In my worst nightmares, I sometimes dreamed I’d inherited my mother’s schizophrenia, but never once did I imagine I would become an everlasting member of the bizarre brigade or a poster girl for the Finger Lakes Spirit Festival.
Rhys squeezed into the tiny bathroom beside us. He put his arm around me and tried to make me feel better.
“You’ll be okay, Mattie. All you need are a pair of colored contact lenses. Nobody even needs to know.”
Our faces in the mirror wore the same dazed expression. Today had been a long one for everybody. I felt safe here in the crowded bathroom, standing next to two men I barely knew. My great-grandmother trusted these men. She trusted me. She trusted me to find a way to stop the demon master and return the djinn back into the sealed cavern. No one but me.
I remembered what agent Porter had said about the demons. Loaded weapons, he’d called them. I simply couldn’t think of Blix and Larry as dangerous. I thought about the phantom demon master and his monstrous djemon running loose in my home town. The killer djemon started out just like me and Blix. Someone had let these things loose and planned to use them to kill. This had to stop.
“What exactly is the Hand of Fate?” My voice sounded distant and disconnected.
“Perhaps not what you think.” Rhys leaned against the doorway. “The original Egyptian legends of the three fates spoke of Amun, the ram-headed god, who impregnated a priestess of one of the snake goddesses of the waters of Chaos. The three sisters borne as a result served the poor, the wretched, and distressed mortal citizens of ancient Egypt. Not until the Greeks kidnapped them and brought them to Greece did they became famous as the oracle daughters of Zeus and Chaos. The women eventually took human husbands, gave birth to children, and over the millennia the lineage faded, as generation after generation diluted the sacred family origins. Madame Coumlie was the last of her kind; a wild card, like a roll of the dice, or a meteorite. She dedicated herself to helping people in need, and supported the paranormal and supernatural community here in town.”
“She wasn’t just a fortune teller. I get that now.” Somehow, I had inherited my great-grandmother’s power, so now it was up to me.
“No. Most of her clients were anomalous.”
“What?”
Rhys took my hand. “You call them paranormals, but the correct term is anomalous individuals.”
“I promised her, Rhys. I promised I would stop him. With Lance in custody, the FBI is going to stop looking for the Night Shark. But the real killer must be a demon master; we’ve gotta find this guy.”
Rhys agreed. “We find the djemon, we’ll find the demon master.”
Fontaigne paled, and sat down on the toilet.
“We’ve got to go back to the cavern. Everything starts in the caves.” All of a sudden I remembered. “Oh no, I never got a chance to ask her about her powers or what to do.”
“You still have the journal?”
Of course. I’d forgotten all about it. “Good point. What are we waiting for? Let’s go.”
Thus energized, we poured out of the bathroom and Rhys and Fontaigne headed out to the hallway.
“Hey guys, Give me a minute, will you?”
Rhys’ eyes flicked to the bed behind me. He nodded and gave my hand a brief squeeze; then followed the lawyer out to the hall to wait with Porter.
I moved to stand beside the hospital bed, gazing down at her. I never even got a chance to know her; she was already gone. On to a higher plane, I hoped. Her face in repose seemed so serene.
Fontaigne told me the funeral arrangements were already in place, and she had already changed her will to make me her heir. I studied the new crescent mark on my left hand. My great-grandmother was one of a kind and proud. I’d spent my whole life apologizing for my mother and trying to be like everyone else. I wasn’t some freak, I was unique. Just like her. I am the Hand of Fate. The time had come for me to own it.
The nurse came in, took one look at my eyes and gave a little shriek. She excused herself and couldn’t get out of the room fast enough. Her problem, not mine.
I sighed. I rubbed my face, feeling dead on my feet with fatigue. I needed sleep more than anything.
“I won’t let you down.” I planted a brief kiss on her small brow. “I promise.” I said a final good-bye to my great-grandmother and went out to the hall to find Rhys.
Rhys and I rode down the elevator and walked through the parking lot in silence. The weight of the humid night sky above and the events of the day had me feeling small and insignificant.
“You all right?”
“I just wish I’d known her sooner. I mean, I’m sad she’s gone, but I’m afraid I might have made her a promise I can’t keep.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“Rhys, how did Oneiri get so big? She told me djemons live off the life energy of the people they kill. Is that true? Are they soul-eaters?”
“Whoa there, lady. Djemons are dependent on the life force of their masters to survive. They grow by serving their master. A djemon unused by its master cannot grow.”
“How many people did Madame Coumlie order Oneiri to kill?”
“I can’t answer that.”
“I wish I’d had more time with her. There were so many questions I wanted to ask.”
Rhys unlocked the truck and held the passenger door open for me, but I didn’t get in.
I sighed. “Do you think she’s going to hell for what she’s done?”
“I’m probably not the best person to ask.”
“She told me I was death incarnate.”
Rhys looked away.
“She said I was descended from Morta, the Hand of Death.”
“People are born and die every day, Mattie. It’s the nature of the wheel.”
“I don’t want to kill anybody, Rhys. I don’t want to go to hell.”
“This is a discussion you should have with your pastor.”
“Have you ever killed anyone?”
His green eyes held mine. “Yes.”
I stepped back and broke into a sweat. I believed him. All I could see right now was the face of a stone-cold sociopath, completely devoid of humanity. I don’t know how I hadn’t seen it in him before. The world shifted dangerously beneath my feet, like the deepest desert sand.
“How many?” I whispered.
He looked away and the spell was broken. “Are you getting in or not?”
Good question. I had no doubts anymore that he was a killer, but did that make him a bad person? Could Rhys be the Night Shark? Could it have been there all along, and I missed it?
No.
He had been the first to think the killer was a large djemon. He’d gone to inspect the seal in the caves to make sure. I flashed on the image of his little-boy face gazing up at me from the caves. Nah. Rhys might be a murderer, but he wasn’t the Night Shark.
“Earth to Mattie. Hell-ooo.” The impatient smirk on his face decided me. Why do I find myself so attracted to men who are so irritated by me?