Author's Note: The reason it took me so long to update is because I

A. was debating on rewriting it to include face offs

B. Have had seriously bad anxiety lately over my writing and making use of it

C. anxiety disorders kill your brain stamina

11

I would have much rather not dreamed, but Gene appeared to me all the same.

"Sorry, you'll be seeing me for a bit," he said, his look of apology completely alien to Naru's face. "Mental defenses down and all that. When you stop seeing me will be a good sign that you've healed."

I just mentally sighed, too tired to think. Even as I looked at him my awareness faded in and out.

When it faded back in he knelt beside where I lay, his hand was once more on my face, warm with intentions.

"I'll keep you safe," he murmured. "But, in the meantime…want to do some snooping?"

I shifted drowsily.

"Sleepy…" I whined.

"Oh, but it's Naru. He's narrowing in on his foe who dared to harm his woman."

I laughed weakly.

"Come on," Gene tugged gently on my hands, pulling me up as though my body were a sheet in the wind. "This will be fun. You have plenty of time to rest."

So, giving my consciousness a mental shake of thoughts, I focused and allowed him to pull me along.

The darkness about me blotched and blurred with colors that cleared to images. I saw snow. A streetlamp. Stars. A high-rise, ritzy apartment complex I didn't recognize, but which I instantly knew was in the more well to do part of the city.

Finally, we stepped into a hallway, lined with white doors boasting gold numbers and shiny mail slots. I couldn't make out the carpet, though I got a heady impression that it was clean, colorful, and relatively new.

Across the blured rainbow of the carpet, my eyes fell on dark shoes and legs that led up to none other than my professor, an arm held out against the frame of an open doorway I had somehow missed before.

"This is…weird…" I said. "Everything feels so different and…"

"Dreamlike?" Gene filled in, tugging me closer to Naru. "The spiritual plane. Since you don't have eyes of flesh, the way you are perceiving things now are through your spiritual senses, which I imagine you're not use to, being alive and all. It's not like having eyeballs."

That would explain why I felt like I was 'seeing' emotions and textures, while having a hard time making out details like the exact colors and patterns in the carpet.

"…it wasn't me, I swear on my life…"

Masako Hara's voice sounded different as well, as though it came straight to my chest rather than to my ears.

My vision cleared and focused on Naru's face with hyper clarity.

What I saw made me flinch back.

He was pale, yet livid with an ice-hot fury that curled back his lips and sharpened his eyes to obsidian slits. Not a trace of blue could be seen.

"I find that hard to believe from a professional like you who just sat back and watched her get possessed several times in the space of a half hour," he said with steady venom.

"Ooo, he's mad," said Gene from the peanut gallery.

Without moving, I could see Masako Hara, as though the doorway had become transparent.

She wore a set of red satin pajamas, her hair mussed, and her eyes ultra bright with tears. She had a fist clutched to her breasts. Somehow, however, with my strange spiritual perceptions, I thought I could see consternation in her, like an air of tension holding fast to body like a skin of glass.

In her other hand, I saw her Smartphone.

"I have no motive," she said. "And you no proof."

"And perhaps no skill," he hissed. "But you still sat there and let it happen. Where's Lin?"

"I'd imagine you'd know more than me, he being your previous assistant—"

Naru slammed his hand on the doorframe, making her jump. He held out his other hand.

"Your phone."

She put it behind her. "I can call the police. It's not like they'll believe—"

Naru moved like lightning, snatching her phone out of her hand. She jumped for it, but he just shoved her back into her apartment and closed the door behind him.

Gene stepped forward, but I withdrew.

"I don't want to see this…" I said.

Gene gave me what I could best describe as puppy eyes, somewhat ruined by the dance of mischief in them.

"But he's being all brash and daring and heroic. It's entertainment of the highest caliber."

"No it's not," I said. "It's scary."

Gene rolled his eyes. "He isn't going to hurt her. He's just going to squeeze out Lin's contact info and leave—and then hurt Lin."

"Lin? Why him?"

"I'd think it's obvious by now." He reached for my hand and tugged on it. "We're going to miss the best part!"

"By why would Lin curse me? Forget how."

Gene moved to respond, but just then Naru burst forth from the apartment, slamming the door behind him. Stuffing something into his pocket, he proceeded to march down the hall through us, his black leather coat swinging after him.

Gene moved to follow, but this time it was me who caught onto his wrist.

"Just answer my question."

"I will while we follow. It's hard to find living people here, if you catch my drift. Being dead doesn't give you a radar."

So we drifted after Naru down the elevator, where I avoided looking at Naru for Gene, who looked far too comfortable standing next to his brother, a mirror image in black clothes and duster, though I kept seeing him in a blue shirt and jeans as well.

"Lin's practically a paraplegic now because of that case he had back in Los Angelos. It doesn't seem to matter to him that there were other students on the case, he's got his eye on you since you were the last thing he saw before he dropped off the railing. I'm sure he has a lot of other reasons, but those were what I've been able to glen. As sprits, you are sometimes given the means to read minds, but that's not so much the case with me."

Whatever I had been about to say concerning Lin's soft reason for revenge drifted off. "Wait, given?"

"That's right." The elevator dinged open and the two Naru's drifted out, one distinctly different from the other with his smiling, mischievous face and occasionally shifting clothes.

"By who?"

"I think you know. But, point is, Lin's got it out for you and he has the knowledge of how to direct and convince enough dark spirits to go after you. Hence, 'a curse' or demonic possession. I actually originally tried to get in contact with you to warn my brother of Lin, but, as is the case with most who deal with what Naru calls 'black magic,' the company he attracted made him especially vulnerable to dark influences, which got him away from my brother."

We rode in a taxi, with no memory on my part of how we got in. The only clear beacon had been Naru's dark figure and the ultra-clear vision of his white, burning indignation.

I drew back. "Gene, can I go back?"

"You don't need me to do that," he said gently, patting my leg. "You can do that yourself just by willing it. You're the one sticking around."

"That's because I wanted to hear your explanation."

"Well, you got it. It's not like you're not going to see me tomorrow night as well, unless I get called to see to some other pressing business. Unlikely, though, as I intend to stick around to help keep off any of the other losers that would like to take advantage of you."

I smiled. "You're definitely more chatty than your brother." The colors and amount of 'feelings' and 'textures' in my vision faded a bit as my focus wavered wearily. "Let me know before he does something dangerous?"

Gene snorted, which was odd as he didn't have the nose or breath to do so, but the intention and expression still came through loud and clear.

This whole 'spirit senses without a body' thing was beyond confusing.

"Not sure what you can do under house arrest, but I'll do my best. Naru's got more than me watching over him, after all."

I blinked and looked around, but saw little else but black leather seat the two, darkly dressed twins.

Gene chuckled good naturedly.

"You don't need to see them," he said, softly. "And you won't until you do."

I didn't get why I'd need to see dead people at all, but my exhaustion had worn on me long enough. If I'd had my body, I'm sure I'd have yawned wide enough to break my jaw by now.

"Keep him safe," I said, letting my eyes, or whatever equivalent of them were on this plane, close.

I thought I felt something like a hand brushing through my hair, trailing with it all the soft and gentle affection the gesture meant to convey.

"Yes ma'am. "

And the comforting darkness I longed for curled in around me, only occasionally broken through by distant bursts of vision and occasional murmurs.