Veiled (Ada Palomino 1)

“Ada?” Perry’s voice shatters the room.

The door opens and once again I’m jumping from fright and whirling around to see her shadow at the door, the hall light on behind her. “Ada are you okay? Who are you talking to?”

There is panic in her voice and she fumbles for the lights.

They come on, too bright and I wince, covering my eyes, before looking back to Jay.

He’s gone.

I’m standing by the bed, facing the wall, and no one is there.

“Ada?” Perry comes in voice higher now, quietly shutting the door behind her. “What happened?”

“I . . .” I stammer, blinking at the place Jay was. He was here, I know he was, just as I’m sure that some being went into the closet.

Even now, the closet seems to pulse and hum with its own kind of malevolent energy.

I look over at her with wide-eyes, my heart sinking because I know what she’s going to say. “Didn’t you see him?”

“See who?” she asks, frowning.

“I was talking to a man,” I say quietly, pressing my lips together.

“You were sleepwalking,” Perry says.

“I wasn’t,” I tell her sharply. “You weren’t sleepwalking when this happened to you.”

“Ada,” she says. “It’s the middle of the night and you’re suffering from a sleep disorder.”

I march over to her, the blood in my face hot with anger. “You of all people should know that these things can’t be played off that easily! You should know nothing is so easily explained with us. I wasn’t sleepwalking Perry. There was a man here and before that, there was something on my bed.”

Her eyes dart to the bed and back to me.

I go on. “I had a terrible dream about mom. I woke up, paralyzed. You know, like the syndrome sometimes does to you. But there was someone else in this room with me. Something. I could hear it breathing. I could feel the weight on the end of the bed.”

A flash of fear comes across her eyes but she quickly buries it, raising her chin. “You know that the sensation of having someone at the foot of your bed is part of the syndrome, it’s common.”

“And then it got up. The thing, the person, whatever it was got up and I felt it. It touched my foot! And then I saw it. I saw that it was real. The closet door opened wide all by itself and the, the being walked inside. Perry, it had a fucking tail.”

She swallows, her jaw tense and she looks over at the closet, staring at it in a strange way, like it’s compelling her.

“I got up,” I tell her. “I went over to the closet and it was almost like it wanted me to open it. I heard mom’s voice again, Perry. Just like in my dream. Telling me to find her, help her, that she wasn’t alone. In my dream she told me that the Michael demon died with her. It’s with her now.”

“It was a dream,” Perry whispers, voice shaking. Her eyes are still focused on the shut closet door. “You said so yourself.”

“So I almost opened the closet door. Then a man told me not to. I turned around and there he was.” I gesture to beside the nightstand. “He told me I wasn’t dreaming, that I shouldn’t go inside.”

Perry nods absently and starts walking toward the closet.

“Perry,” I warn her.

She shakes her head, gingerly raising her hand to shush me. She stops just outside the door and closes her eyes.

I come over to her, keeping a safe distance, watching curiously.

“Perry?” I whisper, wondering if she’s asleep on her feet.

Her eyes snap open and she leaps backward, her hand at the Kyuss logo on her faded band t-shirt. “No,” she cries out softly.

The skin on the back of my neck prickles, my fingertips numb.

“No what?” I ask her, afraid. Because when she’s afraid I have more of a reason to be.

“I don’t know,” she says, voice shaking. She looks at me, her brow creased. “I don’t know, but this is bad. There is something very bad about all of this.”

“No shit!” I yell, unable to keep it to a whisper. “There was a creature who went into my closet and then a strange man appeared in my room right afterward!”

The door to my room opens and both of us yelp in unison, jumping in place.

“What the fuck is going on in here?” Dex asks as he pokes his head in, brow furrowed as he takes us in.

Perry brushes past me to him and points at the closet. “There’s something in that closet. I don’t know if it’s there now but it was there. And that isn’t a closet. It may have been when you looked last but it’s not anymore. I don’t know what it is but I can feel it all the way in my bones that this is very, very bad.” She looks over at me. “Ada, I think you should come back with Dex and I tomorrow to Seattle.”