by Adam Dark
Feeling surprisingly more prepared after all this than he ever had since opening that book of demons with Peter, he admitted now there was only one thing left. The cloudy crystal with which they’d bound Ebra had tumbled across his tiny, carpeted living room the day before when Peter had practically thrown the table to end the summoning. It rested now against the far wall under the window—the same window Ebra had dragged him through with no resistance when they’d moved without moving through that nauseously green otherworld. Ben liked to think he’d unconsciously been avoiding the crystal and the window, but he knew it was completely intentional. Still, it wasn’t the worst thing he’d ever experienced—not like that night. And he had to suck it up and grow a pair if he was going to make it through first tomorrow’s awkward tension when Peter realized April would becoming with them, then the entire process of willingly and stupidly driving back up to that house to finish what they’d started.
That was rich. They hadn’t started anything. They’d been drawn into that house by an old, lonely man who was way too friendly and far more concerned about trapping them there within the house than he was about their safety from the storm that night. Ben shook his head. They hadn’t started a thing. But he and Peter—yes, and April—had a chance now to end it, at least as far as they were concerned. And for Ian, however that happened to turn out for their friend, who couldn’t possibly still be alive but was definitely not dead.
So he forced himself to walk across his remarkably spartan living room toward the window. The crystal was cool—like just another normal rock—when he wrapped his fingers around it, and nothing weird happened. It was still a little hard to believe that DIY charcoal ink scribbled on a leather bag and his t-shirt, combined with this dull-looking stone, was enough to have kept him safe. Or relatively safe, at least. Ben didn’t really want to think about what might have happened if they hadn’t followed The Lesser Key’s directions at all or if Peter had screwed up any of the drawings. So he didn’t.
Ben Robinson didn’t really plan ahead. He wasn’t the kind of guy who knew what he was doing, who looked to the future much past the next week. He didn’t write down his schedule, or pick out his clothes the night before, or budget any of his income from school grants and work study—not that he had a lot to spend money on, anyway. But he felt a sudden need to be ready for tomorrow, or at least pretend he’d done everything he could. That pretty much just entailed returning the crystal to his pathetic excuse for a kitchen table, and then he tucked the thing into the leather messenger bag beside his drying t-shirt. Look at that. All neatly laid out and ready to go. Part of him wanted to chuck everything across the kitchen just to prove he could; the other part of him got a surprising burst of satisfaction from something he’d always thought so ridiculously meaningless.
With all that taken care of, he had a large pizza delivered, took the whole thing with him to the couch, and found something he could stand to watch on the comedy channel. He hadn’t expected it to be remotely possible, but Ben managed to forget, at least for a little while, that this might be the last time he’d ever watch TV.
The next morning, he woke in a complete panic. Not because Ian had come to him in another dream—he hadn’t—and not because of the impending trip back to Maine or the terror of having to step into that house of his own free will. The only thing in his head was the all-consuming dread of realizing April would be at his apartment today.
He’d told her he and Peter were leaving from his place. When he snatched his phone off the floor and glared at the screen, the first thing he saw was a text from April asking for his address. He sent it back to her, feeling a little stupid for not having done it already, and added ‘2:00’ at the end just so she didn’t really have an excuse to show up early. Hopefully, she’d take it as a courteous reminder and not get all bent out of shape by whatever hidden meaning she might drag out of a text. Still, admittedly, he’d meant it as a subtle please don’t come before 2:00. Then he looked at the time and jumped out of his bed. That was in three hours. He only had three hours. More panic.
Ben had absolutely no idea where to even begin. His clothes—all of them dirty, he was sure—were strewn about his room and made a trail out into the hall toward the bathroom. He could start there. It took him half an hour just to shove them all into his closet, and even then, the door gave him a little trouble before it would stay closed. The bathroom was disgusting—at least, he thought it was. It never really bothered him, but the dried mud on the linoleum floor and the toothpaste globs streaking the across the sink and the counter and the stains on and around the toilet boil couldn’t possibly serve as an enticing insight into Ben Robinson when he was alone.
His mom had given him a particularly biting gift basket when he’d moved into the dorms his freshman year. Yes, there had been other gifts and packages from his family, but she’d made a point of telling him he was on his own now, that he didn’t have anyone to clean up after him like he’d had for the last eighteen years, and that he was just going to have to learn to do it himself. The cleaning products still sat unopened in the hall closet a little over three years later. Honestly, scrubbing with Comet and bleach and Lysol wipes—when normally a wet paper towel would do the trick for the most part—felt more unnatural than drawing symbols on his chest or chanting ridiculous words out of a super old book. But if Peter made some jab at the cleanliness of Ben’s apartment, or lack thereof every time he came over—every time—there was no way he’d subject April to the same apparent foulness. Women cared a lot about that stuff, right?
It took him a minute to figure out why the vacuum wouldn’t actually pick anything up off the carpet. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d emptied the cannister, but when he did, the thing worked like new. All his books got stacked on the coffee table, and he filled two trash bags with pizza boxes and food that had gone bad at some point out of memory and gum wrappers and soda cans and whatever else happened to have piled up for who only knew how long. Those went to the dumpster, and the dishes… Well, he and Peter still had their differences, despite the fact that Ben was actually cleaning. He wasn’t about to wash everything by hand when his dishwasher worked perfectly well; in the back of his mind, he wondered just how well that was and whether or not a dishwasher could actually triumph over the food that had been stuck to some of dishes for whatever length of time he didn’t care to consider.
By the time Peter knocked on his front door at 1:40 and stepped inside, Ben was breathing heavily with sweat coating his forehead and neck, and all he wanted now was to sit for the rest of the day while someone else brought him a sandwich. His friend froze just inside the door, The Lesser Key of Solomon tucked under his arm, and slowly gazed from one end of the apartment to the other with wide eyes. “It smells like Pine-Sol in here.”
Yes, he just cleaned. Yes, he’d like to be greeted with something other than a flippant remark on his living habits—just once. Ben looked up at him from where he’d finished wiping the last of the sticky gunk off the floor, then stood. He grabbed the closest bottle of whatever thing he’d used to clean, then realized it was, in fact, Pine-Sol. “Hey, look at that.”
Peter let out a little choke and pulled out his inhaler for a quick puff. “You didn’t mix it with water, did you?”
Ben stared at him.
“Dude.” Peter stomped across the living room to open the far window, then came back to turn on the fan over the stove. “Didn’t know you were a nervous cleaner.”
Ben glared at the instructions on the bottle, wondering how he’d missed those completely. “Yeah, well, I didn’t really have anything else to do. Didn’t want to just sit around all day waiting for you.”
“Since when?” Peter quipped.
All right, fine. That was what he normally did. But he couldn’t bring himself right now to tell Peter he was expecting a third person to join them—a girl, named April, with whom Peter had pretty much specifically told him not to share any of this. Yeah, that could wait, even though he
was painfully aware of how much time he didn’t have left to shoot Peter even a little warning. “Shut up,” he said instead, then grabbed all the cleaning stuff and practically chucked it all under the kitchen sink.
“What were you doing with this?” Peter asked.
Ben turned to find his friend studying the bag and the white t-shirt on the table, with the jar of ink and the straw-quill still left out beside them. “Touchups.”
Peter cocked his head. “Touchups.”
“Yeah.” Ben joined him to point out where he’d added more ink the night before. “Something happened when Ebra took me through… whatever it was. All the ink was burning, kind of. Like glowing. The bag was fine afterward, but the stuff you drew on my shirt had cracks in it or something. Not all the lines connected. I didn’t want to risk going into battle with a broken shield.” Wow, did he really just use that metaphor?
With a hesitant breath, Peter finally looked up from their magical seals and cobbled-together ritual tools. “That was actually a really good idea.”
“It’s not like I’ve never had a good idea before.”
Peter shrugged and folded the shirt—folded it—before sticking it in the messenger bag beside the crystal. “Your parents know we’re coming back?” He added the leather strap turned belt and the demon-summoning book itself into the bag as well.
“Nope. You tell yours?”
Peter shook his head. “Figured I probably shouldn’t. My mom would probably find a way to blackmail us into coming over for dinner. Can’t really explain that one away.”
Ben smirked, then a light knock came at the front door. His stomach dropped all the way to his feet, and he thought his brain might explode. He couldn’t say anything when his friend turned to go answer the door; if he forced it now, he’d end up yelling loud enough for April to hear it out in the hallway. This was already weird enough.
He couldn’t see her from behind the open door, but he heard the well-masked surprise in her voice. “Oh, hi. I’m April.”
“Peter.”
“Nice to meet you.”
Peter just stood there with his hand on the doorknob.
“This is Ben’s apartment, right?”
Ben almost lurched toward the door to keep his friend from turning her away, but then Peter finally stepped back and let April inside. When the door closed, Peter scowled at the back of her head for a few seconds before turning the same glare onto Ben.
“Hey,” Ben said, realizing suddenly that he was already leaning against the kitchen counter with his arms folded—some automatic response of trying to look normal, maybe.
“Hi.” April flashed him a brilliant grin and stepped into the kitchen toward him. She set the to-go cup of coffee on the counter and wrapped her arms around him for a quick hug. It took everything Ben had not to look at Peter; he could feel the guy’s eyes on them both. “I know I’m a little early,” she added, tucking her hair behind her ear. “The traffic getting over here wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be.”
“That’s fine.” Thank god he’d finished cleaning and had had a few minutes already for the sweat to dry in his hair. He thought his shirt might still be a little damp, though.
“Can I use your bathroom real quick?”
“Uh, yeah. Door on the left.” He pointed down the short hallway.
“Thanks.”
Now he really couldn’t have been more relieved that he’d decided to scrub down his whole apartment. But the entire day so far was cutting everything just a little too close. He watched her until she disappeared into the bathroom.
“Why is she here?”
Ben’s head whipped around until he found Peter standing just inside the door, his arms folded across his chest. “Uh…”
“No.” Apparently, Ben didn’t have to say anything; Peter had already figured it out.
“Pete—”
“Seriously? You go on one date with this chick, and she’s part of the team now?”
Ben glanced down the hall again, hoping beyond hope that he was imagining the high volume of his friend’s complaints. “We’ve actually gone out a few times.” He walked toward Peter on the off-chance it might make him quieter. “And that party wasn’t a date. Wait, what team?”
“You told her, didn’t you?”
Ben had never seen that kind of disgusted grimace on his friend’s face. “I did, and I’ll tell you why, but you need to chill out.”
Peter shook his head. “Hey, I’m chill, man. I just have no idea what you’re doing.”
Ben took another quick step toward him and lowered his voice into a whisper. “She dreamed about us, dude. Like a dream that you and I were going back to a creepy old house. That’s what she said. You guys just met, but she described you perfectly when she told me about the dream.” Well, that was an exaggeration, but he didn’t think ‘this really pale guy’ would do him any favors right now.
“A dream.”
“Yeah.”
“Awesome.”
“I had dreams about Ian, and you believed me. How is this different?”
Peter let out a derisive snort. “Maybe ‘cause I actually know you. You don’t know anything about this girl.”
“I know enough.” Ben spread his arms. “And it’s not like we agreed we have to do this alone.”
“No. I just thought that was pretty obvious.”
“Dude, she asked to come—”
“Oh, so you think it’s a good idea to drag other people into this shit with us? Ruin her life too?” Peter jerked his head toward the bathroom.
Ben felt the knot of guilt tightening in his stomach, because Peter definitely had a point. But before he could say anything, the toilet flushed, and the sink’s faucet turned on in the bathroom. “She wants to help,” he said slowly. “Deal with it.”
They stared each other down until April stopped in the living room and completed their loose triangle. “Man, you really like the strong stuff for cleaning, don’t you?” She blinked and waved a hand in front of her face.
“I already opened a window,” Peter said, but his voice was completely flat and he didn’t take his eyes off Ben.
Of course she picked up on the tension. “You guys okay?”
Peter turned, snatched the messenger bag off the table, and stalked toward the door. He opened it swiftly but never shut it behind him, and Ben heard his shoes clomping down the stairs toward the parking lot. April turned toward him with a questioning frown, and Ben rolled his eyes up at the ceiling. “He’s just having a bad day.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah. Let’s go.” April grabbed her coffee off the counter, and he gestured for her to step out first. Then he closed the door behind him, turned the key in the lock, and wondered who’d be opening his door again if he didn’t come back.
18
Peter offered April the front seat, which Ben thought would make things even more awkward. But she declined, saying she liked to stick her legs up on the seat in the back when she went on long drives. This seemed to piss Peter off even more, which didn’t even make sense; he slammed the door closed when he slumped into the front seat. Ben knew his friend really wanted to chuck the messenger bag down by his feet and stomp on it, but he didn’t; with that, he was his normal, fairly gentle self.
The first twenty minutes were agonizingly silent, even after Peter punched a few buttons on the console and brought up some bluegrass station on the radio. April just sat in the back seat, drinking the rest of her coffee. Then she leaned forward a little. “You guys grew up in Maine, right?”
“Yeah.” Ben was grateful for the final break in the tension, even if it only worked for him and April. He briefly caught her gaze in the rear-view mirror.
“You know, I’ve only been to Portland,” she said. “That’s an awesome city.”
“We’re not going to Portland,” Peter said flatly, staring straight ahead out the windshield.
Ben looked at April again, and her reflection in the mirror raised an ey
ebrow and offered a little shrug. “We grew up in Oakwood Valley. Something between the boonies and a small city. It’s like a two-and-a-half-hour drive.”
“Oh, that’s kinda cool,” April said. “Not too far from home.”
“Not far enough, apparently.” Peter said it through his teeth, but it wasn’t exactly under his breath.
“Hey, do you need to, like, get some food or something?” Ben asked. If Peter was this much of a drag because of low blood sugar or whatever else the guy had to deal with, great. He’d pull over in a heartbeat. Two birds, and all that. Mostly, he just wanted to tell the guy to shut up without making himself look like a total jerk in front of April.
“Just drive.” Peter didn’t even look at him.
Ben ended up pulling over at the halfway mark because yes, he was starving. He hadn’t had any breakfast, choosing instead to start his morning with a balanced diet of overly strong cleaning-supply fumes. He grabbed two bags of beef jerky and a few bottles of iced tea while April got out to use the bathroom. The whole thing felt ridiculous—buying snacks and using the facilities like this was some kind of normal, everyday road trip back home. Only these college students were skipping class and abandoning their work to make the drive on a Thursday, two weeks before Thanksgiving break, to go traipsing into a demon-infested house to save their undead—was that what Ian was?—friend and hopefully not end up just another easily delivered feast. He really needed to stop thinking about it like that.
When he got back in the car, he handed one of the beef jerky bags and a bottle of tea to Peter, who took them both and nearly tore the beef jerky bag in half. He didn’t say anything, but it was probably because he’d crammed his mouth with dried beef and was obviously way too busy trying to chew his way out of it.
