Whispers of the Damned: See, #1

Copyright © 2010 Jamie Magee

All Rights Reserved

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the author.

Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book. This purchase allows you one legal copy for your own personal reading enjoyment on your personal computer or device. You do not have the right to resell, distribute, print or transfer this book, in whole or in part, to anyone, in any format, via methods either currently known or yet to be invented, or upload this book to a file sharing program. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

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S

pecial note to the reader: This Novel is part of the  Web of Hearts and Souls, a massive story where more than one series connect. The series can be read separately or together.

SEE READING ORDER: Whispers of the Damned, Witness of a Broken Heart, Synergy of Souls, Redefined Love Affair, Derive (Aden's Beginning), A Lovers Revolt, Scorched Souls.

COMBINED WEB OF HEARTS AND SOULS READING ORDER: Insight, Embody, Image, Whispers of the Damned, Witness, Vital, Vindicate, Synergy, Enflame, Redefined, Rivulet, Imperial, Blakeshire, Derive, Emanate, Exaltation, Disavow, The Witches, Revolt, Scorched Souls, Fractured Thrones.

*If you are a fan of Adult Paranormal Edge (Season 1&2) can be read with the Web of Hearts, before of after Exaltation—the stories share the same characters.  Season 3 can be read after Scorched Souls.

INSIGHT READING ORDER: Insight, Embody, Image, Vital, Vindicate, Enflame, Rivulet, Imperial, Blakeshire (Drake's Story), Emanate, Exaltation, Disavow, Fractured Thrones.

EDGE SERIES READING ORDER Alphas Rise, Dark Lure, Sacred Betrayal, Risen Lovers, Fall of Kings, Queens Rise, Stolen Son, Disloyal Souls, Aftermath.

CONTEMPORARY NOVELS: First Love, Second Chance – Stand-alone series: Deploy, Disengaged, Impulsion, Friction.

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Love is a sweet tyranny, because the lover endureth his torments willingly. ~Proverb

I

know the answer to a question that’s plagued every generation.

Is there life after death...?

We all want to know the answer. At the same time we don’t. Fear stops us from absorbing the reality of this query. I’m not talking about heaven or hell. What you believe or what I believe. I don’t care to debate myths, ancient or modern. I will not dispute how the mystic has represented itself in every story we recount to the generation that befalls our own.

We all know the unexplained is real. And we all know how to turn our head and go about our busy lives, acting as if the body we haunt is immortal and the crisis of today is more valuable than the state of our soul.

When we lose someone the brutal truth of mortality stills us. It focuses our attention on the moments we let pass as if they were ordinary. Some take this lesson to heart; they change for the better—after their sorrow hurts less, that is. Others don’t.

Death touches everyone.

Only few have seen behind the veil that lies between the unknown and us. Some are cursed with this vision. They feel the residual vibration of our ancient world. Some cringe in agony. They draw in as they feel the artic chill of a spirit loom closer. Emotions overtake them. Their senses are stimulated to a point where their minds shape what others cannot see. I’ve watched ‘sensitive souls’ channel a spirit so violently that their life were hanging by a thread.

For every cursed soul who cannot ignore the thin veil they sense draping our perception, there are others seeking answers. Hunters—callers. Each of these paranormal investigators can tell you the exact moment when they turned from a skeptic to a believer. Fear resonates in the tone of their voice, the glint in their eyes, how they draw their arms close to their body and stare into nothing. Sometimes I think they hunt to prove to themselves they’re not crazy.

I’d imagine very few have convinced themselves they were mistaken. The truth is, the more you look, the more you see. When you open a door, the unknown will step through. Like in our world, the wicked show the least shyness. I’ve found most of those beings are petrified. When death came they rooted themselves in our plane of existence fearing the hell they were sure their acts deemed them worthy for. No one wants that kinda zip code.

For them, forming attachments to dwellings, artifacts, people—they adore paranormal hunters almost as much as sensitive souls—it means survival.

I’m not a sensitive or a hunter calling out to the dead, not really.

They called me.

I can’t recall a time when I didn’t notice the dead. Even before I started to look for others like my crew and myself I knew I was different. I knew to act as if I never perceived the hidden world lacing through my own.

My crew...

Two of my best friends and the guy I knew was cut from my soul have always been there. Our families were friends and had lived through their own tragedies long before we were ever an idea.

My crew is like me.

Kinda, at least. We all hear the darkest of souls whisper around us. We’ve all found our own way to deal with it. When we call out to the dead, when we glare down the darkness—we never see—sense the same thing. Madison sees and feels the emotions of the souls, she knows what kind of shade they’re throwing—what they really mean. Aden sees every missed chance to the path of righteousness the souls feel was robbed from them. His twin, my guy, Draven, sees the evil corners of the damned—he feels the torment of the damned and its victims—every moment that shocked the soul, or lead to it.

I see it all. I can absorb an entire life in a glimpse.

We say what we see, the highlights at least, a word here or there. If the damned don’t want to be, if they take a second to remember they were not meant to be, they’ll move on when they hear us.

For a long time we only watched. Spirits hate that. I can’t blame them. No one likes to be ignored. I’m pretty sure it was sometime right after puberty they attacked first. They knew then that we’d passed the threshold of awareness childhood gives us all, and we were still staring them down, daring not to tremble—even when the room was so cold our breath fogged from our lips and our skin hurt from the layers of chills.

This attack destroyed more than our innocence, it forced us to tell our parents what we could do. I often ponder if they were surprised at all. It’s so hard to know, especially with my mom. She’s a pro at staying busy with her all too important career.  She likes to point out how she’s a single mom and I should be grateful for all she’s done for me. I don’t talk about the dead with her. I know better.

It hasn’t been an easy road since the first attack. Every day I felt something drawing closer and every single day I felt less prepared for it. No matter how much research I did, I came up with more questions. When I couldn’t find answers in the lore recorded in myths across the globe I turned to the damned. The more ancient of a damned soul I crossed, the longer I held on to them. 

Mostly my crew and me see the life the damned lived in their mortal body. Rarely do they show us what they see and know now. By accident a year or so ago, I saw into the life the damned lived as a spirit. Masses of spirits were pushing against the space between them and us. The spirit I helped witnessed others being obliterated. They turned into a mist and then drew into a current of air, vanishing like something inhaled them. The vibe around the most feared souls was drenched in shock as they all shrank back. I sensed something powerful looming around them—herding them like cattle, farming them for the only possession they had—their vim, the dwindling energy of their souls.

What could make the damned quiver? This was my question and my quest. I never openly said it, or really explained what I saw. I didn’t have to.

My crew and me see more than the lives of the dead. We can see into the lives of the living too. It’s easier when we do it by accident, when we just go with what our gut tells us about someone around our space. When we try, to really peer into someone, it’s hard to believe you’re really seeing their life and not something your overactive imagination made up. When you ask if what you saw is legit—it freaks people out, you get that whole ‘how did you know that?’ look that makes you feel like a creep.

Most times, we don’t ask. I don’t know about the others, but I really don’t ‘look’ unless it’s the first time I meet someone. Once I decide they’re cool, or if I want them to keep steppin’ I try not to look again. I mean, I’m pretty much invading their personal space when I do.

With my crew, if I’m worried about them, I look. If they want me to see what’s up, they’ll leave their walls down long enough for me to see what they can’t say.

I’d left my walls down, at least halfway, when I started to wonder why it felt like no matter how many souls we helped we never seemed to cleanse an area—not even the ones we went to every day. I silently invited my crew in on this discussion topic. When I started to find answers I had no choice but to slowly raise my wall higher every day.

I’d broken a cardinal rule. I opened a door and left it unguarded. I sought an enemy I wasn’t ready to understand. One I wasn’t equipped to defend myself from.

This tragic mistake stole everything from me.

They tried to erase me. I know that now, but I didn’t when I found myself in the ER...ago.

Is there life after death...?

Yes. Only someone wants me to forget there is, or rather, become petrified of those who lurk there.

SIX Days Ago

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My skin chilled over. I knew that sound. It was my curse, the whispers of the damned. It was lurking in the shadows of my ER room daring to explode from the darkness. Like crickets on a summer night, they hummed louder when my attention fell on them.

I never should’ve trusted Bianca. ‘No big deal—just a few people. Your mom will never know.’

Why did I give in to her?

I had a reason. I had a plan. Somehow my plan went wrong—really wrong. Obviously, I’m in an ER, and my mother was very aware a party went down. What reason? What plan? Hate and love for Bianca went to war inside of me.

I wanted my headphones. I needed my music. It was my weapon against the blaring whispers—against life in general. They’ve never been this loud. I was pretty much forced to read my mom and the doctor’s lips.

I reached my hands to my ears rubbing them. If someone told me I’d just spent hours beside a blaring amp at a metal concert—I’d believe them. The separation between the real world and me, the bubbling echo of the whispers, was unreal.

The doctor shined her light in my ear once she drew my hand away. My mother stood up a little straighter; a glint of warning hit her eyes as she glanced to me then said something to the doctor.

Did I go to a concert?

No. I was home.

Logic told me the pit in my gut that was twisting as it sunk lower was because I was in trouble. I have the strictest, most overprotective mother ever and I pulled the classic ‘party at my house’ gig. Logic also said I shouldn’t hear whispers others couldn’t hear. I might’ve been in trouble with my mom, but I was pretty damn sure she was the least of my worries right about then. Not knowing what you’re petrified of puts the word anxious in all caps.

Rewind, rewind, my mind wouldn’t listen. I couldn’t get it to backtrack, and when I did—I denied what it showed me. It felt too fake.

Why did I have a party? Graduation, yeah that’s happening. Wait. This approaching day felt epic to me, beyond the obvious reasons. Why?

A shooting pain sliced through my head and in the next beat I remembered sitting on my bed with Bianca, listening to music. She started to talk about our summer trip to Cancun...

Cancun? Was I going to Cancun with her?

No, no way.

If this was a legit memory, I wasn’t going. The beach sounded like an atrocious idea. I don’t know why, it was like I was too wrapped up in something to take chill time. I didn’t know what—exams were done. I didn’t have a job or anything.

This. Sucks.

I let out a frustrated breath then scooted toward the end of the table to climb off so I could get my hoodie—headphones, aka my sanity, were in the pocket. A wave of dizziness and a searing pain in my head caused me to sway.

Okay, maybe this was a bad idea, I thought.

The dark whispers laugh at me. Asses.

They started to chant my name like this was a rock concert and they were waiting on my next big move. I was out of moves, and out of tolerance.

I closed my eyes and tried to remember a sound, one with a screaming guitar, one that could take me away. The second I had one playing in my head, my fingers began to move against the table like I’d magically learned to play music and knew what I was doing.

As my mind chilled I thought back over my short, now over, friendship with Bianca. She was kicked out of some private school and landed in my school in the last semester of senior year. The chick had every single class with me, her locker was below mine, and her parking space was next to mine.

She was a triple threat to any girl: beautiful, seductive, and smart in a manipulative kind of way. If I had a guy there’d be no way I’d let her land in his zip code. That is exactly why Bianca setting me up with her guy friend Britain was a no go. One day, very soon, Bianca was going to figure out I mean what I say when I say it. Her stubborn determination to get Britain and me to hook up was the plot behind the party that landed me here.

He was an all right guy, I guess. Britain was easy on the eyes, athletic, and filthy rich. His edges were a little too polished for me.

Another sharp pain sliced through my head. The thought of Britain being an ‘all right guy’ crashed into a vision of a stranger with jade eyes laced in black, my heart thundered as they stoically stared back at me like I was the creator of their destruction.

Get it together, Charlie, I scolded myself.

For an instant I felt isolated, on the outs with my mom and the two people who had lingered the closest to my life over the last few months. Then I thought of Madison. She didn’t live in the city, but our hometown, Salem. We talked every day through text, face time, posts, all the ways possible. When we could she’d come here or I’d go there. We’d been tight since before we knew how to talk.

Maybe I was channeling her ‘hater’ vibe when it came to Bianca. Madison couldn’t fake it—if she thought you were a poser, you knew. I needed to call her. I’d heard my mom on the phone with hers a bit ago. We usually took responsibility for each other. Our parents knew that. Madison was probably in as much trouble as I was even though she wasn’t at the ‘party’ that turned out to be Bianca and Britain and a few guys I’d never seen before. They’d blame Madison for not saying something. At the very least they’d make her feel guilty as hell. I’d been drugged. If my mom hadn’t of showed when she did—I can’t say for sure what would’ve happened to me. I can’t even say what DID happen to me.

I don’t know where whoever put whatever drug. I just knew that I was never—ever—going to put my guard down again.

The doctor gave up on looking for something in my ears or a reason I kept rubbing them, she moved her small flashlight to my eyes, then she listened to my heart and had me take in deep breaths.

Do you have pain in your ears? the doctor asked me.

Just my head, I said under my breath.

The doctor put her tools away. That’s normal. I’m sure everything is a little foggy right now. It’ll take a few days to completely overcome this experience. You need to stay hydrated and get substantial rest. I’ll schedule a follow up with your primary in a week.

The doctor entered a few notes into her computer then looked at my mom. I’ll look at the test results again before I send the file to her doctor, but I do not think she ingested very much. The effect on her was powerful because she’s so petite.

I rolled my eyes, like I could help it that I was short.

I’m going to let her go home... the doctor said, looking at me again. Are you sure there isn’t anything else troubling you?

I heard the whispers laugh. My cheeks blushed.

She’s not acting like herself, my mom said. Could these drugs have affected anything else— caused permanent damage? Is she going to remember tonight?

It’s hard to say, the doctor said as her eyes filled with sympathy. Our mind has a way of blocking out trauma. I assure you, her body wasn’t assaulted. The others that were with her are suffering from the same ailments. Keep her in routine. With your follow up you can speak to your primary about counseling. She eyed me. Sometimes ‘almost trauma’ resonates as deeply as transpired trauma. You’re a lucky girl. Don’t test fate twice, protect yourself out there.

She was acting like I was at a bar and let someone buy me a drink. I was at home, with people I knew. I grimaced when I realized that was her point. I was living in a generation where trust was a luxury afforded to few.

When the doctor ducked behind the sheet that divided me from the rest of the ER, I scooted off the table, pulling the IV with me. I wanted my headphones and clothes, and I wasn’t going to wait for some