My Heart be Damned (4 page)

“Take a seat.” He pointed to a black, leather sofa, and I sat down obediently.

He took up a seat behind his long desk. His chair groaned and creaked in protest under his weight. For a moment, none of us spoke. I kept staring around the room, trying to find a hint of this guy’s personality. He had no pictures of his family up, though he wore a wedding ring. The furniture was basic but had an unused feel about it. It seemed that this room was for show only.

“I’m estimating that window will cost a lot to fix,” he said, startling me. “You got cash, kid?”

“I’m not a kid,” I corrected. “And no, I don’t. I have no money. My dad’s broke.”

He nodded as if expecting this. “Thought so. Well, you’re gonna need to pay for it somehow, and you’re lucky someone just quit on me. I suggest you work off the payment. I’ll give you a couple shifts here after school during the week, and you can quit when the payment is done, or you can keep going after if you want spare cash in your pocket.”

“You can’t force me to work here,” I said, glaring at him, though, part of me
realized
having a part time job might be a good thing. At least I could help Dad out financially, and I had the spare time since I’d quit Hunting.

“You’re right. I can’t.” He picked up a small phone from its cradle. “So maybe I should phone the police and see what they say...”

I jumped up, rushing over to take the phone from him. “No, please don’t.”

He let me put the phone back in its cradle, leaning back with a satisfying grin. “What’s your name? I’ll need it for your name badge.”

“
Amerie
.”

“I’m John. I’ll be your boss.” He held out his hand, and I shook it. Probably a little harder than normal.

His eyes widened. “Nice firm shake. I like that.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Waitress. I’m guessing you’re too young to drink let alone serve behind a bar.” I nodded, and he continued, “Clean tables, take orders, bring out food. Make money in tips.”

I scoffed. “Are you kidding me? Tips? Students fund this place. I’ve got no chance of getting a tip.”

“Ah, but when the waitresses are pretty, the rich students who go to that swanky school half an hour away from here like to tip real big as a way to impress you. You’ll do just fine.”

By ‘swanky school’, I knew he meant my school. I sucked in a deep breath and took a step away from his desk. “When do I start, boss?”

“We’ll need to train you. Come down tomorrow after school.”

“Fine. Am I free to go now?”

“Give me your phone number and you can leave.” As I bent over to scribble it down on a notepad on his desk, he added, “But don’t think about giving me a fake number. You’re on CCTV.” He pointed to a camera in the corner that I hadn’t noticed. “Smile!”

I ignored him and slammed the pen down. With a bitchy smile, I turned and stormed out of the door I’d entered. This was going to be a flipping joke.

Instead of heading straight home, I took a detour to the graveyard. The Samuel crypt had a new lock, and I suspected the caretaker to keep me from trespassing had also installed other devices.

So I avoided it.

As I walked, I contemplated my new job, thinking about the help I could offer Dad, and even the spare cash I could have for myself. Maybe working at The Hut wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

I stopped when I reached a towering oak tree. When I wasn’t in the crypt, then I usually hid out in these thick branches; waiting until the urge wasn’t so strong to be here. With strength not many could match, I hoisted myself up and began the climb to the top. I found a sturdy branch and bounced on it a few times, making sure it’d hold my weight.

I sat and pulled my knees up to my chest, gazing across the graveyard below me. From my position, I could see for miles. Not just the graveyard, but the town surrounding it too. The bright building lights, cars rushing past. Nothing up here moved except debris the wind picked up and scattered. It was stupid to come here. I don’t know why my body still demanded it. I’d quit this life. No patrolling the streets in search of the Damned.

Damned.

I played with the word for a few moments. I wondered who thought of calling them that. The Damned were evil souls, living like parasites, using someone’s body to cause havoc and mayhem. Even unspeakable things. I guess the human host was the Damned one. Damned until I came along and set them free.

I thought about the dude in The Hut. The gorgeous one who, may or may, not have been Damned, and tried to make him fit into what I understood about them.

I’d lost count of how many books my mother had made me read about them. She’d made me learn the history and mythology of the monsters I was born to Hunt. Their strengths. Their weaknesses.

I did know the
Damned’s
main weakness was that they couldn’t lie. They couldn’t deny what they were. It had something to do with the way the Damned soul meshed with the host; I never actually paid much attention to that part.

When a soul from Hell had escaped into a cemetery somewhere – could be this one – it waited, buzzing around until it sensed a host with a soul already doomed for Hell. Moreover, the host had to be a genetic match for them too. Same gender, same blood type. That kind of thing. The most important quality in a host? They had to already been destined to go to Hell.

Once a Damned possessed someone that meant that person’s own soul was trapped within his or her body, yet controlled by something else. In addition, the Damned had abilities to match my own: super strength, accelerated hearing, good reflexes, enhanced hearing, and sight. And the intent to use all of that for selfish gain.

In a way, I couldn’t blame these souls from wanting out of Hell. The way Mum had always told it, those who sinned with selfish intent were sent to the darkest parts of Hell, tortured over and over…

Something moved in the corner of my eye, and I startled out of my thoughts, nearly slipping from the branch. I squinted through the darkness at a large man
shoveling
dirt from a huge hole he was digging in front of an old gravestone.

I was torn.

Instinct and duty demanded I go down and stop whatever he was doing. The man was clearly Damned, and I should send his soul back to Hell.

Stubbornness and grief told me to stay put. It was none of my business anymore. Other Hunters could deal with this.

My fingers twitched. Digging up bones never meant anything good. I buried my head in my arms and bit down on my knee. My leg shook, and just when I thought I couldn’t possibly contain my urge to intervene another second, a commotion erupted below me.

My lovely, old caretaker had brought two community support officers along, in bright yellow coats. Probably in case I showed up again. I almost laughed when I imagined the shock the caretaker must have felt to find a creepy man digging a grave, instead of a teenage girl breaking into a crypt. After some back and forth shouting, the
gravedigger grabbed a tattered bag and took off towards the fence, which he jumped easily.

I waited five minutes for the caretaker and officers to walk away before dropping to the ground in a crouch. My whole body was wired
,
still hyped up for a fight that never happened. Instead of hunting down the grave robber, I slipped my earphones in and burned the energy running home. I wasn’t a Hunter anymore.

Chapter Five

Wrong Impressions

“Sweetie, wake up.”

My mother loomed over me; her green eyes a stark contrast to the dark room. I stretched and blinked, until my eyes didn’t want to remain closed anymore.

“I need to show you something,” she said.

She helped me dress into warm clothes and told me to keep quiet as we snuck out of the house into the deep, dark, night. She strapped me in our car, kissing my forehead, my nose, and my cheeks. She didn’t stop driving until we got to a graveyard. I’d never been to a graveyard before.

My eyes widened as Mum helped me from the car.

“Mummy? Why are we here?” I asked, yawning loudly.

She slapped a hand over my mouth. “We have to be quiet, baby. I have to show you something. I have to show you what you were born to do.”

There was a gap in the fence, and we climbed through it easily. I watched my mother as we crept through the eerie graveyard. I thought that she was so much more graceful than I was. Her shoulders were tense, and her feet made no noise as we walked. Finally, we stopped.

“Do you remember the story I would tell you at night?” Her voice was frantic and low. Her eyes darted from side to side.

“About the Hunters who send bad guys back to Hell?” I asked.

She nodded. “Yes, baby. I want to show you tonight that the story I would tell you is true. I’m a Hunter, and when you turn sixteen, and are mature enough, you will be too. We send the bad people away.”

“Really?” That was cool. I’d always imagined being the girl in the story. Saving the world.

“Yes.” She slowly drew a long knife from her trouser waistband. “Don’t be scared. This is a special weapon. It’s been blessed by a priest. It’s what Hunter’s need to send the bad people away. A Blessed weapon only hurts the Damned soul, but not the host’s body unless they are not possessed. Okay?”

But, I was scared. The knife glinted dangerously in the moonlight. Knives were bad, weren’t they?

“I want you to hide behind this tombstone and watch me, okay? Don’t come out until I tell you to. That’s extremely important. You do not come out until I tell you.”

I nodded, shaking from the cold and fear. “Okay, mummy.”

She hid me behind the tombstone and disappeared into a crypt a little way away from where I hid. Suddenly she reappeared, but she wasn’t alone. A man was with her,
his hands tied in front of him. Mum pushed him forward so that he stumbled and fell to his knees.

“Get up,” she demanded.

“Screw you,” he said.

She reached down and cut the rope from his wrists with her knife. As soon as she did, he lunged for her, his fist pulled back. She sidestepped the attack, reached out, and then shoved him away. He tripped but didn’t fall, coming back at her. I watched as they fought - my eyes wide. He never got to touch her. She blocked, kicked, and jabbed. She moved so quickly, so gracefully that part of me was excited by it. She was just like the girl in the story!

Finally, she hit him so hard that he fell back, and quick as a whip, she was on him, plunging the knife deep into his heart.

I screamed, jumping up just as a puff of black smoke rose out of the man and evaporated into the air.

“Mummy, you killed him!” I yelled.

Slowly, she slipped the knife back in her waistband and made her way towards me. “No,
Amerie
, I saved him. The evil is gone, and the man will wake up soon and have his body back. You remember what the story says.”

I did. The girl has to send the bad man back to Hell. Was that how it was done?

“Do you see what I can do? We’re special,
Amerie
. We were created by a force called The Sisterhood, who is so powerful that they don’t even live in this universe. We are rare, but there are other people like us, other women. Stronger than ten men. Whatever the Damned can do, we can do too. And today, today begins your training so that when you are sixteen, you will become the Hunter I know you can be.”

I stared up at her, confused, afraid, and excited. I was special. I would help save the world from monsters. I would be better than the girls at school who pulled my hair.

“But
Amerie
,” Mum said, taking my hand, and leading me towards the car. “You can tell no one. This is our little secret.”

I bolted upright in my uncomfortable bed, the sheets sweaty beneath me. I’d been dreaming more and more about Mum and my training with her these last few months, as though my subconscious was trying to tell me not to give up. Well, my subconscious could go screw itself. There was no way I was going to Hunt. Not after what it did to my mother.

When I woke up again, later the next morning, it was as if I lived in an igloo. I pulled the duvet off the bed and wrapped it around my shoulders as I went in search of my dad. Why the hell was it so cold in here?

He was still sleeping, of course. I banged on his door with my fist.

“Dad!” I shouted. “Wake up! It’s like Antarctica in here.”

He groaned, and I pushed open his bedroom door, which stuck slightly before I shouldered it the rest of the way.

“What?” he asked groggily.

“It’s cold in here. I can see my breath. Did you forget to pay the gas company again?”

There was a long silence while Dad processed this. Then he cursed. “I can’t believe I forgot again. I’m sorry,
Amerie
. I’ll go pay it today.”

“What about work?” I demanded.

“I’m not going in today. I don’t feel well.”

“Probably because you stayed out until four in the morning drinking.” I sighed. “Dad, I’m sick of this. I’m sick of acting like the parent. You’re the parent. Not me. So start being one.”

“I’m trying, but it’s hard for me,” he snapped, sitting upright. Through the dark, I could just about make out his fluffy hair.

“It’s hard for all of us,” I said. “But I still manage to get up each day and go to school. I even have a job now. A job I won’t ditch out on in
favor
of finding the bottom of a bottle.”

“Watch your mouth. I’m still your father.”

“Whatever. I’ll believe that when I see it.” And with that, I backed out of the room and slammed the door. The frame shook, and flecks of paint drifted down to the worn out carpet.

“You’re always on his case.”

I turned to look down the hall. Daniel was leaning out of his room, glaring at me. He wasn’t much younger – two years – but it was as if we had eons between us.

“Someone has to be the adult. Can’t you feel how cold it is? This means no hot water too, Dan. You can’t take those long showers you usually love if we have no gas.”

“I know what it means,” he snapped, running a hand over his shaved head. “Don’t get
pissy
at me.”

“I’m just saying…” I said. My voice was softer this time. “Hey, wanna catch the Tube together this morning? Would be nice to travel to school together again.”

“Nah, I’m okay. I’m meeting friends.”

“Oh.”

“Well, see you around if you don’t dramatically get frost bite and die.”

I playfully stuck my middle finger up at him and slipped back into my room. How was I supposed to get ready without any hot water? Reaching under my bed, I grabbed the old photo album – a knee jerk reaction to whenever something bad went down in my house - and began flicking through the pages. This kind of thing never happened then, and Daniel and I were much closer. You’d never know we went to the same school now. For a few minutes as I stared at photos of happy faces, I pretended I was in my
old bed in a well-heated room.

“Are we friends again, yet?” I asked, tapping Mercy on the shoulder.

She closed her locker and turned to face me. “Sorry about freaking out last night.”

I smiled, knowing that he'd forgiven me. “All is cool in the world. You done?”

Mercy nodded. “Yep. I’m ready to get my soul crushed.”

“It’s only geography, Mercy.” I slipped an arm around her shoulder. “Oh, and I have so much to tell you.”

I immediately launched into an animated and slightly untrue story of what had happened once she’d left last night. She made the appropriate gasps and facial expressions of disbelief in all the right places, and by the time I’d finished telling my story, we were outside our classroom.

“Have you seen Chuck today?” I asked, loitering by the door.

Mercy shook her head. “No, but to be honest, I wasn’t really looking for him.
Kinda
avoiding him, if you get what I mean. You haven’t said anything to him, have you?”

“No! I mean, I didn’t even get a chance to talk to him. He’s
kinda
pissed at me too. Thinks I made him seem like less of a man because I stuck up for him.”

A teacher herded us into the classroom. I took my seat, and Mercy sat next to me.

“I didn’t, though, did I?”

Mercy shrugged. “I’m still stuck at you being blackmailed into working at The Hut! Do I get free stuff now?”

I rolled my eyes at her. “I don’t know about the free stuff, but in a way, it’s a good thing. I can help out my dad, and the money I made selling my stereo is rapidly decreasing.”

“But I get free stuff right?” She stuck out her tongue playfully, and I shoved her.

The door to the classroom opened and Sam strolled in, swarmed by Sarah and her little crew. There was a sinking feeling in my stomach. I couldn’t explain why seeing him with them made me feel so...betrayed. Was it my fault because I shot him down?

Mercy nudged me and gestured towards them in disbelief. As a group, they strolled past my table and to the back of the classroom where I heard Sarah ask someone to move up a desk, so Sam could have it. Her squeaky, butter-wouldn’t-melt in-her-mouth voice was too irritating to hear so early in the morning.

“I can’t believe he’s succumbed so easily,” Mercy hissed.

“Oh well,” I said, trying to hide my disappointment.

Mercy stared at me for a few seconds, her eyebrow raised. “You did something.”

“I did not!”

“You did! I know you did. Why else would he be hanging with them instead of trying to get you to go out with him?” She suddenly gasped. “You shot him down! I bet you used the friends line, didn’t you?”