Ghost of You

Pax had just laid the flowers to rest on the grave of what he knew was his great-great aunt when he heard the calls. They were muddled in the roar of cars, New Orleans slept less than New York it seemed, but the terror involved was still present. Still haunting.

What were those voices saying? Why were they afraid?

"Lilly? Lilly, where are you?!" The voices came closer and Pax realized they weren't the cemetery at all. It was a family. He turned to see a mother, young from her looks, frantically searching amongst the graves and crypts. "Lilly this isn't funny! We said no running off." The woman looked close to tears.

Taking a breath he made a quick decision. Against every instinct, against the voices nudging him to leave, he walked up to the woman. She needed help, her child was missing. Doesn't matter. Run. The voices broke against him in waves. All genders. All ages. The most prominent was the voice of a little girl, a new voice.

"Did you lose your daughter, ma'am?" Pax inquired as he came up on the now hysterical woman as she tried to edge open the door of a grave. "Would you like help trying to find her?"

"She was just here! Lilly had walked away to look at the angels on a gravestone and then when I turned back around she was gone. She never does this. Lilly?! Where are you!" The woman collapsed against the old stone. Pax gently laid his hand on her shoulder, she barely registered it.

"I'll help you find her. Her name is Lilly, right? What does she look like?"

"She's eight, brown eyes with reddish hair. It's up in a twisted braid around the top of her head. She wanted to look like a princess today. Oh, where is she?" Tears made her hard to understand to Pax but he waited. "She's wearing a pink flowered top and skirt. Her shoes were black flats, like ballet shoes. Do you know what those look like?"

"Yes. I'll go look for her. What grave was she looking so intently at?" Pax asked calmly. He knew this cemetery better than anyone- probably even the caretaker. He may not be much help, but he knew for sure that he would be able to map the cemetery better than this woman could. And much faster than the police- if they'd even been called yet.

"The grave of eighteen de boar I think... I can't pronounce the names here." She sniffled as she looked at the young man who was offering help.

"Etienne de Boré, I know where that is. I'll go take a look around there- if I remember correctly" and he did "there are quite a few open mausoleums around there, she could be hiding in one of those."

"Thank you. She really has never done anything like this... Thank you so much."

"If you haven't yet, call the police. They could help if she has actually run off. Okay?"

"I... I didn't even think of that. My husband and our older son are looking for her too. If you see them, tell them you're helping. Please?" She looked barely sober, her pupils so big. It was a rather bright morning so Pax felt that her nearly zombie look seemed weird. The woman seemed to be growing paler by the moment.

Run! Run, please, run. The new voice screamed in his mind. She sounded like a sweet girl, a little doll. Sounded a lot like what he would imagine Lilly to sound, he guessed. Pax shrugged it off with a shake of his head. He was going loony, there was no way that there was a new 'voice' in his head. He was just being silly.

"I'll go look for her." He rubbed her shoulder a little. "Just call the police and wait for them." Pax stood up and left then. He didn't want to waste any time- children could wander so far in such short moments.

His chest tightened as he walked towards the mausoleum of Etienne de Boré. It was a simple grave, really. A big white box with some wraught iron fencing for a pretty touch- or so it seemed to Pax. There was a grave near it with delapidated angels, so that could be what the child, Lilly, had been looking at.

Don't. Please. Run. The voices became nearly thunder in his mind- he kept shaking them off. Leave me alone. I'm not running. There is nothing to run from. You are naive. Run. Lilly is gone. I am gone. Run. The voices overlapped, making him dizzy as he reached the grave marker. Pax reached out for the stone to steady himself and instead found his hand resting on soft nearly silk-like cloth.

"Are you alright?" A smooth voice asked through his haze, causing Pax to whip his head up so quickly that he stumbled backwards into yet another body. "You? Are you alright?"

"Yea... I'm fine." No you're not. RUN! "I just... got a small headache suddenly." He stepped away from the body behind him and nodded a small head bow. "I am sorry for that sir, my bad completely."

Pax looked at the two men. One was paler than the other- although probably through the use of makeup since that seemed to be a cool thing recently. They were both dressed in tight gothic styled clothes although the hair cut on the one didn't match the outfit- Pax couldn't complain. Both were beautiful in a weird way. His instincts kicked his gut hard, the voices screamed, his head swam.

"I do apologize for my clumsiness and I hope I did not ruin your shirt," He nodded to the man with startling purple eyes. Must be contacts. Still, it was unnerving so he looked at the other man, who had natural grey eyes. "But I must be going... Actually, I am looking for a young girl. Red braided hair, pink outfit. Goes by the name of Lilly and she walked away from her family. Have either of you seen her?"

The Master smiled a cruel smile behind Pax's back, he knew just where Lilly was. Gerard made a small quick movement- something the human would not have noticed- as a warning to not give that knowledge away. As if he would. He was centuries old, older than many of the graves in this cemetery. He could lie to one little human. No matter how much this human seemed to pull at him.

"No, we have not. But I am sure we could help you look for her. Was this the last place she was seen?" The man with the purple eyes asked. Turned to him with a nod although he seemed to be looking anywhere but his eyes. "She may have strayed east, there are some very pretty crypts that way."

"Yes. You're right. Thank you." Pax said as he nodded and gave another weird bow-like motion. "I hope you two have a wonderful day." And off he walked, briskly. The further away he got from the man with the purple eyes the better, and worse, he felt. Like he was simultaneously being pushed and pulled towards him. Run. Stay.

"Lilly?" Pax called softly as he walked through the monuments. Some of these had been broken into through the years, with doors forced open or cracks in the stone. They were beautiful, however. "Lilly?"

As he leaned into the doorway of a crypt that he couldn't remember being open before his spine tingled, he straightened quickly. Too late, however, as a hand pressed itself against his mouth and nose with a cloth that smelled noxious.

"Mmmph!" He struggled for a few short moments, trying to scream. "Mmm...ph."

"Lilly is gone, I'm sorry." A voice whispered into Pax's ear as he fell from consciousness.