Servants of the Storm

by Delilah S. Dawson

  Baker grabs my hand and yanks me out onto the wooden platform, and two more kids plunk into our seats from the waiting line. As I pass the seventh car up, I want to say something to the kids sitting there, warn them away, but I’m just too scared to risk it. If something happens to me tonight, there’s nobody else who can help Carly, nobody else who’s even aware of what’s going on. And Isaac, it seems, doesn’t mean to fight at all.

  As we pass by the open door of the control room, I pretend to trip and land hard on my hands and knees. Baker stops at my side but doesn’t ask me if I’m okay. I slowly pull up to kneeling and turn my head. Inside the dark booth, a hand splays over the lit buttons of a console. The skin is blue-black, and the nails are bright pink. I know that hand, and I know that shade of polish, and I know the sleeve of her favorite corduroy jacket. And I see the place where she’s missing that last bit of her pinkie finger. No one took the time to stitch it closed.

  My breath catches in my throat, tears springing to my eyes.

  It’s really her. I finally found my Carly.

  It takes everything I have not to stand up and throw myself into her arms and cry, but the look on her face is enough to stop me. Her eyes aren’t Carly’s eyes. They’re dead black. And her mouth is drawn down, slack, a little open to show black-grimed teeth. If Carly’s in there, she’s hiding deep.

  She doesn’t show any sign of recognition. She doesn’t move. But I have to try.

  “I need to know where she hid your dybbuk box,” I say, my voice low.

  Her head falls to the side, just the littlest bit. Her pinkieless hand goes to her neck and yanks clumsily. I hear a snap, and she drops something cold into my hand and disappears back into the booth without a word, without a touch.

  I step forward to follow her, but a demonic moan from the shadows stops me. I can’t risk speaking to her, and I am shaken to the core, my heart breaking all over again to see her this way.

  “Come on. We should ride something else.” Baker tugs my arm gently, and I let him pull me along with the tail end of the crowd. My feet are heavy, my hands hanging numbly at my sides and aching to reach for Carly.

  With a jarring clunk the coaster takes off again, sending another group of kids into shrieks and possibly one of them to their death. I don’t let myself look back; there’s nothing I can do, not with all the demons and that cambion lady here. Baker and I move into the stairwell, the last people in our group to exit. I wrap my hand around Carly’s gift and shove it deep into my pocket. I know what it is. I have one just like it at home.

  But why would she give me the Best half of our Best Friends necklace?

  20

  I START WALKING TOWARD THE park exit and my car and air that I can breathe without smelling death, but Baker stops as if he can’t follow me.

  “We should ride a coaster,” he says, and with a lost look on his face, he turns and sleepwalks toward the next ride. I stand there for a moment before I notice a demon watching me from the shadows of a broken fountain. He steps into the scant light, pig nose quivering as he picks his teeth with a spur of bone, and I shudder and hurry after Baker. I feel numb, dazed, running my mitten-covered thumb over and over the gold pendant jangling against the pink bead in my pocket.

  I don’t want to ride any more demon-rigged, half-broken rides, but every time I try to sneak away or sit one out or edge toward the exit, Baker acts all weird, or a demon or cambion heads me off. Again and again I’m subtly guided into a line with the other kids. I feel like a sheep being penned in by clever sheepdogs, and I can’t find a way out. We ride the Hurricane and the Gator Tail and the Octopus. I don’t see any more splashes of blood or falling bodies or venomous reptiles or packs of hungry demons waiting like hyenas for disaster to strike right on cue. Just cambions roaming and demons moaning at every ride, skulking in the shadows like the lynx-eared man and somehow drawing creepy sustenance from the screams of the riders. I’m sleepwalking now too; all I can think about is Carly.

  As we get off a wooden coaster that made my butt hurt, everyone freezes in place. Their heads turn as one, and I imitate them, although I have no idea what they’re doing or why.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “Closing time,” Baker says sadly.

  The crowd ambles back to the gate. What few lights were on are now out. The entire park is so dark that I can barely see where to walk without tripping on branches and trash left over from the storm. The moon is fainter now, the shadows deeper. Everything is unnaturally still, and it’s even scarier than it was before. When we pass the carousel, it turns just a little as if in a breeze, the rusted poles empty of horses. Even though I already found her, I can’t stop scanning the crowds and shadows for Carly. There’s no sign of the demons or their distal servants until we get to the front gate. Several trams are lined up, each driven by a black-eyed corpse that isn’t her.

  Baker slides in, and I sit next to him, our shoulders pressed together. The tram rumbles off, and everyone is silent. A couple of times I almost start talking, but I catch myself just in time. Instead I focus on the necklace in my pocket, slipping off my mitten to rub my thumb over the engraved word.

  Best.

  When the tram stops and Baker gets up, I follow him. The parking lot is mostly dark, but he seems to know where we’re going. All the cars are spread out, and we’re parked farther away than most, near a streetlight, at least. The air is cold and sharp, and I feel small and alone and soft, like a rabbit in a field, half-blind and stupid, waiting to be picked off by a wolf lying in wait. I sidle closer to Baker, who puts his arm around me in a way that would have felt brotherly a few weeks ago but now feels almost proprietary.

  As we near my car, a dark figure separates from the shadows.

  “Did you see that?” I ask Baker, slowing down.

  But he pulls me along with a chuckle, saying, “Don’t be such a scaredy-cat. It’s an amusement park. For being amused. Totally safe.”

  “There’s someone by my car,” I whisper.

  With a shrug he stops and stares ahead.

  “Oh, that guy,” he says. “Not scary.”

  Of course I’m not comforted by his reaction. After all, the boy had a water moccasin on his shoe a couple of hours ago. Whatever he’s seeing, whatever illusion this place is under, he’s not concerned. That doesn’t mean there’s no danger. Probably the exact opposite.

  “Some people think I’m scary.”

  The voice carries, low and teasing, from the puddle of darkness around my car. I recognize it instantly. And I’m annoyed.

  “How’d you find us, Isaac?”

  “I told you to lie low and stay away from Kitty and Josephine. Then I got home from work and found the bottles missing from my fridge, and I knew you’d be right here where Kitty said Carly would be, doing the opposite of what was good for you.” One corner of his mouth curls up and he nods at Baker. “And look! You brought Scrappy-Doo, too.”

  “Shut up, geezer,” Baker says. “And when did it get so dark?”

  The other cars are leaving the parking lot one after the other. The lights are blinding as they flash over us on their way out, and there’s a dirt bike behind Isaac, a black-on-black helmet sitting on the seat. So that’s how he got here. Someone’s brights flash right in my eyes, and I feel more exposed and obvious than ever despite my mittens.

  “Can we go somewhere else and yell at each other?” I say.

  “I’ll drive.” Isaac holds out his gloved hand for the keys.

  I cock my hip and give him the drop dead stare.

  “Like hell you will.”

  Baker snickers.

  “I want to take you somewhere off the map,” Isaac says. “I want you to see what you’re dealing with.”

  “We already saw Josephine,” I say with a vicious grin. “You got something better than that?”

  Anger and fear flash in Isaac’s eyes, but he just grinds his teeth and pretends I’ve said nothing.

  “You wanted to meet another cambion, r
ight? I’ll take you to someone who knows more about distal servants and dybbuk boxes, the dark stuff. Just give me the keys and let’s drop Scrappy-Doo before the demon juice fully wears off.”

  “Whoa,” Baker says, shaking his head like he’s trying to wake up. “Who is this jagoff? You’re not seriously dumping me at home and going out alone with him, right?”

  “You came out of that fast,” I mutter.

  Isaac shrugs. “The demons are gone and the park is closed. The kids need to be more awake to drive home so they can come back next week. Some demon magic has an expiration date.”

  I bite the inside of my cheek and look from one boy to the other. I want to learn whatever I can about distal servants and cambions and evil and demons and how to find Carly’s dybbuk box. But it’s been a long-ass night right after another long-ass night, and I could use some sleep. And Baker’s been here the whole time, willing to do anything to help me, even drinking the demon juice, knowing that it would make him vulnerable. It feels like a betrayal, to cut him off and go on without him. All I want to do right now is go home, shower the demon stink off me, and look more closely at the necklace Carly gave me.

  “Can we go tomorrow night?” I say, and Isaac shakes his head.

  “The clock is ticking. This guy is . . . Well, let’s just say you can’t count on him. And the only reason your boyfriend can’t go is that I can sneak in a hot date, but not a threesome.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” I say weakly, and Baker snorts.

  I turn to look at him. His eyes are sharp again as he looks intently at me, the dopiness long fled. He’s got a little bit of stubble on his cheeks, and he’s breathing through his nose like he wants nothing more than to tackle Isaac and punch him unconscious but is just too damn polite to do it. Baker’s still the good kid, the boy on the safe side of the fence, and for the first time I appreciate what it takes for him to stand there. It’s like I’m seeing him for the first time, as he really is. Not as a childhood friend and not as a cute guy. As a man.

  “Baker, you know I have to do this, right?”

  I don’t mean for it to come out as a plea, but that’s what it is.

  “Dovey, this is your call. I told you I’d be there for you, and I will. I’m not sure what’s going on, what just happened. It’s like a nightmare I can’t quite remember. But I’m pretty sure that going somewhere alone with a creepy stranger at this time of night to meet someone even creepier? That’s just . . . creepy. Capital K.”

  He yawns and rubs his temples, just like he used to do when he was little, and a rush of affection rolls over me.

  “Baker, come on,” I say. “I need to do this. For Carly.”

  Our eyes meet, and I see only agony. Whether it’s pain from thinking about Carly or pain from knowing I’m about to leave with another guy, or pain from having demons screaming in his head, I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t know either.

  “We saw her, didn’t we?” he says gently.

  “Yeah,” I say, voice breaking. He pulls me into a hug, wrapping his arms around me. Our bodies line up in a way that’s unfamiliar but somehow comfortable, and I let him hold me for a few minutes as headlights flash over us. A faint stench of swamp overlays his usual, warm boy smell. Over Baker’s shoulder I see Isaac lean back against the car, arms crossed, and look at his phone.

  “Then I guess you have to do this,” Baker says into my ear.

  “Yeah.”

  “Fine. Take me home, jagoff,” Baker says. “But you have to tell me everything tomorrow, Dovey. What time is it, anyway?”

  I go for my phone, but it’s not in my pocket. And I suddenly remember a moment on that first loop of the Frog Strangler, watching something flash in the moonlight as it fell.

  “Crap,” I say. “I think I lost my phone on the coaster.”

  “You’d better hope you didn’t,” Isaac says. “If your name’s in it and the demons find it, you’re screwed.”

  “I thought demons couldn’t do technology. Or hack a locked phone.”

  “Demons can’t. But cambions can.”

  “Great.” I sigh. “One more thing to worry about. Can we go before something worse happens?”

  “Look on the bright side,” Baker says. “Maybe it broke.”

  “So not helping. My mom’s still going to kill me. I’m dead either way.”

  Baker looks disappointed when I slide into the front passenger seat and unlock the back for him, like he thought maybe we were going to sit back there together. I dangle the keys over the steering wheel. I can’t believe I’m letting someone else drive, but I’m so amped up from Riverfest that I can’t stop shaking. Isaac gets in and slams his door with a squeal, saying, “I can’t believe this dinosaur actually runs.”

  “And I can’t believe you’re leaving your bike here for the demons,” I shoot back.

  “Oh, that?” He grins. “That’s not mine.”

  All the other cars are gone. Baker murmurs directions to Isaac, who looks straight ahead and barely acknowledges him. As we pull through the chain-link gate, I see a shadowy figure walking across the lot behind us with the unmistakable, sliding limp of a distal servant. Is she locking up? Or searching for stragglers? Or coming just for me? Exactly how fast can she run, if given an order by her demon master? As fast as the girl at Paper Moon? And can distal servants be commanded to kill?

  I crank up the heater and hunch over to lock my door, muttering, “You’re not going to hurt that gas pedal, you know. Stomp it.”

  The car peels out, and I hear a gulp. I spin so fast in my seat that my neck hurts. Baker’s drinking out of a bottle—the red one, thankfully. Still, I grab it from him so he doesn’t need to think too deeply about what happened tonight.

  “What the hell, Dovey? I know what I’m doing. I remember . . . some stuff.”

  “Just . . . stop drinking things,” I snap. “You’re going to fry your brain.”

  “I’m no good to you stupid,” he says. “And I don’t trust that guy. I don’t trust him alone with you.”

  “Too bad.”

  When Baker shrugs and starts looking at me with puppy dog eyes, I turn back around and push the old-fashioned cork deeper into the depleted bottle.

  As we hit the highway, I keep looking back at Riverfest. Now that the numb fuzz is gone, it’s painful to feel the new, horrible memories suffocating the old, happy ones from before Josephine. My heart aches like the ruined city itself. What’s left behind is just a crusty husk. It reminds me of the time I made a papier-mâché piñata in art class, and the balloon inside popped and shriveled up to nothing. This new demonic version of Riverfest is like the papier-mâché—a thick, slimy coating that grows hard and crushes the fragile, beautiful things that used to be underneath.

  Of course, the only way to deal with a piñata is to beat the crap out of it until it collapses.

  I think of Kitty’s smug face and smile to myself. I want to be the bat to her piñata. Fighting her is a hell of a lot better than sinking into hopelessness, which seems to be the only alternative. Maybe talking to this other cambion is the next step. As Isaac speeds my old car toward Baker’s house, I rub the pendant in my pocket and wonder if the new cambion will be as handsome, mysterious, and infuriating as Isaac.

  21

  BY THE TIME WE GET to his house, Baker is a ball of nerves. I can feel the tension in him, hear his fingers tapping on the door behind me. He’ll take a breath like he’s going to say something explosive, then sigh in frustration and keep quiet.

  When Isaac stops the car, Baker finally bursts out with, “Dovey, I need to talk to you. Alone.”

  I go on alert but nod my head.

  He gets out of the car and opens my door for me. I glance at Isaac, who’s leery but amused, and slide out. Baker is silent at my side, up the crumbling stone walkway and three steps to his small front porch, which is partially hidden from the street by an overgrown eucalyptus tree. The scent is sharper in the summer, but even now it washes over everything with a clear, ene
rgizing sort of zing. I didn’t feel asleep before, but I’m suddenly more awake. As soon as we’re on the porch, he faces me, eyes frantic under the porch light.

  “Do you trust him?” Baker asks.

  I snort. “Of course not. But I need him.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s the only person around here with any answers. He’s the only person who sees the same things I see.”

  Baker shifts impatiently, takes a step closer. I step back, and the corner of the porch railings presses against the back of my coat. His eyes search mine. “So that’s what you want—a crazy guy? Who’ll agree with whatever you say?”

  “It’s not like that,” I mutter, looking down from what I think I see in his eyes. “Half the time you’re drugged and think I’m a mental case, and the other half you’re drugged on something else and seeing demons. I need to save Carly. And myself. And if he can see clearly, then I’ll use him.”

  Baker’s hands grasp the rails on either side of me, boxing me into the corner, and I can feel the warmth of his chest. He leans down, his face close to mine.

  “I can see clearly right now. I care about you, Billie Dove. I have for a long time. And it kills me to watch you drive away with some pretty stranger who’s telling you exactly what you want to hear. I want to be what you need, see what you see. You just have to show me. You have to let me.”

  “Baker, I—”

  His lips press against mine, warm and soft, and I gasp. It’s one thing to think your childhood friend is in love with you, but it’s another thing entirely to find your heart pounding inches away from his, in time with his, to feel your hands rising of their own volition to pull him closer. He makes a strangled sort of sound, and his lips begin to part as he leans into me even more, and I tilt my head just a little, and that’s when I hear my car’s engine revving. I pull away.