Experiment in Terror 05 On Demon Wings (14 page)

fol owing them in. “No, it doesn’t. I reckon your problem is

you’re combining al these events that have happened to

you and expect them to al be connected. But I don’t think

that’s the case here.”

I waved my hand for the waiter and caught his eye.

Screw it, Nancy Drew must have let her hair down once in a

while.

“So what says ‘ghost’ to you?” I asked, my attention

back on the burly redhead.

“Obviously the slippers. The doorbel . The knocks. The

yel ing, the TV, those are al things that poltergeists do.”

“Last time you thought there was a poltergeist, it turned

out to be skinwalkers,” I pointed out.

He smiled, a tad embarrassed. “I’m not saying it can’t be

anything else…”

“What about my nail polish?” I say, wiggling my right

hand at him.

“It’s very pretty.”

“I mean, how did this get on my nails? And for that

matter, who hid the syrup on me?”

He gave me a sharp look as the waiter approached the

table. I composed myself and smiled up at him.

“What wil you be having?” the waiter asked. “Another of

the Quails Gate?”

I nodded and Maximus caved and ordered another beer.

His eyes fol owed the waiter until he was gone, then he

leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table. I noticed his

steel grey shirt was made out of fine silk, like fancy cowboy

wear.

“What happened to you in Seattle?”

I flinched, surprised at the question. “What do you

mean?”

“I don’t mean with Dex, I don’t care to hear about that.”

I could have sworn a dark shadow passed over his

freckled face as he mentioned
his
name. The same look

probably appeared on my face as wel , and often.

He continued, “What ghosts did you encounter?”

“Oh. Wel I don’t care to particularly think about
that
. You

saw the footage that aired, right?”

He nodded. “And that was it? Was there anything else in

that asylum?”

I thought about Creepy Clown Lady’s message on the

EVP. Then I thought about Creepy Clown Lady in the

hospital.

“You know how I was tel ing you about that woman I

saw?”

“Circus freak?”

I bit my lip to keep from smiling. “Yeah. She left a

message for Dex. Wel , us, real y. On the EVP. And only I

had heard it. Dex might have now, but I heard it first and

told him not to listen and then everything, wel , you know…

she real y does seem to want to warn me about something.”

He leaned closer stil . I caught a whiff of his spicy

cinnamon smel . I breathed it in and automatical y found

myself closing my eyes for a second.

“What did the message say?”

“I can’t real y remember,” I said, somewhat truthful y.

“She told me to ask my parents who Declan O’Shea was…

do you know?”

“Not unless Dex had a different last name. He hasn’t for

as long as I’ve known him.”

I nodded, not real y expecting to have gotten an answer. I

took in a deep breath before I blurted out the more painful

stuff.

“She knew I had done some things to Dex.”

He eyed me suspiciously. “What things?”

“Don’t judge me, but…I switched his medication. I mean,

I found out what he was taking and then I replaced half his

pil s with placebos.”

“Jesus,” Maximus swore, his eyes going wide as

saucers. He let out a low whistle. “Perry, I’m not sure what

to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” I said quickly, feeling

cold sweat nip at the center of my palms. “I know what I did

was wrong. I just had to know. I had to know what was

wrong with him.”

“Did you find out?”

“I think he’s as sane as I am. I don’t think there’s anything

that medication can fix.”

“I don’t know about that,” he began.

“I do,” I said firmly. “And I don’t mean to talk about him. I

don’t want to talk about him. There was something else.

Pippa, circus freak, said that she’s being watched. By the

soul ess ones who keep her there…the…demons.”

“Demons?” Maximus repeated. He sounded rather

disbelieving and I didn’t want to have to convince him by

bringing up some of the freaky shit I dealt with in the past.

Freaky shit like Jacob.

“Yes, that’s what she said,” I reiterated. “Then she said,

I’m in real danger, especial y if he thinks I’m fine. When I’m

safe, the damage wil be done. That she’d come after

me…”

“She? Who? Pippa?”

I looked down, my head twitching
no
. I placed my hand

on the crook of his elbow, needing something solid to hold

onto.

“No. Not Pippa. Pippa was warning Dex. About Abby.”

Because my hand was on him, I could feel al the

muscles in his arm tense up at the mention of her name. I

looked up at him slyly, and grinned. I felt a wave of hate

dripping off of myself, as if it clung wetly to my teeth.

“
You remember me, don’t you Redboy?”

A look of utter terror fil ed his face. “W-what?”

“I said, you remember Abby, don’t you?” I gripped his

arm for a second and then let go. The strange rush of anger

I felt seconds earlier was released. “You told me about her

yourself, in New Mexico.”

“That’s not what you just said,” he stammered and pul ed

away like he was suddenly scared of me. “You just cal ed

me Redboy.”

I had no idea what he was talking about. “Maybe crazy is

contagious.”

He seemed to think about that.

“Maybe,” he final y said, his voice low and wispy. A line

of fear never left his face. “Maybe.”

“Wel , we saw Abby al over the damn place.”

“We?”

“Dex and I. We both saw her. In the asylum, on the street,

in the apartment.” I couldn’t help but shudder at the vision of

her walking across his apartment, dripping blood onto the

floor, the thick splats. The wasps. The smel of gin.

“I think she might be fucking with me,” I said slowly. It

was like dawn was bursting through the windows and

il uminating a very simple problem. “Abby. I think she’s

haunting me.”

Maximus nodded but I could tel he wasn’t too impressed

with my deduction skil s. Of freaking course Abby was

haunting me. That’s what Pippa warned would happen.

That’s why I saw Abby in my dreams, in the hospital. That’s

who was knocking on the doors and leaving baby slippers

everywhere.

Talking about her was making me feel extremely edgy,

like she was perched somewhere on my shoulder, waiting

to slip inside through my ears.

“Can ghosts…,” I started, then looked around me. The

crowd was loud and the sound of clinking glasses

reverberated around the room, but I was stil incredibly

conscious of what we were talking about. “Can ghosts fuck

with you like that? Like, get inside your head? Can they…

take over?”

“You mean like possession?” he asked, and at the word,

my blood ran cold. I brought my cardigan around me.

I urged him to continue by gesturing with my fingers.

“It depends on the culture,” he explained. “In some

societies, shamans can possess someone. In others, like

in Wicca, they can be possessed by the Goddess, wil ingly.

In Catholic society, some believe you can be possessed by

the Devil.”

“Do you?”

He looked a bit uncomfortable and fidgeted in his seat,

trying to get comfortable. “I don’t know if I do. It’s usual y

something else. Mental il ness.”

Oh, of course. Everyone goes for the mental y il angle.

“OK, and what about ghosts. Plain ol’ dead people.

Spirits. Specters. Et cetera. Do you think they can take

over?”

He pursed his lips and wiggled them back and forth as

he thought. “No. And if they can, if they do, I believe it has to

be voluntary. But that doesn’t mean that they can’t get

inside your head. That doesn’t mean you don’t have a

nasty, revenge-fueled poltergeist on your hands, straight

from Seattle, Washington.”

I let out a burst of hot, booze-soaked breath I must have

been holding onto for the last hour. So there was a distinct

chance that some of the crazy, terrifying things that were

happening to me were because Abby had decided to haunt

me and make my life a living hel . I felt partial y relieved at

having come to some sort of conclusion, but it left me with

the overal debilitating sense of
what the fuck do I do now?

I mean, seriously?

~~~

I had forgotten I had thought of the solution to my

predicament earlier. And that was to get extremely drunk.

After the Abby epiphany, I drank more wine and Maximus

said we’d take a cab back, and then he got in on a few

rounds and shots of whisky.

We stayed at the wine bar until it closed. I fielded texts

from my parents and Ada wondering where I was and if I

was OK and I reassured them I was fine. But I hadn’t

expected to stumble out of the bar at 2 a.m.

We both waved drunkenly at the waiter, who was only so

happy to see us go as he locked the doors with a

resounding click, and Maximus grabbed my arm and led

me to the bike path that weaved its way along the dark,

churning river and passed through the open park space

where homeless bums slept on the benches. It was cold

and a little bit frightening, but I felt safe with his hand on me.

And I felt safer two seconds later when his hand slid

down my back and wrapped around my waist.

I gazed up at him as we walked, like we were on a

romantic middle-of-the-night strol in the waning days of

winter. I didn’t know how I felt about him. I felt drunk, that

was for sure. I also felt scared, and it wasn’t just about

Abby, or about the weird shadows that lurked in the park, or

the fact that I would be going home tonight. It was that I

knew I didn’t
have
to go home tonight, and that scared me

too. Because the last thing I needed was to get embroiled

with another man, especial y this man. As charming a

gentleman as Maximus was, he was stil so tightly woven

into the story of me and Dex that I didn’t see how any of this

could be a good idea.

And when I started to think that maybe I did
like him
, like

him (as Ada would say), I wondered how much of that was

real. And how much of that was because I was scared. And

how much of that was because I was lonely. And how much

of that was because there was something deep inside me

that stil craved one final stab of my own revenge. I wasn’t

going to pretend I was better than that, that I wasn’t thinking

how poetic it would be for me to sleep with Dex’s ex-best

friend.

But that was a bit icky. And when Maximus brought me

closer to him, I felt al warm and gooey at the strength of his

hands and I couldn’t imagine just walking away with nothing

happening between us. Lonely, icky, scared…I wanted him

and I wanted him badly. I ached for him.

As if picking up on that vibe I was emanating from my

lady parts, he stopped at a part of the path that jutted out in

a semi-circle, where people would stand on sunny days to

take better photographs of the river. I stopped with him and

he put his other hand on my side and faced me straight on.

My goodness, he real y was a tal guy. The wind off the

river whipped up his hair, messing up his Elvis-like do, and

it looked colorless in the cold lights of the city. His eyes

were stil green somehow, like a liquid forest, and they

stared down into mine. It wasn’t intense or dramatic or even

particularly romantic, but I could see the feverish want in

them fighting against his ever-present need to be

respectful.

“Are you going to kiss me?” I whispered, my voice

catching on a damp gust.

He grinned, that sly, lazy smile that only worked one side

of his mouth. “I was thinking about it.”

I might need a ladder
, was my last thought before he

leaned over and placed his lips on mine.

His lips were slightly rough, but they were large and

pil owy and stirred up tickles on my tongue that traveled

down to the base of my spine. He put one hand behind my

head and held me there, the back of my head feeling very

smal , and I had the image of a baby bird being cupped

between two hands. It was a weird mixture of feeling desire

and feeling safe and the longer we made out in that park,

his hands never straying from my head or the dent of my

side, the safer I felt. Like nothing could touch me except him