Fortunately, though, his powers both began and ended at the original property lines.

That tidbit of info had prompted Patrick to ask about Joe Boq, and Rastin had surprised us all once again by revealing that Erik had not been responsible for that particular death. Instead, Rastin believed a separate entity from a different investigation was to blame. That news brought little comfort. Because even though that meant we were all safe for the moment, it didn’t change the fact that all bets would be off once we stepped foot back in his world.

Rastin claimed that Erik’s lust for power had derived from his longing to mold and bend his life—and therefore his fate—into the shape he wanted.

The day Erik was born was the day his parents had set him on the track to becoming a physician. And before he’d died, he’d been faced with the decision of marrying one of two wealthy debutants—neither of whom he was in love with, or even liked.

From early childhood and on, though, he’d exhibited an almost otherworldly talent for music and a matching thirst for the mastery of it.

Each of us in SPOoKy had always heard of Erik Draper’s abilities with music. During his time, rumors had spread that he’d been visited by angels or that he’d signed a pact with the devil. Those were the only stories the Victorians could come up with to explain how he’d ended up with the voice and face of a god.

But in the end, Erik’s aspirations hadn’t mattered to his parents.

In their eyes, music and love were frivolities that their only son could ill afford to indulge in. Not at the cost of more worthy pursuits.

“So . . . this whole mummy thing was a fit of teenage rebellion?” Wes had asked Rastin.

“Erik was on a path from which he could not deviate,” Rastin replied. “The way he saw it, the path was one that would cost his very soul.”

“So, he wanted to be a musician,” Patrick observed.

“A composer,” Rastin replied.

“Aaannd . . . running away wouldn’t have solved that?” Charlotte asked.

“Who is to say?” said Rastin. “Why leave your family, your inheritance, and your legacy if you believe you have found the answer to fixing everything?”

Just as the legend stated, though, things hadn’t gone according to plan for Erik.

The Egyptian priest had indeed risen from the dead and, after killing Erik and his family, had taken Erik’s body into the alternate Moldavia, where he’d torn out his heart. It was this action that doomed Erik to walk as a corpse forever.

Though that particular piece hadn’t been new to us, everything Rastin shared from that point forward was.

Since the heart was indeed the seat of the soul, as the Ancient Egyptians believed, Erik’s became splintered. What was worse, each shard of his spirit became its own entity represented by a figure imbued with its own mind and characterized by its own mask. Twenty-four seven, he was literally surrounded—and tormented—by these pieces of his decimated soul. Yet Erik himself could only wear one mask at a time, which meant that he could also only be one facet of himself at a time. Something that made him all the more dangerous since Erik’s powers also allowed him to traverse, at will, the barriers between each version of Moldavia, all while remaining invisible to anyone who did not believe in him. Which was why only Charlie had seen him at first. Then, when Stephanie’s mind began to open to the idea, she had seen him under that sheet. As a result, I had contacted Rastin. Which, in turn, had prompted Rastin to visit Moldavia by “remote means” to confront Erik directly.