by Natasha Deen
I pivoted to face Craig. “Whoa. What happened to you?”
He touched the bruise on his cheek. “I had a call in to retrieve an escaped soul from Duat—it’s the place of judgment for the ancient Egyptians. One guy decided he didn’t want to risk being eaten by Ammit, the devourer of souls. Based on the fight he put up with me, his heart is definitely heavier than a feather.”
“Ancient Egyptians. Time really doesn’t make sense on the other side, does it?”
“Time is a human concept,” he said.
“You’d think you guys would have better security,” said Serge.
“Not every soul wants to be claimed, and believe me, as you get higher in this existence, whatever skills you learn, the bad guys are equally educating themselves—”
“Does anyone feel weird?” Serge held up his hands and showed us his trembling fingers. “Because I feel—” He closed his eyes and swayed. “I feel something in my stomach.” His eyes snapped open. “There’s a buzzing and someone’s whispering in my ear.”
“The Family?” I swung to Craig. “I thought you got rid of all the souls.”
“I did but they can still come back if there’s one member on—”
Oh, crap. “Kent. He was infected.”
Serge shook his head as if trying to clear the voice from his mind. “I thought you swept him clean.”
“I did. I checked his energy levels—”
“But he can manipulate energy,” I said. “He’d been working on it—”
“So he did the equivalent of hiding his pill under his tongue,” said Craig. “He faked the energy I was looking for and hid his infection from me. No wonder I can’t sense The Family. He must still be masking them.”
Serge swore. “What did you say about the bad guys always learning and The Family being as smart as the souls they hold?”“Great,” I said, “We’re tracking down a horde of angry ghosts with a genius IQ. This won’t go horribly wrong.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Snow began to fall from the sky as Craig said, “We need a game plan. One that takes Kent into account.”
“What do we know?” asked Serge. “Other than he’s crazy smart and powerful.”
“We know he joined them,” I said. “On a deep level, he’s sympathetic to what they do.” I thought about what Craig had said in the beginning, about why Kent had slept for so long after his death. “He lost everything, including his identity. That’s why he was vulnerable to their influence.”
“Nothing like taking on the guy with nothing to lose,” muttered Serge. “And we still have to find Mrs. Pierson and Rori’s bodies.”
“What about the Piersons?” Craig asked. “What did I miss?”
I told him about Dr. Pierson and ended with, “I think he might have buried his family here.”
“When did all this happen?”
“Within the last couple of hours.”
“Then he didn’t do it. At least, he didn’t kill his wife.”
“How do you know? Did you see him?”
“No,” said Craig. “I saw her. About fifteen minutes ago. She was looping make out hill in her SUV.”
I took a breath of the icy night air. “So he was telling the truth about what happened tonight…and if both Dr. and Mrs. Pierson are looking in such remote areas, Rori must really be lost.”
“God.” Serge’s voice was tight. “That kid’s been outside for hours. In the snow. I’m texting Nancy, right now.”
“This is so much worse than last time. Did you sense any ferriers?” I directed my question to Craig.
“Nothing,” he said. “There’s still time for her. I’m just not sure how much.”
Serge swore. “We have to split up. Mags, leave me here and I’ll walk the park’s perimeter, then head back into town through the trails.”
“You deal with them,” said Craig, “I’ll find Kent and The Family.”
“Shouldn’t Kent be my responsibility?” I asked. “He’s my charge to transition over to the other side.”
“Kent is your responsibility,” he said. “I won’t be able to do anything to help him. But you’re not strong enough to tackle The Family, not without help. If you find them instead of the Piersons, call me. Don’t do anything by yourself.”
“Okay, deal. When you saw Mrs. Pierson at the hill, was she heading up or down it?” I asked Craig.
“Down, to Millers Ave.”
“Okay, I’m going to loop past their home again—just in case.” As I spoke, I texted Nell about Rori. “Then I’ll head on McKenzie Way and check the north side of town.”
Nell texted back, said she’d get everyone on it. Serge, Craig, and I broke up and headed out. I climbed in my car, headed south on Garden Drive and wished I could teleport to the Piersons’ home.
The chances of Rori being anywhere near the house were slim, but I figured it had worked before, maybe it would work again. I slammed the accelerator to the floor and hoped I wasn’t too late to save a life.
The closer I got to the house, the more it seemed I was looking at its reflection through a watery lens. Edges and lines of the structure seemed to ripple, the walls bent concave and then bloated out. The slow motion of the ripples combined with an eerie silence that made the scene far creepier than if I’d seen ghouls or demons rising from a fiery pit.
I parked the car, stepped out into a night devoid of cold or wind. The air wasn’t still. It was immobile. There was no sound, no scent. Just...nothingness. I headed to the backyard, to Rori’s playhouse. As I turned the corner, my gaze lit on the tree and I slowed to a stop. And blinked. Then blinked again.
The tree was in full summer bloom, thick with leaves that softly flowed with an invisible wind. But the tree was also covered in a blanket of snow. It encircled the base and rested on the branches. The playhouse itself had no snow but seemed to be in the full spotlight of a warm and orange-yellow sun.
These were the times I wished my mother had been around. Or that Dad had also possessed the dubious abilities we called my gift. I didn’t know what the image meant. Was I looking at the psychic manifestation of Rori’s love for her tree house? Or was it some kind of otherworldly message on where to find the little girl?
I moved closer to the tree and as I closed my distance, I noticed a figure standing in the shadows. “Kent?”
“Hi, Maggie.”
He was calm. If Hollywood hadn’t lied to me, then his peaceful demeanour could only be the precursor to big, bad things. “Hey.” I gulped some air. “You okay?”
“Never better.”
I pulled out my cell to text Craig.
“Don’t bother,” he said. “It’s amazing what you can do when you’re working with hundreds of other minds. Your cell won’t work.” He looked at me from the corner of his eyes. “Neither will trying to call Serge. We’ve created a dampening field.”
Not that I didn’t believe him, but just in case, I tried to call Serge and Craig to me. My mind felt fuzzy and heavy, like my brain was full of cotton balls.
“I told you, but it was good you tried. Speaks to your initiative.”
Great. The possessed ghost was giving me an A for effort.
“Uh…” I crept closer. “Kent, remember how you were feeling sick earlier? Your skin was doing that weird snake thing?”
“A necessary process of the mixing of the souls.”
So he knew he was playing host to the legion. “I think it’s having a negative effect on you. How are you feeling?”
“You already asked me that.”
“That was before I knew that you knew you were possessed.”
He laughed. “I’m not possessed, Maggie. I’m body sharing. Soul networking. You’d think having hundreds of spirits in my body would be claustrophobic, but I’ve never felt more free, more myself.”
“That’s because t
hey’re influencing you.”
“No one influences me.”
I went for a hard punch. “That wasn’t true in life. You’ve suddenly changed in death?”
He stiffened but still refused to look at me.
“Kent, you know these guys aren’t good for you. You need to separate from them.”
His back was to me as he stared up at the tree. “It’s something else to see, isn’t it?” Kent stepped closer to the tree. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“The tree?”
He shifted, planting his feet shoulder-width apart, lifted his gaze to the treetop. “I always wondered what it would be like. To have a house like this.”
“You wanted a play—”
“To have a life like this.”
Oh.
“Never to worry about money. When the school planned extra activities like a day in Edmonton at the water park, to never wonder if my mom and dad could come up with the money to pay for it. What must it be like to walk down a mall and wonder what you’ll buy, not if you can buy something?”
“I don’t know,” I said, trying to psychically call the guys and failing, again. I stared at the leaves of the tree. They rippled, but no puff of wind whispered on my skin. “Money’s never really flowed in my house, either.” I stretched my hand out into the shaft of sunlight. There was no warmth to it, no substance. I touched the snow. It was the same. Empty of feeling and sensation.
“It’s not fair.” His back was still to me. “I’ll never know this life, not even vicariously. I’ll never have kids to buy stuff for and play with. Never know what it’ll be like to have a family or pay a mortgage.” A hush settled between us. “I’ll never know what it’ll be like to have a spouse. To be married...Still, it was a beautiful dream I dreamed, wasn’t it?”
I put his words together with what I was seeing. The summer images, the soft wind, the lush vegetation, those must be Kent’s manifestation of his fantasies. Rori’s reality was evidenced in the snow, the barren quiet. And the fact I saw both was probably because of my connection to both of them.
“Life is never like the fantasy,” I said. “Reality always has it corrections.”
“I’ll never know. That doesn’t seem fair, does it?”
“Nothing is fair, Kent.”
He faced me.
I’d expected him to look grotesque. Maggots and peeling flesh. But he was beautiful. Hyper beautiful. Golden hair, crystal blue eyes. His skin seemed to glow. That got my danger radar pinging. He was being possessed by a legion of angry ghosts. No way should he be looking like he’d just walked off a photo shoot.
He cocked his head, gave me a condescending smile. “But things always work out for people like you, don’t they?”
I bit back the response that sprang to my mouth, reminded myself that Kent was being influenced by an army of idiots, Rori was missing, and now wasn’t the time to play a game of who’d had the crappier life. “Nothing is ever perfect. Look at Rori.”
“She has everything.”
“Is that what the tree tells you?”
“She’s too young to understand the blessings of her life.”
“Her parents fight all the time, they don’t let her have any friends.”
“So did mine and look how I turned out. The town wunderkind.” He sounded amused. “She would’ve been fine.”
“Would’ve been?”
He smiled.
“Kent, what did you do with her?”
“I did nothing. We freed her and she will be the justice for the father.” He bent, took a handful of snow from the tree. “Had she grown, she would’ve understood the blessings of her life. Rich father. Rich mother. The snow would have faded from the tree.”
“Her life wasn’t blessed.” I had a theory about Kent’s appearance, the tree, and The Family, and decided to roll the dice on seeing if I was right. “But yours was.” I said and hoped I’d survive what I was about to do. “You have a mother who did her best—”
“Don’t talk about my mother.” His voice changed, became a chorus rather than a single speaker.
“Why not?” I stepped close to the tree. “She has to live with your murder. Has to live with all the things she’ll never see you do. Graduate med school. Date.”
“That’s not my fault.”
“No.” I took another step to the trunk. “But when she’s up late at night and crying over all she’s lost, and you’re consoling her, whose hand will be on her shoulder? Yours or the legion’s?”
“I know what you’re driving at,” he said, his voice back to normal, “but it’s only because you don’t understand them or the partnership between us.”
“Partnership?” I laughed. “That’s a nice word. Is that what they told you? Because you and The Family aren’t anything alike. They hurt people, feed on wounded souls.” I looked him from over my shoulder. “That’s a nice, homey image. You, visiting your mom after you and the gang have unleashed violence on some unsuspecting person—”
“Don’t say that!” The chorus was back. “We will find justice for victims!”
I shook my head. “No you won’t.” I addressed Kent. “You don’t belong with them. They’re lying to you.”
“They’re going to help me,” he said.
“Like Dr. Pierson helped you?”
His face slackened.
“We know he’s involved in your death and your life. That he wasn’t a partner or a friend to you. Just like The Family isn’t a partner of friend—”
“Don’t say that!” His demigod appearance sputtered out. For a second, I saw The Family wriggling under his skin. They were small, thick, worm-like apparitions that scuttled along his cheekbones and jaw, wriggled over his forehead.
A psychic energy wave blasted from him, hit me like a solid thing, and slammed me into the tree. I did a mental check for broken bones before I rolled onto my hands and knees. “Is that the way they’re going to help you? Like this? Hurting the people that care about you?”
“You don’t care about me,” he said bitterly. “If you really cared, you’d have figured out what happened to me sooner.”
“I could’ve figured out a lot of things if you hadn’t lied. You never had a girlfriend.”
“I didn’t lie.” The golden god image was back. He held out his hand.
I ignored it, tried to call Serge and Craig, failed, and got to my feet.
“I just didn’t think it was relevant.”
“Like your after-school job with Dr. Pierson?”
The skin on his face tightened. “I didn’t tell you about that because I thought you wouldn’t help me if you knew what I’d done.”
“It’s not my place to judge you,” I said. “It’s my place to help you. Although, right now, I’m judging you.” I made a show of limping to the tree and rested against the thick trunk. “Nancy has Dr. Pierson. It’s just a matter of time before—”
“Before what? He blames me? Says it was my idea to make and sell drugs? That it was my fault those kids died? I’m the one who has all the formulas hidden on my computer, not him.” His voice shook as he continued, “I was trying to help. He said I was helping. The drugs weren’t party crap, they—”
“—they were ADHD drugs, tweaked so kids could stay up longer, study harder. That was your intention, wasn’t it?”
He nodded. “It’s so hard, med school. All the homework, the pressure. I thought I was prepared, that I could handle it.”
“You were handling it.”
“Not as well as I should’ve. The drugs helped. I told Dr. Pierson what I was doing. He convinced me to make more. Said we couldn’t wait for funding and government permission, that kids like me needed help with school and work. I thought if I could help others…”
“Then a couple of them died.”
“They shouldn’t have,” he sa
id. “Not if they’d taken the meds like I told them.”
“They were under pressure and struggling. They were always going to abuse the drugs.”
“I wanted out but he wouldn’t let me. That night, that’s all I wanted, to stop.” His face went to a shadow. “He killed me. Murdered me. And you think he’s suddenly going to confess? No. It’s up to me to stop him.”
“They’re lying to you,” I said. “The Family. Think it through, Kent. Be logical—”
“I am.”
“You’re not. Dr. Pierson had a high-end lifestyle before you were even born. There’s no way he wasn’t already selling drugs. You were just his first employee. If you stop and think, you’ll see I’m right. And you’ll see the cops have it handled. They’re going to find the money trail and the drugs. I saw shipping notices in his house. If nothing else, they’ll be able to track the supplies he ordered. Dr. Pierson may be smart,” I said, “but Nancy’s tenacious. And she always gets her criminal.” I gave him a minute to digest what I said, then went for the kill shot. “I can’t believe you’re letting them manipulate you like this…for a smart guy, you’re being awfully stupid.”
The air crackled and popped. “I’m not stupid!” His voice morphed into the chorus. “We’re not stupid!”
Bingo. Plan A, done.
He faced me and raised his hands.
Plan B, don’t die.
Chapter Thirty-Two
An energy wave exploded from his hands and rocketed my way. I dived to the ground, let the fireball hit the tree. Sparks of ember ignited the bark as the trunk crackled and exploded into flame.
Kent howled in pain.
I ducked, rolled from the fire, and I called Serge to me.
Craig appeared, too.
“What’s—whoa!” Serge took in the scene and turned his disbelieving gaze my way.
The wood cracked. Chunks of tree and branch flew into the air in jagged pieces and slung firebombs.
I jerked, reared up, slapped at my shoulders and back as my coat caught on fire.
Serge grabbed and hauled me down, and kicked snow at the flames. “What the hell’s going on?”
