Psyched (9 page)

Inside, part of Aisi screamed, “
Finally!
” while another part wondered what else she could possibly stand to hear. Her day so far had been exhausting enough! She looked into her father’s astonishingly silver green eyes, almost white against his dark skin. He was so strong, yet he looked afraid.

“I wish I could tell you everything,” he said simply, “but I cannot.”

Aisi shook her head, looking down, confused and angry. “Wait, so you’re ready to tell me everything but you can’t tell me anything?” Frustration she never allowed herself to feel bubbled as if ready to explode inside her. Vance backed away from them, moving to sit at a revolving, red vinyl and chrome stool at the diner’s counter.
Smart boy
, she thought. G
et out of the line of fire
.

Aisi raised her hands to her throbbing head, shaking it furiously. “Dad, you have no idea what this day has been like!” she cried, almost choking on her words. Her throat closed in as she raised her voice, her eyes watering. “The test is only one small part of it!”

Zinnia and Colby looked at her awkwardly as she thrust her hands into the back pockets of her favorite pair of skinny jeans. Faded and tattered, they showed off interesting holes in all the right places. Her finger pushed through a new hole in her back pocket, left by the claws of a demon, a reminder of everything that had suddenly gone wrong in her life. Her slender form shook as she tried to stop the tears. “Every single thing I thought I knew has been turned upside down and tossed out the window today. So now you tell me I might actually get something that’s sort of like an answer, but you can’t tell me?”

Vance stood again. The stool spun as he moved toward the booth where Zinnia and Colby pretended not to hear what was going on, trying to slide away without being seen. A firm hand blocked his path and grasped him tightly by the shoulder. The look of pain and surprise flitting across his face indicated Aisi’s dad was much stronger than she imagined. She looked at the thick fingers and disfigured hands firmly holding Vance in place.

“No,” Billy said firmly. “You will stay. You will believe.” Their eyes locked briefly, and for a fleeting moment Aisi thought his light eyes darkened and glinted an ominous red. She looked from her father to Vance. To her surprise she saw a look of shock cross his face, followed by an expression of dawning comprehension and wonder.

The TV flickered back to life suddenly with the noisy squelch of static. Fuzzy gray lines danced on the screen before the image on the old TV formed. The only channel in town available without paying for satellite service seemed to be replaying the same demon documentary over and over. Aisi’s head began to throb.

“I need you to know, but
I
cannot tell you,” Billy repeated. “I have made an oath not to reveal details of my past.” He pointed to the TV, and as he did the screen filled again with the image of the young priest’s face, mottled with scars and burned, premature gray flecking his thick, black hair. “This man on the television—he can tell you what I cannot.”

With a look of indescribable sadness, he looked at the blemished, mottled skin on his hands. They had the same ripples of melted and healed flesh as the burns on the priest’s face. He insisted that working the hot fryers in the diner’s kitchen caused the burns, but as she looked from his hands to the priest, his scarred face filling the screen and the room with its ageless appearance, she knew. It definitely wasn’t fryer grease.

“And you?” He turned to Vance, who sat awkwardly back on the stool, waiting for Billy’s firm hand to release him. “You will not leave her tonight. Not for a moment. She’ll need you as much as you need her. I have your word you will not leave her alone, even for a split second?”

Vance nodded quickly as those silver eyes bored through him. “Yes, sir.”

“Then go, my Sunshine,” he said sorrowfully, looking at his daughter with such love and guilt that she could hardly breathe. “Go find Father J.”

Aisi glanced beyond her father to Zinnia and Colby who decided to deal with the awkward moment by kissing. She felt jealous for a moment. She didn’t envy the actual making out, but she wished she could live in that sort of happy oblivion. Several onlookers stopped at the window to howl and whistle at the two. Zinnia deftly reached up with her eyes still closed and yanked the blinds shut, and then, giggling, she wrapped her arms around Colby. Their fingers intertwined and foreheads met as they stopped kissing and began whispering. She wanted that sort of mindless bliss, even if only for one moment.

Aisi looked out the windows, the eerie flash of red and blue light from Padelski’s squad car pulsating through to her. The road just beyond was visible from the diner windows, now misty from the cold, miserable drizzle of an approaching storm.

This road led to the route where she ran cross country that afternoon. It led to a small church where a man named Father J, grizzled face smiling above his white collar, preached the word to his faithful flock across the street from the house where Aisi lived until she was seven years old. It led to that abandoned wreck of a house where her sister vanished, where a chasm a mile deep now covered with concrete held secrets and lies. It led to the answers her father wanted to give but had sworn not to tell.

Aisi untied her apron, crusty with grease and leftovers from the dinner rush, and tossed it on the counter. She set her hands defiantly on her hips and cocked her head to one side. “I’ve seen a lot more than you think I have, Dad,” she said angrily. Why did he have to wait until it seemed like the gates of hell opened and spewed forth the worst of what was down there? Why hadn’t he told her over the last ten years that she wasn’t alone?

“You believe you have, Aisi,” he whispered, his voice quavering. His trembling made her heart drop into her gut. “I pray you never will. You have yet to appreciate the horrors that lie beyond the shadows at the portal.” He nodded at Vance. “Trust each other. Help each other tonight. I can do nothing. When one is weak, the other will become strong. I can only hope I will not lose you, too, in the battle that must be fought.” His voice broke at these last words.

Without a word or backward glance, she went to the coat rack near the door and grabbed her favorite hoodie, throwing it on and zipping it up as Vance went to collect his tools and equipment. She shoved her hands into the pockets and glanced at the TV, which flickered off once more.

“Sunshine?”

Aisi spun impatiently. “Yeah?”

“When you have seen all that you will see tonight, please promise me you will not think less of me.” His eyes searched hers, and he whispered, “I wish I could tell you, but I…I can’t.”

Her father turned, his shoulders slumped. He shuffled back into the kitchen to finish the night’s dishes. She watched him disappear around the corner, and she felt a moment of anguish. She wanted to stay mad at him for not telling her whatever she needed to hear, but he looked so hopeless. She took a deep breath to steady herself and followed Vance to the door, reaching for it as Jorja’s head popped around the corner.

“Aisi? Are you leaving?”

“Yes, Mother dear. I have somewhere to go.”

“Where?” Her mother looked like she was trying to swallow a smile and failing miserably. She probably thought Aisi was trying to sneak off for a little face time with a cute guy.

“I’m helping my…uh…
friend
here with some research for a school project,” Aisi said as casually as she could, hands resting on the door while Vance stood behind her, trying not to drop the equipment in his hands.

“Isn’t the library already closed?” Jorja’s smile widened after she glanced at the clock. She stepped back into the dining room, bracelets jangling as she folded her arms and tilted her head.

“Yes, Mother, it is. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of a little thing called the internet? It’s pretty handy for stuff like that. I gotta go. Tell Dad bye for me. It might be a late night.”

“I’m sure it will,” Jorja smirked. “Don’t be too late, though. It’s still a school night.”

Aisi ignored her mom’s feeble attempt at acting like a real mom in front of strangers. She shoved the door open. The sidewalk was now only lit by the town’s one stoplight since Padelski had finished up with his latest victim and turned off his patrol car’s red and blues. “Where now?” she asked as she turned to see if Vance followed her.

“I, uh, have a truck parked just down the street,” Vance said, looking as though he were about to lose his backpack and cases of ghost-hunting stuff. “Do you know where we’re going?”

Aisi grabbed a backpack and a tripod from him. “I’ve sort of lived here my whole life, so yeah, I know. It just so happens that this Father J and his church are right across the street from where we lived when Nakia vanished.”

They reached his truck, a small red pickup with a shell over the back. Vance yanked up the shell’s cover at the truck’s back end, stowing all his equipment in tidy compartments which divided the bed of the pickup. He took the items Aisi held and put them carefully where they belonged, and then opened her door for her before jumping into the driver’s seat and gunning the engine.

The radio came to life when the engine started, and classical music blared from the speakers. Aisi couldn’t help but grin. “Really?”

The glow from the stoplights made it hard to tell for sure if she made Vance blush as they approached the intersection. Aisi offered a crooked smile as he said, “Hey, sometimes when I get freaked out by what I’m doing, it helps me relax a little.” He reached over and flicked the radio off.

Aisi’s amused expression softened just a bit. “It’s okay. It calms me down, too. The weirdness of my reality kind of gets to me sometimes. ”

They sat in silence for a moment after some chit chat over what other kinds of music they liked.

“So, um, back at the diner, when my dad was saying you had to stay with me, he kind of looked at you…”

“Yeah,” Vance snorted, rubbing his shoulder ruefully. “The man has steel meat hooks for hands.”

“No, I mean…It kind of looked like you…I don’t know…figured something out,” she said as nonchalantly as she could.

“I think I did,” he answered, nodding. “It’s just another theory of mine. I’m hoping Father J can confirm it.” He seemed rather pleased with himself.

Aisi waited for more, but he kept his eyes on the dark road and said nothing. She folded her arms across her stomach, face puckered in disapproval. “So are you going to tell me?”

“Are we getting close?” he asked, dodging her question.

“Are you going to tell me?” she demanded.

“Probably not right now,” he replied.

She turned to look out her passenger window, lips pursed. “Then I guess I don’t have to tell you where we’re going.”

“Aw, come on, Aisi!” he exclaimed. “Do you want your answers or do you want to be a brat?”

“Brat?” she said angrily. “Aren’t you the one with some stupid ghost project you want me to help you with?”

“Okay, I’m sorry,” he apologized. “Are we close?”

Aisi looked ahead at the dark road, unlit by street lights. On either side of the road trees towered over them. It was difficult to see in the gloom of night, but she could have found it with her eyes closed. She could feel her way there. “You have a turn coming up soon,” she directed. “It will be hard to see in the dark, but after that curve up ahead, it will be on your right. Now it’s your turn. Talk to me.”

“Well, first, you need to know I’m just a freshman,” Vance began, “so I have a lot more I need to learn. I’ve only taken one class on the types of entities and creatures that we might have to deal with in our studies. When I saw your dad’s eyes, when he looked at me, did you notice how they got darker and then reddish?”

Aisi remembered with a shudder. “Yeah. I’ve never seen him do that before. It almost scared me,” she said. “My dad is always like the gentle giant, you know? He’s a teddy bear. And his eyes are amazing. Nobody else has silver eyes like his. When they got red, it almost made me think he was like a demon or something.”

Vance shook his head. “I think he’s a Watcher.”

“What’s that?”

“According to some ancient texts, the Watchers were sent from heaven to guard the earth from evil,” Vance explained, making the turn to an even darker and more desolate road. “They didn’t do their duty, though. They defiled themselves with women, and because they broke their promise to God, they’ll have no peace in this life and no forgiveness in the next. They and their offspring are not part of God’s creation, so they have no place in the world and will eventually be destroyed.”

“I have a huge problem with this theory,” Aisi said icily after a long moment of stony silence.

“Why?” he asked absentmindedly, squinting into the dark as he tried to follow the faded yellow stripes and stay on his side of the road.

“I would be the offspring,” she pointed out. “And so would my brother. I’d rather not get destroyed, thanks.”

Again, he blushed. “Sorry…I…Just the way his eyes glowed,” he stammered. “In my book it said to look for a humanoid with eyes that could glow like torches. It said that only a few were not banished to the depths of darkness, so the chances of meeting one were pretty slim.”

“So basically I’m a hybrid freak?” Aisi demanded. “That’s your theory? My dad is a damned creation and I have no place on this earth? You really stink at a little thing I like to call tact.”

“Aisi, I’m sorry,” Vance repeated. “I’m just a freshman. I could be totally wrong.”

“A girl can dream,” she spat out. She looked away. Her arms and legs were folded tight as she leaned her head against the cold window. The chill against the window calmed the hot headache starting to scorch her mind. Splatters of rain drew long, wet lines outside on the window as they drove.

He looked sidelong in her direction with an annoyed expression. “You’re not a nice person, you know that?”

She closed her eyes. “I know. I’m sorry. I just…” Her voice trailed off as she tried to collect her thoughts. “I just like to be in control of what’s going on around me, and today I’ve lost it. Like, completely and entirely lost control, and I don’t like that. Normally I’m a very nice person.”