Freeks(76)

“I told you it was a demon,” Hutch said, sounding more excited about the prospect of a demon than he should.

“You also told me it was a bear,” I corrected him.

“Maybe it’s a bear demon,” he said.

My mom had knelt down in the center of the campsite, with her palms flat on the grass in front of her, and her long halter dress pooled around her. The halter tied at the nape of her neck, showing off the dark ink of the sun and moon tattoos she had beside either shoulder blade.

“What is she doing now?” Hutch asked.

“She’s saying an incantation,” I said, straining to pick up the words she was whispering toward the earth, but I couldn’t decipher them. “I think she’s asking for other spirits and entities to help us.”

“Other entities?” Hutch asked. “But isn’t that like opening a door to more trouble? Don’t we want less spirits around us?”

I shook my head. “Not exactly. My mom is friendly with the other side, and they will help her.”

“Boh je dobry a diabol nie je a? taky zly k tym, ktorych má rád,” Luka said, his words suddenly carrying a thick Slovak accent, so it sounded like Boe he dough-bree, ah diablo knee he talk-sleek teom pret-eek ktoe mah-rot.

“Did you just say a spell?” Hutch asked, narrowing his eyes at him. “Did you just put a spell on us?”

“No, it was something that my gramma used to say sometimes,” Luka explained. “It means ‘God is good, and the devil is not so bad to those he likes.’”

Mom stood, wiping her hands on her dress. Then she stretched her arms wide, pulling herself to the other side, and let out a deep breath. When she let her arms fall to her sides, she turned to face us.

“I think I’ve done all I can do,” she said. “Now we must wait.” Then she rested her eyes on me, gray and serious. “Mara, will you come with me for a moment?”

I followed my mom into our trailer, where one of her old Blue ?yster Cult records played softly. All the lights were on, as were all the lights in all the trailers. We wanted the campsite as bright as possible so we could see what was coming.

Once we were in the privacy of our home, Mom took my hands in hers. She bent down a little, so she was level with me. The lines around her eyes seemed more harsh than normal, and I wondered dourly how all this work she was doing was affecting her.

“Mara, qamari, I don’t want to worry you, but I want you to know the truth,” Mom said.

“That’s a very scary way to start a conversation, Mom.”

She clicked her tongue. “Mara, be serious. I need you to hear me now.”

I swallowed hard, gulping back the fear I felt rising inside me, and I nodded. “Okay.”

“Last night, Gideon gave me a pill to help me sleep, and it’s the first time I’ve had dreams since we got here,” Mom explained. “Basima had been trying to visit me, and my sleep was so deep, she was finally able to last night.”

“She came to you in a dream?”

Mom nodded. “Yes. She told me that I can’t shelter you any longer. That I must teach you to harness your power, or the monsters of this world will destroy you.”

“How can I harness my power?” I shook my head. “I hardly have any, and I just talk to the dead. How will that help?”

“Oh, qamari.” Mom smiled at me. “There are far more dead on this earth than there are alive. What do you think is more powerful?”

“How do I use it tonight, to fight this thing?” I asked.

“First, you must trust yourself.” She put one hand on my stomach, pressing hard against the soft flesh beneath the fabric of my shirt. “Your intuition is potent, and you must listen to it.”

“Okay,” I said uncertainly.

“And then, you should use this.” Mom stepped away from me and went over to pick up something hidden on the bench beside the dinette.

Carefully, she held up the antique crossbow I’d seen in the steamer trunk, along with a small, narrow satchel. She handed the bow to me, and it felt heavier than I expected, much heavier than the crossbow I’d used before with Seth.

The wood was rich blackwood with a purplish hue, with designs of winged monsters carved into it in intricate detail. The stock curved down, like the grip of a pistol, and my fingers brushed up against the trigger.

As soon as they did, I felt a jolt of cold surge through me. Only for a second, but it was enough to make my heart skip a beat.

“This was your great-grandma Elissar’s,” Mom explained, running her fingers along the string. “She made it herself in 1922 to fight off the demons that were attacking her village. Her home, her family, her first husband, they were all slaughtered, but she survived, thanks to this, and she fled to America.”

“And you think it still works?” I asked.

My mom nodded solemnly. “For you, it will work.”

“How many bolts do we have?” I asked, looking down at the satchel in her hand. A few of them poked out of the bag, their silver pointed tips as unmistakable as the arrow for the crossbow.

“We only have six left, so you must use them wisely. You’ve trained with a crossbow before, so I know that you can handle this.”

I held the crossbow up, looking through the sight—a small hole in a metal circle sitting atop the barrel. I’d fired a crossbow before, many times, and I’d been quite good, because screwing up meant that Luka could lose an eye that might not grow back.