by Adam Dark
The entire lab fell completely silent at that. Ben could only glare at Richard Monday, hating everything that had happened in the last five minutes and wishing he could erase all of it. And he really hoped the man only referred to himself and Ben when he’d said we.
‘He’s got you, there, Ben.’ Ian’s voice in his mind sounded way too loud in the silence.
But he was right. Both of them were right. Ben couldn’t turn around and look the other way. He couldn’t ignore the fact that he and Ian made a pretty badass team when they went up against the right demon with the right information backing them up. He couldn’t sit around and ignore all this, knowing there were dark things out there that should never have been allowed to pass into this world. Things like the Guardian at that abandoned orphanage. Things like the playground demon feeding on the innocence and hopeful potential of kids. Things that had filled his nightmares for years and laid out his path of scrambling to find any and every way to protect himself from ever experiencing those horrors again. At least, that was before he’d agreed to let Ian inhabit his body with him—forever. That was before Ben had realized he could actually do something to protect himself and others instead of running away and hiding behind preventative rituals that never actually worked.
He let out a long, slow sigh and ground his teeth together. “Fine.” The word sounded choked, but he guessed it was a good thing he had everyone’s attention now. So much for spreading out his secrets for April and Peter with any foundation of trust beneath the three of them. Now he just had to jump and hope there was something left to keep him from falling forever. “Peter and I grew up together. And our friends… well, Ian was one of them. There was Henry, Max, and Nico too, but they never made it out of that house when we were twelve. Just me and Peter.” Ben hadn’t said their names out loud like this in a long time. He glanced at Peter, but the guy stared at the shiny white floors, his hands jammed into his pockets. “The demon at the house we escaped as kids… the Guardian… it kept Ian alive in this weird bubble of time for the last eleven years.”
“A fixed ingress,” Richard muttered.
Ben shrugged. “Sure. That demon tortured Ian’s body the whole time. Did a bunch of awful crap—”
‘Okay, you don’t have to go into detail, here, man.’
Shaking his head, Ben took another breath. “But Ian’s spirit wasn’t in his body anymore. He didn’t die, and he still isn’t dead. He just… spent a long time in the spirit realm, waiting. I guess it took him a while to figure out how he could get out of there and away from the Guardian, but he finally started talking to me in my… dreams.” He couldn’t help but glance at April. Her eyes widened, and she raised an eyebrow, but she didn’t say anything at all. “He told me he was still alive. That we had to come get him out of that house. And I believed him.”
“Hmm.” Richard Monday frowned. “Your friend’s spirit only visited you in dreams?”
‘The Guardian still had my body,’ Ian explained. ‘I couldn’t cross over outside that house.’
“He was trapped in the house, I think,” Ben replied. He’d been put on the spot now to spill all this in front of a complete stranger and two of the closest people to him; he wasn’t about to start playing interpreter, too. “So Peter and I went back to get him out. April came with us.” No one offered to add a single thing when he paused for the opportunity, so he just had to keep pushing through it. “Then I actually did see Ian.”
“Did either of you?” Richard asked, gazing dully from April to Peter. Peter still stared at the floor, completely unresponsive. April shook her head just a little. “So your friend could choose to whom he revealed himself?”
Man, the guy had a weird way of talking. “Not really. He pulled me into the spirit world for a… chat.”
For the first time, Richard Monday’s face moved in a reflection of living human sentience. His eyes widened behind the thick lenses of his glasses, and the corners of his mouth twitched up in the tiniest smile. On anyone else, it would have looked like a smirk. On this man, it was more like unbridled excitement. “How did he learn to do this?” he asked, the animated words spilling out of him so quickly, they almost slurred together.
Ben really didn’t like the way Richard Monday was looking at him now—like a hyena eyeing a few bloody leftovers. And he suddenly didn’t want to keep talking.
‘You gotta tell him, Ben,’ Ian said. For the first time since their host had revealed he knew about Ben’s undead-spirit passenger, Ben thought he heard just a little empathy in his friend’s voice. It didn’t help.
He didn’t want to be singled out like this. Not like he’d been most of his life before he put that night behind him forever. Only it wasn’t forever. Just long enough for him to grow up.
‘And grow some balls,’ Ian added. ‘Seriously, you think it’s a good time right now to keep more secrets?’
What do you care? Telling Richard how he and Ian were even able to do what they did together in the first place wouldn’t get Ian another body. It wouldn’t do anything but mark Ben as a commodity for whatever this seriously creepy dude living in this seriously creepy mansion wanted to do with him.
‘It’s not just about you, Ben. I could wait thirty thousand years in the spirit realm to finally catch up with you and get away from the Guardian. But I don’t really like being stuck inside you without anyone knowing I’m here or what I can do.’
Well, that would’ve been nice to know before Ben was shoved under the garish limelight like this.
You have a reputation to protect or something?
‘Dude, I just wanna be heard. Tell the man how this happened, and let’s figure out what he knows. What we can learn to make sure you don’t almost die the next time we find another demon.’
No.
“Ben?” April asked, but her voice sounded so far away. “Are you okay?”
‘Ben, I swear, if you don’t do it, I will.’
Bull. No way would Ian take over Ben’s body. Not now. That was only allowed under life-threatening circumstances.
‘Okay, fine.’
Ben felt Ian’s consciousness drifting forward from the back of his mind, and it brought a boiling rage with it. Did the guy seriously think he could just take over whenever he wanted? The first darkening pressure fell behind Ben’s eyes, and he exploded.
“I said no!”
He knew he’d screamed it out loud, but it didn’t really matter. He’d put everything he had into pushing Ian back—into stopping his friend from doing whatever he wanted with Ben’s body. A wave of searing heat washed over him, and he was only vaguely aware of the fact that he’d doubled over—that when he’d screamed, the same glowing green light that had come from his hands whenever Ian took the reins now blasted out of his entire body in a flickering burst.
It was gone almost as soon as it appeared, and Ben staggered sideways before he remembered to straighten his back again and stand all the way up. He couldn’t catch his breath, his chest heaving like he’d just sprinted up and back down that creepy blue staircase.
That was new.
5
Ian? he asked. He had no idea what he’d just done, but he hoped he hadn’t just blasted Ian’s spirit into tiny pieces with that last weird trick.
‘Some trick,’ Ian muttered. ‘Tell him.’ He sounded pissed. So was Ben. But at least he hadn’t just killed his undead friend—or whatever one could do to a disembodied spirit.
Swallowing, Ben looked up from the floor. Everyone else was completely silent, though now he couldn’t see April or Peter in his periphery anymore. Yeah, he would’ve stepped back too if he’d just watched somebody else shout at apparently no one and send out a shockwave of spirit-realm green. He looked up to stare at Richard Monday’s face. The man was grinning.
“You were just speaking with him, weren’t you?”
Behind Ben, Chase actually chuckled. “Oh, man…”
Ben thought if he turned to look at the guy, he’d probably blast another wave of g
reen right into his face. So he stared at Richard Monday and nodded.
“How often does that happen?” The man looked like he was about to burst into a celebratory song-and-dance routine. Like he’d just hit the jackpot. Like he’d found the Holy Grail.
“All the frickin’ time,” Ben replied through clenched teeth.
‘Come on. Not all the time.’
“He really is sharing your body.” Richard shook his head, still grinning. “Amazing. Tell me how.”
Well, if Ben wanted to keep Ian from trying to pull that crap again, it was now or never. “Okay, look. I don’t know exactly how it works at a super detailed level. Ian kind of knew enough to explain it to me—”
‘Wait, I know every—’
Shut up.
“But basically, I almost escaped the Guardian’s house when we were kids. One foot in the portal, or whatever you called it, and one foot back in reality. Real time. And apparently, a piece of that portal stuck with me. In me.” Ben shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s how Ian could get to me. It’s how a lot of other things got to me. In my head. It’s how Ian can drag me into the spirit realm pretty much whenever he wants, and as long as I’m only there for a few minutes, I come back to this world at pretty much the exact same second. It’s how he was able to hop right on into my head to get all of us out of that house before we were… I don’t know. Eaten alive. Forever. I’ve blasted green fire out of my own hands, apparently.” He lifted his palms to show Richard Monday the scars from the skin grafts over those burns. “I can command demons, sometimes. The glowing thing happens a lot. I see demons and talk to spirits in that other realm, and as far as I know, I’m the only living person who can do that.”
He wanted to gasp for breath now that he’d let everything out, but a part of him was too terrified of what he’d just revealed to even breathe at all. There. He’d said it. Richard Monday had his answers. April and Peter now had the full story. Chase probably only knew half of it, but okay, the guy got to hear it straight from the source without any kind of filter. For a full thirty seconds, nobody said a word.
“Thank you,” Richard said, his eyes wide and glistening behind his glasses. At least he’d closed his mouth and stopped grinning at this point, but Ben had apparently hit what the man had wanted right on the money. “I knew you had the fortitude to share your extraordinary story. It was quite unlike anything I expected. That rarely happens.”
Oh, whoop-de-doo. Congratulations, Ben. Way to surprise the dullest man on the planet.
“I know everyone else will be thrilled to hear of this discovery,” Richard added. “And to work with you.”
“Everyone else who?” Yeah, Peter sounded angry, and when Ben turned to look at him, his friend’s face had taken on a fairly dark shade of red—even for Peter.
“They’ll be joining us shortly, Mr. Cameron,” Richard replied. His forced smile made him look like he’d just caught a whiff of some offensive smell—like he really didn’t enjoy talking to anyone but Ben.
Well, at least that made one of them. Ben was sure Peter wouldn’t ever really talk to him again after this, and he had absolutely no idea what April might do. She’d seemed open to listening two weeks ago when he’d thought he’d picked the perfect moment, and then Richard Monday had ruined that for him too. With a frickin’ piece of paper.
“They’re like… actually people, right?” Chase asked, his arms folded across his chest. “I mean, this thing with Ian was already weird before Ben just dumped all that on us. I don’t know if I’m up for more—”
“Wait, what?” Peter spun around to glare at Chase. “You already knew?”
Damnit.
Chase froze, his eyes darted toward Ben for a second, then he just shrugged.
Peter had to be getting dizzy from all this spinning around; he turned back to face Ben and looked like he’d just been stabbed in the chest. “You told this asshole?”
Ben couldn’t think of anything to say. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. And he couldn’t take any of it back, now. All he could do was shake his head—not to tell Peter no but just because he was having a really hard time thinking at all.
With his mouth slowly falling open, Peter huffed out a breath of disbelief. Maybe his brain had turned off, too.
“He kind of had to, Pete,” Chase said. The guy was smiling a little, like he was building up the tension to deliver the best punchline ever. “I mean, I was startin’ to freak out—”
“Screw you.”
Ben didn’t know if Peter was talking to him or Chase—maybe both. Chase just snorted. But Peter spun around again and headed back for the staircase up into Richard Monday’s study.
“Peter…” April said.
“I must inform you, Mr. Cameron,” Richard called firmly after him, “that the door at the top of that stairwell is now closed. You do not have the necessary clearance to open it on your own.”
Necessary clearance? Was this some kind of military thing?
‘The U.S. Demon-Hunting Forces doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.’
Oh, well at least Ian still had his ability to make fun of absolutely everything.
Peter didn’t stop. He went up those stairs anyway and disappeared from view. Ben heard Richard Monday take a long, deep breath, but he turned toward April instead. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.
She probably wasn’t close enough to hear it, but she seemed to figure it out all the same. Her thin eyebrows drew together; she might have been too hurt that he hadn’t told her about Ian before this, or she might have been making that face in sympathy. Ben didn’t know which was worse. April just whispered back at him instead. “Later.”
A solid, dull thump echoed from the staircase, followed by two more. Whether or not Peter realized all sound echoed around in this place, he let out a growl of frustration and stomped back down the stairs. Then he made a beeline for Richard and raised a fist like he meant to clock the man in the face. “I didn’t agree to be locked down here,” he shouted, despite the fact that that definitely wasn’t how being abducted worked—if that was what this was. Ben didn’t know anymore. “You can’t keep us here.” Peter stopped not even a foot away from Richard Monday, who just studied him with that blank expression. There might as well have been a glass wall between them. Fuming, Peter slowly lowered his fist, then lifted it again. “I swear to god, if you don’t let me out of this—”
“The others will be here soon, Mr. Cameron,” Richard said, returned now to his dull, droning, apathetic voice. “And I believe you’ll want to stay for the rest of our meeting.”
Peter’s head trembled like it was about to launch right off his shoulders. Then the room filled with a whining buzz. In the center of the squared tables with all those monitors and keyboards beside Richard Monday, the tall white pillar lit up in a flashing display of so many blinking blue lights. The buzzing grew louder, followed by a sharp click, and Ben swore he saw something on the top of that white box slide open.
Jumping backward, Peter clenched both fists now. “What’s that?”
Ben couldn’t look away from that white tower, or box, or whatever. Something moved across the top of it again, and he went a little cold.
Ian, are you totally sure we don’t have to worry—
‘Dude, get a grip,’ Ian snapped. ‘I told you there’s nothing here in the spirit realm. Nothing in this room but us.’
Then what the heck was happening?
Richard Monday just stared back at his guests, his gaze passing slowly across the huge room to fall on each of their faces. Like he was waiting to see what they’d do next. Finally, the buzzing whine stopped, the tall white box emitted another click, and the man cleared his throat. “It’s a facsimile machine.”
April choked out a nervous, relieved laugh.
“A…” Peter took a sharp breath. “A fax machine.”
“Quite.” Richard turned away from all of them to lean over the closest table, but it wasn’t like he could possibly see what app
arently had just been printed at the top of that white box; the long tables pushed so close together meant the fax machine was too far away.
Seriously? If that was really what it was, Ben couldn’t figure out how the guy ever got to the thing in the first place—beyond climbing under or over one of the tables and all the devices every single time.
‘You’ll embarrass yourself a lot less if you just trust me,’ Ian said, then he screeched out a laugh.
A fax machine? Who even used those anymore?
“Why would you make a fax machine look like that?” Ben almost shouted, feeling like maybe Peter’s anger was now a little contagious. “And put it in the middle of all this like it’s actually something important?” Maybe it was a stupid question—the least important question he could have asked—but he really didn’t like being on this end of a messed-up gag like that. Even if Richard had no idea that there was anything remotely odd about it. Which was definitely what it looked like.
“Benjamin,” the man replied, tilting his head with a surprised frown, “that is highly—”
A loud hiss echoed through the underground lab, and Ben nearly jumped out of himself.
“Okay,” Chase groaned. “Can we cut it out with the weird noises?”
This time, Richard’s smile didn’t make him look constipated. “Well, the facsimile can wait. We have company.” He turned toward the wall on Ben’s right just seconds before another hydraulic hiss sounded. A section of that wall separated from the rest of it and swung open toward the back of the room.
If this was some other seriously stupid joke, like that was just the door to the world’s largest microwave and now dinner was ready, Ben was going to lose it. April took a few steps toward him, though she didn’t grab his arm like she sometimes did or come nearly as close as she might have if Ben hadn’t spilled his guts in the worst possible scenario imaginable. A few footsteps echoed toward them from whatever was behind that open door, and Ben couldn’t have blinked even if he’d tried.
A short man in a tweed jacket who could have been either Hispanic or Native American stepped out into the bright room. He glanced at Richard Monday’s four wary guests, then turned to their host for the evening and nodded. Behind him came a woman in a burgundy jumper and a gray sweater the same color as her short-cropped hair. She turned to face the four people in their early twenties as well, who all gaped at her, Ben was sure. Then her gaze settled on Ben and stayed there. The woman dipped her chin just enough to stare at him some more over the tops of her frameless glasses.