Possess (3 page)

The demon was turning her on.

That was so messed up.

Bridget tossed Mrs. Long away from her and stumbled backward.

“What—what’s wrong, Bridget?” Father Santos asked. “Are you okay?”

Her knees felt wobbly, but as soon as she let go of Mrs. Long, the strange sensations stopped. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”

“You must finish the banishment,” Monsignor said. His voice was flat, emotionless, but when she glanced his way, his eyes were pleading. “I know it’s difficult, but, Bridget, you must continue.”

“No, no, no,” Mrs. Long muttered. “No, no, no, no, no.”

Bridget swallowed hard. She didn’t want to touch Mrs. Long again, but at the same time, there’d been a brief flash of something powerful, something she’d enjoyed. What kind of a weirdo did that make her?

“Go ahead,” Monsignor prompted. Patience was not his forte.

You can do this, Bridge. Just get it over with.

Bridget reached for Mrs. Long. As soon as her fingers touched the old woman’s wrinkling flesh, the powerful energy came rushing back into her body tenfold.

“All right, servants of Amaymon,” she said. Her voice was low and breathy. Not like her voice anymore. It was too confident, too calm to be her voice. “Any last words?”

Mrs. Long’s eyes grew wide, as if the beings inside her knew what was coming next. Her mouth opened in protest, then stopped as she began to convulse violently. The convulsions stopped as suddenly as they had begun, and when Mrs. Long opened her mouth, a single voice whispered, “Beware.”

The warning totally caught Bridget off guard. “Huh?”

The old lady clutched at Bridget’s hands, pulling her close. “Do not trust them,” she said so only Bridget could hear.

“What?” Bridget asked.

“Do not trust any of them.”

“Who?”

But Bridget never got her answer. Mrs. Long shuddered and fell limp in her hands.

Four

B
RIDGET’S HANDS TREMBLED.
W
AS THE
old lady dead? Had she killed her? Was Murder in the Act of Exorcism a capital crime?

She let Mrs. Long’s body fall against the pillows.

Father Santos dashed to Mrs. Long’s side. He felt for a pulse both at her neck and wrist, then pried her eyes open one at a time.

“She’s all right,” he said. “Sleeping.”

Bridget let out a long breath.

“I think,” he continued, looking around, “I think they’re gone.”

“They are.” Bridget knew as soon as the words left her mouth that they were true. The chill had lifted from the room, the oppressive atmosphere evaporated.

Monsignor nodded in agreement. “Well done, Bridget.”

“They left willingly,” Father Santos piped in. “Before you could banish them.”

Left willingly? That didn’t sound right. “Why?”

Father Santos took the holy water and sprinkled it over the salt he’d laid down earlier. “By leaving of their own free will, they are able to come back. If you’d banished them, they’d be relegated to Hell for eternity.”

“We do not know that,” Monsignor snapped. “The idea of demons acting under their own free will is ridiculous. I suggest you keep your theories to yourself, Father Santos.”

“Y-y-yes, Monsignor.”

“You mustn’t assume anything with these beings. It will be your undoing.” Monsignor replaced his tools in a small leather bag and opened the door. “Come now, Bridget. You should be getting home. Your family will be worried about you.”

That was it? She’d scared off a couple of Satan’s demons, and now she was just supposed to go home and do her algebra homework?

“But—” she started.

Monsignor rested a hand on her shoulder and bent his face down close to hers, dropping his voice. “I know this is all very strange, but we will talk tomorrow at the regular time, all right?” He shot a backward glance at Father Santos. “We cannot speak freely right now. Do you understand?”

So Monsignor didn’t want to talk in front of the new guy. Interesting. She’d noticed the tension between them, but something in Monsignor’s tone, something in the hawkish warning in his eyes, hinted at a more serious reason for his silence.

“Do you understand?” Monsignor repeated in a whisper.

Bridget nodded. She’d just have to wait until tomorrow for her bazillion and one questions to be answered.

“Excellent.” Monsignor gave her shoulder a friendly squeeze, then ushered her into the hallway. “We’ll talk soon, Bridget,” he said in his normal, booming voice.

“Okay.” She tried to sound natural in front of Father Santos. “Thanks, Monsignor.” Bridget walked down the hall, grabbed her backpack, and was gone.

The fog still hung thick in the air, but it was no longer ominous, no longer a threat. Just the normal, depressing San Francisco fog that rolled into the Sunset District 350 out of 365 days a year. Every postcard of San Francisco showed brightly painted cable cars racing up and down sunbathed hills, the picturesque San Francisco Bay dotted with sailboats glistening in the distance. But that wasn’t Bridget’s San Francisco. Her side of the city—the ocean side—was an organized grid of row houses blanketed in the ever-present fog. It was damp. It was monotonous.

And apparently, it was plagued with demons.

First the Ferguson twins’ bedroom, now Mrs. Long. Even the Vatican thought it was odd if they’d sent Father Santos out to check on things. And here she was with this strange new power, smack dab in the middle of it.

Had it really happened? Had she walked into a stranger’s house, confronted a possessed old lady, and forced a pack of demons out of her? Yes, yes, and yes. And what was more, the power she’d felt was . . . exhilarating.

Flip side, she was now a bona fide freak. Not just in the normal “high school outcast” kind of way; more in the “institutionalized for life” kind of way. This wasn’t exactly something she could share with people, and last time she checked there was no Most Likely to Banish Demons category in the St. Michael’s yearbook. Hell, she couldn’t even talk to her mom about it. Telling your mom you’re a teenage exorcist wasn’t exactly the same as “Hey, Mom, I’m flunking Latin.” No, this was something Bridget had to keep on the down low until she could figure out how to get rid of it.

The 28 Muni bus rushed past her as she waited to cross Nineteenth Avenue, but Bridget hardly noticed. Get rid of it. She closed her eyes and tried to recall the tingling on her skin, the crackling of energy pulsating through her in heavy, intoxicating waves. It was warm, almost comforting the way it enveloped her, and she’d only realized after it was gone how much she’d enjoyed the sensation.

She needed to feel it again.

Stop it. No, you don’t. It was weird. Weird and wrong. You’re not supposed to be jazzed about being able to commune with demons, dumbass. Besides, what if someone finds out? Bad enough she still had half the school whispering about her dad’s murder. If this got out, it would be a catastrophe.

A new thought gripped her. What if it was all somehow connected? Could it really be just a coincidence that her new “talent” popped up at the same time the city was overrun with possessions? What if one was causing the other?

Holy crap, that was so not good. She needed to get rid of her power. Go back to being normal, or as normal as she got. Maybe Monsignor could help her? He wanted what was best for her. He could light a candle, give her a blessing or—

“Bridget Yueling Liu.”

Bridget snapped out of her reverie. She was right in front of her house on Ulloa Street. She hardly remembered the walk.

“Do you have any idea what time it is?”

Bridget’s mom occupied the empty space of the doorway, one hand on the open door, one on her hip. The only time her mom used her full name was when she was in severe, “grounded till you’re eighteen” trouble.

“Dammit,” Bridget said under her breath.

“Well, do you?”

Actually she didn’t. “I just lost track of—”

“Why do I pay for you to have a cell phone? So you can ignore my calls?”

Bridget tramped up the stairs like a death row prisoner on her last march down the cell block. “I didn’t hear it.”

“Oh, really?” Her mom barely stepped aside so Bridget could squeeze past. “And why was that? Because you were at the
library
?”

Bridget didn’t like the inflection on the word “library.” She hung her jacket on the coat rack and stole a glance at her mom. Lips pursed, eyebrows raised in expectation. Her frizzy red hair looked frizzier and redder than usual, and her blue eyes, so like Bridget’s own, were combative. Bridget knew this look. This was her mom’s patented “I’m about to trap you in a lie” face.

“What did you do, spy on me?”

“It’s called being a mother. And for your information, I did not
spy
on you. Matthew Quinn dropped Sammy off and—”

“What?”

“Yes, and he said he stopped by the library to offer you a ride home, but you weren’t there.”

Bridget pressed her lips together. Matt Quinn. “Oh, so you had
him
spy on me, huh? Perfect.”

“I did nothing of the sort. He simply said you weren’t at the library and weren’t answering your phone. He was worried.”

Worried. Matt was always worried about her. It was equal parts sweet and annoying as hell. “You know, it’s bad enough his dad’s patrol car shows up here every other day to ‘check in’ on us, now you’ve got Matt following me around after school? I’m surprised you didn’t call his daddy and have half the SFPD searching the neighborhood.”

“Bridget and Matt, sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”

Bridget’s eight-year-old brother, Sammy, stood in the kitchen, kicking the door rhythmically with his foot.

“Thanks, Sammy,” Bridget said with a limp smile. “That’s helpful.”

“Sam,” her mom said, steering her youngest child back into the kitchen by his shoulders, “finish your chicken.”

“Annie?” a male voice called from the kitchen. “Is everything all right?”

Her mom flushed scarlet. “Fine, Hugh. It’s just Bridget.”

Bridget’s stomach clenched. Hugh Darlington? Again? This was the second time in a week. There was no way her mom could pretend he was still “just a friend” checking up on them. Her mom was dating less than a year after her husband’s death. It was seriously messed up.

“What’s he doing here?” Bridget whispered.

Her mom dropped her voice. “Hugh wanted to borrow one of your father’s books, so I invited him for dinner.”

“One of Dad’s books? Really?” Was her mom that stupid? “You really bought that line?”

“Watch your tone, young lady.”

“Hi, Bridget. It’s good to see you again.” Hugh Darlington’s tall, slender frame loomed behind her mom. From the perfectly coiffed blond hair that looked like he had a hairdresser on staff for daily blowouts, to the meticulous manscaping of eyebrows, Hugh Darlington always looked like he just walked off the set of a makeover show.

Bridget wrinkled her nose. She’d known him almost her whole life: Along with Sergeant Quinn, Hugh Darlington had been one of her dad’s best and oldest friends. But somehow Bridget had never warmed up to Mr. Darlington, even after her dad went to work for him—something she’d always felt vaguely guilty about.

Especially after her dad’s murder. Mr. Darlington had gone out of his way to make sure the Lius were well looked after. But as the weeks and months passed, and Mr. Darlington started to spend more and more time with her mom, Bridget couldn’t shake her resentment.

And then there was his daughter, Alexa. Alexa had been in Bridget’s class since kindergarten and had spent most of that time making Bridget’s life a living hell. It had taken a few years for Bridget to catch on. Outwardly, Alexa was all smiles and laughs, but then the rumors started to spread. At first they were stupid:
Bridget Liu eats her boogers. Bridget Liu doesn’t wash her hands.
They got nastier as Bridget got older.
She’s too Chinese. She’s not Chinese enough. Her dad’s not her real dad. Her mom’s a slut.

Then one day Bridget lost it and punched Alexa in her perfect little face on the playground. Alexa had screamed bloody murder and carried on like Bridget had lit her face on fire. As if. But from then on, Bridget was labeled a “troublemaker” and had “anger management issues.”
And almost no friends.

Her dad’s murder may have made Bridget the center of gossip at St. Michael’s Prep for the past year, but thanks to Alexa Darlington, Bridget had been a social pariah for a long, long time.

Maybe Bridget hadn’t given Mr. Darlington a chance, but the idea of her mom replacing her dad with Hugh Darlington made her physically ill. And the thought of having Alexa as a stepsister made her downright homicidal.

Her mom shot Bridget a look that said, “You’re being rude,” and Bridget forced a smile. “Hi, Mr. Darlington.”

“Are you enjoying St. Michael’s this year as much as my Alexa is?”

Considering that Alexa had screwed half the junior and senior boys since they’d started at St. Michael’s last year, Bridget sincerely doubted it. “Yeah, it’s, um, great.”

Her mom pursed her lips, obviously displeased with her daughter’s lack of enthusiasm in answering their dinner guest, then turned to Mr. Darlington with a smile. “Could you wait for me in the kitchen?”

“Actually, Annie, do you mind if I have a look in David’s office now? For the book I mentioned?”

“Yes, yes, of course, Hugh.”

He gave her mom a wink and slipped down the stairs to the garage where Bridget’s dad had kept his home office.

Ugh. The last thing Bridget needed to see today was the two of them flirting. She rolled her eyes and headed down the hall to her bedroom, but she didn’t even make it halfway before her mom came after her.

“I’m not finished with you.”

“Of course not,” Bridget muttered. “I couldn’t be that lucky.”

“What was that?”

Bridget threw open her bedroom door and flopped down on her bed face-first. She was too tired, mentally and physically, to care about this argument. “What do you want me to say, Mom?”

Her mom was close behind her. “Where were you today?”

Bridget pulled a pillow over her head. You don’t want to know, she thought.

“Answer me, Bridget.”

Should she tell her mom the truth? After all they’d been through in the past year, would her mom be able to handle it?

Doubtful.

Bridget tossed the pillow aside. “I was at Hector’s, working on my history paper.”

“You told me you finished that paper last night.”

“I did. He didn’t.”

“Why don’t you have any girlfriends?” her mom asked. “Why is it always Peter and Hector and that Brad?”

Bridget snorted. “They’re about as close to girlfriends as I’m gonna get.”

“That’s not funny.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

A gentle tapping interrupted them, and Bridget’s bedroom door creaked open far enough for Sammy to stick his head through.

“Is Bridget in trouble?” he asked. Typical Sammy—go right for the jugular.

Her mom sighed. “No, Sammy. We’re just having a disagreement.”

“That was a loud dis-a-gree-ment,” Sammy said, hanging on each syllable.

“I know, but it’s nothing, Sammy. Go watch your cartoons.”

Sammy didn’t budge. “Bridget?”

Bridget winced. It was a sore spot in the family that Sammy always looked to Bridget first. “It’s okay, Sammy.”

“You’re not mad?”

“I’m not mad.”

“You’re not sad?”

“Not at all,” Bridget lied. She smiled and gave him a wink. “Now go watch your
Justice League
, okay? I’ll join you in a minute.”

Sammy grinned, exposing a row of crooked teeth, then slowly withdrew his head. As soon as the latch clicked into place, Bridget heard her mom exhale slowly, then felt the weight on her mattress shift as her mom sat down on the edge of her bed. “Bridget, I was worried.”

“Would you have been worried if Matt Quinn hadn’t called you?”

“If you didn’t answer the phone when I called? Yes. I need a bit more responsibility from you, especially now that . . .”