Cynthia drove down back streets with her headlights off for a while, just in case there were any other police in the area that could respond and give chase. Once she felt confident that they were far enough away, she pulled into a parking lot.
"What are we doing?" Alex asked, looking around.
"Getting pizza, of course," Cynthia replied, even as Alex looked up to see the bright neon sign that said BB'S Pizza in a blocky font.
Alex stared at her in disbelief. "Seriously?"
Cynthia responded with a mischievous smirk. "That's what we told my mom we were doing. It'd look suspicious if we didn't come back with any." She opened the door and got out of the Jeep.
"You don't think it'll look suspicious that we're both completely drenched?" Alex pointed out, following Cynthia across the parking lot.
"I already got that figured out," she replied proudly. "We'll say that we took the pizza over to Anthony Park, so we could eat at the gazebo, but then the lawn sprinklers came on just as we got there." It sounded plausible enough.
"Okay," Alex agreed reluctantly. It felt a bit surreal, stopping for pizza right after battling an angry spirit and running away from the police. The stark contrast between her everyday life and this strange new world of spirits and otherworldly forces was jarring. Is this what her life was going to be like from now on?
They stepped inside the building, tracking wet footprints on the floor, and stood in line behind two other people. The clerk, a heavyset teen with a mop of greasy blonde hair, glanced at them several times, no doubt thinking about how he was going to have to mop the floor once they left.
"One large pepperoni, please" Cynthia said when they got up to the register.
"Uh... that'll be fourteen o' two," the boy said in response, giving them both a strange look.
Cynthia slapped a wet twenty dollar bill down on the counter, then scrapped up two pennies from the tray next to the register and dropped them on top of the bill. The clerk returned six dollars in change, and politely informed them that their pizza would be ready in about fifteen minutes, his eyes still seeming to ask why the hell they were dripping water in small puddles all over the tiled floor.
They stepped over to one of the tables. Alex sat with her back against the wall, while Cynthia pulled one out, sitting in it backwards with her arms crossed and resting across the back, positioned so that she could see the counter when their pizza was ready.
"So what the hell actually happened back there?" Cynthia asked. "One moment, you were talking, and then the next thing I know, bam! Fire everywhere!"
Alex put her head down on the table, burying her face in her arms. She was shivering slightly, her cold, wet jeans and jacket sapping all the warmth from her. "I tried to help him," Alex said miserably, cradling her face in her hands. "But I guess I just made things worse. He literally transformed into a wraith right in front of me."
"Is he still there?"
Alex shook her head slowly, remorsefully. "No, I don't think so," she responded. "I think I, um... exorcised it." She ran the fingers of both hands through her tangled, wet hair and closed her eyes. "So I pushed him over the edge, then killed him a second time, basically."
"I'm not sure you had anything to do with him getting corrupted, actually," Cynthia said. She retrieved her phone from her jeans pocket. Thankfully, her heavy army-style jacket had soaked up most of the water from the sprinklers so it wasn't too wet. She pulled up the photo she had taken in the confession booth at the church. "Look at this."
Alex took the phone and examined the photo. The wooden interior of the booth was black and charred, but she could just make out something carved into the ceiling. It was some kind of circle with weird symbols surrounding it.
"Bruja shit," Cynthia mumbled quietly. Alex nodded.
Alex's eyes widened as recognition and insight spread across her face. "I've seen something like this before."
"Yeah? Where?"
"On the roof of Weisman's, right where Heather Cole was found." It looked strikingly similar to the symbol she had seen painted on the roof. She couldn't say for sure if the symbols were exactly the same, but it was definitely the same general style. She hadn't thought anything of it at the time, had just assumed it was graffiti and nothing more.
"So what does it mean?" Cynthia asked.
"I don't know," Alex admitted. But it definitely means something."
The excuse Cynthia came up with wound up being unnecessary, as Mrs. Lopez had already retired to bed by the time the girls returned. Depending on how dry the car seats were by tomorrow, they might not need to explain themselves at all. They dried off, and changed clothes. Cynthia just threw on a pair of sweat pants and an Avenged Sevenfold tank top, while Alex put on the same silly purple cotton pajamas she had worn around the house the other day. She normally just slept in an oversized T-shirt, but she would have felt really weird about hanging out in Cynthia's room half naked.
"I hate to say it," Cynthia said, "but we should probably ask Spooky Jay if he knows anything about those weird symbols in the confessional booth." She sat in the window cell of her bedroom, smoking a cigarette and blowing the smoke out into the cold night air.
"Yeah, probably," Alex agreed, sprawled out on Cynthia's bed, head hanging over the edge to watch her friend from upside down. There must have been something in Alex's tone, because Cynthia turned a meaningful glance in her direction.
"Hey, what's wrong?"
"I don't know." She took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. "It's just a lot to process, ya know? And things really did not go smoothly tonight. I feel like we're in over our heads."
Cynthia blew a casual arc of smoke through the air that twisted into gray ribbons in the silvery moonlight. "I don't know. You exorcised a wraith, and no one got hurt."
"Except that police officer," Alex pointed out. "Who we barely got away from, by the way."
"A minor hiccup," Cynthia said casually. "We'll do better next time."
"Next time?" Alex shook her head. A funny thought occurred to her, and it made her smile a bit in spite of herself. "You know, I think we're doing this all wrong."
Cynthia flicked the butt of her spent cigarette out the window and rose to take a seat next to Alex on the bed. "What do you mean?"
"I don't think this is how slumber parties are supposed to go. Don't most girls do each other's hair and talk about boys when they have sleepovers?"
Cynthia laughed, shaking her head. "So you want me to give you a makeover?"
"No, I want to give you a makeover," Alex replied with a teasing smirk.
Cynthia replied by throwing a pillow at her. "So you're implying that I need a makeover?"
"Well, we should at least dye your roots," Alex taunted, throwing the pillow right back at her. "You've got sort of a reverse skunk stripe going on right now."
Cynthia retaliated immediately by swinging the pillow at Alex's head with nearly enough force to knock her over. Alex responded by grabbing another pillow from behind her and returning fire swiftly and fiercely.
From there, the situation quickly escalated into an all-out pillow war, which only ended when Alex accidentally pulled the blanket right out from under Cynthia, sweeping her off the bed and taking out the lamp on her nightstand in the process. It was silly, and a bit juvenile, but it was fun. It did Alex a lot of good to feel like a normal teenage girl, if only for a little while.
* * *
In the morning, they didn't talk at all about spirits or occult symbols or Lucas or Spooky Jay. Instead, they played video games, watched a weird indy movie about a guy with a small flat screen monitor for a head, and visited a nearby strip mall. They had frozen yogurt, Alex bought some used books and a new pair of sneakers, and Cynthia picked up a black beanie with a large crossbone and skull design on the front. It wasn't until they were sitting at the bus stop waiting for the next bus to take them back home that Alex finally decided it was time to stop stalling. Wordlessly, she pulled up Spooky Jay's number on the contacts list of her phone, and hit the call button. It rang three times before he picked up.
"Hey, Alex," he crooned. If a grin could make an audible sound over the phone, she knew she would have heard it. As it was, she couldn't help but mentally picture the expression at the sound of his voice.
"Hi, Spooky," she replied. Wasting no time on formalities, she got straight to the point. "Listen, I have some questions about spirit stuff, if you don't mind."
"I'll bet you do," he said knowingly.
"Huh?" was all Alex could muster as a reply, taken off guard by the comment.
"I heard something went down last night at St. Xavier's," he continued. "Did you guys find out anything interesting?"
A cold chill ran down Alex's spine. "I don't think we should talk about this over the phone."
Cynthia raised an eyebrow in response to the statement in an unspoken question about what was being discussed.
"Okay, okay," Jay replied, sounding as though he was half-heartedly trying to hold back a chuckle at Alex's expense. "I'm kinda busy today, though. I'll get with you tomorrow after school, okay?"
"That works," she replied quickly. It was somewhat paranoid to believe that anyone might be listening in on their call, but considering that she and Cynthia were technically guilty of breaking and entering and assaulting a police officer, she didn't want to take any chances.
"I'll talk to you tomorrow, then." She abruptly ended the call.
"What was that about?" Cynthia asked.
"I guess he must have seen something on the news about someone breaking into the church, and figured it was us," Alex explained. "Anyway, I'm going to meet with him after school tomorrow, see if he knows anything about those weird symbols."
"By yourself?"
"You really don't trust him, do you?"
"I don't know." Cynthia said. "It's just kind of weird how he showed up out of nowhere one day and started telling us all this stuff, you know? It makes me think he wants something from us. From you, that is."
"Well, he does seem to want me to use my eidolon to exorcise wraiths, since Grim is missing. So I guess he'll probably be happy to hear about last night."
"Just be careful, okay?"
"Don't worry about me," Alex replied, echoing what Cynthia herself had said just the night before. "I can take care of myself."
Or rather, my eidolon can take care of me. Thinking back to the wayher other self had attacked the police officer, and had probably very nearlyattacked her counselor, her own safety wasn't that much of a concern. At thispoint, she was more of a danger than any wraith had been, let alone a scrawnyteenage boy like Spooky Jay.