Chapter Six
Six
He can’t be serious. “Don’t mock me.”
“I wish I was.” Luke sighs. “Just like demons and monsters and every other source of mayhem imaginable, it’s a real place. And Beliar disappearing just confirmed that’s where he’s hiding Krystal and the others. At his estate. In hell.”
“How’d you jump to that conclusion?”
Luke leans against the side of my car, closing his eyes and tilting his head toward the gloom-covered sun. “Here I thought your incessant questions were just a sign of an inquisitive employee.”
“Or an inquisitive co-rescuer.”
His eyes spring open. “That, you are not. Go. Home.”
He tries to open my car door for me, but unlike the other day, it’s locked.
“I can’t,” I say.
“You can’t what?”
“Go home.” I’m mortified by the sudden presence of a lump obstructing my airway.
“I mean, yeah, I can go back to my six-hundred-square-foot apartment. But that’s not home.
It’s never going to be home. I’m never going to have a home again.
It’s a feeling I wouldn’t wish on anybody, but especially not on two little girls who need their mom.
Both of them. I’m sorry if I’m annoying or insistent or messing up whatever plan you thought you had.
But you and I apparently have something in common besides working under the same roof—no one would miss us if we didn’t come back.
The least we can do is make sure the people who do have that luxury actually have a chance. ”
“What makes you think I have no one who would miss me?” he asks, gaze softening as he searches my tear-glossed eyes.
I want to rip mine away, but I don’t. “Because you’ve worked at Curated Care for almost a month and no one knows a thing about you. You’re polite but detached. Mysterious and aloof. Trust me, I know because—”
I cut myself off, breathing hard. He cocks a brow, analyzing me. “Because?”
“Because I did it first. I’ve been doing it since before you even got here. So you’re not fooling me with whatever act you put up in the office. I see through it now, and I see through you.”
He flinches, as if the words are accompanied by a slap.
“I’m owed answers. Real ones,” I continue. “So let’s start at the top: How do you know how to get to hell and that it’s real? What are you?”
He frowns. “Same as you. Deeply unmissable. And human.”
I bite back a cackle. I haven’t felt human since the night my parents died. More like I’m a husk of a person getting moved about by a puppeteer.
“Sure. Because all humans know to burn sulfur to draw out demons and how to perform exorcisms and where to find hell.”
“I’m a human with a special selection of skills,” he amends.
“Bullshit.”
The swear takes him off guard. His carefully construed mask fractures and his gaze drops to my mouth, as if willing my lips to retrace the word. I like the slip more than I should. I want to crack his shell and make a mosaic with the pieces.
I press my pointer finger into his very firm chest. “You have books on monsters and demons. You live on the outskirts of town. You’re willing to go to a place you might not come back from. Those aren’t things that define a regular human. Those are only things that…”
I trail off, feeling too silly to spit out the words. He lifts a thick dark brow, pushing off of my car to close the gap between us. My elbow hinges from the sudden proximity and my pointed finger turns flat so my palm is pressed to his thin shirt, feeling his racing heart beneath.
“Only things that what?” he goads me. “Come on, Brie. Don’t get shy now.”
The smooth tenor of his voice shoots sparks through me. I ignore them, forcing out the only words that make sense. “You’re a monster hunter.”
“If I was, would you be scared of me?”
I’m already a little scared of him, though probably not in the way I should be.
“I’m not scared of much these days,” I say.
“Just the dark?”
It’s a swift jab, whether he knows it or not. I step back to put distance between us, removing my hand from his chest so I can cross my arms. “What makes you say that?”
“You won’t drive after the sun sets,” he comments. “I’d be a bad colleague if I never noticed.”
He doesn’t ask where the fear comes from and I’m not about to tell him. “Seems like maybe I’m right to be afraid of what’s in the dark.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. The worst of them have no problem walking in the light.”
“So you are a monster hunter.”
He leans back as if the words came out hot and heady, and not in a breathy whisper. “For the record, I’m supposed to be retired.”
A laugh shoots out of me, my suppressed nerves making it too bright. “A retired monster hunter. Forgive me. Is your eight-to-four as a big-time boss so you don’t melt into the couch watching soaps?”
“Big-time boss? You vastly overestimate my role.”
“Answer the question.”
“Believe it or not, monster hunting doesn’t exactly pay the bills. I’m there for the same reason you are—to get a paycheck.”
“Why’d you retire? You’re not exactly pushing sixty.”
“Because it’s dangerous.” His words are a scythe slicing through the autumn air.
He takes a deep breath, forcing calm into his tone.
“This isn’t a game, Brie. I know how to get to hell because I’ve been there before.
I’ve spent my whole life studying the things that lurk there and training to fight them.
But everything’s different there. When I tell you to drop this and go about your life, I’m not being kind.
I’m being serious. Generous, even. There’s a very real possibility I will not come back, and if I’m right that Krystal is there, her chance of returning grows slimmer by the hour. All you’re doing is holding me up.”
“I don’t think it’s a game,” I say. But I have nothing else. I’ve given every argument I’ve got.
“I’m leaving tonight,” he says with an air of finality. “And you’re not coming with me.”
· · ·
When I return to my apartment, it’s hard to believe it’s only early afternoon. I trudge up the three sets of stairs and toss my keys onto the coffee table once I’m inside. A quick glance at my phone shows no new messages from Amelia.
My anger at Luke seeped out on the drive back. Helplessness replaces it, like a blanket wrapping tighter and tighter around me until I can’t breathe. I have to do something. Lying on the couch and rotting isn’t an option anymore.
In the stark light of the afternoon, it’s obvious how far I’ve let the place go.
I start in the kitchen, chucking rancid take-out containers out by the handful.
By the time I’m done, the fridge looks like it belongs to a college boy living on his own for the first time.
Nothing but yogurt and cheese sticks and condiments.
I wipe down the counter surrounding the sink, getting into a groove.
Maybe I don’t need to go with Luke and I can help from here.
Besides, Luke could be wrong. Maybe this is a normal kidnapping.
A serial kidnapping. I’ve listened to enough true-crime podcasts to know that it wouldn’t be the craziest thing to happen in a weird small town.
A demon taking sacrifices to hell, on the other hand—
It’s unbelievable. Improbable. Which leads me back to square one, wondering if this is all an elaborate hoax construed by Luke to throw me off his trail as the real perpetrator.
Once the kitchen is cleaner than the day I moved in, I strip the sheets off my unmade bed.
I have no idea when I last washed them, but from the way my room has a lingering scent that’s not exactly suppressed by the Bath & Body Works spray I spritz myself with every morning, I know it’s been far too long.
Arms full of linens, I pause, facing the dresser. My top drawer is open. The underwear drawer.
A chill tingles up my spine. I never leave my drawers open.
I drop the sheets on the floor, stepping over them to peer into the drawer. Past Me’s type-A tendencies have fallen away, and I’ve never regretted it as much as now. I have no idea if anything’s missing. It’s as messy as it is every day.
Maybe I forgot. I haven’t been Past Me for months. I never used to keep food so long it grows fuzzy friends, or the blanket on the living room couch in a heap. Clearly, more than closing my drawers has fallen to the wayside. This is no cause for concern.
A breeze makes me shiver. The window for the fire escape is open. I’m positive I left it locked. I don’t open it because it doesn’t have a screen, something I’ve been bugging management about.
I move to close it, but what’s on the sill makes me pause. What used to be on the sill.
The iodized salt I trailed in a neat line over the weekend is now only a few scattered crystals.
The hair on the back of my neck rises as the distinct feeling that someone’s been here washes over me. Maybe not someone. Something.
I snap pictures of the open, screenless window with its broken salt line and my underwear drawer.
Shuffling to my work email, I pull up the most recent one from Luke.
At the bottom is his signature with not only his office phone number, but also his cell, because he’s just that kind of stand-up guy.
Personally, I’d rather get carted off to hell than give everyone at Curated Care direct access to me outside of work hours.
His mistake, not mine. I type his number into a new text thread, then attach the two pictures and write: Does Beliar have a penchant for stealing women’s underwear?
My thumb hesitates over the send button.
Sending someone I share a printer with a picture of my underwear drawer feels like crossing an HR line I can’t return from.
Not to mention the mess of it, with granny panties and thongs and hipsters all battling for center-stage dominance.
Maybe he’s already halfway to hell. I don’t know how long it takes to get there, or what the cell reception is like.
Another breeze slips through the open window. The cool air brings the severity of my situation to the forefront. If it really was Beliar, maybe this is his way of marking me. I wish I had asked Krystal if anything strange was happening to her. There might have been a sign we missed.
I hit send.
Only a few seconds later, my phone buzzes with a response.
Address?
And then, before I can reply:
Stay where you are. Don’t open the door for anyone.
I want to make a joke about him being a double-texter, but my hands shake too badly to type more than my address and hit send. Luke responds with the thumbs-up emoji.
I stuff my sheets in the washer because what else am I supposed to do with myself while waiting for a demon to abduct me? Twenty minutes later, my door buzzes. Luke made it in record time. I hold down the intercom.
“Hello?” I ask.
“It’s me.” Luke’s voice is gruff. “Let me in.”
“Sorry, I was given strict orders to not let anyone in.”
I wait for a responding quip, but nothing comes. “Hello? Can you hear me?” Still nothing. “I was just kidding. I’m on the third floor, apartment 307.”
I hold the unlock button for a few long drags, giving him enough time to slip through. I release the button and turn around.
Only to stuff down a scream. A head emerges through my still-open bedroom window. Luke steps in, and the ease of his entrance makes a fresh bout of dread flush through me. If Beliar really was trying to get to me, it’s not like it’s hard.
“I let you in downstairs,” I tell him as he inspects the sill before going to my dresser.
Seeing him in my messy room with my dunes of discarded clothing feels like one of those weird dreams where you present to the class only to realize you’re in your underwear.
Except I’m fully awake and this is more like a nightmare.
“Beliar shouldn’t have been able to cross the salt line, right?” I ask, needing to fill the empty air.
“Greater demons play by greater rules. The same things don’t always apply,” Luke says, seemingly unfazed as he inspects my still-open underwear drawer. “Is anything missing?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. My meager cleaning spree hardly made a dent. Opposed to Luke’s tidy home, mine looks like a hurricane tore through it. Before the drop-by demon. “That’s my clean underwear. Wouldn’t he take something from my hamper?”
“Not exactly.” Luke closes my drawer and leans against my dresser. “Fresh laundry still carries your scent. But maybe this isn’t Beliar. Have any unrequited lovers whose hearts you’ve broken?”
“Not exactly,” I echo him.
“Stalkers? Angry exes?” he pushes with a raised brow.
My ex-fiancé and his flurry of unanswered texts come to mind, a flash of a life I once thought would be my forever. I broke things off after being together for nearly six years. He wasn’t just angry—he was furious. In his words, I wasted both of our time.
Despite that, I know he’s not behind this.
I open my mouth to say so, but a knock on the door cuts me off.
“Are you expecting someone?” he asks.
“No. But sometimes my neighbor locks himself out and needs to use my phone to call his partner to come home and let him in.”
I make my way to the door and undo the chain before reaching for the dead bolt.
“Wait,” Luke says, standing in the doorway to my room. “I don’t think—”
“Brie? Are you there?”
My blood turns to ice at the voice coming from the other side of the door. Luke’s voice.
“Do not open that door.”
My gaze snaps to the Luke standing in my living room. His eyes are wide and his hands are up in a universal Don’t shoot gesture.
“You got here very fast.” I thought he was racing because he was worried about me, but now I realize how ridiculous that is.
“I like to speed. It’s a problem.”
“Brie?” Luke’s voice comes from the other side of the door. “Let me in!”
“I guess greater demons can also shapeshift, huh?” I shakily ask the Luke in front of me.
“Many demons can,” he replies, keeping a careful distance between us. “I swear—”
“You know what should have been the biggest flag?” The door at my back starts shaking from a fist pounding against the other side. I keep my eyes on the Luke in my living room. “You knew exactly what fire escape led to my bedroom window. Almost like you’ve been here before.”
Luke’s shaking his head. “I—”
“Save it, Beliar,” I snarl, unlocking the dead bolt and ripping the door open.