Yup. That sounded like her spider. Judging by the way his tan had yielded to a grayish pallor, she didn’t think he wanted to step on it for her.
His eyes kept flicking to the hall, but for the most part, he was looking at her. “I can’t believe I said that. I don’t mind a little cussing now and then, but I’ve never taken the Lord’s name in vain like that before. It just kind of came out.”
She stepped off the bed and went to him. “It’s okay. I know you didn’t mean to say it. I’ve probably been a bad influence on you. Hey, hey.” She gripped his chin to get him to look just at her. “It’s just a shadow. It can’t hurt you.”
He studied her for a few seconds, his face grave. “It wasn’t a shadow,” he said quietly, like he didn’t want anyone but her to hear. “It was solid. It had wings.”
Her heart plummeted into her stomach. Wings? Shit. Maybe she’d made things worse instead of better with the bundles of herbs.
“Pack a bag,” he said. “You’re staying with me ‘til we figure this out.”
“Really?” Relief washed over her to know she wasn’t crazy and she didn’t have to face this ghost or whatever it was alone.
Emmett tugged her hand, and her relief gave way to urgency. “Move. Pack a bag. We’re getting out of here, now.”
“Okay.” She nodded, flustered. Pawing through the dresser, she scraped up a few changes of clothes and tossed them in a carryon sized piece of luggage. Emmett stood between her and the hall, keeping watch.
“Um, why are you so freaked out?” she asked him.
“Aren’t you?” He wheeled on her. “That thing was pure evil. How many times have you seen it?”
Goosebumps lifted on her arms when he said the word evil.
“Just a few times. Well, kind of. I mean, what you just described is different from what I’ve seen, but whatever it is, it’s never hurt me or anything. It just…watches me.” And possibly messes with my dreams. Though after seeing Mr. Shadow in her bathroom mirror, she doubted he would do something like that.
He blinked. “It’s never threatened you?”
“What do you mean? How does a shadow threaten?”
He ran a hand over his face again. “That thing,” he pointed at the hall, “had red eyes. And sharp teeth.” His eyes showed too much white. “It stood there, and I was seeing it, and thinking, that can’t be. Then it reached out an arm and crooked its finger at me.” He demonstrated the beckoning gesture and ice shot down her spine. “It wanted me to come to it.”
She had seen that gesture before, but from Mr. Shadow. Despite the similarities, the more Emmett described what he’d seen, the more she doubted it was her Mr. Shadow. She’d never seen anything as frightening-sounding as what Emmett saw. Or had she?
She had a foggy memory of sharp teeth descending toward her throat, of sharp pain and even sharper betrayal.
Emmett closed a hand over her wrist, shattering the memory. “Let’s move.” His eyes were wild. He glanced at the hall every few seconds. “I want out of this house, but I’m not going without you. Hurry up.”
She hurried, no easy feat with his iron grip on her arm. Dragging him along, she took the suitcase to the bathroom and threw in her makeup, hair dryer, and toiletries.
“Let me get my laptop,” she said as he followed her down the stairs. At the bottom, she darted into the living room while Emmett towed her suitcase to the door.
“Hurry,” he said, with his hand on the knob.
She did, scooping up her laptop and charger in a haphazard pile of cords. “Oh! The coffee.”
“I’ll buy you a coffee. Let’s just go.”
“Jeez, Emmett.” She strode past him with the laptop under one arm, heading for the kitchen. She wasn’t going to let her house burn down because she was in too much of a hurry to turn off the warming plate.
As she rounded the arched entry into the kitchen, he grabbed her arm.
“I’m just going to turn off the pot. It’ll only take a second.” She turned to glare at him.
Emmett was all the way at the other end of the hall, straddling the threshold with one foot inside and one on the sun porch. He was too far away to have touched her.
“Yeah. That’s a good idea,” he said. “Go ahead. Don’t want to start a fire or anything.”
She swallowed and nodded, suddenly not caring so much about leaving the warming plate on. But Emmett was freaked enough. She didn’t want to add to it by telling him what she’d just felt. Drawing on her courage, she hurried into the kitchen to do what she said.
When she was halfway to the coffeemaker, she heard Emmett say, “Oh, shit! Leave her alone, you son of a bitch!”
Several things happened at once. Emmett’s boots thundered toward the kitchen while the coffee pot exploded. Hot coffee and shards of glass rained down on her. As she tried to run from the kitchen, her feet got tangled in the cord from her laptop charger. She started to fall.
She braced herself to hit the floor, but the blow never came. Instead, blackness and cold enveloped her. It felt like someone wrapped her in an icy blanket and laid her down gently on the linoleum.
The darkness peeled away from her and attached itself to Emmett as he burst into the kitchen. He thrashed against the black mass as it took the form of a man with red eyes and enormous bat wings. The leathery appendages fanned up and out to brush the ceiling and stretch the entire length of the kitchen.
Fear tried to steal her breath, but she refused to let it while Emmett was in danger. She yelled, “Let him go! Get off!” She kicked against the cord tangled around her ankles. The second she was free, she surged to her feet and threw herself at the monster’s back. She wasn’t about to let whatever was haunting her house hurt her boyfriend.
Her fingers sank into the wings without doing any damage, as if the monster was nothing but shadows and cobwebs.
It surrounded Emmett, oblivious to her efforts. She screamed in frustration.
Emmett’s voice rushed out, low and frantic. “Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name…” He was praying.
Suddenly, the mass dissolved into mist, turning from black to white. Then it disappeared.
She fell into Emmett’s arms.
He turned her around, aiming her toward the front door. Together, they ran, their shoes crunching on shards of glass.
“Where are your keys?” he shouted as he snagged her bag at the threshold.
“What? I don’t know!” She couldn’t process what had just happened. It was too much, just, too much.
Emmett directed her down the front walk at a good clip. Her luggage rattled over the bricks behind them. When they reached her car, he gripped her shoulders. “Your keys, Jade. Give ‘em to me. I’m driving you to my place.”
Keys. She could think about keys. What had she done with them?
Oh! Emmett had them last; she’d tossed them to him on the walk. She remembered seeing him put them down in the kitchen.
“They’re inside,” she said.
“Damn it. Come on.” He pointed her toward the street sweeper.
She needed no more encouragement than him opening the door to scramble up into the cab. The driver’s side was on the curb side. To allow Emmett in, she had to finagle her legs over the gearshift.
He barely allowed her time to evacuate the driver’s seat before he planted his butt and slammed the door. His hands were shaking so hard it took him two tries to start the engine.
The truck rumbled to life. The droning whish of its brooms quieted with a flick of a switch. He cursed as he backed up then steered around her Jetta. He floored it and they vibrated away from her house, her goddamned haunted house.
Gosh-darned haunted house, she mentally corrected. This was definitely not the time to take Emmett’s Lord’s name in vain.
*****
Five minutes previously
Joshua’s arms trembled as he restrained the young believer, Emmett, in Jade’s kitchen. Imitating Draonius’s demon form was challenging enough given
his limited stores of power, but the stunt with the cables and breaking the carafe had depleted him almost entirely. It would all be worth it if he could ensure Jade would never return to her home, at least not without a man of God to put Draonius in his place.
Exhausted, he began to disperse. The mortals would likely attribute his sudden weakening to Emmett’s prayers. That was fine by him. Prayer would certainly work against the real article, so it was a good habit to encourage.
But if his plan worked, Jade would never again have to face Draonius. He pushed his very last reserve of energy into making the performance as convincing as possible. When he couldn’t hold on a moment longer, he faded from the physical plane and prayed for heaven.
Surely this good deed made up for his fornication with Mercy. Surely he would be allowed into heaven, at long last.
Someone has been busy. Draonius’s voice punched through his thoughts. The demon arrested his dispersion and forced him to reform. He was drawn through the kitchen floor, through the house’s foundation, down, down, down.
Hades and hell fire! He’d hoped to go up, not down.
He was too tired to fight. Too soul-weary to protest.
Draonius reeled him in. Against his will, he resumed his layer of essence around the demon.
What have we been doing up above, my busy little beaver? What was so important that we ventured from father’s protective fold without permission? Were you scouting our lovely Jade to find out why she has been absent for three nights after you promised me she would return?
Go to hell, demon. Would God never free him from this abominable fate?
Only if you come with me.
So be it. Let’s go and be done with it.
Draonius chuckled then sobered. What’s this? Something has changed. He perked his essence toward the surface. What have you done? Anger seared all trace of humor from his countenance.
Joshua felt what the demon felt. Jade’s terror-the shivery desperation of a soul fleeing for its life.
What have you done!
Wind ruffled Joshua’s essence as Draonius rose up through the ceiling of the abyss. Apparently he’d gleaned enough power to surface in daylight. What other feats might the demon be capable of? Might Joshua have underestimated him?
He prayed not. He also prayed Jade’s flight would thwart the demon, at least for a time.
Without warning, he felt himself dispersing into the raging winds of the physical plane. His tether to Draonius had been cut.
He was still weak, but he scraped together enough strength to visualize his surroundings. What he saw chilled him to the bone.
From his vantage point in the vicinity of the house’s front porch, he saw Draonius float to the branch of a stately maple and disappear into the body of a blackbird. The bird shuddered then released a piercing caw.
Dozens of smoke-like wisps peeled away from the blackbird and curled toward another branch in the tree. Upon that branch sat a hawk, brown with a white chest and blood-red eyes. As Draonius’s essences surrounded the hawk and disappeared inside, one after another, dozens turning to hundreds, Joshua understood who the hawk must be. Who else would accept a sacrifice of souls and in return grant one of his minions release from more than a century of imprisonment? The Prince of Darkness himself.
Sure enough, once the transaction was complete, the blackbird took to the air and flew away.
Draonius was free.
In the body of the blackbird, the demon rose high in the air until he hovered above a lumbering yellow machine. Inside the machine sat Jade and Emmett.
Joshua was not drawn like his fellow essences to the hawk. Instead, he began drifting upward.
The hawk turned its head to fix its blood red gaze on him. Was it his imagination or did that gaze burn with hatred?
Joshua shuddered. Those poor damned souls.
He and Mercy had been Draonius’s newest essences. The others had been with the demon longer, some for thousands of years. After all that time, they had been traded without ado, their fate of no more consequence than their master’s ransom.
Had Mercy been among the essences traded? Was she even more damned, now?
The hawk took flight. After a few beats of its wings, it disappeared into thin air.
Joshua’s sadness gave way to peace as the warmth of Salvation embraced him. Dare he believe what his heart suspected?
He was entering heaven! Oh, Praise the Lord! Everlasting peace at last!
Utter joy infused his spirit, but a prickle of foreboding had him sparing the thought, God have mercy on the towne of Dover and on poor Jade Alderwood.
Chapter Fifteen
After shifting a million times, Emmett got the sweeper up to about thirty. Jade would have preferred sixty, but she wasn’t about to complain. She was just glad to be heading away from Grandma Nina’s house, and to have Emmett in one piece beside her, albeit one very freaked out piece.
After rounding the corner that would take them toward downtown Dover, he turned crazed eyes on her. “Are you okay? I can’t believe-shit, you’re bleeding.” He fished a hanky out of his pocket and handed it to her.
“I am?” As she reached for the white cloth, she noticed specks of blood on her hand. Shards of coffee-pot glass had struck her hard enough to break her skin in several places. Now that the house was several blocks behind them, she felt pin-pricks of pain on her cheek, too, and where her partially-zipped hoodie revealed a V of her chest.
“Aren’t coffee pots supposed to be tempered glass?” she asked as she blotted the cuts. “They shouldn’t shatter like that, should they?”
“I used to store my coffee maker on top of the fridge to save counter space,” Emmett said. “It exploded just like that when I dropped it one day. I think they’re just not supposed to break because of heat. But honestly, I don’t know. Does it hurt?”
She shook her head, even though it kind of did. She didn’t want to worry him. Her brand new boyfriend had been through enough for one day. She certainly wasn’t going to make a big deal out of the fact her cuts wouldn’t stop bleeding. With each blot, the handkerchief came away with persistent spots of red. “You carry a hanky?” she asked with a nervous laugh, hoping to lighten the mood.
“Yeah,” he said without taking his eyes from the road. “Since I was a kid. My grandpa says real men always have a handkerchief handy in case a lady needs one.” His throat bobbed with a swallow. She kept waiting to see his half-smile emerge, but it didn’t come. It might not come for a while.
She wasn’t exactly sure what she was feeling, which probably meant she was in shock, but she knew Emmett, scared and worried about her, was the cutest thing she’d ever seen. She wanted to take him in her arms and comfort him, but she settled for scooting over to press her shoulder to his while he drove.
The contact seemed to relax him. He took a breath, and the worst of the fear cleared from his face. “Seriously, are you hurt? You fell.”
She wasn’t hurt much, but she was cold to the bone like the one and only time she’d ventured into her basement. “I’m okay. What about you? Did that thing hurt you?”
He huffed a breath, releasing a little more tension. “I’m okay.” He glanced at her. “You might have glass in those cuts. Just keep dabbing like that. Don’t rub.”
He didn’t have to tell her. A few spots flared with sharp pain. She dabbed them gingerly, ready for the red spots to start shrinking in size. “It’s a good thing I had long sleeves on.” She tried to laugh, but it came out more like a sob.
Emmett stopped the sweeper in the middle of the road. “Let me see.” He took the hanky and dabbed at her left cheek and eyelid. Then he drew her into his arms. “Hey, hey. We’re okay.” He rocked her sweetly.
He was warm and solid. His living strength banished the clinging cold. He held her for a long time. The occasional car crept past the sweeper, being forced to the wrong side of the road to get around.
An unwelcome thought intruded. Had she learned nothing from standing up
to Brad and Mr. Shadow? Was she doomed to run away from everything that upset her?
She pushed out of Emmett’s arms. “I can’t run from this. That’s my grandmother’s house. I have to go back.”
“The hell you do. You’re staying with me until we can get it blessed or cleansed or whatever.”
We. She liked the sound of that. “So, I’ll be able to go back?” If she planned on returning soon, it wasn’t technically running away.
“Of course. We’re not going to just let that thing have run of the place. It doesn’t belong there. We’ll fix this. I promise.”
Coming from him, that word meant something she had never let it mean before. Emmett had kept a doozy of a promise to himself for years. That took character. A promise made by Emmett was a promise she could trust. On the other hand, it irked her that he was making her problem his problem.
He let go of her and put his hands on the wheel. “Come on, I said I’d buy you a coffee. We’ll swing by Dunkin’s. Then I’ll take a closer look at your cuts and make some phone calls.” He hit the gas and jostled the stick shift through the gears.
“But you need to sweep, don’t you? You can’t spend the day taking care of me.”
“Windham County will survive if I take today off.”
“I’m fine. I don’t need you to coddle me. Just drop me off at your place and go back to work.”
“Maybe I’m the one who needs to be coddled.” There was the half-smile she’d been missing. Now, if it would just melt away the worry in his eyes. “I’ve never seen anything like that before. I’m shaking in my boots, here.”
“It’ll be okay.” She found it easier to be brave for his sake than for her own. “You prayed and it went away. That’s awesome. I wish I’d thought to try that.”
His eyebrows pinched together. “What have you tried?”
“Standing up to it and putting bundles of herbs in all the windows. Seems pretty silly now. But like I said, it was just a shadow before. It did that hand thing-” She made the beckoning motion. “But it was just a shadow on the wall, well, mostly on the wall-except that one time I think I saw it in the mirror-but it was nothing like that…that-What the hell was that?”
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