Veiled (12 page)

“Probably nothing,” he says.

“Nothing?” I repeat. “You said they are
hunting
me.”

“They are,” he says, staring down into his coffee like he’s facing the abyss. “And like many hunters, they study their prey first. Find their weaknesses. They come after you because they sense what you have. But they don’t know how you’ll use it. They fear you and want you at the same time.”

I look back to the crow but it’s gone now, as is the shadow. “How long has this been going on?” I ask quietly. “How long have I not been seeing it?”

“As I said before, years.”

“So why now am I in danger?”

A couple walking past the table give us a weird look. I hunch over and lean in close to Jay as he speaks.

“As I said before,” he repeats slowly, a flicker of impatience in his blue eyes, “you’re coming into your own. You’re an adult. A woman.”

Is he hinting at my own sexual awakening or some new-agey bullshit?

“For the record,” I tell him. “I’m not a virgin. And I’ve been a woman for a while.”

He cocks his head at me, frowning. “Oh, I know.” He pauses, studying my expression, which must be one of horror because I don’t know want to know how he knows that. “The impetuousness of youth. You may be eighteen but you have a lot of growing up to do. And you’re about to grow up really, really fast.”

“Ada?” Amy’s shrill voice comes from across the shop.

“Shit,” I swear, wishing I could hide. I tell Amy everything and she’s not going to like the fact that I’m having coffee with a strange man.

“Your friend is here,” Jay says quietly.

Amy comes to the table, her boyfriend Tom in tow behind her. Both of them stare down at me like I’m someone they don’t even recognize.

“Hey,” I tell her.

“Hey yourself,” she says testily. “You might want to answer your texts, I’ve been harassing the hell out of you. What, you can’t bother to reply?”

I honestly haven’t even checked my phone in the last day. I nod at Tom, who despite his indignation for Amy’s sake, is usually mellow as fuck. “Hey Tom.”

He nods back. “Sup, Ada.”

“Sorry,” I say to Amy, offering my sweetest smile. “I’ve been busy.”

“I can see that,” she says, her attention now on Jay, inspecting him with a look of utter disapproval. “And who are you?”

“Jay,” he says, holding out his large hand.

She eyes it before shaking. “Jay who?” She winces a little under his grip.

“Jay,” he says, taking his hand back, and for a moment I wonder if he even has a last name. “Jay Abrams.”

“J.J. Abrams?” she repeats suspiciously, like she can tell he totally made up that name on the spot.

He nods. “Yes.”

Ugh. He doesn’t get it.

“Jay just moved in next store,” I tell her quickly. “He’s renting a room. I’m showing him around Portland.”

Amy seems to relax a little. “Oh. Well, welcome to the neighborhood. Where did you live before?”

I expect him to be vague but he says, “Ramona, California.”

“Cool.” She looks back to me, her brow arching high. “Well, maybe text me later if it doesn’t kill you, okay?”

She and Tom wave goodbye and they’re gone. I can’t help but let out a long sigh of relief.

“She doesn’t know about you,” Jay notes. “About your family. Your truth.”

“No,” I tell him. “Believe me it’s a lot better that way.”

“Is it?”

I give him a questioning look. “Of course it is. She’ll think I’m nuts.”

“How do you know? Isn’t she your friend?”

“How do I know? Because I would think she was nuts if the situation was reversed.”

“But you would still stay her friend.”

“Of course I would. I love crazy people.”

He exhales sharply out of his nose as he stares at me. “Can I give you a bit of advice, Ada?”

“You can give me all the advice,” I tell him. “Please. Especially the advice that’s about how to not get eaten by demons.”

“You should tell her. Get it over with. Right now, things are easy for you.”

“Easy?” I repeat.

“They’re about to get harder. You need to know whether you can rely on your friends or not. You need to find that out now, while you can still stand on your own two feet. Because if you put your trust into someone and the going gets rough and they bail? The fall might kill you.”

I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to talk to Amy about any of this. She’s my friend. She’s my escape to a normal life. I can’t risk losing her, losing that.

A few moments of silence pass between us, Jay looking back out the window, his eyes searching the passersby. Meanwhile my heart is in knots because I know I should follow his advice, and my stomach is churning, possibly because of the sugar and coffee, possibly because I can’t come to terms with anything that I’ve been told today. Even the monster thing I just saw is something I have to push aside for now. If Jay can have a locked door in his head, so can I.

“Is your last name really Abrams?” I ask him.

He smiles quickly. “No. I don’t have one. I suppose I should. I just thought of the guy who directed the new Star Wars.”

So the immortal knows some pop culture after all.

CHAPTER NINE

We didn’t stay out for coffee too much longer. Jay took me back home and even though our conversation wasn’t as deep as before, I did pick up some interesting tidbits.

Such as:

- In time, not only would I be able to spot demons but I would be able to put them back where they belong, forever, through various methods he would one day explain to me.

- Life was going to get harder before it got easier.

- The Thin Veil was off-limits to me and visions of my mother weren’t real.

You know. The usual shit.

Can’t say I arrived home for dinner brimming with confidence. I was sullen and quiet over the meal, as was my father though I assumed for different reasons. Perry had texted and called a million times over the course of the day, checking up on me and assuming the worst when I didn’t answer right away. I didn’t tell her much though. If I didn’t understand it, neither would she and she’d be worrying even more over something she can’t control.

After dinner I cleaned up and thought briefly about enlisting Jay to help me move shit into the other room, but to be honest, I wanted some time to be alone to come to terms with things.

Not that I was coming to terms with
anything
. Because every time I started to think about what he told me, I laughed. It’s funny how your mind can be open, expansive, to almost anything but when there’s a hard limit, something your brain can’t make that extra leap for, it all shuts down. I believed in ghosts. I saw ghosts. I believed in demons. I’ve seen them a few times too. I believed in a lot of things, including the fact that I would never have your average, normal life, no matter how hard I tried.

But the fact that I wasn’t even like my sister, or my grandmother, the fact that my trials were different, that
I
was different from even them, was a hard thing to try and accept.

It made me feel fucking alone.

Not to mention scared.

Not to mention ridiculous.

Me, a demon fighter? Why? I mean, why was that even a
thing
? And why did they seek me? I’m tall and thin, but it’s not like I’m loaded with muscle. I’m coordinated, but for things like Dance Dance Revolution, maybe tennis. I’m smart but I’m not that smart, and my idea of a good time is smoking some pot and perusing fashion blogs until I feel inspired enough to put together an outfit. Why did I somehow possess the power to fight back against demons of all things and what the fuck was the goddamn power to begin with? What was in me that enabled me to do such a thing?

Who was I?

And more importantly, who was I becoming?

I had no answers. Jay had them all but I couldn’t think about them, face them, with him around me. He watches me in more ways than one. It’s not just that he’s looking out for me, it’s that he’s trying to know how I think, how I act. I can sense that behind his eyes.

And more than that, I can sense something else about him. I think he’s more human than he’d care to admit, even to himself. I think he’s had a peek behind that door once or twice. I think there’s a reason he keeps it locked.

So while my dad was in the garden, watering the hostas while there was still light in the sky, I filled a highball glass with his whisky and went upstairs to my old bedroom. I sipped the drink while pretending everything was still as it ever was. In fact, I went beyond that. I pretended my mom was downstairs and Perry was in her room and everything was normal. I wrote blog post after blog post, making up for lost time, all whilst getting drunk. Until I couldn’t type about fucking rompers and bucket bags anymore.

But now, now everything is different.

I’m back on the island.

In the red.

The Veil of my dreams.

The moon is full and disturbingly close. If I stare at it long enough, I can see faces trapped in the surface, mouths open and distorted in silent screams, blood seeping from terrified eyes.

I turn around, my heart already racing away from me.

Instead of being by the ocean this time, I’m on a rocky knoll above a steep slope of trees, a single, narrow path twisting down through salall bushes and shrubs.

Jay is nowhere to be found. I would have assumed that if I fell asleep again, he would be there in my dreams, to protect, to watch.

Jay?
I cry out in my head.

There is nothing, no one. Just myself and the dark crimson trees and the horrible moon.

This world is empty, barren, and very, very cold.

Despair.

Grief.

Shame.

The feelings seem to grow up from the ground like weeds, wrapping around my legs, sinking deep inside until I’m on my knees. I want to weep, to cry out, to scream, to beg for it all to stop. Too many feelings, too many emotions cutting too deep with sickening precision.

I grab my head, my fingers pressing on my scalp, praying for it all to stop.

I am sadness.

I am torture.

I am death.

And beyond death.

The words jab into my brain like an icepick and I have an even worse feeling that there’s someone inside my brain with me.

Not Jay.

Not anyone good.

Then suddenly it stops, so fast that I’m knocked flat on my back, sprawled on frozen ground and the moon seems to float away, to the other side of the sky.

I gasp, taking a moment to catch my breath before getting to my feet.

There’s someone here.

Down the path, heading away from me.

I can’t see them, I can only sense them.

And there is singing too.

Light as air, melodic and dainty. It’s halfway between human voice and chiming crystals.

And yet it’s familiar in a way that breaks my heart.

On the darkest of the nights

With a blood red moon so bright

Your mother will call you, dear

To put away your fear

Follow her quick down the hill

As they will not hesitate to kill

Her and all she could be

Then you, for all you see

So hurry now and listen

Run to the pond that does so glisten

Step in before she dies

And now you know it’s he who lies.

It’s my mother’s voice, changed into something inhuman, but still astoundingly beautiful. It’s a siren song that compels me.

I am unable to resist.

Jay!
I yell out but my legs are moving and I’m running down the path, following her enchanting voice as it sings again and again its morbid tune.

Brushes scratch at me as I run, sometimes tugging at my skin and clothes like tiny clawed hands, my feet are bare and quick as I stumble across moss and rocks, occasionally sinking into something warm and sticky.

I try not to think about any of it, only thinking of my mother. I know I’m not supposed to believe it’s her, I’m not supposed to do anything. But Jay isn’t here and the more I run, that blood red moon filled with screaming faces swinging past me in the sky like a crimson pendulum, the more I don’t care.

I feel like I’ve snuck into someplace other than my dreams, where I can go unwatched, where nothing else matters. Jay can’t help me but I can’t help my mother.

Not real.

Not real.

Not real.

Not her.

His words still find their way into my brain, light as smoke. I shake it off, keep running through the thicket until the ground levels out and the trees close in.

The forest here is dense, tall firs soaring hundreds of feet high. The canopy blocks all but a tiny sliver of the moon and above me I hear the thick slap of leathery wings.

I don’t dare look up.

“
Your mother will call you, dear,

To put away your fear
.”

She sings, nearly weeping over the melody.

I keep walking. My fear is locked up. I have just one thought. To save her.

Finally I stop, a cold breeze blowing down the path toward me, as alive and strong as an oncoming train. It freezes me to the bone, coats me with a thin layer of ice. I stare at my skin, sparkling now, but as the ice melts, I bleed.

I lift up my arm, watching the dark rivulets run down, mildly fascinated.

ADA!

My mother’s voice slams into my head and I’m nearly knocked backward.

HELP ME.

I start running.

The dark woods seem to stretch on forever, moving up and out into a dark infinity. I can feel hot breath on my neck, the cold wind at my front, and yet I know I can’t fear, can’t think, can’t stop.

It’s wrong, it’s wrong.

But I must keep going.

I run, run, run.

QUICK!

THEY HAVE ME!

The woods suddenly stop, opening up to a pond, bare, skeletal trees rising up from the banks like bones. I’ve been here before in my dreams, the same but different, always changing.

This is a land of change,
I think to myself, my first coherent thought in a while.
A land of lies.

ADA!

Lies, lies, lies
, I chant to myself.

“You’re not real!” I yell, suddenly emboldened, remembering all that Jay had told me. “You’re at peace, this isn’t you!”

“But it is, sweetie, it is.”

I whirl around.

My mother is standing ten feet behind me.

I try to scream but no sound comes out.

I am trapped in horror.

Not because she scared me.

But because she’s not alone.

On one side of her is a tall, thin figure, black as sin. He hurts to look at, he seems fathomless, no shape, no details, just a black hole that will eventually suck in your sanity and soul. I can feel the very essence of myself being stripped away and I know the more I stare at him, the more I’ll cease to exist. He reeks of a million siphoned souls inside and grabs onto one of my mother’s arms, her veins turning black where he holds her.

On the other side is Michael. Or at least the body he incorporated back when he was a demon in our world. Tall in a pinstriped suit, he could almost be called dashing, except for the fact that he’s smiling so cunningly, his eyes putrid black holes, that he’s horror personified. Any resemblance I once thought he had to Dex is gone.

“We can stop,” Michael says, his voice so inhuman and terrifying, it makes me grind my teeth together. Liquid spurts from my eyes and I can’t tell if it’s blood or tears as it runs down my cheeks. “We can stop it all right here. We will spare your mother if you just come with us.”

I stare at them. I stare at her.

Her eyes are pleading.

Her eyes are . . . real.

She’s staring at me and she’s crying. She’s in pain. She’s trying to hide it all but she can’t. Her brave face isn’t brave enough.

This is real.

This is her.

And I have no idea what to do because I know what coming with them entails.

As if my mom senses that she slowly shakes her head.

“Don’t do it,” she whispers. “Wake up, Ada. Run away!”

I don’t know what to think. First she’s telling me to save her, singing a song about following her, now she’s telling me to wake up and run away.

Which is it?

I look at Michael. “What do you want?”

His grin never falters. “You know exactly what we want. It’s you.”

Even though his voice makes my eyes bleed, I push on.

“You’re not real. This is a dream. Nothing is really happening.” I look at my mom. “She’s an illusion you’ve made. Maybe even one I’ve made, to play on my guilt.” I nearly choke on those last words. My tongue tastes the blood from my eyes.