Tobias wanted his life back.

  Euryvos was stuck in his own guilt and despair and wanted to avoid Rhea, mainly because he was afraid of her. But, at the same time, I believed he still loved her. So, to boil his needs down to one word? Repentance.

  And as for Rhea? She wanted into the house but I didn’t believe she wanted revenge. I believed she simply wanted closure, like any woman would in the same situation. She wanted to understand what had happened—at least, that’s what I would have wanted if I were in the same circumstances.

  So what was the best way to move towards an outcome that worked for all three involved? Me allowing myself to become possessed with Rhea so I could, in turn, act as the conduit between her and Euryvos.

  Yes, it might have sounded crazy, but as far as I was concerned, this was just a situation between lovers. A spat, if you will. Euryvos had accidentally killed Rhea, and the two of them had been separated for decades, never able to resolve the situation or the emotions between them.

  “I’ll be fine,” I told both Poppy and Bailey, smiling thoughtfully. “I don’t believe Rhea is after any sort of revenge.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t know that,” Bailey insisted.

  In fact, none of us really knew what Rhea wanted because Bailey hadn’t been able to get much information about her. Regardless, there was an undercurrent of knowing within me—something that said this was simply an issue of communication or lack thereof.

  “What if Rhea decides to take up residence with Euryvos and Tobias gets caught in the crosshairs?” Marty asked.

  “Wouldn’t I get caught in the crosshairs too, considering she’d be in my body?” I asked in response, and Marty thought on that for a bit.

  Strangely, and somewhat amazingly, I found myself no longer attracted to him. I mean, I could recognize he was an attractive guy, but that girlish crush I’d had on him for so long now was nowhere to be found. Instead, every time I started to think about Roy, I got all giddy inside. Our night together had been amazing—we’d made love all night long and all over the house. I couldn’t remember when both the succubus and I had been so satiated.

  As to the question regarding what we were—we hadn’t brought it up again. In fact, we hadn’t done a whole lot of talking—it was our bodies that had done all the talking. And when I’d had to leave him to come here, I’d made up a story about needing to go to work to check on a few client accounts.

  And that was when the fairytale fantasy had thrown an engine, started steering off-course and was heading straight into the side of a stone wall. Why? Because I was lying to Roy and I didn’t like it. And I knew if he found out I’d lied to him, he wouldn’t like it either. In fact, I was fairly sure it would mean the end not only of our blossoming whatever-this-was, but also the end of our friendship. And that was something I couldn’t face—couldn’t even think about facing.

  Yet, I couldn’t tell him the truth because, as head of the council, he would never allow me to do what I was currently doing. And that was the sticking point, because there was no way I could step aside and let Tobias continue playing host to a demonic parasite. Not when I felt there was something I could do—not only to help him, but to help all those involved.

  “Or what if Euryvos and Rhea freak out when they see each other and it’s like Clash of the Titans Two?” Marty asked, pulling my attention back to the subject at hand.

  “Actually, there already was a Clash of the Titans Two, with Liam Neeson,” Henner pointed out.

  “I don’t get the feeling Rhea wants revenge,” I answered, shrugging. “Each time I’ve seen her, she hasn’t been angry. She’s been desperate.”

  “Even if it’s not revenge she’s after, Euryvos did kill her, and she’s probably ticked off about it,” Wanda said, sighing, as she glanced down at her fingernails. “I know if someone offed me, I’d come back swinging.”

  I faced the three of them. “I understand your reservations, but we have no other options. You heard what Bailey said about trying an exorcism—we could end up killing Tobias,” I said and shrugged. “And I don’t think anyone is willing to take those odds.”

  “Right, well, I meant that’s if we tried to do the exorcism. If we called in the big guns, you know like—involved the council—”

  “We’d be stuck in red tape for who knows how long,” I answered and both Wanda and Poppy looked at each other as if I had a point. And I did have a point. What we needed now was action, not bureaucracy.

  Wanda also had a seat on the council and I’d asked her to help me as a personal favor, without alerting the council. Wanda didn’t care much about breaking rules and I wasn’t even sure she really respected the authority of the council to begin with, so I wasn’t surprised when she agreed.

  “It still doesn’t make sense to me,” Marty said, shaking his head. “Why wouldn’t Rhea just confront Euryvos when he left the house in Tobias’ body? You said she couldn’t get into the house, but he wasn’t in the house all the time. What kept her from him whenever he left?”

  “Fear,” Bailey answered on a shrug. “Both Tobias and Euryvos are afraid of her.”

  “And that was enough to keep her away from them?” Marty asked.

  Bailey shrugged again. “It appears to be. From what I can gather, Euryvos’ fear is like a spiritual barrier Rhea can’t breach. It blocked and continues to block her from making any meaningful contact.”

  “All this talking and explaining is making my brain hurt,” Wanda interrupted, looking at each of us with impatience. “Can we get this show on the road?” Then she faced me. “Let’s go through the steps you’ll need to take in order to pull this off. Are you ready?”

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “Okay, close your eyes,” Bailey said. “And call out to Rhea. You should be able to reach her immediately with the help of the Olympian Oracle Oil and your connection to her.”

  Rhea, I thought her name as I breathed in deeply and opened myself to her, my heart thudding madly against my chest.

  I could feel her presence growing stronger as she approached from some great distance—as in beyond the veil. I shuddered as I felt a sudden chill form around me. She was very close now.

  “Are you good? You’re still good, right?” Marty asked.

  “I’m fine,” I answered, but kept my eyes closed tightly. I could feel the cord of connection I shared with Rhea opening, uniting us. And I could feel her sadness through the connection, just as I’d felt it both times she’d visited me.

  The chill had now turned to cold.

  I felt like I was standing in the middle of a snowstorm as Rhea arrived and stood in front of me, looking at me with an air of uncertainty.

  “You brought me here?” she asked, seeming confused at how I’d been able to call her to my side.

  “I did,” I replied.

  “Why have you called me?”

  “I need to understand why you want entrance into the house,” I said as I faced her.

  It was then that she turned away from me, seemingly just realizing we were standing outside the Mathison house. She stood there, looking at the house, her eyes lighting up with what appeared to be hope and excitement. Then she turned to face me again.

  “You will take me inside?” she asked hopefully.

  “Yes, but I need to make sure—.”

  I didn’t finish getting the words out of my mouth before a great pressure pushed down on me. I felt myself take a step back, and my vision was suddenly dark for a second or two. Everything went even colder and all the color around me began to drain away until there was nothing but shades of gray. Then suddenly I couldn’t see anything at all. I was no longer standing outside in the cold, February day. Instead, I was in an empty space with nothing in sight. And I was alone.

  I wondered if this was what Tobias meant when he said he didn’t know where he went when Euryvos took control of him, that he existed in a great expanse of nothingness. It was like being put into a holding area while your body was being used by someone else.

  I stood looking around for something, anything at all, that might give me some clue as to what was happening, but there was nothing. After another few seconds, though, something finally began to take shape in the distance. I began moving toward it.

  It seemed like I was swimming through syrup, pushing as hard as I could, only to find myself close to where I’d started from. But I kept swimming, kept pushing. And then I realized I was standing on the steps of Tobias’ house, except my mind told me it wasn’t his house. My mind told me it was Rhea’s house, or at least that was how she viewed it. All of a sudden, it was as if someone had slid the DVD of Rhea’s memories into my mind because images and movies began infiltrating my head—memories of the day she and Euryvos had first arrived here.

  He had picked her up and carried her over the threshold as if they were newlyweds on their first day of their honeymoon. There was a sadness in the memory, a hurt that they’d never been married to one another, never truly betrothed, even though their souls had understood the love between them. Still, she’d been happy here with him.

  As I watched, that image faded before my eyes and other images filled in. In each one, Euryvos and Rhea were happy, smiling, living a life together that wasn’t ordinary in any sense of the word. But it was their life and they were grateful for it.

  More and more snippets of their lives together passed, until one stuck, becoming brighter as the seconds ticked by. In this memory, I could see Euryvos feeding on Rhea, and I got the distinct impression this wasn’t the first time he had.

  His feeding on her didn’t bother her. On the contrary, she felt it united them, brought them even closer.

  He regularly took little bits of her life source when they were intimate, but she was always able to replenish the loss with her witchcraft, her magic which was tied to the magic of nature—an endless stream of energy.

  This particular moment, Euryvos had approached her and placed his lips to hers, taking her energy from her. At first it had been fine, but he’d continued, taking too much.

  Rhea began to feel panic as he continued to soak in her life force and fairly soon, she couldn’t breathe. She wanted to pull away, but she found she suddenly lacked the strength. What was happening? She didn’t understand why she was suddenly so weak.

  Euryvos had taken more energy from her before on numerous feedings. So why should it be different now? And that was when she realized why it was different—it was a reason she’d known in the previous days—a reason she’d felt just as keenly as she’d felt the life beginning to grow deep within her. She was pregnant.

  Euryvos wasn’t the only one who had been feeding from her. The baby had been drawing from her life force just as Euryvos did. But, between the two of them, it was too much.

  As the world went gray, Rhea wept on the inside. She was too far gone by this point to alert Euryvos to what was happening. She had no life force left with which to stop him and he, figuring he’d fed as much from her at other times, didn’t understand what he was doing to her—that he was draining her, killing her.

  She wept to know she’d soon be separated from Euryvos, and she wept when she understood he’d never know about the child they would have had together had this horrible mistake never happened.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It was nearly a week later when Tobias appeared in our office and asked to see me.

  I came out to meet him, surprised by how well he looked. The dark circles beneath his eyes were now non-existent, and he was dressed in casual clothes that seemed neither his usual style nor Euryvos’s. Maybe this was the new and improved Tobias—I hoped so.

  I walked him down to my office, noting Glenn’s curiosity as we passed. He was, no doubt, still concerned he’d lose the commission on what would prove to be a decently sized sale and it turned out, he was right.

  “I’ve decided not to sell the house,” Tobias said as soon as he took a seat in front of me.

  “Really?”

  He nodded. “I thought long and hard about it, but you know what? I like living here in Haven Hollow and now that I know there are people who understand me and what I was going through, I think I can be happy here,” he told me. The lot of us had decided to trust Tobias with the truth about the Hollow (well, to an extent—we decided not to attempt to cleanse his memories of what he’d seen and heard, anyway) and so far, he seemed to be handling it pretty well. And that said a lot because it wasn’t every day you realized there was such a thing as demons and witches.

  “I’m not entirely sure you know what you’re signing up for here,” I said.

  “You’d be wrong about that,” he answered. “My eyes have been opened to things I never would have thought were real if I hadn’t experienced them myself and that information—it’s given me a new understanding towards life and it’s given me… inspiration.”

  “Inspiration?” I repeated.

  “Yeah, it’s given me the inspiration to realize I can do whatever I want with my life now. I’m free of Euryvos for the first time ever and that means, I can start over. The more I thought about that, the more I realized there was nowhere I’d rather start over than right here.”

  According to the others who had been there that day, after I’d taken Rhea inside myself and she’d walked into the Mathison house for the first time in decades, she’d immediately encountered Tobias, just as we’d planned.

  When the two of them had seen each other, they’d recognized one another instantly—it was a soul recognizing another soul. And what had happened then was exactly what I’d known would happen—they’d embraced each other and cried ardent tears of remorse, regret, love and forgiveness.

  Even though I’d asked Poppy and Wanda to be on hand in case we needed to force Rhea and Euryvos from the house or from our bodies, it turned out such wasn’t necessary. As soon as Rhea and Euryvos had found each other, they’d willingly moved on. Where they’d ended up was anyone’s guess, but I’d been restored to my body and Tobias had been restored to his and that awful, overwhelming shadow darkness that had lived within the Mathison house for so long had lifted and then disappeared.

  “Well, I’m happy to hear that,” I said as I faced Tobias and gave him a big smile. “And the nightmares?”

  He grinned. “I’m finally able to sleep through the night—something I haven’t done in at least twenty years. I feel,” he started and then looked away. I could tell he was trying to keep control of his emotions. When he turned to face me again, his eyes were happier than I’d ever seen them. “I feel like a new man.”

  I was beyond glad for him. “So, what will you do now?”

  “Well, I’ve been offered a position at Spook Society.”

  “Really?” I asked, surprised because this was the first time I’d heard this. “And, what do you think?”

  “I think it could be… pretty interesting. Bailey said I definitely have a psychic gift and it’s worth exploring. And, I, well… I think she’s right.”

  I nodded as I thought about it—Spook Society was actually the perfect place for Tobias to find his feet. And Bailey would be happy to take him under her wing. “I’m really happy for you, Tobias.”

  “Thank you,” he said almost immediately. “From the bottom of my heart, thank you. I can’t help but think that if I’d never met you, I’d still be in exactly the same place I’ve been all my life—miserable and afraid. Because of your courage, I’m now free.” He started to tear up again and then I started to tear up. “I know there’s nothing I can ever say or do that would, in any way, return the favor. But if you ever need me—for anything—I am always here for you.”

  “I’ll remember that, Tobias, and thank you. And I was happy to help you.”

  He checked his watch suddenly and then stood up. “Oh, shoot, I’m running late.”

  “Where are you off to now?” I asked, standing up so I could walk him to the door.

  “Ah, I have to get back to the house. I’m in the process of selling off all the furniture and all the other crap to make way for the remodel.”

  “Remodel?”

  “Yes,” he answered on a joyful nod. “I decided that since I’m going to stay in the house, it’s time for some changes. I want to remodel the place and make it my own, you know?”

  I nodded. “I can’t wait to see the progress.”

  “Stop by the house anytime. I’ll give you a tour.”

  “I’d love that.”

  “Um, one last thing before I leave,” he started, and then seemed a little embarrassed, or maybe timid.

  “Yes?”

  “I wanted to, um, ask you if you might like to… go out for dinner some night? I, well, I thought I wouldn’t mind getting to know you better and, who knows, maybe there’s a future waiting for us.”

  I smiled and while I was flattered, I wasn’t interested. And that had everything to do with… Roy? His was the only image and name that came to my mind, so I figured that was it. “I would love to,” I started and watched his expression fall as soon as he realized a ‘no’ was on its way. “But I’m actually seeing someone.”

  I marveled over how good the words felt in my mouth.

  “Well, whoever he is, he’s a lucky guy,” Tobias said as he gave me one final smile and then turned around, walking out of my office.

  I watched as he disappeared out the front doors and walked past my window. There was a certain hop in his step that hadn’t been there before. He looked like a man who was now starting his life all over again and living for himself and himself only. And it was wonderful to see.

  I sat at my desk smiling as I went about the rest of the day before gathering up the paperwork and keys to give to the family of gargoyles, who could now make a new home for themselves among the other monsters of Haven Hollow.

  The End

  ~~~~~

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