The House of Bells: The Essences Saga - Book #1

House: Chapter 23

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Twenty-three

 "She was here?” the blonde Essence bellowed through the mists of the spiritual world. “And no one bothered to tell me?”

“She wasn’t supposed to be here,” Cat yelled back. “We sent her back to where she belongs!”

“Then explain to me how the hell she got here in the first place,” He yelled in return. Cat clamped down Her lips. He turned from Her in disgust. She would do anything to keep Claire from this world.

“She received a fatal wound,” Love answered, joining Him and Catalyst.

“So?” He asked, more patiently with Love. “She has an immortal soul. She can’t die.”

“She ripped her own soul out,” Love explained, and drifted further from Him with a curious smile on her perfect lips. “She was trying to protect the human.”

His blue eyes blazed as they narrowed, “Which human?”

“The man, Silas,” Love said. “She loves him.”

He flew toward her, rage on his golden face. “You were supposed to fix that! Doesn’t anyone around here do anything right?!”

His Balance gave a sharp jerk and He hissed as He struggled from the skewing sensation. Catalyst smirked.

“I’ve been busy,” Love replied calmly. “I have a world of humans to take care of…not just one lone woman who can obviously fend for herself.”

“I don’t care if every heart in the universe is broken in two,” He said. “Fix the problem tonight.”

Love shook Her glorious head. “I can’t,” she declared clearly. “She ripped her soul out. It will take a while to heal and repair the life line. You will just have to wait.”

“We had a deal,” He reminded Her, shouting loud enough for the entire realm to hear Him. “I want this fixed.”

Love only nodded and faded away. He rounded on Cat. “And you,” He pointed a finger at Her. She cocked an impish grin. “This has your name written all over it.”

Cat raised Her hands, “Sorry, lover boy. I’m innocent. Why would I do anything to bring that woman back here? If you had kept a better eye on things, none of this would be happening.”

He growled because He knew She was right. Cat tinkled a lilting giggle and left Him. He drew in a calming breath, not that He needed the air, but human habits were hard to forget. The Balance slowly swelled on the dark side, tipping slightly with each of His outbursts. He had to make all this right before the world suffered from His tantrums.



Sometime in the middle of the night, a peculiar sensation plucked the sleep away. The room was dark, with a little light coming from a night light above my head. Everything else was shrouded in shadows. I could hear a television playing in the next room, and the night staff moving about in the hallway. A clock on the wall ticked softly, rhythmically. The monitors beside the bed hummed. And I could hear Silas snores, those pleasant sounds I remembered from another time he had slept in my presence, like waves rolling on a sandy beach at midnight. Nothing else caught my attention. The sensation was stronger, but there was nothing there.

Must be the medication, I thought. I adjusted my position in the bed as well as I could, my eyelids growing heavy again.

“Sorry to wake you,” a low whisper came from the foot of the bed. I jerked upright. Pain seared through my shoulder and down my left arm.