EIGHT
Jack
Chiara stumbled down the stairs well after sunrise, hair askew, eyes bloodshot, looking decidedly unrested for a woman who had supposedly been sleeping for the past ten hours.
Why wasn’t Chiara taking better care of herself? My phantom heart panged, useless organ that it was.
Of course, having been raised with three older sisters, I knew better than to remark upon her appearance.
Given our exchange the previous evening, I expected her to be snippy with me. But, surprisingly, she politely asked me about my night. And then stole glances at me as she prepared her breakfast and patiently waited for a cup of coffee to brew.
It was . . . unexpected.
Was she feeling all right? Had something happened? Where was the snarky, irritating Chiara I knew? Not that I minded her quiet and contemplative, it was just . . . unnatural. I debated asking her about it for a solid ten minutes but, as the brother to three older sisters, I kept my mouth shut.
After breakfast, she collected her laptop and set up a mobile work station on one of the games tables in the large drawing room.
“Alright. Let’s start researching this, shall we?” She kicked out the chair next to her, indicating I should take a seat.
“Pardon?” I asked as I strolled over to her and sat down, still very much unsure about her current mood. She seemed positively . . . mature.
I loved immature, obnoxious Chiara. A mature version of that was all fine and well, but I liked the original better.
What was up?
“You. D’Angelos. Scars in reality.” She didn’t even look up as she spoke, logging in to the D’Angelo archive on her computer.
Well. That was decidedly business-like and efficient of her. And not a drop of personality.
I grimaced. I was going to have to ask it after all.
“Chiara, are you feeling all right?”
Her head snapped up to meet my gaze, expression polite and neutral.
I pressed on. “You keep looking at me like . . .” I wasn’t sure how to complete that sentence without getting my head snipped off, so I backtracked. “Are you feeling well?”
She paused, as if thinking. “I’m feeling well, thank you. And you?”
Were my eyes as wide and alarmed as I felt? Something was decidedly off. Soft? Gentle? Who was this woman and where had she stowed Chiara D’Angelo?
For the first time in recent memory, my lordly manners slipped. I intended to ask an intelligent follow-up question, but instead, I’m quite sure I simply gaped.
“Are you okay, Jack?” Chiara’s brow furrowed, gaze still calm.
Chiara like this, coolly polite and solicitous . . . it was shades of Sofia. And that wasn’t necessarily a good comparison. I had been a Peer of the Realm, for heaven’s sake. I had already spent a lifetime surrounded by civility and deference.
Yes, I had once thought I was in love with Sofia, but my emotions for Sofia were a pale imitation of those I carried for Chiara. The two woman bore a shallow physical resemblance—in the way that cousins might look like siblings—but even there, the differences were pronounced. Chiara’s face was more pixie-like and animated. Her eyes more expressive and her nose more button than regal. Her body more curvy.
But any similarities ended there. In personality, Chiara and Sofia were polar opposites. Sofia had been polite and distant.
By contrast, Chiara was fire and spunk. Snark and laughter and life. I adored matching wits with a woman who could go toe-to-toe with me and win. Furthermore, I was intelligent enough to realize that her fiery response to my teasing indicated her emotional connection to me.
Basically, I loved that I could get a rise out of her. Verbally sparring with Chiara D’Angelo was easily my favorite activity.
So quiet, calm Chiara seemed an aberration of nature. What had occurred? Why the sudden distance? Had our tiff the night before broken some aspect of our relationship? Had I finally crossed a line too far?
“Are you okay?” she repeated.
No. “Yes,” I replied, carefully enunciating the word.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Ooookay.” Though her tone clearly indicated the opposite.
I shook my head, needing to clear it. “So . . . about the scar?” I tried to get us back to the subject at hand.
“Yes. Exactly. Let’s start with what we do know.” She gave a tight smile and began typing. “One, you are the only one who can see the scar. Two, the scar has a physical presence for you. Three, the sludge that comes through the scar appears similar to the Chucky phenomenon. Four, the scar reacts when Branwell and Tennyson use their GUTs around it—”
Upbeat music cut through the room, Meghan Trainor loudly telling me her name was No.
Chiara’s ringtone.
Ah. How apropos.
“Hello. Chiara D’Angelo speaking.”
As Chiara listened to the person on the other end, her chest caved, brows drawing down, lips pursing. Her entire body sank into a frown.
“Ms. White—” Chiara began. Paused. “Candy . . . fine, whatever. As I have repeatedly said—”
More listening. I could hear a muted female voice talking quickly on the other end of the line.
Chiara huffed. “Ms. White, I have no comment on Jack Knight-Snow’s physical appearance.” She spoke through stiff lips, words crisp. “Please stop contacting me.”
Chiara stabbed End and slapped her phone down on the table.
“Honestly!” Chiara snorted in disgust, lasering her eyes at me. “That stupid woman wanted me describe you like it was some sort of strip tease. Gah! At the very least, you should be taking these phone calls yourself.” She jabbed a finger at my chest.
“Me? Heavens, no. I would infinitely prefer to listen to you describe my dashing person.”
Chiara’s glare could slay a man at fifty paces.
I breathed a sigh of relief. There she was. All was right in the universe.
“You need to hire an assistant, Jack. Or, at the very least, figure out a way to carry a phone of your own.”
“Or you could simply not answer the phone,” I countered.
“Company phone.” She tapped it. “Some calls are from legitimate clients. I can’t not answer it.” She shook her head, turning back to her laptop screen. “So, Lord Smarty-Pants, what do you have to add to this?”
“To the description of my appearance? Well, I would say I was a devastatingly handsome Corinthian of the highest mark.”
Her gaze turned withering.
“Oh, you meant the scar and the D’Angelos.” My grin was decidedly unrepentant.
She breathed daggers.
“And to think I—” Chiara abruptly stopped.
“To think you what?”
She swallowed and then bit her lip, shaking her head. “Nothing.”
“In my best twenty-first century slang, you can’t leave me hangin’ like that.”
She rolled her eyes. “Watch me, Jack.”
I grinned.
She glared.
All was right in my world.
Damn, I adored this woman. Utterly. Absolutely.
“You do have a good start there.” I motioned toward her laptop, stretching my legs out and crossing them at the ankles. “We know that I triggered an ancient Etruscan curse and ended up trapped in the twilight world between life and death. Branwell somehow accessed power reserved for the Etruscan oracle, Tages, and his descendants to create a door between the two worlds and pull me out—”
“I know we’ve talked about Tages in the past but could you go over it again. I want to see if I missed anything.”
I sat back. “He was a human oracle who founded the Etruscan religion due to his ability to communicate with the afterlife.”
Chiara typed away, eyes trained on her computer. “And he did normal oracle stuff, like the Oracle at Delphi in Greek records of the same time period?”
“Exactly. Kings and rulers would come to Tages and his descendants requesting information about future wars or deceased loved ones. In fact, the Etruscan oracles were so revered, the Romans continued to support and consult them even hundreds of years after conquering the Etruscans. The oracles themselves didn’t die out until after the fall of Rome itself—”
My name is No. My sign is No . . .
Chiara growled.
“Hello. Chiara D’Angelo speaking.” Her face might have been scowly but her tone was polite.
She listened for a moment, thunderclouds gathering.
“I appreciate your offer, Mr. Rittenbaum, but I will not be aiding any member of the paparazzi in obtaining photos of Jack Knight-Snow, scandalous or otherwise. He is a client of D’Angelo Enterprises and that is all I will say on the matter. Goodbye.”
Click.
Chiara glared at me. My expression was surely too innocent.
“Assistant, Jack. I mean it.”
I nodded. She didn’t need to be fielding my phone calls. But . . .
“So just a client, am I?” I had to ask it.
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t.” Words said warningly. “Or the next person who calls will get a detailed description of your bathing habits.”
“Blackmail. How very . . . sexy.”
She may have growled. I wasn’t stupid enough to comment on how darling she was when she was angry.
Though for the record, the answer was adorably cute.
My gaze may have lingered on her pursed lips a little longer than was strictly appropriate. Frustration churned through my chest, rising sharply as I looked at her.
“Back to our research.” She swirled a finger over her laptop. “How do you think Branwell figures into this? The connection with the Etruscan curse and Tages seems to be tied only to Branwell. Neither Dante nor Tennyson could interact with you when you were in the shadow world. Neither of them could open the door to get you out. And now that you’re out, the door doesn’t open at all.”
I wiped the smirk off my face. “The descendants of Tages melted into history. So it’s not outlandish to suppose that the bloodline still exists. We know the D’Angelos are of noble lineage and have lived in Tuscany since time immemorial. It’s not a stretch to think your family could be the remnant of long lost Etruscan oracles. The triplets’ GUTs do bear a striking resemblance to what oracles of old would see and do.”
“But that doesn’t explain why the oracle stuff only reacts to Branwell, not the other two.”
I sighed, sitting back. “It doesn’t, though it is possible we merely don’t understand how oracle powers manifest themselves.”
“True,” Chiara scrunched her mouth. “Or the D’Angelo curse could be entirely unrelated to Tages and oracles, and Branwell simply can tap into some universal power. Your presence here, Jack, proves that other supernatural things exist outside my brothers’ gifts. Nothing, and I mean nothing, in our family history points to their GUTs being anything other than a gypsy curse from the Middle Ages. It’s not a foregone conclusion that all supernatural things have to be interrelated with one another.”
Chiara clacked away at her computer, entering notes about our conversation. Damn but I loved her intelligent mind.
“Talk to me about the scar and the black, oily sludge,” she said. “Tell me how it feels, et cetera.”
I described for her the sense of dissonance I got from the scar, the opposition like repelling ends of two magnets. As for the oily slime, it felt ominous.
Chiara tapped her lips for a few moments after I finished. “None of this really explains why the scars react to the triplets using their GUTs.”
“No, it does not.”
She chewed on the bottom of her pen for a moment. “I got nothing.”
“Me, neither.”
“Alright, so let’s get a game plan. I’m thinking the D’Angelo archives will be a good place to start. Let’s research anything to do with scars or a shadow world—”
My number is No. You need to let it go . . .
“So help me if this is another media person.” Chiara’s expression looked on the verge of explosion. “Hello—”
She listened for a moment before replying in Italian. “Yes, Inspector Paola, I took the suggestion seriously. I’m currently keeping a low profile at an undisclosed location. I don’t think the Tempeste family would track me to here.”
More listening. Chiara nodded her head a couple times.
“Thank you for the update. I’m sure I can lie low for a few more days.”
And then—
“No, Inspector Paola, I cannot get you a photo of Jack Knight-Snow. Goodbye.”
Chiara set down her phone, following it with a homicidal stare.
“Assistant, Jack.” She slapped the table as she rose. “Or so help me, we won’t need to involve the Cosa Nostra for there to be blood.”
The night air hung with heat and humidity.
Or, at least, I assumed it did, based on the sweat that had accumulated over and over on Chiara’s upper lip, right up until she stomped off to bed.
Twenty-six. That’s how many media calls she fielded throughout the day, each one more persistent that the last. Candy White had called three times alone. I planned to contact Tennyson in the morning and ask him to help me hire an assistant.
The call from Inspector Paola had concerned me. The investigation into the Tempeste family had hit a small snag and arrests would be delayed a couple days. If Chiara was concerned, she didn’t show it.
I was grateful she had agreed to come here, to my villa. I wasn’t much help in a physical confrontation, but if the mafia were to come after her, I could at least warn Chiara and call emergency personnel. It was nice to be in a position to help for a change.
As for me . . . contrary to what some may think, you can watch too much television. After suffering through another poorly argued debate on the virtues of parliamentary procedure, I gave up.
I walked away from the TV—leaving its babble running in the background—restlessly wandering the villa.
My villa.
Despite all the uncertainty in my life, it did feel nice to have a home again—even if I haunted it more than lived in it. A small recovery of who and what I had once been.
Someday perhaps it would be filled with family, friends and laughter. Branwell and Lucy would surely continue to visit me with their children. Though nothing could ever make up for what was lost . . .
Drawing room. Dining room. Kitchen. Breakfast room. Study. Library. Up the central staircase to the second floor. Down the hallway, past bedroom doors.
I stopped.
Ah. Chiara had found time to make a new ‘Ghosts Not Allowed’ sign, complete with hand drawn Ghostbuster logo.
How charming. She couldn’t trust me as a gentleman to keep out of her personal space. The thought rankled. It shouldn’t have. I should have considered it funny. And yet . . .
As if I would hurt her. As if I would do anything other than protect her with my very life.
Besides, how effective was this sign? I didn’t need a door to enter her bedroom.
I poked a head into the room beside hers and smiled despite myself. There was another Ghostbuster notice tacked to the wall there, too. I should have known that Chiara would think of everything.
I continued to ramble the house. Nighttime was often difficult.
The world slept.
And I did not.
Even the most mundane rat had a need for sleep and food. But I was outside all that.
Night could be desperately lonely. It so clearly highlighted the differences between myself and other sleep-needing humans.
Tonight was particularly bad. Emotions rushed through me so quickly, I struggled to label them.
Restlessness. Anxiety. Frustration. Discouragement.
So many things I didn’t want to sense and nothing that I did—touch, taste, smell.
Chiara’s petal-soft cheek. Her fine-boned hand. The smell of her freshly-washed hair.
Some days I thought I would give up my very existence for a mere fifteen minutes of fully-present sensation.
Eventually, I had to do something with all this . . . feeling.
I paused beside a tufted velvet chair in the large entryway. Pushing my right index finger into solidity, I touched the velvet. Agony flared. But even through the burning pain, the soft skitter of the velvet against my fingertip sent a shiver of sensation up my phantom arm. Is this what Chiara’s cheek would feel like? Soft and velvety?
As usual, I couldn’t hold the physicality for long. The strain was too great, the pain too terrible. My finger bounced back into its ghostly state, becoming even more faded than the rest of me.
So, of course, like a complete lunatic, I stood next to the chair for at least an hour, touching the velvet over and over.
Push. Pain. Bounce.
Repeat.
I experimented with my left index finger. And my right pinkie.
It was slow progress, but I refused to become discouraged. Progress was better than stasis.
In all honestly, anything was better than stasis.
Though at the rate I was going, it would take a decade or two before I could turn my entire body solid for just a few seconds. But a few seconds of corporeality . . . I wouldn’t waste them doing anything other than kissing Chiara D’Angelo.
Chiara in my arms, soft and willing, the soft puff of her breath against my lips—
I instantly crushed the mental image.
I might adore her, but I knew the sentiment was not returned. Chiara engaged with me, thank goodness, but that simply meant she wasn’t entirely indifferent. She had never given any indication that she cared for me in a romantic way.
An exchange of passionate kisses was not in the cards for us.
I contemplated trying to expand my corporeality to more than a finger—maybe a whole thumb—but a wave of sudden exhaustion washed over me. My ghost knees felt weak.
Huh.
Maybe I could get tired.
But if I could get tired, how would I rejuvenate? Did I need to eat? Maybe I would rest for a bit and then start practicing making my mouth solid.
To that end, I sank into the chair in the entry hallway.
I never slept. Without a physical body, I had no need of sleep. But I had learned over the past year to push myself into a sort of self-induced meditative state. It was another way to pass the time when living a sleepless life.
I closed my eyes and allowed my mind to drift off. Sleep but not.
Behind my eyelids, I remembered. Scenes wandered through my memory.
My mother giving me a kiss goodnight before pushing me toward my nurse, her gentle tone promising me I could ride my pony tomorrow if I was a good boy.
My father’s booming voice, recounting stories of lost treasure and his escapades to uncover Etruscan artifacts.
Playing hide-and-seek with my younger brother and three older sisters, screaming and laughing as we raced through the house, light gloomy from the constant rain.
Twenty years old in London and just down from Oxford. I spent the evening dancing at Almack’s, matchmaking mammas and their blushing daughters vying for my attention, making me feel like a horse going to auction at Tattersall’s.
Arriving in Florence several years after my father’s death, intent on continuing his legacy of archaeological discovery.
Seeing Sofia D’Angelo for the first time . . . rimmed in sunlight in her family’s drawing room. How I had known, in that small moment—
The snick of a door opening jerked me fully back into the present. Someone said my name.
Jack Knight-Snow.
My body bounced into instant readiness, the sense of weakness already having faded.
What just happened?
I used the two senses I did have—sight and sound.
I could see nothing unusual in the dim light.
I heard the TV still babbling in the drawing room.
Jack Knight-Snow, the mysterious explorer and treasure-hunter behind the extraordinary Sassari horde excavation, has been unavailable for comment . . .
All right. That explained my name.
But . . . I had heard a door opening, too.
I walked through the ground floor, looking through every room. Nothing appeared disturbed. The TV continued to ramble.
The items from the Sassari Horde are set for display in the Vatican Etruscan exhibit starting later this Fall. The story of how Jack Knight-Snow and D’Angelo Enterprises raised the incredible artifacts—
“STOP!”
Chiara’s sudden voice behind me sent my ghostly body a solid foot in the air. If I had a functional beating heart, it would have stopped right then and there.
I whipped around, expecting to see her laughing face.
She stared straight ahead, eyes wide and unfocused. Dressed in loose pajama bottoms and a Wonder Woman top, she clutched a ratty pink bear in one arm.
“Chiara?”
She didn’t react. Her eyes darted around the room, tracking unseen things, looking a bit like Tennyson in one of his trances. Only this wasn’t some sort of vision.
What was happening?
Apprehension skittered down my spine.
The site of the wrecked ship which housed the horde has been kept secret, as well as Mr. Knight-Snow’s method of extraction. From unofficial reports, the shipwreck lay under hundreds of feet of murky water . . .
Abruptly Chiara’s head swung around.
“No,” she whispered. “No. Please.” She walked away from me, toward the kitchen.
I followed, rapidly sorting through my options here.
She was clearly sleep walking.
I had watched enough documentaries in the past year to know that abruptly waking her was probably not the best idea.
The TV continued to blare.
Mr. Knight-Snow and his team located and excavated the Sassari horde in record time. The speculation has been rife as to how they managed it. We spoke with authorities from the University of Rome—
“No!” she shouted this time. “Don’t leave me!”
Suddenly, she jerked to the left, her body going rigid. Her shoulders straightened, her head snapping upright.
She stalked through the kitchen, long purposeful strides. Ripping open a drawer, she pulled out paper and a fat marker. Bending her head, she wrote in broad strokes.
Carefully, I sidled up next to her, peering around her shoulder, reading the words:
Lightning is the only answer.
A flash of gold flitted in my peripheral vision. Startled, I whipped my head around, trying to follow the flickering.
Had she summoned lightning herself?
Nothing. Just sleek cabinetry and the hum of the refrigerator.
I turned back to Chiara and stumbled backwards with a loud yelp.
She was staring straight at me. Black pupils chasing all color from her irises.
Chiara’s eyes but . . . not.
“Lightning . . . is the only answer.” Her voice was pitched low and gravelly.
Again, Chiara but . . . not.
I blinked. That same something flickered again out of the corner of my eye. I spun but saw nothing.
“Understand.”
I whirled back to Chiara. She continued to drill me with her psychotic eyes.
For a ghost, you think I would have kept myself together better. But even by my standards, this was freakish.
I stumbled back.
“What should I understand?” I asked.
“Lightning,” she repeated.
She swayed, eyes closing, shoulders slumping.
Instinctively, I reached for her, only to have her walk through my transparent hands. Flesh. Blood. Bones.
I stood in the kitchen for a second, processing everything before following her into the drawing room.
Some are saying that Mr. Knight-Snow’s secretive persona is what currently fuels the mania for all things JKS—Jack Knight-Snow—
Still sleepwalking, Chiara punched the power button on the remote, drowning the room in instant silence.
And then she collapsed on the couch, body curling around pink Mr. Chuffy, fast asleep.