by Adam Dark
Ian didn’t answer.
“Ian, I swear, if you—”
The little pop in the back of his head and the fuller, busier pressure made him stop. Ben had been too focused on getting to April, he hadn’t realized Ian had already slipped between realms. Now he was back.
“Dude, what the—”
‘There’s nothing in her apartment,’ Ian said, reporting it like he hadn’t left to check before Ben thought to ask.
“Oh,” Ben muttered and punched the elevator button again. “Thanks.”
Then Peter and Chase finally caught up. Peter wheezed, took out his inhaler for a puff, then held his breath for a few seconds. When he let it out, he asked, “You think there’s something in her apartment?”
He was obviously referring to demons. Probably. “No idea,” Ben said and rapidly smashed the elevator buttons a few more times. “What’s the deal with this stupid—”
The doors opened, and Ben turned sideways to slip between them the second they were wide enough. He’d already hit the level-four and close-elevator buttons before Chase stepped inside with him and Peter. The guy narrowly missed getting bashed by the closing doors, but thankfully, he had enough sense to move faster instead of trying to open them back up again. Okay, that might have scored him his one and only point with Ben so far.
An elevator ride had never felt so agonizingly long before. Maybe they should have taken the stairs. Then they stopped moving, the doors opened, and Ben launched himself out into the hallway. He turned left, then found the sign on the wall with the apartment numbers in each direction and turned right back around again. This place felt more like a hotel than an apartment complex. He didn’t stop to look at Peter and Chase or nod or tell them to follow. They didn’t need an invitation.
The hallway stretched forever-long, and then he was at 415. Ben knocked three times. “April?” He didn’t care how loud he was or who heard him. A heavy deadbolt slid back, the doorknob jiggled a little, and there she was behind the open door. He’d never seen anyone look at him like this with so much mixed terror, relief, and embarrassment. Especially April. It sparked a protective rage in Ben and broke his heart at the same time.
“Ben, I’m so—”
He stepped inside and pulled her into his arms. All he wanted was to feel her there against him, to know she was at least okay physically. She’d never been fragile—that was clear from the first demon-escaping few hours they’d spent together—but she sagged against him and felt like she was about to break open. A little sob escaped her, but it sounded like a release of something.
Ben pulled away just a little to look at her. “Are you okay?”
Her eyelids fluttered, lashes still wet with tears, and then she stepped away from him and glanced at the windows. “Yeah,” she said, brushing her hair back from her forehead. “I’m not hurt or anything. I just—”
“Hey, what’s going on?” Peter said, stepping through the open door. Chase followed close behind, looking more than a little uncomfortable.
April blinked at them both with wide eyes, then seemed to remember why all three of them had shown up together. “Oh, my god.” She took a deep breath. “I’m so sorry, you guys. I… I totally forgot we were…”
“Don’t even worry about it,” Ben said, wondering why she kept looking back at the drawn curtains over her living room windows. She had curtains. “I’m glad you called me.” He glanced around her huge apartment, no sign of anything gone wrong at all. “But I’m not sure what happened.”
A massive sigh escaped her, hitching in her chest halfway through, and she turned fully toward the window again. “Yeah, there are a few things I haven’t been… completely honest with you about.” Then she went to the window, pulled back the curtain, and almost pressed her nose right up against the glass.
“Like what?” Ben asked. He glanced back at Peter, who just shrugged. Chase had folded his arms and was studying April’s living room with a tiny smile Ben didn’t even want the guy to explain.
April didn’t look away from the window. “So, the other night when we—Jesus. Again?” There was still a little fear there when she said it, but it was mostly buried by a lot more annoyance now. Ben wanted to think that had something to do with him being here now. The less fear part, not the annoyed part.
“What?” He finally joined her at the window, and she just stepped aside a little to let him look through the curtain. Ben only needed to recognize that ridiculous hat, which he saw immediately under all the lighting outside beyond the apartment complex’s parking lot. “This guy again?”
“Who?” Chase asked. It was a little weird that he was apparently so interested.
“Some jerk who was bothering April at the last project we did.”
“Project?”
Ben shook his head. “Later.”
“Wait, the stupid-hat guy?” Peter asked. Ben turned back just to nod, and Peter came to join them at the window. “Someone should burn that thing. He was an ass.”
“Yeah, and he called you Arcady.” Ben looked down at April standing beside him. She still didn’t look away from the window, but she swallowed and closed her eyes for a few seconds. He had a feeling he’d just hit on something big.
“His name’s Isaac.”
“Uh… what?”
“Okay.” Finally, she looked up at him, her blue eyes red-rimmed but with a little more of her usual courage now. “I dated the guy for a little bit after high school.”
“Oh…”
“It didn’t go anywhere. I ended it. Or, well, he went to jail for a while. Same thing.”
Was it really?
“And then I never saw him again,” April continued, and a little shudder ran through her. “I never wanted to. That was almost four years ago. In Connecticut.” She just stared at him, silently begging him to put the pieces together himself so she wouldn’t have to say it.
At least, that was what it looked like, but Ben found it easy enough. “And he found you here.”
She nodded and turned back toward the window. The guy walking down the sidewalk across the parking lot didn’t look up, stop, or even slow down—just kept walking until his dark jacket and that stupid hat vanished from the view of April’s fourth-story apartment.
“What’d he get popped for?”
Ben, April, and Peter all turned around to look at Chase. His arms were still folded, but he faced them squarely now, like he had these kinds of conversations all the time.
“Felony possession of Schedule I narcotics and aggravated assault,” April said. “Multiple counts.”
She couldn’t make this stuff up. And it sounded a lot like she’d dated a drug-dealing jerk in that god-awful hat who liked to beat up anyone who said anything about it. Fantastic. Chase didn’t react at all to the information.
“Who’s Arcady?” Peter asked.
April lifted one shoulder in a guilty shrug. “He thinks that’s my name.”
Holy what the—what?
“Probably not anymore,” Chase said. “Not if you’re sure he came here looking for you.”
April eyed Chase for a lot longer than made sense, then she chewed on her lip. “You’re right. I know he’s just trying to screw with me now. Scare me.”
Ben wanted to say it looked like the guy was excelling at that right now, but he couldn’t seem to find his voice. Did April have some kind of second life?
She looked at Ben and Peter again. “So he was at Buckley Playground last weekend. Then I got a text a few days ago that I’m pretty sure came from him.” She laughed, and Ben had never heard so much disgust in it before. He didn’t like it at all. “I can’t believe he actually found my number. I changed it when I started school here.” April’s lower lip trembled a little in her next attempt to smile, and she took another deep breath. “Now he’s been walking around the building. For hours.”
“Oh, jeeze.” Well, Ben finally managed to say something. They could talk about the whole double-life thing later. “I mean, I’d offer to
go smash his head against the sidewalk—”
“No,” April said. “No, I don’t want to drag you into this. Not like that.” Her eyes filled up with tears a little, but she held them back. And at least she’d stopped Ben from saying he didn’t know if he could actually take down a guy put in jail for aggravated assault. And other things. “I know I let this go too far, and I should have said something about it that night when he showed up. I just… Ben, I have this feeling that the next time I can’t see him anymore out the window, he’s gonna show up at my door.” Maybe Ben imagined it, but it seemed her little pause was actually so she could listen for another knock at the door. “I didn’t want to be alone here anymore.” Her voice trembled, and despite all the massive surprises she’d just dropped on him, Ben wrapped his arms around her again.
“I get it,” he said. “I’m still glad you called me.” April sighed into his chest, and he really wanted to run his fingers through her hair. Wipe the tears from her cheeks if they did actually get that far. But it was just a little awkward with Peter standing right there next to them, staring out the window.
“I wouldn’t worry about him,” Chase said.
That broke the tiny spell of comfort, and April pulled out of Ben’s embrace. Yeah, thanks, Chase.
“You don’t know this guy,” April told him.
Chase just shrugged with his arms still folded. “Doesn’t matter.”
She didn’t look very convinced, which Ben couldn’t blame her for. Then she looked back at Peter for a second. “Hey, I’m really sorry I made you guys come out here. And that I totally spaced it with meeting at Peter’s.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Ben said.
“Yeah, we can just go check out that… ghost thing another day,” Peter said with a shrug. Then he turned from the window, let out a hacking cough, and shook his head.
Ben stared at him. “Dude.”
“I’m good.” Peter just waved him off. “All good.”
“Actually,” April started, “can we go do it now?”
“The ghost?” After all this, it seemed like an odd request.
“Yeah.” She took a deep breath and rolled her shoulders back. “I need to get out of here. And go do something. Kick some ass, right? And I’ll be with you guys, so I’ll be okay.”
‘The balls on this chick…’ Ian said.
Dude, I know, but lose the metaphor.
When Ben looked at Peter, his friend just shrugged. “Sure.”
He couldn’t quite say why, but Ben found himself asking, “Chase?”
The guy’s face lit up like he’d just been offered the chance to punch Peter in the face again. “I’m totally down.”
“Okay.” Ben nodded at April. “Let’s go.”
Chase and Peter headed for her front door, and April stood there for a minute longer looking up at Ben. “Thank you,” she said softly.
He tipped his head toward her just a little, because he meant it. “You’re welcome.”
Nobody said anything in the elevator back down to the ground-level parking garage, but the trip didn’t seem to take nearly as long. Ben could feel the tension radiating off April beside him, but he figured it had more to do with anticipating this Isaac guy out in the parking lot than where they were headed after that.
Sure enough, there was that stupid, flapping red hat dangling from the guy’s head. He walked down the sidewalk in the same direction they’d seen him going from her apartment window—like he’d just been circling the entire complex. The guy didn’t look their way, but when April saw him, she tensed and slowed down.
Ben didn’t think. He just grabbed her hand, gave it a little squeeze, and kept walking. And yeah, once she squeezed back, she picked up the pace again. So there was that.
He led them all to his car, unlocked it, and opened the front passenger door for April. She got in without a word. As Ben closed the door behind her, he looked over the top of his car to see Isaac had stopped on the sidewalk and was staring right at him. So now the guy had his proof that this was April’s apartment building. But he also saw the three guys who’d walked out with her, and Ben was fairly certain all three of them would give this Isaac guy a run for his money if he tried anything. So he just walked around the front of his car and slipped into the driver’s seat.
By the time they pulled out of the parking lot and turned back onto Stuart Street, April’s stalker ex-boyfriend was gone.
20
Ben pulled up again beside the same old neighborhood park and definitely made sure to lock his car when everyone got out of it. It just felt like the right thing to do. Then he nodded down the street, where they’d have to walk a few blocks again to the alley. There were even less people outside of their homes in this neighborhood than the first time he’d come by, but that was probably because it was dark and way colder. Both of those things were starting to make him feel like they should have waited until the middle of the day to do this. But April had been right, too. This was a good distraction from what they’d all just seen and heard at her place.
“Hey, did you happen to find anything else since yesterday that might help?” he asked. They weren’t holding hands now, or anything—not the time anymore—but April walked close enough beside him that they could have, if they’d wanted to. Even now, headed to do the totally insane things they did with otherworldly forces, his last thought felt a lot like being in seventh grade again.
“No,” April said. “I was a little… distracted.” The way she smiled and tried to blow off how freaked out she’d been made it hard for Ben to be very annoyed. “Did you?”
“I tried,” he said. “The internet’s worse than the library.” She huffed out a laugh. “Hey, but Peter got another package.”
“Like the cabinet?”
“Yeah.” Ben reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the creepy figurine. He’d actually forgotten it was there. The holes for eyes and a mouth seemed way too black in the low streetlights on peeling wooden poles in this neighborhood. He handed the thing to April, and she cocked her head.
She seemed like she was about to say something, but stopped herself. Then she said, “This one come with a sticky note, too?”
“Sure did.” Ben took a minute to picture the boxy handwriting. “‘For your cat problem. Apply before death.’” April laughed and turned the figurine over in her hands.
“I still want to know whose death we’re talking about, here,” Peter said behind them.
“The cat’s, maybe?” April replied.
Peter snorted, though with his totally stuffed-up nose, it only sounded like he was choking. “Oh, yeah. That’s helpful. We’ll give the cat a toy while it’s being eaten alive. That’ll cheer it up, and the ghost will be so upset, it’ll just fly away.”
‘Fly away?’ Ian sounded particularly unamused.
“I don’t know,” April said. “This looks almost like a voodoo doll, right? Just made out of wood instead. Any idea what part of the world it’s from?”
Ben shrugged. The fact that she was focusing on that aspect of it made him wonder why she wasn’t just as confused as him and Peter. “Beats me. I don’t even know who it’s from. Hey, it’s this alley up here.” Just half a block down between this apartment building beside them and the next. April handed back the figurine, and he stuck it into his pocket again.
He gave the street another quick glance up and down, realizing they probably wouldn’t even be able to see half the people who might have caught sight of them from inside their own homes. Hopefully the alley would cover them a little. They really didn’t need anyone causing a scene and talking all over the place about the four college kids doing weird, inexplicable crap in the alley in their neighborhood. Or someone recording them. Or another whack job seeing what they did and wanting to hop right onto the demon-hunting wagon with them. He’d almost forgotten about Chase bringing up the rear of their little group; for once, the guy had been remarkably silent.
At the mouth of the alley, Ben slowed a little
and turned toward Peter. “You ready?”
“For what? It’s a ghost.”
“Just in case, man.”
Peter lifted the metal box in his hand. “Loaded and ready to go. Just in case.”
Ben eyed Chase, who was trying to peer around Peter for a better look into the alley. “Hey.” Chase looked up at him. “You’re here to watch. Got it? If you think you suddenly have some really great idea, don’t act on it. Just say something.” Okay, it sounded harsh and authoritative, but they didn’t really have room for making mistakes right now, especially when they were going into this with a lot less certainty than they’d had against the last few demons. Which hadn’t been that much, either.
Chase just nodded. “Cool.”
“All right.” Ben nodded toward the alley and led them into it.
From where they’d stood on the street, the narrow space between these apartment buildings had already been black and dark. Ben had figured his eyes would have adjusted to that darkness by the time he’d left the streetlights behind him, but that didn’t happen at all. He couldn’t see a thing.
“Aren’t we supposed to be able to see what we’re aiming at?” Peter asked.
“Yeah, that would be nice.”
A blinding white light flared behind them, and Ben turned around on instinct. Only he got the full force of the flashlight on Chase’s smartphone right in his eyes. “Dude.” He spun around again and blinked. So not helpful.
“Really?” Chase said, shining the light around the alley. “You wanted me to ask permission for a light?”
“Actually, that helps,” April said. So much for support.
The alley looked a lot dirtier under Chase’s light. No way to tell if it actually was. The half-eaten and still-breathing cat Ben had seen here yesterday, though, was gone.
Is the thing still here? he asked Ian. He felt his friend halfway leave his head for a second, then return.
