by Sara Snow
Silence fell. Even Georgia seemed startled by the hard tone of my voice. Jacob didn’t push the issue, but when I checked the rearview mirror, I could see him glaring at me.
The only sound for the next few miles was Olympia’s soft chanting as she recited her spell to ward off the rain. I couldn’t help noticing that the storm clouds were as thick and dark as ever. If anything, the skies looked even more threatening.
Kingston’s invocation didn’t work. Now Olympia’s power is dragging. Paimon must be getting better at this.
I wasn’t about to bring up the subject that was really bothering me—the old man at Granny’s Kitchen. I remembered now where I had seen a Cubs cap that was virtually identical to that one—on the head of the demon who had been murdering young women at the carnival on Navy Pier. He ran a balloon cart, and he chose as his victim any girl who had the misfortune of buying a yellow balloon.
That demon had taken murder to an art form by flaying open the chests of his young victims, leaving their hearts exposed. And he had been committing those crimes to attract Georgia’s attention, to bring her out into the open so that he could offer her up as a gift to her father.
Georgia and I had destroyed that bastard together. But not before he told Georgia that she was a demon’s daughter, which had set off the chain of events that led to her leaving the warehouse. The sight of that Cubs cap still filled me with anger and regret.
I didn’t see any reason to remind Georgia of that horrific encounter right now, not when we were gearing up for an even bigger confrontation. And I didn’t want to tell the team about Jose’s ongoing seizures, or his prophecy. Better to stay focused on the trip, and keep everyone calm so we could stay in motion.
“Did you see that creepy old guy in the diner?” Olympia said. “He wouldn’t stop staring at us. I definitely got a bad vibe off him. When he moved over to the next table, I wanted to get up and run.”
“I didn’t see him. Who are we talking about?” Jacob asked.
“No one,” I snapped. “I didn’t notice any old men staring at anyone. Olympia assumes she’s the center of male attention wherever she goes.”
“Well, I usually am.” Olympia punched the back of the driver’s seat.
Georgia didn’t say anything about the old man. I wondered if she had noticed him, or if she just didn’t want to take part in the conversation. She had quickly gulped down her sandwich and now sat with her arms folded, chewing her lower lip and staring out the window.
Rain had started to fall, driven against the car by a fierce wind. Tiny pellets of hail clattered against the windshield. On the horizon, the skies were as dark as smoke.
“This weather is going to screw up our plans,” she muttered. “We won’t be there at the same time Paimon shows up.”
“Yes, we will,” I reassured her. “Paimon knows exactly where we are right now. We’ll all show up at the same time with bells on. We just have to use our power to fight off any rogue demons who aren’t with the program.”
“Cut the sarcasm, Carter,” she snapped. “This is important to me. The timing has to be exactly right.”
Something about the cambion had changed since we left Chicago. She had a new sense of urgency about getting to El Paso, and it didn’t seem entirely related to her need to see her mother.
Is she really that worried that we’re going to be delayed by the storm? Or is she getting anxious to meet her father? After all, she’s half=demon. If Paimon lures her over to his side, we could lose her.
“Try to relax, Georgia,” Olympia said. “Carter’s right. Everything’s going to work out.”
“But we’re not exactly outrunning the rain, are we?”
“Hey, I’m trying! The weather isn’t cooperating with me,” Olympia protested.
Of course, it’s not. Because Paimon is learning how to control it.
Georgia was right. The storm had intensified. The rain fell in driving sheets now, faster than my windshield wipers could shove it away.
Kingston thought he understood Paimon’s strategy, but I wasn’t so sure. If Paimon wanted us to arrive safely in El Paso so he could win Georgia’s loyalty at the moment she met her mother, why was he making it harder for us to get there? And why was Georgia stressing out over the possibility of missing him when this whole escapade had originally been about seeing her mother again?
For the time being, I would chalk up her reaction to nerves. But I hadn’t forgotten that Georgia had the potential to choose evil instead of good when this meeting with her mother went down. And apparently, neither had she.
19
Georgia
I couldn’t get that dream about Paimon out of my head. The image of my mother with the P burned into her flayed chest wouldn’t leave me. Sitting at the diner with Olympia and Jacob, laughing at Jacob’s dumb jokes, I had almost felt normal. But then I’d remembered the three towering demons led by the king in the fiery crown.
The king who was my father.
I wasn’t sure what was more disturbing—finding my mother dead, or feeling so strongly drawn to the demon who had murdered her.
This proves that you’ll never be fully human, no matter how good you try to be, no matter how many demons you kill.
When Carter rushed us out of the diner, I was relieved to get back on the road. I hadn’t wanted to stop in the first place, but it didn’t seem fair to make the team sit starving in the car. And Olympia needed to pee, so we’d stopped.
What if my dream was a premonition, and my mother was dead? What if I never got the chance to ask her how I came into being or why she let me go? It was bad enough that the path to my goal was so murky and mysterious without the weather making it even worse.
Listening to the team in the car, I got more and more impatient. They kept talking about that old man who had supposedly been spying on us, but I had barely noticed him. There was one detail about him that nagged at my memory, something familiar that I couldn’t place. But I wasn’t going to obsess over it.
I didn’t have time.
The storm outside the car wracked my nerves. We were stuck in the car like sardines in a can, with sheets of water hammering down on the roof and windshield. The highway was barely visible through the downpour, but Carter had reassured me that we wouldn’t be delayed.
So, if Carter’s so confident about driving through this deluge, why did he rush us out of the diner?
Carter wasn’t telling us everything he knew. When he ducked out of the diner to take the call from Eli, I knew something bad must have happened back at the warehouse. I figured it probably had to do with Jose, but once again, Carter was hiding information.
He was pretty damn good at that.
I felt like starting a fight with Carter just to drag the truth out of him, but I didn’t want to lose my shit in front of Olympia and Jacob. After that disaster in my bedroom early this morning, I wouldn’t have blamed Jacob if he never wanted to speak to me again. But he’d been so nice to me in the diner, like a big brother, making me laugh so hard that I came close to forgetting my nightmare from earlier that afternoon.
I only hoped it really was a nightmare, not a vision of my future.
Georgia
We drove without talking for the next few hours, with nothing but the racket of the falling rain to fill the silence. The rain finally subsided by the time the sun went down, calming my jangled nerves. Somewhere in Oklahoma, Carter suggested we find a motel where we could stop for the night, and the rest of the team agreed.
I wished we could just keep pushing on through the night, maybe taking turns at the wheel. But Olympia and Jacob were sick of sitting in the car and wanted to sleep, so we followed Carter’s plan.
The place he chose looked about as inviting as the motel in that old movie Psycho, but at least it wasn’t as isolated. It stood at the edge of a small town, not far from a convenience store, a gas station, and a tavern. Olympia, Jacob, and I waited by the car while Carter went into the motel office to check us in.
“Here we are, in the thriving metropolis of nowhere,” Olympia remarked, eyeing the little cluster of buildings. “Only the best for Carter Black.”
“At least it’ll be cheap,” Jacob said.
“Well, if I see a single insect, I’m sleeping in the car,” Olympia retorted. “Places like this are known for bedbugs.”
Jacob grinned and shook his head. “Honestly, Olympia. We’re being pursued by legions of demons, and you’re worried about bedbugs?”
“Bedbugs are much worse than demons, Jacob. Didn’t you know the devil kicked them out of Hell?”
Carter emerged from the tiny office with a couple of keys on orange plastic keyrings.
“I thought the girls could share a room. Jacob and I will sleep in the one next door,” he said, handing one of the keys over to me.
Our eyes met, and Carter’s fingers touched mine just a few seconds too long. As much as he had pissed me off today, I felt another rush of desire for him. But there was no way we would be sleeping in the same bed any time soon.
“Georgia, I expect you to protect me from any creepy crawly things, natural or supernatural,” Olympia said as I opened the door to our room. “You can start by setting fire to these bedspreads.”
Her nose wrinkled as she plucked at the corner of one of the acrylic bed covers. The room smelled of stale cigarette smoke, even though Carter had promised to ask for non-smoking rooms. Between the two double beds stood a wooden nightstand with a single lamp. The base of the lamp was a ceramic figurine, a grotesque simulacrum of a clown.
“How are we supposed to get any sleep with that in the room?” I shuddered, pointing to the clown.
“This will protect us.” Olympia pulled open the drawer of the nightstand and produced a Gideon bible. “Just sleep with that on your chest, and you’ll be safe from clowns and bedbugs.”
She turned to study her reflection in the fly-specked mirror, fluffing her long blonde curls.
“Hey, I have an idea. Let’s go have a drink at that little tavern. It’ll be better than sitting around in this miserable room.”
“I don’t know, Olympia. It’s getting late. I think we should try to get some rest. We have to get up early in the morning.”
“Oh, come on, Georgia. Don’t be a drag. Who knows, we might run into a couple of cute cowboys in a place like this.”
I rolled my eyes. “That’s the last thing I need.”
Olympia looked at me pleadingly. “Maybe it’s the last thing you need, but I could use a beer and some male companionship. I agreed to come along on this trip, but I never said I was going to be a celibate teetotaler.”
Right. This trip isn’t all about me.
“Okay,” I sighed. “But I’m not staying for more than one beer, and you’re not bringing any men back to this room.”
We stopped at Jacob and Carter’s room to invite them to go with us, but they begged off, saying that they wanted to turn in. Just as well—I was glad to have some girl time with Olympia, even if it meant sitting around drinking draft beer in a country bar.
A red neon sign above the bar read Hi Life Tavern. The place was surprisingly crowded, considering the size of the town. Hank Williams crooned out a song on the jukebox, and the beer appeared to be flowing freely. Olympia and I grabbed a couple of seats at the bar. I tried not to give her the stink eye when she ordered a shot of tequila with her beer.
“This isn’t so bad, is it?” Olympia asked. “I just saw a halfway decent man wearing cowboy boots!”
I had to admit, I felt more relaxed now that we were away from Carter and Jacob. That three-way tension had started to wear on my nerves. Being with Jacob made me feel so comfortable. We were like bookends—he was half-angel, and I was half-demon—and he spoke to the part of me that wanted to be good.
Carter, on the other hand, called to my heart whenever he looked at me with that dark, searching intensity. He was the one who had drawn me into this world. He had recognized my powers before I even knew they existed, and at a deep level, he knew me better than anyone.
“What’s up with you and Carter?” asked Olympia, knocking back her tequila. “Are you two still a thing?”
She knocked her shot glass on the bar, summoning the bartender to pour her another. Clearly, I was going to end up being the designated pedestrian tonight.
“We never really were ‘a thing,’ as far as I know. I like him, yes. I like him a lot. But we never seem to connect.”
“I could make that happen for you, you know,” Olympia said with a wink. “It wouldn’t be hard to make a love charm that we could slip in his pocket, something that would bring you together. You just have to be sure it’s what you really want.”
“That’s exactly the problem. I don’t know what I want when it comes to Carter. Half the time, he makes me so frustrated that I lose my mind—”
“And the other half, he makes you so hot that you lose your panties,” Olympia said. “He’s a complicated man, and it doesn’t hurt that he’s as handsome as the devil. Speaking of devils, isn’t that the guy who was stalking us at the diner?”
Olympia had turned to watch an old man in a baseball cap shambling across the room. He wove through the tables unsteadily, as if he’d knocked back a few too many drinks. To a casual bar patron, he wouldn’t seem unusual, but I felt my stomach twist as I watched him disappear into the men’s room.
“Could be,” I said. “He does look familiar.”
“I’m almost sure it’s him. But how would he get here? We were driving for hours after we left the diner.”
“I know. And it looks like he’s been drinking for a while. He didn’t just show up.”
Olympia wiggled her hand to get the bartender’s attention. “Did you see an older man in a baseball cap come in a while ago? He just went into the bathroom.”
The bartender grinned. “You just described about half our customers, Miss. I haven’t noticed anyone in particular.”
Olympia sighed. “Well, since you’re here, could I have another shot?”
The bartender was all too willing to refill Olympia’s shot glass, but I was getting worried. The last thing we needed was a two-hour delay in the morning while Olympia recovered from a hangover.
“Don’t worry,” Olympia said, reading my mind. “I happen to have one of the most effective hangover remedies known to humankind. If I do overindulge, which I haven’t yet, I’m not going to hold us up in the morning.” She tilted her head to look at me more closely. “Why are you so impatient, anyway? We’re not that far behind. Besides, if Paimon knows where we are, let him follow our schedule for a change.”
“It’s not just that,” I said, tearing pieces off a paper napkin to distract myself. “I feel like I’m being pulled to my mother. There’s a force, or maybe a need, that’s drawing me to her. Until I actually get to see her, I’m not going to be able to rest.”
“What makes you think you’ll be able to rest once you see her? This step is only the beginning, after all. You still don’t know all the steps you need to take to claim your full power.”
“I know. But this one task is all I can think about now. Until it happens, I won’t know what’s ahead on the rest of this journey.”
Olympia prodded me with her elbow. The man in the baseball cap had emerged from the men’s room. He still looked eerily familiar, but now I noticed that his cap was red, not blue, and it didn’t have the Cubs insignia. He walked unsteadily, but as he passed the bar, I saw that he was using a cane.
“Close call,” I said. “That’s not the same guy. This one has a cane. His cap is different, and I’m sure he’s stockier than the man at the diner.”
Nevertheless, a layer of goosebumps broke out on my arms when the stranger hobbled by. All my senses were on alert now, and the closer we got to El Paso, the more sensitive I seemed to be to every movement, every detail in the world around me. It was as if all my senses had developed a severe case of paranoia.
Olympia agreed to go back to the motel after dow
ning her shot and polishing off her beer. I knew she could sense how edgy I was because she didn’t bother to argue with me. As we left the Hi Life, I scanned the bar and saw no sign of the old man.
Good riddance. Wherever he went, let him stay gone.
We got ready for bed as soon as we returned to our room. After bitching to each other for a few minutes about the cardboard-thin mattresses, lumpy pillows, and threadbare sheets, Olympia and I went to sleep. The last thing I saw before my eyes closed was that creepy clown lamp, silhouetted in the light of the security lamp that bled through the curtains.
My sleep was deep and dense. There were no clear scenes or images in my dreams, just a feeling that I was being engulfed by shadows that shifted across my body. Those shadows caressed me like dozens of hands, gliding under my shirt to stroke my skin. The sensation of being touched all over was scary and exciting at the same time, as if I was being taken over by beings that wanted to steal me for their pleasure.
When the light touch of fingertips turned into kisses, I felt my body responding. My flesh seemed to be melting under the lips of the invisible being, softening like butter under those invisible hands.
With a soft moan, I woke myself up.
Shhh. Georgia, it’s me.
I opened my eyes to see the profile of a man lying beside me.
Carter.
He was there with me somehow, pushing me gently onto my back so he could shift over on top of me. His naked body was hard, but his skin was as smooth as silk. He felt weirdly cool to the touch when I stroked his back, but I was too far gone by now to wonder why. Moving rhythmically, he pushed himself between my thighs, and my legs parted to let him in.