by Aly Westman
“Don’t worry about it Ava, sometimes we have to.”
“Did the soul see me? Can they see?”
“That I have heard of, yes and no. Most times after an exorcism the person will say they blacked out and have no idea what happened.”
My hand came up to my neck, rubbing hard. I killed a guy, he was a soul who was taken over by a demon, and I killed him. What if he had a family…
“Aves.” Corey reached up and pulled my hand away, holding it in his. “He was a weak soul. He either was a felon or some ass that gave his body to the demon to wreak havoc. Or, as you said his sulfur smell was weak, the demon had been in the body for a long time, chances are his soul was begging to be set free. We try, we try to exorcise and evict as many demons as we can, but sometimes we have to kill them. Sometimes we don’t win. We just have to move on from that.”
The pitter patter of rain began playing against the window, catching Corey's attention. He looked back at me nervously. “Let’s get downstairs.”
I agreed. We took the stairs two at a time and I screamed as Damion abruptly opened the front door and rushed in, surprising me. “Just me.” He held up his hands. He was soaked, fresh rain water dripped from his black hair. He closed the door and Corey stepped forward with the bag of salt, spreading it across the entranceway.
Damion reached for my hand and pulled me towards the back of the house. He opened a door which I thought was a closet but it turned out to be the entrance to the basement. I went ahead of Damion, not wanting to be up in the house when the thunder started. I could already feel my body shaking as if there was a charge in the air.
At the bottom of the stairs was a large metal door that opened up to what looked like a bunker of some sort. I got to the bottom and touched the rusty looking door. “It’s iron,” Damion said.
“Sulfur, iron… what next?” I mumbled.
Damion laughed.
Inside Quinn was hunched over an open blue chest in the far back corner. The ground was also iron, as were the walls, a ceiling fan turned slowly to keep the air flow. Aside from the chest in the corner there were a pile of blankets and pillows, a few black duffle bags, and jugs of water against one side of the wall. The rest of the room was bare, not a table or anything in sight.
Corey came in and grabbed a blanket off the pile. Slapping it down on the ground and sitting on it as he balanced his laptop on his legs. “Has Seth been down?” he asked Quinn.
Quinn closed the chest and sat on top of it, he looked exhausted. “Yeah, he went to do a final check.”
“We don’t have much time,” Corey said as he kept his eyes trained in the laptop screen.
Quinn shrugged in a nothing I can do sort of way. I wandered over and sat next to him. “So what’s the plan? We just hang out here until it passed?”
He nodded. “Pretty much, this place is sound proof. They can still be out there after the storm, but they won’t have enough energy to keep the storm going for long.”
“And all this iron?” I looked up to Damion.
“It’s like the salt. It’s a purifier. Spirits and demons can’t step over it.”
“So spirits like souls, entities… right?”
“I guess it’s the way you look at it. Spirit can mean entity, or soul, or neither. Nothing is ever solid when it comes to spirits.” Damion shrugged apologetically.
I shook my head slowly. “This hurts my brain,” I told Quinn.
He smiled. “We haven’t even touched the tip of the iceberg.”
There was pounding on the stairs and I startled, jumping to my feet, fists ready for combat. Seth stood in the doorway, entire body soaking wet. He smiled as his eyes skimmed up and down my body.
“I’d close the door now,” Corey said. Seth and Damion didn’t hesitate, they pulled the heavy door shut and pushed a lock in place.
“Any word from Ty?” Quinn asked. He got up and pulled a dry shirt from the black bag, tossing it to Seth.
Seth caught the shirt and began going off on a tangent in Russian to Quinn. He pulled his shirt off and threw it to the floor, going quiet as Quinn thought about what he just said. It was the first time I actually saw Seth without a shirt. He had tattoos winding up both arms and over his shoulders, the details in both were so fine and well done.
Seth didn’t have a chiseled set of abs, but he was muscular and in shape. Above his left pec, over his heart, was some circle with a pentagram and designs in it and around it. Seth must’ve caught me staring. “It’s for protection,” he answered my unspoken question.
Damion took his shirt off, walking towards the black duffle bag and pulling out a dry one. He was more slim than Seth, but his muscles were well defined, bunching and releasing under his porcelain skin. Damion had no tattoos on his body except for the pentagram above his heart, the exact replica to Seth’s. “How does that protect you?” I asked him.
“Remember I was telling you about possession?” Corey said from behind his computer screen. “These make it so a demon cannot possess us. We had a witch friend cast the–”
There was a thump and the lights went out. “Shit,” Seth cursed, I knew it was him because of the accent.
“Wait for it.” Quinn spoke calmly. Within a few seconds there was a start up of an engine somewhere and a soft glow emergency light came on.
“Well, get comfortable,” Seth said. He grabbed a folded blanket from the pile and, like Corey, tossed it on the ground and sat on it, leaning against the wall behind him.
I leaned and put my back against the wall behind me, the iron cold through my shirt, it must’ve been the cold that made my skin itch slightly. I crossed my arms across my chest, relaxing as much as I could.
Seth spun a small knife between his fingers. Damion pulled out a new sucker and tossed it in his mouth, looking up at the ceiling fan. Quinn quietly began staring at his shoe while Corey kept his eyes on the monitor. I silence was stifling, I had to break it. “So,” I said, “what other tattoos do you all have?”
Chapter 17
Damion and Quinn had no more tattoos, Seth had a few on his back but the lighting made it difficult to see as he took his shirt off to show me. I let my fingertips run over his smooth hot skin as I traced the details. He said some were in memory of his family and his hometown. It took him years to get it finished completely.
Corey had a large cross on his back with wings. His brother’s name was written in a ribbon at the bottom of it. He didn’t show it to me, just talked about it. When I asked to see it he had said, “Another time.”
Damion changed the direction of the conversation abruptly, leaving me curious about Corey’s tattoo. Damion shuffled through the black duffle bags as he spoke, “Who wants to play a game? There should be some cards somewhere in here.”
“Other bag,” Quinn instructed him. Damion moved to the other duffle bag and pulled out a couple decks of cards and a cup.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“Simple, we toss the cards and try to get them in the cup,” Damion said as he put the cup in the center of the room. The guys all moved, pulling a blanket or pillow closer so they were surrounding the cup. I followed their lead and found a spot for myself. Damion handed out a pile of cards to each of us.
“Do you play this often?” I asked.
Seth shrugged. “It’s a game that requires little brain power. When you are on stake outs for days at a time or stuck in a bunker for weeks, this is helpful to get your mind off of it.”
Damion tossed the first card towards the cup and missed. “You know, Aves,” he said, “you’ve asked us about our tattoos, but I’m surprised you haven’t asked us about any piercings.”
My eyes shot up and I looked at each of them, Damion had a cunning smirk on his face. I stared more intently at them as they took turns tossing a card into the cup. Corey and Seth looked as if they were trying to hold in a laugh. “I see nothing?” I said.
Quinn rolled his eyes. “Corey has a piercing, in his ear. He’s just not wearing it,”
he stated.
Corey shrugged. “Pretty sure Damion was talking about the piercings that were covered up, the ones we cannot see.”
Now they were teasing me. One of them had a piercing that was not visible by the eye and they wouldn’t let up who it was.
“It’s Damion,” I said, letting the card leave my fingertips and land easily in the cup. They were all smiling and laughing at me. “It has to be him!”
Damion popped the red sucker from his mouth and shook his head. “Why me?”
“I don’t know, you’re like the fun strange one.” I pointed out.
Corey laughed harder, any tension from earlier gone. “Ah hahaha, she thinks you’re strange.”
Damion shrugged. “Strange is memorable,” he said to Corey. He put the sucker back in his mouth. “No, it’s not me.” Damion tossed his card at the cup but missed.
“Then there were three.” I narrowed my eyes at Seth.
He was lining up his shot, the card sliced through the air and actually circled the rim of the cup, but then it fell to the ground. Corey, Seth, and Damion jumped yelling “Noooooooo.” Quinn and I laughed.
“I like tattoos, not piercings,” Seth said.
“Oddly, I am disappointed by that,” I said before looking to Corey.
“Oh?” Seth smiled. “And where would you want me to have this piercing?”
And four guys looked at me expectantly, and thank God for the dim light because I was about twenty shades of red at this point. “Uhh, well…” I cleared my throat. “Moving on.” They laughed at me.
Corey tossed his card and it fluttered before landing nowhere near the cup. “Oh, you weren’t even trying.” Quinn pointed out.
“I just wanted her to get straight to asking me so I could answer her.” He gave Quinn an evil smile and Quinn rolled his eyes.
“Omg! Quinn, it’s you!” I pointed at him. “Alright, dish it out, where is it?”
Quinn shook his head, a smirk, that I was beginning to love, playing with his lips. “Why are you so interested in this?”
I shrugged. “I’m bored, and it’s more fun to talk about this than the however many demons outside waiting for us.”
Quinn sighed and lifted up his shirt, showing the metal nipple rings that were shining slightly in the limited light. I got on all fours and crawled to him, looking at it.
“Well, that isn’t as bad as I was thinking. Did it hurt?” I don’t know why I did it, but I reached up and gave it a little flick. Quinn sucked in a breath and dropped his shirt. “Oops, sorry.”
He placed his hand over it and I sat back. “It doesn’t hurt, just–”
“Sensitive,” Damion said, grinning from ear to ear.
“Fuck off,” Quinn said before tossing a card at Damion’s head. Damion dogged it with a huge shit eating grin on his face.
I sat back in my spot and flicked my card with a snap of my wrist, I was barely looking at it as it soared into the cup. “How the hell are you doing that?” Corey asked in disbelief. “You haven’t missed a single one.”
“I don’t like missing.” I stuck my tongue out at him. Corey tried to throw another card, failing epically, I rolled my eyes at him. “Alright, like this.” I mimicked the snap of my wrist without throwing a card. “And not so aggressive, it’s not a throwing star or anything, it’s a piece of cardboard.”
Seth laughed, my eyes jumped to his amused face. I found he enjoyed it when I was talking about weapons or fighting. If he only knew how much I actually knew he would probably have a heart attack. My father wasn’t the slightest bit lenient on my training.
Corey tried again, missing once more, but at least he had the motion down. “Okay, now where are you aiming?” I asked.
“The cup,” he said, exasperated as he dramatically rolled of his eyes.
“Dude, I’m not going to put up with sass, you want to know how to score or not?”
He lips pulled as he fought to hide his smirk. “Please,” he said, trying to keep a straight face, “do show me how to score.”
I looked around at the others and they all had amusement in their eyes as they fought to hide smiles. “You guys are dirty,” I finally said and they all burst out laughing. “Aim for the rim…”
They all looked at me, Damion’s face turning red as he held back another round of laughter.
I threw the cards in the air, fifty two pick up style, and couldn’t stop myself from joining the laughter this time.
A red glow began blinking from a bulb on the wall, one I hadn’t seen before. All laughter stopped immediately as Corey and Quinn jumped up, going over to the laptop and hovering over the screen. “Not seeing it,” Quinn said.
“They are moving fast, slow down the frames…” Corey began pressing from keys and I looked over at Seth and Damion, they stood slowly, patiently watching. “There,” Corey said. My eyes jumped back to him.
“How though, did you make sure to lay salt.”
“Everywhere. Like, every mouse hole I slathered that shit across,” he insisted.
“What’s going on?” I asked finally.
Quinn looked up at me. “They are in the house.”
“Nothing to worry about,” Seth said firmly. He went to the large chest and opened it up, pulling out holsters and slipping them out.
“Nothing to worry about? Yet you’re getting weapons?” I asked.
“It’s a precaution, they can’t get through the iron. But eventually we will have to leave, there may be one or two that are lingering.” Once the holster was across his chest he began lifting gun boxes from the chest, Damion quickly looked at them as he held them out. Damion opened the boxes and started preparing everything when Seth handed him ammo boxes.
I sighed. “Let me help.” I stood and walked over to Damion.
“Do you know what you’re doing? Some of these guns haven’t been used in a while so we need to check them over. All bunkers have their own weapon supply… just in case.” He handed me a box of ammo. I rolled my eyes and grabbed one of the gun cases. I opened it up, setting the ammo down. My fingers went to work, though it had been a while they acted like this was a natural everyday occurrence. I had the hand gun clipped together in no time at all, I double checked everything before grabbing the clip and the ammo. When I picked up the first bullet I paused and frowned at it.
The bullet was very unique, and obviously homemade. There were markings along it, with another pentagram, except this one looked nothing like the one on the guys’ chests.
I noticed the room had gone still and quiet, I looked up to find everyone watching me. “What? I’ve never seen a bullet like this before,” I defended myself.
Seth’s look of approval threw me through a loop, then Damion turned to him. “We’re keeping her… right?”
Seth began to nod but then he shook his head as if getting out of some sort of trance. “Let’s just get to the Ranch, alive,” he said, he turned back to the chest and continued to work away.
Once everything was finished and prepped, Quinn and Corey began to join Damion in getting armed. Seth looked over to me. “This might be one of the stupider things to do, but I think you need to be armed too.”
“Stupider?” I jokingly smile at him.
He shook his head with a smile. “Listen, when everything has cleared three of us will be going up first, do a little walk around, and then you and whoever will come up after.”
“I’ll stay with her,” Quinn said. “I can keep an eye on you from the laptop too.”
Seth nodded. “But, it would be a dumbass move to leave you unarmed, plus you sort of proved yourself when you killed that hellhound.”
I agreed with him. He picked up a gun from the box and handed it to me. “So these bullets…” I began to ask.
“No, they are just silver bullets with banishment ruins on them,” he said as if that were pretty standard knowledge.
I checked my gun over, ensuring the safety was on, the clip was full, and ready to go. Seth watched me and when I looke
d up at him he nodded.
“Now we sit and wait,” Corey said, grabbing the laptop again.
“Care if I have a look?” I asked.
Corey’s stare made contact with the others quickly before turning to me. “Sure, but… don’t freak out, they aren’t in a capsule. They are pure form.”
Interesting. I sat down next to him, my chest against his arm as I peered over at the screen. It looked like security cameras, six of them. The first was a camera that was set up right beside the front door, maybe a doorbell camera of some sort. Outside the weather was absolutely insane. What I could see of the sky, it was dark grey, the wind so strong that the trees across the street were violently being thrown around, their roots the only thing anchoring them in place. Someone’s lawn chair went flying down the vacant street, along with a small blue recycling bin. The rain was pelting down so hard that a small pool began forming in the road, lightning struck in the distance but it was still close.
“You okay?” Corey asked, watching me.
I looked up at him. “Yeah, fine.”
“So it’s the thunder,” Quinn stated. I looked up at him, confused. “The thunder sets you off, not so much storms. You seem fine watching the storm.”
“I guess.” Or, maybe that was just a one off experience. Maybe I was fine now. I looked at the next image, it was the front foyer, the door was blown over and the salt scattered across the floor. Next was the side of the house, the storm raging on with such ferocious intent, it almost didn’t seem real. Inside this bunker everything was warm and calm, not a single sound to suggest anything as angry as what was going on outside was happening. There was another camera on the other side of the house which showed much of the same thing. I looked through the camera at the back and watched as tree limbs and debris were being thrown around violently. The last two cameras were located in the upstairs hallway and the garage. The one in the hallway I could see from the open doorways that the the rooms had been torn apart, I felt bad about all the supplies that were in there.
