The Fell Read online

  ‘Dude’s lost it,’ Ian said.

  For a minute, Ben started to worry about both Peter’s sanity and April’s pride here. She definitely wouldn’t be okay with anybody even thinking about hitting her. But when he turned to look at her and make sure she was all right, he found her pointing at Peter and grinning at Ben, like she’d finally just gotten the joke.

  Oh, what the heck. “Hey, Chase,” he said. The guy turned from staring at Peter, his eyes as wide as they should have been with every other much weirder and more dangerous thing he’d seen since barging in on their little demon-hunter party. “This is what it looks like when we lighten up.” Ben grinned.

  23

  Ben had actually suggested waiting to have their second little sit down with Richard, Rufus, and Anita until the following weekend. For the first time since they’d had to fit their demon business into the schedule of their everyday lives, he was actually thinking about the fact that Peter and April still had class during the week and probably a lot of work to get done before Spring Break in a little under a month. If he was being honest with himself, he also had a lot of work left on his own dissertation, which would have been covered in dust right now if he’d written it on paper instead of his computer.

  To his surprise, April had been seriously against the idea. “That demon from your dream has come back to mess with you twice in two days,” she’d said. “You really want to give it another five days before finding out whether or not the Sectarian Circle can do anything to help?”

  Nope. No, he didn’t. Even more surprising, Peter had actually agreed that they shouldn’t put it off any longer than they had to, so they settled on Ben giving Rufus the call tomorrow and trying to make that meeting happen as soon as possible. Now that Peter had taken his moment to fall apart completely—in laughter, of all things—he’d pulled himself back together into a shape that acted a lot more like the Peter Ben knew. His friend. Whether or not the guy was ready to talk about Ian or even mention their bodiless friend without looking like he’d just swallowed a fishbone, that part could wait. At least Peter wasn’t ignoring him completely anymore. At least he still could laugh. Ben was willing to leave it at that for now.

  When they left Berta’s, April drove him the very short distance back to the movie theater to get his own car. Ben had never in his life thought he’d develop a discomfort around movie theaters, of all places, but he kept seeing the homeless woman in the trash as they pulled into the parking lot. He could only hope that would eventually go away. If things ever settled down—which it didn’t look like they would any time especially soon—he didn’t mind the idea of taking April to the movies and going on a normal date like normal people. But not if it always made him think of demons and people dying and Rufus. Major mood killer for sure.

  “All right,” April said, pulling up a few spaces away from Ben’s car and throwing her gearshift into park. “You good to drive home?”

  Ben smirked. “Yeah, I only had like half a dozen beers. I’m totally good.” He hadn’t, of course. Ben didn’t drink, as a general rule. Though he’d never actually tested it, he had a feeling alcohol and demons didn’t mix very well.

  “That sounds about right,” April replied, then rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.”

  “Yep.” He just looked at her for a minute. “Thanks for having my back, by the way.”

  She tilted her head. “With what?”

  “Peter’s freak out about me taking those people up on their offer. You’re definitely better than I am at explaining pretty much everything.”

  “I know.” When Ben laughed, she grinned and gave a playful shrug. “I’m not exactly thrilled about going into league with the Sectarian Circle without knowing all the facts. Mainly what it is they think they’re actually doing with stuff like tonight. Not the best way to get somebody interested in joining the team. But I don’t really want to wait and see how many of the worst parts of my dream actually come true.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Plus, I really kinda like the fact that we have something everybody else seems to want so badly.” She grinned, lifting her shoulders in something like excitement.

  Ben leaned back in the passenger seat. “Yeah? What’s that?”

  “You.”

  ‘You gotta be kidding me,’ Ian quipped.

  Well, Ben had to give it to her. She could pull a good line out of the not-so-awesome prospect of meeting with Richard Monday again. That took at least a little skill.

  He slowly shook his head, but he couldn’t completely keep the smile off his face. “No, I’m pretty sure everybody’s interested in Ian. If he happened to be… spending all his time with someone else”—April snorted—“I’d be off the hook.”

  ‘Thank you.’

  “It’s definitely you, Ben.” She said it with so much certainty, it would have been really easy to believe her. They just sat there looking at each other, and he wondered if he should take the opportunity to kiss her again. Then April slapped both hands against the steering wheel and nodded. “Okay. I still have some work to get done for class, so if we’re gonna have another long night locked in Richard’s basement, I should probably get to it.”

  Shaking his head and grinning, Ben opened the passenger door. “Makes sense. I’ll let you know when they can fit us into their schedule.” She nodded, like they were having the most casual conversation about planning anything else in the world. “Drive safe.”

  “Yeah, you too.”

  Then Ben was out of her car and shutting the door, not quite as disappointed as he’d thought he’d be for not having kissed her. Really, the car seemed like a pretty cliché spot for it, especially twice in a row. He unlocked his Honda, opened the driver-side door, then heard April say, “Ben, wait a minute.” She got out and left her door open, then half jogged toward him. “You forgot something.”

  “What’s up—”

  She didn’t exactly throw herself at him—just put her hands on his chest, stood on her tiptoes, and kissed him with a little less intensity than the night before. But it was still a kiss. Then she pulled away, and Ben laughed in surprise and because he hadn’t even had the time to respond. “Okay,” April said, tucking her hair behind her ear. “That’s it. Goodnight.”

  “‘Night,” Ben said just before she slipped back into her car and shut the door. She was pulling out of the parking lot the next minute, and he only realized he’d been planning to do the same thing when he shivered in the cold. He quickly got in his car, turned it on, and blasted the heat.

  ‘So you’re gonna have your head in the game when we go talk to these Sectarian Circle clowns, right?’

  “Are you?”

  ‘Ha, ha. Very funny.’

  “Get it? Because you don’t have a head.”

  ‘Dude.’

  Ben shifted into drive, ready to get the heck out of this parking lot. “Of course I will. I’m not going in by myself.”

  And he had to admit it; that part felt good.

  All things considered, Ben was feeling pretty okay when he got out of his car and headed toward the staircase up to his apartment. He thought he might even manage to fall asleep pretty quickly tonight too, despite the phone call he had to make in the morning. Rufus could wait at least until then. Ben’s bed was still off limits right now—his entire room, actually—but his couch was pretty comfortable. Sometimes, he even preferred it.

  ‘Even in your thoughts, you’re babbling,’ Ian said with a groan.

  “My thoughts, man. Your problem.” When he reached the top of the stairs on the second floor, he headed toward his apartment. He didn’t even notice his apartment door was open all the way until he saw the person walking quickly out of it with a gray bundle of something wadded up in his arms. “Hey!” The guy clearly coming out of Ben’s apartment now ducked his head and turned away from Ben to hurry down the hallway. “What are you doing?” He took off running after the stranger, who just turned the corner around the last apartment before the balcony
of the open walkway ended. Bad luck for whoever it was; the guy had run off in the opposite direction of any of the staircases.

  Ben’s shoulder bumped against the corner of the last apartment when he rounded it. “That’s my…” He had no idea what the person had taken from his apartment. He didn’t even know what he’d do when he found him, but he’d definitely expected to find the intruder cornered at the end of the walkway. Instead, he found absolutely nothing in front of the last apartment. Leaning over the edge of the railing, he scanned the parking lot on the other side of his apartment building, which was lit fairly well by the lampposts. Nothing. Then he craned his neck up, thinking maybe the guy had somehow employed some seriously impressive climbing skills to scale up the side of the building to the roof, but there was literally no sign of him.

  ‘Nice disappearing act.’ Ian didn’t sound nearly as worried about the break-in as Ben figured anyone would be. ‘It’s not like you have anything worth stealing.’

  “Then what was he carrying?” Ben stalked back down the open hallway toward his apartment, peering around the open door before stepping inside and closing it behind him.

  Everything looked pretty much exactly the way he’d left it—mostly empty, a little messy. Except for his bedroom door, which was also open wide into the living room. That was supposed to be closed.

  ‘Hey, maybe he was just looking for some extra dirty clothes. You can never have too many of those.’

  “Why do you think this is so funny?” Ben hissed, stepping cautiously toward his bedroom and hoping there wasn’t anything in there just waiting for him to be an idiot and go looking for it.

  ‘Don’t know.’

  Ben peered through the doorway, finding everything in his room looking pretty much the way he’d left it in there too, though it would’ve been pretty hard to notice if anyone had rifled through his stuff or taken something from beneath all the piles of clothes everywhere. He definitely had to start cleaning.

  ‘Check out the bed.’

  “No,” Ben said, purposefully avoiding that entire area altogether. “Did you forget what happened last time?”

  ‘Pretty sure it’s not gonna happen again.’

  With a deep breath, Ben dragged his focus across the room. Like he could run away from looking at something as easily or quickly as he could run back out into his kitchen. But then he stopped and just let himself stare at the bed. “What?” he shouted. “The dude took my sheets!”

  ‘And all the sand, too, looks like.’

  Yeah, Ben would have eventually come to that realization on his own, though it was nice to not have to think it through right now. He’d been a little focused on the insanely high creep factor of somebody breaking into his apartment to steel his bedsheets. Now he just had to worry about who the heck knew about both the sand and what it tended to do to Ben’s brain when he saw it. Because yeah, that was gone too.

  “I feel like I should be a lot more worried about this,” he muttered.

  ‘Why? Problem solved, right?’

  “Except for the fact that someone else knows about the sand.”

  ‘Could be anyone, man. Richard. Rufus. Maybe they sent somebody to help sweeten the deal of you signing on with their little club.’

  Ben backed away from his bedroom and went to the couch. He flopped down with a sigh and stared at the TV. “I didn’t tell Rufus about any of that.”

  ‘Oh, right. Huh.’

  That was all Ian had to say?

  ‘Well, you can ask them that tomorrow, then, right?’

  As long as Richard, Rufus, and Anita agreed to take Ben’s friends ‘into the fold’ with him. Then yeah, they’d have to answer this huge, gaping hole of a question too.

  ‘So quit worrying and get some sleep.’

  “And you care so much about me sleeping because…”

  ‘Just lookin’ out for you, man. And you’re kind of a jerk when you don’t get enough sleep.’

  Fair. Ben sat there for a minute longer, thinking about having to call Rufus in the morning to set up yet another meeting for them all. He couldn’t believe he was actually thinking it, but he kind of hoped Rufus would tell them to come back to Richard Monday’s house. No, the place wasn’t the coolest, most inviting environment, but at least he wouldn’t be bombarded with any more surprises in a new place than the surprises he’d face just by talking with those people again. He hoped.

  It amazed him that he felt so suddenly tired now, especially after having just watched a guy break into his apartment and disappear over the balcony before finding out his sheets had been the target of theft. Demon sand notwithstanding, it was totally weird.

  He got up only to turn the deadbolt in his front door, then he couldn’t really think of anything else to do but go to sleep and start all over again in the morning. Still, he felt better sleeping on the couch tonight.

  24

  Ben woke up on the couch the next morning thinking somebody was breaking in again. It took him a few minutes of flopping around on the cushions and staring at the front door before he realized the repetitive banging was coming from one of the apartments next to his. It sounded like somebody was building something or maybe pounding nails into the wall to hang a picture.

  ‘That would be a lot of pictures.’

  Ben didn’t care what it was as long as it had absolutely nothing to do with him, which seemed to be the case. So that was great. With a little groan, he lay back down on the couch and let himself stretch. Then he figured that if he was going to make this phone call to Rufus, he’d rather at least have some coffee first.

  Only when he went into the kitchen to put a new filter and coffee in the pot, he found he hadn’t emptied the last one for … well, several days at least. There was already a little mold in the coffee grounds sitting in the used filter, and yeah, it smelled pretty bad.

  ‘Gross.’

  “Maybe quit with all the comments about every obvious thing you can think of,” Ben muttered.

  ‘I thought you’d totally be nicer with as much sleep as you got.’

  “Coffee first.” He went to dump the grounds in the trash, wrinkling his nose at what would have been an easy thing to avoid. The black, moldy slop falling into the trash can made him think of that same black ooze he’d seen in his dream and in all the cracks of the spirit realm. Ben braced himself for the ensuing pain in his head and yet another attempt by the rag-demon to burst its way into his mind. He panicked just a little, expecting it all to overwhelm him again because that was what had been happening whenever he saw something that reminded him of his dream. How quickly he’d been trained to anticipate it, which really sucked because he’d like to be able to look at whatever he wanted without a demon trying to mess with him and screw up his day.

  ‘Dude, rambling thoughts again.’

  “What?” Then Ben realized that the pain and the visions and maybe even the cold, rough hand around his ankle hadn’t actually returned. That only gave him more time to consider how much he overthought these things.

  ‘It’s a lot, in case you were looking for specifics.’

  Blinking the rest of his sleep away, Ben went to wash out the plastic coffee filter before filling it again and making himself the only thing he wanted right now. “Just a little weird that none of that stuff happened again this time, right?”

  ‘Oh, now you want my opinion?’

  “Shut up.”

  ‘I guess. Not a lot to compare it to. But it’s a nice addition to having all that sand and your bedsheets stolen, don’t you think?’

  Maybe that was why the demon hadn’t shown up out of nowhere this time. No sand.

  ‘Brilliant…’

  Yeah, well, Ben still wasn’t about to start praising the guy who’d broken into his house and vanished completely. That part still bugged him.

  Before the coffee finished brewing, he poured himself a cup and didn’t grab his phone to call Rufus until he’d finished drinking all of it. Then he pulled up the guy’s number and steeled h
imself for this next step, still wishing it wasn’t the only real option he had, like April had said. He counted four rings until Rufus picked up.

  “Three phone calls in three days, Ben,” the guy said, his deep voice still surprising when Ben pictured him in his mind. “I like it.”

  “Rufus.” What else could he say after that?

  “I take it you’re calling to offer your decision, then?”

  “Not yet,” Ben replied. “I’m calling to ask for another… meeting.”

  The man hummed into the phone. “For what?”

  “Just a few things I want to go over before I commit to anything. The sooner the better, honestly.” Man, even this conversation sounded like he was already completely on board. Based on their willingness to let everybody in and not just Ben, he might actually be saying yes to the whole ridiculous Sectarian Circle.

  “How about tonight?” Rufus asked. “Richard’s house again. That’s probably easiest. Six-thirty?”

  “Sure.”

  “Great. We’ll see you then, Ben.”

  “Yep.” Ben ended the call before Rufus could make this conversation sound any more like scheduling a doctor’s appointment with a cheerful receptionist. He’d done that more times than he wanted to think about, and none of those appointments had ever turned out the way he wanted. But now he felt just a little bit closer to figuring out what the heck was going on. Hopefully.

  He pulled up the group text between him, April, Peter, and Chase, hoping they’d actually meant it when they’d told him they could make this meeting happen whenever it had to happen.

  —Next meeting tonight at 6:30. Richard’s house. Still in?—

  It was a little after eight in the morning again when he’d sent that text, so he didn’t really expect anybody to get back to him quickly. Even at noon when he ate the sub sandwich he’d ordered for delivery, they still had plenty of time to get back to him. But nobody had yet. That threw him off just a little, and he turned on the TV to try distracting himself with the nature channel and a documentary about turtles. Riveting stuff. Somehow, it just didn’t make the time go by any faster.