Misfit (25 page)

Her father is making dinner when she walks through the front door.

“How’d it go today?” he asks from the kitchen.

This is the part where she’s supposed to tel her father that it’s al over. That they’re completely screwed. But she doesn’t.

“Great,” she says with as much enthusiasm as she can muster. She goes up to her room and quickly pul s on some real clothes. Then she starts hunting through the piles of half-clean laundry on her floor for her phone. If Belial real y plans to get at her friends, Rob is the most obvious target.

But of course she melted the phone in her room two nights ago. So she goes back downstairs and cal s Rob from the kitchen phone, keenly aware of her father’s presence as he cooks dinner.

“Hel o?” says a woman’s voice.

“Hi, Mrs. McKinley?” says Jael cheerful y. “This is Jael Thompson, Rob’s friend?”

“Ah, yes!” says Mrs. McKinley. “Jael! We’ve heard so much about you! Rob just won’t stop talking about you. So when are we final y going to get to meet you?”

“Oh, uh, whenever Rob asks me over, I guess,” says Jael.

“Right, right, wel he can’t hide you from us forever!”

She laughs, then continues to make smal talk for several minutes.

Jael forces out calm, upbeat responses, fighting the urge to scream. At last Mrs. McKinley says, “Wel , Jael, it’s been lovely chatting with you. I suppose you real y cal ed to talk to Rob.”

“Is he available?” asks Jael.

“Of course! He’s been standing here glaring at me for a little while now.”

“Great!” says Jael with real enthusiasm. Belial hasn’t gotten to him yet.

“Hold on one sec,” says Mrs. McKinley.

There is a muffled sound, then, “Soooo, that’s my mother,”

says Rob.

“Hey,” says Jael. Her father is setting the table right next to her. “Um, how’s it going?”

“Uh . . . fine. Why?”

“No, just wondering,” says Jael. “So, what are you doing tonight?”

“I’m in for a real exciting time,” he says. “It’s family Scrabble night at the McKinleys’.”

“Oh, so you’l be in your house al night, huh?” she asks.

“Yeah . . . hey, are you sure everything is cool?”

“What? Of course. I think that’s a great idea. You should definitely spend time at home with your family tonight.”

“Okay, you’re total y freaking me out now. Is this code or something?”

“By the way, that was real y nice of you to walk me to school this morning. How about I return the favor tomorrow? I’l swing by your house tomorrow morning and we can walk together.”

“Al right, so I’m starting to think you don’t want me to leave my house unescorted . . . Bets, should I be worried about something?”

“You bet!” she says cheerful y. “So, you just have fun at home tonight and I’l see you tomorrow morning.”

“Jael,” says her father. “Dinner’s ready.”

“Okay, wel , gotta go!” she chirps.

“Wait, Bets, can’t you just—”

She hangs up and takes a slow, deep breath, waiting for her heart to slow down a bit. Then she turns and sits calmly at the table.

Jael and her father eat in silence for a little while, Jael with her leftover squash, her father with a sandwich.

Then he puts his sandwich down and looks at Jael.

“I was terrified,” he says.

“What?” asks Jael, her pulse shooting back up.

“Yesterday,” he says. “I was so sure I’d lost you.”

“Oh,” says Jael.

“It was like I was back in Haiti, helpless to save you.

For al the things I’ve done to protect you, I realized that you were right. I never considered anything past your physical wel -being.

I’ve never real y been much of a parent to you. Your mother . .

. would not have been pleased.” He looks down for a moment, squeezing his hands together in a fist, almost like a prayer. Then he looks back up at her.

“I’m sorry it took that fear for me to realize it. But I’m going to do everything I can to make up for it.”

Jael bites her lip and smiles. She’s wanted to hear something like that for so long, but it tastes sour now.

Empty. Because it wil al end soon. And she doesn’t even have the guts to tel him.

“Everything okay?” he asks.

She nods and somehow manages to pul it together enough for a sincere-looking smile. “Yeah, total y.”

“I know,” he says. “You’re worried that I’l be teaching your religion class?”

“Uh . . . yeah,” she says, forcing a laugh. “A little.”

“Wel , don’t. Father Aaron volunteered to take yours.”

“That’s great,” says Jael. “What a relief.”

That night, Jael sits in her bed and seriously considers running away from home. Maybe it’s not too late to do what her mother did. Draw Belial away from everyone she cares about.

Then she catches the smel of spoiled fish.

“Hey,” says her uncle. He plops down on the bed next to her, the box springs groaning in protest. He sits there with his elbows resting on his thighs in a strangely human pose.

“I saw you at the feast hal today,” he says quietly.

“With Belial.”

She nods.

“You okay?”

“For now.”

“He take you to your mother’s grave?”

“Yeah,” she says. “If that’s what you want to cal it.”

“Sorry you had to see al that,” he says. “A long time ago, it was al different. . . .” He trails off into silence.

“You said that before,” says Jael. She doesn’t mean for it to come out bitter, but it does.

“Belial was just a petty sprite named Jack Frost and your mom and I were . . . wel , I guess you might have cal ed us gods.”

“So . . . what happened?”

“Things changed,” Dagon says. “People changed.

The whole damned world changed. It didn’t want magic in everyday life anymore. And us? We reflect what the world wants us to be. And right now, that’s demons.” He’s silent for a while, lost in thoughts or memories Jael can’t even guess at. Then he smiles slightly and looks at her. “But things changed before.

They can change again.”

“Sure,” says Jael, but she can’t real y muster up any confidence in her tone.

The sound of Jael’s father putting away dishes travels up from the kitchen.

“You didn’t tel your dad,” says Dagon.

“You think I should?”

“It’s up to you,” says Dagon. “I’ve never been good at deception.”

“He says he’s cool now. That he believes in me. But something like this, I think it would turn him right back and he’d just want to move to Alaska,” says Jael. “And it’s not like he could do anything about it.”

“Probably not,” Dagon says.

She leans back into the headboard and shuts her eyes.

“Why?” she whispers. “Why does Belial hate me?”

“Revenge. For what your mother did,” he says. “And because you’re a halfbreed. He’s obsessed with purity. Demons aren’t what they used to be, and he sees halfbreeds as one more step toward utter degradation.”

“Yeah, he said something like that.”

“The other thing is, you could screw up what he and the other Grand Dukes are doing. They’ve had it their way for hundreds of years. It was the halfbreed Merlin who helped them consolidate their power.”

“Merlin real y was a halfbreed, then? That’s what Rob thought.”

“Smart guy,” says Dagon. “Yeah, it was that asshole Merlin that helped turn everything upside down. So it stands to reason only a halfbreed could make it right again. In other words, kid, you’re dangerous to the Grand Dukes’ status quo.”

“Asmodeus said I have al this power or something.”

“He told me he contacted you last night.”

“But how, exactly, am I so kick-ass dangerous?”

“You can influence the elements on Gaia.”

“But al demons can do that.”

“Not on Gaia they can’t.”

“I thought . . . isn’t it supposed to be a demon power?”

“Yeah, but the elements only pay attention to someone who belongs here. And us Hel -born demons don’t.

The weaker ones have to possess mortals just to be here. And even those of us who have been around a while and are strong enough to be here without a host are real y only here in spirit.”

“You feel real enough. And so did Belial.” She shudders involuntarily at the memory of being encased in ice. “So wait, if demons can’t do anything on the mortal plane, how’d Belial take me to Hel ?”

“Spirit isn’t limited to a single plane. It’s on al of them at once. You could say it’s what they have in common.

So demons can affect spirit regardless of what plane they’re on.”

“So Belial attacked my spirit?”

“That’s al demons can ever do on Gaia. But that can be pretty serious if the demon knows what he or she’s doing. And Belial is one of the best. A demon can also project their own spirit outward. Your mother would do that often, as fire.”

“Uh, yeah, I’ve had a little experience with that,” says Jael, and clears her throat uncomfortably. “I almost burnt Rob’s face off this morning.”

“It can be very powerful,” says Dagon. “But you have to be careful, because you can expend too much of your own spirit that way.”

“What happens if you do that?”

“Wel , for ful demons, they get weak, then eventual y dissipate into an incorporeal state. It can take months to recover from that.”

“What about halfbreeds?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “You probably just die.”

“Oh.”

“But as long as you’re on Gaia, you shouldn’t need to use spirit al that much. Try to use the other elements as much as possible.”

“Right,” says Jael. “Because that’s where I have the advantage over Belial. On Gaia, I have al five elements; he only has one.”

“Exactly,” says Dagon, his black eyes sparkling.

“Look, you’ve got amazing potential, kid. Your mother believed it. I believe it. It sounds like you’ve got Asmodeus in your corner.

I think even your dad is coming around. And I bet there are people you don’t even know who believe in you. The only one who doesn’t is you. And that’s the trouble. If you don’t have faith in your own abilities, it’s never going to be anything more than potential.”

“But how do I do that? I can’t just decide to believe in myself.”

He gives her a gently teasing smile. “Wel , that’s the trick, isn’t it?”

Britt doesn’t know how long she’s been walking, or why.

She moves slowly through the night, her arms hugging her torso tightly. She shivers now and then, as if an icy wind has just passed through her. She recognizes the world around her, the streets and houses of Northwest Seattle. But it al looks strange to her now, fil ed with ominous shadows. In her ears, she hears the shriek of an old man. A priest. The Mons, that’s who it is.

Weird that she couldn’t remember him for a moment there. But why was he screaming?

Jael. Something happened to Jael. She was . . .

possessed?

Can that real y be true? But Jael had been acting strange lately. She talked about it with Jack and he told her to talk to the Mons. And when she talked to the Mons this morning . .

.Wait, was that this morning? No, it was . . . a different morning.

Yesterday? Or a week ago? How long has she been walking out here? Out in the wilderness, among these dark, inscrutable houses. She remembers that the Mons wasn’t strong enough to defeat the demon. The darkness had won. God had abandoned them. . . .

But then she sees a light ahead. It shines white and pure in front of her, and it pushes back the darkness.

“Brittany . . . ,” cal s a voice from the light.

Maybe she’s dying. But she doesn’t care. She’s so cold, so scared. She runs toward the light. She sees a figure stretching a hand out to her.

She pauses for a moment.

“Jack?” she asks.

“Yes,” he says, his voice like a thousand volts of electricity that wipe out al thought, al fear. “It’s time you know who I real y am. You have been so helpful, so brave. But I must ask one more task of you if we are to save your friend Jael from the darkness that has her in thral .”

“Anything,” says Britt as she walks toward the light again.

Toward him. And as she gets closer, he changes, growing larger, more beautiful. His skin shimmers like crystal, his eyes blaze with such an intense blue that she feels as though he can see into her very soul.

“Jack,” she sighs. “You’re an angel. . . . ”

Belial smiles as he gathers her into his hard, shining arms.

“Something like that,” he says. “Now, my dear. To work.”

The phone rings at around eleven o’clock. Jael is lying in bed, trying without success to get to sleep. The sound comes from the kitchen so abruptly, it makes her flinch.

Maybe it’s Rob, she thinks. She needs to get that phone before her father does. She scrambles out of bed and heads for the staircase. She hears him opening the door of his bedroom, so she just vaults the handrail. A moment before impact she asks the air to slow her down so that she lands quietly on the hardwood floor.

She slips into the kitchen and snatches the phone off the cradle just as her father enters.

“Hel o?” she says quietly.

“It’s Aaron,” says a harsh voice. It takes Jael a moment to realize that it’s Father Aaron on the other line.

“Father? What—”

“Jael?” There’s a pause. “Put your father on the phone.”

Jael turns to her father, who looks half asleep and irritable in his pajamas. But she tel s him who it is, and he snaps suddenly awake. He takes the phone from her and says in a calm, quiet voice, “Yeah?”

He listens for a few moments, his face set in that old neutral expression she’s known her whole life. His eyes flicker over to Jael and he says, “There’s no reason to bring her into this.”

He listens to the response, his mouth set.

“But what if—” He is cut off by a shout on the other end so loud Jael can almost make out the words from several feet away.

Jael’s father listens a few more moments, then says,

“OK, we’l check.”

He slams the phone hard on the cradle and stares at it for a moment. Then he turns to Jael.

“Get dressed. We’re going over to the Broughers’

house.”

Sick dread lies heavily in Jael’s stomach during the short drive. Of course Belial went after Britt. Why didn’t she think of it sooner? Britt was the vulnerable one, especial y after that exorcism. She remembers now that the last time she went to the Broughers’

house, Ms. Brougher was on the phone with someone named Jack. He was probably setting this al up even back then.

They park out in front of the house. But her father doesn’t open the door. He just sits there, staring out the windshield.

“I like to know what I’m walking into,” he says. “Aaron has been watching the Broughers since he noticed Heather displaying some erratic behavior on Monday.

The sort of behavior that might suggest demon tampering or possession.

Neither of them showed up at school today, and they aren’t answering phone or e-mail. He’s concerned that something may have happened to them. If you know anything about this, if you even have a suspicion, I need to know about it. Now.” Then he just waits.

“Belial found me,” she says.

“When?” His face is stil neutral.

“I guess he’s known where I was for a couple of days now, but I didn’t realize that until today.”

“You saw him?”

“Yeah.”

He nods, almost to himself. “Game’s up, then. It’s almost a relief.”

“Sorry I didn’t tel you right away, Dad. I just—”

He holds up his hand. “No point in that now. Let’s go.”

They climb out of the car and walk up the steps to the front porch. Jael notices that the piles of junk have been neatly organized, which unnerves her. Jael’s father knocks on the front door. They wait a few moments, but there’s no answer.

“Is there a key?” he asks her.

She nods and points to a crucifix hanging next to the door.

He takes it down and turns it over. The back has been hol owed out and a key stuck inside. He laughs to himself, a short humorless burst through his nose, then takes out the key and unlocks the door.

“Stay behind me,” he says. It’s stupid, of course. Jael could take a lot more damage than her father. After al , he’s just a mortal. But there’s a strange confidence about him now. It dawns on Jael that this is not the first time her father has had to face things that could crush him in an instant. That old firm decisiveness she hasn’t seen in a few days is back. And while that quality makes for a crappy dad, maybe it makes for a good demon hunter.

He pushes open the door and cal s out, “Heather?”

Silence.

“Brittany?” he cal s.

Nothing.

He walks slowly, quietly into the house, and Jael fol ows close behind.

“Dad,” she whispers, and points to the wal s. Al of the crucifixes have been turned upside down.

He nods and continues through the living room.

A very faint humming comes from the kitchen, accompanied by a wet, scraping sound.

“Dad,” she says again. He looks back at her questioningly.

He doesn’t seem to be able to hear the strange noise.

“The kitchen,” she whispers.

He nods. “Stay back,” he says, and starts making his way over.

Of course, Jael is right behind him as they enter the kitchen.

“Jael,” snaps her father, “I said—”

But it’s too late. She’s already seen it.

The Brougher kitchen is a long, narrow, brightly lit room with lots of cute country kitsch. Ms. Brougher sits on the floor, her feet tucked under her. She’s wearing some of Britt’s clothes, which are painful y tight on her, and her thick blond hair is pul ed up in uneven pigtails. She’s rubbing a sheet of sandpaper on her cheek in slow, circular motions and humming to herself.

When Jael and her father come in, she looks up at them and smiles. Patches on her face, arms, and hands are reduced to bloody, raw muscle and tendon.

“The wrinkles come right off!” she tel s them cheerful y.

“I’m young again!”

Jael’s father kneels down beside Ms. Brougher and gently pul s the hand with the sandpaper away from her face.

“That’s amazing,” he murmurs soothingly, like he’s talking to a child. Except he never talked to Jael like that when she was a child. “How did you learn about such a wonderful thing?”

“Oh, it’s so obvious, I can’t believe I didn’t think of it myself!” she says, and tries to continue rubbing her face with the sandpaper. He holds her blood-streaked arms at her sides.

“Yes,” he agrees. “Who told you about it?”

She frowns for a moment, like she’s trying to think of the answer, but then her smile widens even more and her eyes get glassy.

“Oh, it’s just a miracle!” She sighs.

“Heather,” he says to her a little sharply, like he’s losing patience. “Where’s Britt?”

“Who?” she asks.

“Your daughter,” he says. “Where is your daughter, Brittany?”

“No, no,” she says with a sly smile on her ravaged face. “I’m much too young to have a daughter!” Then she looks him up and down suggestively. “You know, I don’t normal y go for older men, but for you I’l make an exception.” Then she leans in, her bloody lips puckered.

“Okay,” he says with forced cheerfulness as he holds her at arm’s length. He looks over at Jael. “Sorry, honey, I’m going to need you to take a look inside and see what’s going on here. Can you do that for me?”

“O-Okay,” she says. She kneels down beside her father and looks at Ms. Brougher, trying to ignore the bits of skin that dangle from her cheekbones and chin.

“Ms. Brougher,” Jael says quietly to get her to make eye contact.

“Ms. Brougher?” she says in a horrified tone, her eyes rol ing around. “That’s my mother’s name!” Then she giggles in a high-pitched whinny.

“Heather!” says Jael.

Ms. Brougher’s eyes meet her own for just a moment, and that’s al Jael needs. She dives quickly down into her soul. Or what’s left of it. It just looks like a big clump of ice, silent and stil . Jael touches it tentatively, expecting a welter of memories and emotions to hit her. But there’s nothing.

“What do you see?” She hears her father’s voice from far away, like an echo.

“He’s completely frozen it,” she hears herself say.

“See if you can thaw it out,” her father says She begins to stoke her inner fire. It isn’t hard. Al she has to do is think about Belial and what he’s done to Britt’s mom, and if he’s done something like this to Britt, then it doesn’t matter if he’s stronger than Jael.

She’s going after him and she’s not going to give up until one of them is dead. Screw school and a normal life. She wil dedicate herself to getting this bastard who ate her mother and tortured her friend. She wil make him pay for everything he’s done.

She looks back at the sad clump of ice that is Ms.

Brougher’s soul. She blows a slow breath like a hot desert wind across it until the ice starts to run, then crumbles. Bril iant life explodes al around her, like a lush garden suddenly appearing from beneath a bed of frost. She wants to snatch it up like she did the fire, to bring it inside and feel it roar within her. She wants to . . .

Then Ms Brougher screams and Jael is suddenly back in the kitchen with her father. Ms. Brougher screeches like an animal, her hands extended claw-like in front of her.

“My face! My hands! God, what happened to me!” she wails.

She’s sobbing and flailing about. Jael’s father tries to restrain her but she’s pumped ful of adrenaline and easily knocks his hands aside.

“Heather!” he shouts. “Please! Calm down! We’re here to help!”

“Brittany! Where’s Brittany!” she moans.

“We’re trying to find her,” says her father. “Please, I know you’re in a lot of pain, but we real y need to find Brittany before—”

“My face! Why the hel does my face hurt so much?!

Where’s Brittany? BRITTANY!”

Jael’s father is trying to wrestle her to the ground.

“Dad, should I . . . ”

Her dad shakes his head. “I can handle this,” he says.

“Just go get some first-aid supplies so we can get her cleaned up.”

She knows she could hold Ms. Brougher down much more easily than him, but it doesn’t seem like a good time to argue.

She hurries down the hal to the bathroom. She grabs gauze, tape, antibiotic cream, and anything else that looks like it might come in handy. On her way back, she hears a phone ring. The cordless sits on the back of one of the easy chairs. She grabs it, thinking maybe it’s Father Aaron checking up on them.

“Yeah?” she says as she carries the supplies back to the kitchen.

“Jael?”

She freezes.

“Britt? . . .”

“Yeah.”

“Uh . . . you okay?”

“I’m better.” Her voice sounds hol ow and indifferent.

“Oh,” says Jael careful y. “Wel , that’s good.”

“Can you come meet me?” asks Britt. “I’m cal ing from a pay phone down at that coffee shop on Thirty-Fourth in Fremont.”

“Uh, yeah, sure. I’l be there as soon as I can.”

“Oh, great,” says Britt without enthusiasm. “See you soon.”

Jael puts the phone back on the receiver. A quiet calm settles over her. She knows that it’s a trap. She just hopes Britt isn’t so far gone that she can’t bring her back. Because Jael wil bring her back, or die trying.

Back in the kitchen, Ms. Brougher has settled into a low whimper, clinging to Jael’s father with bloody hands. Jael tosses the medical supplies to him.

“I’m going to get Britt,” she says, and turns to go.

“What?” says her father. “Jael, wait! What are you—”

“Dad, you can’t leave her here alone. But someone has to get Britt.” She heads for the front door.

“Wait! Jael! Shit!” he yel s at her. “How wil you get there?!”

“Run,” she says, and she’s gone.

Jael sprints down the sidewalk, stretching her body as far as she can. Her breath moves evenly in and out and her muscles buzz with heat as houses flicker past on either side. She can barely hear her footsteps. It’s almost as if she’s walking on air.

And why can’t I? she wonders. So she starts cal ing out to the air beneath and in front of her. Let’s see how fast we can real y go.

Her next step lands an inch off the ground and she skates along with a smooth, frictionless glide. She soon picks up so much speed that the world is little more than a whirling blur.

Despite the serious shit storm she’s headed for, she can’t deny the rush of this moment.

Then there’s a loud crack and blinding pain, and she sprawls out on the asphalt. In her way is a brick wal .

It takes her a second to get her breath back, but otherwise she doesn’t feel too bad. She climbs to her feet and looks around.

She’s already made it as far as Bal ard, where the street slants to one side, which is why running in a straight line brought her into a supermarket parking lot.

“Maybe not quite that fast,” she mutters. But she can’t help but smile a little as she dusts off the bits of debris from her jeans.

The wal looks like someone went at it with a sledgehammer.

She did that.

Then she starts to run again.

Jael final y slides to a stop in Fremont, a funky little neighborhood on the shore of Lake Union. A block farther down she sees the coffee shop. Britt sits at one of the little sidewalk tables that overlooks the houseboats strung along the lakeshore.

She’s hunched forward, oblivious to the beautiful view, just staring at the curb. She’s stil wearing the same clothes Jael saw her in the day before. Her hair is a blond haystack.

Jael walks up to her cautiously, but Britt doesn’t react.

So Jael final y says, “Britt.”

Britt looks up at her, and it takes a moment for her eyes to focus. One corner of her mouth twitches spastical y, and her lips are dry and cracked.

“Hi, Jael.”

“You doing okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I am. Doing okay.” Then she stands up, slowly, like she’s sore. “Come on. I want to show you something.”

“Uh, sure,” says Jael. It’s such an obvious trap. But then, since she can’t refuse it anyway, maybe that’s the point. She can almost hear Belial’s taunting laughter as she fol ows Britt down along the lakeside until the sidewalk passes beneath Aurora Avenue and the George Washington Memorial Bridge. Then Britt turns up a steeply inclined side street that runs beneath the bridge.

Jael says, “Do you want to, uh . . . talk about—”

“I understand what happened,” says Britt.

“You . . . you do?”

“Yes, of course.”

Jael waits for more, but Britt just keeps walking up the hil , her eyes again distant and unfocused.

“So . . . ,” says Jael. “What do you think happened?”