Misfit (19 page)

“Ah no, not so easy as dat,” said the Baron. “Why don’t you give me dis precious baby as payment for breaking the truce.”

“No thanks,” snarled Amon. He shoved the possessed out of his way and ran out of the shack.

“Ah so,” said the Baron with an amused twinkle in his eyes. He took a few deep puffs on his cigar. Then he looked at the possessed men. They stared back at him with their blank, bloodshot eyes.

“I’m disappointed in you, children,” he said. “Letting foreign devils mount you like dis. It shows a weak wil .”

He picked up the bottle of rum from the altar, took a long swig, then splashed some on each of the possessed. They convulsed for a moment and the air above them rippled thickly with imps escaping back to Hel . Then the mortals dropped to the ground, unconscious.

The Baron turned to the gasping, bloodied Paul. “Hey, I know you,” he said, shaking his cigar at him scoldingly. “Erzulie Freda’s husband, yes?”

Paul could do nothing but wheeze one last time. Then his eyes started to dim.

“What is wrong with you people,” said the Baron, shaking his head. “I said dis is my turf. I decide who lives and dies. And you, I’l keep around for a while.”

He pressed the burning cigar into the wound in Paul’s neck. The stench of burning flesh fil ed the shack and Paul convulsed wildly. But when the Baron pul ed the cigar away, Paul took a long, shuddering breath and touched his healed neck.

“Dat’s better,” said the Baron, and nodded, placing his cigar back in his mouth.

Paul staggered to his feet, rubbing his neck careful y, his face a mixture of shock and relief. But that quickly changed to panic.

“My daughter!” he shouted, and charged for the door.

“Wait now,” said the Baron, easily restraining Paul with one hand on his shoulder. “No need to worry.

You’l get her back any moment now.”

“How?” demanded Paul.

“You wait and see,” said the Baron, and he winked.

Off in the distance, Paul heard a sudden wolfish howl of panic that changed abruptly to pain. Paul listened to the short barks and whimpers, while the Baron grinned and chewed his cigar. Then a shape appeared in the doorway. It looked like a mortal woman, but she walked with a strange, shuffling gait.

As she stepped into the light of the shack, Paul saw that it was a zombie. Her hair was patchy, her skin peeling away from the bone in strips on her face. In her rotting arms she held Baby Jael. She stroked Jael’s hair with bone fingers and smiled down at her with a vague yet unmistakable maternal affection.

“Jesus,” said Paul, stunned speechless for the first time in a very long time.

“Ah, thank you, my dear,” said the Baron, gently removing Jael from the zombie’s arms. “You may go back to your feast. I am quite pleased with you. I suspect your service may be ending soon.”

She nodded and slowly turned, then shuffled back through the door and into the night, heading in the direction of the canine howls of misery.

“This is yours, I think,” said the Baron as he handed Jael to Paul.

Paul held Jael in his arms, feeling her warm breath against his chest as if for the first time.

“Thank you,” he said simply.

The Baron shrugged. “It’s good to remind these demons sometimes that I’m stil around.”

There was another shrieking bark in the distance.

“I didn’t know zombies could eat demons,” admitted Paul.

“Oh, dey can’t, real y,” said the Baron. “But you know, dey just keep trying anyway.”

When Poujean woke a few hours after dawn, he found Paul sitting at the table, holding the sleeping Jael in his arms and staring out the window. Poujean struggled to his feet, rubbing his head.

“Is everything okay?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Paul quietly. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“You did it. You brought the Baron here and he helped me.

Not exactly in the way we hoped, but that’s pretty typical of the Baron.”

“Is that why I feel like a cow has stepped repeatedly on my head?” asked Poujean.

“Probably,” said Paul.

Poujean tore open a bottle of water and chugged it down without taking a breath.

“You going to be okay?” asked Paul.

“Every muscle in my body aches,” said Poujean as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “But in a good way. Like when I was a boy playing footbal . The kind of ache that reminds you that you’re stil alive.

With things to do.” He picked up the black top hat that lay on the altar and brushed the dirt from it.

“The Church won’t like you doing this kind of stuff,”

said Paul. “It’s too dark for them. Too blatantly pagan.”

“Yes,” said Poujean. “But I hear a cal now that is stronger even than when I was cal ed to the priesthood. I cannot ignore it. Perhaps my path leads away from the Church for a while.”

“That’s funny,” said Paul. “Because I think mine is leading me back to them.”

“Oh?” said Poujean. He turned from the hat to Paul.

“That’s how the Baron helped. In addition to saving my life and my daughter, he convinced me to fol ow your advice,” said Paul.

“Which advice was that?”

“To ask the Church to protect us.”

“How did he convince you to do that?” asked Poujean.

Paul looked down at the sweet baby girl in his arms.

“He didn’t need to say a word. If it weren’t for him, I would have lost her last night. I have to humble myself and accept that I can’t do this alone. I can’t let my feelings toward the Church or my pride get in the way like that again. From now on, I think only of the greater good.”

They stand in the living room, father and daughter, both reeling from the shared experience.

“Dad, I . . .” “Do you see now?” he asks. “Do you want to bring something like that down on this sleepy little neighborhood? If there is any risk that this Rob could reveal us, it wil be more than just embarrassing. It wil be deadly.”

“But Dad, we can’t just keep moving. I can’t do it. I’l go crazy.”

He looks at her, and Jael sees the pain in his eyes.

She remembers the heavy song of his soul.

“Please, Dad,” she says, little more than a whisper. “I know you don’t want to do this.”

But he takes a deep breath and shakes his head. “I’m sorry.

I need to you be strong,” he says. “I need you to think about the greater good now. I wil give you tomorrow to say good-bye to your friends. We leave in the evening. Go up to your room and start packing.”

Then he sits back down in his chair, picks up his Bible, and begins to read.

She walks slowly up the spiral staircase to her bedroom.

Once there, she stares at the clothes on the floor for a long time.

She feels her body slowly heat up and she lets it.

What does it matter if she scorches a few wal s now?

She’s leaving anyway.

Going off to live in some remote land—no friends, no contact with anyone except a bitter ex-priest and a fish monster. Perfect.

Why can’t her father just trust her for once? Why can’t he believe that someone other than him is capable of doing something right? She can make this work. She knows it. It wil never get to the point where crazy demons and zombies are climbing in through the windows. Or if it does, it won’t be because of Rob.

There has to be a way to convince him of that.

Britt wil know what to do. Jael hasn’t been sure about tel ing her al of this, but what’s the risk now? If she doesn’t get Britt’s help, she’l be leaving in twenty-four hours anyway.

With a sudden burst of energy, she grabs the phone on her dresser, and punches in Britt’s number. But she’s let herself get too hot. Just as the voice mail kicks in and Britt’s mom’s cheerful, dippy voice comes on, Jael’s phone melts into a shapeless blob.

“Shit,” she hisses, and flings it across the room, where it smashes through the monitor of her computer.

Wel , there goes that option too.

The anger and frustration boil up inside her and her body gets even hotter. Smoke begins to rise off of her clothes. She can’t seem to calm down. She’s losing control like she did at the bookstore.

“No!” she says. “Please, just . . . cool off.” She just throws it out there, not even real y expecting anything.

But the air responds. Yes, it almost seems to say. If it upsets you to be so hot, we can make you cooler. A moment later, her skin temperature drops so low that there’s a light dusting of frost on her jeans.

She sighs deeply. “Thanks,” she says, although she’s not sure if air real y cares about stuff like that.

The heat problem is solved, but she stil needs to talk to Britt and she doesn’t have either a phone or a computer. She knows her father won’t let her out this late. And she’s so pissed at him she doesn’t even want to see his face right now anyway.

So for the first time in her life, she contemplates sneaking out.

She peers out of her bedroom window. There isn’t any ledge and the lone tree in their little yard is not within jumping distance.

Not that she’s crazy enough to jump at this height, considering her last attempt at flight.

But she did get into the air, didn’t she? It was only for a few seconds, but that might be al she needs.

She leans out the window. The wind is up, so it’s hard for her to get the air’s attention. Eventual y, she connects with a swirly little piece and asks it to stop her from fal ing. Then she quickly steps off the window ledge before the wind gets tired of waiting. She sways somewhat precariously in midair for a moment.

Then the air loses interest and lets her fal . But she’s already been talking with the air beneath it, so she only drops by a foot. She continues like this, moment-by-moment, step-by-step, until she lands on the ground.

She thanks the earth under her feet for being its dependable self. The earth turns its groggy attention to her for a moment, then goes back to whatever it is earth thinks about.

Jael turns west, toward Britt’s house.

Al the windows in Britt’s house are lit up like they’re having a party. But that’s how Britt and her mom keep it al the time, even when it’s just the two of them, and it looks a lot more cheerful than Jael’s own dark, gloomy home. Her eyes have adjusted so wel to the night that as she approaches the front door, she has to squint at the light that spil s out.

Jael walks up the front steps and across the porch.

She has to step around old toys, broken exercise machines, and camping gear, some of which has probably been there for years. Britt and her mom always enter through the back door, where the garage is, so the front porch has become a dumping ground.

That’s one of the dangers of always living in the same house, she supposes.

You never need to purge your possessions, so stuff just keeps piling up.

Jael rings the doorbel , and after a few moments, Britt’s mother answers the door. Her thick honey-blond hair seems wreathed in light from the room behind her. She smiles with glossy red lips.

“Hi, Jael. What’s up?”

Ms. Brougher real y is a beautiful woman, in that classic pinup kind of way. Al soft curves and bright smiles. She’s always made Jael feel especial y coarse and unfeminine.

“Hey, Ms. Brougher,” says Jael.

“Jael, you’re not my student anymore. You can just cal me Heather now.”

“Sorry,” says Jael. “It’s habit.”

“So, what’s up, girl?” says Miss Brougher. “You’re out late on a school night.”

“Yeah,” says Jael. “Can I talk with Britt?”

Ms. Brougher raises a penciled eyebrow at her.

“Hmmm .

. . can I take a guess and say that you’re having boy trouble?”

“Uh, sure,” says Jael. Close enough.

“Wel , come on in.”

Jael fol ows her into the living room, which is crowded with overstuffed furniture that makes the smal room seem even smal er.

“Britt’s on the computer in her room. I’m sure she can pul herself away. Just go on in.” She makes a dainty flipping motion with her hand, then leans over and picks up a cordless phone from one of the easy chairs.

“Hey, I’m back,” she says into the phone. “Yeah, just one of Britt’s little friends, here for some romance advice.” She pauses as she listens to the response.

“Ha-ha, Jack. Real funny. She is only sixteen, you know.” Then she wanders out into the kitchen.

A little tingle runs through Jael at the name Jack. Can it possibly be the same guy from the bookstore? How weird would that be? . . . She hopes it isn’t, because that would be a little disappointing. A guy like that could do better than Miss Brougher. Somebody younger. And cooler.

Jael looks around at the living room: at the huge TV

that had been a gift from one of Miss Brougher’s previous boyfriends, at the stacks of teen fashion magazines on the coffee table, and at the line of crucifixes and framed pictures of saints hung along the wal s. Jael can’t decide whether coming here was the best idea she’s ever had, or the worst.

When Jael peeks through the doorway into Britt’s room, she sees her in the corner, hunched over a keyboard and staring at her computer monitor. It looks like she has about five different instant message windows open at once, as wel as e-mail and an article from Teen Vogue.

“One sec,” says Britt without turning around. Then she clacks furiously on her keyboard.

Jael looks around Britt’s room, which is, as always, perfectly organized. Every inch of wal is covered in posters of models or actors, except the space directly over her bed. That place of honor is held by a massive metal crucifix.

“Hookay!” says Britt. “Good night, Internet!” Then she spins around in her chair to look at Jael. “I just told them al I have to sign off to help a girlfriend in crisis.”

“Why do you think I’m in crisis?” asks Jael.

“Uh, because you never just show up at my house late at night like this. Now, sit down, you’re making me nervous.”

Jael sits on the edge of the bed.

“So, what’s up?” asks Britt. “Is this about Rob?”

“Yeah, kinda,” says Jael, trying to decide where to begin.

Blurting it out like she did with Rob probably isn’t going to work, and lighting something on fire just to show her would definitely freak her out. She should have planned ahead of time how she was going to do this.

“Come on,” says Britt encouragingly. “Whatever you guys did, trust me, I’ve done it.”

“Uh . . .”

“I’m your best friend. If you can’t tel me, who can you tel ?”

“That’s just it,” says Jael. “I don’t know if I should real y tel anyone.”

“Oh my God, are you pregnant?”

“What? No!”

“Okay,” says Britt, visibly relieved. “Wel , it can’t real y be any worse than that. So what is it?”

“You know how a lot of people think that witches and stuff like that are evil?”

“Of course,” says Britt. “Why wouldn’t they?”

“Wel , what if they weren’t? Not al of them, anyway.

What if it was al just some kind of . . .

misunderstanding?”

Britt frowns. “How could it possibly be a misunderstanding?

The Bible is ful of examples of witches and sorceresses. And they’re al evil.”

“So what if there were others though, who were good and just didn’t get mentioned?”

“Oh, yeah, right. Like, ‘Hey, God. I know you’re al -

knowing and everything, but you missed a few.’” She gives Jael a weird look. “What’s this al about? You never talk about this kind of stuff. Is Rob into some weird Satanic cult or something?”

“No!” says Jael. “Maybe witches was . . . a bad example. I was just . . . uh, talking metaphorical y.”

“J, just talk straight with me. Are you and Rob hooking up or what?”

“No,” says Jael. “I mean, not yet. I don’t know. I’m just .

. .

look, honestly, I’m not even sure where to begin. . . .”

“Oh,” says Britt, rol ing her eyes and nodding her head.

“OK, I get it.”

“You do?” asks Jael, pretty sure she doesn’t.

“Sure. Sorry, I’ve been a little slow on the uptake today.”

She leans in a little, like they’re suddenly speaking more confidential y. “Listen, it’s total y normal to be nervous about the first time. But I am here to tel you that there’s nothing to be scared of.”

“No?” Jael feels like she’s lost control of the conversation.

“I mean, it’s a little weird,” Britt says. “And kind of uncomfortable at first.” She makes a sour face. “Okay, being total y honest here, it’s a lot uncomfortable. But once you relax into it, you know, it’s real y . . .” She shakes her head and sighs.

“I don’t even know how to describe it.”

“What are you talking about?” asks Jael.

“Last night!” says Britt.

“Oh, right,” says Jael. “Deep Prius guy.”

Britt goes into her latest romantic adventure. Hearing Britt talk about sweaty contact in the back of a car is almost more than Jael can stand, so after a while, she stops listening.

Without real y deciding to do it, she looks through Britt’s eyes to see what’s behind their cheerful sparkle.

Britt’s soul is different from either Rob’s or her father’s. It flails and quivers like an injured bird, desperate and maimed. As Jael looks deeper, like her father showed her, she starts to see the images encased in the depths of the spirit, stacked up like layers of silver flame. They spil over each other in a confusing welter. She goes for the biggest one and for just a moment she sees the ceiling in a car, a fogged window, and the muffled sound of a girl crying softly into fabric. The sadness cuts into Jael’s heart like a knife. And that’s when she understands that she’s not going to find what she’s looking for here with Britt. No solution, no comfort. Even if she could get Britt past the Bible stuff, there’s no more room for drama in the Brougher house. It’s al booked up.

“That’s it,” says Britt, al bright eyes and smiles. “No more virginity for me! Boy, what a relief!”

Jael pul s away from her soul, and looks into her friend’s cheerful face. “You real y did it?” she asks.

“You had sex with this guy?”

“J, I know what you’re thinking, but I’m here to tel you that there’s nothing to be scared of. In fact, I can’t wait until we do it again, you know?”

“Real y?”

“J, he’s real y so amazing and smart and super nice.

His parents are total y evil, though. I don’t know how he avoided being al screwed up like them. I think it’s because he does so much in the Church. Anyway, seriously, I think I’m in love with him.”

“Wow,” says Jael. “Love?”

“Just wait until you meet him!” she says. “You’l total y understand. We’re perfect. Like you and Rob.”

“Yeah . . . ,” says Jael. Is it so hard to believe that Britt has real y found someone? Maybe Jael is just jealous because if she moves, she loses Rob along with everything else.

“He sounds . . . great,” Jael says at last. She’s about to say she can’t wait to meet him, but realizes that she isn’t going to, because she’l be gone in less than twenty-four hours. A lump rises in her throat. It’s best for her to just fade quietly away and let Britt have her normal life with her normal church boyfriend.

To bring her into Jael’s world would just be selfish.

So Jael pushes a smile onto her lips. “I should probably get going. School night and al .”

“Are you okay, then?” asks Britt. “For real?”

“Yeah,” says Jael. “Thanks.”

“Hey, what are best friends for?”

“Sure,” says Jael. “See you tomorrow.”

Jael is about halfway home when she sees the ram.

The streetlight shines off its glossy white coat and thick, curled horns. It just stands there, casual y, like it’s normal for rams to hang out on a street corner in Seattle. It’s looking directly at her.

She stops and waits to see what it wil do. She isn’t scared, exactly. But she also isn’t about to take any chances, even on what appears to be a misplaced farm animal. After a few moments, it begins to walk toward her, its hooves clicking loudly.