Kiss the Stars (Devon Slaughter Book 1) (16 page)

THE BOOKSTORE was
across town, not far from Ruby’s. It was an extension of the big store downtown
and I’d passed by it many times. It was a low slung brick building whose
entrance was crowded with untamed shrubbery. In curling cursive letters a wide
wooden sign said: NEW AGE. And beneath that: Occult Science, Mysticism and
Metaphysics. Open 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., Sunday through Sunday.

I felt weird
about entering, as if I’d be instantly recognized and doused in holy water, and
banished to an even worse existence. Or that my perfect exterior would ignite
in a blaze of hellfire. Naturally, I didn’t want to lose the one thing I had
going for me. I’d considered breaking in when the store was closed but the
nighttime hours worked against me.

Now, I was
verging on desperate.

It was quiet
inside. A couple checked out at the counter and I slipped past, heading to the
back. I scanned the titles on the shelves marked Metaphysics. I hoped I’d get
some kind of buzz when I came across what I was looking for. Some of the stuff
was far-out and went against my basic beliefs, whatever they were. Couldn’t
work in real life, I thought. The irony didn’t escape me.

I discarded
whatever didn’t seem immediately relevant, though I wondered why I was so
impatient. I guess I had all night, and the night after, for the rest of my
endless life.

I went down the
aisles getting more and more discouraged. My gaze fell on the book,
Self-help
for the Bleak
. Well, there you go, I thought. Ask and ye shall receive. I
found it lodged between—It’s
a Jungle Out there, Jane: Understanding the
Male Animal in your Life
and
How to Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on
Defending yourself against the Coming Rebellion
.

Footsteps
approached. I could tell it was the woman from behind the counter by her
lavender perfume and the faint scent of patchouli in her hair. I’d hardly
glanced at her when I went by but as soon as she got near, her presence pricked
my skin. I couldn’t detect a heartbeat, nor feel her pulse.

My own pulse
raced. Was she a vampire?

I turned my eyes
on her with a kind of dread.

She was
gorgeous, which a vampire should be. Her hair was long and black with a streak
of gray in front, which didn’t go with my vampire expectations. She had fine
lines around her chocolate brown eyes. And laugh lines. She didn’t look
immortal. I’d read
Interview with the Vampire
, so I thought I had some
basis for my opinion.

She wore a
tight-fitting turquoise dress and her shape was curvy. A gold cross lay in the
shadow of her cleavage. I forced myself not to stare. There was something
erotic about the glint of the cross between her breasts. A shock wave coursed
through me. Was that why I couldn’t hear her heartbeat? She was protected?

She looked close
to forty. I was near her age, or would have been, had I lived. When our eyes
met, she stiffened. I saw awareness in her posture, the way I
couldn’t
feel anything else about her. Sweat broke out on my brow.

What if I was
malformed in some way? Damaged goods? It didn’t seem right that I could
vacillate from one extreme to the other—power
ful
and power
less
.
It struck me as too human and if there was thing I was sure of, I was no longer
human.

She put her hand
around her cross and closed her eyes for the briefest moment. When her eyes
opened, she looked straight at me, unflinching. She came toward me. I wanted to
run but I couldn’t move.

Her hand came
out. Her fingers pressed down on my arm, as if applying pressure to a bleeding
wound. “What’s wrong, angel?” she said. “Are you lost?”

* * *

Her touch sent a
tingling sensation through my entire body. Not the sexy kind, but like she was
probing me with a wand, awaking unused circuits. And I wasn’t used to women
looking at me the way she did, like I was a drowning puppy. It was
disconcerting, if not slightly offensive.

Her hand dropped
to her side. “Oh, dear,” she said, which wasn’t reassuring. My flesh burned
where she had touched me. “What were you hoping to find here?”

No clue,
lady.

“I was just
passing by,” I crossed my arms.

“The paranormal
section is over here,” she waved her hand, vaguely, at the next aisle. “But I
might have something more to the point. Come with me.”

More to the
point?

I followed her
past the check-out counter and through a doorway into a small room crowded with
cardboard boxes and a messy desk. A couple of boxes had been opened and I saw
books inside. An electric red typewriter perched on the desk.

When a jingle
announced the front door opening, she stood on tip-toe to peer through the high
rectangular window.

I had to step
aside when she hurried past. I thought she was going to attend to her customers
but she closed the door and went back to her desk, shuffling papers. Pens
rolled and dropped to the floor, along with some pages that fluttered out of a
stack. I picked them up. “Thank you,” she murmured, not looking at me.

She unearthed a
pair of reading glasses. When she put them on, they were crooked. She took them
off, polished the lenses with her sleeve and adjusted the frame. She put the
glasses on again and now they were lopsided in the opposite direction. “I hate
these damn things,” she said, but she seemed to locate what she was looking for
in a sheaf of papers.

She read through
the first couple of pages. “Okay,” she said, more to herself than to me. “Alright,”
she nodded and turned a page, read some more. “Yes, this is it.” She glanced
up, squinting through her glasses, then yanked them off and tossed them on the
desk. “What’s your name, love?”

“Uh, Devon.”

“Of course. How
wonderful
.
It suits you exactly.”

I put my hands
in my pockets. I felt strangely at her mercy. Mercy in the truest sense of the
word.

“I’m Sarah,” she
said. “Writer, psychic, medium and channel. Not necessarily in that order. You’re
looking for someone?”

I snapped to
attention. “Yeah…
yeah
.” In the next breath, my shoulders relaxed, as if
she’d massaged a knot in my muscles.

“How long has
she been gone?” she asked.

She
.

“Nine years,” I
said. “A friend—well, someone I know, thought they saw her in the psych ward.”

“Here in town?
At Coffeen Sanitarium?” there was an excited edge to her voice.

“Right.” I
thought of the pictures on the internet of a three story neo-Colonial complete
with columns. There were short trees in the yard, artificially green grass and
a fountain. The place could have passed for a grand hotel.
Almost.

Sarah sighed. “How
recently was your friend seen?”

My fingers curled
in my pockets. “Not recently.”

“Too bad.” Her
eyes moved away. “If she was spotted recently, your chances of connecting are
better. Though, truth be told, time is an elusive thing. You may have noticed.”
She put her hands together, as if in prayer, touching her fingertips to her
lips. She suddenly glanced down at the desk. “Oh yes,” she picked up the papers
and thrust them at me. “Go ahead. You should find this interesting, at the very
least.”

I took the pages
held by a fat black clip.

“An excerpt from
my latest book,” she said. “Which I’m still in the process of writing. I haven’t
got to the best part yet. Don’t worry, I have plenty of copies. Somewhere…” she
looked down at the mess. “I’m sure.” She didn’t sound sure.

* * *

I sat on the
dumpy sofa.
Leave Her to Heaven
spun Technicolor images on the screen
hanging down my brick wall. The movie cast the only light in the room. On the
street below, a car honked, someone cursed. The creatures of the night were
hitting their stride. Zadie reared up in my mind, as one of them; white throat,
white hair and blood red fangs.

I turned my
thoughts back to the manuscript on my lap.

“
Many of you
already know me. For those of you who don’t, my name is Sarah Rose.
I am a
psychic, sometimes called a medium or channel. These terms are often used to
mean the same thing but actually describe different abilities, all of which I
possess.

“In this book,
my third, I am focusing on my ability to channel and communicate with the
Spirit World. I must quantify everything you are about to read with the
following statement:
I am merely a student and servant of the universe
.
The point is—yes, sometimes I am wrong!

“I write only
with the purpose of sharing experiences that have resulted in some small bit of
wisdom or knowledge that I believe can be helpful to others. Often, people come
to me who have no idea why. Their underlying reason is always the same,
unbearable sadness. The sadness is a result of having been severed from their
connection to the Spirit World.

“
And now I
come to the title and topic of this book
—
Demons and Angels
.”

I scanned for
several pages. I found the language boring, though I was bored easily. Many of
the passages were repetitive and reminded me of textbooks I’d been forced to
read in school. Though occasionally Sarah’s voice came out, accented with an
exclamation mark.

“
In art,
angels are depicted with bird-like wings and a halo and/or various other forms
of glowing light.
Personally, I have never met an angel who had such
attributes. That is not to say glowing angels with wings do not exist.
Certainly, angels can manifest in any form. I have little doubt an angel would
sprout wings if the need arose. I can imagine wings would go a long way toward
inspiring belief in the power of angels!

“Angels are
paranormal beings from higher planes that come to the earthly realm to assist
struggling spirits. (We mere mortals are spirits too, spirits who have
inhabited a human body.) Sometimes, angels lead newly released spirits from the
earthly realm to the Spirit World.

I scanned some
more, until a sentence leaped out at me.

“
Demons and
angels are very closely related
.”

Now, I read with
avid interest.

“
Demons are
not diabolical.
In fact, they are the opposite and act as guardian angels
in the human world where they possess godlike powers that help them on their
quests to aid suffering humans.”

Shit
.
She’s cracked
.

Some pathetic
part of me had counted on Sarah Rose being the real deal with life-altering
tricks up her psychic sleeve. I thought of her handing me the manuscript and
saying, “You’ll find it interesting, at the very least.”
The very least.

But she hadn’t
got to the best part yet, had she?

Another thing
echoed in my mind. “Are you lost, angel?” she had said.

(Angel, angel…)

“Demons can,
however, be dangerous if they are in the human world illegally, rather than
carrying out a mission. Demons who manage to find their way from the demon
realm into the human world on their own volition revel in their godlike powers,
using them for their own pleasure and debauchery.”

Debauchery?

“In this
capacity, demons soon lose their powers and can become deathly ill, unless they
feed off the psychic energy of humans.”

There was a
roaring in my ears. I saw myself slumped on Ruby’s bathroom floor. I remembered
dragging her into bed, clutching her, as if I would die without her.

The night I met
her, her pain had attracted me, like a moth to the fire. It was in her eyes,
the tilt of her head and the shadows in her face. Her pain was more beautiful
to me than a blooming rose or a gold filled sunset. After being with her, I
felt powerful.

“Humans who have
been attacked by a wayward demon will find themselves in a weakened state after
the attack.

“
Continued
attacks can be fatal
…”

I PULLED to the
side of the road and checked the map I kept in the glove compartment, holding
it under the dome light.

Stargazer Lane
was on the way out of town toward the desert. I would have to pass by the
sanitarium. I’d vowed never to return, once I left. I had not so much as driven
by, though it wasn’t a bad place. It was just sterile with occasional bad
smells and moans and screams. The doctors claimed to be progressive. I met Dr.
Ess there.

I crossed the
bridge and the lights of the city glowed on the water below me. The car vibrated
over metal grates.

Coffeen
Sanitarium was smaller than I remembered. I drove past slowly, not meaning to
stare but unable to help myself. It was lit up. Lights glowed in the upper
windows and flooded the yard. The fountain sparkled blue and red, lit from
within. Vertigo gripped me.

I hit the gas
pedal.

At the
intersection, a stoplight twisted in the wind.

I licked my lips
and stretched my fingers. Visions of Scarlet and Devon came unbidden. They were
kissing and writhing. He would admire her bravado and see through it and fall
in love with her youth and naiveté. She was an ingénue in a world where they
were rare. Rock stars wrote songs for ingénues. Artists gave up their lives.

When the light
turned, I sped away toward the desert, driving faster and faster, fueled by
jealousy that burned like lust.

My headlights
shined on a green wooden sign, splintered, the white lettering bleached off
except for ST and Z. I drove on, just to be sure there were no other roads. The
desert stretched out on either side of me, like a dark sea.

After a while, I
turned the car around; pulling close to the edge of the road, cranking the
wheel, backing up, turning the wheel again and working up a sweat. I wiped a
strand of damp hair off my forehead.

When I got back
to Stargazer Lane, I peered through my windshield. There was a cluster of
lights and I could make out trailers. Something told me Devon was here. Though
my intuition failed me on a regular basis, I still believed in it.

Doom hovered.
Heartbreak pulsed in my veins.

I headed back
toward the city, looking for a place to pull over. It was hard to be discreet
in a pink Cadillac. Only movie stars and pimps and my grandmother would drive
such a car. Driving it made me feel more like the person I wanted to be—carefree
and confident.

I turned into
the gravel pits and parked behind a small pile of gravel. I was being dumb but
what was the alternative? Staying home to climb the walls?

I had no problem
acting crazy, as long as no one saw me. And I didn’t intend to get caught. It
was something I
had
to do, like keying Georgie’s car. Guilt would plague
me later but I didn’t care about later.

I walked through
the sagebrush. The Louis Vuitton bag I carried added just the right surreal
touch. My life was a movie.

The storm had
scrubbed the sky. Stars twinkled brighter than I’d ever seen them. The scent of
damp sage was pungent and clean. Moisture beaded on my skin. Mud clung to my
boots. High above me the Milky Way arched across the sky, like a ‘Welcome To
Our Galaxy’ sign.

Someday, in
about four billion years, I’d heard the Andromeda galaxy was going to collide
with ours and knock our sun into galactic space. Thinking of this gave me a
shivery kind of excitement.

I was miniscule
and unimportant and for that reason, I felt more a part of mankind. We were all
living on borrowed time.

I came up on the
ridge above what looked to be an old trailer park. There were five trailers set
in a circle illuminated by a halogen bulb beaming down from a wooden pole.
Orange party lights were strung between the trailers that were old, from the
last century, probably the sixties. They were square and aluminum, flat and
dirty white, each with a band of turquoise around the middle.

I hooked my
mother’s bag over my shoulder and descended, walking in a diagonal direction
because the hill was steep. I was out in the wide open but the stars cast a
shimmery light, exposing me. At least I could count on most people being in
bed.

My stomach did a
flip when I thought of why I’d come. I needed to confirm my suspicions; Devon
was here, in Scarlet’s bed, instead of mine. If I was confronted with his
treachery, I might be cured of him.

And I might tell
Scarlet’s mother.

Maybe she
already knew if she was psychic. Maybe she didn’t care. Scarlet seemed to be
left to her own devices. I was always surprised, as a high school teacher, how
many parents treated their teens like adults. Of course, Scarlet’s mother might
be the one person to see through Devon, unshackled by the blinders of his
beauty.

I felt a twinge
of remorse.

Did I have it in
me to betray him? What had happened between us was so intimate. Not sex but the
way he had cut himself for me. But just as I couldn’t forgive Henry, I would
never forgive Devon if I caught him with a teenaged girl.

In this moment,
under the sprawling night sky, I longed to be rid of him.

I stopped to
listen.

All was quiet. I
moved in closer.

Four motorcycles
gleamed.
Oh, God
. I hadn’t considered the possibility of dogs. Suddenly,
I envisioned a snarling pack with spiked collars and big teeth. My fingers
gripped the handle of my bag.

A streak of
white shot past me. I froze. It was just a cat. A familiar looking cat.

Alceste? As if I’d
spoken, he stopped and looked back.
Alceste
. I’d been so worried about
him, sure he’d met a tragic fate but there was no mistaking the downturn of his
whiskers, one blue eye, and the other green.

“You’re alive,”
I whispered. I squatted and put out my hand. “Come here, baby. I missed you.” I
cooed to him.

He flicked his
tail before he darted under the stoop of the last trailer, the one I thought
Scarlet lived in.

According to her
diary, the stranger in her bed had been attempting to steal her cat. And I
remembered Devon asking about Alceste; he’d seen a poster I put up at the
7-Eleven. Had he found Alceste and tried to bring him home? I got fluttery and
weak, until I realized Scarlet ended up with Devon
and
my cat.

“Screw you,
Alceste,” I muttered.

Why don’t you
like me?

I crept toward
the trailers, staying on the periphery of the light. The last trailer was
perched on a foundation of cinder blocks. The curtains were filmy and I could
see shadowy figures moving inside. The tallest shadow looked a lot like Devon.

I tried to make
out the other person but I was too far away. I scuttled around the side of the
trailer, clutching the Louis Vuitton against my chest. My panting breath
sounded inhuman.

I had to stand
on tiptoe. There was a crack in the curtains. I put my eye to the window. I
recognized the way Scarlet’s long black hair fell down her back. Devon’s arms
were around her.

My knees
buckled.

I fell backward
and clawed the air. When I landed, my mother’s bag hit me in the face. I fought
it off, as if it were a rabid animal.

I lay on my
back, gasping for breath. I stared up at the sky.

And then I was
on my feet and running.