Bloodline (Paranormal Romance, Dark & Twisted) Saving Demons Series Book 1

I just couldn't shake the creepy feeling that had come over me earlier. Adrenaline used to temporarily cure things like creepy feelings, bad moods and disappointed mothers, but not this time. Not with this. It seemed the faster I took my Harley around the sharp curves and bends down the mountain pass, the more it bothered me.

  Someone, or quite possibly even something, had definitely been watching me. And it felt exactly like the gooey darkness of Bane's obsidian eyes. Or worse, the darkness that came to me before Sean did, that awful night Doug had to whack him upside the head with a baseball bat.

  This was kind of freaking me out. Somehow Izzy walked out of my head and into my real world. What if something else did? Like the copper angel?

  Or my madness?

  Or Bane?

  Every day I was beginning to understand Barron more and more. I understood, completely, how he could have lost his mind and gone crazy, because this was exactly what was happening to me.

  I quickly shoved the thoughts of my father down into the deeper parts of my mind where, hopefully, they would get lost. Or better yet, eaten up the bogeyman that lives in me. It was dangerous for me to think about my father for too long. Scary and unpredictable things happened when I did that.

  When I turned off Snake Road and onto the cobblestone street in Sleepy Hallow, I tapped my chunky boot against the shifter and lowering gears, hoping the rumble of the Knucklehead would rattle the crazy out of me, as it sometimes did. Of course, it always found its way back again, but that was ok. Temporary bouts of sanity were welcome in my insane world, no mater their duration.

  Gooey, Inky Shadows is a condition passed down to me through my father's genetic coding, I reminded myself, but it didn't soothe the unease that I was feeling inside.

  "There was nothing in the forest watching me!" I said out loud. There is a power in the spoken word, and I was hoping that the sound of my voice would bring it to fruition. There was nothing in the woods watching me.

  But everyone in town was.

  As my Harley rumbled loudly through the busy street, all eyes seemed to be upon me.

  "Hasn't anyone around here ever seen a chick on a Hog? Gees!" I muttered to myself. "Then I guess they'd never seen a chick on a hog talking to herself, either." I rolled my eyes and resisted the urge to pull in the clutch, crank on the gas and show them just how loud my Hog could rumble. But two things stopped me from doing that. One: The rickety, old buildings seemed to be having enough trouble as it was holding themselves up. I didn't want to inadvertently rattle them down to the ground. And two: I hated the attention.

  I turned onto the gravel road and following it alongside the little lake. The church parking lot was full. I'd expected a small crowd for a small town. I found Izzy right away. She was sitting at a picnic table, at the rear of the parking lot, in the grass overlooking the lake. She was wearing a very feminine, floral dress that swept down to her delicate ankles, which made me realize, that in my haste to leave my house, I hadn't considered what would be considered proper attire for attending a church service. I was in ragged, old blue jeans that had slits in both knees, a white T-shirt, riding boots, and, of course, a leather jacket. Not to mention my hair was windblown and totally disheveled. And I carried luggage, jam-packed with madness.

  Were demons allowed in church? Because I had some of those too. Would I step in through the doors and sizzle and melt into a steamy puddle on the floor?

  Or maybe just the demons would melt and I would finally be rid of them.

  I grinned to myself, as I rolled up to the edge of the grass and turned the engine off.

  "You came!" Izzy said, clapping her hands, excitedly.

  "Just like I said I would." I swung my leg around the rear and dismounted the Harley.

  "The service doesn't start just yet, do you want to sit down with me?" Izzy gathered the books that were stacked beside her and put them on her lap. I noticed the top one had a soft, black, leather cover with a gold KJV Holy Bible insignia on it. I briefly wondered what KJV stood for, as I sat down beside her. Were all these books required materials for church? Because I brought nothing more than some ragged, old clothes and some flesh full of monsters.

  "You have the craziest eyes I've ever seen!" Izzy exclaimed. Only then did I notice she was staring into my eyes intensely. "Sorry. I hope you don't think I'm being rude or anything. But, wow!"

  "Don't worry. I get that a lot, actually."

  "I imagine you do! Wow. So, thank you. For, you know, coming to my rescue this morning," she said, still gawking at my eyes.

  "Sure," I said, feeling a little awkward about the eye-gawking stuff. Or maybe the awkward stuff was coming from the ever-present urge to ask her how she managed to step out of my dream like she did and how it was possible for me to know her before I actually knew her. I wanted to ask her if she knew me too. If she knew the copper angel, or Bane and the gooey black shadow that moved inside of me, that somehow belonged to the two demonic angels as well. I wanted to ask her if she dreams of angels, the bad ones. But I figured I had better keep these questions to myself. I would end up scaring Izzy. And she might end up figuring out that I was totally insane. She'd find my crazy-stuff.

  "Although, don't you think that what you did was just a little extreme?" Izzy asked.

  I laughed. "No, not at all. If you think what I did to Isis was extreme, you would seriously flip out if you knew half the things I'd done in my life."

  "So, your eyes match your personality then?"

  "I guess so," I said, biting my lip because the questions I really wanted to ask were incessantly trying to spill from my mouth.

  "Something tells me that you would have done the same thing even if you had known who you were punching," Izzy said.

  "So, who exactly did I punch?" I didn't care, really. But it was a conversation and I hadn't really had one of those with a girl before. At least not a conversation that didn't end with the girl having a broken nose.

  "Isis Blackhawk! She's one of Devine's favorites. Isis is very mean. She's hateful, really. She's always picking fights. Everyone pretty much leaves her alone. They are afraid of them."

  "Who's them?"

  "The Daughters of the Hallows," Izzy whispered. "They are witches. And I'm not talking about the wanna-be kind. I'm talking real witches. Their Grimoires have been past down through hundreds of generations. Their coven is so large they've split into hives. They are, reportedly, bloodsuckers." Izzy said this last word as if it had black magic properties, that if spoken too loudly, something scary would happen to her just because she said it.

  Instinctively, my hand went to my throat, and I thought about Sean. I thought about how he had bitten me. And then I realized the witch I punched was part of the same coven Sean was.

  I shivered.

  Sean had told me the coven he belonged to had one hive in every state. It was just my luck that I ended up in another town where there was another Hallows Coven.

  And I punched the nose of one of its members.

  This meant I had to stay low, maybe not even let anyone know my name.

  My heart began to pound.

  Sean was going to find out that I was there!

  I wrung my hands together, nervous, trying to regain my composure. "Sounds like you've been doing your homework," I said, sounding as casual as I could manage. "I'm not impressed, though. I studied witchcraft for many years. As a matter of fact, from all my studies, I have come to the conclusion that I am able to extract more power from the knuckles of my fist than from dancing merrily around a circle, asking elements to join me. Of course, I am a firm believer in energies and their powers and whatnot, but if I sought to expel negative energy from someone using the energies of obsidian or an Apache Tear, for example, I'd much rather throw the stone at them than hand it to them. Which is not to say handing it to them doesn't work, it's just that clocking 'em upside the head works quicker and more effectively." I was rambling, I knew this, but it was better than telling Izzy what I really wanted to tell her.
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  Izzy stared at me, as if what I'd said had lifted the veil, and now she could see my crazy stuff. Oops, I did it again; I opened my mouth and just let stuff fall out of it. Izzy would probably never want to talk to me again, I thought.

  Finally, Izzy cleared her throat and said, "I have been doing my homework. This is why I can honestly tell you that this coven is evil. I mean, not all witches do the bad things this coven does. As a matter of fact, part of the common witch's creed is to harm none. The Hallows Coven does not abide by such a creed."

  "What about Crowley's Law of Thelema? Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. What do you get out of that? My point is, Creed, Rede, makes no difference, really. Whether you're a witch or not, the same rules apply. You bring about what you put about. Stuff comes back to you, ya know? Some people care if it does. Some people don't. So, really, it doesn't mater what title you give yourself, it still doesn't make you fall into a certain category," I tried to explain, earning another one of those looks from Izzy that said she saw my crazy-stuff.

  "I actually think I followed you this time. I get what you're saying," Izzy said, excitedly. "And yes, The Coven of Hallows doesn't care what comes back to them, I don't believe. But that makes it even worse for you."

  "So I punched an evil witch, so what?" I shrugged my shoulders. But it wasn't so-what if the witch I punched just so happened to gossip about it to all her coven friends and before I know it, The Sons of Hallows of the Burling Hive hear about the girl named Luna who broke Isis' nose.

  "They will probably come after you," Izzy said, sounding deeply concerned.

  "I guess if they did manage to scare me, I could rest assured knowing my Hog goes faster than their broom sticks do," I said with a grin. It really wasn't The Daughters I was worried about coming after me. It was The Sons. One of them in particular.

  "Your hog? You ride pigs?" Izzy asked, looking deeply concerned about my mental well-being.

  I laughed. "Not hogs as in pigs! Hogs as in Hogs." I jerked my head in the direction of my Harley. The purple beauty sparkled in the light of the setting sun, as if winking at me. "You try pushing that beast when she runs out of gas, and you will understand the Hog-stuff, believe me!"

  "I can't believe you ride that beastly thing! I would have to die first before I got on one of those." Izzy looked frightened just talking about the non-possibility of getting on the bike.

  "I'm infatuated with beastly things," I said, "And believe me, that's not as simple as it sounds."

  "So, it is safe to assume that beastliness is an attribute you look for in a guy, then?" Izzy blushed around her freckles, looking too innocent to talk about guy-stuff.

  "Absolutely! My guy has got to be beastly," I said, thinking about all the required attributes of a fine demon slayer. Beastly was definitely one of them.

  But was there such a thing as a gentle beastly man?

  "I'll introduce you to my twin brother, Roman. He's kind of beastly. Except," Izzy lowered her chin a little, as if suddenly saddened by something. "More in attitude than size," she finished. Then she raised her chin again. "Girls don't like him. They think he's crazy. But he's not, really. He's just---" Izzy struggled for the right words. The twisting of her face made the effort seem quite painful. "Seriously misunderstood," she said, sounding satisfied, maybe even proud of her choice of words.

  "It's really hard to imagine your twin being beastly, Izzy. I mean, look at you! You're just a little thing." I also wanted to say that it was hard for me to imagine anyone close to her not having a bubbly, luminous personality. Wasn't that sort of thing supposed to be contagious? But I refrained from telling her because I didn't want her to think I was not only crazy but a schizophrenic too. Normal people don't go around seeing light inside of people.

  "Besides, I'm really not interested in meeting guys right now. I'm going to hide from them for a while. Literally. And I'm not even joking."

  Izzy surprised me with a giggle. "Yeah, good luck with that, my friend. Every guy in town is going to make that difficult for you. You are probably the prettiest thing to have ever come to Sleepy Hallow."

  I rolled my eyes.

  The sound of an organ drifting from the open church doors sent Izzy jumping to her feet. She pressed her books to her chest with crossed arms. "They're starting! Come on," she said. Then she rushed across the grass in flat sandals. I clumped along beside her in big, Goth-like boots. We veered off into the parking lot and started weaving through the cars and the trucks.

  "So, did you say bloodsuckers? Cuz the last time I checked, that's short, or long, for vampires. Are you trying to tell me these witches are---"

  Ok, this was too weird to even repeat. Yes, I've had one of those anything-can-happen lives. You know, where basically anything and everything that is bad or outrageous can and will happen? But this? Moving to a new town, punching a vampire witch and pissing of the coven that just so happens to be sisters to the hive from which I ran from its maniac high priest? Of course, worse things have happened, but come on! I've only been here for three days.

  Izzy stopped at the bottom of the steps then looked around us to be sure no one would overhear her. "If you're thinking Bram Stoker's bloodsuckers then, no, that's not what I said." I barely heard her over the sound of a collection of voices that had begun to sing inside the church.

  Izzy started up the stairs again. I followed closely, quickly, trying to stay beside her. In the back of my mind I thought that if I slipped through the threshold at the same exact time Izzy did then I wouldn't end up making a mess of myself on the floor by turning into a steaming pool.

  "Well, what other kind is there?" I demanded, feeling a little rebellious about this for some reason because vampires are vampires, right? And besides, I needed to understand why Sean had a fetish for biting me, and Izzy may have had some answers for me.

  "The Hallows kind," Izzy whispered, just before we stepped inside the church. For some reason, this gave me the heebee-jeebeez. It could have just been the look on her face, combined with the hissing way she whispered it. Whatever it was, I found myself convinced that I had punched a vampire witch --no, scratch that. I broke the nose of a vampire witch-- and now Sean was going to find out where I was.

  I made it through the front doors without incident, staying close to Izzy, as we quickly walked down the isle. Izzy slipped into the third pew down from the front, on the left hand side of the church, leaving me at the very end.

  "Roman, this is Luna. Luna, Roman," She said. It was just a quick glimpse, and I was totally distracted by my own thoughts, so at first I didn't pay any attention to Izzy's brother and I had no intention to pay any attention to him either.

  Until I glanced up from the large, thick, callused hand that he was offering me to shake and saw his electric blue eyes. They shot through me like a current of electricity.

  They were the eyes of the man in my dream. This was the man whose lap I was lying in.

  And now, here he was, in my real world.

  I felt a little dizzy, like my stomach tipped sideways and tried to spill stuff out of it. It was true! Stuff was escaping out of my head. I had to stop it. I had to keep the world safe from the demons that could come out of me.

  When the initial shock faded just slightly, I was able to take the rest of him in, to see more than just those eyes.

  And, wow!

  Izzy had described him as kind of beastly. I wondered to whom she was comparing him, the Incredible Hulk? Heck, he may have been able to take down the Incredible Hulk, by the looks of him. Even in a suit and tie, Roman looked buff. His neck was thick, his shoulders broad. He towered over Izzy, and since she was only a little bit smaller than I was, he toward over me as well. Yes, they were twins, but there were many differences. Just to name a few, Roman's spirally hair was silky, not wiry like Izzy's. It was blond, with only a hint of strawberry, and it was much longer than Izzy's. Roman's hair hung past his shoulders and it was all one length. Izzy's just barely brushed the tops of her shou
lders.

  And, most importantly, Roman was far more handsome than Izzy was, in my opinion.

  I made this assessment in a flash, in the length of a quick hand shake, before Izzy grabbed a hymnal from the back of the pew in front of us, but the effects lasted much longer. One, brief connection of our eyes and I understood Izzy's description of him. Roman did have a beastly attitude. It wreathed him like a ring of smoke. But it was different from what I was accustomed to.

  I definitely needed to stay away from him.

  Sure, Roman was a churchgoer and whatnot, and maybe he even knew part of the Instruction Manual by heart, but I wasn't going to let that fool me. Men hurt women. Period. Whether they went to church or not. And after having just escaped Sean, I certainly was not in the mood for a relationship. Not that Roman would even think about asking someone like me out.

  Feeling oddly out of place, I grabbed a hymnal, opened it up to a random page and just stared at it. There was a strange thing happening in the church. I could sense some sort of change going on. And maybe change was the wrong word to use to describe what was going on around me, because, after focusing on it for a moment longer, I realized that this thing I sensed had always been here. It was like the church building was the body, and all its members were woven together to create one unified entity, and this entity was the spirit of the body; the spirit of this church.

  I shivered. But it was a good shiver.

  While everyone began to sing another hymn, I was jolted back in time, kidnaped by a rebellious part of my memory.

  "Close your eyes, Luna," Dammon whispered. His voice swept through me like the wind through the trees and my leaves shivered in his path. I closed my eyes. With a feather-soft touch, Dammon brushed his lips against mine.

  Then I shoved away from him.

  I tore myself from the memory with sudden anger balling inside me. It was the first time I'd allowed myself to think about Dammon in this way since I had stuffed him down beneath the surface of my thoughts, where I would be safe from the pain, from the tears that I might shed.

  The tears that threatened me now.

  A part of me suddenly hoped that Sean would find me here in Sleepy Hallow, because he murdered my angel and for this, Sean needed to be punished, and I wanted to be the one to do it.

  That, and this stupid ache needed to go away, and I understood that the only way it would go away was if Sean was in my presence. Which made me wonder. If he was dead in my presence, would I still ache for him? If I murdered Sean, would I also murder this need to be near him?

  I wanted to find out. More than anything, I wanted revenge.

  I squeezed my eyes shut tight and ground my teeth, biting back the sorrow that threatened to burst from my soul. I was hundreds of miles away from Burling and Sean and the ghost of Dammon, and yet, somehow, it was all still here, living and breathing inside me.

  But seeing him again in the memory . . . Oh, how I wanted to stay forever in that memory, except change it up a bit. Instead of shoving away from him and jumping off the couch, I'd grab him by the ponytail and help him out a little.

  Understanding thoughts of Dammon were unhealthy for me, I forced my self to focus on the array of voices that surrounded me. After a moment of doing this, I was able to feel something unique. There was nothing special about the song, at least not that I was aware of. I wasn't listening to the words. I was listening to the feeling. Braided within the body of the church, was a hum of happiness. With so many people here, surely there had to be more than a few souls carrying sorrows or worries or troubles of some sort, so I marveled at how none of that showed and none of that could be felt. This hum of happiness was a form of magic, one not so different from the magic Dammon wielded. It swept through the room, ridding it and all who were in it of all that was bad and washing it clean with goodness and cheer.

  Except for me.

  For me, nothing changed. Everything I carried with me when I climbed the steps of the church was still with me now. My luggage was still jam-packed full of monsters. There was only one difference. Now, a longing was kindled inside of me to belong to the same kind of magic that everyone else in this room seemed to be sharing. And I really

  But this would never happen to me. I would never let go of the darkness inside of me long enough to give way for any kind of light or magical happiness. As a matter of fact, me just standing there in that room, surrounded by such goodness, made me feel as if I were tainting it somehow. It made me feel like I should leave just so that I wouldn't end up spoiling anything for anyone else. It made me feel dirtier and darker.

  While the music stopped and the sermon began, I was growing increasingly angry. It had nothing to do with what the preacher-guy was saying, because I wasn't even listening to him. It had everything to do with how unfair it felt that this room would not share its magic with me. The night had refused to swallow me, death had rejected me countless times, and now this; the happy hum rejected me.

  I suddenly thought about The Coven of Hallows. I should have met Devine, instead of Izzy! Devine didn't have to know my last name. I would have been far more comfortable standing beneath the moonlight, surrounded by a bunch of bloodsuckers than I was standing there in a room that made me feel tainted and unclean!

  Yet, something compelled me to stay. It was some kind of unseen force. This reminded me of Sean, how his eyes pinned me to the back of his seat, and I couldn't run from him, even when I knew I should have. It reminded me of that first day I met him, when I climbed the riverbank and found him standing there. I knew I should have run away from him then. Thinking back on it now, though, I realized that even if I had, Sean would have come after me. Running would not have done me any good. This only made me realize that Sean finding me here in Sleepy Hallow was inevitable. It was only a matter of time.

  But I was ready for him. I hoped.

  "Where are the restrooms?" I whispered to Izzy, hoping she would not see the dark discomfort that was stirring inside me. She glanced up from the notebook she had been frantically writing in. Nope, she didn't seem to notice. She may have even forgotten that I was there, up until I had asked her this. She was so absorbed by what the preacher-guy was talking about that she didn't seem to notice me or my discomfort, which I was certain both were totally visible.

  "Near the front entrance there's a set of stairs. Go down and then all the way to the back of the church," she whispered. Then she returned to her frantic jotting.

  I got up and walk down the isle, making my way toward the entrance. When I reached the front doors, I fought the urge to keep going straight through them, but I managed to turn and go down the stairs against my will. If it wasn't for that unseen force pulling me forward, I wouldn't have been able to stay.

  On my way down the stairs, there were only a few antique lanterns lighting the way. The flickering lights lapped the stone walls, leaving them moist, and dungeon-like. The smell of damp, cool earth permeated the air. It was exactly how I would imagine the belly of a castle to be and nothing like I would have expected to find beneath a church. There was just something totally weird about a creepy place lurking beneath a safe place like this. It had a graveyard-feel to it. Weird! Especially since it was indoors.

  When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I was met by a great expanse of darkness. The basement itself was poorly lit. One little wriggling light illuminated the bathroom door in the far back corner to the left. The door looked disturbingly out of place with its fresh, bright, blue paint. Getting there meant I had to stroll through that thick, darker-than-dark darkness. Not that I was afraid, or anything. I kind of had this alliance-thing going on with anything that was dark or black, spooky or dangerous. The fact that this darkness wasn't the gooey, inky stuff should have been somewhat of a comfort to me. But it wasn't.

  Something was calling to me from here.

  I headed toward the bathroom, well aware of how the darkness felt heavier once I stepped into its awaiting embrace. I had to admit that this made me feel a little un
comfortable.

  Would it let me escape? What would it end up doing to me if its embrace was, in actuality, my prison? Could darkness have teeth? Would it eat me up? Bite my neck? Suck my blood? My mind kept coming up with all these irrational questions and my body was responding to them as if I was taking myself seriously. Every fine hair on my limbs went erect. Goose pimples rose in my flesh.

  Something wasn't right.

  That unseen force felt stronger now. There was something different about this darkness. It wasn't natural. Through my experiences with Sean and Bane and Barron, I was highly trained to sense the unseen and able to feel its malevolence. But there was no malevolence here, only something unseen.

  The darkness seemed to keep stretching itself, making the space between me and the bathroom door longer and wider and further away.

  Ok, so maybe I was just a little bit afraid.

  It's not going to let me out, my mind warned. It's not going to let me reach the light! This is payback for the tainting I was doing upstairs.

  Just as I finished this thought, a man's voice unraveled from the darkness. "Luna," he said. The voice was everywhere, yet nowhere at the same time. It was very similar to Bane's voice in my dreams, the way it seemed to belong to the dark and not to him.

  My breath hitched in my chest and I froze.

  A part of me believed that it was the darkness that gripped me and held me still.

  "Do not be afraid, Luna," the voice came again.

  Ok, I was afraid. Very afraid! I was being held captive by Darkness, and now it was speaking to me, telling me to do the impossible.

  The light was right there, half way across the room. If I could only move, if I could only reach it, I would be safe.

  Or would I be?

  "Luna, nothing is holding you captive, save your own fears," the voice said. I almost believed it, almost felt stupid, because --yeah right-- darkness holding me captive? Come on! Besides, there was something about that voice that commanded ever cell in my body to believe what it was saying. But it was not in a dark kind of way. It was in light, or love, or everything that was pure and good. This confused me even more than I already was.

  Something moved in the far right corner. It was the blackness. Only, it seemed to be drifting slowly toward me.

  "My name is Ashmodai. You have no reason to fear me, Luna. Please, relax. I will reveal myself to you."

  Whatever this entity was, it was both dark and light, both harmful and safe. It reminded me of the yin-yang, because it felt to have such a balance about it.

  As the slithering darkness approached, I squinted my eyes, hoping it would help me to see what was coming, because this not-knowing-stuff was far more intense than I was comfortable with.

  "Beneath that, what do you feel?" The voice, like soft, tendrils of invisible smoke, played in the darkness that swirled only a few feet in front of me now.

  "I don't know. But I have a feeling you can tell me," I said.

  "I come from the darkness, yes. But I am of the light. The very same of which you seek, Luna."

  The slow swirl of darkness became particles of light. Before my slow and feckless mind could even comprehend what was happening, tiny, dust-like pieces formed into the body of a man who, for a fraction of a second, was completely transparent. I could literally see the darkness from which he came drifting and swaying behind him, and the light over the bathroom door, which was muted, now that I was looking at it through his body. He was solid now, though, a real man, with long blond hair and powder-blue eyes. He wore a long, white cloak that was so pure and clean that it looked like it could have been a garment made in heaven. I could sense in him the exact same goodness I felt braided through the people upstairs. Was it possible he was the maker of that happy hum?

  Maybe he would share it with me! With this thought, I realized that I didn't feel as though I was tainting him. How could this be when I felt it so surely upstairs? I tainted all that was good and light. Why was I not tainting him?

  No, this was too crazy. Even for me. I was just spooked and he was just a guy---

  That came from floating little particles of bright stuffs, I reminded myself.

  Ok, so he wasn't just a guy, but this was still crazy. This man just formed himself out of dusty light before my very eyes.

  Ashmodai smiled warmly, as if he had been eavesdropping on my thoughts and was finding them amusing. "No, Luna, not the maker of the happy hum. Born from it, though, was I."

  "Yeah. . .I kinda just. . .saw that," I managed to say. "Except. . .the light was. . .is. . .darkness."

  There was just no way I could wrap my head around this, right this second. Maybe later. I would definitely have to try later. As for now, I was stricken by awe.

  "Not all that is dark is demented. The Lord would not have seen that it was good. Instead of his division between dark and light, I do believe he would have simply omitted the darkness. But that is strictly my opinion only. Nothing more," Ashmodai said. In his eyes I could see an old, maybe even timeless, wisdom that did not match his physical age. But for some reason this did not surprise me. Anyone who can just appear out of little sparkly things can look however he wants, right? I mean, if I was old and timeless and had the ability this Ashmodai had then I wouldn't choose to look younger than ancient, too.

  I shivered. This was just too weird.

  "If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee."

  "That's beautiful," I said, wondering who wrote the piece.

  "Psalm 139, verses eleven and twelve. A Psalm of David. To the chief musician. God sees, Luna. No matter how deep it is buried in the darkness within," Ashmodai explained, though I had no idea what he was actually trying to say. He must have seen my confusion. "God's Book," he said.

  Nope. Still didn't get it. I didn't even know God wrote a book.

  "The King James Bible," he said, sounding patient and kind and maybe even understanding of my ignorance. "KJV," he added.

  "The Instruction Manual!" I said, excitedly. "I didn't know your god wrote that!" I wanted to hear more of those beautiful verses from this book Ashmodai claimed God himself had written, but first I needed to know who this Ashmodai was and what he wanted with me. Could have Sean sent him? Maybe Barron? Or maybe Grandmother Jade?

  "What are you, exactly?" I asked. "Are you a ghost? Did someone send you to get me?"

  "In time you will come to learn who I am, Luna Lanchester, as there is a time and place for everything. Now is not that time. Here is not that place. As for now, you must return to Isabel," he said, still wearing that warm, I-find-your-thoughts-amusing smile. "You will come to me again, and soon."

  I was a little upset that I did not get the answers I wanted, so I tried a different approach. "Do you live here, in the basement of this church?"

  "Temporarily, yes. In the catacombs, and on this church's grounds," he said.

  "So you live with dead people?"

  "Skeletal remains, to be specific. Empty shells, is all they are."

  "Well, that certainly makes it sound more charming."

  "You must go now, Luna," he said.

  But I didn't want to go. There was something otherworldly peaceful about Ashmodai that I knew I could only feel here, while in his presence. And besides that, I still had unanswered questions.

  "I remember reading something about someone named Ashmodai in my studies of witchcraft. I can't remember now. But are you him? The same Ashmodai?"

  "Be patient, Luna. For patience is, indeed, a virtue," Ashmodai said. Then, just like that, he went back in the same way he had come. In an instant, the solid man of flesh and bone, who had been standing right in front of me just as real as I was, exploded, gently, into sparkling, floating dust. It reminded me of a time when I was a little girl, when I had dumped a bottle of silver glitter in the palm of my hand, made a wish and blew. I was
just as mesmerized by the beautiful display of raining glitter in a beam of sunlight as I was now. It was almost exactly the same as that, except, there was no sunlight here. There was no need for it here. Whatever it was that Ashmodai was made of, it consisted of its own light. And now, standing there staring off into the place where he had been, I understood what he was talking about earlier. Beneath the discomfort of the dark, I could feel the light, the magic. It was similar to the way that I could feel life twitching spasmodically beneath all that was dead or dying inside me.

  I felt a flicker of hope.

  Maybe I could shed the demons within me. I knew there was a way, and something told me that the way had something to do with this light I sensed in Ashmodai and the light within Izzy and the light within Doug.

  Beyond that understanding, though, nothing made an iota of sense.

  So, once again, who else could I blame, but my father?

  Gooey Shadows and Seeing Sparkling Dead Guys are conditions passed down to me through my father's genetic coding, I assured myself. Then, quickly, like something was chasing me, I ran out of the church's dark, comforting basement and up into its selfish, non-sharing happy hum.

  ****

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Luna