Before anyone could retaliate, Jordan hurdled over the altar, landing behind an aghast Brooklyn. Getting a headlock on the demon, Jordan’s hold tightened while Camille climbed to her feet.
Camille scrubbed her hand at a leaky trail of blood on her face. “There’s something different about you,” she muttered. “But you’re no match for me.”
“I’ll snap her neck,” Jordan threatened. Brooklyn stiffened in her arms.
“What do I care? Snap her neck. Demons come at a price. You know that.”
Yes, several years ago Jordan had learned that demon spirits hunted for human bodies to inhabit, killing their souls in the process. Brooklyn wasn’t human. She was a soulless demon working for Lucifer.
“Jordan, I’ll kill you,” Brooklyn sniveled, gnashing her teeth. She thrashed like a rabbit in a snare, trying to dislodge the headlock. “Camille, kill her.”
Jordan wasn’t fond of the lethal tactic, yet, it was necessary. Executing with precision, she yanked the girl’s neck. The vile spirit dissolved to dust.
Camille’s deformed mouth drooped then rebounded into a haughty curve. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”
As the pillar candle flamed like a blowtorch, Jordan suspected Camille’s churning thoughts. A test of wills was about to transpire. Magically, the flames veered to lick at Jordan’s shirt. Employing her mind, Jordan pushed the flames toward Camille, who smirked and snuffed the candle with a snap of her fingers.
Speaking the same grating language as the vile sorcerer, Camille activated a ball of fire to appear on the palm of her hand—a mere inch from her skin. The glow cast a grotesque mask over her face. She whipped the fiery ball at Jordan.
Rather than duck, Jordan spread her fingers, conjuring her own gust of frosty wind to quench the flames. She then concentrated on bending Camille’s legs, forcing the girl to her knees.
Camille pancaked her hands to the ground and endeavored to wrestle free from the psychic control, but she was defeated. “What do you want with The Order?” asked her evil-infested former friend.
Jordan walked around the altar, away from the inverted crucifix. “The source of a hex.” She decided not to reveal anything further, and unbound the girl from her mind-hold.
“A hex?” Appearing to chew over her request, Camille absently wiped the blood still dripping from her forehead. “And if I am of service, you will come to The Order willingly?”
Jordan knew her mom was dying. She felt it. Even the priests and all their heavens angels couldn’t eliminate the possessive spirit killing her. The concept of willingness was debatable, and Jordan remembered the words issuing out of the crystal ball.
‘The one quality that’s vital, you appear to lack, deceit.’
“Yes.” The word crackled off her tongue.
Pleased with Jordan’s acceptance, Camille reached into her hoodie. Producing a switchblade, she pried it open. “I could’ve used this earlier, but I played nice.” She exerted the blade in front of Jordan’s face in a taunt. “We seal the covenant in blood.”
Not trusting Camille with a knife, Jordan fished in her back pocket, slipping out her own penknife.
Camille affixed her eyes on Jordan as she ran the blade over her palm without a wince. In the exact same manner, Jordan sliced the penknife through her own palm.
Skin parted, puddling blood.
As if the girls were going to shake on it, they clasped their bloody hands in a durable hold. Their tithing for a magical blood covenant was accepted with an enigmatic charge. Camille then growled a specific date and time for a meeting.
“ARE YOU AVOIDING my calls?” Thrill sounded troubled. “I’ve left voice mails, but you haven’t called me back once.”
In the drizzling rain, Jordan traipsed along Marine Drive, pushing the cell phone snug against her ear while holding her other hand out, palm up, to catch the rain, cleansing the blood.
“I’m sorry. I’ve been busy unpacking and . . . and looking for a job. Living with Declan and Mom is kind of weird.” Weird, a simple word, but in this case, it worked.
Thrill didn’t speak, but she heard him breathing.
“I said I’m sorry. What more can I say?”
“Where are you?”
“I’m taking a walk.”
“Outside? Isn’t it raining there?” His tone was mistrustful.
“It’s been storming here all day. Like I said, it’s different living here,” she responded, trying to convince him. “I needed to get out. Even in the storm.” Between the drizzling rain, and automobiles and buses sloshing through potholes and splashing water, she had to strain to hear him.
“Did you ask Declan yet if we can stay at the apartment for the Twisted Tour? It’s this Saturday, remember?”
Yikes! She’d completely forgotten. “Um . . . m . . . m . . . I’ll get back to you on that tonight, if that’s all right?”
There was no way her friends could camp-out at the apartment. It was like reliving The Exorcist.
“You mean you haven’t even asked yet? C’mon, Jordan,” he whined. “That’s all Paisley and Cayden have been talking about.”
“You’ve seen Paisley?” The knife cut in her hand felt like a hundred stinging wasps, and she dabbed her hand on her jeans.
“I hung out with them last night. If you were home, I would’ve been with you.”
Jordan, tired and ornery, didn’t want to have that conversation. “Thrill, it’s really hard to hear you because of the rain and the traffic. I’ll phone you later after I talk to Declan. Okay?”
“Sure. Don’t forget, or I’ll be banging on your door.”
Thrill would have a surprise of a lifetime. Witnessing a skunked Declan and the priests slathering the place with holy water, trying to banish a possessive spirit from her comatose mom, as two angels stood guard.
Omigod. She didn’t even want to picture it in her head.
The closer she plodded to the apartment, the more bushed and depleted she became. Staying up most of the night had exacerbated her body along with tangling with Ronan.
No, not Ronan. She had to remember, Ronan was dead. Camille.
Jordan wondered about Paisley and Cayden’s reactions if they should ever discover that their dead friend had been reincarnated.
Beautiful Ronan was positively dead.
Jordan was a sodden mess when she entered the apartment. Dread ate at her gut as she bolted the door, thinking of her mom. The spectacle of Seeley in a catatonic stupor was more than she could bear. Squishing into the living room, she found that all was calm and quiet. Cognizant of the water spattering the floor, she rushed into the bathroom and grabbed some towels. She opened the medicine cabinet, trying to be quiet, and searched for gauze to wrap her hand. Astonished to see that the cut had mended, leaving only a pink welt, she wrapped it anyway.
She stripped off her soggy clothes, and shouldered into her robe. Then shuffling to Declan and Seeley’s bedroom, she stuck her ear against the paneled door. Silence. She wondered where everybody was. Her heart raced in a panic.
Would it be inappropriate to peek in? Probably not, she told herself. Not after the night of living hell.
Turning the handle, she cracked the door and peered in.
Seeley was sitting on the border of the bed, and when she saw Jordan, she put a finger to her lips in a shushing motion and pointed to Declan sleeping.
The mattress shifted ever so slightly as she rose, and Declan rolled over in slumber. She tiptoed toward Jordan, and they left the room.
Once in the kitchen, Jordan examined her mom from head to toe. She was at a loss for words.
It was Seeley who broke the ice. “My God, I don’t know what’s happening. Poor Declan. I think last night sent him over the edge.”
“You’re worried about Declan?” Not intentionally meaning to raise her voice, Jordan calmed enough to ask, “How are you feeling?”
“Real jittery and hungry. I could eat a horse.”
“You sit down, and I’ll fry up some
eggs.”
“Yuck, no eggs. How about pancakes?”
“Pancakes it is.”
“Try not to make noise,” Seeley said. “I don’t want to wake Declan.”
Overplaying an eye roll, Jordan gathered the essentials. Soon, she was pouring batter onto the heated griddle. Famished, the vibrations of her pinging stomach intensified with the buttery aroma.
Jordan postponed grilling her mom until a stack of fluffy cakes sat in front of Seeley at the table.
“When did Father James leave?” Jordan asked, although aiming for normalcy was outlandish in light of the past night.
“He’s staying with Father Andre at St. Joseph’s. Getting some much needed rest.”
Wadding a hunk of syrupy pancake into her mouth, Jordan chewed while thinking, and then swallowed. “Do you remember what happened?”
Seeley’s nose scrunched as she blotted a paper napkin at the corner of her lips where honey-colored syrup nestled. “Kind of. Not everything. Thank God.” She shoved a piece of pancake over her plate. “I felt trapped. Somewhere deep, very deep. And there was no way out.” Her hand trembled as she lifted a glass of orange juice to her mouth. “I may as well tell you because you’ll hear it from Markus or Father James.” She looked directly into Jordan’s eyes. “It’s the baby. Something or someone has . . . has . . .”
Unshed tears swam in her mom’s eyes. Jordan could only guess, but wanted it out in the open. “The baby is what?” she asked, convinced her mom was going to say a half-breed.
Instead, Seeley whispered, “Possessed.”
Jordan blinked, astounded. “So you’re not the one?” The revelation alleviated her concern to some degree and predicted the prognosis wasn’t a cure-all. “So it’s the baby?”
“Yes. Bizarre. Father James said that whatever has power over the baby decided to throw a temper tantrum to show me who’s in control. They think it has to do with you and that crystal ball last night”
The plot thickens. Jordan reflected. “So did Father James and Father Andre work their magic? Is the hex or the possessive spirit gone?”
“Don’t call it magic. The priests’ vocation comes from God. Only through God can they perform miracles.”
“Miracles seem an awful lot like magic to me,” Jordan said. “Good, excellent magic, I might add.”
A frown spread across Seeley’s face. “Okay then, God’s magic. To answer your question, no. Right now I’m like a living host for the spirit.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Jordan’s voiced ratcheted up an octave.
“I really can’t fathom what’s going on. The priests are digging into the church’s archives. Searching for some way . . .” Her tone thinned as she skated a pancake over her plate. “Father James said I need to see him or Father Andre on a daily basis. And you need to be aware and alert.” She inelegantly grunted. “I might start levitating at any given moment.”
“Not funny.”
“I know.” Stacking their two plates, Seeley stood and turned toward the kitchen sink.
Struck by her mom’s shape, Jordan gaped. Beneath the sash of her robe was a round protuberance. The day before, no one would’ve suspected she was pregnant because her waist had looked so slim. And her recent ashen-faced complexion had brightened, blossoming with vitality. Even the hollowness in her cheeks had ripened.
“Is a bad time to ask if my friends can spend the night here on Saturday after the Twisted Tour?”
Seeley rinsed the plates and stacked them into the dishwasher. “As long as the baby doesn’t have a hissy fit. It’s fine with me,” she said.
“Hmmm…” hummed Jordan. Her mom’s irony didn’t bode well at the moment.
Seeley ironed her palms over her hips. “Let’s get dressed and go shopping.” She placed her hands on her belly. “I can’t squeeze into my clothes anymore.”
Jordan stared at her mother’s slight bulge and nodded lethargically, thinking of the comfy pillow calling her name. However, sticking to her mom took first priority. “Okay,” she said. “While we’re shopping, I’ll look for a summer job.”
As both ladies negotiated along the hallway to dress for the day, Seeley said, “What happened to your hand? Did you cut yourself?”
Reflexively, Jordan flipped over her palm, eyeing the bandage. “Ah . . . it’s just a scrape.” Another lie by omission. She was getting good at it.
“Can I take a look?” As was her maternal instinct, Seeley reached for Jordan’s gauzed hand. “You don’t want to get an infection.”
Jordan snatched her hand away, saying, “It’s practically healed. I’ve got it covered.”
SAVOR THE RICHNESS OF LIFE
AN ANGST-RIDDEN Declan had headed off for work each morning, but not before prodding a semi-conscious Jordan. “I’m leaving for the paper. Call me at noon.”
As part of their developing routine, and half-awake, she’d mumble, “Okay.”
Declan and Jordan had been guarded. The affinity for a day-to-day normalcy seemed remote as they monitored Seeley for anything out of the ordinary. Within days of the unsuccessful exorcism, flourishing with robust health, Seeley had approved of Jordan’s friends spending the night after the concert.
Saturday morning had finally arrived. Twisted Tour Day. Jordan walked into the living room rubbing sleep from her eyes. Her mom pecked at the computer keyboard.
Jordan yawned, peering over her mom’s shoulder, watching her fingers gamboling over the keys. “What are you writing about?”
Seeley’s fingers stalled. “An editor would call it supernatural fiction, I guess.”
“What do you call it?”
“Gibberish.” Seeley swiped her fingers over the laptop to standby and lowered the lid. “I’m world-building, trying to make some sense of an outline right now.”
“Sounds like homework, ugh.” Jordan bent over to scratch her leg. “Where’s Declan?”
“He’s had a rough week. I’m letting him sleep in.”
It had been four days since Jordan had been lured to the brownstone, and made the appalling discovery of a hex consuming her mom and the baby. It felt like a lifetime ago. Father James had insisted that Seeley attend daily mass, keeping whatever at bay. And it had become Jordan’s obligation of coercing her mom to attend.
As soon as Jordan held open the door of St. Joseph’s Cathedral, Seeley had felt sick and on the verge of a fainting spell. Each day she had to assist her mom back to the car and drive home.
Needless to say, Father James had come by to administer a daily dose of holy oil. “Seeley.” He’d paced with his hands laced behind his back. “It’s paramount that you visit Father Chesterton. My home parish in Elma is getting perturbed with my absence,” the priest had said. “I’m needed for the weekend masses and cannot make it to the city until Monday or possibly Tuesday of next week.”
Seeley had been reclining on the couch. “I can’t step foot into that church. It makes me ill.”
Jordan had placed a cool compress over her mom’s forehead as the priest had picked up his bottle of holy oil and walked toward the door.
“Jordan, can I speak with you outside.” Standing on the apartment stoop, he’d stashed his hands into his pockets. “She needs constant supervision.”
“She’s been fine since—” A stray dog had raced by and distracted her for a second. “It’s been days. Maybe the hex is gone.”
“Do you believe that?”
The grayness of his eyes had cut into her like a knife. Lowering her head, she’d wanted to believe it, but she’d still sensed the essence of something unnatural.
“There’s a waging war going on inside her.” He heaved out a sighing breath and scuffed his shoe on the step. “We will find a solution. Be patient.”
That had happened yesterday, and this morning, Jordan’s thoughts dwelled on Twisted Tour and an agreed destination made subsequent to a blood covenant. She wasn’t the type of
person to sit around biting her nails and wait for the priests to
unearth an archaic solution.
Jordan stood in front of the casement windows, perusing the lake and the early morning boaters. Bleak clouds began to break into tufts, revealing a periwinkle sky. She looked forward to seeing Thrill and her friends and benefiting from a day full of music and uncensored frivolity. She’d leave her mom in Declan’s, hopefully, capable hands.
The long-range weather forecast showed potential with temperatures in the low eighties and morning clouds sweeping away to afternoon sunshine. She’d dressed in a fitting, flowery, red tank top, denim shorty-shorts, and silver sequined thongs.
Seeley hummed a tune as she baked peanut-butter cookies and prepared snacks for the sleepover. Loud talking and laughter resonated from the outside, and prior to the clang of the bell, Seeley called, “Jordan, I think your friends are here.”
Ecstatic beyond reasoning, Jordan sprinted and yanked open the door. Her intentions of jumping into Thrill’s arms were thwarted by the burly form of Rolly, with an ear-to- ear grin, in the forefront.
He wrapped thick arms around her and lifted her off the floor, whirling her in a circle. “You’re as light as feather, Jor,” he said. “Miss me?”
“Miss you all.”
Next, Paisley trounced in, poured into an out-of-this-world skanky top, and lugging a tightly rolled sleeping bag, then Cayden, carrying two sacks, and last came Thrill, a sleeping bag under one arm and a plastic bag hanging from his right hand. The stylish, oversized apartment shrank as Jordan hustled them into the living room to dump their junk. Her arms still itched to wrap around her boyfriend, and she became uncharacteristically shy.
Thrill’s jeans hung low on his hips, and his long torso was encased in a black Take It to the Morgue tee that had been paint balled with red splotches.
While Paisley, Cayden, and Rolly oohed and awed at the sight beyond the windows, Jordan neared Thrill, striving for casual. She touched his hand, and he took the initiative and twined his fingers with hers. Feeling like one of his groupies, she gaped at him with stars in her eyes. He peered into hers, a smile spilling onto his cute face before he leaned down and planted a kiss on her lips.
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