The Defiance

by Laura Gallier

  I’d never seen her like this, so filled with doubt. She wrapped both arms around her gut as if she was bleeding out, like she’d been shot all over again. It was lonely, trying to have enough faith for the both of us. Such an odd reversal of roles.

  She peered into the darkness through the windshield. “I know it’s wrong and faithless, and I feel guilty for that.” She had an unfamiliar blank stare. “But I’m seriously afraid this time. Really afraid.”

  I leaned over the middle console and pulled her toward me, guiding her head to my shoulder, intent on holding her for as long as she’d let me. I wanted to comfort her with a bold promise—a solemn vow that absolutely nothing bad would happen to Jackson or her because I’d never allow it.

  But . . .

  What if I can’t stop it?

  I didn’t know if the thought had come from me or was shot at my brain from Fear, still circling the vehicle, but it was enough to stop me from making any promises. And to make my heart pound.

  Eventually, Ray Anne got out of the car, and I unstrapped Jackson from his car seat. Our light sent Fear into the neighbor’s yard, now ironically afraid of us. I walked Ray to her garage apartment door, carrying Jackson’s limp body in my arms. I didn’t want to leave either of them, but it wasn’t like I could stay the night. That was way off limits.

  She took Jackson from me and hugged me, squeezing him between us while pleading for me to keep my cell with me at all times and make sure the ringer was on. I swore I would.

  I lowered onto my motorcycle, wondering which was worse: seeing that black serpent in Ray Anne’s neck or witnessing the most faith-filled person I knew completely cower to dread.

  I started my bike, and from the edge of Ray Anne’s driveway, Fear growled at me like demons do.

  “I command you to go, in Christ’s name.”

  It didn’t. Because it didn’t have to. It had a spirit-world right to torment fearful people, and Ray Anne was eaten up with fear tonight. I sat idling in the driveway as Fear charged into the air and landed on her roof, pacing back and forth over her room. Above Ray Anne’s bed, as best as I could tell. I prayed out loud for God to send Ramus, her divine protector, and thank God, he came immediately. Fear leapt off the roof and ran through the air, far and fast.

  My night-watch duty demanded I get back to the church, but I hated to leave. I finally backed out of Ray Anne’s driveway and spotted that scrawny pale-pink Creeper in the moonlight, crawling through the lawn on all fours toward Ray’s apartment—as if I hadn’t run it off already. But before Ramus reacted, it got pulverized by a pack of Creepers that appeared to show up for the sole purpose of smiting the weakling and hauling it away.

  Nice.

  My sleep schedule was way off, but it’s not like I would have slept peacefully anyway. I thrashed on top of my mattress, knowing I should trust God, and Ramus, to watch over Ray Anne, yet I was restless with worry. It didn’t help the situation when, at 2:00 a.m., there was a loud thud, like something had slammed the floor in the storage space above my room.

  Maybe it was overreacting, but I called the cops. Thankfully the operator patched me through to an officer who’d proven trustworthy in times past. Officer McFarland agreed to come check things out. I followed behind him as he inspected the dusty third-floor storage room, dragging three chains behind him—a nice man who worked hard to put bad guys in jail, yet wasn’t liberated himself. At least he seemed nice. You never could tell around here.

  I wanted to talk to him about getting free—shedding his metal for the Light—but I still didn’t know how to bring it up in a way that would make sense to a shackled person. And I did not want to see those freaky black scales overtake his eyes like had happened before when I’d broached the topic of faith with bound people.

  Beat-up tables were leaned against the walls throughout the large storage space, and there were stacks of chairs and a few old-school chalkboards—but no robbers or vandals. “There are lots of rat droppings,” McFarland pointed out. “They scurry at night. I’m guessing that’s what you heard, but you were right to call me. Would be good to put some traps out.”

  I picked up the pole of an American flag that was lying on the floor. “Maybe the rats knocked this over.” Not everything was paranormal.

  I followed McFarland out of the room, down two flights of stairs and to the church exit doors, wondering the whole time how much he did or didn’t know about his colleague Detective Benny.

  “Officer McFarland?” He faced me, and there was no going back. “If I had some concerns about someone on the Masonville Police force, how would you suggest I go about reporting it?”

  He nodded slowly, a concerned look on his face. “Well, I’d say you best go talk to Detective Benny.”

  I cut my eyes away, gnawing my bottom lip.

  He cleared his throat. “I see. Well, if you have evidence, you should take it to the state police.”

  “Okay. Thank you.”

  It’s not like that had never occurred to me. Unfortunately, Elle and I still didn’t know who we could and couldn’t trust, even on a state level, and telling the wrong person could cost our loved ones and us our lives.

  He started to leave, then turned back. “Son, I’ve been Detective Benny’s right hand for fifteen years, long enough to know he shoots straight.”

  I was careful but clear. “Well, you know what they say. Sometimes the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.”

  He stared at me long and hard. I thanked him again, then closed and locked the doors, praying I’d at least piqued his suspicions. And hoping he really was one of the good guys.

  Upstairs in my room, I scooted Daisy out of my spot in bed, then lay down, ready to try to finally get some sleep. I didn’t react to another thud overhead. Rats, I assured myself.

  But then I sat up straight in bed. Those high-pitched whispers were back.

  TWELVE

  HUSHED VOICES POURED INTO MY ROOM like a sewer pipe leak in the ceiling. Unintelligible words. And there were more thuds, like pounding and stomping.

  This wasn’t rodents.

  I prayed, but like before, the foreboding voices only got louder. That didn’t exactly build my faith. But it did help me to hear what they were saying. I picked up on words like attack. Fear. Death. Then the most unsettling: Ray Anne.

  My heart sank, but not my adrenaline. I threw my sheets back, prepared to beat these evil trespassers at their own game—whoever or whatever they were. I determined I’d pray even louder and longer than they were carrying on, until Custos and his soldiers hopefully arrived and ripped the tormentors from limb to limb. Or wing to wing. Molek’s ghoulish brown messenger bats had vowed to come after me at night. Maybe it was them, mumbling in high-pitched voices and flapping around the storage room, knocking stuff around.

  My feet hit the floor, and there was an instant commotion on my balcony again, loud enough to make Daisy jump down off the bed and whine. I didn’t hesitate—just threw the double doors open, more irritated than scared. But I still flinched.

  Veronica stood facing me in the moonlight, balancing barefoot on the narrow balcony handrailing.

  “I see you.” She smiled, but it wasn’t kind. A strong gust swept across the balcony, but it didn’t even ruffle her thin dress or long hair.

  “I know you’re not her.” I stepped boldly to the center of the balcony. “You’re a demonic pretender.”

  She shook her head with a belittling hum. “Poor orphaned Owen. Always a step behind.”

  It was a cruel thing to say, but evil is always vicious—to everyone. And dishonest. “This won’t work on me. Not again.”

  She crossed her arms against her chest. “Silly boy. It’s already working.” She smiled wider. “You’re in my intentions. Always.” And with that odd remark, she fell backward off the balcony. I charged forward and leaned over the railing, searching for her—for her imposter—but it was gone.

  There were no more whispers after that. Just the sound of my bo
x fan and my noisy thoughts as I tried to come to grips with what in the world could be happening in the spirit realm.

  The next morning, Saturday, I was laser-focused on what I needed to do. On my way out of the church, I called Elle and told her where I was headed. I hadn’t expected her to drop everything and meet me at a prison three hours from Masonville, but she said she had her own list of questions for Veronica. Fine by me. Elle was an expert at extracting information from people. Plus, she said she was able to call and use her media status to set up a face-to-face interview with Veronica versus having to talk to her through a glass barrier using one of those germy prison phones.

  As I drove off the church lot, I spotted the black Suburban parked on the side of the road, but I made it past the outskirts of town without being followed. The open hill country roads were always where I did my best thinking. I let myself daydream awhile about what it might be like to move far away from Masonville. Just pack up and start a new life, with Ray Anne, of course. Settle some place where the spiritual atmosphere wasn’t off-the-charts toxic. But what kind of soldier defects at the height of a heated war?

  By the time I pulled up to the penitentiary, I’d organized my thoughts and felt prepared to face Veronica. Mostly, anyway. I hadn’t seen the woman since the night she’d rammed a knife into my left bicep, completely demon possessed. So I wasn’t sure what it would be like to be around her now.

  I secured my helmet to my bike, eyeing the security watchtower. There were Creepers perched on top and also roaming around the jail yard inside the tall barbed wire–lined fence, but what surprised me was the situation on the roof of the whitewashed Hilltop building.

  I’d always assumed a prison would be covered top to bottom with Creepers—at least as many as crept up and down the exterior of Masonville High. But I’d never imagined a platoon of armored Watchmen would be patrolling the roof, moving at crazy-fast speeds and grabbing hold of any Creeper that dared try to slip into the building. I stood there watching as a Creeper slithered on the ground on its belly, hands draped at its sides, working its way toward the building. A Watchman leapt off the roof and drove his armored heel into the demon’s back, stuffing it down into the earth like garbage compacted in a landfill.

  So apparently God didn’t just hand criminals over to the satanic kingdom. And who knew? Maybe there were family members, and people on the inside even, who knew how to wage spiritual war. The mere possibility energized me.

  Elle parked next to me, and together, we entered the building and requested to see Veronica Snow, then went through the security process. We were instructed to take a seat at a certain rectangular table in a stark-white room, where we stared at the empty brown chair across from us.

  It gave Elle and me a chance to discuss her ongoing effort to track down Masonville’s abduction victims, including Betty’s niece Tasha Watt and my friend Riley Jenson. “I don’t know if either is still alive,” she said quietly, “but I believe I know the city where they were both taken, at least initially. Washington, DC.”

  “Who took them?” All these months later, I was still desperate to know—to hold someone accountable.

  “I don’t know who abducted them and transported them, but I’ve narrowed the order down to a certain coven in DC.”

  “They placed an order? For people?” I cringed. “What’s a coven?”

  “An underground group of witches and warlocks. A branch of the occult.”

  It was the sort of idea that, a few years ago, I would have scoffed at, dismissing it as conspiracy theory nonsense. I knew now it was anything but.

  Elle covered a yawn. “Sorry, I’m so exhausted lately.” I wondered if it had anything to do with Slumber’s presence in Masonville, but she explained, “I’m up all night. There’s all these noises in my home, like the pots and pans are being tossed around in the kitchen cabinets and someone’s stomping up and down my stairs. But when I look, nothing’s there.”

  I leaned toward her, trying to avoid the guard overhearing. He kept a close eye on us from the corner of the room. “You know it’s the presence of evil, right? They’ve been haunting my place at the church too. Stomping around the room above me and breaking things on my balcony.” And whispering, but Elle couldn’t hear spirit-world voices.

  “I know it’s supernatural.” She tapped her pen on her pad of paper. “I have a theory about what’s going on. Pay attention to my dialogue with Veronica.”

  Now and then, a female inmate passed by us, escorted by guards down the hallway. There were some Creepers inside the jail, but they were all attached to guards and convicts—evils these people had personally ushered in and probably swapped with one another, I concluded, since the Watchmen outside weren’t letting unattached Creepers in the building. What I didn’t understand were the shadowy figures darting around the room, passing through walls the way spiritual bodies do. They looked like Creepers posing as teenage boys.

  Elle’s quick mention of the facility’s history solved the mystery: this place was believed to be haunted by the young men housed here in the 1800s. A superstitious lie, but it was enough to motivate Creepers to play the part.

  Veronica entered, led by a guard, and I barely recognized her. She’d been stripped of all her makeup, but it was more than that—it was like all trace of her natural beauty had been wiped away as well. She was average-looking at best. Oddly so.

  Her hair was flat against her head and gathered into a ponytail at the base of her neck, at her shackle. She wore a white jumpsuit, and her hands were cuffed in front of her. But it was her expression that was most unfamiliar. Sad, bloodshot eyes, like she was broken and fragile—hardly the lioness I’d known before. And nothing like the replica of her that had been frequenting my balcony.

  I didn’t know what to expect she’d do when she saw me, but I’d have never guessed she’d walk over and put her head on my shoulder and cry. “Owen. Thank you for coming.”

  Did she think I was here as a friend?

  She finally backed away and sat. I waited for the guard to remove her cuffs before introducing her to Elle. They shook hands, then Elle got straight to business, starting with questions about the missing students’ involvement in Veronica’s mediation program in the days leading up to their disappearances. Veronica kept pressing her right hand to her heart, like she was filled with compassion for the abducted girls, but when Elle asked if she had any knowledge about what had happened to them and where they might be, she swore she didn’t.

  I think Elle found that as hard to believe as I did. She turned up the heat. “Did you kidnap Jackson of your own volition, or did someone put you up to it?”

  Veronica tucked her chin into her chest and rocked forward and back like a toddler wishing someone would hold her. “I can’t talk about that.”

  “Without a lawyer present?” Elle asked.

  “Without putting you in danger,” she whispered. There were two guards watching our every move now.

  Elle leaned across the table and assured Veronica she was willing to take the risk in order to get answers. That’s when Veronica shifted her pitiful gaze to me, her formerly-striking green eyes a dull gray. There was no hint of the seduction she’d always come at me with before. “I didn’t want to hurt Jess’s baby—I swear. I—I didn’t have a choice. I wasn’t thinking clearly.” She winced. “I didn’t mean to harm you either that night, Owen.”

  It was a charade as dramatic as Bradford’s. I wondered if it was to support a plea of insanity at her upcoming trial.

  “He’s been brainwashing me ever since he brought me to the United States.” A tear spilled down Veronica’s cheek.

  “Who?” I asked her. “Where are you from?”

  Veronica clammed up until Elle asked, “Who’s your handler?”

  I had no clue what a handler was, but Veronica got wide-eyed, then glanced over her shoulder at the guards before staring down at the table. “I was born in Russia, but my parents were very poor and sold me to an American man who promised
to take care of me and provide me with a much better life. I was eight years old. But I didn’t go live with his family like he’d promised. He put me in a boarding school with other children whose parents had given them up too, and he . . . would come see me every few weeks.” She slumped so low, her chin nearly rested on the table.

  It was obvious the visits hadn’t been good.

  “Is this man from Masonville?” I asked.

  She nodded. “People think he’s a noble man who cares for people and wants justice in Masonville, but . . .”

  She stopped there, but I was already confident I’d put two-and-two together.

  “Tell us who he is so we can stop him and help you.” It sounded like Elle was sincere about helping Veronica.

  Veronica shook her head no over and over.

  “Your handler instructed you to take Jackson.” Elle didn’t ask but gently asserted.

  Veronica finally gave a subtle nod, crying loudly enough that the guards stared even harder at us. Those shadowy boys flocked to her, glaring at her with stern, vengeful eyes as she poured her heart out. Or pretended to. “All these years, I did everything he told me—everything. And look where it got me. The pain and destruction I’ve suffered and caused.”

  Elle reached into her purse and pulled out a bookmark, of all things, then slid it across the table.

  “Sorry,” Veronica said, “I can’t take anything.”

  “I know.” Elle placed it in her hand. “I just thought you’d like to read it.”

  Veronica read just loud enough for Elle and me to hear. “Even if my father and mother abandon me, the LORD will hold me close.” She set the butterfly-adorned bookmark facedown, and more tears streamed her pale cheeks.

  I took over the conversation, determined not to be swayed by theatrics. “Listen, Veronica—or Eva—whatever you call yourself. I’m not opening your letters anymore, and there’s no use in sending a Creeper—some demon masquerading as you—to taunt me or Ray Anne. She and I both know what’s going on, and we’re not afraid.”