by J. E. Taylor
Michael’s jaw tightened.
“I will make sure they are safe,” Levi said from behind Michael, his deep baritone voice nearly shaking the walls in the cottage.
“Thank you,” CJ said to Leviathan and then nodded for me to follow him outside.
“Maybe they should go west anyway,” I said before he unlocked the garage and lifted the door.
CJ neglected to answer, but the dusty little BMW roadster took my focus away from what I had been saying anyway.
“Are we taking that?” I pointed at the sporty little car, and a thrill of excitement raced over my skin.
The way he grinned reminded me of Alex, and my heart stalled in my chest for a blink before it resumed beating. His smile faded just as quickly. Sadness flared in his eyes, and he looked away, busying himself with toweling off the dust.
“This was Steve’s car,” he said, referring to the man who had adopted him and Tom. “When he died, we brought it here.”
I stared as each swipe cleared off a crystal blue patch. When he finished with the outside, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys, then held them out to me.
“Can you move our van out of the way?” He pointed at the van blocking the garage.
“Sure.” I took the keys and moved the van to the other side of the driveway behind Michael’s car. When I stepped back into the garage, I asked, “Is this the only set of keys you have?”
He looked out from the passenger seat. “Hmm?”
“For the van. Does Val have keys, too?”
“Yes. We each have a set.” He climbed out of the car and took the keys from me. “I need to charge the battery.”
He dropped the dust-ridden rag on the workbench in the back of the garage and took a seat on the driver’s side of the car. He moved the manual gear to the center before he made sure the emergency brake was tight.
He got out and held the door for me. “When I tell you to turn the car on, press the brake and turn the key.” He pointed at the manual shift. “Don’t touch the gears.”
“Yes, sir,” I said and saluted at the bark in his command.
“Don’t be a wise ass.” He closed the door on me and walked to the front, then popped the hood.
The air tingled around me, and I realized CJ was using his energy to charge the battery and not jumper cables. My mouth dropped open.
“Turn the car over,” he said.
I turned the key, and the engine whined before puttering out.
“Turn it off again,” CJ called from the front.
I could see a little of the engine under the hood opening. CJ’s hands came into view a few times, and then that familiar twang of energy filled the air. I felt it hum through the car frame itself.
“Again,” he called.
I turned the key, and this time the engine roared to life. The entire car rumbled with it and I smiled. CJ slammed the hood shut and came around to the driver’s door.
“Let it run while I go pack a few things.” He peeked at the gas gauge and then turned, leaving me to rev the engine like a race car driver at the starting line.
I studied the interior of the car. CJ hadn’t done a very good job cleaning, so I reached over and opened the glove box, hoping to find a stash of napkins. What sat in the dark space made me sit up fast. A nine-millimeter gleamed in the small space. Underneath it sat a stack of white fast-food restaurant napkins, and I gingerly pulled out a couple.
I polished the dashboard and the inside of the windshield, wiping away the rest of the dust that CJ had missed and then sat back, studying my more diligent work. My gaze dropped to the stick shift. I studied the gears tattooed on the shift head, memorizing where reverse was in relation to the rest.
Tom’s truck had been an automatic, and so had my mother’s car. I’d never driven a manual shift, and the thought filled me with both apprehension and exhilaration.
I closed my eyes and rifled through the cabinet of Tom’s memories. Steve had taught both Tom and CJ how to drive a standard transmission when they were fifteen.
By the time CJ came out to the car with his bag and a few other items, I felt like I could implement the instructions I’d seen in Tom’s memories. I guess CJ knew I had been looking at my stash again, because instead of taking over the driver’s seat after he closed the trunk, he went directly to the passenger seat and belted himself in. He handed me a cell phone.
“Since yours is shot. I figured Alex won’t mind.” He nodded towards the phone. “The passcode is six-seven-one.”
I stared at the phone, and my throat tightened. I slid it in my pocket while he programmed his with the first address we were heading to. When he finished, he lifted an eyebrow and waved towards the gear shift as if to say be my guest.
“Oh.” I didn’t expect him to really let me drive this car. “Really?” I asked after a tense second.
“Yes. Most kids these days don’t have a clue how to drive a standard. It’s a good thing to know, especially if something happens to me. You won’t be stranded. So, go ahead. Drive.”
I blinked, unsure of where to start. His approach to teaching me to drive was very different than Tom’s. Tom had walked through every little thing. CJ just waved me ahead like anything he would say would fall on deaf ears.
He crossed his arms. “You were pretty confident you could do this. Besides, me repeating Steve’s instructions would just irritate you.” He taunted me with pursed lips as if challenging me to say otherwise.
Unnerved by his honesty, I adjusted the seat and mirrors and took a deep breath. I pushed down on the clutch and brake, released the emergency brake, and pressed down on the gear shift, moving it down and to the right, mimicking the sign for reverse on the shift. The leather grips on the steering wheel felt foreign as did pressing something with my left foot. I released the brake and put my right foot on the gas. The engine revved, and I released the clutch.
The car lurched backwards, and once I was clear of the cars, I turned the wheel and pressed the clutch back in. I found first gear at the farthest left forward gear and did the same with the gas and clutch. Except this time, the car jerked and sputtered. The engine stalled.
Dimples appeared in CJ’s cheek, and he looked away. “It’s not as easy as it seemed, is it?”
“No,” I said and wiped my face.
“There’s a cadence between the clutch and the gas. As you are releasing the clutch, you press on the gas at the same velocity. Sometimes fast shifts like you just tried to do will stall the engine, especially between backing up and going forward again or vice versa.”
His cocky tone made me want to wipe that amused smile off his face. Mensa or not, he could be annoying.
“Clutch in and turn on the car again.” He waved to the keys.
This time when I released the clutch, I did it slower and pushed the gas at the same pace. The rolling start was smooth. Shifting to second was easy, too. I didn’t stall out once on our way to the highway.
“Are we meeting Josh?” I asked.
“No, we’re driving. I need the time to get my head around this.” He glanced out the window, much more relaxed than Tom had ever been when I was in the driver’s seat. He smiled at me. “In case you hadn’t noticed, Tom and I have very different personalities.”
“Yeah. You’re cocky confident, and he was always second-guessing himself.”
The mood in the little car sobered, and he nodded. “Tom was always more wild and daring than I ever was, though.”
“And yet you went after Lucifer by yourself,” I reminded him.
“Yep. I was young and stupid, thinking because I had all this power inside me, that I could win against a graceless Lucifer. I never bet on him having an army of demons at his disposal.”
“Do you think if it was just the two of you, you would have won?”
He stared out the windshield with his brow scrunched. He rubbed his right arm, shivering at his own memories. “I don’t know.” He glanced at me. “There are too many ifs there. If there we
ren’t demons. If I had been able to use my power on his turf. If I had known I had angel fire in me. Way too many ifs to be able to give you any sort of intelligent answer beyond the fact that if Damian hadn’t shown up when he did, I would have died.”
My heart plummeted. If he didn’t believe he could have won back then…
“Stop that.” His glare shut down my thoughts more than his admonishment. His jaw tightened. “You need to learn to shut off access to your thoughts.”
I concentrated on driving. “Why?”
“Because if you don’t, Lucifer will know you are around. Some of his demons will, too. I know Valerie explained static to you. But I don’t think she told you how to block someone from your thoughts.”
“We were kind of more focused on getting the memories in my head sorted.”
He let out a small laugh. “I guess that was a little more pressing,” he conceded under his breath. “Well, think of this as another lesson in self-preservation.” He rubbed his hands together.
“Should you be driving for this?” I asked.
“No. Concentrating on driving as well as thinking about multiple things will help. Thoughts are normally linear. That’s why they flood our heads if we aren’t concentrating on something or someone. I’m sure you’ve experienced the magnitude of noise assaulting your brain if you don’t focus.”
My mind drifted to the subway and the sheer volume of voices I’d heard in my head. Concentrating on Kylee had saved my sanity.
“Exactly. And I know you’ve heard nothing from me unless I’ve let my guard down, or I’ve been too overwhelmed with something to consciously create static.”
I nodded. “Alex could do that, too, and it frustrated me not knowing what was on his mind.”
“He’s very good at blocking me. He’s probably the only one who I can’t break through his barrier when it’s up even if I wanted to. But then again, he is my son.”
I sighed and scanned the traffic ahead of us. That hollowness inside me grew, and my stomach fluttered with angst. “How are we going to save him?”
“We have six hours to think about that before we get to Willard Asylum. In the meantime, you need to learn to cloak your thoughts.”
“Think of multiple things at once?” I asked and he nodded. I wasn’t sure that was possible, but I concentrated on driving as well as tossing around how to save Alex and lamented on what he would be like if we did free him from Lucifer.
I glanced at CJ, and his lips formed the perfect scowl as he shook his head. “It’s still linear.”
“How do you think of more than one thing at a time? It’s impossible!” My exasperation filled the small space in the car.
CJ drummed his fingers on the dashboard. “I don’t know how to explain it beyond thinking about more than one thing at a time. I think it’s just so ingrained in us that it’s second nature.” He wiped his face. “Steve used to say to treat your mind like a three-dimensional cube, and each side has its own thought track all working at the same time but focused on different things. It’s more like solving complex puzzles at the same time as having an in-depth political conversation where your focus is split between the two equally.” He sighed and shrugged.
“So, if I constantly did mathematical problems, would that work?”
“Maybe. But you have to be thinking of other things at the same time as the math problem. Take the next exit,” he said and pointed.
I changed lanes and took the exit without hitting anyone. The engine started sputtering as I slowed on the curve. I quickly shifted down, and it smoothed out. At least I didn’t stall on the exit ramp. Heat filled my cheeks, and I focused on shifting through the gears as I quickly caught up with the flow of traffic.
“I was going to give this car to Alex when he graduated,” CJ said as he studied the scenery passing by.
A lump formed in my throat, and I couldn’t swallow it. Tears blinded me, and I blinked them away. “He would have loved it.” I choked on the words.
He just nodded, never looking away from the scenery.
The quiet of his mind left me to my own morbid thoughts I knew he was privy to, but I couldn’t block them now that CJ had said his name.
I prayed we would be able to save Alex, even though deep down, I knew it was only a futile, desperate wish.
Chapter 5
The sign for a rest area in a mile caught my attention. I needed a break, and the gas tank was nearly empty. CJ hadn’t said anything for a while. The only thing he did was send a text to Valerie to see how the kids were.
When I pulled off, he glanced at me.
“We need gas.” I pulled up to the gas tanks and put the car in neutral, set the brake, then turned the car off and handed him the keys.
“First gear,” he said and pointed at the gears. “Always put it in first gear after you turn it off when you are on a flat surface or going uphill, so it doesn’t roll away.”
I did as he asked and then headed inside to use a restroom. The scent of breakfast meats and home fries from the adjoining fast food restaurant made my mouth water, but I went the opposite direction to the bathrooms.
When I came out of the restroom, CJ was leaning on the wall waiting for me.
“I’m hungry. I figured you might need some fuel too.” He nodded toward the food court and herded me into the line for exactly what got my stomach growling. Instead of taking our meals to the car, he took me to a seat near the window in a quiet section of the restaurant.
We ate in silence, and when he finished, he leaned back in the seat. “If Lucifer still has his soul in that necklace, we may have a chance.”
I sipped my smoothie because I wasn’t ready to discuss this yet. Every scenario I tried to work out in my mind ended with Alex dead. I couldn’t see my way around this puzzle. Besides, if I started talking about it after eating two egg-and-cheese sandwiches and a mountain of home fries, my stomach would turn into a burning mess of anxiety.
“Fine,” he mumbled under his breath and collected the garbage. He left me at the table and threw the load of crumpled paper into the receptacle. When he returned, he stayed standing. “Before we leave this parking lot, you need to see if the boots I grabbed of Valerie’s fit you.”
I blinked up at him. “Why didn’t you just grab mine?”
“Because yours don’t have built-in sheaths for a particularly sharp knife that could erase you from existence if you cut yourself by accident.” He crossed his arms.
I had forgotten about the knife, and the reminder of it was just as unwelcomed as discussing ways to save Alex. I nodded and focused on the creamy coolness of my smoothie, ignoring his impatient stare.
When my drink was gone and I sucked air through the straw, I stood, dropped my empty cup in the garbage, and followed him out to the car. He reached into the back and handed me the boots.
I peeled off my sneakers and slid on Valerie’s boots. They weren’t an exact fit, but it was close enough, especially since the leather gripped my leg and the knife holders pressed into the side of my calf were snug enough to make the looseness in the fit around my foot moot.
The second boot fit just as well, and the blue handle peeked out from under the holder. When I zipped it up, the knife disappeared. It was a neat trick.
“Thanks,” I said.
Relief flooded through me. The boots were nice, and they went with my jeans, but they would be killer with my leather outfit.
I stretched out and closed my eyes. “What did you mean if they still have his soul locked in the necklace we have a chance?”
“I was thinking maybe if we set his soul free, he could bounce Lucifer out of his body.”
“Wouldn’t that leave all of us vulnerable to being possessed?” I opened one eye and glanced at CJ.
“With a soul, you have to agree to let him in.”
“So, he would possess one of the bodies, assuming they are still there?”
“That would be my logical conclusion. And that would make it easier for us to get
close and end the bastard.” The cruel smile that formed on his lips seemed foreign on his normally kind face.
“And what if it doesn’t work? What if he can’t bounce Lucifer out?”
The look CJ gave me said it all. If he couldn’t bounce Lucifer out, he was as good as dead.
“Then we have to take him out,” he said in a very soft whisper, like saying the words too loud meant they would come true.
I wasn’t ready for this, so instead of bouncing around ideas, I leaned back in the seat and closed my eyes, attempting to rest my mind and loosen the knots that had formed throughout my back.
* * * *
Willard Asylum was probably the creepiest place I had ever seen, and the nearby prison just exacerbated the issue. My skin prickled with anticipation. This was the kind of place I could see Lucifer holed up in.
CJ and I exchanged a glance over the roof of the car, and I came around front to meet him. With the prison next door and the chain-link fence surrounding the asylum, I wasn’t sure how we were going to breach the barriers without being detected.
“It looks like there is an opening over there,” CJ said and pointed towards a break in the fence that I hadn’t seen on my first pass.
He led the way, and when we stepped inside, the dust and decay eating away at the building churned my stomach.
When we crossed into the hallway, CJ pulled one of those big Maglite flashlights from the inside pocket of his coat like a magician. He pointed it down the darkened hall and switched it on.
The floor had caved in down the center. There was no way I was going to try to teeter along the edge to get to the other side. My teeth ached at the thought of it, and I realized I was clamping my jaw too tight.
I licked my lips as CJ handed me the flashlight and played on his phone for a minute. I glanced over his shoulder at the blueprints displayed on the monitor. He swiped the screen slowly, studying the layout.
“There’s another door farther down that we can take, and there’s a stairwell that we can use to get to the next floor. Hopefully we can get to the other side,” he said softly.
He traced his way back to the door, and once outside, I actually took a deep breath of the fresh air and felt some of my anxiety abate. Warmth radiated from the midday sun, baking the chill right out of my bones. We hadn’t run into any traps and I didn’t have that tingling sensation announcing any demons in the area, but that’s not to say this next entrance would change all that.
