At the mention of his mother’s name, a fire lit in Max. His seething eyes searched the ground nearby, finding what he needed—a baseball-sized rock. He lifted it from beside a shrub.
“The Angel chose her,” droned the woman, her graying hair blowing in a breeze too cold for the summer season. Max shivered. “We needed a vessel to bring Him to our state of consciousness, so He could guide us to the great beyond and show us the true path. Lilith was ready. It is her purpose. It is an honor.”
“Shut the hell up,” Max roared.
The Durands spun his way, shock spreading in wrinkles across their faces. Max extended his arm, dried blood coating his skin up to the elbow, a rock clutched in his still-bleeding hand. He must have looked unhinged, eyes wild, blood splattering his extremities. He pulled his arm back like a pitcher, displaying that he knew how to throw it. Anatole stepped away from Vera.
“We’re honored you joined us.” Anatole smirked.
“Well, I’d be honored to throw this rock at your head,” Max bit out through clenched teeth. He cut down the lawn toward Vera, never taking his eyes off the demonic duo.
“We’re so grateful for the gifts both your families have bestowed upon us.” Anatole’s gaze flicked toward Vera. “Your parents brought our great healer here, and for that you have my thanks.”
“Your healer killed my father!” Max shouted, fingers tensing around the rock so aggressively a fresh stream of blood flowed down.
Anatole’s eyes stretched, his pupils black and swollen. “The Angel of Tears saved my life. I am an answered prayer. I am living proof.” He spat at the ground. “Soon, the world will know my father’s sacrifice, and they’ll tell stories of him. They’ll sing songs.”
“Not if they’re dead,” Vera rebutted.
“We all have a purpose.” Mary’s voice was melodic, her eyes raised to the cloudy skies. Hadn’t it been sunny a moment ago? A seagull screeched above them, shooting off the roof toward a flock of four others. There was no perfect V, no graceful synchronization; the birds careened off one another, swarming and flapping in chaos above the house, cries overlapping, staccato trills echoing off the asphalt. “We all have our own winding paths. We were chosen to spread His word. And you. Oh, Vera, your moment is coming!”
“I…I have nothing to do with this,” Vera stammered. And for the first time, Max heard fear in her voice. He stepped close enough that his shoulder butted hers. He might not be able to protect his demonically ravaged mother, but he could protect this human girl from human monsters.
“You don’t understand, but you will. All these years, all our offerings. The spirit finally walks among us.” The woman’s ugly floral sleeves flapped like wings, her eyes empty as grommets as they turned to Max. “Your mother chose this. Don’t you see? She was in so much pain, but now that’s over. She is the supreme offering. And you, Vera!” Her thin lips pulled into a sinister grin. “Our great healer is coming for you next!” She pointed a wrinkled finger, her nail sharpened to a point as her face burst with hysterical excitement.
Vera slinked behind Max.
“It is time to join us!” Anatole called, spit splashing from his lips.
“Oh, Vera, I wish I could be there when it happens,” the woman cried. “You’re going to be so beautiful! It wants you! It wants you!”
“Let’s go.” Max grabbed Vera’s quivering arm and tugged her to the truck. She stumbled behind, wordlessly.
“Yes, go! Go!” the woman cried. “The hour is near!”
Max guided her robotic figure into the passenger seat with a bloody hand, grateful she always wore black, and spied a random hard hat tumbling onto the floor. Where is that from?
Vera sat, unblinking, mouth hanging open as the Durands cackled on the street behind them. Max threw the stick into Drive, stomped on the gas, then blew through a stop sign.
“I smashed the chalices,” he blurted, waiting for a response. She didn’t twitch. “Not all of them, but most of them. Vera, can you hear me? What should we do? Go to your house? My house? The rally? Vera!”
She remained a statue, her skin ash-white.
She said nothing.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Vera
Vera could see her hands shaking. She sat in Maxwell’s truck as he drove, probably too fast, and watched as her fingers batted in time with hummingbird wings. Wow, look at them go!
“Vera, are you okay?” he asked.
Blood roared in her ears. He sounded underwater. Veeeera, aaaarrrre yooooou ooookaaay?
Silly. They weren’t in water. They were on dry land. How did her ears do that? Or was it his mouth?
Her seat belt locked, digging into her collarbone as the truck jerked to a halt beneath a hulking tree on Elm Street. Huh, Elm Street. Perfect for nightmares.
Maxwell reached across her lap, tugging the latch on the glove compartment. He pulled out a dented white metal box with a scratched red cross on the top. He clicked it open and found a roll of sheer white gauze. He clutched an end with his thumb and palm, grimacing with teeth bared. Bloody prints blotted the gray leather steering wheel. There were drips on his lap.
“Are…are you okay?” she asked, her voice shaky.
“Thank God. Yes. Are you?” He sounded relieved to hear her speak. “I’m just scratched up, but I thought I was gonna have to take you to the hospital.”
“Why?” Her face crinkled, still trying to process what happened.
“You looked like you were in shock. Seems to be going around.” He turned his eyes back to his wounds, wincing as blood leaked from one hand while he pathetically swung the wrap around the other.
Without thinking, Vera unbuckled her seat belt and stretched toward him, kicking the hard hat. Why had she taken it?
She knew why.
Didn’t she?
She couldn’t think of that now. Maxwell was bleeding. This she could do. She grabbed the kit. “Let me do it.”
He did.
She found a wet wipe and cleaned his skin. Then she tore open a small paper package and placed a square of sterile cotton on his palm. The cuts were plentiful, but shallow. Slowly, she wound the grainy fabric around his palm, his minty breath brushing her ear as she worked in the cramped space. With the engine off, and the air conditioner silenced, the July humidity filled the truck’s cabin and soaked her shirt with sweat.
She secured the end of his bandage with medical tape, then reached for his other hand. He shifted his body toward her to offer his left palm, and now they were face-to-face. His nose skimmed her hair as she worked, head down. She felt him breathing, a tickle against her skin. He didn’t groan in pain or move an inch. In fact, his body was rigid, but his touch warm.
She taped his left hand, then peered up through her lashes. He was so near that the tips of their noses almost bumped. He didn’t pull back.
“Are you okay?” she whispered.
A tingle spread through her body, that same sensation she’d felt in the house, the urge to hug him, kiss him. What was wrong with her? A murderous, cult-starting family was threatening to poison the entire town, yet somehow all she could feel was Maxwell’s hot breath brushing her cheek. All she could see were his lips.
“I was going to ask you the same thing.” His voice was low, different. She liked the way he sounded.
She glanced at their feet, unable to meet the heavy look in his eyes, and spied blood dripping from his ankle. “You’re still bleeding.”
She reached for the first-aid kit again, but he snatched her hand.
“I’m fine.”
She glanced up, spying something else in his expression, something she’d never seen before. It was something she really, really liked.
He drew her closer, their eyes locked.
“What are we doing?” she mumbled, fighting the urge to pull away.
“Nothing wrong.”
“Max…”
He kissed her, full lips hard on hers like he was done waiting, and the gasp that escaped her was almost embarrassing. She’d never been kissed before. She’d never been close enough to a guy to get anywhere near a kiss. Now Maxwell Oliver’s lips were moving on hers in a way that stirred a feeling deep in her belly.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. He groaned, and she loved the way that sounded. He smelled of humid summer boy sweat and, for some reason, that made her want to kiss him harder. Her lips parted, everything tangled, and, with his gauzed hands, he effortlessly lifted her body and shifted her onto his lap. The kiss was the anticipation of Christmas morning doused with a day in the blazing sun. But when his bandaged hands fluttered beneath the hemline of her T-shirt, she jerked away, her back hitting the steering wheel.
“Whoa.” She blinked, mouth still open, still feeling his lips.
“Yeah, whoa.” The look in his eyes said he didn’t want to stop.
And maybe she didn’t want to either. But they had to. This wasn’t real. This was a stress reaction. This was adrenaline. This was a heightened emotional response to an extreme event. Wasn’t that what she’d learned while working at the hospital?
“You’re upset. We’re both upset.” She shook her head.
Max looked confused. “What? This is the first time I haven’t been upset in weeks.”
“No, I mean, you’re upset about your mom and what’s happening to her. Everything’s mixing together.”
“I am not mixed-up.” He moved for her lips once more, yearning in his eyes, but she pulled away.
He sank back with a sigh.
“I’m trying to be considerate,” she said.
“Of me? I don’t need you to protect my innocence.”
“I’m not. It’s just…” She had to get off his lap. She couldn’t think while sitting on him, while being so close. She moved back to the passenger seat, and he frowned. “Max, a few weeks ago, we’d never even spoken.”
She stared at her lap.
“Is that what this is about? I know I was a jerk. But now—”
“Now you’re in a life-and-death situation. Your family’s on the line, and you don’t know what you’re feeling. This is an acute stress reaction….”
“Stop talking like a doctor!” He smacked the seat, then winced from his injuries. She reached for him, instinctively, but he pulled away. “This isn’t some medical thing; at least it isn’t for me. I like you, Vera. I want to be with you.”
It was as if his words spilled inside her and watered the bits of her soul dried and withered from seventeen years of loneliness. He didn’t know how much she wanted to feel these feelings, but…
“You’re overthinking this.” He leaned toward her. “This isn’t sudden. It’s been growing, ever since we started hanging out. Don’t you feel it?”
Right now, she felt like every nerve in her body was stripped raw, sizzling and exposed and reacting to too much stimuli; that’s what she felt. But of course, she knew what he was saying. She was drawn to him too. But she was drawn to a lot of things lately—that was the problem. What was happening to her body—the visions, the impulses, the attraction—she wasn’t sure she could trust it.
“Max, everything that’s going on right now—”
“Is scary as shit,” he finished for her. “But still…I feel this.” His taped hand gestured between the two of them. “Do you?”
She chewed her cheek. “Of course I do.”
Without warning, he plunged across the space between them and pressed his lips to hers. Her chest, her skin, her cheeks, felt flushed. It was the opposite sensation from inside that house. All the chill melted from her body.
“There’s so much going on,” she whispered against his lips.
“I know.”
“I don’t know what’s happening to me….”
“It’s okay.” He kept kissing, gently biting her lower lip, tugging. She closed her eyes. “Let’s just be in this moment, right here.”
He started to move on top of her, and she pulled him closer. She wanted to feel something else, something good. She wanted to let it all go.
Then her phone vibrated in her back pocket. Max froze, hearing it too.
It could be her parents, or Chelsea at the rally, or an issue with Chloe.
“My phone,” she whispered.
Max sat back. His cheeks rosy, and his lips pink and moist. But his eyes—all the excitement, all the passion that had filled them a moment ago—were replaced by pools of dread.
Something was wrong. Vera felt it like a stab in the gut. So did he.
They both looked at her screen.
There was a text from Aunt Tilda:
Maxwell’s mom is HERE. Come home. NOW.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Vera
Vera stared out the passenger window, hoping to hide the fear in her eyes. Aunt Tilda never texted, and she never sounded rattled. But CAPS lock?
“We should have gone the moment the Durands said the church people left.” Max’s eyes jerked about. “We knew my mom was in danger. The whole town is in danger. I can’t believe I pulled over. This is all my fault.”
No, Max, this is our fault. We let our guard down. Maybe that was what the demon wanted. Was everything puppet theater? Was anything real?
“If we kept driving, we would have gone to your house, and we would’ve missed your mom,” Vera reasoned. “She would have already been on her way to mine.”
“How did she even get there? What, did she carpool with the cult?”
Probably. Vera shrugged. “At least she’s not at the rally.”
“Text your friend. Make sure everything’s okay.”
“I already did. Chelsea hasn’t gotten back.” Vera stared at her phone.
Max slapped the wheel, then pounded on it with bandaged hands. “I should’ve sent Chloe to my grandparents. I should’ve driven her to New Hampshire! She is at your house, with Mom, right now because of me!” He was blaming himself, like whatever his mom did was his responsibility, because he didn’t see it, and he didn’t stop her.
“This isn’t your fault,” Vera insisted, but she knew he wouldn’t hear her. Guilt and logic rarely met.
They pulled onto her block, a sudden fog tugging a thick gray blanket over his truck. It was sunny a moment ago.
“I can’t see anything.” Max slowed, flicking his headlights on as they rolled closer to Vera’s house.
Hairs lifted on her arms and she felt the urge to hold her breath like a kid passing a graveyard, not wanting to let the spirits in. Slowly, the truck’s beams closed on a figure hovering in the dewy grass dressed in white—a long flowing Victorianesque nightgown merely missing the chains it forged in life. And it was clutching something—no, someone.
“Chloe!” Max slammed on the brakes and Vera was flung forward, seat belt biting her collarbone.
His mother stood on the lawn with her black spiraling curls blowing in hurricane-force winds that hadn’t existed a moment ago. She was gripping Max’s sister, her own daughter, with bony hands clamped around the little girl’s throat. Chloe’s sobs melted Vera’s heart.
“I’m coming!” Max shouted, his panic thicker than the air outside.
Where were her neighbors? And where was her aunt?
Vera jumped out of the truck, but Max was already tearing across the lawn.
Max
“Let her go!” Every ounce of training he’d had as a sprinter prepared him for this moment, because he dashed that hundred yards to his sister at Olympic pace.
“Back off!” it shouted in a hellish tone, knuckles whitening.
“That’s your daughter! Mom!” Max shouted. She had to be in there. Somewhere, his mother had to be in there. If it wa
s true, if she really was grieving so profoundly, then how could she bring more death to his family? She had to have some control. She had to.
“She is nothing.” It tightened its grasp around Chloe’s neck.
“Mom, please!”
Vera darted in front of him, putting her body between him and his mother, or what used to be his mother. He nudged forward but she held out her arm, straight and low, a mom stopping her kid from darting into traffic. He didn’t need her protection. This was his family.
“You don’t want her. You want me,” Vera said.
“No!” came a voice charging from the front porch. “Vera, don’t!”
“Do not get any closer to it,” yelled a man.
Max flung his head and saw Aunt Tilda and Father Chuck bounding down the porch steps, each clutching a black leather-bound Bible.
“In nómine Patris et Fílii et Spíritus Sancti.” The priest made the sign of the cross in time with her aunt.
Then they chanted in some language (Latin?) while reading from a book, reciting lines Max had never heard before. His mother laughed. No, it laughed, that same throaty, cursed sound.
“You are all fools!” It lifted Chloe by her slender throat, her bare feet kicking frantically at the dewy grass. She was wearing her long cotton twirl dress. She had begged their mother to buy it for her last birthday. It was her favorite, with blocks of fabric in varying shades of blue, and she only wore it when she was happy. That meant she had been happy today—until her mother began to choke her.
Max leaned toward his sister, heart hammering in his ears.
“No!” Aunt Tilda shrieked, halting her prayers. “Don’t touch them!”
“It’s killing her!” Max yelled, and Vera grabbed his arm, staring at her aunt with the same look of terror.
They couldn’t just stand there.
Aunt Tilda and the priest chanted again, their tones monotonous. The priest tossed water. Max looked at his mother’s reaction. Nothing. Chloe kept kicking, eyes bulging, curls wildly whirling in a wind that spiraled around the house. No, it spiraled at Vera’s house. A sudden cyclone formed, Vera’s home at the center, the fog whipping colorful petals, cut grass, and stray leaves around the wooden structure but never touching it.
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