Devil's Advocate (The X-Files: Origins #2)(29)

Dana kept nodding.

“You chose a form for the angel that looks beautiful and serene and safe,” continued Corinda. “It’s a father figure. I know you love and respect your father, but you’re also a little afraid of him. He’s strong and stern and distant, and so your angel appears to you with all those qualities. You give your angel a different face, though, because you want to love him in ways that you can’t love your own father, and that’s good—that’s safe and healthy. But it is you who are choosing that form.”

Corinda’s words soothed as much as her touch, and Dana felt herself drifting, as if rising above her body. She even imagined she could look down and see herself sitting across from the woman.

“Then the deaths started happening in town,” said Corinda. “Horrible deaths. Lives stolen away. Murders. That offends the harmony of your spiritual nature, Dana, and because you’re a sensitive, you have tapped into the negativity that is in the very air. But because you’re not yet aware of your gifts, not in full control of them, the negativity clouds your eye. It influences the way in which you perceive the celestial beings in your spirit-space. As the negativity covers you, you change the way in which you choose to view the angelic being. You see it as the devil, as Satan, because you cannot understand why harm can come to the innocent in the presence of cosmic power. For that to happen, it must be the angelic beings themselves that are doing the harm. But Dana … listen to me, this is not true. It isn’t the angelic entity that is causing all of this. That’s not what they do. The angelic beings are here as guides—they’re here to protect us and elevate us.”

Inside Dana’s mind, the shape of the dark angel from her dream suddenly took shape. He stood facing away from her, tall and powerful, his black wings folded, muscular arms loose, fingers curled and tipped with black nails. He stood as if listening to what Corinda was saying, and then he began to turn. The wings twitched, and Dana could hear the rustle and rasp of the leather membranes.

Dana, spoke the angel in a voice that rumbled like summer thunder. Dana, be careful. Be very careful. If you open your eyes, you can never unsee what you see.

The dark angel turned and for a moment—for a fractured, flickering piece of a second—he wore the face of her father.

Dana cried out and lunged backward from him, and in doing so tore her hands from Corinda’s grip. Her shoulders struck the partition between the booth and the register, hitting hard enough to knock something over. A calendar, maybe. She heard it slither down the partition and thwap onto the floor. The connection was snapped with the image of the dark angel and with Corinda, and the tall woman gasped and snatched her hands back as if stung.

They sat there, both frozen, staring at each other. Corinda looked shocked at first, but she composed her features very quickly, and even managed a smile.

“Well,” she said, “that was something, wasn’t it?”





CHAPTER 28

Beyond Beyond

4:31 P.M.

“What are you guys talking about?”

Dana jumped and turned to see Melissa standing beside the table. She hadn’t even heard her sister approach.

“God! You scared the life out of me,” gasped Dana.

Melissa raised her eyebrows. “Looks to me like you were already scared silly. You’re white as a ghost. Move over. Are those fresh scones? I’m famished.” She sat down and hip-checked Dana across the bench seat, took a scone, and bit off a large chunk, then nodded to Corinda. “You spooking my baby sister?”

“Only a little,” said Corinda. “Dana’s been doing a good job of spooking herself.”

“Oh, I’m way past being spooked,” said Dana with a nervous laugh. “I’m way, way, way freaked out.”

“Tell me everything,” said Melissa, taking Dana’s cup and finishing the last of her cold tea.

“I had visions of some disturbing things that have been going on in Dana’s spiritual mind,” said Corinda. “But you already know about that, don’t you? Yes. I can tell that she’s shared this with you.”

Melissa did not even blink when Corinda said that. Instead she nodded. “She tells me everything. How’d you know? Cards? Crystal gazing?”

“Meditation and astral projection,” said Corinda.

“So cool. And you got inside Dana’s head?”

“I’m actually right here, you know,” said Dana.

Melissa elbowed her gently. “Tell me everything.”

They did. Or at least Corinda did, and Dana grunted and nodded at all the appropriate places. Some of what Corinda said to Melissa was phrased differently, using even more of the often hard-to-follow language of the new age. The gist was the same, though.

Melissa leaned forward, her eyes wide and bright. “You think Maisie was murdered?” she said in a shocked whisper. “Oh my God!”

“That’s what Ethan thinks,” said Dana. “His uncle seems to think so, too. Maisie and the other teens.”

“You think they’re right about this?” asked Melissa. “I mean, this can’t be true, can it?”

“It’s true,” replied Corinda. “Dana knows it on a soul level. The murdered kids are reaching out to her, using her sensitivity to share their story. To reveal the truth. That’s why Maisie appeared to her at school.”