“I don’t think anything could make you look stupid,” said Seth. “You’re perfect from head to toe.”
“Okay, you guys,” said Brandy, growing embarrassed. “Now you’re just pushing it.”
The “head to toe” comment suddenly reminded me of something. “Oh. I won’t be here to do your hair. I have to go to work soon.” At that moment, calling in sick seemed like a reasonable idea. Nothing seemed more important than giving her a perfect night.
“That’s okay,” said Brandy. “I can do it. Or maybe Mom can.”
“She’s been kind of tired today,” said Terry neutrally. “But I know she’ll want to see you before you leave.”
“I can do a French twist,” said Margaret, surprising us all. “If you want to wear it up.”
“Will you show me?” asked Brandy.
Margaret nodded. “Sure, let’s go upstairs.”
Before they did, Brandy paused to give me a giant hug. “Thank you so much, Georgina. For everything.”
They went upstairs, followed by the littler girls, all of whom thought there was nothing so wonderful as dressing up their older sister. Actually, I realized, that wasn’t entirely true. Not
“Where’s Kayla?” I asked. She hadn’t been in the entourage.
Terry sighed and ran a hand through his hair, in a way similar to what I’d often seen Seth do. “In the living room, I think. She’s been out of sorts today. Sometimes I think she can figure out what’s going on, even when we don’t tell her.”
With Kayla’s abilities, I didn’t doubt it was true. I remembered Brandy saying Kayla had been in a “silent mood” since this morning and wondered just how much of her mother’s illness the little girl was in tune with. I left the brothers to seek her out and found her curled up in a corner of the overstuffed sofa, making herself so small that she was almost lost in the cushions.
“Hey, you,” I said, sitting down beside her. “How’s it going? Don’t you want to see Brandy’s dress?”
Kayla shifted her face, looking at me with huge blue eyes. “Georgina,” she said. “You have to make it stay away.”
My thoughts were on the dress, so it took a moment for me to follow what she was saying. “Make what stay away, honey?”
“The Darkness.”
There was something in the way she said the word that let me know she wasn’t referring to shadows. When she said “Darkness,” I could feel the personification in her word, the looming threat of something—or someone— tangible. With a pang, I remembered that Kayla had been able to sense Nyx when she’d escaped her angelic captors.
I leaned toward Kayla, glad Seth and Terry were preoccupied. “Kayla, are you talking about . . . about the creature you felt before? The one you could sense on me?” Nyx’s return would be a complication I most certainly didn’t need in my life right now.
She shook her head. “A different one. The Darkness comes
“Is it here now?” I asked uneasily.
“No. Just sometimes.”
“How many times?”
Kayla thought about it. “Two.”
A cold feeling crept over me. “Was last night one of those times?”
She nodded.
“Have you seen it?” I asked her.
“No. But I feel it. I can tell where it’s at when it’s here.” She peered at me beseechingly. “Will you make it stop?”
I had no clue what this Darkness was or what I could do to stop it, but theories were running wild in my head. I kissed her forehead. “I’ll do what I can, baby. I promise. I’ve got to leave now, but I’ll see what I can find out for you, okay? We’ll make sure the Darkness doesn’t come back.”
Like the flip of a switch, Kayla’s whole demeanor changed. Whereas she’d been sad and withdrawn moments ago, she was now beaming and hopeful. All that faith—in me. With my empty assurance to take on something I didn’t understand, she was able to put aside all of her fears and worries. All was right in her world now, thanks to me. She put her arms around me and kissed me back, and I felt like my heart would break when I finally untangled myself from her.
Holiday cheer was calling, as well as a burning need to suddenly talk to Roman. Seeing as how we kept missing each other lately, I sent him a text with a reminder of when I’d be home tonight and that I had important information for him. He was so caught up in his conspiracy theories that I wasn’t sure if he’d want to make time for what he’d probably see as a little girl’s fantasies. Kayla’s perceptions—despite her difficulties in articulating them— had proven accurate before. I didn’t know what she was sensing this time, but if there was a force inside the Mortensen household, I intended to stop it.
Chapter 12
My brief conversation with Kayla tormented me for the rest of the evening as I corralled kids at the mall. I couldn’t shake the image of her eyes as she told me about “the Darkness.” It was one of those times I both blessed and cursed her psychic abilities. If she hadn’t had them at all, I never would’ve known anything was amiss in the Mortensen household. But with her imprecise understanding of her powers, I was left with too many questions about what she might have sensed. Erik would’ve known instantly.
There was another thing for me to worry about.
Erik. Murdered because of me.
And if we were operating on the assumption that Hell had directly acted against him, then what was I supposed to think about Kayla? In the past, any unusual supernatural activity in the area had been the result of rogue forces outside of the Heaven and Hell system. After all, Heaven and Hell had certain rules they were supposed to follow. Milton was proof, however, that Hell wasn’t above breaking those. So was it possible someone from my own side had been visiting Andrea Mortensen—coincidentally during the times her condition worsened? And if so, why?
That, as Roman had pointed out, was a question with an answer that would crack all of this wide open.
My only pause in ruminating on immortal affairs came when I tried to coax Walter into doing a house call to the Mortensens. Two mothers had gotten in a fight in line, so we were all on an impromptu break while mall security sorted matters out.
“Santa doesn’t do house calls,” Walter told me.
“Last time I checked, that’s
“Santa can’t just be hired out for entertainment. Children must either wait until Christmas morning or come visit the retail wonderland Santa’s gazebo is in. Those are the rules.”
“Of course you can be hired out,” I said. “It’s why you’re working here to begin with! Come on, I’ll pay you. I’ll buy you a drink. Both, if you want. These are little girls who need to see Santa. Their mother has cancer, for God’s sake. How can you not be moved by that?”
He peered at me through his spectacles. “I’m very sorry for their plight, but I can’t do it. Taking on this role is a commitment for the holiday season, a vow to stay true to the spirit of Santa. If I’m outside this mall while playing this role, and Bob is here playing the same role, then what does that say to the children?”
I stared at him incredulously. “Well, unless these children are capable of breaking the rules of time and space, none of them would know there’s a Santa here, in Lake Forest Park, or in any of the other thousands of malls in this country.”
“
