The Sight Seer (2 page)

Chapter Three

Shifting my bag from one arm to the other, I looked down the street yet again for the bus.
It was just my luck that it was running late when I was running late, and on a day it was overcast and chilly, too. Zipping my coat up to my chin, I checked my phone again, wishing I had asked Dad for a ride to the library instead of striving to show him that he had at least one responsible daughter.

Being responsible sucked.

A crowd had formed, and we all took turns stepping up to the corner and craning our necks to the left, as if that would make the bus appear faster. I was about to text Penny to tell her I was going to be late when I heard a familiar voice.

“Hey!
How are you doing?”

I looked up from my phone to see the boy from last night standing there with a huge grin on his face.
I swear my jaw hit the floor and bounced around a few times as I struggled to get my brain to start working again.

“You!”
I was about to smash my purse into his grinning face when I remembered I was in the middle of a crowd. Already some of them were giving us curious looks. Lowering my voice, I muttered out of the side of my mouth, “Go away.”

“Can’t,” he said.
He was still smiling, and as I took in his thick, wavy brown hair, tanned skin, and greenish, brownish eyes (were they called hazel? I never knew.), my heart skipped a beat.

Stupid treacherous heart.
I mean, sure, he was cute,
really
cute even, but he was supposed to be a figment of my overtired brain, which meant he did not belong here at the bus stop, giving me a grin that could melt even the crankiest of hearts.

I folded my arms over my chest.
“What do you mean you can’t?”

“Look, I feel really awful about last night.
And I’m sure you have a lot of questions, so why don’t you let me treat you to a cup of coffee?”

At that moment the wind picked up, diving down my collar with invisible,
icy fingers and I shivered. Coffee
would
be nice. I was already running late, so what was another hour? But wait. I raised my eyebrows. “I’m not going to end up covered in slime again, am I?”

He laughed, a deep laugh that sounded nice to my ears (they were as treacherous as my heart), and said, “I promise you won’t.”

“Alright,” I said, the word spilling out of my mouth before I could stop myself (I guess my mouth was agreeing with my heart and ears. Wish my brain would wake up and start working!). I shook my head, wondering what the hell I was getting myself into. After a quick text to Penny, I followed him down the block to the nearest coffee shop. We ordered and paid for our drinks before sliding into a booth in the back corner, away from anyone else. To the mere observer, we’d look like we were on a date, but once I had taken a sip of my coffee and remembered what had transpired in my backyard mere hours ago, I fixed him with a death glare.

He really was cute, I thought
, despite myself. The tips of his hair curled and hung over his forehead, and he had a habit of absently brushing them aside. His eyes were definitely more green than brown—I saw now that I was sitting closer to him, and in better lighting— fringed with thick eyelashes no boy should ever have because it was just plain unfair. Throw in his muscular arms, (muscles he developed from swinging around that sword, no doubt. The sword was curiously absent today) and yeah, definite eye candy.

But he was also the reason my life had taken a drastic turn from normal to completely w
hacked out crazy. Thus the lasers that were currently shooting out of my eyes.

“So, you’re probably wondering what happened last night,” he said slowly.

“What? You beheading a monster in my backyard? Doesn’t that happen all the time?” I batted my eyelashes, enjoying the grimace he made.

He shifted in his seat.
“Yeah…You weren’t supposed to see that.”

“Which part?
The part where his head rolled under the rose bush? Thanks for cleaning that up, by the way. Didn’t know how I was going to explain that one to Dad.” When I had woken up this morning I had dashed downstairs, scouring the backyard for any sign of monster heads or icky goo, but had found nothing. At least this guy was thorough. I drummed my fingers on the sticky table and decided to humor him. “So what was he? Vampire? Werewolf? No, the moon wasn’t full last night, so that can’t be right.”

“Demon.”

I stared at him. “Excuse me?” I looked at the exit, wondering if I could dash out of here before he could get up and stop me.

“Come on, you saw him.”
He leaned forward with an eager look on his face. “You know he wasn’t human.”

I held up a hand to stop him from continuing.
“Look. All I know is that thing was in my store last night, shoving bottles of soda down his pants. Which is absolutely disgusting, by the way. He had pockets in his jeans, why didn’t he just use one of those?” I shook my head. “Anyway, the next thing I know, he’s in my backyard and you’re running around swinging a sword over your head like a lunatic.”

He flushed.
“I wasn’t swinging it
over
my head. Wait.” He blinked. “You saw him earlier?”

“Yes, and he scared the crap out of me with his blue, forked tongue and disgusting, drippy skin.”

“You
saw
that?”

I heaved a sigh.
What, was this guy having trouble keeping up? “Yes, I saw his scary face when I went to ask for the soda back. He tossed it at me and after freaking the hell out because his crotch germs were now on my fingers, I looked at his face again and he was normal. Well, high-on-some-crazy-type-of-drugs-normal, but you know what I mean.”

The boy was staring at me in amazement, and I started to feel uncomfortable.
Was there something on my face? Was there a bug crawling in my hair and he was too polite to say anything?
Screw polite, if there’s something on me, I want it off, so tell me!

“Look, I don’t even know your name, and this is all kinds of crazy—”

“Rafe,” he interrupted. “Rafe Fitzgerald.”

“Gabiella,” I said when it became obvious he was waiting for me to tell him mine.
“With no ‘r’.” I lost track a long time ago of how many people
insisted
my name was “Gabriella”.

Rafe smiled, showing off white, even teeth.
“That’s a pretty name. Unusual, too.”

He was trying to flatter and distract me, and it was half-working
, too. Taking a huge sip of my coffee, I slammed the Styrofoam cup back down on the table. Time to get some answers! “Okay, Rafe, how about you start explaining things instead of staring at me like I’ve grown another head? Because I have a study date that I’m extra late for, and I’d really like to get on with my life and forget we’ve ever met.”

He looked hurt at that, and I had to push aside a twinge of guilt.
But then he brightened immediately. “But I can’t let you go now that I know you can See demons!” There was an extra emphasis on the word “see” that made me feel like he had capitalized it for some bizarre reason.

I edged away from him, looking at the exit once more.
Great, it had started raining outside and my pink and white polka-dotted umbrella was currently buried under a mound of clothes in my closet. Rafe followed my gaze and quickly said, “I’m not a stalker, promise.”

“You just go around chopping up demons in a girl’s backyard for fun, then?
And then innocently bump into said girl at the bus stop the next day, right? Look, Rafe, I appreciate the coffee, but I really should—”

“I’m a demon hunter.
I protect people from things that go bump in the night. Things like the one in your backyard, at the risk of my own life.” His easy, good-humored nature was gone, replaced by a serious young boy who believed every word he was saying.

I swallowed, hard.
There was no denying what I had seen last night, but I didn’t want this. I wanted to go to school and work (okay, I didn’t really want to go to the Corral) and date boys and worry about college. Not demons. Definitely not demons, especially when they spewed that disgusting ick all over the place when they were killed. Yeah, that’s definitely not how I wanted to spend my Friday nights. Rafe may get his kicks from that, but it wasn’t for me.

Which is why I shot him an ic
y-cold look and asked, “Why did you say you can’t let me go?”

“Because you have the Sight, and I don’t.”

Chapter Four

I slumped back in my seat, knowing full well that I was never going to make it to the study date today. Penny was going to
kill
me. “Alright, you’ve got me. What’s the Sight, why do I have it, and why don’t you, the so-called demon hunter, have it?”

Rafe looked hurt again, and I mentally kicked myself.
I really needed to stop doing that. I muttered an apology, but he was staring into the distance, not listening.

After a long silence, he finally began speaking.
“I’m breaking all sorts of rules by telling this to you, but since you have the Sight, it’s not the same as telling a normal human.”

“Hey, I
am
a normal human!”

He smiled.
“Gabiella, normal humans don’t See what you Saw last night.”

“Well, you just said you don’t have this Sight thingy, so doesn’t that make
you
normal?”

Something flashed dangerously in his eyes, mimicking the lightning that was currently illuminating the gray skies.
I had treaded into a forbidden area with my innocent question, and his reaction made me more than a little nervous.

“I am a demon hunter,” Rafe repeated firmly, as if he were telling not just me, but himself as well.
“I may not be able to See through their glamour, but I can still track them down and destroy them.”

“Glamour?” I asked, squinting.
“Isn’t that the thing faeries have? Oh crap, are you telling me faeries are real too?”

“There’s no such thing as faeries,” he said, giving me a look like I was crazy.
Excuse me!
He’s the one going around thinking he hunts demons and yet I’m the one who’s losing her mind?

Maybe I was, considering I was
still sitting here listening to him.

“Faeries are made up creatures, but the glamour part is real,” he continued.
“It’s a mask, if you will. The demons use it to disguise their true faces. They only reveal it when it’s too late.”

“Too late for what?”

He gave me a look. A deadly serious, ‘you know what I mean’, look.

“Oh.”
I shivered. “So how come I can see through the glamour?” I swallowed as a new thought occurred to me. “I’m not a…hunter, am I? Because let me tell you, there’s no way I’m going around chopping off demon heads. I’d need a new wardrobe every week! You owe me a new pair of pants and top, by the way.”

Rafe smiled at that.
“No, you’re not a hunter. We have a whole organization, and they would have recruited you when you were much younger.” He spread his hands in front of him, tilting his head to the side to study me intently again. “I’m not sure why you can see through the glamour. I’ve heard mention of it happening before, but I’ve never met a human who could.”

“So now I’m a human again?”

“I never said you weren’t human, I just said you weren’t normal!”

“Well, I’m definitely something, considering I’m sitting here listening to this and sort of believing you,” I grumbled, standing up.
He started to protest and I told him, “I’m not leaving. I just need one of those double chocolate muffins if I’m going to make it through this conversation.”

“Here, get me one too,” Rafe said, pulling out his wallet and giving me a ten.
“My treat.”

Sweet, free muffins.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t a new set of sleepwear, but honestly, was there anything better than chocolate?

Once I returned with our muffins, I asked Rafe about the organization he mentioned.
Apparently it was an entire group whose one mission was to eradicate demons from Earth. “Now by demons, do you mean heaven and hell and angels and demons-type demons?” I asked. We weren’t religious at home, but if these places actually existed, I was going to have to start being a lot nicer to people.

Rafe shook his head.
“In the beginning, we believed they were incarnates from hell, but we’ve since realized they are actually vengeful spirits.”

“Spirits?”
I blinked. That was a new one. “Where do they come from?”

“We’re not exactly sure about that,” he said with a wince.
“Not Earth, obviously. The general theory is that there are different worlds out there, and the spirits come from one of those worlds. Thousands of years ago, they were first summoned here, probably by sorcerers who were hired by kings, warlords and various other groups of ruthless cutthroats who wanted to rule the world. Of course, summoning them is the easy part. It’s getting them to do your bidding that’s nearly impossible. More often than not, the spirits turned on the sorcerers and killed them, along with anyone else who tried to stop them. And this vicious cycle continues to this day.”

“Whoa.”
I took a moment to think about that. Freaking sorcerers were out there, right now, casting magic and summoning things like Crotch Soda Boy?
Why
? I mean, you had to be smoking some seriously strong stuff if you thought doing something like that was wise. I turned to Rafe. “So people like you fight these demonic spirits for a living?”

He nodded, eyes glittering.
“That’s right. The organization I belong to formed thousands of years ago, when they saw what the sorcerers were bringing into this world. They were the original people who possessed the Sight, and they’ve passed that ability on to their children and their children’s children.”

Except for Rafe
, I thought. I wondered if he was a descendent of these original hunters, or a new recruit. But it probably wasn’t polite to ask, so instead I said, “Are they all ruthless killers? I mean, last night that thing was stealing a soda, which isn’t exactly the most horrible thing in the world.” Throwing it at me after he had stuck it down his pants was a thousand times worse.

“There are different types.
Some are practical jokers.” That sounded like an accurate description of the one I had met last night. “Others, like the one who followed you home last night, are the things from nightmares.”

I dropped my muffin on the table, where it rolled off and landed on the floor.
“Wait, what? It
followed
me home last night? To do what?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”
Rafe looked grim. “To torture and kill you and anyone else who happened to be home.”

My stomach clenched painfully as
I thought of Dad peacefully snoring away in his recliner. Would he have woken up before the demon killed him? Would he have heard my screams?

“Gabiella?”

“You saved us?” I whispered, looking at Rafe in amazement.

He nodded,
embarrassed. “I was on patrol last night in my car, and I happened to see him skulking around your house. He was extremely suspicious, so I got out to see if I was right, and then we started scuffling…” Scuffle indeed. He had knocked over
both
garbage pails, making enough noise to wake the dead! “Usually it’s a little smoother than that. I can sneak up on them and kill them
before
they notice me. Without waking up the entire neighborhood, too.” He ran a hand over his mouth, looking sheepish.

I had trouble speaking, and my eyes were probably the size of saucers.
“Y-You don’t even know us, and you saved us!”

“That doesn’t matter.
That never matters. What matters is protecting innocents from the horrors created by demons. Preferably
before
the demon strikes.” Rafe raised his eyebrows. “What’s the matter?”

I was currently staring at him with my mouth agape.
If anyone else had just said that, I would have called them on their bull, but Rafe was so honest and
earnest
, dammit! He was like a modern day knight or something.

And he had saved me and Dad last night, and I had been nothing but a total jerk to him.

I scooted in my seat so I was facing him. He suddenly looked nervous; I was probably making some sort of crazy face. It was all I could do not to grab his hands and shake them up and down. “Rafe, I owe you big time. You said something about helping you out?”

“Oh, so now you believe me?” he laughed.

I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Well, I really don’t want to, but I did see some crazy stuff last night. Unless I was high on some type of drug that they’re pumping in the air—”

“Definitely not!”

“So what else could it be?” I shrugged. “I mean, it’s a lot to take in but I’d have to be an idiot not to believe it.” I glanced at my cell phone and groaned when I saw what time it was. “Dammit, Penny is going to kill me. I need to go.” I started gathering my things, reaching down to pick up the muffin I had stupidly dropped on the floor. What a waste of a perfectly good dessert!

As I stood, there was a huge clap of thunder.
I jumped, bumping into Rafe, who quickly grabbed me by the shoulders to steady me. “Where do you have to go?” he asked, his lips suddenly close to my ear. My heartbeat sped up, and I prayed demon hunters didn’t come equipped with extra good hearing. What the hell was I getting nervous for, anyway?

“The library.”
Thank goodness my voice didn’t quiver when I spoke. Too much.

“I’ll drive you,” Rafe said.
“Hopefully it’ll make up for ruining your clothes last night?”

Hmm, so he wasn’t too eager in letting me get away, was he?
Well, that was fine. I still had plenty of questions for him. How did he find me at the bus stop this morning? How many other people were in this secret organization?

And why had he said he couldn’t let me go once he found out I had the Sight?

“Alright, fine, but only because I don’t have an umbrella.” Oh yeah, I definitely sounded cool as a cucumber. There was no way he could know I had an ulterior motive to this ride.

“And yes, I’ll answer the rest of your questions on the ride over,” he said before walking ahead of me so he could hold the door open.

Shaking my head, I wondered if mind-reading was another of his abilities.