The excitement built inside me as the evening wore on through homemade ice cream and bourbon slushes. We’d moved into the living room, and it was almost homey. Mr. and Mrs. Graham were sitting in wingback chairs, Max and Claire were on the couch. Steve leaned against the wall with his refilled glass. The Bells were fussing with the curtains, and Sam sat cross-legged on the floor, playing with his gaming device next to Officer Hernandez when I realized it was time.
I opened my mouth—and the doorbell rang.
“Oh! That’ll be the Fairmounts,” Mrs. Bell said brightly. “You remember the Fairmounts, don’t you, Sam? Max thought they would enjoy coming over to see the horses.”
I blinked at Max, and he gave me a reassuring smile. “Not exactly ten chanting holy men, but they’re good guys. And they’re big.”
I smiled back at him. I didn’t think big would matter so much, but if it made the family feel safer, then perhaps it might.
“We have guests?” Mrs. Graham’s voice was frail-sounding, though, and she didn’t move from her chair. None of them did. They were all waiting, breathing a little shallowly, their hands gripping the armrests of their chairs. Even Emily held onto her glass of wine a little too tightly, her gaze shifting from person to person.
“Keep them in another room unless—unless someone tries to leave,” I murmured to Max. He hesitated, then nodded to the Bells. They left the room, but Max stayed where he was, watching me. Claire looked at me too, her eyes wide. Steve studied his glass. He knew more than anyone in this room what was coming, but he still didn’t know it all.
“Go stay with the Bells,” I said to Claire, and there must have been something different in my voice, something sure, because she scrambled to the door and through it, like a crab scuttling to safety. I couldn’t really see her anymore, though. I couldn’t seeanything except the people in front of me, and not even them so much. They were almost transparent, that which was within leaking out of them.
I shifted my gaze to Officer Hernandez, and her smile was wintry.
“Not a chance, Delia,” she informed me. “I’m staying right here.”
A low, chittering laugh sounded somewhere in the house, but no one seemed to hear it but me. Max stood and pulled out a thin vial, then walked to the doorway. Awkwardly, as the others stared at him, he poured the holy water out onto the threshold of the room. He shuffled his feet when he did it, knocking into things, and nobody spoke.
Looking around the room, I smiled. I felt strong, empowered. I felt right.
“You all disgust me,” I announced.
That drew their heads around, but in a flash, I wasn’t seeing the Grahams anymore. There was no more Frank and Judith, Emily or Sam. Now that we were right up on it, their eyes flashed into something other than midwestern saucers of confusion or denial, mirrors of the world around them. They were peeled back, wide and rolling, and I could see what was within them. Who was within them. I could always see.
It was what I did best.
Distantly, I knew that Mordechai would sigh and shake his head, that Rabbi Ethan would be staring at me in horror. That Father Neismeth would recoil and all ten chanting men would flee the room. But I didn’t have them on my side anymore. I didn’t have anyone but friends who believed in me, and a cop with a hidden gun in her belt. So this was how it was going to have to go.
“Look at you,” I whispered, feeling the excitement roll in my stomach—welcoming it. Reveling in it—ready to act. The voice Iused was familiar and not familiar, right and wrong at once. But it was mine, this time. All mine, and only mine.
And it was still strong and fierce. A voice that demanded to be heard.
Suddenly, unexpectedly, names popped up in my psyche. Names and histories that I didn’t put there.
“Agramon, Balban,” I murmured. “You think I don’t recognize you? That I didn’t see you the first day? And little Abyzou, the least of you all and they gave you the choicest spirit to plunder.”
I glanced back at Emily who had gone stiff and a little indignant. “That’s right, Naamah. You they gave the least. The fading rose, the pointless woman who had already passed her prime if only you could see it. But I’ll give you credit. You have done more with her than I would have expected.”
“No,” Emily murmured. I could feel the gazes of Max and Officer Hernandez on me, distantly, imagined the horror in their faces, the fear. I could sense the tension winding through Steve, the panic. But I wasn’t here to do this in the way Rabbi Mordechai had taught me. I was long past that.
I sneered into Emily’s face. “Don’t think I’m going to gently coax you assholes into the night. Yourevoltme. I don’t need to knowwhyyou trouble these children of Abraham. I know. Sonillion is a vengeful bitch, and you relegated her to that sad little lake house with its poor, corrupted soul. The moment I evicted her, she had all sorts of things to share with me. Mistake, dickheads. Big mistake.”
I looked at Mrs. Graham. Her eyes were watery, transfixed. “You knew your sister would not be welcome here, that she would break everything, and you would have purpose again, purpose in putting it back together. But the cost—thecost, Judith. You didn’t count on that. You let her come, in your weakness and pride. You led her into the sphere of your brokenand rootless daughter. You had no control over your sister or your child.”
Mrs. Graham tried to work up her voice. “We tried?—”
“You didn’t try shit. You hoped. You prayed. But you did nothing. Andyou.” I shifted my gaze to the father, buried so deep beneath Agramon’s hold that I was surprised he could see at all. “You were so easily led. Your money and your status blanketing you so well, it’s a wonder you held onto any shred of your soul. Do you still hear the horses, Frank? You still hear them screaming? Agramon always did hate animals.” I flicked a gaze at the mother again.
Sam started to cry. “Oh, no you don’t, Abyzou. You scheming little fuck.” I walked over to Sam and grabbed him up, lifting him high like he was a husk of bones. “I’m sick of you inside this boy. He is good and strong, and you don’t deserve him. Begone and do not trouble him further, or I will make youpay.”
“Howwww?” howled the creature inside Sam in Sam’s voice, with Sam’s tongue, and then a faint and gurgling rasp erupted, panicked now. Knowing that mine were not idle threats. “I cannot?—”
I looked inside Sam’s outstretched mouth. The child was screaming now, his breath gusting back my hair, his face red with anguish, snot and tears running down it. Nobody moved, and it was curiously quiet, except for me and Abyzou. Only the two of us here in this moment, the beast down Sam’s vibrating throat. “His tooth,” I decided. “The loose one. Disturb any others, and you will regret it.”
“Sam!” Mrs. Graham seemed to convulse in her chair, a twitch of her humanity, her maternal instinct struggling past Balban’s hold on her. I shrugged and felt the wave of evil stretch from me to her throat, caressing, holding. Tightening.
