“Can a ward be an object that can move?” I asked. I wasn’t sure how’d she do this, exactly.
“I never really thought about it before, but I don’t see why it couldn’t.”
“Okay. This is what I want you to do. Make a necklace or something. It doesn’t have to be fancy. And ward it to keep me out.” Better to test my idea in case I was dead wrong.
She raised an eyebrow at me. “Seriously?”
“Yes! We have to know if this will work.” I knew I was getting excitable again, but if she’d just bear with me, this could actually work.
She didn’t question me anymore. After a bit of rummaging around in her suitcase, she found a piece of ribbon. She held it up so I could look at it.
“Will this work?” she asked.
“It just has to stay on the doorknob.” I couldn’t see why it wouldn’t.
She walked over and snatched a piece of hair from my head. She taped it to the ribbon and did her mojo on it, which involved saying a few things and passing her hands over it. I didn’t pay a lot of attention.
“Okay, now what?” she asked.
“I’m going to go to the bathroom. While I’m gone, put this over the doorknob.”
“Oookay.”
I left her on the bed. Isaac still didn’t come out from under the bed. Poor guy. Not that I blamed him. He’d been through a lot lately. I wanted to tell him we’d be home soon, but I didn’t want to lie. This one had all the hallmarks of taking a hell of a long time.
After I was done in the bathroom, I walked over to the bedroom door, turned the knob, and pushed. I stepped back from the door for a minute and looked at it. I tried again. The door wouldn’t budge. I tried rattling the door. It shook a little in my hand, but it still didn’t move. I took my hand off the door. Holy shit, my idea worked.
“Okay, Tabby,” I said to the door.
I could hear her chuckling behind it. She opened the door, and I was then able to enter.
“So, it worked I guess,” I said.
“Yup. And watch yourself. I’m going to remember this.”
What the hell had I done? I rubbed my head with my hand. No sense in worrying about it now. I looked at her. “Okay. Tomorrow we need to find out how many doors there are to this place; in and around this house. When we know that, I want you to ward things that will let me, you, and Isaac out. That way, you don’t have to try to steal hair from Vespa.”
“Good point,” she said. “I’d rather not touch him at all.”
I didn’t want her to have to touch him either, but during the exorcism that was going to be impossible. “Too bad I don’t think you’ll have a choice,” I said.
“Thanks for telling me that. How do you expect me to sleep tonight?”
I wiggled my eyebrows at her. “Very carefully.”
She slugged me on the arm. “Goof.”
###
The next morning, I awoke to cat butt in my face. I guess Isaac finally felt it was okay to get out from under the bed. I was glad, don’t get me wrong, but I’d rather have had the other end. At least he didn’t fart. I think that would have killed me. He had a stinky ass.
I sat up. The room looked just like it had when I’d gone to sleep. The walls were painted this baby blue color. The bed was big enough and had a white comforter on top. My stuff was stashed in the corner, Tabby’s on a chair. I looked over at her. She was still asleep. I moved around a little, trying to pop my back. All of these strange beds were starting to get to me. I was ready to go home.
I heard a soft knock on the door. I looked over at Tabby. She hadn’t moved. I threw back the covers on my side and got up. I crossed to the door and opened it.
Nicholas was standing there.
“Do you all want to go out to breakfast? My treat,” he said.
He looked so hopeful. Honestly, I was getting tired of restaurant food, but I didn’t want to hurt the kid’s feelings. I looked over to Tabby and then back to him. “Sure. Let me get Tabby up.”
He grinned. “Okay,” he said and walked down the hall.
I swear he had a skip in his step. But I knew better. It was just a matter of time before the demon popped in again. The kid was weird as hell, I’d give him that. But he was weird before the demon business. Demons did not skip, well, unless someone had unleashed a barrage of skipping imps I didn’t know about.
Vespa’s possession was so different from Lucy’s. Her demon, Asmodeus, had taken complete control. Vespa’s demon, on the other hand, either wasn’t that strong or he hadn’t gotten his claws fully into Vespa yet. Which it was, I didn’t know, but I still couldn’t expect this to be easy. I walked back into our room. Isaac peered up at me from the bed.
“You fart on me in my sleep, don’t you?” I asked.
No response from the cat. I know he did though. He looked sneaky.
I walked over to Tabby’s side of the bed and knelt down. “Tabby?”
No response.
“Hey, Tabby,” I said a little louder. Still no response. It was time to break out the big guns.
“Wake up little rose bud, wake up!” I said in a sing-song voice.
She jerked awake. “You motherfucker.”
I laughed. It worked every time. “Vespa wants to know if we want to eat breakfast out.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Well, it gives us a chance to check on Lucy.”
“Yeah. And if Lucy has heard from Doc, maybe we can get more information on the house.”
“Maybe. Let’s get dressed.”
I looked at Isaac. “I’m watching you.”
I could swear he smiled.
###
Vespa met us downstairs with keys in hand. “You guys ready?”
“Sure,” I said. Of course, with Vespa involved, anything could happen, and I wasn’t really ready for any of it. I needed to hire a psychic.
Tabby and I headed out to the car. We’d left the doors to the bathroom and bedroom open so Isaac could use his litter box. It was going to be interesting to see if he would roam to other parts of the house now that he calmed down. I didn’t think Nick minded, at least he hadn’t said he did. Isaac wasn’t known to cause damage to anything except spider plants. He liked to eat those.
As we walked to the car, I couldn’t see Lucy, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Still though, my heart hammered in my chest. The closer I got to the car, the further down into it I could see. Finally, I relaxed when I saw that she was lying down on the seat, looking at one of the books Tabby bought her. Reading was safe.
I pressed the button on the keys and unlocked the doors. Tabby and I got in.
I kept watching through the rear-view mirror as Vespa got in his car and started backing out of the drive.
“Hey, Lucy,” I said. “How are you doing?”
“I’m bored,” she said.
No doubt. She had no one to talk to all day. She couldn’t go outside and run around. This was hellish for a kid.
“I’ll look for more things while we’re out this morning,” Tabby said.
“Thanks,” Lucy replied.
I started the car and backed out of the driveway so that I was behind Vespa. There were too many things on my mind, and Lucy was only one of them. I watched Vespa in his car. Once he was sure I was behind him, he took off. I followed. He led me twisting and turning through various streets until we ended up at a little Mexican restaurant.
“I’ll try to convince him to take us to a grocery store,” I said. I could come up with an excuse for that. And while we were there, maybe Tabby could sneak and get Lucy a few things in the toy aisle.
“That would be a good idea,” she said.
“Tired of eating out?” I knew I was. Maybe if Tabby bought some stuff we could make, Vespa would let us use his kitchen.
“More like, we’ll need to eat when we start exorcising him.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” I said.
She shook her head. “There’s a lot you don’t think about, Jimmy Holida
y.”
I laughed, and then I turned my attention to the backseat. “I missed you, Lucy.”
“I missed you too. How long do I have to stay in the car?”
Dammit. Let’s just cut out my heart with a rusty knife. “I wish I had a better answer for you, but I don’t know. We’re still trying to find out about the contract.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said.
I almost pulled over the car. “What?”
“The contract. It doesn’t matter.”
“How is that possible?” I asked Tabby.
She looked at me, blankly.
I looked at Lucy in the rearview mirror. “So, the exorcism will be normal.”
“I didn’t say that.”
I wanted to bang my head into the steering wheel. I noticed Vespa was standing outside his car, waiting on us. Shit. “We’ll talk more later, Lucy.”
“Okay.”
Tabby and I got out of the car. It was not easy to leave that car just when I was getting information, but I couldn’t risk Vespa guessing what was keeping us in the car. I’m sure he knew on some level, but the less I made it obvious, the less chance there would be of Lucy getting hurt.
“Sorry about that,” I said.
“Nothing to worry about,” he said and walked into the restaurant. We followed. Vespa was one weird kid. I was starting to wonder exactly how much of the strangeness was Vespa himself instead of the demon. The weird walk, that seemed all Vespa. The personality, well, I didn’t know.
###
Inside the restaurant, the hostess led us to a table near the front window. The walls were painted to look like fake adobe. The tables used serapes as tablecloths. The kitchen was open enough to the serving area that we could hear the cooks yammering in Spanish. Overall, a nice homey place. Totally not what I expected from Vespa.
“Ever eat Mexican food for breakfast?” Nicholas asked.
“No, I can’t say I have,” I said. Back home, Mexican places only opened for lunch, well, unless you counted fast food, and I didn’t.
“It’s really good,” he said.
“Well, why don’t you order for all of us then,” Tabby said.
Vespa blushed. I’ll admit, it looked really weird with his strange eyes. He was just about doing an evil elf thing with those snake eyes. Him blushing was kind of disconcerting.
When the waitress came over, Vespa ordered. After she left, Tabby looked at him.
“What is that migas thing you ordered?” she asked.
“It’s my favorite dish,” he said. Then, he blushed.
God, he was trying to impress her so badly. He was so…high school about it too. I would have felt sorry for him if he wasn’t hitting on what was mine, at least for the time being.
“It’s scrambled eggs with pieces of corn tortillas mixed in,” he said.
Tabby smiled. “Can’t wait to try them then.”
###
“Hey, before we go to the house, can we go to a grocery store?” I asked as we left the restaurant. I hadn’t been this stuffed in a long time. I felt like I’d just been to someone’s grandmother’s house.
“We can, but why would you need to do that?” he asked.
I looked at Tabby. He was really fucking weird. Was he afraid of the grocery store or something? “We wanted to get snacks, stuff like that.”
Vespa visibly relaxed. “Uh. Okay. Yeah, sure.”
He hopped into his car. Tabby and I got in ours. It was such a relief to get out of there, away from him for a bit. He made me feel almost as if I were being suffocated. Everything with him had to be just so, I wasn’t sure how much longer I could do this.
“Is it just me, or is Nick a little intense?” Tabby asked.
“More like a little control freak.” I backed out of the spot.
“What’s a control freak?” Lucy asked from the backseat.
“It’s someone who has to have everything their way,” I said. It was more than that, but it wasn’t exactly appropriate to put it in those terms for a kid.
“Like when Daddy says Mommy is…” she paused, thinking, “anal retentive?”
I laughed. Never mind. I needed to remember that Lucy wasn’t a normal six-year-old. I kept forgetting. “Something like that.”
###
When we got back to the house with food, Tabby conveniently left a coloring book and some crayons in the car. It was the best we could find at the grocery store. Lucy couldn’t really play with dolls because she couldn’t hold them, so what was the point? At least, I didn’t think she could, but with her powers changing all the time, who knew? Still it was better to stick with what I had already witnessed and not count on what I didn’t know for sure. Luckily, Vespa never asked about any of it. I have no idea what Tabby would have said.
It wasn’t until we got to the house that I realized that I’d forgotten to ask Lucy to expand on what she knew. We were already inside putting stuff away in the kitchen, and I didn’t want old Nick to know Lucy was in the car, even though I’m sure he guessed when he wasn’t able to dab out the water. But still, I didn’t want to give him any ideas, so I stopped myself from going back outside to ask her. I didn’t want to raise suspicion anymore than I already had. The ward on the car was a huge red flag. Plus, I wasn’t sure he couldn’t see her. With the demon in him, he probably could.
With Nick’s demon pretty much knowing Lucy was around, the further he was away from Lucy, the better. I still wasn’t sure if Nick was really all that aware when the demon was in control of the body. Still, I wasn’t about to lose Lucy now, not after I’d fought so hard for her. Especially since I had no way of contacting her parents. At least she was almost as opaque as she’d been when we arrived in Arizona. I just couldn’t imagine what I’d do if I found out that all this had killed off her body.
While Tabby was unpacking the groceries, I ran upstairs. I wanted to see if the Order had sent me anything. Like usual, there was too much I needed to know and no one had bothered to let me in on all of it yet. If they hadn’t, I was going to jot off an email about Lucy’s parents. I wanted to at least know she was still alive. Surely, they could understand that, right?
The iPad booted up. I opened my email. I did have an email from the Order, just not what I was expecting. It was an invitation to meet a fellow Order member in two weeks in New York. Like they expected me to have it all wrapped up in a shiny bow by then. Heh.
I dashed off a quick reply explaining that I was on a case, but I’d touch base as soon as the case was over. I really wondered what they were thinking. I knew they knew that some exorcisms lasted years, so why did they think I’d be done so quickly? Even I knew you couldn’t assume anything.
I got the idea that this case might be my test—not that I needed another one, but whatever. God had chosen me, the Order hadn’t. And their rules were really starting to piss me off. I had more important things to worry about, like saving souls, instead of hoping I passed their stupid test.
I turned off the iPad. Yeah, no job was perfect, but the Church and the Order had their own special brand of bureaucracy, and it was driving me crazy. I was surprised that no rogue priest had gone postal yet. With the way this was being handled, I might well be the first.
###
I really wanted to get in touch with Doc, but that would have to wait until tonight. It wasn’t like I could stay up in the room all day. Isaac seemed content to do so. He was lounging on Tabby’s pillow. But I was the one who had to protect everyone. Isaac had it lucky.
“I don’t like it here either,” I said to him.
He meowed.
“Yeah. I hope it won’t be long too.” I never thought I would be talking to a cat.
Isaac closed his eyes and went back to sleep. So much for normal conversation.
I put the iPad back in my backpack and went back downstairs. I didn’t like leaving Tabby alone in this place very long. Especially since Vespa seemed sweet on her. Who knew what secrets this house held? He could have a hidden base
ment room or something. What did we really know about him? In my opinion, he was an idiot. Whether he was evil or not remained to be seen, but there were different degrees of evil.
I’m sure that fucking about with conjuring up demons put you in a whole other category than the usual general sins we all did. He was looking at thousands of years in Purgatory, at least. But, depending on what he used to do the spells to bring on the demon, it might be worse than that. If he was damned, there was nothing I could do. That is, if inviting the demon in hadn’t damned him already. I could only guess. It wasn’t like these things were written down specifically. At least not anywhere that I knew of.
When I made it to the kitchen, I found Vespa trying to make small talk with Tabby. It was kind of sad, really. He just had that kind of tone that made him come on a little too strong.
“Are you sure I can’t help?” he asked.
“There’s nothing for you to do,” Tabby said. “Everything is put away. I just need to find out what Jimmy wants to do.”
She must not have noticed me enter. If I had been in a better mood, I might have tried to scare her. Not today.
“What is it I’m supposed to do?” I asked.
Tabby looked up, startled. “Mr. Vespa was wondering what we were going to do the rest of the day.”
I looked at Vespa. Maybe I could trick him into some answers. “I would like to speak to Doc.”
As soon as I mentioned his name, the demon’s eyes began to glow bright green. “Why do you want to speak to the spy?”
I had him. Now, if I could just keep him on the string, maybe I could finish my research. “One: I haven’t seen him since we got here. And two: I’m trying to help your host.”
He curled his mouth up and snarled. “Once I gain my strength, there won’t be any more of these problems.”
So, I was a problem, was I? I wanted to roll my eyes. Yeah, the demon was still dangerous, but he was also pedantic. If he was such a big badass, he’d have made something happen by now. I exhaled slowly. “But you haven’t gained your strength yet. So, where’s Doc?”
“If you let me in, priest, I could make you very strong indeed.”
I didn’t even bother asking why he turned on me. I was the stronger figure. If he was all about power, of course he’d want a better host. “I don’t need your strength. I have my own.”
Sorrow's Edge Page 15