With another pin, Trish jabbed the doll’s leg.
A sharp pain thrust through Jackie’s leg and hung there. “Ow!” Jackie grabbed the back of her knee. The pain was so intense she could barely stand.
“This is so cool,” Trish squealed. “Isn’t it fun to have powers, Jackie?”
Trish dangled the doll over a flame of one of the choir candles. Sweat trickled down Jackie’s forehead. She couldn’t believe that what Trish was doing was actually working. Trish was messing with her head, that’s what she was doing. Jackie took a deep breath to absorb the negative energy and then exhaled.
Father Dmitriev marched over to the candle rack and reached for the doll. “Enough of this. Give it to me.”
Trish raised it above her head. Dancing around him, she kept jerking it away from Father Dmitriev. “Want it?”
“Stop this nonsense,” Father Dmitriev said. “This is a house of God.”
“Sounds more like the House of Horrors from what I overheard.” She turned to look at Jackie. “I hope you burn in hell,” Trish said and kicked over the candle rack.
Father Dmitriev tried to catch the rack, but it fell against him. Candles toppled from the rack holders, catching his cassock on fire. Some of the flames caught onto the Oriental carpet beneath his feet.
Father Dmitriev, letting out nervous screams, swatted at his sleeves, but the flames consumed his cassock. Jason snatched one of the nave carpets and beat it against Father Dmitriev.
Trish tossed the doll into the fire.
Jackie’s skin seared. Shrieking, she dropped to the floor and rolled. She conjured thoughts of Babu, but in her mind’s eye, Babu burned too.
Before she could roll again, David was on his knees at her side. He pressed his hand to her forehead, but all she felt was her skin melting beneath a hot iron. She jerked her head away. “Make it stop! Make it stop!” She had to keep moving. She thrust her head from side to side. The pain was too much. She wanted to get up and run.
David gripped her shoulders. “Please. Let me help you.”
He began to chant in Latin.
She kicked and writhed and gnashed her teeth.
His energy, warm and exhilarating, seeped into her. In her mind’s eye she saw a single flame, a wick from a thin, red candle burning. The pain she felt was suddenly quelled.
Jason shoved David’s shoulder. “Get away from her. She’s fine.”
David didn’t budge. He gazed into her eyes.
“Get up,” Jason yelled.
She couldn’t move. She was spellbound by David’s energy, hypnotized by his gaze and the cosmic ring that glowed around his hazel, gold-flecked eyes.
David slowly rose.
It had taken a lot of will power for her to let go of his sleeve and to sit up.
Jason stooped beside her and touched her shoulder. She only knew this because she could see his hand. She couldn’t feel it. “You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah.” David’s energy gripped her until sirens cut through her haze.
Father Dmitriev was lying on the floor, his body twitching, covered in white foam. David, kneeling on a half-hardened puddle of candle wax, hovered over him.
“I put out the fire,” Jason said to her.
“Where’s Trish?” she asked, trying to divert his attention from the look on her face.
Jason grimaced. “She ran off. Can you stand up?”
“I don’t know.”
Jason put his arm under hers and helped her up.
Police, firemen, and paramedics rushed into the church.
Two paramedics tended to Father Dmitriev.
She was leaning on Jason when Detective Sikes approached them.
David sauntered over to them. Her eyes briefly met his.
“Jackie, what a surprise to see you again,” Detective Sikes said sarcastically. “How come when something big goes down in this town, you’re involved?”
She shrugged.
“I’m Detective Sikes,” he said to David and reached out to shake his hand. He glanced at the paramedics tending to Father Dmitriev and then turned his attention to Jackie, Jason, and David. “Want to tell me what happened?”
They each volunteered information, but none of them mentioned anything about the voodoo doll, just that Trish tried to burn the church down and that she had totally lost it.
“So why are you all here?” he asked.
“Uh… we,” Jackie began.
“We were just doing a little investigating.” David handed Detective Sikes his phone. “There’s a recorded confession of the fire on this phone. Not of this fire, but of the fire that burned Stephanie Yarrow and her unborn child alive.”
Jackie dropped her jaw. He was risking his chance of becoming a priest. What changed his mind?
Detective Sikes called over one of the police officers. “Evidence,” he said to him.
The officer pulled a plastic baggie out of his shirt pocket and held it open. Detective Sikes dropped the phone into the baggie.
“What’s going to happen to Trish?” Jason asked Detective Sikes.
“She’s a minor,” Detective Sikes said. “It’ll be up to the juvenile court system to decide. They may sentence her to time at a juvenile detention center, or they may just release her on probation. Fleeing the crime scene, though, isn’t going to help her case.”
“Neither is being a psycho. Can we go now?” Jackie asked Detective Sikes.
“Sure. If I have any more questions, I’ll have someone bring you down to the station. Same goes for you too, young man,” he said to Jason.
David looked at her with parted lips.
“I have a few more questions for you,” Detective Sikes said to David.
“Could you wait just one minute?” David said to him. “Jackie, can I talk to you before you leave?”
Panic rose in her chest. She shook her head. “I’m done here.”
Jason glared at David and put his arm around her shoulder. “Let’s go,” he said to her. As he escorted her out of the church, she picked up really bad vibes from him.
Chapter 47
In the truck, Jason clenched the steering wheel like he was squeezing someone’s throat. His aura was super dark.
“All right, Jas, say it,” Jackie said.
“Say what?”
“What’s on your mind?” Her intuition told her it had to do with David.
“You should know.”
“Oh, come on. Don’t assume I know everything.”
“You can read my emotions, so you tell me.”
She swallowed. Why was he making her say this? What if she was wrong and she opened up a whole can of worms? No, this could be the only thing that would make Jason not talk to her. He was jealous of David.
“Is it something I did in the church?” she asked.
“You’re getting warm.”
She tapped her fingers on the truck’s door arm. “Is it something that made you… jealous?”
“You’re getting hot.”
She stopped tapping. “Jason, quit playing games. Tell me, because as I remember, I was caught up in Trish’s thoughts.”
“Don’t play innocent.”
Ouch. Those “take charge” feelings she had sent him were still working.
“It was afterward, after Father David broke the spell,” he said.
“Don’t call him Father. He’s not a priest.”
“Looks like you changed his mind. He gave the police that recording.”
“That doesn’t mean…”
“I saw the look on your face after he let go of you. I saw how he had to unlock your fingers from his gown.”
“It’s a cassock, not a gown. He’s not a drag queen. And I don’t remember.” She knotted her fingers together. “I wasn’t myself.”
“Then who were you? Are you going to tell me that you were only feeling what David was feeling, that you were just this empty vessel being filled with David’s emotions?”
Her shoulders trembled. Why was he doing
this to her? Hadn’t she gone through enough today?
He parked in front of Jackie’s house.
She jerked the door handle, but the door didn’t open. She hit the lock-unlock button. Jason hit it too. “Jason, unlock the door.”
“No.”
“I need to lie down. Please, stop playing games.”
“I want to know. Do you love him, or me?”
She stared at the handle that kept failing to open the door. “Please, Jas.”
“You’re not leaving this truck until you tell me.”
She sighed. “Why is this so important now, at this very minute? Why can’t it wait until tomorrow?”
Jason rested his forehead on the steering wheel. “Because you’re my best friend, and I’m suffering so bad right now because I feel like you’re being torn away from me. I know I can’t make you love me, not romantically, but it’s killing me because I feel like I’m losing you.”
Tears pricked the corners of her eyes. She wanted to touch him, but she was afraid to.
“He pushed me down the stairs when I was three,” he said.
“Who?”
“My dad. He pushed me down the stairs. That’s why the stair thing.”
“Oh.” She didn’t know what more to say. He kind of caught her off guard with that one.
“You said you’d listen if I ever wanted to talk about it.” He raised his head. He looked so innocent, so fragile.
She was a monster for hurting him.
“Yeah. Thanks. I mean, thanks for confiding in me.”
“It’s easier now that Dad’s acting differently. He’s been going out of his way to be a nice guy. He helped me replace the catalytic converter on my truck. Before, the only thing he’d do was tell me to park this piece of shit out of his way.”
“Good. I’m glad it’s working out for you.”
“Thanks for your help.”
“You’re welcome.” She pressed the lock-unlock button. The sound of it unlocking was a relief, but the sound of it locking was not.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he said.
Ugh! She took a deep breath. “I told you before. I don’t even know who I am or what my true feelings are.”
Jason looked at her with contempt. He hit the button and unlocked the door.
Great. Was he letting her go just for now or for good? She opened the door just a crack. She wanted to tell him she was sorry for the way she acted around David. She wanted to tell him how much she cared about him, and how she hated herself for hurting him.
“You were right about one thing,” he said. “You are a liar.”
His words slapped her in the face, and the impact made her eyes sting. Pushing open the truck door, she tried to hold back tears.
“We belong together, and you know it,” he said.
She got out of the truck and slammed the door, not because she was angry at him, but because her emotions were out of control.
She ran up the front lawn steps, tears streaming down her face.
On the front porch, she dried her face with the edge of her trench coat and tried to get a hold of her emotions before she went into the house. Her hands shook as she worked the key into the door lock. As she turned the doorknob, the handle turned on its own evading her grip, and the door opened.
“Jackie,” Mom cried out. “Where were you? I was so worried.”
Jackie’s eyes were tender and the skin beneath them, raw. She knew it looked like she had been crying.
Mom opened her arms. “Come here, sweetie.” As Mom hugged her, she noticed a man, about thirty-something—early thirty-something—sitting on the living room couch with a boy, who couldn’t be older than two, on his lap.
“Mom,” she said, her voice muffled because half of her mouth was pressed against Mom’s arm. “Who’s that?”
Mom took Jackie’s hand. “Let me introduce you. Jackie, this is my friend Andy and his son Mathew. Andy, this is my daughter Jackie.”
Andy reached out to shake her hand while his son tugged at his beard. “I’m so glad to finally meet you. Your mother was a little hesitant about introducing us.”
“Insecure,” Mom spouted.
He laughed.
Jackie stood there like a dope, her mouth hung open. She knew Mom had a boyfriend, but she hadn’t expected him to be this young.
“What funny, Daddy? What funny?” the little boy said.
Andy lifted his boy’s shirt and blew raspberries onto his plump tummy. “That’s funny.”
Jackie’s eyes grew wide, and she looked at Mom.
Mom shrugged and smiled.
“Andy, it was nice meeting you too,” Jackie said. “Uh, sorry I look like”—watch your mouth, little boy in the room—“heck. I’m sure Mom told you I had quite a day with my headache.”
“How is your headache?” Mom asked.
“Gone, miraculously.”
“What could have caused such a headache?” She turned to Andy. “You should have seen her this morning. She couldn’t even keep down coffee.”
“Migraine,” Andy said. “My ex-wife used to get those all the time.”
“If you’ll excuse me,” Jackie said, “I need to soak in the tub.”
“Yeah, sure,” Andy said. “I’m glad you’re home safe. Your mother was worried to death. She’s quite a woman, you know.”
“Yeah.” She must be for landing you, even though you come with a side package.
Babu hobbled from the kitchen. When Babu saw her, she clenched her hands together, closed her eyes, and mumbled.
“I’m still alive,” Jackie said to Babu.
Babu crossed herself, and weakly smiled at her. The light around Babu was dim, and she looked tired.
***
In the bathroom, with cold cream packed on her face, Jackie slid into the warm tub water until it touched her chin. The water rocked her shoulders and splashed against the sides of the tub. The sound of moving water echoed in her ears and rang with Jason’s voice calling her a liar. She closed her eyes to let Babu’s light overtake her, but her thoughts shifted to Mom and her boyfriend—her young boyfriend.
No wonder Mom had been acting so strangely. Why was she trying to keep it a secret? Was Mom trying to protect her, or was Mom confused, like her? Maybe she just wasn’t sure about how she felt, or maybe she was afraid it just wasn’t real.
Jackie hoped it was real for Mom. She wished Mom the best. She really did. As much as she wished her parents would get back together, that things would be back to the way they were before she had her first vision, and that her father would love her as she is, Jackie was old enough to know that was never going to happen. Mom may as well move on.
What’s real for me?
What’s real was David set her heart soaring whenever she was around him. And whenever she left him, she carried his energy. She felt it now and knew she couldn’t possibly be reading his vibes because he wasn’t physically with her.
And Jason—her best friend in the whole world, her other half—she needed him in her life. And it was her wanting that, not him feeding her those thoughts because he wasn’t here right now either.
What was real was she didn’t belong with David. She could never become the person he wanted her to be. It was Jason who accepted her as she was. It was Jason with whom she felt comfortable and whom she couldn’t imagine living without.
***
In bed, dressed in her black fleece, Jackie called Jason. Everything that had happened to her today—the whole voodoo doll incident and Father Dmitriev fessing up to his crime—seemed insignificant compared to the tension between her and Jason.
When Jason didn’t answer, she swallowed back a heavy feeling in her throat. A sharp pain shot through her heart.
She called him again. This time, she let it ring longer. She wouldn’t blame him if he never talked to her. He was right. She was a liar. She hadn’t been true to her feelings. She had been so afraid to connect with other people and to accept herself as she was.
No answer.
Screw it! She tossed the phone to the foot of the bed and plopped her head into the pillow. Let him be angry. She was tired of being judged. She was tired of judging herself.
“Jackie,” Mom yelled.
“What?”
“Your friend is outside, on the lawn,” she said.
Jackie scrambled out of bed and into the hall. “Who?”
Mom looked up at her from the bottom of the stairs. “He’s… well… take a look.”
What friend? Her stomach knotted.
Downstairs, Jackie parted the living room curtain. In the gray dusk light and drizzling rain, stood Jason, a lit candle in one hand and a sign that read, “Heal me” in the other.
“Huh.”
“Is everything all right?” Mom asked.
“Maybe.”
Jackie threw on her trench coat and ran out the door.
“Your shoes,” Mom said.
Jackie’s bare feet smacked against the wet steps and trotted through the cold, sopping grass. She stood in the drizzling rain before Jason, her coat open, her hands clenched.
The candle’s flame illuminated the glassy whites in Jason’s eyes. His face was pale; the hollow in his throat, deep. Drops of rain dripped from the tips of his wet hair and rolled down the shoulders of his leather jacket.
She squeezed her hands until her nails cut into her palms. “I lied, Jason. I lied because I was scared.”
Jason drew the sign close to his chest like a shield.
“I’m still scared.”
“Heal me.” Jason’s face was wet. From rain or tears, she couldn’t tell.
She closed her eyes and dug deep for the only words that were right to say. Forcing them from her lips, she faltered at first, but then they came out coherent and clear. “I love you.”
She opened her eyes and assessed the damage.
“It’s killing me,” he said.
She touched his face. “I’m so sorry.”
Possessed (Pagan Light Book 1) Page 21
