Darynda Jones - Death and the Girl Next Door

Cameron shrugged, clearly ashamed. “They’re all scared of me.”

Well, that certainly fit the story Glitch had told us a few days earlier. But still. This was getting ridiculous. Cameron’s dad tousled his hair, and I would’ve smiled if I weren’t considering ritualistic murder.

“Now, Grandma, Grandpa,” I said, contemplating each in turn, “what is going on? How do you know about Jared?”

“Maybe I should make some coffee,” Grandma said, but Betty Jo beat her to it. As others set out food and drink for the masses—the Sanctuary liked nothing better than gathering and eating—Sheriff Villanueva and Mr. Lusk brought in more chairs.

“Grandpa?” I asked, begging him with my eyes. There were too many secrets. Too many unknowns. I just wanted to find my place in the world. And Jared’s, because I really wanted him to stay. “How do you know what Jared is?”

“Sweetheart,” he began, his mouth a grim line, “this all goes back to way before you were born.”

“I’m listening.”

“When your mother first met your father, she came home with such tales, we honestly thought she’d been brainwashed by some kind of religious cult.”

Jared bowed his head as Grandpa spoke, listening intently. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but after everything he’d told me, how could this be any worse? Or any more bizarre? I’d learned more in the last week than I’d ever known in my life. There really was an Angel of Death? Cameron was a Nephilim? I was supposedly descended from a line of mystical women? Really, how much more surreal could it get? I refocused on Grandpa.

“But they moved back here after they married and we were just thrilled to have them home. That’s when your father introduced us to an ancient society of followers who believed that not only was there a war in the heavens between what we consider good and evil, but that it would spill out one day onto the surface of Earth. That because of the actions of one man, the one we refer to as the Antichrist, the battle would eventually be fought here, angels and mortals would join forces, and a prophet would be born to lead us to victory.”

“It took your father a while to convince us,” Grandma added. “But many things he said would come to fruition actually did. He explained he was the descendant of a powerful prophet by the name of Arabeth, and that before she died, she had predicted these battles. Each generation in the line waited for the next prophet to be born, for the girl made of fire to lead them.”

“So, Mom and Dad knew what I was when I was born?” I asked in disbelief.

“Yes, honey,” Grandma said. “We’ve been studying the teachings of the order for years. Reading ancients texts that predicted the rise of the Antichrist, your birth, the battle. The signs were all there that a prophet would be born, the exact phenomena Arabeth described. And that’s when the archangel Jophiel visited your mother, Cameron.”

Cameron’s jaw tightened as the attention shifted toward him.

“That’s when we knew for certain what was about to happen,” Grandpa added. “She was very honored to have been chosen, and even more honored to have been your mother.”

He offered a curt nod, and I was thrilled. A nod, curt or otherwise, was better than his signature glower. Maybe there was hope for him yet.

“When you were born,” Grandpa said to me, “there was such celebration. Many more believers moved to Riley’s Switch and the Sanctuary, or the Order of Sanctity as it’s traditionally called, grew.”

“And then,” Grandma said, her face growing somber, “the unthinkable happened.”

The parishioners stopped what they were doing to listen, each one sidling closer. To watch. To gauge my reaction.

“You started having visions when you were two,” she continued. “And you saw the most amazing things, but you also saw things that terrified you, things you couldn’t possibly have understood.”

Grandpa took her hand. “When you were six, you kept having this one vision over and over. You said the afternoon sky was ripping open and that night was flooding in.”

I gulped in remembrance. I’d been dreaming that very thing for years, of a tear in the sky and darkness flooding the earth.

“You remember, don’t you?” Grandpa asked.

“Kind of.” I shook my head. “But that wasn’t real.”

As though sensing my distress, or perhaps the distress that was yet to come, Jared covered my hand with his. Both my grandparents watched as I laced our fingers together, but they didn’t say anything. I did notice a few shaken faces in the crowd, but that couldn’t be helped.

“Yes, pix,” Grandpa said, “it was very real. What you saw was literally the gates of Hell being opened.”

I straightened in my chair, and Jared tightened his grip.

“Someone, and we still don’t know who, opened them.”

Brooklyn’s mother spoke then. “And we believe he had the power to summon demons.”

I peeked at Jared, but he refused to meet my eyes, his jaw tight, waiting.

Grandpa nodded. “You saw it. You were six years old, and you saw the gates of Hell being opened. Your mom and dad rushed to where you led them. They tried to stop it, to stop him, but it was too late.”

“We believe that by the time they arrived,” Grandma continued, “hundreds of dark spirits had been unleashed upon the earth.”

I sat stunned as I listened.

“Not demons, mind you,” Grandpa said. “There’s a difference. But whoever had the power to open the gates also had the power to summon a demon. And he did. He summoned the demon Malak-Tuke by name.”

Something quaked inside me at the mention of that name. A name I didn’t even recognize. I shook my head, an all-consuming dread spreading into every corner of my mind. “How can you know that?”

Grandpa frowned. “Because you told us.”

That was impossible. I didn’t remember anything of the sort.

“Why would anyone summon a demon?” Brooklyn asked, the disbelief plain on her face.

After a deep sigh, Grandpa said, “To be taken.”

“Taken?” I glanced at Jared, then back to Grandpa. “What does that mean?”

“When someone is possessed by a demon, and that someone knows how to control it through spells and incantations, that person becomes very, very powerful. We believe he was purposely inviting Malak-Tuke, Lucifer’s second in command, to possess him.”

Brooklyn spoke as though from a dream. “Is that what happened to me?” She focused on Cameron, who clearly knew more than we did. “Jared said I was taken. Was I possessed?”

Brooklyn’s mother scooped her hands into her own. “Not by a demon, honey,” she said, rushing to reassure her. “You were possessed by a dark spirit.”

“It’s why we moved here in the first place,” her father said. “The Sanctuary knew how to help you when we didn’t.”

“Oh, my god, I remember,” she said, thinking back. “I remember being prayed over and”—her shimmering eyes found Grandpa—“and you freeing me.”

A sad smile slid across Grandpa’s face as Brooke’s parents wrapped her in their arms.

“When you couldn’t recall what happened afterwards,” her dad said, “we didn’t feel the need to tell you, to bring all that up again.”

Brooke sobbed into her mom’s jacket, then stopped suddenly, as though she’d had an epiphany. She glanced at Cameron and socked him on the arm.

He rubbed it, pretending it hurt, then said with a frown, “What’d I do?”

“That’s why my aura’s different, isn’t it?”

“Her aura?” her mom asked.

Cameron shrugged. “Yeah, but it’s not a bad different. It’s just a different.”

“Do you remember what it was like?” Glitch asked in awe.