six."

"That's perfect," I said. "I get off at five."

"Are you working today?" he asked.

"Uhh, sort of," I said. "I went to work this morning, but now I'm on my way to Hickory to find a serial killer."

There was a pause. "You're doing what?"

I adjusted my sunglasses on my face. "Remember me telling you that I was working on a case with the detective? Well, they caught a guy in Hickory that we think is a suspect for a bunch of other murders."

"You didn't tell me it was a serial murder case." He started laughing. "No wonder that cop was so pissed off the other night."

"Yeah," I said.

"Do you want my help?" he asked.

I was surprised. "How can you help?"

Nathan's SUV turned onto my street.

"The stack of photos you quizzed me on the other night. Was that your group of suspects?" he asked.

"Yeah, why?" I asked.

"None of the guys you showed me in that stack are serial killers," he said. "One of them has murdered someone, but only that one person."

"Which guy?" I asked.

"Blonde hair with a goatee," he said. 

"Logan Allen. That's who we are going to see today," I told him. "How do you know he's only killed one person?"

"I just know. It's kind of like people who have killed have death attached to them. Like they carry it with them," he said.  "I can tell exactly how many there are and that Logan guy only has one."

Nathan rolled to a stop in front of the curb, and I got up and walked around the front of the vehicle. 

"I never get anything that specific," I said to Warren. "I only get an impression if someone is good or not."

"Hmm. I find evil and death really well. Goodness, not so much," he said. "I wonder if it's because I've just been around it more and have paid more attention to it."

"I don't know. Maybe. I've been pretty sheltered," I admitted. I got in the passenger's seat of the SUV and fastened my seatbelt. "What do you mean by you can find death?" I asked. "Like, can you find corpses?"