Chapter 32
CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO
SAMANTHA
Phoenix carried me across the house, and up another set of stairs. An open door led to a small apartment. Apparently a frog. Tessa moved away from the doorway to let us through.
The apartment was clean and bright, but there was a dreariness, a heaviness in the air that made it feel thick. I immediately wanted to leave, which was how I knew I couldn’t. Not until I made that feeling go away.
The common room had a kitchenette, a small table that seated four people, a small couch and a TV. Everything was clean and tidy, neutral-colored, and currently occupied by a family of three. A couple and a small boy—maybe three or four years old.
Toys were strewn about the room, and the TV played a popular cartoon about a dog family, but my eyes were stuck on the boy. His cheeks were pale, dark circles under his eyes, and his skin had a little green tinge to it. He was sick, fading, and from the looks on the parents’ faces, they knew something was very wrong with their son. I’d bet good money they had no idea a small demon had its arms around the boy’s neck and a thick, strong, red tie was attached to the boy’s soul.
Cheese and crackers.
The demon wouldn’t have gone when the portal closed because of the tie.
I was exhausted and everything hurt, but I shoved all of it aside as soon as I saw the suffering little boy.
The mom and dad stood at one end of the couch, eyes darting between me and the boy.
Tessa stayed off to the side, and I knew she was there in case I needed anything. I didn’t think I would.
This wasn’t going to take long, but if this was the family from the yellow house, I wanted to make sure none of them had helped Sophia. It was concerning that the boo hag had opened up a second portal. I wasn’t sure how it was possible, but I didn’t know much about that kind of demon. I’d never seen anything like it before tonight.
“Hi, I’m Samantha.” I looked up at Phoenix. “Put me on my feet.”
Phoenix gave me a look that said everything about how much he hated that idea.
“Please.”
He sighed and gently set me on my feet. I stayed leaning against his side, afraid to put any weight on my bad ankle.
The dad cleared his throat. “We saw the commotion outside, and we stayed in here. But we were watching, and…well…when they came into the apartment to check on us, they said…” He pressed his lips together. “We’re hoping that you might be able to help our son. We’re desperate .”
I bet they were. Based on the coloring of the little boy, he didn’t have much time left. “I’d like to ask a few questions before I start. Can you tell me what’s been going on?” My voice was hoarse, and Dastien came through the door and handed something to Tessa.
I spared her a glance as she dumped a packet of powder into a water bottle. Electrolytes. For me.
She crossed the room and handed me the water bottle.
“ Thank you ,” I mouthed to her.
Her brow scrunched as she nodded to me. I knew my best friend. She was torn between wanting me to get looked over and wanting me to help this kid. She waved a finger in a circle. Hurry .
I got it. Both would happen. The little guy was first, though.
“It all started when we heard noises in our house. Not this house. Ours. This is my in-law’s house. We don’t live here. They’re out of town, and it’s…” The man blew out a breath and looked at his wife.
She gave him a nod, but I could see how hard she was gripping his hand. She was shaking, and I wasn’t sure if it was fear or exhaustion or the same desperation her husband had.
“I’m sorry,” the man said. “It’s been a long few weeks, and I have no idea how to start. Or how to tell you any of this without sounding crazy. I’ve questioned my sanity more times than I can count in the last few days.”
I started to hobble over to sit on the armchair next to them, but Phoenix picked me up again, placing me in the chair.
I looked up at him. “I’m okay.”
“You’re not.” He crossed his arms. “Take care of this, and then we’re going to the ER. And you’re not going to fight me on that.”
He wasn’t wrong to insist on it. I probably needed an x-ray of my ankle. I really hoped it wasn’t broken. That would seriously mess with my ability to get back in shape. “Fine. Go over there, though.” I waved to where Dastien and Tessa were standing. “I’m just going to chat with them for a second.”
He bent down, placing a kiss on the top of my head. “I’ll be right there if you need me. Don’t try to get up without my help.”
I gave him a smile and turned to the couple.
They were scared, huddled together, and the demon was hissing at me. It could hiss all it wanted to. I was going to ignore it. For now.
“Sorry about that. He’s protective of me.” I smiled at them. “And I hurt my ankle—among other things—in the commotion outside.” And I was feeling every bit of it. My face burned more and more by the second and talking made it worse. From the looks on my friends’ faces, I was sure I was a mess.
Oh well. Nothing I could do now, but power through.
“Your son is going to be okay. I’m going to help him in a few minutes, once I understand what happened. When I do help him, he’ll be tired and hungry, but he’ll be himself again. You might want to take him to get some IV fluids, but he’ll be fine.” I reached out to the mom, touching her arm, careful not to brush against her skin. “I promise this will be okay.” She took a shuddering breath, and tears welled in her eyes. “You don’t know me, but I wouldn’t say that if I didn’t know it to be absolutely true.” I pulled my hand away as she started to sob.
“Oh, God.” Her voice cracked.
I took a big sip of the ice-cold water. It was salty and sweet and tasted vaguely of watermelon. I usually complained about that, but not today. “It looks—” My voice broke. “Sorry.” I took another sip. “It looks like you’ve had a really hard time lately. Can you tell me about it?” I wanted to know if it was the boo hag who opened the portal, or if there was something else I needed to worry about here. I had to make sure whatever opened these portals was gone for good.
“It’s been horrible. I’ve been so scared and hopeless. I…” She swiped at her tears. “It…I guess it started with noises. Footsteps in the hallways when nothing was there. It was creepy, and honestly, freaked me out. I started to sleep with a nightlight on, and eventually, my son stopped sleeping at night entirely. We’re exhausted—we’ve been exhausted for what feels like forever, but there was this feeling at night that just…I don’t know how else to say it, but it wasn’t good. So, I understood why he wasn’t sleeping. I didn’t force him or fight with him about it. All of us felt it, so we kept the TV on, trying to distract us from that feeling.”
“Not sleeping will weaken you so fast.” Physically, emotionally, and especially, spiritually.
“It does,” the dad said. He had bags under his eyes, and I knew he was probably much younger than he looked right now. Stress did terrible things to a person.
“What happened next?” I didn’t want them to relive their trauma, but I wasn’t going to save this boy just to have another demon come for him.
“Laughing. The laughing started.”
I sat up straighter. I was pretty sure I knew what laugh she was talking about. “What kind of laughing?”
“Whenever our son would get scared, there was this deep laughing that made every hair on my body stand on end,” the dad said. “And I knew we were being watched. We searched for cameras in the house. I even let our housekeeper go. We threw out the baby monitors.” He huffed. “It wasn’t like we needed any of that. We were all sleeping in one bed at night. I turned off the WiFi in the house at night in case there was something happening there. Like a hacker or something. I tried every rational explanation. Nothing helped.”
Nothing rational would explain it when it was supernatural. “Okay. What was the housekeeper’s name?”
“Ana María Castillo.”
I turned to Dastien and gave him the signal to look her up. Just in case.
He nodded and started typing on his phone.
“What made you leave your house and move in here?” I asked them.
The man let out a relieved breath, as if he’d been waiting for me to tell him he’d been imagining it all. But I wasn’t going to do that, and I saw the hope light in his eyes. “A bunch of things started happening.” His voice was stronger and more confident now. “It felt like it was escalating. Stuff started moving around the house. Doors slamming. All kinds of things, but then Braden—sorry. I didn’t say that before. We didn’t introduce ourselves.” He rubbed his hand along his brow. “My son’s name is Braden. I’m Timothy McDaniel. This is my wife, Jessica.”
I gave him a reassuring smile. “I’m Samantha Lopez. Over there are Dastien and Tessa Laurent. And the man who insists on carrying me everywhere is Phoenix, my boyfriend.” I glanced at him in time to see his smile. I left off his last name just in case they were soccer fans. “We’re all here to help you.” I gave Timothy a nod. “We know this has been really traumatic, but the spooky stuff is my jam. I came here from Texas to help with what we fought outside. I’m really good at my job. I just want to make sure when I fix Braden, I’m fixing him for good. Okay?”
Big, fat tears rolled down Jessica’s face. “Okay. Yes. Whatever you need.” She looked at Timothy.
“He got sick—he wasn’t eating,” Timothy said. “He was throwing up and crying in pain. Except the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with him. He was just slowly wasting away, and with the stress of trying to figure out what was going on, and the house…we ended up moving in here with Jessica’s parents. We just needed a break.”
“And you usually live in a two-story yellow house? Nice porch. White accents. Pretty flowers in the front and a big tree just a few minutes from here.”
Jessica narrowed her gaze and looked at Timothy before turning to me again. “We do. How could you possibly know that?”
“I’ll get back to that. I need a few more answers so I can connect some dots in my mind, and then I’ll help your son. Okay?”
Timothy gripped her hand and nodded. “Anything. Anything you need to know. I just want answers. Something that makes sense.”
That might not happen. “I’m not sure it’ll make sense in a normal way. You’re dealing with the supernatural here, but I know what’s going on for sure. I’m just wondering what started it.” I took a sip of water as my voice started to give out. “Did you have someone in your house regularly aside from the housekeeper that you fired? A nanny? Babysitter? A friend that visited a lot? Anyone who spent time in the house could’ve done what I saw there. I have to make sure I find the right person and keep them from doing it again.” Keeping a portal open like that was hard to do. It would’ve taken preparation. And whoever had created that portal also opened the smaller one here.
It wasn’t the parents. I had zero doubts about that. They were way too freaked out by this whole thing, not to mention upset about how sick their son was.
But if boo hag Sophia had worked with someone else, I needed to know. Maybe it was the housekeeper, but it could’ve been someone else. Or it could’ve just been Sophia.
“A nanny. Braden has a nanny, Sophia. Or he had one. We finally fired her this week.”
That meant the nanny had been in both houses.
“Did your housekeeper or anyone that regularly visited your house come to this house?”
Jessica shook her head. “No. Just Sophia. And she only came here a few times.”
That was a relief. I didn’t have to worry about tracking down anyone else. Which simplified things. It had to be the boo hag. “Did Sophia change recently? Did you notice anything different?” I took a sip of water. All this talking was hard on my throat, but I had to push through it.
“Yes. Her roommate disappeared and was declared dead. Sophia got…weird is the best way I can describe it. At first, we blamed her weirdness on the grief. It can do strange things to people, but then we were so distracted by everything in the house we just let her stay. When we moved here, we didn’t need her as much. And then we started to notice things were worse after she was here. So, we fired her. Even if we felt crazy for it. We didn’t have a legitimate reason to fire her, but she just…wasn’t right anymore.”
“You made a very good call. You should always trust your gut, even if it doesn’t always make immediate sense. The Spirit works in us that way. Just a feeling or a thought guiding you. So, don’t feel bad at all about listening to that voice in your soul.”
“Wait. She really was the problem? Did we make a mistake by letting her stay?” Timothy’s gaze darted around all of us.
“You didn’t make a mistake. This isn’t your fault. Sophia changed and opened a doorway into the supernatural. The thing plaguing your son is supernatural,” I said to Timothy and Jessica. “I’m going to tell you plainly what it is, and if you have questions, you can ask at any time.”
They both nodded their agreement.
“Sophia opened a portal in your attic and another smaller one in this house.”
“A what?” Jessica’s mouth dropped open. “What does that even mean? A portal to where ?”
“To Hell.”
Her reaction—a gasp, paling skin, open mouth—confirmed my assumption that it wasn’t them. There was no way they’d done anything supernatural, let alone Satanic, in their house. They didn’t help Sophia, either.
“Do you know what a boo hag is?” I asked.
Jessica laughed. “You have to be kidding. That’s not a real thi…” She trailed off when she noticed I wasn’t laughing. “You’re not joking?”
“No. I’m not joking, but it won’t be bothering you again. At some point, Sophia was taken over by a boo hag, who opened portals to Hell that let demons into your yellow house, and another portal that let demons into this house.” Their eyes grew wide. “I closed both portals, but there’s a lingering demon.” I handed my water to Tessa, then focused on Braden. “And it’s time to send it back where it belongs.”
“Wait.” Timothy scooted forward on the couch. “You’re saying my son is what? Possessed?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“Do we need a priest or what?” Jessica asked.
“Nope. I’m going to fix it for you. Can I have your son’s full name?” My voice was getting raspier by the second, but this wouldn’t take long. I was almost done, and then I could rest.
“Braden Michael McDaniel,” Timothy answered without hesitation.
I gave Jessica a smile. “Good, solid name.”
She laughed softly. “Yeah. I guess. Will you please help my baby?”
“I’d be happy to.” I limped over to the couch—waving Phoenix away when he came after me—and I grasped the bright red tie, ignoring the demon that hissed at me. It was a lesser one, and now that I’d closed the portal, it was weak.
If this had only been going on a couple of weeks, it hadn’t gained enough strength to withstand the pull of the portal without paying a steep cost. I wasn’t sure if it had been bigger before this, but now it was just the size of a kitten.
I burned the tie to nothing. “In the name of Jesus—” The demon started to scream as I spoke. “I cast you out and away from His servant, Braden Michael McDaniel. The door to his soul is closed, and you will never return.” I pointed to the floor. “ Aperta .”
The demon screamed louder now, but I refused to even acknowledge it. I gripped its hands, pulled it, and then threw it at the portal. “ Claudare .”
Braden gasped and started crying, calling for his mom, climbing onto her lap like a little monkey. She cuddled him, rocking back and forth on the couch, patting his back, whispering that everything was okay, and from the glimpse I got of his face, Braden’s color was back.
She wasn’t wrong. Everything was going to be very okay for Braden.
Good. This was really, truly good .
I wished I’d gotten a power boost from that, but it was a tiny demon, and I was so hurt. If I felt a lift, I couldn’t tell. I was left with almost no energy, so I spit the rest out as quickly as I could. “Braden will be fine now, and all the portals are closed. Your house and this one have been cleared of all the demons that were haunting it. If you want, you can have it blessed by a priest or a pastor. However, it does look like the boo hag did some damage to your house. It’s a bit of a mess. But it should be okay to live in again, as long as you feel comfortable with it.”
“I don’t know if we can go back there. I…” Timothy swallowed as he stared at me with wide eyes. “This is almost too crazy to believe. It feels so surreal, except it happened.”
“You can sell your house and leave this awful chapter of your life closed. I wouldn’t blame you, and the house is clear. So, don’t worry about whoever moves in there next.”
“And Braden is fine? The demon that had him won’t come back?” Jessica cuddled her son to her, running her hand up and down his back even as his crying lessened.
“It won’t come back. Braden’s fine. He’ll need to eat. Build up his strength. As I said before, an IV might not be a bad idea if he hasn’t been keeping fluids down, but that’s between you and your doctor.” I studied the exhausted parents. “Think about going to church, okay? It’ll help all of you. The supernatural realm is real, and you need to strengthen your spiritual armor. Especially now that you’ve had this experience. You’ll be sensitive to the other realm.”
They nodded. “Anything,” Jessica said. “We’ll do anything.”
She said that now, but she might change her mind. That was up to her. “I’ll have Tessa give you my card. If you have questions or something comes up, call me. I’m happy to talk to you or give advice. And if anything starts happening again, definitely call me right away. Okay?”
“Thank you,” Jessica said. “We are so thankful you were here. That you came. I can’t—” Her voice broke, but she didn’t need to say more.
“Don’t worry. It’s what I do.” I looked back at my friends. “It’s what we do.” I tugged on my ear, and Tessa nudged Phoenix.
I was grateful as he took the few steps to close the distance and swept me into his arms. There was no way I could get up again. Now that this was done, I was done.
“We’ll let you guys get some rest,” Phoenix said as he turned toward the door.
“We have a care team to help if that would be of use.” Tessa kept talking, but the world was graying out.
I rested my head back against Phoenix’s arms. “Passing out, now,” I whispered to Phoenix as my eyelids grew heavy. “I want to go home, please.”
“Okay, babe.” I felt us going downstairs. “Dastien told me the doc is waiting with the SUV. Just rest. I got you.”
I let the darkness slowly take me, knowing I was safe.
Everyone was safe.
I’d done a good job, and now I just wanted to sleep.
And go home. To my own bed. My new bed with its mountain of pillows and my lovely new butter soft, warm duvet.
I needed the Sanctuary.
And Phoenix.
“You got me, babe. I’m not going anywhere.”
“That’s good.” I could feel his warmth and the sound of his heart, and I fell into a blissful sleep.