Experiment in Terror 05 On Demon Wings (40 page)

“No. I’m only tel ing you what is going on. As much as I

know. From what I’ve seen. As for the demons, they don’t

like the fact that you can see them. They certainly don’t like

me. It’s supposed to be a one-way mirror. But you and I are

not like them. And we’re not like anyone else living, either.”

“Except for Dex.”

She nodded. “Yes. But he’s had a life of trying to hide it.

It’s like a muscle. Yours has been active far longer. Your

power is greater. So great that demons wil try to take that

from you.”

I looked down at my hands as they made lines in the dirt.

“They already have. Haven’t they? Isn’t that why I’m here

now? I didn’t walk through the door. I was forced at

gunpoint.”

I slowly got to my feet. She reached over and grabbed

my shoulder, steadying me. I looked at her face and

wondered if I was stuck with her here for eternity. She was

my grandmother, the grandmother I never knew. My

grandmother who was locked away to die, and somewhere

along the way, started dressing like Bette Davis in

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane
.

“You’re not hopeless,” she said. I wondered if she just

heard what I was thinking and immediately felt bad. “This

Roman is a powerful man. He’s got something to prove. He

wil fight the demon until he dies from exhaustion.”

I bit my lip and looked behind me at the house. It was

suddenly a dot on the horizon, so very far away. “And then

what happens? Aside from being stuck here forever?”

“You won’t be,” she said.

“How can you be so sure?” Panic began to flood my

veins. I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want my possessor to win.

I felt like a cloth had been lifted from my eyes and the

surreal quality of the situation began to sink in. “Why aren’t

you more upset? You’ve spent your afterlife trying to prevent

me from coming here!”

She squinted at me, but not unkindly. “I have done the

best I can. My limits with your world are there. I can only do

much, say so much. It has taken time for you to open your

eyes to me. You needed to take those steps on your own.”

I waved my arms at the landscape, at another giant bug

crawling in the distance. “But I’m here! I’m in this place! I’m

going to die here.”

“Most who are here are already dead. You’re not. Not

this time, not if Dex can help you.”

“Help me?” I was stunned. “How can
he
help me?”

She took a step toward me and smoothed my hair off of

my face. Her fingers felt far away, like I was growing numb

by the second. “Your bond with him is a strong current. Your

very hearts are magnets. If you listen, you can hear him. You

can feel him. He’s the only one who can help you now.”

“I don’t think Dex knows what to do.”

She looked back at the house. A smal smile tugged at

her lips. “He knows more than you give him credit for. Just

listen. Concentrate.”

I couldn’t hear anything except her flat voice but I closed

my eyes and listened hard anyway. I felt the world drop

away from me, felt a strange weightlessness as everything

swirled black behind my eyes. Then I heard voices. Many at

first, then just Dex’s, echoing around my head.

“Let me help,” Dex pleaded, his voice cracking. “You

can reach her through me. Use me.”

It was fol owed by Bird’s. “You can’t risk it. The pathway

doesn’t work like that. If you find her and free her, it may

take you instead.”

“Then it’s worth it,” Dex said, his voice suddenly strong.

“There wil be many times you may have to lay your life

on the line for her. You must choose your battles wisely,

Dex. You can only give up your life once.”

“Let him do it,” came Roman’s voice from the darkness.

He sounded weak and exhausted. “If this is his wish, I can

use him to find her. I can bring her out. I can keep both of

them safe.”

“No you can’t,” Bird said.

“Dex is right,” Roman said. “There is no other way.”

I opened my eyes and Pippa shimmered back into my

vision. “What’s he going to do?”

“Don’t think of me,” she said quickly. “Don’t break it.

You’l lose him.”

I closed my eyes again. The voices were gone. Only the

blackness behind my eyes remained. I waited and

concentrated. I pictured Dex, his deep eyes, his smirk, his

stark determination that blew me over from time to time. He

was a strong man and a weak man al at once. A friend

once, a lover last. A father in another lifetime. Now nothing.

But he was going to try to save me al the same.

Then I heard it, buried deep beneath my furrowed head.

“Perry,” he cal ed.

I concentrated on my name as it flew past me in the dark.

I focused harder and harder, trying to hear more, see more

than I could.

He appeared before me, coming out of the darkness like

a developing Polaroid. He was slightly translucent, as if he

were the specter here.

“Dex,” I uttered, wondering if he could see me.

He could. He smiled when he saw me. It glowed

supernatural y, like Christmas lights that are turned on for

the first time; ful of relief, pride and beauty.

He reached out for my hand in the darkness but it

passed through mine, lacking al solidity.

He came closer, his face scrunched up in fear and

confusion, and it was just us two in a world of black

emptiness.

“I don’t understand,” he said, shaking his head. “Why

can’t I touch you?”

He tried again, this time his hand on my shoulder, but it

melted away. He was as good as air.

“I don’t know,” I said, feeling the horror rise up my limbs.

“What’s happening to you, how are you here?”

“Roman has got a hold on both of us. I just thought of you

until I...until I saw you. Here. Wherever this is.” He looked

around him at the unrelenting nothingness. “But I don’t think

I’m here enough.”

His face fel , his hair flopping down on his forehead. He

reached for my face with his hand and kept it there along

my cheek, even though I knew his fingers were sinking into

my skin, even though I couldn’t physical y feel him at al .

He took another step toward me until his pale, lightly

transparent face was inches from mine. I sucked at my

breath, surprised I stil had the capability of breathing. Even

in some other dimension, he stil managed to take my

breath away.

It wasn’t fair. He needed to try harder. I needed to try

harder. I concentrated on him, on the thin black hair along

his wide jaw, his ful lips that were parted slightly, on his

eyes that searched mine as frantical y and deeply as mine

searched his. I wil ed him to be solid, to be real. He was

probably doing the same to me.

“I think it’s coming,” he whispered.

I listened hard and could hear a growling off in the abyss.

He closed his eyes. “I need to take you back with me. I

can’t leave you here.”

“I know,” I said, my heart drowning in desperation.

“Concentrate.”

“I am.” The strain in his voice was palpable.

The growling grew louder and I was aware of another

presence coming closer, one that brought a wealth of pain

and suffering along with it. Red eyes gleamed somewhere.

I looked away, looked at Dex. We were going to run out of

time.

“You have to get out of here,” I told him. “Go back.”

“Not without you.”

“We both can’t stay here,” I pleaded. “You must go.”

“Roman is growing weaker,” he said.

“So, please go!”

The red eyes were almost upon us. My body shook and

shuddered from the waves of evil and ugliness. It would

drown us in them.

Dex reached up with his other hand and tried to place it

against my other cheek. It was like he was trying to cup air

in his hands. “Wil you forgive me?”

I was taken aback. “What?”

“For al the things I’ve done to you. Wil you forgive me?”

I knew forgetting what happened was impossible. But I

was ready to forgive him. I didn’t want that weight to be on

both of us for the rest of our short lives.

“Of course,” I whispered.

He smiled, soft and sad.

A gust of hate whirled through us. Red eyes appeared

over Dex’s shoulder.

Dex leaned forward and attempted to kiss me. Despite

everything, I wished I could have felt it. I wished it was the

last thing I could feel.

The beast descended.

Our hearts are magnets
, I thought.

And with that thought, I felt him.

His warm hands on my face. His soft lips flush on mine.

A current of electricity and light flowed from him to me and

back again, invigorating my skin and jump-starting my

heart.

A heaviness descended on us, crushing us down with

insurmountable malevolence.

But Dex’s grasp was strong. I wrapped my arms around

his waist and together we were pul ed back by an unseen

force, ripped right out of the blackness.

Somewhere in the dark I heard Pippa say goodbye.

Then there was a horrid screeching sound, like we were

swept up in a violent, high-pitched windstorm, fol owed by a

blinding white light and Roman’s commanding, monumental

voice.

I felt Dex’s hands drop away from me and my arms fal

slack to the side. Then with a giant push I screamed my

way back into the real world.

It felt like I had been hurled straight into a brick wal . I

opened my eyes to find myself back in the nearly dark

room. A charred ring surrounded the bed, which was

broken in two.

I was on my knees, as was Dex beside me. Roman

stood between us, one hand on top of my head, the other

hand on top of Dex’s.

“Your soul is yours,” Roman said, his voice dropping

with exhaustion.

I dropped too, straight back onto the ground, and let the

gentle darkness carry me away.

I opened my eyes slowly to a soft, filtered light, conscious of

nothing except my head, which was pounding mercilessly. I

stared up at the faded yel ow ceiling, careful not to upset

the imbalance in my skul . The scent of herbs and greenery

fil ed my nose.

There was color. I could smel . I was alive. And I was

back where I belonged.

I heard a soft snoring sound from beside me and I slowly

turned my head to the side, nestling it deeper in the pil ow.

My hand was down beside me along the side of the single

bed and another hand was grasping it, reaching up from

the floor beneath.

I lifted my shoulders and head to see who had a hold of

me, letting out a grunt at the pain that throbbed at my

temples and tightened along my forehead.

On a pile of pil ows laid out on the ground, was Dex. He

was on his side, sleeping it seemed, his hand holding onto

mine.

I managed a smile, then flopped my head back on the

pil ow, the pressure to keep my head upright was too much.

I let out an involuntarily moan, overcome by the discomfort

and pain.

Dex stirred beneath me, his hand squeezed mine. He

sat up and peered at me, his hair sticking out messily on

the sides.

“Kiddo?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

“Hi,” I croaked out.

He cleared his throat and sat up straighter, taking my

hand in both of his.

“Your eyes are back to normal,” he said as he looked at

me intensely. “How are you feeling?”

“Honestly? I don’t think I’ve ever felt worse.”

“Roman said you’d feel like you were crushed by a

steamrol er.”

“That about sums it up.”

“He said it would pass, though, in a day or two. I insisted

we take you to the hospital but he said whatever injuries

you got wil fade quickly. Something about them not being

rooted in this world.”

“Oh. Good to know,” I said. I brought my head to the

other side and took in the surroundings. We were in the

room that looked like a greenhouse turned office. My smal

bed was pushed up against a desk and an ancient

behemoth of a computer. Plants upon plants were stacked

up along a low table and up a bookshelf.

“Where is everyone?” I asked, hearing only quiet in the

house.

“Ada and Roman went to town to get some food. I think

Bird is outside going on a walkabout or something.”

“Are they OK?” I remembered seeing the exorcism bed

being ripped in two, the charred ring that held fire, the fear

in Ada’s eyes when she gazed at me floating above the

bed in a wild swarm of lightening.

“Bird’s fine. Roman looks like shit but he’s alive. I think

Ada’s a little shel -shocked. But she’l be fine. She’s an