Текст книги "Arise"
Автор книги: Tara Hudson
Соавторы: Tara Hudson
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 18 страниц) [доступный отрывок для чтения: 8 страниц]
Chapter
FIFTEEN
My brain was in the process of sending a “run away” signal to my muscles when Joshua began to spill forth a rush of words, half of which made no sense.
“I know you’re mad,” he sputtered, “but I just had to tell Annabel about all the problems you’ve been having with materializing, and about all your bad dreams and worries and stuff, and then she told me about this place and how they might be able to help you feel better, or more ‘at peace,’ or something. And maybe it was a bad idea, but I’ve wanted to help you so badly that I sort of—”
While Joshua rambled through his explanation, I felt my vision blur with anger and fear. But before I had the chance to chew him out, someone else beat me to the chase.
“And just who might you be?”
Joshua and I turned simultaneously toward the paper-thin voice that came from the far, unlit corner of the room. There, hidden underneath a canopy of dried herbs, I could just make out the rounded shape of a person.
When the shape moved, I took an involuntary step backward. But I straightened my spine, steeling myself for what might come out of the shadows. Once the shape revealed itself fully, I took a tiny breath of relief.
As far as I could tell, the stately looking black woman who emerged from the shadows was neither a demon nor a ghost. Just a very, very old human. Thousands of wrinkles creased her face, around which only the slightest wisps of white hair—free from her severe bun—curled. She held her hands in a formal clasp in front of her dress and appraised Joshua suspiciously.
“Are you Marie?” Joshua asked.
In the shifting candlelight, I thought I saw the woman smile.
“That depends on who’s asking,” she said.
“Um … me?” he offered.
“Me, who?”
This time I definitely heard a laugh dancing its way through her words. For whatever reason, she was having a little fun at the expense of the young man who had so foolishly entered her shop.
Joshua, clearly intimidated by this woman, took a tentative step forward and extended his hand to her. “Joshua Mayhew, ma’am. My cousin, Annabel Comeaux—she sent me to you?”
The woman ignored Joshua’s hand. “I’ve never heard of the girl.”
Now her tone was cold and unyielding—all her amusement gone like a wisp of incense. She remained motionless in the corner, hands still clasped imperiously in front of her like some statue of an unfriendly god.
I watched Joshua flounder beside me for a few uncertain seconds. But quickly his resolve returned. He didn’t intend to leave here empty-handed, no matter how much wiser that course might be … no matter how much I might want him to.
“Ma’am,” Joshua said with more force. He dropped his hand but inched closer to her. “A person I care about needs help with her … afterlife, actually. My cousin told me you were someone who could do stuff like that.”
A beam of candlelight fell across the old woman’s face, revealing an arched eyebrow. “And what do you think I could do for this person’s afterlife, young man?” she asked.
Joshua gave me a quick glance. “You could help her learn more about why she is … the way she is maybe? Help her learn how the dead can control things. How she could control things.”
Before he’d even finished his request, the old woman shook her head forcefully.
“I don’t provide those kinds of services, boy. I might help protect you from a ghost that means you harm, or make an offering to a spirit. But I don’t presume to guide the spirits myself. Besides, my spells are for the living—for their luck, power, or money. You want something like that, I can help you.”
“No,” Joshua insisted. “This isn’t for me. This is for someone who’s already dead. I want to help her.”
“I already told you, boy, I won’t do that.” She unclasped her hands and folded her arms across her thin chest. “Since you clearly can’t listen—and I suspect you’re cursed by this spirit—I’ll ask you to leave now.”
She can’t see me, I realized. She hadn’t once looked in my direction, and now she only suspected that Joshua was haunted. For all her potions and powders, she had none of the sight that Joshua and his family possessed.
I turned to tell Joshua as much, but he was too focused on the task at hand to hear me.
“I’m not cursed,” he replied angrily. “I just need your help. Are you refusing to give it to me because you won’t do anything, or because you can’t?”
Now Joshua had gone too far. I didn’t realize the woman had more inches to gain; but when she drew herself up to her full height, she seemed to tower over us. Her frail appearance was gone, as was her shaky, paper-thin voice.
“You will leave,” she commanded in a deep, resonant voice that seemed to reverberate much louder than it should in that tiny room.
“But—”
Suddenly, from another corner of the room, a jangling crash interrupted Joshua’s objection, and all three of us whipped around toward the noise.
Almost immediately, the woman uttered a foreign oath and pulled a bristly knot of what looked like hair from the pocket of her dress. She rubbed it furiously as she crossed the room and then bent down to examine the remains of the glass jar that had dropped to the floor.
Joshua and I, however, were more focused on the person who’d done the dropping. She stood in front of the doorway leading farther into the recesses of the café, and she now stared back at us in what could only be described as shock.
Even in this dark room I could tell she was one of the most beautiful people I’d ever seen up close. She looked about my age—if not a little younger—but she was much taller and curvier than me. Beneath a gorgeously wild Afro, her smooth coffee-and-cream skin perfectly offset her radiant blue eyes.
Eyes that were looking right into mine.
The girl let loose an incredibly vulgar string of words. Then her gaze darted to the old woman, who’d started to remove shards from the puddle of whatever the jar had held. The girl pressed her lips together, obviously debating something, before releasing them to blow out a low whistle.
“Sorry, Marie,” the girl mumbled. “I’ll clean that up after my break.”
The old woman ignored the apology and continued sifting through the soggy mess, muttering to herself in some foreign language. Apparently, this girl was her employee, and, apparently, this girl was clumsy.
“Sorry,” the girl repeated halfheartedly. Then, after giving her unresponsive boss a flippant shrug, she brushed past Joshua and me without acknowledgment.
Once the girl had drawn the curtain back by a few inches, however, she paused. In a soft hiss—so quiet I almost couldn’t hear it—she whispered, “Both of you: outside. Now.”
The words “both of you” echoed in my head even after she stormed out and let the curtain fall back into place behind her.
Afterward, the room was completely silent except for the wet sounds of Marie’s cleanup efforts. Joshua and I stayed rooted in place until—finally—we exchanged matching looks of confusion and misgiving.
He twitched his head toward the curtain. Follow? he mouthed.
Catching my bottom lip with my teeth, I peeked at Marie. She hadn’t stopped her frustrated muttering, nor had she looked up from the broken jar and its contents. Clearly, the mess meant we’d been forgotten. Which also meant she probably wouldn’t put a hex on us for bothering her.
I turned back to Joshua, placed my index finger to my lips, and flicked my eyes in Marie’s direction. Understanding my meaning, he nodded and pulled the curtain aside for me. As quietly as possible, we slipped out of the room and then hurried through the diner before anyone could stop us. Joshua opened the door with a minimal amount of chiming, and we practically flew out of it. We bolted down the crumbling steps, only jerking to a stop when we realized that the shop girl had actually waited for us outside as she’d promised.
She leaned against the gray brick of the building just out of sight of the café window. Because she had rushed outside without her coat, she now furiously rubbed her hands against her bare upper arms in an attempt to protect herself from the wind. Really, her entire outfit—a billowy, gunmetal dress over bare legs and thigh-high gray boots—looked less than winter friendly. I wasn’t surprised to hear her teeth chattering as we approached.
Despite her clear discomfort, the girl was all business. Joshua had barely introduced himself when she cut him off with a wave of her hand.
“Don’t bother, Lover Boy,” she said. “I got all that info back at the Conjure. The walls aren’t that thick in there, you know.”
Joshua nodded, looking relieved that he wouldn’t have to repeat the same story. “Then you already know why I need help?” he asked. “And who I need it for?”
The girl jerked her head in my direction. “For Princess Paleness over there, right?”
“Excuse me?” I said, folding my arms defensively. “I don’t know if you’ve picked up on what I am, but I haven’t exactly had the opportunity to get a tan lately.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said with another dismissive wave. “And I’m sure there’s some fascinating story about how you got stuck in that dress, too. But I’m more interested in what brought you here today.”
Joshua began to speak, but she cut him off again with an impatient sigh.
“No offense, Lover Boy, but I’d rather hear it from the horse’s mouth.”
I pulled back one corner of my lips. “The ‘horse’ being me?”
“Yeah, the horse being you. So tell me, Princess, what’s so wrong with you that you need Voodoo to fix it?”
“Nothing,” I said bluntly. “And incidentally, my name’s not Princess. It’s Amelia.”
A tiny smile skirted across her lips. “Hi, Amelia. I’m Gabrielle—I’ll be your Voodoo priestess for the evening.”
“You expect us to believe that you’re a Voodoo priestess?” I scoffed.
Gabrielle shrugged one shoulder. “You tell me, Amelia. Between me and Marie back there, which one of us can actually see you?”
I snorted softly. “That just makes you a Seer.”
“Yeah, it does. And I’ll bet you fifty bucks that you’ve met some powerful Seers, haven’t you?”
I pinched my lips shut; she had me there. In my experience, a knowledgeable Seer had the ability to affect the dead in some pretty intense ways.
I met Gabrielle’s eyes and saw a glimmer of victory in them. She nodded at me, almost imperceptibly, and then reset her mouth in that straight, businesslike line.
“Speaking of fifty bucks,” she said, turning back to Joshua, “that’s my fee for helping you tonight.”
“But we haven’t even told you what kind of help we’re asking for,” he pointed out.
Gabrielle shook her head, sending her delicate silver earrings jingling. “No need to. I bet it’s the standard fare: can’t touch stuff, can’t control your disappearances.”
Joshua and I shared a meaningful look. I hated to admit it, but this girl knew her ghosts.
“It’s … kind of more like that last one,” Joshua hedged, and I silently blessed him for not confessing other things that were just too personal, too private.
“Huh.” Gabrielle looked slightly surprised. “Well, whatever the problem, I think I can take care of it.”
“Really?”
However much discretion he’d just shown, Joshua’s exclamation definitely revealed too much now—I could see it in Gabrielle’s sharp blue eyes. Again, victory sparkled there like a flame.
“Really, Lover Boy.” She rubbed her hands together—in triumph or to warm them, I couldn’t tell. “So here’s how it’s going to go down: you guys meet me tonight, ten minutes before midnight, in the St. Louis Number One Cemetery. It’s the aboveground cemetery off Basin Street, near Iberville. It’s usually locked by three p.m., but I’ll find a way to get the front gate open. Once you’re inside, go toward the center until you find a tall concrete vault that’s been painted brickred. You can’t miss it—it’s right by the tombstone that looks like a dinner table. When you get there, we’ll start the ceremony.”
I placed a restraining hand on Joshua’s arm before he could agree for us again. Remembering something that Rebecca mentioned during the car ride yesterday, I frowned.
“Aren’t the cemeteries here supposed to be dangerous without a tour guide?” I asked. “Especially at night?”
Gabrielle barked out a laugh. “Well, you’re dead, so no worries there. And you,” she said, turning to Joshua and giving him a contemplative once-over. “Maybe you should carry a baseball bat or something.”
I balked, but Joshua just nodded decisively.
“Done,” he declared, and extended his hand for her to shake.
For the first time this morning, Gabrielle’s confidence seemed to falter. After all that bravado, I had no idea why something as harmless as a handshake should have bothered her. But she stared warily at Joshua’s outstretched hand as if any physical contact with him would result in something terrible. Her firing maybe? I couldn’t read the reason in her face....
“No can do, Lover Boy,” she said in a weirdly choked voice. “Shaking hands is, uh … it’s a big no-no in Voodoo.”
Joshua dropped his arm to his side with an embarrassed grin. “Sorry. I don’t really know the rules yet.”
Once again Gabrielle shrugged—a gesture of studied indifference that I was beginning to recognize. “No biggie,” she said offhandedly. “But you’ve got to get out of here before Marie decides I’ve taken too much time for my smoke break.”
She didn’t have to tell me twice. I grasped Joshua’s hand—a move that Gabrielle watched closely, I noticed—and tugged at it.
“You heard the girl,” I murmured. “Let’s get out of here.”
But Joshua held firmly in place. As if he just couldn’t help but be doggedly polite, he flashed Gabrielle a grateful smile.
“I appreciate you helping us. Really.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Gabrielle ducked her head and made a little “shoo” motion with her hand. “I’ll see ya’ll tonight at the St. Louis. Now seriously, hit the road.”
This time I didn’t let Joshua express any more gratitude. I yanked his hand as hard as I could, feeling the pins and needles heat of our touch spread all the way up to my shoulder. Finally, Joshua got the hint. He gave me an apologetic grin and—without another word to Gabrielle—turned with me to hurry away from this café, this street, this neighborhood, as quickly as we could without running.
Chapter
SIXTEEN
Almost as soon as we rounded the corner of Ursulines, I dropped Joshua’s hand. When he made a soft, questioning noise, I trained my gaze severely to the right—away from his—and put at least a foot’s distance between us. We hadn’t said one word or looked at each other the entire walk home, and I didn’t intend to change that now.
Still not speaking, I followed him into the town house and waited while his mother told him that Annabel and company had left on a day trip to Lafayette (also leaving me without the option of chewing out Annabel). Upon hearing this news, Joshua looked hesitantly in my direction. I refused to meet his eyes, choosing instead to keep silent while he said hello to the rest of his family and then led me outside.
There, only a few sounds filled the courtyard: the scratch of live oak branches above us and the twin scrape of the two chairs he pulled out from one of the tables so that we could sit.
All the while, Joshua kept his mouth firmly shut. Once we’d both sat down, however, he trapped me with those arresting blue eyes … probably anticipating the effect they’d have on me. He clearly wanted to know what I thought about everything that had just happened—I could tell by how frantically his fingers worked the edge of his sleeve.
But I wasn’t ready to give him my reaction yet. Not until I had better control of my thoughts, which were currently screaming at me that, if Joshua was pursuing such a drastic measure, then he knew as well as I did that our relationship was set up for failure. Of course, another set of thoughts screamed back that I didn’t want it to be true. Not now, not ever.
As the minutes passed, the branches continued to clatter noisily above us, from either the errant gale that had found its way through the alleys or the poltergeist force of my emotions—I couldn’t be sure. Finally, after what probably felt like an eternity to Joshua, I met his gaze.
“So,” I said, keeping my voice tightly controlled. “That was my Christmas present?”
“That was going to be your Christmas present,” he explained cautiously. Then he leaned forward, scrutinizing me. “But you have a problem with it, don’t you? Even after finding out what I meant it for.”
Despite his effort to hold my gaze, I broke eye contact and stared down at my hands, which I’d absently begun to wring in my lap.
“Yes,” I said, and then shook my head. “No. I don’t know.”
With my eyes still cast downward, I sighed heavily and sank back into my chair. True to form, Joshua seized upon the opportunity that my ambivalence gave him. He leaned even closer and tucked his forefinger beneath my chin, lifting my head until I faced him again.
“I’m not going to push you into anything,” he said softly. “I’ve done that before, with some mixed results.”
I gave him a tense, close-lipped smile. “I can’t say I haven’t done it to you, too. O’Reilly’s barn burner comes to mind.”
Joshua chuckled quietly. Keeping his finger beneath my chin, he began to brush his thumb across my cheek. Where he touched, heat erupted in an arc. Like a blush, only better.
This time I didn’t pull my eyes from his. I stared at him until all I could see was midnight blue. Until all my warring thoughts quieted and left me with something that at least resembled peace.
Now calmer and more resolved, I gave him a stronger, broader smile—one that I didn’t necessarily feel, but certainly meant.
Joshua grinned back. “Does that smile mean you don’t hate me?”
I placed my hand over his, stopping his thumb but doubling the heat on my cheek. I didn’t speak. But an irresponsible part of me wished he’d read a reply in my eyes, one that revealed I could never hate him when I loved him this much.
After a prolonged silence I squeezed his hand and then released it. In a soft, almost unfamiliar voice, I said, “You won’t have your cousins to blame for staying out late tonight. So I guess you’d better start thinking of some excuse for why you need to go somewhere at midnight. Otherwise, you’re just going to have to sneak out.”
Joshua arched one eyebrow. “Oh, really?”
“Really.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“I hadn’t made my mind up against the idea,” I said. “It just kind of threw me for a loop, that’s all.”
“And … now?”
“Now I kind of want to see what happens. See if she can help me control the materializations and freaky dreams.”
Or even help me protect my loved ones without having to flee or join a troop of rogue ghosts, I thought. No harm in asking once we’re there.
The strained half smile tugged at my lips again, helping me to keep those thoughts from playing themselves out on my face.
“Just promise me one thing, okay?”
“Anything,” he said earnestly.
“If she’s lying, and she’s actually on the Ruth side of things … if she ends up trying to exorcise me—”
“We get the hell out of there,” he finished, and then gave me a surprisingly wolfish grin. “And stiff her the fifty bucks, of course.”
I laughed. “Of course.”
My one, weak laugh was all Joshua needed. Suddenly excited, he clutched both of my hands and gently pulled me forward until I balanced precariously on the edge of my chair. With my lips precariously close to his too.
“I really want her to help you tonight,” he whispered, serious again.
I sucked in a sharp breath, which brought with it the briefest scent of his cologne. When the scent evaporated, I nodded slightly, dizzily. I let Joshua hold me there—on the edge of my seat, and on the edge of something potentially momentous.
But I didn’t—and wouldn’t—tell him the truth: that I was knee-quaking, bone-shaking scared.
Not that I might see last night’s ghosts or demons spending the witching hour in what had to be one of the more haunted places in New Orleans. Not that Gabrielle—who struck me as someone with more than a few ulterior motives—might hurt me.
I was somewhat afraid of those very real threats, obviously. But they weren’t what filled my heart with an icy sort of dread; they weren’t what I struggled to hide from Joshua’s perceptive gaze.
Because, in the end, I was most afraid of what would happen if Gabrielle couldn’t do a damn thing for me.
The sun set too quickly that night, disappearing over the slate roofs of the Quarter and pulling the streets back into the shadows. I sat alone upon the front steps of the town house, with my arms wrapped around my legs, watching the darkness descend.
Inside, I could hear the raucous sounds of the Mayhew clan crowded around the dinner table. Tomorrow, the entire group would travel to one of the many gourmet restaurants in the Quarter to celebrate Christmas Eve in style. But tonight they were supposed to dine together in their family home, filling every available inch of the first floor.
The only exceptions to this tradition were the young Seers, who still hadn’t returned from their trip to Lafayette. (I couldn’t remember my own parents’ curfew rules, but I imagined they were far less lax than those of the Mayhews.) Sitting outside, I absently wondered whether Joshua missed their company.
If I listened carefully to the clamor, I could distinguish his voice as he laughed and joked with his younger cousins. If I stood up, I’m sure I could peer through the front window and see him sitting closest to the glass so that he could keep a watchful eye on me.
Considering what we might face in a few hours, I probably should’ve taken a covert place beside him in that cramped dining room. Especially since he’d warned me that this first family dinner might run long into the night, giving us no time alone together before we had to leave for the cemetery.
But like some scared little rabbit, I’d fled the house only minutes after I’d caught my first glimpse of someone I’d half expected never to see again.
I’d seen Ruth Mayhew before anyone else in the family had, standing at the top of the main staircase. In the shadows, she looked like some aging heroine in an antebellum movie, tall and grand and patrician, with one hand on the banister and the other clutched to her shawl.
Very briefly, I’d thought about confronting her—asserting my presence in this house for whatever limited period of time I intended to occupy it.
When she’d taken a few, unsteady steps down the main staircase, however, I took my own steps toward the front door, practically flinging Joshua against it and begging for him to let me outside. Somehow, being outdoors felt safer than staying inside with her.
But before Joshua had moved to shut the door behind me, a beam of light from the dining room fell across her face. At that moment I’d gasped. Even when the door closed, my mouth stayed open in shock.
I had no idea how someone could age so much in only three months, but tonight Ruth Mayhew didn’t even look like the same person. Her glossy white hair had dulled, and her skin had sagged even further. Instead of carrying herself ramrod straight, she now hunched like an old woman. Worst of all, her normally hawk-sharp eyes looked bloodshot and vague.
Granted, she was emerging from the stupor of a two-day migraine; anyone would look terrible after something like that. And she’d obviously had the energy, at some point between the time we’d arrived in New Orleans and the time I returned from Jackson Square, to decorate the back stoop with Voodoo dust.
But as I watched her through the dining-room window, I couldn’t help but notice that her relatives treated her like a helpless invalid. They very nearly carried her to the dining-room table and, once they had her there, flocked around her as if she couldn’t even lift a spoon. Which, judging by her shaking hands, she couldn’t.
Despite all the horrible things she’d said and done to me, I felt the strangest twinge of sympathy for her. People aged, people died—I knew that better than anyone. That didn’t mean I wished it upon Ruth, though. Nor did I want Joshua to have to watch it firsthand. Of course, there was nothing I could do to stop it from happening. And even if I could, I’m pretty sure Ruth would still use her last ounce of strength to banish me to the Antarctic or somewhere equally unpleasant.
So, however weak and hollow she might look, however much sympathy her appearance might elicit, that woman was still Ruth Mayhew. And because I had no intention of angering her, I stayed put, alone outside with my own dark thoughts.
Anyway, I told myself, tonight’s going to be hard enough without adding her to the mix.
As if responding to my mood, the gas lamps above me sputtered violently, sending an army of shadows dancing across the street. The movement startled me, and I pulled my legs more tightly to my chest. Call me crazy, but aging enemies, flickering shadows, and midnight rituals in cemeteries all made me jumpier than usual.
The image of another, more familiar graveyard in rural Oklahoma popped into my head, and I couldn’t seem to get rid of it. As the evening dragged on, I mulled over the shape of the lettering on my own headstone, the way its concrete looked at sunset, the curve of the ground over my grave....
Finally, after nearly a full hour of this torture, I groaned loudly. I ran my hands through my hair, covered my face with them for a moment, and then leaned my head against the brick wall behind me. I had to think about something else while I waited for Joshua to sneak out for the night. Otherwise, I really would go crazy.
So instead, I pictured the prairie I’d dreamed about during the car ride to New Orleans. I envisioned the lush grass and the endless blue sky. Then I imagined my mother and father, sitting with me on a blanket spread over the carpet of wildflowers. I pretended that I could taste the food from our picnic, smell the flowers as the breeze hit them, feel the sun on my skin.
And since I was fulfilling all my wishes in this little fantasy, I added Joshua to the scene. In my imagination, he was sitting next to my father, laughing with him about something my mother had just said. The dream-Joshua, still talking to my dad, absentmindedly reached across the blanket and took my hand—a real touch, without sparks or electricity, but somehow better. So much better.
I sighed happily and reached my hands out in a big, satisfied stretch. But the second my fingers touched something icy and wet, I jerked them back, fast. I opened my eyes, and then let out a small, choked sound.
It wasn’t possible. What I had just touched shouldn’t be there. Yet here it was, as real as the gas lamps that had suddenly disappeared. A garishly colored metal girder, with my fingerprints still visible on its shimmering, frosty coating. The kind of girder you’d find on a bridge.
The kind I’d seen before.
I took an automatic step backward, away from the icy girders. Then I looked wildly around me. Instead of old buildings and narrow streets, I was now surrounded by twisted metal bars, all colored in bizarre, wounded shades of black and red and purple. Like some insane, life-size version of a birdcage.
This was definitely not the French Quarter; this was a bruised and ugly place, encrusted in ice and plunged into darkness. I hated it, almost as quickly as I recognized it.
High Bridge.
The words whispered in my mind, like a curse. This place looked exactly like the netherworld version of High Bridge.
But a second look told me I wasn’t on High Bridge—just a different structure that closely resembled it.
I had to be in the netherworld. But where in it, I couldn’t say.
As far as I could tell, I was standing in some sort of metal pavilion. Its girders extended up, over my head, to support a steeply pitched roof. In the back, behind me, the pavilion opened onto what looked like a metal boardwalk. Beyond that I couldn’t see very much since this part of the netherworld was as shadowy as the part I knew. In the front, where I’d just been, a few rows of twisted girders were the only things between me and a sudden plunge.
Whatever that plunge led to, it did not look welcoming. Even in the impenetrable darkness I could tell I wouldn’t want to lean over the edge of the pavilion. And yet I felt an irresistible tug toward it—an urge to creep just a bit closer and find out what waited below. The longer I resisted it, the stronger the impulse became, until I could hardly keep still. It gnawed at me, making me squirm and wriggle in an effort to stay in place.
Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I took one lurching step toward the edge.
But before I could take another, a faraway shrieking sound made me freeze. When I looked up, in the direction of the noise, my mouth dropped open.
Above me, the ceiling of the pavilion seemed to have disappeared, replaced by a sky of purples and grays that teemed and seethed around each other like storm clouds. Their movements were too rapid, though. Too unpredictable and chaotic to be part of any earthly storm.
And there in the cloud forms, so high I nearly missed them, were swooping black shapes. Hundreds of them.
If I squinted, they looked like enormous, high-flying crows or ravens. But I knew those shapes weren’t birds.
They were demons. Real ones. And suddenly, they were moving in a flock formation to take a downward dive.
Toward me.
