Death and the Girl Next Door

by Darynda Jones

  Cameron shrugged, clearly ashamed. “They’re all scared of me.”

  Well, that certainly fit the story Glitch had told us a few days earlier. But still. This was getting ridiculous. Cameron’s dad tousled his hair, and I would’ve smiled if I weren’t considering ritualistic murder.

  “Now, Grandma, Grandpa,” I said, contemplating each in turn, “what is going on? How do you know about Jared?”

  “Maybe I should make some coffee,” Grandma said, but Betty Jo beat her to it. As others set out food and drink for the masses—the Sanctuary liked nothing better than gathering and eating—Sheriff Villanueva and Mr. Lusk brought in more chairs.

  “Grandpa?” I asked, begging him with my eyes. There were too many secrets. Too many unknowns. I just wanted to find my place in the world. And Jared’s, because I really wanted him to stay. “How do you know what Jared is?”

  “Sweetheart,” he began, his mouth a grim line, “this all goes back to way before you were born.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “When your mother first met your father, she came home with such tales, we honestly thought she’d been brainwashed by some kind of religious cult.”

  Jared bowed his head as Grandpa spoke, listening intently. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but after everything he’d told me, how could this be any worse? Or any more bizarre? I’d learned more in the last week than I’d ever known in my life. There really was an Angel of Death? Cameron was a Nephilim? I was supposedly descended from a line of mystical women? Really, how much more surreal could it get? I refocused on Grandpa.

  “But they moved back here after they married and we were just thrilled to have them home. That’s when your father introduced us to an ancient society of followers who believed that not only was there a war in the heavens between what we consider good and evil, but that it would spill out one day onto the surface of Earth. That because of the actions of one man, the one we refer to as the Antichrist, the battle would eventually be fought here, angels and mortals would join forces, and a prophet would be born to lead us to victory.”

  “It took your father a while to convince us,” Grandma added. “But many things he said would come to fruition actually did. He explained he was the descendant of a powerful prophet by the name of Arabeth, and that before she died, she had predicted these battles. Each generation in the line waited for the next prophet to be born, for the girl made of fire to lead them.”

  “So, Mom and Dad knew what I was when I was born?” I asked in disbelief.

  “Yes, honey,” Grandma said. “We’ve been studying the teachings of the order for years. Reading ancients texts that predicted the rise of the Antichrist, your birth, the battle. The signs were all there that a prophet would be born, the exact phenomena Arabeth described. And that’s when the archangel Jophiel visited your mother, Cameron.”

  Cameron’s jaw tightened as the attention shifted toward him.

  “That’s when we knew for certain what was about to happen,” Grandpa added. “She was very honored to have been chosen, and even more honored to have been your mother.”

  He offered a curt nod, and I was thrilled. A nod, curt or otherwise, was better than his signature glower. Maybe there was hope for him yet.

  “When you were born,” Grandpa said to me, “there was such celebration. Many more believers moved to Riley’s Switch and the Sanctuary, or the Order of Sanctity as it’s traditionally called, grew.”

  “And then,” Grandma said, her face growing somber, “the unthinkable happened.”

  The parishioners stopped what they were doing to listen, each one sidling closer. To watch. To gauge my reaction.

  “You started having visions when you were two,” she continued. “And you saw the most amazing things, but you also saw things that terrified you, things you couldn’t possibly have understood.”

  Grandpa took her hand. “When you were six, you kept having this one vision over and over. You said the afternoon sky was ripping open and that night was flooding in.”

  I gulped in remembrance. I’d been dreaming that very thing for years, of a tear in the sky and darkness flooding the earth.

  “You remember, don’t you?” Grandpa asked.

  “Kind of.” I shook my head. “But that wasn’t real.”

  As though sensing my distress, or perhaps the distress that was yet to come, Jared covered my hand with his. Both my grandparents watched as I laced our fingers together, but they didn’t say anything. I did notice a few shaken faces in the crowd, but that couldn’t be helped.

  “Yes, pix,” Grandpa said, “it was very real. What you saw was literally the gates of Hell being opened.”

  I straightened in my chair, and Jared tightened his grip.

  “Someone, and we still don’t know who, opened them.”

  Brooklyn’s mother spoke then. “And we believe he had the power to summon demons.”

  I peeked at Jared, but he refused to meet my eyes, his jaw tight, waiting.

  Grandpa nodded. “You saw it. You were six years old, and you saw the gates of Hell being opened. Your mom and dad rushed to where you led them. They tried to stop it, to stop him, but it was too late.”

  “We believe that by the time they arrived,” Grandma continued, “hundreds of dark spirits had been unleashed upon the earth.”

  I sat stunned as I listened.

  “Not demons, mind you,” Grandpa said. “There’s a difference. But whoever had the power to open the gates also had the power to summon a demon. And he did. He summoned the demon Malak-Tuke by name.”

  Something quaked inside me at the mention of that name. A name I didn’t even recognize. I shook my head, an all-consuming dread spreading into every corner of my mind. “How can you know that?”

  Grandpa frowned. “Because you told us.”

  That was impossible. I didn’t remember anything of the sort.

  “Why would anyone summon a demon?” Brooklyn asked, the disbelief plain on her face.

  After a deep sigh, Grandpa said, “To be taken.”

  “Taken?” I glanced at Jared, then back to Grandpa. “What does that mean?”

  “When someone is possessed by a demon, and that someone knows how to control it through spells and incantations, that person becomes very, very powerful. We believe he was purposely inviting Malak-Tuke, Lucifer’s second in command, to possess him.”

  Brooklyn spoke as though from a dream. “Is that what happened to me?” She focused on Cameron, who clearly knew more than we did. “Jared said I was taken. Was I possessed?”

  Brooklyn’s mother scooped her hands into her own. “Not by a demon, honey,” she said, rushing to reassure her. “You were possessed by a dark spirit.”

  “It’s why we moved here in the first place,” her father said. “The Sanctuary knew how to help you when we didn’t.”

  “Oh, my god, I remember,” she said, thinking back. “I remember being prayed over and”—her shimmering eyes found Grandpa—“and you freeing me.”

  A sad smile slid across Grandpa’s face as Brooke’s parents wrapped her in their arms.

  “When you couldn’t recall what happened afterwards,” her dad said, “we didn’t feel the need to tell you, to bring all that up again.”

  Brooke sobbed into her mom’s jacket, then stopped suddenly, as though she’d had an epiphany. She glanced at Cameron and socked him on the arm.

  He rubbed it, pretending it hurt, then said with a frown, “What’d I do?”

  “That’s why my aura’s different, isn’t it?”

  “Her aura?” her mom asked.

  Cameron shrugged. “Yeah, but it’s not a bad different. It’s just a different.”

  “Do you remember what it was like?” Glitch asked in awe.

  She shook her head. “I don’t. I can’t remember a thing about it other than having bad dreams and being prayed over.” She turned to my grandparents. “You saved me.”

  “No,” Grandma said, “your mom and dad saved you. If they
hadn’t brought you here, you wouldn’t have survived much longer. You were barely alive as it was.”

  “Unlike demons,” her dad said, “dark spirits don’t have much of an agenda other than causing pain and wreaking havoc.”

  She hugged them again as I stewed in a numb, soupy kind of silence. Brooke was possessed when she moved here? I couldn’t help but wonder if she was saved before or after our throw down.

  “We have maps,” the sheriff said to Jared. “We think we know where the majority of the dark spirits went. They left quite a trail to follow.”

  Jared nodded. “I’ll need them.”

  “Wait,” I said, putting a stop to the strategic planning committee. “We can prepare for World War Three later. What happened to Mom and Dad?” I gave my grandparents the once-over, trying very hard not to be bitter. Had they known all this time? And they let me believe they’d just disappeared?

  “We’re not absolutely certain, honey,” Betty Jo said when they didn’t answer right away.

  Was everyone in Riley’s Switch in on this? I felt like a complete idiot.

  “From what we’ve been able to piece together,” she continued, “your father tried to close the gates while your mother tried to protect you from the dark spirits coming through. And then they were just gone.”

  “That’s when it stopped,” Grandma said. “Everything stopped. And as far as we can tell, you haven’t had a vision since.”

  “Are you kidding?” Glitch scoffed. “She has visions all the time.”

  “What?” Grandma’s surprise quickly turned to hope. Her face brightened with it. But she was wrong about me. Everyone was wrong. They had to be.

  “I have visions,” I admitted, vowing to stab Glitch later, “but they’re stupid. They don’t make sense.”

  Grandma and Grandpa smiled at each other. They were going to be so disappointed.

  I took in Jared from underneath my lashes. He still had a death grip on my hand, and I knew this wasn’t over. I sighed aloud and tried to fill in the blanks. “What about me?” I looked up at Grandpa. “I was taken too, wasn’t I?”

  His breath hitched, and he hesitated. Then, with his posture wilting, he whispered, “Yes.”

  My lids slammed shut. I knew it. Deep down inside, I knew I’d been taken just like Brooke, only I didn’t remember being prayed over like she’d been. I didn’t remember the release of freedom, the purity of being cleansed.

  “We tried for a year,” Grandma said, her face despondent, forlorn. “We did everything.”

  “It was like you’d absorbed it,” Grandpa said. Then he stabbed me with a look of encouragement. “You were stronger than it, pix. It never controlled you. You always controlled it.”

  I took a mental inventory of everything I’d learned, including the gates of Hell opening, the impending battle, the possession. But still Jared clung to me, waiting, anticipating.

  And then the truth dawned.

  I closed my eyes, took a soft breath, then whispered, “It’s still in me.” When nobody argued, I opened my eyes and let reality sink in. “I’m still possessed.”

  Every gaze in the room suddenly had somewhere else to be. I stood and placed my free hand over my heart, fear suddenly gripping me to a blinding degree.

  “I want it out,” I said, losing the fragile hold I had on my sanity. “I want it out, now.”

  “It’s too strong,” Jared said, speaking at last, his voice airy with regret. “If we exorcise it now, it will kill you. It will fracture your soul and leave you for dead. If your grandparents had succeeded, you would not be here today. And they probably wouldn’t be either.”

  “But they got one out of Brooke. I don’t…” Then it hit me. The looks of despair. The air of hopelessness. I focused on what Brooke’s mom had said and stared at everyone aghast. “The man who opened the gates of Hell had the power to summon demons.” I swallowed hard. “It’s a demon. I was possessed by a demon.”

  Again, no one argued.

  I stumbled back, remembering the vision I’d had of Jared, the one in which he’d been fighting a demon. A huge beast with razorlike talons and sharp, shimmering teeth. “The man summoned Lucifer’s second in command to be taken by him, but he took me instead.”

  “I’m so sorry, honey,” Grandpa said, his voice cracking with sorrow, “we tried everything.”

  But I barely heard him. The idea of having something so heinous inside me, so incredibly evil, reminded me of the nightmares I used to have of being covered in bugs. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get them all off.

  “And now you know all there is to know,” Jared said, regret thickening his voice. “You know my trespasses. If you had died, Lorelei, if you had gone to Heaven, you would have been freed. But I brought you back. I broke the law. And now you are the one who has to pay the price.”

  I stood and tried to leave, suddenly unable to breathe in the cramped, crowded space, but Jared stood as well and placed a hand on the back of my chair, blocking my path.

  “I told you she didn’t need to know,” Cameron said under his breath. “It’s not always better knowing the truth.”

  I placed a hand on Jared’s chest. “I just need some air.”

  “Lorelei,” Brooke said, her eyes saucers of shock and fear, “we can figure this out.”

  Her concern crushed me. What could they do? What could any of them do?

  I ducked under Jared’s arm. He didn’t stop me.

  “Wait,” Glitch said. “You’re not alone, Lor. We’re in this together.”

  I looked back at him. “Not this time.” When I got to the door leading to the store, it wouldn’t budge. I felt a surge of energy, as though Jared had released it, then slid it open.

  “Lorelei,” Grandma said, but when I turned back to her, she wilted under my pleading stare. Clearly, she had no healing balm for demon possession.

  “Don’t just let her go,” Glitch said, jumping to his feet. “Why did you release the door?”

  “I didn’t,” I heard Jared say.

  With hurt and despair pushing me forward, I strode through the store to the front door. As I shoved it open, I heard Cameron arguing with Jared. “Just let her be alone for a while,” he said to him.

  For once we were on the same page.

  THE DEVIL INSIDE

  How could I not know? All this time, all these years, and I knew nothing of supernatural beings, of prophecies and secret meetings going on right under my nose. How could I not know that Brooke had been possessed? That I was still possessed? From what I’d gathered, if a dark spirit possessed someone, it could be exorcised. But if a demon possessed someone, the odds were apparently in its favor. Which sucked.

  I’d planned to walk around the store and go into the woods to think, to breathe, but I made it as far as our dirt parking lot when I began replaying the past in my mind. I remembered seeing it, the gate, like a bolt of lightning that had been split down the center, hovering in the afternoon sky while night seeped out of it. Only it wasn’t night. The oily thick blackness that leaked into the bright sky was in fact hundreds of dark spirits escaping onto our plane.

  I sank to my knees as the memory took hold, as I saw it from my six-year-old eyes. The bright edges of the gate, the rip in the fabric of reality. I didn’t know what it was. I remembered being utterly confused by what I was seeing and the look of panic on my parents’ faces when I described it. My father, so handsome and strong with his red hair and scraggly stubble. And my mother, so absolutely beautiful. She had long cinnamon hair. I would play with it for hours, brushing it, braiding it.

  While Dad would grill his famous hot dogs or whistle a tune as he watered the grass, she would read fairy tales to me. Only they weren’t fairy tales. I realized now my parents were preparing me, telling me story after story of the legends that had been passed down for centuries, cultivated through the lineage of the prophet Arabeth. Stories of heroes and champions. And they believed I would join the ranks of such adventurers. As though it were that simpl
e. As though I were capable.

  I recoiled inside myself as my parents’ last day on earth materialized in my mind. With a burst of light, I saw us by the ruins of the ancient Pueblo missions outside Riley’s Switch. My father stood reading from a book as a gale-force wind tossed him to his knees, his strength minuscule in comparison.

  “He’ll do it, pix,” Mom said as she held me tight behind a clump of bushes. “He’ll close the gates, don’t worry.”

  But I was completely focused on the dark shadows that darted past us, each one nothing more than a blur before it disappeared over the hills, slithering along the ground like a vaporous snake.

  Mom began chanting something, but I didn’t understand the words. She closed her eyes, clutching me to her as her hair whipped around her head in a frenzy. Then everything stopped. The wind. The noise. Mom lifted her head and looked back for a split second. An instant later, we ran. She stumbled to her feet, her hold like a vise around my waist, and headed for the car.

  She spoke words of encouragement, but I knew they were just as much of a lie as the calm was. I’d looked over her shoulder. I saw what she’d seen. The splinter in the sky was now circular, the clouds around it swirling like an angry tornado. With a loud crack, the wind picked us up and threw us to the side.

  Mom lost her footing and we crashed to the ground. But she didn’t give up. Crawling on her knees, she fought the windstorm with all her strength. We were almost to the car, her hand straining for the door handle when she stopped. I heard soft gasps as she disentangled my limbs and tried to literally shove me under the car. I remembered the tears staining her cheeks, her hair falling over her face, her eyes wide with uncertainty. The last word she uttered was a mere whisper.

  “Hide,” she said a microsecond before she was ripped away.

  I’d been clutching on to her shirt and was jerked forward with the force. I stumbled and fell, the space where she once stood so completely empty.

  The winds howled around me when I crawled to my knees and looked up to search for her. But a beast stood before me instead. A monster as tall as a tree. He studied me, waiting, and my hands curled into fists. My teeth welded together as I fought the sting of my hair whipping into my eyes.