Forbidden Passion by Rita Herron Page B

information from the counselor who’d assessed him when he’d been admitted.
    Gerald Daumer, 28 years old, parents deceased. Only child. Patient exhibits signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder and psychosis. Possibly suffering from psychotic break. Questions about his childhood triggered agitation, compulsive rocking motion, and manic-depression.
    Patient admitted that he was claustrophobic, that he’d been punished severely as a child by being locked in a small closet for days, and that his mother was very religious.
    Another notation: Watch for signs of violent behavior. Need to follow up…
    There was nothing that Marlena hadn’t read before, and the intake information only confirmed that Gerald Daumer had been headed down a dangerous track. She wished she’d been able to delve deeper into his past, find out if he’d ever killed animals—a sign of a serial killer in the making. But his family was dead now, so that was impossible.
    Maybe someone who’d attended school with him could shed some light on his past.
    She searched his chart and frowned at the name of the school: School for Lost Souls, Eerie, Tennessee. Was it a Catholic school?
    She searched for it online, but no such school existed in Eerie.
    Her gaze flicked over the rest of his background information, and suddenly her breath hitched. Gerald claimed his parents were buried at the Cemetery for Lost Souls in Eerie.
    Her heart racing, she punched in the name of the cemetery and the town, and thumbed her fingers while she waited on a link to appear. But again, there was no cemetery by that name.
    Instead, several links to various myths and legends appeared. She clicked on the first link, perspiration beading on her neck as she skimmed the contents.
    Cemetery for Lost Souls: a cemetery rumored to be haunted by lost souls, souls who traded their humanity for eternal life, souls who walked with Satan, souls who wanted vengeance for their death or other wrongs.
    Suddenly she felt a hand press against her neck, a menacing grip that made her scream and jump up, battling for the hand to release her. The stench of sulfur swirled around her, and the door swung open and wind whipped through the room, sending a chill down her spine.
    She spun around to face her attacker, but nothing was there. Still, she felt the presence of a menacing spirit just as she had at the cemetery and wondered if the legends about the lost souls could possibly be true.
    All her life she’d been looking for answers to what had happened to her family. To the reasons behind violent and criminal behavior. Searching for a medical or scientific reason.     
    Could there be another explanation—something super-natural and beyond medical reasoning?
    No. . . she was a doctor. She believed in concrete evidence.
    Still, the whisper of her mother’s voice warning her to run whirled around her…
     
     

Chapter Ten
    Dante parked at his house, a modern structure sunk into the ground with solar windows and barricaded by the stone mountain surrounding him, a private lair that offered him protection from the elements and other demons.
    As much as he hated leaving Marlena alone, finding Jordie’s killer was the ticket to her safety. He needed to go underground and see if the demon world living beneath the town in the tunnels was responsible.
    Not that he would be welcome.
    But he refused to let that deter him. If anything, he hoped to convince the factions to form a truce, to agree not to hunt from the locals; then the town could live in peace.
      They had the past few years while Father Gio had been away. But Father Gio would never agree to a truce.
      As usual, the tunnels reeked of cold, evil, debauchery, death.
    But he grasped his control with a determined hand. He had a creed, and he was determined to live by it or he’d become the kind of monster he abhorred.
    Senses alert, he wove through a maze of corridors searching, listening for clues of demon activity, but the nightstaikers seemed to