you want to see Brandy's dress?"
Kayla shifted her face, looking at me with huge blue eyes. "Georgina," she said. "You have to make it stay away."
My thoughts were on the dress, so it took a moment for me to follow what she was saying. "Make what stay away, honey?"
"The Darkness."
There was something in the way she said the word that let me know she wasn't referring to shadows. When she said "Darkness," I could feel the personification in her word, the looming threat of something - or someone - tangible. With a pang, I remembered that Kayla had been able to sense Nyx when she'd escaped her angelic captors.
I leaned toward Kayla, glad Seth and Terry were preoccupied. "Kayla, are you talking about . . . about the creature you felt before? The one you could sense on me?" Nyx's return would be a complication I most certainly didn't need in my life right now.
She shook her head. "A different one. The Darkness comes here, to my house. To see my mommy. Will you make it go away?"
"Is it here now?" I asked uneasily.
"No. Just sometimes."
"How many times?"
Kayla thought about it. "Two."
A cold feeling crept over me. "Was last night one of those times?"
She nodded.
"Have you seen it?" I asked her.
"No. But I feel it. I can tell where it's at when it's here." She peered at me beseechingly. "Will you make it stop?"
I had no clue what this Darkness was or what I could do to stop it, but theories were running wild in my head. I kissed her forehead. "I'll do what I can, baby. I promise. I've got to leave now, but I'll see what I can find out for you, okay? We'll make sure the Darkness doesn't come back."
Like the flip of a switch, Kayla's whole demeanor changed. Whereas she'd been sad and withdrawn moments ago, she was now beaming and hopeful. All that faith - in me. With my empty assurance to take on something I didn't understand, she was able to put aside all of her fears and worries. All was right in her world now, thanks to me. She put her arms around me and kissed me back, and I felt like my heart would break when I finally untangled myself from her.
Holiday cheer was calling, as well as a burning need to suddenly talk to Roman. Seeing as how we kept missing each other lately, I sent him a text with a reminder of when I'd be home tonight and that I had important information for him. He was so caught up in his conspiracy theories that I wasn't sure if he'd want to make time for what he'd probably see as a little girl's fantasies. Kayla's perceptions - despite her difficulties in articulating them - had proven accurate before. I didn't know what she was sensing this time, but if there was a force inside the Mortensen household, I intended to stop it.
Chapter 12
My brief conversation with Kayla tormented me for the rest of the evening as I corralled kids at the mall. I couldn't shake the image of her eyes as she told me about "the Darkness." It was one of those times I both blessed and cursed her psychic abilities. If she hadn't had them at all, I never would've known anything was amiss in the Mortensen household. But with her imprecise understanding of her powers, I was left with too many questions about what she might have sensed. Erik would've known instantly.
There was another thing for me to worry about.
Erik. Murdered because of me.
And if we were operating on the assumption that Hell had directly acted against him, then what was I supposed to think about Kayla? In the past, any unusual supernatural activity in the area had been the result of rogue forces outside of the Heaven and Hell system. After all, Heaven and Hell had certain rules they were supposed to follow. Milton was proof, however, that Hell wasn't above breaking those. So was it possible someone from my own side had been visiting Andrea Mortensen - coincidentally during the times her condition worsened? And if so, why?
That, as Roman had pointed out, was a question with an answer that would crack all of this wide open.
My only pause in ruminating on immortal affairs came when I tried to coax Walter into doing a house call to the Mortensens. Two mothers had gotten in a fight in line, so we were all on an impromptu