I cringed. Given my family history, it was a wonder I didn’t have snakes coiled around every inch of my body.
One verse stood out to me. Galatians 3:13. It basically said that on the cross, Christ took the curses on himself that we deserve so we can be free of them. It wasn’t fair to him, but what else is new?
I pressed my palm over my mouth, sickened at the thought of having my own hands and feet nailed down, enduring the agony of crucifixion, while feeling snakes crawling all over my body.
I took some deep breaths, working to force the mental image to fade.
So, the way I now understood it, that hissing curse wrapped around Ray Anne’s spine had no right to be there, sentencing her to nonstop discouragement, panicky dread, and—God forbid—a premature death. But as long as she caved to fear instead of clinging to faith, it was never going to leave. Ray Anne needed to stand up for herself. For her God-given rights.
Surely once I explained the simplicity of that to her, she’d have a change of heart and be brave enough to command the curse to go. I would have gone to her and told her right then had it not been two in the morning.
I’d just closed my laptop when Daisy sprang awake and growled at the window.
Here we go again.
I peeked out the sheers. Nothing on my balcony, but the way my dog was carrying on, something had to be out there. I grabbed my baseball bat and flashlight, ran downstairs, then charged out the door with my dog, ready to face whatever person or paranormal being had made the mistake of trespassing. Sure, I wanted to protect the church’s property, but this went way beyond that. I took it personally that someone or something would try to get past me.
I made it all the way to the pond, where my flashlight illuminated a cluster of spirit-realm snakes slithering above the sunken thread, bones, and nasty clump of human hair.
“Christ took this curse for me.”
The serpents dove down, away from me, hunkering under the water. But they were still alive.
Maybe Veronica had been telling the truth, and I needed to completely destroy the hexed objects.
After some thought, I decided God was bound to approve of me annihilating demonically charged objects off the face of his earth. I just had to decide how.
Incineration came to mind.
I ran back to my room and grabbed a box of matches, then dragged a metal trash can full of tree limbs from behind the building, all the way to the pond. I used two long sticks to fish the red-threaded blob out of the water, covered in the mass of snakes, and dumped the mess in the trash can.
I tossed in a few lit matches, but the fire only consumed the tree leaves and limbs. It startled me when, out of nowhere, a huge hand formed, made of flames. It gripped the snakes and nest, crushing all of it with a blazing balled fist. Instantly, the cursed objects and serpents turned to ash.
“So freaking cool.”
If only I could have captured stuff like this on video.
I stayed and watched the ashes trickle toward the bottom of the can, acknowledging that Veronica had been right about needing to destroy the thing—even though her helpfulness majorly contradicted the acts of viciousness she was also unleashing on me.
Still standing at the pond, I had that undeniable sense someone was watching me. I shined my flashlight across the water. Sure enough, the wet witches—Veronica included—glared at me from the other side, their ankles submerged in pond water.
Somehow it was freakier now, knowing they were not Creepers but real people—rebellious spirits roaming outside catatonic bodies. They whispered at me, their lips moving as my flashlight remained fixed on their cluster. I’d run them off last night; surely they knew to keep their distance from me. But clearly, they hadn’t given up their assignment against me.
I didn’t have my note cards, but I recited verses as I recalled them, starting with the one I’d just used on the snakes. One by one, the spirits ran forward, charging into the water without causing any splashing. But instead of coming at me, they disappeared under the tide, resurfacing in the center of the pond. Like a scene from a horror movie, their heads bobbed, eyes hovering just above the waterline.
It didn’t come naturally, but I turned my back on them, proving I wasn’t afraid. I walked toward the church building, and when they didn’t follow, I knew my act of faith had worked. And when they sank out of sight completely, it felt like the tables had turned in my favor for the second night in a row.
I was calling Daisy to me when an infant’s cries echoed in the distance. The infant.
I looked around. “What is that, Lord?”
No internal answer.
Even in bed with my music playing in my ear pods, I could hear it. I quoted every Scripture I knew and even yelled the name of Jesus, but there was no silencing the child.
I’d found nothing in the Bible about wicked wailing babies. Believe me, I’d checked.
I thanked God when Custos appeared and knelt in the center of my room. His arrival shut the baby up, and once I finally quit analyzing whether or not my father was on his way to see me, I fell asleep.
On Monday afternoon, the Masonville High multi-purpose gym was a sea of tan chairs—occupied ones facing empty ones where students would soon sit.
So, this is how the mentoring program works.
I was the youngest mentor here by far. And the only one who could see Creepers scampering across the ceiling, weaving in and out of the walls and hovering as high as the basketball goals, spying down on us like starving vultures. They didn’t move as quickly as when Molek was here, infusing his army with sinister strength, but they were still on the hunt.
While waiting on Gentry, I texted Elle: Did you get rid of your nighttime stalkers?
She texted back immediately: Your strategy worked, thank you! Seconds later: We should write a book about all of this someday.
Maybe, I replied. Let’s see how things turn out first.
I hit send, then typed: And if we survive. But I deleted that faithless remark.
I hadn’t heard anything from my father since his last confusing text. My frustration toward him was growing, but apparently I hadn’t become so bitter that I’d provoked Creepers to chain my neck.
I dragged my thoughts back to Gentry. Finally, a chance to talk to him. He was among a flood of incoming students, his head draped in a hoodie that hung so low, I was surprised he could see to find me. I didn’t pick up on any facial mask of addiction or disgusting belly dagger today, but the black streak under his chin was in plain sight.
Numerous students escorted Creepers, tethered to them by their spirit-world chains and cords, but thankfully Gentry didn’t have that going on. His four open chain cuffs dragged the gym floor—a lot of metal baggage for a fifteen-year-old. He sat across from me, and I smiled. His mouth stayed flat. The puffy bags under his eyes made me wonder if he’d slept at all the night before. And his bottom lip was cut in the center, crusted with dried blood.
A dark-skinned armored Watchman appeared out of thin air in a swirl of light and stood behind Gentry, watching us. I wanted to take in every detail of his armor, but I needed to stay focused. And try not to squint. It was awesome the way the Creepers raced to the other side of the gym, all hunkered down and nervous now that a Watchman was here.
I reached out to give Gentry a fist bump. He gave me one but rolled his eyes.
“So, they obviously told you I’m your mentor.” He barely nodded. This was way more awkward than I’d expected. “Umm . . . how are things?”
He gave me a disinterested shrug like we were total strangers, like he had no memory of the good times we’d had when he was younger.
He grabbed something out of his backpack and began toying with it, clutching it tight enough to conceal it from me. It reminded me of Hector last school year, how he’d obsessively hold that vocatus crystal—an occult object Veronica had given him.
“So, you like wearing hoodies, huh?” I tried a lighthearted approach. And seriously, it was ninety degrees
outside.
Another disinterested shrug.
I get that it was impulsive of me, but I hadn’t come here just to be dismissed by him. And I mean, the guy’s life was in jeopardy. I leaned in. “Gentry, I know this won’t make sense to you, but you’re in serious danger. Like, life-threatening. And I’m here to help, but I can’t unless you open up to me.”
I knew I probably sounded fatherly and weird, but this was my chance to talk to him without any Creepers closing in and covering his ears. That Watchman was protecting him, guarding our conversation.
Gentry didn’t flinch or even ask why I suspected his life was on the line. Instead he crossed his arms, still clutching something. “My life completely sucks. What else do you want to know?”
“What sucks about it?”
He was pouty and shifty-eyed, the same way I’d been with the school counselor here when she’d tried sticking her nose in my business.
He mumbled, “My stepdad wants me out of the house.”
“Why?”
He stared at his Converse, tapping the gym floor. “My brother Chase is a Marine, kicking butt overseas. And Lance is like a god around here, training at the police academy. Then there’s me—the loser flunking ninth grade.”
From the pictures of Chase I’d seen a while back, Lance and Gentry’s oldest brother truly was a man’s man. And after Lance had survived his nearly-fatal wounds from Dan’s school shooting, he’d become a town hero. They’d even named a street after him. But that didn’t make Gentry a loser. “Dude, it’s only the second week of school; I’m sure you can pass ninth grade. And just because your older brothers have accomplished some things doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you.”
He shook his head, and I caught an unnatural flicker in his brown eyes. The indwelling presence of evil, badgering him from within. This wasn’t the time or place to try casting it out, but I felt bad for Gentry, having to live like that. With that.
How had he opened himself up to such a severe degree of evil influence? I was certain it had to do with Veronica—or Eva, as she’d told him to call her.
“How’d you bust your lip?” I asked.
“A guy accused me of being a traitor and socked me in the mouth.”
“A traitor?”
“Hector thinks I reported him for selling at school, but I didn’t.”
I already knew there were no coincidences, but this was even more confirmation. I knew Hector from last school year. Another one of Veronica’s blind followers. He’d wrestled Jackson out of my arms at the secret ritual.
“Hector’s who you get your stuff from?” Drugs, we both knew.
The third shrug in less than a minute. In other words, yes.
“How’d you meet him?”
More looking down and fidgeting. “He used to hang around Eva. He was cool at first, but he hates me now.”
I wasn’t surprised Veronica was intertwined in the situation.
Gentry’s fingers were really moving now, spinning something around and around.
“What’s in your hand?” I couldn’t keep ignoring it. But he kept his palm closed as tightly as his mouth. So, I straight up asked him, “Is it a vocatus?”
He finally looked me in the face. “You—you know about that?”
I nodded, then assured him he could tell me anything and everything—and he needed to.
Slowly, Gentry relaxed his hand, exposing the oblong crystal—the reward for having been selected to join Veronica’s exclusive, seemingly-innocent meditation group.
“Eva gave it to me last school year,” Gentry said.
“You were in her program?” I had no clue she’d been targeting middle school kids too.
He coughed like he was buying time to think. “I learn from her, if that’s what you mean.”
“You mean learned, right?”
He blinked fast. “Forget it. It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does.” I scooted my chair closer to him. “I know you won’t understand this, but I’ve been called to protect you, and that’s what I’m trying to do. Seriously. So please tell me, have you been visiting Veronica—Eva—in jail?”
He stuffed both hands into his jeans, I think because they started shaking, either from nerves or withdrawal. “She . . .”
“Yeah?” I put a reassuring hand on his bony shoulder, and the Watchman stepped forward, resting his hand over mine. Instant peace.
“Eva comes to me,” Gentry finally admitted. “Don’t ask me how, but she meets with me in the woods. When I go by myself.”
I almost used my free hand to slap an open palm against my forehead. Gentry was entangled in even more of a spirit-world mess than I’d realized. And he didn’t have a clue.
There was only so much I could explain, especially while seated within earshot of others. “Meeting with her like that, it’s extremely dangerous.”
“I know.” Gentry’s eyes became glossy, and he looked away, pulling his hood down lower, covering most of his face. I finally let go of his shoulder, but the Watchman’s hand remained, a look of concern on his ageless face.
Gentry whispered, “She says I have to meet with her and tells me when and where.” He tugged nervously at the cuffs of his long sleeves. “I’m scared not to.”
Finally, some vulnerability.
“I need you to come see me after school.” I told him where I was staying and the street the church was on. “There’s a lot we have to talk about, but not here, in a crowd.”
“I have detention after school, and my mom said I’m grounded tonight. But I can probably come tomorrow.”
Give me a break. He snuck out whenever he wanted. But he shot down all my attempts at talking him into it. “Tomorrow, then,” I finally conceded. “And please, Gentry, between now and then, stay out of the woods and away from Veronica—Eva—no matter how she’s threatened you.”
He gave a reluctant nod. “I can try, but she’ll get mad.”
I understood where he was coming from; I’d been there myself a few months ago. And to make matters worse, Gentry was shackled, not a Light like me, and he was housing evil inside—about as defenseless as it gets. “I’ll be here for you through this,” I vowed. “Every step of the way.”
The Watchman left, vanishing as unexpectedly as he’d arrived. So of course the Creepers took over the gym again.
Principal Harding walked by, still mummified in webs—trapped in religious traditions and legalism, I now understood. She scanned the crowd with a satisfied smile. I scooted my chair back, trying to look as casual as everyone else.
I noticed a purple-haired girl seated nearby—not because of her hair, but because she had a black streak across her throat, identical to Gentry’s. That, plus a Creeper looming behind her back, staring her down. Those signature eyes: blood-red misshapen pupils inside a yellow-ish ring. And that dreaded name scraped into its face: Suicide.
“Hey, do you know her?” I pointed.
Gentry nodded. “Presley. She’s in my support group.” He huffed. “It’s so obvious they put all the suicidal people together.”
“Wait . . . you’re suicidal?”
He sank lower in his chair. “The counselor lady already told my parents, so don’t bother tattling on me.” He froze. “Wait—you’re not gonna tell Lance, right?”
“Your brother and I don’t talk anymore.”
He spun the vocatus back and forth between his index finger and thumb, like he was flaunting it now, but his shoulders slumped.
“Have you ever attempted suicide?” I asked him.
It took him a while to confess. “Yeah. Everyone in the group has.”
“Including Zella?”
He nodded. “All of us.”
Not good. “How many are in your group?” I held my breath.
“Thirteen.”
My stomach twisted . . .
We’ve marked all thirteen . . . The words came back to me—Molek’s messenger bats, commissioning the Rulers. Every one of them must die.
Gentry smirked like he was half-kidding. “So, are you out to protect just me or the whole group of us?”
I leaned back in my chair, tilting my elbow to steal a glance at my luminescent seal. “I believe it’s my job to defend all of you.”
He kept his chin down but cut his eyes up at me, his gaze no longer boyish or timid. It was a chilling stare that made the hairs on my neck stand at attention. Gentry’s voice lowered and his face morphed into a sinister scowl. “What makes you think you can possibly defend any of us?”
My heart rate spiked. The devil inside him had just questioned me. My best guess: another Creeper named Suicide. For all I knew, the exact one that had squeezed itself inside Meagan our senior year and provoked her to end her life.
“Gentry, listen to me.” It was my way of calling him forward, so to speak—communicating with Gentry instead of the assassin within. Immediately, his gaze softened. “You’re in deep trouble,” I told him, “but there’s a way out. I can help you.”
He nodded, actually seeming grateful, wiping his damp eyes on his sleeve before admitting, “I don’t think I can live like this much longer.”
Every Creeper in the gym turned and faced Gentry, including the one attached to purple-haired Presley. It was the worst time to have part ways, but the bell rang.
At least I had some answers now. And I knew I’d better get some solutions fast.
TWENTY
I LEFT MASONVILLE HIGH and headed to Ray Anne’s, lost in thought. Why would the kingdom of darkness target thirteen suicidal kids? It’s not like they were outspoken Lights on a mission to overthrow evil’s plot. Then again, maybe it was the other way around. Maybe the thirteen students were suicidal because the kingdom of darkness was after them, targeting them specifically, for reasons I had yet to uncover.
I parked against the curb in front of Ray Anne’s house at the same time her mom was backing out of the driveway. The windows of Mrs. Greiner’s white Explorer were down, and Jackson was waving his little arms in his car seat strapped in the back.
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