TWENTY-SIX

HE KNOCKED. I stood there with my hand on the doorknob, trying to reel in my emotions so there’d be no hint of them—no weakness—when I opened the door.

Finally, I turned the knob.

“Owen.” He removed his sunglasses. “I can’t tell you what a relief it is to see you.”

I didn’t say anything back. It was awkward, but I was mad at him. Supposed to be, anyway. The resentment would come and go.

“May I come in?” He stepped inside and shut the door fast, as if it was dangerous to be outside. Then he took a slow glance around the living room, studying every detail.

Back when I’d lived here, I never would have imagined in a million years that my father would someday show up and set foot inside my house. It was surreal, seeing him here.

I kept my emotions in check, playing it cool. But on the inside . . .

My father’s home. Even as a diehard atheist, I’d prayed for that. I’d just had zero faith I’d ever see it.

He walked to the sofa and motioned for me to sit next to him. I lowered beside him, our auras nearly touching.

“That Suburban you were in has been following me,” I said.

He nodded. “I’ve had my men keeping an eye on you.”

“Your men?”

He angled more toward me and searched my face. “The only way I know to do this, Owen, is to start at the beginning and tell you everything I’m able to disclose.”

“The truth is all I’ve ever wanted. The whole story.”

He cleared his throat. “You have no idea how incredibly head over heels in love I was with your mother.”

Were my eyes seriously starting to pool? I clenched my fists, digging my fingernails into my palms, displacing the internal ache.

“My parents had someone else in mind for me, an Ivy-League girl, but my mind was made up. I couldn’t wait to spend the rest of my life with Susan. We eloped at the age of twenty and started our lives together in New Haven, Connecticut. Honestly, my best memories in life are from those days.

“But it didn’t take long to realize something was deeply troubling Susan. She would look over her shoulder everywhere we went and wake up most nights screaming from some terrorizing nightmare. She finally came clean with me about why she’d run away from home—her escape from her parents and the occult. Unfortunately, that vindictive society soon tracked us down in New Haven and started threatening her constantly, in all kinds of terrifying, demented ways.”

“So, what’d you do?”

He clasped his hands the exact way I did sometimes. “She begged me not to go to the police, swearing it would only make things worse. So I did the only thing I knew to do. I trailed a vehicle as it followed her to work one afternoon, and when she went inside, I confronted the driver in the parking lot, demanding that he call off the operation. He told me I’d have to talk to the man in charge, and I was so young and naive, I actually got in his car with him, then boarded a private plane for Texas.

“He and I landed in Masonville that night, and he drove me to some forested land. I followed him on foot until we arrived at a secluded, candle-lit pavilion. I’ll never forget the thick wood beams overhead with ropes dangling down. I was afraid they were going to hang me.”

I gulped. The occult had met for generations on the land I’d inherited. Was the pavilion still there, somewhere on my property, or had my father been taken to a different patch of woods entirely? My stomach was twisting in knots. “Please, keep going.”

“A man in a ram’s mask emerged from the forest, followed by some twenty people, draped in black hooded robes. They encircled me in the pavilion. The masked man ordered me to drop to my knees. When I refused, I was struck on the back of my legs. I hit the ground.”

My father gripped the sofa cushion beneath him, nervous, I think. “I’d been so sheltered all my life from harsh realities,” he said, “I actually thought if I explained how much I loved Susan and begged those people to leave her alone, they’d have pity and relent. But they showed no mercy. They admitted they were determined to kill Susan for having defected from their society. And that’s when . . .” He lowered his head and sighed. “They dealt me the terms.”

“Okay?” I waited.

“I’m so sorry, Owen. I didn’t know.”

I tensed my abs, as if that would help soften the blow of whatever information he was about to deliver. “Go on. Please.”

“They said they’d give up on their vengeance against Susan if I’d—” He paused. “If I vowed that we’d give our firstborn to them someday.” He stared at the hardwood floors now—anywhere but my face. “We didn’t plan on having children anytime soon, and I thought it was a ridiculous demand anyway. I told myself we’d never have to actually follow through on it. I just needed to say whatever was necessary to make it out alive so I could go to the FBI and put an end to this sadistic group once and for all. Unfortunately I was so unknowledgeable about the occult and their rituals—about the binding power of spiritual oaths and the global underground influence these people had—I repeated their words after them and made what I thought was a meaningless vow, sealing it with a drop of my blood.

“They roughed me up so badly after that, I was surprised I regained consciousness. I managed to make it back to New Haven, but I didn’t want to scare Susan by telling her the truth about where I’d been and why I was so battered. So I told her a contrived story. Meanwhile, I went immediately to a family friend of mine, an FBI agent, and reported everything. I didn’t understand at first why he refused to help me, as did the second agent I spoke with. But I soon discovered they’d both been threatened and blackmailed by the occult and weren’t willing to risk being whistleblowers.”

He slumped and held his forehead in his hand. “Days later, while Susan was at work, I saw a positive pregnancy test in the trash can. She’d obviously tried to conceal it from me, afraid I’d resent her for the timing of it, I think. But I wasn’t upset at all. I was happy, but also . . . terrified.

“I started making plans that instant to move out of state with Susan—flee the country if that’s what it was going to take to protect my family. I marched into the closet and grabbed a suitcase . . .” He needed another pause. A long breath. “But the phone rang, and a man warned me that the secret society was already aware of the pregnancy—there was nothing they didn’t know about us. And there was nowhere we could run where they wouldn’t track us down and take the newborn I owed them.”

I sat still as stone, my heart racing. “So, what’d you do?”

He stood and paced the living room. “I returned to Masonville to find Susan’s parents. She’d told me they held prominent positions in the occult, particularly her mother.”

He took another glance round the room, and it felt like my chest caved in. “You came here, to this house?”

He swallowed hard, then pointed in the direction of my mom’s lounge chair. “Your grandparents sat over there while I got down on both knees and literally begged them to help me—to have compassion on their daughter and soon-coming grandchild and use their influence to call off the mission against us. To help pardon me from the satanic vow I’d made in ignorance.”

“And?”

He faced away from me. “Once again, I was given only one option—a cruel, devastating form of penance in exchange for breaking a vow to the kingdom of darkness.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets, I think because they started trembling. “Susan’s parents would see to it that her life and yours would be spared, along with mine, providing I never made contact with either of you ever again, from that moment on. Ever.”

I stood, even though my legs felt numb. “But I thought it was your parents who manipulated my mom into abandoning you when she was pregnant with me.”

“My parents did talk Susan into leaving me, but it was only because I went to them and managed to convince them I wanted out of the marriage. I never could have rejected Susan and my unborn child, but my mother was all too willing to send her away.”

He faced my direction but kept his head down. “My parents aren’t the same hard-hearted people they used to be. And Owen, it was the only way at the time I knew how to protect your mom and you. I didn’t want either of you to ever think I’d forsaken you.”

“But that’s exactly what you did.”

He finally looked me in the face. It was only then that I noticed Creepers had flocked to the scene, spying, pressing their huge bodies and mangled faces against every window in the room. But I couldn’t have cared less about them at that moment.

“Owen.” My father approached me. “I’m not here to make excuses—only to own up to the choices I made as a young man, when I was terrified and in over my head. Susan’s parents warned that the instant I spoke to their daughter or our child—to you—their society would know, and they’d close in swiftly on you both, no matter your age or how much time had passed.”

“But why?” I shouted. “Why would my own grandparents want to separate you from us?”

He stayed calm. “Darkened people do cruel things. And there’s nothing crueler than forcing a father to abandon his wife and child.” He reached toward me. “Son—”

“Don’t touch me!” I dodged his hand. “You could have found another way. You could have fought for us!” The anger in me was hotter than the fire that had nearly killed me.

“I was so young, Owen. And they had supernatural means to carry out their directives. Evil powers.”

“That’s your excuse for turning your back on us?”

He took calming breaths, clearly working to keep his peace. “I couldn’t see Susan again without risking that she’d be killed—that both of you would be brutally murdered—so I did what I thought I had to in order to protect you at the time.”

I squared my shoulders and addressed him like a prosecutor, not like a son. “All this time, you let my mom believe she’s the one who left you, and she’s despised herself for it. Nearly drank herself to death over it.”

His whole body crumpled, and he shrank to the sofa. “You have no idea how much I agonize over that.” He bent so far forward, I thought he might fall to the floor. “It was me who sent financial support all those years, not my parents. I wanted to provide for Susan and you.”

“Am I supposed to say thank you?” I wiped my cheek against my shoulder, absorbing a runaway tear into my shirt.

“I know it’s inexcusable, Owen. I messed up everything and failed your mother and you in the worst of ways. And yes, I kept up with where you lived and even risked everything for the chance to catch brief, distant glimpses of you several times. But I know that doesn’t begin to heal the wrong—the void of my absence.”

He stood and stepped toward me, but I turned my back on him. I could feel his breath on my neck. “I’ve put us all at great risk by coming here today, but I had to see you. And Son, it’s because of you, my love for you, that I devoted my life to learning all I could about spiritual laws—how to break demonic-world oaths and satanic vows. And I run a covert, global operation to rescue children around the world who are trapped and abused in the occult. Believe me, Owen, I’d always planned to meet you and tell you everything someday, at the right time.”

I whipped around and faced him. “Oh, really? And when was that going to be?”

“When Susan’s parents passed away.”

I threw my hands in the air. “They’ve been dead for over two years.”

The front door opened, intruding on us.

“Owen, whose vehicle—”

My mother’s shopping bag hit the floor. Her mouth moved, but nothing came out. Finally . . .

“Stephen?”

I think my father stopped breathing. “Hello, Susan.”