Page 43 of Malum Discordiae

At full dark,we split up into our groups and headed to our respective investigating areas. As I walked to the back of the house, following Birdie and Aaron, Pax caught up to me and grabbed my hand, tugging me to a stop. I turned to him.

He looked at Birdie and Aaron as they disappeared into the next room and then gazed back down at me. “I want to ask you to do something for me, but I think I know what your answer will be.”

“I’m not staying back, Pax. It’s not happening.”

“That’s not what I was going to ask.” He looked really uncomfortable for a minute. “I would feel more comfortable if you wore one of my holy objects.”

I scoffed and rolled my eyes. “Like that would do any good. Don’t those things require belief, Pax?”

“I believe. They’re mine.” He looked at me more intensely, and I swore I could read between the lines.You’re mine.

More snark about the whole god thing came to the tip of my tongue but I swallowed it down. He was being sincere, and I saw the concern in the features of his face. If me wearing a stupid piece of jewelry for him alleviated some of that, what harm would it do?

“Okay, fine,” I huffed. “Pin me.”

He laughed as I’d intended. “Did you just say, ‘pin me?’”

I shrugged. “Isn’t that what you old-timers used to call it when someone gave you their class ring or Letterman pin and asked you to go steady?”

“Are you saying you want to go steady with me?” he asked, a smile flirting with his gorgeous lips.

“I dunno. I’ll write you a note later and ask you to check yes or no.”

“You’re ridiculous,” he said and then reached up to his neck, unclasping something right under his Adam’s apple. When he pulled his hand away, a twisted brown necklace hung from his fingers, a square of material at the back.

“What is it?” I asked, my curiosity getting the best of me.

“It’s called a scapular,” he said. “The Brown Scapular, to be exact. It has a longer official name, but it’s not important right now. Whatisimportant, is that, in my faith, it’s a very powerful holy object. A sign of salvation, a protection against danger and possession, and a pledge of peace. It used to be my grandfather’s.”

I really looked at it then. While I didn’t believe in it, something about having another physical tie to Pax in what would probably be a really harrowing night felt . . . comforting. We had just found out that his grandfather was the one who’d saved me from Moon Call, and having a tie to him transferred from Pax to me felt oddly poetic in some way.

I twisted my hair into a bun as I’d meant to do before anyway, secured it, and then gave Pax a what-are-you-waiting-for gesture. He secured the necklace around my throat, the square of material to the back, and then cupped my cheek in his hand.

His baby blues captured my gaze as he ran his thumb over the apple of my cheek and then shifted so he could run it along my bottom lip. My breath caught, and my eyes closed. When I opened them again, he was looking at me so intently, I felt the heat all the way to my toes.

I rose on tiptoe and brushed my lips to his, winding my arms around his neck. He pulled me close and stole my breath entirely with the intensity of the embrace, his tongue seeking mine and his hands gripping. When he pulled back, he kissed me quickly once more and then placed kisses on my forehead, both cheeks, and then my nose before taking a deep breath.

“We’d better catch up,” he said, and all I could do was nod.

When we entered the back room where I’d crawled into the wall some weeks ago, I saw Birdie and Aaron talking quietly by the wall with the jagged opening. Lark looked over when we got closer, and Aaron started the camera rolling.

“Hey,” she said to Pax and me. “This place feels worse than usual tonight. Don’t let your guards down, okay?”

We both nodded, and my gaze was drawn up to the yawning maw near the ceiling. It was bigger than the last time we were here, and I wondered if Roch had widened it so that Lark could do what she needed to do with the chest that was up there. Just as I was turning away, I swore I saw a hand reach through the opening, grasp air, and then disappear back in, but I was sure it had to be nerves. I shook it off and then refocused back on Birdie and Aaron.

“Do you want me to get some readings?” I asked.

“Yes, let’s start there,” Birdie said, and I dropped what I liked to call my mad-scientist kit to pull out my equipment. I took air quality readings and some other metrics and reported the findings to my team and the camera. Besides some elevated and inconsistent electromagnetic frequencies, which we always saw in here, everything seemed okay. Environmentally, anyway.

Earlier, during our team meeting, we’d discussed how to handle anything that may arise tonight for the audience. They didn’t know that we could see and hear spirits now, and we had to find a way to both use that and keep it status quo for the viewers. Dev told us to remember to over-explain. We tried to do that anyway to cover anybody catching a show in the middle of an investigation, but tonight we had to remember that while all of us could see certain things, the public could not.

As Pax and Birdie did an EVP session with the Wonder Box, I walked the perimeter of the room with my Handycam, and Aaron kept watch on all of us with his camera.

I turned just as Pax asked, “Who do we have here with us tonight?”

The Wonder Box squawked and then a voice came through. “Píngguo. Leave now.”

Pax and Birdie shared a look. “Seiko, is that you?” Larken asked.

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