I was in the shower for ages. He probably came and went while I was washing my hair. I shivered at the thought.
I called Mason, but the phone rang out. I cursed as I thought about calling the police. For once, this was something they might actually be able to help with. Yet, I still hesitated.
What if they sent Dawson? What if he’s the one who left the note? That was the most obvious conclusion. Lucy could have left him here, in bed while she went to work. He could have waited for me to go into the bathroom to leave that psycho note, before he took off to leave me freaking out over it.
“Fucking creep.” If it was him, my daydream had been real. That thought stalled me. It made no sense. Why would two guys in the space of two days both think they slept with me?
Neither of them were demonically possessed. Not that it would explain what was happening anyway. “Shit.”
I really hoped Jimmy left the note. The alternative was too messed up to contemplate.
Either way, I decided to get the hell out of the flat. I had to see Mason, and I had to track down the demon’s host.
Chapter Fifteen
Mason either wasn’t home, or he was pretending he wasn’t. I growled in frustration as I stopped knocking and tried the front door handle. Locked. Shit. I called him and left a message only after I’d went around back and checked that door too. I waited to get through to his voicemail, my annoyance in full bloom by the time I got through.
“Mason, I know you’re pissed off, but some really weird shit is happening right now, and I need you. If you’re trying not to be an arsehole you’re going about it all wrong.”
I hung up. If that didn’t get him to call me, maybe I didn’t want him to. Irritable, I started to walk around front when a chance glimpse into his neighbour’s garden stopped me cold. I’d noticed the mess in the garden before. The odd arrangement of stacked up kids toys and prams taking a beating from the weather and time passing as they sat there untouched. That wasn’t what held my gaze.
It was the three seconds that the woman who lives in the house spent staring out of the window that caught my eye. It was her, the host! Holy shit. What were the chances?
Now I wished doubly hard that Mason was home. I had to ask him who she was, what he knew about her. Everything would help. I had to know what I was dealing with. He’d know. I knew it. He was outgoing enough, helpful enough to know his neighbours. He spoke to the old guy on the other side at the weekends. He’d know something.
Why the hell was he still avoiding me? “Damn it, Mason.”
Fergus would be at school, so I couldn’t even pester him about it. Not that I thought he’d answer any questions I asked with more than a shrug anyway. He was in that typical non-verbal teenage phase. Shrugs and growls were more likely to be presented than words.
I think about just going to her door, but what would I say? Hey, I’ve been inside your head and you need to stop being so lazy. You’re ruining your life and you caused a few old people to die. Wake the hell up before something even worse happens. Right. Because that will go down well.
Think, Tina. I was. That was the problem. Nothing was coming to me.
I’d never had to do this before. I wasn’t even sure why I thought I had to do it now, I only knew I did.
I went around the house and sat on Mason’s front door step. I didn’t know what else to do. At least if I waited here, he’d be forced to speak to me when he came back. Or when he wanted to go outside. Crap, if it’s the second thing I might have to sit here all night.
I called Piper to ask how Jimmy was. She called me back a few minutes later. Oh, look at that, my phone works. At least now I knew for sure that Mason was ignoring me on purpose.
“Tina, hey,” she sounded bright as ever.
“Piper, hi. I just wanted to check how Jimmy’s doing?”
“Oh. I’ve called him a few times, but I haven’t seen him. He’s not really speaking to me. Or anyone, I think.” She paused before she added, “Why do you ask?”
“Something slightly weird happened so I just wanted to check.” I probably shouldn’t tell her, considering it might not have been Jimmy.
“What happened?”
“It might be nothing. Just let me know how he’s doing if you see him, okay?”
She gasped suddenly before her voice lowered, “Um, I don’t know how to ask this, Tina, but I’m kind of curious and just a tiny little bit freaked right now. How in the hell are you calling me when you’ve just walked into my café?”
“What?”
“I’m… Ugh. I can’t send you a picture, can I? You have some shitty old brick for a phone.” She lowered her voice. “A girl who looks exactly like you just walked in with your hot ginger boyfriend.”
I jumped up. “Are you serious?”
“I’m as serious as he looks. He seems kind of pissed off or something. Is he like permanently moody? I so didn’t think that would be your type. This is so weird, Tina.”
“I’m on my way.”
“Well, get ready to meet your long, lost twin, because holy fucking shit, this girl is you.”
I hung up and got moving. I broke into a sprint when I got closer to town. Twenty minutes later, I was out of breath and the café was finally in sight. I slowed to catch my breath, leaning against the wall across the street for a second. Then I felt it, and I didn’t understand it. The pull. I had a dreamscape to get to, and I didn’t understand why. I hadn’t caught the eye of any demon. But I was being pulled under all the same. I slumped to the ground as I passed out.
Chapter Sixteen
It was the same yellowed hallway I’d been dreaming about. The one with no exits, no host and no way out but to wake up. What the hell was going on? I immediately lay down and closed my eyes, hoping to wake up. Nothing happened for a while. I counted down minutes in my head. It meant nothing. Time always passed differently in dreams. It just gave me something to focus on.
I gasped awake suddenly, feeling rain starting to drip on my face. Not rain, I figured out once my eyes opened. The middle-aged guy with the uncapped bottle of water in his hand shook his head at me.
“What are you on, anyway?” He got up from his crouch. “Get out of the street.” He walked away tutting and muttering to the woman he was with.
I wiped my face as I got up, going straight to the café. One quick glance around and I knew they weren’t here. I saw Piper and darted over. She wasn’t serving, and her eyes were wide the second they locked on me.
“There you are! I tried to keep them here, but they left ten minutes ago.” She shook her head. “It was so freaking… Is your face wet?”
“Long story.” I used my sleeves to mop up the damp patches. I’d curse the guy out who sprayed the water in my face, but he actually did me a favour. Who knew how long I might have slept for if he hadn’t woken me? “Do you know where they were going?”
She shook her head. “They wouldn’t say. She was being kind of bitchy, and he was giving me funny looks the whole time. I insisted on bringing their food out and I acted as if she was you. She was way more crabby, and wearing a vest that was I don’t know, more slutty that the kind of stuff you usually wear. She had this necklace that was like angel wings or something too. It was kind of cool, but I never see you wear jewellery.”
I took it all in. “Angel wings?”
She shrugged. “Maybe it was a bird. It was kind of hard to tell.”
“What were they doing here?” The question was more to myself. This whole thing felt like a dream. A waking nightmare, to be exact.
“Arguing, it looked like.” She shrugged.
“Okay, thanks.” I wondered what the hell was going on for the millionth time this week as I left, promising I’d let Piper know what was going on when I found out. None of this could seriously be happening. I walked back to Mason’s place and sat outside his door.
He still hadn’t called me back. Why would he? He thought I was with him already.
It begged a far harder question
. If this wasn’t just a dream I couldn’t wake up from, who was she?
One thing was for sure, I was only going to get the answer if I met her.
I got up after an hour. They weren’t coming back here. They must have been somewhere else, and a weird thought occurred to me when I went back over everything Piper had said to me in the café. I went to get my car. I was going to have to fill the tank up and take a drive.
Chapter Seventeen
It took just more than two hours to get back to the house I’d lived in for a year when I left Falkirk. It was completely self-sustaining and therefore cold as fuck to be inside, even in the summer.
I’d only started to consciously realise why my gran had kept the place after I’d decided to leave. There was a stipulation in her will that it was never to be sold. The one reason someone might do that, is to make sure a wayward child always has a place to come back to, if one day she ever needs it.
My mother had flown away a long time ago, too wild to be pinned down to a single town and a family who didn’t get any say in the matter. I doubted she had any intentions of coming back. Not even to this middle of nowhere cottage. But Gran was a lot more optimistic than I’d ever been.
I went inside and saw the first sign of my mother’s return right there on the coffee table by one of the fires. Two little origami birds made of newspaper, perfectly formed. I lit the fire and waited. I’d put them inside once it was roaring. I lifted them and found it.
The necklace had been hidden under them, on the coffee table where I’d left it before I came back to town. It was all I’d had left of her, the mother I’d barely known. I’d kept it in a box for years. I’d never wanted it, but I didn’t want to upset Gran. I’d sat with it the night I was going to leave, wanting to put it into the fire. To be rid of that one tie I had left to the woman who’d abandoned me. In the end I couldn’t do it and I wasn’t sure why.
I’d left it, hoping one day I’d come back and it would be gone. That she would realise I didn’t want it and just take it.
I looked it over. I could see how someone might think the pendant looked like angel wings. But it was a bird in flight. Nothing special. I leaned back on the couch.
I had no doubt my mother had been here, but she was gone now. The house was cold. The fire hadn’t been on recently.
She’d only ever come when I wasn’t there. I’d seen those birds before. When I was a kid I’d thought my gran made them. It was only later that I realised it was a thing my mother did. She’d visited without speaking to either of us a whole bunch of times over the years. Basically, letting us know she was alive, and that was pretty much it. Sticking around would have meant explaining herself. I was sure her excuses would be pathetic, so I was glad she never tried.
When I came to move in to the cottage, the paper birds were on the table. They’d been there a week. I knew when I flattened the paper on one of the wings and checked the date. I’d burned them after that. Paper burns quickly. It’s gone in an instant.
The number she always made had been confusing. I’d always thought maybe there were two because she was one, and thought I was the other. I didn’t want to be like her, so I hated that thought, but it had stuck with me.
I turned them over in my hands, one by one. They were both the same size. I unfolded them, noticing red marks amidst the black and white. These were different from before. She’d written in the middle of each. She’d left a message inside each bird.
Christina, I pray you’ll find the strength to get through this life. The good path is the hardest to follow, but it’s worth every step.
Selena, I pray you’ll find a way to let go of the darkness in your soul. There is always a choice, and change is possible when you believe it is.
I looked at the necklace and I had to wonder how real any of this was. Maybe the demon got me, maybe this was hell. Or maybe all of this was real, and I had a sister I never knew about. I took the messages with me when I left, and the necklace, once the fire is burnt out. It was time to find out what was real and what wasn’t.
Chapter Eighteen
It was dinner time when I parked my car outside Mason’s house, and it was just starting to rain. I folded up the notes and put them into my pocket with the necklace. If anyone could help me make sense of what was going on, it had to be Mason.
I went to the door and knocked, waited. He had to be home by now, right? If nothing else, it’s dinner time for his little brother. I waited a few minutes and started to think about going around back when the door opened. He stared at me for a few seconds, a slack expression on his face, before he came outside and closed the door slowly as if he was trying to keep quiet.
“Tina, where the hell have you been?” He sounded worried, but that didn’t gel with his actions or lack of actions up until now. He could have called me back if he was so damned concerned.
I raised an eyebrow at him. “I might ask you that same question, Mason. As well as, who the hell have you been with?”
“You know.” He sighed, glancing back at the house. “Look, Tina, I don’t know who she is, but she’s saying she’s you. I’ve been trying to work out what’s going on, but all she seems to want to do is get me into bed.”
What the hell? This sister of mine seemed to have a seriously one tracked mind. “And so you brought her home.”
“I was waiting for you. I thought you might know something about her.” He tugged at his hair and gave me sad-puppy eyes. “Where have you been?”
“At work, yesterday, for one thing. Why did you call in sick?” I was getting a bad feeling about this now. He seemed out of sorts. Something was definitely bothering him.
“I ate some bad takeaway food the night before last. I was too pissed off to cook. Fergus got ill from it too. I had stay home to make sure he was okay.”
Ugh. Trust him to have a good reason. Still. He hadn’t called me back, not once. “You’ve been ignoring my calls.”
“I didn’t know what to say to you, okay?” He crossed his arms. “I couldn’t get what happened out of my head. That fucking guy…” He shook his head.
He’s seriously still pissed about Jimmy? “Are you serious?”
His scowl told me he was. “I can’t help it, Tina.”
“Whatever.” I needed to focus on what mattered. I had a sister I knew nothing about. She was in Mason’s house right now. “So, my long, lost identical twin sister showed up here earlier, and you just knew it wasn’t me?” How slutty could she be for Mason to just know? I doubted anyone would think the way he apparently had. Excuse me if I’m sceptical.
“I thought it was you at first. But she was acting weird, and a spirit confirmed she wasn’t you.”
Okay, that seemed likelier, but still… “Um, what? How?”
He winced. “Promise you won’t freak.”
I raised my eyebrows. He sighed.
“I had one of them check in on you a few times. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Yet you couldn’t call.”
“I didn’t want to get into an argument.”
Right. It gave me the creeps that he had a ghost check up on me, but I could move past it. The lack of contact bothered me more. I’d done nothing wrong. I didn’t deserve the silent treatment.
“Anyway, I took her to the café because I thought your friend Piper might be able to tell she wasn’t you as well, but she didn’t seem to notice.” He was tugging at his hair now. It was cute, and I really wished it wasn’t.
“Oh, she noticed. My evil twin’s inside then?”
He nodded. “I took her around town earlier, but all she wanted to do was come back here.”
To sleep with Mason, like she had Jimmy and Dawson. Except, it wasn’t the same with him. With the others, she was just going around town making everyone think I’m a slut. What did she have to gain from sleeping with my boyfriend? Unless she’d wanted me to find out about this one.
“She’s your twin?” He sounds as confused as he looks.
“I didn’t know she existed until now, but it looks like it. Do you mind getting out of my way?” I poked his shoulder, and he turned and opened the door.
I walked past him, through his living room to get to the kitchen. She was sitting at the table, and Piper was right. Her clothes were sluttier than mine, and she had the demeanour of a spoiled bitch. It still felt strange to watch a mirror image of myself right in front of me like this.
She smiled slowly at me. “Tina, I wondered how long it would take you.”
“How did you know about me?” It was the first question that popped into my head. There were too many to ask, and I got the feeling she was not going to feel inclined to answer most, if any.
“What? Mother didn’t tell you about me?” She laughed. “Of course, she didn’t. I was the bad seed. The one she tried to get rid of. Well, guess what? I’m still around.”
She got to her feet and I felt Mason’s arm go around me from behind.
“Oh, I know about you. Selena.” I watched her face drop at the mention of her name. She thought I knew nothing. She would have been right, if I hadn’t gone back to the cottage and found those notes.
She glowered at me. “Whatever. You’re a loser. This one’s too preachy for my tastes anyway.”
We’re blocking her exit. I didn’t know what good it would do to trap her here, and I could see I wasn’t going to get answers out of her. We knew she existed now. I knew I hadn’t been going crazy. “You slept with Jimmy and Dawson.”
She rolled her eyes. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
Oh, yeah. She was a bitch. I didn’t want her to know just how much it was my business and how much it had fucked things up. She seemed like the type to revel in pain. She was on a dark path according to our elusive mother. I probably could have guessed that without the note.
Quicksand Nightmares (Seven Deadly Demons Book 2) Page 5
