Dark Spirits (14 page)

That seemed reasonable to me. I mean, he had close to two hundred years of experience in this world. And although he’d kept what he knew about witchcraft from me, his intentions were genuine. I didn’t agree with them, and it still bugged me he’d done it; however, he was now willing to share everything with me. So in a sense, he was making an amends, to create a partnership with me on equal terms. If I had a handle on my emotions earlier, I would have realized those things.

“I’m sorry too,” I said, “And I’m sorry for bringing up Brayden.”

“What does Brayden have to do with this?” Carrie asked.

“Because Brayden would’ve never kept anything from me,” I told her.

“True,” Tree agreed, “but Brayden is hiding something, so he’s not as open as you think.”

Crap.

 What if he was getting in the middle of this mess? I suddenly felt sick to my stomach because in my heart I knew he was.

“Why do you think so?” Nathan asked before I could.

“Because we know him,” Carrie replied. “And when Paige told him you two were now working together, I noticed a hard determination on his face, and he left shortly after.”

“And when I asked him where he was going,” Tree added, “he said to make things right and mumbled something.”

“To confront the devil himself,” Carrie said.

Tree turned to her in surprise. “Is that what he said?”

Carrie nodded. “Yeah, I heard him. Freaky, huh?”

Tree’s cheeks filled with air, reminding me of a blowfish. Then he blew it out. A whooshing sound escaped his lips. For some reason I got really scared. I mean,
really
scared. I stole a glance at Nathan. He was watching me, his expression filled with dread and concern. His arms were at his side, but when he saw me shaking, he opened his hands, palms facing upwards. I immediately went to him, and he embraced me.

“Carrie,” Nathan said as he stroked the back of my head, “you need to tell us everything you know, including about witchcraft.”

Carrie shared a look with Tree. Something unspoken passed between them.
Oh, God.
This wasn’t going to be good. Carrie turned her attention to us.

“Don’t be mad at me, Paige,” she said, looking straight at me. “Because I basically did the same thing Nathan did to you.”

I pressed myself against Nathan, not liking the sound of this. The guilty look on her face didn’t help either.

“I do know a little bit about witchcraft,” Carrie confessed. “I was going to tell you before you left with Anwar and Nathan, but we were so busy with graduation and . . . ” She shrugged. “I don’t know. I think I didn’t tell you because I really don’t know much about it. I wanted to wait until I knew what I was doing so I had something concrete to offer you. But I do think that was what Ayperos was talking about because when the ‘old one’ was in Matt, he told me some things about it.”

“Like what?” Nathan wanted to know.

“I’ll tell you in a minute,” Carrie told him. “But I have something more important to tell you two. Nobody knows about it. Well, except Tree.” She winked at him. He smiled and winked back.

My stomach clenched. “What, Carrie?”

She took a deep breath and tucked her hair behind her ears. “I’m just going to say it, and then I’ll fill you in on the rest afterwards.” She took another deep breath and then another one.

Tree told us instead: “She has some of Aosoth’s memories, and they’re not filled with butterflies and flowers.”

Chapter Fourteen

Nathan

A small sound escaped Paige’s lips–a cry and a whimper knotted together. She pressed her face against my chest, her arms tightening around my waist. My hand cupped the back of her head, as if I were protecting her from a gruesome sight. I knew I had to keep it together for Paige. For all three of them. But dread seized my heart as thoughts of Carrie going mad tiptoed through my mind–a silent reminder of what could possibly be her fate.

I mentally shook myself.

Yes, Carrie was plagued with some of Aosoth’s memories. Yes, this new piece of information smacked me between the eyes because I never suspected this would happen, and it was another thing to add to our list of mounting problems. But if I were to look at it in a different light, shed a new perspective on this unfortunate circumstance, it could be advantageous to us. First, though, I had to ask the question I was sure had been weighing on Carrie’s shoulders.

 She was staring at Paige with somber eyes and had no idea we knew Aosoth killed Paige’s father. So to spare her the burden of telling Paige, I broke the awkward silence.

“Carrie, we know Aosoth killed Paige’s father and grandmother,” I said, noticing the tears collecting in her eyes. She tore her gaze from Paige. “Do you have those memories?” Paige made another heartbreaking sound, and Carrie nodded, confirming what Ayperos had told us was correct.

Carrie took a couple tentative steps toward us and placed her hand on Paige’s back. “Do you want me--”

“No!” Paige said, twisting her face around so she was facing Carrie. “I don’t want to know. At least, not right now.” She sounded broken, yet I could feel her gathering her strength by the way her body shifted beneath my embrace. When she drew herself up, I released my arms to give her some space, though I’d much rather had them locked around her instead.

“Is that normal?” Tree asked. By the curious look on his face, I knew what he meant.

“Sometimes it happens, but not very often,” I told him. “And usually when it does, the person either goes mad or becomes a recluse.” I paused at Tree’s uneasy expression and held my hands up. “But those are just the ones
I
know about. I’m sure there are others who handled it differently. And Carrie,” I quickly added, “knows what’s going on and can differentiate between Aosoth’s memories and her own.” A string of curses circulated through my mind at my insensitivity to a situation guaranteed to turn volatile if Aosoth were to discover this.

“Let’s go eat,” Tree said, and I silently thanked him for having the insight to remove us from this dismal mood by reminding us we had food waiting downstairs.

Paige’s small hand slipped into mine. It felt warm and damp, a hidden sign betraying her confident posture: back straight, shoulders back, chin raised. Paige may have thought I didn’t know her as well as Brayden, and with some things, she was correct. But I knew her on a deeper, more intimate level than anybody else, and I knew it pissed Brayden off.

Brayden.

The guy was a piece of work, and with what Tree and Carrie had said, I knew his obsession toward Paige wasn’t going to go away as I had hoped. And what he’d said about confronting the devil himself had me deeply concerned. I wondered if the son-of-a-bitch was stupid enough to negotiate with the “old one” and would be willing to seal it with his own blood.

 Idiot.

 Paige wasn’t a piece of property, and the “old one” had no power over her. So what was Brayden up to? Certainly he wasn’t foolish enough to believe the dark spirits would assist or accommodate him in his delusion he and Paige were meant to be together. Those thoughts raced through my mind while I descended the stairs.

At first all four of us ate in silence, tucked in the living room, holding the white Styrofoam container on our laps. I took a bite of my chicken chimichanga. The melted cheese, sour cream, and green sauce complimented the shredded chicken well. Paige picked at her taco salad, tearing off pieces of the deep-fried bowl. She dipped a bit of the shell into some salsa and delicately chewed on it. Then her attention fell on Tree and Carrie who were sitting on the loveseat, focusing on their own meals.

“Ayperos came to the antique store today,” she told them.

I pointed my plastic fork at Carrie. “The salt trick you did was very clever.”

“Did it work?” Carrie stared at us with hopeful eyes.

“No,” Paige and I answered in unison.

“I’m guessing,” I said when Carrie frowned, “the line of salt broke when your previous customers entered the store.”

“But it did have some affect on him.” Paige stood to demonstrate. “It made his leg shake like this”–she lifted her leg and shook it– “and a loud cracking sound erupted.”

“Seriously?” Carrie’s mouth hung open.

 Paige nodded and smiled.

I loved her smile. It could be either beautiful or cute, and right now it was cute.

“How did Ayperos act when it happened?” Tree asked, his expression filled with deep interest and thought, reminding me of Freud assessing a reaction to unfortunate conditions.

Paige barked out a short laugh. “He looked amused.”

“Really?” Carrie said, looking at me for confirmation.

“He did,” I said, and then Paige and I told them what happened when Ayperos was at Caroline’s store. I noticed Paige ate most of her food, which made me feel better. We may be immortal, but we still needed fuel for our bodies, otherwise we’d become weak and defenseless.

Afterwards, as if we were playing a game of truth, it was Carrie’s turn. She set their empty containers on the coffee table with ours and launched into detail about what the “old one” had told her when she thought he was Matt. For instance, there were portals to other dimensions on this earth, which was true. However, human scientists who studied this believed the earth only possessed twelve dimensional doorways, but they were wrong. There were more than a dozen. And so, since the “old one” hadn’t gone into detail with Carrie on this topic, and I wanted to keep my promise to Paige, I hijacked the conversation.

“He’s right, Carrie,” I confirmed, aware all eyes were on me now. “When the electromagnetic process of the earth creates a distortion in those areas, and the connecting lines of the electromagnetic force activates, the portal opens, allowing whatever is on the other side in.”

“Are you serious?” Paige asked, her dark green eyes wide with wonder.

I caught Carrie giving Tree a nervous look. He took her hand and rubbed it in a soothing manner. I realized then Carrie was gathering herself for something she needed to tell us. “What is it Carrie?” I knew I should have given her more time, but with everything going on and with our time constraint, we needed to quickly get everything out in the open so we could come up with a plan.

Carrie took a deep, shaky breath. “One of Aosoth’s memories I have is of her in the woods. It was twilight, and she stood in a small clearing. The trees cast eerie shadows around her, and her heart was pounding. But not from fright. Excitement. And the vessel was male. She had what looked like a German military uniform on.”

“Was it a Nazi uniform?” I asked, feeling cold all of a sudden because I had an unsettling feeling where this was heading.

“Yes.” She took a drink of her Pepsi. Her hand shook, causing the ice to clink radically against the glass. Tree took it from her and set it on the end table. She wiped her hand on her knee and went on. “It was black with a blood-red left armband. It had a swastika symbol on it.” She shuddered. “Aosoth even had on the high boots and a military-style peaked-cap.”

“So it had to have been between the years 1932-1934,” Paige guessed, surprising me because she was right. She gave me a smug look, which I thought was adorable. “I know my history, and those were the types of uniforms used during that time period.”

“Tell them what happened next,” Tree prompted, nudging Carrie’s arm with his.

“In front of her . . . er, him, the ground became hazy like a foggy film cresting over it,” Carrie said. “But then the haziness grew, spreading up and outward, and an apelike creature appeared in the middle of it.”

Tree leaned forward and raised his eyebrows, weighing his attention on Paige and me. A conspiratorial vibe filled the room. “Bigfoot.”

“Right,” I said, unfazed. “They have an uncanny knack for disappearing in the woods and going from their world to ours. Humans who have hunted them haven’t been able to capture them because of it.”

“And when they die, their bones disintegrate,” Carrie added and continued when we stared at her, open-mouthed. “Aosoth had shot him between the eyes. And when she went to tie a rope around his ankles, his whole body shriveled up and then turned to dust.”

“What about the portal?” Paige wondered. “Didn’t more come through?”

Carrie shook her head. “It doesn’t stay open for very long. Maybe a minute or less. But what Aosoth planned on doing was to hand this creature over to Himmler who was the--”

“Most powerful figure after Hitler in the Third Reich,” Paige interjected, enjoying showing off her historical knowledge. “But why would she do that?”

I knew but left it to Carrie to tell.

Carrie knotted and unknotted her fingers. “They had heard Stalin was in the process of creating a legion of human-ape hybrids with super strength and speed.”

“So the Nazi party wanted to outwit him?” Paige wondered to herself, puzzling the pieces together.

“It sounds like the vessel Aosoth inhabited was a part of the Nazi Occult Bureau,” I said.

“Yes,” Carrie replied. “But then somebody shot the vessel in the back, wheeling Aosoth to a dark, negative place I prefer not to talk about.”

Tree wrapped his arms around her. “She gets horrible nightmares from it.”

“Has anybody ever gone through a portal?” Paige asked me, changing the subject. Tree flashed her a look saying,
thank you.

“No, not to my knowledge. I’ve heard of people trying it, including the dark spirits. Apparently, there’s a trick to it we’re not aware of. I do believe, though, sometimes a person has the misfortune to be in the right spot, at the right time, and he gets transported to a different realm. I think some of the people who are missing in this world are there.”

“Scary.” Paige shivered.

I pulled her into my arms and kissed the top of her head, breathing in the peach scent of her hair.

“The ‘old one’ told me most of the portals have been closed for years because the earth is too congested with people and infrastructure,” Carrie informed us.

“Correct,” I confirmed. “Although you can feel the energy when you come across one.”

“What other memories do you have of Aosoth?” Paige wanted to know.

Carrie shifted in her seat and folded her legs beneath her. She told us about Aosoth’s infatuation with the “old one” and her hatred toward Paige. When the “old one” was inhabiting Matt, Aosoth kept a close eye on them, following them in different vessels, loathing the fact the “old one” enjoyed Paige’s company. Then Carrie told us back in the early 1900s when Aosoth was alive, she had a beautiful and charming cousin. Aosoth was insanely jealous of her, and when her cousin caught the eye of a stately gentleman who Aosoth was in love with, Aosoth murdered her.

“How?” Paige asked, staring intently at Carrie. I think she even stopped breathing. Carrie’s eyes fell to her lap, and her hands were shaking.

Tree took Carrie’s hands and held them in his. “She pushed her off a cliff,” he said. Paige gasped “The guy’s name was Markus,” Tree continued, “and he showed up at the last minute, catching Aosoth in the act.”

“He collapsed to his knees,” Carrie choked, tears trailing down her cheeks, “and threw his hands in the air and wailed . . . Aosoth’s real name is Elizabeth, and in between wails, he kept saying, “Why Lizzy.
Why?
” She paused, and she and Paige sniffed together. Paige lifted her hand and wiped the tears off her face. Every time Paige cried or was upset, it killed me. Nobody had ever affected me in the way Paige did, and before she captured my eyes, I was hardened on the whole concept of love. I thought it wasn’t in the cards for me, and for once in my life, I was truly glad I was wrong. “Aosoth told him her cousin cast a love spell on him, and she was doing him a favor,” Carrie said. “Markus became furious and shook her, saying she was a filthy liar. He called her a wretched evil woman.” Carrie sighed. “To make a long story short, they both stumbled off the cliff and died.”

“Omigod!” Paige squeaked.

“So add this to the list of reasons why Aosoth hates you,” Tree said to Paige, his voice uneven. “Because you remind her of her cousin.”

Paige didn’t say anything, but her heart was racing. I groaned, knowing now Aosoth’s feelings toward Paige went far deeper than we thought. And if she knew Carrie had some of her memories, she’d end her. I had to make sure that wouldn’t happen. If Carrie or Tree were to die at the hands of the dark spirits, Paige would be devastated.

“Carrie,” I said, giving her a pointed look. “Don’t tell anybody about this.”

She was biting her nails, looking nervous as hell.“I won’t.”

“Do you have any other memories of hers?” Paige asked.

Carrie pulled her fingers away from her mouth and told us everything else she knew about Aosoth. Most of it I was already aware of, such as her flaws: vain, presumptuous, self-indulgent. But when Carrie mentioned Aosoth’s habits, it caught my full attention. Aosoth was into role-playing. She would take a hit of Ecstasy beforehand and then would have a tall, dark-skinned guy indulge her in sadomasochism.