Earth Angel (The Kamlyn Paige Novels) (14 page)

It was almost winter and the leafless trees and
dead grass reminded me of the cold to come. Soon, the pouring rain would turn
to billowy fluffy snowflakes covering the frozen earth in a blanket of white.
It was my favorite time of the year. The only green daring to stick around
through the frigid weather were the tall forests of pines.

The deeper we got into Ohio, the more we saw
country turn into suburbia. Sparse neighborhoods morphed into well organized
communities. Younger, purposeful trees lined the sidewalks while children
darted in between. As we crossed over into our destination state, the
communities dispersed once more and turned back into vast open spaces. Water
started to creep from the massive lake to the east over to us, flowing under
the highway. While I made my exit onto a smaller highway, venturing into the
middle of Michigan, I recognized the name of North Van Dyke Road. The sign I
saw before flashed through my head, confirming it to be the same one I saw now.

The rain persisted to my dismay. Whenever any
precipitation decided to fall from the sky, people drove as if they were
trudging their way across country in covered wagons. The sky was blanketed with
clouds so dark that it appeared to be late in the evening rather than lunch
time. What should have only been another hour on the road turned into bumper to
bumper traffic. We were supposed to make it by noon, but thanks to the
terrified drivers we made it just in time for an early dinner. I hadn’t eaten anything
the entire day and I was starving.

“I need something to eat, are you hungry?” I asked,
thinking for a moment. “Wait, do you even eat?”

He smiled his perfect, crooked smile.

“I don’t have to, but I like to.”

That was good enough for me. I spotted a small
family owned Italian restaurant and pulled off into the first parking spot. I
was excited to see that there were barely any other cars there, so we were
guaranteed a table right away.

“Is this okay with you?” I asked, not sure if he
was more accustomed to finer dining. I was just happy to be eating somewhere
without a drive-thru.

“Italian is my favorite food,” he answered.

Involuntarily, my lips parted into a big grin.

“Get out! Me too!” I exclaimed. “I’m actually part
Italian, although it’s a small part.”

“I know,” he said, staring at me as he leaned back
on the head rest.

“Right,” I responded, forgetting he knew everything
there was to know about me.

I wasn’t sure how fair that was considering I
didn’t really know all that much about him. Sure I knew his general background,
but he had been alive for thousands of year…maybe forever. There had to be more
to him than what he’d told me.

The place was small, but charming. The square
wooden tables were mostly for two and covered in red and white checkered cloth.
The walls were plastered with old photographs of Italy, with the occasional
green, white, and red flags thrown into the mix. Even though we were inside,
the restaurant had tried to make it look as if we were dining outside with an
assortment of fake trees and brick walkways. The young hostess sat us at a
table under a string of white lights. In the center was a red glass bowl with a
single candle glowing dimly. Once we were handed our menus, we were left alone.

I scanned the entire list of food for minutes, torn
between a sausage and pepper pasta and spinach stuffed ravioli. I loved spicy
food, though. It was always my go to.

“I’ll have the spinach stuffed ravioli and she will
have the sausage and pepper pasta,” Sari said to our waitress before I could
even look up to see her. “And we’ll each have a glass of Pinot Grigio.” He
pronounced the name of the wine with a subtle hint of an authentic accent.

“I thought you couldn’t read minds,” I said,
perplexed by how he knew what I was going to order.

“I can’t, but I know how much you love spicy food,”
he answered casually, flashing his bright smile as he unfolded his napkin and
placed it over his lap.

“And how’d you know the spinach ravioli was my
second pick?”

He grinned and leaned in as if he were about to
reveal a secret.

“I didn’t. That one’s
my
favorite.”

The wine was the first thing to arrive to the
table, along with complimentary bread and butter. As the waitress tipped the
bottle, the sweet smell of the golden yellow wine hit my nostrils and left my mouth
watering. I closed my eyes while I took in the first tangy sip.

“You know everything about me, how about you tell
me more about you,” I urged, not being able to contain my wonder.

Sari looked into my eyes as if examining my desire
to figure him out, or my strength to be able to handle his past.

“Well…” he pondered. “…my favorite color is blue, I
don’t prefer cats
or
dogs, reading and traveling are my favorite
pastimes, December is my favorite month, and you already know I prefer Italian
cuisine,” he concluded with the slightest hint of a smile on his face.

“Alright, fine,” I responded, giving up my quest to
learn more about the mysterious man across from me. “I don’t want to know.”

When we were finished with our dinners we sat in
the truck trying to figure out our next move.

“I’ve dealt with ‘Ladies in White’ before,” I
jumped right in, “and it can be tricky to find their bodies because they’re
usually the victims of murder without a proper burial, but…”

I was cut off when Sari raised his soft, warm finger
up to my slightly chapped lips, freezing them in a puckered position.

“You need to stop thinking like a regular hunter,”
he ordered, keeping his finger pressed against my mouth.

My heart beat rapidly as I stared at him in awkward
confusion.

“Remember what you did to Alli?” he asked, knowing
I absolutely remembered. “You’re going to do the same thing. Focus everything
you’ve got into getting rid of this spirit,” he explained simply, removing his
finger.

My nerves tingled, causing my stomach to twist into
knots. What if I couldn’t do it again? I figured the only reason it even worked
before was because I was not in my physical form. Everything seemed different
now. It seemed impossible. And I wasn’t sure this was the woman I wanted to be
testing my abilities on when they were so new and fresh. These spirits were
some of the angriest ones out there, prone to hurting and even killing people
in their blind rage over what happened to them. I didn’t want to be standing in
the middle of an open road without my weapons, exposed, but that was exactly
what Sari was asking me to do. I had promised to try this hunt his way and if I
didn’t like it then I wouldn’t ever have to do it again. The same was true,
though, if her spirit ripped me to shreds. I started the engine and drove
slowly down the dark, windy road.

My eyes focused widely as the truck putted through
the blackness, the only light in sight coming from the dim headlights. Every so
often my vision would shift from left to right, scanning for a lonely woman
alongside the road. The minutes passed by slowly without so much as a glimmer
of a ghost. I started to question whether my visionary travels were real or if
I had just imagined the whole experience.

“There,” Sari said so quietly it was almost a
whisper. “She’s just around the bend.”

My foot eased off the gas while my hands grasped
the steering wheel. Any hidden confidence I had in myself to do this job was
completely gone and replaced with paralyzing fear. I hadn’t felt so terrified
since my first hunt with Don. We had gone through months of training before I
even attempted to go with him, but this time there was no training involved. It
felt as if I were getting ready to perform surgery without ever having gone to
medical school.

“Don’t be scared,” Sari said gently as he placed
his hand on top of my clenched fist.

I forced my hands to relax and snorted under my
breath.

“I’m
not
scared. I’m just preparing myself
is all.”

He looked away from me as he took his hand from
mine, trying to suppress his urge to laugh.

“If you say so…”

Ignoring his comment, I turned my head forward
again and took a deep breath. It was now or never I told myself…time to get it
over with. I opened the door and stood still while I tried to locate the ghost
before she found me. The echo of the door slamming seemed deafening in the open
wilderness around me. As far as I could tell, I was completely alone. I walked
over to the passenger side window to ask Sari what to do, but found myself
talking to an empty seat. The bastard left me all alone! What if I couldn’t do
it? What if this ghost ripped me to pieces? Did he even care about me at all?

“Can you help me?” a high, soft voice asked from
behind me.

I whirled around, pinning my back against the hard,
solid truck. Standing in the middle of the road was the young girl from my
vision. She couldn’t have been more than eighteen years old. Even though she
didn’t seem dangerous, I knew that could change in a heartbeat. She shuffled a
few steps closer, barley lifting her exposed, naked feet from the slick
pavement. She stopped close enough to let the light from the headlights
brighten her features more. I held my breath as she spoke again.

“Please…can you help me?” she said again softly,
desperation escalating in her voice.

A cold gentle breeze blew past us, lifting her dirt
filled hair off her face and behind her shoulders, exposing the deep red gashes
covering almost every surface of her skin. One of the straps on her dress had
been broken and was dangling over a dark stain near her stomach.

“Hello ladies, something I can help you with?”
called the reassuring voice of Sari.

I released an enormous sigh of relief. Sari walked
up to me with a grin on his face, acting nonchalant as if he were just another
person passing by. Without any warning the wounded girl across from us started
to emit a low rumbling growl from deep within her throat. Her face changed into
the terrifying one I had seen earlier in my vision.

“What are you doing? Get out of here!” I yelled at
Sari.

I knew the sight of a man was the reason behind the
young girl’s transformation. ‘Ladies in White’ normally targeted men since men
were usually the ones responsible for their tragic deaths. Before Sari could
manage one of his mysterious disappearances the enraged teenager moved with
impossible speed, pinning him by the throat against the truck next to me.

“I’m going to make you suffer,” she hissed into his
ear as she grasped his hands in one of hers, leaving him defenseless and unable
to perform his angelic touch of death.

“It will be slow…and painful…just like it was for
me,” she promised.

The force of her slamming Sari backwards again
knocked me to the ground. I stared upward in horror, watching Sari’s mouth open
and close silently as he gasped for air. The dark veins of his face started to
protrude, like purple spider webs under his skin. His bulging eyes pleaded to
be saved.

I scrambled to my feet with a burst of intense
adrenaline at the sight of Sari so close to death. There was no way I was going
to let Sari go out like this. I grabbed the gun from the ankle strap I had used
to hide it and aimed straight for the blood stain on the young girl’s side. As
the iron bullet penetrated her body she flickered, only disappearing for a
split second before resuming her grip on Sari’s throat.

I hoped the shot would have bought us enough time
to get Sari out of harm’s way. My brain was racing, trying to come up with
another plan to save him. His eyes were perfectly rounded with fear. The little
red blood vessels were creeping toward his amber irises, threatening to burst
at any moment. Little time was left for me to end this and I was beginning to
panic. The thought of losing Sari was more than I could bear. Tears streamed
down my face silently.

“Stop!” I screamed long and loud, holding my hands
out in front of me.

Instead of making the girl release her grip,
streams of lightening exploded from my fingers with a loud thundering and lit
her entire body up with bright white lights. Before she could let out a shriek
of terror, she was gone. I ran to where Sari should have been, but found
nothing. Breathing suddenly became impossible. I tried to fight the urge to
have a full on panic attack. In my attempt to save the only person who believed
in me, I ended up killing him. These powers had been nothing but a nightmare
for me and now I was never going to see Sari again. I wept on the rain soaked
pavement.

“What are you doing?”

I spun around to see his familiar, perfect face
standing over me, unscathed and smiling. I opened my mouth to speak, but no
words came out. I stood up slowly, my legs shaking beneath my weight.

“How…I thought…” I stammered, blinking to make sure
he was really there.

“I
had
to give you a push to be able to do
what you did,” Sari reasoned as he grasped my arm to steady my balance.

Suddenly, I felt very stable.

“You mean you faked it? You were never in any real
danger!” I heard my voice break from the amount of anger I was projecting.

“Well, no, I wasn’t technically, but I did it for
your own good,” he tried to explain in a calm tone.

“How could you do that to me? I thought you were
dead!” I yelled louder than I thought I was capable of. “I thought I’d never
see you again and now you’re telling me it was all an act?”

To my surprise, his lips curled up into a flattered
smile.

“You were worried about never seeing me again?”

“Yea, I
was
, but you don’t have to worry
about that anymore,” I responded as I stomped my way over to the driver side of
the truck, swinging the door open with full force. “Do
not
follow me!”

I slammed the door and sped away. I looked in the
review mirror to see Sari standing in the middle of the dark road alone. After
what he did to me, I was okay with that being the last time I ever saw him. He was
alive and well and he obviously didn’t need me. I glanced at the road and then
back into the mirror one more time against my better judgment, but the road
behind me was empty.