Malia

by P. S. Power

  Jessica snorted. It was the painful kind that came out as a half sob. She wasn’t that worked up, but it was how things came out. To hide how she was feeling, which was confused and raw, she forced a mean looking smile.

  “So, we get the shotguns and holy water and hole up in here until sunrise?”

  Her father shook his head.

  “I don’t think so. Nick, you should probably head home. Being away from Jessica is almost certainly the safest place for you right now, until we get that work done. It could take a few days. Just planning and getting the people around normally does. I’ll go and see if Carlos is available. The rest of the group, too. Meg, why don’t you start on some warding?” The man actually shrugged then and smiled. “That… It isn’t all that effective. We’re basically going to put up some signs that say no trespassing and hope that Malia is going to bother to follow the rules. It works, most of the time, if you can believe that. As long as she’s acting alone it probably will. If she’s been sent to do this, then… Well, then all other ideas will be ignored. At least if they don’t come from whoever is controlling her.”

  There was, clearly, more to be spoken of on the topic.

  No one did though. Nick, seeming a little scared, tilted his head at her.

  “I can stay, anyway, if you want? I can’t do anything, but…” Her father looked away, his face seeming almost pleased by the words, even if the situation felt kind of dire to Jessica.

  For her part, she gave the guy a lopsided grin.

  “Nah. We have this. Or we don’t and in that case, not being here is probably the better plan. I’ll be fine. I’ll call you in a few days?” She’d never had to do that kind of thing before. Call a boy back, after a date.

  She was probably getting it wrong, but even if he wasn’t going to ask her out again, he might want to know that she wasn’t dead. If, of course, she wasn’t.

  He nodded then, looking down at her from a good way above.

  “All right. Call sooner than that? This is… Well, messed up. I’m not really certain I understand it all, to be honest. I’ll just go home and… I don’t know, pray until dawn comes, or something like that?”

  Reid didn’t tell him that was going to be useless, just pressing the guy on the shoulder, until he walked away, out the front door. There was no speaking until a while later, when the car started and then drove off, into the night.

  “He seems like a nice boy. Not that praying will do anything to stop something as powerful as Malia. Still, being here, where the target is, won’t help him at all. Still, if it makes people feel better, I’m all for it.”

  Jessica could see that one. Her parents hadn’t talked about their weird cult, but they also hadn’t been bible thumping believers for public consumption, either. It was just a thing that had never really come up in their household, before that moment. A few times, but only in the most casual of ways. Like at Christmas, when her parents both mentioned Christianity as a quaint myth. Then put up a tree and even a nativity scene in the yard.

  Those were just decorations though, not faith. They might know more about that kind of thing, given what they were into with entities and all that. Then again, if Malia was real and not her imaginary friend, then it was possible that God, angels and that kind of thing was just as real. Maybe just from a different place. The one that Mal came from hadn’t sounded all that nice. Then, the being had clearly been trying to terrorize Jess into taking an action that she otherwise wouldn’t. That or making it seem like that was the case.

  Getting her ready to die as an option, possibly her only choice, in order to make letting Malia in seem like the better idea. A shared life was better than none at all, after all.

  She settled on the sofa, since she had no clue what to do for warding or whatever it was called. Not unless they were putting up an actual sign. If that was the case… Well, she could make posters, if it would help. Instead, a bit later, her mother came back into the room, with a bundle of burning leaves and wearing a goofy white robe. Speaking in a different language.

  Probably Latin. In fact, Jess knew that to be the case, recognizing a few of the words. Not most of them, and she wasn’t certain on the pronunciation, but she’d read similar things before, so thought she had a bit of it down. What the words being spoken actually meant, she didn’t have a clue.

  Rather than take the burning leaves to each room of the house, she moved directly over to her daughter and started in, wafting the smoke at her. It was enough that she coughed, several times.

  “Breathe it in.” That came from her father.

  Doing it didn’t work too well, but she tried, and coughed some more, for about ten minutes. That wasn’t the end of the ritual at all. It was just time for another bundle of dried herbs to come out. It smelled like stuffing. A thing that was familiar, from her room, earlier in the day.

  Rather than whine about the sudden craving for Stovetop, Jessica just sat, quietly. Wondering the whole time if what they were doing was just a different version of the praying Nick had mentioned. A thing meant to leave them all feeling better, even if it wasn’t really going to help anything at all.

  As her mother worked, her father got up, then moved to his office down the hallway. From the sound of it, the man was making those calls he’d mentioned. To Carlos and then possibly some of the others. How many people there were in the full group, she didn’t know. It also probably didn’t matter.

  For a moment, she felt a tiny bit better than she had been. If Malia had been influencing her the whole time, then they could, possibly, try to fight her. How that would happen, she didn’t know. Part of her wanted to feel relieved, but the longer she sat there, with smoke being waved at her and being chanted at, she had to think that it wouldn’t be that simple.

  Mainly because nothing in her entire life had told her that getting rid of something supernatural was possible at all. Her dad had acted like it was going to be pretty easy. Then, he was also probably trying to set her at ease. It was the wrong thing to do, if that was the case, but Jessica didn’t really know if her dad knew that about her.

  She wasn’t weak. Not inside. She just looked it, being too skinny.

  That was all.

  Her mother, as if she had a real plan for things, then moved off, to do a little ceremony in each room of the home. Jessica simply stayed where she was, not having been told to do anything else. She was out of her depth and knew it. She really needed to be doing something. To be helping in her own defense, but that didn’t seem to be possible at the moment. Not unless there was something inside of her that needed to be changed.

  Then, as long as she could work out what it was, there might be a way for her to help herself. Nothing came to mind, of course. Not even silly things, like holding a counter tea party or working a backwards invocation, to send Malia away. She’d need to serve something really boring for that, no doubt. Cheese Whiz on celery stalks with mineral water to drink.

  The problem there was that Jessica hadn’t invited her in the first place. Not that she could recall. Except that, in the flashbacks, it was clear that Mal had to be let in. She hadn’t stayed, for some reason, but that didn’t seem like it was about helping to protect Jess. Not any longer. Except for the whole friendship thing.

  No, now it seemed a bit simpler than that. Mal had orders, from the coven. She’d been supposed to stop the killer. So she had. Using little Jessica. Making certain that she could get inside the tiny version of herself, so that the doors would be left open that way, later. Once she got inside, it was clear that it would, normally, be easier to convince her human pal that it was needed again.

  Losing control of herself like that had been the worst thing Malia could have done, then. If that wasn’t a ploy as well. Jessica couldn’t be certain of it, but she kind of figured that it had just been frustration at her for not being as gullible as she should have been. Frustration with someone, anyway.

  She sat, thinking about it, for over an hour. When her mother came back in, she was
holding the plates and mugs. At the same time, she was back in her regular clothing, instead of the silly seeming white robe. She grinned at her daughter, her face pleasant seeming.

  “That should do it. For a while, actually. It isn’t a forcefield or anything like that and will only stop entities from coming at you, not prevent them from coming into the house totally, but Malia won’t be able to simply send in someone else to harass you. Not now. Call it a few days of relief that we can count on for certain?”

  Jessica yawned, then nodded her head.

  “Hmm? This is all about making it so I can sleep, right? Burning herbs and chanting in Latin… Why would an extra-dimensional being care about that at all?”

  The words got her mother to bob her head a bit, seeming pleasant about it, instead of angry or upset about the idea that her magical spell was being called in to question.

  “They don’t, of course. What I was really doing was building a picture, using my mind, that will make it unpleasant for Malia and her kind to be here, in regards to you, specifically. That won’t last forever. You could learn to do it though, and if worse comes to worse, if nothing else will work, you can do this every few days and stay safe. It’s what Roxy does.” There was a bit of a conspiratorial look then. “Well, she doesn’t burn sage, she kills small animals as a sacrifice. That isn’t really needed, though. Even the sage and chanting are just props to put me into the correct mindset for the work. Magic like this… Well, it isn’t that powerful. That doesn’t mean it can’t work at all.”

  Yawning, Jessica nodded.

  “I should learn that then. Now, or… I didn’t sleep much last night. If this actually works, then we can do that in the morning? If it doesn’t…”

  Her mother looked away then and nodded.

  “If it doesn’t, then you won’t need to learn it. It will though. Which means that we have more than one way to handle this, I bet. The biggest danger is…” She stopped then, and looked away, since Reid was coming out of his office. His face was a bit serious seeming.

  Looking around, his eyes unfocused, he nodded.

  “This will hold. The biggest danger is the one I already mentioned, Jess. That someone might be controlling Malia. Giving her direction and orders. If that’s the case then what she does might change. If she can’t get in here, and is working on her own, then she might wait, or move on. But only if there isn’t a human agent behind it all. If that’s what’s happening, and I can’t think of a single reason why it would be, then… Well, we’ll need to handle things differently.”

  The words were being left vague, even as her mother and father shared a knowing look.

  She got it. At least she figured that to be the case.

  “Then we’d need to stop the person behind it. You mentioned a working or something like that before, to find them, if they exist?”

  Her mother plopped down on the sofa in a way that would have had her yelled at for doing the same thing. Then she just sat for a bit, not speaking for nearly long enough that Jessica had figured it wasn’t going to happen at all. Then it did, all in a rush.

  “What happened with Malia tonight changed all of that. I mean, we can do the ceremonies and that might work to fix things now. It’s just that, this would have had to go back a very long way, if someone else is behind it all. Since you were four or so. That… Well, it could be. Still, who would have spent that long doing this to you? You were only a child then. You still are, in a lot of ways. There’s nothing to be gained for a human being by doing this.”

  Reid nearly glared at her mother then.

  “Isn’t there? Traditionally we go after the families of our rivals to punish them, if they’re too well protected, individually. True, I can’t see why anyone would have bothered playing this long of a game with us, but what else can there be here? Unless Malia is actually working alone. That’s the best case, so we can’t count on that part. The rest…” He kept looking at Megan, his face a bit annoyed seeming.

  Which was out of place. Her father seldom got aggravated or worked up that way.

  Jessica didn’t get it at all, but finally her mother explained it to her.

  “That… The thing there is that the most likely people to have done this to you is still going to be one of us. Your father or me. Well, or both of us. Except that I know for certain that I was never involved in that kind of thing. We kind of have to start there though, if we’re going to find who did this. The only person involved in any of this who couldn’t have done it is… well, you.”

  Blinking, she just sat for a moment, then grinned, meaning it.

  “Malia kept saying that I couldn’t trust anyone. Except her. Only, then she proved that even that was a lie.” She glanced at her father first, then her mother, her face still seeming fairly cheerful. “The thing there is that you don’t try to sell that sort of thing unless you want other people to be distrusted. To sow confusion amongst those who would fight you.” Which didn’t prove that either of her parents was innocent of having pointed Malia at her.

  Just that, if they had been doing it on purpose, it had backfired pretty badly.

  Standing up, feeling ready to fall down from exhaustion, she yawned yet again.

  “Sorry!” Patting her mouth, she waved at her room. “If I manage to get through the night without being tossed around like a rag doll or worse, I’ll want lessons in keeping things like this away from me.”

  A thing that would only work as long as the entity, her best friend, wasn’t acting at the behest of someone else. If that was the case, well, then she was probably screwed. Possibly several times in uncomfortable and terrifying ways.

  No one told her not to go to sleep at least, so, waving as she moved, Jess got down the hallway, then managed to clean up her room a bit, then herself, before going to sleep. That part was harder than it should have been, having been up for far too long like she had been.

  Still, it came eventually, and no entities of any stripe attacked her. That either meant the warding her mother had put in place worked, or, just as possibly, that Malia was simply waiting, so that Jess would let her guard down. It was even possible that whoever had it out for her had set the lack of attack that night up, trying to control the situation.

  On the nice side, she actually managed to get some rest. Enough so, when she woke up at ten in the morning, she felt halfway rested. That was an improvement to her life, so she was willing to take it. She got to her feet, showered and then made herself up for the day.

  Which, as it turned out, was a good thing. Because the living room was filled with people already. Not just four or five of them either. It looked to be the whole coven, or whatever it was called. At least twenty people where there. They didn’t have white robes on, but Carlos, Rick and June were there. Roxy, the older woman, who really did seem bitter, moved to her and gave her a hug.

  When they both pulled back, she smiled. It didn’t seem sincere.

  “Don’t worry, dear. We can fix this.”

  The thing there was, Jessica wasn’t certain of that at all.

  Really, it kind of felt like the room was filled with idiots playing make believe. She tried to bury that idea. After all, they were kind of the only hope she had at the moment. If they couldn’t do what they thought they could, then she was well and truly screwed.

  Chapter nine: A family affair.

  Jessica listened to the chanting. Smelled the heady incense that permeated the front room of the house she’d mainly grown up in. It was unfamiliar to her. Except that it wasn’t, in an odd way. The people all wore white robes. Their faces were hidden behind flat porcelain masks, but only once they’d actually started trying to invocate beings. Everything was done in Latin and from the repetitions, it was being said several times.

  She couldn’t really understand what was being said, for the most part. She got the occasional word, now and then. If it had been written out, she had to figure that more of it would have made sense to her. Particularly the portions that crossed over with
legal jargon. She wasn’t a lawyer and didn’t want to do the job in the future, but a lot of her reading had covered things like that.

  The ins and outs of how to create a contract that would be binding, for instance.

  Even as a lay person, she’d worked out that contracts only worked if there was an outside force holding both parties to what they’d done. Without that, it was just a good faith agreement. Except, of course, you didn’t need to hold good faith with anyone that required a complex and complicated loophole delivery device.

  That, she understood, mainly from what her parents had told her, and a bit from Malia, if any of the information could be trusted at all, was the big flaw in the whole thing they were attempting that night. As far as she could tell, the entities they were entreating were thought to have some kind of rule of law that they followed. It was more of a personal moral code though, without anyone, or anything, behind it. If they got a being to show up at all, it could do anything it wanted.

  As long as it didn’t break its own rules. If that happened, well, then the beings tended to be banished back to their own reality. Again, this didn’t seem to be any power of the chanting fruit loop gang in her living room that night, or those like them. No, it was, as far as anything she’d been told, pretty much just a verbal contract being made. They’d written it out first and were being very, very exacting with everything they did. They all looked at the same corner of the room, for instance, at the same times. The gestures weren’t perfectly in-synch, but it was a lot closer to that than not. The same was true of the voices. They didn’t speak as one, but it was eerily similar to something along those lines.

  Goosebumps finally ran down her spine, just as the people, her parents, their friends and a few she hadn’t gotten a good look at, even if they seemed familiar to her, as they performed their ritual. The thing was nearly a dance. That was, the idea that many of them hadn’t bothered to introduced themselves, on purpose. They were mainly people who had been around, if not recently. One of them was her current History professor, Jess had noticed that one right off the bat, before the masks had come out at all, which was interesting to note. The man didn’t seem to recognize her from class, even if she went every time they were supposed to.