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  With a shudder, Vance slipped from out of Colby’s and Zinnia’s grasp and slumped to the floor. His eyes, partially open, showed only the whites. Zinnia bent and clutched his arms until her knuckles were white. “Is he gonna lash out again?”

  Father J shook his head. “The evil one has gone,” he replied, kneeling down next to Vance and carefully placing two fingers on the artery in his neck, feeling for a pulse.

  Zinnia let him go and sat back abruptly, holding her hands in front of herself protectively. “Is he dead?” she shrieked.

  “Sometimes the exorcism kills them,” he answered grimly, “but Vance is still alive.”

  Colby scooted away until his back rested against the wall. He pulled his knees toward his chest and rested his chin on them, looking pensively at his cousin. “Will he be okay?”

  Father J nodded. “He should be. His body is incredibly weakened, but he’ll be back, and he won’t remember anything.”

  Colby smiled weakly. “He won’t like that at all. He’ll make me give him the play by play for weeks.”

  Aisi managed a feeble smile too. “He’ll probably be mad he can’t use himself in one of his term projects, won’t he?”

  Colby nodded, running his hands shakily through his blond hair. “Something like that, yeah.” He looked squarely at Aisi and Father J. “So are either of you going to tell me what just happened?”

  Aisi looked to Father J for help. “Honestly? I have no idea, other than your cousin just got possessed.”

  Zinnia stood and grabbed a few tissues from the bathroom to mop the blood from her zebra print pants. “The rip is cool, but this blood probably won’t wash out,” she grumbled. “I love these pants.”

  Father J wiped the sweat from his own brow. “Help me move him to the sofa.” When Vance was settled, still unconscious with an ice pack resting on his forehead, Father J sat back in the small chair where the possessed man struggled only moments before. He looked at them thoughtfully for a moment. His childlike exuberance was gone.

  “What you need to understand…all of you, but especially Aisi, is that there is real good and real evil in this world. The potential for both lies within all of us. Being one or the other is always a choice. Some spirits are so evil, so determined to hurt people, that they’ve been banished to the depths of the earth. A few manage to escape occasionally, and I usually hear about it eventually and try to help the best I can. For the most part these are small potatoes in the world of evil, a few renegade troublemakers who can do very little damage alone. A few, as Aisi has seen,” he continued, looking at her, “are much more powerful. They have bigger plans and will do all they can to bring about the destruction of mankind.”

  “Wait, for real? Why?” Zinnia wailed from the bathroom. “What’s their deal?”

  “They’re jealous,” Father J answered simply. “They have no real bodies of their own, and they never will. Aisi has seen that they do come close to one when they amass certain power, which they collect by scaring and feeding off human prey.” Aisi reached again for the pocket with the scratch marks, playing with its frayed edges absentmindedly as the priest spoke. “They can leave marks on us, but they can’t do much damage until they take control of a willing partner. Someone who is too frightened or weak to refuse.” He glanced at Vance, who shifted restlessly on the sofa, and added, “…or too stupid.”

  “You mean Vance really let him in?” Colby asked incredulously.

  Father J nodded. “He must have. I think before you came here, Aisi, your father warned you not to leave each other alone?”

  Aisi nodded mutely, feeling suddenly guilty for letting him out of her sight.

  Colby sighed knowingly. “The guy is nuts with all this paranormal stuff. He was probably curious and said something lame like, ‘hey, want to take a test drive?’ just so he could document the experience. Seriously!”

  “So…you said they can mark you?” Zinnia asked, limping to join the others, holding the wad of tissues to her thigh. When Father J nodded, she pulled back the towel and the torn flap of her pants. “What do you think this means?” At first glance, the wound looked like nothing more than a deep, messy scrape. As Aisi peered more closely, however, she saw a distinct design emerge. Despite the crusting blood and raw, scabbing flesh, she could clearly see the image of an inverted star sitting on top of globe roughly scratched into her flesh.

  “I think it symbolizes this powerful demon’s desire for evil to reign over all the earth,” Father J said sadly.

  “I think it means my parents are going to see this and think I just joined a cult of devil worshippers,” Zinnia replied. “That’ll freak out my mom. Awesome, right?” She glanced over at Aisi, a mischievous glint in her eye. In spite of everything that just happened, Aisi managed a real smile. Her best friend was kind of crazy, and she loved it.

  Chapter 13: Confessional

  Vance’s eyelids fluttered for a moment, and he groaned. Everyone in the room looked at him, their worried eyes darting nervously around when he tried look at them.

  “Why are you all staring at me?” he asked in a scratchy voice when he managed to open his eyes all the way. He looked at them, and then slumped back down when he saw the ugly wound on Zinnia’s thigh. “Oh…no.”

  “Oh, yes,” Father J replied grimly. Disappointment emanated through him and seemed to fill the room. “Why?”

  Vance glanced at Aisi. He looked away, disgusted, and she knew he saw it in her eyes, too. As he struggled to sit up, Aisi felt a tug on her hoodie and felt herself being pulled back to the darkened opening where the cross once hung over the entrance to the little chapel. Realizing she still held it in her hand, she reached up to put it back.

  “So…uh, you did some really crazy stuff just now,” Zinnia whispered. “Is there anything else you need to tell me? Like why you can make stuff fly all over the room, and speak some other language and help with exorcisms? And why all of this is happening? Aisi, what’s going on?”

  Aisi glanced over at Vance, Colby, and Father J, who seemed deep in discussion. Shame filled Vance’s handsome face, and she saw a few tears fall. He wiped them away fiercely, almost angrily, and grabbed a bottle of holy water from the side table, tossing its lid to the ground and chugging it.

  “Whoa, buddy!” Colby exclaimed.

  Zinnia covered her mouth with her hands. “Dang! Even I wouldn’t go there!” she commented, clearly shocked. “You can’t drink holy water!”

  Aisi snorted. “The girl who has made out with every single guy in school should have no problem drinking the holy water.”

  Zinnia’s brow furrowed. She looked offended. “Hey, even I have my limits. You’re just ignoring my question.”

  Her bestie was right. She was doing all she could to avoid telling her secret. Why did it matter now? Zinnia had seen it all at this point, and Aisi already told Leo and Vance today. One more wouldn’t matter, and it might feel good to stop hiding the truth of who she really was from her best friend. “Yeah, I am. Pretty much,” she agreed. “You tell me your ‘good reason’ for playing tonsil hockey with every guy in town, and I’ll explain all the…the...” She couldn’t find the right words, so she shrugged and accepted defeat. “All of it.”

  “Everything?” Zinnia asked suspiciously. She extended her pinky, eyebrows raised to issue a challenge.

  “Everything,” Aisi agreed, clasping Zinnia’s pinky with her own. They shook, snapped their fingers, licked their index fingers, and pressed them to the other’s shoulder with a sizzling sound. Aisi smiled, just a bit.

  Zinnia leaned against the wall, black and white dyed hair falling down her back as she tossed her head back to look the ceiling. Her fingers played absentmindedly with the shredded fabric on her pants. “Remember when I moved here? I never told you this, but I had a wild crush on Kalen.”

  Aisi pulled a face. “Um…ewww,” she said.

  Zinnia smiled. “I know, right?”

  “But last week you—” Aisi interrupted.

  �
�I’m getting there!” Zinnia insisted. “I liked him for probably two years, and word got out that I was into him. He told the girl who told him I liked him that I was the fattest girl in school and no one would ever want to be my boyfriend.”

  Aisi was outraged. Zinnia was curvy, not fat. Maybe she still had a little baby chub around her face, but she was athletic as well. She played short stop on the girls’ softball team at school. “That little troll!” she howled indignantly.

  “Down, girl,” Zinnia laughed. “It’s okay. I told myself then and there that I would prove to him and the whole school that I would have the most boyfriends. By the time we were in tenth grade, I had already kissed around half of them, so I just figured I would do it right.” When Aisi raised her eyebrows, worried, she laughed. “Not do ‘it,’ but go all the way.” She laughed harder when Aisi looked at her in alarm, clearly shocked. “No, no! I mean I wanted to make sure I kissed all of them. Every last friggin’ guy in our grade. Pretty sure there are rumors that I’ve done that, but…no. I wanted to make sure I kissed Kalen. So…I win, right?”

  Zinnia cast her eyes toward Colby and blushed as she continued. “I met Colby at camp that one summer and he was the only guy I kissed there. Just once, when we snuck out to go on a moonlight hike. Full moon, a sky full of stars, waterfalls…romantic, huh? That’s so not me! I’ve sort of had a crush on him since then, but I didn’t think he would be into me. Now that I checked Kalen off the list, I’m done with it. Honestly, most guys are lousy kissers anyway. Seriously, we live in a town full of people who slobber. I’m kind of hoping things work out with Colby.”

  Aisi snorted just a bit, but looked around when her friend mentioned Colby. At that moment, Colby and Zinnia locked eyes and then turned away, both a little flushed and looking very twitterpated. She smiled, happy for her friend. “What do you think your parents will say?”

  Zinnia laughed. “Are you kidding? Their only daughter will go from being the town tramp, to the girlfriend of the son of the king of Somerset County carwashes. They’ll dream of mergers, and pretty soon dollar signs will pop out of their eyes like those old school cartoons.” She shrugged. “If he’s interested, I guess.”

  “How could he not be?” Aisi asked. “I can see how he’s stared at you all night. Something is there.”

  “I hope so,” Zinnia sighed. She pulled a face when she realized her fingertips were covered in blood still weeping from her thigh, so she wiped them haphazardly on her already ruined pants. “For the record, that Vance guy owes me. I love these pants! Now,” she said as she turned to her friend, “it’s your turn.”

  Aisi sighed. Her turn. Where could she possibly begin? She kind of hoped Zinnia would have a longer story, so she wouldn’t have to face it. She spent the last few years hiding the truth from everyone. She wouldn’t really call it lying. It was sort of like she told Leo earlier, that he only needed to tell the truth if someone asked directly. Who would think of asking straight up, ‘hey, do you see dead people? Do you vanquish demons for kicks?’

  Keeping the truth to herself meant that she was in control. She hated feeling like she’d lost command of the carefully kept universe she constructed to protect her brother when he came along. Leo was her parents’ last great effort at saving their marriage because after Nakia had vanished, their mother had a nervous breakdown. Jorja was furious that Billy wouldn’t tell her what happened that night. She blamed him for Nakia’s disappearance.

  Aisi had no idea why they thought another baby would help their marriage, but she still loved the little punk. Sure, he was obnoxious and annoying, but that’s a brother’s job, isn’t it? She took care of her little brother while her mother religion-hopped, looking for answers that Billy couldn’t give her, all while pretending to see the future to protect herself from a past she didn’t understand.

  And what about her father? How could she explain that her father was probably older than Adam and Eve? That he was a fallen but reformed angel, that the demon which had just possessed Vance was probably an uncle of some sort, and she had just discovered (like, a minute ago) chances were excellent that she herself was part immortal? None of this was the sort of thing a girl could say during a game of truth or dare at a pajama party. She had so many questions about who she was, and why, that she wasn’t sure she could even begin to answer anything Zinnia asked.

  She smiled feebly. “I guess I’ll try to give you the spark notes version, since I don’t understand most of it myself.”

  Aisi and Zinnia were still deep in whispered conversation a few minutes later when Colby joined them, plopping down onto the ground where the girls sat crisscross applesauce on the floor by the chapel entrance. He wrapped his arm around Zinnia’s shoulder, a look of concern etched on his face. “Hey, are you okay?” he asked, pointing to her raw and scabby thigh.

  Zinnia still seemed shaken from what Aisi had been telling her, but she nodded. “I’m fine. Hey, would you mind if I blew off all this ghost hunting stuff? I’m just not into it anymore. I’m kind of freaked out with everything. Could you just take me home?”

  Vance walked over to join them. He couldn’t meet Aisi’s eyes. “I think we’re going to call it a night. Sorry for…everything, Aisi.”

  “Why are you apologizing?” she asked, standing up. She peered earnestly into his smoky gray eyes. “I didn’t pay attention to you. I was so into what Father J was telling me that I just let you walk out. My dad warned us to stick together. Do you think he knew this would happen?” She turned to Father J.

  Father J’s closed his eyes as he rubbed a tired hand across his forehead. “Considering what you learned about your father tonight, it’s time you realize there is very little he doesn’t know. If you think you are haunted, Aisi, try being him for a while. The scars he bears on his hands are nothing compared to the scars on his soul.”

  “So what now?” Zinnia asked, standing and wrapping an arm around Colby. She put a weary head on his shoulder. “I’m serious. I don’t want to go to that house. I want to go home and forget I know any of this.”

  Aisi shook her head sadly. If only she could do that!

  Colby leaned forward just enough to kiss her on the forehead. Zinnia’s eyes closed, a blissful smile dancing across her lips. She looked insanely happy and Aisi felt a pang of jealousy, but it wasn’t about Colby. Zinnia really could just walk away, stroll into the sunset, holding hands with the Mr. Right Now of her dreams. Aisi was trapped.

  “I’m beat,” Vance agreed. He stood awkwardly, his hand twitching like he wanted to take Aisi’s in his own. She pretended not to notice, but leaned closer so he could if he wanted to. He shoved them nervously in his pockets instead, shoulders tense. “I just want to get back to our seedy, little, cockroach-infested motel and take the longest shower of my life. I feel so violated and, you know…unclean.” He shuddered.

  “Colby, Zinnia, you two may leave,” Father J said. He walked into the chapel and took two bottles of holy water from a shelf behind the altar. One for each of them. He returned and held them out. “I want you to take these. Now that you have been in the presence of such evil, it can find you more easily and may even seek you out.” Terror filled Zinnia’s face. “Use these to bless your homes. Use them when you feel watched, uncomfortable, or sad. Fill your days with goodness and give them no reason to linger. That means, Miss Dalrymple,” he added, a twinkle in his eye and his youthful energy returning, “that you should consider more carefully the boys with whom you choose to lock lips.”

  Zinnia turned a deep shade of red. “You know about that?”

  Father J smiled kindly. “This is a small town. Everyone knows about that.”

  She looked down, embarrassed. “I think I’m done with that, Father.” She glanced at Colby. “At least, I think I don’t have a reason to do that anymore.”

  Colby nodded. “I’ll keep her out of trouble, Father.” He took his arm from around her shoulder and held her hand, their fingers intertwining tightly.

  Father J nodded appr
ovingly. “Good. You may leave.” He was clearly dismissing them. Colby glanced over at Vance. “See you back at the motel.” They shook hands, then pulled each other into a man hug, thumping each other’s backs and letting go quickly. He took Zinnia’s hand again and headed toward the door.

  As the screen slammed shut behind them, Vance turned to leave as well, but Aisi waited. Somehow she knew her day wasn’t over yet.

  “Te sunt non solus. In duae operari simul,” Father J said. Again his voice had gone deep and husky, as if an otherworldly power spoke through him.

  Aisi had just made sense of the words in her head when Vance repeated, “You are not alone. The two must work together?” He looked blankly at the priest. “What two…us?”

  Aisi turned to him, surprised. “You speak Latin? Why haven’t you mentioned it before?”

  Vance shrugged. “Took it in high school, but I’m a little rusty. It seemed cooler than German.”

  “I suggest not saying that to a German,” Aisi said before she turned back to Father J. “So let me get this straight. I’m not done yet, am I? This thing is going to get worse before it gets better?”

  “True, true,” Father J sighed, with the air of someone who has already climbed the mountain someone else was about to tackle. “But as I said, you must know more. There are other pieces to this puzzle, and to understand how they fit together, we must go back.”

  Aisi trembled. She didn’t want to cry, but she couldn’t handle it again. Those visions, seeing those horrible things. “I…can’t,” she replied, trying not to choke on her words.

  Father J cast a glance at Vance. “He can see what you want him to see.”

  Vance looked startled as the words sank into Aisi. “What do you mean, I can see?”

  “Aisi can see whatever she wants, whenever she wants. Part of her gift—”

  “Gift, curse, whatever,” she muttered, interrupting.

  “Part of her gift,” Father J continued, his voice clear and firm, “is she can share what she wants. Just as she saw her father’s history by touching my hands, so too can you see what she sees by touching hers.”