by J. S. Bailey
Conversation stayed in normal territory while they ate. Jessica mentioned that she remembered Bobby from the combined Eleanor elementary and junior high school, where he’d been six grades behind her, and Bobby tried to make small talk by asking how the town had been doing, but his thoughts kept circling back to Thane and the real reason they were here.
Once the plates were emptied and loaded into the sink, Jessica cleared her throat. (Benjamin sat on the floor near the sink rolling a Hot Wheels truck back and forth across the tile, making vrooming sounds in accompaniment.) “So, Bobby,” she said, “I understand that you’re involved with exorcisms in some way. Could you tell us a little more about that?”
Bobby hesitated, not knowing how much he should divulge to these people. For all he knew, they could go blab about the Servants to everyone in Eleanor.
Tell them, the Spirit whispered. They can be trusted.
Here goes nothing, then. Bobby cleared his throat. “How open-minded are you guys?”
Jessica and Wayne exchanged a glance, and a shadow passed over their faces. “Pretty darn,” Wayne said, his tone flat. “In our line of work, you have to be.”
“Then can you promise that whatever we say doesn’t leave this room?”
“We totally promise,” Jessica said. Wayne gave a solemn nod of agreement.
Bobby looked over at their son. “I don’t want to freak out your kid or anything.”
“Unfortunately,” Wayne said, “Benjamin is doomed to be as abnormal as his parents. It won’t hurt him to be desensitized to certain things at a young age.”
“Okay then. You see, I’m what you call the Servant.”
Bobby went on to tell them about his duties and abilities, and then he and Carly alternated telling them about Thane and what he’d done to the Servants in order to destroy them. The Thompsons listened in wide-eyed fascination, and even though Wayne claimed to have an open mind, Bobby couldn’t help but wonder if they thought him and Carly to literally be off their rockers.
“This is all very interesting,” Wayne said once they’d concluded. “Some might say you’re insane.”
“But we don’t,” Jessica added.
Wayne smirked. “But that might be because we’re insane.”
At that moment, the front door opened and a twenty-something redhead wearing purple-framed glasses traipsed over the threshold. Her hair was tied in a bun and she’d dressed entirely in black, from her boots to her coat and purse, looking like some kind of Gothic librarian.
“Sorry to barge in, but I believe I left my—” Her face flushed when she caught sight of Bobby and Carly. “Well, this is embarrassing. I didn’t know you had company.” Her gaze latched onto Bobby, and her face lit up with a smile. “Hey, I know who you are! My dad is dating your mom. I’ve seen pictures of you at her house.”
“Hi,” Bobby said weakly, not bothering to correct her on Charlotte’s relation to him. So this was Sidney, who could very well end up being his sort-of stepsister if her father decided to take things even further with Charlotte.
“Anyway,” Sidney said, “I’ll get out of your hair in just a minute. I left my phone charger out in the living room.” She hurried through the open archway and returned moments later, shoving a cord into her purse.
“Hold on a minute,” Wayne said as Sidney placed her hand on the doorknob to leave.
Sidney paused. “What?”
“What would you do if an evil man with superpowers was going to murder everyone you loved?”
Sidney bit her lip and actually seemed to ponder the scenario, as outlandish as it should have sounded. “I’d probably give him a hug and tell him to be nice to people instead. Anyway, gotta run—I’m meeting Jared for a late dinner. See you guys.”
She disappeared into the night without another word.
“Sidney’s my cousin, if you didn’t already know,” Wayne said. “We consult with her about our cases from time to time.”
“And what exactly are your cases?” Bobby asked.
“We conduct paranormal investigations,” Jessica said. “It’s a hobby I picked up a long time ago, and this weirdo here inherited it when he married me. People call and have us check into places they think are haunted. Nine times out of ten, it’s nothing—squirrels in the attic, bad wiring, that kind of thing.”
“And the rest?”
Unease appeared in Jessica’s eyes. “We’ve experienced some things that are, well…unpleasant. We’ve run tests on certain places and made contact with entities.”
“You mean ghosts.” Bobby tried not to sound condescending. After all, they seemed to believe him about his line of work.
“Sometimes.” Jessica’s voice became very soft, and Bobby suspected that she didn’t want her son to catch onto everything after all. “If it’s a ghost, we encourage them to move on to their final destination. If it’s not…”
“Then it’s a demon,” Carly said. “Right?”
The Thompsons both nodded. “We’ve had some experience with those,” Wayne said, averting his gaze to look at Benjamin still playing with his truck on the floor. “We’ve learned that the spirits who are stuck here have usually been under demonic influence in some way, which is part of the reason they can’t move on. Other times a demon is the only entity haunting a location, masquerading as a ghost to trick people.”
“In both cases,” Jessica said, “we pray.”
“A lot,” Wayne added. “I’m surprised God hasn’t gotten tired of hearing us.”
Bobby crossed his arms. “That’s it?”
“That’s what we do for the demons, yes. We won’t open up dialogue with them like we do with human spirits. We may be dumb, but we’re not idiots.”
A niggling little voice in the back of Bobby’s head wondered if Jessica and Wayne really were out of their minds. “So what would you recommend for us to do about Thane?”
“You said he’s paralyzed,” Jessica said.
“It doesn’t matter what condition he’s in,” Bobby said. “What matters is that he has this demonic ability, and that he’s killed people with it. I was hoping I’d find another Servant to help me drive away the spirit that’s helping him, but since you’re obviously not Servants, my only other option is to kill him.”
Carly spoke up. “And we can’t kill him alone, because he’d just fiddle around in our heads to throw us off.”
“We’re not going to Oregon with you to help assassinate a man,” Wayne said, his face flushing. “If that’s why you’re here, then I’ll kindly ask you to leave.”
Bobby stood and placed his hands on the table, trying to keep his voice steady. “Then what else do you propose for us to do?”
“Bobby, please sit down.”
He did, but grudgingly.
Wayne continued. “If you’ll remember from the talk I gave at your school, I killed someone once.”
Bobby nodded. “I do remember. You did it to save your life.”
Wayne’s expression turned to stone. “I shouldn’t have done it. It haunted me for almost twenty years. The guilt ate away at me until there was almost nothing left. I finally prayed for God to forgive me, and he has. I’m finally at peace.”
“What does this have to do with Thane?”
“If you find a way to kill that man, you’ll be just as guilty as he is. You’re a spiritual guy by your own admission. Would Christ condone killing? As far as I remember, he recommended turning the other cheek.”
Bobby felt ill. “But innocent lives are at stake. If we don’t stop Thane, more people will die.”
“Death is not the end. I’ve seen proof of that with my own myopic eyes.” He tapped on his glasses for emphasis.
“So you’d rather let evil have its way.”
“If you kill someone, evil would be having its way.”
“Look, I—I have killed someone before.” Bobby’s voice shook as his mind traveled back to the past summer, when he’d been taken to that awful mountain lodge against his will and had to resort to
doing the unspeakable in order to save himself and Adrian. “It was in self-defense. I hated having to do it. So I guess I already am as guilty as Thane for fighting back when a guy was attacking me and my mom. But do you know what would have happened if I hadn’t taken him down and he’d killed me instead? Evil would have had free rein, and millions more people would have died, too.”
Wayne blinked at him, speechless; and Jessica’s brow furrowed in thought. After half a minute of silence, she cleared her throat and said, “You don’t have to take our advice, you know. We’ve been wrong before.”
“Extremely wrong,” Wayne added.
Bobby gave a hollow laugh. “So if we can’t kill Thane, do we have to do what Sidney said and give Thane a big hug?”
Wayne gave a light shrug and sipped at his water. “It’s a thought.”
“THAT WAS one enormous waste of time,” Bobby said when he and Carly set out from the Thompsons’ house on foot, the winter air biting his face. “I should have known they wouldn’t be able to help us.”
“I think what they said is valid, though.” Carly gripped her arms tight against her chest in defiance of the cold.
“I’m not hugging Thane.”
“I’m not going to hug him, either. He killed Grandpa Frank.” Her voice became choked. “I can’t help but wish he drops dead.”
“I really hope we can stop him before he hurts anyone else back home.” He shivered.
“Bobby?”
“Hmm?”
They stopped at a crosswalk beneath the glow of a streetlamp, and Carly took the opportunity to look Bobby right in the eyes. “Just in case Thane chooses me, I…I want you to know I’m glad we met.”
A lump rose in Bobby’s throat, and he looked away from her so she wouldn’t see anything moist glistening in his eyes. “I’m glad we met, too,” he said, his voice cracking, partly from the emotions roiling within him and partly from the fact that the cold medicine he’d taken was wearing off, allowing his sore throat to return.
They walked the rest of the way to Charlotte’s house in grim silence, something niggling at his thoughts.
If the Spirit had indeed led him here, there had to be a reason for it. Wayne and Jessica Thompson did not seem to be the reason.
So why had they come?
RANDY WAS so shaken by Thane and Mia’s visit and subsequent attack on Sunday night that he could scarcely focus on his garbage route Monday morning. He’d missed two streets and had to double back twice, taking detours each time due to a road closure.
He could practically feel his normally-calm exterior crumbling like ancient ruins. How could he remain calm when new danger could strike at any moment? With Bobby gone AWOL, anything terrible could be about to happen, and he wouldn’t have a clue.
Now that Randy was home, he paced restlessly in his living room, peering out the window every so often just to make sure the pair wasn’t plodding up onto his porch again to put an end to him. Neither he nor Lupe had told anyone else about the encounter, and he didn’t want to until he’d gathered more information.
He’d already looked up the name “Mia” on the internet, hoping to find some connection to Thane or his family. He’d found nothing.
Lupe, wanting to maintain some semblance of an ordinary day, had gone in to work at The Manor House as usual. That was okay. Randy needed some time alone to think without having her skulk around feeling like a victim again.
He winced at himself. He was her husband now; he had no right to be thinking like that.
His cell phone rang in his pocket, making him jump. He slid it out and answered the call. “Hello, Frankie.”
“Randy. Would you happen to know the whereabouts of my daughter? We’ve been trying to reach her for more than a day, and she isn’t answering her phone.”
“I think she’s with Bobby.”
“I assumed as much, given the note she left us. So where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t?”
Why did everyone have to assume Randy held all the answers? “You’ll be surprised to know he doesn’t tell me everything he’s up to. All I know is it’s Servant business, and it’s not my place to stop him, nor should it be yours.”
Frankie muttered something, and Randy suppressed a smile. Not so long ago, Frankie and his wife Janet had gone off on a secret mission without telling anyone what they were up to. Like father, like daughter.
“Turn on the news. Now,” Frankie said without warning.
Frowning, Randy plucked up the remote and switched the small flat-screen on. “Which channel?”
“Six.”
Randy changed the channel, and he found himself looking at a police sketch of a skinny man with pale hair and a narrow face.
“The victim, who has asked that her name be withheld, said this man attacked her at the corner of Yew and Becker at roughly eleven-thirty last night. The man is six feet tall and was seen wearing a gray coat. According to the victim, her attacker was in an altered state of mind and didn’t seem to know where he was. If anyone knows the identity or whereabouts of this man, please call…”
“Is that Bradley?” Randy asked, feeling his heart descend into his bowels.
“Yes. It seems he hasn’t gone far after all.”
Randy’s hand clenched into a fist around his phone. “Where could he have been all day?”
“I don’t know. It’s possible he’s holed up in one spot.”
“Or he could have moved on. If you were like him, would you want to stay anywhere near us?”
“It isn’t us he needs to worry about. Perhaps he’s gone after Bobby.”
“I’m sure Bobby can take care of himself.”
“My daughter is with him.”
“Have you seen Carly lately? She could probably take out Bradley with one glare.” Randy’s thoughts wandered to Thane and the ultra-realistic attack he had launched upon him. “Frankie, this is going to sound very strange, but you haven’t seen Thane’s apparition since Saturday night, have you?”
“No, why?”
“Just wondering.”
“Have you seen him?”
“You might say that,” Randy said. “I’ll keep you posted if I find out anything more.”
“About Thane?”
“About anything.”
Randy switched off the television after ending the call. Frankie seems so much friendlier when he’s grieving, he thought, noting that the man hadn’t once insulted him or made any snide remarks during their conversation. That had to be a first.
Randy turned to go to the kitchen and froze when he saw what could only be Bradley Scholl standing between him and his destination.
Bradley’s hair was in tangles and his skin had a bluish sheen that told Randy he’d been outside too long. Randy didn’t bother asking how the man had found him. The demon inhabiting him would have been responsible for that, and he was sure that all demons at this point had his name and number.
“Let me help you,” Randy said, keeping his voice calm. This wasn’t something he hadn’t handled before.
Bradley’s chest hitched, and his gaze darted around the room from the bookshelves to the painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe. “You’re a holy man. I should have known.”
“So you say,” Randy said. “What are you doing here?”
“They told me to come.” The man’s lip curled. “You can’t stop us.”
“You’re right. I can’t. Not anymore. I assume you want to kill me?”
The next thing Randy knew, an invisible force had pinned him against the far wall with his feet dangling freely beneath him, and the overwhelming pressure on his neck made it nearly impossible to breathe. God, help me, he prayed. Don’t let him kill me.
Bradley strolled casually across the room and stared up at Randy. “Before this year is over, you’re going to die,” he hissed. “We’ll make sure of it.”
Then everything went black.
ON MONDAY afternoon, Allison Mason returned home fro
m Stilgoe and Kane, the financial planning firm where she’d worked since Phil’s hours were cut back in the summer. She only worked while Ashley was in school so she’d be able to spend as much time with her daughter as possible.
She couldn’t stand the thought of hiring someone else to raise their daughter for them. Ashley would be their only child unless she and Phil went through with adopting another—something they’d discussed on occasion, but they’d never seriously considered it.
It would be good for Ashley to have a sibling, but Allison’s endometriosis and subsequent hysterectomy had pretty much engraved Ashley’s only-child status in stone.
Allison came through the door at two-thirty. The bus wouldn’t be by to drop Ashley off for another forty-five minutes, so Allison kicked off her black high heels, wriggled her toes to get some circulation back into them, and sank onto the couch to read the latest Erin Healy novel she’d picked up from the library.
Her mind refused to focus on the story, however. Instead she kept thinking of Frank, who had been almost a grandfather to her for many years. She didn’t want to accept the fact that Frank was gone. It seemed perfectly logical that he would hobble through the front door that very minute with his raspy laugh and constant smile to explain that what had happened at Randy and Lupe’s house the other night had all been some misunderstanding.
Denial: the first stage of grief.
Allison pressed her palms against her eyes and shook her head. Part of her wanted to get this current wave of sorrow out of her system before Ashley came home, but another part wanted Ashley to learn that it was okay to be sad when someone you cared about died.
If only it didn’t hurt so much.
When the time rolled around for the school bus to arrive, Allison put on more comfortable (and warmer) clothes and stood at the end of the paved driveway to wait for her daughter.
The bus arrived at the end of the street and stopped to let the Pierson kids out. It inched forward two houses and released the Gregory twins. As the bus drew nearer to the Mason house, Allison had the wild thought that it would keep on going, that Ashley had disappeared like a puff of smoke somewhere between school and here.