Body Swappers 28
All you have to do is ask.
Intro/outro sound is Prime Light Harp Melody 165 BPM.mp3 by snikpohneb — https://freesound.org/s/173463/ — License: Attribution 3.0
They pulled up in front of Camille’s house. There was still no response, or even a read receipt. A pall of dread was pressing Maya into her seat as she stared at her screen.
I thought I’d never let myself be so powerless again, she thought, and it was as if she’d freed herself from a spell. She unbuckled her seatbelt.
“What’s the plan?” Robert asked, but she didn’t answer. Just got out of the car and strode toward the door. She heard him following her as she pulled out her keys and selected the only key hanging from the second ring, the only key she’d never used before, and unlocked Camille’s front door. She opened it, calling out, “Camille?” Robert’s energy tensed behind her, but the house felt empty. Maya fixed her eye on the door to the second bedroom and walked to it. The handle didn’t budge.
“It’s locked,” she said for Robert’s sake.
His voice was distant as he said, “Okay.”
She turned, and he was still standing outside the front door. “Are you a vampire? Do you need to be invited in?”
He let out a short huff of a laugh. “It’s okay, legally, for you to go in. You were given a key.”
“If you’re worried about getting sued, I know a really good attorney.”
His aura flushed pink, and his eyes crinkled.
“Her name’s Min,” Maya said, turning to the door once more. “Come look at this.”
He sighed, but did as she asked. Maya said, “It’s not your typical interior lock, with a pinhole. It’s an exterior lock.” She tried her key, but as she’d suspected, it didn’t work. She knocked on the door. It was hollow, like a typical interior door. Only the knob had been swapped out. “I think we’re going to have to break in.”
“Do you want me to tell you how many charges we could be faced with if we do that?”
“Do you want me to tell you how little I care right now?”
Robert sighed again. “Do you smell that smoke?”
It took her a second. “Yeah. We better make sure no one’s trapped inside.”
She rammed the door. It gave much easier than she’d imagined it would.
The room was bare, save for a few objects. The largest of these was a sensory deprivation tank in the middle of the room. There were also five nightstands, placed in a grid as Maya had described for Camille so many months ago, in an imitation of their transference room. One just before the tank, holding a clear crystal quartz and a used bandage, and four at equally spaced corners out from that stand, encompassing the tank, each holding their own crystal.
Maya could feel the tension in the air. “She’s on a transference—a possession—now!”
Robert crossed to the sensory depravation tank and grabbed the handle. It didn’t budge. “It’s locked.” He craned toward it. “There’s a timer, counting down. Twenty-eight minutes left.”
Maya closed her eyes and tried, as best as she could, to cast her senses inside the tank. “It’s my dad,” she said, the words wooden on her tongue. There was no way she could deal with that at the moment.
When she opened her eyes, she saw Robert kneeling before the tank, head bowed, hands held out as if to bless it. In a clear, ringing voice, he called out, “Visit, O Lord, we beseech thee, this Habitation and Creature of thine, and remove far away from them all snares and assaults of the evil one!” His aura swelled as he spoke, filling out with every color of the rainbow, radiating from him like the sun.
Maya felt no change inside the tank or between the crystals. The grid was still active, and in use.
Robert looked like he’d been abandoned. Like a lost little boy. Maya didn’t have time for it. Gritting her teeth, she yelled, “Dad, are you in there?!”
No response. She turned to the grid. Breaking it in use would have unknown consequences. She looked at the bandage. Can two people use the same tether, to the same body?
She sat cross-legged before the middle nightstand, opposite the tank, and touched the band-aid with the thumb and middle finger of each of her hands. She began picturing the blood as a gate, then stopped.
Hurtling forward recklessly on my own may not be the best move. If this does work, I’ll be doing something I’ve never heard of. I need to give myself every chance of success I can. She looked at Robert, who was watching her. That means not trying to do it all on my own.
“Robert, I could use your help.”