Page 108 of The Devil and His Ghost

“It’s an honor to have you on the show,” Bethelma beamed, sweeping her glittering gaze over each band member.

“The pleasure is ours,” Zagan responded from beside the woman with the practiced charm of a group leader.

“Before we get started with our paranormal investigation, I’d love to know how much you believe in the supernatural,” Bethelma began. “Your band’s persona is that of demons. Tell me. Do any of you believe in true demons, like the ones discussed within modern or ancient religions?”

I barely managed to press my lips together and fight off my laugh as the guys shared looks with smiles of their own.

They answered in unison. “Nah, we don’t.”

“Now cryptids,” Xander threw at Bethelma with a serious expression and wag of his finger. “There’s something to be said about cryptids. Mothman? That guy is totally real.”

I groaned and rolled my eyes at his obvious absurdity.

Bethelma, oblivious to Xander’s shenanigans, nodded happily. “They are interesting creatures, to be sure. How about ghosts? Do any of you believe in spirits?”

Xander straightened and met my eyes over Alex’s shoulder. His teasing grin turned sensual as he gave me a once over. “Ghosts? Yeah. I believe in ghosts.”

I stiffened as fire flooded my body, no doubt staining my entire face bright red.

“Woah,” Alex whispered. He stepped back from the camera, even though the mics were aimed to catch the audio of our guests and not us. He leaned in close to say in a hushed voice, “That look he gave the camera felt very sexual. Should I ask him to retake that?”

I blew out an exasperated sigh as the group and Bethelma continued their pre-investigration conversation. “No, it’s fine. If you tell him to redo it, he’ll only be more intense and extreme.”

“You know him well like that?” Alex studied me thoughtfully. He gave me a small, disappointed smile. “You two are good friends, then?”

I watched Xander from afar, and a happy buzz threatened to carry me high into the clouds. I kept that bubbling emotion in check with a shrug of indifference. In reality, he and I were … friends yet not. Lovers yet not. It had been three months since I very hesitantly decided to stop pushing Xander away, which meant three months of hanging out when we could, sharing a bed when we could, and talking when we could.

I still couldn’t quite believe I’d allowed myself to let him into my life so much. I’d wanted that more than anything when I was younger, feared it once I met him as an adult, only to crave our connection now stronger than ever before.

But I was also more cautious than ever. I never knew if or when my nightmares and memories of the past would drag me under. Because of that, I kept a distance between us just as often as I opened my arms to him. I didn’t completely cut him off, but I didn’t let him get too close, either.

That didn’t stop the demon’s pursuit, though.

When I found myself in one of my darker moods or spirals, he tried to talk me through it. I’d even opened up a little about my time as a patient at Mountview Psychiatric Hospital. Though, I kept the bigger stuff a secret. I wasn’t sure how or when to broach that topic or if I even should.

But sometimes in the moments of quiet stillness, I wanted to. When the moon seeped through the curtains of Xander’s bedroom window to shower light upon where I laid with my head on his naked chest and he traced my bare side, Catsper purring sleepily by our heads, I found myself wanting to. I wanted to unload my deepest, darkest stories. I wanted to relinquish the tight hold I had on these horrible emotions and feel his warmth in their place.

Those moments of bravery were fleeting and bore no fruit.

Maybe one day.

The group of demons posing as humans laughed at something, bringing me back to the here and now. We soon concluded the outdoor introduction and interview before the group went inside to begin the ghostly investigation. I settled into our make-shift control room as always, and I couldn’t help but laugh all night as the demons followed Bethelma from room to room.

Zagan, Perseus, and Xander went along with the farce, talking and reacting to devices as they went off or as Bethelma relayed information that a spirit “told her.” Meanwhile, Dante came across surly while Coldin looked detached as he listened to all the bullshit.

At one point, Bethelma told Coldin that she felt a dark presence around him, which made Zagan and Perseus quickly distract her with animated reactions to the EMF reader going red.

Coldin turned to Xander and Dante while the rest of the crowd was distracted. He grumbled low but loud enough for his mic box to pick up, “This is dumb.”

“Shh,” Xander soothed. “Play along. If you’re bored, feel free to make an object move or something. Like a ghost. You’d be surprised how fun it is to fuck with people without killing them.”

I smacked my palm to my forehead and shook my head, making a mental note to have Xander warp the audio for that section before these files got sent to the editing room for doctoring at the network.

But worse than the audio was the result from Xander’s suggestion. Bethelma was mid conversation with a make-believe ghost in the master bedroom when the bed she perched on suddenly lifted off the ground and shook violently. She gasped while Alex trembled so hard that the camera surely only captured blurred motion. An invisible wind kicked up in the room, sending everyone’s hair and clothes flapping and furniture shifting.

Zagan, Perseus, Dante, and Xander all whipped their wide-eyed stares to Coldin, and it was only when Zagan rushed to his side and murmured something too low for his mic to catch that the room resettled. Bethelma shook harder than a leaf in a storm, and Alex was stammering to make sense of what just happened.

“Earthquake,” Xander laughed nervously. “Must’ve been an earthquake, right? With a tornado?”