When Life Gives You Demons

by Jennifer Honeybourn

  “Fine.” I act like I’m doing them a favor, but really, if I want to find my mom, then this is probably the best way to do it.

  This is so not how I expected this afternoon to go.

  Chapter

  19

  “HOW DO you know my mom’s still in the city?” I ask, shoving aside Spencer’s lacrosse bag and climbing into the back seat of his car. No way am I sitting in the front with Spencer. I don’t want to be that close to him right now. “Have you seen her?”

  Lucas slides into the passenger seat. “Mark swears he spotted her last week, but she took off before he could get close enough to confirm,” he says. “And judging from the sheer amount of demons we’ve had to expel this week alone, I’d say it’s a safe bet that she’s still around.”

  My stomach tightens. “Where did he see her?”

  “Now that I can’t tell you,” Lucas says, rolling the window down as Spencer pulls into the street. I’m hit with a blast of cold air that whips my hair around. “It’s classified information.”

  I’m sorry, what?

  “Classified from who?” I say, burrowing into my jacket. “She’s my mom! I think I’m entitled to know where she is.”

  “Normally, I would agree with you,” he says. “But the fact that you’re in the biz … well, it casts a different light on this whole situation. We can’t have you going off all half-cocked, looking for her on your own.”

  “I’m not going to go off all half-cocked.” Whatever that means.

  “To be fair, you did say that you’ve been looking for your mom on your own,” Spencer says, glancing at me worriedly in the rearview mirror. “Which, I have to tell you again, is a really bad idea. You have no idea what she’s capable of, Shelby. It’s much better for everyone if we stick together.”

  I glare at him. While he’s probably right—trying to handle my mom on my own would be insane—I am so sick of everyone acting like they know everything about how to exorcise a demon and that I know nothing. He’s only ever seen me at work once, when I tried to deal with the guy on the Great Wheel, but that doesn’t count because Spencer was practically catatonic. For all he knows, I could be a master. The greatest exorcist of all time.

  And, okay, I’ve never successfully conducted an exorcism on my own. But he doesn’t know that. It’s so infuriating that he just assumes I can’t do it.

  “Can you please close the window?” I snap at Lucas. “I’m getting blown away back here.”

  “Sorry,” he says, rolling the window back up. He turns around to face me. “We all have the same goal, Shelby. Working together really is our best chance of getting your mom back.”

  I know it is, and it’s the only reason I agreed to go to the cabin with them. As for us all having “the same goal”—Lucas just reinforced the humiliating reality that Spencer used me to gather information about my mom. I slouch lower in my seat. Once he’s helped me get my mom back, I won’t have anything to do with him ever again.

  Spencer turns a corner a little too sharply. His lacrosse bag slides into me, and something sharp pokes me in the thigh. I unzip the bag and pull out a thick silver crucifix, much bigger and heavier than the one I carry. There’s also a set of steel handcuffs and a black leather flask with the initials M. C. embossed on it.

  Mark Callaghan.

  Lucas’s revelation that Mark is an exorcist explains a lot about his behavior. Except for one thing.…

  “Why does Mark have six-six-six tattooed on his wrist?” I ask Lucas.

  “That tattoo tricks demons into believing he’s one of them,” he says. “They see it, they trust him. It’s brilliant, actually, because it lets him get close to them. He has them shackled before they even realize what’s happening.”

  “It only works about half the time,” Spencer mutters.

  “Do you all have one?”

  Lucas shakes his head. “No way would I put that sign on my body.”

  “Mark gets a little carried away with all of this sometimes,” Spencer says. I want to ask him what he means by that, but we’re already turning down the long driveway that leads to the cabin.

  Spencer turns off the ignition. Lucas climbs out of the car and folds the seat forward so I can get out. It smells like pine trees and campfire, that middle-of-the-woods scent that reminds me how secluded this place really is.

  I follow them past a row of motorcycles and a huge, dirty white truck. The cabin looks much shabbier in the daylight. Aside from the freshly painted blue-green door, it’s like the place hasn’t been touched since it was built in the seventies. The 1870s.

  We walk up the wide wooden steps, and Spencer pushes open the door. Just before I walk inside, I notice a row of black iron horseshoes hanging above the entrance. I didn’t notice them the last time I was here, maybe because it was dark. Uncle Roy has one hanging above the door of the rectory, just like the ones my mom nailed above all the doors in our house.

  My stomach is in knots as I step inside. Unless Spencer or Lucas have covertly texted Mark, he isn’t expecting them to bring me here. I’m not sure what his reaction will be when he learns that Uncle Roy has been training me.

  The main room is empty, but we can hear voices coming from deep inside the house. Spencer leads us to a large room off the kitchen, where a group of men and women are sitting around a dining-room table. It’s the same group I saw the night of the party—two women and the bushy-bearded man who I mistook for a serial killer.

  And this is obviously their war room.

  There’s a whiteboard with a bunch of complicated diagrams on it nailed to one log wall next to a row of muted TV monitors, which are all turned to local news stations. On the other wall, there’s a map of Seattle covered in red and green pushpins. Next to the map is a series of small photographs—there must be at least fifty of them. Headshots of people of all ages, including one of my mom.

  “Shelby, hey,” Mark says. “What a pleasant surprise.” His dark hair is hidden beneath a red bandana. He’s wearing a long white shirt that covers most of his tattoos, including the mark of the beast on his wrist.

  The red-haired woman I recognized from the party—Mark’s girlfriend—gives me a wary look. “What is she doing here?”

  As if he’s wondering that himself, Cerberus starts to growl. He’s lying on a fluffy pink dog bed in the corner, a chewed-up plastic bone trapped between his large black paws. Mark turns to scratch him behind the ears, and he quickly settles down.

  “Relax, Riley,” Lucas says, plunking down into one of the leather desk chairs. He folds his hands on the table. There’s a giant symbol carved into the middle of the wood: the same two interlocking circles that are etched on the polished onyx rune that Spencer gave me. “She’s one of us.”

  “And by one of us, you mean what, exactly?” Riley says, narrowing her eyes. In front of her is a stack of yellow file folders. I can tell that they’re case files, and the sheer number of them makes me feel faint. They must be working night and day.

  Is my mom responsible for all of this?

  “Shelby here’s a demon hunter,” Lucas says, a smile stealing across his face. He’s clearly relishing dropping this bit of news on the group.

  Spencer gives my arm a quick squeeze as they all turn to stare at me. Heat rises in my cheeks. No one says anything for a minute, and it’s superuncomfortable. Then Mark finally breaks the silence.

  “Well, I didn’t see that coming,” he says. “I’m guessing Father Roy’s been training you?”

  I nod.

  “Does he know you’re here?” Mark asks.

  “Not exactly.” I feel a twinge of unease. If Uncle Roy knew I was hanging out with a bunch of laymen demon hunters, I’m pretty sure he’d be so mad that his head would pop off.

  “I suppose you brought her here because you think she can help,” Riley says to Spencer. Her voice is hostile. I have no idea what she’s got against me, but there’s definitely something about me that bothers her.

  “Obviously,” Lucas says. �
��Shelby is the break we’ve been waiting for. She’s the key to finding Robin. I know it.”

  “What about all our other cases?” Riley’s mouth tightens, and she taps the stack of files with one short green fingernail.

  “Riles.” Mark reaches across the table and lays his hand over hers. “I promise you, we’re not going to forget about Josh.”

  Beside me, Spencer stiffens. He hasn’t said a word since we came in, but I’ve been aware of him, standing close to me. I hate that I’m aware of him.

  “We’ll find him,” Mark says. “But you know that locating Robin is the priority.”

  Riley grimaces. I gather that she feels like I’m pushing to the front of the line. It’s pretty clear that someone she cares about—this Josh guy, whoever he is—is also possessed. I start to soften toward her. I know what it’s like to be in that situation, the dark hole of panic that is so difficult to climb out of. I would do anything to get my mom back, and I can only imagine that she feels the same way about Josh.

  “I guess we should introduce you to the team,” Mark says to me. “You’ve met Riley.” He rubs her back, and she nods begrudgingly. “And this is Nora and Klaus.”

  “Hi, Shelby.” Nora is around my mom’s age. Her hair is cut into a short brown bob, and she’s wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a nubby, green cardigan sweater. Klaus is in the same skull-printed suspenders he had on the night of the party, but this time they’re holding up a pair of light-blue jeans.

  He stands up and offers me his large hand to shake. “Lovely to meet you,” he says, smiling widely. He has a gap in between his front teeth. “Anyone hungry? I made some lemon-blueberry muffins earlier.”

  Everyone seems to get really excited by this. Klaus’s muffins are apparently legendary, and judging from the way Nora bounces up and down in her chair, lemon-blueberry is a fan favorite.

  While Klaus wanders off to the kitchen, Lucas reaches across the table for a file. He flips it open and groans. “Oh, come on,” he says. He holds up the folder; a photo of a guy with long blond hair and a wispy mustache is clipped to the inside cover. “I’ve fixed this dude three times already. Someone else can take him.” He closes the file and tosses it back onto the stack.

  “Spencer can handle it,” Mark says. He picks up the file and walks over to us. He tries to hand it to Spencer, but he won’t take it. He just shakes his head.

  “You have to get back to it sometime, brother.”

  “No, I really don’t.” From the wary expression that settles over Spencer’s face, I don’t think this is the first time they’ve had this argument. His gaze flicks to Riley, but she’s staring at the pile of file folders in front of her. It’s pretty obvious from the rising flush in her cheeks that she knows he’s looking at her. From the way she’s avoiding his eyes, I gather that Spencer must be connected to what happened to Josh.

  “We need your help,” Mark says.

  “He is helping.” Nora shoots Spencer a sympathetic glance. “His protective charms have saved every one of us at one time or another.”

  Mark sighs. “Okay, yes. The charms are great,” he says. “But, Spence, it was one bad exorcism. It’s a setback, sure. But it doesn’t mean you should quit.”

  Spencer crosses his arms. “Can we not talk about this right now?”

  “I’ll do it,” I say.

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” he says.

  “Why not?” I say. “I’m fully capable of conducting an exorcism.”

  His mouth tightens.

  “Don’t take it personally, Shelby,” Mark says. “He’s just worried about you. He’s letting his own bad experience—”

  “I don’t need you to speak for me,” Spencer interrupts.

  “—get the best of him,” Mark finishes.

  “Mark, cut him some slack,” Lucas says. “Any one of us would be screwed up by what happened.”

  If Spencer is surprised that Lucas is coming to his defense, he doesn’t show it.

  “Give me the case back,” Lucas says. “Probably easiest if I do it, anyway. I know where to find the guy.”

  As Mark hands the file to Lucas, Spencer storms out of the room. Mark turns back to me and says, “The best way for you to help is to give us some more information on your mom.”

  “Like what?”

  “Her favorite places, her close friends, anything that might lead us to her.”

  My heart sinks. Uncle Roy has tried all of this already, has been trying for the past five months. There aren’t many areas of the city that are left unturned. “I have a list of every place we’ve searched for her,” I say. I dig in my bag for the copy of my mom’s file and hand it to him.

  “This is a good start,” Mark says, looking it over. “We can cross-reference with our information.” He gestures for me to follow him. We walk over to the map.

  “What are all the pins for?” I ask.

  “The red ones indicate an area of demonic activity.” Mark points at a cluster of red pins concentrated in the Fremont area. “The green ones are areas that we’ve cleared. For now, anyway.”

  Belltown, Queen Anne, Capitol Hill. All cleared.

  “And the yellow pins are places your mom has been known to frequent before she was possessed.” There are only a handful of yellow pins, and most of them are in Fremont. It’s where we used to live, before we moved in with Uncle Roy.

  “Lucas says you spotted her.”

  Mark nods. “Last week.”

  “How did she look?” I glance at the photo of my mom beside the map. It’s a printout of her headshot from the website of the law firm where she worked. Her dark hair is pinned back in a bun.

  “She seemed okay.” He flips through the papers I gave him.

  “Define okay.”

  “She’s alive,” he says, but it doesn’t slip past me that he’s not meeting my eyes. “Still in one piece.”

  I’m not sure he’s telling the truth, but I can’t bear the thought that she’s not all right, so I let myself believe him.

  Mark grabs a handful of green pins and starts plugging them into different areas of the map. “You and Father Roy have covered quite a lot of ground. I’m impressed.”

  He assumes that because Uncle Roy has been training me, that means that I’m also involved in the search for my mom. I don’t correct him. If Mark hears that Uncle Roy doesn’t want me looking for her, it might make him think twice about letting me help them.

  “I’m certain that we would have had Robin back long ago if he’d just work with us,” he says with a sigh. “I’ll be honest: Your uncle has been a serious pain in my backside.”

  That sounds about right.

  “Why doesn’t he want to work together?” I ask.

  “He doesn’t agree with my approach, even though he’s seen the results I get,” he says. “I think part of his issue is that we’ve adopted protection techniques from different areas of the world.” He points up at the ceiling. It’s painted the same blue-green shade as the tattoo parlor and Spencer’s workshop. “Haint blue. An old Southern superstition. Keeps the evil spirits out.” He touches the rune hanging around his neck, the same one I’m wearing. “And this here is a Celtic protection charm. For what it’s worth, Spencer doesn’t make these for just anyone. You must really mean something to him.”

  Spencer gave me the rune to make me believe he had feelings for me. So that I’d trust him and open up to him about my mom. That’s it.

  And since Mark is the one who gave Spencer the orders to get to know me, I should be angry with him, too. But he’s also trying to find my mom, and that’s far more important than my hurt feelings.

  “We’re going to get her back, Shelby,” Mark says, resting his hand on my shoulder. “I promise.”

  I nod, relieved that he believes we can still save her.

  I’m glad someone still believes it’s possible.

  Chapter

  20

  I’VE BECOME very adept at avoiding people lately. I’ve managed to
keep from running into Spencer all morning, and considering St. Joseph’s isn’t a big school, this isn’t exactly easy to pull off. He’s texted me a bunch of times in the past few days, but I’m not ready to talk to him, so I convince Vanessa to eat lunch with me in Uncle Roy’s car instead of our usual spot on the front steps of the school.

  “Who are we hiding from?” Vanessa unwraps her bagel, and the smell of tuna fish immediately stinks up the car. “Sorry,” she says. She knows I hate tuna. It’s even worse in an enclosed space.

  “Spencer.” I roll down my window, then busy myself with picking the wilted lettuce off the cheese sandwich I grabbed at the deli across the street.

  “What? What happened?”

  I take a bite of my sandwich to give myself a second to think. I haven’t filled her in on what happened during my date with Spencer yet, mostly because I have no idea what to say to her. The truth is not an option, obviously, but Vanessa can sniff out a lie like a bloodhound. Whatever I tell her, she’s probably not going to buy it.

  “I just don’t think it’s going to happen for us,” I say. It shouldn’t hurt this much, considering Spencer and I were never really together. But my heart doesn’t seem to know the difference. And I feel really stupid for believing that his feelings for me were real.

  “But why?” Vanessa props her feet up on the dashboard. She’s used black marker to shade in the scuff marks on her loafers. Her parents would buy her new ones, but she hates these clunky shoes even more when they’re brand-new and have to be broken in. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  I go to take another bite of my sandwich and give myself time to compose an answer, but she intercepts my hand before I can get the sandwich to my mouth.

  “Sometimes things just don’t work out,” I say. “It’s fine.”

  Her eyes widen. “Is it Bex Wagner? Did she get to him?”

  “No.”

  “Is Spencer still going to tutor you?”

  I hadn’t thought about that. I’m probably never going to pass geometry now. “I’ll find another tutor.”

  “I feel like you’re not telling me the whole story,” she says. Her foot shifts, and I catch a flash of silver writing on the bottom of her loafer.