Malia Read online

  Then, calmly, eerily so, she walked into the front room. Debbie was already on the floor, unconscious, as Mark, the evil seeming stranger with the cowboy hat and large silver belt buckle, tried to undo it, holding a blade of his own in his left hand. She didn’t make a noise at all as she moved toward him. That didn’t stop him from spinning in place, to see her. Feeling that she was there, somehow.

  He smiled. It was wicked and unclean. Rotten, really. As if he might not be a person at all. Malia had hinted at that. At least that she’d been placed there and that she knew him. What that meant, if anything, even grown up Jessica had never worked out.

  “Now, what do we have here? A little hero? That’s probably a bad idea. I’m more than a bit larger than you are. At least you came armed. That was smart of you. I like that you were also sneaking up on me. Going for an ambush? Clever of you.” He moved then, taking a step forward, toward her. Smiling, while holding the knife in a way that indicated she was about to die.

  Malia growled, using Jessica’s mouth.

  “You do not recognize me, Deamon? I find that rather hard to believe. You know these are my lands, now. Leave immediately, or I will not be kind to you. My master has commanded that I free this place of your evil acts.”

  The words got a laugh in response.

  “And mine commands me to take as many women as possible, to slake his thirst. It seems that we might be at a bit of an impasse. Even if you are normally above me, I can’t see you winning in that little host. Like they say, size matters.”

  Then, instead of speaking again, the man did some growling of his own. Now, after hearing the same thing thousands of times, Jessica thought it might have actually been a language of some sort. If so, it wasn’t one that humans were designed to speak. When she answered in kind, it caused pain to rip through her young throat. There was a taste of copper, probably from bleeding there.

  Then they moved as one. The blade in her right hand shifting as she darted forward, ducking under the shorter knife that the attacker had. His belt buckle flopped a bit, but his jeans were still buttoned up tight. That meant they didn’t impede him at all. On his feet were cowboy boots. It was, she considered, a good thing. After all, he didn’t have very good traction as he moved back, away from her blade. The stumbling he did was capitalized on with deft movements of her own.

  She cut, stabbed and kept doing it, pain ripping through her arm as the man, who was a giant compared to her tiny body, grabbed her left arm and whipped her around by it, literally flinging her across the room, to impact with the wall.

  A crunching sound came as the bones of her wrist and upper arm snapped like fresh twigs. She gasped in pain, or tried to. No sound came from her lips. Nothing at all. Only incredibly heavy breathing, as Malia struggled to take in enough air to keep them going. When she hit the far wall, her feet landed first, then her young body flipped in the air. That was nearly magical, or had to have been something like that to work out. The physics certainly weren’t normal. Mal was using her body in ways that Jess wouldn’t have been able to manage. Not even if she’d been a gymnast and ten years older. It wasn’t really a thing that her body could do.

  Especially with a badly broken arm. No bones stuck out, but it hurt incredibly. Things popped in her legs and back as well.

  Malia didn’t seem to care about that. Then, she’d told her it might hurt.

  The younger version of herself was a memory, so didn’t change. Watching it now, seeing the man, with the bulge in his pants, a knife in his hand, trying desperately to kill her, Jessica, the older version, was truly afraid again. She always was, even knowing the outcome of the whole thing. Which was about to happen, as she watched. It wasn’t as if she could look away. She hadn’t at the time, her friend guiding her body, so the memory, if that’s what it was, came back to her as it had been experienced.

  Her foot hit the man in the groin, in a kick that was smooth and flowing. Above the height of her own head, since she was slightly hunched over at the time. Then, he slashed at her with a knife, trying to end her life. Cutting her several times, on the side of the neck and face, one of the wounds there, along her right cheek, being deep enough to damage the bone underneath. It stung, horribly.

  Then, in an instant, Malia ended the man’s life.

  Only, even if Jess hadn’t been in control of her body, which was soaked and damp from sweat, burning in pain, not a single person ever believed her when she’d tried to credit her imaginary friend with saving her. Even if the idea of her beating a killer in a knife fight was even more unlikely than that she’d been possessed. After a while, about two years, she’d learned not to do that.

  That was about the time she’d decided to always claim that Malia was her imaginary friend. She’d clearly been different than that and had mentioned others. A master as well. Also, a desire not to be a slave to them. None of that had hit little Jessica at the time. Then, people trying to kill you was a pretty good distraction.

  Her parents and the counselors had all figured that she was delusional. A fantasy being created to help her mind cope with what had happened. With what she’d had to do in order to survive. That part was interesting though. After all, she was cut up in several places. As Mark had gone down, Mal having taken out the jugular on the left-hand side of his neck with a jumping attack that Jessica shouldn’t have been able to manage, she fell to the floor. The world went black around her, then, as she opened her eyes, the real world returned.

  The rain on her face was the first thing that reminded her where she was. On the street, dressed to get laid, even if that kind of thing wasn’t in the cards that day. Worse, she was freezing, since some moron had decided that taking a heavy coat with her would be an annoyance that day.

  She shuddered a bit, shivering at the same time. Her heart was pounding, like it always did after reliving it and while the whole thing had freaked her out, she’d seen the show before. So often that it didn’t do too much to her any longer.

  Except that, of course, it really did. She rubbed at the cuts on her neck, then her face. There were shadows of silvery lines on her neck that didn’t really show. Not with just a bit of makeup covering them. The scar on her right cheek was still there, being deeper and raised like it was. She covered it with makeup each day, but it was still visible as a line there. It was nearly the only thing that marred her otherwise perfect face. That and a slight warping under it, where the bone had been scored.

  A reminder that not only wasn’t she perfect, but that the things she constantly lived had actually taken place. At least all the physical mementos were in place for it to have been real. The police at the time hadn’t said much to her, just taking her story down, many times. The psychologists had clearly doubted it, of course. Most of them, probably almost everyone, had figured that the little girl was lying to protect whoever had really killed Mark Close.

  Oddly, the man, being a serial killer and rapist, hadn’t really gotten a deep investigation going into the matter. The people that came, the adults, had shown up almost instantly, somehow. As if they’d been waiting outside. Even her parents and the men that came had been there in time to keep her from bleeding to death from her wounds. Debbie had gotten up and tried to hold her blood in, even if she’d been beaten badly enough that her face looked a little like hamburger.

  Blinking, glad that no one was shaking her this time, or calling the police on her for standing in public like a freak, she shook her head. Just to clear it. Then, feeling scared still or not, she walked on. After all, it was going to be dark soon, regardless of what she had going on in her head. The world didn’t wait on you to be mentally right and clear, most of the time. It just kept happening, regardless. She wasn’t really afraid of being mugged or anything, of course since Elroy simply wasn’t a huge town, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t shivering from being cold and wet already.

  Then, she had been even before the flashback.

  “Bring a jacket next time, stupid.” It was the kind of thing that
a normal person would have said with a smile. She tried that, nailing the look, more or less. Even worked up, Jess had practice in faking normality.

  Not that a girl in a tiny dress, one that left her behind showing in the back if she bent over too aggressively, showing her thong, in the pouring rain, wasn’t going to seem insane, grinning away like the Joker from a Batman movie. She’d seen that one, even though she didn’t really love movies all that much. It had been something to do, so she had. That was all.

  “Would you like to know how I got these wonderful scars?”

  She touched her cheek again, feeling the raised line there. A moment before it had been on fire. Now there was only a phantom pain left. A thing that everyone with a doctorate she’d ever met had assured her, was all in her head. It didn’t feel that way, but given her life she was willing to buy that it was. Clearly, a lot of things were.

  Not wanting to think about the attack, or the fallout of it, which, in its own way had been worse than the thing itself, she moved forward. Her heavy boots splashing in the puddles, since there was a layer of water over almost the entire sidewalk at the moment. She wasn’t going to replay the thing again, any time soon, thankfully. It happened about once a week, and had for years. Little things could trigger it, but once it happened, it was almost as if the quota had been filled for a while.

  This time, she was sure, it was the rain. It was leaving her damp all over, which had happened when her imaginary friend had taken over her body. That had been sweat and the feeling of incredible heat, of course. The burning which had left her red and covered with blisters in a few places, at the time.

  She understood that wasn’t a thing, of course. Malia couldn’t have done that at all. A figment of your imagination couldn’t really take over like that. Not without multiple personality disorder having set in. That was possible, it having been a trauma like it was, to her young and still forming mind. Except, of course, that MPD didn’t come into being until after your mind broke. Nothing else that bad had ever happened to her.

  Which, to her mind, meant that her imaginary friend hadn’t been that at all. Whatever she was, there had been a reality to it. A sense of substance that wasn’t part of daydreaming or even hallucination. What Malia had been, if not something made up by her young mind, she didn’t know. A ghost or some such, probably. Though, if that had been the case, another little girl wouldn’t have done any better than she could have in a knife fight with a psycho killer. Not even a dead kid could have pulled that off.

  Plus, she’d called the other man by name. Deamon, instead of Mark. The man, in the memory, had answered her as well. Then spoken in a strange way that was like nothing Jessica had ever heard since that time. She’d looked, as well.

  Meaning it had been something else.

  Such thoughts weren’t allowed, of course. Even as a kid, she’d never voiced that part of things out loud. Not past the first part of things, where the counselors and psychiatrists coached her to change the words she used. She’d spoken of Malia only as her imaginary friend, after that. The one that had saved her. Who had saved Debbie Walsh, as well. After that night she’d vanished. Not gone really, but not babysitting anymore. Not for anyone, as far as Jessica had ever heard.

  As if it had been that, taking care of a kid, which was the problem. Still, Jess hadn’t heard of her being murdered by random men she’d met on the net either, so she’d probably worked that part out as well. Claiming that it had been a more innocent time was a crock, too. Debbie had to have known better. No one had ever blamed her for doing it though, since that would be victim blaming. Jessica hadn’t really pinned her parents down on the topic, but they shouldn’t have left the creepy would be killer with their kid and a teen girl like that, either.

  They weren’t bad people, but they weren’t pushovers, either. Her dad wasn’t Rambo or anything, but he really should have ordered the man out of their house. Even if it meant fighting with him to make that happen. The thing there was that she had no doubt that he’d at least try to do that, normally. Of course, what should have been done at the time and what happened were, as with most bad situations, different things.

  Jessica set it all aside as she moved along the gray sidewalk. Her large black boots, heavy and not at all watertight enough for the day, splashing in shallow puddles as she made her way home. The uneven cement under her feet making damp sounds as she did it. As the area moved from the main drag of Elroy, with its twenty or so shops and businesses, to a more residential feel, she started to see the Halloween decorations.

  It was, after all, the season for such things. Her face stayed flat and uninterested as she looked at the fake tombstones and shining purple and orange banners, saying things like Trick or Treat, or Happy Halloween.

  Not everyone that was going to do that kind of thing had them up yet. It was still ten days away. At least she thought that was about right. It wasn’t as if she had a calendar with her. Well, on her phone, but that was in her bag, hanging from the strap on her right shoulder. Even if there was no reason for the discomfort, it hurt to put it on the other one. The old break there twinged painfully as she recalled the snapping sound. The way the crack had shaken her whole body, if just a little.

  What she wasn’t going to do at the moment was pull her phone out in the rain, just to check to see if it was nearly time for her to hide from trick or treaters or not.

  That was her normal plan for that particular holiday. Stay safely at home, away from pesky people from school, while her mom and dad handed out candy to undeserving little pains in the ass. That was a thing you had to know in Elroy. If you didn’t bribe the punks well enough, they would TP your house and trees.

  It was a bad enough thing that the local stores would actually refuse to sell anyone under eighteen years old eggs for a week before the holiday. Which just meant they got their ammo on the black market, of course. That, or more likely, stole it from the fridge at home. That was what Jessica had always done, when she’d been a kid.

  Not that she’d gone in for begging for candy. Sweets left her feeling vaguely ill, so she’d never really bothered with them. No, when she’d dressed up in a mask and black robe, it had been time to target anyone that had wronged her. Most people in the area had, at least to her fucked up way of thinking at the time, which made for some rather long Halloween nights. She’d given that up, more or less, by the time she was fifteen. After all, even she eventually understood that not all of the people staring at her were looking at the scar on her face.

  A few of them thought she was just pretty enough to look at. From afar, anyway. The rest were assholes that deserved to spend half a week scrubbing egg yolks from their windows, but it was hard to tell who was who, since none of them actually bothered to talk to her at all, so she’d given the whole thing up. Figuring that not assaulting the homes of the bad guys was balanced by not risking the comfort of the innocents.

  It hadn’t been lost on her that when she’d retired from her secret annual tradition that the seemingly random attacks on homes had cut in half. For the entire town. Elroy was small enough that her not hitting ten places each year made a real difference.

  Her large, rather nice house came into view, finally, as true darkness fell around her. It was early in the day still, not being much past four, but the heavy clouds hid the sun well enough. That it had started to get dark an hour before was due to that as well. Then, that was a thing everyone there knew. In the fall, it rained. Almost constantly.

  Meaning that you’d have to be an idiot not to have good shoes on as well as a raincoat. Even if you wanted to look cool, a regular jacket was in order at the very least. Instead Jess had, once again, done the stupid thing, instead of the smart one. It hadn’t been raining earlier, so she’d assumed it would be fine. Even with dark clouds over head when she’d left for the day.

  Now she had to sneak into the house, avoiding her mother, so as to not have a big conversation about the need for planning ahead. That worked about as well as she’d fi
gured it would. Not at all. The woman had a sixth sense about showing up in time to do her momly duties. It seemed like that anyway. The truth was probably just that she spent a lot of time in the kitchen in the afternoons and from there it was hard to miss when someone came clomping in.

  Her mother actually met her at the door, coming out of the kitchen, with a smile on her face. There was a scent of freshly baked cookies coming from that direction. Jess waved, then faked a smile.

  “Hey.” Even to her own ears, her voice lacked luster.

  Her mother nodded at her then.

  “No jacket?” That was the first thing out of her mouth. Naturally.

  Jess nearly growled in response, since clearly, she hadn’t been smart enough for that. Instead, she shrugged.

  “You know how it is, drowned rat is the new look this year. Ask anyone in Paris or Milan. I know, you think that I look awful, but I’d kill them on the catwalk. Especially with the soaked feet. That’s really going the extra mile.”

  That got a rather bemused grin in response. Her mother was good that way, in general.

  “I have cookies, or will when they cool a bit. Your father needs to take something in to work this week. They’re having an office party, tomorrow night. You know, everyone gets drunk, then does the wrong thing with the wrong person, which ends up with the gossip mill being set on fire? At least that’s how it works for me at work.”

  Jessica blinked, then nodded.

  She knew how that kind of thing was, mainly from having read about it. Not that she was that kind about it. Her mom was basically admitting that she fooled around with her coworkers, which wasn’t a great thing to hear. It seemed off. She wasn’t silent about that kind of thing, either. Not even in front of her own husband. He was, at the very least, a bit more circumspect about whatever it was he got up to. From the outside it seemed like he mainly worked. Her mother just put in a few hours a week. Possibly as an excuse to meet men to fuck on the side.