by Krista Walsh
“I’m sure we will be. He’s downstairs on the computer doing some research on the subject. I don’t know if he’ll find anything useful, but you know that’s not going to stop your father from doing what he does best. As soon as he’s had a chance to calm down, he’ll come back upstairs and we’ll talk about it, like we do with everything.”
Molly played with the ends of her mom’s hair, a habit she’d developed as a kid and still hadn’t grown out of, even though every time she caught herself doing it, she told herself to stop. Her mother’s hair was so much like her own in texture, although she’d been told it was a dark brown instead of blond.
“Do you think he’ll be able to handle the truth?”
“Of course, baby. He’ll need time to adjust and accept it, but he’ll get there. You’re his little girl, and some centuries’ old curse isn’t going to change that.” Her mom’s breath tickled Molly’s ear as she sighed. “It’s so strange to be talking about it so openly. I was certain you two would think I was insane.”
“I already knew you were insane,” Molly said. “This doesn’t change anything.”
Her mother chuckled and pressed a kiss against her forehead. “Go for your walk, but make sure to eat that cheese you stole. I don’t want you passing out from hunger.”
Molly hugged her arms around her stomach. “I’m surprised it hasn’t happened yet, the way you feed me around here. I’m bound to die of starvation.”
It felt good to laugh about something mundane for a moment, and she reveled in the simple joy as she pulled on her sneakers, grabbed her cane from beside the door, and stepped outside.
The afternoon was cooler than it had been yesterday, a sign that they were moving closer to winter with each passing day. She debated going back inside and grabbing a heavier jacket, but decided against it. The walk would warm her up soon enough.
With no intention of heading to the park, she started down the street in the direction of Steve’s house. Despite how they’d left things yesterday, there was still no one else she could think of to share her news with, and she had to talk about it with someone. No matter what she’d said to her mother, her shock hadn’t completely settled yet.
She headed three blocks north until she reached Steve’s street, then counted the sidewalk slabs from the corner. After fifteen slabs, she went up the walkway and knocked on the door.
“Molly?” Steve’s mother greeted her with surprise. “It’s early on a Saturday for you to be here. Is everything all right?”
“Fine, Mrs. Bard,” Molly said with a smile. “Is Steve home?”
“I’ll go get him. Do you want to come in?”
“Nah, I’ll wait here, thanks.” The idea of being cut off from the fresh air and the sun on her face struck her as a waste of a beautiful day. After everything she’d learned last night from Zach and Daphne, she didn’t know how many more she’d get to experience before the demon trouble really started.
The door closed, and Molly settled into a comfortable Adirondack chair, which she was told overlooked a community garden across the street. In the summer, the aroma of all kinds of flowers filled the air, but now it just smelled of damp earth and rotting leaves. She pulled her jacket closer around her neck and sank deeper into the chair, drawing her knees to her chest as she ate her snack.
She was so distracted by the headiness of the breeze that she didn’t hear the door open or Steve come out until he tapped her knee.
“This had better be important if you’re pulling me away from lunch,” he said, but she detected a note of relief in his voice, which warmed her insides. She’d wondered what her reception would be after their almost fight, but he sounded happy to have her here.
“It’s probably one of the most important things I’m ever going to tell you,” Molly said. She stuffed the empty cheese wrappers back in her pocket.
There was the loud screech of wood scraping against wood as Steve settled into the other chair.
“I’m sorry about yesterday.” She wanted to get that out of the way before she moved into her reason for being here, which she assumed would touch on the same lecture he’d already given her.
“Me too,” he said, and the butterflies in her stomach danced. “I felt like I was talking to you like my dad, which isn’t what I wanted. I just don’t want you to get hurt. This Zach person could be awesome, but I don’t trust an older guy who makes you sneak out of your house at night just to spend time with him.”
“I understand. That’s not how it is, but I get how it could sound that way.”
Molly lowered her knees and leaned forward. If she wanted Steve to understand, she had to tell him the rest of the story; otherwise, they’d just keep talking in circles and never be on the same page.
“The fact is, I found out something incredible about my being deafblind, and it’s related to a family secret on my mom’s side. Dad didn’t even know, and he’s furious, but mom tells me they’re working it out.”
“Oh wow, that’s huge,” Steve said. “What’s going on?”
Molly took a deep breath and plunged right in. If she took the time to worry about how he would react — whether he would handle it in stride like her mother or lose his mind like her dad — she would never find the courage to tell him. Better to jump in with both feet, break it to him gently, and worry about the consequences later.
“You know how I’m able to walk around without tripping on things and always seem to know when someone’s coming toward me in the hall and things like that? You always joke about how it’s a form of ESP, and it turns out you’re not completely wrong.”
“What are you talking about?” Steve asked. The legs of his chair scraped against the wooden planks of the porch as he leaned toward her. “You’re telling me your mom says you’re some kind of psychic?”
“Nothing that cool, no. It turns out the reason I can’t see or hear is because of a curse that was cast on my family generations ago. On an ancestor who is actually a pretty famous person and many a young woman’s first animated crush.” Something she had never really understood.
“You’re kidding.”
“I’m really not. Something happened last night, Steve. I was back at the college with Zach — you can yell at me later, this is important — and we were attacked by demons. I didn’t think we were going to make it, but then this sorceress — one of the people I met in the locked room — showed up in the nick of time and blasted them all away.”
“Molly…”
She thought she heard a note of dejection in his voice, but she pushed on. “I know, I know. But after the demons were taken care of, we found this orb thing and — you’re never going to believe this — I saw it. Really! I was holding it in my hands and it turned into this bright light. It was beautiful. But then everything else vanished. I couldn’t get a sense of where anything was. Like I’d actually gone completely blind. I’ve never been so scared. Daphne — dammit, don’t tell anyone I told you her name — swore it would come back if I released the orb thing, because she’d just lost her magic until she let it go. Luckily, she was right, but then she suggested the reason it had an effect on me was because I was touched by the otherworldly. So I confronted mom, and that’s when she told me everything. Can you believe that?”
“No,” Steve said. “I really can’t.”
Considering all the information she had just dropped on his head, she’d expected a little more of a reaction than that.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said.
It didn’t take a genius to know he was lying, but she wished she could interpret from his voice the source of his hesitation. The sudden tension set her on edge. She sat up and swung her legs to the side so her feet were on the ground.
“Tell me,” she ordered.
“It’s just…I’ve enjoyed listening to your stories for the last year about all this otherworld stuff, but I’m really starting to get concerned that it’s affecting your life. I’ve known you for three y
ears, and you’ve always been the kind of person to lose yourself in daydreams. It just seems to me that lately you’re having a hard time pulling yourself out of them. And it’s cool that you want to come here to share them with me, but you seem really invested. Kind of obsessed. Is everything okay at home?”
Any warmth that Molly had felt at his greeting vanished, leaving her core as cold and hard as if he’d pushed her into the Haven River. Her mouth, fingers, and toes had gone numb, all of her blood having shot into her center to protect her organs against a greater attack.
She didn’t see how anything could be worse than what he’d just said. Zach had been right.
“You don’t believe me,” she said, and the words came with an effort, squeezed through unfeeling lips.
She tried to swallow, but the muscles in her throat strained with the movement.
To her surprise, Steve laughed. “I didn’t realize I was supposed to. I thought you were just weaving stories for my amusement. Something to keep us entertained while we were dealing with exam stresses and whatnot. I mean, come on, Molly, you’ve been spouting nonsense about ghouls and demons. How am I supposed to believe that?”
Tears stung the corners of Molly’s eyes, but she dug her fingernails into her palms to keep them restrained.
“You acted like you believed me. Why? Were you just stringing me along? Pitying the poor blind girl who believed all this crazy nonsense about supernatural beings and demon wars?” She rose to her feet, too full of anxious energy to remain seated.
“Hey, come on, that’s not fair. How was I supposed to know you believed it?”
“Because I was telling you the truth. I wouldn’t waste our time together with kids’ stories. These are things that I’ve lived through, that I’ve experienced. I wanted to share them with you because I — because you’re my best friend. And you’ve just been indulging me.”
Anger began to replace the numbness, pins and needles filling her fingertips as pressure built up in her head.
The porch trembled as Steve’s chair moved and he stood up in front of her.
“No way. Not indulging. I was trying to be supportive. You were obviously going through something—”
“You make it sound like I was fighting the flu,” she said. “If none of it is true, how do you explain this, huh?” She stripped off her coat, barely feeling the cold air blowing over her arms, and tugged down the collar of her turtleneck to expose the claw marks the Lingor demon had left. Although the shower had washed off some of the scabs, she still felt the puncture wounds as small dips in the valley of her shoulder. “This demon sat on my chest and dug her nails so deep into my flesh she tore muscle. If Daphne hadn’t arrived when she had, that would have been the end of me.”
Death had closed in on her last night. One of her regrets at the time was that she wouldn’t be able to make things up with Steve. But she had survived, and now he was telling her he thought she was crazy.
“There’s nothing really there, Molly,” he said, his tone apologetic. As though he felt sorry for her that she was trying so hard to convince him. “It’s red, but it kind of looks like you’ve just been scratching yourself.”
Molly’s head spun and her mouth went dry as she released the collar of her shirt. Could he not see it? Was there some illusion over the gouges that prevented human eyes from making it out? Or had Daphne healed her too damned well?
“You know what? This is actually a good thing,” she said. “Mom’s already stripped one lie away from my life this morning, so now we’re just getting another one out of the way. I thought you were my friend, but it turns out you were just playing the pity card to — what? Make yourself look good on your college application?”
“Mol…” he said. Something new had come into his voice that gave him a breathier sound, but she didn’t want to hear it.
“I don’t care what your reasons are.” She huffed out a breath and pulled her jacket back on. “You know, when you came into my life, I finally felt like I wasn’t alone anymore, but the only person who’s ever been honest with me is Zach.” Even if he doesn’t trust me enough to tell me everything. “He told me demons were dangerous, but I argued that you can’t trust humans, either. Nice to know I was right.”
Steve rested his hand on her shoulder. Yesterday, the gesture would have sent those butterflies fluttering around her stomach, but today she shrugged him off.
“Have a nice life, Steve.”
She extended her cane and went down the stairs to the walkway, keeping her steps quick. Part of her hoped he would run after her, apologize, and ask to hear the rest of her story. The other side of her was relieved when he didn’t. She was too angry to want to tell him anything else right now.
She wished she hadn’t confided in him, that she’d gone straight to Zach and told him what she’d learned, but it had never occurred to her not to tell Steve first.
Pain pierced her heart as the significance of what had just happened began to sink in, but for now she pushed it away to deal with later. She refused to let Steve’s reaction affect her new determination to make use of what she’d learned to protect the world around her. What he’d said couldn’t change what she was.
But the boy she had loved had broken her heart, and she wanted to curl up in a ball until the ache went away.
Or snuggle a small kitten and vent her emotions to the one person she could be sure wouldn’t straight-out lie to her. Zach was unlikely to offer any words of wisdom or advice, or even say anything to make her feel better, but at least he would be honest.
She turned her steps toward the college, eager to get as far away from her mundane life as she could.
16
Zach’s demon fury evaporated in a cold rush of shock and his mind went blank. His skin smoothed into human flesh, and the redness settled back to its darker hue.
A military race?
He didn’t know how to feel about the fact that Jermaine hadn’t been the first person to attempt to enslave him. How was he supposed to wrap his head around the knowledge that he was intended to be one among thousands of identical monsters being sent against the rest of the world, beating others down so his masters could rise higher in the pecking order?
He was overwhelmed with a sudden need to puke.
In all his years, it had never occurred to him to be grateful for being a unique hybrid, a condition that kept him alone in the middle of a busy world.
On unsteady legs, he crossed the room to his bed and grabbed a clean T-shirt. He pulled the black cotton over his head so it stretched across his chest, the seams straining at the shoulders and along his sides, then stuffed his arms into the sleeves of his leather coat. Each new item added another layer of armor over the vulnerability Sandar’s words had created in him.
The trio stood still, their gazes following him as he got dressed. As though deciding the threat had passed, Dusty slunk back over to the bed and jumped onto the still-warm sheets. She stretched her back high into the air, then sauntered across the blankets toward Zach and started climbing his leg.
Unable to turn her away, Zach scooped her up in his hand and held her close to his chest, taking in the soft purr that rumbled against him.
The aftershocks of the initial revelation rolled through his thoughts as his brain rebooted itself. It was so clear now why he could never reconcile the two warring halves of his blood. Because they were never meant to be combined. He had been born broken.
Another surge of anger ran through him that he’d been stupid enough to ignore the threat Karl posed. If he’d paid more attention, looked deeper into the situation, he wouldn’t be stuck here dealing with these strangers. He could have already had a plan in place. He could have already been gone. But it was too late for that now. With the time he had, he’d have to scrounge together a strategy and be ready.
Which he couldn’t do under the glares of these ancient eyes.
“You need to leave,” he growled at the trio. “Now.”
“I’m afraid it
’s not as simple as that,” Chiron said.
“You delivered your warning, now get out of my place.”
Noami stepped forward. “We came here to ask you to leave, and you have refused. We did not come here to have a casual chat about the state of the world. Now that we’re free from our prison, our mission is to protect the otherworld, which becomes far more difficult if you remain in New Haven.”
He saw their reasoning. The logic stretched out in his mind as a perfectly paved road. But then potholes started to appear. Molly. Daphne. He couldn’t leave them to fend for themselves when he didn’t know how the Collegiate planned to intervene. There was also the small matter of wanting to tear apart the people who had created him. Who had twisted his nature and left him a monster, then thrown him away as though he were worthless.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I have too much riding on me to skip town now. Give me the names and location of where these assholes are hiding, and I’ll deal with it myself. You’re worried about the state of the world? I will end them.”
“You won’t,” Sandar said. “Although we’ve been unable to see the full picture, the information we’re gaining on a daily basis tells us the people behind this growing darkness number in the thousands, and the group is growing quickly. Whoever is recruiting their soldiers knows where to look, and whatever they’re offering seems to be doing the trick. It’s only a matter of time before you fall and they get exactly what they need to finish their task.”
The thought of Karl being in control of an army of supernatural monsters was enough to turn Zach’s blood to sludge. The damage they could cause to New Haven — to the world — would be immeasurable.
“What makes you think they’d succeed?” he asked. “It sounds like they have no idea what they’re doing. Jermaine was just playing mad scientist when he got hold of me.”