He lowered his head as though regretting what he was about to say. "For a while. It got darker. But slowly the fire took over again."
"I wish I could see what you see."
He glanced at Brooke"s sleeping form. Her aura was different as well. It was cracked from when she too was possessed. Damaged. Only she was possessed by an evil spirit, not a demon. The way I understood it, if caught in time, a person could survive possession by an evil spirit, but people almost never survived possession by a demon. No idea what happened with me, why I was even still alive with a demon inside. Granddad and the Order exorcised the ent.i.ty out of Brooke. She almost died as a result. If her family had not brought her to Riley"s Switch when she was in the third grade, to the Order, she may not have survived much longer anyway. But apparently, trying to exorcise the demon out of me when I was six would have killed me. Or that was what they feared.
Still, I wished I could see Brooke"s unusual aura as Cameron could. "Is she still cracked?" I asked, unable to suppress the smile in my voice.
"I think she"ll always be a little cracked."
I chuckled. "I think we should call her that. Crack."
"That"s why I call her Moon Pie."
With interest piqued, I asked, "What does a MoonPie have to do with it?"
He stretched and let out a yawn before answering. "When we were in the fifth grade, I saw a MoonPie in a store that was broken. It had a crack down the middle that reminded me of her aura."
I couldn"t help it. I burst out laughing. "That"s why you call her that?"
He laughed too until Brooke stirred. We quieted instantly, but the image was one I would cherish forever.
I ended up talking to Cameron for much of the night, learning about what it was like growing up with his abilities. Being able to see what he sees. On one hand, the idea of detecting ghosts and auras was fascinating. On the other, the things he saw would have scared my hair straight. I wasn"t sure any kid, nephilim or not, should be subject to such knowledge. How did he make sense of it growing up? How did knowing what he knew shape his psyche? His behavior? He"d always been such a loner, never had many friends, and kept to himself pretty much his whole life. Now I understood why.
I looked at the clock as sleep finally settled around me. Two in the morning. I would look horrible for school. Especially since I woke up a little over three hours later to the strangled sounds of my own breathing.
STRAWBERRY SHAMPOO AND CINNAMON ROLLS.
A nightmare. I"d had a nightmare, and it was enough to cause an asthma attack. Thankfully, someone thought to put battery acid in an inhaler for just such an occasion.
Standing barefoot in my bathroom, surrounded by a billowing cloud of steam, I wiped condensation off the mirror and leaned forward. Probing. Searching. I studied the pupils of my gray eyes and rapped on the silvery gla.s.s. "I know you"re in there," I said to the demon lying dormant inside.
Talking to the demon was better than dwelling on the fact that Jared never came home. Even my grandparents started asking questions, to which I just shrugged. If they knew he was missing, they would send me packing for sure. For my own safety, of course.
Then again, maybe Jared wasn"t just missing. Maybe he"d been called back. He was the Angel of Death, after all. He had a job to do. Would he leave without saying good-bye?
The thought made my chest ache with sadness.
Since it was Monday and I couldn"t sleep anyway, I"d dragged myself out of bed earlier than I thought humanly possible and forced my reluctant body into the shower. The warm water helped, but it didn"t dissipate the dream I"d had. The same dream I"d been having for weeks, reliving the possession as though it had happened yesterday. The residue lingered, dark and eerie, like a thick smoke suffocating any thoughts of a normal day.
I narrowed my eyes at my own reflection, hoping the demon inside was looking out, watching me watch him. I didn"t want to be rude, but it was my body he was trespa.s.sing against.
"If you don"t come out of there this instant, I will drag you out by your fingernails and serve you to the buzzards."
"Really?" Brooklyn inched the shower curtain aside and peeked around it, shampoo bubbling down her long black hair. "I got five bucks says you can"t take me on your best day."
"I was talking to Mal," I said, staring him down in the mirror.
Mal was our little nickname for the monstrosity within me. Malak-Tuke was just so formal. I often wondered how Satan was getting along without his go-to guy, him setting up shop in my innards and all.
"Is Mal talking back to you?" Brooklyn asked me.
"Not that I know of."
"Well, if he ever does, let me know," she said, seconds before she sucked in a sharp breath, then followed it up with a whole lot of coughing and sputtering. Either she"d accidentally swallowed shampoo or she was coming down with something. Probably something serious like scarlet fever. Or Ebola.
I almost worried when she started making vomit sounds.
"Your shampoo tastes horrible."
"Really?" I asked, feigning surprise. "It smells so fruity."
I turned back to the mirror and saw Cameron standing at my window. He"d gone out early to do reconnaissance. I had no idea what that meant exactly, but it sounded important. I tightened my robe and strode to open the window. A bitingly harsh wind whipped inside as Cameron bent to talk to me through the opening.
"Pervy much?" I asked him before he could say anything.
"Why?" He looked past me into the bathroom. "Is Brooke in there?"
I maneuvered around to try to block his view, but since he was well over a foot taller, I doubted I was doing any good. "Did you find anything?" I asked, referring to our missing team member.
He shook his head. And he seemed worried, which was not like him.
I tried not to let that news push me further into a state of despair. Jared was a big boy. He was a millennia-old big boy. And me worrying about him was like a gnat worrying about the well-being of a guided missile.
"Hey," Brooke yelled to me, "did you take my favorite towel?"
I bit down and tossed Cameron a conspiratorial gaze. "No," I said, slowly pulling the towel off my head and stuffing it behind her bed. "I have no idea where it is."
Cameron grinned. "Maybe I should take her one."
"Maybe you shouldn"t." He shrugged, then frowned at me when he realized I was shivering. "I"ll meet you downstairs," he said, but I grabbed his jacket sleeve to stop him.
"Cameron, can you feel him? You know, like before? Is he in pain? Is he lost?" Then I voiced the bane of my worries. "Is he gone?"
He shook his head again, sympathy lining his ice blue eyes. "I just don"t know."
"That means you can"t sense him, right?"
"It doesn"t mean anything." He started to close the window, and just before it shut all the way, he said, "Dress warm."
"Are you sure you haven"t seen my favorite towel?" Brooke asked, standing in another towel that was not her favorite.
I wrapped my arms around my waist and headed back to the bathroom. "I bet Glitch used it. He"s so inconsiderate that way."
"Mmm-hmm." She wasn"t buying it.
When we were finally fit to face the world, I braced myself for the confrontation to come. Breakfast with the grandparents. I took a deep breath and headed down.
"Hey," I said to my grandmother as I stepped off the stairs. We always played nice in front of company, and since Brooke was right behind me ...
Grandma offered a hesitant smile, then looked back at her new phone, a quizzical expression drawing her brows together. "Hey, pix. Did you sleep well?"
"Not really."
"Hey, Grandma," Brooke said, stepping off the stairs with a special kind of bounce.
"Good morning, hon," Grandma said.
Brooke grabbed an apple, bit into it, then continued to talk despite her mouth being completely full. "Neither of us slept well. I doubt we"ll make it through the day without lapsing into a coma."
Grandma didn"t even spare her a glance that time. "I"m almost certain you"ll make it. If for some reason you lose consciousness, text me. I need the practice."
Brooke giggled as she scooped peanut b.u.t.ter onto an apple slice, then cast me a sympathetic gaze. "How did you ever survive childhood with such neglect? Such indifference?"
She was doing her darnedest to get Grandma and me to converse. It was not going to work.
The back door opened, allowing the crisp breeze to sweep into the room and up the back of my sweater. I shivered in response, offering my grandfather a sideways glance as he peeled off his jacket and hung it up by the door.
"Hey, pixie stick," he said, his voice only slightly strained. "Brooklyn."
"Hey, Pastor Bill," Brooke said. "Do you like your new phone?"
He strolled over and bent to give me a hesitant peck on the cheek. "Not even a little," he said, then offered Brooke a peck too.
"Well, I love mine," Grandma said, her eyes glued to the screen, sparkling with an alarming degree of l.u.s.t. I never figured Grandma for a techno geek, but she was really getting into that thing.
She pushed a b.u.t.ton, and a microsecond later Granddad"s phone beeped. With a heavy sigh, he took it out of the case at his belt and worked a few moments to get the message to come up. Then his face morphed into one of his signature glares. The one that reminded me of a guy at a carnival one time when I tried to convince him I was old enough to go on the Terrifying Twister without my parents" consent. I was four.
"You couldn"t have just said good morning?" Granddad asked. "I"m standing right here."
"No." She waved an impatient hand at him. "You have to text that to me. Pretend we"re on our honeymoon."
Brooklyn choked on her milk and spent the next two minutes coughing. Then she made this gagging sound that was very much like her reaction to my shampoo.
Taking Brooke"s sudden fit into consideration, Granddad explained. "We had a huge fight on our honeymoon. We didn"t talk for days."
"But if we"d had these phones," Grandma said, shaking it at him for effect, "we wouldn"t have needed to talk. These things are great."
His phone beeped again. "Really, Vera? I"m right here."
"What? I can"t hear you." Then she giggled like a mental patient, and I almost smiled. Maybe the phones weren"t such a good idea after all.
The back door opened again when Cameron strolled in, his blond hair a disheveled mess.
"You look like a tumbleweed," Brooke said, her voice hoa.r.s.e from her most recent efforts.
Never one to be accused of social graces, he shrugged at her before nodding to my grandparents. "Hey, Pastor, Mrs. James."
"Hi, Cameron," Granddad said, but Grandma was still busy with her phone.
He didn"t seem to mind. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and leaned against the wall, waiting for us. But when Brooklyn wasn"t looking, his eyes wandered toward her, a glint of interest in them despite the fact that she was in the middle of stuffing the last remnants of apple into her mouth. Then his phone beeped. He fished it out of his front pocket, frowned, then looked up at Grandma, who now wore a satisfied grin on her face. After clearing his throat in obvious discomfort, he mumbled, "It"s nice to see you too, Mrs. James."
Grandma nodded. This was getting ridiculous.
"How did you know it was Grandma?" I asked him. "She just got that phone."
He leaned forward to confide in me. "She"s been texting me all night."
"Grandma!" I scolded, breaking my vow of silence and giving her my best look of shocked dismay. "You can"t go around texting high school kids in the middle of the night. You"ll get arrested."
Cameron broke, chuckling before he headed toward the back door. "Are you kidding? I now have your grandma"s famous recipe for chile con queso."
"Sweet," Brooke said, scooping up her jacket and backpack and following him out. "You can make some later."
I took an apple to eat on the way to school and grabbed my jacket and backpack as well.
"Can we talk to you, pix?" Granddad asked.
I paused but didn"t look back at them. "I"ll be late for school."
"We"ll talk later, then," Grandma said, her voice soft and sad.
It made my throat constrict. I nodded and headed out of a perfectly warm house into a cold, frigid wind that whipped my hair about and took only seconds to convince me I"d underdressed for the occasion despite Cameron"s warning. b.u.mmer that insulated work coveralls and ski masks weren"t in fashion.
We hurried into Cameron"s beat-up Chevy. He"d kept it running, and it rumbled and shimmied as we climbed in. Despite its haggard appearance on the outside, the inside boasted a toasty warmth that kept the chills at bay. That was all that mattered at the moment.
"I think you should look for Jared today while we"re in cla.s.s," I said to Cameron as we drove to school.
He shook his head, and disappointment rushed over me.
"But why? It"s not like you"ve never skipped."
With a sigh, he leveled a hard stare on me. "He"s not my concern, Lorelei. You know that."
Of course he wasn"t. I was. And because of that, Jared"s best hope was lost.
"But what if he"s hurt?"
"Not likely," he said, pulling into the parking lot.