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Akira shifted, his posture tense as his eyes
bored into me. One of my hands had left the steering wheel and
rubbed my chest where not too long ago huge, ugly bruises had
marred my skin. Bile rose into the back of my throat. I didn’t want
to go any further, I didn’t want to remember even if I had been the
one in control the whole time, but it sullied me, made me feel
dirty and used. At the same time, I knew, deep down, that I had to
vocalize what had happened and stop giving it power over me, even
if it did lessen my standing in his eyes. And that realization made
me choke out another round of giggles. He had just gotten finished
telling me about how he believed a ghost had eaten his brother’s
soul and then possessed his body and was now trying to take over my
best friend, and I was worried about how he would view me after
this confession.

“He didn’t, um,” Akira flushed bright
red.

“No,” I said and my giggles stopped as
exhaustion swept over me. “He just wanted to use my mouth, and
because I was afraid, I allowed him to.”

I stopped rubbing my chest and rubbed my
eyes. Even though I had been in control the entire time, and it had
been my choice in the end to allow him to continue, it still didn’t
stop me from feeling disgusted with myself.

“So there you have it,” I said harshly. “No
way that was an
Oni
or anything super natural, he was very
much like many other red necked men that I’ve run into over the
years. A horny bastard ready and willing to use a girl’s fear
against her to get what he wanted. And for the record, I don’t
remember reading anything about
Oni
liking human women in
any of the texts I’ve seen so far. At least not in
that
way.”

“That’s because what’s written isn’t always
the full truth,” Akira said, and I shot a narrow eyed glance at
him. His face was completely sincere, and amazingly there was no
condemnation in his level gaze. “I am sorry that you were taken
advantage of in such a way. It’s typical for an
Oni
to use
fear tactics to get what they want.”

We had reached Mr. Baker’s by this time, and
I quickly threw the car into park and turned to face him. That last
sentence had been the death knell on my, granted very limited,
patience.

“Get out.”

“Jane, please, we need to talk more. I can
tell your hurting, not just from Maria but also from what happened
in the gas station. I can help you.
Please
, let me help
you.”

“Get. OUT!”

To emphasize my point, I pulled my right leg
up and awkwardly began to kick at him, all the while I yelled,
“OUT! OUT! OUT!”

“All right!” he cried and threw his hands up
for a moment to ward off my foot before he swiftly unbuckled his
seat belt. “But you can’t avoid me or this discussion forever, we
still need to work on our project and you need a friend.”
That
isn’t partially possessed
was left unsaid, but I heard it as
clearly as if he had shouted it at me.

“You are NOT my friend and that project is
ALL we’re going to discuss,
ever
! Get
out
!” My voice
was shrill and I desperately ignored the warm wetness that seeped
down my cheeks.

He gazed at me for a moment longer, his eyes
dark and very sad before he exited my car and made his way to his
own while I hit the locking mechanism on my doors. I frantically
scrubbed at my face as my chest heaved with sobs that I fought to
hold back. I heard Akira’s car start up and a glance in my rearview
mirror rewarded me with the sight of his taillights as they pulled
away. I wrapped my arms around my middle and shivered as I
sniffled, despising my weakness but unable to stop. I don’t know
how long I sat like that, but a beeping on my cell phone alerted me
that I needed to get it together and help Mr. Baker close down. I
was extremely unsuccessful, though, because Mr. Baker took one look
at my face and informed me that he would be fine closing down on
his own and that I needed to get myself home. I got back into my
car and sat for a few more minutes as my muscles continued to
shiver. A few deep breaths and a shaky sigh later, I was able to
pull out of the parking lot and drive in a fairly safe manner while
I fought to keep that strange, sad look Akira had aimed at me as he
climbed out of my car from playing over and over again in my
mind.

My thoughts were still running in fifty
directions when I arrived home, and I just could not get myself to
relax enough to think about bed. Not even a quick shower could get
my brain to calm down, so I decided to try and get it focused on
one thing and flipped my computer on. May as well try to work on
the project even if it was the last thing I wanted to focus on. But
I figured that I would deal with it like a band-aid. Grab one end
and rip it off as quickly as possible to try and minimize the
pain.

I did a quick search on
Oni
and told
myself that it was for the project and NOT because I was
entertaining even the slightest bit of doubt in my belief that
Akira was totally off his rocker and not to be trusted in the
slightest. After I hunted through several sites that were geared
towards selling merchandise, I finally hit upon one that contained
a collection of almost all the Japanese spirits and ghosts that
looked promising. A little digging and I discovered that it was run
by a college student, who said that they had created the website as
a school project so that the basic information for the mythology
could be easily found by other researchers. While he did have links
to a few shops where you could buy some prints and book lists, what
I loved best about the place was that they had a page dedicated to
their source materials, which turned out to be a rather extensive
list. Impressed, I clicked through some of the links and took a
quick glance at some of the other spirits and ghosts before I came
back around to the
Oni
.

“The
Oni's
most famous variation -
with horns like an ox and wearing a tiger-skin
fundoshi
, may
be related to the
kimon
, the demon gate through which the
world's misfortunes are said to come.”

I looked away from the computer and out my
window, though the only thing I could see was my own irritated
reflection in the glass. That didn’t sound anything like the gas
station attendant, who, in my earlier nightmare, had had short
horns and had been wearing jeans and not the Japanese version of
the loincloth.

“Bad luck, huh?” I muttered. “I can believe
that, it’s been nothing but bad luck ever since that night.”

I blew out a breath and took a couple of
notes before I shut down my computer. My mind had finally settled
from the rabid squirrel running around state into something a
little more calm and workable as far as bed was concerned. I cut my
light off and sank into the welcomed softness of my mattress as I
wrapped my beloved comforter around my shoulders. I would not think
about Akira. I would not think about Akira. Crap, I was thinking
about Akira. I groaned and pulled my comforter over my head and
tried to will myself to sleep.

An hour later I threw my comforter aside and
sat up. Sleep, it seemed, was futile because my mind flat out
refused to settle. I floundered in a darkness that was more than my
own creation, and I wished for some clarity, but none came. I
grimaced and reached for my phone. While I didn’t fully buy into
the thought process that Tarot Cards could tell the future, I was
desperate enough to ask Jessica if she could give me any insight or
clues.

“Unusual for you to give me a call this time
of night,” she said when she answered the phone.

“I know, but I wanted to ask you a
question.”

“About Maria?”

“Yeah. I’m not even sure what question I want
to ask. I just . . I dunno.”

“Hang on a second, let me get my deck.”

One thing about Jessica, she might switch
personal readers every other month or so, but when it came to her
friends she was always more than ready to pull out her own deck and
give it her all to help even if the person asking didn’t really
believe in what she did. I heard her shuffling the cards as she
muttered under her breath, then silence.

“Jessica?”

“Hang on a second, this is interesting,” she
replied. “I just need to check a few things.”

I waited. Paper rustled and she muttered a
few more words that I didn’t quite catch. I waited some more and
started to doze off.

“I pulled three cards,” she finally said. I
jerked awake and almost dropped my phone, but after a brief fumble
I managed to right it again.

“Ok?”

“What’s interesting is that most of the time
a three card pull represents the Past, Present and Future
respectively. But I feel like this is not the way I’m to read
these. So I’m just going to go with a Present, Near Future and
Possible Future Outcome for this reading.”

“Ok?”

Jessica laughed. “Sorry, I know you’re not
really into the mechanics of reading the cards. Here’s what I
pulled and what I see. Representing the Present I have ‘The Star’.
Things always seem muddied at night when there is no moon to
illuminate the way, but the gentle light of the stars can inspire
breakthroughs as your thoughts turn inwards. While you might feel
like there is no hope, The Star appears to bring a little light to
the situation and let you know that there will be a resolution.

Representing the Near Future is Death. Now,
listen to me before you comment. The Death card does not mean death
literally. Instead it represents change of some sort. What the Star
illuminates is going to bring about a change for good or ill. In
your search for the truth you are going to be reborn mentally or
emotionally, but you will be stronger for it and stronger for your
search.

This culminates in the Possible Future
Outcome, which is represented by The High Priestess. You will learn
the truth and that truth is going to set you upon a path of
learning. I also feel like this card is representing you of the
future, but I’m not too sure in what way. I just know that you’re
going to need all your strength soon.”

“Way to be frustratingly vague,” I
grumbled.

“Hey, I’m still learning, and I don’t have
the gift that gives me the ability to actually see events as they
happened or will happen, you know, so I can’t give you specifics
such as dates and names. Not yet, anyway. On a personal note, be
careful, Jane. I have a bad feeling about this reading and about
what’s going on with Maria. I’m worried about you.”

“I know. Thank you, Jessica,” I said. We
chatted for a few more minutes about school in general before we
hung up.

I flopped over onto my back and stared at the
ceiling. If Jessica was right, then I was on the right track and
would find out the truth of what happened to bring about the change
in Maria, but I couldn’t help but wonder at what cost.

Chapter Nine

The next few days of school passed by in a
haze of ordinary that was almost stifling in comparison to the
event filled week that had culminated in me booting Akira out of my
car. True to his words, I wasn’t able to avoid him entirely,
especially since Mr. Miller gave us plenty of class time to get
together and work on our projects. My tentative request to change
partners the Monday after the whole
Gaki
conversation had
been met with a bland stare that said I would be better off heading
for my seat than to continue in my line of questioning. Akira had
enough sense to not smirk or make any comments to me about my
attempt to change partners, but the slight smile that hung around
his lips told me that he had been very aware of the
conversation.

We still managed to work well together
despite the tension. This surprised me because I thought for sure
he’d try to continue our conversation, but he didn’t bring up
Maria, the gas station or the secret I had blurted out. It almost
felt like he was waiting for something, but I couldn’t even begin
to guess what that was and I just did not feel like asking. He
continued to sit with my group during lunch, but he tried to split
his time between us and his basketball buddies, who had started to
tease him rather vocally about ditching them for some girl and her
nerdy friends.

They hadn’t tried to keep their voices down,
so of course I overheard that particular comment. I wanted to beat
them all over the head with my lunch tray, but Danny’s warning
glance served to calm me down as much as Jeff’s restraining hand on
my arm. Akira laughed and said something about how we were far more
interesting than the basketball team because we talked about things
other than sports. This sparked a huge debate that lost my interest
halfway through, but had, weirdly, gained the attention of the rest
of the cafeteria. The end result was that Akira laid down a
gauntlet and challenged the entire basketball team to read
something that they never would have before, and the next day every
single one of them showed up with books that ranged from “Woman in
White” by Wilkie Collins to “Harry Potter”.

“I told you The Sun was a good representation
of him in the Tarot,” Jessica said smugly as we all sat and stared
at the quiet team table, every single one of them with their noses
buried in a book.

“Huh?” I asked and turned my attention back
to her.

“Is it because he’s nurturing their minds and
bringing new energy to the table the way the sun nurtures nature
and brings new life to barren soil?” Kat asked, her eyes shining.
She had recently declared that Jessica was going to be her personal
mentor in all things “metaphysical and mystical” and took every
opportunity to try and impress her. I liked Kat, so I didn’t roll
my eyes too hard. Besides, Jessica was good at what she did, and at
least kept a strong confidentiality policy in regards to anyone she
did a reading for.