Psyched (10 page)

He grunted. “A nice person whose bad side I’d hate to see.”

She smiled and lowered her gaze. “Yeah, I should try to tone it down.”

“You think?”

Lights appeared as they rounded another bend in the road, glowing faintly from a small building with a large cross raised next to it. Vance slowed down to read the sign illuminated by some floodlights staked in the ground. The hand-painted, fading wooden sign simply said, “Community Cathedral. Spiritual advice and consultation,” along with a list of meeting times.

“This must be it,” Vance said quietly, putting his truck in park and jerking up the emergency brake. Aisi ignored him, sure he was watching her. She wanted to say something more to make things right, but didn’t know how. Sarcasm and anger were kind of her go-to defense system. She reached for her door handle, but he ran out and opened it for her. Why did he have to be such a gentleman?

“Why did you do that?” she asked, angry that he could see the tears speckling her cheek. She swiped at them fiercely and refused to meet his gaze. “Why open the door for a damned soul? Feeling sorry for me?”

Vance put his hands on her shoulders and looked her square in the eyes. “Aisi, I hardly know you, but I already think you’re one of the strongest and most amazing people I’ve ever met. What you’ve gone through blows my mind.”

Aisi shook her head. “My family is a dysfunctional nightmare,” she began. “I get that. I’m used to it, but until today everything else was under control. Spirits just come to me—some good but lost, and some determined to scare the crap out of me. All I can do with the bad ones is curse them in a language I don’t even
know
how I know and hope they don’t come back. I just deal with it because I keep hoping, one day, Nakia’s spirit will find me and I can send her to the light so she can be at peace. I think my mom would be a lot less crazy if she had some closure, you know?” She sighed and looked up at the black sky, head tossed back, mad at herself for her weakness. She let the rain wash away her tears.

Vance pulled her into a hug and rubbed her back. “You are incredible, Aisi. Let’s go inside and get some answers.” He put his arm around her and she leaned her head against his shoulder as they walked. It felt nice to let it all out.

They were about to climb the rickety, rotting wooden steps when the screen door squeaked violently as someone pushed it open. “Aisi Turay. I knew you would come.”

Chapter 10: The Priest Next Door

Aisi stood looking at the man who stared intently back at her with excitement and anticipation. His mottled, melted face looked worse in person than it did on TV, she realized, as she slowly made her way up the creaking porch steps. The ancient wooden railing was rotting, and she was pretty sure if she touched it, she’d get her hand back with an impressive collection of splinters in it. Vance moved behind her to make a little more room on the narrow steps, his hand still holding hers. He squeezed it reassuringly.

“You probably already know this, since I’m sure your father sent you here, but I’m Father J,” he said breathlessly. His demeanor was like that of a hyper child. Short and stocky, he bounced exuberantly with each step, black eyes glittering with delight. “So few people come to see me here in my humble church, unless they really need help with
daemonibus
. Demons,” he added, looking at Vance, his expression full of wide-eyed enthusiasm. “I’ve been looking forward to seeing you again. Last time we met, you were just a little girl….and so very sad. ”

She tipped her head to the side, trying to remember him. She glanced around the room, trying to place him as something other than the guy who built a church in a double wide across from her house. Vance came in behind her, looking a bit star struck. The priest’s living quarters, one half of the trailer, served as foyer and entry to a small chapel. Above this, a beautifully carved cross hung above the darkened entrance separating the two areas. No pictures on the walls or examination of the room in which she stood jogged her memory. She couldn’t remember meeting him before.

“It’s so great to meet you, Father. You are famous,” Vance said, and he immediately looked down, embarrassed. “But I guess you know that, right? I’ve read a lot about you and studied your work. This is amazing!” Aisi couldn’t help smiling—Vance had gone all fan boy on Father J.

Father J nodded as he offered each of them a steaming mug of hot chocolate topped with whipped cream. Aisi couldn’t figure out how he knew to time their arrival with the cocoa—it was just the right temperature with the perfect amount of slightly melted whipped cream on top, like he knew exactly when they’d show up. He waved toward a tattered couch covered with a moth-eaten afghan in crazy shades of green, yellow, and purple.

“Please, have a seat,” he offered. “I know it isn’t much, but it’s home. Yes, I do seem to get called upon quite frequently to help those unfortunate and short-sighted souls who allow themselves close contact with
daemonibus
. I’ve exorcised many people possessed of demons great and small, but unfortunately, that doesn’t pay for fancy couches and expensive throw pillows. To be honest, however, I wouldn’t want all that anyway. I am content to live humbly.” He spoke quickly, taking a quick breath between each sentence.

“I could spend hours just picking your brain,” Vance began, holding his mug between his hands and leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “You have so much experience, like real experience out in the field.”

Father J looked at Aisi. “And yet, that is not why we are here today. It’s time, isn’t it? He has been growing stronger for some time.”

Aisi stared at him, fidgeting uncomfortably. She wondered if he could read her mind “Who?” she asked.

“The one determined to destroy anything capable of feeling joy, or loving, or having that which he can never have,” Father J said simply, meeting her intense gaze over the top of his own mug of cocoa. “The evil one. The banished one.”

“
Malus Indolus
,” Aisi added quietly, grasping her own mug, allowing its welcome heat to warm her icy hands.

Father J laughed, quite amused with her words. “Evil genius? How entertaining! He must have been quite bored in the years since the last time we vanquished him. Plenty of time to make up ridiculous names for himself!”

Aisi straightened in her seat. “You’ve banished him before?” Father J nodded, still grinning. “I never thought about what happens when we vanquish them. I thought they just…went away, I guess. I didn’t think they had somewhere to go.” She leaned forward, still cupping her mug still between her cold fingers. Its radiant warmth felt reassuring.

“Ah, yes, regrettably, he and I have crossed paths a few times before,” Father J sighed, settling back against the back of wooden-framed arm chair covered in a velveteen orange fabric that probably rocked back in the 70’s. He looked up, tilting his head thoughtfully to the side, his black eyes staring into a past written invisibly on the glittery popcorn ceiling in his trailer. “We go quite a way back, although this is the first time he’s tried to reinvent himself. For years now, I have known him as Armaros.”

Aisi’s brow furrowed and she set her mug down on the coffee table. “That name doesn’t sound particularly demon-like,” she commented, leaning back as Vance stood to examine the images and crosses on the walls. Her eyes followed him as Vance focused on the crucifix directly over the entrance to the small chapel from the shabby, disco décor of the priest’s home. This one cross, of everything in the room, was far too exquisite to belong in the squalid trailer. It looked like someone had lovingly carved the intricate sculpture from a brick of solid gold. She glanced back at Father J, who still seemed lost in thought.

“Perhaps not,” he replied as he nodded in agreement, “but its meaning is very appropriate for him. It means accursed one.”

“Armaros was a Watcher,” Vance said, turning from the dark entrance where the side of the trailer had been removed to join with the chapel. “He was the fallen angel who led the rebellion.”

Father J nodded appreciatively, eyeing Vance with respect. “Someone knows his Apocrypha.”

“A pocka what?” Aisi asked, confused.

Father J chuckled. “With your mother being who and what she is, I’m rather surprised she doesn’t keep one around the house,” he said. “The Apocrypha is the unofficial gospel, or the works unworthy of being canonized.” She raised her eyebrows, still completely puzzled, so he continued, “Basically it’s what didn’t make it into the Bible.”

Aisi shook her head. “Sorry, but I just don’t see what Bible rejects have to do with why I’m here, or why my dad can’t tell me what’s going on instead of you. This has nothing to do with me or my dad.”

Father J leaned forward, his face so intense that his scars almost seemed to melt away. “Aisi, it has
everything
to do with you and your dad. The Apocrypha consists of the writings the officials who compiled the Bible didn’t
want
to include. It’s what they didn’t want you to hear.”

“You’re still not making any sense!” she insisted, standing up to pace. From the corner of her eye, she caught sight of an image on the wall, one of a man nailed to a cross. Blood poured from savage wounds, and a crown of thorns graced his head. “Why does this book of rejects have anything at all to do with my dad, or explain why I can see ghosts, or tell me why a demon has decided I’m his new plaything?”

Father J replied simply, “It’s what really happened.”

Aisi said nothing. Rain hitting the tinny roof punctuated the heavy silence which filled the room. Vance went to the window and moved a tasseled curtain aside, staring out at the bleak night, looking lost in thought.

“Aisi,” the priest began, leaning forward so his elbows rested on his knees. He clasped his hands together. “Among other stories, the Apocrypha tells of the fall of the Watchers, who were sent to protect the earth. They were angels with a godly duty to perform. Much like myself, they swore a vow of celibacy and dedication to the creator of this world.

“Each angel had a specific duty and an assigned place to safeguard. Armaros was one of the four sent to lead those who protected the people of Africa. He was also the first to take a form solid enough, and human enough, to lay with a woman. Other Watchers began to sin, following his example. They are now fallen creatures. As punishment, they’ve been banished to the depths of the earth.”

Outside, a car seemed to slow, the gravel crunching beneath tires announcing the arrival of a car pulling into the church’s driveway. Brakes squeaked as the car rolled to a halt. Aisi only knew one car that made such a wretched sound when it stopped. “My best friend is here,” she sighed. “How did they find us?”

Vance hurried to the door. “I didn’t tell Colby we were leaving. He probably thought I ditched him, but he knew this is where I planned to go and used the GPS to get here,” he said apologetically. “I’ll get rid of them.” He yanked open the screen, its rusty hinges screeching in protest. He let it slam behind him as he stepped out onto the porch.

“I can sit here all night trying to explain it to you,” Father J said, “or I can show you.”

Aisi looked skeptical. “Show me? How is that even possible?”

“You know,” he said, so quietly she hardly heard him. She looked carefully at him, and even though his lips weren’t moving, suddenly she could hear his voice. It echoed inside her head. “Look inside yourself, Aisi. You were born to this end. You know how to see, just as you know the language of the dead without even trying. Look inside. Soon, you will know.”

“But I—” she began aloud, but with a raised hand, he cut her off.

“Try,” he said. Wait, had he said it? Or had she just heard it in her mind? He locked eyes with her, staring earnestly. His lips didn’t move. “You know.”

Aisi shook her head to clear it and closed her eyes. Nothing but black. Frustrated, she took a deep breath, and thoughts slowly began to filter in.
Maledictum
. That meant cursed.
Exules quidam
. The banished one. She opened her eyes and saw Father J watching her intently. Another word came to her suddenly as her eyes met his.

Manibus
.

Hands?

She looked at his hands, pressed together as if in prayer. She stared at the rippling scars all over the backs of his hands, just like those on his face…like those on her father’s hands. Reaching abruptly across the table, she yanked his hands apart and held them tightly in her own as she squeezed her eyes shut again. She blacked out for a split second before the blank darkness unexpectedly vanished in an exquisite blaze of white light.

Chapter 11 The Watchers

Aisi didn’t know if she closed her eyes or not, but it didn’t matter. She was no longer in the foyer of a small church at home. She turned and saw grassland so impossibly, vividly green it didn’t look real. In the distance, a mother elephant stood patiently in the shade of a locust bean tree while her little one nursed. She heard water flowing somewhere nearby, just beyond a thick cluster of ground-hugging trees. Further down, zebras grazed serenely, their dirty black and white striped bodies gracefully arching low as they moved away from her with each bite. Red dust from an unpaved road surrounded her, thick in the air as though a car just drove past.

The music of rushing water mingled with the sound of an all too familiar voice singing sweetly beyond the trees. She traced the sound, walking carefully, and saw a girl close to her age sitting on the ground. The girl sat with her back against the trunk of a tree hanging low over a crystal pool so clear that Aisi saw fish feeding near the bottom from where she stood.

It was her mother—but much younger, probably just a little older than Aisi was now. Her mom’s legs were tucked modestly behind her, and she wore a plain denim skirt with Mary Janes and nude pantyhose. Despite the sweltering heat, Jorja wore long sleeves, and her long, curly, red hair was braided neatly down her back. A few ringlets hung around her face, and she tucked them behind her ears as she wiped sweat from her forehead with a sleeve. She bent over a cheap spiral notebook in her hand, writing something with one hand while covering her words with the other.