A Dubious Curse (A Colton Banyon Mystery Book 8) Read online

  “Stop,” Lisa suddenly ordered. They had only traveled halfway out of the large university parking lot

  “Why?”

  “There is my car,” she pointed. “I have a suitcase packed in the trunk. I’m going to need it, Colt. I was going to go to Los Angeles for a few days during spring break,” she explained between sobs. “At least let me have some clothes?”

  Banyon stopped the jeep, and Lisa quickly jumped out and popped the trunk in her car. She extracted a suitcase and shoved it into the backseat of the jeep. The whole operation took twenty seconds.

  Lisa stopped crying and soon began venting. Banyon could hear the anger in her voice. “I can’t believe Barry is trying to kidnap me. He has always treated me well, not like his slimy asshole father. Harold used to look at me like he wanted to rip my clothes off, but Barry was very different,” Lisa recalled with clinched fists. “Barry used to give me gifts and take me places. We had fun together. I always felt safe around him. Why is he doing this?”

  “Lisa, Barry and Harold are members of the Effort. They want to reestablish the Third Reich in America. You didn’t know that. They didn’t want you to know that. Even the most horrible villains in history cared about somebody. But Barry has a long record of violence,” Banyon pointed out.

  “But why has he changed now?” Lisa cried out. “Why would he treat me so differently after all these years?” Banyon had a feeling that she saw Barry as more than just a friend. He wondered what Barry felt.

  “He is being pushed by his father,” Banyon calmly replied. “He is haunted by his old man. Harold still controls Barry.”

  “How… He is dead?”

  “Barry’s father was put under a curse before he died. Harold is not in heaven, nor is he in hell for that matter. He is in another place, where he can see everything that is happening on Earth. It’s like limbo. Part of the curse allows Barry to hear him, and Harold can tell him anything he has seen. That’s why he was headed for your office. Harold told him you were there. Harold wants him to kidnap you and force you to reveal where the book of the Vril Society is hidden.”

  “A curse?” Lisa quizzically repeated, looking over at Banyon. The strong, confident woman Banyon had first met was showing cracks. Her hands went to her face, like she was trying to hide. “Another curse?”

  “Lisa, there are many curses in the world.” Banyon said. “The curse itself, is neither good nor bad. How it is used and what people do with it is a different story.” He reached over and rubbed her arm to give her some comfort. She didn’t pull back.

  Lisa yelled out, “Am I also cursed? Are you telling me I have a curse over me, too?”

  “I don’t know that,” Banyon admitted. “But the Vril Society book does have a curse surrounding it. We know that, and you are connected to the book.”

  “But what about the curse that affects Barry? Can you explain it to me? How can he know where I am?” Banyon quickly surmised she wanted Barry to be his old self again and wondered if he could be saved.

  “That curse allows the cursed person to see all the activities on Earth. They can pass the information on through a conduit. In this case, that conduit is Barry.” Banyon explained. He didn’t want to divulge that he was under a similar curse, but he surmised she would soon figure it out, and he was okay with her knowing, for now. His first priority was to protect her. He knew he could protect himself later.

  “All activities on Earth? That covers a lot of ground,” Lisa quickly responded as the professor in her calculated the enormity of it all.

  “All a spirit needs is a name, a place, and a time. Somehow, once they have those pieces of information, they can then access the energy stream left by history and follow the energy path to current time. I’m told it is like watching a big-screen TV.”

  “But, if that’s the case, we can never get away from them,” Lisa muttered as the realization hit her. “Harold can see me all the time, anytime he wants. He can see me sleeping and even in the shower. I’m so embarrassed.” She immediately crossed her legs and arms to hide body parts.

  “That’s true,” Banyon admitted. “But I have several friends to help protect you. And we do intend to end Harold’s curse. You’ll know more about it when we get to my house and you meet my associates,” he told her.

  “You sound like you have dealt with these curses before?” she asked curiously, turning her head towards him.

  “I have,” Banyon responded absently. “Many times, and so have my team. Believe me, you are in good hands.” Banyon whipped out his phone.

  “Who are you calling?” Lisa asked.

  “My girlfriend,” he answered as he set the speaker on. “She needs to know we are on our way.”

  Lisa acted surprised and reacted by quickly covering her exposed leg. “You have a girlfriend?” she inquired, as though he had been hiding the fact.

  “Oh, she is much more than my girlfriend,” Banyon laughed as the phone connected him to Loni.

  “Loni Chen,” the voice came from the speakerphone.

  “Loni, it’s Colt,” he said. “I’m currently heading over the flyover on Desert Inn. We’ll be there in about thirty minutes.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?” Loni questioned.

  “I have Professor Lisa Lange with me of course. Just like I said I would.”

  “Is she pretty?” Loni quickly asked. Her jealous nature came through immediately. Banyon was not surprised.

  “Loni, I’m on speakerphone. You know we can’t talk on a cell phone while driving,” Banyon said. Loni hadn’t realized that Lisa could hear her, but now knew.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by that. I’ve arranged for her to stay in the office,” Loni tried to cover her mistake.

  “Conditions will be pretty cramped for the Patel clan,” Banyon responded.

  “We’ll make due. Previne will sleep with us,” she cheerfully said. Banyon was surprised by this piece of news. Lisa Lange put her hand to her mouth in shock. She now stared at Banyon like he was some sort of predator.

  “What about food?” Banyon continued. “I’m starving.”

  “Pramilla, Maya, and Eric are cooking dinner. It will be ready by the time you get here,” Loni responded. “Will we be expecting any bad guys tonight?”

  “That, I don’t know yet,” he replied.

  “Well, we will be ready in any case.”

  “Okay, see you soon. I love you,” Banyon added as he discontinued the call. When he turned to look at Lisa, she had a sly grin on her face.

  “There is more to you then a pretty face,” she flirted.

  “Yes, there is,” he replied.

  s soon as Lisa Lange walked through the door to Banyon’s second-story condominium, the people inside stopped what they were doing and stared at her.

  “Everybody, this is Professor Lisa Lange,” Banyon announced, guiding her into the room.

  “You look like a reincarnation of the Vril Society medium,” Previne quickly said. She held up a picture of Maria Orsic taken in 1919. It came from a pile of papers that had been pulled from the Internet. She had been studying the materials available to her to process the information about the Vril.

  Lisa was not comfortable with people connecting her to Maria Orsic, especially as a medium. “I don’t know how that could be possible,” she answered innocently. “I knew her, of course. She was my great-grandmother. She raised me right here in Las Vegas,” Lisa replied defensively.

  “Oh,” Previne said. “We didn’t know that,” Previne acknowledged. “But you do look a lot like her pictures.”

  “She died when I was twenty years old,” Lisa explained. “I am not a reincarnation of anybody.”

  “Well, you’re both beautiful women anyway,” Eric quickly interjected to keep peace. Lisa said nothing.

  Loni ran to Banyon and kissed him hard on the lips, then, she hugged him, as if to protect him from a peril. She laced her arm through his possessively and announced that dinner was ready, even though she had not pr
epared any part of it.

  Banyon felt like Loni was trying to tell Lisa she was in charge and that he was her man. Lisa smiled at the two of them.

  “Let’s eat,” Banyon suggested.

  Dinner turned out to be a concoction that Maya had put together from food already in storage at the house. Banyon had expected something with curry, but Maya called it Spanish rice. Banyon considered it ironic, since there were several nationalities around the table, but none of them were of Spanish origin.

  Maya explained the ingredients. She said it contained ground beef from the freezer, cooked rice, several cans of diced tomatoes with chili peppers, and some small amounts of spices. It had simmered on the stove for a half hour. Banyon thought that it was delicious. To him, it tasted like comfort food.

  The discussions over dinner were rapid and lively. Everyone wanted to know about the Vril Society and Maria Orsic. They peppered Lisa with dozens of questions. At first, she was hesitant to offer any information, but Banyon told her she needed to trust his friends. She soon began to respond honestly and filled in many gaps their Internet search hadn’t covered.

  Loni was the first to ask a question. “How did the Vril Society get started?” she asked innocently.

  “Well, let’s compare it to today’s worldwide society,” Lisa, the professor, began. “There are many similarities.” She let that sink in before continuing, “For example, there is a huge following for Star Trek and Star Wars isn’t there? The movies and books are fiction, aren’t they? The Vril Society started as a fan club for a science fiction book written in 1871 by an Englishman named Edward Bulwer-Lytton. It was one of the first true science fiction novels.”

  “Yes,” Pramilla spoke up. “He also coined one of my favorite phrases. The pen is mightier than the sword.”

  “He was very popular,” Lisa agreed. “Many theosophical thinkers believe there is some truth in his novel.”

  Loni quickly jumped in. “What does that mean?”

  “It’s a bit abstract, I admit,” Lisa noted. “The theosophist studies esoteric philosophies. It is an academic study of religions and philosophies that are not mainstream. Some are cults. They try to connect mysteries in the real world with abstract thinking to explain the universe and how things work.”

  Previne, who had a Ph.D. in philosophy added more information. “Some of the things they study are alchemy, magic, and even occultism. We have dealt with many of these esoteric philosophies in several of our adventures. The characteristics of these groups usually involve a small inner group and an outer group. To gain entrance to the inner group, there is usually some sort of rite of passage. An individual has to go through an initiation.”

  “So, it is about studying the beliefs and knowledge of a few to explain the universe,” Loni said.

  “All beliefs come from somewhere,” Lisa told them. “Many have some facts to back them up.”

  “So, what you are saying is that Bulwer-Lytton might have had some facts he used in his book,” Banyon added.

  “Yes, that could be true,” Lisa said. “We may never know, but many people embraced his conclusions.

  “And it started a cult following,” Loni surmised.

  “The Vril Society was one such group. My great-grandmother started a chapter of the organization in Germany and soon discovered that she could receive communications from the others. When that happened, they decided to become a secret society to protect what they saw as the future.”

  Eventually, Previne asked a pointed question, “Which curse did your great-grandmother use to hide the book?”

  “I didn’t even know a curse was hiding the book until earlier today. I have no idea. Why do you ask?”

  Previne was an expert on curses and spells. She had learned them from her grandfather, who had been one of the last living Sharmans in India. He had taught her many of them. In addition, she had a large library of curses and spells from their adventures and could spin some of her own.

  “Well,” Previne started. “There are many cultures that spawned spells and curses: the American Indians, the Chinese, my people, the Russians, and South Americans, to name a few. Each curse is slightly different, and they have different parameters. If we knew the culture from which the curse originated, we would have a better idea of how to stop it.”

  “She was actually born in Austria, if that helps,” Lisa replied.

  “Not really,” Previne responded, with frustration.

  After giving it some thought, Lisa offered more information. “She told me she knew only German people until she moved to America. Does that help?”

  “It could… the Germans, at that time, mostly believed in Celtic occults. It gives us something to look at,” Previne replied.

  “Does it really matter? I have the key to unlock the curse on the book,” Lisa acknowledged. Her concern was finding the book. The fact that someone could watch her didn’t seem to register at the moment. She didn’t realize that once she broke the curse, Harold would be able to find it as easily as they could. It would be a race to get to it first.

  Turning to Banyon, Previne asked, “Colt, can you find out the origin of the culture for the curse surrounding Harold Bass?”

  Lisa looked confused. “Why is it important?”

  “If we know the origin, we can find a way to defeat it,” Previne explained.

  “Yes, it would help us in neutralizing the curse,” Banyon replied. “But Lisa is right about the curse on the book. We can unlock the curse using the key, but to do so, we will need the help of you girls.”

  “What do we have to do?” Loni quickly asked. She was already excited with the prospect of adventure.

  “Why don’t you explain what you need from them while I make a phone call,” Banyon suggested to Lisa. He slid out of his seat and headed for the sliding doors to his terrace. He was concerned about the women’s reaction and didn’t want to be associated with the request. He also didn’t want to clean up the dinner dishes.

  When Banyon was certain no one could hear him, he pretended to make a cell phone call. “Wolf, are you there?”

  “I’m here,” the spirit answered.

  “Where is Barry Bass, and is he planning to come here tonight?”

  “He has no idea where you are. I made sure Harold lost track of you and Lisa. He won’t find you until mid-afternoon tomorrow.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I’ve got him busy doing something else. He won’t be done with that until then,” Wolf told Banyon.

  “Doing what?”

  “My friends and I have completely surrounded him with our bubbles up here. We have made him believe we are his friends. He can only talk to us and has no contact with any other spirit. We can control what he learns for now, but he is cunningly smart and will eventually figure out what is going on. Right now, he isn’t learning, he is enjoying.”

  “What is he doing?” Banyon was sometimes frustrated with the way Wolf responded to him. Wolf didn’t always answer the question he asked. He sometimes told Banyon what he wanted him to know.

  “I have told him he can relive his life, all of it. I told him all he has to do is think about his history, and he will see it. Right now, he is curled up in a trench, watching German tanks blow holes in the defenses of the loyalists during the Spanish rebellion. It’s around 1936 to him. He is having a grand old time.”

  “So he hasn’t learned to follow a timeline yet? Banyon knew Wolf could track history by following the timeline of events. Once he had a person, a starting time and a place, he could view the timeline forward or backward.

  “By tomorrow, he will realize he can follow any person. It will still take him time to find you, but the danger of that will start tomorrow afternoon, I’m pretty sure.”

  “What about split screens? Has he learned about them yet?” Wolf could also view more than one person at a time. It had helped Banyon on many occasions— Wolf could watch the bad guys and Banyon at the same time and direct him away from them.

/>   “We will try to prevent him from learning about them for as long as we can. Once he discovers split screens though, he will learn about us and our relationship. It is not in our best interest.”

  Changing subjects, Banyon asked the spirit, “Previne wants to know which culture Harold’s curse originated from?”

  “Yes, I heard her ask. The curse originated in China. A follower of Wu placed the curse. I believe she can now find a way to neutralize it.”

  “How many men can Barry Bass muster to come after us?” Banyon was always thinking ahead.

  “Las Vegas has a large Effort chapter. Barry has about forty men at his disposal, if he rallies them all.

  “That’s a lot of bad guys,” Banyon said out loud. “What are our chances of avoiding them?”

  “He knows about the book and the plan to produce Vril. I think you will need help,” the spirit advised.

  “Should I make plans for our protection with Dewey and Beatem?” Banyon asked. The Chicago-based law firm was where Banyon spent most of his time while helping the President of the United States resolve situations. The firm was staffed with many black-ops types, although each one was very unique.

  “It would be a good idea,” Wolf replied.

  Banyon wasn’t done yet. “Is Vril real? Does it really work? Where did it originally come from?”

  “Colton, to answer such a question, I will have to do an immense amount of research. The discovery would have been many thousands of years ago. I was unable to track down the small amount the Germans had during World War II until we found it in the cave.”

  “So, can you do it?”

  “Please understand, even I have limitations. Once I find the timeline, I will have to trace it back in history. To research a day it takes me one minute. In one Earth day, I can research about four years of history. To go back ten thousand years would take me more than six years of Earth time, and that’s if I had no other distractions.”

  “Well, can you at least start on it and still watch over us?”

  “As you wish,” Wolf glumly replied.