Unmasked Read online

  Lacey shook her head. “No, that was in the beginning. And I felt terrible about it. Yet I knew she would be happy to leave. But the process … The process was so unforgiving, so damaging to her soul and mind. Her physical body just broke down. Everyday something else didn’t work,” she whispered.

  “Dying from a major illness isn’t fun for anybody, I don’t imagine,” Hunter said. “I’ve lost friends but never from a slow wasting away of who they were.”

  She nodded. “That’s a good way to describe it. Thankfully she stayed herself all the way through to the last few days. At the very end, she was there, yet she was almost not there, and I don’t mean mentally.” She struggled to formulate the words. “I know it’ll sound silly, but it’s almost like there was a glow to her, a translucent glow. Somehow she was not there physically anymore. Her skin turned thin and translucent. I don’t know,” she broke up. “It’s so hard to explain.”

  “And how long did you sit with her at that time?”

  “I stayed with her steadily,” she said. “I kept telling her it was okay. If she was ready to let go, I’d be fine, that she was welcome to join Dad and to release herself from the pain she was in. How I was fine and didn’t want her hanging on, holding on, fighting for my sake. I wanted her to go and to do what she needed to for her sake. It was obvious her organic body was done for, but, if there’s a soul, if there’s something on the other side, I really wanted her to be able to release earlier than later and to save herself all that pain. Not that there was much in the way of pain because she was on heavy drugs. We could only manage her passing.”

  Both men nodded, then Sebastian left the room. He reappeared with several cups of coffee and placed them on the small coffee table in front of the couch.

  She glanced at Hunter. “How does that have anything to do with this?”

  “I think it’s an acceptance of the gate in between the two worlds,” Hunter said. “An understanding that there is a spirit life on the other side.”

  Sebastian watched as Hunter talked. But Lacey stared at her cup. Almost … hiding. “What aren’t you telling us?”

  She winced. And then glared at him. “You could just let me keep a secret or two, you know?” she snapped.

  “This isn’t the time.” Hunter leaned forward, tilted her chin his way and said, “No secrets now. People’s lives are on the line.”

  She groaned. “It has nothing to do with what’s happening now.”

  “What happened?”

  She shrugged. “It’s just sometimes, when I would hold her hand, it would be like I was one with her. As if our spirits had melded into this incredible moment. And I was holding her hand when she died, and I could see this light around her body. I reached out to touch it, and it ran around me too. Holding me. It was like a hug, only she was already gone. I know that doesn’t sound very normal, which is why I didn’t bring it up. And then, the moment she died, I knew because …” She fell silent.

  “Because?”

  “Because … Because I saw her spirit separate from her body and leave.”

  Chapter 13

  Something about speaking with these two men had loosened her tongue. She’d never told anybody about that weird sensation or what she’d seen.

  Sebastian leaned forward. “When you saw her spirit rise,” he asked urgently, “what else did you see?”

  She stared at him. “How did you know?”

  Hunter squeezed her hand. “Tell us.”

  “It was like …” She didn’t know what to say. “It was like a doorway. Only it was open. Like staring out a window into a different world.”

  “And what did you see in that window?”

  Tears came to her eyes. “I saw my father. He’d been dead ten years,” she said in wonder. “But I saw my father. And he smiled at me. He held out his hand, not to me, but to my mother. As she grasped his hand, I let go of her. When I let go, that window closed. I sat there on my mother’s sickbed, convincing myself I hadn’t just imagined that for at least an hour. Just holding my mother’s hand as her body cooled. She was gone in every way possible. But I couldn’t leave that moment. It was so shocking, disheartening. I’d never been one of faith before,” she said quietly. “But it made me realize there is so much more we don’t understand.” She let out a deep sigh, feeling some of the tension roll off her shoulders as she released that heavy weight. “I didn’t realize how much I’d been holding that in.” She looked from one man to the other. “What does it mean?”

  “It means …” Hunter said, “it means you opened the doorway to the other side.”

  “The other side of what?” she asked with a wide-open look. “Death, the divide between the two? Was that heaven? Is there such a thing?”

  “If you believe in heaven,” he said, “then you have to believe in hell.”

  She stared at him for a long moment. “That seemed very much like heaven,” she whispered. “And that man was my father. I know it was.”

  “And then, of course, one has to question the existence of the other side of heaven too,” Sebastian said quietly. “And I can tell you. I’ve seen that side. I’ve seen evil in many forms. Not for very long, not very deep. But what Hunter and I saw at the Mayan ruins belonged to the other side.”

  She stared at them softly. “So why is it we’re together? Because I saw and believed in one side, and you saw and believed in the other? Are we the two halves of one experience? What exactly is the meaning behind all this?”

  “I don’t know,” Sebastian said. “But I do know that darkness feeds on light. It consumes it, and then it goes looking for more.”

  She smiled. “I would have said that the light was something that is spread by touch, spread by caring, by kindness.” She reached out and touched Sebastian’s hand. “I felt so connected, so loved, so cared for when that door opened, revealing my father, while I still held my mother’s hand. It’s a feeling I don’t think I’ll ever forget. I can close my eyes and feel everything as it was at that one moment. Like it’s glowing inside me. Their love for me is so strong, so deep into my soul, into my very being.” She closed her eyes and mentally hugged that feeling ever-present inside. Her eyes flew open as she added, “Everybody says I’m a very warm, happy person. And I think it’s because I found that peace, that center inside.” She smiled up at both men. But they didn’t say anything. Instead something odd was in Hunter’s gaze. “What is it?”

  He glanced over at Sebastian. “Did you see it?”

  He nodded. “I did.”

  “See what?” she whispered. “Something in me, something around me?” She twisted to look behind her. “You guys are scaring me.”

  Sebastian squeezed her fingers. “Nothing to be afraid of. If anything, we are in awe.”

  “Of what?” she cried out, bewildered.

  “Because inside you,” Hunter said, “when you closed your eyes, you could feel that feeling of what it was to be so connected that your whole being glowed. As if this source of light came from the center of your solar plexus, moved up to your heart and then moved rapidly outward until you were a glowing bubble.”

  She laughed in delight. “You know what? I am so happy to hear that. Because that would be the ultimate ideal of what I would like to project to the world.”

  Both men settled back ever-so-slightly.

  She gripped her hands together and smiled at them. “I don’t know if you can understand how absolutely amazing it was to help my mother cross over, to have my father reach for her on the other side so she was never alone on her journey. How amazing would it be for everybody to know that’s how it is or that’s how it could be?” She squeezed her fingers together and then sank back into the couch with a happy sigh. “And yet, I have no clue why all the rest of this is happening.”

  “You opened the doorway to the other side,” Hunter said quietly. “You opened it out of love. You opened it out of caring. But I don’t know how quickly you closed it, and I don’t know, while it was still open, who might have
seen it and who might have been attracted to your bright warm light in this world.”

  “I hope everybody saw it. I hope everybody could feel it, could feel the love.”

  “Yes, if they needed it,” Sebastian said. “If they were hurt and sore and lonely, dying, feeling depressed. Yes, yes, yes. But not if they were looking to consume it.”

  Slowly his words sank in. “You think the goodness within me, that joy I felt at that moment my mother was dying—and I know it sounds absolutely terrible to say that in one way. But you think that absolute bittersweet moment in my life attracted somebody who potentially wanted to destroy it?”

  “Or who wanted to consume it literally,” Hunter said. “Because they’re so full of darkness, they’re attracted to the light, like all things are. But they can’t reach it because they’re so deep into that evil persona that all they want to do is consume the light, whether to heal themselves or to eradicate the light so they can be bigger, badder, darker than they’ve ever been before.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t believe something like that could happen.”

  “No, maybe you can’t.” Hunter pointed to the sketchbooks. “But then you have to wonder where this came from.”

  She fell silent. Her mind was overwhelmed with the possibilities of what had been such a glorious moment in her life. “Was I was supposed to do something to protect myself?” she asked, chewing on her bottom lip. “I don’t know how any of this works.”

  “Nobody knows how this works,” Hunter said. “It could have been unlucky that you were seen by somebody evil. It could have been that you were there at that one moment where somebody was searching for a light, searching for more energy, searching for something to consume because they were angry or hurt or in denial about something in their world. Somebody evil, because they are filled with so much hate, could have been attracted to anything so bright and beautiful only to destroy it because that’s what they do,” he said. “That doesn’t mean you were in the wrong. It doesn’t mean you did anything wrong. But now we have to deal with the consequences.”

  “But we don’t know for sure that’s what happened, do we?” she asked. “I find it very difficult to believe that anything so beautiful could turn into something so very ugly.”

  Again Hunter tapped the masks and said, “You need to look at these and acknowledge they came from your hand. And, if there is all this beauty and light, where’s all this darkness and ugliness coming from?”

  For that, she had no answer.

  *

  Hours later, back at his apartment, Sebastian’s mind wouldn’t let go of those mask sketches. There was something familiar about them but as he dove through his research and historical sites nothing was coming up.

  When his phone rang, he answered almost absentmindedly, his attention still on the Mayan article on his monitor.

  “I might have found something,” Bruno said cautiously. “There are old manuscripts spouting on about the god of death we know as Kisin. Apparently there was a jailor back then who terrified the population, as he loved his job too much. Wanted his prisoners to suffer. His grave was kept secret so that the locals couldn’t desecrate the site and stop his journey to join Kisin.”

  Sebastian’s breath caught in the back of his throat. “But no word of masks?”

  “No, but they do talk about his great evil. How he seemed to grow stronger, more evil with every death he facilitated?”

  “We did find a sarcophagus at the site. That’s about the same time all hell broke loose.”

  “Given what we know and gods being these theoretical entities the people worshipped,” Bruno said humorously, “my money is on you disturbing the jailor.”

  “Do you have any history on the jailor? Maybe he was eventually killed—punished himself for a transgression. Spirits rarely come back if they are happy souls.”

  “Then again, given his job, the angry desperate souls …” Bruno chuckled. “Give me a few minutes. I’ve just found something else here.”

  The phone hummed as Sebastian kept the line open rather than having him try to call back and missing him at a later date.

  “He was called Tialox, known as Kisin’s servant.”

  “That’s appropriate considering he served the prisoners to him.”

  “I’m not seeing much about him though. This is mostly anecdotal.” Bruno’s voice faded as he read more.

  “Considering the work he did, something he likely loved, he’d have been a perfect serial killer in today’s world. And of course, he’d have gloated at the pain and fear he brought about in those around him.”

  “I agree,” Bruno said with a sigh. “A nasty man in life, quite possibly even uglier in death. Why he’d be hanging around I don’t know …”

  “He might have been murdered before his time, or maybe his soul couldn’t rest with so much negative energy flowing through him.”

  “What does he have to do with these masks? Or the deaths that happened ten years ago?”

  “No clue,” he said groaning. “And I wish I did.”

  As he hung up, Hunter, working beside him on the couch, looked up. “I heard part of that.”

  “And here’s the rest.” Sebastian quickly filled him in on the conversation.

  “Interesting and actually makes sense,” Hunter said. “We do know how some entities die and don’t cross over. Instead they stay and haunt where they died.”

  “True,” Sebastian was quick to argue. “But it doesn’t clarify anything—it only confuses the issue.” He got up and paced his living room. “What does Lacey have to do with this? The two digs are thousands of miles apart. There’s nothing to connect them. She was addicted to Pompeii since a child so now as an adult she comes and sketches death masks from an ancient Mayan culture?”

  Hunter chuckled. “Maybe?”

  Just then his phone rang. He glanced down and said, “He’s always got perfect timing.”

  “Who?’

  “Stefan? How are you?” he clicked the speaker button and laid his phone on the coffee table.

  “Wondering about ancient energy finding other ancient energy,” he said in a crisp tone. “Sounds like you guys need to update me. And then send it to me in writing via email so I can ponder the evils of the world at my leisure.”

  At that Sebastian laughed. “Will do.” And proceeded to bring him up-to-date.

  Chapter 14

  The next morning Lacey was still confused and disturbed. She’d hardly gotten any sleep, instead thinking about what had happened the previous night. Hunter and Sebastian hadn’t exactly clarified what they’d said, but she’d understood enough to get the gist, and it was terrifying.

  She’d been so joyful when her mother had passed over to meet her father, not at her mother’s passing, but that it was so peaceful, so full of love and light. To think something like that could have caused a nightmare of the proportions that these men were suggesting, well, she wasn’t sure she’d ever get a good night’s sleep again.

  She sat here in the kitchen in the early hours of the morning, waiting for the rest of the team to get up, staring at her sketchbook. The masks looked even more terrifying now. She didn’t understand the details of them, but she knew they were correct. To think she was tapping into something here … A past life of another soul was confusing in itself, and yet, made a cryptic kind of sense. She didn’t know if she should reach out to this person or if she should deliberately try to tap into a past life, if that’s what this was. She wondered about hypnosis, if that would help, but just the thought of even asking somebody for a recommendation was scary.

  “What are you doing up so early?” Chana asked as she stumbled into the kitchen. She stood at the counter and stared at Lacey, a frown on her face as she tried to clear the sleep out of her eyes. “You should be sleeping.”

  “I would if I could,” Lacey said softly. “But I can’t seem to.”

  Chana nodded. She glanced around the room. “Did you at least make coffee?”

&nbs
p; Lacey held up her cup. “I didn’t want to disturb everybody so I just made a single cup.”

  Chana snorted. “Like that’ll do any good.” She made her way to the coffeepot to make more. “What’s keeping you up at night?”

  “Lots of things.” Lacey smiled at her cousin. “But nothing worrisome.”

  She knew she’d said the right thing when she watched the relief cross Chana’s face.

  “Thank you so much for letting me be here,” Lacey said.

  Although her joy was somewhat mitigated by the strange events, she knew she needed to be here. She wasn’t sure why or how, but her presence was important. And maybe this was the culmination of a lifetime of her dreams. Maybe it was a culmination of a lifetime of other people’s dreams. If nothing else, she had to get to the bottom of this nightmare, to find a solution so she could go home again, free and clear of any curses or spirits, and to know Pompeii was not her be-all and end-all destination. Even as she thought that, a weird rumbling ran in her stomach, as if her intuition was saying something, but it wasn’t getting through to her.

  “I told you before, you’re more than welcome,” Chana said sincerely, but her gaze was on the sketchbook. “I’m sorry it’s been such a weird time since you’ve arrived. Not to mention the accident.”

  The accident? The car accident. She waved it off with a hand. “That was my fault entirely.”

  “Still, I wish it hadn’t happened,” Chana said, shooting her a sideways glance. “I wonder if your head injury was a little more serious than we first thought.”

  Lacey lifted her mug of coffee and took a sip. It was well past cold because she’d ignored it for so long. “I’m fine,” she reassured her cousin. “Honest.”

  She understood Chana was referring to the drawings. No way the team wouldn’t realize something was happening with her. The fact strange stuff was going on in the dig site just added to the mystery.

  She sifted through the sketches, studying the blueprint-looking ones, wondering how she could pick up two separate and distinct styles of artwork.