Phantom Lover

Prologue

Prologue

“Sonofabitch!”

Ian Holt awoke just as the explosive sound of a gun went off—right against his temple. Searing pain ripped through his skull and the smell of black powder hung in the air.

All his senses were on red alert, telling him to fight, willing him to move, but his body would not obey his brain's commands. His eyes remained stubbornly closed, his legs useless. And he was cold. So cold.

As if from a vampire, he felt his life's energy draining from his body.

Within seconds, the burning sensation in his head vanished and a feeling of tranquility settled over him. He felt himself float up to the ceiling and looked down at his lifeless form.

Before he had time to wonder what the hell had just happened, something began to pull at him. He felt himself hurtling toward a distant bright light. Blackness lay all around, and stars seemed to race by at such a dizzying pace they appeared like so many comets with long, fiery tails trailing behind them.

As Ian approached closer to the comforting orb of brilliance, he was strangely at peace. Being in complete possession of his faculties, he knew he had just been murdered, and was being transported to some unknown place.

Heaven?

Had he been so virtuous in his thirty-plus years to be promoted straight to the pearly gates? He doubted it, but knew he hadn't done anything so bad as to be cursed with a one-way ticket to hell.

He hoped.

The sensations he was experiencing were so acute it nearly blew his mind. He became aware of the pulsing sphere ahead, and a comforting voice, neither male nor female, spoke.

"Ian...it is not your time."

Ian was slightly disappointed. Only his architectural work kept him going most days. That and constructing his beachfront home on the Monterey Peninsula that he had just finished four weeks prior. Looks like somebody else would enjoy his dream now.

"I'm not dead?" He heard the question aloud before he’d even spoken the words. Evidently, they were using mental telepathy. There went all his cold, hard criticism regarding psychic phenomena!

"You are indeed dead, but your destiny has not been fulfilled." The words were impressed upon his mind.

Destiny? What the hell was that supposed to mean? "So, do I get a second chance to fulfill this destiny?"

"In time...and you must find the way."

"Okay." Ian shrugged invisible shoulders. "No sweat. What happens? Do I get resuscitated or something?"

"You will be on Earth again, existing on a different plane." The Voice was all around him. "A spirit in the material world. In the material world is where you will find your destiny."

"Uh-huh." Ian listened, wondering if he was having an acid trip flashback. He'd read about those. People who'd done drugs only to have them experience the narcotic's effects once again ten or twenty years down the line. That had to be the answer to all of this. This was just too effing weird.

Or maybe the bullet that plowed through his gray matter hadn't really killed him, but instead left him insane. Maybe he was laid up in a hospital somewhere on life support, destined to be a vegetable the rest of his life. How else could he explain the fact that he had just been told by an ominous entity that he'd be a ghost!

"There are advantages of being in spirit form as opposed to human." The Voice continued, "Powers which you will, in time, discover for yourself. There are also rules."

"Go ahead." Ian was greatly amused. If he had to be a raving lunatic for the rest of his existence, at least he'd have an interesting time of it.

"You cannot leave the location from where you met your demise—"

"Glad I didn't buy the farm on the freeway at rush hour." He made light of the situation.

"You must also remember to never possess another's body." The warning was firm.

"No problem," Ian promised. Like he'd know how to do it in the first place?

"It could cause irreparable damage to the human world and bring irrevocable consequences upon you. Do not break these rules, Ian Holt.”

"Got it." Ian smirked. Don't break the rules? What a thing to say to a man who'd bent and broken every one that had come his way! "Okay," he decided to placate The Voice, "so how do I go about completing this unfinished business?"

"Learn from your past mistakes and... follow your heart..." With that, The Voice faded as Ian was drawn back to Earth and the confines of his newly built home.