Just as my own body began to shake violently, someone stepped in front of me and took hold of my shoulders. I gasped and tried to break away, but his grip was firm. I looked up, expecting to see a pair of searing eyes and sunken cheeks, but instead it was Xavier, who wrapped his arms around me and pulled me away from the crowd and out into the open air.
“No,” I said, more to myself than to him. “Please, no…”
He kept his arm around my waist and half carried me over to his car because I seemed to have forgotten how to use my legs.
“It’s okay,” he said, pressing a hand against my face and looking me in the eye. “It’s going to be okay.”
“This can’t be happening… that was… that girl was…” My eyes were burning with tears.
“Get in the car, Beth,” he said, yanking open the door and helping me inside.
“Jake’s responsible for that!” I cried as he started the ignition. He seemed in a hurry to get home to Ivy and Gabriel. Come to think of it, so was I. They would know what to do.
“The police are treating it as a suicide,” Xavier explained flatly. “It’s tragic but it’s got nothing to do with Jake. In fact, he’s the one who noticed her missing and alerted the authorities.”
“No.” I shook my head vehemently. “Taylah would never do something like that. Jake had a hand in this.”
Xavier was unconvinced. “Jake may be many things, but he’s not a murderer.”
“You don’t understand.” I wiped my tears away. “I saw it all — it was like I was there when it happened.”
“What?” Xavier turned to look at me. “How?”
“When I saw her body, it was like I suddenly became the victim,” I explained. “She slit her own throat, but she didn’t want to do it — somebody made her. He was controlling her, and then he was laughing while she died. It was Jake, I know it.”
Xavier squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “Are you sure about this?”
“Xav, I could sense him. He did this.”
We both fell silent until I spoke again. “What happened after she died? I didn’t see that far.”
Xavier’s expression was pained, but his voice came out sounding impassive. “She was found dead on the bathroom floor. That’s all I know. One of the juniors came in and saw her lying in a pool of blood. There was nothing else there but a kitchen knife.” He was gripping the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles had turned white.
“Why do you think Jake chose her?”
“I guess she was just unlucky.” Xavier said. “In the wrong place at the wrong time. I know she was your friend, Beth — I’m sorry this had to happen.”
“Is this our fault?” I asked in a small voice. “Did he do this to get back at us?”
“He did this because he’s sick,” Xavier said. He was staring unblinking at the road ahead, as if he was trying to hold back everything he felt inside. “I just wish you hadn’t been there to see it.” Xavier sounded angry, but I knew it wasn’t directed at me.
“I’ve seen worse.”
“Yeah?”
“We see a lot of bad things where I come from,” I said. I didn’t tell him how different it was experiencing the loss firsthand on earth, when the victim was your friend and the pain was amplified tenfold. “Did you know her too?” I asked quietly.
“I’ve been at school with those kids since first grade. I know them all.”
“I’m sorry.” I put my hand on his shoulder, which was tense and rigid.
“So am I,” Xavier said.
Gabriel and Ivy had already heard what happened by the time we got home.
“We have to act now,” Ivy said. “This has gone too far.”
“And what do you propose we do?” Gabriel asked her.
“We have to stop him,” I said. “Destroy him if that’s what it takes.”
“We cannot simply charge in and destroy him,” Gabriel said. “We’re not permitted to take life without reason.”
“But he’s taken someone else’s life!” I cried.
“Bethany, we cannot harm him unless we know without a doubt who or what he is. So, much as we might wish it, confrontation is out of the question for the time being.”
“Maybe you can’t hurt him,” Xavier said, “but I can. Let me fight him.”
Gabriel’s gray eyes were unyielding. “You will be no use to Bethany dead,” he said sharply.
“Gabe!” I cried, distressed by the very idea of anyone touching Xavier. I knew he would jump headfirst into a fight if he thought he was protecting me.
“I’m stronger than him,” Xavier said. “I know I am; let me do it.”
Ivy put a hand on Xavier’s shoulder. “You don’t know what we’re dealing with in Jake Thorn,” she said.
“He’s just a boy,” Xavier replied. “How frightening can he be?”
“He isn’t just a boy,” Ivy said. “We have felt his aura — it is growing stronger now. He is aligned with dark forces that no human can understand.”
“What are you saying? That he’s a demon?” Xavier asked incredulously. “That’s impossible.”
“You believe in angels. Is it so difficult to consider we might have evil counterparts?” Gabriel asked.
“I’ve tried not to think about that,” Xavier said.
“As surely as there is a Heaven, there is a Hell,” Ivy said softly.
“So you think Jake Thorn is a demon?” I whispered.
“We believe he may be an agent of Lucifer,” Gabriel said. “But we need proof before we can act to stop him.”
The proof came when I unpacked my school bag a little later on that afternoon. A familiar coil of paper was tucked inside the zip. I unrolled it to reveal Jake’s distinctive script:
I felt a sudden lump stick in my throat. Jake had threatened Xavier. His vendetta was no longer against me alone. I clutched Xavier’s arm. I could feel the muscles there beneath my fingers — but it was still only human strength.
“Is that proof enough for you?” Xavier asked in a low voice.
“That is a poem and nothing more,” Gabriel said. “Listen, I believe that Jake is behind the murder and all of the accidents. I believe that he means to wreak havoc, but I need concrete evidence before I can act — the laws of the Kingdom demand it.”
“And then what will you do?” Xavier wanted to know.
“Whatever is necessary to keep the peace,” Gabriel said.
“Even if it means killing him?” Xavier spoke plainly.
“Yes,” was Gabriel’s icy response. “For if he is what we suspect him to be, then taking his human life will send him back where he came from.”
Xavier considered this for a moment and then nodded. “But what does he want with Beth? What can she give him?”
“Beth turned him down,” Gabriel replied. “Someone like Jake Thorn is used to getting what he wants. Right now his vanity is wounded.”
I shuffled my feet uncomfortably. “He said he’d been looking for me for centuries. ..”
“He said what?” Xavier exploded. “What does that mean?”
Gabriel and Ivy exchanged worried looks.
“Demons often search for a human to make their own,” Ivy said. “It’s their twisted version of love, I suppose. They lure the human to the underworld, and they’re forced to stay there forever. Over time they’re corrupted and even start to develop feelings for their oppressor.”
“But what’s the point of it?” Xavier asked. “Can demons even have feelings?”