At least I wasn’t.
“Please help us understand, Veronica.” Elle was a pro at keeping her tone firm, yet compassionate. “Have you been casting spells on us?” Elle gestured to herself, then me. “Loosing witchcraft on our homes? You’ve been ordered to, am I right?”
“It’s not me!” Two shadowy boys on either side of Veronica gripped her head, pressing their spirit-world fingers into her scalp, then pushed her down so that she banged her forehead on the table over and over, sobbing and babbling. Elle’s eyes went wide, but she reached for Veronica’s shoulder, hoping to make her stop, but she wouldn’t. Or couldn’t.
I sat tall in my chair. “In Christ’s name, give up your deception and go.”
Yeah, we’d now officially caused a scene—a weird one—but get this: the teen boys morphed into towering Creepers, the word haunting marred on every single one of their vile faces. They went rushing out of the room, slipping out through the walls.
One of the guards spoke into his two-way radio, about us, I assumed.
Elle raised her eyebrows at me, but Veronica didn’t acknowledge anything. She sat still now, her arms crossed tightly at her chest like she was bound in a straitjacket. “Okay, I’m choosing to trust you, Owen.” She spoke just above a whisper. She glanced at Elle. “Both of you.”
We assured her she could and moved our chairs closer. She spoke quietly, yet frantically. “There are certain chosen cities around the country that have already fallen to Cosmic Ruler control. Masonville is the final atmosphere that must fall in order for Molek to rise up and destroy America.”
Of course the insatiable Lord of the Dead wanted to exalt dominion over the whole nation—why hadn’t I come to that conclusion already?
I voiced my next question out loud. “Why Masonville?”
She didn’t bother answering me. “There are locals and also covens across the country, assigned by Molek and collaborating with my handler to release curses around the clock on Masonville, especially those working against his plan.” She eyed Elle and me. “You two are prime targets.” Then her gaze locked on me. “And Ray Anne is . . .”
“Ray Anne’s what?” I asked.
Veronica withheld a response to that question too.
“My handler has ordered me to do my part, to loose curses on you guys like he’s taught me since I was a child.” Veronica’s voice quaked. “But I refuse to do anything he says anymore. So I probably won’t survive much longer.”
One of the guards—the taller of the two—approached Veronica, motioning for her to insert her wrists back into a pair of cuffs. I glanced at the clock. There was over a half hour of our visitation time left.
“Excuse me?” Elle glanced at the clock too. “We’re not done—why are you taking her back?”
“Time’s up,” he mumbled.
Veronica locked eyes with us, silently begging us not to protest. “I’m coming,” she politely told the guard, then whispered a final time. “Those letters you’re getting aren’t coming from me, Owen. I’m done with that life.”
The guard studied all three of us, more inquisitive than he should have been. When a pointy-hooded witchcraft Creeper emerged from the floor with one of the guard’s chains fastened to its wrist, I became convinced the man was there on assignment—another operative in the occult.
Elle stood. “Thank you, Veronica.”
As we watched her being escorted away, I asked Elle, “Do you believe a word she just said?”
She exhaled, retrieving the flimsy bookmark off the table. “Most of it. But not the part about being done with that life. Even if they’re sincere, SRA victims almost always get manipulated into going back.”
“SRA?”
“Satanic ritual abuse,” Elle clarified.
My gut sank. Veronica wasn’t the only victim I knew.
On our way out of the building, I felt the need to caution Elle. “Don’t get sucked into feeling sorry for Veronica or believing anything she says.”
Elle handed me the girly bookmark, then fished her keys out of her purse, speed walking, as usual. “I feel for anyone who’s been raised in the occult,” she said. “Such unfathomable mind tricks and cruelty. That said, you don’t have to tell me to be objective and on guard.”
I walked beside her through the parking lot, comfortable enough with her by now to tell her, “My mom was raised in the occult—an SRA victim—and she made it out and never went back.” It was about as personal as anything I could have shared, although Elle’s lack of reaction made me think she already knew.
I stopped as a thought hit me. Maybe that was why Bradford was pursuing a relationship with my mom. So he could try to coax her back in. I’d never considered the possibility before. But surely she’d never go back to that life.
I kept the troubling thought to myself, but Elle planted more concern in me. “Honestly, Owen, I’m not sure about your mother’s current involvement or lack thereof.”
I huffed, offended at the notion, even if her suspicion was fair.
Elle opened the driver’s side door of her Audi. “I’m aware of your mother’s history and defection from the occult, and also how your father, Stephen, fought to protect her from their retribution when he and your mother were married.”
I clutched her arm before she could duck into her car. “Wait a minute. How do you know all that?” And why hadn’t my own father told me?
“Your ancestors played a key role in Masonville’s history; I’ve made it my business to uncover your family’s business.” She actually paused to put a stick of gum in her mouth. “Look, if you want the whole story, you could always ask your parents.” She said it with that know-it-all attitude that had grated on me from the first time I’d seen her reporting on TV. “I only have some of the facts—seems to me you’d want to take the lead on that one.”
Naturally, I wanted all the facts and truth I could gather about my parents’ history, but Elle didn’t understand. My mom refused to speak of her past, especially about my father, and him . . . he was so secretive, he and I could hardly communicate about anything. I’d been restricted to a few vague texts here and there on a burner phone.
Elle shut herself in her car, then lowered her black-tinted window. “I’ll be in touch soon, but in the meantime, do you know how to stop the evil that a nation full of witches is loosing on our homes? That’s more your area of expertise than mine.”
“Not really, no. But I’ll figure it out as fast as I can.” Add that to the other pressing dilemmas that already needed my attention and solutions.
“I sure hope so,” Elle said, “’cause it’s terrorizing my family.”
She put her car in reverse, but I didn’t want to let her go without asking, “What’s a handler?”
“A person in the occult who uses mind-control techniques and manipulation to dominate a vulnerable person—you know, get them entrenched in the secret society so they’re too afraid and brainwashed to get out. They mostly target children and teenagers.”
I bent down, eye-level with her. “I think I know the phony peace-keeping Masonville man Veronica described as her handler.”
She checked her rearview mirrors and lowered her voice. “I have my suspicions too. And wisdom demands that we stay as far away from him as we can for now—you hear me?”
I nodded, then extended the bookmark to her. “Here.”
“Keep it.”
I tried handing it to her a second time but there was no use. She drove off. I stuffed it in my back pocket, thinking maybe a bookmark would somehow come in handy soon. Elle had a way of giving me random objects I didn’t know I needed until suddenly, they were exactly what I had to have.
I was tense the whole drive back to Masonville, wondering if Veronica would send word to Detective Benny that Elle and I had come asking forbidden questions, hardly minding my own business like he’d threatened me to do.
The more I mulled it over, the surer I was: Detective Benny was Veronica’s handler.
THIRTEE
N
THAT AFTERNOON, RAY TEXTED and said her mom was babysitting Jackson. That meant she and I could spend time together. Music to my ears.
Around 4:00 p.m., I stopped by Gentry’s house again, but he was gone. I got the idea he’d rather be anywhere but home. The new moon was only six days away, and the Cosmic Rulers had been warned not to wait that long to carry out their assassinations. Meanwhile, I’d made no progress intervening in Gentry’s life and had only thought up one way to try to identify who else made up the thirteen marked for elimination, but I couldn’t execute the plan without being allowed to roam among the students at Masonville High.
I told myself that black snake tail wrapped around Ray’s neck coincidentally resembled the mark of death, and she definitely was not one of the targets. The thought that she might be gave me anxious shakes, so I suppressed it at all costs.
I may have had defender supernaturally sealed on my arm, but I felt like disqualified was more accurate at this point.
On my way to Ray Anne’s, strong gusts of wind blasted against my motorcycle, as if even the weather was determined to work against me. I confided in God. “Lord, you see that I’m trying. Please don’t let me fail.”
What else was I supposed to do?
Don’t give up came to mind.
I knocked on Ray Anne’s garage-apartment door, and from the timid way she asked who was there, I could tell she was still crippled with fear—though I didn’t see the Creeper version anywhere at the moment. But that pale pink one was back, curled up in a ball beneath the bushes outside her room like a drunken squatter, pretending to sleep.
Surely Creepers don’t rest.
I’d confront the thing in a minute. My first priority was to check on Ray Anne.
She opened the door an inch and peeked out, as if it might not be me, even though I’d just said it was. And despite the summer temperatures, she was wearing a sweater that bunched up around her neck, all the way to her chin.
She invited me in, and I told her, “I know you’re grossed out or embarrassed or whatever about that thing around your neck . . .” In your neck, but there was no need to phrase it that way. “But please, Ray, don’t feel like you have to hide it from me. You’ve seen horrible things on me before, and you didn’t back away or hold it against me.”
I hugged her, but her arms hung limp at her sides. “I’m a monster, Owen.”
“No.” I let go and looked into her terrified eyes. “You’re being attacked.”
She huffed, then started gathering Jackson’s toys off the floor and chucking them into a plastic bin like she was pitching fastballs. “Why would God let this happen to me?”
Ah. The real issue.
I followed her around the small room. “Ray Anne, we’ll figure everything out. He’ll show us.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
Really?
I’d only seen this serious of a scowl on her face once, back in high school, when she’d thought she’d caught me kissing Jess. She’d gone into a furious rant about how she couldn’t trust anyone, shouting up at the starry sky. At God. But she’d been quick to come to her senses that night and trust him all over again. And also me.
“Babe, you know you can’t talk like this.” I followed her into the makeshift kitchen area—a minifridge with a microwave stacked on top. “You’ll draw dark forces, and they’ll—”
She spun around and faced me, her cheeks flushed red. “Stop trying to solve everything, Owen, as if I need you to fix me!”
Wow. This attitude from her was as unexpected as my mom’s sobriety and spotless house. I was tempted to get offended, but I knew better than to make this about me. Ray Anne was hurting, and I needed to be there for her. But I had to pause and at least allow the thought to register . . .
It’s scary when you know someone so well and they act way out of character.
There’d been a lot of that lately in my world, mostly corrupt people swearing they’d changed for good. But here was Ray Anne, the most faith-filled person I knew, second-guessing if God could even be trusted and yelling at me just for suggesting he could.
Sure, I wanted to yell back at her, especially since that annoying inner hostility was all over me. But I still had a choice, and I chose to be calm—yes, to try to get through to Ray Anne, but also to hopefully stop evil from closing in on the scene if I could.
I stepped back and gave her some space, trying my best to be empathetic, even though it didn’t always come naturally to me. “Ray, remember how, not that long ago, I was lugging around chains and cords and had no clue how I’d ever get them off me? It all worked out, didn’t it?”
“That’s you. I’m not supposed to have . . .” She didn’t finish her cruel remark, but she and I both knew what she’d been about to say.
So much for my good intentions. Like a volume switch cranked all the way to max, anger surged in me.
I stepped back again, putting even more space between us, then spoke my mind. “Ray Anne, are you saying I’m the kind of person who deserves to have baggage, but not you—cause you’re too good for that?”
She stood there with her arms crossed and her lips pressed tight, as if her new shade of lip gloss was Resentment. But finally she broke, shedding a tear. “I just never thought I’d have some snake in me and feel like I’m looking over my shoulder all the time. It’s like I’m completely defeated.”
Sure enough, there was scampering overhead. Creepers flocking to Ray Anne’s roof. The very thing I’d tried to prevent.
I approached her and held her tight, coming to some important conclusions. “Ray Anne, think about what’s really happening.” I moved my hands to her shoulders, guiding her to look up at me as I made my own confession. “That Spirit of Strife has some kind of hold on me—I’ve been feeling it since the day we encountered him. And it’s obvious the Spirit of Despair is getting to you. I mean, you know you’re not normally a discouraged person.
“As for that snake,” I told her, “it’s bound to be some kind of curse. But just like there’s freedom from chains and cords, we know there has to be a remedy for curses. We just have to figure out what it is.”
She sniffled a few times and her voice quaked. “I know we can fight this.”
Thank God, my brave Ray Anne was sounding more like herself. The stomping on the roof came to a sudden standstill.
We both eyed our defender seals, still glorious and glowing on our arms, and I prayed right then and there for both of us—that we’d quickly come to understand how to combat the attacks being hurled at us. Our worst fears, intentionally being thrown in our faces.
I got Ray Anne caught up on everything that had gone down with Veronica, and she eventually suggested we head to the Caldwell Cemetery this evening for another stakeout. There were two more Rulers we had yet to uncover. I wondered whether she could handle it right now, but I didn’t ask. If she said she was up for it, the only respectful response was to believe her.
On our way out the door, I pointed to the pale-pink trespasser. “That thing is relentless, but it’s got to go.”
“They’ll just hurt him again.” Ray Anne pulled me by the hand toward her car. “Just leave him.”
“Him? Don’t you mean it? And Creepers deserve to get hurt.” Anger began to cluster in my sternum again. The idea that this devil was actually getting her sympathy . . .
“Ray Anne, you can never feel sorry for evil or allow it to stay close.”
She opened her driver’s side door. “He’s outside. It’s not like he’s in my house.”
I clutched her arm, stopping her from getting in the car. “Listen to me. This is no different than when I was interacting with a spirit and you warned me to stop. I didn’t listen, and you remember what that cost me.”
“I get that, but I’m not interacting with this one. I would never do that.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You think it just happens to be hanging out here, outside your door, with no agenda whatsoever?”
“Owen, all I’m saying is he’s not doing anything scary or harmful.”
“That you’re aware of.”
She sighed. “Don’t you think we have much more serious battles to fight?”
I knew no matter how gently I tried to say it, if I accused her of being deceived, it would start an argument, which would evoke a flurry of evil and not only hinder my relationship with Ray but ultimately sabotage our joint mission. So instead I turned around, marched right up to the unholy weakling, and commanded it to leave all over again. I was so loud, Mrs. Greiner came running out of the house, Ray Anne’s dad behind her.
“Everything’s fine.” It was basically true. There was a problem, but I was handling it.
Her parents went back inside. Meanwhile, that Creeper stopped pretending to be asleep and started limping down Ray Anne’s lawn, hobbling toward the curb. But before it could get there, a pair of big greenish-gray hands reached up from beneath the ground, up through the grass, and drove pointed claws into the mongrel’s back. It howled in agony, of course, still masquerading as a victim.
Ray Anne grimaced. “What was the point of that, Owen? He was only sleeping.”
I huffed. “Did you really just criticize me for sending a Creeper away?” My anger spiked higher, my neck instantly tense and hot. “Evil forces are never neutral, much less innocent, Ray Anne. You know that.”
The pale-pink Creeper was dragged underground, thrashing and screaming, leaving a bloody mess in the grass. I pointed to the nasty maroon spot. “Creepers don’t have blood, Ray Anne. This is all a trick.”
She gazed at the stain from where she stood in the driveway. “The Bible doesn’t say if they have blood or not.” She faced her car again. “Can we go now?”
I’d been living with the nagging worry that Ethan might come between Ray and me at some point, but never in a million years would I have imagined a Creeper would. It seemed to me that’s where this was headed—her pity for the “poor thing” creating resentment toward me for hating it.
I got in the car but sat silently in the passenger seat while Ray drove us to my wooded property. I mulled over whether I should tell her how her instability was making everything feel odd and unsafe to me. Ray Anne had always been a rock, keeping me anchored to truth and reality. Well, at least she’d always tried to keep me on the right path. But it was like that determined girl had gone missing, replaced by someone gullible and fragile I didn’t recognize.
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