Almost Demon (The Sigil Cycle) (29 page)

My heart had chilled down to its core. I spun Charlotte’s power through me as I watched Ian and Sam, with pure hatred bleeding out from every fiber of my being. I gathered all the animosity into the pure clean energy from Charlotte and wove them together into a tapestry of destruction. 

Overhead, the dome the Dybbuk had erected was gone. In its place was thousands of demons, spreading off into the distance, searching for greener pastures than the broken town of Harrisport. 

When the power threatened to suffocate me, I stood up and let Charlotte’s tranquil form slide down. Electricity buzzed through me and I could smell the distinct ionic smell surrounding me. I took one deep breath. Here there were no more incantations or demons. This was pure power, and all I knew was that I had to let go of it soon or else it would consume me like the sun had Icarus. 

What happened next was pure and quick. I let the power focus through the necklace. It compounded into a force beyond nature, ripping through the tree trunk until it whipped both Sam and Ian to the ground. 

I took one step. Then another. Before I knew it, I was standing above them. My two worst enemies. 

“You played me. This whole time.” My voice boomed with the force of electricity trying to escape the conduit.

The two of them lay there at the mercy of my hold. I hammered the beams of light further into them. I knew what I had to do next. I peeled back each layer of the veil until I was directly in the Otherworld. I began to push Sam’s contorted body through it. He twisted in pain and screamed. “Don’t do this. We can work together,” he pleaded.

“It must really hurt if you’re bargaining with me now. Sorry. I’m through with you.” With one last burst, he disappeared. 

With only Ian left, I was able to pour everything I had into just him. “Don’t you know that saying about a woman scorned?” I said. 

His eyes flashed from blue to red and then back again. I pinned his arms and legs out to his sides.

“You’re going to regret this.” He gave me that knowing smirk. The kind a guy gives when he’s trying to tell you he knows what you look like naked.

“I doubt it,” I said and thrust the last of the power into him. I wanted to obliterate him. No Otherworld or endless Drifts for Ian. I was going to blast him into oblivion.

My body grew weak and I infused myself with more power. The urge to see this through was foremost in my mind. Ian’s body convulsed beneath the power. Smoke rose from his hands in an ironic display of stigmata. 

There was a blip in the line. I felt it once. Then again. Then a third time. Something was jarring my connection to Charlotte. I chanced a glimpse behind me and saw Ghosty’s form flying back and forth between the power that was tethering me to my friend.

“Stop it,” I yelled. “You’re going to ruin everything.” I tried to keep pushing at Ian but he was strong. His decay was slow and I didn’t know how much power I needed or how long it would take.

Just then, the Dybbuk jumped in the path of the electricity. It absorbed more and more until it unraveled what was in me, leaving me an empty shell. I collapsed to the ground next to Ian and watched as Ghosty imploded in an inferno of blue flames.

 I crawled on my hands and knees until I found her. I wrapped my arms under her shoulders and dragged her as far as I could towards the porch. Ian’s body was gone, leaving an imprint in the grass where he had lain. The smoke began to clear away. I sat on the grass in the comforting light of the yard, resting Charlotte’s head on my lap. I began to stroke the hair away from her eyes and was nearly broken at what I saw. 

All along her neck and around her face, dark red veins pulsated above her skin. Her lips were pale white and her eyes were clouded in ash. 

“Charlotte?” I whispered.

I ran my hands over her skin in silent prayer, caressing each line, pleading for them to disappear. In my tearful haze, I caught sight of two bare feet in the grass out of the corner of my eye. Still alight in the glow of magic was Brian’s ghost, standing above us. 

“I’m finally losing my mind,” I said. 

“Gem, do you think I’d let that happen?” He was wearing the same Zoso shirt. The aura of blue light that surrounded him began to dissipate, leaving a translucent glow to his phantom form. He looked down like the weight of the world rested on his shoulders. “I tried to warn you. About Ian. It’s just hard when you’re stuck like that.”

He crouched down beside and examined Charlotte.

“This is all my fault,” I cried.

“I could tell you it’s not just to make you feel better.”

“It was you. This whole time you were right here and I didn’t even know. You saved me from Sam and now you saved me from myself.”

“It wouldn’t have happened at all if I had gotten you away from Ian.”

“I didn’t know who you were talking about. There was Ian and Thom. I kept thinking it was Thom. Ian kept-”

“He kept planting seeds of doubt about him. It was part of the plan. To get you to use your powers to open the chamber. Make it seem like that would be the only way to get rid of the Dybbuk.” His voice croaked when he uttered the last word.

“So how are you here now?”

“Unfinished business. I was stuck here because I thought it was my fault. That the accident was a heinous mistake that could have been avoided if I wasn’t such a self-centered jerk.”

“It was the truck.” 

“Yeah but I was stupid, and texting. And then you took the blame for everything. It was too much. I had to stay here and help you.”

Charlotte began to stir in my lap. “Gem? Is it over?” she asked but her voice echoed through my head.

“Sam’s gone.” I rubbed the worry lines from her forehead.

She opened her eyes. “I can’t see. And I can hear you. In my brain.” There was fear in her voice. Her eyes were coated in a milky white film. 

“Shh. Just rest. I’ll figure it out.”

“Gemma?” My dad’s voice rang across the lawn. He hustled down the wooden stairs. “What happened?”

I turned to Brian, expecting him to help me out. My dad placed his hand on my shoulder. “Are you alright? Let’s get Charlotte in the house.”

“Yeah. You’re right.” I waited for him to say something about Brian’s presence but I doubted he could see him at all. Just like he hadn’t seen any of the Dybbuk. He scooped Charlotte into his arms and took her inside. 

“You coming?” I asked Brian. “Or is this it?” 

My heart was prepared for anything right now. When everything was said and done, I would be the one left crying. Sparing me from one last grief wouldn’t have changed who I was becoming. 

“I’m not going anywhere. We still need to close the gate. Put back everything that came out.”

The two of us followed our father into the house side by side to find Charlotte already on the couch, tucked beneath a mountain of blankets. The sound of rushing water and clanking pots told me that Dad was already fidgeting in the kitchen.

“Dad, we need to talk,” I called out to him from across the house.

There was no answer, only the continuous busy-ness of the clicking gas range pilot and the slamming of cabinet doors. I settled down on the stool of the breakfast bar, Brian took his usual spot beside me. The small gesture filled me with a paradox of emotions. It was comforting to have him there and, at the same time, it cut through me like a knife.

“Dad. Please stop.”

He turned away from the boiling pot of water and stood opposite me. I looked for any hints of lingering evil. There was none. None of the manic behavior that I had attributed to post- accident insomnia. He was back to his silence, his judgmental looks that only hinted at his true feelings.

“What is it?” He wrung the water out of a dishrag and into the sink before smacking it against the stainless steel basin.

“I’m not sure you know what’s going on. It’s bad and I need your help.”

“And Charlotte?”

I pulled my sleeve up, bearing not only the tattoos but also a piece of my soul that I would have rather kept hidden. The sigils, although inert, shone an iridescent blue black beneath the high intensity light of the halogen bulb hanging above us. The look of recognition was hard for my dad to cover up. 

“Ask him about Mom,” Brian said.

I shot Brian a ‘what the hell look’ then realized how crazy I must seem if my dad couldn’t see him.

“Listen, pumpkin,” my dad started. “I know it’s been rough for you but I need to deal with Charlotte. I don’t think it’s safe to take her out to the hospital.” 

He went over to the kitchen window and peeked through the cafe curtains, the ones I found in Target after Brian set the vintage ones ablaze in a volcano experiment gone wrong.

“Dad, it won’t matter if Charlotte is fine or not if we don’t solve my problem.” I decided to go for it and took Brian’s advice. “Tell me about Mom.”

“It’s dark out there.” He rubbed both palms over his red- rimmed eyes. Not demonic red. Just tired. “I can’t even get up the news on the radio. But I feel it deep in my gut. It’s bad out there.”

“Then you know why you have to tell me. I need to fix it. This is all my fault.” I looked back to check on Charlotte. From where I was sitting, her skin looked better and she was still asleep. Sleep was good. That’s when the brain shut everything else down and worked on healing itself.

“How do you figure that?” He leaned against the counter.

That’s when it all came out. I told him about the Dybbuk. The grimoire. The book club where I spent my time summoning demons of the Otherworld, not reading Vonnegut. The chamber. The only parts I left out of my confession were the Drifts and Ian’s betrayal.

“I guess this isn’t a surprise.” He walked over to the range and turned down the flame. Steam was rising from our large pasta pot. Tongs in hand, he stirred the water then pulled out a skeleton key and dropped it onto a kitchen towel. 

“Your mother froze this in a block of ice. I joked with her, telling her most wives froze their credit cards when they knew they’d been doing too much shopping. 

“She said ‘Ethan, when the time comes, you’ll know it.’ And it was never mentioned again. That was a few months before she up and disappeared. Every time I pulled out a steak for dinner, it would taunt me, that foggy hunk of ice. But I didn’t touch it.

“The night we came home with Brian from the hospital, the bell rang. It was the perfect summer’s day so we expected there to be some visitors. Neighbors. Your grandmother came up from Georgia and made a pitcher of sun-kissed tea. We had Brian in a Moses basket, sitting on the porch in the back with us as we sat, sipping it from tall glasses. Your mom went ahead and answered it. I never saw who was at the door that day. But when she came back, she had you in her arms.

“She said you were her daughter and that your name was Gemma. I asked her the obvious questions. Who, what, how? She just said, ‘You don’t want to know. Not really.’ And I think she was right. I had a feeling about what she was doing all the time we were married. Secret meetings. Going off into the woods with her friends. But I loved her and didn’t want to seem like some macho guy telling her what to do. Thought it would drive her away.” He laughed bitterly at the last part.

He handed me the key while I stared off in shock. Thom had known. My mom and dad had known. This epic-sized secret had been hidden from me for my entire life. I looked down at the simple silver key in my hand.

“Does this mean you’re not my father?” I asked.

“I’m afraid not, pumpkin,” he answered. The fact that he didn’t go into a whole sitcom dad talk about how he’ll always be my dad no matter what clued me in to how he really felt and why he had been so absent ever since Brian’s death. His only child.

“What now?” I pushed every unwanted thought into the lockbox in my head where I kept everything I didn’t want to think about.

“It’s the key to her closet.”

I started down the hallway with Brian trailing behind me. 

My father’s room had been cleaned. It was back to all its OCD glory. To the left was the hallway that led to the master bath. To the right was the bed, a door on either side. The one to the right was his walk-in. To the left was hers. It hadn’t occurred to me that it had been locked all these years.

“You sure about this?” I asked Brian. I was getting some pretty heeby-jeeby vibes coming off the door. 

“Whatever you need to close the chamber is in there.”

“Can I ask how you know this?”

“One of the perks of being a ghost.” He smiled.

I shoved the key in the lock and turned. The woosh of a seal being broken was followed by the scent of lavender. She always wore it. It made me sick to my stomach. 

Inside it was a time capsule. The silk blouses she was so fond of hung in a row of color-coordinated perfection. Clear acrylic boxes showcasing all her favorite shoes lined the floor below dozens of hangers filled with the same pair of black slacks. She was never one to mommy it up with sweats or jeans. 

“I don’t see it,” I said. “It’s just all her boring clothes.” 

I knelt down on the plush cream carpeting and pushed aside the tower of shoeboxes. I opened her drawers and rummaged through scarves and hosiery. Then the next drawer full of white camisoles and yoga pants. My frustration was building with every minute. There were demons out there running amok while Charlotte lay unconscious on the couch. 

“Brian, a little help?” 

“Chill. If you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly solid. Just keep looking.”

He was very much like a hologram. The kind with static coming through in certain areas, like a weak TV signal.

I crawled to the back of the closet. There was a patch of carpeting that didn’t look like it was part of the same continuous piece. I tucked my fingers underneath the corners and wedged it free. And there it was. A trapdoor.

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