by Callie Rose
I didn’t turn my back on her to grab clothes though. Nope, I stayed rooted to the spot. For all I knew, she could be in cahoots with the monster that’d abducted me, and this was all part of some elaborate plan. What that plan might be, I had no idea, but I wanted nothing to do with it.
“I… I went back to where we were attacked. You dropped your wallet.”
“What?”
She held it out, and I snatched it out of her hand, eyeing her like she was some sort of thief. I checked it. Everything was still there, including the few measly pennies tucked away in the coin pouch.
“Your address was listed on your driver’s license…” she added, trailing off and chewing on her lip.
There was a certain sweetness to her voice that matched the honey color of her eyes. It made me want to trust her—and honestly, given our current situation, I didn’t see much alternative.
“You might as well come inside.” I stepped back farther to allow her to enter and jerked my head toward the couch. “I don’t even want to know what my neighbors would do if they saw a green-skinned monster roaming the halls.”
She flinched at my words but accepted my invitation, crossing over to the beat-up couch and sinking down on the lumpy cushions.
“Sorry, that was rude. Green skin suits you,” I amended lamely. “It… really does.”
“Thanks,” she mumbled under her breath. “I’ll remember that the next time I buy foundation.”
Still not bothering to put on clothes, I sat down next to her on the couch. I considered offering her something to drink, but I didn’t feel like going through the motions or pretending there was anything normal about this situation. Right now, with my head spinning, all I wanted were some damn answers. “Okay, so why did you come here?”
She looked down at her hands. Her nails were claw-like but still delicate in a ghoulish sort of way.
“I tried going home, but… I couldn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look at me!” she exclaimed, her eyes turning glassy like she was about to start crying again. “How am I supposed to show up at my grandma’s house when I look like this? It would send her to an early grave. And my little sister? She’d never be able to stand the sight of me. I’d give her nightmares…”
Her shoulders slumped, and she hung her head in her hands.
“Maybe you should try calling them?” Scooching a little closer, I wrapped my arm awkwardly around her shoulders. Despite my plans to go into social work, I had never been great at comforting strangers. Or people in general. “Just tell them you’ll be away for a few days so you can buy yourself some time and get this… fixed.”
“I lost my phone when that… that monster…” She trailed off, and I felt her shiver.
Right. Shit.
“Yeah,” I muttered. “Mine’s gone too. You didn’t see it anywhere near where we were attacked?”
“I saw yours—or at least, it was probably yours. It was broken though. Should I have brought it?” she asked, her eyes going wide.
“Nah. What the fuck am I gonna do with a broken phone? But here, do you want to use my laptop to email your… your grandma, you said?”
I wondered if her folks were out of the picture like mine were. Sounded like it. It was nice that she at least had someone who cared about her though, who would notice and grieve if she went missing. Colin had been the only person I would’ve worried about leaving behind if I had to go into hiding for a while. And after last night? Well, I wasn’t worried about him anymore.
The girl’s face lit up like I’d just offered to give her a fucking yacht. “Can I? That would be amazing. Just so they don’t worry.”
“Yeah, sure.”
I walked over to the rickety kitchen table and grabbed the laptop, then deposited the ancient machine on the couch cushion beside her. While she tapped out a message, I went to the bedroom to throw on some new clothes. The tail presented a bit of a problem—I wasn’t a huge fan of stuffing it down one pant leg like a man with the world’s biggest cock, but I didn’t really want it out either. I finally compromised by grabbing a pair of loose-fitting sweats. Hopefully if I tucked my tail into those, it’d be a little less noticeable.
The girl sniffled quietly while she typed, and she obviously couldn’t think of much to say. It took her five minutes to compose what sounded like a ten-word email.
When I returned, she looked up at me, her relatively human eyes looking out of place in her green-tinged face. “Okay. I sent it. What now?”
“Now, we try to fucking fix this.” I plopped back down on the couch beside her, plucking my computer off her lap. “If I’ve learned anything in college, it’s that the internet has the answer to just about every problem you can think of.”
My fingers hovered over the keys, trying to think of what the hell I was supposed to Google at a time like this.
Woke up as a demon—how do I undo?
What makes a human grow a tail overnight?
How to snap out of a waking nightmare?
None of those search phrases really seemed like they’d help. I wasn’t sure anything would, honestly, but I wasn’t giving up without at least trying to reverse this insane bullshit.
“I’m Hannah, by the way,” the girl said rather abruptly after a couple of moments of silence.
“Piper,” I answered automatically, my hands still poised unmoving over the keys.
I could feel her eyes on me, and it was making it harder to think of something. Even with her demonic green skin, she looked eminently fragile and lost. I gritted my teeth and forced myself to come up with something. Anything.
“Demon-ectomy?” she suggested half-jokingly.
“Worth a shot.” I huffed a mirthless laugh but typed it in.
That search didn’t turn up shit, but once the ball was rolling, it got easier to think of search terms to try. It took a lot of digging and backtracking, but I finally turned the screen to Hannah to show her what I’d found.
“What do you think? This occultist woman does demon exorcisms. That sounds like about what we need right now.”
Her gray brows furrowed over her worried eyes. “Face-to-face consultations only?” She looked up at me in terror. “We have to go back outside?”
I shrugged. “Don’t see any way around it. She’s the only person I can find who even talks about removing demons. Apart from Catholic sites anyway, and I don’t think showing up to church like this would do us any favors.”
Her honey eyes widened further, and she went pale. At least, I thought she did. It could have been a trick of the light on her new skin tone.
“Oh… I don’t want to do that.”
“Neither do I.”
She swallowed hard and squeezed her eyes shut. “Okay. Occultist it is.”
Chapter Three
Hannah and I stood looking at ourselves in my little bathroom mirror. Her lower lip began to tremble and her eyes shone with unshed tears. Watching her try not to cry made a combination of pity, terror, and my own sadness well inside me—a mix of emotions so strong they threatened to drag me into a full-on panic attack.
Nope. I wasn’t having it.
“All right then, let’s get human!” I said loudly, clapping my hands together before rubbing them vigorously.
She shot a startled glance at me and choked on a laugh. “What?”
I pulled my makeup box out from under the sink. “I mean, unless you want to be stared at the whole time. We could probably get away with that in Portland, but in Seattle? The population here isn’t quite weird enough to roll with our new looks, I don’t feel like getting chased down the street.” I paused for a moment, recalling the night before. “Again.”
She winced. “Okay. Um… how?”
“We’ll start with the basics.” I whipped out a stick of cover-up and began applying it. Hannah made a choked noise, and at first, I thought she was crying again—but then I realized the sound had been a stifled giggle.
“What?” I pul
led a face.
“You’re orange. Like… really orange.”
I frowned at myself in the mirror. It was better than bright red, but my skin still wasn’t even close to a human color. “Goddammit. Maybe foundation on top of it?”
Hannah shook her head, making her blonde hair swish in waves. “I don’t think so. We need to balance the color first. Here, let me.”
I was skeptical. I hadn’t let anyone else do my makeup since middle school, and it wasn’t like we were at a slumber party about to do a pajama fashion show. But she was already rifling through my makeup.
“Sit down,” she ordered. I never knew someone could bark an order sweetly, but Hannah managed it. I did as she said, perching on the closed lid of the toilet. After wiping the cover-up off my face, she pulled out a thick, round brush and a pallet.
“Is that eyeshadow?” I jerked away from her hand. “Is that blue?”
“Trust me,” she said patiently. “Blue for you, red for me.”
“So we’re disguising ourselves as different colored monsters.” I frowned at her skeptically. “I’m not sure that’s going to keep people from running from us—or attacking us.”
She laughed and dabbed the brush into the pallet. “No, silly! This is just a base coat. It’s like art. The idea is to bring the color back to neutral, and we can’t do that without balancing what’s there. Now hold still and let me do this.”
“I guess.” Still dubious, I closed my eyes and let her brush blue all over my face and neck.
“Now the foundation.”
“Hold on, let me see.” I stood up and peeked in the mirror, then burst out laughing. I was a lavender devil. “You really think that’s going to be easier to cover?”
“Trust me,” she said slowly as if talking to a child. “This is what I’m good at. The only thing I’m good at.”
I raised an eyebrow and she hissed through her teeth. I put it back down with an apologetic grin.
“Hm… contour yes, eyes and lips no.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re already red in all the right places,” she said with a grin. She kept working for a few more minutes. When she backed away, she squinted at me like an artist judging her canvas.
“Perfect.”
I looked in the mirror and couldn’t believe it. She had managed to match my normal skin tone almost perfectly, though my lips and hairline were still bright red. The gothic vibe suited me, but the contrast with Hannah’s reptilian sheen was stark.
“Okay, your turn. Tell me what to do.”
“Yeah, um… here, use this, then this, then this, then the foundation, then set it, then the contour, then the lips. Use… this one.”
“What am I supposed to do with red, blue, and yellow?”
She blinked at me, then grinned. “I’ll show you.”
I felt a little bad about not being able to return the favor, but only for a moment. Watching her transform her face was magical. She used the red all over, then the blue in the hollows of her face, then the yellow as a highlight.
“War paint.” A grin stretched my lips. “I approve.”
She only laughed and shook her head. Next came the foundation, and that was the most surprising part. As soon as it went on, all of the base colors blended seamlessly, leaving her looking mostly human. By the time she finished with the rest of it she looked relatively normal—apart from the giant horns.
She had the same thought. Her hands wandered up to the mangled protrusions and touched them tentatively, as if she was afraid they would hurt her.
“I don’t know any makeup tips for this,” she said sadly.
I grinned. “This is a job for the costume department.”
I grabbed her hand as I rushed out of the bathroom to my closet.
“So, I’m a bit of a Halloween aficionado,” I explained as I dragged a tattered cardboard box out into the middle of the room. Halloween was my favorite holiday. Thanksgiving, Christmas—basically all the family-oriented ones—I could take or leave. But Halloween? That shit was my jam. “Let’s see… witchy, beachy… pirate!” I tossed hats out of the box as I named them, the last of which was a big floppy velvet hat with a garish gold flower on one side.
She picked it up and giggled. “You actually wore this?”
“Sure did. I’ve got the matching corset around here somewhere. I was going for a steampunk thing but it turned pirate-y on me somehow.”
She laughed and put the hat on at a jaunty angle. “How do I look?”
I tilted my head, considering. “Like you’re smuggling branches under there. Let’s see… oh! Mystical purple turban?”
Her jaw dropped in astonishment.
“I took a job as the ‘psychic’ at a kids’ fair once. They stiffed me on my pay so I took the hat.”
“Wow! I could never do that. What did they say?”
“What could they say? They owed me two hundred bucks!” I tossed my hair back indignantly then shrugged. “Didn’t keep them from cussing me out, though. Anyway, you want it?”
“I don’t think it goes with my outfit,” she said wryly.
“Neither do those horns.”
She narrowed her eyes at me, but her lips twisted in a suppressed smile as she snatched the turban out of my hands. She put it on then looked at me.
“Better,” I said, trying to keep my expression blank. She looked a little like a crazy palm reader, but at least it matched her jacket. “Can’t see the horns at all.”
“I can still see yours. Let me go see what this even looks like.” She hurried to the mirror and burst out laughing. There was a slightly hysterical edge to her voice, but it was better than hearing her cry again. “Oh… my… God. This is terrible!”
I put on a shiny bowler hat and joined her. “We’ll just tell people it’s funny hat day and look at them like they’re imbeciles for not being in the know.” I slid my fingers over the rim of my hat and shot myself a sultry look.
She giggled, looking more… human than she had since I’d first met her last night. “I’ll let you tell them.”
Of course we had to walk. My feet were still sore from yesterday and the place we were going was three miles away, but without bus fare or my car, it was the only thing to do. Hannah didn’t seem bothered by it, though she was increasingly bothered by the stares we were earning. She tried to duck her head to hide the turban, and I elbowed her.
“Funny hat day, remember? These pleebs don’t know what they’re missing.”
She smiled at me gratefully and stood up a little straighter. Even though we were walking, we almost missed the street we were looking for. It wasn’t even a street, really. More of a glorified alleyway between two tall, imposing buildings. A rickety-looking purple house sat just beyond the backs of the buildings, surrounded by a purple picket fence. Hannah and I shared a dubious glance.
“Occult services and psychic readings,” I murmured, reading the worn sign aloud. I looked up at the house and frowned. “Since when do psychics have neon signs in their windows?”
“Maybe she’s trying to modernize?” Hannah shuffled a little closer to me.
I didn’t like seeing her scared. Fuck it. I shoved the gate open and strode toward the door. She stuck close to my heels as the porch stairs creaked under my boots. The place seemed to be abandoned. Or haunted. Maybe both. But the OPEN sign burned neon red in the window, so I shoved gently on the heavy door.
“Welcome,” a thick, smoky voice said. “You’ve come to learn your fate.” She had a vague accent, but I couldn’t place it—and part of me wondered if she could place it. Maybe it was fake.
“Woah. She’s good,” Hannah whispered with a hint of sarcasm.
The woman in question was about five feet tall. She had long chocolate brown hair streaked with gray, which fell in clusters of curls over her shoulders. It seemed to be swallowing the purple sash she wore around her head. A shapeless purple dress covered her from neck to heels and fluttered around like a dying butterfly. Her makeup was
as heavy as her jewelry, which clanked and clattered as she moved.
“Come in, come in,” she said, gesturing to a purple couch.
“Lots of purple,” I muttered.
“Purple is a spiritual color,” the woman said. “It links us to the other side.”
Hannah shot me a pleading look before I could call bullshit on that, shaking her head slightly. I knew she really wanted this to work, so even though my faith in this woman’s qualifications was rapidly deteriorating, I let it go and sat down.
“I am Madam Ophelia, and you are very lost.” She reached out a weathered hand to pat mine. “And you have come to the right place. You are troubled by a darkness that follows you no matter where you go. I can relieve you of your troubles.”
Hannah’s eyes were shining. “So… you’ve seen this before?” Her voice trembled as she reached up toward her head.
“Of course, dear. I see everything. Now, take my hands and—Good lord, what is that?!” Her accent disappeared as Hannah took off her turban.
Hannah froze. “I thought… I mean, you said… oh, no.”
“Prosthetics? You come into my place of business to scare me with a little makeup? And mock me with that turban!”
Hannah looked like she was going to cry, and I launched to my feet to get between them.
“Now hold on a second, Ophelia—”
“Madam Ophelia!”
“Hold on a second. Your website said you could remove demons from people.”
She blinked at me, wide-eyed. “I—I—” Then her head began to shake vigorously back and forth, as if her stubborn denial could somehow banish me from existence. “You’re not real. You can’t be real. Demons don’t actually exist.”
Fury bubbled in my chest. Goddammit. This woman was a total rip-off artist. She didn’t even believe in the occult; her whole business was based on taking advantage of those who did. Without thinking, I tossed the bowler hat aside.
“You think you can just call yourself a psychic”—I wiped the makeup off of one cheek with my sleeve—“and say you remove demons and demonic possession”—then the other cheek—“and expect people not to come to you for help when this happens?”