"I don't remember anything after dropping Sam off," Steve explained, holding on to the blanket he was given as a welcomed help to fight the chills left behind by what he had endured at the Creel House apparently. So far, he didn't know if he should be grateful he didn't remember anything.
"Nothing at all?" Nancy insisted, worriedly. She was sitting beside Steve on the couch, to his right. Robin sat to his left. Dustin and Lucas shared the armchair Anthony usually claimed for himself. They were back at the Carter house, which Billie didn't realize how good of an idea had been until she got there and was told in a rush by Sam that dad was acting weird, Devin made a creepy drawing and Barry went after his dad to make sure Vecna doesn't get him.
Sam told Barry to have songs ready to play, something he learnt from being there when Max was in danger.
Devin's drawing was being held by Max, who kept turning it on all sides trying to interpret. Billie and Eddie were the ones still standing.
"I remember dropping Sam off," Steve rephrased. "Then I briefly remember getting to the Creel House. Nothing else until I woke up in that basement."
"So he's been infected by the demon since he came near this house," Billie concluded.
"The same house we are in right now," Lucas clarified the detail that silenced the gathering.
That quietness was broken promptly by Nancy's sigh though. She got up from the couch. No way was she going to think this through while sitting down. She need to move in order to think some sense into the situation they found themselves into. Shock was riddled on her face as much as in the mess her curled hair had become after a single demonic encounter.
"Weird stuff has been happening here while you were gone," Sam noted.
"How weird?" Eddie asked.
"Something that looked like Devin pushed me down the stairs," Sam threw a glance at his brother, then back at his sister. "But it wasn't him. He was locked in his room, drawing that."
"This drawing sure has a weird feeling to it," Max let the drawing rest in her lap. "But I don't get it, is it supposed to be the face of the demon?"
Sam shrugged, "Barry told me to show it to Billie. I am not sure if what I understand from it is right."
"We really need a name for this demon," Dustin sighed.
"A name?" Billie furrowed her eyebrows.
"Like we named Vecna, and the demogorgon," he explained.
"Demo-what?"
"Ugly Upside Down monster, lots of teeth," Steve detailed with a tired sigh.
"So we need another D&D name," Dustin nodded. "Any ideas, Eddie?"
"How about Mirror Man?" Billie answered before Eddie could even force his mind to bring up the whole compendiums it memorized in relation to D&D.
"I said," Dustin was about to dramatically accentuate, "D&D related."
"Last I checked, the demon is not from the Upside Down."
"You never know..."
"It's not Hawkins originated then. It's from my home town, so I get to name it," Billie argued easily back and forth with Dustin. "Mirror Man played when I saw the demon in my mirror. I think it's fitted."
"Sounds right, yeah," Robin agreed immediately, but over her voice, the demonic sounds from the Creel basement started again, only this time, from the tape Nancy was rewatching, a bit further from the others, towards the kitchen area. Momentarily, the sounds created tension unanimously, passing grimaces between everyone present, even those like Devin and Sam, who did not see Steve get possessed. That particular feeling lasted no longer than how much it took Lucas to nervously lean forward.
"But you exorcized the demon," he reminded everyone while looking at Billie. "Sent it back to Hell or some shit, right? So why are we sitting around talking about Mirror Man when we should be focusing on Vecna now?" In the heat of the moment, he threw a glance at Max, whose headphone, around her neck, still blasted her song for her to hear.
Billie didn't know how to put it yet but her grimace was enough of a telltale whispering this was far from over. Seeing the look on her face, Dustin cut in and nudged his friend, "Damn, you haven't played D&D in a while and it shows. Demons have to be conjured in order to systematically target people."
"You're thinking a Demon Lord?" Eddie, presented with his natural habitat, raised his eyebrows. Hanging from the middle of his collar onto his chest was the pair of black sunglasses.
"A cult," Billie corrected Eddie. "It's a cult."
"Vecna," Dustin nodded along, "and the Cult of the Mirror Man."
"The point is," Billie sighed, switching her weight from one foot to the other; she leant closer to Eddie. "I don't think Mirror Man is gone."
Steve stiffened. His breath hitched. Under the blanket and his new clothes Billie stole from Barry's closet and let Steve borrow in order to replace those shredded and bled on, he felt the chill of the bruises the possession left behind.
"It's no longer in you," Billie quickly added for him. "I mean, you wouldn't be able to have that rosary around your neck if the demon was still in you."
"Then what? It just left Steve, without the exorcism's push?" Robin rested her elbows on her knees, leaning forward.
"Are we going to ignore the part where she said this is about a cult?" Lucas panicked in a louder voice. "An actual cult."
"I think Mirror Man was weaker, that's why it got out of Steve's body that easily," Billie voiced the thought which has been torturing her since they left the Creel house.
"You call that easily?" Steve gasped.
"No, she's right," Dustin nodded, pleasantly surprising Eddie. "Mirror Man manifested in the hallway with us too, as well as in the basement with Steve..."
"And back home here," Sam completed.
Dustin brough the conclusion with a flat smile, "Then its power was divided."
Nancy watched the whole basement footage while they talked, paying attention to two things at once. However, though her gut feeling told her this footage was important, she caught no clues in it. On a whim, she decided to give it another shot, so she played back the video, at which point, though remarkably fast, some words distinguished through, making everyone turn their heads towards her.
"What was that?" Billie asked, eyes wide.
"I went... backwards."
"Do it again!" Eddie demanded, gesturing with his hand for her to hurry up.
Nancy pressed one button to fast forward, another to pause, and then looked up at her friends, all watching while she made the video go backwards again, sound all the way up.
"The curse is in my car keys!" clearly spoke through the roars and screams of the demon. The pause button was pressed again.
"It wasn't Mirror Man doing the talking," Billie breathed out, arms unclenching and hanging on both sides of her body now. "It really was Steve and the demon was just trying to block him by mirroring all he wanted to say."
"Mirror Man," Robin grinned.
"Then he erased his memory of all of it."
"Steve," Nancy spoke over, "where are your car keys?"
"I don't understand how my car keys have anything to do with this..." As soon as his keys hit the low living room table though, his eyes widened and he paled. To his keys, one weird accessory was attacked. He pointed towards it, slow and shivering, "I have never seen that one before."
Robin reached to grab the keys, but while both Billie and Dustin reached out to stop her, he was a notch quicker in slapping Robin's hand away.
"Don't just touch the curse," Dustin sighed out through gritted teeth.
"Here," Nancy ran from the kitchen with a paper towel which she passed to Billie. With the paper towel covering her right hand, she drew near and grabbed what looked like a black pouch the size of a baby's hand, attached to Steve's keys. She stopped before touching it, even with the paper towel separating her fingertips from that darkness.
"Max," she looked up, on the hunch she just experienced, "we should film this."
Max nodded briefly. She was impressively fast in returning with the camera.
"Do you need...?" Lucas tried to offer his help.
"I got this," she cut him off and started filming.
Billie looked back in the camera. "We should explain this."
Eddie cleared his throat in a quick cough. "Steve Harrington, was successfully exorcized in the Creel house about an hour ago," he started narrating so anyone who watched that tape has the whole picture. "Now, we are all in Carter's house. Witnesses present Eddie Munson, Billie Carter, Sam Carter, Max Mayfield, Lucas Sinclair, Dustin Henderson, Steve Harrington, Robin Buckley and Nancy Wheeler."
Billie couldn't help but smile at Eddie, even though the moment's tension was palpable.
"After rewatching the recording of the exorcism, Nancy Wheeler figured out the demon, which we will name Mirror Man, mirrored Steve's conscious words of warning so we wouldn't understand them. He tried to tell us that his car keys are cursed."
Max came closer to the table Billie was kneeling beside and zoomed in on the keys.
"The black pouch was not attached to the keys by its owner," Eddie continued. "We have reason to believe Mirror Man was conjured to possess Steve Harrington through it. Billie..."
Her turn came. Billie took a deep breath and with the paper towel over her hand, she started poking and pulling on the pouch, to get it to come undone. With just one hand, the task was tougher than it looked. Their luck was that the fabric of the pouch was rotten inside out and after a while, Billie pinched it a little harder and it tore.
From it, several things spread out, one of which was very much alive.
A spider crawled out and Billie screamed. In a matter of milliseconds, Eddie reacted, first stepping forward to stop her from falling back. Instead, she leant against his legs and he was able to reach down, grab her hand and slap off the spider trying to crawl up her arm. Slapped back on the table Steve slammed the TV remote over it.
The TV remote shattered but the spider died too.
Eddie hooked his arms under Billie's and helped her on her feet.
"You got that?" Dustin looked at Max.
She nodded from behind the camera, still rolling. "Everything."
"Are those bones?" Robin leant forward to look what else fell out of the pouch. Lucas gagged a little, trying to keep silent to not look like the only one truly creeped by the small, yellowed bones, the rusty nails, the objects he didn't even want to know what they were.
"This is it," Billie, now standing again, thanks to Eddie, forced herself to catch her breath faster. "If we can find the same curse pouch here or in Austin's house, we proved it."
"Not at Eddie's?" Dustin raised an eyebrow.
Before answering though, Billie held her left arm out and stopped Max's camera from the side. "That was Vecna. But if we prove Austin was linked to Mirror Man and the cult who conjured him, the cops don't have to know about the Upside Down. Something tells me y'all would have told them by now if you wanted to. You want that a secret, so let's keep it that way."
"You want to lie to the cops?" Eddie grinned through his inquiry, his very tone making Billie turn around to face him. What a sight for sore eyes was that mischievous smile of his.
"I'd be giving them a bigger fish to catch," she hummed her words and not able to help herself, she ruffled his bangs with her right hand, to shake that dust from his beautiful curls. "They catch the cult, you are free. I think it would be a win for everyone. Not to mention we can continue to deal with taking Vecna down, without having to worry about being possessed."
Dustin wished he could have answered, but he was far too busy narrowing his eyes at how Billie's hand dropped from Eddie's hair to the collar of his jacket. The way he looked at her wasn't new -Eddie's crush on Billie Jean was the most obvious thing in that high school-, but the way she gave him attention... Well, that was unexpected and as soon as the reasoning clicked, as a reassembly to how Mike and El used to act in his mind, Dustin's eyes widened again.
"You are dating Billie Jean now?!"
"Been dating her for half a year, Henderson," Eddie wrapped an arm around Billie proudly, hugging her to his side. She immediately returned the hug as well. "Who's out of who's league now?" Eddie stuck his tongue out, but to his surprise, Dustin leant back, eyebrows still raised.
"Obviously, she is out of your league. I didn't know she was a demon fighting badass back then. I take back everything bad I said about Billie Jean and I repent for my sins."
"Appreciated, kid," Billie nodded towards Dustin, huffing a small laugh, just a little amused by his dramatism.
"You owe me ten bucks," Robin nudged Steve after shaking her head at yet another adorable couple making her feel like she needs to be in a hurry with finding someone to hold the hand of and hug too.
"So now...," Max trailed off, not particularly sure she followed their next planned move.
"We need to find a curse pouch in Austin's house and this house, take pictures and videos of them so we have proof of the connection," Sam explained for Max in a heartbeat. He's been paying extra attention. "However," and then he turned his head towards Billie to slightly tilt it to the side, "how does Devin's drawing connect?"
Billie grabbed the paper Max had deserted and it therefore ended up in Devin's hands again. He had no idea how he drew that, nor what was in his mind when he grabbed the charcoal and carelessly crushed it against it to get a result. Black was still under his nails from this recklessness with his supplies. Billie had looked at the drawing once before, but now that they had the information about curses being placed in the vicinity of the haunted, Billie looked at it from a different perspective. The image cleared out and she simply had to sigh.
"Does anyone have a mirror?"
An uncomfortable pause waved through the group. No one moved to offer her a mirror. No one but Devin, who, after his first sound made into the conversation -a sigh-, shifted off his seat to fish a round mirror out of his pants' back pocket. He raised his hand, more skeletal than ever and from that movement, Steve glanced at the bruise marks his long sleeves hit around his wrists.
Billie only took the mirror, far too scared about being this close to such a thing to think of anything else but her own breathing, which she truly tried to temper before opening the mirror. No matter her attempts, she still flinched when she had to look into the mirror.
There was another reason why she called it Mirror Man and it had nothing to do with The Human League: she always saw it in the mirror.
This time, the darkest shadow was right behind her. She felt its grip on her left shoulder, even though it felt formless. The chill ran down her back and Eddie felt her stiffen.
"You're next." Billie heard the whisper mock a shiver right in her ear.
"Something wrong?" Eddie's voice made her turn her head away from the mirror. By the time she glanced again into it, the Mirror Man was gone.
She was able to clear her throat, bow her head and just shake the image completely from her mind. "I'm okay, baby," her tiny tone did not manage to fool Eddie just then, but he let it pass only to watch how she paced the mirror perpendicular to the drawing and looked at its reflection. He watched the reflection too, from over her shoulder.
"That kinda looks like...," Eddie hummed lowly. "If you squint and imagine it with a lot less light than usual..."
"It's my room," Billie concluded his theorizing for everyone else to see. The image was looking weird because it was distorted by an inverted perception, no matter from which angle one stared at it. But once the mirror was added, it became obvious it was a room, covered by the shadows of clawed hands. Not just any room, it was Billie's. The positioning of the square next to the bed gave it away: that was definitely her Michael Jackson poster.
"That's a bit creepy of you," Robin threw a glance at Devin, fighting back the grimace which came through in her expression anyway, "no offense."
"He drew that while the demon was harassing Sam, right?" Max settled the details clearer. "So maybe this means the curse pouch is in your room," she nodded towards Billie, hesitating to call her name.
"We may know one location, but how about at Austin's?" Steve continued that rationality. "I don't know how long we'd have in there, considering it's a crime scene and their neighbors surely are frightened enough to call the cops for a stray cat at the wrong place too."
"Actually, I'll ask the real question here, since none of you are actually considering it," Lucas raised his hand to be listened to quicker by everyone in the group. "We find the curse pouches, we film them, we take pictures, but what then?"
"We take the evidence to the police, of course," Billie closed Devin's mirror and passed it, and the drawing, to Eddie, who pocketed the mirror, then gave the drawing back to its creator, smiling apologetically. The drawing may have been confusing, but it was still a good piece of work and quite impressive as the second drawing he ever saw coming out of his hands.
"Yes, but then what?" Sinclair insisted.
"We let the police take care of the cult?" Billie narrowed her eyes, a bit confused. "Of course, I will help you guys with Vecna too after that's out of our way. It's only fair."
"No, I think I know what he means," Sam nodded towards Lucas, then rephrased his meant inquiry for Billie. "What do we do with the curse pouches?"
"How will the curse end?" Lucas confirmed by continuing the questions.
"Do we burn them?" Nancy offered a solution.
Billie, Eddie and Dustin shouted at the same time, "No!"
Nancy was taken aback by their synchronization, but instead of taking a step back, she was curious to find out more, "Why?"
"Why?!" Dustin sighed out. "Damn it, Nancy... Those pouches are the vessels of dark magic."
"Burn the vessels and the evil runs free," Eddie continued.
"Basically," Billie sighed, "we do not know how the curse will react to being let wild."
"It won't be pretty," Dustin shivered, eyes wide.
"So we better not push our luck," Eddie said.
"Then what do we do to stop the curse that's conjuring the demon?" Lucas raised his voice, drawing silence from the three demonic nerds.
"Well...," Eddie grimaced.
"Well?" Steve raised his eyebrows, trying to pressure out an answer from those with the brief knowledge of these things from their fantasy game. The more he learned about D&D, the more Steve was certain that game held a dangerous amount of truth in it.
"The only way to break a Demon Lord's curse is killing the Demon Lord," Dustin explained, by the book.
"Kill the curse caster and their curses are broken, at least that's how it works most of the time in our game, but I cannot guarantee..."
"And even if you could," Nancy interrupted Eddie, "what you're talking about is murder! We are not murderers."
"The people conjuring the demon aren't good people," Steve sighed. "But they are still just people."
"Tell that to the people they've killed," Devin finally brought actual words to the conversation too.
"Unless any of you know how to counter curse," Dustin offered an alternative which earned, loudly, Max's frown.
"Let's just focus on finding the pouches first," Billie promptly cut the debate. One step at a time was much easier to follow than trying to be ahead of the game. It was as if they were trying to find out the solution to a math problem without even reading the whole text first. Guessing and theorizing had a fine line separating them from necessary planning. She was feeling like they were wasting time, like she was pressured by some sort of clock chilling the skin on the back of her neck.
"One more thing," Lucas raised his hand again, this time with one finger up.
"You don't have to raise your hand, Lucas," Steve said softly. "We see you, man."
Lucas lowered his hand back down, waited a second to settle his elbows on his knees, then stared back up, trying to look at everyone, "What do we do if Vecna attacks one of us while we are trying to solve the demon thing? Fighting two monsters at the same time... This is a dangerous game."
"Not quite the russians and the Mind Flayer combination," Robin sighed, "but we can multi-task with this one. All we need to keep Vecna at bay is to listen to some music."
"What?" Billie tilted her head to the side.
"Oh," Dustin straightened up. "You don't know," he pointed out, referring to both Billie and Eddie.
"Your favorite song saves your mind from being subdued by Vecna," Sam explained the same thing he told his oldest brother, now to his sister and her boyfriend.
Their reactions were comically different.
While Eddie seemed to have been relieved, Billie quickly furrowed her eyebrows.
"That's going to be easy," Eddie exclaimed, even though at the back of his tongue, he felt the bitterness of it. He was a musician at heart... and these kids were trying to tell him that he could have saved Chrissy that night if only she wasn't the first victim? If only he knew this sooner...
"When Mirror Man is around, he turns on music," Billie pointed out.
"Another way to tell them apart," Robin gestured, not necessarily understanding why Billie brought up the fact with a grim expression. Dustin understood though, because ever since the Creel basement, he had a single theory dancing in his mind, the product of already having snooped too much in the life of the Carter's.
"Before you go out there though," Billie continued, "you should probably also know that Vecna may not be the only one planning an attack. The Mirror Man could have listened to everything we just said."
"Cool," Lucas noted sarcastically. "And how do we defend ourselves against a demon again?"
"Don't look at me," Eddie raised his hands up when several eyes turned to him, hoping he'd shed some light on their dilemma. "She's the real exorcist."
"Hardly," Billie half smiled at his nudge. "How about holy water?"
"You have holy water?" Robin leant forward.
"Well, I don't. But the church does."
"Adding breaking into the church to steal their holy water to our to do list of illegal stuff today, right before slipping into a closed crime scene," Steve ironically voiced, however, all the people present just nodded in understanding, definitely not taking things as seriously as him.
"So I suppose we're splitting up the group?" Nancy assumed.
"Eddie and I are gonna find the pouch in my room," Billie already announced. "Since we know it's there, it's less ground to cover, less people needed. Everyone else should go to Austin's. The more people, the quicker you find the curse pouch."
"Or the easier we get spotted," Steve mumbled along.
"Harrington," Billie called him by his last name and the tired man immediately straightened his back. "I'm leaving my brothers with you and I would like them back in one piece."
"I'm not going with them," Devin argued.
"Yes, you are."
"What if I don't want to help?" Devin mocked, leaning back.
Everyone's shock couldn't rival the absolute disbelief Billie riddled on her expression just then.
"What?" she barely whispered.
"I don't want to help you to save your boyfriend, who I barely even know-"
"We are taking down the cult who killed our mother, you prick!" Without hesitation, Billie's arms unclenched from her chest and with her fists tightened, they straightened on both her sides. Eddie took her right fists into his hand and the coldness of his three rings anchored her back to reality. One rub from his thumb and she unclenched that tightness, relaxed a breath.
Definitely, Devin looked his sister in the eyes with a certain tint of numbness.
"Whatever," Billie shook her head, toning down the anger to just disappointment. "Just leave the house then. If you're not helping, you're just going to be a liability if Vecna or the Mirror Man attack here."
"Kicking me out of my own house," Devin chuckled, shaking his head, but apart from that comment, he actually got up.
"Devin," Billie called him after he walked two steps across the living room, towards the exit. His head bowed made her have this weird feeling, at least for a second, that he needed help and she wasn't trying hard enough to reach out to him to offer it. Her brother looked back upon hearing his name. "Do us both a favor and listen to some music while you're out, okay? I don't want that Vecna creep thinking he can come near you."
Devin huffed a short mocking laugh and biting back his snarky answer, he just left.
"That...," Max was the first to break the silence, "was awkward."
After Devin Carter's abrupt and cold leave, movement crept into the gathered group and people started leaving the house. Since there were seven of them about to head out, Eddie went out to introduce Nancy Wheeler to his car, he'll be borrowing her for the day. Billie waited in the doorway, hardly expecting Dustin to stay behind and, looking ahead, to talk with her.
"I have a theory," he announced, quiet enough for Billie to understand he wanted them to be discreet about this for now. So she continued acting like she was just waiting, leaning against the doorframe leading to the front yard.
"I'm listening," she replied, keeping quiet. She didn't just stare blankly ahead, even though her eyes threatened to unfocus any second now from the pressure of having a memory refusing to cooperate. She focused her gaze on the one sight which helped her calm down: Eddie Munson. The sun was about to set and that auburn shine through the air made his brown curls seem lit. A smile crept on her lips before the conversation could sink in on her
"In D&D," Dustin started, "demons and devils are two different things, after two different goals. In fact, they are rivals. The Mirror Man and Vecna... two things, which seemed very similar at first, prove to be distinguishably different. What if they are rivals?"
"How did you come to that conclusion?" Billie only slightly furrowed her eyebrows.
"I know you must have felt it too," Dustin called her out on the grimace she had earlier on, in the house. Looking up at her and admiring the bright orange of her hair in this afternoon hour, he continued, "That Vecna could be after your family at any time, I mean. It wasn't very nice of me, I'll give you that, but I snooped into your files at the high school counselor." There, Billie's eyes widened and as her figure stiffened, she held her arms tighter at her chest, fingertips digging into her muscles.
"You, Sam and Devin all have symptoms that Max and Chrissy had before Vecna attacked them."
Dustin's words managed to send a shiver down Billie's spine and despite looking at the love of her life still, her memories swam up and she recalled the words she heard the Mirror Man constantly telling her: You're next.
"But it didn't make sense," Dustin looked ahead at Steve, who was waiting in his car for everyone to be ready to go. "It didn't make sense why none of you actually got attacked even though you've had the symptoms for longer than the others, until I saw that demon possessing Steve and it clicked. Billie Jean," Dustin looked back up at Billie and this time, she looked down at him to meet his gaze. "What if the Mirror Man curse is blocking Vecna from claiming your family?"
She'd be lying if she said she never considered that. It was written all over her face, in sadness and knowledge, in regret and the weight of secrets she was too scared to voice, especially because she knew they'd wipe that smile off of Eddie's lips.
"If that's the case and we make the Mirror Man go away...," Dustin's voice trailed off.
"I'm next," Billie completed bitterly.
Anthony Carter was pretty sure he knew exactly what was happening in Hawkins with his family just then and unlike back in Oregon, he couldn't afford not acting immediately. He sped past any limits until he almost crashed his park in front of the Hawkins Police Station.
"Chief Powell," he breathed heavily, stumbling inside the station. "Where is he?"
"Not here," Flo, the secretary, answered, rather tired of seeing erratic people. The Byers might have left, but apparently, the Carter's weren't far from their craziness either.
"Where is he?" Anthony insisted.
Flo looked up at a man heavily sweating, blinking rapidly and clinging to her desk so he didn't fall over or at least to stop that constant shake of his bones. He was shivering on the borderline of feverish symptoms. Any second now, she would have expected to see him drop and have it on herself again to call an ambulance.
"There was another murder at the Lover's Lake," Phil Callahan answered nonchalantly, too bothered by the noise to even consider he should have kept his mouth shut about classified information from their investigation. Anthony got the hint and rushed back out of the Police Station.
Only after he stormed out, Phil lifted his eyes from his tower of playing cards, built on his table, and slowly gasped, "Shit. I shouldn't have told him that, should I?"
Flo rolled her eyes at the officer.
The road to the Lover's Lake was a torture for Anthony. He wasn't seeing clearly anymore and the headache felt like it was splitting his head in half, like one side of his brain was being pulled in one direction, the other in a whole different one too. He was being torn.
As it was demanded, he checked the mirrors in his car from time to time. Five minutes into the drive, when time already blended in his perception, he looked into the middle rear mirror and, in pure terror, saw it move on its own until he saw his dead wife standing in the backseat, on the middle.
"No." With one hand on the wheel, he ducked to the side and opened the glove box. Panicked, mumbling the most basic of prayers anyone knew, Anthony pushed out anything in his path: papers, important documents and pens started falling out of the compartment.
Too rarely did he lift his hand to glance ahead at the road. The car was not going straight on that street and his only luck was that, for now, the road was empty.
Finally, his hand grasped cold glass. He pulled out of the glove box a small bottle with a cross engraved in it. He straightened back in his seat, just in time to pull the wheel and take the curve properly, though far too fast. He was driving recklessly.
Anthony popped the bottle cap off and brought the holy water up to his lips. The liquid barely touched his lips and he already felt the burn. The radio he never got to switch on, lit all on its own and blasted through lyrics which bled noise into Anthony's ears and fright deeply clawed into his soul.
"Feel the city breakin' and everybody shakin'."
Tears bubbled in his eyes. He wasn't seeing the road ahead at all anymore and all he could think about was his children... If he didn't reach Chief Powell, if he didn't alert the authorities, he'd be leaving them all alone against a demon, again.
"And we're stayin' alive, stayin' alive."
Anthony hiccupped and closed his eyes, downing the entire bottle of holy water. A scream came through the radio before smoke raised from it with the sound of a crack. The middle rear mirror was shattered and the radio was broken.
But Mr. Carter opened his eyes and took the chance to look back over his shoulder: the backseat was empty.
He turned around, to see the road.
A car was heading straight for him and he barely pulled the wheel in time to dodge and return to his lane.
The sweat of a close call remained with him until he reached the siren lights gathered around Lover's Lake. The sunset was turning into that obnoxious darkness between day and night, where light cowers away, frightened by the every-growing shadows. Red and blue hoped to fight that darkness, unsuccessfully, because pushing through busy and shaken up people, Anthony overheard what Jason, one of the basketball players from Billie's high school, was telling to an officer.
"It was demonic," Jason breathed out, clinging to the blanket supposed to dry his wet clothes or warm his shivering body. "He swam out there as if in a trance and I tried to go after him when... when he lifted from the water and... his bones," his voice cracked, "they broke, all on their own. Is this Eddie? Did that freak do this?"
"Eddie Munson was here?" he was questioned then and moving ahead, to look for Chief Powell, the conversation faded for Anthony's ears, gradually.
"No," Jason admitted. "But couldn't he have conjured something from afar? Him and his girlfriend! Look, I know how this sounds, but look what she already did to my face."
Billie was mentioned and Anthony wanted to turn around, but he was drawn towards the white cloth, set to cover the corpse the cops just fished out of the water. The ridges, the corners standing out... Anthony was surrounded by a chill that he was going to look at a corpse just as distorted as that of his wife once the demon was done with her.
He had to see it.
As a moth drawn to a flame, a true masochist shivering in the pains of terror, Anthony reached his hand down, towards the white cloth.
He needed to see it.
"Hey!" Chief Powell, who just got off the station, from a call with Flo warning him about exactly what he was seeing now. "Mr. Carter, step away from the body!"
Anthony Carter's hand froze in the air.
Not because of Chief Powell, who, with his left hand hovering his gun, halted his step. No. Anthony didn't even hear the man he was there to ask the help of.
Instead, he heard the tick of a clock.
"Time's up, Mr. Carter."
"It's happening again!" Jason shouted, scattering to his feet and hiding behind the officer who had been interrogating him. "I told you I'm not crazy!"
And there was the proof, widening Chief Powell's eyes and rendering the entire police force present speechless: Anthony Carter floated off the ground.
author's note: BIG THANKS TO aethrastic_dreamxx xonceuponatimex FOR SOLDIERING THROUGH WITH ME AND MOTIVATING ME TO FINISH WRITING THIS TONIGHT YASSSS
okay okayy, i have been looking forward to this chapter for a long time now, because it finally reveals the bigger pieces of the puzzle and basically gives us a larger view of what's happening, at last.
now is the PERFECT time for me to ask you all: how do you feel about the plot so far?
how do you feel about the second mystery, aka the mirror man case?
how about the group dynamics?
the family intrigues?
TELL MEEEEE 💖💕
also, can we talk about the irony that for fourteen chapters, for 150+ pages, billie is trying to gather proof to prove supernatural to chief powell, but her dad did that in like... a day? fucking hell 😂😂😂😂
would y'all hate me if i already teased the next chapter title? "i just died in your arms tonight"