Veiled (Ada Palomino 1)

Perry clears her throat.

I look to her with an innocent expression as her eyes dart between the two of us. Jay goes back to saying something to Dean. I quickly dig into my penne pasta.

I’m about to shove it in my mouth but I’m hit with a sense of pressure, like the air has solidified.

The room goes mute.

I look up from the dish and pause.

Everyone at the table is staring at me with a grim expression. Even Jay.

The waiters have stopped moving. They are staring at me too.

It feels as if icy fluid has been injected into my veins, chilling me from the inside out, sticky and black and relentless.

I immediately drop my fork. It rattles loudly against the plate, the sound a gunshot.

But no one flinches.

Every single person in the restaurant is still staring at me. Some glaring. Some seething with disappointment. All absolutely still and looking right into my eyes.

I try to speak. To get them to snap out of it.

I can’t.

It’s like Inception when you’re caught in a dream, but I know I’m not dreaming. This is real.

I do the only thing I can do. I very slowly get out of my chair.

The eyes follow me.

All of them, glued to my face.

All but Jay.

His are still frozen to where I was.

And they’re wavering, like something is about to break out of him.

He knows. In this instant I know he knows something is wrong and he’s trying to get to me.

But what exactly is this?

Oh my girl.

I stop where I am, in between tables, as this monstrous, disembodied voice descends on me from all directions.

You think you’re so clever, it hisses, seeping into my bones like cancer. I know exactly what you’re going to do.

I make eye contact with the waiter nearest me, espresso on his tray, still as a frozen lake. His eyes are murderous.

But I don’t say a thing to the voice. I have nothing to say.

I see you, it says. It feels like something you might find at the bottom of the sea, something that lives in immense blackness, otherworldly, not meant for ours. I see the both of you. Keep at it girl. Keep at it.

Then it laughs, a laugh that makes me gasp for breath, my lungs grinding like they’re stuffed with steel wool.

See you tomorrow.

A shadow slides into my field of vision and I watch as it glides toward the kitchen before it opens the swinging door and disappears inside.

Blood trickles out from underneath the door, as steady as a stream as it builds and builds, flowing into the restaurant and splashing along the legs of the tables like waves against a pier.

It’s not real, I tell myself. This isn’t real.

Even though the eyes are still on me, each soul unmoved, I go back to my seat.

Sit back down.

Pick up my fork and close my eyes, counting down from ten.

Nine.

Eight.

Seven.

The pressure ends with a sonic boom.

My eyes blast open, ears popping.

The blood is gone and the restaurant is back at full volume, everyone chatting with each other, drinking, eating, paying attention to everything else except me. Absolutely unaware of what just happened.

Everyone but Jay, who is staring at me in horror, a look that chills me.

“Excuse me, I need some fresh air,” I say to Rebecca, immediately getting back up and heading out the door. I can hear Jay’s chair being pushed back, feel Perry’s concerned gaze but I don’t turn around until I’m on the street.

It’s busy out here with traffic and pedestrians and the night air is hot as fuck, but still I’m shivering like I’ve just come out of the deep freeze.

I turn around at the sound of the door opening, relief flooding me when I see Jay.

I immediately collapse into his arms, not caring if anyone inside the restaurant can see me. He holds me tight, kissing the top of my head.

“You’re freezing,” he tells me, then pulls away and takes me by the hand around the corner where the garish glow of the streetlights can’t reach us. To be honest, I need everything bright and garish right now because I can’t banish the darkness inside me.

“Something happened,” I whisper when he doesn’t say anything.

“I know.” He’s holding onto my hand, looking down the street, his jaw stiff. “I saw. I couldn’t do anything.” He nearly grinds out those last words. “I felt them.”

Them. The term makes my heart drop. “Them who?”

“Legion,” he says. “He is many. And he was there.”

Legion. The demon of many demons. The one that even Jay can’t defeat. Inside the restaurant with me.

“Why didn’t he take me?” I question, voice trembling.

“I don’t know,” he says. He looks at me sharply. “He could have. And he shouldn’t have been able to. I should have been able to move, to protect you.” He throws his head back, stares up at the night sky which is filled with light pollution from the city across Lake Union. “I don’t know what’s happening.”