I handed her the house keys and she didn’t question my strange instruction. I considered myself very lucky to call her a friend.
“Michael, are you hurt?”
He nodded and sweaty strands of hair stuck to his forehead. “I tried to hold onto the van, but it took off too quickly. I fell and scraped my side on the road. It’s not a big deal and should heal in a few hours.” He gasped for air. “I was in pooka form and my skin got grazed pretty bad.”
“Here you go.” Lavie passed me a navy blue towel, which I handed to the teenager. “Who’s this?”
Michael struggled to stand but managed to wrap the towel around his bony hips. He stepped out of the bushes, and that was when I realized he’d downplayed his injury. Peeking out from beneath the towel was a huge abrasion extending over his right thigh, all the way up to his ribs. He’d probably lost several layers of skin.
“Ouch, that looks painful,” Lavie said.
Michael looked at her and shrugged. “It’s not so bad.”
“Lavie, this is Michael. He’s a pooka,” I said in the way of introduction. “And Michael, this is my friend Lavie, she’s a demon hunter.”
The teenager’s eyes widened. “Really?”
“Nice to meet ya,” she said with a smile.
“You know a lot of cool people.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s get inside so we can get you cleaned up and you can tell us what happened.”
He took my offered hand and I helped him up the porch stairs and into the house. Lavie shut the door behind us, and I found myself hoping Gareth wouldn’t respond to my invitation after all.
As soon as we stepped into the kitchen, I could hear the murmur of music still coming from downstairs. I helped Michael into a chair and raced down to Willow’s room. She’d want to know what had happened.
“Sierra, wait!” he called.
I kept going and when I stepped into her bedroom I found it empty. Her laptop was plugged into the wall, music blaring from the attached speakers Papan had given her as a housewarming gift. I shut down the music player.
Where the hell was she?
I raced upstairs and the
Ghostbusters
ringtone echoed from my back pocket as soon as I reached the kitchen. “Hello?”
“Sierra, hi—”
“Willow! Where the hell are you, and what’s going on? Is Papan with you?”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t have much time,” she whispered, breathing heavy. “The couple who kidnapped Michael knocked Jason out and injected him with something.”
“What?”
“I’m sending you the name of the street and suburb we’re at, but I don’t know where we’re going.” The sound of movement echoed through the line.
“Are you both okay?”
She was quiet for a moment. “Jason’s unconscious, but he’s breathing. The man smacked him in the back of the head pretty hard, and there’s some other woman back here. She was already in the van when I snuck in—”
“When you
what?
”
“I snuck into the van back at your place,” she whispered.
I shouldn’t have walked out of the house without really checking on her. Instead, I’d given her some space and now this had happened.
Calm down.
“Sierra, I don’t know where we’re going.”
“Listen, the woman’s still unconscious, right?”
“Yeah.”
Willow being anywhere near Vixen made me ill, but at least she was still tranquilized. “Do they know you’re there?”
“I’ve been hiding under a tarp, but I’m sure they’ll find me as soon as they come get Jason—” A squealing sound cut her off. When she spoke again she sounded panicked. “Oh God, they’re getting out of the van.”
“Willow, listen to me. Stay under the tarp, make sure they don’t see you.”
“Is Michael okay? Did he get back?”
I met the pooka’s caramel eyes and he looked panicked. “Yeah, he’s right here—”
“They’re opening the door.” Willow hiccoughed. “Please, just follow the GPS directions and come find us.”
A sudden rustling turned into the murmur of angry chatter and my stomach dropped.
“No!” Willow yelled.
“Where the hell did this little bitch come from?” a gruff female voice asked.
“I don’t fucking know, but we’re taking her with us,” a man replied.
My sister shrieked.
“What’s with the fucking lights?” the male asked.
Silence followed for a few beats of my frantic heart.
“Willow,” I whispered, but knew she wasn’t on the line anymore. Her fear must have triggered her necromantic power and caused the lightshow, but there weren’t any poltergeists for her to draw from.
“I’ve got her,” the male said, followed by a thumping sound. “Sedate her. Come on!”
The next thing I heard was what I could only imagine was a struggle between my sister and her captors.
“Here, take her. I’ve got the useless alpha,” the man instructed.
The van door slammed and silence filled the line. I held the phone to my ear until the call dropped out completely.
“Is she okay?” Michael asked.
“I don’t know.” An envelope was popping up on my phone’s screen. Her location had come through. Thank the gods and goddesses for navigation maps.
“Sierra, what’s going on?” Lavie looked as panicked as I felt.
I sucked in a breath, ready to explain some of it when my phone buzzed. “Willow?”
“No, babe, it’s me.”
My heart stopped for a moment. “Hey, Gareth,” I said, though my throat constricted.
“I’m just calling to let you know I got your message and I’m on my way.” He hung up before I had a chance to say anything else.
“He’s coming over,” I whispered.
“Who’s coming over?” Michael looked at Lavie then back at me.
I stepped closer. “Listen, why don’t you go and take a shower and then we’ll clean your—”
“No! I can clean it.” He looked away, shy.
“Okay, fine. There’s a first aid kit in the bathroom, as well as some other remedies my grandfather made.” I exhaled, trying to get my thoughts straight. I couldn’t dwell on what Willow had told me. Right now I needed to make sure this guy was safe and out of the way before Gareth arrived. “I need you to stay in Willow’s room, until I tell you it’s okay to come out.”
“Okay, but—”
“I’m serious, you need to stay downstairs. No matter what you hear, don’t come out. You got that?”
“But Sierra, I need to go back to that house so I can release the other kids. I told them I would! And we need to find Willow.”
My chest tightened at the thought of my sister and boyfriend being taken by cruel captors who’d kept children caged in their pooka forms. But Gareth was on his way and we had to take care of him before I could tackle anything else.
“Michael, what happened?” I’d tried to avoid the question, and between what Willow said and what I’d heard I could fill in the blanks, but I needed to hear this.
“Jason and I arrived at the house. He told me to stay in the van, and I did. He knocked on the front door and when no one answered, went inside for a few minutes. As he was heading back the man jumped him, smashed him in the back of the head so hard Jason went down right away. That’s when the woman sedated him.” He paused for a moment, licking his lips. “Anyway, I jumped into the back of the van so they wouldn’t see me. That’s when I found Willow hiding. And some other woman, but I didn’t care about her. I just wanted to get Willow out.”
“So you didn’t know she’d snuck into the van?”
Michael shook his head. “I thought she was here, but she said she wanted to help and make sure I was all right. I told her we had to run because Jason was hurt. I got the back door open and snuck out but told her to wait for a second while I made sure we could make a run for it. And that’s when I saw the man carrying Jason over his shoulder, heading right for me. I told Willow to hide and ran into some bushes. The man threw Jason in the back and the couple got into the van.”
“Why didn’t Willow jump out?”
“They’d locked the door, and as soon as the van took off I jumped on the back and tried to open it anyway. But I couldn’t, and fell off.” He lowered his face, but I’d already seen the unshed tears. “It was my fault. I should’ve helped them.”
I shook my head. “There’s nothing you could’ve done. If they overpowered Papan, you wouldn’t have been able to fight them. You did the right thing, coming back here. We’re going to get them back.”
“Sierra’s right,” Lavie added. “Don’t blame yourself.”
He didn’t say anything, just sat there avoiding our eyes.
“Michael, listen to me. I promise we’ll track Willow and Papan down because she sent me the coordinates. We’ll even help those kids, but I need your help. And that means staying downstairs for a bit because I need to take care of something.”
Several seconds ticked by before he finally nodded and stood.
“Thank you, I appreciate this.” If Lavie and I yanked the demon out of Gareth, maybe he could help us at the house. “Don’t come out. Until I tell you it’s safe!”
Michael headed for the door, stepped inside and closed it behind him.
All I could do now was hope he’d keep his word and stay out of sight. It was the only way I knew how to keep the pooka safe without sending him away, which was the last thing I wanted to do. I was glad he hadn’t involved his parents in any of this.
“You’re like a trouble magnet.”
I jumped and turned to Lavie. “Yeah, but I’m not going to let anyone down. We’re going to take care of everything.” I grabbed her hand and led her upstairs. Inside my room, I dropped her hand, grabbed the brass key from my dresser, and made my way towards the archive closet. I unlocked it, motioned her over and we descended the stairs. “This is where we’re going to exorcise him. What do you think?”
One of Lavie’s excuses for not performing this exorcism was the need for a confined, underground space so the demon couldn’t escape. I’d thought of this room instantly.
She looked into the room. “This is impressive. How did you build it?”
“I didn’t. My grandmother did.” And now, I was going to use it. “Can you get the holding circle up and running again? Oren drew one last night, so if you know how to infuse it, hopefully that’ll save us some time.”
She turned to consider where I was pointing. “Hold on.” She pulled her headlamp from her backpack and strapped it on. “Yes, that’s fine.”
“How many times have you done this?”
She kneeled on the concrete, pulled the ziplock bag from her backpack and started placing the contents in front of her. “I’ve assisted over a dozen times, solo twice. But I’ve exorcised demons from lots of objects.”
“I appreciate your help,” I said. “You’re a good friend, Lavie. I hope I can repay you one day.”
“Thanks Sierra.”
I didn’t need to tell her how I wanted to pay her. Lavie’s demonic seeds initially disgusted me, but I’d become determined to somehow heal her. No matter how long it took, I was going to help remove them from her.
“You better get upstairs.”
I nodded, backing away. When I reached the top, Penny appeared in front of me. “Shit, you scared me!”
Her eyes were narrowed. “What are you going to do now?”
“Nothing—”
“Don’t lie to me. I know when you’re planning something.”
I sighed. “I’m going to help exorcise a demon from my friend.”
Her gaze darkened. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“It’s the only one I have.” I repeated what I’d said to Lavie earlier. I didn’t wait for a response. I walked right past Penny, feeling the chill sweep over my head and body.
“Be careful.” Her words chased me out into my bedroom.
By the time I reached the hallway, my hands were shaky and my heart was pounding. I didn’t want to deal with so many things at once, but I was getting accustomed to it. Since the
Obscurus
found me, my life had become one dark incident after another.
I tried to wipe my thoughts clean because this situation with Gareth would require all my concentration, but I couldn’t. Instead, I kept thinking about Mace’s creepy return, what Henry told me before being killed, Vixen’s secret, Papan’s werewolf problems and what had happened to my sister. Would Willow keep getting herself into as much trouble as I did? The curious nature and the need to help others was a trait we shared. I also wanted to understand what Saul the demon meant to me.
As if in response, the back of my hand itched.
The knock on the door made me jump.
Stop thinking and concentrate!
If I told myself enough times, maybe it would work.
After the next knock, I sucked in a quick breath and let it out slowly. Every step made my legs feel heavier, but I made it to the front door and plastered on a smile as I opened it.
“Hey, Gareth. Come in.”
The leer on his face reminded me of a predator, this one in a lawman’s uniform. Never had the blue police uniform fit him so badly, it was almost as if his entire shape was changing. He wasn’t wearing his hat—it was still sitting on my kitchen table—so I could clearly see his pretty hazel eyes were consumed by black.