Darkness Brutal (The Dark Cycle Book 1) (19 page)

Waves crash against the rocks as the ocean rages behind us, spraying salty diamonds of water onto our skin.

I want to ask why we came back after lunch—the second time we’ve stood in this spot today, Mom’s birthday. But she’s not looking at me. Her gaze is stuck on the cliff wall, on the opening of the cave twenty yards away.

She twists her hair in a spiral around her finger, and a tear slips down her cheek. It could be just the sea on her face, but her eyes are sad. They’re always sad when we come here.

She never lets the words emerge, the words of why or how or who or what makes her sadness so big.

I watch her profile and realize she doesn’t have to say the words. I can hear it, singing from her with each beat of her heart. The ache of missing my dad is always there, just beneath the surface. But when we come here, the sadness feels like something that might swallow us whole. It moves toward us, crashing against us like the waves beating the rocks.

I take her hand in mine.

We watch the cave opening, waiting for something that we both know will never come
.

TWENTY-SIX

The next morning is all work and no play, so I have very little time to think about my stupidity.

Just enough to realize what a jackass I am. I almost kissed Rebecca. I have no right to get mixed up with a girl I’m trying to help, who feels indebted to me. Especially with everything that’s going on between Kara and me. Dick move. And it won’t be happening again.

Lester and I spend most of the morning in the office. He’s got me hooked up to listen to EVPs, or electronic voice phenomena, from some previous jobs. His instructions are to make a note of any moments that sound suspect. I mostly just hear Jax or Kara or Connor asking questions to nobody. “Would you like to talk to us?” or “If you’re here, give us a sign.” That kind of thing. Then I find one sound file labeled
Roosevelt—rm 928
that has a man’s voice on it after Connor asks, “Were you a movie star?” but I can’t tell what the man answers. I make a note of the file and the time of the man’s response in the notebook Lester gave me.

He rolls his chair over to me. “You got one?”

“Maybe.”

“I’ll have Jax listen to it later. He’s got a great ear.”

“So you and Jax get along sometimes?” I ask.

He blows air through his lips. “I guess. He hasn’t killed me yet. I think he’s just jealous.”

“Of your good looks?”

He laughs. “Most definitely.” He touches his dark hair dramatically. “No, I think it’s ’cause of my
thing
—my ability to channel.”

“Is he thinking his
thing
is lame?”

“Maybe. But I’d rather have his
thing
of reading clouds than mine, really. Mine is no picnic.”

“Channeling can be dangerous,” I say, wanting to tread lightly. I don’t think me spouting off on everything I know about the horrors of channeling would sit well, and he’s probably very familiar with them. He definitely looks freaked about his gift. How could he not be? Something crawling in your skin and not being sure you can get it out has to feel more like a curse.

“Yeah, you have to be careful, but nothing can get in here without my permission.” He taps on his temple. “So I just can’t be a dumbass. It’s partially why I hang more with the technology than the ghosts.”

“You seem pretty good at all this.” I motion to the equipment. “How long have you been a part of it?”

He sets his headset down. “Um, a year, maybe.”

“And you’re cool with Sid? He seems on the up-and-up?”

“Ha. Well, he’s good at what he does. And he takes care of us. I can’t complain.”

I nod, watching him, trying to figure out what he’s not saying.

“Look,” he adds, leaning closer, “whatever Sid does, he cares. He’s not in it for the money. He feeds us and keeps LA Paranormal in the black. He’s one of the good guys.”

Can I really worry so much about Sid being a little less than truthful with his clients? He’s promised to try and help me find out more about my family, more about myself, and I know he didn’t lie about that. There’s more at stake here than fraud. And if Sid has a spell that can get rid of the time slip, it doesn’t matter if they call it a ghost or not, I guess. He’s going to give the clients peace, keep their beliefs intact, and that’s
something
.

Jax pokes his head around the doorway and points at me. “Time to jam, newb. Another job.” And he disappears again.

“He grows on you,” Lester says, and he rolls back to his spot, fitting his headphones onto his ears. “Like a fungus.”

I make my way to the back door, but as I enter the hallway, I hear Rebecca’s voice in the kitchen. I stop just on the other side of the archway, suddenly unsure if I want to see her today. When I peek around the wall, she’s got her back to me, standing at the counter beside Holly and Ava. The three of them are laughing about something in the magazine in front of them. Holly is as bright as ever in striped tights and a white polka-dot shirt; Ava is in a long grey sweatshirt that’s too big for her.

Rebecca reaches over and touches Ava’s hair like a sister would, giving advice on how to wear it. Ava smiles her brightest smile at Rebecca and then says something to Holly, who laughs. I wonder at the way they’re all so easy together so quickly. Must be a girl thing.

“Is it the hair?” The quiet voice comes from behind me.

I start and turn to see Kara watching me watch Rebecca.

“Or is it the body?”

I move back, out of sight of the girls in the kitchen. My heart pulses in my skin from being caught. But I’m not sure why I should feel embarrassed. “Shit, you scared me.”

“She is pretty. And she has that innocent energy that screams to be protected.”

I blink at her, unsure what to say.

She comes closer and leans on the wall beside me. “I bet you’re nice to her. You probably say all these pretty things to make her melt in those hands of yours.”

“I’m sorry that I hurt you, Kara.”

She looks up at me, and I can see it in her eyes: the pain of all the men that have wounded her. Am I now just another name on that list of bastards?

“I really am sorry.” I want to reach out and touch her, but I force myself not to. “You deserve a true hero, not a fake one.”

Jax pokes his head around the archway. “Quit makin’ out. Let’s roll.”

I follow him through the kitchen to the back door, waving at the girls as I go by. Rebecca gives me a confused smile, her eyes moving from me to Kara, who’s standing behind us in the archway, staring at me with the strangest look on her face. As I’m about to close the back door behind me, she’s there, grabbing it.

“I’m coming, too,” she says.

Jax frowns. “I thought you were gonna help Lester with the prep for that loony bin job. You said you didn’t wanna come today.”

“I changed my mind.”

Sid’s car is a lot nicer than Connor’s Jeep, but it’s not exactly meant for five. He’s driving and Connor’s shotgun. Jax is sitting on the hump between Kara and me. Which I’m not too thrilled about. It’s a bit cozy.

As we settle in Jax says to me, “We can snuggle, but I expect you to buy me a drink later.”

After a while of driving through traffic, I ask where we’re going.

Connor motions to the hills on our left. “Griffith Park. We’re just doing a walk-over.”

“We walk the property we’re considering filming,” Sid says, “and then see what we think. Fairly mundane.”

“In other words,” Jax says, “boring as shit. Or BAS, as Holly would say.”

“Language, Jax,” Sid scolds.

Jax sighs. “Fine. What’s my penance this time? Memorizing the freakin’ book of Judah?”

“There is no book of Judah,” I say.

Kara laughs.

Connor says, “In that case, Jax, maybe you should memorize the names of the books of the Bible.”

“Sounds good to me,” Sid says.

Jax growls and leans his head back. “Wonderful.”

Eventually we pull onto Crystal Springs Drive and park near the trails. It’s a weekday, so the place is pretty vacant. We get out of the car, and Connor starts pulling stuff out of the trunk.

“We walked the trails near the observatory a few weeks ago, but Kara and Connor couldn’t feel any entities,” Sid says. “We’re looking for something to film for our next
Truth Paranormal
special where we focus on somewhere famous.”

“Griffith is known to be haunted,” Connor says, handing Jax a backpack. “But the stories are all over the place. We’ve been having trouble pinning anything down.”

Jax holds out the backpack to me. “Make the newb carry the shit.”

Sid clucks his tongue like a mother hen. “You’ll memorize all of the books of the Old Testament in English
and
Hebrew. Properly ordered for each version, both the Western as well as the original Tanakh.”

Connor shakes his head, laughing. “Dumbass.”

I take the pack from Jax. “So what are the words that’ll get me in trouble?” I ask as we walk toward the first trailhead. I always assumed
dumbass
wasn’t exactly kosher to the cuss-less crowd.

“You tell him, Jax,” Connor says. “Get them out of your system for the rest of the day.”

Sid smiles and taps his walking stick on a rock.

“Pretty much my two favorite words are off limits,” Jax says, sounding defeated. “Fuck and shit. Fuck, fuck, shit, shit.”

“That’s it?” I ask.

Connor smiles. “That’s plenty for Jax.”

“Because he has no self-control,” Kara adds.

“Ha. Ha.” Jax walks past us up the trail and says over his shoulder, “That’s rich coming from you, little newb lover. Too bad the boy’s moved on.”

Connor’s smile fades, and he glances over at me.

Kara looks like she wants to crawl under a rock.

Sid just keeps smiling at the surrounding trees, looking happy as ever, not noticing a thing. “Another few hundred yards or so and we’ll start putting out feelers, all right?”

We all follow in silence, crossing onto a narrower trail that leads down a small hill where the trees get more dense, until eventually Sid and Jax stop in a clearing up ahead of us.

Connor waves me over and takes the pack from me. “What was Jax talking about earlier? Is Rebecca your girlfriend or something?”

“No,” I say, frustration filling me. “He’s just being an ass.”

Connor seems to buy that. But then he says, “Just remember, you hurt Kara and I kill you.”

“Why is everyone so damn afraid of me breaking Kara?” I ask. “She’s stronger than you all think.” I glance up the trail where Kara is touching the trees like she’s asking them questions.

“You better hope so,” Connor says, pulling a camera and a digital voice recorder out of the pack. He hands me the camera. “Take pictures randomly. Try to focus on the shadows. That’s where the nasty likes to hide.”

Sid shouts over to me from across the clearing. “See what you can feel, Aidan. Don’t be afraid to open yourself up nice and wide out here. You need to experience the full force of your abilities when it’s safe to.”

“Yeah, find us a ghost, man,” Jax adds.

I wander the other way, taking my chance to get away from everyone.

Sid wants me to feel the full force of my abilities? That’s a terrifying idea. But he’s right—I need to figure out what I can do. The more I learn about all this, the more I’ll know how to fight the darkness when it comes for Ava. I study the trees through the camera lens and snap a few pictures of shadows, trying to work up my nerve to let my walls down completely.

I spot something covered in pine needles on the ground. As I kneel down to take a picture of what is either a dead rat or an old shoe, something small moves in the corner of my vision to my right. I lower the camera and register two things at the same time: sulfur and a cat. But it’s clear when
I look right at it that it’s no cat.

I have to curl my toes in my Converse to keep from leaping back in reaction.

The demon is clinging to the trunk of the tree two feet away. It bares its fangs, hissing at me.

It’s the minion. The one from the party that got Kara beaten up and nearly raped. It almost got Rebecca raped, too.

Its oversized ears lie back. Has it been following me this whole time? Since the party? How haven’t I smelled it?

Not good.

My heart speeds up. I scan the trees, looking for its boss. The Big Cheese is going to be pissed when it realizes Rebecca’s staying in Sid’s house surrounded by all those wards—with me. Unless it already knows.

Why the hell didn’t I think before leaving the protection of the house? How could Sid just encourage me to roam around out here?

Luckily there’s no sign of the large demon. Maybe I’m okay. Aside from the problem of Mini-Me, that is.

I stand up and back slowly away from the thing.

It turns its head like a bird would, looking at me almost upside down, and makes a garbled noise in its throat. Then it skitters up and across a branch, closer to me.

I could run, but it would just follow me—or head back to Boss Demon with intel. If I could trap it somehow . . .

“Connor,” I say stiffly, my eyes never leaving the demon. “You don’t, by any chance, have a hex box in one of these packs, do you?”

I hear footsteps behind me. “Is something wrong?” Connor asks.

Jax skids up beside me on my left, and the demon’s eyes jerk to him. He’s giddy, his grin as big as his head. “Seriously? The newb’s seeing something? Awesome!”

I wish I could share that sentiment.

My fingers find the salt in my pocket. Not enough to make a circle. I’ll just piss it off if I toss this at it. “I need something. More salt or chalk to make a circle. Now.”

Sid’s voice comes from behind me. “Aidan, remain calm and tell us what you see.”

“It’s a demon,” I say, trying to slow my breathing, “and if I don’t trap it, we’ll have very moody company in a few minutes. Large, moody company.”

“I can feel it,” Kara says from somewhere on my right. Her voice shakes. “I’ve felt this before, Aidan. At the party.”

“I just need to trap it,” I say. “I need chalk, or salt, or sacred dirt or something. You guys had to have brought something. You’re fucking demon hunters.”

“We deal in ghosts, newb,” Jax says. “Big difference.”

Someone is moving, clearing the needles from a spot on the ground to my right. I glance over to see Kara drawing a circle in the cleared dirt. “If you can keep it from running, we can do a banishing spell.”