"This isn't helping my decision any," Steven said.

"I turned out all right," Roy said.

"What, you cheated your way through college? What did you get your degree in?"

"Forestry. One of the nice things about the gift is it really frees you up as far as a profession is concerned. You can be better than most people in any field."

"So your degree is bogus?"

"No, it's real. I earned it. Plus I put in another twenty five years with the Forest Service, which is how I learned how f.u.c.ked up the government can be."

"Supplies you with a nice pension check every month," Steven said. "I don't see you complaining about that." Steven knew this was the wrong thing to say, but sometimes he couldn't resist Roy's bait.

"I earned that pension," Roy said, becoming irritated.

"And I earned my diploma," Steven said.

"All's I'm saying is that knowing how to use the gift properly will help Jason while he's in school, not hurt him. It woulda helped you, but there was no getting through to you when you were in college."

"No getting through?" Steven said. "I don't recall seeing you at all when I was in college."

"That's because you hauled off halfway around the country," Roy said. "And when we did see you, you thought you knew everything already. You were a hard set skeptic at that point, not open to anything unless it came from a professor or your text books. I was never going to convince you of anything. It took Lukas Johansen to open your mind. You should be grateful Jason's not like you."

Steven considered this. Roy was right, there was no way he would have listened to any mumbo-jumbo during those years. His mother's Christianity had kept him shielded from Roy all the years he was going up, and higher learning had kept the shield going for decades after.

"I suppose you're right," Steven said. "I don't think I would have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. Jason doesn't seem to need that."

"That's because you raised him to have an open mind," Roy said. "And it's happening to him naturally, as it would have with you, had you been open to it. You worry too much. Meet with Jason and explain it to him."

Steven thought about it. Roy had softened him up. Perhaps his plan to wait a year with Jason was more for his benefit than it was for Jason's. Maybe Roy was right, maybe it would help Jason in school rather than distract him. Jason was different than he had been at that age. He shouldn't a.s.sume he was a carbon copy of himself. Perhaps he could talk to Jason, and see if he'd promise to complete college if he told him. That could work.

"Alright," Steven said, "I'll consider it. After we finish with June."

Chapter Nine.

"I'm sure by now my doorstep and your shadow are great friends," Judith said as they entered the second floor sitting room. Judith was arranged on the day bed in exactly the same position as they'd seen her on every previous visit. Steven was beginning to think she slept on it overnight.

"I must apologize for meeting here and for not standing up to greet you," Judith said. "A touch of my arthritis has come on, and this weather makes it much worse. I'm afraid I wouldn't even be able to see you if it weren't for my wonderful medications."

"No need to apologize," Steven said. "We've brought the mirror."

Judith sat upright, her arthritic-ridden hunch suddenly gone.

"You haven't broken it in any way, have you?" she asked.

"No, it's fine," Steven said. Roy handed her the mirror.

"Would you do me a favor?" she asked Steve, ignoring the mirror. "Get me that cloth you see on the shelf over there? Third shelf from the bottom."

Steven walked over the shelves she indicated and hunted for the cloth. It was a red felt square, neatly folded. He brought it to her. She unfolded the cloth, and then turned back to Roy.

"The mirror, please," she said, extending her hand with the cloth. "I can't take the risk of touching it myself. Most demons know me, and several have a score they'd like to settle. This helps keep me anonymous."

Roy pa.s.sed her the mirror, and she looked into it. Steven could tell she had slipped into the River, and might be entering a trance. She turned her face back and forth, as though she sought different angles of view. Her brow furrowed; she looked perplexed. Finally she withdrew from the trance and lowered the mirror.

"We have a problem," she said.

"What?" Steven asked.

"There are only two demons in here," she said. "The lantern showed three. The third is still with the child. And worse, it no longer has to battle with these two for control. The demon has the child all to himself now."

"I thought you said the mirror would trap them all," Steven said.

"And so it would have, provided my directions were followed exactly."

"They were," Roy said. "We trained the boy exactly as you instructed."

"Then Aka Manah somehow tricked the boy," Judith said. "He makes the wrong seem right. The boy probably thought he did the correct thing. The two demons trapped in this mirror were the stupid ones. Aka Manah is not stupid. He's been alive for thousands of years, has stolen many souls. Why is he so interested in this boy?"

"What do we do now?" Steven asked. "Is the boy in danger?"

"He's in great danger, more now than before," Judith said. "The other demons may know the reason. I'm going to try and communicate with them. Bring me an item from the shelf, please."

Steven walked to the shelf once again. "It looks like a top, made of tin. Like a child's toy."

Steven grabbed the top and ran it back to Judith. She placed it on the mirror, and once again entered a trance.

Steven jumped into the River. The top had changed shape it now looked like a gla.s.s tube, flattened on one end, the end Judith had placed on the mirror. The tube rose out of the mirror, becoming thinner and thinner, until it ended in a circle about a foot from the mirror. Judith was staring into the circle. Steven watched as a bubble formed around her, an indication she was entering a trance. Wisps of black smoke emerged from the gla.s.s circle, and Judith leaned forward to inhale them. This repeated five or six times, then Steven saw Judith ending the trance and coming out of the River. She removed the top from the mirror and asked Steven to replace it on the shelf.

"Well?" Roy asked impatiently.

"The child would be valuable for just his markings, and the fact that he's gifted," Judith said. "But it's worse than that. He's the offspring of a demon. Combine it all, and it makes him infinitely more valuable."

"Evie is a demon?" Steven asked, shocked.

"I took you for smarter," Judith said. "Not his mother, his father. His mother mated with a demon. The boy is the result. The father is a rival of Aka Manah. He not only wants the boy's power, which is significant, he wants the boy as an insult to his rival."

"Evie must have known," Steven said.

"There's no question of that," Judith said. "She was likely saving him for the demon she mated with. That's usually the arrangement."

"Why?" Steven asked. "What did she have to gain?"

"It's usually something like money or power," Judith said. "Something she needed at the time she mated, probably something trivial in retrospect. Demons make it easy they trick you into believing you want something. Then they offer a 'take now, pay later' deal that stupid people find hard to resist. Especially if the person making the deal is already on the dark side, which this woman most a.s.suredly was."

"What can we do?" Steven asked.

"Very little, I'm afraid," Judith said. "Aka Manah is powerful. I don't have anything that can take him down. With the other demons out of the way, he's free to pursue the child."

Steven reached into his jacket pocket, finding his cell phone. "I'm calling June," he said, holding the phone to his ear. It rang for a minute, then went to voice mail.

"She's not answering," Steven said.

"Try again," Roy said.

Steven redialed and waited. "No, still no answer," he said, lowering the phone from his ear and replacing it in his jacket pocket.

"I'll tend to this mirror," Judith said. "It needs to be stored in a special way to keep the demons inside. I have a hundred of them in my bas.e.m.e.nt. You two should go check on the boy."

They exchanged hurried goodbyes and Steven and Roy left her house, running for the car.

"I hope we're not too late," Roy said as they got in.

"What are we going to do if we're not?" Steven said. "We have no plan. We don't know what we're doing."

"Just drive," Roy said, "as fast as you dare."

When they arrived at June's house, Steven noticed the white Impala in the driveway.

"Evie's here," Steven said.

"I'm going to take that as a bad sign," Roy said.

"What do we do?" Steven asked. "Just walk in? What do we say to June?"

"Let me handle it," Roy said, opening his car door. Steven sighed and followed him.

At the front door, Roy was about to knock, but Steven stopped his hand. "Listen," Steven said, holding his ear closer to the door.

"It sounds like a freight train," Roy said.

"We may be too late," Steven said.

"Only one way to find out," Roy said, and knocked.

Nothing happened. The sound behind the door continued. Roy knocked louder.

The door flew open. It was Evie, covered in blood. Evie took two steps back.

Steven could see into the room behind Evie. The walls were red painted in blood. It was though an explosion had occurred. On the ground, behind Evie, he could see the legs of a body sticking out behind a chair.

"You two!" Evie said, raising her voice above the din.

"Where's June?" Roy said. "Robbie?"

"It's already begun," Evie said, "you can't stop it."

"Who's on the floor behind you?" Roy yelled.

The corpse behind Evie animated like a drooping puppet, and rose into the air behind her.

"There, is that better?" Evie said.

It was June. She had been sliced repeatedly, so many times that pieces of her were disconnected and her skin was covered in blood.

"June!" Steven screamed, and rushed the doorway. Roy grabbed him, and held him outside of the door.

"Don't go in there," Roy said, holding him back.

"Need a better view?" Evie said, and June's corpse slammed back against the living room wall, knocking down blood-stained picture frames. June hung from the wall near the ceiling.

"What have you done to her?" Steven yelled at Evie.

"Oh, it wasn't me," Evie said. "It was Robbie." She smiled.

"Where is he?" Roy asked.

"In his room," Evie said. "As you can see, he's been a bad boy. He's being punished."

"We're calling the cops," Roy said.

"Go ahead," Evie said. "They can't stop it either!" June's corpse fell from the wall and the door in front of them slammed shut.

Roy turned to Steven, frantic. "Use your phone! Call 911!"

"I thought you said we never involve the cops!" Steven said.

"June's dead in there," Roy said, "and G.o.d knows what's happening to Robbie. The cops will find out anyway, and I'm sure we've been seen by neighbors. Tell them we were here to visit, and discovered her. We have no blood on us, we won't be suspected if we play it this way."

Steven removed his phone and called. While he was talking, loud bangings and screams punctuated the roaring coming from the house.

"They're on their way," Steven said.

"Remember," Roy said, "we have no blood on us. That type of murder, there's going to be blood everywhere, including on the murderer. And, we've called it in. They'll take us in for questioning, probably separately, so we need to have the same story. We found a book at the Goodwill in Burien, a journal. We traced it down to June's husband and returned it. We became friends with the family. We came over today to visit. We knocked, got no answer, but we heard strange noises, so we opened the door and saw the blood. Then we closed the door and called the cops. Don't mention anything supernatural. We'll be OK, but stick to that story."

Roy walked to the sidewalk to wait for the police, and Steven followed him. They heard the sound of gravel kicking up against metal, and saw Evie's Impala pulling out of the driveway in the back of the house. She was still covered in blood. Steven could see a red handprint on the door where she'd touched the car while entering it. She sped off.

"She'll be the suspect," Roy said. "They'll go after her."