Taylor sat on the sofa for hours that evening, contemplating what he could honestly do about the situation he was in. He wasn't sure when he'd fallen asleep, but a shiver shook his body at some point, bringing his mind back to the present and drawing his tired eyes open.
He felt a faint weight in his lap and, evidently, had unconsciously wrapped his arms around it at some point.
You're so cold.
As if he'd actually heard his thought, Caleb lifted his nearly see-through head, his eyes invisible, but clearly seeing.
Words stuck on Taylor's tongue as he slowly brought his hands up to cup that faded face before him. There was no expression, or even much detail anymore, but it was still definitely Caleb.
"I'm... not sure how I can help you anymore."
He felt terrible as he whispered those words.
Of course, he knew that Caleb wouldn't be able to respond anymore, so he simply returned his arms to around him and gently guided his body to rest against his chest. The chill from his ethereal form was formidable, though, making him shiver again within seconds.
Wait a minute.
Taylor looked around the room, but Nikolai was nowhere to be seen.
"Nikolai? Adon?" he called as he hugged Caleb a little closer.
Adon had been freezing when he'd first been possessed, but before Nikolai stole his body, he seemed to have gotten used to it. Maybe I can help Caleb if I can figure that out, too.
"Hey Tay, what's up?"
Wait a second. That's not Nikolai's voice.
Turning his attention toward the stairs as he rested his chin atop Caleb's faded hair, Taylor watched as Nikolai's body appeared from the hole in the wall leading to the basement.
They had been down there again... but that voice.
"Yeah, I'm a bit surprised, too," Adon said from Nikolai's mouth as he walked into the kitchen and grabbed a few sandwiches from the counter that he must have made previously, then filled two cups with warm water from the tap before bringing everything over to the coffee table in front of Taylor.
It took him two trips, but he didn't seem to be in a hurry, or stressed out.
I'm so lost.
Feeling another chill go through his body, he felt Caleb try to pull away from him, but Taylor only hugged him closer with one arm while reaching to the side with his other one. Grabbing the blanket beside him, he got it situated around them both. The added warmth made him sigh with relief, and after a few moments, Caleb relented and relaxed against him again.
When Adon finally came and sat down beside him, he offered Taylor a sandwich. Having missed quite a few meals, he didn't hesitate to take it. Within moments, the two had devoured the entire plate of four roast beef and turkey sandwiches.
"Here. You're going to need this," Adon said as he handed Taylor one of the glasses of warm water.
Why not use the cold water dispenser from the fridge?
When Adon grinned through Nikolai's lips, Taylor realized two things. His previous question he was going to ask was likely answered by the glass of water in his hand... and Adon figured that he would somehow try to get Caleb to possess him.
After chugging down most of his own glass, Adon turned his body partially toward him, leaning his side against the back of the couch.
"As long as I drink a lot of warm water and eat mostly hot food, I'm usually pretty good. I also have to eat a lot more than I had before, since my body is working overtime to stay warm, but I've gotten used to it. The hot showers definitely help, too."
That seems easy enough.
He was just looking back down at Caleb when the doorbell chimed, drawing a frown on his lips. His arms suddenly dropped to his lap as Caleb completely vanished.
"I guess I'll get that," he said awkwardly as he set the blanket aside and stood up, then glanced back at Adon.
"Don't worry. He's actually resting pretty deeply. I should be fine."
Reassured, Taylor nodded and walked with Adon to the door. He was actually glad that he had some back-up this time... and didn't have to worry about the baseball bat making an appearance.
He wasn't too surprised when he swung the door open to see the officer from the previous day. What he was surprised to see, however, were the two people standing behind him. One was clearly an exorcist and was completely decked out in warding charms and thick beaded necklaces and bracelets and dark brown robes. The other person was a woman with a crew cut and officer uniform to match the man's.
"Good evening, Taylor. I'm sorry that I showed up abruptly, but I called several times and got no answer. I was worried that something might have happened," the original officer said as he seemed to relax his stance a bit.
Thank god Adon has control of Nikolai at the moment.
"It's alright. Nothing is wrong, I was just deep asleep," he said, hoping that his words would settle the man's nerves more and the group would leave.
Of course, things were never that easy. Especially since the three's eyes were wide as saucers as they stared at Nikolai. A living, dead man.
Oops.
"You said that he was dead..."
Taylor sighed and looked up at Adon. The guy was frowning nervously as he leaned against the doorjamb.
"Nikolai is definitely dead. He uh, just possessed me, then somehow swapped our bodies. He's asleep right now, so let's not wake him up, please?" Adon said, knowing that he sounded completely insane.
The officers blinked at each other and the woman began to reach for her cuffs.
Taylor quickly stepped between them and raised his hands.
"No need for that. We aren't lying. Heck, we have no reason to," he said, trying to calm them down.
The male officer pursed his lips but eventually gestured for his partner to relent. She did so, but it was clear that she was hesitant. When she finally seemed to relax again her partner extended a hand toward Taylor.
"I'm sorry we're all a bit on edge. We don't usually have such supernatural activity in this area," he said, then added, "I'm officer Dawson, by the way. You can call me Larry."
He nodded toward his partner as Taylor took his hand to shake. "And that's Raya."
Taylor responded with a nod and slight smile. He was about to respond when he felt something cold brush against his arm, making him release the man's hand and jump from surprise.
"Is something wrong?" Larry asked immediately, looking around to try and see if anything was there.
You probably won't see him.
"Nothing's wrong, just Caleb wanted my attention," Taylor said as he turned around to face inside.
He didn't see the guy, either, but something did catch his eye.
There's something new written on the chalkboard.
He started walking toward it automatically, but when he heard Larry clear his throat, he quickly turned back and around and reached up to massage the back of his neck nervously. After a moment, he looked over at Adon.
The guy shrugged and took a step closer.
"He's still out cold. Take it one step at a time?"
He still wasn't sure, but they had no reason to deny the people access, as long as they didn't try to touch anything they shouldn't.
Returning his attention to the small group outside his door, Taylor sighed and gestured for them to come inside.
"Not to sound threatening, but Nikolai is not the nicest banshee. If Adon says that you guys need to leave, or if Caleb tells me the same, you have to go immediately, for your own safety."
The person who seemed to understand the most was the exorcist, who nodded several times before stepping inside. His eyes widened as soon as he completed the action and his lips parted slightly.
"There is definitely a strong aura in here...and a second one is present, too. It's power is no laughing matter, either, but it seems... tired."
Caleb.
"Wait a minute. What kind of tired do you mean? Like, asleep tired? Or something else?" he asked, wondering if he was just sensing Nikolai's slumber.
The man grasped his hands together as the officers warily stepped inside, trying to look nonchalant, but clearly on high alert.
"One is resting, definitely. However, the tired one is dissipating."
Taylor's heart shrunk to nothing in his chest.
"The one who is asleep is the original banshee, Nikolai. Caleb... was a wraith, but now he's turned into a banshee," Taylor said quietly, the chalkboard momentarily forgotten.
The exorcist seemed to think for a moment before shaking his head slowly.
"Lad, that boy is still a wraith."
He is?
"But he looks like what Nikolai did before he possessed Adon. How is he still a wraith?"
The man walked over to the chalkboard and lifted his fingers to press against the dust beneath the writing.
"He's still definitely a wraith. Ghosts cannot write this well, and banshees cannot write at all, unless this is an old message... but it looks fresh."
You'd think that banshees could write at least decently, considering they are thought to be higher than ghosts in strength, but I guess each one has its own abilities.
Taylor noticed a faint bit of fluctuating light behind the man, inside his bedroom, but kept his mouth closed about it for the moment. Instead, he turned his attention to the writing and frowned.
NTT HIS SKN SVE FRN
"Is he saying that it is not his skin?" Taylor questioned the man beside him.
They nodded, then moved their finger to tap at the two other words Taylor wasn't sure about.
"He wants you to save your friend from his brother. This wraith is extremely advanced in his understanding and empathy. I have reviewed this case and looked into the brothers' relationship with each other. Caleb must have a very strong sense of right and wrong, even as a wraith, since he's willing to take away his own brothers' chance at being partially alive again."
Taylor rubbed at the back of his neck again as he looked at Adon, not really sure how Caleb telling him to save Adon can really be useful.
"He's not talking to you, by the way. I believe that this message is for me," the exorcist said, making Taylor's eyes widen.
"You?"
The idea that Caleb was intentionally communicating with someone else, instead of trying to allow him to figure out what he needed, made him a little hurt. Of course, he knew that he shouldn't be bothered by that. Caleb had to do what he had to do, and he clearly had a reason and was trying to help.
The man turned to nod to Adon, then looked at the two of them.
"That isn't really Nikolai's body, but an impressive illusion that banshees can create. They usually don't even realize that it's fake, and think that they finally have their own bodies back. It's honestly very hard to tell the difference if the person the banshee possesses has a similar height and build. It also helps that you're male, so between you and Nikolai, it would be almost impossible to tell that it was fake, except..."
The man walked over and gestured for Adon to turn around.
"Take your shirt off."
Adon hesitated for a second before removing the shirt he wore. It was actually Nikolai's blood-soaked one, since the banshee hadn't allowed him to change out of it, but the moment he removed it and let it drop to the floor, it suddenly turned into his own dark blue one.
The bare body beneath it was bloody on the back left side with a rusty red coloring at least forty percent of his back, shoulder, and even some of his front and left arm.
"Besides the shirt clearly not being bloody from this injury," the man said as he tapped the damaged flesh on Adon's back. "There is clearly no damage here, even though it looks quite gruesome, if you touch it, all you feel is smooth skin. This is still your body."
Adon was shocked, but he couldn't hide the smile that quickly found its way onto his face. He was still definitely possessed, but he'd never lost his body at all!
It really was a relief, and Taylor couldn't help but look back toward Caleb's outline and smile with a nod.
"So then, with that issue understood, before we look into any kind of exorcism and such, can we see the crime scene?" the female officer, Raya, said as she looked toward the large hole in the wall leading to the basement.
Picked up on that fast.
It was pretty obvious, though.
Looking back to Adon, Taylor raised an eyebrow. Adon shrugged and held a finger to his lips, signaling that Nikolai still seemed to be asleep.
Nodding, Taylor lead the group over to the entrance to the basement, but stopped in front, blocking the hole as he looked toward his bedroom. Sure enough, Caleb's ethereal form had walked out and was watching them.
"Don't worry, I won't let them disturb you guys," he said, not worried at all that the officers and exorcist turned their attention to Caleb. They had known that he was in the home to begin with, so there was no reason to hide him.
The exorcist had a curious expression on his face, but he didn't dare approach Caleb.
"I've never been so close to a wraith," he said before turning to glance at Taylor, then back to Caleb.
"How has he behaved? It's so rare to even hear of one. I think he's only the fifth I've even seen in person, and definitely the closest I've ever gotten to one. I've removed two from a distance, but it's much safer to just block off their territory until they fade away."
The awe in his voice had Taylor holding back a chuckle as he replied.
"He's actually a sweetheart. We got off on the wrong foot a bit, but that was because we kept looking up freaky stuff on the internet, and we didn't quite know how to handle each other. He was just trying to protect his brother, who had been sealed behind this wall for years when the murderers built over the original opening. He tried to warn us away, too, but with our friend's assistance, along with her exorcist friend, we ended up opening up the wall."
The man shook his head, seemingly shocked.
"Your friend's friend was confident in dealing with a wraith? If Caleb was intent on defending his brother, things could have gotten deadly, fast."
Taylor shook his head. "He definitely wasn't comfortable handling the wraith. I guess curiosity got the better of everyone."
He pointed to the counter where his fish was swimming around in its little tank.
"We ended up leaving the house when Caleb finished knocking down the wall to let his brother free because Nikolai is extremely aggressive, but things kind of got odd from there. He somehow put his soul, or something, into those fish bones on the counter, which was his previous pet before they died, and can move them as he wishes. They found their way into my pocket somehow and so, he found me at Adon's apartment and told me that I had to go back and take care of the fish I had bought on a whim. He didn't want it to die because I wasn't there to take care of it."
The exorcist nodded enthusiastically.
"Then that would be his transfer device. He put a part of his soul into those bones, so wherever they go, he can go. That explains how you got him to the aquarium," the man said, making Taylor nod before turning to look down into the dark basement.
Officer Larry offered him a flashlight and he gratefully took it, clicking it on before carefully starting down the stairs. Adon hurried to his side to help him with his bad leg, making it much easier to descend.
Once at the bottom, he thanked him before stepping out of the way. It was no surprise that the officer's attention quickly went to the dusty shadowed bed at the far side of the room. Officer Raya already had her own flashlight out and was slowly walking over, being extra careful not to step on anything.
"There are bone fragments over here," she said quietly as she moved her light to the left of her shoes.
Taylor walked over, frowning at the bone chips.
"Nikolai got angry the other day and grabbed his own skull. He threw it against the wall and, I guess, broke off some small pieces."
The woman nodded and quickly took a few pictures with a camera she'd brought, then continued on to the two skeletons. Caleb had returned Nikolai's skull to its previous resting place, so the pictures were accurate and Taylor didn't need to tell them anything extra about it.
"Banshee's have very little control over their own emotions. It all seems to jumble together with the hatred that they used to return to this world," the exorcist said as he walked over to the calendar hanging on the wall with the other officer. When he read what was written, he gave a little chuckle and looked over his shoulder at Taylor.
"I believe this little wraith has a crush on you, my friend."
Taylor was grateful for the darkness as he felt his face warm. Caleb was a sweetheart. He couldn't not like him, but he was surprised that he might actually feel the same.
"There was another message there before. He showed it to me several times in his dream," Taylor said as he walked over and pointed at the date of Caleb's birthday.
"I think he understood that he was going to die soon, possibly even on his eighteenth birthday. He had written run! in the space."
The exorcist rubbed his chin, nodding a few times before looking over at him.
"Did this dream replay many times? Did you sometimes wake up feeling like it wasn't really a dream?"
Taylor nodded quickly, relieved that the man seemed to seriously know his stuff.
"Yeah. When I first saw it, it was the basement, but it was furnished like he was rich," Taylor said as he began to point around the room.
"That kiddy pool was a really nice hot tub, and that wall was stacked with tons of gorgeous fish tanks."
He turned, pointing toward the wall beyond the desk they stood near.
"The bed was a king, but the one thing I don't understand was the stove with the apple peeler and cherry tomatoes on top of it."
The man seemed to think for a long moment, so Taylor glanced toward the female officer. She was now by the bed, taking pictures of the skeleton's positions and the area around them. Adon was standing close by, but was definitely still keeping himself at a distance far enough away so that if Nikolai woke up, he wouldn't be able to immediately hit anyone with the bat.
"It's definitely a strange way to convey his feelings, but I think I understand what he meant by those items."
Taylor returned his attention to the man, then added.
"The peeler and tomatoes had vanished from the dream recently, after I took him to the aquarium."
A warm smile appeared on the man's face and he reached over, gently patting Taylor's shoulder before giving it a light squeeze and letting go.
"You are such a caring person. That apple peeler was Caleb's representation of his heart, symbolized by the blood red tomatoes, being sliced into pieces by his past experiences. That was in the dreams he showed you because he thought that it was a necessary part of himself that he had to express. He had to feel that pain. Keep it so close to him that it showed up to even haunt his dreams after death."
Taylor's heart squeezed at that information.
I'm glad that I could help him get rid of that pain, at least.
"Every ghost and wraith express themselves in a very specific dream like that. Banshee's minds are too chaotic to be able to piece together such things, though."
Frowning, Taylor replied.
"Nikolai entered his dream before, though. When I was there... and maybe even several times. I know the first time I'm positive it was him was when I heard thumping coming down the stairs, like something heavy or solid was being dragged down step by step. When it got to the bottom I was standing over by the fish tanks. The fish were freaking out as a line in the sand began to come toward me. But now that I think about it, there was also something else there, walking up to me from along the tanks, because the fish had followed whatever it was. I think... maybe that was Caleb standing in front of me, protecting me from his brother?"
The exorcist gave a quiet sigh, shaking his head.
"That little wraith is absolutely amazing, and that banshee? To get inside another, stronger entities dream? These two are quite impressive."
He couldn't argue that.
"The first time I entered that dream, I was actually somehow pulled under the water in the hot tub and woke up coughing up water. I think that might have actually been the first time I interacted with Nikolai in Caleb's dream."
The man nodded immediately.
"Yes, that makes more sense than Caleb attacking you. He doesn't seem like he would just try to drown you without you doing anything negative to either of them. His brother was probably just infuriated with the trespassing and caught you in his little brother's dream. Caleb might have even forced you to wake up before you drowned."
He was just about to continue the conversation when a quiet, low growl began to build behind them. No deduction was necessary on his part to know what it was... or really, who.
"Um, sorry, but we need to cut this extremely short. Someone has woken up and isn't happy."
Just as he was finishing speaking, a loud, drawn out, ear-piercing screech came from Adon's mouth as he flung his head back toward the ceiling and a bloody, silver baseball bat appeared in his left hand.