Dominic
"So all you have to do is hold this in your hand and focus on it. It's hard, so don't expect it right away." Max told me, curling my fingers around a small rock he had brought from 'his room'. John had said he had some business to attend to, informing the Order (which were really important people who could see Ghosts and other things) about me not Moving On, and he had left Jack is charge until he got back. Max had decided that since he was a Ghost as well he would be the perfect teacher for me, helping me learn how to do Ghostly things and whatnot, so we were now sitting on the ground in the middle of the room I had woken up in. Blankets were pooled out on the ground under us so the cold didn't bother us. Jack just sat in the corner next to the grandfather clock and watched silently, looking only slightly interested.
"What am I supposed to be expecting exactly?" I asked, a little worried. Max had that smile that made him look like he was planning to blow something up at any moment, something that was not exactly reassuring. I couldn't remember where I had seen that look before, but that wasn't really something I was looking into at the moment.
"Just focus!" he grinned, squeezing my hand around the stone before he scooted a few inches away.
I glanced at Jack, something I had just picked up since waking up. He nodded ever so slightly, giving me the cue that it was okay, and I focused on the small stone in my palm. It was cool and smooth, slightly marbled with darker stone. I imagined myself sinking in through the outer shell of it and finding a little ball of energy in the center, and then I imagined making that little ball of energy growing and flooding out of the rock like a dam breaking. The rock suddenly burst into white flames and I yelped and dropped it, afraid to get burned. The rock landed on the blanketed ground with a soft thud, no longer on fire.
"It's called Ghost Flame. We can only do it with small rocks when we're doing it by ourselves, something about using our own energy to increase that in the rock, and it makes it light up. It's not actually hot, so don't worry about burning yourself." Max chuckled, picking the rock back up. He tossed it in the air and caught it again, making it burst into bright flames between his fingers.
"We can still get burnt?" I asked, checking my hand just in case.
"Well, yeah. John says it's because we didn't Move On like other people when we died that makes us special. It's like a second life. Things like hot and cold still affect us, most of the time even more than normal, and we can still get hurt. Not to mention dying again. No one is really sure how it works, but when a Ghost gets hurt enough to die something happens and they just disappear. Forever. Most people like to think the Ghosts finally Move On, but no one is really sure." he told me, and tossed me the stone gently before standing up and stretching. "So don't go outside again without proper clothing. It's wicked cold out there this time of year and the last thing anyone needs is for you to become an Emma Popsicle." he sighed, putting one hand on his hip while he shook his finger at me with the other hand like he was my dad or something.
"Yes, Dad." I sighed, rolling my eyes at him as I held the rock in my hand and made it flicker a little bit. I scowled and tried again, and then again, nothing happening.
"Did you break my rock?" Max asked sweetly, standing over me with a devilish look in his bright blue eyes.
"No, don't be ridiculous." I scoffed, slightly impressed with myself for how easy that lie was. I stood up, brushing myself off casually while I kept the rock out of his view.
"She's right, Max. Stop being such a creeper." Jack said, and Max flushed and scowled at his friend, crossing his arms over his chest.
"When's John going to be back?" I asked, grabbing a blanket off of the ground. I sat down on the couch and pulled it around me, still trying in vain to get the rock to light up again.
"As soon as he can. He understands how hard it can be when you first become a Ghost." Jack answered, and I frowned a little bit as I thought about it. They made it sound as if I was some baby animal. Yeah, I was a Ghost and a new one at that, but I was still Emma and I kind of knew how to watch out for myself.
"I'm sorry." I whispered to the rock softly, the words echoing through me like bells. The rock suddenly blazed up so brightly the flames on it reached out and flared around my whole hand, the rock itself vibrating under my fingers with all of the overflowing energy. I closed my eyes and the flames disappeared with a little wisp of light that was quickly gone, the rock just a rock again when I opened my closed fist. "Can I keep it?" I asked Max quietly, feeling suddenly very tired.
"Yes. I have plenty of my own." he answered, and I curled both of my hands around it as if I was praying.
"Where did you get it?" I asked, glancing over at him as he plopped down on the blanketed ground next to me a few feet away. Even though he might sometimes act like a creeper, he was actually pretty respectful when it counted.
"Sometimes, when it's warm, Jack takes me out to the river across town so I can pick out some new ones." he smiled, and Jack in the corner snorted.
"Most of the time he just keeps whining until I go out and reach into that damn river and grab as many rocks as I can before my fingers freeze off from the cold."
Max only pouted at that instead of arguing, and then all of a sudden he went very still, his eyes glazing over like one of the bodies I had seen in the morgue while I had investigated the place. And then, as if he was being pumped up with hot air, he grew a bit and then suddenly darted towards the door, snarling like a wild animal. "Dominic!" he hissed, glaring daggers at the door as the temperature in the room dropped rapidly and the lights all flickered. He looked like he couldn't touch the door, something he seemed to hate because he snapped at Jack to hurry up and open the door.
"Alex, calm down. You're scaring Emma." Jack said calmly, standing up and going over to the door. He rolled his shoulders and sighed before reaching over and opening the door, the sudden blast of cold making me gasp and shudder violently.
"Come on, Emma, let's go to my room. It's warm there." Alex said very gently, sudden kneeling beside me close enough for me to feel the delicate warmth coming off of him.
"I see I might have come at a bad time. Who is your guest?" a rather snotty-looking blonde-haired boy around Jack's age asked, stepping into the room from outside as if he owned the place.
"None of your business." Alex growled, glaring over his shoulder at the other boy as he helped me up to my feet. He grabbed my discarded blanket from the floor and wrapped it around my shaking shoulders before he led me down to the end of the hall where he opened the door and hurried me inside the very warm stuffy bedroom.
"Who was that?" I asked, the heat of the room slowly seeping back into my freezing bones as I looked around. The room was slightly cluttered and dim, like the air in it was too thick to really allow much light to move through it. The bed was stuffed in the far corner and shelves full of books of all sizes covered every available space on the walls.
"A Seer like Jack and John. That's about the only thing they have in common, though. Dominic is a real stuck-up bastard. You do not want to be caught alone with him anywhere at any time if you can help it." Alex sighed, pacing around the room while he scowled angrily. Since he didn't elaborate I guessed that by Seer he meant they could see Ghosts like us unlike normal people.
"I wonder what they're talking about." I said after a while, shuffling over and sitting down on the edge of the bed. I felt tired, but more in the sense that my mind felt tired than my body did.
"They're talking about you, mostly. Where Jack found you and how new you might be." Alex said, coming over to sit down on the bed beside me. "When Jack found me I was really, really close to the edge. Like, one more hour and I'd be gone to that place all forgotten Ghosts go to. He was little and just beginning to understand what being a Seer meant. We exchanged a bit of our Souls, just a bit so I could hold on a bit longer and so he could sense Ghosts and whatnot better than the average Seer. It has its side effects, like us being able to hear what the other hears and whatnot." he said, seeing my look of disbelief and confusion.
"That sounds amazing!" I gasped, and he blushed a little and smiled. The smile didn't last long, though.
"Jack better get that sicko out of here before I blow the house up." he growled softly, glaring at the closed door as if he wanted to murder it.
"Why? What happened?"
"Dominic is just showing a very disturbing interest in you and doesn't seem to realize Jack is not amused." he said grimly, and then he suddenly grabbed me and tossed me back against the corner where the bed met the intersecting walls and scrambled up onto the bed blocking me from the rest of the room. "Don't move. You're still weak, so he could hurt you." he hissed to me when I freaked a bit and struggled against him. The next moment the door burst open with a freezing blast of air and the guy Dominic came strutting in with Jack acting as his very irritated, very silent shadow.
"There's my girl! Newly dead but quick to learn, you said, Jack?" the blonde grinned, trying to get a peek at me from behind Alex's body. "Get out of my way, Ghoul." he sneered at Alex, flicking his hand to the side as if he was flinging off a bug.
"You have no power in this house, Seer. You're nothing but a human within these walls who can see things." Alex said softly, his eyes flickering to a bright bloody red as he looked over his shoulder. His friendly warmth was gone now, replaced by a cold stillness that made me shiver a bit. I didn't understand what had happened to him, but as long as that gaze wasn't directed at me I could live with it.
"Jack-"
"You need to go, Dominic." Jack said softly, his eyes not leaving Alex's as if they were silently communicating. After a few seconds Alex lowered his gaze, leaning towards me a little bit as if he was relaxing minutely.
"I'll be back later, then, to see how our little mouse is settling into this new world. Such a scary place for a little lost mouse." the blonde said, and turned and left after bidding us farewell, smiling politely to Jack as he passed by him even though his eyes were hard as ice.
Author's Notes:
I wanted to show how not everyone in the Hidden World are nice and friendly to everyone, and I think Dominic showed that nicely. He's kind of crazy and full of himself.
I wanted to explain a bit of how Alex came to be a part of the little ragtag family, and I figured nothing brings people closer together than the exchange of a piece of your Soul. It changed him, of course, making him into a Ghoul instead of just a Ghost. I'll touch more on that later on.
Hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I am currently working on chapter five so expect it soon. I know I've been impossible lately with my stories, but I just couldn't get into the groove of things at all and I didn't want to maul my poor stories in an excuse to post something up. I think I've found that groove again, so wish me luck!
I don't own anything you might recognize. Literally nothing. If you have anything you need answers about please just PM me, and I'll make sure to give you as much info as I can.