WeirdNights

by Rebecca Royce

  “Even then he didn’t remember?”

  Braxton stared at her before he crossed his arms over his chest. “You have me at a loss.”

  Foy nodded. “As far as I can tell, Jonah went into some kind of complete amnesiac state the day his parents were taken away from him. All of a sudden he could not remember that they’d been Satan worshipers.”

  Braxton hissed in his breath. “They were Satan worshipers?”

  Mindy needed to sit down. Her legs were going to give out. She made her way to the side of Foy’s desk. “Apparently big ones. The head Satan worshipers.”

  “Jonah saw that they were going to kill a woman.” Foy spoke without inflection. “He called the police. Turned them in. I can’t imagine the courage of a ten-year-old boy.” He shook his head. “For several years he lived with some of his parents’ followers who took care of him. Deranged women. I got wind of him and I was afraid for his life. If it had ever gotten out that he’d been the reason his parents were caught.” Foy shook his head. “I intervened. I thought I would help him get placed in a home, but then I had a vision that he should be one of mine. And so he was.”

  “Where is he now?” Braxton cut to the heart of the matter.

  Mindy answered. “We really have no idea. He thinks something attached itself to him.”

  “But it didn’t?” This time the question went straight to Foy.

  “As far as I can tell he’s done this to himself. That boy you all found—Damian—his poltergeist has retriggered Jonah’s.”

  His words jolted her. “Retriggered?”

  “When he first came to me, things used to move. But as he studied, cleared his head, it passed.”

  Mindy stood up. “Then I know where he went.”

  “Where?” Foy moved next to her.

  “He went home. He went back to where this started. Some poor family is probably freaking out with him in their living room right now.”

  Foy shook his head and she wanted to deck him. “His childhood home remains abandoned. It’s actually all in trust for him. I’ve been holding off giving it to him because I wanted him to remember first.”

  Braxton snorted. “Is that even legal?”

  Foy raised an eyebrow. “I supposed if he wanted to sue me he could. But I’d like to point out I break the law for all of you. Quite frequently. You might not want me to start to get really strict about that kind of stuff.”

  Braxton looked away and Mindy felt certain there was a story there. Not one, however, she had any time to delve into right at that moment.

  “Then you know where this house is? We should at least look there.”

  Foy nodded before walking to his desk to pull out a folder. A few seconds later, he grabbed a sheet of paper and headed toward the door.

  “Hey.” She chased after him. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “To get Jonah. Braxton, you’re with me.”

  Mindy didn’t turn to see Braxton following. She knew he would. “Not without me.”

  “This isn’t really for you. We’re trained to do this.” Foy turned around to regard her. “Stay here. You’ll be safe.”

  “I don’t want to be safe.” She’d managed to convince Jonah that she could be trusted. No way was Foy going to throw her back in the proverbial cage. “Not if Jonah needs me. And if he’s going through something, I’m going to help him. Whether you like it or not.”

  Foy stopped moving. “What do you mean by that?”

  Braxton scooted by them. “I’ll go get the car.”

  Coward. She shook her head. “You don’t want any of them happy. You put yourself between Christian and Dodie and now you’re going to try to get in my way. Guess what, pal? It’s not going to happen.”

  Foy didn’t move, not even a twitch of a muscle from her words. But when he spoke, his voice had lowered a bit. “I told Christian something he needed to hear. He heard what he wanted to hear. In the end, I actually saved that relationship.” He ran a hand through his hair. “All I ever asked of any of them was to find women who could deal with the truth of their lives. That’s hard to do. However, I see that Jonah has found himself quite a protector in you. So stay here and wait. You can take care of him after I get him back.”

  “You wouldn’t even know where to go if I hadn’t suggested it.”

  “That’s true.” He patted her on the shoulder. “Would you like an award? Maybe a cookie?”

  “I want to come with you. I’m not staying behind like some kind of woman out of a Western movie while the men go handle business. If Jonah needs help, I’m going to make sure I’m there to give it to him.”

  “No.” Foy turned his back on her. “I don’t have time to put up with this. Jonah might be willing to be constantly argued with, but I’m not infatuated with you and I don’t have to take it. Stay here or go home. Those are your choices.”

  Foy didn’t get to dictate to her what she would and would not do. If he was going to keep her out of the loop, she was going to force herself back in. Whether he liked it or not.

  Mindy rushed forward and, using a technique she’d learned in one of his classes, leapt into the air, landing on his back.

  He made an oomph sound when she threw her arms around his neck. No way was she letting go before she got a look at the paper he held with the address on it. Foy could keep her from coming in the car with them but he couldn’t prevent her from driving there herself.

  Foy tried to buck her off her back but she held on for dear life, swinging her arm forward to try to grab the paper.

  “Damn it.” Foy threw himself to the side and she held on. He wouldn’t be getting rid of her that easily. If he wanted to throw himself backward, injuring them both, then he would win but nothing short of that was going to get her off him without a look at that paper.

  Foy stopped moving. “All right, goddamn it, come with me. But you can face Jonah’s wrath when he sees you there. Stubborn women.”

  Mindy grinned. “Thank you, Foy.” She got off his back. “That wasn’t hard, was it?”

  * * * * *

  Jonah crept down the stairs. He knew several things. The first was that his parents would not like it if they knew he spied on them. Second, he knew he was actually twenty-nine years old and not ten anymore. But apparently, he had to relive this. So he might as well get it over with.

  His back ached and he’d be sore for weeks from the way this place beat him up. Still, even though he understood what was happening, he kept losing himself in the moment. How had he not realized he’d come home? How had he not known instantly what this place was to him?

  The woman who had been dragged into the house naked and cuffed was now strapped to the table downstairs. Jonah knew what was going to happen. He’d rescued a woman days earlier from just this situation and it certainly hadn’t been the first time he’d done so. How many times and why had none of those events triggered the memory of this one?

  The long-gone girl of years earlier screamed, cursed and drooled while she tried to free her restrained body. His father and mother, always so fashionable, put together and better-looking than any of his friends’ parents, wore long black robes over their clothes. He hid on the stairs and watched, mouth hanging open, when his mother put a hood over her head.

  Jonah turned and ran up the stairs. He could hear his heart beat in his ears. Somehow he made it upstairs without drawing any attention to himself. With fast breaths, he closed the door behind him and threw himself down on his bed.

  The grown-up version of himself would have kicked ass and asked questions later. But he was, in the vision or memory or echo or whatever the fuck it was, just a ten-year-old boy. Terrified. His hands shook and he wished he hadn’t given up his blankie the year before.

  His mom and dad couldn’t be getting ready to kill that girl. He knew all the other adults in there too. Uncle Ben who laughed too loud, Auntie Karen who always smelled like mothballs. They were all some kind of monsters.

  He stood up. Jonah couldn’t let t
hat woman die. She’d looked at him; she’d seen him when no one else had and she’d asked him to save her. His hands shook. He could not let her perish. Not like his cat who had been found dead the year before. Something must have killed it, his father had said.

  Muffin had been skinned and when Jonah had cried about it his father had laughed. That had bothered him more than anything. He swung his legs over the bed. There was something to do, people who could help if you needed them to. In school they’d told them what to do.

  Call the police. Jonah rushed back out into the hall. His babysitter, the woman who should have been watching him, snored as she leaned in her chair against the wall. Nadine had been passing out drunk when she should have been watching him for years now.

  Tonight had been the first night he’d been brave enough to sneak around her. He gritted his teeth. They had a phone in the kitchen. He needed to get there. If anybody questioned him, he’d say he was hungry.

  But no one did. Not the whole time he crept down the stairway and into the dimly lit kitchen. No one uttered a word when he picked up the phone and dialed the police.

  Now, as he stood in what remained of his parents’ kitchen, he was thrown to the side. This time there was no gust of wind, just a force as if someone had shoved him.

  He hit the floor, catching himself with his hands. “What do you want from me, fuckers?”

  Were the spirit remains of his parents’ fellow believers left in the house? Looking to torture him for bringing down their glittery party of women-killing Satan worshipers?

  “I’d do it again. Do you hear me? I don’t care how much you beat me up? How much you try to bring me down? I’d do it again because it was the right thing to do.”

  “That’s really good that you feel that way.” Foy’s voice filled the room around him. He couldn’t see the man. No one had entered the house. How was it possible for him to hear his Master?

  The kitchen blurred around him and while he tried to blink away the feeling he found himself standing next to Foy in some kind of clearing.

  “Shit.”

  Foy laughed, a long, hard sound. “That’s not the reaction I’m used to getting from you.”

  “I’m dead, aren’t I? Somehow I just expired and now I’m in that between place Christian vaguely remembers from when he died.” Jonah looked around. The other blood-oathed were nowhere to be seen. When Christian had been dead, Jonah and the others had all been temporarily debilitated when he’d sucked on their life force through the oath and they’d all saved his life. None of them had been connected enough to him to save him this time?

  What the hell?

  “You’re not dead. Is that how this is going to be from now on? Every time I communicate with one of you in a non-traditional way you’re going to assume you’re done with?”

  Jonah swallowed. This was too weird for words. “Why are you talking to me this way?”

  “Because you’re not hearing me out there.”

  Looking around, he tried to see through the blur of the strange setting where he communicated with Foy. “I don’t see you at all.”

  “We’re aware of that.” Foy walked closer to him. Each footstep echoed into the space as if Foy were slamming his feet down on metal instead of the wooden floor of Jonah’s childhood home.

  “We?”

  Jonah’s heart rate picked up. Something was wrong here. How were they talking at all? Foy didn’t simply pop in and out of his students’ heads. Or at least not Jonah’s.

  He backed up a few feet. “Who are you and why are you doing this to me?”

  Foy stared at him for a second before his face distorted into a shape Jonah didn’t want to see. In front of him stood not his teacher but the seven-foot figure of a demon.

  And not just any demon. BoBo. The demonic clown that had terrorized Austin, Texas, six months earlier and been responsible for the hell Mindy went through.

  BoBo laughed gleefully. “Did you think you were rid of me?” He clapped his hands. “You’re not. I’ve got you trapped here in this house. You’ll never leave it. You’ll perish here just as your parents had wanted you to.” He licked his lips. “Plus, I’m going to kill Mindy and I’m going to make it hurt.”

  “No.” He had no weapons but his own body and so that was what he used. Charging forward, he lunged himself at BoBo. Just as he would have hit him, the clown vaporized into thin air, appearing behind him instead.

  The clown squealed.

  “I won’t let you hurt her. You might be able to keep me here. You might be able to kill me. But somehow, some way before I die, I will see to it that you can never harm a hair on her head.”

  Jonah ran at the clown again.

  “Jonah.” Something gripped him from behind. He struggled to break free while his mind tried to recognize the disembodied voice. Who had him? Who called him?

  BoBo scowled and then vanished into thin air.

  “Jonah. Stop struggling. It’s Braxton. Come on, man. Deep breaths.”

  “Braxton?” He shoved himself out of whatever held him and whirled around. Jonah couldn’t see the other man anywhere. What was this? Another trick?

  “Jonah.” Now he could hear Foy’s voice. After the shit BoBo just pulled he had no doubt now that he was being played with. He charged in the direction of the voice. If they wanted a battle, he’d give them one. Even if he couldn’t see what he was fighting.

  “Jonah.” Foy spoke again, this time to Jonah’s right. He swung in that direction. “If you keep this up I’m going to worry about you hurting yourself or, worse, hurting Mindy.”

  “Don’t you speak her name, you evil son-of-a-bitch.”

  “Jonah, man…” This time it was Braxton’s voice and he whirled around.

  “Stop doing that,” he shouted. What did he care? If he sounded nuts then there were only the demons to hear it. “Go back to before if you want. Shove my family at me. Stop taking the voices of people I care about.”

  A laugh sounded. “Well, gee, dude, I had no idea you felt that way.”

  The creature sounded so authentic that he almost believed it for a second. Almost. But he wouldn’t be fooled. Not again.

  “Jonah.” Mindy’s voice. “Please come back to me.”

  Just hearing her took the wind out of his sails. His knees threatened to buckle. Fuck that thing. He wouldn’t allow it. He’d…he’d…he’d…

  “I’m sorry, son.” Foy sounded right behind him. “I’m going to have to knock you out. This will hurt later.”

  A whack on the back of Jonah’s skull sent him to the ground. His world spun and seconds before blackness spilled into his vision, he saw Mindy lean down next to him. How was that possible?

  Chapter Ten

  “Jonah has a hard head.” Braxton shrugged, leaning back in a chair in Jonah’s room. “He’ll be fine and hopefully, when he wakes up, he’ll be cognizant of what’s going on so we can help him.”

  Mindy nodded as she stroked the side of Jonah’s face. Why didn’t he wake? From her perspective it hadn’t even looked as if Foy had hit him that hard. This had to have something to do with the poltergeist Jonah had re-created.

  “You love him.”

  She jolted with Braxton’s words. Did she love Jonah? Shouldn’t it be too fast for her to feel that way? Her feelings had begun six months earlier and they’d done nothing but grow into emotion she’d never known before. The very idea that he lay there unconscious and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it made her want to cry.

  And she didn’t do that anymore. Little things that would have led her into hysterics no longer did. She’d had a good, real dose of horror to change her perspectives on everything.

  Love Jonah? She looked at Braxton. “Yes, I do.”

  Braxton knelt down next to her. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Didn’t you just do that?” For a guy who supposedly didn’t talk much, he certainly seemed to like gabbing with her.

  “Something else.” He stood up. “Never mind.”r />
  “No. I mean, sure. You can ask me something. I’m sorry I was rude. I’m stressed over Jonah and not good at social relationships anymore. So, please, sit down and ask me anything you want.”

  He’d been amazing with Jonah in the house and taken care when he’d hauled him back to the mansion to see that her love wasn’t hurt. She could forgive a lot of things based on that alone.

  “Never mind.” He shook his head.

  “No, Braxton, please. I was a bitch. Give me a chance to undo it.”

  Jonah’s blood-oathed friend moved next to her. He looked down at the bed where Jonah lay unmoving. “I guess my question is, how can you do it? How can you or the chick Christian is marrying love any of us? I mean, can’t you see us for what we are?”

  A light turned on in her tired brain, she could suddenly see Braxton clearly. He wasn’t rude—or maybe he was but that wasn’t all he was—or silent—or sullen—or difficult to know or understand. He was in horrible pain.

  Mindy stood up. “And what are you?”

  “Broken.” He fisted and unfisted his hands. “We were lost souls. And Foy found us. He made us these beings that live this life not suitable for the general population. We’ll never be whole. We’ll never be okay. No matter how much Jonah jokes or Christian smiles, we’re hardly even human anymore. I mean, you know what happened when Christian died. Regular people can’t be brought back from the dead.”

  “Braxton.” She stepped forward, wanting to give him a hug and needing to do it before she talked herself out of it. Never in her life had she known someone so in need of a hug as Braxton seemed to be in that minute.

  He stepped back, holding his hands out in front of him as if she might burn him.

  “Never mind.” He scampered toward the door. “Forget I said a word.”

  “I’m not…”

  He shook his head and interrupted her. “This isn’t me. I don’t bond.”

  Braxton fled as she imagined he never did from danger. Running from the room as if hell were chasing him.

  For all she knew, maybe it did.

  Jonah groaned and she rushed to his side. “Jonah? Can you hear me, baby?”