Page 22 of Malum Discordiae

“On our way.”

I felt a hand on my calf. “Jesus fucking Christ, Sky—uh, sorry, Padre—but, really. Holy shit. Are you okay? That was . . . I don’t even have words.”

I lowered my hands and looked at Aaron. “For the most part, yeah, I’m okay. At least, I think.” I looked at him closer and noticed that he was bleeding. “What happened to you?”

“Just as you were nabbed, I got scratched. Bad. I think it could have been a distraction. We were focused on that right when you were yanked, and the door slammed shut.”

He had three deep gashes in his forearm, each of them still welling blood. “You need to get that looked at. If you ran into something, you could get tetanus.”

He laughed. “Sky, girl, you just got hauled up the stairs by your hair by a freaking demon or some shit, and you’re worried about these cat scratches on me? Let’s tackle these crises in order of importance, ‘kay?”

I chuckled and then groaned when my head protested. Pax adjusted his hold but didn’t let me go. He still hadn’t said anything, though. I shifted so I could turn and see his face. He was paler than I had ever seen anybody, and I felt the trembling in his body as he cradled me. He had his eyes closed, and his lips were moving, but he wasn’t saying anything out loud. I assumed he was praying, and at this point, and after what’d just happened, I didn’t even care.

I reached up and touched his cheek, and he opened his eyes. I saw tears in his baby blues and felt my heart clench. Aside from my parents, I wasn’t sure that anyone had ever shown such concern for me before.

“I’m okay,” I said.

He lowered his gaze to my neck and gently brushed his fingers across my throat. I felt it then. The tenderness and pain. I could almost feel the tissue swelling.

He shook his head and then closed his eyes again, taking in a deep breath. His entire body was a ball of tension. If there had been something in front of us for him to take his anger out on, I didn’t think they’d stand a chance. Pacifist or no, I had a feeling that Pax was ready to kill for me. And while it shouldn’t, that warmed something inside me.

I heard footsteps on the stairs and looked over to see Dev, Hanlen, Lark, and several other members of the cast and crew filing into the room.

“What’s going on?” Dev said, his eyes widening when he saw me and Pax on the side of the room and the path in the dust my body had created, and then noticed Aaron’s bloody arm. “Merde. Seems we really did miss some things. Are you guys okay? What the hell happened?”

Pax just looked at Dev and shook his head, seemingly not able to find the words. Dev looked at me then.

“I’m not sure,” I said honestly, my voice cracking. “We investigated the other bedroom as you asked. Pax thinks we may have made contact with Edward, one of the missing homeowners. The voice told us his name was Ed and that he’d been taken—”

“By evil,” Aaron finished.

I shot him a glare. “We got the wordstakenandevilon the Geoport, take that however you will. Anyway, another voice came through after and we actually got a full sentence.” I paused. “It said, ‘Where’s the child?’”

“Where’s the child?” Hanlen said. “Didn’t you guys get something yesterday about a mother?”

I had totally forgotten about that. We had. Along with theappleEVP. “We left the room and were about to make our way to the attic when Pax noticed moisture in a trail on the hallway floor. There wasn’t any logical explanation for it that we could find. We also heard knocking a few times. In threes. But we couldn’t figure out where, exactly, the sound was coming from.”

Pax tightened his hold around me briefly, and it centered me a little. I figured it might be doing the same for him, so I stayed right where I was. “Pax had forgotten his walkie in the bedroom, so he went to get it. Suddenly, all the doors in the hall slammed closed. I thought maybe it was some sort of updraft and vacuum or something. We decided to get out of there and continue on, and I started up. A few steps in, I figured maybe we should do a Geoport session quick before we headed up. As we were getting ready to do that, I heard Aaron say something and then something grabbed and yanked me—up the damn stairs. I fought as hard as I could, but I couldn’t get away.”

Aaron scrubbed a hand through his hair. “She’s right. I did say something. I said ‘ow.’ And I’m sure I probably swore a blue streak. It burned like a bitch. But as Padre and I were checking out my arm, we heard Sky scream and looked up to see her being shuttled up the steps. We barely took a step forward to help when that last door slammed closed and locked on us.”

Dev looked haunted. I meant no pun by the thought, but the descriptor of the expression sort of fit. “Like yesterday. I don’t like this, guys.” He looked at Birdie, and I saw her standing with wide eyes and her hand over her mouth.

She shook her head. “I told you I had a bad feeling about the energy in this place from the first time I stepped foot in here. Not all of it is bad, as we’ve found throughout the investigation so far, but most of it is. And given what Dakota and I have experienced psychically, I can say with definitive sureness that this is nothing human. We’re not dealing with a residual haunting or poltergeist activity here. This is demonic. And we’re all in danger.”

She looked at me. “How are you feeling, Sky?”

“My body hurts. I have a hell of a headache from being thrown into the wall and trying to figure out what the fuck could have caused this, and my throat is getting more and more sore from being choked.”

“Wait, what?” Dev asked.

I blew air out of my nose. “I didn’t finish the story. So, after I was yanked up the steps, whatever it was tossed me like a bag of feed. I flew across the floor,”—I pointed to the track in the dust and dirt—“and slid, only stopping when the top of my head hit the wall behind me.”

“Jesus,” James said.

“Oh, it gets worse,” I added. “I took stock of how I was feeling and was about to get up when something came down on top of me. I couldn’t move at all really. Was able to kick my feet a bit but that was about it. And then it choked me. I got my hands up, but it didn’t do any good. And I got all sorts of awful . . . things in my head.”

“What kinds of things?” Dev asked.

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