Patrick took off in the direction of Kyra’s pointed finger. He was still breathless from dashing out of the house. “So she didn’t believe you?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t get a chance to elaborate though.”
“Can’t say I blame her,” he said. “It’s something you kind of need to see to believe, I guess.”
“Well,” she hollered from the back seat, “seeing as how I’m not supposed to be able to see these demons like you guys supposedly can, I’m not sure how that’s going to happen.”
Patrick shrugged. “Maybe Gregory can help with that.”
Lexi suddenly panicked. “You mean Mr. Delaney? Are we seeing him tonight?”
“Oh, that part she believes?” Patrick laughed.
“Hey, Gregory,” Kyra spoke into her phone, “we need some help finding a car of girls that are in danger of wrecking. A black Honda civic going west of Mike’s house. Okay, call me back.”
I spun around in my seat to Lexi in the back. “Lexi, you have no idea how hard it has been keeping all of this from you. This stuff was the real reason we couldn’t hang out with you. It wasn’t because we didn’t want to. Trust me.”
Lexi’s lips pressed tightly together, but her eyes softened as if she wanted to believe me. She was going to need some more convincing, but at the moment, I didn’t know what else to say.
We settled into an uneasy silence until Kyra’s chipper ringtone startled us. “That was fast.” Kyra grabbed her phone. “Yes?” She paused and nodded as though Gregory could see her. “Okay, great. Thanks!”
She threw her phone into her purse and spat directions to Patrick. “They just left a gas station and are headed toward Greenbush and Eerie. That’s where the wreck is supposed to happen.”
Patrick sped up to the stop sign in front of us, barely slowed down to glance both ways, and then peeled out.
“Good thing there aren’t any cops around. Is this the way you normally drive, Patrick?” Lexi hadn’t laughed, but the glimmer in her eyes betrayed her. The ice was melting.
Patrick grinned at her in his rear view mirror. “Only when I’m trying to save someone’s life.”
Lexi let out one short chuckle and crossed her arms.
“So if we catch up to them,” Patrick said, his lips curling up at one end, “maybe you all could duck, and I’ll pull up beside them and flash them one of these.” He turned to me and winked in an impish, can-I-have-your-number kind of way. “I bet I could get them to pull over.”
Patrick returned his eyes to the road as Kyra scrutinized the back of his head. “You’re not a dark servant anymore, Patrick,” she said flatly. “Not everything is about you and your seductive charm.”
I slapped a hand over my mouth to prevent the laughter from escaping. Patrick pretended to be offended, but Lexi interrupted before he could offer up any defense for himself.
“Um, what’s a dark servant?” she asked with a surprisingly even tone.
Kyra smiled as Patrick blazed through a yellow light. “Dark servants are the opposite of light warriors. They have the same vision as we do, but they work for the darkness. We work for the light.”
“Work for...like a job?”
Her continued questions gave me hope. Maybe she was actually opening up to the bizarre truth we’d been attempting to share with her.
Kyra rocked her head back and forth. “Kind of. It’s complicated.”
Lexi chuckled and rolled her eyes. “I’ll bet.”
“We all have different qualities that make us qualified for the job. But Iris, here...” Kyra thumped the back of my headrest. “She’s like a light warrior prodigy. She can also hear the shadows and manipulate them with her hands.”
“Really?” Lexi leaned forward.
I smiled at her growing interest. “Yep.”
“Not to mention,” Kyra added. “She just used her light to blow up your shadow.”
Patrick whipped his head to me. The whites of his eyes and teeth suddenly became much more visible. “You did what?”
I laughed and blushed self-consciously. “Oh, yeah. You missed that, huh.”
He slammed his hand on the steering wheel. “Man, I wish I could’ve seen that!”
“It was pretty stinkin’ awesome,” Kyra offered.
“So,” Lexi said. “I had a shadow? What does that mean exactly?” She peered up at us hesitantly like she had a feeling she wouldn’t like the answer.
I frowned. “It means we were being crappy friends to you and unintentionally sending you down a wrong path. Which wasn’t your fault. It was ours.”
Lexi slumped back in her seat. She was confused, to be sure, but she seemed to be doing her best to take in all our information. Whether or not she believed us yet, though, I wasn’t sure.
With Patrick’s crazy driving and “shortcut,” we arrived at the intersection in just a few minutes. The Honda was nowhere in sight. Luckily, neither was the aftermath of a horrendous wreck.
We pulled into a nearby parking lot, and Patrick killed the engine. I turned to the rest of the car’s occupants. “Okay so we beat them here. Now what are we going to do?”
“Get out and try to stall them,” Kyra said as she unbuckled her seatbelt and opened her door. Her gaze was targeted straight ahead at two approaching headlights.
Lexi rolled her eyes and sighed like an annoyed ten-year-old. “Seriously? I hope you know they’re going to think we’re a bunch of psycho stalkers.”
“Yeah, well...” I paused as we both stepped out of the car. “Perks of being a light warrior.”
The car’s lights grew blindingly bright as we ventured into the street to meet them head-on, several yards before the intersection. The ink-black silhouette had exchanged its cozy inside seat for the roof of the car. The shadow lay so flat all I could see was the demented grin plastering its face. I half expected the demon to rear back and cackle. As the car neared us, though, the dark figure’s grin morphed into a heavy scowl as it put two and two together. Its catastrophic wreck was about to be thwarted.
We stood in the middle of the road, blocking the way, so the car had no choice but to slow to a stop. As it neared us, the driver’s side window buzzed down to reveal a ticked off driver. The bright light from her phone reflected off the windshield.
Lexi must’ve seen the light too. “Gee, texting while driving drunk? Why don’t you just drive with your toes? That would probably be safer. I can’t believe I almost got in a car with you.”
When had Lexi become so sassy? I struggled to suppress the smile that badly wanted to surface. As much as I loved hearing Lexi side with us, she wasn’t helping. If she kept up her sass, the most we would accomplish was getting run over.
The driver stuck her head out the window and yelled at Kyra, who was the closest to her. “How many times do I have to tell you, freaks? I don’t want to listen to your crap.”
She’d barely gotten out the last word when a vehicle whizzed by directly in front of us. The car hadn’t stopped at the stop sign, was going twice the speed limit, and would’ve hit someone stupid enough to be driving impaired and distracted.
The asphalt grated and scraped under our feet as we twisted back to face the silent car of girls. Kyra smirked. “Do you want to listen to me now?” Despite Kyra’s snarky comment, her expression held an almost motherly concern for the girls.
The driver gawked with the rest of the passengers at the empty spot where they’d nearly been bashed to pieces. None of them said anything or even moved. All three girls sat in their fixed positions as though the car might come back and hit them if they so much as twitched. Other than their heavy breathing, they could’ve been statues. In fact, the only visible motion was the shadow backing away as Kyra approached.
Patrick and I stood our ground, along with Lexi who was still too stunned to do anything else.
Once Kyra stopped, the driver finally looked at her with huge, frightened eyes.
Kyra bent over to be level with her. “Think you can manage pulli
ng into that parking lot over there?” She pointed to where Patrick had parked.
After a few seconds of no response, Kyra’s glow burst forth. She reached in the car and touched the girl’s hand still gripping the steering wheel. “It’ll be fine.”
Kyra gestured once more to the nearby destination. The girl blinked a few times as if waking from a trance and nodded. She then carefully maneuvered around us to the lot and parked beside Patrick’s car.
We jogged over to meet them. The driver’s window remained open, and the car hummed as all three girls turned to us expectantly. Their polite demeanor reminded me of someone addressing a police officer after getting caught for speeding.
Kyra crouched down beside the car. “You want to turn off the car now?” The girl’s compliance was almost instant. “Is there anyone you could call to come pick you up? I’m sure your car would be fine here until morning.”
They all glanced at each other with blank expressions. Most of their friends were probably back at Mike’s party or incapacitated somewhere else. Eventually, the girl in the back spoke up. “What about Rachel? Or maybe Wendy?
The other passenger perked up. “Actually, I think Rachel’s staying at Wendy’s house tonight. Let me call her real quick. Maybe they can come get us.”
“Works for me.” Kyra stood back up. Once they’d secured their ride, she walked over to lean on Patrick’s car with us. All we could do now was wait.
“So that’s it. We did our job? We’re done?”
I smiled at Lexi’s use of the word ‘we’ but didn’t respond right away. Instead, I glared at the slimy, black figure still attached to the roof of the girls’ car. The shadow’s continued presence assured me it hadn’t given up on its plan. The leech would need to be exterminated one way or another. I turned to Lexi. “Almost.”
Lexi peered at the top of the car. “What are you staring at?”
I sighed. “If only you could see.”
“If only she could see what?” Gregory’s voice startled me so badly I jumped. But my shock immediately shifted to joy. Gregory’s help in our shadow hunts was always a plus. But after everything I’d dealt with that night, both good and bad, seeing my mentor was a reassuring and re-energizing surprise.
“How’d you get here so fast?” I had to restrain myself from giving him a hug. The girls in the car would most likely recognize him as Mr. Delaney.
I twisted my head back to check. Sure enough, all three girls were bent in awkward positions, trying to hide their faces and not be seen.
“Well...” Gregory hesitated to answer. His eyes darted to Lexi, who was gaping at him, and back to me for an explanation.
“Oh! Sorry.” I said. “Lexi knows now.”
Lexi closed her mouth once she realized the attention was on her.
“It was necessary,” Kyra added, but left it at that. There was no point in bringing up Lexi’s dirty laundry in front of her and everybody else. Gregory pretty much knew what was going on anyway.
“I’m not sure what all she believes yet, though.” I glanced at Lexi to see if anything had visibly changed, but she stayed silent and respectful.
I wasn’t sure how I expected Gregory to respond to the news, but I definitely hadn’t anticipated the pity in his eyes as he regarded Lexi.
Neither had she. She fiddled with the hem of her shirt and looked everywhere but at Gregory. “What...what did I do?”
“Nothing,” he answered. “Nothing to deserve this burden of knowledge. This secret you’ll have to carry. The danger that’ll come with it. So I’m terribly sorry for that.”
He stepped towards our friend slowly and took her hands.
She squirmed and still wouldn’t meet Gregory’s eyes. Lexi had never completely gotten over her giddy reaction to Mr. Delaney being near her. Thinking of him as an angel must’ve made that reaction worse.
“Lexi, I know what they’ve told you is hard to believe. And I know you probably have a lot of questions. Now that you’re in the inner circle, we’ll all do our best to help answer those questions for you.” He motioned to the rest of us. “And to keep you safe since the demons will have you on their radar in no time.”
Her eyes grew wide in alarm as they found mine. She actually believed now that she’d had it confirmed by her favorite, trustworthy teacher. But instead of being relieved, all I felt was pain and guilt for having burdened and endangered her. I frowned and mouthed the word ‘Sorry.’
Her eyes softened. She smiled so bravely I wanted to run over and pull her into my arms for being so understanding. But Gregory wasn’t done with her yet.
She returned her attention to him as he continued. “I want you to know that all three of them, especially Iris, hated keeping this from you. They knew how the secrecy hurt you, and they hated lying to you all the time. I did too. But we didn’t want to put you in any danger unless telling you our secret was absolutely necessary.”
Lexi stared at the ground uncomfortably. Perhaps she was realizing why we’d decided telling her was absolutely necessary.
Gregory released his grasp but placed a hand on her shoulder. “Whatever made them feel they needed to tell you tonight, I don’t care, and I don’t need to know. I trust them and their decisions. All I care about now is helping you see what awesome friends you have.”
Lexi lifted her head but had a hard time looking Kyra or me in the eyes. Her lip quivered. “I’m so sorry for how I’ve acted.”
There was no need to hear any more. I rushed to embrace her. Her tears were already streaming down, and mine were quick to follow. “It’s okay. It’s okay. Don’t blame yourself, please. You had all the right in the world to act the way you did based on what you knew. And what you didn’t know wasn’t your fault.”
I forced my glow outward to envelop every part of her body I touched. At long last, she pulled away. As she dried her tears, she appraised all of us as though seeing us with new eyes. “It’s still so hard to believe. But I’m trying.”
Patrick spoke up for the first time since Gregory had arrived. “Speaking of, can you do something about that, Gregory? Like, help her see somehow?”
A light bulb flicked on somewhere in my mind, and I remembered the journey I’d taken with Gregory a short time ago. By simply placing his hand on my back, he’d been able to show me the vision of my past through a different perspective. Sometimes, all people needed was a different perspective.
I gazed at this man, my teacher and trainer. He had more power than I daily gave him credit for. “Of course he can. You can help her see what we can, can’t you? Like give her a different perspective?”
He raised his eyebrows as if to challenge me. “What exactly did you have in mind to show her?”
I threw a glance to the car of girls with the nebulous mass on the roof.
Gregory nodded and raised his eyebrows appreciatively. “I think that would be both entertaining and informative for Lexi. I heard about her shadow by the way. Nice job!”
Patrick easily deduced our unspoken plan. He rubbed his hands together and grinned at me. I just hoped I didn’t disappoint.
Gregory took me by the shoulders as if to give me direction as he had in past exploits. But this time, he seemed a bit out of his element. He shook his head and looked me in the eyes. “Iris, I’ve never instructed any other light warrior on how to kill a shadow with their hands, much less blow one up with their aura. So I’m not sure what to tell you other than focus in on your light. Let the light do the work. And just...do whatever you did last time.” He leaned back up with a laugh.
“All right.” I flexed my fingers and breathed deeply as I faced the car. Kyra and Patrick backed out of the way. The girls inside were still attempting to hide, so, if I was lucky, they wouldn’t notice when all heaven broke loose.
“Lexi, come stand by me,” Gregory called to her. I twisted my torso around to see for myself how she would handle this new vision.
Gregory raised his hand to rest it on Lexi’s back, but stopped just short of
touching her.
Lexi lifted her eyes to his timidly as Gregory whispered one last word of advice.
“Try not to freak out.”
The moment his hand touched her, a burst of light engulfed my friend in a glowing cocoon. Once completely surrounded, Lexi blinked rapidly and stretched out her hands to her sides. I was worried she was going to fall over or pass out. Then she found my target. Her eyes grew wide and her jaw dropped.
Kyra offered Lexi her hand, and Lexi clung to it gratefully as her gaze remained fixed to the roof of the car. Once I kicked on my aura, though, her eyes darted to me and grew even wider.
Her mouth was gaping, but she stood firm like a champ. So I returned my attention to the shadow, which was studying me warily.
I strolled up to the car from the rear. Luckily, the car’s occupants hadn’t noticed me yet. The leech on top, however, eyed me the whole way like a neurotic cat ready to pounce or dash away at the slightest movement. But it didn’t. The stubborn thing just kept inspecting me up and down and all over. Only once I was a foot away from the back of the vehicle did the figure begin to withdraw.
But I was quicker.
I dug my blazing fingers into the shadow’s damp, dark matter before it had time to escape. All the leech could do was gasp in shock, cling to the car for dear life, and hiss in pain from the burn. It must’ve missed the memo about the new light warrior who could manhandle shadows with her bare hands.
With one forceful pull, I yanked the shadow off the car. I almost lost my footing as the murky figure propelled off the roof and into my unsteady choke hold.
The shadow was slicker and less foggy than Lexi’s, and it squirmed harder. The slick figure began to slip out of my hands, so I did the only thing I could think of. I pulled back and flung my adversary towards my friends. They immediately formed a tight, glowing circle around the demon. It wasn’t going anywhere.
Luminous Spirits (Shadow Eyes Series Book 2) Page 25