by Sara Snow
“What the hell are you doing?” I hissed. “You don’t know who or what could be out there waiting for us.”
“I can’t scry in a car full of people,” she snapped. “I need a few minutes alone. Don’t worry, I’ll be in your sight at all times.”
True to her word, she walked around to the front of my car and plunked her ass on the hood, turning her back on us. Well, with everything my vehicle had been through in the past few hours, Olympia couldn’t do much damage.
I was more worried about her sitting out there like a blonde hood ornament when demons were watching us from earth and sky. Not to mention the fact that we weren’t exactly in the safest neighborhood in El Paso. At this hour, somewhere between night and morning, Alameda Avenue was still relatively deserted, and there wouldn’t be anyone around to help us if the going got tough.
Olympia raised her mirror to the dark blue sky, as if she were using it to scan the surrounding neighborhood.
“My mother’s close,” Georgia said. Her soft voice broke into my thoughts.
“Yeah. It shouldn’t take long for Olympia’s magic to go to work,” I said. I took Georgia’s hand. Her skin was warm, almost hot. Her hand trembled.
With her free hand, Georgia twisted a long strand of her hair around and around her finger. She chewed her lower lip as she stared straight ahead at the nearly empty street.
“He’s here, too,” she said, almost in a whisper. Even in the dim light of the car, I could see that her eyes were enormous.
I didn’t need to ask her who “he” was. I had no doubt that Paimon, Bebal, and Abalam were in the neighborhood. But hearing Georgia say it brought the reality of this whole thing home to me.
The trunk of my car was full of weapons. I had my own strength to draw on, and the strength of the younger guy snoring in the back seat. I had years of experience fighting demons under my belt.
But it was Georgia who held the key to the success of this mission. If she faltered or lost her cool in any way, she’d become fair game for Paimon.
“It’s okay to be afraid,” I said, “as long as you don’t give in to fear. Not even for a second. We’re all counting on you.”
I gripped Georgia’s hand hard, then pulled her close. I could feel the heat radiating off her body and the rapid thrum of her heartbeat. I wanted to kiss her, but her body was so tense that I knew she’d back away from me.
“What’s going on?” Jacob said from the back seat. “Are we there yet?”
As usual, the kid’s timing was impeccable. He must have had some kind of internal radar that notified him whenever I was about to kiss Georgia.
“T-minus and counting. We’re just waiting for Olympia to point us in the right direction,” I said.
As if on cue, Olympia jumped off the hood of my car.
“My vision of the house is blurry,” she said, as she opened the back door and climbed back inside. “But I can tell it’s a duplex with a brown stucco exterior and boarded-up windows. It’s at the end of a long lot. I saw a white utility van parked down the block. In front of the house, there’s an old rocking horse, a kid’s toy lying on its side.”
“Are you sure it’s empty?” Jacob asked. “Other than Georgia’s mother, I mean.”
“I don’t get the sense that there’s anyone else inside, but she’s definitely there.” Olympia hesitated for a second. She placed her hand on Georgia’s shoulder.
Georgia turned to look back at Olympia. “It’s not good, is it?”
“No. I’d say she doesn’t have a lot of time left,” Olympia said gently.
“One more reason to get this show on the road,” I said, starting the engine. “The sooner we get in there, the better.”
“Wait a second,” Jacob interjected. “How do you know where we’re going? That place you described could be anywhere. Didn’t you see anything more specific?”
“How about a couple of street signs on the corner across from the house, you dork?” Olympia snapped. “I have no clue how to get there, but I can tell you exactly what cross streets to plug into your GPS system.”
“Perfect,” I said, secretly gloating at Olympia’s “dork” comment. “Give me the info, and let’s go.”
Jacob
For the first time since we set off on this trip, I could honestly say that I felt afraid. The demons at the gas station had swarmed us so fast that I didn’t have time to do anything but shout invocations. We had all been running on pure adrenaline, and the thrill of battle had overwhelmed any fear I might have had.
Now, as Carter drove through the silent streets, I had all the time in the world to contemplate getting my ass ripped apart by Paimon and his gang. I’d already had one horrific close call with that crowd, and I wasn’t looking forward to another encounter.
I’d been able to banish those rogue underlings, but Paimon was another story. He was the head honcho. Who knew if my invocation would work against a demon that strong? My father might know if my power was strong enough, but he was back in Chicago, and we couldn’t even get him on the phone. I’d never gotten the chance to talk in depth with him about the banishing before I left, and I was really regretting that now.
To add to my fear, I hadn’t heard a word from my father. I’d left him a voicemail yesterday, and I’d sent Eli a couple of texts. Neither one had responded. I knew that my dad could be absentminded about his phone, but it wasn’t like him to be totally silent.
While I slept in the car, I’d had a weird dream about my father. He was levitating in the sky above my head, gazing down at me with a peaceful smile on his face. He wore only a pair of pants—no shirt or shoes—and as I looked up at him, I saw a current of blood running from a gash below his ribs. I yelled up at him to come down—Dad, you’re bleeding! You need help!—but he kept floating upward with that blissful smile, his arms reaching for the heavens.
Maybe that dream was a positive sign. Maybe the wound was just a symbol of something I couldn’t understand yet. But the vision had left nothing but dread in my mind.
“Have you heard anything from the warehouse yet?” I asked, hoping Carter had news from my father.
Carter shook his head and glanced back at me. “How about you?”
“Nothing.”
“I can’t catch any visions of them,” Olympia added. “I’ve tried. But all I can see in the warehouse is a couple of dim figures in a blur of light.”
“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now. We’re going to have to handle this on our own,” Carter said grimly.
“That’s it!” Olympia cried suddenly, pointing at the window. “Look!”
The building was just as bleak as Olympia’s description. Its stucco walls were threaded with cracks, and the roof sagged under years of neglect. Behind metal security bars, its windows had been boarded up, and its twin front doors were secured with multiple locks. Aside from a few brave tufts of grass that had sprouted up around the house, there was no sign of life on the property.
To my relief, the surrounding neighborhood appeared just as lifeless at this time of the morning. The building across the street looked like some kind of auto parts shop, and the windows of the neighboring houses were dark.
“Here’s how it’s going to play out,” Carter said. “Georgia goes in to see Deena. If everything goes as planned, Paimon and his buddies will show up. Georgia sets them on fire, and we all run like hell.”
“What about my mother?” Georgia asked. “Even though she chose heroin over her own daughter, I don’t want her going up in flames. No one deserves that.”
“Hopefully, she’s strong enough to stand up. One of us will grab her and drag her out,” I said.
The atmosphere inside the car was thick with tension. None of us wanted to venture inside the place, assuming we could find a way to get through all those locks.
“I don’t suppose anyone thought of bringing bolt cutters.” Carter echoed my thoughts.
“There’s got to be some way to get inside,” I said.
&
nbsp; “I’ll figure it out,” Georgia said. I could hear the determination in her voice. “I’ll do whatever it takes to get in there, even if I have to burn a hole through one of those doors.”
She started to open the passenger door, but Carter grabbed her arm to hold her back.
“Wait a second. You’re not going in there by yourself.”
“I want to be alone when I meet her. I’m not going in with a whole crowd.”
“There won’t be a crowd. Just me and Jacob and our weapons. We’ll give you and your mother time to yourselves, but you can be damn sure we’ll be in the building.”
“What about me?” Olympia asked. “I don’t want to wait out here by myself.”
“Well, you sure as hell don’t want to be in there when Georgia sets off an inferno. You’ll be safe out here,” Carter told her. “Just keep the doors locked.”
Carter and I got out of the car. He opened the trunk and pulled out his flamethrower and a gun while I unloaded my crossbow. Georgia was already approaching the house. She moved like a sleepwalker across the dirt yard, as if she were being drawn to the building by a magnetic force. Avoiding the locked front doors, she walked around the back of the house.
“Hey! Wait up!” I called, my voice strained with panic. Georgia had already disappeared. I locked the trunk and followed Carter as we ran to catch up with her. Although the front of the house was barricaded, one of the back doors yawned open, and Georgia had already slipped inside.
“Shit! Why can’t she do what I ask just this once?” Carter panted.
Maybe because she doesn’t trust you.
Under any other circumstances, I would have grabbed any excuse to provoke Carter with a remark like that. After seeing him with Georgia at the truck stop yesterday, I would have gladly slugged him for breaking the truce. But I knew that in the end, I wouldn’t have to fight Carter to win Georgia. It would only be a matter of time until he screwed things up with her, and when that time came, I’d be all too happy to help her move on.
We treaded softly, peering into the darkness. I fully expected to be jumped by demons, but I couldn’t sense any energy at all in those cold rooms. The place felt as empty as a tomb.
I pulled out my phone and used the flashlight to illuminate the shadows. Carter and I stepped through garbage and broken glass as we walked down a dark corridor that reeked of rot and piss. There was no sign of Georgia—she might as well have entered another dimension.
“Where the fuck did she go?” I whispered. I could hear the sound of my own heart thumping in my chest.
Carter turned. He held a finger to his lips, then pointed to the end of the long hallway. A shaft of light leaked through an open door. We stopped in our tracks.
A high-pitched wail came from the open door, and I knew that Georgia had found what she was looking for.
27
Georgia
Deena was nothing but bones and matted hair, almost exactly like the charm Olympia had made for me. The only difference was that this living skeleton had an enormous pair of eyes that stared up at me from deep, bruised sockets. The early morning sunlight that bled through the window practically shone through her flesh.
Olympia had warned me that my mother was in bad shape. But I wasn’t prepared to see a creature as grotesque as a Halloween ornament. Stick-thin arms, crosshatched with track marks, clutched at a threadbare blanket that she held over her chest. The wings of her collarbones rose and fell frantically as her mouth gaped open.
A high, thin cry rose from her throat.
Does she recognize me? Or is she just scared that I didn’t bring her a fix?
Except for the stained mattress where my mother sat, the room was bare. Dark streaks splattered the walls, and empty syringes littered the floorboards. A plastic bucket in the corner of the room was topped with urine and feces. Crumpled paper bags, empty water bottles, and paper plates smeared with the remains of food were the only evidence that she’d had any nourishment in the past few weeks.
Was this what it all came down to? All the plans I’d made with the team, our hopes of destroying Paimon, the dangerous hours of driving, all to meet this shattered wisp of a woman? We had planned to save the world. But we obviously weren’t going to be able to save my mother.
She dropped the blanket and held out one arm, the one with the most track marks. She opened her palm, and her hand trembled violently.
“I’m not a dealer,” I said. My mouth was so dry that my voice came out in a hoarse whisper. “I’m your daughter.”
She nodded. “I know who you are.”
I was shaking, too. My whole body quaked. My vision blurred. I tasted salt, and I realized that my eyes were streaming with tears. Once I started to sob, I couldn’t stop.
How did I come from that poor, wrecked body?
“How did you get here? How did you get like this?” I moaned.
“Mexico. I was going to Mexico with a guy.” Every word sounded as if it were being torn from her chest. “He left me here, and I . . . Paimon. Paimon found me. He’s your father.”
I was too weak to stand up any longer. I sank to my knees on the filthy floor, holding my head in my hands and shaking it back and forth.
“No. I don’t see how. Everyone tells me he’s my father, but how could you have been with a demon? How did this happen?” I cried.
“He seduced me.” Her voice softened to a hiss, like a snake. “And when I found out what he was, what you were, I started using. I had to forget. But I never did.”
Wiping my tears with my sleeve, I looked my mother in the eye. Her ashen face was deeply etched with wrinkles, like an ancient crone. Her head quivered on the frail stalk of her neck. I tried to find some trace of myself in her features, but all I could see were the remains of a woman who might have been beautiful once.
“Didn’t you want me?” I whispered.
She shook her head. “No. But I loved you. I held onto you as long as I could.”
Her words cut me to the soul.
“It wasn’t enough. Growing up in the system destroyed me—almost. I survived. And I’m strong.”
“Come here, Georgia. Come to me.”
I held back. I wanted her to sit alone in her pain, if only for a few moments. But then I moved towards her. I crawled onto the mattress and took my mother in my arms, feeling her body as frail as papier-mache. Through her paper-thin chest, I felt her heart pounding. She smelled of dust and rotting flesh.
“Baby, I am so sorry,” she whispered into my hair. “I always knew I’d see you again.”
I rocked her back and forth to the rhythm of her heaving cries. In my last memories of my mother, she had been lost in her Neverland of heroin, totally oblivious to the fact that there was a young child in the room who needed her. Now she was the one who needed me, who was raw with longing for someone to hold her.
Pushing back her dry thatch of hair, I kissed her hollow cheek.
“I’m here,” I said. “I’m here.”
Suddenly, the room darkened. My mother stiffened.
“No,” she moaned over my shoulder. “Please don’t take her.”
I turned. And froze.
Behind us loomed three forms, so tall that they blocked the doorway. They were silhouettes rimmed with fiery light, dark and terrible to see. Their presence filled the room with an acrid, dizzying stench, like a combination of incense and sulfuric smoke. One of them had a horned head like an animal’s skull. The second had a reptilian face draped with leathery folds of skin that all but hid his beady eyes.
But the third was handsome, his delicately chiseled features almost feminine in their beauty, his chin tipped with a pointed goatee. I might have mistaken him for a human except for the red gleam of his eyes. He wore a long cloak and an elaborate crown, and in his right hand, he held a scepter with a jewel that glowed red like his eyes.
“You can’t have her,” my mother sobbed. “Leave her alone. Take me instead.”
“We’ve already got you, Deena,” Pa
imon said smoothly, in a voice as elegant as his looks. “We’ve had you for years. And now, we no longer need you. Georgia is the one we want.”
He smiled at me, revealing flawless white teeth. His beauty was sickening, monstrous. Sour fluid filled my mouth as my stomach lurched. I clung to my mother, feeling her bones crumple in my arms.
“A kiss will summon the king,” Paimon said softly. “That’s how the prophecy goes. I’ve been waiting a long time for this day, Georgia. Your life will never be the same.”
“Stay the fuck away from me,” I said. I swallowed back the vomit that rose in my throat.
“Oh, Georgia.” Paimon opened his arms. His long sleeves fell in velvet folds. “My daughter. Don’t you know that you’re mine? I have so many glorious gifts for you—more than you could ever imagine. Money, jewels, beautiful clothes for your beautiful body. And power. So much power.”
“I don’t want any of that shit. I want you to get the hell out of here and leave me alone!”
He chuckled. “As if that were possible. Listen to what I’m offering you. I want you to rule with us. You’ll have a whole element that you can use to rule the world—the element of fire. I’ll rule the element of water. Bebal will claim the element of earth, and Abalam will rule the air. If you think you have amazing powers now, just wait until you see how much stronger you’ll become. Your influence will have no limits.”
The music of his voice was both terrible and mesmerizing. I couldn’t take my eyes off my father’s face or block my ears against his promises. I sat there, holding my mother and trembling like a rabbit hypnotized by a predator’s stare.
Where the fuck is your power? Where the fuck is your fire? You were supposed to destroy these monsters!
“Go away. Just go away,” I whispered.
Paimon threw back his head and roared. His laughter rang through the room, shaking the flimsy walls. The other two kings began to laugh, too, and the room rocked with the horrific sounds of their mockery.
