Devil's Advocate (The X-Files: Origins #2)(3)

That was why she’d kept the dreams to herself.

After all, how could she ever explain that she’d seen the devil?

She hadn’t told Melissa the whole truth tonight, either. She hadn’t told her that she’d been having these dreams ever since they’d moved here—not just once but almost every night. There was something about the town. It wasn’t right in some way that Dana simply could not describe. Or understand.

She tired of the mountain pose and got facedown on the mat to do the cobra. She placed her hands flat with her thumbs directly under her shoulders, legs extended with the tops of her feet on the mat. Then she tightened her pelvic floor—an action that always made her feel a little weird and self-conscious—tucked her hips downward, and squeezed her glutes. Then very slowly and steadily she pushed against the floor to raise her head and shoulders and upper torso while keeping her lower stomach and legs in place. At the point of maximum lift, she tried to push her chest toward the opposite wall. The idea was to do the movement, relax, and repeat, but she held it, feeling the muscles in her lower back unclench. There were two small pops as something in her spine moved into place. That shift deflated a ball of tension that had been sitting in her lower back all day.

Okay, so maybe there was something to the yoga stuff after all.

She relaxed, and repeated, again holding the pose.

Through the wall Melissa sang along with the raspy-voiced lead singer. Talking about being taken by the wind. Talking about being promised heaven. That triggered another flash of the dreams Dana was having. The dreams were different and they came in fragments, like she was trying to adjust an antenna on a TV station just out of range. There were bits of images, snatches of words, but no real story in any of them. One thing was constant, though, and it made Dana feel strange, confused, and even a little guilty: in her dreams, the devil always looked like an angel. So pure and handsome. Dana knew that Lucifer had been the Angel of Light. It was confusing, because in Catholic school she’d always imagined the devil as hideous and ugly. What if he wasn’t? What if he was beautiful? Maybe, she thought, that would explain why it was easy for some people to fall under his spell.

The angel she dreamed about had kind eyes and gentle hands and a smile that was a little sad. He sat on the edge of her bed and whispered secrets to Dana, secrets she could not remember when she woke up.

But she knew it was important to the devil that she believed him. That she believed he was not evil. That he was misunderstood. That he was really good.

Deep in her heart Dana wondered if there was even such a thing as evil. After all, if God created the universe and everything in it, then he had to have created evil and the devil, also. And why would he have done that? Didn’t it make more sense that the devil was helping God by chasing confused people in the direction of faith and salvation?

She was sure the nuns in her old school would be furious with her for that kind of thought.

Dana realized that she had been holding the pose too long, and now the released tension in her back returned. She lowered herself to the floor, then rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. Outside there was a rumble of thunder that sounded like laughter. Not raucous party laughter or her own dad’s deep-throated laugh when he was in one of his rare happy moods. No, this was different. Darker. It was a mean little laugh. As if the night were laughing at a secret it didn’t yet want to share. Wind hissed like snakes in the trees.

In the next bedroom, the song started again and her sister sang and the clock ticked its way deeper into the night.





CHAPTER 4

Craiger, Maryland

11:59 P.M.

“It’s okay,” said the man. “I won’t hurt you.”

He had the face of an angel, and he had been that to her for months. Her angel. As real as any angel she’d ever believed in.

His voice was soft and young, but his eyes were old, and they made the girl cringe. The girl’s head hurt, and the room seemed to stagger and tilt. There was something wrong with her head—she knew that much, though she couldn’t remember exactly what had happened.

The car? Something about the car? Yes, no … maybe?

Was she even driving?

The girl remembered leaving the party, remembered not liking the way one guy was pawing at her. Or the way the other boys looked at her and laughed. She felt like a piece of meat on a barbecue spit, turning and turning, being cooked on the hot flames of their smiles.

The girl tried to think, to clear her head, but it was so hard. Thinking hurt. There was a dull, constant ache, as if hands were squeezing the sides of her skull, and a heavy throb behind her eyes. It was almost as bad as a migraine, but it felt different. She felt different. Not sick to her stomach the way she was that time she had cramps so bad they’d triggered a migraine. This was as bad, but the pain felt raw; it felt new. Sharper.

With a jolt she realized that her thoughts were sliding away from the moment, and she jerked out of a semi-daze. She was in the corner, with nowhere else to go. Her shoulders bumped against the wall, and it was cold. There was dust and trash on the floor.

“It’s okay, little sister,” said the man—the angel—and she had to blink several times to clear her eyes so she could see him. See his weirdly old-looking eyes and his mean smile.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked, and her voice was a rusted-chain creak that didn’t even sound like her. Her throat hurt, too. Had she been screaming? Was that why her voice sounded like that? Maybe. Screaming seemed like something she wanted to do. Something that maybe she should do.