Protecting His Windflower (A Spirit Hunters Series Novel Book 1) by Temperance Dawn (best black authors .txt) 📕

Trey grabbed the spirit box from the corner of the room and turned it on. The room was engulfed in the sounds of static, but no voices were audible. Liam decided to speak. “Banks,” he said with irritation in his voice. “It’s time you leave. You’re dead. You can’t have Emily. She’s alive. You’ve been dead for a very long time. You need to move on.”

Coldness crept up from the ground at Liam and Emily’s feet. The air, like ice moving upward, washed over them. A cold so bitter it took Emily’s breath from her. She watched Liam go pale. “Are you okay?” she whispered.

“It just got really cold.”

Emily was still holding Liam’s hand when a force grabbed her, yanking her out of Liam’s grasp, and pulled her to the side towards the far corner of the room. An explosion erupted, the entire room shook, and they were engulfed in a blinding light. She skidded across the dirt floor at an unnatural speed and came to a stop at the cinderblock wall at the far corner. The air had been knocked out of her, and she tried desperately to catch her breath.

When she opened her eyes, she glimpsed at Liam across the room. He had been thrown to the opposite wall, and Dave could barely keep his footing but somehow managed to crouch down and stay upright. Trey and Luke huddle together in the door, still holding their equipment. A deafening whirlwind of bitter cold swirled around.

“Liam!” Luke shouted. “Something is holding us back. We can’t get past the door.”

“I can’t move!” Liam told them. “Emily! Are you okay?”

Emily tried desperately to speak, but her voice was caught in her throat. Above her stood the transparent silhouette of Robert Banks. A form she had never seen him take in this life. She had only seen his features in her nightmare. He wore the same long, black coat and carried the same heavy walking stick as he did in all of her dreams. He looked down at her with a scowl. Emily felt nothing but hate emanating from him. Banks knelt next to her, and she felt the icy touch of his hand on her cheek. She shivered uncontrollably. From the bitter cold or fear, she couldn’t be sure. Her body went numb from the chill. In her head, she was screaming for him to leave, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t make her lips move.

Luke made his way into the room but just barely. The sound of the spirit box still pulsing but muffled by the windstorm around them. Emily caught movement in the corner of her eye. Dave managed to crawl toward her. He stared at the transparent form above her.

“Banks!” Dave yelled. “Step away from her. You can’t have her.”

“Get away from her!” Liam desperately pleaded.

“Please,” she managed to finally speak. “Leave me. I don’t want to be with you. You can’t have me. You have to move on.”

Those few words were all Emily could manage. She was exhausted, her body weighed down with the oppression hovering over her. The smell of damp dirt flooded her nose. Images from when Banks’ men threw her in a shallow grave crept into her mind. She knew what was happening. The life was being pulled from her. She knew because she had felt it before, and at that moment, she decided she was not dying at the hands of Banks again. Emily prayed she could find the strength to fight and tried to speak again.

“I’m not going with you!” she yelled, mustering all the power she could to enunciate her words. “Go to hell where you belong!”

The icy touch she felt on her cheek earlier was now around her neck. Emily tried to get up, but she was paralyzed. She could faintly hear Liam and Dave yelling in the background, but she couldn’t focus on their words. All she could concentrate on was her vision going dark.

Thirty

The son of a bitch was choking Emily, and Liam couldn’t do a fucking thing about it. He had never been a violent person, but at that moment, he wanted nothing more than to kill Banks with his bare hands. Too bad the bastard was already dead.

He was screaming but couldn’t make his body move. A force held him in one spot while he watched in agony as Banks hovered over Emily with his hands around her neck. The realization that he may not get to her in time was closing in on him. “Dave! What can we do? He’s going to kill her!”

Dave was on his knees in the middle of the room with his eyes closed. Liam knew he was trying to communicate with Banks. He also knew that it wasn’t working. Liam prayed. Tears streaming from his eyes, he prayed to god—all of the gods—anyone above who was listening to help him. He closed his eyes and heard his father’s words.

“What you allow is what will continue.”

“Dad?” He’d heard his father speak those words to him his entire life. Only now he knew that voice wasn’t his father’s. It was familiar, but he couldn’t put his finger on who it was.

“Fight!”

“There’s a voice trying to come through the spirit box. I can’t make out what it’s trying to say,” Trey shouted.

“It’s family. It’s his family,” Dave yelled.

As soon as Liam heard Dave’s words, a glimmer of hope washed over him, and he spoke to his old friend. “Phil. It’s Phil,” he told the rest of his team. Liam concentrated, gathered all of his strength, and brought himself onto his hands and knees. He made his way to Dave, who gestured that he was okay, then he crawled his way across the room. Through the raging windstorm that encircled Emily. He pulled her onto his lap. Her eyes were closed as he pressed two fingers to the side of her neck. There was a faint pulse under