Love Everlastin' Book 3 (11 page)

Was he again suffering an
overload?

When he'd first gone
mind-blind after Rose's death, he'd thought it a blessing. Now, his
inability to ferret out the killer left him feeling vulnerable,
something that was completely alien to his nature.

Outside movement distracted
him. His gaze settled on the peacock perched atop the snowman. The
colorful creature was dutifully preening, its tail fanned and
appearing startlingly vibrant against the white backdrop of snow. A
reflexive grin appeared at the right corner of Winston's mouth when
the bird craned its neck and peered up at him. At least it seemed
to be staring at him. He was relatively sure it wasn't.

The bird released a chilling
cry, not unlike that of a cat being tortured. Winston's nerves went
spastic for a moment. His heart thumped wildly, painfully inside
his chest. He blinked. Blinked again. The peacock stood motionless,
regally poised atop the snowman's head, its fantail retracted.
Intently, he watched for a long time, waiting for the bird to move
again, but it stood as if frozen.

Winston rapped sharply on
the window pane with the knuckle of his right index finger. He
never saw whether the bird responded, for a rap on his door caused
him a start and he whirled in time to see it slowly opening.
Shortly, Agnes poked her head through the gap. As soon as she spied
him, she calmly entered the room and closed the door behind
her.

Apprehension swelled up
inside Winston. She approached without haste, her blue gaze never
wavering from his, her expression unreadable. Winston made a feeble
attempt to offer a smile in greeting, but his facial muscles were
reluctant to cooperate. When she came to a stop in front of him, he
noticed her solidity was showing signs of losing its integrity. He
couldn't see through her yet, but she was definitely in the process
of fading. Her dark blue dress was gradually turning to shades of
gray in places, and her blue irises intermittently became
colorless.

"Mr. Connery, forgive ma
intrudin’ like this, but I must speak wi' you."

He nodded. "Is it abou' the
girl?"

Agnes' shrewd gaze watched
him for a time before she replied, "Aye, a bit. Maistly, I need to
say ma mind abou' you and the gloom you brought into this place
when you arrived."

Frowning, Winston gave a
light shrug. "Gloom? I wasn't aware ma mood or ma company was tha'
bad."

"Don’t talk around ma
meanin’," she chided, scowling at him.

Winston was hard-pressed to
understand her dislike of him. "Have I said or done something to
offend you?"

She seemed surprised at
this, and the scowl melted into a look of comical bewilderment.
"Offend me? Are we talkin’ abou' the same thing, Mr.
Connery?"

"Please. . .Winston, and I'm
no' sure."

"I have nothin’ personally
against you," she said in earnest. "Actually, I think you’re a
verra nice young mon. Tis the darkness you carry inside you wha'
bothers me. Tis leakin’ into the house like a foul smoke hidin’ in
the shadows."

Before he could suppress it,
a laugh burst from him. He turned to the window in a bid to get
himself under control, but when he noticed the bird still frozen in
place, he sobered and frowned. Yesterday, he'd seen one of the boys
place a peacock atop the snowman and, now that he thought about it,
it hadn't moved. Had the animated bird been merely his imagination
playing tricks on him?

"Mr. Con—Winston," she
corrected on a sigh, "I don’t have much time, and I would like to
have ma say on this matter."

Still frowning, Winston
faced her. He was given a momentary start when he saw that she was
now more diaphanous than solid. Her face was pale gray mist, while
her eyes were opaque and now eerily blue. "Sorry," he said lamely.
"Wha' abou' this darkness in me?"

"Are you aware o'
it?"

"Can't say as I am," he
replied, and was a bit unnerved that the words came out sounding
supercilious.

"I sensed it before Roan
brought you into the house. I didn’t say anythin’ because it wasn’t
ma place. But for two nights now, Mr. Connery, everyone—no' me, o'
course—has shared yer nightmares. Last night, even the lass. I
spent maist o' the night flittin’ from bedroom to bedroom,
listenin’ and watchin’ them all go through the same tossin’ and
turnin’, the same moanin’ and groanin’ as you. Yesterday and this
morn, ma lads were sullen and listless—as I sensed you were before
I knocked at yer door."

"I'm no' sure I
understand."

She sighed deeply. The sound
rippled the air around him. "This itherworld condition o' mine has
given me a few abilities, and one is seein’ people's auras. Yers is
verra dark. As black as a moonless night. The ithers are
unknowingly reactin’ to this, Mr. Connery. This darkness in you is
tryin’ to influence them."

Winston tried not to appear
skeptical, but wouldn't he know if he possessed such an
aura—especially such a vile aura?

She faded such that he could
barely make out her features.

"Mr. Connery, tis good you
came to Baird House, but you're no' an ordinary mon. You must
control yer inner demons. Don’t loose them on the
unsuspectin’."

"Wha' abou' the Phantom?
Wha' can you tell me abou' him?"

"Phantom?"

"He's here. After Laura. I
sensed him when I went ou' after the girl, last night."

"There is no one here but
us, Mr. Connery."

"No, he is here. Ou’side
somewhere. I think the girl may be one o' his victims. Has she said
anything?"

"She's mute, far as I can
tell. And there's no' a scratch or a bruise on her. However she
came to be ou' on the gazebo, I don’t know, but I've seen no
indication she was hurt by anyone."

Winston adamantly shook his
head. "Look, I've been tracking this killer for four years. Dammit,
he was supposedly killed some months ago, but I sensed him on the
property last night!"

She was nothing but a mist
now, shimmering in the gentle drafts. "There is no killer here,
Winston," she said kindly, sympathetically. "You carry him in yer
soul and, for wha’ever reason I can’t fathom, you can’t let go o'
him. It’s you who is troubled. This...
Phantom
...is your mind tryin’ to find
the mon who is Winston Connery."

"That's no'
possible."

"No? Do you sense him
now?"

Winston gulped past the
sudden dryness in his throat. "So you're saying this is merely ma
warped imagination at work?"

"No' warped," she said, and
he heard a hint of laughter in her now wispy voice. "You came here
to find yerself, didn’t you?"

He weakly nodded.

"Aye, Master Winston, and
you will. Given time. We'll talk when I return. The grayness is too
hard to resist now, and I'm so verra tired. Think o' wha' I've
said."

The last word softly echoed
on seconds after Winston was aware that Agnes Ingliss had
completely passed over into another world—the 'grayness' she'd
called it. He stood very still for a time longer, mulling over her
words and questioning the denial fermenting inside his brain. Given
a choice, he would rather the Phantom were actually dead and his
own mental wellness in question, than the killer on the loose and
testing Winston's ability to end his reign of terror.

But still, he was sure he'd
sensed the man on the property last night.

Shards of pain throbbed at
his temples. Without knowing why, he glanced out the window and saw
the peacock again animated, its tail fanned and its gaze riveted on
the window behind which Winston stood.

Dashing from the room,
Winston ran to the first floor landing, out the doors, and into the
brisk morning air. His socked feet instantly felt the bite of the
cold as he trampled through snow until he reached the fountain on
the north side of the house. A crusted layer of ice topped the
snow, and the crunches his awkward, plodding steps made, seemed
inordinately loud. He kept his gaze on the snowman, even when he
sank into a thigh-high drift about three yards from his
destination. Grunting, his teeth loudly clacking in uncontrollable
chattering, he struggled out of the partially frozen hillock and
reached the snowman. All the while, the peacock remained perfectly
still, its tail retracted, its back to him.

Roan had called the bird
Braussaw, and had said he'd had the bird stuffed after accidentally
driving over it. But Winston had seen this bird move not once but
twice!

Could it be another
bird?

He angrily snatched the
stiff, feathered carcass from the snowman's head and held it out
with trembling hands. Indeed, the bird was stuffed. He stared into
its lifeless eyes and wanted to scream. But of course he didn't.
That would have been too human a reaction from Winston Ian Connery,
which would have convinced him he was truly insane.

In a fit of uncharacteristic
anger, he dropped the peacock and repeatedly stepped on and kicked
it. Sawdust spilled onto the ground, a washed out yellowish color
against the pristine whiteness of the snow. Winston stomped and
kicked, stomped and kicked, adrenaline heating him and warding off
the bite of the freezing temperature.

Something moved in the left
side of his peripheral vision. He glimpsed but a black shape
against the snow, an elongated silhouette spread across the ground.
With a guttural cry, he lunged atop the shape. He pummeled it with
his fists, thrashed and kneed semi-solidity. Snow and slivers of
ice flew up around his movements only to soundlessly settle back on
the ground or on him. A voice in the back of his mind told him he
was in the throes of rage, but he denied this. To be enraged, one
had to feel deeply or strongly about someone or
something.

He thrashed and cursed the
Phantom until it suddenly occurred to him he was fighting his own
shadow. The insight struck him sourly in the pit of his stomach and
threatened to heave the contents into his throat. But then the
lunacy of fighting himself struck home. He flipped onto his back
and released a roar of laughter. It weakened him as seconds ticked
by.

His shadow!

Oh God, his
shadow!

Or was it?

He sobered and listened to
the stark quiet and stillness surrounding him.

Agnes had warned him of his
inner demons.

Something beckoned him to
peer up at his bedroom windows. There, in the right one, he clearly
saw the girl watching him. Her palms were pressed to the glass, and
her expression told him she had witnessed enough to question his
sanity.

Mortified, Winston got to
his feet and testily brushed off some of the snow and ice clinging
to him. He realized his feet were achingly cold, as were various
other parts of his anatomy. He was loath to go back inside the
house. Loath to face her.

Casting the de-innarded bird
a remorseful glance, he trudged back to the front of the house and
forced himself to enter. To his further chagrin, Kevin was sitting
on the third from the bottom step of the staircase. He watched
Winston with wry amusement, his blue eyes seeming far too shrewd
for a boy who had recently turned eight.

"I'd get my butt kicked if I
went out dressed like that," he grumbled.

Winston managed a strained
grin. "I'm just a kid at heart."

"Did you just insult
me?"

The boy's earnest question
left Winston at a loss for words. Shaking his head, he patted the
boy on the shoulder then ascended the staircase to the second
floor.

Damn, he was cold. Wet and
cold and wishing he could melt into the floor and not have to face
the girl.

Not only was she there to
silently greet him, but so was the rolling warmth of a blazing
fireplace. There hadn't even been a glowing ember when he'd gone
outside....

Avoiding meeting her gaze,
he crouched in front of the embracing heat and rubbed his hands
together. He could feel her watching his every move and it unnerved
him. Rivulets of water wormed down his brow from his sodden hair.
He wanted to wipe away the wetness, but he realized his fingers
were now tightly entwined.

Cramping in the calves of
his legs prompted him to sit on the floor, cross-legged. He tried
to wiggle his toes, but the cold-induced pain in his feet only
brought a grimace to his ashen face.

A heavy quilt fell upon his
back and shoulders. He drew it tightly about him while the stranger
came around and stood to his right. Her bare feet were inches from
his kneecap. They and her ankles were all that were visible beneath
the light blue, floral print flannel nightgown she wore, and the
strands of dark hair hanging just below the hemline. Her feet were
small and slender, the ankles seeming almost too fragile. His gaze
crept upward, slowly and reluctantly because he dreaded seeing what
her expression was now. He paused at her concealed waistline and
tried to scan her thoughts. A blank wall. Frowning, he tried again,
pushing outward with his will to penetrate her shield. Again, he
was denied access to her mind.

He found himself staring
into her eyes and he gasped. Her expression wasn't one of ridicule
or pity, or even fear that he had indeed lost his marbles. She
was...curious. Curious about him and what had brought about his
romp in the snow. He didn't glean the information from her
thoughts, but rather sensed her mood. She was calm. Not the least
afraid of him, as she would be had she been assaulted by the likes
of the Phantom. His heart skipped a beat at the thought that Agnes
could have been right. That the Phantom was dead, and it was his
own projections contaminating his psyche.