After the library, Maximus and I had gone back to his apartment and I explained what happened with the books and seeing Demon Girl. It came down to two things. Either I was so worked up that I was imagining things (not bloody likely), or that some supernatural presence was fol owing me around (more likely). If it was the latter, we had to cleanse the house, the place where the haunting original y started. At least at that rate I would be protected in my own home and perhaps libraries and coffee shops would fol ow soon after that.
A lot of the books that Maximus had checked out had cleansing rituals in them as wel as shopping lists of what herbs and oils and candles to buy. He promised he would handle al of that if I could secure the house for an evening, the sooner the better.
“What night would work best for you?” I asked my parents, knowing I’d ask it to be ASAP no matter what their answer was.
Luckily, my dad said, “I have to do some work tomorrow night, so Wednesday wil work. How about you, honey?”
My mother nodded and I breathed a sigh of relief.
When dinner was over, I volunteered myself and Ada to wash the dishes; you know, as a thank you so they wouldn’t think about backing out on our arrangement.
“Do you hate me, suddenly?” Ada hissed at me as our parents retired to the sitting room to read and sip decaf.
I made sure my parents were out of earshot before I put the plates in the sink and grabbed her arm.
“Listen, that was al a ruse.”
“What? Muse?”
I rol ed my eyes. “No. A ruse. As in an act of deception.”
“You mean a lie? Speak English.”
“Yes, a lie. And I need you to be home with me.”
Her nose wrinkled up and she pul ed out of my grasp.
“Ewwww! Perry, I don’t want any part of your weird sex games with that red-headed-”
“Ada!” It was my turn to hiss. “Lower your damn voice.
And, ewww, no! Sex games? Where is your head at? No, we need you to help us do a cleanse of the house, you sicko.”
She frowned and thought that over. “Like, a ‘ghost be gone’ kind of cleanse? Or manual labor like what those guys did today in the study? Because you know how I feel about manual labor.”
“I do,” I said and turned on the taps to rinse off the dishes. “But how do you feel about being involved in some, um, magic?”
“M-A-G-I-C-K magic? I think I’m OK with that.”
“Good. Now I don’t know what Maximus has planned but-” I stopped when I noticed a look of discomfort on her face. “What, what now?”
“Nothing,” she said.
I sighed, unable to ignore it any longer. Now that I was sleeping with Maximus, her attitude was starting to grate on me. “What’s your problem with him? Seriously. He’s been nothing but nice to you. And don’t say it’s because he’s a ginger.”
She shrugged and grabbed a dish. “I don’t know. He just…”
I raised my brows for her to continue.
She continued in a drawn out voice, “He just seems a bit too good to be true. I think he might have something up his sleeve.”
“He might have something up his sleeve?” I repeated.
“What is he, a vil ain with a twirly moustache?”
“You know what I mean,” she sniped, placing the rinsed dishes in the dishwasher. “It’s just weird, you know. The minute Dex is out of the picture, oh look who it is.”
I bit my lip and turned my attention to getting a stubborn piece of stuck-on chicken off the pan.
“It’s not like that,” I final y said.
“Maybe it is, maybe it’s not. But I don’t trust him. And I think you need someone to keep a level head here. You need someone to watch out for you.”
I laughed and gave her a wry look. “Ada saves the day?”
“I’d like to be good for something other than comic relief,” she said with a smile.
“Don’t flatter yourself, kiddo,” I joked. It was something that Dex said al the time to me and it came out instinctively.
Hearing my old nickname pinched somewhere deep inside.
Ada’s soft eyes met mine at that phrase and no more words were needed between us. We continued to do the dishes with only the whir of the tap water to break up the silence.
When bedtime came a few hours later, the reality of what had been going on hit me like a ton of bricks and things were much scarier when I was alone in my room. Even though I had sent Maximus a good-night text (to which he replied “Sweet dreams darling” and I could just hear his drawl in my head), he was over at his place and I was at mine, where every little window rattle, creak of the house, door shutting, or buzz of electricity had me on the edge. I kept the bedside light on, deciding I didn’t care if I was acting like a six-year old girl. If something was coming for me, I wanted to see it. You couldn’t blame me for that.
Remembering what happened earlier, my eyes flitted over to the book I got from the library. I half expected it to start flying around the room, but it just sat on my desk, looking ominous. I hadn’t opened it yet, deciding I thought I should be around a load of people and bright sunshine when I did. The way my imagination was running I’d be thinking I was possessed by everyone in hel .
I shuddered at the thought and cursed myself for thinking such things when I was trying to sleep. I spied the clock, which read 11:40. Everyone else in the house was asleep and I hated being the only one awake.
My eyes closed eventual y, shutting out the light, and my mind began to twirl, taking my thoughts and body into a lazy, limp journey into sleep. I was halfway there when something roused my eyes open.
I held my breath in my mouth and listened past the loud beating of my heart.
Silence.
Then…
There. Above my head. A thump coming from the roof.
I slowly turned my head so I was facing up, my eyes flying around the empty space above.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Something was definitely up there. Something was walking on the roof.
I had no choice. I grabbed the extra pil ow beside me and covered my head with it, shutting out the noise and the light. There wasn’t much else I could do but ignore the horror before it took over completely. This time sleep would be my only escape.