Death of the Body (Crossing Death) (22 page)

Nicholas’s face was red and hard, daring Quon to say another word. He didn’t.

“Okay, okay,” I said, positioning myself on the bed between them. “Tell us what happened with the demon. What does this all have to do with your experience?”

“I was getting to that part,” Nicholas said shortly, glaring right past me. Then he huffed. “One Sunday my mom and I pulled off the side of the road into the parking lot of a church we had never seen before. It was one of those holy-roller churches, ya know? The sermon was on demons—the servants of Satan. The preacher talked about possession and stuff, and about how there are certain
worldly
religions that used the powers of the devil and of these demons. The preacher said that these demons could be powerful if we gave them control over us, powerful enough to hurt us. It hit a little close to home, I think.

“When my mom and I left, and she was so so quiet, I assumed it was because she had realized what she and my father had been doing was considered a sin to the majority of the world. By now I had given up on the doctrine of Catholicism, but I still remembered being taught in Catholic school that all types of occult spiritualism were wrong. I figured my mom and I were just going to return to Catholicism.

“But I was wrong. Something that the preacher said had given my mom the idea that if she could find the demon that was causing her miscarriages, if she had somehow been possessed by it, then all she would have had to do was somehow get rid of it.”

I could now see where this was going.

“When we got home my mom took me down to the basement and uncovered the pentagram. ‘A coven requires thirteen, but today two will have to do,’ she said, handing me an old robe. ‘I need your help now.’

“I don’t really remember what happened next,” Nicholas said, his voice almost a whimper.

I had never heard him this weak before.

“I remember it getting really dark and smelling like rotten eggs. Then, inside of the pentagram, a figure appeared. I could hear my mom screaming at it, asking it questions, but every time it spoke back all I could hear was the sound of wind, like I was standing in the middle of a tornado.

“Strangely, I wasn’t scared through any of this. Not until I heard my mom say ‘Yes, I do have a child, but I will not trade his soul for another.’ She looked at me briefly. I could tell from the tone of her voice and the look in her eye that she had considered trading me to this thing for a biological child of her own. I think that is what made me the most afraid—that I wasn’t loved like I thought I was—that perhaps my mother wanted something more than I could give her. She then went on, telling the shadow that if it was claiming the souls of her unborn children, and if that was why she constantly miscarried, then she would simply stop trying to have children.

“That made the demon angry. Mom kept screaming at it to tell her how it was summoned, or who summoned it, or whether my father had anything to do with his ability to steal the souls of their unborn children, but by this time it was just screaming.

“When it got angry, it came after me. As it turned to look at me the strangest thing happened—I could understand him. He didn’t speak in words vocally—he could only wail like the wind—but as he looked into my eyes I could hear his thoughts. If she would deny him more souls, he would deny her mine.

“Then, the only thing I thought about, besides my fear, was you, Edmund. I don’t know why, but I found myself wishing you had been there in that room with me. The thought of you in that room gave me comfort. Even though I’ve always been curious as to why I thought of you in this moment, I never really wanted to know. I had a feeling the answer to that question would have been scarier than even the shadow creature in front of me.”

I opened my mouth to answer his question, but he quickly echoed, “I don’t want to know.”

Nicholas continued, “I guess the demon could read my thoughts just like I could his because as soon as I thought your name, a certain level of curiosity was piqued. I heard him take note of my name and my family and then he seemed to pull information from my memory. Strange, I know, and I’m not sure how to explain it, but I found myself experiencing memories of the people I knew in the orphanage. Even people I had forgotten about appeared in flashes of remembrance. Because of this, I became extremely important to the demon. He thought of somebody… somebody who he had to take these memories to… somebody more powerful than he was… somebody he was afraid of.”

“Who?” I asked, but I already knew the answer.

“Joshua,” Nicholas said, meeting my eyes. “The name was said so hurriedly, like the demon didn’t want me to hear it. Then, he reached out and touched me briefly before vanishing.”

“He touched you?” I asked.

“Actually, I think he attacked me.”

“What makes you say that?”

“He left marks.”

“Marks?”

Nicholas’s eyes fell to my chest.

I reached up and touched my shirt, where blood had started to stain. I had almost forgotten all about the cuts and bandages; I hadn’t even looked at them after the nurse had left. They must have still been bleeding, because the bandages were soaked through.

“Where,” I asked almost incoherently, but Nicholas understood. He reached up and touched his right cheek.

“He cut all the way through. It took seven surgeries to fix it. Luckily I was still young enough that the scar stretched and faded as I grew.”

“You said that you have recently seen one of these figures again?”

“The other morning when I went to the gym,” he nodded. “I was in the steam room after my workout. I thought someone else had come into the room, because it got cold, like someone had left the door open. I could see a figure through the steam, but couldn’t make it out. It just stood there staring at me. I made some comment like, ‘Hey buddy, stop staring at me.’ The response was familiar, recognizable.”

“How so?”

“It sounded like wind.”

Fifteen

Two days later was Monday, which meant I had to go to classes I neither cared about nor could focus on. For so many years I had been at a dead end when it came to my past: Orenda, the orphanage, and most importantly, demons. I now had two leads—Sister Mary Elizabeth and Nicholas’s mother.

Xia followed me to my classes, insisting that she had nothing better to do since Quon was too wrapped up in a project he was working on in computer architecture to be much of a conversationalist, but now, as she sat next to me in American history, I couldn’t help but notice that the longer the professor droned on the more her head bobbed. It was kind of adorable, watching her teeter on the edge of sleep.

Although I was excited at the prospect of no longer being at a dead end in my search for the truth of where I came from, I was worried as well. If I was no longer at a dead end, thanks to a demon that set off a series of events that led me to people who might have some answers, that meant the demons were no longer at a dead end either. I wondered if the murders of the orphaned children had helped them arrive at the same two people I was now going to visit. I sincerely hoped not.

“Edmund?”

Great. The professor had caught me not paying attention… again.

“Yes, sir?”

“Did you hear the question?”

“We were talking about national policy in the 1920’s.” At least, I hoped we were still on that subject.

“Specifically we were talking about the Kellog-Briand Pact of 1928.”

“The one that the United States co-authored that outlawed war as an instrument of national policy?”

The professor looked a bit taken aback by my statement. “Sufficient recovery, Mr. Gavel.”

I supposed that I had somehow answered his question, although I was still unaware what that question was.

I turned to Xia and caught her smiling at me as the professor assigned the next chunk of reading that would be covered in the following class period. Commotion ensued as my fellow classmates and I put away books and notepaper and started filing out the door.

Xia spoke before I got out of the classroom, “Difficult time concentrating,” she said, her inflection halfway between a statement and a question.

I pulled my bag over my shoulder. “You looked pretty bored yourself.”

“I enjoy history,” she stated matter-of-factly. “Just not American history.”

I grinned, not quite certain myself whether I was trying to imply my agreement, sympathy, or understanding. I was distracted. She was so intoxicating in that skirt. My eyes couldn’t get enough of her.

“So what’s the plan?”

When I looked back into her eyes, they darted in an I-noticed-you-noticing-me way. I felt color rush to my cheeks when I realized her question wasn’t just for conversational purposes, but to pull me out of my momentary trip into manhood.

Recovery from manhood idiotic question number one: “Well, are you going to keep following me around all day?”

She eyed me quizzically, inviting me to try again. It was awfully kind of her to forgive the lack of blood flow to my brain, but that embarrassed me even further.

“What I mean is, I’m not sure I’m going to the rest of my classes today. I’m having a bit of trouble concentrating.”

This time she flushed. “Would it be better if I didn’t accompany you?”

Great. Now she was bringing up the fact that she noticed me noticing her. Her question implied that the reason I was having trouble concentrating was because of her.

“No no,” I answered quickly. “It isn’t you. All this life stuff… you know…”

She looked hurt. Idiotic moment number two.

I sighed as I pushed open the glass door to the history building and stepped outside into the cool air. I stopped and faced Xia after holding the door open for her. “Let me try again. I have a lot on my mind, and am finding myself distracted rather easily.”

A tiny bit of excitement welled up in my stomach when the look in her eye told me she was expecting my eyes to drift away from hers when I said the word “distracted.” The truth was that she
was
one of those distractions, and I would have wanted nothing more than to look over her body when I said that, but I controlled the impulse and held her gaze. I didn’t want to make myself look any more stupid.

“But,” I continued, “I would love someone to talk it over with. Care to join me for lunch?”

Bingo. Her resulting smile was radiant. Stupidity absolved. Normalcy restored.

“So what will we be having?”

We started walking again and I answered, “I make a killer grilled cheese.”

The walk to the north campus housing wasn’t far, and Xia and I contented ourselves with our own thoughts in silence while we walked. I knew it was probably strange of me not to think about the circumstances surrounding my life in those minutes, but it was a welcome break to forget about demons and magic for a while. I found myself thinking about what I imagined Xia thinking about.

We walked close to each other, which made me happy. Either she had forgiven me for my earlier indiscretions, or (the possibility I found much more likely) she was purposefully trying to understand how I felt about her. That, I deduced, would mean that she felt something for me.

But then I started to feel a little arrogant, imagining that I knew her thoughts and motivations. We had only known each other for a few days and it was very improbable that I knew her well enough to know anything about what she was thinking. Even still, the thought that she might be thinking about me as we walked together, bumping hands occasionally, perhaps purposefully, caused me to feel warmth and happiness that I had never experienced before. I was such a dork.

I found myself noticing all the other men on campus, noticing their eyes trail up and down her body as we walked, sizing
me
up afterwards. The warmth and the happiness mixed with the icy sting of overprotective jealousy. The odd emotional combination sat strangely comfortable with me.

When we got to the dorm building we opted to take the elevator to the third floor, where Nicholas, Quon, and I shared a room. Xia watched the numbers in the elevator climb with a seductive smirk on her face. I watched her.

Xia finally spoke as the elevator doors swung open, “You’d better watch the creepy stalker stare,” she jested. “It scares some girls.”

“Sorry,” I said, done denying the fact that I was admiring her. “I didn’t mean to creep you out.”

Now Xia laughed, which wasn’t exactly the reaction I had thought I would receive. “You had us throw a hammer at your head, but instead made it change directions mid-air, shatter a window, which you then put back together, and you think I’m creeped out that you find me attractive?”

Now I was laughing too. “I guess you have a point. I just didn’t want you to think I’m the kind of guy that…”

“Stop,” she cut me off. “All guys are ‘that kind of guy’ sometimes, and I’ll let you in on a little bit of a secret: woman actually don’t always mind… ”

“…I know… sorry,” I cut
her
off this time. I really didn’t need a lecture into the psychology of how women view men. “And just for the record, you are very beautiful.”