SIX
Jack
The scar hovering in the sala of Branwell’s apartment was quite small. Maybe a fourth the size of the one in Villa Maledetti.
“So where is it again?” Chiara asked.
I pointed to the space between the flat screen TV and the open window. Like the one in Volterra, the scar hovered above the ground, as if suspended in liquid.
Chiara frowned at the space with narrowed eyes and a scrunched brow. Basically, she looked completely darling.
I hadn’t seen Chiara in months.
I wanted to be aloof. I wanted to not notice when she walked into a room. I wanted to be able to ignore her. To not needle and rile and goad her into giving me a reaction like some youthful, overeager swain.
But . . .
Over the intervening months, I had forgotten one important thing—everything felt more vivid when Chiara was around. As if she were determined to pack years and years of existence into as short a time as possible. Every emotional reaction was amplified ten-fold.
Was she obnoxious? Hell, yes.
Irritating? Competitive? Bossy?
Yes. Yes. Yes.
But she was also one of those rare people who never lost her child-like wonder. She zipped through life, always jumping toward the next experience, the next person she got to meet. A caffeinated puppy—not that she would appreciate the comparison, but it was true.
I had missed her desperately, I realized.
Chiara made living feel more . . . alive. The irony of that statement was not lost on me.
So, of course, she made a production looking for the scar . . . bending this way and that, darting sideways, tilting her head back and forth. It didn’t help that she was dressed in tight dark jeans and a gauzy light green shirt, dark hair piled haphazardly atop her head.
I supposed I should be appalled by women no longer wearing long skirts in this century, but trousers were one trend I definitely enjoyed.
She was utterly breathtaking. I hated that I noticed. That even after everything, I still ached to touch her. To feel the silkiness of her hair. To learn how comfortably my palm would fit in the arch of her lower back. To know the smell of her perfume.
Chiara, of course, was oblivious to me.
“I don’t see anything. What happens if I get close to it?” She walked across the room and wedged herself between the TV and window.
As with Tennyson, the scar reacted to her presence, eddying out of the way. As if Chiara’s movement through reality produced unseen ripples, like passing a hand through water.
“It drifted away from you.” I pointed to it now in the middle of the TV.
She pursed her lips, thoughts knitting her brow. “Can anyone else see it?”
Tennyson and Branwell, who had come up from the family shop below, shook their heads. The resemblance between the two brothers was there but subtle.
Whereas Tennyson reflected their father’s Italian ancestry, Branwell and Dante as identical twins were genetically rooted in their mother’s Scottish American heritage.
Branwell, in particular, looked ready to start a homestead in the woods with his thick bushy beard and man bun. Dante took the same body and face into international playboy territory. Dante, and his wife, Claire, were in Rome for the day.
Branwell’s wife, Lucy, was still asleep. At nearly eight months pregnant with twins, I understood she was exhausted all the time. I never knew the Branwell before Lucy re-entered his life. But apparently that Branwell was only a distant cousin to the smiling, content man I saw before me.
Marriage to Lucy obviously agreed with him.
I ignored the pang in my chest. The one that whispered that such contentment would never be mine. That I would be trapped forever in this half-life, cut off from all humanity—
I paused my slippery train of thought. I didn’t have the energy to throw a pity party at the moment.
Mentally, I took all that unwanted angst, stuffed it into a solid oak chest and tossed the chest into the middle of the deepest ocean. If I had learned one thing from all my time in ‘Lord School,’ it was compartmentalizing my emotions. British gentlemen were experts at such things.
I would deal with it all later. That was the joy of living a half-life. You had forever to get things done. Procrastination was your friend.
Silver linings.
I pushed on my finger again. Push. Pain. Bounce.
“What happens if you get close to it, Jack?” Chiara placed her hands on her hips, nodding toward the scar. “Does it open?”
I grunted. “Tossing a sacrificial ghost to the malevolent scar?”
“Wasn’t there a Marvel movie about that?”
“Focus, you two.” Tennyson sighed.
Right.
“To be quite honest, I dislike how it feels when I get close to it,” I said. “As I mentioned earlier, my ghost instincts don’t like it.”
“How does it feel again?” Branwell asked.
“Like dissonance. It is the opposite of whatever I am. I don’t think we could co-exist in the same place. And as I currently value my existence—half-formed as it is—I don’t particularly want to jeopardize it.”
Silence.
Branwell stroked his beard. “Let’s start by examining why it’s here. Is it tied to us brothers, or is it tied to Jack? We’ve both lived in this palazzo as well as the family villa, so it’s hard to say. When did you first notice the scar in Villa Maledetti, Jack?”
“I mentioned it to Tennyson several weeks ago.”
“And you two didn’t say anything to the rest of us?” Chiara shot me a decidedly judgmental scowl.
“We’re saying something now, are we not?”
Chiara’s replying look could best be described as scathing.
“Tennyson and I were pursuing it,” I continued. “The activity surrounding the purchase of my villa consumed a good deal of our time, honestly. Until the scar ruptured yesterday, there was no reason to assume it was a problem.”
Chiara opened her mouth, intent on asking her normal thirty follow-up questions.
“Leave it, Chiara.” Branwell sliced a gloved hand through the air.
“Don’t dismiss my input, Bran.” She popped a hand back onto her hip. “Over the past year, we’ve run with the assumption that Jack’s ghostliness and the D’Angelo curse are simply parallel anomalies. But they may be more closely tied than we previously thought.”
Clever. She was so very clever.
She continued, “I think the best thing we can do is test it. You said the scar in Volterra opened when you used your GUT, Tenn. Let’s try to activate it. ”
A pause while everyone absorbed this.
“Agreed,” Tennyson said.
I grimaced. Was anyone else concerned about the scar’s ghost sucking tendencies?
“Worried, Lord Knight?” Chiara’s snark reached me.
Actually . . .
Tennyson and Branwell turned to me.
“We’ll be careful.” Branwell nodded toward me. “In my past encounters with the Chucky-slime, my GUT didn’t necessarily activate it. It was a whole sequence of events. Testing the scar is the only way to learn if it is actually tied to our GUTs. We’ll keep you as safe as possible, Jack. If I activate my GUT deliberately, then it’s easy to break the connection if the scar reacts.”
“Sounds good.” Chiara slapped her hands together. “I have something I need you to read for me anyway, Bran.”
She darted out of the room, feet clacking up the stairs. She returned a few minutes later with a glittery paper cutout of what appeared to be a lightning bolt.
“This was taped to my bedpost this morning.” She handed the paper to Branwell.
We all simply stared at her.
Chiara rolled her hand. “I have no clue how it got there.”
We men all exchanged a look. The brothers, in particular, seemed . . . worried. As if the appearance of a lightning bolt were somehow more than it seemed.
“You okay, Chiara?” Tennyson asked.
Chiara whirled on him, a cat with her claws extended. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She said the words too quickly, slurring them into one: Whatsthatsupposedtomean?
Tennyson held his hands up, palms out.
“Just making sure,” he said, gently, calmly . . . as if approaching a cornered wild animal.
“I’m fine!” she snapped.
Which, everyone knows, is the classic sign of not being fine.
What was going on here? Obviously, lightning triggered something for her.
Silence.
Branwell cleared his throat. “Uhmmm, should we be concerned about the random appearance of a thunderbolt beside your bed?”
Chiara gave a tense I dunno shoulder shrug before sitting in an overstuffed chair.
“Let’s see what you hear,” she said.
She chewed on her lower lip, eyes glued to the paper lightning.
Mmmm. The thunderbolt meant something to her. Was she in trouble?
Scratch that. Chiara was always in trouble. The better question: Was Chiara in too much trouble?
Branwell set the paper lightning bolt carefully on a side table, studying it. His GUT involved sound. If he touched an object with any part of his bare skin, he would hear what had happened around an object at the moment of its last alteration.
“You ready?” Branwell asked me.
I nodded, glancing at the scar in the corner.
Branwell pulled a glove off his right hand and carefully touched a corner of the paper. Silence hung as he bent over the object.
I stared at the scar.
At first, nothing changed.
And then . . . the scar pulsed. Like a heartbeat. The edges fluttered slightly . . . curtains in an unfelt breeze.
But nothing opened. No black miasma. No dark oily tar intent on trapping me. No Chucky-slime.
Branwell removed his hand, raising his head.
The scar reverted to a hovering, motionless state.
Interesting.
“Well?” Chiara asked Branwell.
“I heard the sounds of scissors and paper rustling. Harsh breathing that could be male or female. That’s all.” Branwell lifted his head, drilling his sister with serious eyes. “Care to tell us what’s going on?”
Chiara blinked at her brother. And then blinked again. Her bravado . . . crumpled. I saw in her eyes a frightened, worried girl, unsure and so vulnerable.
The transformation was so thorough and complete, my phantom heart stuttered. I had never seen her like this. So alone and hurt.
My chest deflated. Oh, Chiara—
But between one breath and the next, she reeled it all in, slamming down a curtain of swagger.
“I . . . uhm . . .” She swallowed and then laughed. “It’s a long story.”
We all looked at each other.
“I have all day,” Branwell said.
“Lightning is always a concern for us with you.” Tennyson agreed.
“Let it go, you two,” Chiara grumbled.
“ Are you in trouble?” Branwell asked.
A far-too-telling pause.
“Maybe,” she finally said, nibbling on her lip again.
“What did you do?” Branwell’s brow a thundercloud.
Chiara sighed. Of course, she didn’t sigh like a normal person. No, it was a whole body phenomenon. Her arms sprawled out and her head collapsed back and she melted into the chair, exhaling every last molecule of oxygen in her body.
“Can we not talk about this right now?”
“Chiara . . . “ Branwell said warningly.
“I’m not sure. I was hoping you would have more answers. Now I need a couple hours to figure things out, okay?”
“Fine. But I’m not letting this go. You’re into something.”
“When is Chiara not into something?” Tennyson asked.
Absolute truth that.
“What about you, Jack?” Tennyson nudged his jaw toward the corner where the scar now hovered. “You’re not screaming or trying to grab onto things, so I assume all was okay?”
I shrugged and explained what I had seen.
“So the scar did react when I used my GUT?” Branwell asked.
“Yes. But not much. Nothing like Volterra.”
Chiara sat upright and tapped her foot. “Maybe Tennyson is the trigger. Can you force a vision, Tenn?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes.”
Every head swung Tennyson’s way.
Silence again, this time laced with surprised. I had the distinct feeling that Tennyson’s casual admission was something of a milestone.
“Will it . . . unbalance things?” Branwell’s deep bass carried through the room.
Tennyson took in a deep breath. “I should be okay. As I’ve said in the past, the mental fracturing feels like it comes from outside my GUT. Like the visions and stuff are overwhelming and maddening, but I swear the source of my mental instability is outside that. Basically . . . forcing my gift actually doesn’t seem to make the mental fracturing worse, for some reason.”
“Makes sense, I suppose. The vision isn’t catching you off-guard.”
“Something like that.”
“So . . . ?” Chiara’s voice trailed off in a large question mark.
“Let me get settled.” Scrubbing his hands over his face, Tennyson sat down on the large couch. He placed his hands on his thighs.
“What should the question be?” Branwell asked. “It has to be about the future.”
“Personally, I’d love to know what the future holds for me.” Chiara shifted her gaze to Tennyson. “Could you focus on that?”
“You sure? You may not like what I see.”
“I’ll put on my big girl pants and deal.”
“But will you stop going through other people’s stuff?” Tennyson asked. “That’s the real question.”
Branwell snorted.
I stifled a smile.
Chiara glared.
Grinning, Tennyson relaxed. Tilting his head against the back of the couch, he stared at the ceiling. Eyes unblinking. I watched his chest, his breathing slowing down. He was clearly putting himself into some sort of trance.
Fascinating.
“What is your question?” Tennyson’s voice was hollow. As if speaking from a great distance.
Chiara darted a wide-eyed look at me, her expression clearly saying, Are you seeing how weirdly awesome this is?!
“What will happen with my life in the next couple months?” she asked.
Tennyson’s breathing went deeper, eyes still unfocused looking up to the ceiling.
I turned my gaze to the scar in the corner. So far, it remained inert. Not reacting to the events in the room.
“Chiara, I see you,” Tennyson intoned. “You are running through a house. Villa Maledetti. You are frantic. I feel your pain and anguish. You run out the back door and across the terrace to the ruined tower. Lightning flashes. A storm approaches.”
Chiara’s breathing hitched, panic flooding her eyes. She laughed, a fake, forced sound. “I think that’s good, Tennyson. I don’t need to know more—”
“Shhh!” Branwell shot daggers at her.
“So afraid,” Tennyson whispered. “So much pain. You collapse onto your knees, weeping. The rain comes, soaking you to the skin. The storm rages around you, but you don’t care. The lightning tries to wake you, but you ignore its call.”
Chiara’s astonishment morphed to outright horror. Clearly, Tennyson’s odd words meant something to her. That lost, vulnerable girl appeared again, masking her usual, vibrant ball of energy.
The scar reacted to Tennyson’s vision, fluttering, pulsing slightly.
Tennyson’s shoulders slumped, eyes closing, breaking his trance. He sat forward, rubbing his eyes.
Silence hung.
Branwell let out a long breath. “That was . . . uh . . . unexpected, Tenn. You’ve been holding out on us.”
Tennyson shrugged. “It’s a trick I learned in Afghanistan. If I was going to predict roadside bombings, I had to be able to produce a vision. We found if I cleared my mind and someone asked me a question, I could usually give a semi-coherent warning.”
He swallowed, shadows haunting his gaze. “Jack seems to be doing alright. The scar?” he asked.
I glanced at it, still hovering in the corner. “It reacted the same as it did to Branwell’s GUT.”
Branwell folded his arms, scratching his beard. “So it’s not our GUTs alone that cause it to spew ghost-trapping oily sludge. Nor is it your presence, Jack. There has to be something we’re missing. Something that causes the rupture.”
“Clearly, you are a factor, Jack.” Tennyson laced his hands behind his head. “But are you simply the observer of the phenomenon or are you a critical component of it?”
“Meaning am I the ax felling the tree, or am I merely a wanderer in the woods? That’s a good question.”
We bounced some ideas back and forth, but nothing concrete came out of it.
After about fifteen minutes, Lucy joined us, waddling into the room in a t-shirt with the words It’s all fun and games until someone gets pregnant scrawled across it. As usual, she only had eyes for her husband. Rubbing her large, rounded belly, she walked straight into Branwell’s arms, burying her face in his chest.
Something squeezed my phantom heart. It was difficult to watch them together. Given how Tennyson looked away, he felt the same. I knew he had moved past his emotions for Lucy, but that didn’t mean all the pain and longing had faded entirely.
“You good?” Branwell asked, rubbing Lucy’s back.
She nodded. “Yeah, but your children are starving.”
She turned her head and opened her eyes, staring straight at me. Delight washed her face.
“Gruncle Jack! I had no idea you were here! Come give me a ghost-kiss.”
Smiling, I walked to her and pressed my lips to her cheek, sinking in a good inch, regretting for the thousandth time that I couldn’t feel anything.
Lucy shivered and then giggled. “I got nothing. Someday, I’m going to feel that.”
Lucy made it impossible not to love her.
“What brings my favorite gruncle for a visit?” she asked.
Gruncle was a mix of great and uncle. Lucy was my niece. My brother’s great-whatever granddaughter. Having family around was nice. Missing out on two hundred years of your own history . . . not so nice.
That ever-present grief punched through, loss momentarily swamping me. I pushed back thoughts of my brother and sisters, nieces and nephews now lost to me.
Forever. I had forever to deal with their loss.
Tennyson caught Lucy up to date. Branwell asked some follow-up questions about the scar.
In the middle of the discussion, Chiara’s phone rang. My eyes followed her as she left the room, answering the call.
Why had she looked so lost when we talked about lightning? Her expression in that moment had brought out every deep-rooted protective instinct in me. I wanted to keep her safe.
Well . . . truth be known, I wouldn’t mind doing a lot more than just that . . .
But . . . my emotions were irrelevant. I wasn’t fully in her world. I had nothing to offer Chiara in my ghost-like state. I couldn’t court her. Hold a door open for her. Drive her in a car. Bring her flowers.
Nothing.
I was a non-entity. Quite literally. I couldn’t even touch her, dash it all. My only skills were walking through walls and delivering pithy rejoinders. What kind of relationship could I offer? And more to the point, given the sparks that flew between us, would a relationship even work?
Lucy was good-naturedly teasing me over the photo making the rounds on social media when Chiara walked slowly back into the room.
We all instantly went on high alert. Chiara never simply walked. She bounced or power walked or ran or . . . something.
Her expression withdrawn, she tapped her phone against her cheek.
“So . . . that was the police.”
Not a sound.
“I . . . uhm . . . sent them some information I stumbled across. Turns out, the information is exactly what they’ve been looking for in a high profile case.”
“That’s . . . great?” Tennyson offered.
“Eh.” Chiara collapsed onto a couch. “The Tempeste family is involved. This gives the police enough ammunition to indict multiple members of the family.” Her expression was doom and gloom.
“I guess I’m missing something here,” Branwell said. “Why isn’t this good news?”
A heavy sigh. “There’s a chance the evidence could be traced back to me.”
Oh.
Not good.
Everyone froze.
“Enough evidence to leave a glittery lightning bolt as a calling card?” Tennyson asked, voice tense.
“Possibly.”
“Oh my word, Chiara.” Branwell pinched the bridge of his nose.
“What did you do?” Tennyson’s eyes widened.
“Nothing!” Chiara’s hands exploded into motion. “I didn’t do anything other than record an incriminating conversation and turn it over to the police.”
“You didn’t have to turn it over.”
“There were children involved. Children who might be murdered. No way was I going to stand by and let kids be killed by not reporting the crime. The inspector over the case suggested that I leave town, lay low for a while. At least until they can get these guys behind bars.”
Silence.
“How worried should we be?” Tennyson’s voice was quiet. “You woke up to a lightning bolt this morning. Do you think they put the lightning bolt there? Or did it come from . . . elsewhere?”
Chiara shrugged. “It’s not hugely likely that they managed to tie the incriminating evidence back to me . . . but . . .”
“But?”
“But I was spotted at the scene by one of the suspects. So there’s a chance that they connected all the dots. The lightning bolt freaked me out. I need to understand how it got there.”
“Precisely.”
A panicky feeling stole over me. The thought of Chiara being off somewhere alone . . . at the mercy of some hit man . . .
Chiara’s gaze bounced between us all. “Anyone have an idea of where I should go to lie low?”