by Cheree Alsop
The professor’s mouth opened as if he had an answer, then he shut it again and shook his head. “I’ve never thought about that,” he finally admitted.
I shoved my hands in my pockets and leaned against his desk. “So what did Kristen say?”
“About what?” he asked distractedly as he straightened a few desks and picked up several scraps of paper from the floor.
The thought that I needed to get to work pressed against me. “About Ceren,” I said, trying to remain patient. “Does she think it’s weird Ceren is still here?”
Professor Shipley straightened. “Oh yes, that. Kristen said it was strange that the ghost appeared to be haunting you. Usually, they take to haunting places instead of people.”
“I don’t think she’s haunting me,” I began.
He held up a hand to say, “Hanging around you, or whatever you want to call it. She thought it was unusual and wondered how long it’s been since Ceren’s death.”
“I-I’m not sure,” I said. I had a hard time thinking of her as dead. The thought was a sobering one. I swallowed and continued with, “But she says her family still cries.”
The professor nodded. “It’s hard to lose a child. I can’t blame them. Kristen and I didn’t get much of a chance to talk because she had an appointment for a reading, but I’ll have some more information for you Monday.”
“I appreciate it,” I told him. “I just want to help her.”
He nodded. “Me, too.”
I was nearly to the door when he said, “She did mention that time in the plane the ghosts are on acts differently than here. Ceren may just be passing the years until she’s supposed to leave.”
The thought made a pit form in my stomach. I thanked him and ducked out the door, my thoughts heavier than they had been before school.
I didn’t like the thought of Ceren leaving, yet the idea of her remaining in limbo didn’t feel fair, either. What I really wanted was for her to be alive, to be real, to be able to be a part of the world she was forced to spectate. She had so much life left in her.
The thought was humorous and a little sad. I gave a bitter shake of my head as I made my way down the sidewalk toward the mall. A ghost with life left in her. It was ironic but true. If anyone deserved to live, it was the ghost who had saved my life. If it wasn’t for her, the jakhin would have killed me. I was certain about that. She said she had done it so I would help her in return. My problem was that I had no idea where to even start. Those who knew about ghosts were baffled, and others like Virgo just looked at me like I was crazy if I brought her up. That didn’t leave me with much to work with.
I kept my head down as I walked past the bus stop. I spotted the same mother with her little toddler standing close to the front of the line. The child’s eyes lit up when he saw me. He tugged on his mom’s sleeve, but the woman was in the middle of a conversation with an older gentleman. Neither noticed the toddler’s attempts to get their attention.
I waved and the little boy grinned, showing two bottom teeth that were just coming in. His mother looked down at her son, then followed her gaze to me.
“Hey, that’s the boy!” she said. “He’s the one who saved Jeffie!”
I ducked my head and turned the corner. Footsteps hurried after me. The moment I was out of sight, I took off running. I was well past the next block and beyond before I slowed. They wouldn’t be able to catch up without missing their bus. I hoped that was enough to stop their pursuit.
Someone might have seen something fishy in the video. It was bad enough that Janie and the others had watched it. I was worried about people like James who scoured the internet researching the supernatural. What if someone realized I had moved faster than a human could in order to save that kid? They might come looking for me. The last thing I wanted was for more trouble to show up at the Willards’ doorstep.
I was nearly to the mall when a poster on the side of a gas station caught my eye. Other posters had been plastered beside it, signs with missing pets, services to offer, or something to sell littered the wall of the gas station from top to bottom. But it was the one near the top right that caught my eye.
Ceren’s face looked back at me. She was smiling and holding a soda. The shirt she wore was red and white striped with a little anchor logo on the sleeve. Sunglasses held her brown hair back and the hint of a sunburn brushed her nose. She appeared to be laughing at something as the picture was taken. Her eyes crinkled at the corners and her mouth was open as if she had been in the middle of saying something.
‘Please help us find Ceren East.’ The sign said. ‘We are desperate to find our daughter! If you have any information at all, please call the number below.’
The little tabs with phone numbers on them had all been taken. The picture was slightly weathered. It was easy to imagine the pelting rain from the other night hitting it as the wind blew the storm sideways. Nevertheless, Ceren’s smile continued to glow.
I pulled the poster down and studied it.
“What are you looking at?”
I jerked around at the demanding voice.
“Nothing,” I said.
The young man who was close to my age pointed at the picture. “Why did you take that down?”
I lifted a shoulder. “I thought I recognized her.”
His eyes narrowed. “That’s my sister. She’s missing.”
“I know she’s missing,” I replied. “I can read.”
It was the wrong thing to say, as evidenced by his threatening step forward and the way his hands lifted.
I wasn’t sure where to go from there. I couldn’t exactly tell him that his sister’s ghost was haunting me. I had already taken the paper, so denying it was no longer an option. I had also already stupidly admitted to recognizing her. And I couldn’t hit Ceren’s brother in the face; I had a significant hunch explaining that to Ceren later would only make her mad.
Denying my instincts to fight left me with one route. I took off running.
“Where are you going?” he shouted. “I have questions for you!”
I shoved the poster in my pocket and hightailed it past the gas station. The fence that lined the back of it was about seven feet tall and chain link. I jumped off a tire and used my palms to vault me over the top. The moment my sneakers hit the ground, I took off running again.
I could hear Ceren’s brother struggling to climb over the fence. By the time I reached the side of the mall, I doubted he had so much as rounded the next parking lot. I opened one of the employee entrances and stepped inside feeling exhilarated. Running from a pursuer was nearly as fun as chasing someone.
“Are you supposed to be in here?”
I met the gaze of a man in a suit. His eyes narrowed as he looked me up and down.
“Do I know you?” he demanded.
I shook my head. “I just got hired at Yours Threadly. You should stop by. We have some nice stuff.”
He shook his head. “I don’t need your stuff. Thanks.”
I watched him walk away. All of the adrenaline that had filled me from the run took a dark turn. My hands closed into fists and it was all I could do to stand there and let him leave.
He was the man I had nearly killed on my first day in the mall. I had just left the Lair, Alia had brought me with her to give me some insight into human life, and the voice in my head from years of serving my Master had been so loud I had nearly thrown away everything and taken him down.
His life had hung by a thread and he hadn’t even been aware of it. I had come so very close to making him pay for treating me like street trash; he had no idea how very lucky he was.
The voice was quieter now. It was still there in the back of my mind whispering about how werewolves and vampires were the strongest species, that humans were weak and should live to serve. In my Master’s voice, the words whispered about how much fun it would be to hunt him down, to finish the job I had started, to show him that he had no power over me.
I sucked in a breath that told of
expensive clothes, a car that cost more than some people’s houses, and money, the dirty kind of money that was stained by hundreds of fingers, sometimes lives, and sometimes tears. Tangled with his scent came the rain smell that told of loneliness, of enough nights spent by himself that it coated him in the ozone heaviness. It was enough to make me turn on my heels and walk in the other direction. His life was filled with the kind of emptiness he deserved.
I pushed through a second door into the main part of the mall. Families and individuals roamed the corridors. Laughter, talking, the sounds of many footsteps, and the ever-present smell of popcorn, pretzels, and orange Julius filled the air. I breathed in and out through my mouth and avoided the crowds. By the time I reached Alia’s store, I found myself wondering if working fast food would have been an easier job.
“Hey, Zev!” Alia greeted when I walked into the quieter atmosphere of the clothing store.
Mitch pushed away from the counter where he had been leaning. “I was about to take your shift.”
“You mean you came to hang out with Alia, so you were here anyway?” I guessed.
He grinned and nodded. “You got me.”
The smile the werewolf flashed Alia was a warm one that she returned. Though I battled a bit of jealousy at the chemistry the werewolf and human had with each other, I told myself I was getting better at accepting them being together. I paused near a pile of jeans someone had ruffled through and worked on straightening them to keep my hands busy.
“We were just talking about finding the pack a house or something,” Alia told me. She turned the computer at the desk to show me several ads for houses in Brickwell.
“You want the werewolves to leave?” I replied. I wished I hadn’t sounded so surprised, but the thought caught me off-guard.
“Not leave,” Alia replied. She glanced at Mitch. “Just, maybe, relocate. I don’t know if the werewolves should stay in the forest behind our house forever.”
“Of course not,” I hurriedly agreed. “That was never the plan.”
“Yeah,” Mitch said. “We could use our own space, and if the others get jobs, we should be able to pay for it without a problem.”
The thought of Striker or Frost working somewhere like the mall was humorous. Safira could probably handle it with ease, but the other two had proven far more comfortable in the trees.
That wasn’t what bothered me. As I watched Mitch and Alia turn their attention back to the pictures on the computer, I forced myself to pinpoint exact why I didn’t want to leave the Willard residence.
It was the first place to feel like home to me, ever. When Ian hit me with the car in wolf form and dragged me back to his house to get patched up, I had stumbled into something I had never expected. The warm, comfortable feeling I felt when I walked through the door was one of a peace that had eluded the rest of my life. I had slept nights in that basement knowing I was safe, that some demon horde wasn’t about to attack, and that there were people upstairs who actually had my back. I was reluctant to give that away.
But with the death of Virgo and Jemmy’s mother, two more had been added to the group of strays Mrs. Willard had allowed to crash at her house. I couldn’t blame anyone for hinting at a little space and a decrease of mouths to feed. Even though none of the Willards had ever implied any sense of hardship, feeding and clothing that many more people had to put a strain on things. It was the reason I had gotten my job at the mall. If us moving out could lessen the load a little bit, it was the least we could do.
“What do you think of this one?” Mitch asked, carrying the laptop over. The house he showed was small but appeared to be in good condition. He scrolled down through the pictures to show two bathrooms, one with a tub, a bare kitchen, several bedrooms, and a backyard that was open to the forest that surrounding Brickwell.
“That’s what caught my attention, too,” the werewolf told me. “Direct access to the trees. We don’t have to worry about werewolves being seen going and coming.”
I nodded. “It might work.”
Mitch’s smile widened. “A home for Zev’s Pack. Who knows,” he said with a wink, “We might just have found a place for us in this world.”
Chapter Eight
Mitch’s words stayed with me when I reached the back of the Willards’ home and phased to human form. The fact that I hadn’t seen Ceren since my first class that morning lingered in the back of my mind and bothered me more than I cared to think about. I shoved the slightly slobbery bag with the knife in it into my pocket and jogged toward the house. I pulled open the door to the kitchen and found Virgo on his cellphone at the kitchen table.
I couldn’t tell who he was speaking to, but he gestured with his right arm and then winced. He shoved his phone between his shoulder and his ear and pinned it there while he spoke through gritted teeth.
“Yeah, I’ll take care of it. Just text me the address. Alright. Bye.” He dropped the phone to the table and glanced at me. “That’s a great way to wake up.”
“You’re just waking up?” I said in surprise. “What’s going on?”
“I was tired and James found out that jakhin claws are slightly poisonous to humans, so I figured I would sleep it off,” the warlock said, his tone defensive. “I’m not lazy.”
I lifted my hands to fend off his attack and said, “I meant, what was going on with the phone call?”
“Oh,” he replied with a dry laugh. “Sorry. That was Madam Doxy. They got a location on the person who summoned the jakhins.”
I stared at him. “So after learning that their claws are poisonous to humans, you’re going to go after him?”
“We’re going to go after him,” the warlock replied. “You’re the one who brought her down.”
“And you shoved the knife in her chest,” I reminded him.
He pushed up from the table. “Exactly. So let’s go. Madam Doxy said it’s imperative that we stop him before he summons anything stronger.”
The thought of a creature stronger than the jakhin roaming Brickwell was enough to send me out to the truck. We traveled in silence to the address the witches had given Virgo. I had expected something rundown, not the well-cared for, beautiful lawns and columned home the warlock drove us to. Outdoor lighting bathed the house in warm highlights and led the way from the driveway to the porch. Several windows glowed from within, but there were no shadows to indicate how many people were inside.
“This is it?” I asked in uncertainty.
Virgo followed my gaze to the fancy vehicles in the driveway. I didn’t have to be a car expert to know that they were expensive. The name on the mailbox said Stewart.
“This is the address she gave me,” he replied. He checked it again, then sighed. “Let’s go see what we’re dealing with.”
A knock on the front door remained unanswered. I picked the lock on the gate to the backyard and we slipped through. A lawn mower sat in the middle of the back lawn as though someone had been stopped before completing the job. The lid was off the barbecue grill, though a quick check showed it to be cold. The scent of hot dogs, hamburgers, and marinated chicken breast that had been cooked there made my mouth water and reminded me that I hadn’t eaten since the spaghetti that morning. If we were going to live independently from the Willards’, I was going to have to learn to cook.
“It’s open,” Virgo whispered when he checked the back door.
At my motion, the warlock stepped inside. I followed close behind and shut the door so that I would hear it if someone else came in.
A voice led us through the vast kitchen and down the hall. Pictures of a man and a woman with two children lined the walls. In one, the father held the little girl on his shoulders. In another, the woman threw a baseball to her son. The thought that any of them might be a casualty of the jakhins made me hurry forward.
“It’s just my soul. It was my soul I was worried about. And now there’s so much more at stake.”
The sound of a man babbling increased in volume until we found ourselve
s looking into the doorway of a home office. The man who was speaking sat in a leather chair with his back to us. The smell of blood and dark magic that came from the room set my teeth on edge. An old book in the middle of the desk behind the man was open. From where we stood, I could see the long limbs and black eyes of a jakhin drawn on the page.
“You should have started with something smaller,” I said.
The man spun in his chair. His eyes widened at the sight of us.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
Virgo gestured toward the creature on the open page of the book. “Tracking down that.”
The man followed his gaze and his face paled. “It was an accident.”
Virgo folded his arms, winced, and lowered them again with an irritated expression. “That’s a costly accident, Mr. Stewart.”
“Tell me about it,” the man said in a whiny voice I immediately disliked. “One wrong spell and they’re conspiring to tear my family to shreds. I had to send my wife and kids to my parents’ house in Greenwood. You’ve got to help me!”
“We killed one of them,” Virgo told him. “If we can track down the other one, we can finish them both for good and put this to rest.” The warlock picked up the book and closed it.
He tucked it under his arm and was about to turn away when Mr. Stewart said, “They’re not the ones I’m worried about.”
I watched the man’s face closely. Fear made his pupils dilate and the burnt wood scent hung on him like a cloak.
“Whatever he’s done, it’s not good,” I told the warlock.
Virgo sighed and took a seat on one of the chairs that faced the desk. “You better start at the beginning,” he told the man.
I chose to remain standing. The smell of the office put me on edge, and it was clear by the sweat that broke out across the man’s forehead to add another layer to his stench that we weren’t about to hear a fairytale.
