Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
DANIEL
There are worse things in life than driving along country roads on a gorgeous summer afternoon with one of my closest friends beside me.
Okay, so our reasons for said driving aren’t the best, but it could be worse. We could be actively fleeing from a demon attack. Fingers crossed that doesn’t happen.
I’m feeling much better now than I did this morning.
Oddly, telling sunscreen woman that I wasn’t going to take any more questions from her until she learned to wait her turn really helped to dispel all my irritation.
And the grateful expressions from the rest of the group, who’d all been talked over and interrupted by her, made me feel good about it.
Though I’m sorry Kieran had to deal with her.
The first thing Skye did when we got in the car was demand I tell him what happened, and then, as we began our search, he filled me in on her rant to Kieran. He’s been chatting away like normal, but I’m getting this creeping feeling that something’s not right.
I glance over to where he’s lapsed into silence and is staring through the windscreen, lips pressed together.
That means he’s thinking about not-nice things.
The last time I saw his lips all mashed into a line like that, we were waiting for my doctor to tell me how bad the nerve damage in my hands was.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, breaking the quiet, and he starts. Another sign something’s not right.
“Nothing.”
“Skye…” I draw his name out.
“No, really. I… There’s a lot of shit happening right now.”
Can’t deny that, but I still feel like he’s keeping a secret. “Ask me if you need anything, okay? Don’t make me guess. You know I’m not that bright.”
I’m trying to tease a laugh from him, but instead I piss him off. “Stop saying crap like that! You’re not dumb.”
Taken aback, I sneak another look at him. He’s frowning now. “I know. Sorry, it was meant to be a joke. I don’t think I’m dumb.” I mean, I’m no rocket scientist, but my intelligence is well within the average bracket.
He sighs. “I didn’t mean to yell. I guess I’m stressed out by… everything.” He hesitates. “I hope I didn’t, um… make an idiot of myself last night.”
It’s my turn to frown. How could he have made an idiot of himself? “What do you mean?”
“When I—I unloaded a lot of crap.”
I think he might have been about to say something different, but he sounds so miserable right now that I don’t want to push it by asking. “You definitely weren’t an idiot. And what are friends for if not to unload crap to? Anyway, if you remember, I asked.”
“Yeah, but— Slow down!”
I lift my foot from the accelerator, checking the rearview mirror as I do. Nobody behind us, thankfully, which means we can crawl along if we have to.
“Spirit?” I ask, and Skye nods, his curtain of rainbow hair swinging.
“Ahead and to the left. Is that a road?” He points. “Turn there. And just shush for a second while I try to reach out to it.”
Obediently, I zip my lips and turn where he indicated. We bump along the dirt road for a while, and then he motions for me to stop. As soon as the car isn’t moving, his seat belt is off and he’s out.
I turn off the engine and hesitate. I don’t want to distract him or scare off the spirit—do spirits get scared off by people?—but I also don’t like the idea of him being out there alone. What if this spirit is willingly associated with the higher demons and tries to attack?
Not that there’s much I can do against a being I can’t see, hear, touch, or sense in any way.
Feeling completely useless, I get out of the car and lean against it, keeping an eye on him where he’s standing about fifteen feet away. At least this way, if it looks like he’s in trouble, it’ll take me less time to get to him.
There are birds chirping away somewhere nearby, and the sun is beating down hotly, making me glad I reapplied sunscreen when I changed.
Skye’s talking in a soft voice—I can’t hear the individual words, but nothing about his tone seems upset.
It’s so weird to see him just standing there talking to nobody, though.
I’ve seen Josh and Connor and Gabe do it with the ghosts, but never Skye.
After about ten minutes, he nods and looks over his shoulder at me. “Dan, which way is the estate?”
I blink. Not what I was expecting him to say. “Uh…” I point west. “That way. About twenty miles as the crow flies,” I add, just in case that matters.
The grateful smile Skye gives me seems to show it does, and he turns back to the spirit and says something else, then comes to join me.
“Okay, let’s go.”
He doesn’t speak as we get back in the car, nor as I start it and make a three-point turn.
I’m still waiting for him to break the silence when we pull off the bumpy dirt road and onto the slightly less bumpy asphalt one.
Curiosity is eating me up, but I’m sure he has a reason for not talking.
Maybe the spirit is following along, trying to eavesdrop? Should I attempt some evasive driving?
Although since I can’t see or hear the thing I’d be trying to evade, not to mention I don’t know what it’s capable of, that probably won’t achieve much.
Finally, Skye sighs. “Sorry, I was just thinking.”
“About…?”
“It didn’t seem to know anything about the hidden gateway or attack plans—if that’s even what the adiut was warning us about.”
That distracts me. “You don’t think they’re planning an attack? What else could it have wanted to warn you about?”
He shrugs. “Global warming? Maybe the demons are all sitting back on their asses, waiting for us to slowly kill ourselves and the planet off so they can pick over the leftovers.”
“Wowwwwww. Happy thoughts, much?” I take my eyes off the road to look at him.
“I mean,” he continues, “maybe it would be better if the demons came and killed us all relatively quickly in some kind of worldwide war for supremacy, rather than us broiling ourselves over the next hundred years or so.”
I slow the car and check the mirror, preparing to make a U-turn.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Taking you to wherever Connor and Gabe are so they can exorcise the spirit that’s clearly possessing you.” I’m only half joking. Skye has his gloomy moments the same as everyone else, but this seems gloomier than normal.
To my relief, he laughs. “All right, I’ll back off the doomsday talk.”
There’s still nobody behind us, so I hesitate a moment longer. “Do you really think we’d be better off if the demons invaded?”
He shakes his head, the sunlight catching on the pretty colors. “No. I was just being defeatist. We still have time to mitigate the damage being done to the environment. If the demons come… well, from what I’ve heard, we won’t have a chance.”
Reassured, I put my foot on the accelerator again. “Okay, so the spirit didn’t know anything about an attack,” I prompt.
“Nope. From what it said, it’s been here for a while.
Decades, even. Its sense of direction wasn’t that great, but I think it came through a gateway on the East Coast. I got some details—it’s an itiner spirit—so maybe Gabe can talk to his gatekeeper network and find out, if it turns out to be necessary.
It said it would look for the hidden gateway for us, since it’s basically just on a long vacation, and asked if it could come and talk to me again. ”
“Which is why you gave it directions. I’m glad you pointed it to the estate and not your place.”
“Well… I was going to, but I’m staying at the estate now, so it would be dumb to send it to town. Plus, Gabe’s at the estate, and if it turns out this spirit was a very good liar and plans to hunt me down with an attack team, he can help.”
My hands tighten slightly on the wheel, the scars standing out more than usual. An attack team would be bad.
“Anyway, mostly I asked it for background on the spirit world. Gabe gave me a list of some things we don’t know that would be helpful, like who currently is in charge of the higher demons and what they’re like.
I’m not sure how relevant this spirit’s information is, since it’s been here for so long, but everything helps, right? ”
“Right,” I agree. I have no idea if that’s true, but I’m all about encouragement right now. “So who’s in charge?”
He half turns toward me. “That’s the interesting bit,” he says excitedly. “The higher demon with the most power at the moment uses the name Cato. It—”
“Wait, it uses the name? It’s not its actual name?”
“No. Demons never reveal their true name unless they have to. It gives others too much power over them.”
I slow the car as we approach a T intersection. “How do you even know that? Also, are you getting any vibe on which way to turn?”
He hums and looks in both directions. “Not really. I hope you’re keeping track of where we’ve been and where we’re going, by the way.”
God save me from the directionally challenged. “Yep” is all I say, deciding to turn left. “So, how do you know about demons not telling people their real names?”
“Connor told me. I asked him some questions about summoning circles once, and it came up.”
I snort out a laugh. “Planning to summon a demon, were you?”
“It’s something I considered a time or two as a teenager. Usually right after getting dumped. But then I heard all about how that went wrong for Emma, and I changed my mind.”
We both shudder a little, remembering the young woman who was responsible for summoning the demon that was trapped at the estate for so long. Revenge on an ex is not worth the death of your soul.
“It’s easier just to key their car,” he continues, and I laugh.
“You don’t really do that, do you?” He’s said stuff along those lines a few times, but he’s just kidding, right?
He turns a solemn face to me. “Dan, let me give you the best advice Patrick ever gave me.”
Oh boy. “Go on.”
“Admit nothing.”
This time, he joins my laughter. “You’re an idiot,” I tell him affectionately.
“You’re distracting,” he says, then rushes to add, “I mean, you’re distracting me. From telling you what the spirit said.”
Oh-kay. What did he think I thought he meant? “Yeah. Sorry about that. Where were you?”
He mutters something under his breath, then says, “Names. The name the demon with the most power goes by is Cato. It’s… well, it’s not a nice demon.”
“Aren’t they all not nice? Especially the higher demons? From what Connor said, I wasn’t imagining we could make friends.”
“There are no friends in the otherworld,” Skye declares emphatically, then pauses. “Well, maybe some of the spirits. But not the demons. Some might pretend to be nice, but it’s an act.”
“Look at you, with all the knowledge,” I tease, and he points at me.
“One more interruption and I’m not going to tell you the rest.” He looks like his ferocious kitten self, and I bite back a smile and mime zipping my lips. “Okay. So yes, no demons are nice, but this one is particularly not nice. Like… other higher demons think it’s a creep.”
Yikes.
“The spirit was telling me the higher demons have split into two factions. There’s Cato and his sycophants, who are currently running the place, and then there’s this other group.
They’re not in direct opposition or anything—or at least they weren’t when the spirit was last there—but they mostly do their own thing and think Cato is a blowhard who kills spirits and lesser demons needlessly. ”
I scratch my cheek, then raise my hand.
“I hate you,” he says. “What?”
“Love you too. Are we sure this faction is the enemy? I mean, if they think this Cato demon is too violent and mean—”
“No, it’s not that,” he interrupts. “They don’t care that it brutalizes and tortures. Their objection is that killing off spirits and lesser demons leaves fewer of them to enslave and torture themselves.”
“Ah. Not our kind of people, then.” I rub my index finger back and forth against the wheel, feeling the raised texture of the scar there. Probably a good idea to remember what even lesser demons are capable of.
“Believe me, when it mentioned a faction, that was the first thing I asked. It looked at me like I’m stupid.”
That distracts me. “It has a face? And expressions.”
He hesitates. “No. Not really. More that I get a sense from it. I don’t know how to describe it.”
Okay. Sure. Moving on.
“But even if we can’t make allies, factions are good, right? That means not all the higher demons are in on this plan. It gives us a better chance.” Although if what Con said is true, it’s not hard to get better than zero. And I’m not sure a fraction of a whole number is all that great a chance.
“I think it’s good. Hopefully someone at the Collective will be able to use this information to track down something more concrete. Although…” His positivity takes a dip. “They may already know this, and it’s completely useless. And this whole afternoon has been a waste of time.”
“Not a waste,” I correct. “Even if the information is old, you’ve developed a contact from the other side, and it’s going to look for the hidden gateway. That’s useful. Plus you got more practice talking to a spirit—a different kind.”
He’s silent for a second, then concedes, “True. I just wish we could get the answers we need. I want to do more to help.” He sighs.
“I guess really, we were lucky to even find a spirit on our first day looking. I don’t think the others were expecting that.
Especially not out here in the middle of nowhere.
Gabe said spirits usually like big cities where there’s lots to experience. ”
“Then why are we driving down country roads? We could go to towns instead.” This part of Illinois is scattered with small towns, and Moline and Peoria aren’t far either—though in opposite directions.
“Nah, I think they’re hoping we’ll find a spirit just as it comes through the gateway. Or is about to go back through it. And then we’ll know where the gateway is.”
That seems like a long shot to me, but I’m not going to drag Skye’s mood down.
“Since we’ve probably used today’s luck already,” I say instead, “why don’t we head back? It’ll take about an hour from here, but we can take a different road so we’re still covering more ground.”
Skye smiles at me. “Sounds good. Hey, can we stop in town? I’m going to need another work shirt.”
“Sure. That’ll give me an excuse to go to the bakery.” I earned baked goods after dealing with sunscreen woman.