Proposal (The Mediator, #6.5)(31)

“Fiction,” I said, my mouth dry. “Horror movies are fiction.”

“And the concept of good and evil? Is that fiction? Think about it, Simon. You can’t have one without the other. There has to be a balance. You got your good. Ghost Boy’s alive now, and giving back to the community with his healing hands . . . which makes me want to puke, by the way. But where’s the bad? Have you not noticed there’s something missing from this little miracle of yours?”

“Um,” I said, struggling to come up with a flippant reply.

Because he was right. As any Californian worth his flip-flops could tell you, you can’t have yin without yang, surf without sand, a latte without soy (because no one in California drinks full dairy, except for me, but I was born in New York City).

“I assume the bad is . . . you.” This was weak, but it was the best I could come up with, given the feeling of foreboding slowly creeping up my spine.

“Very funny, Suze. But you’re going to have to come up with something better. Humor doesn’t work as a defense against the forces of evil. Which are dwelling, as you very well know, inside your so-called miracle boy, just waiting for the chance to lash out and kill you and everyone you love for what you did.”

Now he’d gone too far. “I do not know that. How do you know that? You haven’t even seen him in six years. You don’t know anything about us. You can’t just come here and—”

“I don’t have to have seen him to know that he didn’t escape from having lived as a spook for a century and a half without having brushed up against some pretty malevolent shit. De Silva didn’t just walk through the valley of the shadow of death, Simon. He set up camp and toasted marshmallows there. No one can come out of something like that unscathed, however many kids he’s curing of cancer now, or however many wedding-gift registries his girlfriend’s signing up for in order to assure herself that everything’s just fine and dandy.”

“That’s not fair,” I protested. “And that’s not fair. You might as well be saying that anyone who’s ever suffered from any trauma is destined never to overcome it, no matter how hard they try.”

“Really? You’re going to fall back on grad school psychobabble?” His voice dripped with amusement. “I expected better from you. Can you honestly tell me, Simon, that when you look into de Silva’s big brown telenovela eyes, you never see any shadows there?”

“No. No, of course I do, sometimes, because he’s human, and human beings aren’t happy one hundred percent of the time.”

“Those aren’t the kind of shadows I’m talking about, and you know it.”

I realized I was squeezing my phone so hard an ugly red impression of its hard plastic casing had sunk into my skin. I had to switch hands.

Because he was right. I did see occasional glimpses of darkness in Jesse’s eyes . . . and not sadness, either.

And while I hadn’t been lying when I’d told Paul about Jesse’s desire to help heal the sick and most downtrodden of our society—it was an integral part of his personality—I did worry sometimes that the reason Jesse fought so desperately against death when he saw it coming for his weakest patients was that he feared it was also coming back for him . . .

Or, worse, that there was still a part of it inside him.

If what the Book of the Dead said was true, and Paul really did tear down 99 Pine Crest Road, there was no telling what that destruction might unleash.

And it didn’t seem likely we could count on yet another miracle to save us. A person is only given so many miracles in a lifetime, and it felt like Jesse and I had received more than our fair share.

If miracles even exist. Which I’m not saying they do.

As if he’d once again sensed what I was thinking, Paul chuckled. “See what I mean, Simon? You can take the boy out of the darkness, but you can’t take the darkness out of the boy.”

“Fine,” I said. “What do you want from me, exactly, in order to keep you from tearing down my house and releasing the Curse of the Papyrus, or whatever it is? Forgiveness? Great. I forgive you. Will you go now and leave me alone?”

“No, but thanks for the offer,” Paul said, smooth as silk. “And it’s called the Curse of the Dead. There’s no such thing as the Curse of the Papyrus. Curses are written on papyrus. They’re not—”

“Just tell me what you want, Paul.”

“I told you what I want. Another chance.”

“You’re going to have to elaborate. Another chance at what?”

“You. One night. If I can’t win you over from de Silva in one night, I’m not worthy of the name Slater.”

“You have got to be kidding me.”

If I hadn’t felt so sick to my stomach, I’d have laughed. I tried not to let my conflicting feelings—scorn, fear, confusion—show in my voice. Paul fed off feelings the way black holes fed off stars.

“I’m not, actually,” he said. “I told you, it’s never a good idea to joke when the forces of evil are involved.”

“Paul. First of all, you can’t win back something you never had.”

“Suze, where is this coming from? I really thought you and I had something once. Are you honestly trying to tell me it was all in my head? Because I’ve had a lot of time to think it over, and I have to say, I don’t agree.”