THIRTY

I FELT DIFFERENT as I strode through Tulsa’s airport toward my gate, like I was wearing a full suit of armor, ready to tackle whatever threats awaited me back home. I didn’t even stress when I saw the outside of the plane had the word fatality scribbled on it in Creeper graffiti.

Before the plane took off, I talked a guy into letting me swap seats with him so I could be by the window, then I called Ray Anne. It was so refreshing to hear her voice, even though she was still coughing. She let me know she’d recruited a team of people —Pastor Gordon and Ethan included —to help spread the word about Saturday’s town gathering at Masonville High, but she wasn’t confident people were catching on fast enough.

Then came more bad news. There’d been another abduction in Masonville. A seventh-grade boy had vanished while riding his bike outside the group home where he lived.

I assured her I’d be home in a few hours, and by the time our call ended, I’d caught on to something. The kidnapping victims were all parentless. Like, every one of them. That had to be more than coincidence.

I shot Detective Benny a text on the off chance he’d overlooked it.

Well aware but thanks Owen, he texted back.

I closed my eyes as the plane rushed the runway, trying not to dwell on how my father was about to be worlds away again, living his top-secret life apart from me. When he’d said he couldn’t come to Masonville, had he meant he was unable to come right now, or —for reasons I couldn’t understand —he had better stay away?

It was one of many questions churning in my brain.

I didn’t see any Creeper king thrones above Tulsa until we ascended above the clouds. Then I counted three of them looming in the airspace —one empty and the other two occupied by monsters dressed in ashen robes like the one Molek had worn. But I couldn’t worry about that. I’d been charged with battling for Masonville, which was apparently some sort of spirit-realm hub for the rest of the world or something.

I kept my face plastered to the window, and even though I kept catching occasional, lightning-fast glimpses of supernatural beings, I got so exhausted, my eyelids collapsed. But about halfway into the trip, I woke to nerve-racking pounding on the roof of the plane. It was like Bigfoot was stomping back and forth, from the tail of the aircraft to the front, then back again.

Finally, it stopped. But then a Creeper lowered headfirst into the cabin, hanging upside down in the aisle a few rows in front of me. It rotated its head 360 degrees, scoping out the passengers, then began rummaging through people’s cords, examining the words inscribed on them.

I assumed he found one he liked —he began tugging on a cord hanging from a man in the aisle seat one row up from me, dressed like he was ready to play golf. I’d never seen this happen before, but as the Creeper yanked, the man’s cord elongated from his head, stretching a full arm’s length. Then the Creeper did the exact same thing to the cord of a woman seated across the narrow aisle from the man. Then the predator hawked and spit up slimy, dark sludge and used the grossness like putrid paste to bind the two unsuspecting people’s cords together.

While their fused cords hung in the middle of the aisle like a saggy, spiky jump rope, the man casually struck up a conversation with the lady. I watched her through the gap between seats in front of me. Before long, she was giggling, tossing around her shoulder-length blonde-streaked hair. The pair kept flirting back and forth until eventually, he leaned over, his wedding band in plain view, and whispered something across the aisle to her. He got up and walked past me to the back of the plane, where he entered the lavatory. Their cords stayed connected, stretching like a thick black rubber band.

A minute later, she walked past me and entered the same tiny lavatory.

The Creeper growled and grinned, then hoisted itself up and out of the aircraft.

I focused my attention outside the plane again, searching through the window for signs of spiritual life. As we approached Masonville, even before our descent below the cloud cover, there was no question the war between good and evil had majorly escalated in the short time I’d been gone. Sure, I’d seen Creepers and Watchmen collide and battle through conflict before, but this . . .

The sky looked crowded as forces of darkness and light charged at one another, slamming and spinning and sailing through the air in heated immortal combat. Multiple Creepers piled on each armored Watchman, working to drag them away from Masonville’s regional airspace, but with each mighty thrust of their platinum-silver shields, Watchmen sent gangs of Creepers flying so fast and far, I never saw them stop careening.

The more our plane descended, slicing puffs of clouds like a knife through a flimsy pillow, the kingdom duel raged. Right outside my window, an immense Watchman held three Creepers by their throats, then reared back and hurled the squealing demons so ferociously that, for a split second, they spiraled through the cabin of the aircraft. I caught a quick glimpse through windows across the aisle as the beasts kept flipping and flailing away.

We neared the airport, and I couldn’t help it —my palms began to sweat. Around Molek’s throne, a fleet of his soldiers worked to overpower the Army of Light. Three Watchmen held a lunged pose with their arms extended, pressing against the throne so that, despite the opposition pushing on the other side, the chair couldn’t be moved —no closer to Masonville High and Caldwell’s old land.

Thank you, God!

My plane landed, and I rushed off, ignoring a text from my mom, but so anxious that when my cell rang, I answered without checking who it was.

“I’m freaking out, Owen!” It was Jess. “Your dad is on TV. I don’t get it —he was dead. We saw him.” Her words ran together like she was high on something. I guessed she probably was. “I need to see you, Owen. I’m having the scariest nightmares ever.”

I told her this wasn’t a good time for me, and what I’d have to say would only make her nightmares worse.

She huffed into the phone. “My grandmother’s right —I shouldn’t trust you. You don’t care about me.”

I was about to set the record straight when I remembered . . .

“Jess, didn’t your grandmother die a while back?”

“Yeah, but guess what? I did the candle thing, and she came to see me. Twice now.”

It was like guilt had tied my tongue down so it couldn’t move. She’d learned that from me.

“Jess, listen, that’s not really your —”

She hung up on me. A Jess trademark.

While waiting on my ride outside the airport, I called her back and agreed to meet her at a hole-in-the-wall coffee place close to my apartment. “I can’t stay long,” I told her.

I dropped my suitcase in my living room and called Ray Anne. She’d already seen the chaos in the sky around Molek’s throne. I told her I’d be over soon.

At the coffee shop, I parked next to Jess’s Mustang convertible, trashed compared to its mint condition in high school. She sat at a table in the corner, rubbing her eyes like she hadn’t slept in days.

When I approached, she tapped the chair beside her, but I sat on the other side of the table. “I told you, Jess, I’m in a hurry.”

“Don’t be.” She had that familiar longing in her light-brown eyes. “Ray Anne has Jackson, so I’ve got all day if you want. And evening.”

No surprise, Jess was taking advantage again of Ray Anne’s willingness to babysit. Did Jess even have a job? I didn’t bother asking and got right to the point, not willing to tone things down just because she was shackled and ignorant. “I don’t claim to fully understand all this, but there’s a certain species of demonic being that can take on the physical form of humans so we’ll invite them into our lives. That’s why the Bible warns us not to consult with the dead.” Her arms were crossed like she wasn’t following, but I told her anyway, “That spirit you and I thought was my dad —it wasn’t. Not even close.”

Jess started tapping her nearly empty coffee cup against the table over and over —she was definitely on something that was giving her the jitters. “But my grandmother knows things. Stuff only she could know about me.”

It was hard to be patient. I didn’t have time for this. “The spirit world knows things too. Nothing’s hidden.”

Watching her tear up, my attitude softened. More than pathetic, she was truly pitiful.

I’d never brought up the subject of faith with her and knew I’d probably get nowhere, but I felt the need to at least try. “Jess, I know you aren’t the type that wants someone pushing God on you. All I want to say is that he’s real, and you need him —we all do.”

Even after everything I’d seen, I was not prepared for what happened next. Something appeared at the bottom of Jess’s eyes, like the white scales that slide over sharks’ eyes when they move in on their prey, only these were black. They crept up until her eyeballs were half covered.

What the . . . ?

“Wow, Owen. You’ve really let Ray Anne change you, haven’t you?”

It was hard to defend myself while looking at her messed-up eyes. “I just . . . want you to know that God is more than a myth. Way more.”

The scales slid completely over her eyes at that point so that there was nothing but slimy black between her eyelids. I could handle seeing ghastly eyes on Creepers much better than on a person, especially someone I knew. I’d heard Ethan use the term spiritual blindness, but I had no idea it was a literal thing.

I pushed away from the table as a Creeper passed through the wall into the coffee shop. It loomed behind Jess with its open palms closing in on her ears, sending white noise at her like I’d first seen Creepers do to Meagan.

I bolted up, and my chair fell back and slammed to the floor. I quoted Luke 10:19, and the Creeper growled with fury, then charged at a guy seated two tables away, smacking the man’s side and pressing into him. The possessed guy stood and pointed at me. “He needs to leave.”

I looked at Jess —the scales were slowly lowering. I chalked it up as one more thing that had probably been there before now, but I hadn’t had the compassion to see it.

People were staring at us. Jess nibbled on her fingernail, embarrassed. “Please chill, Owen.”

The possessed guy spoke to the manager while looking straight at me. I could see that his pupils were off center.

The manager said I was being disruptive and politely asked me to leave.

Fine.

Jess followed me out.

I walked her to her driver’s-side door and warned her, “Please don’t talk to that grandmother spirit. Or any spirit.”

She grabbed my waist and pulled me close. “This stuff scares me, Owen.” She clasped her hands around my neck. “I don’t want to be alone tonight,” she whispered. “Let’s go to your place.”

Another battle with seduction. I knew better now. “I can’t.”

She tilted her head and kissed my neck.

“Jess . . .”

It turned out to be a really good thing that I’d seen those disgusting scales on her eyeballs. It made it easier to resist her.

I couldn’t help warning her again. “Don’t believe or do anything that spirit tells you, Jess.”

Then I got on my motorcycle and left.

I drove straight to Ray Anne’s, where Jackson was just waking from a nap in a thing Ray Anne called a playpen sleeper. She hovered over him like a mother hen watching an egg crack —if hens actually do that.

She squinted while looking at me, making me even more self-conscious about my spiritual bondage. I kept the focus on her. “You’re hardly coughing today.”

“It’s weird.” She hoisted Jackson into her arms. “It comes and goes.”

The little boy stole her attention away from me. She ran her hand through his fluffy hair and tapped his tiny nose until he grinned. She was wearing my necklace, and about two inches below the pendant, I noticed a red splotch on her chest, by her heart. I pointed to it. “What happened?”

She looked down. “What do you mean?”

I kept pointing. “Doesn’t that hurt?”

She stared in the mirror while Jackson tugged on a fistful of her hair. “I don’t see anything.”

I walked over and put my finger right next to it. “Right there —you don’t see that wound?”

Finally, we both understood. She wasn’t seeing what I was. She rubbed her chest. “What does this mean?”

It’s not like I could say for sure, but it seemed to me it was a manifestation of some sort of personal struggle of hers. She couldn’t see that wound on her chest any clearer than I could see the constraints around my neck.

As usual, her mom barged in, this time with a basket of folded towels. Ray had no choice but to change the subject. “I don’t think word is spreading enough about Saturday’s prayer march.”

“A prayer march? That’s how you’re putting it to people?” That sounded really dumb to me. We’d be lucky if anyone came. Besides Ethan.

I had an idea, but a knock at the door interrupted us. Ray’s shoulders slumped. “It’s Jess. Here to get him.” She called to Jess to come in while handing Jackson off to me so she could gather his things. He reached up and tapped my face, smiling. I had to admit, the kid was growing on me, despite the drool.

As for Jess, she didn’t tell me hello or even look at me. Still stinging because I’d turned her down a half hour ago, I guessed.

Jess stood with her arms crossed while Ray Anne tucked baby stuff into a diaper bag. Ray spoke slowly, like Jess was hearing impaired, carefully explaining that Jackson would want his next bottle soon, and she needed to start putting diaper ointment on him from now on. Jess barely nodded, like she couldn’t have cared less.

Ray Anne motioned for me to hand Jackson to his mom, and Jess snatched him from me. Ray Anne looked between my ex-girlfriend and me suspiciously.

Jess muttered a thanks at Ray, then left. Ray and I watched her chains and cuffs finally make it out through the closed door. Ray Anne folded her arms and chewed the inside of her cheek. I could tell she was fighting off tears.

“You’re really getting attached to him.”

“I know he’s not mine.” She collapsed the playpen and slid it under her futon bed. “But I worry about him. Sometimes when she drops him off, he’s starving, like she hasn’t fed him all day.” She folded one of his blankets and held it to her nose. Then glared at me. “What’s the deal between you and her?”

I told her the truth —how Jess had made a pass at me, and I’d turned her down. “She’s humiliated, I think.” I thought Ray Anne would be proud of the way I’d handled things.

“Why would you put yourself in that situation to begin with?”

Not what I’d expected, but I let her criticism go, focusing instead on what I believed was the real source of Ray Anne’s irritation. “There’s absolutely nothing going on between Jess and me —no need to be jealous.” Like she was when we were in high school, but I left that out.

She didn’t hesitate. “I’m not jealous.”

Oh. I guess I’d kind of hoped she was. At least a little.

Maybe I was the one overreacting now, but I had to speak my mind. “I’ll never be good enough for you, will I, Ray Anne?”

She searched my face. “Owen, why would you —?”

Her cell rang, and we both saw who it was. Now she was in the hot seat. “I’m sure Ethan’s just checking to see how I’m feeling.”

I shrugged, pretending to care as little as she just had about Jess. “Go ahead and answer.” I spotted the envelope with Arthur’s message on Ray Anne’s nightstand and grabbed it. “I have to go now anyway.”

As I walked my bike backward down the driveway, I got that sinking feeling all over again —the knot in my stomach when things weren’t quite right between Ray and me.

I tried not to let it consume me.

I drove to the Channel Two News building and told the shackled lady at the front desk I needed to speak with Elle Adelle. A minute later, the reporter came to the lobby, her hair slicked back in a low, all-business ponytail. Our combined lights on the floor were an electric gold. “You ready to talk about Riley?” she asked.

I said I’d answer whatever questions she had if she’d do me a big favor. I proceeded to tell her about Arthur and his letter, minus the paranormal details, then explained how he’d instructed us to gather on the land. “I need a way to invite the whole town to be there in three days. Trust me, this has to happen now.”

She crossed her arms. “What proof do you have? I don’t report anything without first substantiating the facts.”

I held up the envelope. She went to grab it, but I pulled it away. “Sorry, I can only let you glance at it.” What would she think if she read the part about two bearers of light, not to mention Molek and his occupying army?

She huffed. “I don’t do favors for people who withhold information. It’s my responsibility to keep this town informed of the truth —the whole truth —and I take that very seriously.”

I had the exact same responsibility and took it just as seriously. But my truths tended to freak people out and make them dismiss me as psychotic.

Elle started walking away.

“Wait.” I had to think fast. I really needed her help. She was a Light, so chances were, she’d believe the full story. But I hardly knew this lady, and from what I did know, she made a living turning tragedies and scandals into town news. Was I really going to admit to her that I could see into an alternate realm? That a spirit of death was out to destroy Masonville?

I guess she got sick of standing around. She tossed her hands in the air and turned her back on me again. “I’ve got deadlines.”

“Please, wait!”

She faced me with an impatient sigh. I closed the distance between us. “There’s something incredibly personal about me in this message and other things that the public can’t know. They can’t handle it, and most wouldn’t believe it anyway. If I let you read this, do you swear to only report the parts the public needs to hear?”

She eyed the envelope with raised eyebrows, intrigued. “Does the information you want withheld have anything to do with a crime or illegal activity?”

“No.” Molek was definitely a criminal, but not the punishable kind. At least not in an earthly court.

“Then I see no problem with honoring your request.” She held out her palm for the envelope.

I made her promise confidentiality a second time, then warned her, “This will probably freak you out a little. Or a lot.” It wasn’t easy handing the letter over.

She unfolded the delicate paper and read the whole message to herself, her eyes growing wider and wider. She searched my face. “So . . . can you see those things?” I nodded, trying to get a sense of how she was taking everything, but she kept a pro-level poker face. “Who else?”

“My girlfriend,” I confessed.

Elle turned and charged through the lobby, hurrying toward a restricted-access door.

“Hey!”

She’d taken the paper with her.

“I’ll give it back tomorrow night.” She didn’t slow her pace. “Meet me at Masonville High tomorrow at five forty-five for a live broadcast at six.” She left me standing there, questioning my decision to put such an insane amount of trust in someone who’d always gotten on my nerves.

Ray Anne met me in the school parking lot a few minutes early so we could talk through what we should and shouldn’t say on live TV. Too bad the TV camera couldn’t pick up on the war zone in the sky. If only we could show people Molek’s sinister throne and the fight around it.

Unfortunately, Ray Anne’s cough was flaring with a vengeance. And that red splotch on her chest was twice as big now and had become a nasty, open sore.

“Ray Anne, that wound has gotten way worse.” I noticed a piece of jewelry just below the neckline of her shirt. For some odd reason, she was wearing that tacky necklace Veronica had given her. When she moved, the locket slid back and forth over the red spot. I didn’t connect the dots at first, but then I wondered . . .

“Have you been wearing that much?”

“Off and on.”

“Did you ever open the locket?”

Her cough was so bad, she could barely tell me, “I could never get it.”

She removed the necklace and handed it to me, and like the first time I’d tried, I couldn’t pry it open. I was far from weak —what was the deal?

I set the necklace on the concrete and stomped the locket with my heel.

“Hey . . .”

Why did she care so much about a necklace she’d said was ugly?

I stomped it again, and this time it sprang open. And something flung out.

Ray and I both jumped back. Out of the small locket, a grotesque hand bigger than an adult baseball glove lurched onto the pavement, palm up, claws exposed. Projecting from the center of the hellish palm was a fat, barbed stinger-like thing that looked like it could inflict serious pain.

And it had been. On Ray’s chest.

The crooked fingers thrashed and pulsed until the hand flipped itself over and began inching away. The fingers’ claws dug into the cement and pulled the hand forward, dragging it along, leaving a trail of that gray death dust.

The gentle breeze was suddenly polluted by the smell of sewage. Sure enough, Demise loomed in the distance, closing in on the crawling hand. It extended its mutilated wrist and bent down, fastening the hand onto its exposed bone.

Ray covered her mouth like she was about to barf. “That necklace . . .”

“Why’d you wear it?”

She looked down. “Well . . . I just . . .” I waited for her to make sense. “Ethan said it was pretty.”

You wouldn’t think one simple statement about a piece of jewelry could hurt a guy so much.

And who would ever believe that an object could conduct evil, transferring it from one person to another? Or that evil could make someone physically sick? I now saw the locket for what it was: an evil plan to shut Ray Anne up at a time when Masonville needed her voice the most.

I’d known for some time that Veronica could be manipulative and strange, but I’d questioned if she had a clue about the depth of wickedness she was messing with. But now I was sure —Veronica had given Ray that necklace knowing full well it housed evil. And thanks to Ray’s growing feelings for Ethan, the thing had made its way around her neck.

“Look,” I said to her. “You’ve already stopped coughing.”

She stared up at me with pooling eyes. “It’s more than that.” She put her hand on the sore that only I could see. “My heart’s been tormented lately by thoughts —unwanted thoughts that I belong with Ethan, even though I’ve stayed committed to you.”

I shoved my hands into my jeans pockets and forced an awkward, fake smile. “It’s not like you and I are married. If he’s who you want, don’t feel bad about it.”

She winced like she was hurt. “No, I’m not saying that.”

We were out of time —Elle and a cameraman were exiting a news van. Ray and I had gotten completely distracted and hadn’t even practiced what to say. On top of that, it looked like Molek’s throne had gained a bit of ground. Or sky.

Elle seemed a lot more concerned with finding the right angle for the ideal shot than discussing the seriousness of what we were about to broadcast to all of Masonville. The minutes flew by, and suddenly, we were live.

Elle held up Dorothy’s handwritten paper, referring to it as a mysterious historic find. She asked me to briefly explain my understanding of Arthur’s connection to the land, and I did, then she read through his list of predictions word for word. She stuck the microphone in Ray Anne’s face. “Tell us why you want people to gather here at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday.”

I looked on, amazed, as the glow around Ray’s feet got stronger, shining brighter and farther. Ray Anne looked straight into the camera and unleashed her pent-up passion for the cause. “This town has tried one thing after another to fix things, but it hasn’t worked. Yes, the suicide rate has gone down, but it won’t last, people —not if we don’t deal with the real source of the problem.”

I knew by now she wasn’t going to hold back.

“You show up here on Saturday if you’re ready to ask for God’s forgiveness and pray —for our sins and the sins of the past. That’s what Arthur said we have to do, and he’s right. This land and this town need revival.”

I dropped my head into my hands. Could she have sounded any more churchy?

Elle somehow found an eloquent way to wrap up what had to have been among her most awkward broadcasts. Ray’s light went back to normal. As for me, I was convinced there was no way the town would show up now —certainly no shackled people. Not after Ray’s sermon. But maybe some Lights would. And maybe that would be enough. I mean, had Arthur really expected that we’d get shackled people to come pray? The verse —2 Chronicles 7:14, I’d learned —called out God’s people.

I thanked Elle, and as promised, she returned Arthur’s envelope. “So, what’s your opinion of all this?” I asked, following her as she hurried to the van. She hurried everywhere, apparently.

“I’ll be here Saturday.”

“To cover the story?”

She nodded, face showing no emotion. “And to participate.” She fastened her seat belt in the passenger seat and started to close her door but stopped. “Here.” She dug through her briefcase and pulled out a digital voice recorder. “Hold on to this.”

“Why?” I tried to hand it back to her. “My cell records fine.”

She wouldn’t take it. “You may need it.”

I eyed the buttons. “How do you know?”

The corners of her mouth turned up, the closest I’d ever seen her come to smiling. “I have good instincts.”

Her strange confidence in somehow sensing things about the future reminded me of Veronica, only Elle was on my side of the kingdom clash.

I looked back. Ray Anne stood in the center of the parking lot, gazing up at the conflict in the sky. It was pretty obvious that the battle was intensifying.