Eyes to the Soul (3 page)

Silence – from the woman whose hand she held. Silence, where moments before there’d been raspy breath. Silence, where moments before there’d been broken weeping. Celina stroked up the woman’s arm to her throat and pressed two fingers against her sticky skin.

And bowed her head. The woman was dead.

No
, her heart screamed in denial. This couldn’t be happening. They’d just come for a fun hour of celebration. Not this life-changing disaster.

She’d already survived one of those. She wouldn’t wish anything like that on anyone. And never twice.

Underneath her sorrow and budding grief, she heard that hateful laugh inside her head.

What do you think? Was that enough proof?

She froze.
Oh God. No!

Oh yes. Do you believe me now?

S
tefan Kronos bolted
awake and out of bed. He was halfway across the room before he realized it. Panicked, he spun, searching for the danger. And stilled.

He was alone.

In his own room.

He rested in place, his heart slowing, listening. Reassured that there was no immediate danger, he ran his fingers through his rumpled hair and growled, “Now what?”

He’d barely slept an hour. And not for a lack of trying.

But as was so often the case, his wants weren’t important.

Timing was.

The more he tried to force the information of what was wrong, the further back the elusive knowledge in his conscience slipped. Out of sight. Out of his mind. Out of his reach.

He strode to the tall floor-to-ceiling windows and stared out into the night. What the hell had woken him this time?

Instinctively he sent out a silent probe searching for the direction of the distress. He knew it was a cry for help. But it was one he didn’t recognize. At least not in this form. It came raw, terrified, and coated in other energies.

Unless it was another psychic like those that had been filling his house and cluttering up his life lately. He loved them all, but there was no doubt that the landscape of his life was very different than it had been a decade ago.

Then he’d been alone and unknown. Now the opposite – in both cases – was true.

He stared out into the dark sky, watching as the clouds played peek-a-boo with the moon. Something was wrong somewhere. Then again, something was wrong somewhere every minute of the day. Unfortunately. He dropped his forehead against the glass, relaxed his guard and sank deeper into his soul to let his senses roam free.

His energy slipped outward, upward into the midnight of the sky, looking, tasting,
feeling
the wrongness. Behind him the television turned on. He stilled but didn’t turn around. He’d sent out energy in all directions with too much force again. Some of it had turned on his electronics. Not unexpected. Not normal, though. And better than what could have happened; he often fried the electronics.

“We bring you breaking news. A full-size truck has driven into the popular nightclub Chico’s downtown on Robstown Street. Reports are still coming in. There are ambulances on the scene. We do have a report that several members of the Portland Orchestra were in attendance celebrating their new season.” The newscaster paused. Stefan slowly turned. He stared, his heart frozen, his energy thinning as it swirled in shock.

Celina.

“This just in…we have established that several members of the orchestra have been injured,” the newscaster continued. “Two fatalities are confirmed. We’ll bring you more as we get the details.”

Stefan collapsed to his knees.
Oh dear God. Please, not Celina.

Surely he’d have known if she were dead. Then he remembered the cry that had woken him from a deep sleep. Could it have been her? He should have recognized it if it had been, although the distress signal had been coming from the same general direction.

To find out for sure he needed to get to the scene. To the hospital. Where he could find her. Help her. Locating her wouldn’t be a problem. He already sensed her thin, wispy energy from here. He’d visited her enough on the etheric level to be able to find her anywhere in the world. But he wasn’t sure he could stand the thought of finding out she was injured and in need of something beyond his capabilities. Of all his friends Dr. Maddy was the only one that might be able to help if she was seriously injured.

And we need to find that out first. Don’t panic until we know.
Dr. Maddy’s warm, compassionate voice slipped into his mind.
I’ll make the calls. You wait for me. Don’t rush down there. You aren’t family or friends, and you won’t be allowed in to see her. Think, Stefan. She doesn’t even know you.

Stefan tilted his head back to stare up at the massive glass dome above his head. No, she didn’t know him. Not who he was now at least.

Dr. Maddy slipped out of his mind, for once leaving him feeling bereft. He’d been blessed to have so many talented friends to call on.

And there’d always been
her
. The love of his life. And now that life may have been cut down before he had a chance to see her in person.

He knew his thoughts made him sound like a madman. And he’d done a lot to keep the others in the traditional world from finding out about his crazy mind. He’d spent time in a place where he was
supposed
to get help. Oh, he’d gotten help, all right – just not the kind he’d needed. Thankfully he’d quickly learned to keep his mouth shut. He’d left there as fast as he could and had never looked back.

Dr. Maddy spoke quietly inside his head.
She’s injured, but not badly.
Cuts from glass as she was trying to help the victims. She’s already been checked over. She’s emotionally traumatized but not physically. She will be fine.

Thank you,
he whispered in a prayer-like voice.
Thank you so much for finding out.

Now rest. She has a lot to deal with. Send her some loving energy, but don’t go to the hospital – you’ll only be in the way.

Understood.

And she left.

Stefan stood up, ran his fingers through his hair again and tried to take stock. He was still shaky inside. He wondered if that had been her fear he’d felt earlier. There’d been no reason for her to call out to
him
. She didn’t know him. Or had she been transmitting blindly to anyone who’d listen? She’d have to be a strong transmitter for that to happen. Due to her blindness, Celina’s other senses would likely have become stronger to compensate. She might have picked up on his energy and sent out a call for help. He’d love to think it had been on purpose, but he had no reason to go there.

He’d been the one checking in on her, not the other way around.

It had always been Stefan peeking into her life to make sure she was doing okay, to connect in the only way he could. Still, he should have been able to recognize her energy if she had been the one calling out to him – at least he thought he would have. But context was everything. In a traumatic setting she’d have called out for anyone. The energy pathways he’d forged would have made it easier to get her message. And depending on her psychic abilities, she might have been coated in bits and pieces of those she cared about, completely changing the look and feel of her energy.

There’d been a sense of violence surrounding that cry. Like an attack of some kind.

He mulled over the accident. Could the fear have been one last cry from the driver of the truck before he’d smashed into the pub? Had he survived the crash? If so, Stefan wanted to talk to him. He would have to wait and see. As his senses returned to normal and he got a clearer understanding of why he’d been pulled awake, he realized there’d been some movement in the universal energy. A tear in the structure of life. A violence done on the etheric level.

He frowned, his senses stirring. As everything was connected, so too was this connected to the fabric of their lives. Everyone’s lives. There was evil out there. He’d seen the proof of it. Once he’d known, there’d been no going back. Innocence was no longer an option.

The boogeyman did exist and in his world, he lived on many different planes of existence.

Stefan walked over to his computer and turned it on. Still dressed in his pj bottoms he sat down to check the news. Maybe they would provide the clues he was looking for. He knew one thing for sure: there was no going back to sleep tonight.

*

Samantha Blair gasped,
then groaned as she burst through the vision. That was all her newly learned control would allow. Her intentions were simple. Sink into the vision, grab the information she needed – if any – to help the dying person to let go and step out. Easy, right? It was when Stefan had explained it. In practice? Not so much.

Be in control
, Stefan had said to her during one of their training sessions.
Remember, Sam, this is your energy. Don’t let fear stop you from controlling it as you are meant to control it.

Consciousness broke through and Sam’s eyes opened. She shuddered, a film of sweat forming on her skin. So much better with a bit of control, and yet so much worse – she still couldn’t do anything about these visions.

A warm arm slipped across her ribs and tugged her up close to a familiar broad chest.

That was one thing that was so much better. Brandt Sutherland. She’d been alone for so long. Now…she had a man who loved her. He understood what she went through on a regular basis with her crazy psychic abilities. Who could possibly want to connect with victims while they were being murdered?

A cold nose nudged her cheek.

“Hey, Soldier. I’m okay, boy,” she murmured softly, reaching out a hand to stroke the huge dog’s muzzle. Moses, her other dog, stood at Soldier’s side and whimpered in the back of his throat.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you guys up.”

“What about me?” Brandt’s warm voice drifted hot against her neck. “Did you mean to wake me up?”

His lips trailed up her throat before drifting over to explore her ear. Sam smiled, love welling up from deep inside.

“I’m always happy to wake you up, my love.”

His arms clenched around her. She rolled toward him and reached up to meet his lips with a deep, soul-stirring kiss of her own.

God, she loved this man.

*

Celina sat in
a daze. The hospital bustled around her, the noise overwhelming her. The pain. The suffering. The grief. She tried to block out the shouts, cries, and incessant weeping. She understood. She really did, but there was no way to survive the onslaught of pain without closing herself off. No way to find the peaceful core she so desperately needed to keep oriented in her physical space. People who could see didn’t understand how hard it was to be blind and upset.

She got turned around, misjudged distances, and misunderstood certain sounds. She needed to be grounded to do anything and even more so to take a trip. One more reason why she didn’t travel as much as she could.

She also didn’t have a guide dog, although many friends had suggested it. But getting one meant accepting that her condition was permanent. And she couldn’t do that. Wouldn’t do that.