Death, and the Girl He Loves

by Darynda Jones

  A wave of unrest rippled within me. I wrapped an arm around my stomach even though it wasn’t centrally located. It was everywhere. In all my cells at once.

  Jared leaned over and whispered to me. “Are you okay?” He smelled clean, like rain in the forest.

  “Yeah, I think Malak knows we’re talking about him. And I don’t think he likes the idea of being controlled.”

  “Who does?”

  “Pix,” Mac said, seeming hesitant about what he was about to say. “Can you communicate with it?”

  I lowered my head. “I’m sorry. I can’t. I mean, right after he entered me I felt him. It was like we thought the same thoughts, the same feelings. We were one. But I lost that a long time ago. He just kind of disappeared. Became a part of me.”

  “Are you sure you can’t talk to it?”

  I let a hapless smile through. “No. I’m not sure about anything.”

  “For a long time after the incident,” Grandma said, “she never used the word ‘I’ anymore. She said ‘we.’ We want this or we want that.”

  “And let me guess,” he said, fixing a knowing gaze on me. “They looked at you worriedly. So much so, that you eventually repressed that side of you, that part.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.” Truth was, I hardly remembered that time of my life. I just remembered the emptiness of losing both my parents in one shot and knowing it was my fault. I’d led them to their deaths. Pointed the way. I could hardly look in a mirror for months afterwards.

  “Do you think you could try?” Mac asked.

  “Sure. I can try.”

  * * *

  Maybe because the end of the world was nigh or maybe because their parents didn’t like me anymore, but that night Brooklyn and Glitch were ordered to go to their respective homes. Brooke’s mom took her out of school, so she wouldn’t be going tomorrow. Both sets of parents were members of the Order. They believed. They knew what was coming. Neither had qualms about their children helping us, but they did want to spend some time with their kids. Just in case.

  I could understand that.

  Kenya, Mac, and my grandparents as well as several other members of the Order were still up, chatting downstairs. Though they invited me to stay with them, I chose to go to my room. I sat alone, but I knew my ever-diligent bodyguards were hard at work below. Cameron was probably camped out in his truck. His dad had brought him takeout and a blanket, so he would probably be there all night.

  And Jared would be on guard from his apartment. He’d had to run out for a little while that afternoon and see to another possession. Each time, he gave the spirit a chance to leave the human willingly. They never chose to do that. They’d possessed their prey on purpose, for that very reason. So that Jared would have no choice but to extract them, to end their existence in this realm and all others. They would simply cease to be.

  Sheriff Villanueva wasn’t having any luck with prison records that fit our time frame or with hospital records of men with stab wounds. He was widening his search, but we just didn’t have that much time left. I didn’t hold out much hope, but I knew I’d recognize him if I saw him again. In fact, I had seen him. A lot. I just couldn’t place where. It was the same feeling as having a name stuck on the tip of my tongue. It was right there. So, so close.

  And I had one day to remember. One day before Dyson opened the gates and the earth was flooded with thousands, possibly millions of dark spirits and demons. The thought crushed me. I felt like I should be doing something to prepare, but what?

  I took the journal my dad found off my nightstand. I’d already looked at the drawings in it a hundred times, but could I go into them? Could I get anything from them? Why would my grandmother Olivia swipe this from the nephilim who took her? Why would she risk her life for it? What significance did it hold?

  I decided to give it a shot. I scooted down so that my head was nowhere near my headboard. A concussion now would not help our cause. After settling in and preparing myself mentally, I concentrated. Gradually, like someone pressed slow motion, I entered the picture, only this time I didn’t go into a scene. The drawing of the picture was the scene. I literally watched as the image I’d chosen was being drawn, but it was wrong. The world was wrong. Out of focus.

  I held the pencil with my left hand. I tried to examine that hand, to look for a clue, but I reached over for a glass first and took a long draw of a fiery liquid. Whiskey. It was smooth and felt good when it hit my stomach. The prophet was coming. I’d seen the signs, and she was actually coming. The only one who could stop him, according to the grimoire, was on her way.

  I’d have to make sure she got my message, but how? If I only knew who she was. If I only had those kinds of connections, but the Order of Sanctity was a tight-knit bunch. They weren’t telling me anything. Idiots. I was only trying to help. I would give it to one of the members and hope it eventually ended up in the girl’s hands. She could decipher it. Only her.

  After slamming the snifter down, I went back to the drawing. I didn’t have much time. He was beginning to suspect. But the drawing tilted. No, everything tilted until I could hardly work. I’d drunk too much that evening, and my drawing was not coming out as planned. I decided to give it a try anyway.

  I lifted the journal, perched it on its side, and flipped through the pages, slowly at first, then again only faster. The images blurred together, blended to form the message, and I smiled. Right up to the minute my stomach lurched and I threw up over the side of my desk.

  I rocketed back to reality, my head thrown back, my legs kicking out, my muscles straining to break free, but at least this time I seemed to have a little more control. Or so I thought until I, too, heaved, and the contents of my stomach raced up the back of my throat. I barely had time to pitch my torso over the side of the bed and empty my stomach onto a throw rug.

  It was not pleasant.

  I fell back onto my bed afterwards, swearing never to drink whiskey again as long as I lived. In a valiant effort, I gathered my strength and rolled off the bed. After tossing the rug onto the fire escape, I hurried to my bathroom and brushed my teeth. I could still taste the whiskey, could still feel it coursing through my veins.

  But I hadn’t really drank it. I tried to remind myself of that when I staggered back to my bed, woozy and weak, and took the journal again. Then I copied the man in the vision. I turned it onto its side and flipped through the pages. It was like watching a movie backwards. I did it wrong. Holding the book high in the air, I turned it over and fanned the pages again. A picture materialized. It was dark. Blurry.

  What looked like a simple line in one image became part of a bigger picture when blended together with other lines from another page. What looked like a simple box formed a house of some kind. No, a building. Other lines became a van. Curves became a face at the end, as though someone were looking into a camera. And then it stopped as abruptly as it started. That was it? A van? A face? What on earth?

  In the back of the book was what looked like a compass, but underneath was a map. I realized it was a map of New Mexico. Four towns were circled forming north, south, east, and west. Lines from each, one horizontal and one vertical, formed a crosshair. And right in the middle was the Abo Canyon, where the mission ruins were located. Where Dyson originally opened the gates of hell.

  Someone was trying to warn us, but who? And what exactly was he trying to say?

  I tried the journal one more time in an attempt to figure out that very thing. If it was about the gates, we were finding his message far too late. It had already happened. I breathed deep and concentrated on the book. The fanning pages lasted only a couple of seconds, like a really short movie. I flipped through them again, this time concentrating on the van. It had lettering, but I’d barely caught a glimpse before the movie ended. So I tried again. Each time I would see a little bit more, another piece of the puzzle would fall into place, until I could make out the lettering on the van. The eyes on the face, and I couldn’t help but notice those were th
e same eyes I’d drawn that very day. They were Dyson’s, but the van read SYDOW ELECTRIC.

  I rushed downstairs. Ms. Mullins was there, sitting at the kitchen table with my grandparents, Betty Jo, and a couple of the church elders. Kenya had been napping on the sofa in our living room. She stirred when I yelled across the room.

  “I figured out the journal!” I said, excited beyond measure. I hurried to the computer Grandma had set up as her little kitchen office, sat down, and typed in “Sydow Electric.”

  Everyone gathered around me, even a sleepy Kenya, but the sheriff became especially interested.

  “Where did you get that name from?”

  “The journal. It’s a movie. It’s like a really short animated movie. But it’s a message to us. The guy was drunk, though, so I can only attest to one thing. I am never drinking whiskey.”

  “Pix,” Grandma said, kneeling behind me. “What are you talking about?”

  Kenya rubbed her eyes. “I fell asleep, sorry.”

  “It’s okay. You’ll be punished later,” I said, trying to figure out why she was apologizing.

  Jared came in then, soaked to the bone. He flashed a grin as rain dripped off his hair and down his face. Wet looked so good on him.

  “It’s raining?” I asked, and everyone gawked at me.

  “Didn’t you hear the thunder?” Mac asked.

  “Oh, no, but I’ve been busy.” When Jared winked at me, I repeated my earlier statement. “I figured out the journal!” Then I went back to my search as they took turns with the journal, trying to see the movie.

  I paused and took it from them. “Like this,” I said, showing them how to do it.

  Granddad tried next but soon pressed his mouth together in disappointment. One by one, everyone tried it, but no one, not even Jared, could see the movie. Weird. I saw it clearly now.

  “That’s it!” I nearly squeaked as an image popped up on screen. The exact same image from the journal. “That’s in the movie!”

  It was a photograph of a business located in … Riley’s Switch, New Mexico. I stilled.

  “It’s here,” I said. “The business is here.”

  “I remember it,” the sheriff said.

  Granddad nodded. “I do, too. Sydow was an odd sort, but a good man.”

  “Okay,” Ms. Mullins said, taking a chair and sitting beside me. “This is an obituary. The man who owned this business died in ’92.” She scrolled down, mumbling to herself as she read. “Here we go. He is survived by two sons, Brian and Norman.”

  “Brian,” I said, thinking back. “My name was Brian.”

  “Pix,” Mac said, “you’re going to have to help us out here. How was your name Brian?”

  Another picture scrolled past, and I told Ms. Mullins to stop. “That’s the man. That’s him.”

  “Sweetheart,” she said, her voice soft, “this man died twenty years ago. It can’t be him.”

  My hope rushed out of me. “But he has the same eyes.”

  “Okay,” Granddad said, “what did you mean, your name was Brian?”

  “My name. No.” I rubbed my forehead to clear the cobwebs. I was being silly and possibly still a little drunk. “The man’s name, the one who drew that journal, was Brian. He was trying to send us a message. He said he didn’t have much time.”

  Ms. Mullins did another search. “Brian Sydow. Okay, there was a Brian Sydow from Albuquerque, but he died twelve years ago as well.”

  She showed me the picture on the screen. “That’s him. I can feel it. Does it say how he died?”

  “No, just that he’s survived by one brother, Norman Sydow.”

  “Okay, let’s search him.”

  After a few minutes and a couple of cold trails, we finally came across a Norman Sydow in Ohio.

  “There’s no picture,” Ms. Mullins said.

  “There’s always a picture. Somewhere, somehow, there will be—”

  Before the picture even popped up, I’d figured it out. After rolling my eyes, I took a pen and paper, wrote out Norman’s name, and then circled the “No” and the “Syd.” “Okay, if you read that backwards, what do you have?”

  “Dyson,” Mac said. “It’s him.”

  “Pretty smart,” Jared said.

  I lifted a shoulder bashfully. “Thanks. I’ve had a rather large amount of whiskey tonight. I think it helped.” Grandma’s jaw fell open and I laughed. “Just kidding, although I did throw up on my throw rug. Get it?” I snorted. “Throw up? Throw rug? It’s on the fire escape.”

  Sheriff Villanueva had been taking notes the whole time. He shut his little black book and said, “Okay, I’m going back to the office to run this name.”

  “That’s him.”

  Ms. Mullins had pulled up another link. It had an article about the arrest of an Ohio man on assault charges. “According to this article, Norman Sydow was sentenced to fifteen years in the Ohio State Pen for assaulting an officer and causing great bodily harm.”

  “Which would explain why he hasn’t tried to open the gates in ten years.”

  “But that’s him,” I said, astonished. “That’s the man who opened the gates in the first place.”

  Mac kneeled beside me. “Are you sure, Pix?”

  I couldn’t believe that after all this time, he was standing there, staring me in the face. The mug shot of him was horrible quality, but it was enough for recognition to spike inside me. It was him. “I’m positive,” I said, unable to take my eyes off the screen.

  “Good enough for me,” he said.

  “And I remember where I’ve seen him,” I continued. “His dad was an electrician?”

  “Yes,” Ms. Mullins said. “Is that how you know him?”

  My recognition stunned me. “He was a maintenance man at Bedford Fields.”

  “What?” the sheriff said, taking down that information as well.

  “He was working there. How did I not recognize him?”

  Mac tugged a curl. “It doesn’t matter, Pix. We have him now.”

  “We did it.” Grandma stared straight ahead in astonishment. “No.” She turned to me. “You did it.”

  I tore my gaze away. After all this time, it couldn’t be that simple. And he could’ve killed me at any time. Why didn’t he? I looked over at Kenya. Was she really protecting me that much? Was it fate? I had so many questions, but we had bigger fish to fry. My questions would have to wait.

  “You did it,” Grandma repeated.

  “Well, me and the whiskey.”

  I really had to stop teasing her about the whiskey. She went from proud to lethal on a dime, she was that good.

  “And Brian,” I continued. “Brian Sydow didn’t have much time when he made this journal. I got the feeling he was sick and, obviously, dying. He was trying to get the journal into the hands of one of the members of the Order. He said I’d know what to do with it.”

  “And you did,” Mac said. “He must have found Olivia and given it to her.”

  “She didn’t get it from the nephlim,” Granddad said. “She got it from Brian, whose brother, he knew, was going to open the gates of hell.”

  “Okay, I’ll let you know what I find,” the sheriff said as he tore out the door and into the rain.

  I looked up. “I can’t believe it’s raining.”

  “That’s it,” Jared said. He took my hand and lifted me out of the chair. “No more whiskey for you.”

  “Oh, trust me. That is never going to happen again as long as I live.”

  “Bill.” Grandma glared at my very innocent grandfather, her expression murderous. “Where did our granddaughter get whiskey?”

  “What? Why are you looking at me?”

  I giggled as Jared helped me upstairs. Mac stood, went to the door, and yelled out for Cameron to get up there and chaperone. He was at the window before we’d finished climbing the stairs. Man, that guy was fast. Darn it.

  “I’m getting pretty good at that stuff,” I said when Jared led me to my door. I kept my hand on his arm as th
ough to steady myself.

  “Yes, you are.” A sly grin lifted one corner of his mouth. “And you still won’t get anything.”

  “Crap.” I removed my hand and crossed my arms over my chest. “I have other ways, mister. Just you wait.”

  He lowered his head, his eyes sparkling underneath his boyishly long lashes. “I am well aware of that.” Then he glanced at me from underneath all that length. “I’ve known for centuries.”

  BOLO

  The next day Mr. Davis, the principal of Riley High, came over. We’d had a lot of that. Of people coming over. Bringing food. Hanging out and waiting for the world to end together. Not everyone knew what role I was supposed to play in all this, so their glances were not expectant, not hopeful like the glances of those who did know. I liked the clueless glances better.

  Mr. Davis asked to speak to Jared alone, and my curiosity almost got the better of me when they excused themselves to our living room, where they closed the pocket door. Thunder rolled across the sky as the sheriff came in. We looked up from breakfast and stared at him, hoping he had good news.

  “According to the Ohio State Penitentiary, Sydow was released six months ago and hasn’t been seen since.”

  “What?” Brooke said. I’d filled both her and Glitch in the second they and their parents arrived, especially the part about how we should steer clear of whiskey at all costs. “Isn’t he on parole or something?”

  “Yes, he’s supposed to be. But he never checked in with his parole officer. He’s currently listed as a fugitive from the law.”

  “Which means what?” Granddad asked.

  “It means nobody has the slightest idea where he is.”

  “I bet I could take a guess,” Cameron said. He’d come in from the rain for a plate of bacon, eggs, and fried potatoes.

  “But we know who he is,” I said, pleading with them. “What he looks like. We can stop him, right?”

  “I’m working on it, hon. It’ll take some time, but I have a BOLO out on him. If he’s anywhere in this county, we’ll find him.”

  Not long after the sheriff left, Jared came out of the living room with a very pale Mr. Davis. He said his good-byes and left through the store out the front door. I asked Jared, “Did you tell him who you are?”