Ms. C isn’t the most “with it” teacher, but there’s something extra off about her today. She’s more disheveled than usual; her blouse is buttoned up incorrectly, and her red hair doesn’t look like it’s seen a brush in days. She’s mumbling to herself, and she’s walking funny, this strange kind of Frankenstein walk. She also reeks like rotten eggs.
“Oh my God, what is that heinous smell?” Vanessa gags and claps her hand over her nose. She glances at me, wide-eyed. “Did Ms. C just cut one? Seriously, what kind of world are we living in?”
Maybe Ms. C smells bad for other reasons, I tell myself. Not every terrible smell is the work of the devil. It doesn’t necessarily mean she’s possessed.
I am worrying needlessly.
Everything is fine.
But I have a twisty feeling in my stomach, the one I only get when I’m in the presence of an evil spirit.
Okay, so what would Uncle Roy want me to do?
Well, he would definitely not want me to perform an exorcism on my own. I know this, and yet, here I am at my locker two minutes later, rummaging in my backpack for my silver crucifix. There’s no time to call him; the end-of-lunch bell is going to ring in five minutes. I don’t need his help, anyway, because despite what he thinks, I can do this myself.
I peer through the small window in the door to Ms. Caplan’s classroom. She’s sitting at her desk, staring into space. I watch her for a few minutes, but she doesn’t move. She just sits there. Staring.
Maybe she’s not possessed. Maybe she’s just having a really bad day.
I’ve almost convinced myself that I’ve overreacted when Ms. C’s head suddenly twists toward me. Her face is blank, freakily devoid of all expression, and her eyes have turned completely black.
Well, that settles it, then.
I lean against the door and take a deep breath. My plan—and I think it’s a pretty good one—is to spray her with holy water from a safe distance and hope that distracts her long enough so that I can rush in and handcuff her to the armrest on her rolling chair. Once she’s secured, I’ll start the incantation.
And voilà! Exorcism complete. Just in time for class to start.
I dig my bejeweled purple spray bottle of holy water out of my bag and hide it behind my back. Then I take another deep breath and push open the door. My heart thunders in my chest as whatever has an evil hold on Ms. C watches me with its dead shark eyes.
I think about locking the door so no one can barge in, but I don’t want to turn my back on her. I need to get a bit closer in order to effectively spray her, but not so close that she can grab me if she figures out what I’m up to.
“Hi, Ms. Caplan,” I say. “I have some questions about the homework assignment.” My hands are shaking. I tighten my grip on the spray bottle as I slowly walk toward her.
Almost there.
One more step.
When I’m in front of her desk, I whip out the spray bottle and start squirting. Holy water is very powerful—if you are possessed, it will do a number on your skin. Sure enough, steam starts to rise from a spot near her elbow. Ms. C lets out an inhuman scream and shoots out of her chair, at least three feet into the air.
And it’s at that moment that I realize my handcuffs are buried in the bottom of my bag and I have zero point zero seconds to dig them out. Restraining her is not going to be an option.
I can hear Uncle Roy’s voice in my head, chastising me for making such a rookie mistake.
Ms. C lands on top of her desk, crouched on all fours like an animal. She snarls, and I try not to gag. A public bathroom that hasn’t been cleaned in a few weeks probably smells better than her breath.
I spray her again, this time right between the eyes. She screams even louder and covers her face with her hands. Steam pours out from between her fingers.
Okay, so the screaming has got to stop; it’s definitely going to draw attention. It’s probably only a matter of seconds before someone comes into the room to find out who’s being murdered. I need to start the exorcism ASAP.
I drop the spray bottle and hold up my crucifix. “Deus, in nómine tuo salvum me fac, et virtúte tua age causam meam,” I say, putting as much force into the words as possible. “Deus, audi oratiónem meam; áuribus pércipe verba oris mei.”
Ms. C leaps off the desk. She soars over my head and lands directly behind me with a soft thud. She’s standing so close, I can feel her hot breath on my neck. I shudder. I have never been so afraid in my life. The lesson that Uncle Roy has drummed into me more than any other is to never turn your back on a demon.
Swallowing, I make myself turn around.
Ms. C is standing mere inches from me, her face twisted with a smile so terrible, I’m sure it will give me nightmares for the rest of my life. Which, given how this exorcism is going, might only be a few more minutes.
“Nam supérbi insurréxerunt contra me—” My voice wobbles. The demon picks up on my wavering confidence and pushes me, sending me crashing to the floor. My knee knocks hard against the metal leg of her desk. She takes a run for the window. Then she leaps through it in a pretty impressive feat of acrobatics. I’m super-relieved that she didn’t kill me but also terrified, because we are on the third floor and I really don’t want to have to explain why my English teacher just threw herself out the window. Also, Ms. C is a very nice person and I really hope that she isn’t dead.
The bell rings. I stand up, wincing at the pain in my left knee, and hobble over to the window. The classroom is at the side of the school, overlooking the Dumpsters. Maybe she landed in one of them—on the bright side, she won’t smell any worse than she already does. But when I look out the window, there’s no sign of Ms. C.
She’s gone.
I’m in so much trouble.
Chapter
8
OKAY, so that didn’t go as planned, I think as the bell rings. But I can still make it right. I just need to find Ms. C.
Think. Think! If I were a demon, where would I go?
I pull out my phone as I’m walking out of the school and do a quick search for her address. There’s a V. Caplan who lives only a few blocks away. I’ll start there. Maybe she went home to wash the holy water out of her eyes.
Just as I’m crossing the parking lot, I see Mr. Hanover, the principal, walking toward me. Unfortunately, he sees me, too.
“The bell rang three minutes ago, Ms. Black,” he says. “Where are you supposed to be?”
I swallow. “Oh, um,” I say. I madly cast around in my brain for a believable excuse, but I’m not great at thinking on my feet, especially when I’m face-to-face with a frowning principal. My shoulders sag. “Bio.”
“Well, as I’m sure you know, our biology classes are actually held inside the school,” he says. “Which means you need to be going into the school instead of away from it. I’m heading there myself. I’ll walk you in.”
I’m really beginning to panic—I have to get to Ms. C—but I’m left with no option other than to obediently follow Mr. Hanover into the school. If he only knew what was at stake—that I was actually leaving the school grounds so I can save the soul of one of his best teachers and not just because I want to skip bio. But I’m pretty sure he won’t believe me if I tell him that.
Mr. Hanover keeps his eyes on me until I disappear around the corner past the main office. But instead of going to class, I duck behind a potted ficus. If I hang out here for a few minutes, hopefully he’ll leave and I can finally get on my way.
“Have you seen Violet, by any chance?” I hear him ask Melody, the school receptionist. “She didn’t show up to class.”
Violet Caplan.
V. Caplan.
V for victory! The address I found has to be hers. Now I’m even more determined to get to her house.
Melody murmurs something that I can’t quite catch.
Mr. Hanover sighs. “All right, well, if you see her, send her up. I’ll take over until she gets here.” He sounds as excited about the prospect of teaching h
er English class as he would about getting a rectal exam.
Once his footsteps retreat down the hall, I peer around the corner to make sure Melody isn’t paying attention, then I dart out the door. I hobble-run the whole way to Ms. C’s house. Clearly I need to work on my cardio, because by the time I get there, I am out of breath and sweaty and I’m sure I smell as bad as any demon.
But I can’t worry about that now.
The first flutters of panic begin to set in. Her driveway is empty, but maybe she left her car at the school or parked out back or something.
The front door is painted a cheery yellow. I take my crucifix out of my bag just in case she is inside, then I glance over my shoulder to make sure no one is around. I bend down and check underneath the black mat with Friends Welcome written on it in white cursive script. Sure enough, there’s a key.
I pick it up, making a mental note to tell Ms. C once I’ve returned her to herself that she shouldn’t leave her spare key in such an obvious place, where anyone can find it. I slide the key into the lock and push the door open. As it slowly creaks on its hinges, revealing the inside of her house, my heart stutters to a stop.
Her living room is completely trashed. I think there would be less damage if a tornado had gone through. Stuffing spills out of the back of the floral couch, like someone ripped into it with a knife. Or claws. The legs of the coffee table are broken right off and the glass top is shattered. The worst part, though, the part that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end, is the graffiti.
I start to shake. It’s hard to imagine my sweet English teacher spraying Satanic symbols on her walls. But if whatever has a hold on her is capable of this, then it’s strong enough to wreak great damage. If I don’t find her soon, then whatever she does, whoever she hurts, is going to be my fault.
Evil has a vibration—we were built to sense it, but most people lose the ability somewhere along the way. I can feel it now, vibrating through every part of my body. I know I shouldn’t go any farther inside the house, but I’m hoping she left a clue. It’s like I’m in a horror movie. I’m the oblivious girl who makes the decision to press on, the girl who is too dumb to know when to turn around.
The girl who always ends up dead.
I head down the hall toward the kitchen, holding my crucifix out in front of me like a weapon. I suddenly step on something that crunches underneath my St. Joseph’s regulation loafer. I glance down and see Ms. C’s horn-rimmed glasses, snapped cleanly in two.
So the good news is that she’s definitely been home. She was wearing these glasses when I saw her in her classroom. The bad news is that I’ve broken them beyond repair.
Hopefully she won’t hold this against me. I really need a good grade in English this semester.
The kitchen, as it turns out, is even worse than the living room; there are stacks of unwashed dishes in the sink, covered with a film of mold. The refrigerator door is wide open and all the food inside is spoiled. I pick up a carton of milk and give it a shake, and I can feel it clumping inside, which, I’m not going to lie, makes me gag. The kitchen table has an axe sticking out of the middle of it, which is just plain freaky, and I’m pretty sure that the tiny brown pellets spread all over her counters are not raisins but the work of mice.
My heart sinks. How long has Ms. C been living like this? This did not happen overnight. Has she been possessed for a while and I just missed the signs?
I should definitely pay more attention to my teachers.
I notice a blue flyer on the kitchen table. It’s advertising for some bar called El Diablo.
El Diablo.
The Devil.
I wonder if this is where Ms. C was heading. I fold the flyer and tuck it in the back pocket of my jeans. It’s the only lead I have, and I guess I should check it out.
Unfortunately, this poses a major problem for me. Even if I had a fake ID, I doubt any bouncer would buy that I’m twenty-one. Honestly, I think I’m out of my depth.
There’s no way around it.
I have to call Uncle Roy.
Chapter
9
ASIDE FROM the occasional grunt, Uncle Roy is mostly silent while I explain the situation, not commenting even as I try to convince him that my actions potentially prevented a classroom full of schoolchildren from crossing paths with an actual demon.
I’m not looking for a medal or anything, but some appreciation of the fact that I saved a bunch of innocent people would be nice.
“I mean, it was definitely a learning experience,” I say, trying to inject lightness into my tone. “And the best way to learn is by doing, right?”
Silence.
More silence.
Still more silence.
I finally break. “Okay, so I probably shouldn’t have tried to exorcise her on my own,” I admit. “But I’ve been training for five months. I thought I had it handled.” I would have had it handled if Ms. C hadn’t jumped out the window. Of course, she wouldn’t have jumped out the window if I’d managed to restrain her, but I don’t want to bring that to Uncle Roy’s attention. Besides, I’m sure he’s already made note of it.
“This isn’t a game, Shelby.” Uncle Roy’s voice is a blade of anger slicing right through me. He’s been mad at me before—plenty of times—but I’ve never heard him quite this worked up.
My face starts to burn. “I know it’s not a game. I was only trying to help.” I know I screwed up, but he never gives me any credit. I don’t know why he’s so bent on me becoming an exorcist when he clearly doesn’t trust me to do the job.
“We’ll discuss this later,” he says. “Right now, we need to find this poor woman.”
* * *
Ten minutes later, Uncle Roy pulls up in front of Ms. C’s house. I climb into the passenger seat and steal a look at him. His lips are pressed together so tightly that they’re almost nonexistent, and his thick white eyebrows have settled so low over his eyes that I wonder how he can even see.
I hand him the flyer I found in Ms. C’s kitchen. “I think she might have gone here.”
He glances at it, and his already turned-down mouth turns down even farther. “I know the place.”
I’m surprised by this. Not judging, but a dive bar doesn’t seem like the type of place a priest would know about. Then again, Uncle Roy isn’t an average priest.
He tells me that he’s going to drop me off at school, but when I point out that he doesn’t know what Ms. Caplan looks like and therefore will never be able to find her without my help, he grudgingly agrees to let me tag along. Trust me, I’m not superexcited to be spending time with him right now, but I started this, so I feel like I have to be there to finish it. Or at least watch him finish it, because there is zero chance he’ll let me try to exorcise her again.
Uncle Roy doesn’t like to listen to music in the car, so I’m stuck inside my own head for the entire drive, and it’s not exactly the best place to be right now. My stomach clenches as I think about how thoroughly the demon destroyed Ms. C’s house and how it’s now working on destroying her soul.
The longer a demon is inside its host, the stronger it becomes—the one that has a hold on Ms. C is clearly strong, so I’ll bet it’s been inside her for a while, just waiting to come out. And the more time a demon spends in there, the more damage it can do. Sometimes, the damage is permanent. We exorcised this guy, Peter Satterley, a few months ago. He’d been possessed for a while, and by the time we got to him, his soul had already been pretty much obliterated by his demon-in-residence. Peter was only in his forties, and he ended up in a long-term care facility because he wasn’t able to care for himself. It’s awful and sad, and I can’t bear the idea of that happening to anyone else.
Please, God, don’t let the same thing happen to Ms. C.
Uncle Roy parks the car. A row of motorcycles are parked in a neat line in front of an old, crumbly building with steel bars on the windows. A red neon sign depicting the devil hangs over the scarred metal door.
“Fun place,” I say. My heart starts to bump against my ribs.
Uncle Roy must sense my fear, because he grasps my hand. “Stay close to me,” he says. “And, Shelby, if this goes sideways, I need you to promise me that you’ll run.”
“What? No way. I’m not going to leave you behind—”
“Promise me, Shelby,” he says, and I wince as he tightens his grip on my fingers. Uncle Roy may be old, but he’s hella strong.
If something bad happens to him, what will happen to me? As curmudgeonly as he can be, I don’t want to lose him.
“All right, fine,” I say. “I promise.”
He releases my hand, and I shake out my fingers. He closes his eyes and says a quick prayer of protection, then, with a weary sigh, he says, “Let’s get this over with.”
We climb out of the car. I grab my crucifix and spray bottle of holy water out of my bag as Uncle Roy opens the door to the gates of hell. Or El Diablo, as it’s more commonly known.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the place reeks of cigarette smoke and hard liquor. Oh, and the putrid stink of demon.
We’re in the right place.
It’s so dark, it takes a minute for my eyes to adjust. When they do, I can see that the bar is mostly empty aside from a few tough-looking men sitting at tables scattered around the room. Every one of them turns to stare at us, the priest and the underage girl in a Catholic school uniform.
I move closer to Uncle Roy. Perhaps we should have considered coming undercover.
“What do you want?” a growly voice says. A giant man with scraggly brown hair and a long brown beard that dusts the top of his rounded stomach lumbers toward us.
“We’re looking for someone,” Uncle Roy says calmly. “A woman.”
“She’s about this tall.” I hold my hand up to my shoulder. “And she has curly red hair.”
And she’s possessed. But he doesn’t need to know that.
The man glares at me, his eyes narrowed. I smile, hoping that, if I’m friendly, I can crack his scary exterior, but he doesn’t smile back.
“Um … she’s wearing a blue shirt.” Seriously, there aren’t that many people in here—you’d think he’d pick up on my description.
When Life Gives You Demons Page 5