Velocity (3 page)

I took the cup in my hands, surprised, but didn’t drink yet.

“Why was she so scared?” I asked. “What made her stop going along with it?”

“Because the rabbit was just practice,” Hugh said. “Phillip was reading all about occult history in Hell. He was planning on trying to sacrifice a girl on that seal, and was just testing to make sure it was still active. She couldn’t let the girl get hurt, and even though she―” He choked up for a moment, and I sipped a little wine just to take the edge off. “She cared about her boyfriend; she couldn’t let him hurt anyone else. She thought he was crazy.”

“Why would she stay with him if he was such a psycho?” I asked bluntly, shivering.

Hugh shrugged, tipping more wine into his cup. “You’ve seen him in action, Ariel. He’s charismatic and powerful, just like his father before him. Just like his son is. Henry will be a lot like his father one day, you’ll see.”

I bit my bottom lip and scowled down at the floor. “Henry isn’t like him.”

He tilted my chin up with one finger. “You think that now, Ariel. And I agree, he’s shown goodness toward you. He’s also been a complete asshole to you, kiddo. You can’t…”

“There were reasons,” I said angrily, jerking away. “And at least he explained them to me.”

“After the fact. Are you completely sure that you trust him?”

“Yes.” Was I completely sure? I decided I was. “Can we get back to the story? You still have a lot to tell me, right? How did you stop the sacrifice?”

“Right.” He sighed again. “Now, my memory of the time isn’t concrete. What I do remember is that me and my merry band of dimwits stormed in. Claire and I didn’t even have to convince my comrades that ghosts and supernatural forces existed, just that Phillip was crazy. We had all felt like something was wrong in town. Come to find out, they didn’t have the right supernatural equipment anyway. It was a doomed failure.

“That was it? They just backed down?”

Hugh nodded. “Realistically, I’m surprised Phillip let us get off so easily. When it was over we threatened to go to the authorities, but he said it had all been a nervous breakdown. He apologized to Claire, not even knowing that she was the one who had outed him until later. But she broke up with him and left the prayer group. They disbanded soon thereafter. We naively thought it was over.”

“Why didn’t you move out of Hell?”

“That’s something I can’t really explain, kiddo. Her family was here. We just wanted to stay here. It’s a good town if you take the supernatural crazy evil energy aspect out.” He tried for a little smirk, and I let out a short laugh back. The tension dispelled a little, and I drank the small amount of sweet-sour wine.

“When I found out the Rhodes’ were back in town, my radar went off. Something was wrong; especially when Thornhill gained steam. I didn’t realize it was related until Phillip moved back and took over. I researched into the past―family records, newspaper articles―and found out that John Dexter, the man who used to own the Dexter orphanage, was an occult enthusiast who planned to bring a realm called Dark to earth.”

“I already know that part,” I said quickly. It was weird to think we had both been looking for the same things at the same time without knowing it.

He looked surprised, and maybe a little impressed. “So you do. You always made a good detective. Phillip was modeling Dexter’s ritual, trying to find out as much about it as he could. But he was hasty, too eager, and he acted before he discovered the complexity of the ritual.

“Claire told me there was no way, that it was just friends getting together. She kept defending them. I think a small part of her always regretted what giving up her friends entailed. She lost her popularity and her ranking. When Jenna, and then the little girls, went missing, it was like the fear crept back into her. But she didn’t admit it. Not to me, not to anyone.”

That brought up Ambrose Slaughter’s revelation into my mind, and it still stung just as much as when I’d first heard it.

“Do you know that she tossed a coin to see who would give up something precious?” I asked, bitterness undisguised. “With Jenna’s mom, Rachel. Rachel lost.”

He frowned severely, seeming genuinely shocked. The power left his voice, leaving it hushed. “I didn’t know anything about that. She never told me. Is that true? Who told you that?”

“Ambrose Slaughter.” I neglected to clarify that it had been in a dream after his death.

“The Slaughters can’t always be trusted―” Hugh began, but I cut him off.

“I believe him about this. He was telling the truth.”

“Ariel. I’m sure your mother wouldn’t put you in danger.”

“Really?” I challenged. “She changed when she went to those meetings. It was like they were brainwashing her.”

“I saw that. I know it was all she could think about.”

That subject was still too raw. Claire would normally have been sitting there to defend herself, but she was gone. Never coming back.

“How do you feel about the ghosts? Was it hard to believe at first?” I asked, trying to get the subject off of her.

He pulled at his bottom lip with his thumb and finger, looking deliberately away from me.

“What?” I frowned. He was still keeping secrets from me.

“You’re going to make me lay it all out in one sitting, aren’t you?” he asked with a weary smile.

“Yes.” The hair on the back of my neck stood up, and my scalp began to prickle. How bad was it?

He squeezed his eyes shut. “Your mother wasn’t the only one. I used to see ghosts, too.”

CHAPTER 2

I COULDN’T STOP
my jaw from dropping open. My mouth dried up. “What?”

“I saw spirits. Only for me, it didn’t start in puberty. I just saw them for as long as I could remember. I had these really warped dreams about things that I’d only come to understand later. I tried to ignore it and pretend that the dead men staring at me weren’t in the room. But then, when your mom told me about what she was seeing, I told her the truth. We kept each other going.”

He was getting emotional again. I didn’t know how to comfort him without making us both cry.

“You said ‘used’ to see them. What made you stop?” I asked.

He bit the inside of his cheek. “I used to ride motorcycles. I bet you never knew that about me.”

Random topic switch.
“No.” There were a few Harley Davidson helmets and other memorabilia down in the house’s basement, but I’d never given them much consideration.

“Well, I used to ride them all the time. I had this cherry 1982 Honda Interceptor. She was a beaut, but dangerous. You knew it when you rode it. But at eighteen, of course, I was fearless and thought we were immortal. I’m sure you know.”

Actually I hadn’t really felt like that at all. I’d spent most of my time feeling finite and vulnerable. “What’s your point?”

“We felt like nothing bad could ever happen, and just feeling that feeling is tempting fate. Your mom used to ride with me. She loved it. We were out riding one night, and it started to rain. My tires skidded out. We spun out and hit a tree.”

He was silent for a long minute, undoubtedly relieving his memories. Then he continued, “Knocked me out. I was an idiot about not wearing a helmet. I was in a coma for almost three days. And when I woke up, I couldn’t see the dead anymore. I had minimal brain damage. Lucky it wasn’t completely scrambled. It’s like the accident broke the channel.”

My hand still cupped my mouth, my eyes wide. “And mom?”

“When we were both well enough to leave the hospital, Claire told me that she couldn’t see ghosts anymore, either. I believed her, because I never thought she’d lie to me. This whole time, I took for granted that her experience would be the same as mine. She was so eager to forget all about it. She hid it really well, Ariel. I didn’t know until…what happened. I knew she took the Valium, but she told me it was for panic attacks. We promised we wouldn’t get back into ghosts again.”

“So when she said you didn’t have a choice?”

“She meant that I lost my abilities, but she apparently didn’t. When she said that, part of me realized her lies.”

“Is she the one who stole the necklace back?”

Hugh drained the rest of his cup. He looked ten years older than he had a month ago. Gray patches were beginning to grow at his temples, and there were more wrinkles lining his forehead.

“She knew that they were some kind of a cult, but from all I can tell, she didn’t know they were after you. Other than you being my daughter. We had a moment of worry when the Ford girl broke your nose. But that seemed like just a spat between girls.”

We sat in silence for a while, both looking at the floor. My brain was full to exploding, and I felt dead tired. But somehow I still didn’t feel satisfied.

“I think it’s time we go to bed,” Hugh said, standing up and taking our cups to the sink.

I hopped up. “But I have so many more questions.”

He turned and put his hand on my cheek. Bags dragged down his eyes. “You’ve gotten more than enough information for tonight. Get yourself a good sleep to absorb what I told you. We can talk in the morning.”

I was about to protest, but he was right. My head was spinning enough to make me dizzy, and I felt like I could pass out right there. “Okay.”

We changed out of our mourning clothes, stowing them away in the bag in which we bought them. I shut the door to my room, turned off all the lights except for the bedside lamp, and changed into my pajamas. Sliding underneath the cool sheets, I fully expected to fall asleep instantly.

Instead, I turned from side to side, punching the pillow to fluff it up, but the tension in my neck wouldn’t abate. I stared up at the ceiling, missing the stars that were on my ceiling in my old bedroom. My best friend, Theo, had put them up, and my thoughts turned to her. She’d found out I was dating Henry and had gotten really mad at me for not telling her. I’d barely spoken to her since then, and she’d left on winter vacation. She hadn’t gotten back yet, even though New Year’s had already passed and school was back in session. Was she still out of town? Probably.

I reached for the phone on my bedside table, and tapped my contacts. I stared at her name, my fingers itching to call or at least text her. But she was more than likely still mad at me, and I didn’t want to play my dead mother as a card to win back my friend. That wasn’t fair to any of us. I set the phone back down and punched the pillow again.

My boyfriend Henry was still recovering, and for once I didn’t want to talk to him. There would just be too much to explain. He’d let me know that they just released him from the hospital, since he had recovered well from being stabbed by McPherson. But I hadn’t seen him in school.

The biggest surprise was that Hugh had seen ghosts. It never popped into my head. All of the ghost-seers I’d heard about were female: me, Claire, Eleanor. That a boy could see ghosts was something I’d naively not considered. Sure, Henry had seen the shadow shapes that sometimes lurked around us, but that had been different.

Hadn’t it?

I jumped off of the bed and went into the bathroom. Even though it was late, I stripped down and turned on the shower. I watched clouds of steam float out, filling the already warm room. The chill inside of my bones wouldn’t go away. Turning the water up as hot as I could stand it, I let it blast down on my face as I shut my eyes.

I was not going to fall apart. I had to do whatever I could, and draw on the strength that had to be somewhere inside of me. I wasn’t going to fall off my depressive precipice again.

I finally collapsed back into bed, my fluffy bathrobe wrapped around me. My brain was still running a mile a minute, but I managed to shut my eyes and drift off.

In my dreams, I saw a strange, twisted black tree. The tips of the orange leaves were on fire. The roots moved in the ground like dark, restless snakes. I walked towards it as the leaves rustled, whispering to me.

###

I heard noises before I woke. I opened my eyes and saw Hugh banging around in my dresser drawers. I sat up, still wearing my bulky robe, the belt twisted beneath me. A suitcase lay open on the bed, and Hugh was throwing my things in it.

“What’s going on?” I asked, instantly panicked. “Where am I going?”

He assessed the suitcase quickly, then flipped the lid shut and fastened the clips. “We’re leaving town.”

“What?” I shouted, jumping out of bed. I almost fell, but I shrugged off the robe. “What are you talking about?”

He was already dressed, and I saw his own suitcase at his feet. A line of anxiety burned from my heart down to my stomach. Hugh sat down and patted the spot on the bed beside him.

“Phillip Rhodes wants us out of town,” Hugh explained. “Well, convenient timing for us, because we need to go out of town to get answers.”

“But what you said, about not running away…” I protested.

“We’re not running away, kiddo.” For the first time in a while, a genuine, enthusiastic smile had crept its way onto his face. “We’re going to get help. And if Phillip and Thornhill think we’re gone, that will buy us a little more time. Whatever they’re planning is still not going to happen for a while, at least from my evidence. Don’t worry, we’re not leaving forever. We’ll come back as soon as we get what we need.”