THIRTY-FOUR

I WAS A SWEATY MESS and still out of breath as I entered the attendance office at Masonville High. “I’m Owen Edmonds, Gentry Wilson’s mentor—is he in class today?”

I was surprised I cared enough to see it, but the forty-something-year-old lady behind the desk had a mask of addiction fitted on her face. “There’s no mentoring today.”

“I know. Can you please just tell me if he’s here? There’s been an emergency.” It was true enough.

After using my ID to verify I was, in fact, in the mentorship program, she clicked on her mouse. “He’s marked absent today.”

I knew it. “What about Zella Benny, his girlfriend?”

More clicking. “Absent as well. Do you mind me asking—”

“There’s a purple-haired girl . . .”

“Presley Baker?”

“Presley—that’s it. Is she here?”

Three more clicks. “Hmm. She appears to be absent too.”

Of course she was. I couldn’t name the rest of the thirteen students, but I didn’t need to. I was sure they’d all skipped today.

I stormed out of there, still convinced a group suicide was set to go down, but also suspecting Zella had lied to me about what time and maybe where—even though she was somehow marked as a defender. By midnight, the horrific ordeal would be long over, already making national news. For all I knew, the students were in the woods now, gulping down pills—if that was truly how they planned to do it.

I clung to the hope that they weren’t dead already.

I hurried toward the main exit doors but paused to take a sweeping glance around the foyer. Not a single Creeper visible anywhere. Unheard of in this school. They were bound to be in the woods, frenzied spectators to their Creeper King as he attempted to raise his throne.

I charged through the parking lot in the rain and called Ethan. I got his voicemail. “Hey, I need your help now, not tonight. There’s no time to meet up at the school. If you have any way to find the Caldwell Cemetery in the woods behind Masonville High, go there—I can’t really explain how to get there. If you don’t see anyone there, or can’t find it . . .” Where else was I supposed to tell him to go? “Just search the woods for people, okay?”

I started my bike and called Elle. She sounded fairly confident she’d locate Jackson soon, but she admitted getting him away from Dr. Bradford would be tricky. “Do whatever it takes,” I told her. “And Elle, please don’t go public with this until you have Jackson, but any minute now, there’s going to be a group suicide somewhere on my property—if it hasn’t happened already.” I didn’t waste a minute explaining. I hung up and sped off the parking lot.

The skies were gray and pouring, but that didn’t explain why the spiritual atmosphere was dormant. I’d expected to see battalions of Watchmen and hordes of Creepers, as intense a battle as the last time Molek had attempted to reclaim Masonville.

I raced down the one-lane, unpaved street that ran along the back of my acreage, dodging waterlogged potholes. I finally made it to the makeshift road that, months ago, had served as the secret passageway through my property to the human auction. I drove down the path, aiming to get as close to the Caldwell Cemetery as I could before venturing there on foot. I knew the students weren’t likely to be there, but I had to check.

I parked under a soaked cedar, then charged toward my ancestors’ graveyard, where the Mary statue stood. Lightning cracked like a leather whip, lighting up the overcast woods brighter than the sun for seconds at a time.

There was still no sign of paranormal life in the trees or air. It made no sense.

I tripped over tree limbs and stumbled a few times but kept running. Then suddenly, with every stride, my feet began to sink into the earth up to my ankles. I don’t mean I was traipsing through mud. I was slipping through the ground supernaturally. My Nikes—aura included—sank like I was standing in quicksand, only they didn’t create holes in the ground.

I got stuck in one spot and kept sinking until the ground was at the middle of my shins. Then came a distressing sensation, like there was nothing but air underneath the soles of my shoes—as if I was somehow floating underground.

I pulled one knee up, removing my foot with ease, and stepped to the side, where it turned out the earth was solid—as in, not swallowing my shoe. I pulled my other leg out, and, once standing securely on un-sinking turf, lay flat on my stomach, thinking maybe I could plunge my head down and spy underground.

I assumed I’d peer into another spirit-world grave, which I dreaded, but I couldn’t ignore what might be happening. I grabbed a small but firmly rooted shrub with my right hand, closed my eyes, and held my breath, then pressed my face down in the same spot where my feet had fallen. And down I went, until my upper body was suspended above an underground void so immense, I gasped, horrified of falling in. I clung to the shrub with all my strength.

It was endless miles wide and unfathomably deep—not hell’s fiery chambers but a spirit-realm space of some kind. There was a shifting mix of darkness and radiance, but the lighting was eclipsed by the action and noise.

It was the most intense, loudest battle I’d ever seen. Hundreds of armored Watchmen wielded giant swords and shields, taking on gangs of Creepers as the demons whipped long chains around, attempting to maim and bind the Watchmen. Heaven’s army was too strong to be restrained, but the Watchmen would grit their teeth and groan when metal links struck their necks or slammed their helmets, crashing against their shiny armor.

Extra-tall robed Watchmen dumped a few of those stained-glass bowls on the fray, but they were half full—with only enough shimmering liquid to disable handfuls of Creepers. And I could hear people—humans—talking. Some praying. Others casting spells. All at once.

“Custos!” I spotted him diving down—headfirst, shield extended. He blasted through a clustered wall of Creepers, and it sounded like freight trains colliding.

No wonder the skies had been empty. The war raged underground.

Everything in me wanted to stay there, watching the action unfold, but who was I to be lying down during the heat of battle, spectating while God’s army fought with all their might? I jumped to my feet and resumed sprinting in the wet woods, praying I didn’t fall through the ground and plummet into the gargantuan war zone.

Finally, the Caldwell Cemetery’s black iron fence was within sight. Not surprisingly, I didn’t see any students at the Mary statue.

As I stood there contemplating my next move, my own battle caught up with me. More like overtook me.

The crying infant wasn’t close by or pressing against me now; it was screaming between my ears, as if it was lodged in my brain. And that haunting, stalking presence . . .

I felt it inside me, like it had made itself at home in my bones.

I slowed to a jog and clawed at my head and chest, moaning and praying without words for God to send the old man to my rescue again. But like the torrential downpour, the assault continued to batter my soul, overwhelming me completely.

“Who are you?”

How could I fight an enemy I couldn’t see or comprehend? One that had withstood every spiritual weapon I’d aimed at it, even the name of Christ? And the crying inside my head . . . the sheer decibel level was maddening to the point of insanity.

I hit the soggy ground on my knees. “Tell me what you are!”

It’s me. It was my own voice, answering me.

“Get out of my head!” I was on all fours now, crawling like an animal.

I can’t.

“Why not?” I gave in to the lunacy of conversing with myself. But there was no reply this time.

I collapsed facedown, scooping fistfuls of mud and dumping it on the back of my head—a useless attempt to bury the noise echoing through my mind, ringing louder than the church fire alarm had.

“Please, God, help! Have mercy on me!”

My nose and mouth became covered in mud, smothering me. I lifted my chin and spotted a puddle catching drips falling from tree limbs. It was just beyond my reach. I dug my fingers into the ground and pulled myself forward, then rinsed my face in the water, inhaling lifesaving breaths.

I hovered on my forearms and elbows, coming unglued inside, staring down at the puddle in the storm-shrouded daylight.

At my reflection.

But instead of my face, it was the single most terrifying image I’d ever seen.