Page 104 of Some Kind of Haunted

I am frozen in place. I remember, then, what Jack said about being caught in the mine when he was a kid. That it felt like something black enveloped him and held him. I have to think this is the same thing.

Like I have been surrounded by layers of pure fucking evil, it’s holding me like chains, and there is no fighting through it.

Panic claws at me, particularly as Harrison moves closer fluidly, without a single creaky joint evident. And as he comes, I can see what must be his demon brigade all around him. They’re shadows to my eye, always shifting and changing, sickening dark shapes that my mind can’t make sense of. Though I recognize them. I’ve seen them before.

They’ve been in my dreams forever.

With eyes. And claws. And teeth.

I get the impression that Harrison sees them more clearly—which means I don’t want to look at them directly. For all I know, that’s how they got a hold on him.

“Jack can help you, Harrison,” I tell him. I’m not sure if this is true, but even if it isn’t, he’s certainly the one who would know where to look for the right information. If anyone could figure out how to free his grandfather from whatever hold the demons have on him, it’s Jack.

“Fuck Jack,” Harrison says with a level of contempt and disgust that shocks me.

And that makes my heart feel like it’s bleeding—for Jack. I’m glad he isn’t here to hear this. I think it really would kill him. And Harrison doesn’t stop. He keeps going, and it would be easier if he sounded like some kind of unhinged, cartoony bad guy, but he doesn’t.

The more he talks, the calmer and more sure of himself he sounds, like he’s shedding the skin of the sweet old man I thought I knew. Like it’s been a costume he’s been wearing all this time, and now he’s free of it.

“Jack should have been dead years ago,” he tells me. He shakes his head as if he still can’t believe his grandchild escaped the dark fate that would have killed him at four years old. “But your foundling bitch of a mother saved him. And sacrificed herself. Pointless, but better than my parents who thought they could turn a blind eye. They paid the price, believe me.”

I’m trying to keep my breathing even. Trying to find the way out of this dark tower that hurts everyone the least. “Sure, it’s hard to watch the people you love die.”

He scowls at me. “You young people with no Feeds under your belt wouldn’t know hard if it sucked your soul out raw. When you survive, you learn. When you learn, you have a choice.”

“I’m not getting the feeling you’re giving me a lot of choices here.”

The now-clearly-evil chuckle is back, and creepier. “Oh, you have a choice, Lexi Darling. One I warned you about. What would it take, I asked you. What deal would you make?”

I remember that conversation. We all have a weak spot, Harrison had said, and it had rubbed me wrong at the time, though I didn’t know why. It’s best to know it. Otherwise, the Feed could have its way with it, and with you.

“None,” I tell him. “I think of my weak spots as opportunities to grow, Harrison. Not to turn myself over to the slurping demon dark side.” Because I see what he is now. I know what horrible hurt this will cause.

And I will never give in to the things that have terrorized me my whole life.

He holds up his hands then, high and wide. The shadows undulate in the air around him, and in the space above us, leading up to that clock face. It feels like there are thousands of them, worming around, shapes I refuse to look at directly.

I can feel them as they brush against me and sharp, painful tingles of sensation branch out from the touch. They are cold and warm, spongey and fetid, and I am beginning to think that my dreams were a gift—because they kept me from feeling them like this.

I wait for them to attack, but they don’t. They’re spinning around, slurping and keening a little bit. Lying in wait, I think.

And I get it then.

They’re waiting for Harrison to tell them where to go, who and what to attack first. They’re listening to him because he made a deal with them. He wasn’t looking through all that history to help Jack beat them and save this town. He learned it all so he could save himself and make a deal he likes better than the one his ancestors came up with.

He made a deal with demons.

Even if they weren’t holding me in place and jostling into me to keep my panic there in my throat like a lump of coal, I would think that was a deeply fucked-up choice to make.

It doesn’t matter how scared I am. I would never throw in with the nightmares.

Jack would never do something like this, no matter how many times he lost. No matter what he might have to sacrifice. It makes sense now that he and his grandfather disagreed. And that Harrison had me reading boring journals about stain removal ideas instead of pointing me toward things that could have helped.

It all seems so obvious to me now.

Harrison was trying to lead us away from the truth. From the things he didn’t want us to see. In the most effective way possible, by pretending to be what Jack really is. Good, all the way through.

And I don’t have to be an expert in demonology to know that whatever Harrison wants to get from these swirling, slurping things that press in heavy around me, it isn’t good.