Avenger Read online

  What happened? Celestine asked.

  “Pru, our friendly ghost, has screwed up an extraction. She couldn’t handle the sight of my dagger.” He didn’t bother with telepathy. He needed the bitterness he felt to seep through every word.

  “Who were you going to exorcise?”

  “That one.” Luke pointed at the woman about to get in the police car.

  Celestine was silent for a while. “Is she possessed?”

  Luke shrugged. “She doesn’t have a healthy red aura. Anything beside that isn’t good. Right?”

  “I do not know.”

  From the corner of his eye, Luke caught Pru’s spirit start out of the cinema in the opposite direction, her demeanor desolate.

  Chapter Seven

  While roving the quiet street, Pru kicked a crinkled aluminum foil. It didn’t budge, of course. She grumbled under her breath, “Stupid ball.” Lifting her head to the sky, she screamed, “Stupid man!”

  Luke was about to kill that woman with the conviction that he was helping her. He was delusional, a murderer, and a crazy one to boot.

  That was it. She’d made up her mind to stop following him around. So what if he had the most beautiful one-dimpled smile that crinkled his eyes at the corners and transformed his whole expression? That rugged handsomeness shouldn’t be allowed on a killer’s face.

  Shaking her head, Pru admitted she should have returned to her body earlier than now. She’d achieved nothing by sticking to Luke every hour of the day and night.

  She drifted over the steps leading into the hospital, the stillness inside adding gloom to the sadness churning in her heart. She’d made it a habit not to return to the hospital at night, when everything was silent, hushed, like a tomb. She paused by the full-length poster at the entrance depicting a smiling brunet nurse, a finger poised on her pursed lips. The words Quiet, please! were written in a big bold font just below it.

  Floating through two ceilings, Pru ended her ascent in the third floor hall. The hospital was anything but quiet during the day. Pages went off calling doctors to different wards or emergency rooms, nurses hustled about, and visitors chatted. She liked being here during the day, when there was life to watch. Nights dragged out the dark thoughts of loneliness and the possibility that she might never awake from the coma. Dead stillness was too unnatural, too unsettling to bear.

  What added to her sense of desolation was that after the intensive care unit she was relocated to a more secluded section of the hospital. Whether it was because the doctors despaired her awakening or they wanted to surround her with tranquility, Pru wasn’t sure which, but she hated the isolation.

  At the door of her room, she paused and gazed at her comatose self lying on the bed, arms flat beside her, eyes closed. The window faced a brick wall while a small faded painting of the prairies hung opposite the bed. A nightstand was on one side of the bed, while a high-back chair took up the side closer to the window. If it weren’t for Mrs. Lancaster’s generosity, Pru doubted she would be in the hospital, let alone have her own room.

  “So, this is where you go when you’re not plaguing me.”

  Pru gasped and turned around. Luke was leaning on the doorframe, his arms crossed over his chest while he studied her body on the bed. She backpedaled defensively closer to the bed. “You followed me.”

  “Yup, guilty as charged. You’re not the only one capable of shadowing others.”

  She’d been in such a foul mood that she wouldn’t have noticed him even if he’d smacked her on the head. Pru lifted her chin. “How did you get in?”

  “People like me have their own ways.” He pushed against the doorframe and stood straight. “Stop glaring at me like mother hen defending her chicks from a fox.”

  She crossed her arms. “What do you expect me to do then? You’re the one with the delusion that you’re some kind of superhero priest running around stabbing people to exorcise them.”

  A smirk made an appearance along with that dimple in one cheek. “First off, I’m neither a superhero nor a priest. Second, those people I stab don’t always die. Third, your body’s aura is healthy red. You’re neither dead nor possessed. Why would I go after you?”

  “Perhaps because you’re insane?”

  He took a step forward and Pru stood her ground, which brought them closer. He hesitated. Normally, she avoided physical contact with others, but with him it was different. When she’d gone through him at the cinema, Pru experienced freshness and joy of elemental intensity. With others, it was always a variation of decay, nausea, and darkness.

  “For God’s sake, if I want to harm you, there isn’t a thing you can do to stop me.”

  She lowered her gaze. He was right.

  His tone softened as he added, “I don’t have a reason to hurt you, Pru. Please believe me.”

  At his tone, she lifted her gaze. Luke’s right hand was raised, as though he were about to cup her cheek. Awkwardly, he lowered his hand and shifted his gaze to the bed, specifically to how her hair fanned out over the pillow. He was so intense, his muscles knotted as though trying to suppress something within him.

  Probably his other personalities. Pru pushed that sarcastic thought out of her head. So far, he hadn’t reached for his dagger.

  “Do you get any visitors?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “If someone knew I was here they would’ve told the hospital my name isn’t Jane Doe.” Pru gestured at the patient chart hanging at the end of the bed and he picked it up. “Mom and Tía Adoria would’ve moved me, or at least visited.”

  A pulse jumped in his forehead as he studied the chart. “You’ve been here for a week. How did you end up here?”

  Pru sat on the bed, facing him. “You seem too interested in me. Are you going to wait until I’m gone and then return to stab me?”

  Without lifting his head, he said, “Again, what stops me from doing that right now? I’m just curious. You don’t have to answer any of my questions.”

  Luke returned the chart and turned to the door.

  He was Pru’s only means of communication with someone else. She was getting sick of her one-sided conversations. “I was on my way to a concert with some friends when the accident happened, I lost consciousness, and woke up on doctors trying to revive me.” She swallowed, remembering those frightful moments. “Initially-initially I thought I was dead and my soul is floating out of my body until I noticed the doctors hooking me up to all kinds of devices including a heart monitor. The machine was peeping, I was alive, but not together with myself.”

  A small smile flashed on Luke’s lips then disappeared. Pru wished they could be friends again, she’d even try to disregard his questionable sanity. He would possess the unequivocal title of her best and only friend, considering the circumstances.

  “I was in the intensive care unit for few days when I stumbled on doctors discussing what to do with me. I was lucky Mrs. Lancaster was here that day and she offered to take care of my expenses until they find out who I am and contact my family.”

  One black eyebrow arched. “Mrs. Lancaster?”

  Pru made a gesture with her hand as though to dismiss the matter. “She’s a rich old lady who does charity work wherever she goes. She’s involved in all causes related to women’s independence and safety. A charity case like mine fitted in her agenda and I got my own room.”

  Lifting the chart again, he asked, “What happened to your friends?”

  “I hope they survived. As far as I know, they might be here somewhere as well. If they were conscious, they would’ve cleared the matter about my identity.”

  “I don’t understand. Weren’t they hurt in the accident?”

  “We were in two cars. I was alone in mine.”

  He lifted his gaze to her. “Were they drinking?”

  “Yes.”

  Luke eyed her fisted hands on her waist. Noticing her defensive posture, Pru relaxed her fists and let them dangle by her side.

  “I think,” he said, “either they sa
w what happened and chose not to get involved to avoid getting DUIed or they were hurt in that accident and lay unconscious or dead somewhere around here.”

  Pru remained silent. She had been through the hospital and there was no trace of her friends.

  “Still, that doesn’t explain how the hospital has nothing to identify you with. No driving license, credit cards, car registration card…anything.”

  Actually, she thought about the same thing by her third roaming day. Pru didn’t like the direction this conversation was taking. “Anyway, so this is my life story. What about you?”

  Luke narrowed his eyes. “What do you want to know?”

  She tabbed her chin with a finger. “How come you’re all alone?”

  One shoulder lifted in a halfhearted shrug. “I’m not.”

  “Come on, I’ve been following you around. Beside the occasional mumbles to your imaginary counselor, talking to me was the only real conversation you had.”

  His fingers flipped pages while his gaze ran silently over the details of her chart.

  “So,” she said to have some noise in the room beside the peeps from the machines. “What are we going to do now?”

  “We are going to do nothi—” Luke grew tense, the muscles in his neck tightening. He tilted his head, listening to something Pru couldn’t hear then jammed the chart in its place, flashed silently to a corner, and disappeared.

  He was gone. How did he do that?

  “Where did you go?” Pru exclaimed, following him to that corner, tentatively reaching out with both hands like a blind person. An intense sense of blissfulness slammed into her, shocking her into stepping back. She could easily get hooked on that addictive peace and purity. At that same moment the door opened and the night shift nurse walked in. She checked the intravenous fluid level, took blood sample on a small device that peeped, updated the chart, and left. A mechanical task performed with hardly any emotion. Pru didn’t care, she was still reeling from that bone-melting heavenly feeling. She wanted more of it.

  “I told you before, don’t do that!” Luke said, his voice husky and dangerously dark.

  Pru gasped and jumped back. He spoke right next to her ear. “D-do what?”

  “Touch me, whether I’m invisible or not.” He glared at her. Shaking his head, he slunk to the door and peered through its small window.

  “Invisible? I thought you left.” At hearing her words, Pru felt their stupidity. He wasn’t like her, melting through doors and walls. Yet, he was something different. People didn’t just disappear into thin air.

  Torn between believing him—and her own eyes—and listening to the dictations of her logical thinking, Pru filed that argument for later. “Anyway, I don’t touch anything, I go through everything.”

  “Then don’t go through me.”

  Luke was the unearthly pleasure that just engulfed her thinking and feeling? Sweet! Now even if he went invisible on her, she could find him.

  “What’s so funny?” Luke asked, agitated, his dark gaze locked on her smiling lips.

  She shrugged, feeling a blush creep on her. Luckily, in her current bodiless state it wouldn’t show.

  Talking about bodies, Luke had shifted his attention to hers, not the ethereal one, but the real one. With two long strides, he was next to the bed, studying her. She wasn’t one of the must-have-her-now type of girl, but she’d had admirers and could recognize an appreciative look. A bewildered one, however, was her first. To her utter surprise, Luke reached out and touched one of her curls spread on the pillow. Thoughtfully, he rubbed that strand between his fingers.

  A tingling sensation went from Pru’s hair roots to her neck, a delicious feeling she wanted to last forever. Then she remembered her defenseless situation and gulped.

  Would he be sick enough to cop a feel? Pru took a deep, calming breath and let it out slowly. “Uh, yeah, my hair was a hassle when I was mobile and is a hassle now. I heard a couple of nurses discuss cutting it.”

  Luke’s hand, the one by his side, fisted. “No.”

  “In a way, I can understand what they go through when they clean me. My hair is a jungle of curls. Too much work to wash, dry, and comb.”

  Luke stiffened, a visible tremor ran through his body. Through gritted teeth, he said, “No one should cut your hair.”

  Pru narrowed her eyes. “Is this a rule? Like, for your people. I mean, will cutting my hair affect my aura? Or maybe I won’t be able to return to my body?”

  Luke blinked at her, and let go of the curl he’d been massaging between his fingers. “Yeah. Something like that.” He turned as though to leave.

  “Wait. Please don’t go.”

  Luke Paused.

  In a smaller voice, Pru added, “I don’t want to be alone.”

  Every corded muscle from his shoulder blades to his lower back reverberated, shook, and adjusted itself. Without turning, Luke exited the room.

  She’d opened up to him and this was her reward?

  “Arrogant smart-ass,” she mumbled under her breath and rushed after him.

  Chapter Eight

  Aurora’s light chased away the darkness that settled over the city, leaving the world in semi darkness, or semi light, depending how one’s disposition colored it. Luke saw it as a short prelude that rendered him blind to auras until sunset.

  Lights were on in the bakery shop below his loft, the aromas of freshly backed rolls, scones, and pastries would drift up his window until noon. By his side, Pru walked in silence, her loneliness tangible and consuming.

  You know her? Celestine whispered in his head.

  Yes. He’d kept his communication with his guide on a telepathic level to avoid the confusion of the other day.

  We grew up together. He didn’t want to discuss her, didn’t want Celestine getting on his case about her. So you see, I wasn’t hallucinating.

  One can argue the entity you have been speaking of is still a figment of your imagination. I have witnessed a one-sided conversation in the hospital. Nevertheless, I believe you. Any idea how she came to be in this state?

  She was in a car accident after which she fell in a coma. I’ll find out more from her, Luke said.

  Good. The more we know about these oddities the better we are equipped to handle them.

  Pru, an oddity to be handled? The combination of those words was wrong. He kept his mouth shut and climbed the stairs two at a time, glancing behind once. It was disheartening to see her float over each step.

  Celestine said, This means you will not perform your other business in her presence.

  If she doesn’t like it, she’s welcome to leave. I didn’t force her to follow me.

  Celestine parted with a single comment. I do not wish for your business to be the end of you one day.

  To himself, Luke mumbled under his breath, “That day has come and gone.”

  “Sorry?” Pru asked.

  “What?” He growled at her.

  Pru flinched, the black of her eyes melting into a sea of doubt. “I thought you said something.”

  Just hearing the defensiveness in her voice made his chest ache. “Talking to myself.”

  “Oh.”

  It didn’t take a genius to figure out she didn’t trust him, her savior and executioner at the same time. Her side-glances and pressed lips, all indicated fear. She never feared him when they were younger. She had stood head to head with the toughest douche bag in the vicinity without a flinch. She won some and lost some, but neither got to her head or stopped her. No wonder she’d kept him at a safe distance without encouraging his attraction to her, for her sense of fairness and morality contrasted with his lawlessness.

  Luke unlocked the door and gestured for her to enter before him. She passed him by and asked, “Why’s the change in attitude? Pity?”

  He heard the other question she hadn’t voiced. Would he be going after her body when her back was turned? The thought that she lay weak, unprotected in the hospital nagged at him. All those raspberry red curls tangle
d around an inherently lovely face, shadows of thick dark lashes cast over high cheeks. Her lips so very red and full, they teased to be tasted.

  What if she became the permanent residence of a rogue spirit?

  Luke pushed both hands in his jeans’ pockets. “You’re not a spirit looking for a B&B. I have no beef with you.”

  She studied him, arms crossed over her chest. “You really believe you’re some sort of priest on a mission to exorcise the world of all spirits.”

  “I never claimed I’m a priest, but yeah, the rest is accurate. Don’t look so surprised, this is beyond what we learnt in school and in textbooks.” At the skeptical look in her eyes, he added, “You already know I can turn pale and invisible.”

  That seemed to take the wind out of any further arguments regarding his so-called delusions. She wandered around the loft, hovering from the kitchenette to the bed, then abruptly moving away from it as though it might lunge at her.

  “So what do we do now? Roast some marshmallows and share scary stories?”

  Luke plopped in the leather armchair. “Tell me how you developed an interest in animals.”

  Her face beamed with a smile so radiant Luke almost moaned. He vowed to help Pru regain her body even if it killed him. Again.

  “Actually, they developed an interest in me. Only a moron rejects that kind of selfless affections. Cats rub by me, dogs drag their owners to reach me, even squirrels abandon their hidey-holes to sit by my side. Don’t laugh at this, but sometimes I think they can understand me.”

  Luke smiled, glad he’d found a topic that relaxed her. “What about predators?”

  “I haven’t tried my luck there.” Her response was terse and dry.

  “Calm down, I wasn’t making fun of you. I’ve heard of horse whisperers, but not the-whole-kingdom’s whisperers. A man is entitled to a bit of curiosity.”

  She shrugged. “I guess.”

  “Which concert were you going to?”

  She smiled shyly. “The Slam. You remember Carmen? Well, we’re still very close and she had tickets to the concert, so she and her boyfriend invited us to join them.”