A-Cup Angst Ch. 14

Jamie realized that Emilio has in fact inherited some of his family's pride and was awaiting some kind of confirmation of his importance. "Um, yes, I've seen them," Jamie said. "They're quite beautiful."

Emilio smiled a bit before continuing his tale. "A beast comes out of the forest at night and rattles our windows and doors, scaring us. My mother says it is sent by our ancestors to correct my mistakes."

"What kind of beast," Jamie asked. It was beginning to sound to him like this was all just a matter of someone banging on some shutters with a long broomstick.

"We saw it last night," Emilio said and his eyes looked right through Jamie, unseeing. Jamie extended his senses into the man's mind and beheld the image that has put such a fear into the man. It was a wolf the size of a bear, almost pitch black with red, glowing eyes and green, phosphorescent saliva. "It, it was, huge. And fast. And it wanted to kill Dren. It wanted to rip our child from her womb."

Jamie gulped as he saw in Emilio's mind that was all true.

"But it didn't," Laura said, trying to snap everyone out of their dread. "You saved your wife and child, Emilio."

"Yes," Emilio said, "yes I did." The man teared up and bent over to his wife's chair, where he started planting tender kisses over her abdomen and their unborn child. As Emilio sobbed, the encounter with the beast played in his mind, over and over again, and Jamie got the gist of it. The beast had come at them after dusk, running full tilt from the direction of the forest. Emilio had thrown himself between the thing and his wife and the beast stopped. Just as it had been intent on harming Dren, it had also been intent on not harming Emilio. It had circled the pair, trying to get a claw into the wife without harming the husband. Emilio had kept throwing himself between the two and guided them to the house. Once they had gotten indoors, the beast had roared and made a lot of noise but then left, like it did every other night.

Jamie pulled out of Emilio's traumatic memory and took a deep breath, retreating into his own place of mental calm. It was a tale of woe and terror, but Jamie still didn't see why Emilio had turned to Laura for help. "Emilio, Dren," Jamie said, "have you reported this to the authorities?"

Dren nodded yes. Emilio sniffed back his tears and rose in his own seat. "Yes, we did," he said.

"They didn't take you seriously," Jamie asked.

"No, no, they did," Emilio said. "They, uh, they came over and swept the forest and brought some seers with them and they determined that there were no angry spirits summoning beasts and that there was just a pack of wolves loose and that..." Now Emilio paused and his fists tightened. His lips pressed tight together. Jamie could sense the man's wrath boiling over.

"They said that I have exaggerated things," Dren said, her Italian very accentuated. "Because I am pregnant, my hormones made me see things as scarier than they were and my husband was either infected by my hysteria, or he has no choice but to confirm my story to keep the peace of his household."

Jamie's brows rose up in disbelief. "Seriously?" Emilio and Dren nodded. He looked livid, she looked despondent. Jamie looked to Laura and she looked a bit confused at the whole thing. "Does this happen a lot here? The cops ignoring evidence like that, I mean."

"No," Laura said. "Our police is very fragmented and poorly coordinated but, when one service has clear jurisdiction of a matter, like the State Forestry Corps has here, then they show up in force and do a good job. I can't believe that they would miss something like that."

"But you told them about the angry ancestors, right," Jamie asked the married couple.

"Yes, of course we did," Emilio said. "They came in force and took us seriously as soon as they heard my name." He lowered his face and shook his head. "No one can help us." Dren hugged him as best she could and hushed him.

Jamie turned to look at Laura. He understood the terror that was gripping their minds. He saw the look of determination on her face and understood her feelings on the matter. She was going to render her assistance and she was looking to him for help. Jamie wanted to help too, but he was worried about charging off to fight angry spirits and magical beasts armed with only a bit of telekinesis. He should tell her that he didn't have any magical power. If he offered to help and she relied on his supernatural assistance, there could be fatal consequences. The look on her face told him she was going to help her friend, no matter what and that settled the matter. He nodded to her that he'd help too. After the couple left, he'd be able to tell her that he has no magic.

"Jamie will help you, too," Laura said to her guests.

"Yes," Jamie said. "In any way I can." Laura offered everyone some more tea and the couple relaxed, asking for another cup. Laura left for the kitchen and Jamie decided to get a better idea of things. Just because he wasn't a magician, that didn't mean he couldn't help. "So, how long have you two been married?"

"Six years next month," Emilio said.

"And, were there any objections at your wedding?"

"My mother said that our ancestors would not be happy and she did say that she couldn't give her blessing to the union, but we eloped and got married in Switzerland."

"And was anyone of your family present there? At the wedding itself?"

"No, no one. My mother, Dren and I are all that's left of our whole family and my mother had made her feelings quite known back then."

"And when you were pregnant with your first child... Forgive me for bringing this up, but was there any sign of this beast at that time?"

"No, none," Emilio said. "My mother had been warning me that bad things would happen if I married Dren, but nothing ever did and I became certain that all of her stories and warnings were just superstition and nonsense. We were so happy and then the miscarriage... My mother had been right all along."

Laura brought the tray with the fresh pot of tea and poured everyone a cup. She invited Emilio and Dren to stay the night and they demurred, not wanting to impose. Laura gave Emilio a look that said, "accept my offer or I will slap you for your own good until you do," and the two agreed to spend the night at her house. Alessandra joined them after locking up the trattoria and they spent a few hours pleasantly chatting away. Jamie used the chance to probe into their lives and backgrounds. Dren kept her past hidden, but Jamie got the sense that Emilio knew all about it and that it was definitely not connected to their supernatural woes. He let go of that line of inquiry and focused on Emilio's family history and their current living arrangements.

Shortly after eleven o'clock, they suffered a surfeit of yawns and decided to retire for the night. Alessandra kissed Jamie good night and went to her room. Laura led her guests to the spare bedroom and gave them linens and bid them a good night. She kissed Jamie goodnight and went to her own bed. Jamie lay in the bed in the guest room across the hall from the Rizzolis. He lay in bed awake and sensed everyone else fall asleep. Apparently, the Rossi girls were too tired for any hanky panky with him tonight. He sighed in disappointment. Having sex with an unsuspecting audience in the next room would have been a kinky delight. He would have had to fuck them quietly with a hand pressed firmly over their mouths. Maybe they'd even bite his palm. He knew he could only hope for a quickie with the girls over the next two days and that was putting a crimp on his mood.

The guest room was the same one he had slept in back when he had been renovating his mother's guest house. He reached into the bottom drawer of the nightstand and found the box of tissues he had left there. He beat off and used them to clean up. He rolled over and tried to fall asleep. The story the Rizzolis told him kept spinning around in his head. There were so many inconsistencies and the timeline was just plain illogical. Jamie didn't know much about spiritual possession and he even considered contacting Caitlin Ford, back in the States, for advice. She knew about spirits and spiritual possession. He found himself wondering what time it was in California. Finally, after going over the story in his mind many times, he fell asleep.

He had a nightmare that a hooded monster was slowly creeping into his room. It was shuffling closer to his bed, cooing gently at him to wake up and fight. Jamie began to have sensations in his limbs and realized he was having a lucid dream. He could control it. He willed himself to rise and face the ominous figure that was towering over him and calling for him to wake up. He reached up to throw the hood back from the face of the monstrous figure and recoiled in horror at seeing his own panicked face emerge from the darkness. He struggled to get away from his doppelganger and his movements and inarticulate cries of panic spilled over into the real world and he woke himself up, scooting along the bed.

His heart was beating wildly and he was gulping air in a blind panic. He cast his gaze about and quickly remembered he was in the Rossi residence, in the guest room bed that he had fallen asleep in. "I just had a stupid, fucking nightmare," he told himself as he untangled his legs from the sheets. He still felt the disturbing sense of dread that had driven him to wakefulness and he retreated into the calm place inside of him to be rid of it.

As he descended deeper into his mind, he realized the fear was coming from an external source. He sensed the malicious attentions of another mind fixated upon the Rossi house. He reached out and located the mind. It was in the back alley and it was climbing the wall, gripping the masonry for purchase with impossibly sharp claws. Jamie sat up in bed. He sensed the mind climbing from one window to the next, searching for a particular one to crash through. He rolled out of bed and ran down the hall towards Laura's bedroom. He practically jumped on her immobile form and started to shake her awake. The woman groaned and ineffectually tried to shake him off and continue her rest. "Laura, wake up," Jamie hissed at her, "there's someone climbing your walls!"

"What," she said, uncomprehendingly blinking up at him in the gloom.

"There's a monster coming, Laura! Get up and fight!"

Jamie sensed the malevolent mind had reached the windows at the front of the house. "Jamie, what are you-"

He dashed out of her room, yelling, "Follow me!"

Laura immediately came fully awake as she heard the shattering of glass and a loud thump followed by a roar. Emilio and Dren soon joined in the cacophony of sounds with their shrieks of terror.

Jamie could sense that the intruder was standing right in front of the window it had shattered to climb through. As he exited Laura's bedroom, he telekinetically made the door to the Rizzoli's room slam wide open. He sensed the intruder's mind turn its attention to the loud noise. Jamie barged in through the open door and immediately slammed the intruder with all of his telekinetic power. He hardly even saw the beast before it went flying out the window and into the square. Jamie followed it blindly, trying to move in for the kill, but his senses told him of the shards of glass before his bare feet and he stopped cold, just short of the window. He stood on tiptoes and observed the big, dark bulk of the beast tucking into a roll and standing up to face him across the square. Jamie saw the two points of red blink twice before the beast roared and vanished down one of the side streets. He soon sensed its mind leaving his range and knew it would not be coming back that night, but he had sensed in its mind that it would not stop until it had ended the life of Dren and her unborn child.

Emilio and Dren were still shrieking in their bed when Laura and Alessandra ran into the room. Jamie told them they were safe now and the two women had a hard time calming down the Rizzolis. They took them to the living room while Jamie made a makeshift window out of duct tape and planks, to keep out the worst of the cold. After the Rizzolis stopped screaming and started to recover from their horrible fright, everyone took the chance to get dressed. No one was going to go back to sleep that night. Laura called the number for the forest cops that had been round asking questions the other day. After a few minutes on the phone with her, they determined the case was not in their jurisdiction and they told her to call her local police force. She retired to her bedroom, shutting her door firmly to not annoy and alarm her guests any more.

Jamie and Alessandra did their best to keep the Rizzolis calm. He was amazed that Dren hadn't suffered another miscarriage after the fright she had just endured. Laura spent hours on the phone, getting bounced from one police to the other and between mundane and supernatural law enforcement. Jamie could sense her mounting frustration reach nigh homicidal levels as she was given the runaround. Finally, when dawn broke, a young, strapping mountain of a man showed up in the uniform of the local police to ask questions about a disturbance to the peace. Jamie and Laura greeted him downstairs. Jamie could immediately tell he wasn't going to be of any help. Jamie could read his mind, so that meant that he wasn't with the supernatural authorities, and the man was only thinking about the weekend he would spend skiing with his girlfriend. He didn't give a fuck about anything that happened there that night. He wrote up some paperwork and asked some obtuse questions before leaving.

"I take it the police are going to be of fuck all assistance," Jamie asked Laura, after the Tomba wannabe left.

Laura sat down at one of her tables and sighed in frustration. "The State Forestry Corps claims this case isn't related to the attacks in the forest and it isn't in their jurisdiction, because it happened in the city. The State Police and the Financial Guard also say it's not in their jurisdiction and the locals had bounced it all to the Forestry Corps and are now pretending that it's their job to take care of it. Every call I make, I have to wade through the mundanes manning the phones without mentioning magic before I can get connected to someone in the know! And don't even get me started on the prodigious runaround I got from the Carabinieri! Fucking assholes!"

Jamie sat next to Laura and rubbed her back to comfort her. He could sense her frustration and helplessness. He wished he could help her and solve the problem at hand, but the last time he had decided to take such matters into his own hands, things snowballed into a worldwide campaign of death and destruction. "Laura, I need to tell you something. I can't help you with this matter."

Laura glared at him through her gathering tears. "What do you mean?"

"The beast," he said. "It has a human mind." Laura's jaw dropped in shock. "I felt it. It's why I was able to stop it before it could lay a claw on Dren."

"A human mind?"

Jamie nodded. "I'm starting to piece together a theory. I don't think that there had been any fuckups in the investigative work that had been done so far. I think they had simply been searching for the wrong thing." Laura shook her head at what he was saying, but she didn't object. "It doesn't make any sense for angry spirits to wait until after the wedding to start objecting. Or to wait for the first child to be miscarried. I don't think that Emilio is haunted by his ancestors. I think he is being hounded by a contemporary."

"But, Dren is the target," Laura said.

Jamie nodded. "Exactly. Someone wants to keep Emilio alive and kill Dren and their child."

"Who?"

Jamie just looked at Laura. One person stood out in Emilio's narrative. He waited until she reached his conclusion. "No. No, that's crazy, Jamie."

"Is it?"

"Yes," Laura said. "No mother could ever do that to her child. You don't know what you're talking about!"

"She went from being dead set against the marriage to desperately trying to weasel her way into their household and be of assistance, in less time then it took them to enjoy their honeymoon," Jamie said. "No one changes their mind as quickly and completely as that."

Laura shrugged his hand off her back and stood up. "She spent some time apart from her child and that opened her eyes," she said, forcefully. "You know nothing about..." She stood up and went to the stairs. "I am done talking about this." After she climbed a few stairs, she turned around and said, "I'll help them on my own! Your input will not be needed."

Jamie shook his head unhappily and got up to go to his mother's place and give Laura some time to cool off and see the light. The town was just waking up as he drove through the icy streets. When he came to her house, he found her rushing through breakfast. "Oh, good, you're here," she said. "Can you, please, take Suzie to school? I'm late enough as it is."

"What," he said. "Your boyfriend got you on a short leash?"

She shot him an annoyed look and he grinned. She turned to leave and then turned back towards him and said, "You know, he actually does. He likes it when I put it on in private and he likes to yank on it while I-"

"Holy fuck," Jamie exclaimed, interrupting her. "For fuck's sake, Mom, don't even kid about shit like that!"

His mother pointed a finger at him and said, "Clean up your mouth and your attitude, young man. I'm still your mother." She grinned and left.

"Fuck me," Jamie said to himself. "It's Mothers Gone Crazy Day today." He took a bite of her leftovers and then called out to Suzie. "Yo, Bones, get a move on! You're gonna be late for school!"

Suzie walked into the kitchen with a somber expression on her face. "Jamie," she said, nearly knocking him over in surprise at her serious tone of voice, "I go to school with clever boys. If you don't stop calling me... By that disgusting nickname, I am going to get them to steal your laptop from you and then hack it to show your girlfriend all your porn."

"I guess it's Women Gone Crazy Day today," he muttered into his chin.

"What was that," Suzie asked.

"Nothing."

"And I'm thinking you should be paying me some money if you don't want me to show your girlfriend just how disgusting you are," she said, haughtily.

"What makes you think I'm disgusting?"

"You're a boy," she said. "You're all disgusting."

Jamie nodded his head. "You got us there. We are all disgusting, particularly the ones that pretend they're not disgusting. Those you should really watch out for. Now, as for the, uh, the whole blackmail thing, Alessandra and I look at my porn all the time." He winked at his baby sister. "It gets her going."

Suzie face scrunched up in horror. "Ew! You're disgusting!"

"And you're late for school, Bones," he said and grabbed the last piece of french toast from his mother's plate. "Get in the car! And if I hear any more talk about you trying to blackmail me, I'll call you Bones in front of all your friends."

"You wouldn't," she said, horrified.

Jamie grinned as he led his baby sister to the car. "Oh, that would only be the start, Bones! I'd walk you to the school door and kiss you goodbye and loudly tell you that you don't need to be afraid of showering with the other girls anymore."

"Holy fucking shit, man," Suzie exclaimed in a panicky voice. Her face turned as white as a sheet. "I was just kidding! Can't a girl crack a joke anymore?"

"Sure you were," he said and opened the door for her. "Sure you were." She got in and he dropped her off at school, without further incident.

Jamie drove to the beginning of the street Aldo's shop was on and walked in. "Good morning, Jamie," Aldo said, surprised. "What are you doing here so early on a Friday morning? Shouldn't you be late?"