by Angie Sandro
She lowers her shaking arms until the pillow covers her bare chest. “Depends. Is it you speaking or the demon?”
“I dislike the term ‘demon.’ It has many negative connotations in this era.”
“Please, you’re not helping the situation,” I say back to it, then smooth out my frown. Because judging by the panicky look on Mala’s face, she can tell I’m holding a conversation with it in my head by the changing of my expressions. I’m such an idiot. I should’ve told her about the deal earlier. We should’ve talked about everything first, but I wanted a few moments to connect before wading into the shit again.
Her breathing hitches as she speaks. “W-why isn’t it trying to kill me?”
“Huh? Why do you think it would try to kill…” Oh yeah, ’cause it tried to kill her the last time it broke free. She had to kick me in the face to knock it out. “Why did you do that?” I ask it.
“How would you react to being woken from a sound sleep by an unknown threat? I did not know or care to take the time to discern who my enemy was. Neutralizing the threat was paramount for the preservation of my host’s life.”
“What did it say, Landry?”
“He says you’re not his enemy.”
“I am a lover, not a fighter.”
A magnified image of Mala’s breasts pop in my head, and I almost punch myself in the face. As if that would do any good. “Never!”
“What?” The pillow now hides all but her eyes, muffling her high-pitched voice. “Tell me what it said.”
“It’s got a dirty sense of humor.” I grab our clothes from the floor and toss Mala’s onto the bed. Then turn my back to let her dress in private. “When you got trapped in that spell, I made a deal with it to help me free you. Basically, I promised to let it experience life through my eyes.”
“And what did it promise you? You did ask for something, right?”
I swallow hard. “It swore not to kill anyone or take me out for a test drive without permission.”
“And no raw chicken.” The disgust runs through my head. “Although, dog seems to be acceptable, if flame broiled. I assume cooked chicken is not off limits. I have heard of this Popeye’s Fried Chicken place.”
“Popeye’s is fine.” I catch Mala’s frown. “He has a thing for chicken.”
“I’m cool with taking him to Popeye’s if he leaves my hens alone. Same with not feeling the need to kill me. And thank him for rescuing me from that spell.”
“You’re handling this part way better than I thought you would.”
“Well, I’m alive. All other things are relative, right?” She doesn’t make eye contact, but a slight grimace, which might be a pained smile, flickers across her lips. “But it’s probably like how I’m sort of immune to the gore on The Walking Dead. If I overreact to every jacked-up thing we experience, I’ll go insane.” She waves her arm to encompass the tiny room. “This, us, is my reality, and I’m rolling with it. Can’t you see, I’m rolling…Going with the flow. There’s no need to panic. I find out I’m pregnant. Get trapped in a magic spell and almost eaten by a tree. Then find out Dena’s stuck in limbo while being stalked by Red and it’s my fault. If that isn’t enough to toss me over a cliff, I don’t know what is. But I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? Because you don’t sound fine. It sounds like you’re about to scream bloody murder or grab a chainsaw and go Friday the 13th on somebody.”
She lets out a heavy sigh. “Texas Chainsaw Massacre…and you’re right. I’m not okay.”
I sit on the edge of the bed. She hesitates for a long enough moment to make me think she doesn’t want me to touch her anymore, then sighs again. She crawls onto my lap. Shivers wrack her body, and I wrap my arms around her. She lays her head on my shoulder.
“I’m scared for us, Landry. How can we bring a baby into the world when our lives are so chaotic?”
“We don’t have a choice,” I say. “Unless that pregnancy test was a false positive, you’ve got a baby on board. We’ve got nine months—”
“Thirty-four weeks…We’ve got eight and a half months to get our shit together.”
“That’s less than I thought.”
“Blame your super sperm. I’m still trying to figure out how it got past the condoms.” She rubs the tip of her nose against my shoulder. “You don’t think Magnolia used a spell on us, do you?”
“Yeah, I kind of do. Ferdinand and Sophia didn’t seem very surprised by the news. The new LaCroix heir. Your family is pretty excited. I still worry Ms. Jasmine might go all ballistic on my ass and learn how to throw knives. Still, I know you’ll be a good mother. No matter what happens to me, you and the baby will be taken care of.”
“You will be here to help me. Now that you’ve made a deal with that parasite.” At my silence, she sits up and slaps my shoulder. “Please tell me you asked the demon for immunity from liquefying your brain. Please.”
“I was more concerned about rescuing you at the time.”
“Oh…” Mala grimaces and waves a hand. “Well, get on with it then. Better late than never.”
I close my eyes. “Hey, you still there?”
Silence in the other end of my brain.
“I think it decided to give us some privacy. When Sophia and Ferdinand come in the morning, I’ll see what we can find out from it now that we’re communicating.”
“I’m also ready to bring Dena out of limbo. I won’t leave her to be terrorized by Red. He had a chance to reform, but instead he’s continuing his evil ways. I didn’t want to be the one to decide his fate, but…” Her shoulders straighten. “He brought this on himself.”
“I’m cool with getting Dena back.”
“What about Magnolia? I’ll need her help.”
“Ferdinand said her royal highness will arrive tomorrow night.”
The corners of Mala’s eyes tighten for a second and then the tension seems to drain out of her. She grins and traces her hand down my chest. “Since we’ve got the kinks in our plan worked out, how about a little foreplay?”
“No penetration involved until we talk to the doctor to find out if sex will hurt our daughter.”
“Who says it’s a girl?”
I gently rub Mala’s belly, and she giggles. “Doesn’t your family have a bad track record at conceiving boys?”
“There ain’t been a male LaCroix since Gaston,” Ms. Jasmine says from the corner chair. Mala and I break apart and dart to separate corners of the room. My heart races so hard I think I’m having a heart attack.
“Mama, stop! I’m seriously going to add warding to this room if you keep barging in on us like this,” Mala cries. “What if we were having sex?”
Ms. Jasmine shrugs. “Then I’ll have to figure out how to use a Ouija board and tell Reverend Prince you’ve broken the no-sex-before-marriage clause in your contract. Not that he won’t figure it out soon since you’re poppin’ out your pants.”
Chapter 15
Mala
Betrayal
I lay in the brown grass on my stomach with my chin propped on my folded arms. The blue wings of a butterfly flutter open and closed. The corpse it crawls on has dried out in the sun, its dried skin stretched across the skull. Scavengers have pulled apart the rib cage. Cracked bones litter the field like bleached white sticks. I roll onto my back. Red rims the clouds above, making the sky seem like it’s on fire.
Screams come from a distance, and I moan. My body feels heavy. I should go to the boy, but I don’t want to witness his death. The evil one saw me the last time. He sensed my presence and tried to kill me even though I was there only in memory. Now he knows the scent of my blood and sweat. The rich taste of my magic. He fed on me before. He’ll be waiting to do so again.
I know this. Somehow.
The boy cries out in an undulating wail. Sympathetic pain radiates through my wrists as a blade hacks remorselessly through muscle and bone. Why doesn’t he kill him first? Is it that he enjoys inflicting pain? Gets his mad mojo on by seeing t
he child suffer? Sick bastard.
I close my burning eyes, unable to leave him to die alone. They open to see the boy, splayed in the dirt. I double over with a cry, afraid to go closer. His cries trail off into low whimpers, fading. Then stop. Blood pools on the earth, turning it to mud and draining into a grooved circle cut into the dirt. It bubbles, letting off a layer of reddish mist. It’s the edge of the spell. Cross the circle and I’m trapped again.
I edge backward. This place seems familiar. Like I’ve seen this place before, only I can’t think of when or where it might be located. It’s not White Oak Island, but somewhere else.
How many kids has he killed? How many circles of power has he made? How will I stop him before he figures out how to find my physical body? He senses me spying on him, like I sense his eyes burning through the veil. A whisper of sound from behind whips me around. My arm rises to block the swing of the knife. Its sharpened edge slices across my forearm, and I stumble, screaming, “Landry!”
The overwhelming odor of putrid flesh rushes in when I inhale, and I cough. The cloaked figure moves faster than I can react, launching forward. The knife cuts the air, and I dive out of its path. My shoulder and back slam into the ground. I roll onto my side in the flattened dry grass and curl my legs up to protect my stomach. I moved just in time. His foot connects with my thigh, and he lets out a mad howl that sends chills coursing through my body. I gasp for breath, my lungs straining. He moves until I lie sandwiched between his outstretched legs. The blade stabs down.
I grab the guy’s wrist, but he’s stronger than I am. He uses his body weight to press down. The tip of the knife inches toward my chest. My arms tremble from the pressure. I can’t hold him off much longer. Panic builds. A heated rush of adrenaline courses through my body and triggers the abnormality in my brain that controls my ability to use magic. Thank God I’m a genetic freak because I grasp onto this lifeline with the desperation of the damned. Power surges from deep within, boiling in my belly, radiating heat from the inside. And like a bomb detonating in my core, it rips me apart.
With a scream, I thrust this power upward. It stabs him in the chest and flings him into the air. Only he lands on his feet. Before I can catch my breath, he’s racing toward me again, like he’s got nine lives to spare and has no fear of my stealing one of them. I can’t kill him. It took me too long to figure this out, but I know now. It’s my dream, but he’s the one in control.
“Landry, wake me up!” I scream. Wake up.
He’s a step away. I can’t avoid the strike.
Then he’s gone. A familiar back blocks my view of him. Mama didn’t raise no fool, and I scramble to the side to avoid being smack dab in the middle of the battle. A rush of elation courses through my body when my awesome boyfriend catches him by the scruff of his cloak, and like he’s fueled by ’roid rage, lifts him into the air.
I shake my fist in the air and cheer, “Yes, go, Landry!”
The guy’s feet dangle inches above the ground. I swallow the lump rising in my throat as my euphoria is dampened by the memory of the last time I witnessed Landry exhibiting this much strength. Landry’s stronger than the average bear ’cause he works out regularly, but he’s no superhero. Or should I say, super villain. He’d pinned Redford Delahoussaye to the wall as easily as hanging a picture frame only because the demon had control over him. It saved us from certain death, like he’s saving me now.
As if he can read my mind, a yellow eye turns in my direction, and I shiver. So, not Landry. But the demon. He came into my nightmare and holds a mass murderer in his hands. I’m not sure which one of the two scares me more.
The cloaked guy slashes at Landry’s handsome face, but Landry knocks the knife from his hand. It falls at my feet, and I grab it off the ground, hissing from the coldness of the bone hilt. My palm hurts, then goes numb. I direct the pointed end outward and hold it up before me.
“What kind of demon plays with its food? Kill him before he escapes,” I yell, silently acknowledging the irony in my request. But the saying “desperate times call for desperate measures” seems perfect for this sort of situation.
I shift the knife higher when the yellow eye moves in my direction again, and he says, “No, it’s not my dream.”
Unexpected response. “But he’s the bad guy. He’s killing kids.”
“Yes…but per my agreement with my sleeping host, I only eat chicken. Nor has he given permission to kill this vile permutation of evil.”
“Color me confused, but isn’t a demon calling this guy evil a bit like the pot calling the kettle black?” My hand wavers, and the knife lowers. “What the hell are you?”
The cloaked guy twists and kicks the demon between the legs. Whether real or a facsimile of my boyfriend, the distraction works. His grip loosens, and the bad guy’s running at me faster than I can skitter away. With a cry, I slash wildly at him. He flinches from the touch of the blade.
Arms snake around my waist from behind. I scream as I fall backward.
I try to sit up.
A heavy weight pins my upper body to the bed. I yell again, right in Landry’s ear. With a choked snort, he rears back, teetering on the edge of the mattress. I grab his arm before he rolls off the side.
“What the—” He blinks, confusion swirling in his gray eye. Then he focuses on my outstretched arm. He grabs my wrist. Blood runs from a slice in my forearm. “God, what happened?” He pulls his T-shirt over his head and wraps it around the cut.
My teeth chatter against the cold pain in the wound, reminding me of the knife I still clutch like it’s fused to my palm. “How…It’s his knife. He tried to kill me with it.”
“Where did this come from?” He reaches for the blade but draws his hand back with a hiss. He shakes his fingers. “It stings.”
“I know.” My breaths come in ragged gasps. “I dreamed about the murderer. The one killing the kids we found at the crime scene yesterday. He murdered another boy and cut me with this knife and…” I pause, not sure if I should tell him about the…whatever-entity living inside him saving me. I’ll figure out this newest mystery later. Focus first on the most immediate threat, like the fact that I can be hurt in my dreams and bring items out of them.
Oh no, worse thought: What if I can affect things in my dreams? What if instead of wasting time watching butterflies, I’d followed the screams. Could I have saved the boy?
I trace the hard edge of Landry’s bristled jaw with my gaze. He’d be so disappointed if he knew how selfishly I behaved. I squeeze my eyes shut. My head dips forward to rest against his muscular chest, and I count the rapid thuds of his heart. He grips the T-shirt and wraps his other arm around my shoulder, waiting to speak because he senses I’m not finished.
“He’s coming to kill me.” The idea of being hunted again sets off a mass of shivers. I’m shaking so hard the bed trembles.
“Let him come. It’ll be the last thing he does.” His implacable tone comforts me. Landry thinks that I don’t trust him to protect me. In truth, I know it’s exactly the opposite. He’s so strong, so brave, he’ll charge right into a dangerous situation to keep me safe. He died once because of me. I’ll be damned before I let that happen again. Better to call George. At least he’s got a gun, training, and the backup of the sheriff’s office to bring to a fight with a psycho serial killer. All Landry has is me.
Of course, I don’t play stupid by saying this out loud.
Landry wraps the sheet around the knife hilt and pries it free from my fingers and then wraps my hand around the T-shirt as a bandage. “I’ll get the first-aid kit.”
“It’s under the bathroom sink.”
He unlocks the door and freezes in the open doorway. I rise to my knees to try to see around him. A cluster of human forms block his exit. I fall back onto the bed and pull the covers over myself right before Axle squeezes underneath Landry’s arm. He rushes into the room with Jonjovi right behind him. Both boys throw questions in my direction so fast that I can’t focus on individual
words. But worse than the boys catching me in the bedroom with my boyfriend is the fact that their sourpuss social worker, Mrs. Moulton, also stands in the doorway. Her wrinkled face shouts her disapproval, and her eyes blister my skin.
Totally busted. This is worse than being caught by the rev.
Then I remember what I told Mama. Damn it. I’m a grown-ass adult. And this is my house. I’ve done nothing wrong. Landry and I slept fully clothed after Mama interrupted our make-out session. There’s no reason for this stupid rush of shame making my cheeks burn.
Landry throws a quick grimace over his shoulder. Only the pink tips of his ears, holding his hair out his face, show his embarrassment. Otherwise he seems perfectly calm and collected as he says, “Mrs. Moulton, could you please go back into the living room?” He doesn’t touch her. She’d probably flip out if he did. Instead, he steps forward, using his bulk to drive her down the hallway with each slow step.
More voices filter in from the living room. It’s like a party going on out there, except without the guests of honor. And I sure don’t feel up to celebrating. I want to hide like a frightened child from the coming drama, but I can’t leave Landry to face this alone. Axle taps my shoulder and shakes me out of my dazed stupor. The boys sit almost smack in the middle of my blanket-cushioned lap, trying to get my attention.
Axle’s lower lip quivers. “You’re bleeding.”
I glance at the makeshift bandage. “I had a nightmare and fell off the bed. I cut my arm on something, but I’m fine. I just need a real bandage.” My voice lowers to a whisper. “What is Mrs. Moulton doing in here? Did you let her into the house? You know you’re not supposed to open the door to strangers.”
Jonjovi crosses his arms and looks stern. “We heard you screaming. And when we knocked, you didn’t answer.”
Axle imitates a bobblehead doll. “Jonjovi said Red broke out of the hospital to get revenge. That he’s killing you, and we had to stop him. That’s why we let Mrs. Moulton in.”
