Supernaturally (6 page)

There’s No Place Like Home

W
hat
were you thinking, sending that rabid monkey child to my
school
?” I shouted into my communicator.

“Beg pardon?” Raquel asked.

“Jack. My school. The girls’ locker room. Ring any bells? If Carlee hadn’t sworn to my ogre of a gym teacher that Jack was neither my boyfriend nor my brother, I probably would have been suspended!”

“Your gym teacher is an ogre?”

“Focus! If I get suspended, my grades take a hit. If my grades take a hit, I might not get into Georgetown. And I
will
get into Georgetown.”

“I’m pleased to see you finally taking ownership of your education. And I’m sorry about Jack; I asked him to contact you discreetly.”

“That boy wouldn’t know discreet if it tap-danced on his stupid blond head.”

“Still, if this
discreet
were tap dancing, it wouldn’t be very discreet, now, would it?”

“Shut up,” I said, trying not to smile. I was annoyed. No smiling. “When did you get funny?”

“I’ll talk to Jack and tell him not to contact you at school anymore.”

“What’s his deal, anyway? He’s the weirdest person I know, and that’s saying something.”

“Jack has had a very . . . unconventional upbringing. You two have more in common than you think. His life was disrupted by the fey, too. He’s a remarkable boy, though, and a great asset. We’re lucky he found us.”

I frowned. It made sense that Jack had some connection to faeries with his abilities. “Fine. No more school visits, though. And tell him not to come into my room unannounced.”

“So you’re certain that you want to help us?”

I hesitated, biting my lip. It felt like I was balancing on a fence. Tip to one side—say no—and I knew exactly what I would find when I fell.

More of the same.

Say yes and tip to the other side, and . . . I had no idea. But the fence would still be there, and I could always find my way back over. Right?

“Two conditions,” I said, practically feeling her relief and excitement seeping through the connection. “One: I am not Level Seven or anything in any system. I am not IPCA. If I don’t like a mission, I don’t do it. It’s totally my call.”

“Done. And the second?”

“I want my credit card back.” Clearly the unknown I was about to venture into would require a new wardrobe.

“Very well. As long as you reserve it for emergencies.”

“Seriously, Raquel, when did you get so funny?”

She paused. “Evie, I’m—I’m very pleased you’ll be helping us again.”

“I missed you, too.” I meant to be lighthearted, but was surprised by an uncomfortable itch in my throat and pricking in my eyes. Good heavens, I was not about to cry on a call with Raquel. After all, my seventeenth birthday was coming up, I was living on my own, independent, strong. I was doing this because I wanted to—
not
because I missed her. That would be stupid.

After a very suspicious throat clearing, Raquel’s voice resumed its brisk, business tone. “Excellent. I’ll send Jack for you tonight around eight.”

“Whoa, tonight? So soon?”

“I wasn’t joking when I said we needed help. Lately, it seems as though everything that can go wrong does. And there have been strange shifts in the paranormal world—nothing compared to April, but enough that we’re forced to use manpower we don’t have to try and track it.”

“I guess I can swing it, then.” A night free from cow print and grease? Bleep yes I could swing it. “So where to? Italy? Iceland? Ooh, I could go for Japan.”

“Actually, it’s a little less exotic than that. The Center.”

And just like that my excitement was replaced by an icy dread.

I couldn’t go back there. The Center was a tomb. In my mind it hadn’t changed since my last night there. Lifeless vamps lined the halls, eerily illuminated by warning strobe lights that failed to save the mermaid I loved most. I couldn’t handle the thought of revisiting what had been our home.

“Raquel, I—”

“I’ll see you at eight!” The line went silent and left me staring numbly at the communicator.

Two hours later I was still on my bed, glaring at the ceiling. Not even the familiar contours of Tasey clutched in my hand made me feel better.

I’d have to tell Raquel the deal was off. There was no way I was going back there. As soon as I could get my fingers to punch in her connection, I’d do it. But I couldn’t stand to hear the disappointment in her voice. She’d been excited, genuinely happy about working together again. Happy wasn’t something she did very often. And now I’d have to tell her that I wasn’t coming because I was too freaked out.

Lame.

I turned onto my side. The pendant Lend gave me sparkled on the nightstand and I reached out to it, running my finger along the side of the heart.

Why didn’t things ever get easier? Sometimes I wanted to take a memory—one perfect memory—curl up in it, and go to sleep. Like my first kiss with Lend. I could live in that memory forever. Just us and our lips and figuring out how well they fit together. If things always felt like that, life would be better.

“Honestly, Evie,” I huffed, flopping back to the center of my bed and glaring at the ceiling. “Why don’t you whine some more instead of actually doing anything?”

“Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness,” Arianna volunteered, leaning on the frame of my open door.

“Yeah, so’s seeing things no one else can, but people seem to like that about me.”

“Good point. Odds are, you’ve been crazy for years now. I’m probably nothing more than a figment of your imagination.”

“If that were true, I’d imagine you as less of a slob.”

She sighed. “Isn’t it sad that you hate yourself so much you can’t even dream up a pleasant roommate?”

“Not as sad as the fact that you admit how bad you suck as one.”

Flashing a wicked grin, she narrowed her eyes. “I’d use the term ‘suck’ sparingly around me. Don’t want to go planting ideas in my pretty, dead head.”

I threw a pillow at her.

“Anyway,” she said, fixing her spiky red and black hair (far nicer than the strands that clung to her shriveled head under her glamour—
don’t look
, I reminded myself yet again), “It’s dark out. Let’s go to a movie. I’m so bored I could die.”

“Too late.”

She threw the pillow back and went out into the main room. I sat up on the side of my bed and heaved a sigh. The communicator radiated waves of guilt from its position next to my pillow, but I couldn’t call Raquel. She’d figure out I wasn’t coming in about—I glanced at the clock—ten minutes.

It was probably for the best.

Oh, bleep, like I knew what was for the best anymore. Shaking my head, I picked up Tasey and walked to my dresser, opening the sock drawer.

“Sorry, friend,” I whispered. “Maybe another time.”

I heard the front door open, and Arianna shouted. “I’m leaving now. Meet me there if you want to come.”

“Yeah, let me get my—”

A light flashed as a hand reached through the wall, grabbed my arm, and pulled me into the infinite darkness.

Old Haunts

I
screamed
as the tiny rectangle holding the door to my room—my life—winked shut, leaving me in the darkness so thick and complete I could feel it on my skin.

“Whoa, calm—”

I whipped around, slapping my palm flat against the chest of—Jack. Again. Seriously, one of these times I was going to kill him by accident. Or on purpose. And I wasn’t going to be sorry. “What’s wrong with you! Let go of me!”

He raised his eyebrows and loosened his grip on my wrist. “Really? Okay, if you insist.”

If he let me go, I would be lost in this darkness. Alone. Forever. The only thing you could see on the Paths was the person you were with—there was nothing else there. I hadn’t wanted to use the Faerie Paths ever again, and now that I was here the familiar dread filled my entire body. I clutched his arm with my free hand. “Stop it! Why did you grab me like that? Terrorizing me at school wasn’t enough?”

He shrugged. “Raquel told me to get you at eight.”

“It’s called
knocking
, dimwit!”

“I know I make it look effortless, but creating doors between realms isn’t exactly simple. Pulling you through was easier than coming in for some polite conversation and perhaps a bit of tea, at which point I would have had to make another door. I didn’t know you’d scream like a little girl.”

“I did
not
scream like a little girl.”

Flashing his dimples, he took a huge lungful of air and burst into an earsplitting—and decidedly little girlish—scream. “Like that. Only with crazier eyes and more flailing.”

“Shut up.”

“Gladly. We’re going to be late.” He slipped his hand down from my wrist to my hand and started walking. “Heaven and hell, your hands are cold.”

I never thought I’d prefer the dead silence of the Paths over anything, but it had to be better than listening to this idiot. And I didn’t need any reminders that my hands were cold. Cold, mortal, dying hands. “Can we not talk?”

“But you’re such a charming conversationalist. Still, if you’d prefer to simply bask in the glory of my company, I understand. You’re probably overwhelmed by holding my hand and want to enjoy the moment.”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s all I can do not to swoon, but I’ll try to contain myself.”

“I think swooning is highly underrated. You could bring it back into vogue.”

I turned my head to look at him rather than focus on the inky black around us. It was like people on the Paths existed outside anything else. Jack and I were the only two creatures alive, for all you could tell. What a horrible thought.

“Where on earth did you come from?” I asked.

He grinned, but there was a strange tightness to his face. “Telling that story would require talking, which I seem to recall you requested not happen. And here we are!” With a flourish he waved a hand—at nothing.

I watched him expectantly. Nothing happened.

“Can’t you feel it?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.

“Feel what?”

“Come on. You’ve been through here as much as I have. You never tried to figure it out?”

I made the mistake of looking at my feet standing in the emptiness, and now I kind of wanted to puke. “Can we please get out of here?”

“Honestly, Evie, you don’t know how to have fun, do you?” He put a hand flat out, and his eyes narrowed in concentration. The darkness rippled, light tearing through it but illuminating nothing as a door formed, opening into a painfully familiar white hallway.

“Home sweet home,” Jack chirped, pulling me forward with him. The door shut behind us.

I felt like I had walked into a dream. When I left this behind, I let part of myself believe it ceased to exist. The fluorescent lights buzzing overhead drilled in the fact that the only different thing was me.

We both turned and looked down the length of the hall. A woman I didn’t know, dressed in a pin-striped suit, ran past us, screaming bloody murder and swatting at the air around her head.

I sighed. “Yup, home sweet home about covers it.”

I looked back down the hall, my attention drawn by the soft tapping of sensible pumps. This time the woman in a suit wasn’t insane—or at least, not the running-around-screaming type. “Evie,” Raquel said, pursing her lips to avoid smiling.

Another scream echoed; I caught a glimpse of someone running through one of the cross halls. He looked suspiciously like Bud, my tough and gruff former self-defense teacher.

“I leave for a few months and this whole place goes to pieces.”

Raquel shook her head, shooting an annoyed look in the direction of the continued screams. “Well, since you’re on the clock, why don’t I show you to the problem area?”

“Sounds good to me.” Being here was like déjà vu. The faster I solved their problem, the sooner I could leave and freak out in private.

“You’re welcome.” Jack waved cheerfully, got a running start, and did several roundoffs down the length of the hall.

I turned to Raquel. “I think he’s broken.”

She heaved a
don’t I know it
sigh. “Jack’s past isn’t one that contributes to stability. But he’s a good boy.”

He nearly got me disemboweled by my gym teacher. Good boy he was not.

More screams rang through the hall. “Seriously, what’s going on here?”

“It’s the poltergeist. Apparently we’ve pinpointed its current location.”

“Yippee.”

“If we can get this little problem taken care of, I’m certain that the other issues will be easier to address. Not only is it nearly impossible to keep employees functioning, important files keep disappearing.”

I followed her down the hall, trying not to think about all the times I ran wild here. This wasn’t my home anymore. I was here for work. A job. I could be professionally detached. As long as we didn’t have to go to—

Central Processing. Raquel stopped right in front of the sliding doors. Of course. Because nothing could possibly be easy tonight.

“Here?” I asked, already knowing the answer. Of all the places in the Center, the poltergeist had to take up residence here. I closed my eyes, picturing her aquarium as it had been—blue-green water; tropical fish; living coral reef; happy, funny, capable Lish in the middle of it all, running the computers and saying bleep.

No matter how hard I tried to hold on to that image, I could only remember the jagged hole in the glass, Lish’s lifeless body iridescent in the lights as it lay at the bottom of the pool.

I opened my eyes, realizing that Raquel had been talking for a while now.

“—understand why I can’t come in with you.”

I frowned. “Uh, sure.” I raised my hand to the palm pad and . . . nothing happened. The strangest sense of betrayal and abandonment surged through me. They’d changed the locks?

“Sorry about that,” Raquel said, waiting for me to move so she could palm the door. It slid open with a hiss, and she backed up out of view. “I’ll leave it unlocked.”

Taking a deep breath, I walked in. The emptiness of the large, white, circular room hit me like a blow. The aquarium was gone. No trace left except a faint ring around the middle of the floor. It was like Lish never existed. The door closed behind me, and I slid against it to the floor.

I definitely wasn’t ready for this.

A bitter cold breeze tickled the back of my neck. Something dark darted past the edge of my vision. I turned my head, but nothing was there.

The lights flickered, then went out, except a single dim bulb.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” a low voice hissed in my ear.

A tickle on my arm drew my attention to the black spider with a crimson hourglass belly creeping its way up. The last light died and a death scream ripped through the room as it plunged into darkness.