Possess (11 page)

Yes, I’m with them, Bridget thought. Aren’t I just the luckiest girl in the world?

Ms. Laveau glanced at Monsignor, who nodded in a reassuring manner. “Never fear, Ms. Laveau. Bridget’s done this kind of thing before.”

Bridget swallowed hard and forced a smile in an attempt to look like she wasn’t about to pee in her pants.

“Oh.” Ms. Laveau sounded disappointed. “I guess . . . whatever you suggest, Monsignor.”

Monsignor inclined his head. “Thank you.”

Ms. Laveau watched with wide eyes as Father Santos began to assemble the candles and sacramentals on the main counter. “What shall I do?”

“I recommend you go and get a cup of coffee,” Monsignor said. “Or maybe dinner with a friend?”

Ms. Laveau’s face fell. “I don’t get to stay?”

Great. One of those amateur ghost hunter chicks. She probably had at least one set of tarot cards and a Ouija board stashed in her apartment.

“I’m afraid you might complicate the situation.” Monsignor led Ms. Laveau expertly toward the door. “For a successful, er, blessing, we need to have only professionals present.” Ms. Laveau was about to protest, but with a tinkling of the bell, Monsignor had maneuvered her out the door. “I’ll give you a call when we’re finished.”

Bridget couldn’t help but smile at how Monsignor handled Ms. Laveau. Too easy.

Now if only the doll shop was the same.

Fourteen

F
ATHER
S
ANTOS HAD ALREADY PREPARED
the room. White candles blazed on the counter next to the cash register; their orange-and-yellow flames reflected in the endless glass display cases, making the entire shop look like it was ablaze. Decanters of holy water and oil stood valiantly side by side, and a stripe of salt lay across the back entrance, with a small pile in each corner of the shop.

“We’re ready,” he said.

Monsignor didn’t even look at him. “Did you sanctify the front entrance? I do not see any salt across the threshold.”

He was right. No salt across the front door. After what had happened at Mrs. Long’s, it was a careless blunder.

“Yes, yes,” Father Santos said. He grabbed the bowl of salt and ran to the door. “S-s-sorry.”

“Hmm.” Monsignor waited until the salt was poured and Father Santos had returned the bowl to the counter before he turned to Bridget. “Now we are ready.”

Bridget took a deep breath. Showtime.

But something was off. With the painful exception of
a hundred soulless faces staring every direction, the shop
felt . . . normal. The air wasn’t charged with malevolence, not cold, not sharp. There was no telltale sense of dizziness, no room pitching back and forth like the deck of a ship. No popping in her ears as the air condensed around her. At the Fergusons’, at Mrs. Long’s, Bridget had felt like someone was watching her, not from behind, but from everywhere at once, as if the house itself had grown a million pairs of eyes. Now here she was in the creepiest place on earth, surrounded literally by a million pairs of eyes, and what did she feel?

Nothing.

“Are you sure there’s something here?” she asked, peeling off her bomber jacket. Far from being cold, the shop was pleasantly warm.

“Yes,” Monsignor said patiently.

Bridget ran her fingers across the wall of the shop. No voices, no grunts, no howls, no screams. “I just don’t hear anything.”

Monsignor removed his stole from Father Santos’s bag. “Rule Number Four.”

“Do not let your guard down,” Bridget said diligently.

“Precisely.” Monsignor kissed the embroidered cross before draping the purple stole over his neck. “Watch.” He took his crucifix out of the bag and placed it on the counter.

The mood changed in an instant. Pressure built in Bridget’s ears. She tensed her jaw, and her ears popped. The new energy continued to build, centered on the cross. The atmosphere turned bad, foul, and Bridget caught a whiff of that familiar tangy metallic scent.

Out of the corner of her eye, Bridget saw a doll’s head spin.

“Dammit,” she said under her breath.

“Focus.”

Another movement from her left sent her heart racing. This time she thought she saw a whole shelf of dolls tilt their heads toward her. They were staring at her now, a wall of dead glass eyes. She was pretty sure they hadn’t been a second ago.

“Did you see that?” she whispered.

“See what?” Father Santos asked. Seriously, did he need glasses?

“Do not engage,” Monsignor said calmly, invoking Rule Number Three.

Don’t engage the creepy dolls possessed by Satan who are now all staring at you. Just pretend they aren’t there.

Bridget closed her eyes. Please don’t let a Chucky doll lunge at me with a freaking butcher’s knife. Please, please, please.

What happened next was almost worse.

“We have heard about you
,” squeaked a chorus of high-pitched voices.

Bridget’s eyes flew open, and her heart leaped to her throat. Every doll in the shop was staring right at her.

“We know who you are. We know who you are. We know who you are,”
the dolls sang. Like, all of them. Like, the entire freaking shop full of dolls in singsong unison.

“Christ on a cross.” Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t panic.

“Bridget?” Father Santos sounded worried. “What is it?”

“You don’t hear that?” she asked. So not good.

“What?” Monsignor asked. “What do you hear, Bridget?”

“A Watcher is here. What fun! What fun!”

A Watcher? Where had she heard that before?

“We defeated you. We defeated you,”
the dolls taunted.
“The Master is strong.”

Bridget spun around. The whole shop was alive, hundreds of dolls jittering and squirming behind their glass cases. She was so terrified, her brain was starting to shut down. She had to force herself to concentrate on what the dolls were saying. “Defeated me before?”

A childlike giggling rippled through the room.
“Defeated the Watchers.”
The dolls laughed.
“Defeated the traitors.”

“Traitors?” Bridget asked. “What traitors?”

Monsignor’s voice sounded small. “Bridget, are you all right? What is happening?”

“What are they saying?” Father Santos added.

The giggling crescendoed, then abruptly cut off. “
TRAITOR! TRAITOR! TRAITOR!
” the dolls shrieked from the silence. “
ONE OF US! ONE OF US! YOU ARE ONE OF US!
”

Bridget clamped her hands over her ears. One of them? How could she be one of them, something evil and twisted, something that wasn’t even a part of her world? “I’m not! I’m not one of you.”

“LIAR! LIAR! THE TRAITOR LIES!”

Bridget felt like she was drowning under the voices. They swelled in volume and crashed over her in waves. Her legs buckled and her body sank to the floor. Why wasn’t her power working?

“WE WILL DESTROY YOU!”

As if to remind her, the St. Benedict medal vibrated violently, flapping back and forth against her wrist.

“WE WILL DESTROY THE WATCHER!”

That’s right. The charm had a motto.
“Vade retro satana,”
Bridget murmured. She was barely aware she spoke the words out loud.
“Vade retro satana.”

“LIAR! LIAR!”

“Vade retro satana. Vade retro satana.”
Feet and hands tingled.

“TRAITOR AND A LIAR!”

“Shut up!” she screamed. Bridget pushed with her legs like she was power lifting a heavy weight. With a withering effort, she lurched upward, shoving the voices away. “SHUT UP!”

Silence.

Bridget slumped forward, hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath.

“What did they say?” Father Santos stood behind the counter, his ever-present notebook and pencil at the ready. “Do you remember?”

Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks for asking.

A heavy arm reached around her shoulders, bracing her while she panted. “Are you all right, Bridget?” Monsignor asked.

Bridget nodded and straightened. “I think so.”

“Good.”

“Now if you can remember”—he shot a hard look at Father Santos—“tell us what the entities said.”

“They said,” Bridget panted, “they said they knew who I am. That I was one of them.”

“Interesting.”

“What do they mean?” she asked. The dolls’ words had her worried.

Monsignor frowned. “I’m not entirely sure.”

“Why doesn’t she ask them?” Father Santos said. He didn’t look up from his notebook, just continued to write.

“Rule Number Three,” Monsignor said. His voice was steely. “Do not engage. It is never a good idea to actively address an entity unless you are trying to discover its name.”

Father Santos shrugged. “If we want to know what they’re talking about, Bridget should ask them.”

As Father Santos uttered her name, a murmur echoed through the room, pinging from corner to corner like a demonic game of telephone.
“Bridget. Bridget. Bridget,”
the dolls echoed.

Monsignor put his hand on her shoulder. “What do you think, Bridget? Would you like to try?”

Try talking to a shop full of demonic dolls? Not really. “Okay.”

He patted her shoulder, then took several steps away.

She could do this. She had a great power, didn’t she? And they were just dolls, anyhow. “That’s right,” she said, pivoting in place to face each wall in turn. “I’m Bridget. Do you know me?”

“We know who you are,”
giggled one wall of dolls.

“Shh, don’t tell her,”
replied the opposite side.

“She cannot harm us. We are strong. We are many.”

Bridget laid her hand on the nearest display case. “Tell me what you know,” she said. “Or I will banish you.”

The instant the word left her mouth, chaos erupted in Mrs. Pickleman’s Tiny Princess Doll Shoppe. Hundreds of dolls leaped to their feet and began to twitch and lurch in their display cases. Bridget felt like she was going to be sick.

“Holy shit,” Father Santos said under his breath.

“The Master is strong! The Watcher cannot banish!”
the dolls screamed.

“I—I can and I will,” Bridget said, trying to stay calm.

“The Watcher is a fool. The Master’s spies are many! He will break you.”

The sound of tiny plastic and porcelain bodies crashing into glass thundered through the shop as the dolls launched themselves against their glass prisons. Faces and arms, bodies and legs smashed and shattered. The entire shop vibrated, whole display cases lurching and tottering away from the wall. The shelf on which Bridget rested her hand gave a sickening crack as the glass splintered. A Little Red Riding Hood doll’s face jutted through the glass like Jack Nicholson in
The Shining
.

“I will banish you,” Bridget said again. Her voice wavered.

Then it got really weird.

The dolls began to chant nonsensical verses as they stomped their feet in unison. It was no longer a child’s squeak, but a hundred booming voices rumbling through the shop.

“Pothered tints strut.”

“Spins truth tottered.”

“Amazing,” Monsignor said.

“What does it mean?” Father Santos asked.

Bridget turned to them. “You can hear that?”

Father Santos scribbled at a frantic pace. “Absolutely.”

“Thunder totters spit.”

“Potent dither trusts.”

From amid the roar of incessant chanting, Bridget caught a distinct voice calling her name. Her full name, just like her mom did when Bridget was in a metric ton of trouble.

“Bridget Yueling Liu.”

Bridget spun around and found herself facing the display case of historic dolls. Her stomach sank as she watched the
Little House on the Prairie
doll—the one that had winked at her—stand up and place its wooden hands against the glass.

“Bridget Yueling Liu,”
the doll repeated.

“How did you know my name?”

The doll inclined its head.
“He told me.”

“Who? Your master?”

The doll shuddered but didn’t answer.

“Okay.” Not the talkative type, this one. “Not your master?”

“I have a message,”
the doll said.

It was the first time Bridget had heard a demon refer to itself in the singular. This entity felt different from the rest, kind of like the last demon who inhabited Mrs. Long—the one who had given her a cryptic warning. This demon had a distinct voice and personality, separate from the collective.

“Who are you?” she asked. “What is your name?”

Again, the doll was silent. Not that it mattered. The name was already forming in Bridget’s mind.

“Penemuel,” Bridget said hesitantly.

The doll didn’t even pause.
“I have a message for Bridget Yueling Liu.”

“Fine. What is it?”

“The messenger was sent. His warning was not delivered. You must find the messenger.”

That was a new one. “Messenger?”

“You must find the messenger.”

“I don’t understand.”

With a shrill cry, the doll thrust its wooden arm into the case, cracking the glass door.
“YOU MUST FIND THE MESSENGER!”

All right, all right. Don’t argue with the possessed doll, Bridge. She fought back her confusion and her fear and tried to concentrate on what Penemuel was saying. “Okay, find the messenger. How?”

The voice turned rigid and struggled to get the next word out.
“Me-yer. Un-der. Un-der. Me-yer.”

Bridget froze. Milton Undermeyer.

The man who had killed her father.

“Un-der. Me-yer.”

“Who told you this?” she asked, panic welling up. “Who sent you?”

“Bridget Yueling Liu. He calls you Pumpkin Bunny. He says you will know.”

“No!” she screamed. Impossible. How could her dad be sending messages through a demon? That would mean . . . She felt sick to her stomach. That would mean he was where they were. That would mean he was in Hell. No, no, no! She refused to believe it.

The chanting in the shop rose to a fever pitch as the dolls continued to launch themselves against their cases. From around the room, Bridget heard the smashing of glass and a series of bloodcurdling screams as, one by one, the dolls hurled themselves at Bridget and the priests.

Bridget shielded her face with her arm as a Madame Alexander princess and two American Girls went flying past her head. “How did you know that? Who told you?”

“Pothered tints strut.”

“Spins truth tottered.”

“Thunder totters spit.”

“Find the messenger.”
With a fierce jab, Penemuel sent its tiny arm through the display case, lodging it in the splintered glass.

“Potent dither trusts.”

“Where is my father?” Bridget screamed.

Penemuel lifted its head to Heaven.
“My penance is done.”

Bridget slapped her hands to the glass case against the wooden nub of Penemuel’s hand. “Tell me where he is!”

“I am released!”

The doll lifted up off its shelf, shuddered once as Mrs. Long had done, then crumpled, lifeless.

“Bridget, what is going on? What are you doing?” Monsignor’s voice swirled through the chaos of the shop where piles of broken, mangled dolls lay twitching on the floor. “You need to finish the banishment.”