Opposition

  “We’re headed to IHOP,” Rose said, putting the car into drive.

  “Seriously?” I asked incredulously.

  She shrugged. “They’re open.”

  Bronte turned in the passenger’s seat to face me, flashing me a grin. “I think it should be a thing. Beat the bad guy, eat pancakes. We should make it a thing—like those nights we all used to meet up for pancakes super late when we were in high school.”

  “First we have to save ourselves from getting crucified by Leroy Carver,” Rose mumbled, pulling up to a stop sign. Her head swung both ways, checking for traffic, before merging onto a busier street.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The IHOP waitress arched an eyebrow as she took in our eclectic dining party. I couldn’t blame her: Leroy Carver sat at the head, all smiles directed her way; the woman with the purple flames scowling at Sebastian across the table, who scowled right back; Bronte obviously distressed at the animosity between the two, but unsure how to help; Rose sitting up straight, trying to look professional; and me, dead on my feet, ready to take a nap.

  After taking our drink order, she scurried away. The restaurant had a few occupied tables, some that hadn’t been bussed yet, but mostly, it stood empty. Given our large group, we’d been placed on the opposite side of the restaurant from the other diners, as their small groups fit better at the smaller tables. That worked out well for us—I doubted they’d appreciate us talking about ghosts and demons.

  Carver cleared his throat, immediately earning the attention of everyone at the table. He clasped his hands together, resting them on the faux wood, and regarded Rose with a stern expression. “I can understand your wishing to run a successful business, Miss Fisher, but the fact remains that you attempted to handle a situation out of your league and skillset. If we hadn’t intervened, Molly Board would be dead, and a demon would be possessing your employee.”

  Rose’s gaze shifted to me for a moment but sliding back to Carver’s. “I understand there were risks involved, but at the beginning of the case, we had no way of knowing that a demon was involved.”

  “Then once that realization was made, you should have left.”

  Rose bristled at the thought. So did I—I hadn’t listened when Sebastian told me to abandon Molly, I wasn’t about to sit around and listen the same thing from someone else. “And left her alone?”

  His gaze shifted to me. “Yes. Especially you.”

  “That’s not how we operate at Apparition Investigations.”

  “It needs to be,” he said forcefully. “I spoke with Sebastian after the ordeal and he informed me that you told him your psychic ability was name invocation. Is that correct?”

  I frowned, caught off guard at how the conversation had shifted. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “It is the crux of everything, I’m afraid, Miss Reycraft. Name invocation—that is your ability?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  His eyes slid to Rose, then Bronte, before returning to me. “I spoke with your colleagues earlier tonight and they summarized the events as they transpired before our arrival. You ordered the demon to stay still and it complied, yes? Without you knowing its name?”

  “Her powers have been changing,” Rose explained, her back straight. “Lately, she’s been able to command people without their names.”

  “And have your abilities stopped there?” the woman asked. She tore her scowl away from Sebastian to unload it on me, studying me with all the disapproval of a prim and proper librarian. “Just with influencing people.”

  “She commanded fire once,” Bronte added, hoping to be helpful.

  Carver nodded, not surprised by the admission. “I think you’ve been erroneously under the impression your ability was name invocation. But I believe it to be something else entirely.”

  “Like what?” Rose asked.

  “Vocifery.”

  The impact of that world bulldozed into me like a steam engine. I shook my head, lips working uselessly, as a new kind of fear churned in my gut.

  Rose caught my panicked expression. She put her hands on the table, pushing up sharply, furious eyes swinging back to Carver. “What does that mean?”

  “Altering reality through speech,” Sebastian answered, pushing up from his seat.

  I couldn’t watch him. Couldn’t breathe. My chest heaved, moving faster than that one time I’d decided to run in a marathon and had hyperventilated because I was out of shape.

  “You need to calm down, Stella,” Sebastian said softly, kneeling beside me. He took one of my hands in his, squeezing it tightly, his thumb brushing over my wrist. “You have to breathe.”

  “She’s having a panic attack,” Bronte whispered in concerned horror.

  “I’m fine,” I said. Power flooded my voice, layering it.

  And, suddenly, I was fine. My heartrate slowed, my breathing stabilized, and the jittery sense of panic eased. The swirling torrent of thoughts in my mind steadied, and the instant they did, my eyes snapped to Carver’s.

  He regarded me with a patient, kind smile. “As you can see. You bend reality through your words. It makes sense that you would mistake name invocation as your ability. No doubt, during the infantile stages of your ability when they were just starting to manifest, your powers worked better against named individuals. There is an inherent power in names—you merely piggybacked off that until your powers matured to the point where you no longer needed that assistance.”

  I put my free hand on the table, spreading out my fingers as far as they would go, and pressing my palm against the cool table. In my periphery, I saw Rose retake her seat.

  Vocifery.

  Reality warping through words.

  I’d read enough comic books and fantasy novels to know such a power never brought about a happy ending. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, as the saying goes, and what’s more powerful than the ability to alter reality as I wanted?

  This was bad.

  “Stella?”

  I jerked, forgetting Sebastian still knelt beside me, so lost in my thoughts I hadn’t registered him still holding my hand. “S-sorry.”

  “Nothing you need to apologize for,” he said, rising to his feet. He resumed his seat, a pitying expression flashing briefly before cool detachment slid into its place and he turned to the woman. “She’s obviously terrified at the prospect, Belinda, so your point is now moot.”

  “What point?” Rose demanded.

  The waitress returned, taking food orders. No one wanted anything.

  God, the idea of eating now made my stomach roil.

  She slipped away just as Noah strolled up to the table. “Sorry I’m late,” he said, dropping into the empty chair beside Rose.

  The woman, Belinda, frowned at the intrusion, but Rose cut her off quickly. “This is Noah. He’s also a part of AI.”

  Carver nodded, allowing it. He leaned forward in his seat, hands still clasped in front of him. “We were just discussing Miss Reycraft’s rare ability, Mr. Walker.”

  Noah blinked, looking over at me. “Name invocation?”

  “Reality control,” Rose whispered, shaking her head. I could see her bracing herself, tensing, knowing Noah wouldn’t take too well to that news.

  It took a moment for the impact of it to truly register. Then his eyes widened, his head snapping around to stare at me with an incredulous, fearful expression. His face wore the same look I’d imagine he would have if learning his sister was a serial killer.

  He rounded back to Carver. “What does this mean?”

  “It means Apparition Investigations is at a crossroads,” Carver answered. “Vocifery is a rare, powerful talent. I’ve only seen it once before and the psychic who possessed that gift was unparalleled. It’s no surprise the demon recognized such an ability and immediately moved to possess you—your ability would have been at its disposal the moment the possession was complete. And then the havoc it would have wrought would have been unmatched.”

  I shuddered,
the gravity of the near-disastrous consequences of the night settling heavily on my shoulders. He was right—we had dodged a massive bullet. Barely.

  “As such, I want Apparition Investigations to merge with Obscurity Consultants.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  "No," Rose answered immediately.

  “We would happily accept all four of you. And though we haven’t worked with ghosts before, we’d be willing to try with Cyril and Oliver, if that’s what you wish.”

  Rose deflated a little, no doubt disappointed her carefully kept secret wasn’t as secure as she thought, but she straightened again. “I thank you for the offer, but AI isn’t going to be merging with anyone at this point in time. If that changes, you’ll be the first to know.”

  Belinda turned her scowl on Rose. “You have a reality-warping psychic on your team. She needs to be trained, monitored, and, quite frankly, protected. Luck was with you tonight, but what about next time? What if we can’t reach you in time? You have a ticking time bomb with her and—”

  “Belinda,” Sebastian growled, “she’s sitting right there.”

  “And she needs to be aware of the danger she is,” Belinda hissed. “I can cast fairy fire. You can move things with your mind. But her? She can say a word and completely alter reality.”

  Carver let out a long sigh. “Miss Fisher, I can understand your hesitation, but Miss Reycraft is—and I’m sorry but I must be blunt—dangerous. Your organization is dangerous. A handful of you realize your impacted perceptions resulted in abilities and thought to use them to handle ghostly cases? All because one of you enjoys ghost stories? You have been running around, attempting to form a business, when you barely understand the paranormal world you have thrown yourselves into.”

  Rose bristled. “But—”

  “No buts,” he continued, the sheer power in his voice quieting Rose. “You know ghost exist, but not the nuances that separate them into their hierarchal levels. You know psychics exist, but you do not understand how their abilities are formed. You know nothing of the veil separating this world from the palimpsests of worlds layered over it. You, in your ignorance, are dangerous and I cannot, in good conscious, permit—”

  “Teach us then,” I interrupted.

  He blinked, caught off guard. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Teach us. You say I need to be trained, monitored, and protected. Teach me how to use my powers. Teach Rose, Bronte, and Noah how to protect me. Teach us all about ghosts, monsters, demons, and the veils separating each. And in exchange, I’ll submit to whatever monitoring you want.”

  “Whatever monitoring Apparition Investigations and Obscurity Consultants agree upon,” Rose added quickly. She held up a finger. “Think of it as a mentorship program. Obscurity Consultants teaching AI how to control psychic abilities and battle ghosts.”

  Belinda scoffed. “This is utterly ridiculous. I knew permitting Sebastian to send exorcism materials and instruction to the girl was a bad idea—that’s how amateurs get in over their heads and people die. We aren’t training you, just so you can be in even more danger. Tell them, Leroy,” she said, whirling to Carver so that she could watch him shoot us down.

  But he regarded us thoughtfully. Leaning back in his seat, he removed his hands from the table. “It would be the same rigorous training regime we put our own psychics through.”

  “That’s fine,” Rose nodded.

  “Mandatory for all AI employees. The living ones, at any rate.”

  “Agreed.”

  “You can’t be seriously considering this,” Belinda hissed. She waved at me. “The girl is far too dangerous to be let loose on her own.”

  “And the alternative is to keep her at headquarters?” Carver asked.

  She nodded sharply. “Yes, exactly.”

  “Where we house our operations, where our psychics live. You know as well as I do that we’re constantly bombarded by Type 2s looking to kill whoever they can get their hands on due to the high volume of perceptive individuals there. Her presence will only aggravate that, bring in Type 3s as well. Keeping her offsite, training her in an area with limited perception exposure, could be more beneficial.”

  “And the ghosts?” Belinda demanded. “The ghosts she lives with?”

  “They’ll be living with me, starting tonight,” Rose said. “That will considerably lower the perceptions at her home.”

  Belinda rolled her eyes.

  “I think it’s a solid plan,” Sebastian nodded thoughtfully.

  “And if some of us wanted to work for Obscurity Consultants?” Noah asked.

  I whipped around to face him with the same vigor as Rose and Bronte. The three of us stared at him, with varying levels of disbelief and rage.

  Though, honestly, most of the rage came from Rose.

  “Excuse me?” she demanded.

  “Or are you only interested in recruiting Stella?” he pressed, ignoring the three of us, his attention fixed solely on Carver.

  Carver rubbed at the back of his neck, clearly uncomfortable wading into the middle of this minefield. “Obscurity Consultants is always open to recruiting new psychics. Sebastian gave a brief summary of your work at the Horton Grand Hotel. I think we could negotiate something, if you wanted to leave Apparition Investigations.”

  Fire flamed in Rose’s gaze. I could see she was itching to shout at him but managed the impulse. “Noah, can we discuss this later?” she asked through clenched teeth.

  Noah grabbed a napkin, pulled a pen from his pocket, and jotted down his contact information. Wordlessly, he slid it over to Carver.

  Rose pushed up from her seat. “Are we done here, Mr. Carver?”

  “For tonight,” he nodded. “We’ll get in touch tomorrow to plan out the details of this mentorship you’ve proposed.” His gaze shifted to me. “And we’ll need to address the concerns Abigail raised. But it’s nothing that won’t keep until after a good night’s rest.”

  Abigail. The girl who’d purified me. I shivered, the implications he was laying down sending another, new stream of terror through me.

  Reality bending powers. Demon energy.

  I just couldn’t catch a break.

  “Thank you,” Rose said, pulling out her wallet.

  “Please, it’s on me tonight,” Carver waved her away.

  With a curt nod, Rose pocketed her wallet. “Thank you. Have a good night, everyone. Bronte? Stella?”

  We left, Rose’s fury building as we walked across the parking lot.

  Footsteps sounded behind me. I turned to see Sebastian hurrying across the parking lot, headed straight for me. When I turned to ask for a private minute, I saw Bronte and Rose were already giving it to me as they slid into the car.

  “How are you doing?” he asked, stopping beside me.

  I shrugged, not sure I could find the words.

  He chuckled humorlessly, nodding as if he hadn’t expected anything different. “Leroy will get this taken care of. I wouldn’t worry.”

  “Thank you,” I said, giving him an appreciative look. “Really, I mean that. Thank you for coming when I called. For bringing help. We’d be dead if you hadn’t.”

  “You would have,” he admitted, running a hand through his hair. “I’m just glad I made it in time. This is what I get for letting you walk away in San Diego.”

  “You didn’t know a demon would find me a few weeks later.”

  “No, but I knew your perceptions were growing stronger and it would only be a matter of time before a demon noticed. I just thought I’d have more time to recruit you to Obscurity before that happened.”

  I blinked. “You wanted to recruit me?”

  “Yeah. You reminded me a lot of myself at the Horton, actually. I’d done the same thing you and your friends did—hunting ghosts, using my powers to right wrongs—but I did it by myself. Leroy found me, luckily, before I ran into something I couldn’t handle. He recruited me. And I’ve realized, working with them, I’ve done more good than I ever could have on my own. S
o, yeah, my plan was to recruit you. Why did you think I gave you my card?”

  I shrugged, earning a smirk from him. “No reason.”

  He ruffled my hair. I reached up and smacked his hand away, glaring. “We’re going to stay in town for a while probably, to set up this mentorship, so call or text if you need anything. And I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Good night. And really, Sebastian, thank you.”

  He grinned, sliding a knuckle under my chin and bucking it up gently. “No worries. Good night.”