Amanda Stevens - The Restorer

Devlin’s eyes smoldered and before I could move away, his hand shot out to grip my chin. He tilted my head back, searching my face.

“Amelia.” It was almost a question.

The sound of it made me tremble. “Yes, yes, yes,” I breathed and wound my arms around his neck, pulling him down for my kiss.

The breeze through the open doorway whipped the candle flames as the silky curtains billowed and beckoned.

Devlin pulled away and stared into my eyes for the longest moment, and then with a muttered oath he swept me up and carried me to the bed. The fabric parted in the breeze, and before I could catch my breath, we were falling through that shimmering fabric into another world, dark and lush. Devlin’s world. Mariama’s world.

I heard nothing of the music now but the drumbeats. The primitive sound thundered in my ears as he rose over me.

Trapping my wrists, he lifted my arms over my head, kissing me again and again and again. Long, hot, out-of-control kisses that left me thrumming. That left me begging. I closed my eyes tightly as his lips slid over my stomach.

My arms were still over my head, but the fingers around my wrists had turned cold. I tried to move, but I couldn’t. Something held me in place as I felt Devlin’s tongue skim the inside of my thigh.

I squirmed and tried to free myself. Tried to say his name.

He lifted my hips to meet his mouth, and as a white-hot pleasure filled me, I heard her laugh.

Slowly, I opened my eyes.

A ghost hovered over the bed. Eyes burning into mine. Mouth twisted in a ghastly grin.

I tried not to react, but how could I not?

Tearing my hands free from whatever held me, I tried to push Devlin away. He looked up, eyes heavy with desire. “What’s the matter?”

They were all around us. Drawn by the heat and energy of our lovemaking. Drawn to the most elemental act of life…of what they could never experience again.

Hungry and covetous, they watched us. Leering from the darkest corners. Crouching like gargoyles atop bedposts. Touching diaphanous body parts in grotesque parody.

A scream rose in my throat as Devlin moved up beside me. “Amelia? What’s wrong? Did I hurt you? Scare you…?”

He didn’t have a clue they were there. How could he not feel the cold dankness that surrounded us? The evil that had blown in with the breeze?

Across the room, the entity I’d seen in the garden at Rapture sat slumped in a chair. He wore shackles, one clamped around his wrist, the other dangling free. Lifting the loose end to his face, he sneered knowingly at me through the hole.

Devlin touched my shoulder and I flinched away. “I…have to go.”

“What is it? What did I do?”

I slid out of bed and grabbed my clothes. “I’m…” Haunted. “I have to go!”

I ran blindly from that room, Devlin’s voice calling after me. “Amelia!”

Later when I looked back on that night, I never remembered dressing or leaving the house. Had I not been so traumatized, I might have noticed the shadow that lurked at the corner of the veranda. I might even have recognized the troubled visage that tracked me.

As it was, I barely had any recollection of how I got home. I knew that I must have driven like a bat out of hell, though, because I was already inside my house, locked in my own little sanctuary, by the time Devlin caught up with me.

He beat on my front door, called out my name, but I didn’t let him in. I slid to the floor, arms wrapped tightly around my legs, shaking uncontrollably as my father’s warning pounded through my head.

…take care you don’t let them in. Once that door has opened…it cannot be closed.

“Papa,” I whispered. “What have I done?”

I woke up the next day to sunlight and a ringing telephone. I was in my bedroom, but I had no idea how I’d gotten there. The details of last evening were cloudy. Something told me I was better off that way.

Drawing the covers over my head, I waited for the caller to give up. I wasn’t up to dealing with real life. I wanted to drift a little while longer, but little by little, everything came back to me and I felt very alone and afraid. I had no one to talk to, no one to turn to. I couldn’t tell Papa. I couldn’t bear to see the look in his eyes. I couldn’t tell Devlin, either, because he would never understand, no matter how hard he tried.

He’d spent the night on my front porch, only inches from where I lay curled on the floor in the foyer. But he may as well have been a million miles away for all that it mattered. I couldn’t open the door to him. I imagined them out there, circling like vultures. As long as I remained in my sanctuary, they couldn’t touch me. As long as I stayed away from Devlin, they wouldn’t want me.

Or so I told myself. But I wouldn’t know for sure until dusk.

He’d finally left at sunup and taken his ghosts with him. I’d pulled myself up off the floor and staggered into the bedroom to collapse fully dressed on top of the covers. I didn’t remember nodding off, but I must have slept deeply because now I had that sluggish, hungover feeling of daytime slumber.

I wished I could doze off again, but I couldn’t afford to sleep the day away. I had work, things to take care of. Life went on for me and for Devlin…just not together. Unless I could find a way to shut out the ghosts. But even here in my sanctuary I wasn’t safe. Not from Devlin.

The phone started ringing again. This time I picked it up, thinking it might be him, though I hadn’t a clue what I would say to him. I wasn’t ready to face him. That much I did know.

“Hello?”

“Amelia? It’s Ethan. Did you forget our date?”

I sat up. “Our date?”

“You were going to come by the morgue today. Unless you changed your mind.”

I pressed my fingertips into my temple. “We talked about this last night, right? At your father’s party?”

“Yes. Are you all right?”

“Just a little groggy. I guess I overslept.”

A pause. “Overslept? It’s almost two o’clock in the afternoon.”

My gaze flew to the clock. “That’s impossible.” But there it was in bright, neon blue.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Ethan asked worriedly.

“I just need a minute to pull myself together.” Of course, I needed a whole lot more than that, but it was a relief to have something to think about other than the ghosts. Other than Devlin. Suddenly, I had an overpowering urge to be out among the living. A morgue would not have been my first choice, but the appointment had already been set with Ethan and I was curious about the skeletal remains we’d found in the chamber. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“Call when you arrive so I can walk you in. And, Amelia?”

“Yes?”

Another pause. “Nothing. I’ll see you soon.”

I hung up the phone with one thought uppermost in my mind. How many hours did I have until twilight?

Ethan came out to greet me at MUSC. As we rode the elevator down to the morgue, I could feel his inquisitive gaze on me. He must have wondered about my appearance, but was too much of a gentleman to ask. One glance in the mirror after my shower had confirmed a cold suspicion. My eyes were sunken, my cheeks hollow. Already I had assumed the gaunt visage of the haunted.

“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Ethan asked as we walked down a short hallway.

I offered him the first excuse I could think of. “I’m just feeling a little under the weather today. It’s nothing serious.”

“If you have a weak stomach, this probably isn’t the place for you,” he warned.

“No, I’m okay.”

Famous last words.

He pulled open a door and we were met with a swoosh of cold air and the pungent aroma of antiseptic layered over the putrid, slightly sweet scent of death. My stomach recoiled as he led me into the locker room of the autopsy suites. He handed me a set of scrubs and then disappeared while I changed out of my street clothes. After a few minutes, he came back to collect me and we went into one of the rooms where the skeletal remains had been placed on a stainless-steel table.