Possess (12 page)

Bridget didn’t care, not about the demons or Monsignor or the carnage that was Ms. Laveau’s creepy little store. She only cared about what Penemuel had told her. A message from her dad to find Milton Undermeyer. She felt like she’d been kicked in the gut with her own steel-toed boots.

“Bridget!” She could barely hear Monsignor. The clamor had escalated, and the roar of voices encircled the room like a tornado. She needed to focus.
Vade retro satana
.

“I banish you,” she said halfheartedly.

The demons screeched in pain as the familiar tingle raced up Bridget’s arms and legs, strengthening her voice.

“I banish you from these dolls, from this shop, from this world.”

“No! No! Have mercy, little girl. Mercy!”

“Get out,” she repeated. The energy intensified in her stomach and her voice was a frightening roar. “Get out!”

“The Emim will release us. You will feel our wrath. You cannot keep us out forever!”

Bridget held her hands in front of her. They were hot, searing, the warmth shooting up through her wrists and arms. “Maybe.” She laughed drily. “But I can try.”

She felt the weight of them as she threw her hands forward, concentrating on the demons themselves. “
Vade retro satana!
I banish you.”

There was a final shriek, then Bridget watched with satisfaction as a hundred dolls collapsed into silence.

Fifteen

“S
O ARE YOU GOING TO
tell me what’s going on or am I going to have to start making stuff up?”

Bridget froze midbite into her grilled cheese sandwich and slowly looked across the table at Hector. His diet snack bar and celery sticks lay untouched on top of his lunch bag. His arms were folded across his chest, and his left eyebrow kinked at a sharp angle. Uh-oh. Hector meant business.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Really?”

Flail. Peter must have spilled about her “official parish business” after school yesterday. How was she going to explain it?

“You were going to tell me
when
that you asked hunky Matt Quinn to the Winter Formal?”

Bridget’s whole body relaxed. Oh, that. “It just sort of—”

“Look, if we’re going to be friends, you have to text me epic life events like this immediately. Like, within twenty seconds of the occurrence immediately. Get it? I have a reputation to maintain, and how would it look if I’m getting my information from—” He dropped his voice. “Peter?”

Bridget winced. “You heard it from Peter?”

“Heard it?” Hector snorted. “More like I got dragged into the insanity. He’s really freaking out.”

“Yeah.” Bridget remembered the wild look in Peter’s eyes when he confronted her in the hallway, the angry line of his jaw when he challenged Matt in the parking lot. “I know.”

“He cornered me in English this morning. Kept asking if I knew anything about it, rambling on and on about how you lied to him. Dude, seriously scary.”

“Yeah,” Bridget repeated, sinking her head into her hands. “I know.”

“I mean, not that I blame you. I’d ask Mr. Sexy Eyes Baseball Player to the dance myself if I thought I had a chance. But did you have to go and do it after you turned Peter down . . .
what was it, three times?”

Bridget groaned. “Five.”

“Five? Daaaaaaamn.”

Bridget snapped her head up. “Okay, but what was I supposed to do? Go with Peter? And besides, it’s not like I asked Matt to go with me.”

Hector pursed his lips. “Really? Then how did it happen?”

“Um . . .” Why was everyone so intent on knowing how Matt ended up as her date to the Winter Formal? It just happened, people. Get over it.

Hector’s eyes flicked off Bridget’s face to something behind her. He pulled his hand to his mouth. “Peter,” he said through a fake cough, a second before Peter Kim dropped his lunch tray down next to Bridget.

“Hey, Peter,” she said, trying to sound casual. Pretty much anything out of his mouth at this point was going to be a disaster. She held her breath and waited for the worst.

“Hector,” Peter said through clenched teeth.

“Uh . . .” Hector’s eyes darted from Peter to Bridget, then back. “Hey, man.”

Peter slowly unwrapped his spork-napkin packet. “How did you do on the algebra test today?”

Oh, so that was it? Peter was going to ignore her? Bridget’s shoulders relaxed. Finally something was going her way for a freaking change.

“Okay, I guess,” Hector said.

Peter stabbed at his fruit compote. “Good.”

Silence descended upon their corner of the table. Bridget amused herself by switching between Hector’s uncomfortable fidgeting and Peter’s metered eating as he slowly lifted bits of his lunch into his mouth, chewed five times, and swallowed. He was like a robot, not even registering whether he was ingesting a piece of bean-and-cheese burrito or a wilted lettuce leaf. Peter just continued to lift the spork from plate to mouth while his eyes remained fixed on the table. It was mesmerizing and horrifying at the same time.

“Why so quiet?” Brad slid his tray down the table and climbed a gangly leg over the bench. “You guys have a fight or something?”

“Beats the hell out of me,” Hector murmured.

“Hello, Brad,” Peter said with the same mechanical
Stepford Wives
voice. “How are you today?”

“Dude,” Brad asked. “Are you okay?”

“Perfectly well, thank you.”

Brad looked to Hector, who just shook his head, and then to Bridget. “Liu, what’s going on with him?”

“I’m sorry,” Peter said, dropping his spork to his tray. He turned his head from side to side, looking straight through Bridget as if he didn’t see her at all. “To whom are you speaking?”

Brad pulled his head back. “Are you serious?”

“Oh, come on, Peter!” Hector threw his hands in the air.

Peter turned his cold stare on Hector, as if threatening him as next on the ignore list. “I don’t know what you’re talking—”

“Would you knock it off?” Hector barked. “You’re creeping me out. We all know you’re pissed at Bridge, but get over it, okay?”

“He’s pissed at Liu?” Brad asked.

She so did not want this topic of conversation resurrected. Bridget bolted to her feet and whisked her tray with its half-eaten sandwich off the table. “Guys, I’ve . . . um . . . got to go check on my . . . er . . . choir music for rehearsal.”

“Huh?” Hector said.

“Yeah.” She shoved the contents of her tray into the nearby trash can and grabbed her backpack. “See you later.”

Bridget dodged small packs of students eating in the hallway as she hurried away from the cafeteria. Freshmen, mostly. They sat huddled together on the floor, laughing and joking without a care in the world. Bastards.

Her excuse to bail on lunch was total crap, but with fifteen minutes left before the warning bell, she needed something to do with her time. Going over her music for the upcoming show choir winter concert was as good an excuse as any, and maybe it would keep her mind off . . . everything. Bridget turned a corner, thankful the hall was free from giggling freshmen, grabbed her music notebook from her backpack, and plopped down on the floor to study.

She only made it a page into Mozart’s “Ave verum corpus” before a shadow passed in front of the light. Bridget glanced up to find the deep green eyes and snarling smile of Alexa Darlington towering above her.

“Well, if it isn’t Bridget Liu.”

Bridget leaned her head back against the row of lockers. She so wasn’t in the mood. “What do you want, Alexa?”

“With you?” Alexa sneered. “Nothing.”

Bridget casually returned to her music notebook. “Then piss off, okay? I’ve got work to do.”

“I just think it’s interesting that you’re picking up my hand-me-downs now. That’s all.”

“What?”

Alexa took a step back and folded her arms across her chest. “You asked Matt Quinn to the Winter Formal, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t
ask
—”

“So I think it’s funny.” Alexa barreled on. “I mean, I always knew you were jealous of me. Just didn’t think you’d go so far as to steal my—”

Okay. That’s it. Bridget shot to her feet. “Jealous of you? Are you kidding me?”

Alexa laughed, light and airy. “Duh. Ever since you assaulted me back in the sixth grade. Sister Ursula said you hit me because you were jealous.”

Bridget hated Sister Ursula, their old principal at St. Cecilia’s, almost as much as she hated Alexa.

“You should thank me, really,” Alexa said with a thin smile.

“Thank you?”

“Sister Ursula wanted to expel you, but I told my father that I forgave you so they let you stay.”

Getting expelled from St. Cecilia’s would have been the single greatest day of Bridget’s life. “I’m supposed to thank you for that?”

Alexa ignored her. “And now I guess I’m returning the favor.”

“Huh?”

“I should thank
you
for getting Matt Quinn out of my hair.”

“Out of your hair?”

Alexa shook her crown of red ringlets as if to emphasize her point. “Matt’s just never gotten over our breakup. He can’t seem to let me go.”

All right. Time to stop the crazy train. “Really? Because from what I saw, he totally ditched you after school the other day to take me home.”

“Is that what you think happened?”

Bridget took a step toward Alexa. “That’s what I
know
happened. And in front of your little posse of sycophants. That must have sucked for you.”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

“
Sy-co-phants
. I know, big words are hard for you. Sound it out and maybe Daddy will tell you what it means later.”

Bridget felt the momentum swing her way, but Alexa wasn’t about to back down.

“I guess it makes sense that you’d want to date Matt,” Alexa said, jutting out her chin. “I mean, since his dad is at your house, like, every night of the week.”

Bridget smiled. “Still not as often as your dad.”

Alexa reared back her hand as if she was going to slap Bridget across the face. Bridget tensed, but just as Alexa started the down swing, she froze. Her eyes dropped, and instead of a bitch slap, Alexa ran her hand over ringlet curls.

“As least
my
dad didn’t get
yours
murdered,” Alexa said coolly.

Bridget flinched. “Bitch.”

Alexa hitched her purse up on her shoulder and straightened her neck. “I see your anger-management counseling didn’t do much good.”

Bridget clenched her fists. She wanted to smash one into the side of Alexa’s face, erasing that smug smile. She bit down hard on her lower lip instead. Alexa was intentionally baiting her, maybe to try and get her suspended before the Winter Formal so she couldn’t go. She needed to resist temptation.

They stared at each other, Alexa’s green eyes sparkling with her plastic smile while Bridget took deep, slow breaths, trying to cool her temper. After a minute, Alexa sighed, broke her eyes away, and sauntered down the hallway.

“You and Matt probably won’t last very long anyway,” Alexa said, glancing back over her shoulder. “The way people around you end up dead, who knows what might happen?”

Sixteen

“H
ALLELUJAH
! H
ALLELUJAH
!

“Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hal-le-e-lujah!”

A
T A VIGOROUS NOD FROM
M
S.
T
EMPLETON,
Bridget leaned forward and flipped the top edge of the score; the pianist’s nimble fingers didn’t miss a single orchestrally transcribed note. Handel’s famous chorus ticked along under Mr. Vincent’s baton. The choirmaster bounced on his toes as he conducted, his baton pattern square and regular as a military band.

“For the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth.

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!”

Bridget yawned. She couldn’t concentrate. Her mind kept drifting to the state mental institution in Sonoma County where Milton Undermeyer was confined. Why would her dad want her to see the man who killed him?

Rule Number Five: They lie. Yeah, yeah, she’d seen plenty of that. But the demonic presence of Penemuel was different, somehow. It was flying solo, clearly not a part of the chaotic infestation she’d been brought there to cleanse.
“He calls you Pumpkin Bunny. He says you will know.”
Of course it was possible that a demon would know her dad’s nickname for her; Monsignor had warned her that demons gain power over their victims by promising them visions of the future and knowledge of the unknown. But Penemuel was not like any demon she’d encountered before.

It had a message for her, and when the message had been delivered, Bridget could have sworn the painted features of the doll had changed, morphed into an expression of euphoria.
“My penance is done. I am released!”

“Bridget!” Ms. Templeton hissed.

Bridget jumped up and turned the page. “Sorry.”

“The kingdom of this world,

Is become the kingdom of our Lord.”

With the exception of Hector’s bright tenor, the sparse male sections mumbled their words and missed the majority of their cues. The sopranos were flat and the altos sang the soprano part because they couldn’t remember their own, but Mr. Vincent flailed his baton like he was James Levine at the Met, cuing singers who weren’t even paying attention. Handel’s finest had proved a bit beyond the St. Michael’s show choir.

Another nod from Ms. Templeton brought another page turn from Bridget, and inside she cringed. Page seven was where Mr. Vincent’s own creation took off.

Mr. Vincent’s baton took a dramatic pause, and on the next downbeat the entire musical mood changed. Ms. Templeton’s accompaniment was no longer Handel’s jaunty composition, but an asymmetric pop track. From the front row of the choir, four sopranos spot-turned away from the risers, beginning a routine straight out of the last episode of
So You Think You Can Dance
. The rest of the singers parted down the middle, and Hector strutted between them onto the altar, picking up a hand mic from Mr. Vincent’s music stand, and Christina Aguilera’d his way into “Hip-Hop-
Elujah,” arranged by Blair Vincent, based on source material by G. F. Handel.

“King of kings and lord of lords.

And He shall reign forever and ever.”

The choir kicked in as Hector crooned his way through the lead vocals, the show choir dancers pirouetting and gyrating around him.

Bridget was pretty sure Handel had just rolled over in his grave.

Disgusting as the entire display was, Bridget had to admit that Hector was a star. He exuded confidence, like he didn’t care what anyone thought. Bridget envied him for that. She always felt at odds—with her mom, with her brother, with school. Even the piano, her refuge from everything in the world that bugged her, had become a burden after she’d been roped into this gig as second accompanist for the show choir. She felt like little pieces of her soul were dying while classical masterpieces were being turned into
American Idol
reject fodder and there was nothing she could . . .

“Bridget!”

Ms. Templeton turned the page so violently the whole score slipped out of the music holder and came crashing down on the Yamaha baby grand, producing one dissonant train wreck of a chord.

Bridget closed her eyes and scrunched up her face. How many page turns had she missed? She had no idea. Her brain was oatmeal.

Mr. Vincent’s nasal voice cut through the silence. “Ms. Templeton, is there a problem?”

“Technical issue,” she said, shooting a glance at Bridget. “With the page turning.”

“It is the job of the second accompanist to be following along at all times.” Mr. Vincent glared down her. “I must have your full attention, Bridget, as if you were playing the music yourself. Otherwise, I could have”—he waved his baton around his head—“anyone sitting there turning pages.”

“I’m really sorry.”

“Mr. Vincent?” Alexa’s sickeningly sweet voice made Bridget’s skin crawl. “If the second accompanist is having issues concentrating, I’d be more than happy to turn pages.”

Mr. Vincent smiled. “That’s very kind of you, Alexa, but I need your voice in the soprano section. There’s no one else who can carry the obbligato in the chorus.”

A murmur of agreement rippled through the choir. Alexa batted her long auburn lashes at Mr. Vincent and feigned a blush. “Of course. Whatever you need, Mr. Vincent.”

Bitch.

Mr. Vincent sighed and turned back to Bridget. “Bridget, why don’t you take a break before you play the second half of rehearsal today? I need your head in the game, with the winter concert a week away.”

Bridget rolled her eyes as she stepped off the altar and down to the floor of the church. A “break” was hardly going to help her focus. She meandered down the aisle as Mr. Vincent tapped his baton to regain his choir’s attention.

“We’ll take it from measure two-fifty-eight, Ms. Templeton. And a one, two, three, four.”

The click of Bridget’s boots against the hard marble died under the booming acoustics of piano and choir. The Church of St. Michael wasn’t nearly as shiny and ornate as her parish church at St. Cecilia’s. It was half the size, older, dingier. Horrifying in a European kind of way, with dark stained glass windows depicting martyrs and saints enduring acts of brutality—stoned, shot full of arrows, burned at the stake—while angels looked on. Not the cherubic, benevolent angels with rosy cheeks and curly blond hair you’d find at other churches, but dark, ominous angels, their skin tinged with a pallor of gray, their expressions hard and completely devoid of compassion. Oh, and they each held a sword, some tipped with bright red blood. Not exactly a touchy-feely kind of church.

Her dad had taken the family to Mass there every year on September 29, the Feast of St. Michael, and Bridget had dreaded the day every year. Once, when she was a kid, she could have sworn the angels were looking at her. So. Not. Cool.

Ironic that Bridget ended up in school there, though as far as Catholic schools went, she could have gotten stuck at Mercy, the all-girls school. That would have been hell.

Bridget paused near the back of the sanctuary by an old confessional that had been transformed into an alcove to display the jewel of St. Michael’s: mounted on the wall, in a Plexiglas display case, was a giant sword.

The Sword of St. Michael, a relic of the archangel, supposedly created from secret Vatican schematics of the angel’s actual sword. Bridget had heard its history at least a dozen times in religion class, and each time she rolled her eyes. Secret Vatican sword blueprints? Ooooo. Was she really supposed to believe that crap?

The sword was the treasure of the Church of St. Michael, and special venerations were held in the sanctuary throughout the year. Bridget found the sword vaguely disturbing like the rest of the church. The golden blade was two feet long, thin with patches of tarnish, and marred as if it had actually been used at some point. The hilt was also gold and ornately carved with symbols and swirls she couldn’t decipher.

Beneath the sword was perhaps the most disturbing thing of all—a plaque that read:

Sword of St. Michael, Archangel

Replica

Donated by the Darlington Family at the dedication
of the Church of St. Michael, 1922

“To Destroy the Evil That Lies Within”

“Too bad you can’t destroy this evil,” Bridget said, nodding her head toward the choir as she leaned against the smooth stone of the church wall.

“Does she not think so?”
a voice whispered.

Bridget spun around. Was someone else in the church?

Behind her lay an empty expanse of uniform wooden pews.

“The humans are fools. This we know, Koras.”

No, not here. There couldn’t be demons here. This was a church.

“You are wise, Mecadriel.”
The second voice was right on top of her, clearly discernible above the music.

“But have you heard?”
the second voice continued.
“There is a Watcher now.”

Bridget froze. A Watcher? That’s what the dolls had called her: a Watcher and a traitor.

“Hallelujah! Hallelujah!”

“The Master’s servants will take care of the Watcher, as they have done for centuries.”

“Yes, Mecadriel. Yes. There will be much enjoyment.”

Bridget ran down the aisle, scanning pews to the very back of the church to make sure there was no one hiding. Then she threw open the doors of the rear confessional—first the two penitents’ doors, then she cracked the priest’s door, just to make sure it was empty. There had to be someone here messing with her. Had to.

“Bridget Liu!”

She slammed the confessional door. From the altar, Mr. Vincent, Ms. Templeton, and the entire show choir were staring at her.

“What are you doing?”

“Um, nothing?”

“Well, if you’ve finished exploring back there, could you please take your place for the carols medley?”

Bridget felt the heat rise from her chest as she trotted back up to the piano. Ms. Templeton had already packed away her binders, leaving Bridget’s sheet music on the piano.

Maybe she was imagining it. Maybe she was sleep deprived. She pushed the invisible voices from her mind and flipped through her pages, making sure they were all in order, then prepped and looked expectantly at Mr. Vincent.

At his downbeat Bridget launched into the relatively simple accompaniment for “Angels We Have Heard on High.” She focused on the music. This was a church, after all, a place of God. They couldn’t be here. They couldn’t, they couldn’t, they couldn’t.

The whispers exploded overhead, singing along to the carol in a cacophony of shrieks.

“Gloria in excelsis Luciferi.”

“No!” Bridget pushed away from the keyboard, toppled off the bench, and cracked her head against the hard marble of the altar floor.

The voices stopped.

Hector’s hand was on her shoulder, helping her to her feet. “Bridget? What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry. I—I have to . . .” She stumbled backward, her eyes darting about the altar. They were here. How could they be here?

“You have to what?” Mr. Vincent said.

Everyone stared at her, of course, like she’d just grown a second head. But she didn’t care. There was something evil in the church, something that shouldn’t, by the laws of Heaven and Hell, be there.

The dark interior of the sanctuary began to spin before her, the walls skewing and stretching from vertical. As she staggered away from the piano, the angels in the stained glass windows above the altar turned to her with cold grins.

“Bridge?” Hector’s voice broke through her malaise, bringing the choir back into focus. His face was pale, his eyes lacked their usual sparkle. “Are you okay?”

Her hands were clammy, and she could feel droplets of sweat cascade down her back. “I’m not . . . I don’t . . .”

“You look pale. Maybe you should go to the nurse’s office?”

A flick of dense auburn curls from the back row of the choir caught Bridget’s attention, and she found a pair of deep green eyes, narrow as a cat’s, fixed on her. Then Alexa tilted her head ever so slightly, her lovely fringe of lashes obscuring her eyes altogether.

“Heard us. Heard us. The dark one heard us.”

“Impossible, the Master says he knows all who hear.”

“Look at her! She knows. She knows!”

With a sharp intake of breath, those piercing eyes flew open.

Alexa heard the voices too.

“I gotta go.” Bridget grabbed her backpack and ran.