FOUR

GENTRY’S FACE WAS COVERED IN METAL—a thick mask, dark copper-brown as an old penny. Horizontal, cylindrical bars formed small slits over his eyes and mouth. At the bottom of the contraption, just above his shackle, intertwined strands of barbed wire stretched all the way down his chest to his gut, where they were attached to a dagger that plunged beneath his ribs. Into his soul.

I swallowed hard.

I guess I didn’t have the same compassion for the girl next to him—Zella, he’d called her. Her identical mask and barbed wire were faint and see-through, hardly visible to me. Just enough to know they were there.

“You guys . . .” I was at a loss.

Zella leaned and looked past me, then gasped and ran toward the woods as fast as a drug-impaired person could. Gentry was on her heels. I sighed. It occurred to me to move on. Forget about them and drive off and go see the love of my life. But since the old man had just instructed me to pay attention to the people I happened to cross paths with, I stayed put and looked around for what could have spooked them.

I spotted a white Ford Taurus that had pulled off the road behind my motorcycle. When I saw the driver, a sense of dread came over me, like a big barbell was suddenly strapped to my chest.

Detective Benny.

Good cop by day. Bad all hours of the night.

He bolted out of this car, leaving the door open, hollering Zella’s name. He glanced my way but kept moving. In spite of his protruding gut, he chased after the kids, dragging six shackle-tethered chains behind him, four cords swinging from the back of his head. He’d gained a chain since I’d first met him, and I was sure he’d keep adding more. There were no Creepers attached to him, but I was convinced it was only because his oppression went deeper. His demons were hunkered down inside, influencing him from within.

He emerged from the trees a minute later, out of breath, pulling Gentry and Zella by their long sleeves. “This deviant behavior will not be tolerated.” Detective Benny, playing the part of a model citizen. An upholder of justice and order.

He acknowledged me with a courteous nod while leading the masked kids to his vehicle, as if there was no twisted history between us and he hadn’t threatened—however subtly—to harm me if I ever came forward with what I knew.

“Where are you taking them?” This man had the connections to have me killed, but I couldn’t stay silent while he took off with two minors. For all I knew, they’d end up missing. Sold in a human auction like the one I’d spied him at, on my very own property.

The detective opened the car door to the back seat. “I’m going to see that they get home safe, where they belong.”

Safe was the last word I associated with him. That and honest.

Zella lowered herself into the car but kept her feet planted in the grass, blocking him from shutting her in. “I was on my way home, Dad. I swear.”

It was like the barbell on my chest fell and rammed my stomach. This corrupt man was raising a daughter? No wonder she was on drugs. And didn’t want me calling the cops.

Detective Benny made a sharp sweeping gesture with his head, warning the girl to move her legs. She did, and he closed the door on her and Gentry. He looked at me before sliding into the driver’s seat. “You stay out of trouble, you hear me?”

Aka, I’d better continue to keep my mouth shut. I nodded as if I hadn’t been working behind the scenes for months, gathering information so I could eventually expose every camouflaged criminal and occult member in this town. But if I wanted to live long enough to see justice served and protect my mom and the other people I cared about from retribution, I had to go about it the right way and at the right time. The local news reporter lady—my unlikely ally, Elle Adelle—was discovering and confiding in Ray and me that Masonville’s satanic society was every bit as cutthroat as the Mafia, only with a paranormal twist. They summoned powers of darkness to do most of the dirty work of harming people for them.

I knocked lightly on the door of Ray Anne’s garage-turned-apartment, hoping she was awake, knowing Jackson was probably still snoozing in his crib, nestled within arm’s reach of Ray Anne’s bed. She’d taken on an enormous responsibility when she agreed to take temporary custody of someone else’s baby—my ex-girlfriend’s son. Adding to the strangeness of the situation, Jackson’s father was Dan Bradford, the school shooter who had gunned Ray Anne down, but she never seemed to connect any dots of resentment back to Jackson.

Ray Anne opened the door with Jackson on her hip, still dressed in her pant-style pj’s, her blonde hair thrown into a sloppy ponytail that struck me as gorgeous. Even after all this time, I found myself starting to lean in, as if she’d welcome me with a kiss. Ray Anne still clung to her overachieving goal to save her first kiss for her wedding day. Hard as it was, I didn’t pressure her and had even managed to hold the line the one time she’d let her guard down and made herself vulnerable to me. I was holding onto hope that if I just stayed the course and didn’t blow it, I’d be the one she’d marry. Then nothing with her would be off limits.

Jackson reached out with his tiny arms, straining so hard to get to me that his pacifier popped out of his mouth. He was eight months now, old enough to grin from ear to tiny ear every time he saw me. He’d also started calling me dada. What was I supposed to do? Letting him believe I was his dad seemed almost as cruel as scolding him for saying it.

I snatched him out of Ray Anne’s arms and tapped my finger on his miniscule nose. As usual, he giggled and kicked his little legs. It was weird taking care of a baby at our age, but at least Ray’s mom liked to watch him a lot and kept some playpen sleeper thing in her bedroom so my girlfriend and I could stay out late pretty much whenever we wanted. Honestly, I never thought I’d get so attached to a baby, especially one that wasn’t mine. Jackson made me want to devote every ounce of energy I had to making the world a better place for him.

Way better.

Ray Anne walked over to her laptop and typed something, already at work on her online classes, determined to earn her nursing degree. She paused to rinse a sippy cup in the sink. I lowered myself into a chair at her two-seater breakfast table and bounced Jackson on my knee, looking at the tiny, concentrated glow emanating from his heart. It’s not like he could understand my conversations with Ray Anne, but it still felt wrong to talk about invading forces of evil in front of him. But I had to get Ray Anne up to speed.

I started at the beginning, describing the details of last night’s nightmare. She abandoned her chores and sat across from me, nodding every five seconds like she always did when I told an important story. I’d gotten to the part about the swarming bats when she held a flexed hand in my face, silencing me, staring at the backside of my forearm, of all things.

“What is that?” She pointed just below my elbow.

I examined my arm, and . . . wow.

There was a symbol on me. More like under my skin. It looked like small red glowsticks had been implanted in a strange pattern. Or like I’d been tattooed with luminescent ink.

Ray Anne ran her finger over it. “It feels warm. What in the world is it?”

I didn’t know, but the fact that I could see it on myself was a good sign it was most likely from the Kingdom of Light. Bondages born of darkness weren’t visible to the bound person’s own sight. Plus, the symbol bore light—but I didn’t put as much stock in that, since I knew by now that dark forces could fake divine illumination.

I studied the odd mark, mulling over whether it was ancient hieroglyphics or a futuristic code or maybe symbols with no earthly source at all. One thing was certain: it was supernatural. Then I remembered . . .

“It’s right where the lightning struck me.”

Ray Anne gasped. “What!”

“In my dream,” I told her. “I haven’t gotten to that part yet.”

“Oh.”

As I resumed my story, her gaze drifted above my head to the wall behind me.

“What?” I asked her.

She ran her fingertips along the cuff of her long-sleeved sleep shirt on her right arm. “It’s just, I had a weird dream too last night. Ramus knelt in front of me and touched my arm below my elbow.”

Ramus was the Latin name we gave the Watchman who frequently watched over Ray Anne.

Still holding Jackson, I reached with my free hand and pushed her sleeve up, holding my breath. “Are you kidding me!” Sure enough, Ray had the exact same symbol as me, in the same place.

She was speechless, but only for a second. “I can’t believe this!”

This was new and cool and definitely worth exploring, but just then an explosive boom startled us to our feet. It was like speeding Mack trucks had slammed in a head-on collision right outside Ray Anne’s house. Jackson kept slobbering on the leather bracelet my father had given me without the slightest flinch, so we knew this was no traffic accident—no earthly commotion at all.

I followed Ray Anne out the door, holding Jackson as I scanned her driveway and the front yard and the airspace above us, then all around. The only unusual thing was a wad of black fabric lying in the street like someone had balled up and tossed tattered sheets on the pavement. No big deal, except that when a pickup truck drove past and ran it over, the vehicle and the heap never made contact.

“That thing’s paranormal,” Ray Anne said.

We headed down her driveway, illuminating the cement with her aura and mine, picking up on the faint sound of whimpering. It reminded me of the way Daisy would whine when I’d set her on the vet’s table.

Ray Anne peered down her street, then froze with her arm out stiff, shielding Jackson.

“What?” But as soon as I asked, I saw it.

They had to have been traveling toward us at like eighty miles an hour—a caravan of Creepers, advancing as thunderously as a herd of wild horses, only these were carnivores, frothing at the mouth. They encircled the fabric heap in the street, ignoring us completely while taking turns striking the balled-up mass with clenched fists and kicks. A voice like a small child’s cried out, so agonizing Ray Anne instinctively covered Jackson’s ears, momentarily forgetting he couldn’t see or hear any of this.

The assault continued, eliciting more high-pitched, unbearable wailing. Ray Anne lost sight of common sense and set out to intervene, as if she could shield whatever was wrapped in the fabric. I grabbed her arm just below her glowing symbol. “Wait!” We had no idea what was shrouded in there, but I was sure it wasn’t a human child.

Don’t get me wrong; Creepers didn’t spare children the torment of whispering in their tender ears or stalking them at night. In fact, a few nights ago, Ray Anne had seen a hooded one looming over Jackson’s crib while he slept. She woke up and commanded it to go, but I was confident that even if she hadn’t woken, Jackson’s robed, shield-bearing Watchman would have appeared and protected him. Surely Heaven’s army would never allow a child to suffer the kind of merciless Creeper beating unfolding in front of us now.

All at once, the Creepers stopped their attack on the heap in the street and turned their battered heads in the same direction. Then they took off, taking their insatiable hunger for violence elsewhere. Ray Anne and I stared at the pummeled bundle, now jostling from within. She inched forward and reached toward it, as if she could peel back the layers and peek inside. Despite how easily spirit realm beings penetrated the material world, we’d found no way to physically maneuver spirit-realm matter.

Ray Anne came to her senses and stepped back, then gripped my hand. Jackson twisted in my other arm like he was bored and wanted down, but I wasn’t about to let him crawl near that thing. I squeezed Ray’s fingers. “Let’s move back.” I wasn’t afraid, just cautious. There was no telling what manifestation might emerge. But Ray Anne insisted on standing right where she was, in her purple-striped fuzzy socks, waiting.

It was like watching a creature pry its way out of an egg, hatching little by little as strips of fabric parted to the sides. At last, a trembling hand emerged—clawed and bony like those of all Creepers, but only about the size of Ray Anne’s. And how do I explain the color? Imagine a raw turkey breast—pasty-white with a hint of pink.

Ray Anne searched my face. “What is it?”

I shrugged. I had zero sense of where this was going—what kind of Creeper this was.

A pair of wide, circular eyes peeked out from the cluster of cloth. They had big, dark pupils, more like a dog’s than a devil’s.

The thing whimpered again, like it was scared and suffering excruciating pain.

Finally, its entire bald head emerged. Ray Anne gasped. I probably did too. It had a Creeper’s face—a bare skull with no tissue, covered only by an ultrathin layer of skin. But somehow this one wasn’t scary, maybe because it had such huge, unthreatening eyes and smelled like a skunk—gross but not nearly as nauseating as other demons.

All base-level Creepers have war wounds and gashes, but this thing was marred with bruises. But how? From what I’d observed, Creepers didn’t have blood—the essence of life and very substance of bruising.

It was hunched over, its skin-and-bone legs tucked against its body while still nestled in the black material. I recognized the fabric now as the stuff Creepers draped over themselves, but this evil spawn was bare-chested, like its robe had been ripped off its body and was now falling away in shreds.

It locked eyes with Ray Anne. It’s not like she was teary eyed with compassion or smiling at the thing, but her brow wasn’t exactly furrowed in revulsion either.

“Ray Anne, don’t you dare feel sorry for it.”

She huffed. “Like I ever would.”

That’s when a Creeper that stank like rotting fish came barreling through the air from behind us. It used its pointy elbow to deliver a crushing blow to the side of the pathetic Creeper’s head, evoking a pained wail, then continued to pound the weakling.

I thought maybe Ramus would appear, but apparently the Kingdom of Light saw no need to shelter us or intervene.

Man, what I would have given to have been there to witness Molek suffer his violent ambush, outnumbered and outmatched by his own merciless kind. I couldn’t harbor that kind of vengeance toward a human being without inviting chain-link bondage onto my neck—my soul—but there was no spiritual law that forbid me to hate evil. The way I saw it, I’d better hate it. Anything less meant naive vulnerability.

This second-round assault ended after the defenseless pale-pink Creeper was rammed in its side so hard, it went rolling down the pavement, dragging shreds of fabric with it. Its body appeared no more than four feet tall. Ray and I noticed a big pothole where the small Creeper had been. That crater hadn’t been there when I’d pulled up to Ray Anne’s a few minutes ago.

Another full-size Creeper seething with anger barged onto the scene, getting its furious licks in.

“I wonder why they’re torturing him.” Ray Anne winced with every blow.

“The same thing happened to Molek, but his attackers were Cosmic Rulers.”

She turned and faced me. “Tell me!”

We went back inside, leaving the puny Creeper to its excruciating fate, and I told her the rest of my story. I kept pausing, both of us compelled to eye the sensational, glowing mark on our arms.

Typical Ray Anne: once I explained everything, she insisted we needed an even more detailed communication plan for Sunday afternoon’s meeting outside Masonville High with the student pastors. I agreed we needed to explain Arthur’s call to action to them as clearly as possible, but I reminded her, “The old man said there’s people destined to help us. If they’re the ones, they’ll join us; if they’re not, nothing we say will convince them.”

In the meantime, Ray suggested we go to my land at dusk to spy on the Rulers. “Shouldn’t we try to figure out their specific assignments?”

I told her it was worth a try, but only if we could stay hidden and undetected—no getting caught and provoking a conflict. I wasn’t one to go picking fights with demons, but Ray Anne? Her bold bravery was unmatched.

“Did the old man describe what they look like?” she asked.

I sniffed the air, then handed Jackson to her so she could change his diaper. My affection for the guy had its limits. “Only that they’re bigger and somehow way more wicked than Molek.”

The truth was, nothing could have prepared us for the night’s encounter.