Born Again Read online

  ‘I didn’t get close enough to start picking apart all the details.’

  Two days, Ben said, and you didn’t get close enough?

  ‘Right.’ There was a long pause. ‘I couldn’t. I mean, I just… I saw the parts of them it took, Ben. It was… it was eating them.’ Ben groaned aloud. ‘And it just felt too much like—’

  Yeah, Ben interrupted. Yeah, man. I know.

  If anyone understood what it was like to be picked apart by a demon for nothing but the sheer joy of it, Ian did. On that night eleven years ago, after they’d watched three of their best friends turn against each other and themselves in that abandoned house, Ian had been trapped there, literally swallowed by the walls—as impossible as it seemed. Ben and Peter were the only ones who got out, and they’d thought Ian had died with Max, Nico, and Henry. But it turned out that the Guardian—the massive, super powerful demon protecting the portal into the spirit realm through that house—had kept him alive. Sort of.

  That house had been a pocket of timelessness, a place between worlds, which had apparently given Ben the unique and oh-so-charming ability to pop into the spirit realm as a living person and hear all those dead people’s voices. There, the Guardian, disguised as an old man with a fake conscience, had turned Ian’s physical body into a puppet. One that walked, whimpered, cried, and choked on some pretty nasty black-cloud thing coming from his throat before Ian and Ben had teamed up to banish the Guardian for as long as they could. That Ian hadn’t said a thing to Ben, Peter, and April once they got to that house. Probably because the Guardian had cut out his tongue—along with his eyes. But Ian’s spirit—the spirit sharing Ben’s body now—had kept going in the spirit realm, stuck there for what probably would have been eternity while the Guardian messed with his body like a young psychopath messed with small animals. Until Ben got him out.

  Ben couldn’t blame his friend for not wanting to investigate much further into an obviously lesser but no less sickening version of the Guardian. This demon at the park was doing the same thing on a smaller scale—picking kids apart piece by piece, delighting in the tasty bits, and leaving the rest of these kids to live with the butchered shell of themselves for the rest of their lives. Definitely not cool.

  So what can we do? Ben asked. He was almost positive the shudder running down his spine actually belonged to Ian.

  ‘Same thing we did to the last one. We need to bind it to a stone and make sure it never gets back out.’

  It’s that dangerous, huh?

  ‘Not really. I just have a thing against child-eaters.’

  Ben knew it wasn’t meant as a joke, but the way Ian said it—like he was talking about how much he hated ketchup—made him bark out a laugh. A few heads turned toward him from the other tables in the coffee shop, but Ben just ran a hand through his hair and grinned at the table. I guess we need another stone, then.

  ‘Yep.’

  “That’s one of Peter’s specialties.” He didn’t realize he’d said it out loud until he felt his own lips moving. Then he remembered the paper in his hand and the whole reason they’d found this playground demon in the first place. His stomach dropped again. “If this works the way we want it to,” he murmured, “we can’t tell that Chase guy to just go eat it.”

  ‘Probably shouldn’t. Thing One and Thing Two aren’t going to like it very much.’

  Well that was just not nice. Ben didn’t try to guess what issue Ian might have with April; maybe it was for the same reasons Peter hadn’t completely warmed to her yet. Maybe it was because Ian had never had a girlfriend and never would. Not like Ben did either, at the moment. Ian and Peter, though, had been friends too when they were kids. But hey, if Ben ever got stuck for an entire lifetime in someone else’s body with them, he’d probably develop a little favoritism too.

  Though he really didn’t like the fact that the jerk who’d somehow found them at Speedy Joe’s might actually be as useful as he’d claimed, Ben couldn’t ignore the burst of excitement when he realized how Chase’s help might change things. They wouldn’t have to wait for demons or spirits needing help to find them. And by they, of course, he meant himself and Ian. They could do what Ben had imagined the first time he realized he wasn’t powerless against unseen forces with a tendency to turn his life upside down. They could literally go hunting, and the demons wouldn’t even see it coming. Hopefully.

  “Any idea when we need to make this happen?” Ben stood from the table and grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair.

  ‘As soon as possible, probably. That thing in the park looked like it was running low on supplies.’

  Nope, the awful euphemism definitely wasn’t lost on Ben. “So it’s coming back for more soon?” He zipped up his jacket and grabbed his coffee.

  ‘I’d say that’s pretty safe to assume.’

  “And that would be…”

  ‘Literally at any time.’

  Oh, great. If Ben couldn’t manage to rally April and Peter for their next mission de demon-battle as soon as possible, no big deal. Just another kid’s conscience or empathy or innocence being devoured on the playground. Super.

  Ben pushed against the coffee shop door, and the little bell dinged against the glass. “Okay. I’ll let ‘em know.”

  Obviously, he didn’t tell either of them that he’d actually managed to find the first demon on Chase’s redaction-overkill list. He’d have to play it off pretty casually after they’d bagged this thing at Buckley Playground. Like, ‘Hey, look at that. This matches exactly what Chase wrote down on this list neither of you wanted to look at. What a coincidence. Let’s go recruit the guy you both hate.’ Well, at least he’d have some time to come up with a little more tact.

  But neither of his friends needed very much convincing at all when he told them the next day that he’d had another visit from a spirit needing their help and that the demon was slurping down pieces of kid like oysters from the shell. It didn’t even seem to matter that he did it over a group text, which seemed a lot more personally convenient at the time but might actually have made him come across as more callous to the situation than he wanted.

  —I think we should check this out ASAP.—

  —Okay.—

  Of course, Peter stuck to the simplified version while the bubble of three dots at the bottom of the screen on Ben’s phone was up there for what seemed like hours. It was probably April, which seemed a little weird; she’d never been very long-winded with texts. So Ben decided to speed things up.

  —Pete, how soon can you get another stone?’—

  —Tomorrow morning.—

  The next text coming from April was a million times longer than Ben had expected.

  —I have a lot of work this week, guys. I get that this is important and this “mission” is a pretty bad one, but it’s a really inconvenient time for me right now. Any chance it can wait until next weekend?—

  Ben stared at his phone, then read her text again to make sure he hadn’t somehow seen something completely different. There was a sort of unspoken agreement between the three of them that they weren’t going to explicitly talk about their extracurricular activities on the phone or via text—anywhere that would leave a trail somehow in a worst-case scenario. Not like anybody was interested enough in them to pull their text records or bug their phones or something. But still. The list of definitely banned words wasn’t very long—demon, spirits, spirit realm, summon, magic. They hadn’t exactly picked codewords, so April’s use of ‘mission’ wouldn’t have made sense at all if Ben and Peter didn’t already know that she was at least trying.

  What he couldn’t understand was her request to wait. Was she seriously making excuses not to help little kids by saying she was too busy with school? Ben’s stomach knotted on itself; that wasn’t like her at all. She’d been the one who had pretty much forced herself onto “the team” when Ben and Peter decided to go back to Oakwood Valley for Ian. They’d both refused her—multiple times—until they had no choice but to give in. And n
ow she was suddenly hesitant and prioritizing her research paper or whatever over other peoples’ lives?

  Well, technically, the demon left the kids alive. But taking a crucial part of someone’s spirit and gobbling it down before these kids even had a chance to grow up didn’t exactly leave them with much of a life, anyway.

  Ben couldn’t figure out how he was supposed to reply to that text. Could it wait until next weekend? Fortunately, Peter beat him to it—in a long, quick stream of short texts, one right after the other.

  —No.—

  —It can’t.—

  —This is what we do.—

  —You wanted to be a part of it.—

  —Unless you get hit by a bus or your grandma just died, you need to be there.—

  Ben winced at the last one, realizing he’d never told Peter even the few things April had shared with him about her life. And it wasn’t like his friends had ever sat down together for a get-to-know-you session. The minute he thought about sending a private text to Peter as a heads-up, April texted back.

  —Well, Peter, my grandma died thirteen years ago. So I guess I’ll just keep an eye out for that bus.—

  Ouch. A full two minutes went by before Peter replied in the only way he could.

  —Sorry.—

  It was probably a good thing that they were all in separate rooms and couldn’t see each other’s faces. On the other hand, not being able to gauge the severity of anything in a group text might have been more nerve-wracking. Ben figured it was time he said something.

  —We need you, April. Obviously. You do what you have to do. But from what I was told, I don’t think this is something that can wait. We need to get on it soon.—

  —Like tomorrow night.—

  Thanks for the backup, Pete.

  There was another pause where, as far as Ben could tell on his phone, nobody was typing anything. Then April got back to them.

  —I’ll let you guys know if I can make it.—

  And that was it.

  —Okay.—

  After Ben’s final text, that was apparently the end of the conversation. Yeah, group text was definitely not the way to go with this kind of discussion. He’d thought he’d feel better about facing this next demon once he explained what was happening, but this had only given him something else to worry about. Most likely, Peter and April were now just pissed at each other and probably Ben for setting up the team meeting from hell.

  ‘Punny,’ Ian said.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Ben muttered. He stood from the couch in his apartment, set his phone on the kitchen counter, and went to heat some water on the stove in the tea kettle and a pot for his ‘I’m definitely an adult’ version of Ramen noodles—hard-boiled eggs on top of actual Ramen noodles with some chopped green onions and Sriracha. Thankfully, he had at least one clean bowl in the cabinet and a mostly clean fork. He thought he’d done the dishes four days ago—maybe five or six. But that had always been at the bottom of his to-do list.

  He’d just dropped the eggs into the boiling water when the kettle started shrieking and his phone chimed at the same time. Once he’d drowned the Ramen, he went back to his phone and found a text from Peter. This one, though, had only been sent to him.

  —I wasn’t trying to be an ass.—

  Ben smirked. Peter had been acting that way toward April since the day they’d met; she’d shown up at Ben’s apartment at the last minute, ready to make the drive with them back to Oakwood Valley and the abandoned orphanage, and Ben hadn’t exactly had the time to tell Peter she was coming. This text, though, was the guy’s way of admitting he’d been wrong.

  —Did you tell her that?—

  —I will. Probably.—

  That didn’t sound particularly promising, but Ben had quickly gotten to the point of giving up on trying to make his friends play nice with each other. They’d already taken a few steps toward it on their own when they were getting ready to face the last demon in the brothers’ apartment. If they wanted to keep making it work, they would.

  Then his phone went off again.

  —Kids, man.—

  Yup, it had hit Peter pretty hard too, apparently.

  —I know.—

  —She should get that.—

  —She does.—

  At least, Ben thought she did. He just hoped she wouldn’t prove him wrong in a little over twenty-four hours.

  April didn’t send him anything else that night.

  6

  He dreamed about what he assumed was Buckley Playground, the playground he’d never seen before lit up by tall streetlamps. Instead of the normal yellow glow that spilled down onto most of the older neighborhoods in that part of town, everything was washed by that sickly green glow.

  Ben moved quietly toward the tiered jungle gym, the slides, the monkey bars. Right in front of the swings, a huddled mass churned in shadow. It looked more like a huge bear stirring out of sleep than anything else. But when Ben got closer, he realized it was the demon they were hunting.

  Sick, wet slurps came from the hunched form, punctuated by the smacking of drooling lips and the occasional crunch. The demon in his dream didn’t seem to notice Ben’s presence at all and continued its nauseating rhythm. One arm—if it could even be called an arm—moved up and down from the gravel where it sat to what had to be its mouth.

  The tinkling, hollow cadence of a carousel melody filled the night. Ben hadn’t noticed it before, but he couldn’t exactly pinpoint when the music had started. It had a mechanical buzz to it, like something trying to mimic the sound of actual instruments. He didn’t see a carousel.

  When he got close enough to see the thing over which this demon hunched, Ben stopped. The grotesque sucking noises had now become the drumline to the carousel music, and Ben felt a cold shiver run down his spine. Yes, the demon was eating. But it didn’t look like just a few pieces of some kid wandering into a perfectly disguised trap.

  A boy’s body lay on the ground, chest flayed open, ribcage cracked and torn apart to expose muscle, heart, ribs. The demon dipped its arm again toward the ground and plunged something into the boy’s open chest, removing a wooden spoon overflowing with bloody entrails and sinew, pieces of what could have either been liver or intestine. A huge chunk of it slopped back down into the little boy’s mess of a body, and the demon sucked at the spoon with a few grunts of consuming pleasure. In the green light, what would have been red looked black.

  The carousel music paused, then started again, and it seemed to grow louder.

  ‘Ben.’

  He couldn’t figure out where the voice was coming from, but it sounded like it was right beside him. The demon dug its spoon into the boy once more with a visceral snap.

  ‘Ben.’

  He couldn’t look away from the disgusting hulk of demon and its dinner, partly terrified and partly curious to get a glimpse of the horrid thing—to know what they’d be going up against when they went to the park for real.

  He’d thought the flayed boy on the ground was dead. Why wouldn’t he? But the blond head that hadn’t previously been detailed with a face shot up from the bloody gravel stained black and stared right at him with huge eyes. The boy had Ian’s face, his mouth gaping in a silent scream of terror until his lips finally moved.

  “Ben! Wake up!”

  Ben lurched awake and gasped, scrambling around in his bed until he realized the carousel music had actually been the ringtone of his phone he’d never bothered to update from four years ago.

  ‘Man, you’re hard to wake up,’ Ian said, sounding particularly irritated. ‘Note to self. Go with the creepiest tactic ever.’

  “You went inside my dream?” Ben asked, his voice scratchy and dry as he finally found his phone and turned off the ringer.

  ‘Only because you slept through nine texts and three phone calls. You should probably find out what’s going on.’

  Sitting up, Ben blinked his eyes into focus and scrolled through the notifications on his phone. Crap. Peter.

&n
bsp; All the texts said basically the same thing—Something’s wrong and I need to talk to you now—but there weren’t any voicemails. Peter never left voicemails. The first text had been at 11:30, pretty much right after Ben finally crashed in his bed. All three missed calls had come in the last fifteen minutes, and it was almost three in the morning. Peter knew there were few things Ben valued over sleep, so obviously the guy had been trying to wake him up. And apparently, the only thing that had managed it was Ian popping into Ben’s nightmare and making it worse.

  He tried to shake that gruesome image out of his head, then paused with his finger over the call button on his phone. “It’s not really… like that, is it?” he mumbled, lacking the energy or the necessity to think the question to Ian.

  ‘That demon with the kids? No, it’s not nearly that ugly. Not physical, remember?’

  Ben grimaced. “Then why’d I have to see that crap?”

  ‘Beats me. I just used what your mind gave me to work with.’

  Even if Ian had meant it to be reassuring, it definitely wasn’t. The fact that Ben could think up that kind of disgusting scenario—based loosely on what Ian had confirmed about this playground demon—made him a little nauseous.

  The ringtone on his phone blasted through his room and lit up the screen, making Ben jump before he accepted the call. “Hey, sorry, Pete,” he said, blinking heavily again and swaying a little in his bed. “I’m up.”

  “Jesus, Ben. I thought I was gonna have to sit through this on my own for the rest of the night.” Peter sounded almost as panicked as he’d been when he made Ben pull over a mile away from that abandoned orphanage on Wry Road—when he’d told Ben he didn’t have it in him to face the Guardian for Ian’s sake. But they’d pulled through it.

  “What’s going on?” Ben rubbed his face and considered slapping himself awake.

  “I have no frickin’ clue,” Peter replied, then let out a heavy, shaking sigh. “Dude, this stone… I don’t know if it’s normal, or if I missed something with the box. But this shouldn’t be happening.”