Chapter Twenty-One Linda
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LINDA
She opened her eyes, startled. She couldn’t breathe.
A panel of bright LED lights shone in her face.
Soothing sky-blue walls. Monitors. IV bag.
A synthetic floral scent that tickled her nose…
rose air freshener? She was in a hospital room.
Because… because of the crash. The sedan had crashed.
She thought of Imani, wondered if somehow someone had the wherewithal to transport Linda to New Rochelle so she could be with her girl. A relief.
As lovely as that would’ve been, lucidity arrived and shoved relief aside. No, such a thing wouldn’t have been possible, Linda realized.
She tried to lift herself up and was hit by a wave of nausea.
“Thank goodness!” Maxine dashed over from where she sat, stopped, and gave her boss the gentlest of hugs, as if frightened that too much force would break her in two.
“Where… where am I?” Linda asked. She felt chilly though she was mostly under the covers.
“MedStar Georgetown,” Maxine said. “They brought you into ER last night then placed you in a proper room once you were stabilized.”
Gratitude settled into Linda’s bones. At that moment, in her groggy oblivion, Linda realized that Maxine was the only person in the world she’d come to fully trust and believe she could count on. But the other person standing by was a surprise.
“Thank the orishas,” Fonsi muttered as he approached her bed. “I was… we were scared…”
“What are you doing here?” she asked, staring hard at Fonsi. Her voice a hoarse, ragged thing.
“I took another early-morning train,” he said.
Fonsi’s denim knapsack lay in a nearby chair.
She was sure the bag held El Gran Libro.
“I couldn’t reach you, kept trying you last night.
I thought maybe you weren’t picking up because it was so late.
But this morning, when I still couldn’t reach you, I tried Maxine’s number.
She told me you’d been in an accident. Got here fast as I could. ”
Linda was once again taken aback by Fonsi’s kindness.
“That was… nice of you. But it wasn’t an accident.
I was attacked.” Everything came rushing back in an instant.
When she reached out with her empathy to see what was going on in Rayo’s place.
And then the apparition… She remembered it all. And she was fuckin’ mad.
The shadow thing that she had touched with her mind. Its foulness, unspeakably rank. Like it wanted to consume everything that was precious, exult in its vileness. As soon as her mind had entered Rayo’s, it had known she was there. Had attacked almost instinctively, like it was waiting.
As was her way, Linda assessed the situation and recalled as much as she could.
“I hit somebody. A dude, right? I was blinded, couldn’t control my car. And Maxine, if you’re here, where’s Clea? She’s at school?”
“The man you hit, he’s okay,” Maxine replied.
“Rather, he’s banged up good, to be honest, but he’ll survive.
Your sedan, on the other hand, RIP to the ole girl.
Miracle you weren’t more badly hurt. Clea’s with our neighbor, Mrs. Bryant.
It’s Saturday, no school. They have the same horrid Pony sensibilities, so it’s heaven for my little one.
I wasn’t going to let you lie here by yourself, Linda, once I heard you were in hospital.
The ER attendant called me last night, as I’m listed as your primary emergency contact.
They moved you to a proper bed soon after I arrived.
I… I didn’t call your father. I knew you wouldn’t want that. ”
Right. If Linda had enough confidence that she could rise without keeling over, she would’ve jumped up and smooched Maxine. The woman epitomized what it meant to have smarts, operate with common sense. She needed to get to the agency, have access to her equipment, to her computer and files.
Okay, then, let’s try this once again. Linda shifted slightly to the side of the bed to get up. Her head swam. She thought she might hurl.
Maxine leaned in once again and put her arm around Linda’s shoulder. “I’m going to call your doctor. She needs to know you’ve woken up.”
“No,” Linda said. “No, I need to understand what happened, get a full recap of what’s gone down since I’ve been unconscious. If there’s a doctor or nurse here, we can’t talk freely.”
“Fonsi and I have been trying to put two and two together,” Maxine said, glancing over at the door to the room.
“I’ve been in contact with Elton. I spoke to him briefly, and we’ve been texting back and forth.
They’ve arrested Rayo—for what, I’m not sure.
Even Elton had to agree that it wasn’t a coincidence you had a car crash just blocks away from where Rayo lives.
That something is off.” Maxine paused and took a deep breath.
She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around her torso.
Her tell when she was overwhelmed. “Multiple residents in Georgetown said they spotted some sort of shadowy thing flitting overhead. Apparently, members of the community haven’t really experienced demon eyes on a significant level despite all the hysteria, so it’s freaking them out.
A couple of people even reported seeing the blasted thing attack your car.
Reports are all over the news, as you can imagine, but nothing was captured on video. Everything happened too fast.”
“That entity that came after you, I think I know what it is,” Fonsi said. “It’s why I called you last night, Linda. I believe you encountered a dorlis.”
His voice became serious, grave. The tone he took when he was dropping dangerous knowledge about the supernatural, she suspected.
“It’s a type of spirit that most prominently appeared in the Caribbean in the nineteenth century, has popped up here and there over the years but then faded into obscurity.
The Guardianes, via El Gran Libro”—he gestured over to his knapsack—“they’ve kept a record of the entity’s manifestations. ”
“So we are dealing with a spirit, then?” Linda asked as she tried to ignore how her body ached.
“Yes, but not a standard ghost. It’s a type of entity that’s more along the lines of what Europeans call a succubus.
A dorlis’s primary objectives are to feast on human desire, on the experiences that make people happy, that they find pleasurable, which is why so many of the Afflicted have been losing their memory.
The more a dorlis feasts, the longer it feasts…
whether it’s via one victim or many, the more it increases its power so that in can manifest in the human world.
“I’ve been going over passages in El Gran Libro nonstop,” he continued, “reaching out to elder Guardianes just to make sure I’m not crazy.
According to our lore, a dorlis will do everything it can to manifest, to exist on the earthly plane that it’s been denied.
Remember what we discussed after we visited Pastor Samuelson’s home?
The dorlis is a type of degraded spirit.
That shadow thing that attacked you, I believe it’s a dorlis that was able to manifest as the result of feasting on its victims.”
“So the dorlis… it’s clearly connected to Rayo, right?” Linda asked. She already knew the answer.
Fonsi nodded. His face, enveloped by sadness.
“I… I think so.” He pulled out his phone to show the first image of the amulet Linda had sent to him.
“What we found in Pastor Samuelson’s home, I’m pretty sure that it’s an interface for the dorlis.
That the spirit has been using the amulet to feast on its victims. And Rayo is the primary interface. ”
“I’m not sure… I don’t understand.”
“Right,” Maxine said. “Fonsi’s been explaining things to me while we were sitting here, before you woke up.
” She spoke slowly. “The amulet you discovered in Pastor Samuelson’s place, it’s a replica of the original amulet that Rayo’s been wearing.
The purpose of such replicas is to allow the…
this dorlis to have access to as many people as possible, to draw power into the primary interface possessed by Rayo.
Think of it like a circuit.” She looked to Fonsi. “Am I getting it right?”
“You sure are,” he said. “Eons ago, one of the dorlis realized that it wasn’t effective to rely on one enchanted amulet in which to siphon energy from its victims. It could feast on its victim’s dreams and desires, the things that make someone happy, yes, but it could never siphon enough juice to fully manifest in the human realm, which is its ultimate goal.
The creature deduced that replicas linked to the original amulet could be effective in drawing the energy it needs to materialize.
It’s a case of one entity figuring out how to feast on the souls of many by creating permanent links to its victims.”
“Fonsi, the amulets—when you say the dorlis feasts on desire, what exactly does that mean?” Maxine asked. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around that.”
“The dorlis is an entity that’s only interested in desire, to feed itself,” he responded.
“It will seek out those who are yearning for something, needing change. Or maybe those enraptured by deep, passionate love. It takes these things, these emotions and experiences that are so regular, so human, and feasts on them for its own twisted ends. The red eyes that we’ve seen among the Afflicted, the overheating, the blistering skin…
external signs of the dorlis’s presence.
There are plenty of people who’ve probably had exposure to the interfaces but haven’t succumbed to the entity’s feasting.
If there’s nothing for the spirit to devour, like maybe someone’s in an emotionally numb place…
no matter how often they’ve been in contact with the amulet replicas, I don’t think there’s much chance of them becoming Afflicted. ”