The girl’s inscrutable smile remained in place as she shook her head. “A kind of magic, yes. But real magic. There won’t be any trickery involved.”
Jake grinned. “Cool. Awesome.” He rubbed his hands together and clapped them once. He shot a wink Kristen’s way. “Hit me with the smoke-and-mirrors routine, girl.”
“The name’s Jordan.” A corner of her mouth twitched, a near smirk. “And I’m about to wipe that smug grin off your face. I told you. No trickery. No smoke and mirrors. Just real-deal magic.”
Jake shrugged. “Okay, okay. Show us your stuff, Jordan. I’m expecting some serious razzle-dazzle here.”
Jordan moved to the center of the room. The rest of them backed away from her, instinctively giving her space to do her thing. Space for what, Jake couldn’t imagine. Jordan closed her eyes and bowed her head. She held her hands in front of her, splayed fingers pointed at the floor. The pose made her look as if she were praying. She moved her lips and sounds emerged, but nothing intelligible. Jake scanned the faces of the others. The attention of all was focused solely on Jordan. They were absolutely spellbound. It was absurd. Nothing was happening. Why-
And then he felt it.
A sudden shift in the atmosphere. The fine hairs at the back of his neck stood on end. His heart began to speed up and he felt a strange kind of crackling in his fillings. A strange warmth suffused the air, displacing the air-conditioned chill in the space of maybe a second. He glanced at the others again, saw they were all feeling the same things. Kristen’s hands were clenched in tight fists at her sides. Her knuckles were a stark white. Her cheeks looked gaunt, the flesh stretched taut. It was then that Jake began to experience true terror. A terror of the unknown. He had written of this feeling in his books, but he knew now he’d gotten it all wrong. He had never fully conveyed how it could strip a man of his defenses and lay him bare. He was in the presence of something unnatural and dangerous. Something supernatural. Accepting the truth of this in his gut made him feel exquisitely vulnerable. Like he knew nothing and understood nothing. He hadn’t felt anything remotely like this since those childhood nights of crouching in a dark closet while his drunken parents screamed and threw things at each other. And even that had been a mere shadow of what he was feeling now.
The hell of it was she hadn’t even done much yet.
There’d been no genuine supernatural pyrotechnics of the sort he wrote about in his books. The kind of things he always pictured as rendered in cheesy CGI.
As if sensing his thoughts, Jordan lifted her head and her eyes snapped open.
They were red. Not just the pupil and the iris. Each eye…the whole fucking orb was red.
And they were glowing, projecting a sinister light that lit up her whole face. Sinister because there was a strange darkness swirling in the midst of that fiery, unnatural light, a shifting, half-formed presence that suggested capering shadows and phantoms. It was like a glimpse of hell. She smiled and Jake sensed the same darkness in the expression. He was starting to think maybe the boys had gotten it all wrong. This girl was the real threat, not Trey’s punk girlfriend. He glanced at them and saw awestruck expressions he figured must mirror his own.
Then Jordan lifted her hands and aimed her outstretched fingers at him.
Jake gulped.
Maybe the time had come to make a run for it.
Before he could act a field of unnatural energy enveloped him. He wanted to scream, but couldn’t open his mouth. Every inch of his flesh tingled in a way that was almost pleasant. Waves of blue-white electricity rolled over his body. Then she lifted her hands higher and he began to float.
Even as it was happening he thought, This is not possible.
The top of his head touching the ceiling seemed to suggest otherwise, though. He looked down at the others staring up at him and felt for a flashing moment like a man in the midst of a particularly weird dream. It was tempting to believe that. The problem with it was he’d never felt so alive and real than he felt in this moment.
And in the very next moment the unnatural energy suffusing the room’s atmosphere simply turned off, as if someone had thrown a switch.
Jake gasped and dropped.
Kristen screamed.
His rear end hit the floor. Hard. A jagged spike of pain shot up his spine as he rolled over. Then Kristen was at his side, her fluttering hand on his back as she alternately cursed Jordan and begged him to tell her he was all right. In a moment he realized he was okay, except for the lingering pain caused by his awkward landing. Nothing was broken. He was intact. Well, his body was. His mind felt as if it might fly into a million pieces any second now. He got up muttering assurances to Kristen.
He looked at Jordan. She looked normal again.
Then he looked at each of the boys. Both looked stunned.
Jake shook his head.
He settled into the recliner again and was silent for a long moment.
Then he said, “Well, fuck me.”
Jordan bit down on a smile. “Told you.”
“That you did. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. Sorry I made fun of you.”
She looked sheepish now. Almost shy. She looked at the floor. “It’s okay.”
Jake grunted. “No. It’s a long fucking way from okay.” He slapped his knees and stood again. He put an arm around Kristen, felt the live-wire thrum of her body. “We’re taking this party to the kitchen. I need a drink like never before. And then I want to hear your story in detail. Every fucking bit of it. Including why you think I can do anything about your problem. Got it?”
He waited a beat.
Nods and half-mumbled words of assent followed.
Jake led them into the kitchen.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
After wasting perhaps fifteen minutes debating how he should dispose of the bodies stinking up his garage, Raymond Slater realized the only sensible course of action was to do nothing. There was no reason to spend hours digging more big holes in his backyard. No point in carting both bodies out to some remote backwoods spot for dumping. It would only make him feel grubby, like the kind of banal serial killers he’d seen on A &E true crime shows. Besides, he would almost certainly be dead himself by the end of the day. He wouldn’t be around to sweat police inquiries.
He slammed shut the trunk of his Lexus, sealing off forever the sight of Cindy’s horribly mutilated body. He covered Penelope’s corpse with a tarp and shoved it under the Lexus.
Good enough.
Someone would discover the bodies in the coming days. And not just the bodies here in the garage. The authorities would find the mound of freshly turned earth in his backyard. They would dig up Patricia. He would be branded a psychotic murderer by the media. His daughter would spend the rest of her life hating him and cursing his name. But that would be fine. At least she would be alive. He no longer really believed hitmen would be dispatched to her university the instant he deviated from Lamia’s instructions for the day.
Two reasons.
For one thing, this was the day of the Harvest. The day when he was to call for a special assembly of all students at two P.M.
Except that he had gone against her will.
He wouldn’t be there to call that special assembly. Hours had passed. It was early afternoon now. He suspected Lamia would have a fallback plan in place. Someone else in the school’s administrative staff would summon the students to the auditorium at two.
But he hadn’t done it, by God.