by Harper, Lou
"Wow." Denton looked from the printout to Bran. "So the baby's probably Esther's. How old would she've been in forty-two?"
"Twenty. There's more. Bernal's not a common name, and David thought he'd heard it before. He dug in and found something. Alfonso Bernal fled from Spain in 1937 with his daughter, Esther, to escape fascism. He enjoyed popularity in the forties as a portrait painter for Chicago's well-to-do, till his death in nineteen fifty."
"How did he die?"
"Fell off the balcony of his apartment while drunk."
Denton moved closer and parked his butt on the edge of Bran's desk. He could think better sitting down. "So Alfonso had to be involved in the hiding and probably the death of the baby."
"It stands to reason."
"But why would either of them do it? Do you think…" Unpleasant notions of incest and rape ran through Denton's head, but he didn't want to give them shape by saying them out loud.
The wrinkle on Bran's forehead suggested he had to have notions of the same, but he didn't want to give them a name either. "I don't think we'll ever know. Esther died in 2002 at age eighty. It's doubtful we'd find anyone to tell us what she might have done sixty years ago."
"And she'd probably kept the baby secret from everyone, anyway."
"Something very ugly had to have happen to her, though, for her spirit to stick around and be strong enough to possess a person after all this time."
Denton remembered something. "I think I saw her last night."
Bran perked up. "You did?"
"Just for a second, before she attacked you."
"What did she look like?"
Denton thought about it. "Sort of unremarkable but young, not an eighty-year-old woman. Is that normal?"
Bran knotted his brows and tapped his fingers to his lips. "I don't know—I can't see them. But if Esther had gotten emotionally stuck at a certain age, it sounds reasonable for her visual manifestation to reflect it. I think."
He looked so grimly handsome, Denton couldn't help but comment. "You're the only man I know who can say such things and sound completely scientific."
"Are you ever serious?"
"No. Are you ever not serious?"
Bran took Denton's hand in his own and held it palm up. With his fingers around Denton's wrist, he rubbed Denton's palm with his thumb. "I don't know. Maybe. I'll try."
There was so fucking much earnestness in those words, they slashed through Denton's heart with the precision of a surgical blade. He took Bran's face in his hands and kissed him gently on the lips. Bran returned the kiss with the kind of passion he hadn't shown before. Denton liked it. A lot.
"So what are we gonna do now?" Denton asked when they pulled apart.
Bran looked uncharacteristically uncertain. "Umm, stuff people do when they date?"
Denton felt a jolly grin taking over his face, but had to get back to the other matter at hand. "I'd like that, but I was thinking about Jessica. Can you exorcise her?"
Bran took a deep breath and let it out. "Oh, that. No, I don't have the skills. I could end up hurting her."
"So is this it? We do nothing?" Denton couldn't believe Bran would give up so easily.
Bran wouldn't. "I have an idea."
"Oh for goodness sake, don't make me get the thumb screws. Tell me already." One of these days I am gonna strangle this man.
"Instead of trying to drive out Esther's spirit, I will summon it."
"So it leaves Jessica's body?" Denton was catching on.
"Exactly. Sunday's All Hallows Eve. An auspicious time for witchcraft."
"Okay, you summon her. Then what?"
"Then you banish it as you did Vinnie Pagano."
Denton didn't feel as confident about this part as Bran seemed to be. "What if I can't?"
"You will," Bran said without a hint of doubt.
"You have way too much faith in my abilities."
"I have faith in you."
Well, shit. Denton was touched, more than he could say, so he kept his trap shut.
Bran kept talking. "I've talked to Ashley. She believes we could schedule Jessica for a séance if we offered her enough money. But we have a problem—we need somebody she hasn't seen yet who would let us use their apartment. I don't know many people who'd do that, especially on such short notice."
Denton knew just the person. "I do. He owes me a couple of favors. Let me make a call."
He dialed his friend Gabe and explained the situation in bold strokes. Gabe agreed without much fuss—the man had an admirable aptitude for going with the flow. Also, as a former vampire hunter now in the employ of Chicago's top vamp, he was used to the extraordinary. The perfect person for the situation.
"It's all settled." Denton snapped his phone closed and grinned. "Now what?"
He hoped for some frivolity, but to his misfortune, Bran's mind was on the job already. "I have a lot of preparations to make, and you absolutely need to practice."
A sigh left Denton in a disappointed whoosh. "Oh fine, I'll practice. Tell me one last thing. Is Jessica a witch the same as you are?"
"Not at all. She doesn't have a single witchy bone in her body."
Denton started at him in confusion. "How can you say that? She summoned a spirit."
"No, she didn't. Ashley did."
"What?"
"She doesn't know it, but she has the talent. It's plain bad luck she was part of a séance at a place with such a hungry spirit."
Denton still didn't get it. "But then why did it possess Jessica and not Ashley?"
"Ashley served as the medium to summon her, but Jessica had the weakness making her suitable for possession. You didn't think a spirit could take over anyone willy-nilly, did you?"
"I…I don't know what I thought."
"Good. I need to make a call to my mother. If anyone can help me form a plan, it's her. Practice?"
"Fine, fine."
***
They spent the next day and a half in a flurry of preparations. They met with Ashley, and Bran explained to her how it was the spirit of Esther Bernal possessing Jessica's body but said nothing about Ashley's role in the matter. They concocted a plan to lure Jessica to Gabe's apartment for a Halloween-night séance. Ashley would introduce Gabe as a friend of her parents to avert suspicion. A large fee to be paid to Jessica for such a last-minute arrangement would serve as an additional enticement.
Halloween night found Bran and Denton in Bran's car, parked a block from the apartment Gabe shared with his vampire boyfriend, Harvey. Those two were an interesting couple, especially since Gabe was a reformed slayer. An inauspicious pairing, yet they made it work. It gave Denton hope, made him believe he and Bran had a chance.
He hadn't told Bran about Harvey being undead, because he didn't think it was his secret to share. Anyway, Harvey might not even be there tonight. Denton made his arrangements with Gabe only. Maybe he should test the waters, just in case.
"How do you feel about vampires?" he asked conversationally.
Bran didn't even look up from the dusty old tome he'd had his nose in all day. "I don't bother them if they don't bother me."
"Live and let unlive?"
"Right." Bran flipped a page and traced the lines of text with his fingers.
Denton couldn't be entirely sure if Bran had been serious or humoring him, or if he'd even heard a word Denton said. Oh well, he'd tried. There was no use making small talk with Bran when he got this preoccupied.
Denton's phone rang, and he answered it. He listened to Gabe's update and relayed it to Bran. "Gabe's got Jessica secured in the apartment. It's time for us to show up."
They approached the basement apartment from the alley. Gabe opened the door. He looked Bran over with sharp, assessing eyes. Denton had once had an interest in Gabe, before he'd known about Harvey, and it was easy to remember why. Dark-haired, and well-built, Gabe reminded Denton of a predator—he had the coiled power of a hunter. Denton resisted the urge to compare the two men, but watching them side by side
, he saw the similarities. Bran's strength was less obvious, but it went deeper.
Bran wore the same aloof air he had when Denton first met him. By now, Denton recognized it as Bran's way of dealing with being out of his comfort zone, which was pretty much all the time around strangers.
After brief introductions, they moved into the living room, where Jessica lay on the sofa, arms and legs bound. Thick ropes coiled around her body and the seat of the sofa so she couldn't roll off. She glared at everyone but said nothing. Silver duct tape covered her mouth.
"She tried to bite," Gabe explained.
Ashley, who kneeled on the floor next to her friend, stopped chewing her fingernails for a second. "It wasn't really her." Ashley was a mess. Her mascara was smeared, and her hair hung in a frazzled lump.
"True," agreed Bran, taking a jar out of his satchel. He dipped his index finger into the sticky brown goo and used it to draw a pentagram on Jessica's forehead. Next he produced a large white seashell, which he placed on the side table by Jessica's head, put a cone of incense into the shell, and lit it. He followed it up with simply crouching there, eyes closed and head bent. Denton guessed Bran was centering himself, so he waited.
Gabe demonstrated less patience. "Can we get this hocus-pocus on the road already?"
Bran straightened up and shot a narrow-eyed glare at Gabe.
Before he could say anything, Harvey walked into the room. "What's that smell?"
All heads turned toward him. Denton caught a glimpse of adoration in Gabe's eyes. He had to admit, Harvey looked good—in a slender, dark-eyed, fine-featured way. Part Chinese to boot, for an exotic flare. Hot. If you were into that sort of thing.
Clearly, Bran wasn't, because he accosted Harvey straight away. "What are you doing here?"
"This is my apartment," Harvey snapped back.
"You're wrong. You shouldn't be here," Bran insisted.
"What the hell do you mean wrong?" Harvey put his hands on his hips. For a small guy, he acted fierce, but that was easy for a vampire.
Denton jumped in before they could find out who'd win in a half-demon versus vampire fistfight. He produced his most affable smile. "What Bran means is, you're different, and while he sincerely appreciates you letting us use your apartment, it's throwing off his concentration. Right, Bran?" Denton turned to Bran, eyes semaphoring a warning message.
Bran blinked. "Right." Then, facing Harvey, he added, "My apologies."
Gabe strolled up, pulled Harvey close to him, and whispered something into his ear. The first time Gabe had mentioned Harvey to Denton, he'd called Harvey his "roommate," but the intimacy of the simple gesture spoke of much more. Under Gabe's caress, Harvey let go of his fight-ready posture.
"Fine," he said when Gabe stepped away. "I'll go. Call me when you're done." Then pointedly at Bran: "If you make a mess, you'd better clean it up. I won't scrub ectoplasm out of the carpet after you." Grabbing his cellphone, he stormed out.
Gabe made a WTF face at Denton, who could only shrug in reply. Who knew what would set off Mr. Bossy-pants?
Unaware of this exchange, Bran pulled several items out of his bag before stashing it out of the way. He also removed the tape covering Jess's mouth. She bared her teeth at him, but he kept out of biting range.
As Gabe and Denton watched him curiously—and even Ashley forgot about her fretting and turned in their direction—Bran laid a roughly two-foot-by-two-foot black silk cloth on the floor. He sprinkled ordinary powdered sugar on it in the shape of a triangle and within it a circle. Denton had been surprised to see the box among Bran's supplies earlier, but Bran assured him of sugar's unmatched summoning power. In the middle of the cloth, Bran placed a disk-shaped object. Denton peered closer and saw a large silver medallion of a pentagram enclosed in a circle, strange symbols engraved all around its circumference.
Bran placed three votive candles—a white, a black, and a red—at each corner of the triangle and lit them. He murmured a few words. The candles flickered once, and the lines of sugar connecting them started to emanate a faint glow.
Bran stood. "Okay, let's get on with this hocus-pocus."
Gabe straightened his face. "Fine. What do we do?"
Bran instructed them to stand around the cloth. Ashley took her place on Bran's right, Denton on his left, and Gabe across.
Bran stretched out his arms. "Hold the hands of the persons next to you." Then to Denton: "Relax your mind and focus, as we practiced."
Ashley fidgeted. "Should we think of something? Jess has always told me to concentrate on the spirit we want to summon. Should I concentrate on Esther?"
Bran stared at her as if she'd suggested something radical, then nodded. "Yes. You should do that."
"Me too?" asked Gabe.
Without sparing him a glance, Bran said, "Sure," and took Denton's and Ashley's hands.
Looking off into space, he began to chant in Spanish. The repetitive rise and fall of Bran's voice had a calming effect on Denton and helped him tune out his environment.
"Puta!" Jessica's shriek jolted Denton out if his concentration. He saw Ashley jump too. Bran squeezed Denton's hand, as he probably did Ashley's, and kept on repeating the same rhythmic phrases, as if nothing had happened. Denton got the message and did his best to ignore Jessica.
"You can't do this. This is kidnapping. You'll go to prison!" she kept shouting, but nobody responded to her. A string of curses followed and another threat. "Un-fucking-tie me, or I'll kill you all, like I killed the drunk bastard!"
When they ignored her, she kept cursing and throwing threats and expletives at them, but as she went on, fewer of her words were in English and more in Spanish.
To tune her out, Denton thought about the warmth of Bran's hand, the self-assured firmness that his touch conveyed. He let that sense of certainty take him over, and with it he felt light filling him up, ounce by ounce. Then there was quiet, and Denton opened his eyes—he'd only just realized he'd closed them—and saw a wisp of smoke rise in the space between them, twist and grow. It whirled with the momentum of a swarm of angry wasps, gaining volume in every spin, till it was the size and rough shape of a person. Denton thought he could see traces of an angry young woman, but it was hard to tell.
Bran gave Denton's hand another squeeze, then let him go. Denton knew what to do. He let go of Gabe and raised his hands, palms outward. A wave of heat washed through him and burst out of his hands in the form of bright white light. It engulfed the smoky form of Esther's spirit. A brief flash later, there was only empty space over the summoning circle.
Ashley stared at Denton with her jaw dropped, and even the seasoned Gabe seemed impressed. However, Bran's pleased expression made Denton the proudest.
He grinned back. "Say, 'It'll do, pig. It'll do.'"
Of course, he only managed to confuse Bran, who must not have seen Babe either. "Pig?"
"Never mind. I'll explain later."
Gabe was already untying an unconscious Jessica, while Ashley stood by, watching and tugging strands of her own hair.
"Is she okay?" she asked Gabe.
"I don't know. Harvey could tell if he was here. He used to be a nurse."
If Bran caught the bite in the comment, he didn't show it. He knelt next to the sofa. "Bring me a glass of water."
Ashley sprang to action and was back with a glass in seconds. Bran dipped a handkerchief into the water and used it to clean the pentagram off Jessica's forehead. He handed the glass back to Ashley. "Thank you."
Shoving the wet handkerchief into his pocket, he produced a small bottle. He unscrewed its top and held it under Jessica's nose.
Jessica jerked awake. "Hey! What? What's going on?" Her eyes flitted from one face to another, fear fighting with confusion.
Bran backed off, and Gabe took charge. He patted Jessica's hand. "How are you feeling? Are you all right?"
She turned her full attention to him. "I remember arriving. You were here, and another guy. None of these people, and then… I don't know. Wha
t happened?"
"We were having a séance, Jess, and the spirit took you over. You don't remember?" Ashley lied smoothly without batting an eye.
"No. Not a thing."
Ashley bit her lip. "You were taken over by the spirit, and then you passed out." Not an outright lie—Denton admired her quick thinking.
A touch of pride colored Jessica's cheeks. "It happens to us mediums sometimes," she said with perfect seriousness.
Ashley stoked the fire. "It was amazing! The spirit totally spoke through you."
"What did it say?"
"Well, eh, it was in Spanish, so we didn't understand any of it."
"Oh wow."
During this exchange Bran withdrew and quietly packed away all evidence of the night's activities. After all the drama, the night wound down without further commotion. Gabe offered to drive Jessica and Ashley home, which they took him up on. Ashley even gave him a flirty smile—barking up the wrong tree, poor girl.
***
They met with Ashley at Starbucks a couple of days later. Denton sipped his Caramel Macchiato with extra syrup while Bran looked on with scorn. "It's a caffeinated, liquid candy bar."
"I know! Isn't it great?"
Bran shook his head and turned to Ashley. "How's Jessica doing?"
"She's herself again, if that's what you're asking. She still can't remember anything after arriving at your friends' apartment. Her memories of the last several weeks are hazy."
"Does she have any idea she's been possessed?"
"No, and I haven't had the heart to tell her. Should I?"
The answer took its time coming. Finally, Bran shook his head. "No. She doesn't need to know." He produced a rectangular cardboard box from his bag and put it on the table between them. "Give this to her. Make sure she hangs it up somewhere at her place."
Ashley opened it a peeked inside. Denton craned his neck and got a glimpse of a colorful glass ball the size of a Christmas ornament.
"What is it?" Ashley asked.
"Witch ball to trap negative spirits."
"Oh. Thank you! Jessica will love it."
Bran nodded and picked up his own coffee—dark Sumatra, straight, no sugar.
Jessica put the box into her purse. "Umm. So, uh, how much do I owe you?"
