Revenant (14 page)

“I
need to know what Gage is up to.” My voice was soft. I didn’t dare touch her
again. I felt as if I were facing down some wild beast that might charge me
with teeth bared at any moment.

“I
don’t know,” she said, her eyes wide with fear.

It’s
definitely
Wendy now.
At least, I thought it was.

“I-I
don’t know what’s going on,” she whispered. Her eyes begged me to believe her.

I
desperately wanted to—but I wasn’t sure.

* * *

The next morning Sonja showed up followed by a different young
girl carrying a tray full of food. I watched the young girl put the tray down, then
look up and give me a smile. She didn’t look scared.
Does she know what happened to her companion last night? Does she
realize the man she follows is a vicious killer
? He slashed a young girl’s
throat with no hesitation or remorse. The image of the girl writhing in pain on
the floor, blood gushing from her wounds, filled my mind. I could still hear
her screams of terror. Gage killed her as a sacrifice—
the same way
Macaven killed my family.

Sonja
turned to Wendy and said, “If you need anything, ring the bell.”

Wendy
nodded, but didn’t answer.

I
wasn’t up to bickering with Sonja this morning, and it looked like she felt the
same. There were black circles under her eyes and her eyelids were heavy. She
looked
exhausted
and left without a
glance or word my way.

A
few minutes later, Dean joined us. He was the only one in the room who looked
well rested. Wendy had barely spoken since waking up. I’d spent most of the
night tossing and turning, my head filled with nightmares of Macaven and
Weatherton. In my dreams, they were circling me, taunting me. Gage was there.
He stood off in the shadows, watching us in silence, an evil smile on his face.

It
was an awful nightmare. Macaven, Weatherton, Gage. I wasn’t sure which one
filled me with more fear. Macaven had been a man bent on gaining power.
Weatherton had been a mad killer. What was Gage? Gage wanted power—he’d
made that clear. I wanted to think Gage was mad, but everything he did seemed
to have clear, thought-out purpose. An evil purpose that led to the deaths of
others. And when he looked upon the dead, he seemed to have no feelings toward
them. He seemed to feel no remorse. And, alternatively, no glee. He killed
because he wanted power and chaos, but he seemed to get no pleasure from the
killing. In my mind, that made him more dangerous than the other two. A killer
with no remorse. An intelligent, gregarious…what? Maniac? Sociopath?

I
forced my thoughts from Gage and directed them to Dean. He was relieved to see that
Wendy and I were both in one piece. I expected him to ask a zillion questions
about
what
happened the previous night,
but he didn’t. He gave me a hug and then looked over at Wendy, watching her for
a long moment in silence before making a beeline for the food. He ate with
gusto, finishing off a large portion of scrambled eggs and a pile of toast in
record time. Wendy didn’t touch the food, and I only nibbled on a piece of
toast.

When
he finished eating, Dean leaned back in his chair and let out a sound of
contentment. He watched Wendy for a moment before looking over at me and raising
his eyebrows in a questioning way.

I
shrugged and looked away. I hadn’t seen Luke during the possession. If Luke
wasn’t there, neither was Dean. I wanted to tell Dean what happened, but I
couldn’t do it now—not with Wendy in the room.

My
mind drifted to the ritual.
How many
times has she been forced to be a vessel for a demon? What did Gage say to it?
The last words I heard from Wendy’s mouth were that the sacrifice was
acceptable. After Gage killed that poor girl.

“The
chickens weren’t enough,” Wendy said in a quiet voice.

“Chickens?”
Dean asked, his eyes darting between the two of us.

Wendy
turned and faced us both. There was more pain and anguish in her eyes than I’d
ever seen.

“He
killed her,” she whispered.

I
closed my eyes, trying to block out the image of
the young
girl laying on the floor, blood gushing from the nasty gash
across her neck.

“Who?”
Dean demanded, rising to his feet.

Wendy’s
voice was emotionless. “The girl that brought us breakfast yesterday. Gage slit
her throat. He killed her to…appease the beast.”

Dean
gaped at Wendy in shock.

Her
hands trembled, and she raised them up as if in surrender. “I don’t remember
any of it. Gage took great delight in telling me all about it after…after…”

Dean
moved to stand between us. His head whipped back and forth from Wendy to me. “What
the hell are you talking about?”

Wendy
gave me a sour half smile. “Go ahead and tell him. You know you want to. Tell
him how they tied me to a chair and forced a demon to come through me. Tell him
how the creature possessed me.
How I felt it
crawl inside me.”
Her voice was getting hysterical. “I still feel the
evil from it—all through my body, all through my soul. I’m unclean. I
’m cursed
.” Her eyes changed—anger blazed
through them. She screamed out, “It’s all your fault!”

I
didn’t have time to react. One minute she was sitting on the piano bench, and
the next she was lunging at me. She was on me in no time, her fingers reaching
out, her nails poised to scratch my face.

I
put my hands up in defense, but there wasn’t much I could do. Even though she
was small, her full bodyweight bearing down on mine kept me from escaping.

I
covered my hands over my head as she whaled on me. Her fists knocked against my
cheeks
and
her fingers tore at my
hair.

And
then she was gone.

When
I looked up, I saw Dean holding her around the waist. She kicked and screamed
as he pulled her back. After a moment, she abruptly stopped. There was silence.

“Are
you…all right?” Dean asked. He was breathing heavily. There was a scratch by
his right eye. She must have gotten him as he pulled her off me.

“I’m
fine,” I said. I
was bruised
and my cheek
stung, but she hadn’t done any real damage.

Wendy
went limp like a rag doll in Dean’s arms.

“Is
she okay?” I got to my feet and cautiously moved toward her, worried she might
go ballistic again.

“What
the hell happened last night?” he asked, awkwardly shifting her body in his
arms.

“A
demon possessed her.” I pushed Wendy’s hair out of her face. She was breathing
slowly, her eyes closed. She was unconscious.

Dean
gently lowered her to the ground. “And the girl. Do you think she’s telling the
truth about the girl?”

“She
is. They sacrificed chickens, but it wasn’t enough.”

“Did
you see it?”

Our
eyes met. “Yes,” I said. “It was a ceremony like the second death dealer
ritual. They tied Wendy to a chair with rope. There were symbols and candles and
they cast a spell.”

His
eyes went wide with surprise.

“They
scarified two chickens and poured their blood on the symbols, but the demon
wasn’t happy. Then Gage killed—” I looked away before continuing. “He
slashed the throat of
that little
girl who
brought us food yesterday. He killed her and her
blood powered
the symbols in some way.”

“Did
Gage release a demon?”

“No,
but the entire crowd was in a trance. Maybe possessed. Something took Caleb
over, too
. It spoke to me.”

“Some
spirit possessed Caleb and talked to you?”

“Not
a spirit. A demon. It said its name was Legion.” I couldn’t tell him the rest. The
creature said I would release more demons. It couldn’t be true. I’d never do
such a thing.

But you have done it once
already
.
You released a demon
that
also called itself Legion.

I
cast my eyes away, looking for anywhere to focus but on him. Dean didn’t know I
was responsible for
releasing the evil
beast. If he knew I was the cause of the unrest toward his people, he would
never forgive me.

“Legion.
Like the story in the
Bible
?” Dean knelt
down over Wendy and brushed her hair from her pale face.
“How does that verse go?
‘
For he had commanded the unclean
spirit to come out of the man. For it had seized him many times, and he
was bound
with chains and shackles and kept
under guard, and yet he would break his bonds and be driven by the demons into
the desert. And Jesus asked him,
What
is thy name? And
he
said,
Legion; for many demons
were entered
into him. They begged him that he
would not command them to go into the abyss
.’”

I’ve heard that passage
.
My mother read the
Bible
to
us sometimes at night in front of the fire.

Dean
gave me a half
smile. “My
grandmother was
a bit of a
Bible-thumper
.”

“A
death dealer Bible-thumper?”

“She
wasn’t a death dealer. She married one and spent a good portion of her life
trying to convert him. You know…show him the error of his ways.”

“Must
have been an interesting marriage.” I moved next to him and put my hand against
Wendy’s cheek.
She felt so cold.

“It
was a rocky one,” he answered.

I
felt the pulse at Wendy’s neck. Her heart was beating strongly. Her breathing
was normal. She looked peaceful, as though she was asleep.

“Do
you think she’s okay?” Dean asked.

“I
don’t know. She seems to be…changing.”

“That
thing possessed her like a spirit?”

“Yeah.
She told me she felt an evil inside her.”

Dean
was silent for so long that when he spoke again, I almost jumped out of my
skin. “When you went through the second ritual, they forced the spirit out,
right?” His fingers reached out, and he touched the recent scars still visible
on Wendy’s arm.

“Yes.
The spirit’s name was Wanda. She wasn’t eager to go.”

Dean
nodded. “I couldn’t get whatever took me over out. By the time my family
gathered enough power to drive it out, it had done a lot of
damage
.”

I
remembered Dean’s mother telling me how the spirit stayed inside him and
waited, then fooled his family into thinking nothing was wrong.
And then it had murdered.

“Do
you think a demon took you over? Not a spirit?” I whispered.

“Why
would you say that?”

He doesn’t know he killed those
girls
, I
reminded myself. “Just…something your mother said. It made me wonder if more
than a spirit possessed you.”

“What
did she say?”

He deserves to know.
I opened my mouth, ready to
confess everything, when Wendy let out a loud moan.

Her
eyes fluttered open. “What happened?”

I
looked down at her. “You attacked me.”

She
sat up. “I
what
?”

I
showed her the scratch marks on my skin. “You came at me like a wild animal.”

Dean
helped her to her feet.

I
hesitated before blurting out, “Wendy, whatever took you over is somehow still
controlling you.”
Will the anger appear
again? Will she rush at
me
with teeth
bared?

She
looked me in the eye and said quietly, “It can’t be. Gage forced it out. He
sent it back to hell.”

I
was talking to Wendy now, but was a demon squatting inside her, listening,
waiting to take control? “I know you and I know your voice. That…anger wasn’t
you. The look in your eyes when you came at me… It was something else. It
wasn’t you.”

“You
think
that…
thing
is
still in me?”
She started to back away. She was shaking her head back
and forth. “It can’t be. It’s not inside me. He cast it back.”

“You
said you felt an evil inside you. What if a piece of it is still around? Or
maybe a connection of some sort?”

Tears
filled her eyes. “When
it’s gone
, I do
feel unclean. I feel like I’m different.” She gave me an uneasy look. “It
changed me, Colina. My emotions
are…heightened
.
I admit—I feel angry sometimes. But I’m in control. That thing may have affected
me somehow, but I’m still me.”

I
felt that way after the second ritual. I felt
a
darkness
reach out and touch my soul.
When the ritual was over, I looked into the mirror and didn’t see myself. I
looked different. I felt different. Anger and violence raced through my blood.