Guardian

by Natasha Deen

  “Your mom—would you have outed him for her?”

  “Of course.” He said it as though I was the world’s biggest idiot. “She’d have been humiliated. It’s one thing for him to sneak around but to have that kid in her face…”

  “That’s what I thought,” I sighed.

  Dad moved to us. “What’s going on?”

  I looked at Serge. “Give me the cat.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because if you blow up, I don’t want her hurt.”

  “I’m not going to—”

  “Give me Ebony.”

  “Maggie—”

  “Hand her over.”

  He scowled but did as I asked. I gave her furry head a kiss and set her down.

  “Maggie?” asked Dad.

  “Serge—and this is only a question—” I held up my hands in a surrender gesture. “Is it possible that your mom may have been the one—” He looked at me, earnest and focused, and the words stuck in my throat. I blinked back the tears of sympathy and pity. “Is it possible that she is responsible for your death.”

  His breath left his body in a forceful whoosh.

  I tensed.

  Serge’s head dropped to his chest.

  After a few seconds, I tentatively reached out and touched his knee.

  “I wondered why I couldn’t remember the murder,” he said dully. “It seemed so obvious that he did it, and so stupid that I couldn’t…” He lifted his head and swallowed. His eyes were bleak as he said, “It’s the only thing that makes sense, isn’t it?” His lips compressed into a tight line. “But I can’t believe it. She was my mom—she’d never—”

  Dad looked up from his cell and we exchanged glances.

  Serge rose to his feet. “She wouldn’t.” His jaw worked up and down. “He killed me. He killed her, too and I can prove it.”

  I frowned. “How?”

  “The flash drive. It’s documentation of abuse. Somewhere there are hospital records that will back it up.”

  “But your dad took it—”

  “Yeah, I still know how to get into the house.” He stretched out his hand. “Please, Maggie. Help me prove my mom didn’t do this to me or herself.”

  Dad gave me a small nod.

  I grabbed my jacket. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Serge had been quiet from the moment we got in the car, and five seconds ago he started crying. I glanced over and gave him a thirty second count. “Serge?”

  “I remember.”

  “Remember?”

  “The night I died.” He laughed, the sound hollow. “You know how she got me?”

  I peeked at him from the corner of my eye.

  “She told me we had to talk but she didn’t want to do it in the house. So we drove and she”—his voice cracked—“she said she was going to leave him.” The tears came in a rush, drowned his conversation.

  I reached over, took his hand, and let him cry.

  “I told her we could just start driving that night, but she said no. She wanted to do it right, not sneak off.” He swallowed. “M—Mom took me to the mill. She had bought a bottle of tequila. Said it was proof of her emancipation. She’d drink coffee, alcohol—whatever she wanted.”

  “She got you drunk.”

  He shook his head. “I only remember taking a swig, maybe two.”

  “She must have put something in the alcohol. When you were knocked out, she—” I stopped, not wanting to put into detail that she’d probably poured the drink down his throat, pulled off his shirt. I felt sick at the idea of her undressing her son and leaving him to choke to death on his vomit.

  I pulled to the curb two blocks from the Popov’s house. Staring at the otherworldly fireworks in the sky, I said, “You can’t go near it.”

  Serge tilted his head and peered through the windshield. “Maybe it’s not the house.”

  I shot him an incredulous look. “There are geysers of neon green and electric purple lights streaming from the ground to the sky, and you don’t think your house is involved?”

  He craned his neck down and the wash of otherworldly luminescence painted his face. “Maybe it’s someone else’s place.”

  I twisted my gaze from him and looked to the sky. The colours, warped and winding, coiled their way upward as black shadows darted around them. Fear and revulsion snaked in my belly. “Oh, yeah,” I said sarcastically. “That’s totally not your house.”

  “I’m just sayin—”

  “I don’t know what those things are, but I don’t think they’re here to sell us cookies.”

  His jaw went rigid.

  “Serge, you can’t go any further.”

  “How are you going to find the drive?”

  “I dunno, but it’s bible night at the church. Your dad—”

  “Don’t call him that.”

  “—won’t be home for a while.” I pulled the key out of the ignition and opened the door. “Stay here. Okay?”

  Stone-faced, he nodded. “There’s a key by the back door, in a flower pot. You’ll know it because the roses are dead and all that’s left are the thorns and crooked branches. The flash drive is green with a silver top.”

  The cold metal of the door bit my fingers as I slammed it shut. Dead leaves chased dust down the darkened street. I flipped the collar of my jacket up started jogging to the house. The acrid, burning stench of rotten eggs, rubber, plastic, and brimstone, left the air putrid.

  Half a block away, I stopped. Getting the flash drive was a great idea. Walking into a den of evil spirits and being eaten alive was not. I hesitated and took a step back. Nausea hit, hard and fast, and drove me to my knees.

  I may have wanted to turn back, but the forces that ruled my gift had decided differently. Lucky me. I groaned and pulled myself to my feet. A step forward and the sick feeling vanished. Still, I didn’t move, too worried by what I saw to rush in.

  Maybe it was a force field, maybe it was a boundary the spirits couldn’t cross, I wasn’t sure. The houses on either side of the Popovs stood straight, quiet. Mr. and Mrs. Popovs’ house on the other hand…a photo-negative effect was in place, turning the house a sick, stark white that flickered and sparked against the too-black sky. The lines and air around the house bent and swayed, making the residence seem liquid, blurred paints mixing together and running down the drain. Keening shadows blipped in and out of sight, flew in manic circles around the columns of electric green and purple. The smell of rot and decomposition made my nose burn.

  Crap, we were so screwed.

  The wind rushed at me. It ran its smooth tongue down my skin, licked the sweat from my temple. I stumbled forward. My foot stuttered against the asphalt. I pushed ahead, raced along the sidewalk.

  The air this close to the house was mouldering, fetid. Lightning crackled and thunder boomed. I jogged up the driveway, taking shallow breaths, and headed to the back door before common sense and terror could force me to go the other way. Light emanated from the kitchen windows, but the illumination was courtesy of darker forces and not the utility company. Yellow and soiled, it slid along the stucco walls and puddled on the patio floor. I spotted the planter, dug into the dry dirt, and yanked out the key.

  I unlocked the door and found the house cluttered with four spirits. One was skinny—the kind of emaciated only long-term drug use could bring—with an oily comb-over. The second man was short and wiry. These guys worried me but the other two—one in a pale blue Oxford shirt and beige khakis and a California tan, the other with the benign face of an indulgent grandfather, suspenders, and white hair—terrified me. The gaping hole in the floor didn’t do anything to put me at ease, either. Smoke poured out of it and from its fathomless depths, the black shadows rose.

  I shoved the key in my pocket and left the door open. I turned and peered down the wide ha
llway.

  “Who do you think she is?” asked the grandfather with a cozy rumble of a voice.

  The preppy guy looked up. Leaning against granite countertop, he drawled, “Not sure. You want her?”

  Grandfather shook his head. “She’s too old.” Lust infused his face with corrupted light. “If she was in elementary—” He licked his lips and shivered.

  The wiry guy moaned his agreement. “They’re so tender at that age.”

  My skin crawled. Pushing down the hallway, I wondered about the most likely place for the flash drive. If I’d been anywhere else, I would have psychically honed in on the device, but I worried that using my abilities would light me up like a Christmas tree at Rockefeller Centre and bring the spirits on me. I knew what they’d done when they lived, and I feared to think of what they were capable of dead.

  I moved past the white-stained wooden staircase. Water pooled on the floor and the steps, the transparent sheen marred by cloudy red and the scent of copper. So that’s how Lydia Popov had killed herself: in the tub. I continued to move. Black specks floated in the oily air and clung to my skin, clothing. The ash seemed to originate from a room with the door partially open. Taking a deep breath, trying to calm the frantic clickety-clack of my stampeding heart, I stepped in.

  It was Mr. Popov’s study, the walls lined with bookshelves and a desk in the middle. There was a fireplace with a chair and a small table in front of it. On a cushion was a tablet and an empty brandy snifter. Plugged into the electronic device was Serge’s flash drive.

  I shivered, chilled by the vision of Mikhail Popov, warmed by a fire and lounging in his armchair, drinking liquor, and casually reading the chronology of his destruction of his family. My fingers closed over the tablet and drive. I sped for the front door.

  I wrenched it open and found a dark figure looming. Lightning ripped the sky and electric silver brilliance lit up Mikhail Popov’s face. His expression slackened in surprise and shock. His gaze bounced to the tablet in my hand, and his lean features twisted into a feral snarl. Before he could move, I slammed the door and raced for the back exit. My feet pounded the hardwood. I saw the open door ahead, the rippling shadows of the wind-swept barren trees beyond.

  The preppy guy and the grandfather exchanged wolfish grins. “This might be fun,” said the older man.

  “High school girls were always my favourite,” said Preppy Man. Electricity buzzed from his fingers and forked light hit the door.

  My exit slammed shut. The lock shot into place. I skidded to a stop. The hot breath of Mr. Popov heated my skin. Then his hand closed around the back of my neck. He slammed my head into the door. The contact made a sick sound, like watermelon breaking on a cement floor. I bounced off. The tablet dropped from my hand.

  “Stupid bitch!” He smashed my head into the wood, again.

  I shoved against him, aimed my elbow for his stomach. He grunted, stumbled back. I whirled around. The room spun, my head throbbed, and I tasted the metallic-sweet tang of my blood.

  The four spirits stood in a horseshoe around us; the black shadows floated behind them.

  I put my fists up. Mr. Popov smiled.

  “Get her!”

  “Hit her! Hit her hard!”

  “Do it! Do it!”

  Mr. Popov wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’ve been waiting for this. Praying for it.”

  I flinched. “Don’t you—don’t you dare call God into this!”

  He smiled, made a fist. His knuckles connected with my jaw. Sparks of colour showered my vision. “You know your problem? Your father never disciplined you. If he had, maybe you’d have better reflexes.”

  He hit me again.

  The sharp, piercing agony of pain mixed with my terror and rage. I rocked back, fell into the wall.

  Preppy Man cheered.

  Grandfather’s hand disappeared down the front of his pants.

  I stepped forward and drove my knee into Mr. Popov’s crotch.

  His face blanched. He dropped to his knees and vomited.

  “Discipline that, you bastard.” Bringing all the force and weight I could manage, I drove my knee into the underside of his jaw.

  The pointed crack of his teeth snapping together met his guttural groan.

  His vomit stained my jeans.

  “That wasn’t fair,” growled Grandfather.

  “Get her,” snarled Preppy Man.

  Grandfather shook his head like a wet dog. Insectile pincers emerged from his mouth, splitting his lips and ripping his flesh. A large, bony collar with ridges and spikes grew from his neck.

  Preppy Man shivered. The sculpted lines of his body loosened, blurred. His flesh sagged like melting candle wax as he transformed into a thick, pink wormlike creature. The bristly hair covering the squashed, segmented ridges trembled.

  The druggie’s body lengthened and thinned as he morphed into a cancerous black snake that had huge chunks of its flesh ripped off.

  The wiry man shuddered. His skin rippled and bulged as though something crawled underneath. A fissure split open from his wrist to his elbow, and millions of insects came writhing out, their mandibles clicking, the hiss of their need in the air.

  In unison, they stepped to Mr. Popov. Then they stepped inside him, pouring into his mouth, his ears and nose, and burrowing into his skin. His screams came out a muffled moan as his body trembled, jittered.

  I lunged for the tablet, wrenched the flash drive out, shoved it in my jeans, and grabbed for the lock. Whatever the spirits had done, they’d done well. The knob remained cemented in place. The black shadows swept past me. Their heat burned my eyes and seared my skin.

  I pivoted.

  Mr. Popov was still on the ground, doing his snaky dance.

  I gave him a wide berth, tried to avoid the smoky pit, and rushed for the front door.

  His iron grip clamped on my ankle, and with a jerk he brought me to ground.

  I used my arms to break my fall.

  He dragged me close.

  The fog from the hole slithered to me. Oh, man. That wasn’t smoke, anymore. It was hundreds of scuttling hands. I twisted my head away. They grabbed my hair. The fog pulled me to the pit. Mr. Popov pulled me to him. The contact from concentrated evil twisted my insides, left me roiling with nausea, and covered me with a thick, suffocating energy full of perverted images.

  The beings fought for control, pulled me taut. I hovered on the knife’s edge of destruction and screamed at the excruciating pain of my shoulder dislocating from its socket.

  “Maggie!”

  Through the revolting haze of the demented aura, I saw the tops of Serge’s sneakers. An explosion of white light blasted from him. The creatures squealed and recoiled. Serge grabbed me by the arm and I shrieked in pain.

  “I’ll apologize later! Look away!” He shoved my head to his chest.

  Another foundation-shaking explosion rocked the house. Splinters and fragments flew into the room as the door detonated. Serge hauled me out.

  Shifting from certain-death to possible-survival, my body pumped painkillers and adrenaline into my system. The knee-buckling agony disappeared. We ran. “How did you make everything explode?”

  “I don’t know,” he said through gritted teeth. “We’ll figure it out later.” Half a block away, he turned and said, “You’re not going to like this,” and then, without waiting for me to ask “Like, what?” He grabbed my wrist with one hand, my shoulder with the other, and snapped my arm back into place.

  The shock took the strength from my legs.

  He caught me.

  I fought the urge to pass out and swallowed back my nausea. “I thought I was immune to spirits.”

  “We’ll work on your superpowers right after we get to safety.”

  Together, we raced back to my car and dived inside. I stuck the key in the ignitio
n and waited for the horror-movie moment when the car wouldn’t start, but it roared to life and I blew out my pent-up breath.

  I threw the gearshift into drive and peeled away from the curb.

  Serge looked back. His face blanched of colour. Twisting back, he stared at me with terror-filled eyes. “Oh God, Maggie. They’re coming for us.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The car lurched down the feeder streets as we raced for Parsons Avenue. I kept my eyes on the twists and turns ahead. Serge kept a running commentary of what was going on behind us. Flopping down and looking at me, he said, “I wish you had a faster car.”

  Mr. Popov’s high beams flashed in my rear-view mirror. “I’m doing my best but this isn’t exactly a Daytona-approved race vehicle.” My foot stamped on the accelerator hard enough to push my foot through the bottom of the car. I dug into my jacket pocket and yanked out my cell. The screen was smashed. I pressed the power button. “No!”

  “What?”

  I tossed the phone at him. “It’s out of power.”

  He fumbled and caught it.

  I pumped the brakes and took a hard left on Claxton. The tires squealed but the car held its ground. My fingers, numb from fear and adrenaline, lost hold of the wheel. It spun back to its original position. I grabbed it with one hand and flipped the heat on with the other. Dusty air hissed through the vents, but if it held any warmth, I didn’t feel it.

  My mind was focused on one of the big problems of living in a small town: late at night, everyone’s home. The streets were bare, save the gravel and leaves. If I wanted help, I’d have to pull to the curb and get out. Between Mr. Popov and his band of merry men, I’d make it to the front door…if I was lucky. I took a right on Sierra and did the next best thing. As the car hurtled along the avenue, heading for the bridge, I laid on the horn and made as much noise as possible. If it didn’t get people going to their doors and looking out, surely someone would call the police and I’d get back up.

  The lamplights zipped past, the rows of dark houses—the sleepy rise of their roofs against the backdrop of night—blurred as the needle of the speedometer tipped to 75 km/hr. Ahead, the metal rafters of the bridge came into view.