by Eliza Lainn
A young Hispanic man ran to help the downed man, hands going to apply pressure onto the bleeding, gaping wound at his neck.
The demon, still skittering around on all fours, let loose an inhuman laugh as blood dripped from its mouth and onto the grass below.
“We can’t hold it!” a woman shouted. She held balls of purple fire in her hands, poised to throw them if the demon moved. “We can’t—”
Relief broke out over her face as she caught sight of something on the other side of the circle.
My eyes moved, watching as a black car whipped down the far end of the street and sped closer. Even before it had stopped, the passenger door flung open.
A man stepped out, rising to an imposing figure as he took a moment to absorb the scene. He wore suit pants, his sleeves rolled up, the top button of his jacket undone, one corner of his stark collar flipped up from when he’d hastily ripped off a tie. There was gray at his temples, speaking to his aged experience.
Marching across the street, he moved briskly, without frantic hurrying. The kind of march a conductor might make when entering the stage, knowing the orchestra, the audience, everyone waited on him
I shifted, trying to get a better look when his march took him behind the girl kneeling next to me. She let out a sharp hiss, more angry cat than teenage girl, and I stilled instantly.
The man came back into view, on the other side of her, and he moved to stand next to the woman with purple fire in her hands.
The demon slammed against an invisible barrier erected by two of the people in the circle, their hands held up as if in a Baptist church on Sunday morning.
The man squared against the demon, and the creature was completely unaware, still slamming against the barrier. It’s elongated fingers, sharped to knife-points, scrambled for purchase, either above or around the barrier, but it couldn’t find it. Hissing, it smacked its head against the invisible wall. Blood from its mouth smeared against nothing, sticking to it like glass.
The man said something else to the woman with purple fire. Then, with the same confidence as he exuded when entering the battlefield, he marched into the ring.
The demon whirled, sizing him up. Then it lunged.
In space of the demon arching through the air, the man clapped his hands together in front of him. White light cackled in the space between his palms when he pulled them apart, roughly in the shape of a spear. He spun it in his wrist, the sharp end pointed out, and braced himself as he held it out.
The demon tried to correct in midair. Its torso twisted in an unnatural manner, elongating as if made of putty, but it was too close, the spear head right there as it crested the arc and began to land.
Right onto the spear.
Howling pierced through the night. Inhuman, agonized. Something straight from a nightmare. A sound so horrific, so nightmarish, it was reserved for minds that had descended into insanity. Just hearing it and I felt my own mind weaken.
Impaled, it thrashed. Limbs and hair writhing. It couldn’t touch the spear—each time it tried, its hands snapped back as if it had been burned. But there was no sizzle of burning flesh, no scent of it wafting on the breeze.
The man held steady, firm, bracing the spear with both hands, holding it up as the pierced demon began to slow. Stop. Then droop.
He waited another beat, then two, before letting the spear drop. The minute it was out of his hands, the white light vanished with the sharp tang of ozone lingering. The demon’s corpse thudded against the ground.
Then it began to fade into dust, into ash. The wind caught it, yanking pieces away, working until nothing was left except a vague outline of where it had dropped.
Sebastian let out a sigh.
The man straightened, wiping his brow with a handkerchief he pulled from his pants pocket. The woman with the purple flame closed her fists, extinguishing them, then rushed forward to his side.
He turned then, his eyes meeting mine. And for a moment, I couldn’t breathe as his emerald gaze pierced straight through me.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Stella!”
Something slammed into my back, arms wrapping around to hug me from behind.
The girl beside me shook her head in disgust, rising up and throwing her hands in the air. “I give up. Forget it.”
Sebastian still knelt on the other side of me. A cold edge crept into his voice. “Are you finished?”
She shrugged, hands going into the pockets of her hoodie. “As finished as I will be. I purified as much of it as I could.”
“Not all of it?”
“I got 99% of it.”
Sebastian’s eyes flickered to mine, concern momentarily flashing, before his gaze snapped up to the girl. “What does that mean?”
She shrugged, didn’t elaborate, and moved to join the man as his followers circled around him.
Another person slammed into me, this time from a more backward, diagonal angle. Hands wrapped around me and the first person, squeezing me tight.
“Sorry,” a male voice I didn’t recognize wheezed behind me. “She slid past me while I was distracted.”
“I’m not surprised.” Sebastian shook his head as he rose, though it held resigned amusement rather than annoyance. He looked down over us, me and the two people at my back. With another shake of his head and the faintest trace of a smile, he followed after the girl to join the group on the street.
I knew who they were, knew it just by the feel of their arms around me. We’d been dishing out hugs to each other for more than half of our lives—you learned to recognize how someone hugged after such a long time.
Relaxing back into Rose and Bronte, I let out a sigh. It burned through my throat. And their hugs agitated the bruising at my sides. But I didn’t care.
They were here. And if they were well enough to glomp on me like we’d been parted for half a year, then that meant they were healthy. Alive. Untouched by the demon.
One of them pulled away. Then the other. Both of them moved, shifting in front of me, their hands still touching some part of me the entire time.
Bronte looked like she had been crying, her eyes red and puffy. Rose was on the verge of tears, her lip trembling as it usually did before she caved in, but I was impressed to see she hadn’t given in yet.
“I’m fine,” I assured them both, forcing a smile even though everything hurt. “I’ll recover—don’t worry.”
Bronte threw her arms around me, a fresh wave of sobs ripped from her. Blubbering words flowed out of her in a nonstop torrent, but with her head pressed into my shoulder and her gasping cries, I couldn’t make out distinct words.
Rose gave me a resigned shrug when I met her eye. “You had us worried,” she said, tired happiness pulling her lips into an exhausted grin.
“What happened?”
She took in a deep breath, no doubt battling the tears still threatening to spill. Her eyes rolled heavenward, staying fixed up there as she explained. “You, um, you got yanked outside. The minute you passed over the threshold, you started to, um, you started convulsing.”
“Convulsing?” The word was ripped out of me in a surprised panic.
“Seizing,” Rose continued, still looking up, away from me. “Yeah. Like full blown The Exorcist seizing. None of us knew what to do. Then these guys showed up.”
Her eyes shifted to the circle of people on the street. She waved over at them. “Sebastian was the first to reach you and he screamed for that girl to help you. She, I don’t know, to me, it looked like she was just touching your arm. I don’t know what she did.”
“She pulled it out.”
I looked down at Bronte. She had stopped crying at some point, as Rose explained. Deep, shuddering breaths punctuated her words, but at least I could somewhat understand her now. “The demon. I could see light spilling from her and into you. The demon didn’t like it—it jumped out.”
I stilled, the realization stealing my breath away. “You saw it?”
She shook her head, t
he relief of that single motion zinging through me like a bolt of lightning. “No, I didn’t see it. But I saw Sebastian see it. Saw it fling him back nearly ten yards. The others worked to get it contained, but the minute he was back on his feet, he ran to you.”
My eyes moved to my arm, where I’d felt fire burning through me. Must have been the girl’s purifying energy or something like that—her psychic power, no doubt. “I was possessed then.”
“Yes, and you’re lucky to be alive.”
The three of us turned to the intruding male voice. The man who’d killed the demon stood behind us, looking down at us with a fatherly smile. Now that he was up close, I could see more details about him, such as the wrinkles at the corner of his eyes, just beginning to become deep-set, and the five o’clock shadow at his jaw.
He dropped down onto his haunches, resting his arms casually on his thighs. “How are you feeling?”
“Tired.”
He chuckled as he nodded. “Not surprising. Abigail told me she had her work cut out for her—the demon was fairly entrenched when she arrived. A few minutes more and you wouldn’t be here with us today.”
The girl in the hoodie, the one who’d purified the demon, stepped up behind the man. My eyes swung to her, softening as I realized that sweat coated her brow and her eyelids drooped as if they were heavy. “Thank you so much.”
She shrugged but I caught the twitch of her lips as she did.
“I think we need to have a discussion, before we can call it a night,” the man continued, my focus shifting back to him. “Sebastian tells me you’re a group called Apparition Investigations?”
Rose straightened, spinning so she faced him. “Yes, that’s right.”
The man assessed her, his keen gaze sweeping over her without revealing any of his thoughts. “Rose Fisher, if I’m not mistaken.”
“That’s right.”
“Very well, Miss Fisher, do you have offices we can adjourn to?”
I caught Rose’s face flushing red, too embarrassed to admit we were too small to afford offices.
I opened my mouth to answer when Bronte beat me to it. “Would a coffee shop suffice? I don’t know about you, but I could use some caffeine after tonight.”
The man’s eyes swung to her, regarding her with that same hawkish expression. After a beat, he gave a single nod then turned his attention back to Rose. “We’ll follow your lead, Miss Fisher. Take us wherever you want to go.” He moved to rise.
Rose’s hand shot out. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
The man stilled, humor sparking in his eyes as he stopped his ascent and shook Rose’s hand. “Leroy Carver, ma’am. I’m the director of Obscurity Consultants.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Leroy Carver rose and rejoined his circle of ghost hunters. Rose stood up too, holding out a hand to help me as Bronte scrambled up to her feet.
I slid my hand into hers and gratefully accepted the assistance. “Where are Cyril and the others?” I asked, swaying a bit. My legs felt unsteady, shaky.
Rose and Bronte looked ready to jump in if I teetered too far. “Noah has the watch. He took it back home with him.”
I stilled, the fear and panic freezing. A thousand and one horrific scenarios flittered through my mind, each one involving Cyril and Oliver screaming in pain as Noah forcibly banished them to their next life.
“It’s fine,” Bronte said quickly, stepping close. She took my arm and slung it over her shoulder, her arm wrapping around my waist to keep me steady. “He promised he wouldn’t do anything.”
Glaring at Rose, I hissed, “And you believed him?”
“We didn’t have much of a choice,” she snapped back, fire flaring in her eyes. She stood taller, moving her hands to her hips. “Obscurity Consultants showed up. Sebastian was busy with you—he was too preoccupied to tell all his little friends that we had friendly ghosts. So, when they arrived and ushered us all back into the house, Noah slid out the back with the pocket watch to make sure Cyril and Oliver weren’t taken out after the she-devil back there.”
My irritation didn’t settle, even though I knew they had probably done the wisest thing, given the circumstances. Still, the thought of Cyril and Oliver alone with Noah chaffed at my short-lived relief. “And Molly?”
“Still inside,” Bronte answered. She took a step forward, heading to Rose’s car, still parked across the street. “Obscurity Consultants sent in two babysitters to watch us. Molly distracted them while Rose and I slipped out to see you after the demon had been taken care of.”
I glanced over my shoulder to the house. The lights shone through the living room window, illuminating silhouette shadows. One of them was smaller, slighter—obviously Molly. “We shouldn’t just leave her.”
“I’m going to get you settled in the car and then I’ll go back and get her,” Rose said, pulling her keys from her pocket. She clicked the remote, causing the car’s doors to unlock.
They stowed me in the backseat, carefully sliding me in before Bronte reached over me to fasten my seatbelt. I rolled my eyes. “I’m not an invalid.”
Bronte patted the top of my head, pulling back with an impish smile. “There, there, we’re crack a window for you.”
Snorting out a laugh, I watched as she stepped back, shut the door, and the two of them headed back into Molly’s house.
I studied Obscurity Consultants as they began dispersing. Leroy and the woman with the purple flames seemed to be leaders, directing the others. I hadn’t noticed before, but a slew of black cars lined the street. Four-person groups drifted to the cars, driving away, while one pair stayed behind, leaning against their car and chatting.
After most of their psychics had left, Obscurity Consultants was down to Leroy, the woman with the purple fire, Sebastian, and the two leaning against their car. Leroy and Sebastian exchanged a few words, Sebastian in obvious disagreement from the way he continued to shake his head. The woman tried to intercede, but Sebastian rounded on her, his voice carrying to me through the shut car, even if I couldn’t make out his words.
The front door to Molly’s house opened. Molly bounded out, her eyes fixed on the car. She ran across the lawn, the street, then threw open the door and launched herself into my lap. “Thank you,” she breathed, hugging me as if her life depended on it. “It’s gone. It’s really gone.”
I patted her head. “It’s gone, Molly, and it won’t be coming back. But you really should thank Obscurity Consultants—they did most of the heavy lifting.”
She pulled away, giving her enough space to look at me. “But you believed me. And you stayed. Your being here was the main reason they came.”
I blinked. “Who told you that?”
“Rose did,” Molly frowned. “She said, um, I can’t remember his name, but that you have a thing with one of their psychics.”
I rolled my eyes, the refusal locked and loaded on my tongue, but I snapped my lips shut at the last second. Better to let sleeping dogs lie—trying to clarify it now wouldn’t change anything and Molly looked too tired to have a debate as to what exactly merited something to be called ‘a thing.’
“Get some sleep,” I said instead. “You look tired.”
She gave me a lopsided grin. “But weirdly enough, I feel better than I have in a long time. Thank you.”
“Do you need anything before we go?”
She shook her head, then pointed over her shoulder. “Those other guys are going to leave some of their people, just to make sure nothing else happens. And then they want to talk to me about possibly giving me a job.” She brightened on that last word, her lopsided grin shifting into a dazzling smile.
I gawked. “A job?”
She nodded. “Evidently, I’ve got a gift. They’re going to talk about it with me in the morning, if I want.”
I held out my hand. “Phone.”
Bemused, she slid her hand into her large hoodie and pulled out her phone, laying it delicately in my palm. I unlocked it and then added
my contact information. “Before you agree to anything they’re selling, I want you to talk with me first, ok? You do have a special gift, but it’s a dangerous one, and I want you to understand the implications of getting involved with them before agreeing, ok?”
Nodding solemnly, she took the phone when I offered it back to her. Then, with one last darting hug, she pulled back and hurried back inside.
Rose and Bronte were talking with Carver and the rest of Obscurity Consultants. When they saw Molly bounding back into her house, they wrapped up their conversation and joined me in the car.