Gabriel's Demons (Demon's Assistant)

by Tori Centanni

  “Are you okay, Gabe?” he asks, clearly puzzled.

  “That’s really messed up,” I say, nodding at the news. His eyes turn sympathetic and he pulls me into an awkward sideways hug.

  The images of the dead people stick in my brain and haunt me when I close my eyes. Sleep becomes fitful when it’s not downright impossible. If I’m not being haunted by the acrid smell of phantom smoke, I’m seeing strangers meet their ends.

  I get through finals running on Pepsi and gummy worms, and not much else.

  The week after school lets out, I get a job interview at the MegaPlex. I borrow a pair of my uncle’s black slacks and wear a cheap but professional looking shirt I bought from the clearance rack at Ross. It’s blue and there’s a tiny black stain on the bottom that’s hidden by tucking it in.

  “Mr. Price,” Dana, the manager, shakes my hand. “Michael has said great things about you.”

  “Gabriel is fine,” I say. “And I hope I live up to expectations.”

  She smiles approvingly at this, which tells me it’s the correct response. She takes me to the back office where the aroma of popcorn still permeates the air. She’s in her twenties and seems pleasant and kind of dorky, like Michael said. Her desk is covered in bobble head collectables and she wears a Star Wars necktie over her white button-down. It helps put me at ease but I’m still nervous. Before the fire, a summer job would have been a way to pass the time and earn a little extra money. Now it’s a necessity. I love Uncle Rick but his house is stiflingly small and it’s becoming increasingly clear his budget cannot expand to take care of a teenager and a cat.

  Dana asks the standard job interview questions: why do you want to work at MegaPlex? (Real answer: money. Answer I give: “I love movies.”) It’s going well. She seems pleased with my answers, predictable as they are, and with Michael’s referral I’m practically already hired.

  And then, the vision strikes. Even as the first bolt of pain seers across my brain, I wonder how the universe can be so cruel in its timing. I grit my teeth and clutch the arms of the chair to keep from falling over. The vision is like the others: I get to watch a woman die. She’s middle-aged, wearing a hardhat and a reflective orange vest and working at a construction site. Her name is Casey Kincaid. She’s talking to someone about a window order, shouting to guy getting into a make-shift construction elevator as she stands on the top floor of the in-progress structure. The giant crane looms overhead. Something goes wrong. The crane drops the piece of metal rebar it was dangling overhead. People scream. Casey looks up in time to see it and to register what’s happening—barely—and then it lands on her head, splitting the dirty yellow hardhat she’s wearing and killing her almost instantly. She will die tomorrow afternoon.

  I scramble back up to the chair, struggling to catch my breath and will the pain in my skull to subside long enough for me to explain this away. Dana watches me, jaw slack, hand on the receiver of her phone like she’s trying to determine who to call. I apologize weakly, as though I made a slip of the tongue rather than had some kind of attack. My mouth tastes like copper. I swallow and wish I’d accepted the soda she offered as we passed the concession stand.

  “Are you all right?” she asks. Her tone is professionally sincere but she’s looking at me like I was foaming at the mouth ten seconds ago.

  “I’m fine,” I say, too quickly to sell it. “I have mild seizures.” She drops her hand from the phone receiver. “They’re super rare. I’m surprised it happened at all. I haven’t had one in months.” I smile sheepishly through the lie, like it was just a stupid mistake.

  After a moment of uncomfortably playing with the pen in her hand, she says, “We here at MegaPlex do not discriminate on the basis of race, age, gender, sexuality, religion, or disability.” It sounds like a line straight out of an employee guidebook but I hear the meaning underneath: officially, they do not discriminate, but there’s no way in hell she’s hiring a kid who might have a seizure in the middle of the pre-show popcorn rush.

  Once I’m out the doors, frustration overtakes me. Frustration and fury. The visions alone are bad enough: the gruesome images, the all-day headaches they leave in their wake. But now they’ve cost me a job. I ball my fists until my nails dig into my palms and the pain forces me to unclench. It’s all so senseless. I feel like a moth beating its wings against the inside of a jar.

  Seattle summer buzzes with the sound of construction. I think of the vision and goosebumps erupt on my arms. I know the events in the vision will happen tomorrow. I don’t get an exact time, just a vague feeling of about when, but enough to know what day it will be. I can at least try to intervene. Maybe if I save someone, the visions will stop. That’s about as absurd as it gets, but then, so is having visions of doomed strangers.

  I recognize the construction project as one I’ve seen from the bus downtown. There’s a forest of construction cranes but eventually, I find the in-progress structure from my vision. It’s about two in the afternoon, and the site is busy. Chain-link fences keep me from getting too close. I approach a guy standing out front wearing an orange vest and holding a walkie-talkie.

  “Hey,” I say. “Is Casey Kincaid working today?” I want him to say there’s no one by that name working here. That would help me confirm that I’m having ridiculous, fictional dreams, not true-to-life visions of the future. Even though the evidence is stacked against that theory, denial is a strong thing. I’ll jump on any ice flow that might support it, no matter how thin.

  But the guy doesn’t ask who she is. Instead, he frowns at me. “Who are you?”

  “I talked to her about getting a summer internship with Wallfire Construction,” I say. The company’s logo is emblazoned all over the site, luckily, so I know which company they are. It’s not a great lie but it’s the only thing I could think of. She’s a white woman in her forties. I’m a black teenager who could be her son, but I’m pretty sure her coworkers would know if she had kids, and I don’t want to answer more questions than I have to. The less I have to explain the lie, the better. Besides, the job interview outfit helps sell the idea that I’m a teen looking for a job, not out causing trouble.

  The guy’s frown deepens. “Casey? She doesn’t handle that stuff.”

  “I know. She’s a friend of my mom’s,” I lie, swallowing the catch in my throat. It hurts to mention my mother, even in this context. “She was going to introduce me to…” I trail off, pretending that I can remember the name.

  “Marla?” the guy offers. I smile and point at him.

  “Yeah. Her.”

  The guy shrugs and gets on his walkie-talkie. Ten minutes later, Casey Kincaid is in front of me. She’s pretty for an older woman, with sandy hair in a loose bun below her hardhat and the leathery tan skin of someone who spends a lot of time in the sun.

  “Who are you?” she demands, but luckily the other guy has gone elsewhere.

  I hesitate. I practiced this on my way over, but the fury that fueled my confidence has ebbed and no amount of rehearsal makes what I’m going to say easy.

  “This is going to sound kind of crazy,” I say. “I have these premonitions and you’re in danger.” It’s the first time I’ve said it out loud but when I speak the words, I know they’re true. There is no denying what’s happening even if I can’t confirm all of the visions have come to fruition. Casey’s brow furrows and she folds her arms over her chest. “Look, I know how this sounds, but you need to have them double check the crane tomorrow at the start of your shift tomorrow.” I point up at the massive crane looming overhead. “Something’s wrong with it. Broken or loose or maybe the guy operating it is going to be drunk. Either way, there’s going to be an accident and you’re going to get hurt.”

  “What?” she demands. I can tell from her expression she doesn’t believe a word I’m saying. I wish I could take her by the shoulders and make her see the vision as I see it, blazing across my mind in vivid color.

  “Please,” I say. “Make them check over the machinery before they
use it tomorrow.” I swallow and run my palm over my shaved head.

  “Look, kid, if this is some kind of prank—”

  “It’s not.”

  She doesn’t quite roll her eyes but I can tell she wants to. “We follow safety protocols here. Equipment gets checked routinely.”

  “Please. For your sake.”

  “How did you get my name?” she asks. She’s reaching for her phone. “Did one of these assholes put you up to this? Because I’m not going to be scared off the job.”

  “I’m not trying to—“

  “Give me a name and I won’t call the cops.”

  I shake my head. My tongue feels thick in my mouth. “I just wanted to warn you.”

  She scoffs. “Bullshit. I’m giving you ten seconds to get the hell out of here and then I’m calling the police.”

  I put my hands up and back away, and then dart around the block. I walk swiftly to the bus stop and go back to Uncle Rick’s house. Helplessness tears at me. The visions are painful and random, and they serve no purpose if I can’t even help anyone.

  I spend the next day on my laptop on the small love seat in the narrow living room, Jasper curled up at my side like a gray cat donut. I refresh news feeds, hoping I don’t see an article about a construction accident. I will Casey Kincaid to use caution, to make her coworkers check the crane. I will her to live.

  My uncle comes downstairs from his loft bedroom around one. He worked the late shift last night and didn’t get home until I was asleep. The aroma of brewing coffee fills the small house and Rick peeks his head in while it percolates. He’s dressed for work even though I thought he was off today. He has circles around his eyes as dark as the ones around mine. “Picked up a swing shift today. Heading out soon,” he says, when he sees my surprise at his attire. “How’d the interview go?”

  “Good,” I lie, because I cannot face telling him I blew it and there’s no way they’re going to call. “I’m applying to other places just in case.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Uncle Rick says, obviously trying to mask his relief. He heads back into the kitchen and then upstairs, where he spends most of his time now, displaced from his living room by my presence. It’s not a big space: barely enough room for the small couch and TV, and his computer desk, wedged on the other side of the front door, which now bangs against it when it opens.

  Thirty minutes later, the reports come in about an accident at a construction site and how traffic is messed up. That’s the focus of most of the initial reports: traffic is a mess. Maybe they don’t yet realize someone died or maybe they’re trying to downplay it until they can identify the victim and tell her family, but it bothers me. Casey Kincaid is dead. I couldn’t stop it. And as far as most people are concerned, it’s just a problem for their commute.

  Something inside me snaps loose and I start crying. I cry a lot these days; grief puts you on edge and tears come easy. I cry for Casey, and my mom and dad, and my sister, and even for my lost job at MegaPlex, because once the tears start, they fall over anything. There’s a giant black hole inside me that cannot be filled and I cry over it, too. I hear footsteps on the staircase. I grab tissues, dry my eyes as best as I can, and put my glasses back on. Sip at my Pepsi, let the bubbles push past the lump in my throat.

  I keep focused on my screen when Uncle Rick comes into the room.

  “Good luck with the job hunt,” he tells me.

  “Thanks,” I say, my voice raw from crying. He probably heard me. I’ve heard him. But neither of us acknowledges it. “Have a good day at work.”

  “Will do,” he says.

  I exhale, relieved when the front door clicks shut behind him and I have the house to myself.

  CHAPTER THREE

  For two weeks, Uncle Rick keeps coming up with new, seemingly-casual ways to ask if I’ve heard from MegaPlex. I finally get a job interview at Starbucks and it goes well. Without a vision interrupting me, the manager is impressed and hires me on the spot. I start training in three days, on Monday. But that afternoon, once I’m back home, another vision drops me to the ground in the middle of making a ham and swiss sandwich. I writhe on the kitchen floor, witnessing yet another stranger’s death. When it’s over, I’m not hungry but the sandwich is half made, so I eat it, washing it down with Pepsi, tasting nothing.

  I may have a job, but visions strike sporadically every couple of days. How long until one hits me during an eight-hour shift? How long until holding a job while collapsing at random becomes untenable? And what about college? How can I possibly juggle classes and a job when these visions are tearing me apart at random intervals?

  I spend the evening searching for answers online. I need a cure, or at the very least, a way to control the visions so I don’t fall down in the middle of steaming milk for someone’s extra hot latte and scald my face off.

  There are a couple of online forums with people who claim to have powers. One girl claims she can move objects with her mind. Another guy claims he sees people’s futures when he touches their skin. But on the Internet I don’t know how true any of it is. These people could be pretending or exaggerating and there’s no way to tell.

  I find a store that deals in “magick” supplies—mostly candles, incense, and gems from what I can see—but their psychic powers book selection mostly revolves around reading Tarot Cards. As I’m standing there examining the spines, a woman hands me a card for another bookstore without saying a word.

  The card leads me to Thistle & Leaf, a tiny book shop in an alley way of Pike Place Market, outside and a block up from the main market with its big red sign. The entrance consists of a wooden door and a narrow window covered in grime and grease that bears the etched name of the store. There are no posted hours and no indication that it wants customers to enter. But when I turn the door handle, it opens.

  Inside, it looks like a badly organized used book store and it’s about three times as big as the entrance would suggest, with three narrow aisles of bookshelves. Books with fancy font tiles and lamented covers are haphazardly arranged between books that look old enough to have been rescued from the Library of Alexandra.

  The shop isn’t empty. A woman with long skirts is holding a basket while browsing. She smiles at me and I realize what I initially thought was a ball of yarn in the basket is actually a cat. It watches me with yellow eyes like Jasper’s.

  A woman with half-moon glasses and a shawl, like something out of Harry Potter, stands at a table in the back with a plain calculator and one of those ancient credit card machines. “Can I help you?” she asks, clearly unhappy to have a teenager daring to occupy her store.

  “I was looking for books about psychic powers,” I say, and immediately regret it when she frowns deeply.

  “We don’t carry mumbo jumbo about cards and crystal balls,” she says stiffly. “Try Barnes and Noble.”

  “Actually,” I say, meeting her eyes, “I meant, like, premonitions. And maybe how to stop them?”

  “Most people want to induce them,” she says. She points to the last row. “Premonitions, Aisle 3.”

  I turn the corner and my breath catches. A very attractive guy is standing in the middle of the aisle, leaning against a shelf and flipping through a book. His hair is bright pink and messy in a way that suggests it took a lot of time and product to get it that way and he has at least three piercings in each ear. He wears a silky black polo over jeans and a series of beaded bracelets around one wrist. He glances up, looks me over, and smiles.

  My chest tightens. I immediately feel self-conscious. I’m wearing jeans that are a size too big and a promotional t-shirt for a local brand of soda. It was in one of the many donation bags of clothes my church gave me after the fire. My head and face are freshly shaved but I still feel grubby and unkempt.

  After openly gawking at him for a second, I clear my throat, and try to I pretend I don’t care he’s there. I search the shelves for tags identifying which section is which, but there are none and from the titles I can read, the books do
n’t seem to be in any order. Books about ghosts are next to books about UFOs—no “mumbo jumbo,” my ass—and those are wedged between books about third eyes and summoning demons.

  “Can I help you?” the guy asks, closing his book. It’s one of the newer ones but the way he holds it makes it impossible to read the title. He has a British accent, which is crazy sexy, especially combined with the punk-rock goth look.

  “Do you work here?” I ask, because otherwise, I can’t imagine why this dude is talking to me. He’s around my age, but he’s got a cool aloofness and I am a haphazard mess in borrowed clothes.

  “No.” He shoves the book back on the shelf without really looking where he’s putting it. Given what I can tell, it doesn’t really matter. “But you look like you need help.”

  I feel heat rush into my cheeks and clear my throat. “I’m good.”

  “I didn’t ask how you were. I asked if I could be of service.”

  “Leave my customers alone, Myron,” the woman calls from the desk.

  He rolls his eyes and then gives me a can-you-believe-her look. Then he grabs my hand. “Come on.”

  I hesitate but I decide I’d rather go with the hot goth guy than trying to find anything useful in there, so I let him drag me out into the alley.

  “What kind of visionary are you?” he asks, as he pulls me along through the throngs of summer tourists who crowd the market.

  “I, uh, didn’t say I was a visionary.”

  “But you are,” he says, with a faint, crooked smile. “You have that look.”

  “There’s a look?” I ask. I glance down at my donated t-shirt. If either of us looks like someone with magical powers, it’s sure as heck not me.

  He pulls me into the shaded alley past the fish-throwing seafood purveyor and down near the famous Gum Wall, which is exactly what it sounds like: a wall where people have stuck their chewed gum over the years so much that little wads of masticated wax cover the brick. It’s the least romantic place I can think of but my heart is hammering and my skin is hot, not just from the August heat. He stops past a small group of tourists who are photographing the wall, and steadies me, hands on my arms. Then he steps back and examines me like I’m a fashion model for an upcoming show.