by Lori Titus
The bastard hadn’t mentioned side effects before I took his deal, but it was too late to second guess. I was in for the duration, one way or the other.
I didn’t want to be—didn’t want any part of it, really—but I thought again of that receptionist. In my mind’s eye she was standing on the edge of the building, skirt flapping like a red flag in the wind. The look she gave me as she turned, the calm expression on her face as she dived into nothingness. I wondered if she knew? Did she see something below? Did he give her an illusion that she was diving into an ocean? In the last moment before she hit the ground, did she realize she was falling through open sky? I never heard her scream. Maybe she didn’t.
I thought of the people I loved. My sister was the only member of my immediate family who still spoke to me, and there was a distance even between us since I returned from this last enlistment. Not her fault. She was living her life with her husband; I was the one who hadn’t reached out to her.
What could I really say to her? I was a barely functioning alcoholic with flashbacks and nightmares. I couldn’t be part of her happy, normal life. I had nothing to contribute.
My mother tolerated me when she had to. My father didn’t.
“You’re not like these other people out there who question God,” he’d told me. “You know better. It will make the penalty you face that much worse.”
He didn’t have to tell me what that punishment was, it had been drilled into me all my life. Hellfire. For a Southern Baptist preacher like my Dad, it was the answer to everything. If he found out what I’d given Ramshead, I wasn’t sure how he would react. I didn’t want to see that happen.
I wasn’t living the way I should. Of course that much was true. What he didn’t understand was that I didn’t have it in me to lead the kind of life he did. And that went for more than taking over his pulpit.
When I turned eighteen, I enlisted in the army. I’d served in the army three years before Black Ops came calling. And not unlike Ramshead, they had offered me a bargain too good to refuse. The next ten years I traveled the world. I rose to the rank of Lieutenant Commander. My men and I were sent on the kind of missions our government would never take credit for.
We knew going in that there would be no caskets draped with flags for us if we didn’t make it home. The missions we went on netted us money but at the price of wiping away our identities. Credit histories, social media, school records, job histories, anything that would make us trackable in the digital age was wiped away. Only our friends and family knew of our existence. The agency provided cover stories for our absences. Our pasts were reconstructed to make it seem we’d lived other lives.
As far as my family knew, I had served two years in the army, and then went on to college, and law school. I was living in Los Angeles, looking for a new job. They knew nothing of my problems. I supposed I could tell them I had suffered from PTSD all of these years. It wasn’t really a lie but if I weren’t careful I’d end up having to explain how my service lasted longer than three years. Lying to cover that up would mean more lies. Elaborate cover stories have never been something I did well.
It was best to stay away from my family and their judgments.
Chapter Eight
Natasha Taylor
I woke up on Wednesday morning about twenty minutes later than usual. I sat up and looked out the window. Nothing strange going on there. These days I was still half expecting to see dark figures cloaked in overcoats along the streets. There had been no sign of the Nethers in a couple of weeks, but I breathed a sigh of relief whenever I realized we were clear of them. At least for the moment.
I showered quickly and went downstairs, still expecting to get a jump on my mother, who didn’t usually wake until around eight. I should have known something was wrong when I smelled breakfast cooking.
If I hadn’t been sleep deprived, my brain would have clicked into awareness faster. I thought for a moment that maybe the caregiver had let herself in. I had given her a key for emergencies, or in case I had to leave the house before she arrived. I figured it was better for the caregiver to be able to get in than to be locked out. I knew of at least once I had overslept and she let herself in. By the time I got up she’d already been making toast and coffee for mom.
I rounded the corner into the kitchen and stopped in my tracks.
My mother was standing at the stove cooking breakfast.
Breakfast was always her favorite meal, and when I was a kid we had some really epic ones on the weekends. Chicken and waffles. Or sometimes a fancy omelet along with toast and a fruit salad. Weekdays it was usually grits, scrambled eggs, sausage or bacon.
And on this day, that was exactly what she was cooking.
“Uhhh...uh...mom?” I stuttered.
“Hey Sugar,” she smiled. As I came to stand beside her, she dropped a kiss on my cheek. “You going in to the store this morning? I thought I was going to have to go upstairs and wake you up. Have you been working late again?”
I sat down at the kitchen table and watched her. She was always a good cook, the kind who didn’t have to think about how much spice she needed or how high the flame on her stove needed to be. Simply attuned to the rhythm of what she was doing, she grabbed the correct seasonings from the cabinet and knew exactly which drawer to get her utensils from.
This had been the way she worked around the kitchen every day when she was well.
Her memory had been faltering for years, though. She was able to hide it at first because she retired from the store. There was a period when she was at home by herself, and she seemed fine then. After a while, I started to notice she just wasn’t taking care of herself the way she used to. Her attention span seemed short, and she was in a bad mood often. Once I told her I was going to be away for the weekend, but by that night she didn’t remember. She was calling around asking other family members where I went and why I hadn’t come back.
I started asking her questions and realized she couldn’t do her crossword puzzles or simple math anymore. What was more disturbing was how she forgot where things were. She couldn’t remember where the dishtowels were, never mind manage something as complicated as cooking. Sometimes she would stare into space trying to remember a simple phrase.
At the time it felt like her decline had taken place over a few weeks, a month at most. Her physician had told me that those changes had probably happened over time, more gradually than I realized. Some people were good at hiding their symptoms because they feared what might happen once their families knew something was wrong.
Now I watched in amazement as she fixed me a plate and then made one for herself. She sat down beside me and started to eat.
“So tell me girl, how is the shop doing,” she said. “You haven’t mentioned anything about it in, must be months now and I know that can’t be a good sign. You’re like your Daddy, rest his soul. Always avoiding any unpleasant conversation.”
Tear sprang to my eyes. I couldn’t believe it. My mother had been restored to me.
I dabbed at my eyes with a napkin and hoped she didn’t notice. “No, I just got out of the habit of talking to you about it. You were sick for a while and I didn’t want to bother you with it.”
She frowned. “I have been in bed a lot, haven’t I? Well, anyway, you don’t have to hold your tongue with me. Whatever is happening, I want to know.”
“Why don’t we talk about that later?” I suggested. “I have some errands to run before work, but I should be back early tonight.”
When the caregiver arrived, I took her into the hallway and spoke in whispers. I instructed her to call me if anything changed. “I’m not sure if she’s just having a clear morning or what’s going on,” I said. “But if she wants to do things around the house don’t stop her.”
She nodded. I could tell this sudden, dramatic change spooked her a bit too.
I went outside and sat in my car for a minute having a good cry, getting it out of my system. I knew exactly what this was. As much as I w
ished this was a natural thing, a medical miracle, a turnaround, I knew better. Pollard was behind this sudden recovery. This was the magic he’d promised me.
I had lied to my mother. I didn’t have anywhere I had to go before work, but I couldn’t stay and watch her. Half of me wanted to. The other half was too devastated because I knew what she would go back to if I didn’t fall in line with what these people wanted.
Now it made better sense: the Nethers outside our house, my mother “seeing” a man in her room. These demons had been watching, doing surveillance on us beforehand. Maybe it had something to do with my father’s past as an exorcist. Either way, they had been very careful about monitoring us.
They knew my weakness.
I would do anything for my mother. She was the only family I had left.
I took a look at my phone. Every day I checked my bank account, just to make sure I wasn’t overspending and that there was no unusual activity on my account. The day before, my balance had been $1,267.89. I knew it would be less. I had done some grocery shopping and paid household bills earlier in the week, and those charges were due to show up.
I logged onto my account and did a double take. I even logged off and then back on, sure that I had entered something wrong or was looking at the wrong balance. After the third time of logging in and out I read the account number to myself. I stared at the balance and counted the zeroes. One, two, three... six.
Six zeroes.
I knew what it meant, logically. But I couldn’t seem to comprehend what I was seeing. The only answer I came up with was Pollard. Hadn’t he said something about financial security? I realized I’d only half listened when we talked because I didn’t believe he could pull it off. The moment he said he could restore my mother’s health I went blank.
I went to the gas station and filled up my gas tank. From there it was on to the coffee shop to pick up my morning drink.
I had to calm myself before I went to the bank.
I was there before opening, so I waited patiently in my car. When I went in, I smiled when I saw the loan officer. Instead of approaching the tellers at the counter, I went straight to her.
“Oh, good morning, Miss Taylor,” she said, eyes on the computer monitor in front of her. “What can I do for you?”
I sat down and crossed my legs. “I will be closing out my accounts with you today.”
That got her attention. “I’m sorry, ma’am?”
“I will be closing out my mortgage account with you. I am paying it out in full. There’s a savings account I have here as well, and I want to withdraw that too.”
“Oh. You were able to get funding?” Her eyes lit up.
I nodded. “Would you mind taking care of it for me?”
“Not at all,” she said. She whistled to herself as typed in the account number. I saw her eyes widen as she looked up the balance.
“I am so glad Mr. Pollard was able to provide you with funding,” she said, punctuating the last word with a girlish chuckle. “I see that they went far above the amount of the loan you asked for.”
I didn’t know whether I should jump across the desk and strangle the bitch or hug her. She’d started this. Somehow she had known the kind of deals Pollard, Ramshead, and whoever dealt in. Maybe she even got a kickback. Either way she had sent me to him.
“Yes,” I said. “Can you please hurry? I have a busy day ahead of me.”
I ARRIVED AT MY STORE an hour late with a smile on my face.
“What’s up with you?” Ronnie asked. I didn’t even try to hide the bounce in my step. I hadn’t realized how much of a relief I would feel—a literal weight and pressure lifted from my body—knowing that the shop was paid for. I wouldn’t have to mortgage my parent’s house. Hell, at this point I could easily buy my own house if I wanted. Just in case it all went south I wasn’t sure I was ready to tell Ronnie yet. I reminded myself that this was another good thing to be grateful for—I wouldn’t have to face the humiliation of firing my own cousin. He would have pretended to be okay with it, while I would have been a blubbering mass of tears.
Once I was alone in my office, I whispered to myself, “Who says selling out doesn’t come with perks?”
I couldn’t concentrate on work. I called home and spoke to the caregiver. She said my mom was fine and was talking about going out to lunch with her. I told her to go ahead, just keep an eye on her. I put down the phone and just stared into space. If my mom stayed well, it would mean so many things. She wouldn’t need caregivers. She would be able to figure out on her own what she wanted to do with the rest of her life.
Hell. I would have to figure out what I wanted to do with my own life. Over the last eighteen months, during the worst of my mother’s illness, I had given up thinking in terms of large goals. I’d started to think smaller in order to keep going: get through each day, each hour, make sure that Mama was cared for, keep hold of what needed to be accomplished at work and to keep the household going. It had been a while since I thought about what it meant to plan a future for myself.
Hand trembling, I got up from my desk.
I went for a walk because I didn’t think I should be driving anywhere. The reality was sinking in. I wasn’t going to give the money back and I certainly wasn’t willing to let anyone put my mother back into the condition she was before.
I don’t know how long I walked—an hour or maybe more—before I came to the church.
It was open, and I went inside. Except for one person near the front of the sanctuary lighting a candle, I was alone. I just sat there. I couldn’t pray, not with what I knew I was about to do. That seemed to be the height of hypocrisy. I thought about what my father would say if he knew that I’d entered into a deal with a demon. He’d spent his life fighting the forces I was about to pledge fealty to. He would condemn my actions. Giving myself over to Pollard was probably the only thing that would have made him disown me.
I reminded myself that as much as I might want to carry out his wishes, what he would have wanted didn’t matter anymore. He wasn’t here to see his wife waste away, helpless to do anything to make her better. He didn’t have to worry about losing the shop, the house, everything that they had tried to give me. Beliefs and ethics were fine until it was time for you to choose between them and continuing your life as you know it.
I wasn’t going to let my mother waste away the rest of her life in a haze. I wasn’t going to let her suffer, and I refused to lose everything my family had worked for.
Selfish? Maybe, but there was no going back on it now.
I left the church twenty minutes later. The sunlight felt good on my chilled skin. I tried to think of all that I would gain and not what I was about to give up. I knew exactly the price being asked and had decided I had no choice but to pay it.
Katherine Taylor
Despite the feeling of being trapped in a haze I couldn’t quite rise from, I had been aware for a while that something was very wrong.
It had started with little things. Like not being able to remember where I placed my watch or my favorite heart-shaped necklace that Zeke bought me. And from there it increased to things like not being sure I knew how to read the time when I looked at a clock.
That wasn’t right at all.
One of the most irritating parts of my illness was not being able to figure out how much time was passing. It seemed to be going so fast. My daughter would come in and out of the house, as well as other people tasked with caring for me. At one point, I counted the days by noticing whether or not they had changed their clothing. That soon became too complicated to keep up with.
I sat and watched television, but what took place on the screen didn’t not really reach me. People were laughing at things I didn’t find at all funny. Sometimes, I wondered if maybe someone was laughing at me.
That might not have been far wrong.
I didn’t trust caregivers, not completely, because they were strangers after all. My house was a place where people without faces always seem
ed to be passing through.
And then I remembered Zeke’s knives.
Natasha had gone around the house and picked up all of Zeke’s many weapons that were stored in just about every cabinet. She’d put all the weapons upstairs, probably in the attic or one of the closets. I thought about going up there and finding the stash. There were too many things moving free and unchecked in the house without me having a way to defend myself.
Clever as she was, there were secrets Natasha didn’t know.
I kept exactly one drawer full of Zeke’s clothes. Even after all this time—it felt like many years, though I couldn’t exactly be sure how many—it was a comfort sometimes to reach into the dresser and pull out one of his old shirts. They smelled like washing soap and vaguely like the minty tang of his aftershave. That was one thing nice about him; he always wore aftershave, showered twice a day when he could get away with it. On nights when I couldn’t sleep, I’d curl up with one of those shirts and finally get some rest. It was the idea of being near him, that comfort.
Odd that despite the many things I saw around the house that weren’t living folk, I never saw the ghost of my beloved Zeke. It was probably better that I didn’t. I might not want to live anymore if I did see him.
There seemed little to stick around for these days.
At the very bottom of the drawer full of Zeke’s clothing was a silver blade, a bowie knife, and a pair of Deer Horn knives.
I slipped the Deer Horns into my pocket. They were easy to conceal and convenient. I’d have them handy next time the silver haired man came around and disturbed me.
I used to keep the house strongly warded against demons, but these days everything felt upside down. I couldn’t remember the right spells to do it.
Part Two
The Spark
Chapter Nine
Victor Ramshead