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Beyond the Rainbow

By: Dorothy McFalls

April 2003

Dorothy McFalls [dorothymcfalls@att.net] who lives in a small island community in South Carolina has been writing non-fiction for more than six years as an urban planner. She has recently given up her career to pursue her first love, fiction.

A sparkling plastic rainbow swung over the audience packed into the tiny television studio. Lindy Carlsedale could not take her eyes off the giant feel-good sign. She wondered if she was going to throw up or laugh hysterically at the sight of it.

What in the world was she doing here? Kevin Hardy’s Golden Rainbow, a live beyond the grave show very similar to those national séance programs so popular on the networks, was surely a crock designed to entertain and frighten lonely housewives.

Lindy shifted on the backless bench that promised to become even more uncomfortable as the afternoon progressed. Mary, Lindy’s closest girlfriend, squeezed her hand. “I can not tell you how excited I am. How did you get these tickets? There’s always a backlist of people waiting for tickets months and months in advance.”

Mary, dear sweet Mary. That was why Lindy was subjecting herself to this bunk. Audience members packed the small auditorium. A lady in front of her clutched a necklace to her chest. Whispered prayers could be heard over the sickly-sweet music seeping out of a speaker overhead.

Lindy along with her other colleagues who worked at the television station usually planed meetings that took them away from the office on the fifteen of the month, the day the tickets for future shows were handed out. She and most of her friends only shook their heads unable to understand what all the fuss was about. No rational person could believe in mediums and the ability to communicate with the dead.

Seeing that the woman still clutching her necklace sitting on the bench in front of them was the norm for the audience only confirmed Lindy’s firm belief that the town must be quite devoid of sane people.

Even Mary. At least her friend had a good reason to want to believe in Kevin Hardy and his “so-called” abilities. Both of Mary’s parents were dead, died long before she had entered college. And very recently the aunt who had raised her had also died. The loss was crushing. Much to the worry of her friends, Mary had turned despondent. Only Kevin Hardy’s show drew her out of her darkened bedroom so she could watch from the larger television set in the living room. So, in an effort to bring Mary some comfort, Lindy secured two of the hottest tickets in town.

Lindy, on the other hand, mused that she had no reason be fooled by the show’s premise. She was young and healthy. Her parents, her grandparents, and numerous aunts and uncles were still all alive and healthy too. She had no friends who had died, at least none who would ever consider calling out to her from beyond the grave. Passing acquaintances were all she could think of who had the misfortune of dying. For that was how she considered death...a misfortune. And she certainly did not want to dwell on the thought of death and dying or attend a televised séance with her friend.

Kevin Hardy’s plastic Golden Rainbow shimmered brightly as the music grew louder and the lights in the studio dimmed.

A rival television station had run a weeklong news series attacking the television show, calling it a fraud. They had mimicked the set and used similar music to promote the series. Lindy had sent that station her resume.

She did not have much experience with psychic dealings, being a skeptic at such things did not make her seek it out as entertainment. But surely there must be a psychic code requiring a deep voiced announcer to be in one’s employ.

“Kevin Hardy’s powers have astounded the scientific community. An anomaly, he’s been called,” the deep, faceless voice intoned.

Wait a minute; there had been that one gypsy at the fair. She didn’t have a deep voiced announcer. That must have been fifteen years ago...Lindy was sixteen at the time. The wrinkled old lady had told the peppy young Lindy that a dark shade hovered above her brow. But the mysterious woman, with bells on her colorful veil ringing, had refused to elaborate without a payment that seemed hopelessly expensive to a high school girl. She never did learn about that dark shade, and did not really dwell on the thought until now.

“Pay attention,” Mary whispered. “He’s about to make his entrance.”

Kevin Hardy appeared through a shroud of mist and amongst a thunder of applause. His dark hair was trimmed close to his head. Perhaps his ears were a little too large and his nose a bit too pointy, but his eyes were wide and expressive, a good trait for the camera. He was a big, strong man with a kind face.

Lindy wondered why she had never seen him in the halls of the television station. Certainly she would have remembered a face like that.

The audience cheered even more loudly when he stepped onto the round platform the benches encircled. Utter silence followed. Even the music had stopped playing.

Hardy took a few moments to explain the show before drawing a slow, deep breath and announcing he was ready to begin.

“I’m over here,” he said pointing to the left wall, the wall opposite to where Lindy and Mary were seated. Lindy sighed inwardly with relief. She felt as nervous as she had in school when a teacher was to point out a pupil and start asking questions. Mary squeezed her hand. “Someone who has lost a mother, recently.” He spoke fast. He called out letters of names, dates, pausing only for the briefest moment for the person to nod. He would not allow details, only yes and no answers to his brief questions. A woman wept as Hardy returned to her details of her life with her lost mother. Even if it was not real, Lindy thought, the vague recollections could not hurt the recipient. And the show was free to its attendants.

Hardy broke off his reading as suddenly as it had started.

He looked startled.

“I’ve never had this happen before,” he said aloud.

* * * * *

Images were flying to him, everything was happening just as it had during all of the other shows. The woman’s mother was showing him pink flowers, but they wilted and disappeared along with the woman.

His chest constricted suddenly and a force pulled harshly him to the side. This was a force stronger than anything he had ever encountered.

“I have someone else coming through,” he said. “Belinda,” he spoke the full name and his eyes turned to a dark-haired woman sitting in the back row. She appeared to be just as startled as he felt.

“Belinda Carlsedale?” he asked though he knew he was correct. This was the woman the strong force wanted.

“Yes?” she said into the microphone that had been thrust under her chin. “My friend Mary--”

“This is not for Mary,” he shouted an unreasonable anger welled inside him. “This is for YOU!” The spirits never became angered. This one though, as impossible as it seemed, was funneling its anger through him.

Hardy took a deep breath and tried to regain control of the situation. “I see someone, a brother or a husband or a friend, do you understand this?”

“No,” she said weakly. He had expected that. She appeared to be terrified by the process. She was probably another skeptic. They’d been crowding into his audience ever since that investigative reporter had come around asking all sorts of nonsense questions. “My brothers are alive and I have no husband dead or living, and my friends are all well.”

The spirit shifted. It became a more imposing force, a brutal father figure perhaps.

And then all the sudden a rush of images came to him. Hardy recalled a time when in his wild youth he and his friends had visited a whorehouse in Amsterdam. But this Belinda was there. He saw her garnished in leather and cowing from a man, an ugly man lording over her with a whip in hand. Hardy recoiled at these images, but he could not force them from his mind.

“This-this is not right,” he stammered cradling his head in his hands. “Go to a commercial break.”

“We can’t.” His producer, Dennis Macon, spoke into the earpiece he wore. “We’ve got five more minutes to fill. Move to someone else.”

“Whore!” Hardy shouted powerless to stop the word from emerging. “You will pay for what you’ve been doing, Belinda.” He heard the words as if they were coming from somewhere other than his own lips.

A shattering pain tore at his head. “Help me,” he whispered.

“Hardy!” Dennis shouted.

Hardy collapsed.

* * * * *

Lindy, along with everyone else in the studio, stared at the crumpled man in the middle of the stage and wondered if this was part of the show.

“He knew your name,” Mary whispered. “And the things he said...” Mary turned on the bench to stare wide-eyed at Lindy. “What in the world have you been doing?”

“Nothing!” Lindy said quickly when she noticed not all the stares were on the crackpot psychic. Several were focused severely on her, as if she had pulled out a bat and whacked their beloved psychic over the head with it.

Not one sane person in this town. It was now official.

Dennis Macon, the producer of the show who had given Lindy the tickets, ran out onto the stage. He lifted the psychic’s head and slapped his cheeks.

Dennis. Of course, Dennis. Hadn’t she just turned him down when he asked her out last week? This was a joke, a horrible, evil joke.

“Call 911,” Dennis shouted into his mouthpiece.

The hushed audience gasped collectively. Several people stood. Several more began to pray.

“Perhaps this is not a joke,” Lindy mumbled.

“A joke?” Mary countered. “He’s suffered a psychic seizure. Of course it’s not a joke. He could very well die.”

Lindy turned sharply to her friend. “Psychic seizure? Where do you come up with such ideas?”

“In his book.” Mary held up a copy of Hardy’s book, Beyond the Golden Rainbow. “I was hoping I could get him to sign it. Oh dear.”

* * * * *

“No. Absolutely, no.” Lindy crossed her arms in front of her chest.

Dennis Macon leaned over her desk, a lock of golden hair tumbled over his right brow. “You must. Kevin Hardy insists on it. He will not go on air again until he speaks to you.”

Lindy stood. “I did not do anything. I did not ask to be subjected to such slander.” She looked away suddenly. “He called me a whore on live television...I should sue.”

“But you won’t.” Dennis knew her too well. Everyone at the television station knew her too well. She had survived a nasty breakup with a lawyer three years earlier and had sworn--sworn on everything she held dear--that she would not speak with a two-timing, untrustworthy lawyer ever again.

Besides, two days had passed since Kevin Hardy literally fell on his face in the middle of his show and the excitement surrounding her involvement had already died down. Only a half-dozen angry people were still calling her house in the middle of the night to accuse her of killing their beloved psychic.

Kevin Hardy was far from dead, she had told each and every angry person, and they should talk to him if they really wanted to know what had happened because Lindy sure did not know.

“Would you talk with him if your job depended on it?” Dennis smiled as he asked the question. What a malevolent smile it was too.

“No.” Lindy crossed her arms over her chest again. “I am in demand. I could find another position with the snap of my fingers.” She did not demonstrate by snapping her fingers. It was a lie. She had never heard back from the other television station in town, the reasonable television station she had sent her resume to. There was not much demand for copywriters these days when most of the programs arrived at the station already pre-packaged.

“Very well.” Dennis opened the glass door to her tiny office and marched out.

Several minutes later the station manager, a man who reminded Lindy of a reporter fresh from the nineteen-forties with his felt hat and spry attitude, poked his head into her office. “You are to meet with Kevin Hardy tomorrow at two. His house. My secretary has the directions. I want a write-up of the meeting on my desk before the end of the day.”

Ah, Dennis knew how to hit below the belt. Have the boss turn the request into a writing assignment. Lindy felt an unnatural desire to accept.

“Good.” The station manager gave her a quick smile and trotted away.

* * * * *

Mary pulled Lindy all the way up the sidewalk to one of the grand Victorian-era houses that sat up on the hill in the town the next day a few minutes after two in the afternoon. Lindy would have never admitted this to anyone, but the thought of speaking with Kevin Hardy after his outburst the other day had her unsettled. Mary, with her excessive enthusiasm, was there to serve as a buffer.

“It doesn’t look haunted,” Lindy mused aloud. “Shouldn’t there be ghosts screaming or moaning or something?”

“Oh, don’t be so sarcastic. He has a gift. He’s not a freak,” Mary chided.

“Freak. Your words, not mine.”

The door swung open a moment before Lindy could press the highly ornate doorbell. That was a disappointment. She had been looking forward to hearing the wonderfully eerie sound that device would have surely made.

“You’re late,” Dennis, standing on the other side of the door, said. He narrowed his eyes as his gaze raked the slender Mary. “Who’s she?”

“She’s my lawyer.” Lindy did not give Mary a chance to call her on the lie. She took Mary tightly by the hand and brushed past Dennis as if she owned the house.

There were no obvious signs inside to suggest a freak resided there. The kitchen Lindy marched through was clean and modern. The stainless steel appliances gleamed and the blue granite countertops sparkled. The adjoining living room was comfortably furnished with welcoming overstuffed chairs and sofas upholstered in soft shades of beige. An ultra-modern television hung on the wall like a painting just above the fireplace.

Not a single voodoo doll in sight.

There was a TV Guide on the coffee table.

Kevin Hardy sat in a far corner of the room with his eyes closed. Lindy came to a quick halt when she saw him. His cheeks wan, his hair unruly, though still endearing, whatever happened to him the other day had certainly taken its toll.

Mary sucked in a breath.

Dennis rushed in behind them. “Hardy, she’s here.” His frown focused his energies on Mary. “She’s brought a lawyer.”

After what seemed like several hundred heartbeats, Hardy opened his eyes and leveled a steady gaze on Lindy.

“Mary is not her lawyer,” he said. He gave both women a friendly smile, but did not rise from his chair. “Why have you threatened her? She’s terrified of me.”

“I assure you, Hardy, I have done exactly as you have asked. If she’s frightened, it’s her own prejudice’s and ignorance’s fault.”

How dare he? Lindy had to catch her tongue. Telling Dennis off would not accomplish a thing. Not a darn thing. “I am inconvenienced by this and a bit perplexed, is all.”

Mary, who’d been bouncing on her toes with excitement, broke from Lindy’s side and rushed forward. She gushed her excitement over meeting Hardy until he was quite soaked with her praise.

Hardy laughed and took her hand. “Sorry about the show,” he said. “I bet you were hoping for a miracle there.”

Mary’s eyes filled with tears. He shouldn’t do that do her. Her heart was too susceptible to the promise of repaired hope. “Yes,” Mary whispered. “I had prayed so hard--”

“Can we please get this over with?” Dennis whined. He shook a finger at Lindy. “And if you do anything else to harm our station’s star, I will personally see to it that you--”

“Dennis!” Hardy shot the young producer a quelling glance. “You are not helping matters.” Hardy stood then. He gave Mary’s hand a squeeze before stepping up to Lindy. “I think it would be best if there weren’t witnesses for this.”

Again, Hardy was speaking while staring so hard so deep at Lindy her head began to ache, but she felt fairly certain he was not speaking to her.

She backed up a step. “Witnesses? You make it sound as if you are planning to kill me.” She laughed at her little joke.

No one else in the room did.

He was planning to kill her? Great. Just her darn luck, she’d be killed by a freak in his home and probably be buried in his back lawn. Not quite the ending she imagined for herself.

“What about Mary?” she asked.

Hardy flicked a glance over his shoulder to where Mary stood beaming a smile through a mist of tears. “Her energies are strong. She might interfere.”

“Interfere?”

Hardy frowned. “Even if I were to kill you, I would never bury you in my backyard. My dog would dig you up.”

His attempt at humor roiled Lindy’s stomach. Dennis and Mary both laughed.

“I meant,” Hardy said, looking suddenly serious. “I didn’t think you’d feel comfortable with people watching. You don’t look comfortable right now.”

“Bring in the television cameras. I enjoy being made an ass in public.” She should walk out. The station manager should have never forced her into this situation. This was just too weird.

She about to get herself out of there when Hardy took her hand in a vise-like grip and tugged. “Come this way.”

Unless she wanted to fight him tooth and nail--which she did not--Lindy had no option but let him drag her into a small adjoining room. Ah, this was where the freak kept his tools of the freak trade.

“I am not a freak.” He pushed her onto a silk cushion on the floor.

“Sure...right...not a freak.” Bitter incense smoldered in a ceramic pot that looked to be thousands of years old. Frightening painted masks frowned down on Lindy from the walls.

“I was born with this puzzling ability. Image how I must have felt in my formative teen years. Not only did I have to contend with bad skin and girls laughing at me, I had to listen to all those voices in my head.”

“They have professionals to treat people with such ailments.”

“This is not an ailment!” Hardy drew a deep breath to calm himself and ran his hand through his hair. “Until I understood it, I was terrified too.”

“Yeah, yeah, sing me your sorrow song some other time. The station manager wants a full report on your talents, so wave your hands over my head and incant some ancient words so I can get out of here.”

Hardy stared at Lindy with that hard glare she was beginning to hate. He opened his mouth to speak but didn’t utter a word before clamping his mouth closed again. Instead, he turned away from her and fiddled with a small electronic device. “For my own protection, I tape these meetings.” His voice was low, monotone. “I do not share these tapes unless my behavior at a particular sitting comes under question. Do you understand?”

Lindy nodded.

“Well? Do you?”

At least he could not completely read her mind. With his back turned he had no idea that she had nodded. His “powers” fed off his uncanny ability to read body language. Nothing more...nothing less...nothing to fear.

“Well? Are you going to clam up now? Certainly an employee of a television station is not shy when it comes to being recorded.”

“Umm...no, of course not. I understand you perfectly well and I am glad this nonsense is being recorded.” Lindy pulled out a small tape recorder of her own. “In fact, I intend to record the session as well.”

Hardy spun around and stared at her little black recorder. His expressive eyes sparkled with such life force, Lindy believed if she were standing she would have been knocked back a few steps. Boy, oh boy, he had charisma coming out the--

“I’m ready to start.” He drew a deep breath. His eyes slipped closed. “Don’t worry, this shouldn’t hurt.”

Lindy certainly did not like the sound of that. She jumped to her feet. “Wait!”

Hardy opened his eyes. “Yes?”

“What do you mean this shouldn’t hurt? What do you plan to do? I thought I was here to get my fortune read or something.”

Hardy chuckled. “Fortune read...” he mumbled. With a grand sweep of his hand he pointed out the incense, the masks, and a crucifix Lindy had yet noticed. “See all this? This is for you.”

“What?”

“Or rather, because of you.”

“Because of me?” Lindy made a hasty retreat toward the door. “I don’t need to listen to this. If I wanted to be entertained in such a manner, I would have agreed to go out on a date with Dennis weeks ago.”

“Ah, Dennis.” Hardy rubbed the back of his neck. “He’s a pain sometimes.”

“Well, yeah. And so is this.” Lindy copied his sweeping gesture just before reaching for the doorknob.

“Don’t go.” The plea was quietly made.

“Why?” Lindy asked, her hand still firmly grasping the brass knob.

“Something happened in that studio, something I never believed in before.”

A chill traveled down Lindy’s spine. “What?”

“I felt evil.”

At that Lindy bristled. “You’re calling me evil? I’m out of here.”

She threw the door open. “Mary!” The living room was empty. “Mary!” What had happened to Mary?

She jumped when a hand touched her shoulder. “You’re flying off the handle for no reason,” Hardy said.

“Get away from me, you...you freak!” Lindy spun around, spun away from his touch. He thought her evil. Oh, she could just read the scenario now. He was planning on killing her, to rid the world of the evil he suspected her to be.

“Mary!” Lindy screamed. What had they done to Mary? She had to escape. She had to get away from this freak, but she could not abandon her friend.

“Mary’s not here. I sent her home.” Dennis came into the room from the kitchen. He carried a large sandwich on a plate.

“You did what?” Lindy could not help that her voice had become high-pitched, that she was sounding more and more hysterical.

Dennis took a bite of the sandwich. “Nice girl.” He chewed. “Made a date with her for Friday.”

“Dennis, you’re not helping,” Hardy said quietly.

Nothing short of calling this madness off would help Lindy’s mood though. She charged for the front door. Neither Hardy nor Dennis made a move to stop her.

Perhaps she was overreacting. Overreacting? Who cared? She was getting out of there. Now.

The door handle refused to turn. There was no latch, only a deadbolt and a missing key.

“Just try to calm down, Lindy.” She spun around and found Hardy standing not a foot from her. “Let me explain.”

Lindy drew a calming breath. Well, the breath didn’t actually calm, but her lungs did welcome the fresh air. “Give me the key.” Her hand shot out. “Kidnapping is a federal offense.”

“You’ve not been kidnapped.”

“No? Then let me leave.”

Dennis wandered into the foyer, his sandwich gone. His hands were clasped behind his back. “You’re wasting your time, Hardy.”

“Don’t.” Hardy flashed a warning glance in Dennis’s direction. “Lindy, please. Just come back into the living room and let me explain.”

“No.” She wanted out. “Give me the key.”

Dennis stepped around to her right. Both men were closing in on her, flanking her. Hardy, with his overwhelming personality, was the man she kept her eyes on. He was the danger to her.

“Dennis, no.” Hardy lunged forward.

Lindy turned her head just as a metal pot came crashing down on her temple. She stumbled to her knees.

“I know you wanted to do this the gentle way, Hardy. But like I told you, she’s stubborn as the devil.”

“Hmmm...the devil...get Jackson on the phone.”

The voices seemed so distant, detached. The room faded--

* * * * *

“Drink.” A cold glass was pressed to Lindy’s lips. Water dribbled into her mouth. The sensation more than the spoken command woke her senses.

She swallowed. It was do that or choke. Her eyes fluttered open. After several tries the blurry scene blinked into focus.

“Take these.” A man bent down and peered into her face. He pressed a few pills into her hand.

“Who are you?” She pushed herself up from the cushion on the floor. She was back in the freak’s freak-room. Masks, their features contorted and exaggerated, glared down on her. Mind-numbing music bonged softly in the background. This man peering into her face was not Hardy, was not Dennis. “Who the hell are you?”

She blushed.

He was a priest--and she had just sworn in front of him. She was going to hell for sure, now. The silver crucifix hanging around the white collar encircling his neck flickered in the sharp glow of one of the many pinpoint halogen lamps hung high on the walls.

“I’m Jackson.” He handed her the glass of water he was holding. “You can call me Joe, if you’d like.”

She dropped the pills he’d handed her onto the floor and set the cup beside them. Her head throbbed with a devil’s vengeance. She rubbed her temples, praying the pain away.

“They shouldn’t have hit you like that.” He put the pills back in her hand. “It’s just aspirin. Nothing powerful, but I promise it’ll help your head some.”

Lindy swallowed the pills after reading the stamped word aspirin on each one. Besides, if they wanted to kill her, they certainly have had ample opportunity. She finished the glass of water while she was at it.

“What’s going on?” Lindy asked. “I’ve been kidnapped, you know. Can you call the police or are you a prisoner too?”

Jackson--Joe--whoever he was--sat back on the other cushion in the strange, small room. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and smiled at her. “You don’t look like a demon.”

“A demon?”

“Hardy says he’s certain.” Joe shifted a little on the cushion. “I trust his opinion. He’s really very powerful, you know.”

“He thinks I’m a demon?” That couldn’t be right. No one actually believed in demons anymore. They were the stuff of fairytales and scary stories invented to frighten little children into good behavior.

“I’ve tracked down six demons in the past three years. Hardy asked me to come by and...well, pass judgment over you.”

Lindy buried her aching head in the hands. What was she to do? They thought her evil? Even worse, they did not believe she was human?

“I’m training Hardy to be my doorkeeper, Lindy. You know, to locate demons residing illegally here on earth.”

“No.”

“I expel them. I’m very good at it too.”

Lindy looked up. “Expel?” She did not like the sound of that, or rather the tone he used to say that particular word...expel.

“It’s not like I’m chasing down simple energumens. No, I let the church deal with those cases of possessions. I’m not associated with any organized religion anymore. I’m a specialist, you see. It’s only the full-blown demon in the flesh for me.”

Lindy jumped to her feet. “Do I look like a demon to you?” She waved her hands over her spry body. “What about this screams demon?”

Joe’s good-humor drained away. Slowly, he stood. “I have seen demons who could have passed for supermodels.” His voice was low, controlled. “Always...always, they come in the form of a beautiful woman...and always, they deny their existence. I will hear no more lies from your forked tongue, you devil’s spawn. You cannot pull the wool over my eyes, for I have what is good and right working on my side.”

He yanked the door open and was gone.

Lindy followed no more than a heartbeat later. The knob would not budge. She’d been locked inside.

Her heart raced, hammering on painfully on her ribcage. Think. Think. Three madmen have her trapped inside a small room. Lindy pounded her mind searching for a clue, an escape route.

If she were a demon, wouldn’t hell just open up its gates and accept her back into its fold before anything truly horrible could happen. Lindy held her breath, waiting.

Nothing happened.

Of course nothing happened. There was no hell, no heaven. And she wasn’t a demon. Certainly, she would know if she were a demon, wouldn’t she?

She never had a desire to eat a baby, never cared to corrupt the youth of the world, never ever cheated. Just last week the grocer had forgotten to charge her for the cantaloupe in her cart. Hadn’t she returned to the store and pointed out the error? Hadn’t she insisted on paying the difference? Was that the behavior of a demon?

God, she hoped not.

God. Now there was a mystery to her. She’d lost her religion at a young age after a cranky priest screamed at her for showing up late with the church’s flowers. Man of God, indeed. He had not even asked why she was late. Had not even let her explain that her mother, who ran the flower shop, had been put in the hospital that very morning. God could keep such good people.

* * * * *

“I want to do another reading with her,” Hardy said. He was pacing the full length of the living room.

“No,” Joe said. “The first time nearly killed you. I can’t let you take the risk.”

“But--” Hardy started.

“She’s evil. Should have known that the day she turned me down.” Dennis said between bites. He was busy stuffing another sandwich down his throat. “Evil as hell.”

But that wasn’t right, Hardy thought. He sensed a definite sliver of goodness in Lindy. Experiencing that spark of evil in her--or around her--was a deadly and frightening experience. It left him unsettled. Spirits were soft, kind entities living in a plane of existence where the petty concerns of this world were meaningless. There was no hate, no anger in that place he liked to think of as beyond the rainbow.

He had invited her to his home to further uncover the truth.

“She’s different,” he said aloud.

“They’re all different,” Joe said. He untied the centuries old leather case and pulled out a vial. Holy water--that combined with prayer was the first line of defense against a demon.

“But she’s different different. I don’t feel that all-encompassing darkness in her now. And the way she affected me at the show...I had never felt that before. It was terrifying.”

“Yeah, you almost died.” Dennis chewed. “Damn near killed the show, you know. Best damn rated show the station has too.”

“Don’t swear, Dennis,” Joe said. He pulled a long knife, polished to a brilliant shine from the case. “Try not to worry overmuch, Hardy. I won’t let innocent blood flow. I know my job and I know what a demon looks like.”

Hardy stopped his pacing. The sight of the knife sent chills racing down his spine. The church had expelled Joe for his overzealous methods years ago. He was a man without sanction, dispelling demons all over the world.

But despite Joe’s activities, over the past several years he’d had become a trusted friend. Joe had taught Hardy so many things about the outer realms of reality.

But the church had expelled him...

“Does she look like a demon to you?” Hardy asked.

“There’s a certain demonic aura, yes.”

“But?”

Joe ran his finger along the edge of the blade. “I won’t do anything permanent until I’m satisfied.”

* * * * *

The door opened a crack and Hardy slipped into the small room. “Geez.” He reached out and caressed Lindy’s swelling temple. “Dennis sure knocked you but good. I’m really sorry about that.”

“Sorry?” Lindy jerked her head away from his touch, his utterly human touch. “Sorry that your demon got knocked around before you boys kill her?”

Hardy raised his hands. Lindy would have given up her career to learn what was going on in that head of his. Ha! Like she’d survive this long enough to return to a career.

“Please, Lindy. I understand you’re frightened--”

“Frightened doesn’t begin to describe--”

“You’re different.” He grabbed her hands. “I have no idea how to deal with you. I have no idea what is happening when I let myself open up around you.” He drew a deep breath. “I just want to understand.”

Joe slipped into the room, a leather satchel snug under his arm. The door locked with a click behind him. “Talking to a demon is dangerous, Hardy. Her tongue is gilded with gold.”

A demon! The nerve of the man!

“I understand the dangers, Joe. This is my decision.” Hardy had turned his soul-searching gaze on Lindy again. She felt her heart begin to melt. “Please, sit.”

Completely under his spell, and still wondering just how in the world he could pull her into his power, Lindy sank to the cushion on the floor. Hardy knelt beside her.

He closed his eyes, drew a deep breath, and squeezed her hands. “Relax.”

Time stood still. Lindy never knew what that saying meant, truly meant, until today. Time actually stopped marching forward. Time waited...for her.

“Lindy,” Hardy spoke her name. His deep tone resonated deep within her chest.

“How can I possibly believe in evil when I don’t even believe in God?” she said. The words just popped out of her mouth.

“Don’t believe in God, you say?” Joe drawled. The crucifix around his neck flickered in the lights.

“A dark shade hovers above your brow.” Hardy’s words froze Lindy’s blood. That old gypsy had once told her the exact same thing.

Hardy’s expression collapsed, compressed, as if he were in pain. He gasped for a breath. “Whore!” he shouted. “Why do you do such things? What kind of monster are you?”

Lindy jerked her hands free from his. “What are you talking about?” She began to pull herself from the floor. She didn’t have to sit still and listen to this drivel. She could give them a royal fight if that was what they wanted.

Hardy lunged for her. His mouth covered hers with an electric kiss. His tongue sought the warmth of her mouth. His hands traveled the length of her body. His spirit overwhelmed her inhibitions. What was he doing? Why? The questions drifted away. A warm tingling feeling grew in her chest and spread throughout her body.

“Hardy!” Joe hauled Hardy from on top of Lindy’s supine position on the floor. He gave the psychic a good slap in the face. “Hardy! Stop it!”

Hardy blinked. His gaze traveling across the room and landed squarely, uncomfortably on Lindy. She pushed herself up from the floor, straightened her bunched-up skirt. Her cheeks burned.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, lifting a trembling hand to his reddened lips. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“Don’t you?” Joe asked.

“It was outside of her...I think.” Hardy’s conviction waned.

“You think?” Joe tore open his satchel.

Hardy backed further away from Lindy. That look of horror was trained on Joe, not her. Lindy did not feel good about anything at the moment, but she especially did not wish to discover the contents of that satchel.

Joe produced a vial. He opened the lid and dumped most of the contents onto the back of Lindy’s hand before she could react.

Acid. She hugged her burning hand to her chest. He’d dumped pure acid on her skin. The burning stung like the--

“See? There’s your proof. Holy water burns her.”

“That was acid,” Lindy protested.

“Was it?” Joe asked. He grabbed Hardy’s arm and jerked it forward. “Watch.” He poured the remaining drops of liquid onto the back of Hardy’s hand.

Lindy turned away. She could not watch as the acid burned a hole into Hardy’s hand too.

“Water.”

She turned back. The clear liquid sat on the back of Hardy’s hand, harmless. She held out her own hand. The flesh had been burned away. Blood oozed from the spot where the acid had touched her.

The pain was nearly unbearable.

She touched the liquid pooled harmlessly on Hardy’s skin with the tip of her finger. Her skin sizzled. She pulled away from the biting pain.

“What is the meaning of this?” she asked.

“You are a demon, dear. Please, no more games.” Joe said and released Hardy’s hand. “Confess and this will all go well.”

Hardy could not seem to stop staring at the back of Lindy’s burned hand. She hid it against her chest again. The look in his eyes, a look of complete horror, cut her to the quick.

“I’m not evil,” she said plainly.

Her words made no impact. These two men feared her. They actually feared her.

Their fear made both Joe and Hardy a terrible, terrible danger. Joe pulled a long, deadly knife from his satchel. Lindy swallowed hard. She was not going to leave this room alive.

“My parents,” she said. “Please don’t make my parents worry after me. Tell them what you’ve done. Write them an anonymous letter if you have to...just don’t let them think I’ve simply disappeared. Don’t leave them with hope.”

“Such sugary words, demon. Pretending to care for the couple you’ve convinced you belonged with.” Joe inched forward. That knife looked pretty darn secure in his hand.

Lindy stood and spread her arms wide. “I am not a demon.”

“Joe?” Hardy had pressed himself against the far wall. He was turning green.

“I am an expert. You do not need to fear pain.” Joe raised the knife until it was poised just above her heart.

“You are making a huge mistake. The blood I bleed is red. The heart that beats in my chest can love. My soul that fills this room can soar.” Lindy held herself as still as death, waiting.

“Joe, don’t do this.” Hardy hugged his stomach.

Joe began incanting a prayer. The words were Latin, incomprehensible to Lindy’s ears. “I do this for the world,” he ended his prayer slipping into English again.

The knife slashed down.

Lindy flinched.

Hardy collapsed.

* * * * *

“Am I dead?” Lindy remembered the time she’d laid sick in her bed with the stomach flu for two weeks. Right now she felt much worse.

“I don’t know,” Hardy answered. “Am I?”

His voice had no body. A blue mist floated all around her. Was that mist Hardy? Lindy did not think so.

She tried to look herself over. Her voice also did not have a body, but she did have a form, of a sort. She was spindly and green, solid but not whole.

“I’m not human.” The realization came slowly. She felt as if she had been awakened after a long, long slumber.

“The horrible images I saw when I tried to read you--”

“Raw energy. You couldn’t handle it.” The pain was dripping away. She was growing stronger by the minute.

“You are a demon, then?” Hardy’s voice sounded so small, so insignificant.

“Just a moment.” Lindy concentrated her energies. “I think I am remembering.”

A flash of a memory here and there did not make a complete picture. She needed more time to figure it all out. “I think you mortals would consider me a demon, yes.”

“You don’t have a mother or a father then? You don’t really have a family?”

Pain. That sickly twisting feeling welled up again. Pain was such a human emotion, wasn’t it? “Yes. I considered those humans my family. I knew nothing else, you see.”

The blue mists shifted. She was moving through space...or through something. Lindy wondered if she propelled the motion or if something outside of her existence was pulling her.

“Are you still there?” she called out to Hardy’s empty voice.

“Yes,” he answered. “Where am I?”

“I don’t know yet.” Another twisting pain pulled at her. “Are you in pain?”

“No,” he said. “I think I’m dead.”

“I must not be...dead, I mean. I am in considerable pain.”

“Sorry.”

“You should be.” Anger, another human emotion, filled her. If Hardy hadn’t insisted she visit him in his home, if he hadn’t been so curious about that dark spirit hovering around her, she would still be blissfully living a humdrum life on earth. “This was my one thousand and fifty-first reincarnation as a human.” The memory came with the words. “I believe I was trapped. Perhaps, imprisoned?”

“Oh?” Wherever they were traveling to, Hardy was coming right along with her.

“My memory’s not back yet. I think that was part of it, of the imprisonment...I think.”

A new force filled Lindy. A bright yellow light filled her. She glowed brightly. It felt good. Real good.

“Joe released a dangerous demon? Is that what you are telling me?”

“I don’t think so. I really don’t think I’m from hell.” She tried to reach out to Hardy, but she could not seem to find him in all that blue mist. Perhaps he was the mist after all.

The bright yellow force filling her, becoming part of her began to burn off the haze surrounding her. “Am I harming you?” she asked.

“I don’t think so. I don’t know.” His voice still sounded small, but strong. Lindy felt a rush of relief. That, she recognized, was not a purely human emotion.

Human? She could barely remember what being human felt like. Lindy tried to grasp the last pieces of humanity, the last remembrances of her life with her friends, her family, her skeptical co-workers. Yet, there was nothing to hold onto.

“I’m fading.” Hardy’s voice was a whisper.

“Don’t go.”

Lindy realized in that next moment she was alone.

* * * * *

“Hardy!” he was being shaken.

Hardy pried his eyes open and sucked in a deep breath of air. He gloried in the sharp sensations of life. He was alive.

Both Joe and Dennis stood over him. He was still in that small room where Joe had killed Lindy.

Hardy pushed Joe’s hands away and sat up.

“What did you do with her?” The floor where she had stood was empty.

Joe shook his head.

“The demon escaped,” Dennis said. He wiped crumbs from his hands.

Hardy pulled himself to his feet. The room swayed as he experienced a moment of dizziness. “Lindy is not a demon.” Knowledge, sage and unclear, flowed into his head from an outside source. The spirits were singing. The spirit world was in an uproar, but they were singing. They were happy in the chaos.

“What is she then?” Joe asked. He seemed upset. He jammed his knife back into the satchel. “I’ve never let a demon get away before,” he muttered. “This really burns me up.”

The singing grew louder. The spirit world was coming, coming to earth? How could that be possible?

“She wasn’t evil, Joe.” The voices were singing a name. Over and over they were singing a name. “Timat,” he said repeating the name echoing in his head. “Whatever she was, you’ve just set her free.”

* * * * *

Timat. That name sounded so familiar. The spirits, freed from their bounds of earth sang her praises. Lindy’s strength grew. She was changing again.

Too bad Hardy was no longer around to share in her transformation. Those darn human needs were still plaguing her. She longed for a friend to share her excitement. Old habits died hard.

Wings sprouted and a tail reached down from the heavens to earth. “Boy, oh boy, and I called Hardy a freak?” Claws and talons grew long and sharp. Fire spilled from her mouth when she spoke.

“Timat,” she said as her neck grew long. This felt right. Her past was returning. “I am Timat, the Dragon.”

With a sweep of her wings she soared back to earth. “I remember. I remember it all. Yes, I do remember. I am an ancient.”

The powers of good and evil swelled in her, flowed through her. She was neither one nor the other. But she did clearly remember why she was feared.

“Chaos, Hardy. You were afraid of me because I am chaos.”

And Lindy soared above, below, and beyond the rainbow.

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