The Sacrifice of Sunshine Girl
Page 19
“Anna!” I shout. But the tree branch is vacant. I don’t see her anywhere. Where did she go?
The wind demon swirls around me, gathering momentum, and begins to lift me into the air. What is it doing? And then I know. It’s going to catapult me against the tree, over and over again, until every bone in my body is shattered to smithereens…
No.
I clench my fists and focus my mental energy on resisting the wind. I make myself strong, heavy. Heavy as lead. I am cemented to the ground. I am immoveable.
It works. The wind demon comes back, battering, shrieking, screaming. All around me the trees, grass, the chain-link fence, everything is flattened, bent practically in half by the maelstrom.
But not me. My body has become something else—a boulder, a monolith—and the wind can’t touch me.
Seconds pass. Minutes. Eventually I hear the wind die down and all is quiet again.
I’ve defeated it.
I sit up slowly, making sure it’s truly gone. I spot Oscar cowering under the back porch, whimpering.
“It’s okay, boy! I’m sorry you had to experience that. Bad demons! Come on, let’s go inside and get you some treats…”
That’s when I notice the face in the kitchen window, staring out at me.
The man in black.
Dubu.
CHAPTER 34
The Return of the Man in Black
No, no, no.
Dubu is in my house.
He watches me from the kitchen window, his lips curled up in a half-smile. But his eyes aren’t smiling at all—they’re black, hard, full of rage.
And then I remember Ashley’s upstairs asleep.
I scramble to my feet and make a mad dash toward the kitchen door. “Stay away from her!”
But there’s no one in the window.
Where did he go?
I reach the door and open it slowly. My heart is knocking against my chest so hard that it feels like it’ll jump right out. I survey the kitchen. Everything’s the same as before. The half-filled coffee pot making little gurgly noises. The dirty dishes in the sink. My half-eaten English muffin on the counter. But there is something different—a faint, buzzy energy in the room. Is that the Markon energy signature Aidan’s always talking about? The thing that his weird silver Renaissance device detects? How is it possible I can detect it without the device?
Footsteps creak on the stairs.
It must be him. He’s heading up to the second floor. I look around wildly and grab a kitchen knife out of the wooden knife block. It’s not my luiseach knife, not even close, but it’s the only weapon that’s readily available.
On the counter next to the knife block is my phone. Yes! I pick it up and text Aidan quickly:
Dubu in house.
He texts back immediately:
On my way get out of there NOW.
But I can’t. I’m not about to leave Ashley alone with Dubu. I’ll just have to keep my fingers crossed that Aidan will be here soon.
I silence my phone and tuck it into my robe pocket, then I clutch the kitchen knife and tiptoe cautiously toward the stairs. Once I reach the landing I glance up. No Dubu. What should I do? Should I yell up to Ashley and warn her? But even if she were awake, there’s no way she could defend herself against a Markon.
Not that I’m in a much better position to do so, especially with a lame kitchen knife. But I have to try, at least until the cavalry arrives.
A door opens and closes.
My heart practically stops.
Is he in my room? With Ashley?
The heck with caution… I hurry up the steps, taking them two at a time.
My bedroom door is closed. Lex Luthor sits there, blinking up at me.
“Lex, get out of the way,” I whisper.
In response Lex Luthor begins to levitate in the air. His green eyes gleam as he extends his claws at me, hissing and growling.
“Lex, no! It’s me!”
He flies through the air at my face. I duck just in time.
And then I gather some momentum, leap to the door, and throw my body against it.
No Dubu. My room is the same as I left it. Ashley’s fast asleep on her air mattress, her face turned toward the wall.
The buzzy energy I felt earlier is gone.
Something touches my ankles.
Startled, I glance down. Lex Luthor is rubbing up against me and purring.
“Lex?”
He meows and paws the carpet, which is his way of saying he wants more food. Is he back to normal? What did Dubu do to him? I’m afraid to reach down and pet him.
Just then I hear a strange moaning sound. It’s coming from the air mattress. Ashley!
I hurry to her side. She’s struggling to sit up.
“Ash?”
She stares at me with terrified eyes and points to her mouth.
It’s covered with black tape.
Her Power Is Beyond What I Imagined
I tested the girl with one of the strongest weapons in my arsenal.
She handily fended off Serepan, the wind demon, and without the use of her own weapon.
Her power is beyond what I imagined. Soon her abilities will surpass those of her biological father and mother—perhaps even her ancestors, the Original Ones.
I must rethink everything.
At least the halfling is out of the picture. She is in my possession now, scooped up as easily as a tadpole out of a pond, and she is awaiting her fate in one of my underground prisons.
What an annoyance she has been. An enigma too, and I do not care for enigmas. By all accounts, she should be one of us already. Her spirit has been lingering on this Earth for more than a year. Why hasn’t she turned dark by now?
Does it have something to do with the fact that she is half luiseach? Are half-luiseach spirits able to linger here on Earth in their light states indefinitely or at least for longer than their human counterparts?
For that matter, what happens to luiseach spirits when they leave the earthly plane? The Japanese girl and the Australian girl are still here. The ones from Russia and Rapa Nui seem to have vanished entirely—but to where? And the other luiseach who have passed on, the memorable ones, anyway… where did they go? I have not seen them or heard them or even sensed their altered existence in this or any other realm, not for many centuries. Like the Original Ones. Like Laoise, their eldest daughter, who ruled the luiseach until the beginning of the Renaissance. Like Laisren, Laoise’s eldest son and Aidan’s father.
Like I said, I do not care for enigmas.
Halflings of all kinds do seem to have unique abilities. My two children, for example—or rather, my child, my sole remaining child, as the other was lost to the Great Darkness. His own rather spectacular halfling abilities could not help him when Aidan terminated him during a so-called exorcism. I know Aidan justified his action, claiming he simply wanted to save the life of an innocent woman and her unborn child, that he’d had no knowledge of the identity of the demon inside her. But I have never believed that. Clearly he had vengeance on his mind, given what he’d learned about his mate the day before.
The Book of Prophecy did not prophesize this. If it had, I might have saved my son from this terrible fate.
It did, however, prophesize the coming of Aidan’s child. A luiseach like no other whose birth would pave the way for our own renaissance.
But the little halfling called Anna, she has interfered one too many times. And I do not want her interfering on the day the spell shall finally be completed. The Day of Reckoning.
Perhaps I can hasten her journey to darkness somehow as I did with the Kirsten spirit?
CHAPTER 35
Carpe Diem
Is everything okay with your friend Ashley?” Bastian asks me.
It’s Wednesday after school, and we’re in Room 236 for one of the last spring dance committee meetings. The dance is in three days. Bastian and I are at a corner table finishing up the rose decorations. I was getting pretty sick of m
aking them—the same crepe-paper flowers over and over and over again—but today I’m grateful to have something boring and repetitive to do with my hands so I can concentrate on my zillion and one problems and how to solve them.
“Ashley?” I say to Bastian, casually, like I don’t know what he’s talking about. “What do you mean?”
Bastian blushes and drops his gaze to the floor. His hair falls across his eyes, and it occurs to me he must have gotten a haircut—it’s less bowl cut and more preppy, collegiate.
“She hasn’t been in school all week. I, um, took the liberty of telephoning her yesterday to see if she was all right. She said it wasn’t a good time and hung up. I believe she may have been crying?”
Ashley gave Bastian her telephone number? I’ll have to remind her about the no-dating-Bastian rule. When she’s better and not in nonstop panic-attack mode 24/7.
“Oh, that. Yeah, um… she got some bad news from home,” I improvise quickly. “From her family in Austin. She’s been pretty upset.”
“I hope everything is all right?”
“She’ll be okay. She just needs a little time.”
“Right. Of course.”
I busy myself unraveling a pipe cleaner knot. The thing is, I have no idea if Ashley will be okay. She pretty much hasn’t stopped crying since what happened Monday morning. She doesn’t remember much—just that she had a nightmare about a “scary killer monster” and woke up gasping for air and totally freaked out because her mouth was covered with black duct tape.
By then Aidan had arrived—practically knocked the front door down as he charged into the house, ready to defend me against Dubu. But Dubu was long gone. All that remained was a scared-out-of-her-mind Ashley. Plus Lex Luthor, who seemed to have recovered from his levitation ordeal. (Which, as far as I can tell, I didn’t hallucinate, although I haven’t let him sleep in my room since then. Trust issues.) Aidan swept the house with his silver device and told me he’d changed his mind: he wanted me to leave for Llevar la Luz immediately and lay low for a while. I refused. We had a big argument, typical father-daughter stuff, but he could see that I’d made up my mind to stay in Ridgemont and not run away from Dubu, from any of this.
I came really close to telling him about Bastian.
But not yet. First I have to make sure he and Helena aren’t going to go all Dr. Frankenstein on the poor guy.
I came really close to asking Aidan about his “burden” too. And repeating what Zalea had said about me being able to end the war quickly. Me.
But I didn’t because it’s possible—probable even—that whatever Zalea is talking about is highly dangerous, which means there’s a good chance Aidan won’t let me get involved. Because, overprotective.
Of course there’s a chance I won’t let me get involved either. Or Nolan, my protector. Because, also overprotective, in his own way.
“So, Bastian, how are you doing?” I ask him. I lower my voice and add, “Have you had any more, you know, experiences?”
Tiffany is yelling across the room at some volunteers—who decided to use this ugly font on the new posters and why hasn’t anyone called the rental place about the disco ball and does she have to do everything herself? Whew, she’s back to her old self. It’s so weird she’s so not nice in real life and super-nice when possessed by a demon. I always thought possessed humans were nasty and dangerous or, at the very least, super-creepy.
Bastian is beaming and whispers, “Yes, I had another experience. Last night. I was in my room studying when everything grew very cold and an elderly woman appeared. She had just died in the hospital of a brain disorder. An aneurism perhaps. I was frightened at first, but I tried to remember what you said. I tried to remember what I did with that other ghost too… the drowning victim, Tomas… how I helped him disappear.”
“Cross over.”
“Yes, cross over. I closed my eyes and sent the old woman kind feelings. Compassion. She touched my shoulder, and when I opened my eyes she was gone.”
“Bastian, that’s great!”
“Is it?” He blushes again.
“It’s fantastic!”
“My father almost walked in on me during the crossing-over procedure. But it was fine!” Bastian says quickly when he sees my reaction. “I explained that I was rehearsing for a drama audition, a school play.”
“Oh whew. Good one! Way to think on your feet!”
“Yes, it was fortunate. If he and Mother found out…” Bastian stops and shakes his head grimly.
“So you haven’t said anything to anyone? About being a luiseach, I mean?”
“No, absolutely not! This is absolutely our secret. I cannot risk the possibility of—”
“You guys!”
I glance up, startled, to see Ashley coming across the room toward us. She looks gorgeous and super put-together in a pale-pink dress, matching wedge shoes, and just enough makeup to make it look like she’s not wearing makeup, that she’s just naturally and effortlessly beautiful. Which she is. Her long hair is swept up neatly in a high ponytail and adorned with a single sparkly barrette.
Before I left for school this morning she was curled up in a fetal position on her air mattress, in her PJs, weeping softly while Mom tried to convince her to eat something, anything.
So, big contrast. I’m really relieved she’s better.
When she gets to our table she gives me a long hug and then she gives Bastian a long hug too. His face turns several shades redder.
“I am soooo glad to see you both!” Ashley gushes.
“Hey Ash. I thought you were staying home with Mom today? Are you sure you’re okay to be here?”
“I’m better than okay! In fact, I had an epi-phony. Is that how you pronounce it? I realized I can’t just hide in my room—well, your room—crying my eyes out because the world is a scary place. So here I am! In fact, I had the best idea. Sunny-G, why don’t the four of us go to the dance together this Saturday? The three of us and your cute genius boyfriend. You and I can go shopping for dresses at the mall, the guys can wear matching tuxes…”
“I-I had not planned on going,” Bastian says, squirming uncomfortably. “I do not dance.”
“Well, now you’re going! I’ll teach you! It’s going to be a blast! Sun, what’s that Spanish phrase about seizing the day? It sounds like a kind of fish. Carp something?”
“Latin. Carpe diem.”
“Yes, that! We all need to carpe diem. Sunshine and I aren’t taking ‘no’ for an answer!”
What has gotten into Ashley?
Bastian gazes at me helplessly. Maybe this is where I should jump in and rescue him. He seriously looks as though he’d rather jump off a cliff than go to a high school dance. Besides, I’m the one who didn’t want him getting all datey with Ashley and losing his luiseach focus.
However, Ashley seems pretty excited about this—actually, ten cups of espresso in her system excited—so maybe I should back her up? It’s better than watching her sobbing nonstop because her life just turned into an R-rated horror movie. Besides, it doesn’t sound like a romantic double date as much as four friends hanging out at a dance together.
Nolan and I are going as just friends technically speaking, so why not two more just friends?
“You could just go and not dance?” I say feebly to Bastian.
“What is the point of going to a dance if you’re not going to dance?” he counters.
“Stretch limo!” Ashley bursts out. “Is there a place to rent stretch limousines in Ridgemont? I’m thinking one of the ones with the sparkly neon lights and high-tech sound system. And a moon roof! Or a sun roof—is there a difference? Oh, and those free bottles of water and packs of M&M’s—”
Just then Tiffany marches up to our table. She has a large piece of yellow poster board tucked under one arm.
“I need your opinions, people. Well, I need your opinion, Ashley, as you’re the only one in this little group with any style or taste.”
Yup. Back to her old self.
Tiffany holds up the poster for us to see.
SPRING FLING!
Ridgemont High School Gym
This Saturday, April 15 at 7 P.M.
Live Music by Angry Jell-O
Refreshments, prizes, fun!
Updates at Ridgemontspringfling.com and
@ridgemontspringfling
Ashley leans back and taps her finger against her chin as she scrutinizes the poster.
“Hmm. Maybe a photo from the band’s website here? And a few pink and green roses to match our decorations here and here?” she suggests, pointing. “Oh, and this isn’t poster related, but we should get an audio clip from the band and put it on our website! Plus do a Twitter blast!”
Tiffany claps. “Brilliant!”
Bastian is staring at the poster.
“So what do you think?” I ask him. He takes off his glasses, rubs the bridge of his nose, and blinks. “Bastian? No one’s going to make you go, if you really don’t want to.”
“Yes.” He puts his glasses back on. “I just remembered, I actually have a family obligation that night. But I hate to deny Ashley her request. So I believe I can do both. As long as I don’t have to dance.”
“No worries. I’m a horrible dancer too. We can stand on the sidelines together and watch all the beautiful people gyrating and head bobbing,” I joke.
“All right then.”
Bastian nods to himself and turns away.
But before he does I swear I catch a glimmer of a smile.
What’s that about?
CHAPTER 36
Guera Spirito
Later that night Nolan and I meet at Ridgemont Pizza. It’s not a date, exactly, obviously, although of course there’s always an overlay of datey whenever I’m around him. Mostly he just wanted to get together so we could catch up on everything that’s been happening. I love this restaurant, which mysteriously—because Ridgemont is a tiny, middle-of-nowhere town—has better pizza than back in sophisticated, big-city Austin.