Hell Transporter (Between) (24 page)

“Your son, Johnny,” he began, his voice kind and soft. She flinched. “He spoke with a lisp, didn’t he?”

She sucked in a sharp breath.

“Ian, did you—“ she began.

“No, I didn’t. I don’t know where you heard that, lad, but it’s a low blow.” Ian’s voice was cold. And, I realized, afraid.

Aiden stood motionless, a sea of calm in the middle of a raging storm.

“‘Tis what I thought. I didn’t recognize his photograph at first, since he introduced himself to me as J.J., not Johnny.”

Complete silence followed his words as if time stood still. No crickets chirped, no one breathed, and the fire didn’t even hiss and pop while we stood, staring at one another.

All of a sudden, Sarah burst into tears and covered her mouth, her eyes filled with a desperate hope that I didn’t understand. “All of his friends called him J.J. We were the only ones who called him Johnny. Oh my goodness, Ian. He might be…” She leaned against him like she was going to faint and he put one arm around her. His face registered her meaning and he began to tremble himself. His voice was hoarse when he spoke again, a single tear sliding down his cheek.

“Johnny killed himself when he was eighteen. He had a mental illness and in a fit of depression, he hung himself. We didn’t truly know what would… happen to him. After.” He dropped his head and took a deep breath, trying to draw the strength to continue.

Sarah implored Aiden with eyes flowing freely with tears. “Do you think… he could be transporting souls like you did?” Her voice cracked with hope at the end.

Aiden moved forward and took her hands in his own. “God is merciful, of that you can be certain. But no, he is not transporting souls. I took him to the gate myself and watched him go through, wearing a shirt that said ‘Cougs Rule,’ if I recall.” A great encompassing sob erupted from her, echoing in the woods behind us. Aiden drew her into his arms and held her while she spilled decades of pent-up worry and grief on his shoulder. I went to Ian and hugged him close. His arms enveloped me as he wept against my hair.

When the four of us pulled apart, we wiped our eyes and collected ourselves. Ian held Sarah for a moment and then stepped forward to place his hands on Aiden’s shoulders.

“Thank you for telling us, son. I can see how difficult it was, and I am proud of you. I can’t say I completely understand, but I do believe you. ‘Tis the only thing that makes sense!”

At that, he gave a shaky laugh, breaking the tension. The waters that had threatened to drown us disappeared in a rainbow of happy tears. One glance at Aiden—and the relief on his face—made my chest ache with joy.

Ian’s eyes shone with fierce determination as he reached out to take my hand as well. “And from this day forward, I swear an oath before God that you’re a part of this family—the both of you. We’ll take care of you kids, like you were our own.” And then the four of us were hugging and crying again, buoyed by hope and thankfulness.

Chapter 30

After we told Ian and Sarah the truth, I started spending most nights at Aiden’s place, only hanging out at the dorm if I needed to study. Guilt over leaving Stephanie alone gnawed at me, since I knew Jen stayed over with Paul more often than not, but I tucked it away into that corner of my mind where I kept things I didn’t want to deal with.

We hadn’t told the MacKinnons about the hell transporter, figuring that one massive leap of faith was enough to ask of them. They didn’t need to know there was a vicious beast out there thirsting for my blood and wanting—what?—something else from Aiden. Cocooned in the warm sanctuary of Aiden’s bed, his rhythmic breathing the only sound in the room, I tried to make sense of it, twisting and turning the puzzle over in my mind. The hell transporter didn’t want to kill Aiden, at least not right now. It wanted me dead—I knew that without a doubt—but I couldn’t fathom what the beast could want with Aiden. Maybe to play with him for a while before ending his life, like a cat plays with a mouse? Maybe a quick death was insufficient punishment for having been freed from the realm in between.

A shiver ran through me as another thought bubbled to the surface.

What if the transporter means to take him back? Not to heaven, but to hell? Could it even do that?

No. I refused to believe that.

Shoving the idea aside before it could take root and start me completely freaking out, I pulled back the covers and slipped out of bed. Goosebumps sprang up all over my body at the chill in the air. All of a sudden, I was wide awake and trying not to obsess about Aiden being tortured and hauled off to hell all because of me.

After using the bathroom, I splashed cold water on my face and stared at myself in the antique mirror, hardly recognizing my reflection. With eyes tired and weary—no, hunted—she wasn’t the girl who used to look back at me from the mirror. That girl had a mom and dad who loved each other, even if they didn’t always get along. That girl thought the scariest thing in the world was the top of the water slide before the lifeguard gave her a shove and sent her careening down the tube at a hundred miles an hour. That girl, in her pink and purple bedroom with daisies on the comforter, thought her heart belonged to boy bands and that algebra was hard.

Everything had changed. My parents were hardly speaking, a demon from hell wanted to kill me, and my husband lie asleep in the other room. Oh yeah, and calculus was kicking my ass. The thought of calculus being more frightening than the hell transporter brought a smile to my lips. A flicker of the girl I used to be came to life before me. That girl, who wasn’t afraid to speak her mind, who defended those she loved, who didn’t take crap from bullies, that girl was still inside. And that girl had a job to do.

Curling up next to Aiden, I stroked his bare chest with my cool fingers and watched his eyes flutter open. He offered a sleepy smile and put his hand over my own.

“You awake?” I asked, even though the answer was obvious.

“Mmmm...” he replied, not a ‘yes’ but not a ‘no.’

“I want to try it again,” I whispered, somehow not wanting to disturb the stillness of the room.

He blinked a few times and shook his head.
              “Try what, lass?”

“The only way we’re going to stop the hell transporter is if we find out where it’s hiding. I want to try to get back in its head.”

He sat up and leaned back against the headboard, the sheets sliding down his chest and pooling in his lap. He ran a hand down his face to clear the sleep from his mind.

“Now?” he asked.

Excitement and nerves mixed together inside me and I sat up in the bed, barely able to keep still. “I don’t know if I can do it long distance, but you and I could still communicate when you left to get your passport, so it’s worth a try, right? I figured it might be nocturnal, so if I could slip inside its mind while the transporter is out—I don’t know, hunting?—then maybe I could get a lock on where it’s hiding. Just one landmark is all I’d need and we’d have a way to trap it, to kill it before it... well, you know.” I couldn’t bring myself to say the words out loud and I didn’t need to. Aiden’s look clearly told me he knew exactly what the evil creature intended and was not about to let it happen.

He swung his legs off the bed and stood up, stretching in the moonlight. Silver beams shone over his bare skin, creating tantalizing shadows between his shoulder blades and down the curve of his back. Suddenly, the room wasn’t at all chilly anymore. In fact, a heat began to coil deep within me and I considered shelving my masterful plan altogether in favor of more enjoyable nighttime activities. Unaware of my second thoughts, he strode off to the bathroom, then began getting dressed.

“What are you doing?” I asked as he wrapped the kilt around his waist and secured it with his belt.

“Preparing for the unexpected. What if the landmark you see is this cottage and it’s right outside? I don’t want to be wasting time getting dressed once the beast realizes we’ve located it.”

“Oh.” I hadn’t thought of that. I also hadn’t considered that it might be lurking outside the house. My eyes shot to the window, expecting to see a pair of blood red orbs staring back at me. Adrenaline surged in my veins and I jumped up to throw on some jeans and a shirt. Once we were dressed and ready for anything, we stood together in the middle of the living room, fingers intertwined. With a deep breath, I cleared my mind and opened the mental gates to Aiden, whose presence flowed over me like a whirlpool, bubbling with energy but warm and soothing at the same time. Reaching out, remembering what it had felt like to connect with the hell transporter before, I searched for that black pulsing awareness. The sensation of being sucked through a tube and spit out the other end left me breathless.

But I was in.

Hot water cascaded down my face as I tilted my head back and let the shower work its magic, massaging my muscles with moist fingers. Institutional aquamarine tile lined the open stall, the showerhead a standard fixture throughout all the college dorms. But the girls’ showers were tiled in green and white. Was aquamarine the color of the boys’ bathroom? What on earth? The hell transporter was in the boys’ bathroom? And not in a beast’s form, but as a human! How could that be?

Damn, I’ve missed hot showers.
The thought came unbidden to mind, mixing with my own confusion about our surroundings. A voice sounded behind me and I turned.

“I could really go for a pizza right now. Too bad everything’s closed,” Micah mumbled, the words almost lost in the towel he was using to dry his hair, instead of covering his body.

His completely naked body.

My eyes flickered over him: his bony shoulders, his pasty white chest, and the black line that gathered between his nipples and ran down his belly to his...

The mental connection snapped like a rubber band breaking. My body shook back and forth and I blinked, uncomprehending. Aiden stood before me in the living room, his hands gripping my shoulders and murder written all over his face.

“How long were you going to go on?”

“What?” The effects of being separated from the hell transporter’s mind had muddled my thoughts. “Wait, what just happened?”

Aiden dropped his hands to his sides and curled them into tight fists.

“You were ogling Micah in the altogether is what happened.”

“I was not!” Heat rushed to my face. “It wasn’t my fault he was standing there naked. And besides, ew!” A shudder of revulsion swept over me at the image of Micah now seared in my mind. “Like you have anything to worry about.” I rolled my eyes at him. “I’m going back in.”

“Like hell you are.”

“I didn’t even get to see—“

“You saw plenty.” His voice dared me to contradict him, which I was more than willing to do.

Hands on my hips, I shook my head at him in disbelief. “Aiden, you’re acting like a jealous idiot. If I don’t go back in, how will we find out where—“

“I already know.”

“What?” That caught me up short. “What do you mean?”

“That tile is in the men’s locker room at the pool.” He strode to the kitchen and snatched up the car keys.

“How do you know it wasn’t just a bathroom at one of the dorms?”

“The men’s privy has grey tile. The pool’s the only place I’ve ever seen that blue color.” When he reached for the door handle, I lost it.

“Would you just wait one freaking second?” I flung my arms out in frustration and he turned. “I mean, holy crap! The hell transporter is at the pool—right now—in the men’s locker room with Micah. Not as a scaly beast with fangs and talons, but as a guy! What is going on?” Everything I thought I knew had just been blown to bits and I could barely fathom what my eyes had seen. “And not only that, but Micah was totally comfortable being naked in front of this guy.” Aiden winced at that, but didn’t interrupt. “So it has to be someone he knows!” My mind raced through the short list of Micah’s friends.

“Paul is Micah’s best—“ I began, but Aiden cut me off.

“It is not Paul.” Denial radiated like waves of heat from his body.

“How do you know? Where is he tonight? You went hunting with him and I didn’t have any attacks while you were gone. Maybe it’s because you were too close. Maybe he couldn’t break away to get into my head. Oh my gosh, Jen!” Visions of Paul morphing from his handsome, athletic body into the demon transporter flashed before my eyes. Maybe he was using her to get to me. What would he do with her after he’d killed me? I had to warn her!

My face must have taken on a wild, crazed expression because Aiden flung the keys onto the table and came to stand before me.

“I told you, ‘tis not Paul. You knew him before you even met me, before you died.” After a heartbeat, the truth of what he said sunk in. He was right. The hell transporter wouldn’t have come to earth before the car crash. It was only after Aiden had come forward that the beast—man, I corrected myself—started tracking us. Relief washed over me and I nearly sunk to the floor. That meant Ravi was out, too. I hadn’t realized until just that moment how afraid I’d been to even consider it could be Ravi.

“Someone Micah is friends with who wasn’t here before you… oh!”

Derek’s pin cushioned face popped into my head. My hand flew to my mouth. “Derek was at the band room with Micah that day the transporter took over my mind. And he’s always hanging around, watching me, taunting me.” Aiden shook his head as if to say he didn’t recognize the name, so I described Derek. His face registered recognition.