by Adam Dark
“Great. You can go now.”
Ben had never heard that level of hatred in her voice, but he couldn’t blame her for it. This guy was an extra headache they didn’t need, especially now.
“That’s not very nice,” Chase said, looking genuinely hurt. “I’m part of the team, now. Remember?”
Uh, no. “I only said that because we all thought you—” Ben had to stop himself from shouting it out for the whole coffee shop to hear. “We thought you had a gun,” he whispered. “That’s not how you get people to trust you, man.”
“It was a joke,” Chase said, glancing back and forth between all three of them.
“It’s still assault,” April added. “You know that, right?”
Chase smiled, but this time it was a lot colder. The guy was infuriating. “Oh, yeah. But you don’t have any proof.”
“How about his face?” Ben said, nodding at Peter. Peter only glared at the guy who’d weaseled his way to their table.
“Mine, too.” Chase pointed to the already yellowing bruise on his jaw. “And he hit first.” He looked at Peter. “How’re your knuckles, bud?”
Peter’s jaw worked silently. “I’m not your bud,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Aw.” Chase grimaced, but Ben didn’t know what was real with this guy and what was just a pointless act. Or maybe screwing with people’s sense of safety was this idiot’s way of having a good time. Then Chase folded his hands on the table. “So what’s the plan?”
Ben and April glanced at each other. This guy was serious.
“The plan,” April said slowly, obviously forcing herself not to lose it, either, “has nothing to do with you. We don’t want you here. I don’t know how to make that any more obvious.”
For a few seconds—which seemed to last forever—Chase and April stared at each other in a silent battle of willpower. Ben had no problem admitting how much that tension scared him. Finally, Chase closed his eyes and sighed. “Look, I get it. I was just playing around the other night, and none of you appreciated it. Noted, okay?” He looked at Peter. “And I probably hit you too hard. Sorry, bud.” Peter clenched his fists at the guy’s liberal use of that term, but it looked like he’d keep it together—at least for a little longer. “But you need me.”
“No we don’t,” April seethed.
“Oh, really?” Chase tilted his head. “So you guys already have another gig lined up, then? You know exactly where to find these… things you’re chasing?”
Ben couldn’t help but notice the guy swallowing pretty thickly when he referred to, yes, what Ben and his friends were all now okay with calling demons. It made him think that maybe Chase had a reason for wanting to help them out beyond how much he seemed to enjoy being a pain in the ass.
Of course, nobody answered the guy’s questions. Nobody needed to tell him his sarcasm was spot on.
“Cool,” Chase said, nodding at the point he’d just made. “I might be an asshole, guys, but I’m not stupid.” He reached into the pocket of his hoodie, which made everyone else at the table flinch a little. For obvious reasons. The guy just held up a hand for them to wait. “So as a gesture of good faith—”
“You think you should have started with that?” Peter grumbled.
Chase just stared at him and removed a folded piece of paper from his pocket. “I went ahead and got you guys a starter list. The first one’s on me. The rest… well, we’ll have to make some group decisions about those when you guys realize how helpful I am. Won’t we?” He set the folded paper on the table and slid it all the way to the middle. “Call me when you’re ready for that.”
Ben hoped to all the gods he didn’t believe in that this guy wasn’t about to suggest exchanging phone numbers. That might have sent him over the edge. Peter and April looked like they were already there and plummeting down the other side.
“Have fun.” Then Chase stood, flashed another grin, and walked back toward the order counter. April’s glare burned two gaping holes in the back of the guy’s hoodie, and Ben wondered if anyone else in the coffee shop could smell the smoke.
Is this guy for real? he asked Ian. He didn’t wonder anymore if his friend was paying attention; Ian was never really gone, and he wouldn’t ever be.
‘I’m a spirit sharing your body,’ Ian replied. ‘The only mind I can read is yours.’
Not helping.
Chase took his sweet time ordering a coffee, then waited for it with his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his hoodie. The guy rocked back and forth on his heels, and it wouldn’t have broken character in the least for him to start whistling “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah”. Then Ben had to tear his eyes away from the guy who’d been … well, it wasn’t exactly blackmailing, was it?
He found Peter staring at the folded paper in the center of the table. “I’m kind of afraid to look…”
“I got it.” Ben reached toward the paper and felt like he’d been slapped when April hissed his name.
“Ben. Don’t touch it.”
Ben froze, his hand extended stupidly toward the paper while he gaped at her.
“Seriously, put your hand down. Just wait ‘til he’s gone.” Her flaring nostrils did, actually, make her look on the verge of breathing fire. Ben was sitting too close to argue with her about it.
They sat in silence for the entire time it took the barista to make Chase’s drink and for Chase to carefully doctor it up even more with sugar or something at the counter. Then he turned back toward the trio, raised his paper cup in a super obnoxious salute, and finally left the coffee shop.
And hey, the guy was probably skipping down the street with a condescending chuckle, but at least none of them had to hear it. Or look at his ‘I’m better, faster, stronger than you’ face.
April took a long time to look away from the coffee shop’s wall of windows, where Chase had disappeared down the sidewalk. “He didn’t just show up here randomly,” she said, grimacing at Ben and Peter. “He had the whole thing planned. He knew where we were.”
“So demons and stalkers, now, huh?” Peter nearly slammed his elbows on the table and propped his chin in both hands. “Just keeps getting better.”
Any idea how he found us? Ben asked Ian. With the mood so weirdly thrown out of whack, he didn’t have to worry about looking like a super space cadet while he focused on talking to Ian without actual words.
‘Again, only mind I can read is yours.’
Ben sighed.
‘It’s not like I can just go waltzing around, fact-checking whatever I want in this world.’
But you can do that in the spirit realm, can’t you?
Ian didn’t actually say anything in reply, but Ben felt his friend have some kind of epiphany and get really excited about it. That was a first. It made Ben shiver.
“We should at least look at this, right?” He pointed at the folded paper.
“You’re kidding,” April said, then her eyes popped open. “He’s just trying to mess with us. Again.”
“Why?” Ben asked. She frowned. “Why would he do that? I mean, it seems like a lot of work to screw with three complete strangers at this level.”
April’s mouth worked soundlessly for a minute, the she snapped it shut. Yes, he’d made his point, but something told him he’d be paying for it later. “Fine,” she said. “Go ahead. But unless it’s something really important or terrifying or… actually true, I don’t want to have anything to do with it.”
Ben nodded slowly, hoping it would be enough to calm her down—that she’d realize without him having to say it that he wasn’t trying to fight her at all. He just couldn’t get past the what ifs. “Okay.”
“Okay.” She shrugged a shoulder and angrily chugged her coffee, which might or might not have been ridiculously painful.
Ben reached out and snatched up the paper, pausing for a minute to flick it toward his friend. “Pete?”
Peter shook his head just a little too quickly. “I’m good.”
“All right.” Just as Ben
started to unfold Chase’s mystery paper, April grabbed her phone and stood from the table.
“I have to get going, anyways,” she said, glancing at the phone one more time before sticking it into her back pocket.
Ben had always liked the way she rarely used a purse. The fact that this was where his mind went first made him wish he’d complimented her on something else. Now was clearly not the time. “Everything okay?” he asked instead. He’d never quite managed to say exactly what he wanted to say to her before the whole ‘April kissing Ian instead of the real owner of Ben’s body’ thing, but now it was even worse. Ben wanted the luxury of optimism, but that had been stripped away a long time ago.
April looked at him with wide eyes, as if she’d only just realized he’d said something. “Yeah. I just have to finish this paper for one of my classes.”
Was that a blush at the tops of her cheekbones, or was he imagining things now?
“We’re only a week into the semester,” he said, realizing how much he hadn’t meant to sound suspicious before it came out that way.
April squinted a little at him. “Yeah, well, we can’t all build our own majors and do whatever we want before graduation.”
Crap.
“Sorry. That’s not what I meant.” Now Ben felt like he was blushing, but April pretty much dismissed him to check her phone again. What was going on with her?
“Yeah, I have some work to finish up in the lab, too,” Peter said, gently pressing one swollen side of his nose as he also stood. “When I’m done, though, I still want to talk to you about that—” He stopped himself and glanced around. “The stone. Still in my apartment. I think it might be important.”
“Yeah, okay,” Ben said, feeling weird for being the only one sitting now. But it would be even weirder if he stood with his friends just to sit back down again when they left. It wasn’t like he was going to hug either of them goodbye—though April had been hugging him a lot less lately, and he thought that might have been what drowning felt like. “See you guys later, then.”
Peter just nodded, then turned and walked toward the coffee shop’s front door. April paused, then caught Ben’s gaze and offered a weak smile. Or maybe it was pity. “Bye, Ben.” She glanced at the paper in his hand. “Be careful.”
“Promise.”
She stood there just long enough to make him think maybe she did actually want a hug. Ben leaned forward to stand, and April turned away to leave, pulling her phone out of her pocket again.
‘I can seriously never figure out what she’s thinking,’ Ian mused. He sounded almost as frustrated as Ben felt.
“Yeah,” Ben muttered aloud, safe to do so now that everyone he cared about hearing him had left. “I hate it.” He slumped back against the chair and stared at the paper in his hand.
‘You gonna read that thing, or what?’
With a shrug, Ben went ahead and did it. When it finally dawned on him what he was looking at, he nearly groaned. “Really?”
It was definitely a list. Eight thin paragraphs of two lines each typed out across the paper, and seven of them were completely illegible due to the thick black lines covering ninety percent of the content. Instead of just handing over one piece of information—whether or not it was useless—Chase had taken the time to redact all the things he’d wanted them to know were there but would never be seen without him. And he’d probably laughed the whole time.
Ben held the paper up to the hanging lights over the table, trying to read the impossible through the dark, thick lines of ink. Nothing. Then he noticed the tiny scribble at the top right corner of the paper—a phone number and the words “any time”. And they hadn’t been written on this paper. Chase had handed them a damn copy of whatever kind of list this was supposed to be, just to be sure they wouldn’t figure out the rest of it.
“This guy’s unbelievable,” Ben muttered.
‘At least you know he takes it seriously.’
“Yeah, he’s really serious about jerking us around.”
The first item on the list, though, was still legible. Almost.
“‘Reported by three different witnesses on…’” This part had also been blacked out. Ben shook his head and kept reading. “‘Known dates of appearance: December 13th, December 18th, January 12th. Sighted at Buckley Playground between the hours of 5:00 p.m. and 3:00 a.m.’” And at the end of the line was a large number two penned in the same thick ink used to mark out pretty much everything else.
“Is this supposed to mean something to me?” Ben sighed and rubbed a hand through his hair. Peter and April definitely could have stayed for this. It wasn’t like they’d have to un-see what they couldn’t see in the first place.
Then it hit him. Chase had watched them trap the last demon in the brothers’ apartment, and he’d been completely cool about all of it. April had been pretty much the same way, but Ben was well aware of the fact that most people were not. And the guy had told them he could help. That they needed him. Because apparently, if anything Chase said—or wrote, as it were—could be believed, he’d made a list of sightings. Demon sightings.
“What do you think?” he asked Ian, realizing a second later that he’d been making eye contact with a woman at another table for longer than he should have. She frowned at him and looked quickly away, smoothing down her toddler’s hair as if trying to reassure both of them that the weirdo talking to himself couldn’t possibly want to hurt them. Before Ian came to team up with him in his body, it had been a long time since those kinds of spooked looks had been thrown his way. He was pretty used to them by now.
Ben returned his attention to the paper.
‘I think we’re staring at a load of bull,’ Ian said flatly.
“Come on.”
‘This could be anything. I learned a lot of things in the spirit realm before you found me, Ben. And yeah, I have kind of a lot of power there.’ Ben rolled his eyes. ‘But I told you I can’t read minds. It’s not like I can just… sniff out the truth like some kind of bloodhound. I don’t know what’s happening in this realm any more than you do.’
Ben grinned. “But you can tell if it’s happening in your realm.”
‘It’s not my realm.’
The angry warning in Ian’s words brought Ben right back to the first time he’d spoken to his friend’s spirit face to face—the night Ian had dragged him into the spirit realm for a little chat before the Guardian could finish unleashing whatever torturous evil it had planned for all of them. That had given them a moment to talk, and in his disbelief, Ben had laughed when Ian told him how many thousands of centuries he’d spent stuck in that green-tinted plane. Ian had glared at him with a cold seriousness, which was more convincing than anything else he’d said that day, and stressed how not-funny it was. Because it was true. Ben couldn’t see Ian’s face now, but he could picture that same look perfectly.
“Sorry,” he murmured.
‘Yeah, well… Hey, wait. You’re right, though.’
Ben let himself feel a little pride again. “You wanna go to Buckley Playground spirit-version and check it out?”
‘You wanna come?’
Ben took a deep breath. “Nope. I’m good here.” He didn’t like hopping to the dramatically grotesque version of his own world if he didn’t have to; it took a lot out of him when he came back, which made not causing a scene pretty difficult. “I’ll wait.”
A little pop that wasn’t quite physical burst in the back of his mind, and he felt Ian slip between the realms. That still took some getting used to, but it wasn’t as weird as it had been in the beginning. He still felt the guy there, in his head, but it was more like a feather tickling his brain than the complete presence of someone who used to have their own body.
The woman who clearly didn’t like listening to his one-sided conversation quickly gathered up her things before almost jerking her toddler out of the high chair at their table. She didn’t look at Ben again when she whirled around and stormed toward the front doors of Speedy Joe’s
. But the kid in her arms peeked over her shoulder with wide, curious eyes.
Ben smiled at him and wiggled his fingers. The kid waved back.
5
Ian came back the second before the coffee shop door closed behind the woman and her child. ‘Dude, he was totally right.’
Ben stared at his latte. “You sure?” he muttered.
‘Seriously? I’ve always told you when I don’t know something, haven’t I?’ Ben shrugged, realizing as soon as he did that it was completely unnecessary. Ian sighed, which was a weird thing to hear in one’s head. ‘Yes, I’m sure. I watched it for two days.’
That part was also still weird to get used to, especially when Ben was the one staying in this realm of life and mortal time while Ian went traipsing off through the green-tinted spirit realm for two days in one minute. “And?”
‘And there’s a seriously vengeful thing at that park,’ Ian replied slowly. ‘It’s, uh… it goes after kids.’
Ben’s stomach dropped, and thankfully, the anxiety there was enough to make him overly cautious. He couldn’t keep having his end of the conversation out loud. Like… it wants to—
‘It’s not trying to kill them,’ Ian said quickly, saving Ben from the horror of having to intentionally ask the question—even though it would have been contained in his own head. ‘More like feeding on little pieces. Taking the best parts and leaving the rest for this world.’
The term ‘playground bully’ came to mind instantly, and a few pieces of a much larger puzzle slipped into place. Ben didn’t have an explanation for the thought, but he started to wonder if demons like this one were and always had been responsible for turning kids into brats who later grew up to be real jerks.
‘Yeah, that’s kind of what I’m thinking,’ Ian offered.
Ben had to stop himself from screaming at the guy to stay out of his head. That was literally impossible. Okay, so what do we have to do? He felt Ian’s hesitation, which made him start to worry a little bit; if his friend’s spirit seemed unsure about this playground demon after thirty thousand years navigating the spirit realm, yeah, Ben thought it was okay to get a little worried.
