Veiled (Ada Palomino 1)

On the other side is Michael. Or at least the body he incorporated back when he was a demon in our world. Tall in a pinstriped suit, he could almost be called dashing, except for the fact that he’s smiling so cunningly, his eyes putrid black holes, that he’s horror personified. Any resemblance I once thought he had to Dex is gone.

“We can stop,” Michael says, his voice so inhuman and terrifying, it makes me grind my teeth together. Liquid spurts from my eyes and I can’t tell if it’s blood or tears as it runs down my cheeks. “We can stop it all right here. We will spare your mother if you just come with us.”

I stare at them. I stare at her.

Her eyes are pleading.

Her eyes are . . . real.

She’s staring at me and she’s crying. She’s in pain. She’s trying to hide it all but she can’t. Her brave face isn’t brave enough.

This is real.

This is her.

And I have no idea what to do because I know what coming with them entails.

As if my mom senses that she slowly shakes her head.

“Don’t do it,” she whispers. “Wake up, Ada. Run away!”

I don’t know what to think. First she’s telling me to save her, singing a song about following her, now she’s telling me to wake up and run away.

Which is it?

I look at Michael. “What do you want?”

His grin never falters. “You know exactly what we want. It’s you.”

Even though his voice makes my eyes bleed, I push on.

“You’re not real. This is a dream. Nothing is really happening.” I look at my mom. “She’s an illusion you’ve made. Maybe even one I’ve made, to play on my guilt.” I nearly choke on those last words. My tongue tastes the blood from my eyes.

“They lie to you so well,” he says. “I suppose they want to protect their latest guinea pig. You’re nothing but a tool to them, you know that, don’t you? You can feel it. How they only give you so much information, just the right amount, to make you complacent and afraid.” The Michael demon’s hand tightens around my mom’s arm until her eyes close in silent, debilitating pain. “He’s not who you think he is. He’s not even who he thinks he is.”

I don’t want to ask who he’s talking about, even though I know it’s Jay. It doesn’t matter. It’s not real. It’s my own subconscious, my own doubt.

“Do your worst then,” I tell him, finding strength somewhere in the depths of me.

Michael’s head jerks back like he’s not hearing me correctly and in that one sickening instance, I’m afraid. Truly fucking afraid. Because that reaction was a little too real.

The black, nebulous creature reaches over to place its hand over my mom’s chest.

“Last words?” Michael asks my mother. “Until I do it all over again?”

My mother eyes me with so much sorrow my heart breaks.

“Don’t come find me,” she whispers frantically. “No matter what happens, Ada. No matter what I say. No matter what—”

The black being pushes its hand into her chest until it’s a gaping black drain. I see galaxies among arteries, planets around her beating heart.

“No!” I scream despite myself.

My mother’s mouth falls open, choking, no words, no breath. Blood trickles from her mouth.

With sickening quickness, the black thing brings its hand downward, severing my mother’s body in half from her collarbone down like a hacksaw on a carcass. I turn my head, blood splattering hot against my skin, coating me from head to toe.

“You can stop this,” Michael says and he’s at my ear, breath that ices. No, he’s inside, in the middle of my chest, burrowing deep. I can feel evil in my blood, sinking into my cells and beyond. There is no escape. “You can stop this Ada. Or she’ll be tortured for eternity.”

I’m crying. I’m screaming. I’m tortured and yet if I turn my head and open my eyes I’ll see who is really suffering.

So hurry now and listen, Michael’s agonizing voice whispers from within me, permeating my brain. Run to the pond that does so glisten.

I try and push him out of my head. I put up a black wall, tall and eternity-bound.

Step in before she dies.

Another wall. I concentrate as much as I can, seeing that dark wall block me from him.

“Ada!” I hear another voice whisper.

And now you know it’s he who lies.

“Ada!”

Hands on my shoulders.

I gasp for air like I’ve been underwater. Panic floods my bones, my body ready to run. All feeling is back, clarity like nothing else.

I’m in my room. My old room. Sheets tangled at my legs.

It’s dark but there’s air and I’m alive and this is real.

This is life.

And my father is in front of me, face white, his eyes darker than ever in the black. For a moment I’m afraid he’s possessed, that this isn’t him.