by Apryl Baker
“Let us be the judge of that, Squirt,” Dan says, glancing quickly to the right and back at the road. “How exactly did you get your hands healed and by whom? Or are you claiming divine miraculous intervention?”
“No, the divine had nothing to do with it,” I sigh. “More like…well…”
“Spit it out, Mattie!” Eli sounds irritated.
Nothing like having them both pissed at me at the same time. “Do you remember the painter I’ve been dreaming of, Dan?”
“The same painter who slit your wrist not once, but twice?” he demands.
I wince. So not the reaction I was hoping for. “Yeah, well, there’s more.”
“More?” Dan exclaims. “Worse more?”
“Maybe.” I lean away from the anger emanating from Dan and snuggle against Eli. I love the heat his body generates and sigh. Yep, I probably should have told Dan about my hands before we left New Orleans. He’s mad I didn’t tell him. But I needed time to come to grips with it myself before I started blabbing to everybody.
“Hold up a second,” Eli interrupts. “The painter cut your wrists in the dream, right? I remember Dan saying something about that in New Orleans.” He glances at the scar on my wrist. “I don’t understand.”
“I carried the wound out of my dream and into the real world,” I explain. “Not something I’m happy about, either. Yet another reason to distance myself from the dreams and the visions.”
“I’m still waiting on the worse part of more, Mattie,” Dan says, his voice thick with anger.
Jeez, who put a bee up his bonnet? “The painter is the one who healed my hands,” I say quietly.
“Didn’t you say your mom was talking about protecting you from…the painter?” Eli asks, now wearing his thoughtful face.
Holy crap. “Yeah. I’d forgotten about that.” I’d been so focused on everything bad that happened recently, I’d forgotten all about Mom’s craziness. “I had no idea the painter was Silas.”
“SILAS!” both men shout in unison.
I cover my ears at the explosion. I knew this wouldn’t be easy. Yes, both of them know that Silas is a demon. He’d made a deal with the woman who used to live in the haunted house we’d visited down in New Orleans. Elizabeth…something. I’d found her diary, which told the story of how she’d bargained with a demon to escape her evil husband, Jonas.
The drive continues in silence. I’m not so sure it’s a good silence. One peek at Dan’s clenching jaw muscles shows he is sooo pissed. Nope, not another word out of me. Not yet. He’ll hate it.
Finally, Dan takes the exit and heads toward my new house. He’s still fuming. I’m in s-o-o-o much trouble.
When we pull into Mary’s driveway, I waste no time getting out of the truck to separate myself from the testosterone war about to be unleashed. I make it as far as the door before remembering I don’t have a key. Fudgepops. I’d left for New Orleans before Mrs. Cross could give me one. Well, that’s just dandy. My head makes a thud as I let it bump against the doorframe then sink down onto the porch floor, awaiting the wrath of the brothers.
Eli sits next to me and Dan leans on the porch railing. I shiver as cold comes at me from all sides. Great. Ghosts again. Mrs. Cross works in a hospital and I’m betting she’s brought a few home with her. People can pick up ghosts like hitchhikers. A hospital and cemetery are the two biggest places to accidentally acquire ghosts.
“Cold?” Eli murmurs and I nod. Before I can even blink, he’s hauled me into his lap and wrapped both his arms and legs around me. Heat invades me and I sigh and snuggle into him. Nice. The Spook Doctor says I stay cold because my essence is made up of ghost energy and I’m a beacon to the little buggers, and that’s why I’m always cold. Eli emanates enough heat to actually make me warm. Really and truly warm. But Dan clearly doesn’t like me being in Eli’s arms. His face is murderous. Tough. “Are you always this warm?” I ask Eli.
“No,” he says. “It only really happens around you.”
No kidding! “Does it freak you out?” Weird stuff like this always happens to me.
“Nah, Hilda, I’m good,” Eli answers.
I grin at the laughter in his voice.
“Silas?” Dan bites out. “Start talking.”
I close my eyes. Dan is still pissed, but I’m not sure what he’s more upset about, Silas or Eli. Just a week ago, I would’ve been happy for his reaction. I wanted him to want me like this, but since meeting Eli, I don’t know anymore. It feels different. Eli feels like home when I’m with him. I’d hoped to have more time to sort it out, but then his dad decided to move the family to Charlotte to be near Dan. Eli confuses and confounds me, and makes me feel so many emotions all at once. What a rollercoaster ride!
“Start with the dreams,” Eli whispers against my ear and I shiver in response. That nauseous feeling creeps back into my stomach. Drat. I feel hot and flustered with the feel of his warm breath on my ear.
“The first one happened before we went to New Orleans,” I begin, aware of the tremor in my voice. “I was at Dan’s and we fell asleep on his living room floor. I thought at first I’d woken up and that a ghost was in his bedroom. I wanted to make it go away before Dan got up and freaked out.” Eli snorts at this and I elbow him sharply. “When I opened the door, I stepped into an artist’s studio and I saw…him…working on a canvas. Silas. But I didn’t know his name.”
I pause, remembering how much I’d needed to see what Silas was painting. It had made me go deeper into the room instead of running like I should have. Maybe none of this would be happening right now if I’d just run away.
“He was painting a portrait of a woman. She looked very familiar to me, but I didn’t know why. I’ve never seen her before. There was just something about his painting that drew me to it, something dark. When I got closer, I realized he was using blood instead of paint. There was a woman under a blood-soaked sheet nearby. He was bleeding her dry.”
Eli’s arms tighten around me and I lean back. Just remembering the dream makes me want to curl up and hide from the way it made me feel, how it still makes me feel. It fascinated me then, and much to my own horror, it still does.
“He knew I was there,” I whisper. “He asked me why he was using blood as paint.”
“Weird question. So…why?” Dan asks, finally curious instead of mad.
“The life of a person resides in the blood. Blood contains pieces of the soul, the life-essence. He used blood to bring life to his work. It was awful, but beautiful, too.” I went on quickly, seeing Dan’s horror. “The woman in the portrait made me feel her pain, her agony. It bled with emotions.”
“Dan said he slit your wrist?” Eli prompts when I don’t say anything else.
I nod. “The painter wanted to show me how powerful my blood was. He froze me in place, like my feet were encased in ice. Black goo had oozed out of him, his eyes burned…” My voice trembles again. “It was an onyx fire. Weird, right? He took my hand, slit my wrist, and let the blood drip into a jar. When he used my blood on the canvas…” I take a deep, shuddering breath. “When he did that, the painting came to life. It moved, it breathed. My blood did that.”
“She woke up screaming,” Dan finishes. “When I saw her wrist…” his voice trails off.
“You thought I’d done that to myself, remember?” I grouch, giving Dan a half-hearted glare.
Dan glares back. “Mattie, I’d just had a long conversation with Nancy about how depressed you were and the self-destructive mode you’d slipped into. What was I supposed to think?”
“You know me better than that,” I tell him softly. “I can’t believe you thought I’d do something that selfish.”
“Okay, okay…” Eli gives my shoulders a squeeze. “Back to the story. So the second time it happened was when we were all in New Orleans?”
He’s trying to change the subject. Smart boy. “Yeah, Eli. He asked me if I knew what was missing from his painting. My answer—that it wasn’t alive like his last one was. There was a lot of emotion in
the painting, but it lacked the life of the previous one. He showed me again what my blood did for his painting.”
“Huh. It sounds like he was trying to teach you something,” Eli muses.
“It’s not something I want to learn,” I whisper. As if I would ever kill anyone for their blood!
“So, what did he want from you?” Eli asks. “What did you promise Silas if he fixed your hands?”
“Nothing,” I tell him. “He didn’t want anything. He told me it was a freebie.”
Eli frowns. “No, Mattie. Demons never do something without expecting payment.”
“Silas has never asked me for anything all the times he’s helped me.”
“What? He’s helped you more than once?” Dan asks, his face going pale.
“Yeah, big-time. When we were in the house, he helped me beat Jonas.” That makes me shudder again. Jonas was the ghost in the haunted house. He’d been collecting the energy of all the ghosts he’d trapped there, becoming one of the most powerful spirits I’ve ever encountered. “Silas helped me understand how to open the doorway to the other side so the trapped spirits could cross over. Between Dan and Caleb salting his bones, and depleting Jonas of his main energy source, it weakened him enough so I could kill him.”
“I’m gonna repeat this. Demons don’t do freebies, Mattie.” Eli shakes his head. “Are you sure you never gave him anything?”
“No, aside from the blood he took, I never gave or promised him anything.” I give Eli another elbow-nudge. “I swear.”
“What’s his game?” Eli mutters.
“Well, when he came to see me at the hospital we talked,” I finally admit.
“At the hospital. Right. What did he want?” Dan demands.
“You’re not gonna like it,” I warn him.
“I didn’t figure I would.” Dan sighs and sits across from us. “What did he say?”
“Well, Silas said he wanted to give me a gift because I’d pleased him so much. He told me I had no idea of what he went through to make sure I was born and he was…well, excited with the results.”
“What does that mean?” Dan frowns.
“As if I would know,” I say, biting back irritation. “Anyway, he healed my hands after that and told me he’d only finished what I’d started.”
Dan’s frown deepened. “What you’d started?”
“Yeah, he said that when I killed Jonas, I’d used my soul to do it and the energy from that action had begun healing my hands.” I nod. “Seriously. He also said I’d eventually learn to do it myself.”
“You can heal yourself?” Eli asks, surprised.
I shrug, but say nothing. No, I can’t heal myself. Not yet, anyway.
“Okay, little brother, do you know why Silas would be so interested in her?” Dan asks.
Eli snorts at the ‘little brother’ comment. I want to elbow him, even more sharply than usual. It’s Dan’s way of trying for a relationship, but Eli won’t see it that way. “No, I don’t. I help Dad and Caleb with the ghost stuff, but this goes way beyond simple interest. All I’m getting from this is…basically, Silas said he’d ensured Mattie would be born. Therefore, she’s obviously important to him, but why?”
“Maybe because of her blood?” Dan frowns. “He seemed really interested in that.”
“Maybe.” Eli nods. “But until we know more, let’s keep our options open.”
At that moment, a truck pulls into the driveway. Caleb and Mary. Finally! She bounces out of the truck and up the steps.
“Hey, need this?” She grins and holds up a key. The grin fades at our serious expressions. “What’s wrong?”
“What isn’t wrong, Mary?” I laugh bitterly.
“The fact that you’re curled up in the hottie’s lap?” She smirks and I laugh. Leave it to Mary to find something funny in any situation.
“Yeah, there is that,” I say and let Eli pull me to my feet. “Eli Malone, this is Mary Cross, my new foster sister.”
“Just sisters. Skip the foster bit.” Mary makes a face at me. “I told you. You’re my sister and that’s that.”
“I have a feeling Mary gets whatever she wants.” Caleb smiles when Mary turns to enter the house.
“Well, she is a force of nature,” I agree and follow her inside. “Let me get my sketchpad and I’ll do those drawings for you, Dan.”
Mary follows me up the stairs and as soon as she shuts my door, she turns on me. “Okay, Hathaway, why didn’t you tell me you’d met the hottest guys ever?”
“What?” I laugh.
“Ohmygod.” She fans herself. “Caleb is so freaking hot, he could melt butter!”
I shake my head and gather art supplies, ready to head downstairs. “Hands off Eli. You can have Caleb.”
“Eli, huh? He is a cutie, but…wait, did you tell Dan you’d make sketches for him?” Her frown deepens when she sees my hands. “What happened? They look better…”
I cringe. Mary walks with a limp after her time with Mrs. Olson in the torture chamber. How is she going to feel about me if I’m not damaged anymore? Will she stop being my friend because I’m better physically and she’s not? My old insecurities kick in and I want to be anywhere but right here, right now.
“They are better,” I tell her, unwilling to look at Mary.
“But how? I can’t even see the pins.”
I take a deep breath. Here goes. “Mary, they were healed while I was in New Orleans.”
“Healed?” She grabs one hand and runs her fingers over it. “Where are the metal pins?”
“I don’t know. They just disappeared.” I have to tell her. Mary’s my…sister.
“Mattie, this is…it’s…it’s amazing,” she whispers reverently. “How?”
“It’s a little scary,” I tell her. “Dan and Eli are freaking over it. I just told them.”
“Why?”
“Because a demon named Silas healed my hands.” Her eyes snap back to my face. “I’m not kidding. He’s taken a particular interest in me. I’m not sure if you and your mom are safe.”
“We’ll deal with it.” She shrugs. “I don’t care how it happened, this is awesome, Mattie!”
“You’re really okay with it?”
“Yeah, did you think I wouldn’t be?”
“Well, yeah, maybe,” I admit. “I thought you’d be upset because of your leg…”
“Mattie, you’d be happy for me if my leg got all better, right?” she asks.
“Sure.”
“Then why think I wouldn’t be happy for you? I’m supposed to get all jealous and stop being your friend just because you’re better and I’m not? Sisters don’t do that.”
This girl means it. I let out a breath. Wow. Mary isn’t mad. She’s really something special.
“Silly girl,” Mary laughs. “Let’s go back downstairs and enjoy the eye candy.”
For the first time all day, a real smile flirts with my face. Mary still thinks of me as family. Maybe things won’t turn so badly after all.
Chapter Seven
An hour later, I hand my sketchbook to Dan. My fingers are cramped and tired. It’s been ages since I’ve drawn anything, but it’s a welcome feeling. I’ve missed it so much. My art is what defines me. If I can’t do that, then I feel useless.
“Wow, Mattie, these are…” Caleb’s voice trails off as he looks at the portraits of the dead girls over Dan’s shoulder.
“Gruesome?” Eli asks mildly, just as fascinated.
“Beautiful,” Dan says. “Dark, moody—and gruesome, but beautiful.”
I beam at Dan. He always thinks my stuff is brilliant. It’s one of the reasons I keep him around. The images are pretty good replicas of the girls I’d seen. I can only draw them as I saw them: broken, bloody, and bruised. The images on the paper, even in black and white, are vibrant, shouting at anyone who looks at them. You can see the pain and anguish in their faces. It reminds me a little of Silas’s portraits. I frown. So not good. I don’t want my work to look like his.
“Do you think you can get a hit with the facial recognition software?” I ask Dan, to distract myself from the similarities between mine and the demon’s work.
“Ooh, do we have a case?” Mary asks, coming in with a tray laden with ham and cheese sub sandwiches. Caleb moves to help, but she waves him off and sets the plate on the coffee table.
“No, we don’t have a case,” Dan tells her. “I have a case.”
“Actually, I believe Mattie has the case,” Eli smirks. “You got jack without her.”
“Will both of you stop it?” I ask before an argument can erupt. “If Mary wants to help, then she can. You have enough to worry about right now anyway, Officer Dan. How do you expect to have the time to trudge around looking for clues? Your dad and Cam need you more than I do right now.”
“Because you have Eli?” he snarls.
That does it! “Outside, right now,” I say softly and march out the front door. Dan follows me and closes it behind him.
“You need to stop,” I begin. “You have no right to be jealous! You’re going out with Meg or did you forget about your girlfriend? The same girlfriend you threw me to the ground for?”
He winces and has the good grace to look ashamed. “I swear to you, Mattie, I didn’t realize I’d done that. I wouldn’t have done it on purpose. You have to believe that.”
“Dan, I do believe you, really, I do, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt.” I sigh.
“I’m sorry,” he says miserably.
“Apology accepted. Now, back to this attitude and your brother. Stop acting like a bear with a burr in its paw when you’re around him.”
Dan paces on the porch. “All I care about is keeping you safe, Mattie. I don’t trust him.”
“He’s your brother…”
“So what?” he burst out. “He’s the brother who called the cops on my mom before I got a chance to even process what happened. How am I supposed to trust him after that?”
“You would have turned her in yourself, Officer Dan, and you know it. It’s who you are.”
“That’s not the point, Mattie. It’s the way he did it. Really not kosher.”
“I know. It wasn’t cool. It stunk. It hurt. Get over it. He’s your brother. You have to get past this, Dan.”
