Into the Night

This Flash Friday offering is from my brand new release over at Aspen Mountain Press, and the second book in my Project Prometheus series.  Enjoy!

Flash Friday: HOPE OF HEAVEN

      Hope sighed, and wiggled her warming toes in bliss before cracking one eyelid to study the man seated at the other end of the sofa, her feet in his lap as his strong, sure fingers massaged away the ache and cold. He’d insisted on the foot rub earlier, when she
sank onto the sofa wearily after a long morning mucking out the stable. They had their first snowfall last night. Just enough to make her daily chore wet as well as cold this morning.

      “You know, it’s my job to take care of you.”

      He tossed her a rakish grin that did strange things to her pulse. “I seem to remember someone claiming she wasn’t here as a job.”

      She rolled her eyes. “Twist my words why don’t you. I’m here to take care of you because Manara asked me to. This wasn’t part of the deal.”

       He cocked her a heated look. “Why don’t you just think of this as therapy for me, Dr. MacKenzie?”

      She couldn’t help herself. She laughed. “How do you figure? You’re massaging me.”

      His smile was warm, and the heat in his gray eyes held a softness that caught her throat. “I happen to like touching you.”

      Those words, as much as his husky brogue, sent a shimmy of heat through her as she recalled that night two weeks ago, and the feel of his hands on her bare skin. A moan caught in her throat as she drowned in his gaze. She was drawn to him as if he was the air that sustained her.

       The sound of tires on the gravel lot outside saved her, and Hope removed her feet from his seductive touch, slipping them back into the simple flats she wore around the house as she rose from the sofa.

       “We have company.”

        He blinked absently, as if emerging from a stupor before a half-teasing scowl covered his face, telling her he saw her escape for what it was, and was yanking her chain about it. They both knew that, regardless of what she did in the dark of night, she wasn’t prepared for this intensity between them. She wasn’t about to hop into bed with a mercenary just because she got the itch.

         Aware that Peter’s heated gaze followed her out of the room, Hope headed for the front door. She didn’t breathe again until she was out of sight. She was too afraid that Peter Talladay was more than just an itch. For reasons she couldn’t quite figure out, he got under her skin.

          Hope reached the front door just as the bell chimed. She opened it to a slim woman in her late thirties or early forties, bundled up in a trendy leather trench coat and fur-lined gloves. She had the classic, dark-haired beauty of Elizabeth Taylor, and the
glamorous style of Jackie Kennedy. Beside her glamorous, expensive appearance, Hope felt positively dumpy. Yet, the chill that slid down her spine as the woman smiled had little to do with the gust of winter wind.

        “Uh…can I help you?”

        The scarlet-painted smile curved up even more while the icy coldness grew heavier.

        “Oh, you must be Hope!” The charming lilt of her accent was at odds with the growing discomfort crawling along Hope’s skin. The woman was so fake she reeked of it. “Sheila told me all about you!” 
 

        Hope blinked, nonplussed. “That makes one of us. And you are…?”

         “Ah, me, where are my manners?” The woman lamented, removing one glove to stick out a hand tipped in well-manicured nails, lacquered to match her lips. “Joy O’Bannon. I’ve come to visit with my poor, ailing nephew.”

        “Set one foot in that door, and you’ll lose it at the knee,” Joy’s `poor, ailing nephew’ growled from behind Hope. The loathing in his voice surprised her. She turned slightly to find Peter leaning against the banister, his expression dark with hatred.
HOPE OF HEAVEN is a brand new release for me, and fresh off the e-press at Aspen Mountain Press… http://www.aspenmountainpress.com/hope-of-heaven/prod_128.html 

Unlike the repetition of a classic haunting, apparitions are sentient beings in their own right.  These are the spirits of the deceased, most times, and sometimes the presence of something non-human, but not malicious.  An apparition will interact with its environment, and is usually quite curious about us and our lives.  Sometimes, this curiousity can be disconcerting and even disruptive.  So, how do you deal with a mischeivous or disruptive spirit?

Well, the first caution I must make is that you determine for a fact that it IS an apparition, and not something more dangerous.  Nine out of ten cases of non-haunting, non-poltergeist activity is, in fact, a benign or curious apparition, so chances are good that anything not causing physical harm falls into this category.

Once the determination’s been made that it IS an aparition, the next step is to try and communicate with it.  This is where mediums and other psychics come in extreme use.  They can ease communication with the spirit, and help figure out why it lingers.  I’ve encountered almost as many reasons for remaining behind as I’ve encountered spirits.  The most important thing to remember about most apparitions is that they are people, too.  Most of the time (about 95%), they are the spirits of the deceased, and they will act and react just like living people do.  Understanding what motivates them, and being able to communicate with them, is vitally important.

A disruptive spirit can be reasoned with, through a medium or psychic.  If they’re making the current family uncomfortable with their curiousity, often a mutual agreement can be reached.  As long as you treat them like you would any other person, most times you can confine the activity to one area of the house, or a certain time of day.  Perhaps consider giving the spirit run of the house during the day, if you work days, as long as it settles down at night so you can relax and sleep.  And just remember, if it’s a curious/mischeivous apparition, you have nothing to be afraid of.  Consider them just another part of your family, and typically the disturbances will fade into the realm of “typical” and you won’t even notice them, anymore.

However, if the entity in question is more than just mildly annoying and disruptive, or you feel threatened in your own home, you may be looking at one of the rarer infestations… the subject of my next post.

Here’s a little segment from my current release with Aspen Mountain Press… Just a small peek inside the world of Project Prometheus…

            Matt found himself staring at a vision made to stop a man’s heart.

            Manara sat beside a small pool of water, looking like an otherworldly vision of wistful sadness, bathed in desert moonlight as she stared into the water’s mirrored surface.  Gone were the fatigues he hadn’t realized he hated until this moment, replaced by something dark and filmy that flowed around her like wisps of smoke on the slight breeze, to catch the light in a fall of stars.

            Matt’s breath caught, and his chest squeezed with a primal lust that drove away all memory of death and battle.  How could any man remain morbid in this presence of this beauty?

            Reality slammed home with the force of a speeding train.  He was lusting after a woman forbidden to him – a virgin who wanted nothing to do with him.  A woman whose trust he so blatantly misused.

            He froze as his courage fled completely under the weight of regret and shame, and he knew he had no right to approach her, or to beg her forgiveness.  Especially when he couldn’t yet reconcile who she was with how he felt about her.  Instead, he watched her silently, absorbing her beauty, as regret for all he let slip away from him welled up, followed by one violent thought.  Damn you, Rachel.

            “She is a beautiful woman.  The kind men spend lifetimes composing poetry about.”

            Matt started, his attention jerked sideways by the sound of a new voice, speaking in Arabic.  Mustafa stood beside him, a knowing smile curved on her weathered face.  Matt nodded, and swallowed against the regret that stung his throat. “Have you ever made a mistake you knew was wrong?”

            Mustafa sighed.  “Once, many years ago.”

            “What happened?”

            “I tried to own a woman already owned by the world.  She belonged to the wind and, deep inside, I always knew it would carry her away from me.  Still, I did terrible things, threatened terrible consequences, in my attempt to keep her.”

            Matt nodded slowly, as the guilt of his actions toward Manara closed around his throat.  He doubted Mustafa had done anything so terrible, but he would not insult the man by belittling his experience.  “What did you do?”

            “In the end, you mean?  I let her go.”  Mustafa glanced Matt’s way.  “Celia taught me a valuable lesson about belief, and that my family is not always correct.”  He sighed again, a wistful sound that didn’t escape Matt.  His curiosity was piqued.  What did Mustafa find so alluring about this Celia he mentioned?

            “Why wouldn’t she stay?”

            Mustafa chuckled.  “There are powers at work in this world far greater than any mortal man can control.  Celia taught me that my family’s narrow views of the world merely masked their lack of concern for the fate of others.  With my eyes open, I could not stay, so I left in search of the truth, and here is where I found my destiny.  I have Celia to thank for that.  My only regret is that I could not save her from hers.”

            Matt’s brow furrowed.  He didn’t like where this was headed.  “What power?”

            “Come,” Mustafa laid a friendly hand on his shoulder.  “Let us walk as we talk.  The exercise does my old bones well.”

            Matt kept easy pace with the older man’s stroll through the camp.  They walked in silence for a time, before Mustafa drew a deep breath, and sighed again.

            “The desert air holds many secrets, but the earth holds the greatest secrets of all.  Treasures that are both amazing and dangerous, in the wrong hands.”

            Those words roused disturbing images in Matt’s head, of a blue-white sword, and tablets marked with strange characters unlike any he’d ever seen.  He had to clear his throat twice, to ask, “Like what?”

            “There are many tales.  Tales of Djinn trapped in magical lamps, and mystical races with horses that run like the wind.  But the most powerful tale is terrifyingly true, of a secret entrusted to the temple of a dying religion.  It is a secret many have coveted, and men have wasted a lifetime in search of, yet have rarely unlocked even a fragment of.  It is a dangerous secret to guard.  One of my ancestors, according to family legend, stumbled across the secret quite by accident, in a tablet crafted in ancient Babylon.”

            “Cuneiform?”

            Mustafa nodded.  “He paid dearly for his knowledge, even after he passed it back to its guardian.  Men of Rome came, and killed him for his secret.”

            “What was it?”

            “A recipe.”  Mustafa stopped as he reached the edge of the camp.  “A recipe to give immortal life.”