Psyched (5 page)

Aisi didn’t know where she learned Latin, but it came to her from the first moment she could see a demon and recognized she had power over it. She always fought so hard to control her fear, not to let it feed on her feelings. As she saw the words turn from brown to red once more on the page, she felt more fear than she ever had in her life. Her hands shaking, she turned page after page to get the message the demon had left for her in blood
:
Vos tendo non vereor mihi iam, tamen vos mos. Ego sum vigilo vos.

You may not fear me now, but you will. I am watching you
.

Aisi screamed as she tossed the test booklet back onto the desk. The crusty brown letters turned bright red once more, dripping off the paper, running off the desk and onto the floor in thick droplets. Aisi hugged her father tightly, seeing for a brief moment his eyes fixed on the paper and his expression of fear before she buried her face in his barrel chest.

Shouts of surprise filled the air and the room was nothing but chaos as Aisi’s mother casually sauntered in, the silver bangle bracelets on her freckled arm like wind chimes announcing her arrival. Not even noticing the bloody paper on the desk, she sat next to Big Billy and patted Aisi’s head reassuringly. She tossed her own long, red ringlets over her shoulder and said breezily, “I just got the message and had to get a ride from a neighbor since someone stole my car. What did I miss?”

Aisi’s head spun as she tried to process the words a demon left for her in blood, but she still had enough in her to feel completely irritated at her mother. She lifted her head to glare at the clueless woman. “Oh, not much, Mom. Just the end of my high school career and any hope of getting out of this dinky little town, that’s all.” And that was just for starters!

Her father gently caressed her head as she laid it back down on his chest. “I’ll fill you in later, Jorja,” he whispered.

Aisi could hear her mother’s muffled voice through her tangled hair and feel her father’s comforting touch as Jorja said in indifferent oblivion, “Who spilled all that red paint on your desk, Mrs. Preston?”

Chapter 5: Cross Country Practice

A cold, hard wooden plank propped up and bolted to the ground between rows of lockers, was supposed to be an adequate bench for Aisi. Normally she didn’t even notice, but today it felt like even the bench had it in for her. She rested her head in her hands, placing her elbows on her knees as tears of frustration ran down her face and splashed onto the cracked, gray cement floor.

The door to the locker room swung open. Even though she sat by her locker in the farthest, darkest corner of the room, she hastily stood and wiped her cheeks fiercely. She didn’t want anyone to see her…what? See her being weak? Vulnerable? She didn’t know, but it wasn’t going to happen. She turned and lifted her foot so it rested on the bench, bending over to tie her running shoes.

“You’re late for practice,” an unfamiliar, unnerving voice called, echoing in the room with a silky hiss. The voice was oddly, eerily pleasant, smooth and low like a DJ on one of those boring late-night news programs on the radio. It made the hair on Aisi’s neck stand up.

She stood cautiously, looking toward the lit entry door for the source of the voice. “I know,” she called back after a moment. “Coach said it was okay to be late today. I’m on my way out in a minute.” She peered around the edge of the lockers, still not seeing anyone. Coach came to see her in the nurse’s office after she left the principal, who gave her permission to skip the afternoon’s tests while they figured out how to handle the problem.

Word travelled fast in their little town, and by her last class everyone knew someone messed with Aisi’s tests. Sitting in the office she could hear their wild speculations through the walls as they tried to guess who wanted to take out the smartest girl in the school, and how that person could do it with the giant wrestler woman watching so closely.

Coach told her she could go straight home, but Aisi refused. Truthfully, the only time she ever felt completely at peace was when she ran, and this was one day she needed it. She wanted to pound it out and leave it on the pavement. The cool breeze in her face and gentle rhythm of her feet soothed her in a way nothing else could. It cleared her mind. She adjusted her racer’s leggings, finished tying her laces and pulled on her fleece jacket, ready to run.

Too many thoughts raced through her head as she sprinted down a straight stretch of road. She pushed than ever before, hoping to exhaust the thoughts that haunted her. Leo. Tests. Leo. Blood. Tests. Demons.

One demon found a way to break through her carefully controlled wall. In just a matter of hours, it became a potent force instead of a mild annoyance. She could feel it hovering in the halls, lurking in corners. It went everywhere she went. Hadn’t she just explained to Leo that they could get rid of them? She’d always been able to send them away with simple commands in Latin, but today it lingered spitefully, drinking in all of that high school drama with relish.

You may not fear me now, but you will. I am watching you.

Mr. Jensen holed himself up in the principal’s office with Miss Benita Mifflin. They reviewed exam protocol and interrogated students to find out who sabotaged her test, but Aisi knew their efforts were pointless. Somehow, one of the demons plaguing her managed to leave her a message in blood. It knew her biggest weakness, her fear of failing that test, and used it against her. How had a disembodied creature gained enough power to do this, and why would it be watching her? It’s not like she went out of her way to destroy the demon population. She just told them to leave.

I am watching you.
It echoed through her head again in the same eerie voice that chilled her in the locker room.

And her father…she angrily wiped a rogue tear that ran down her sweat-streaked face. Her father seemed to understand the significance of the message. He didn’t care about the damage to her test. Somehow, he knew. But how could he? He told her he was an African immigrant, a refugee from the blood diamond wars in Sierra Leone. Maybe he learned Latin in school? Had he really understood the message written to his daughter in blood?

She slowed as she rounded a bend, breathing hard. She could see the stragglers on her cross country team in the distance. The sun sank into the horizon ahead of her, brilliant orange and pink burning through the fog that always settled in the river valley along this road, which always had a curtain of gray mist draped over it like old curtains. She shivered, though not from the cold. She hated this road.

Aisi cranked up her pace to catch the slackers on her team, focusing on the only two buildings up the road. A plain, double-wide trailer with a cross next to it indicated the simple building housed a church. Set further back from the road, across from the church, an old, wood plank house was surrounded by scraggly, overgrown trees and shrubs, a dead lawn, and the remnants of last summer’s weed crop. Its dingy white paint peeled, yet it glowed a vivid reddish pink in the light of the setting sun. The front door of the abandoned house hung crookedly on broken hinges, and torn curtains fluttered out of broken windows. Dead branches from the surrounding trees littered a collapsing wrap-around porch. She knew this house well, but she’d give anything to forget it.

A trick of the light made her come to an abrupt halt mid-step, and she stared hard at the upper windows of the house. All seemed quiet and normal, but Aisi could have sworn she saw something glowing red. The church and the house both looked abandoned, but she noticed a beat up truck sitting in front of the cross. She focused on the windows as the wind picked up and spreading mist blocked out the last of the sun’s rays. Her heart raced, and not from running. The shredded curtains flapped out the windows in the breeze. She started to run again, convincing herself that it really was nothing more than those curtains. Knowing what she knew about that house, however, she was lying to herself.

Her coach chose this route for cross country training because the road was so full of potholes that no car could make it from one end to the other without popping a tire. If the runners weren’t careful, they’d sprain an ankle, but it was much safer than running on the highway. Aisi decided to keep her head down and focus on avoiding those potholes. She glanced one more time at the church as she hurried away, catching a glimpse of a man in a black shirt with a white collar opening the blinds to gape at her. She smiled, thankful that for once someone other than a demon watched her as she sped up to catch her team.

“I can’t believe you passed me, Aisi,” someone called over the lockers as Aisi, freshly showered, packed her gym bag in the fully lit locker room.

“You’re such an overachiever,” someone else teased. “Do you always have to be the best at everything?”

Aisi grinned as she zipped her bag and walked over to the other side of the bank of lockers. “Thanks, Nora. Thanks, Jen.”

“So what happened today, for reals?” Jen asked as she pulled her fine, towhead blonde hair into a ponytail. “Did someone really, like, burn your test?”

Aisi shrugged, plopping down on the bench next to her teammates. “Kind of. Let’s just say my test is worthless.”

Nora’s hazel eyes widened in shock. “Holy wow, do they know who did it?”

“No clue,” Aisi replied, “and I doubt they ever will.” She sighed. “Mr. Jensen hasn’t said anything to me, but I heard him and Mrs. Preston talking about sending me to the alternative high school next week so I can take it over there.”

“Where the juvies go?” Nora gasped.

“Don’t let Monica hear you say that,” Jen warned. “You’ll never hear the end of it, and she’s on the warpath against you and Zinnia since lunch. You should watch your back, girl.”

Aisi rolled her eyes and pulled a face. “Why does anyone care what Monica Hart says or does? She only has the power you give her.”
Just like a demon
, she thought grimly.

“I heard her talking to her bestie after school today before I came down to change for practice. You know Abby? Her. Anyway, after that whole scene in the lunchroom today and then your test getting ruined, she’s the prime suspect. She spent all afternoon in the principal’s office being interrogated.”

“She must be upset about that,” Aisi said with mock sympathy. “It seriously cuts into her face sucking time with Kalen.”

Nora snorted, and Jen grinned, saying, “That’s why I love you, Aisi.”

“Jennifer! Nora! Your ride is here!” a voice called. Aisi shuddered, a chill running down her spine as it had earlier while alone in the locker room. It was the same cool, glossy voice, so foreign and yet so hauntingly familiar.

“Have fun, girls,” Aisi said lightly as they gathered their bags.

“Do you have a ride?” Jen asked as she turned to follow Nora out.

“My dad will get here soon,” she answered. “I just need to check in with Mr. Jensen before I go, and then I get to go work the dinner shift at the diner.”

“Okay, see you tomorrow,” Jen called over her shoulder.

The door to the locker room slammed behind them. The overhead lights went out abruptly and the dim red emergency lights popped on. A small patch of light shone in through the small rectangular windows at the exit, guiding her to the doors. Aisi focused on that light as she tried to feel her way out, banging her shins against lockers and benches as she moved. She heard a door swing open behind her and bang shut again, followed by the sound of slow, shuffling footsteps somewhere behind her. She froze as the hairs on her neck stood on end again.

The source of that smooth voice stood just behind her. She knew it.

She closed her eyes and pleaded silently for strength. “So, are you the one who jacked up my test? Are you the one who’s been bothering me all day?”

“Bothering?” the voice said, a cold, icy blast of air hitting the back of her neck as it spoke. She resisted the urge to shiver, and turned to face whatever it was. The temperature in the room dropped. Goosebumps covered her arms and raced down her back.

“Bothering,” the voice repeated in a slow hiss. She opened her eyes to see something like a man, though not quite solid and blurry around the edges. “How very hurtful. I put such effort and care into those words, and you appreciate it so very little.
Vos vulnus meus animus
.”

You wound my soul
, she repeated to herself. “Do you even have a soul?”

Through the dim light from the door, Aisi could see a creature dressed in black leather, from thick-soled boots to a shiny fedora perched jauntily on his head.
No doubt to hide the horns
, Aisi thought as he tapped a silver tipped cane in his hand. The clacking echoed strangely in the room as the cane’s sharp bottom hit the floor. A cold smile crossed his gray face, where red eyes glowed malevolently.

“Of course I do, Sunshine,” he replied mirthlessly, circling her like a vulture over dying prey. “I am all soul, but, unfortunately, until recently I lacked a body. Do you like what you see? Am I…oh, what do you kids say these days…am I
hot
?” He spanked her bottom with a wicked laugh. Aisi didn’t feel the sting of a slap, but unmistakable heat seared her backside. With a yelp, she back and down to see a blackened handprint, still smoking, charred on the seat of her jeans. Claw marks shredded her back pocket, and her rear prickled and burned.

“Allow me to introduce myself.” He bowed gallantly, red eyes still fixed on her. “My name is Malus Indolus. I have waited so long to meet you. Years, in fact. Yes, it took me years to become strong enough to speak with you face to face…and yet somehow I find this moment so disappointing.”

Aisi swallowed her fear and raised an eyebrow disdainfully. “Malus Indolus. You have an entire language at your command and a whole slew of wicked name choices, and you choose Evil Genius? That’s pretty weak.”

With gleeful red eyes glowing, he grinned, baring sharp black teeth as his shadowy form pulsated with energy. “This is the spark I expected from you, Sunshine.”