by Nan Higgins
“Are you hungry?” he asked. “I made enough salad to share, and there’s chicken breast in the fridge if you want to cook some.”
“I think I’m okay with coffee for now,” I said. “Thank you, though.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Sloane said.
“Okay. Well, it’s there when you’re ready.” He glanced at his phone. “Listen, I have some business to take care of, so I’ll be in my bedroom most of the day. Answering emails, on and off conference calls. This investigation into Nathan’s work practices has gotten rolling pretty quickly the last few days, and all of a sudden, I’m bogged down. You two know how to make yourselves at home, so just keep doing that.”
“Sure, sounds good.” I was careful to keep the contempt out of my voice. Nick had been my friend; he’d been my father’s best friend. It was hard to reconcile that with this monster who sent a demon after me and wanted my dad to take the fall.
“Good. You know where to find me if you need anything.”
“Yeah, we know where you are,” Sloane said. I tapped her foot under the table when I heard the sharpness in her voice. “Thanks for everything, Nick.”
“Hey, no problem. You guys are my responsibility, after all.” He grabbed his water bottle and phone, and after putting his dishes in the dishwasher, walked down the hall. Sloane and I stayed silent until we heard his bedroom door close.
“So, I guess we lucked out?” I said. “We didn’t want to hang out with him, and he doesn’t have the time to spend with us.”
“I guess so. I’ll be glad when we can put tonight behind us.” I craved safety and normalcy now. If tonight went the way we hoped, it could be the beginning of getting a little bit of those back again. If it didn’t…I couldn’t even imagine the consequences.
* * *
We got through the rest of the day with only briefly seeing Nick. Sloane and I had put together the ingredients for a vegetarian chili the previous day and turned on the slow cooker. Nick was finishing his second bowl of chili when we came out to the kitchen to get our own. We ate quietly, our minds on the task at hand tonight.
We decided to wait until after midnight to leave for AfterCorps, hopefully ensuring that Nick would be asleep. Around eleven, we began our preparations. Sloane let me borrow a pair of black jeans to go with my lightweight long-sleeved black T-shirt. I pulled my hair into a high bun, and Sloane covered her much lighter hair with a dark beanie.
We’d ripped the pages regarding final transfers from the textbooks in case we needed them for reference. Several pages were covered in marks from our pens and highlighters. We put the pages in the backpack between the mace and the flashlights, along with the other supplies.
“Did you tell Clara what time we’d be meeting her?” My heart clenched when I realized our plan could easily fail if Clara didn’t know where to be and when.
“No, I don’t think she has a sense of time. She said she’d be there. I don’t think she had any intentions of leaving AfterCorps.”
“Unless the demon makes her.”
Sloane took my hands. “This is our best chance, Aria. We have to do this. No matter how things go tonight, when we leave AfterCorps, we will go to your parents’ house for help. But we can set your dad up for a huge advantage if we can make this happen.” We’d briefly considered telling my dad; Sloane had even left it up to me, but I’d been through too much with the people in my life to truly trust anyone with this besides Sloane.
“Okay,” I said. “You’re right.” I checked the time. Five after midnight. I listened for any sign that Nick was awake, but the house was silent. “I guess it’s time.”
Sloane nodded. She put the backpack on, and I followed her out the sliding glass door.
* * *
We entered the rear doors and stood inside for a few moments, much the way we’d stood at Nick’s before we left, evaluating any noises for signs of someone else in the building. There was nothing.
We crept through the hallway and down the basement stairs, pausing at the bottom to let our eyes adjust. We’d agreed not to use our flashlights until we were just outside the transfer room. We let our memory of the space guide us to the elevator that took us to the clerk’s department, the walkway toward the marble area outside the judiciary room, and the echoing hall leading to the smaller elevator that went down to final transfers.
I clasped Sloane’s hand on the final elevator. I hadn’t remembered it being so small or feeling so claustrophobic last time, and there had been three of us.
“Slow your breathing,” she whispered.
I squeezed her hand and inhaled deeply, held the breath for several seconds, and exhaled as slowly as I was able. I took another breath, and when I finished, the elevator doors opened.
I unzipped the backpack on Sloane’s back and got our flashlights. As we walked toward the transfer area, I was reminded that we didn’t really need the light. The blazing, blinding light in the transfer alcove filled the room more fully than I remembered. The glow reached even as far back as we were as our footsteps reverberated across the cavernous room.
I’d been keeping an eye out for Clara, and I knew by the way Sloane’s neck craned that she was looking too. There’d been no sign, but I noticed movement in the depths of the transfer room, and I turned. When I saw who it was, I jumped.
“Edgar?” Sloane said.
“Who is it?” The words mirrored the ones he’d said the first time we came here.
“Uh, it’s Sloane…Dennison. And Aria Jasper.”
The old man nodded slowly. “I’ve been expecting you.”
“You have?” I stepped a bit closer.
“Careful,” he said. “This light isn’t meant for your eyes. Avert them for your safety.”
“What are you doing here so late?” I asked. “And what do you mean you’ve been expecting us?”
“I am here because I am always here.”
“You mean…you live here?” Sloane asked.
Edgar smiled. “I exist here. I do not live anywhere.”
“You’re a prior?”
“Of sorts. When I died, I was chosen for the honor of Chief Officer of Transfers. I get to hold the hands of my deceased brethren as they become alive again. Most fulfilling, more than makes up for giving up my earthly sight.”
I wanted to ask him what that meant, why he had to give up his sight, but Clara appeared beside him.
“Is it time, Edgar?” She glanced around the room. “I don’t have much time. I just barely got away.”
“Yes, we shall do it now.” He turned to Sloane and me. “We must form a circle around Clara. Careful of the light, young ones; it is not meant for you.”
Sloane and I stepped forward, each taking one of Edgar’s hands. Clara stood in the middle.
“Bow,” Edgar said. The three of us bent at the waist before Clara, and she bowed as well, touching the top of her head to the top of Edgar’s. “Close your eyes!”
I closed my eyes and felt as if I might be blinded by the beaming light that became so intense, it felt as if it was trying to find its way inside my eyelids and scorch my corneas.
“Go now, Clara,” Edgar said. “Go now, with the heartache of the earth behind you and the peace of the new world ahead.”
The room went from blazing to pitch. I opened my eyes, trying to see if Clara still stood in the center of the ring, but all I saw was darkness. If I hadn’t been holding the hands of Edgar and Sloane, I would’ve been scared I was alone.
“Is she gone?” I couldn’t tell for sure, but it seemed like the alcove was beginning to glow again. It was very faint, like when the night sky first starts to move toward the morning, but it was happening. Seconds later, I began to be able to make out the vague outlines of Sloane and Edgar.
“Oh, she’s gone,” a voice behind me said. “And just what am I going to do with the three of you?”
I turned. I recognized that voice. I’d known it my whole life: Nick.
Slow footsteps clapped across the floor. S
loane and I had been careful to wear soft-soled shoes so as not to make a lot of noise when we walked, but Nick had taken no such precautions.
Sloane found my hand and held tightly. I sensed Edgar behind us, but I didn’t want to look to see where he was or what he was doing. I stared in front of me, eyes aching from the strain of trying to find Nick in the dark.
“You two snuck out of the house, broke into both Jasper Funeral Home and AfterCorps and transferred a prior I’d been keeping here for weeks.” He paused. He’d stopped walking toward us, and his voice bounced off every surface, making it hard to determine where he was. I realized we were at a further disadvantage because we stood in front of the very softly glowing alcove, backlit, and Nick might have a fairly good view of us.
“The only good part about this is that you’ve freed a very powerful demon in the process.”
I dropped Sloane’s hand and moved closer to her in what I hoped looked like a cowering movement. I reached to her back and slowly, as quietly as possible, began to unzip the back flap where we’d put the mace. Every move of the zipper sounded thunderous in my ears, and I hoped that wherever Nick was, he didn’t see or hear what I was doing.
“I guess I can thank you for that,” he said, his voice quieter and with a sinister shade, “but maybe I’ll let the demon itself thank you.”
I got the flap open wide enough that I could stick my hand inside. I searched clumsily. I felt through what seemed like an entire book’s worth of papers. I dug deeper.
“It won’t be the first time a demon and I took care of someone in your family, Aria, but it’s been a long time. Not since your grandfather have I had the pleasure.” I froze for a second at this revelation. Nick had been responsible for my grandfather’s death, and what was more, he was confident enough that Sloane and I would meet a similar fate that he was confessing.
My fingers closed around the mace. I pulled it out and held it behind Sloane’s back, slipping my index finger under the safety latch and resting it on the trigger button.
“It’s a travesty, you know. My lineage has some of the most gifted interpreters in the history of AfterCorps, but we’ve always come in second because you can’t beat a Jasper at a Jasper’s game. Except, of course, I have. Your grandfather had to meet a tragic end, and a poetically similar tragedy will strike you. I probably won’t even have to continue my investigation into your father’s corruption. He’ll be so devastated at your loss, he’ll probably hand AfterCorps to me and get as far away from all of this as he can.”
The light in the alcove, grew bright enough that I could see the outline of his large frame. He had been edging around the wall to the right, and now he stepped away from it.
“And you, Sloane. You’re going to die a hero, trying to defend your love. I’ll make you a legend.”
I saw the knife shimmering in his hand. It felt like time was moving rapidly but also in slow motion. I bumped Sloane out of the way and charged, stretching out my arm and pointing the mace.
Great pain invaded my body. I was colder than I’d ever been, and a sharp, agonizing ache started at the nape of my neck and went up into my head, then down my spine and into my arms and legs. I lost control, and as I slipped to the floor, my limbs contorted. The mace sprayed all around me, and earthy, spicy fumes filled the air. Even as I writhed, I started coughing, and I heard Sloane and Nick choking. Nick. Was he still holding the knife? Where was Sloane? I struggled to stay conscious. The world was fading to black, and I heard Edgar speaking in a language I didn’t recognize.
Inch by inch, vertebra by vertebra, the freezing pain began to lift. I lay on the floor, coughing and rasping, but otherwise feeling a relief course through my body that only came after extreme misery.
My vision was starting to come back after the dark gray haze, and I could hear Edgar. His voice, which had been so soothing and gentle, was a rumbling storm that clashed across the open chamber.
“Perhaps you’ve forgotten that I was in the CDU with Aria’s grandfather long before you came along. He was a good man.”
I stared through the fog and saw Nick on the floor. He was coughing, but he was also twisting in anguish and looked a lot like a snake slithering across the ground.
Edgar rested a hand on the back of my neck. The dull ache that had replaced the stabbing cold pain subsided. “Can you stand?” he asked. I got to my feet, a little wobbly and unsure but standing nonetheless. I looked for Sloane and saw her curled in a ball on the floor, still coughing.
An inky shadow filled the room, towering over us. A rotten smell permeated my nostrils, and at first I thought it was the remnants of mace. The cold became so thick that it felt as if the lining of my lungs was crystalizing when I inhaled.
“The demon.” Edgar’s voice was hoarse. “Aria, you must banish it.”
I rushed to the backpack grabbed the pages. With shaking hands, I shuffled through the thin papers until I found the one I needed. Before I could begin to speak, I made the mistake of looking at the demon, and its magnitude distracted me. The shadow loomed and expanded, swallowing its surroundings in darkness. I couldn’t see a face, body, or any features; it was simply a shadowy nothingness eating at the transfer room. My hair fluttered around my face as a freezing gust of air shot across the room. A second blast hit my body before I could catch my breath, this one even colder than the last, and then the chamber became a wind tunnel, and I tumbled into Edgar.
“Hurry, child,” he croaked.
Sloane appeared at my side and held the other end of the pages. We extended our hands into the air and made fists. Our voice raised above the wind as the shadow pooled closer and closer to us:
Life’s blood,
Death’s decree,
Demon, from you,
We are free,
Your name is Darkness,
It is your claim,
You now go back from whence you came.
The wind howled and shrieked, and for a moment, I heard my name screamed at a deafeningly high pitch. The darkness had continued to spread, and even as we recited our words, Sloane and I had backed into a corner, shuffling Edgar along with us. The entire room had been swallowed, all except for a rectangular portion the size of a Volkswagen van.
Slowly at first, the shadow began to reverse. Inch by inch, the transfer chamber reappeared, but as it did, the wind raged more violently. It jerked me from my space between Sloane and Edgar, and freezing tendrils like long, icy fingers gripped my right arm and dragged across the slick, shiny floor toward the disappearing darkness. I reached out frantically, trying to grab anything, but there was nothing to hold on to.
“No!” Sloane ran to me, and we locked our arms around each other. Terrified, I caught a glimpse of her eyes and saw gritty determination in them. I took a deep breath, and the two of us began to heave ourselves toward Edgar and the safety in the corner.
“Step!” I had to yell so she could hear me above the screaming gale. We sidestepped together and paused to gather our strength, then repeated. Edgar had his hands out, and after minutes that seemed like hours, we were able to grasp them. Sloane and I collapsed onto the floor together, out of breath and worn out.
The wind stopped. It was so abrupt that one moment we felt as if we’d been sucked up inside a tornado and the next everything went still and silent, with not even a whisper of what we’d endured. The room was empty and as serene as it had been the first time we’d visited with Nick, which reminded me:
“Where’s Nick?”
“He…he got pulled into the darkness, I think,” Sloane said. “It covered everything, and now he’s gone.”
“You’re right,” Edgar said. “He was folded into the shadows.”
I had no love for Nick anymore, but getting swallowed up by a demon seemed a terrible ending, even for him. “What’ll happen to him? What will the demon do?”
“I’m not entirely sure, but demons tend not to play nicely, especially with those who summon them as pawns in earthly games.”
I thought about Nick and the terrible punishment he faced. After everything he’d put my family through, I couldn’t bring myself to feel sorry for him. I regretted that someone we had loved and trusted had turned out to be such a poisonous, destructive, and evil presence in our lives. He had wanted to destroy us, and he’d almost succeeded. An eternity spent with a demon wasn’t something I’d wish on anyone, but I was glad he was gone.
Epilogue
I like your new digs!” Sloane had taken the two-minute tour of my studio apartment in Hungarian Village, a neighborhood made mostly of row houses just south of downtown.
“Thanks. It’s nothing fancy, but it’ll do for now.” I crossed the room to the kitchen counter where she was putting some plates into the cupboard for me. I linked my arms around her waist. “And it gives us plenty of space to be alone.”
She turned to face me. “Even better.” She leaned down and kissed me.
“What do you want for dinner?” I walked back over to some boxes in the corner and started unpacking. “I haven’t bought groceries yet, but I can spring for delivery when you get hungry.”
“How about Chinese? There’s that great place a few blocks away. We can even walk over and pick it up if you want to get some air.”
“Sounds great.”
I pulled a few books out of the box and arranged them on my bookshelf. When I bent back down, I saw the training manual from Nick’s class, and the paper sticking out of it had his handwriting on it. It was the exercise he’d asked us to do where we discussed AfterCorps and what it meant to us. I sat on the floor and looked at his jagged letters, not reading but letting my eyes pass over them.
It had been a couple of months since Sloane and I vanquished the demon, sending Nick with it. My father had performed an investigation and found a small faction of AfterCorps workers who had helped Nick with his plans to frame my father for keeping priors earthbound. Power had been what he’d been after all along.
I missed the Nick who’d been present my whole life, and I knew my dad both missed and mourned the man he’d considered a brother. All of us—Mom, Dad, Sloane, and I—we all suffered from the trauma we’d endured at his hands, and it was very difficult to reconcile that monster with the man we’d loved and admired.