The Temptation (Kindred) (18 page)

T
wo days passed without me sleeping,
during which time we were all over the news.

Kelsey and I had been found on the side of Highway 550, near Travis’s
descanso
, by passing motorists who’d seen us slouched there side by side, covered in blood. We’d lied a bit and said Logan alone had kidnapped us from the party, upset that I’d broken up with him, and that he’d tried to kill me. It was a lie of omission. We said nothing of Travis or Victor.

Police quickly found Logan’s fingerprints on the knife, and arrested him at his parents’ hunting cabin in Silver City later that first day. It was a huge scandal, given that he was the son of a state senator.

My mother wasn’t letting me out of her sight. She was convinced that I’d been battered and mentally harmed by my former boyfriend, and she now thought Logan was entirely to blame for my recent strange behavior. She was sure in her parental way that all of this was somehow her fault for having been a busy working mother and not a cuddly mommy who stayed home baking me cookies.

As for me? I was numb, distraught, like a soldier back from the battlefield, unbearably alone with my bottomless grief, with the shining exception of Kelsey, who believed me now, and kept my secrets with me.

It was the third day since Travis had gone, and there’d been no signs from him at all. I could not feel him anywhere. I was exhausted, on edge, hardly able to eat or drink, worn out. I lay on my bed feeling sick, my eyelids fluttering closed against my will. I did not want to sleep. What if he sent me a sign and I missed it? I felt like I was waiting up for someone to come home who never would again. I was afraid of sleep, afraid of the dark. Afraid of everything.

Nonetheless, sleep came for me in spite of my efforts to evade it. Sleep, like death, was inevitable, I thought as I slipped away. I tried to remain semiconscious as I drifted off, in case he came to me in dreams, but I did not dream, not that I could remember. Rather, I sank heavily into a placid liquid blackness, and there I rested, like a rock at the bottom of a well, until something eerie awakened me with a start.

I was stirred by the uncanny sense of a strange and foreign energy in the room with me, moving across me, over me, under me, and around the room like a slippery phantom, stopping here and there to watch me hungrily, as though rubbing its hands together in anticipation of my demise. I felt exposed, dirty, afraid, and violated. I tried to open my eyes to see who was there, but to my surprise I was unable to move at all, even to open my eyes. I was fully awake and aware, but I was completely paralyzed. Though I could not see who was in the room, I sensed its presence powerfully; I knew that it was a female, and she was very, very old—and very, very dangerous. I smelled her sulfuric odor of burned hair and rot, something about it reeking of underground, lava perhaps, mold, decay. The smell of death. I felt her cruelty in the way the air washed over me like a fetid whisper as she moved around, bringing a wake of terrible, intense cold with her.

I struggled against the paralysis, trying to get away. I wanted to sit up, to control my own body, but it was no use. Even my breathing was out of my control, too slow for my comfort; I felt like I was drowning in my own bed. I was stuck, my hands balled in fists, every muscle in my body tensed to the point of tortuous cramping, endless aching. If only I could open my hands, I thought strangely, then the dark stabbing energy that pinned me in place would flow out of me and I’d be released from this prison of immobilization. I tried, and tried, but could not relax my hands. Finally, though, I was able to open my eyes.

The room was dark, the house otherwise silent. Buddy did not stir, and I could not tell if this was because he did not sense the presence as I did, or because he, too, was paralyzed by it. Then I saw it: an even deeper, eternal sort of darkness superimposed itself across the gloom; it was alive, a spindly black demonic force hovering in the air between me and the ceiling, with legs and arms that moved slowly and deliberately, like an insect-person swimming leisurely underwater. She had a hunched back, and long white hair tied up with some sort of scarf, and hands with long, sharp fingernails. I wanted to scream, but nothing came out. I could not control anything now but my eyes, and I did not like what I saw.

“Shane,” the thing whispered evilly, in a strange, wispy croak that seemed to come from very far away. “Shane . . .”

My heart began to race, but my breath did not match its pace. Again I began to feel that I might drown in the air. I wasn’t getting enough oxygen. I’d suffocate soon. But how did it know my name? What was it? Why was it here?

The thing—and I cannot call it a woman, exactly, because it had a tail and claws—opened its mouth to reveal sharp yellow teeth and fangs. Her nose was pressed up and into her face like a bat’s. Her tongue darted out, thin like a snake’s, and tested the air between us.

“Shane,” she whispered again, drifting closer to me, undulating.

I prayed. There was no other power I had now but the power of my own thoughts. I ran through the words in my mind, again and again, praying for her to be gone, for me to be free of the grip she had over me. Nearer yet she drifted, until her hideous, wrinkled, sunken old bat face with her eerily glowing yellow eyes and enormous pointed ears was only inches from my own.

“So this is the Shane he thinks of so often,” she hissed.

Suddenly, she moved fast in a burst of energy, curling into a hunched ball and squatting hard upon my chest. I could not breathe as her weight crushed me. The contact with her filled my body with a cold, slushy sensation. I felt her spindly, frozen hands clamp with astonishing strength upon my neck and begin to squeeze fervently.

“He will never escape,” she cackled hysterically. “You will not take him from me, Shane. You will not live to find him. Oh, how long I’ve waited for something so good, so sweet, so delicious as he! He’s mine now. All mine . . .”

My mind raced in a panic, and I knew that the only hope I held was in the power of my own thoughts. I remembered the look of calm and faith Travis had as the sky pulled him in, and I tried to find that same attitude for myself now.
You will not take me,
I said in my mind,
you cannot take me. I have faith and you will never defeat me.
I visualized all that was good, and I filled my heart with love.
You cannot take this from me
.
You can never destroy true love or faith. I will find him. You cannot stop me. He is my Kindred, and there is no one and nothing that will keep me from him.

I focused these thoughts as tightly as a laser’s point, and aimed them at her, from my mind, and I told her she would let go of me.
You cannot hold me, you cannot touch me, you will not touch me, you will leave this place and go back to where you came from, and you will not come back.

She cackled.

“You pitiful, stupid girl,” she hissed, her voice sounding like many voices at once. But her hands released my throat, and her crushing weight began to lighten upon me. It was working! Whatever I was doing, it was working!

I focused on more beautiful thoughts and visualized surrounding myself with a pure white bubble of peace and happiness that she could not penetrate, and I imagined light filling it with good energy.
You’re not welcome here,
I willed
.

She screamed now, her laugh turning to a bloodcurdling cry of frustration. I watched as she backed up and off of me, floating up toward the ceiling as her face twisted in fury.

“Where is the pendant?” she demanded.

Love will always conquer hate,
I said in my mind, and chanted it over and over. She began to twist in agony, writhing angrily as she lost control of me. I focused now on my hands, feeling that if I could open them, it would help force her away.

“Don’t you want to know where he is?” she screamed, sensing my increasing strength. “Don’t you want me to lead you to him? I can do that! I can take you to him right now if you want! Just tell me where the pendant is. You should hear how he cries for you, like a little baby. You’re the only one who can save him, you know. His Kindred.”

I hesitated and wavered in my focus. But my heart came back strong and told me that she was lying, trying to trick me into submission once more so that she could finish me off. This horrible creature, whatever she was, wanted Travis all to herself.

Love will always conquer hate. He loves me and I love him and you are not welcome here. This is a loving home, and I am a loving girl. You are not to be here.

I zeroed in on my hands, and willed them to open. I knew from Travis that energy travels through your hands, and I realized that unless I could open my fists, the dark force would remain inside of me. With all my might, I willed them to open. And finally, mercifully, they did.

As soon as my fists relaxed, the demonic presence in my room disappeared, her evil energy flowing right out of my hands like water, and cascading through the floor, back to whatever sickening place it had come from.

Instantly, I could breathe again.

I was covered in sweat, my heart racing, and my chest felt bruised where she had crushed me. I sat up, and my neck hurt terribly. Buddy began to bark ferociously now, hysterical, growling at the very corner where I had seen the apparition—or demon, or whatever it was—sink away into the dead of night.

Chilled and terrified, I began to sob uncontrollably. What had it been? What was it trying to do? Were things only going to get worse for me now that Travis was gone? Who was going to save me now?

My mother came running into the room to see what the commotion was.

“It sat on my chest,” I told her, trembling as she turned on the light.

“What did you say?” she asked, and for the first time I could remember during this entire ordeal since my car accident, my mother’s expression changed from one of judgmental doubt and worry to one of pure, unbridled horror.

“Shane,” she said softly, sitting next to me on the bed with her eyes zeroing in on my neck. “What happened to you, honey?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

She pointed. “There are marks all over your neck,” she said, fear in her eyes.

I bolted out of bed and ran to look in the mirror. I saw two large handprints, one on each side of my throat, where the creature had tried to strangle me. The finger marks were thin and long, not human, and in places the skin was raised and bleeding where she’d scraped me with her claws.

“Who did this to you?” my mother asked, coming to stand behind me. “Logan? Was he here? Did you see him again?”

“No, not Logan. It was a monster.”

I told my mother everything about what had happened, but instead of her finally believing me, she began to cry.

“I don’t like what’s happening to you,” she said. The way she said it startled me.

“You think I do?”

“Shane, could you be doing this to yourself?” she asked. “I think that all of this could be some kind of a cry for help.”

“Didn’t you hear the monster?” I asked her. “It was hissing at me, talking to me. It was right here, Mom! I wouldn’t make something like that up! I can’t!”

“Shane, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, honey, but we might want to think about sending you to a specialist. I know a good place up north, for young adults who have been through a great deal of trauma.”

“What?” I asked. “You mean a mental hospital?”

“It’s an in-treatment center,” she corrected me, but the distinction was meaningless. My mother was talking about having me locked up. She was starting to cry. “Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, okay? We’ll get you the help you deserve.”

I was devastated by her words, and too weak after what had happened to me to argue. Slowly, I shuffled back to my bed, and crawled beneath my covers. She’d never believe me. There was nothing I could do.

“Leave me alone, then,” I said. I didn’t like the way she was looking at me anymore, or what she was saying about me. “Get out.”

“I’m just trying to help you, Shane. I love you. I’d do anything to help you, honey.”

“Get out!” I screamed, throwing a pillow at her. “Now! Get out of here!”

“I’m making you an appointment with a psychiatrist,” she said, inching toward the door to leave. “We’re going to get to the bottom of this. We’ll figure out the best next steps. We’re going to get you better, honey.”

I left the lights on and did not sleep again that night, dreading the thing’s return.

Only two thoughts gave me hope as I waited for the sun to rise and a new day to begin.

One, that the disgusting clawed thing, whatever it was, had talked about Travis as though he was still present somewhere, and she’d said he thought of me. She had also said that only I had the power to save him, which meant that it wasn’t too late for him to be saved. I didn’t know if that was true, but I chose to believe it anyway.

Two, Kelsey was still my best friend, and she believed me now. I thought of calling her, but I didn’t want to wake her. When morning finally came, I would call, and tell her everything, and I wouldn’t be alone with the insanity that had become my life. I got up and quietly began to pack a small suitcase with my belongings; when dawn broke, I planned to go to my best friend’s house and try to fix my life from there. I couldn’t stay in my mother’s house anymore. I needed support.

L
ater that day, Kelsey went with me
to the university physics department, and stood at my side as I knocked on the door of Mr. Hedges’s office. He answered, and looked surprised to find us there. He invited us into an office that was as messy and chaotic as he was. He cleared a couple of chairs opposite his desk of junk food wrappers and random wads of paper, and we sat. No longer worried about sounding crazy, I explained it all to him, from the crash to now. To my surprise, Mr. Hedges listened without seeming to find me nuts. In fact, he leaned forward farther and farther the more I talked, his face twitching with fascination and excitement.

“This happened out near Chaco Canyon, you say?” he asked when I had finished.

“Yes, sir.”

Mr. Hedges rubbed his hands together happily. “Oh, yes! I’m not surprised. I chose this university because of its proximity to that very place. You girls do know that Chaco is one of the hot spots around the world for ley lines?”

“What’s a ley line?” I asked.

“They are earth-energy lines,” he answered. “Some people call them spirit lines. I have been hoping to find a portal, and it sounds from what you’ve said that you found one.”

“I think so.”

“This is wonderful!” he exclaimed.

“Yeah,” said Kelsey cynically. “All except for the parts where I had to watch a demon try to murder Shane, and, you know, where the love of her life was scooped up by a tornado from hell.”

Mr. Hedges frowned. “As a physicist, I’d really prefer you didn’t use strictly religious terms for these things.”

“Whatever you want to call it,” said Kelsey. “Can you help us find Travis or not?”

“Terribly exciting,” he mumbled to himself, and began stirring the mess of papers on his desk. “Very, very, oh yes.”

“Have you actually traveled to any of these dimensions?” I asked him.

Mr. Hedges shook his head. “Not exactly, no. But I am close to perfecting the calculations to do so.”

“Great,” said Kelsey unhappily. She looked at me as though we were wasting our time.

Mr. Hedges found a business card among the mess of papers, and handed it over to me. Lowering his voice to a whisper, he said, “I shouldn’t probably tell you girls this, because it makes me sound like a total crackpot, but there is a medium I work with who is able to see into the dimensions. She has guides there. She has been incredibly helpful to me, but I cannot, of course, tell anyone here about her. You understand.”

“Yes,” I said, looking at the card for Minerva Montoya, psychic. “I know what it’s like to have people think you’re crazy. My own mom is talking about having me institutionalized because of all of this.”

“Then we are of a like mind, you and I,” said Mr. Hedges, still whispering. “I suggest you ask her what to do next, and then we’ll talk again. I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help, but the spiritual and emotional part of this does not interest me as much as the mathematics of it.”

“I understand,” I told him, feeling hopeless.

“Off you go, then,” said Mr. Hedges, standing and opening the door. His social skills were just as awkward here as they were at our school.

Half an hour later, Kelsey and I sat in a café in the Nob Hill district of the city, nursing lattes and trying to make sense of things. I did not like the turn my life had taken. I needed resolution, and peace. I could not go on living like this. I
would
end up in a mental hospital.

The café sat directly across the street from the purple door that led to the office of Minerva Montoya, psychic medium. We could see the office and its sign through the window next to our booth. So far, no one had come or gone from it.

“She spelled
your
wrong,” said Kelsey, jutting her chin toward the purple door.

I looked at the hand-painted sign. Sure enough, it read
FOR ALL YOU’RE SPIRITUAL NEEDS
.

“But maybe spelling isn’t a requirement for being a psychic. We should really pay the lady a visit, and just see what she says.”

Minutes later, we sat across from Minerva Montoya herself, in her Nob Hill office, which was really just the living room of her small and disorganized apartment above the shoe store. Stacks of newspapers formed walls within the walls of the place, and we’d had to navigate a maze just to get to the red loveseat upon which we sat, side by side, trying to ignore the fact that a crust of old bread had sprung out from the cushions behind us. A massive cockroach crawled quite slowly up the nearest wall, and the place smelled of many cats and overripe fruit. If this were a month ago, I would have run from the apartment convinced on appearances alone that Minerva Montoya was an unsanitary crackpot; but I was now the girl who’d been brought back from the dead by a ghost. I didn’t have much room to judge anybody anymore.

Minerva was a pudgy middle-aged woman with wild, wavy dark hair streaked with gray that frizzed out of the bottom of her large pink hat. She sat in a low wingback chair, and when she crossed her legs underneath her gauzy, flowing skirt, she exposed her rainbow-striped leg warmers and Birkenstock sandals. On top she had a thick woolen sweater and a shawl. It all looked hastily handmade and odd, but despite that, Minerva still managed to be quite alluring somehow, and I felt comforted and soothed by the patient, knowing expression in her eyes.

“I’ve been expecting you,” she said, leaning forward to pour tea for us. The cups were not exactly clean, and so I took just the tiniest sip, as politeness dictated I must.

“You have?” I asked, still skeptical. “Did Mr. Hedges call?”

Minerva look confused, and shook her head. “Clyde? No. Why? Should he have?”

“I don’t know. He’s our teacher. He told us to see you.”

She laughed. “Oh. No. That’s not it. I knew yesterday you’d be here. What I mean to say is, I didn’t know
exactly
who would be arriving, but I knew there were two girls coming into my life who needed guidance about a spiritual matter. And here you are.”

I felt goose bumps rise on my arms, because I knew she was genuine. In the past, I would have doubted all of what she said, but now I knew better. Minerva looked at us both for a long time without speaking. Kelsey and I had agreed to tell her nothing, in order to see if she could figure out what we wanted. Soon, the psychic’s eyes came to rest only on me.

“It’s you,” she said. “Your friend here loves you very much, and you are fortunate to have her with you during this difficult time.”

I felt that now-familiar chill that comes when you witness something unusual. Kelsey and I remained stock-still, and offered no more information.

“You’re testing me,” said Minerva with a sly smile as she sipped some tea. “That’s fine. I understand. When you’ve been through as much as you have, it’s hard to know who to trust, isn’t it?”

Kelsey and I exchanged a significant look, but still said nothing.

Minerva closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them to stare at me once more.

“I feel a darkness upon you,” she told me. “You are marked. Something has come from the Underworld and touched you. It has left its scent.”

Goose bumps rose across my arms, and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end.

“Some houses or buildings are haunted,” she continued. “And sometimes people are haunted. You are haunted by this dark entity now. Shadowed by it. It is not a ghost. It is not human. It is here with us now, lurking, trying to get in. I won’t let her. She is not allowed here.”

I gasped. Minerva reached out to me and took my hand.

“Don’t be frightened. She feeds off of that. You have fought her off already, or you would not be here. You know instinctively that she is afraid of goodness and love. These are the best weapons you have against her.”

“Who is she?” I asked, my voice faint with fear.

“She is known by many names. Maera, Mara, Bakhtak. Most often, she is called the Old Hag in the English tradition. She is a very old, very hateful female demon who comes when you are sleeping and sits upon your chest to suffocate you.”

Kelsey and I both widened our eyes in amazement.

“Am I correct?” asked Minerva.

“Yes,” I said. “She came to me for the first time last night.”

“I can talk to her,” said Minerva, “but it is very draining, and very dangerous for me and for my spirit guides. I’m keeping her at bay right now with their help. She is furious with you for some reason. A necklace, I think.” Her brow furrowed with deep concern. “Do you have any idea what that might be?”

I nodded, and was about to tell Minerva about Travis when Kelsey interrupted me.

“Minerva, shouldn’t you be able to know why?” Kelsey asked her.

Minerva turned her eyes toward my best friend and smiled in patient offense. “Still testing me, I see.”

“We just have to be sure,” said Kelsey. “I’m sorry if that offends you. There is a lot for us to lose here.”

“Then give me a moment,” said Minerva, a hint of frustration in her voice. “I’m listening to her now. She is not someone I wish to invite into my space, but your friend here needs my help very much. Her life is in danger. Be quiet so I can hear the Old Hag, please.”

Minerva’s eyes rolled back in her head, and she began to whine and rock. I felt a sudden wave of anxiety as the presence of the Old Hag returned to me.

Finally, Minerva’s eyes popped open, and she smiled at us as though seeing us for the first time in a very long while.

“Well, hello, girls,” she said.

Kelsey looked at me, and I shrugged almost imperceptibly.

“You are so, so special, Shane,” Minerva said warmly, tears flowing freely from her eyes as she got up to come and squeeze herself onto the sofa next to me now. She held me tightly to her bosom and released me with a heavy sigh. I had not told her my name, and Kelsey knew it. If there was any doubt that this woman was the real deal, it was gone.

“You have found your soul mate,” she said to me joyfully, “but he is on the other side, is this right?”

I began to cry, and in a flood of words, I told her everything, from the moment of the crash up until an hour before in the café. Minerva listened attentively until I was through.

“So what do you hope to get from me?” she asked. “How can I be of use to you?”

“I want to know what to do now,” I told her. “Travis said I could help him, he asked me to find him. I don’t know how to do that. I want to know if we can figure out where he is, and how to get him back from there. He saved me, and it’s my turn to save him. I know it.”

“I see,” she said thoughtfully. “This is a new one for me. I’ve been doing this for many years, but I’ve never run into a situation like this. Let me see if I can find him, dear.”

Tense with excitement and fear, I waited as the medium closed her eyes again. Kelsey and I looked at each other, and I could tell that she shared my nervousness and that she believed Minerva. The medium began to mumble and murmur, rocking so violently at one point that Kelsey and I both had to lean far from her to avoid being smashed into.

After about ten minutes of this, Minerva’s eyes snapped open again, and again she said, “Well, hello, girls,” as though she had forgotten where she was or who we were for a moment. She composed herself then, coughed for a full minute, and finally spoke.

“He exists,” she said. “This much I know. I feel echoes of him in various corners of the cosmos. He’s not gone. The Old Hag speaks of him, and for this reason I believe he is with her, or near her, but I am sorry to say I cannot contact him directly at this time.”

“Why not?” I cried.

“I need something of his,” she said apologetically. “The Old Hag is standing in my way, and won’t let me through. If I could physically touch something that he’d once held in his hand, that he loved, then I could find him more easily.”

“What about me?” I asked. “He’s touched me. He loves me.”

Minerva’s eyes softened as though she found my naïveté adorable. “No, dear, that doesn’t work. Your own spirit would overpower whatever other spirits are on your flesh. I need an inanimate object. A hairbrush, or something he wore, a shirt. Jewelry works especially well. Metal is always good.”

“We’ll find something,” Kelsey blurted.

“We don’t have anything like that,” I reminded Kelsey.

“I know. But we could,” she said.

Minerva continued, “I just need to be able to pull some of his energy and his vibration into myself so that when I seek him on the other side I will be able to find him more easily.”

“Where are you looking for him?” I asked. “In the Vortex?”

“No. In the Underworld,” she said. “That is where I feel he is most likely to be found now.”

“Is he stuck there?” I asked.

Minerva shrugged and sighed. “I don’t know. Probably, because I cannot find him by calling for him. I have a very good network of guides who are able to find almost anyone I seek on the other side. But if you’re his soul mate, then what the Old Hag says makes sense. You can probably enter the Underworld and bring him back, but only you can do that. This is probably why she fears and hates you so much. She loves having him there. I think she feeds off of darkening his positive energy. When he is scared or lonely or sad, when he feels hopeless, she thrives.”

“How will I be able to reach him?” I asked, horrified by the idea of going to the Very Bad Place. “Would I have to die again?”

She smiled at me. “No, dear. Of course not. I would never assist you if that were the case.”

“Then how?”

“There are other ways. Clyde is working on travel to other dimensions. Did he tell you this?”

Kelsey and I nodded.

Minerva continued. “Yes, he’s quite close. We just needed to nail down an actual portal location, but it sounds as though you might know where that is?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Good. Then we are in good shape, relatively. But first we have to figure out where Travis is. Do you have something of his I can use to pick up on his energy? If we were to just randomly enter the Underworld, we might never find him.”