Dark Demon Rising: Whisperings Paranormal Mystery book seven Read Free

Look at her.”
    “Aha!”
I wagged a finger at her. “If she’s me and she’s alive, I can’t be dead.” I
frowned as what I’d said sank in. “Now wait a minute. I mean. . . .” My voice failed
as I realized I didn’t know what I meant.
    “Yes,
the body is alive but it can’t function on its own. The organs won’t work
without artificial stimuli. So for all intents and purposes, it’s a lump of
dead flesh,” Jack said unforgivingly. “When the body’s dead, the occupant
leaves it. If a person is no longer in a dead body, what are they? Anyone?”
    Mel
performed a hop and waved her hand in the air. “Me!”
    Jack
clasped his hands behind his back and nodded at Mel. “Yes Miss Trent?”
    “They’re
a shade!”
    “Well
done!”
    My
voice came with a heavy dose of sarcasm. “Okay, Professor Jack, if a body’s dead,
why keep it on life support?”
    “Because
life support systems can be used to maintain a body declared dead until
critical organs can be recovered in the operating room.”
    “Maybe
so, Jack, but they don’t keep it in a fancy hospital room and allow it visitors.”
I’d had enough of Jack in medical information mode. “Hell, I’m getting out of
here.”
    I
strode to the door, put my palms flat on it and pushed. Honestly, I thought
this time it would open. My head injury muddled my coordination when I tried to
open the door before. The cop outside didn’t hear me through a thick door made
to mute noise. I could explain away everything.
    It
didn’t budge. I groaned, turned my back to the unresisting thing and faced my
roommates.
    “Um,
Tiff,” Jack said. “You’re not actually leaning on a door. What you feel is your
boundary.”
    “Touch
anything else and you go right through it,” Mel added.
    “Now
you’re being ridiculous,” I sputtered as my brain contrarily reminded me of
landing in the armoire, which was right behind where Royal sat.
    Did
I fall through him?
    Mel
gave me a sad, pitying look. “You’ll see.”
    They
went to stand either side of the bed.
    “Look,”
I wearily said from across the room. “You made an assumption based on my . . .
accident, and our being in the same room as a patient on life support. My
memory is a little fuzzy but obviously I was hurt and—”
    “If
she isn’t you, she’s your twin,” Jack announced.
    “You
are blind as well as. . . .” I lost my voice again as I joined them and my gaze
fell on a delicate necklace on the bedside table. A silver crucifix inside an
endless knot and an engagement ring hung on a silver chain. The diamond in the
ring sparkled in the room’s artificial light.
    My
hand went to my neck where a tiny crucifix and a ring dangled on a silver chain
between the points of my collar.
     

Chapter Two
     
    The
necklace Royal gave me, and my engagement ring. 1 Worried I’d damage
it, maybe knock the stone from the setting, I wore the ring there when on an
assignment. The jewelry on the nightstand looked identical.
    The door opened and Royal came in, distracting
me from the enigma of the necklace and ring at the patient’s bedside. He looked
terrible, not only his tortured eyes, he sagged as if he had aged thirty years.
He lowered his big body to the chair and ground his eyes with his knuckles.
    I stood at his side as close as I could get as
he took the patient’s hand in both of his. “Royal? Royal, honey? Look at me.”
    He picked up the crucifix and wound the chain
through his fingers.
    “He can’t hear you, Tiff,” Jack said. “Give it up.
You’re only torturing yourself.”
    A moment passed before I realized the overall
wrongness. No demon heat emanated from Royal, no tantalizing sandalwood and
amber scent. I drew in a deep breath through my nose and smelled nothing, not even
the usual antiseptic smell found in hospitals.
    Nausea
churned in my stomach, rose in my chest and turned to bile at the back of my
throat.
    “Royal!” I heard the panic in my voice. “Please!”
And I laid my hand on his