Claimed by Angels & Demons: Book 1 Read online

  "Was it a minotaur?" Henrietta said.

  I just stared at her like a deer in the headlights, without a clue what to say to that. I couldn't even remember what kind of creature a minotaur was supposed to be.

  Henrietta started laughing, "oh, werewolves, minotaurs! You have quite the sense of humor young lady. A little edgy perhaps, but I must say I am rather fond of a good joke."

  "Right," I said, smiling along, "hilarious, all the make believe creatures. Well I think that's all filled out now." I handed the form back to Henrietta, who just stuck it on top of one of the towering stacks of paper without even looking at it.

  "You know I'm surprised that you went to a witch academy, almost none of the young witches I speak with go to them anymore. They really are a dying institution, and it's such a shame too. Some of my fondest memories as a young woman are from my time spent at the Rutherford Young Witch Academy."

  Oh perfect, I could have just passed on that one. Figures. "Oh yea, Mom practically insisted that I go. She said our traditions are very important. If we don't have our traditions then who are we, right?"

  "I couldn't have said it better myself," Henrietta smiled. "You know, I have a good feeling about you Layla."

  "Thanks," I said. I guess I had passed the interview without giving myself away as a sane person.

  "Now then, why don't I tell you a little about the job? The service that we provide to our clients is ghost removal. Sometimes these ghosts, especially the older ones, get a little obsessive about a certain place and can cause problems for the people living or working there. Especially when new people move in, it can be a little much for these older spirits. So when that happens the people call us, and we come in and disperse any ghosts that are making a nuisance of themselves, and are refusing to leave peaceably. And if there aren't any ghosts there then you know, just put on a little show for the client and pretend like you're getting rid of a ghost anyway." Henrietta gives me a conspiratorial smile.

  It was so hard to read between the lines with Henrietta. I thought sometimes she really believed all this stuff, and then she went and said something like that, to just fake it. Wasn't I going to be faking it the whole time? I felt like this whole thing was some elaborate joke and I wasn't sure yet which part was the punchline, but if I ended up with a paycheck at the end then I didn't really care.

  "It's not the most exciting work for a young witch, I know, but you get to meet some interesting people. And of course you do remember the standard dispersion spell?"

  I was caught completely off guard, "right, yea, I think I remember how it goes." I was confident I could make something up. Hocus pocus, begone ghosts, how hard could it be? Maybe burn a few herbs and wave my arms around for the finale.

  Henrietta smiled, "I know dear, it's such a basic spell but there's never an occasion to use it is there, so everyone forgets it. Don't be embarrassed, it happens to the best of us. So, repeat after me, hoc loco spiritus."

  I tried to repeat it without sounding like I was saying it for the first time.

  "Oh my dear, your latin is so rusty! What were they teaching you at that witch academy?"

  I blushed, I hadn't even known what language it was. "Well because Mom tries to stay away from the magic now we don't do it in the house." I just prayed that made some sort of sense.

  "Oh that makes sense," Henrietta nodded. "Still, never even just a small levitation spell or two when you're by yourself?"

  I just smiled and shook my head. I had better things to do in my spare time than chant a bunch of nonsense in my room like a crazy person.

  "Oh my," Henrietta laughed, "you have more willpower than me young lady, that's for certain. My, when I was your age I couldn't practice enough magic. We even had a rule in our house, no magic at the dinner table! Oh does that ever take me back. Well," Henrietta snapped back to the current century, "I suppose that about covers it. We should get you your first assignment."

  "Actually," I said, "do you think I could look at my Mom's personnel file? I just really want to tell her about all this when I see her tonight." I was like a drug addict, I wanted so badly to leave the memory of Mom behind but I just couldn't help myself.

  "Oh well I don't suppose there's any harm in that," Henrietta said, and searched around on her desk until she found the form I had been eying ever since she pulled it loose from the stacks of paper. "Here you are," she handed it across to me and I tried not to snatch it out of her hand too much.

  I read what had been written in every box twice, not really sure what I was looking for, but hoping I would know it when I saw it. Same name, same address, same phone number. 'Azazel' in the 'Mother's Lineage' box, and a scrawled 'N/A' under 'Other Lineages' and 'Witch Academy.'

  I handed it back and smiled, "thanks, Mom doesn't talk much about her witch stuff, I guess I'm just curious."

  Henrietta nodded knowingly, "our heritage is what defines us. Sooner or later we all go looking for the skeletons buried in the family closet. I was the same way at your age. Why, the poor nuns at Sunday school must have wished I would take a vow of silence with all the questions I asked." Henrietta laughed at her own joke.

  I just smiled and nodded, not trusting myself to keep talking and not blow my cover. I felt certain that I was going to say something wrong and Henrietta would fire me before I even had the chance to earn a little cash.

  "Oh yes, the assignment. Here I am prattling on about ancient history when I'm sure you're eager to get started." Henrietta began sorting through the jumble of paper again and I figured I would be there another ten minutes but she came up with a little note a few seconds later. "Let me see here." She handed it to me, "maybe you can make that out, I've misplaced my glasses again."

  "Three-seven-one Pine street," I said, deciphering the terrible writing. I looked up and for the first time noticed the glasses hanging around her neck.

  "Oh yes, it's all coming back to me now. It seems the very nice sounding couple that live at this address are having a terrible time with a ghost. Creaking floorboards, slamming doors, odd sounds in the night. You would think these spirits would get bored doing the same old thing and get more creative, but I suppose the old standbys do work."

  I almost laughed. Something about the thought of a bunch of dull, unimaginative ghosts sitting around, trying and failing to come up with something original to scare people with. It was too much. "Okay," I said, standing up, "I'll have those ghosts dispersed before they know what's hit them."

  "Oh my, aren't you a lively one!"

  "And I almost forgot to ask," I hadn't, but I didn't want to sound desperate, "how much does this job pay?"

  "Oh yes," Henrietta smiled knowingly at me, "the most important detail. You will make twenty-five dollars an hour to start."

  "I can work with that," I said. I would pretend to be a witch and descended from angels and whatever else Henrietta wanted all day long for twenty-five dollars an hour.

  Chapter Two

  I pulled up in front of three-seven-one Pine street and turned the car off. Okay Mom, I thought to myself, let's see what the day of a hard working witch looks like. I wondered what her routine for faking a ghost removal might have been. Maybe burning sage, or some kind of demonic possession to add a little drama to the whole thing. Maybe she tried to up-sell the clients with a little fortune-telling. I would need to work on developing my own shtick if I was going to convince anybody that I was a real witch.

  I had expected the client to be some wackos out in the woods, drunk on cheap liquor and only hearing things because they had forgotten to check on their meth lab in the basement. Or maybe some bored college kids looking to have a little fun. Instead I was in the suburbs, on a quiet, tree-lined street where all the bushes were neatly trimmed and the lawns looked more like showpiece art than a place to actually walk or play. There was even a Prius in the driveway. Definitely not what I was expecting.

  I walked up the steps and rang the doorbell. Soon enough a thin blond woman, complete with sweater vest
and heels, opened the door, looked me up and down once and gave me an expression that said I had better have a good reason for knocking on her door, then put on a fake smile and said, "yes?"

  Suddenly I felt very out of place in my worn skinny jeans and Tom's Shoes that were more frayed fabric than real shoe. "I'm Layla, I'm from, uh, Spiritual Dispersion Services?" I said. I had no idea why it came out as a question, probably because this woman looked like just about the last person on earth that would call in a professional ghost remover. I couldn't possibly be at the right house. Surely there was another Pine street, or senile Henrietta had taken down the address wrong.

  The smile disappeared and the woman glanced past me, "your vehicle doesn't have some sort of garish logo on the side of it advertising who you are does it?" she asked.

  I couldn't help rolling my eyes, "nope."

  "Fine then," she said, like she was doing me a favor, "come in. I'm Mrs. Barlow."

  I stepped over the threshold and in to a house that looked like it was straight out of an upscale department store catalog.

  "Please take your shoes off," she said, all the while wearing a pair of heels. But I just flicked them off, I wasn't about to get in any arguments. I wanted to get this done and get the hell out of here before I was brainwashed and wearing a sweater vest of my own.

  "So, how does this work?" Mrs. Barlow asked.

  "Well I say a few magic words and presto, no more ghosts." I might as well keep it simple this first time around. I would have time to work up a whole performance later.

  She nodded, "I just want to say that I have my doubts about the veracity of the claims made in your advertisement. I don't really believe in these... ghosts," she looked like she was spitting out an undercooked piece of meat when she said the word, "but we have tried everything else, and these disturbances have gotten to the point where my husband and I genuinely fear for the safety of our child. If this doesn't work then we are likely going to have to move, and at a considerable financial loss. So."

  I genuinely feared for the sanity of her child, growing up in this place. This lady as your mother was scarier than any ghost could possibly be. "Well we offer a money back guarantee," I said, though I had no idea if that was true or not.

  "I don't want my money back, I want this whole fiasco to be over with."

  I nodded, "well why don't you show me where the noises and whatnot are coming from."

  "Very well." Mrs. Barlow led the way upstairs, her heels clicking and clacking on the shiny hardwood floor, and I followed behind. She took the first door on the left, in to a child's room, where son and Dad were playing with a model train.

  "This is Layla, from Spiritual Dispersion Services," Mrs. Barlow announced to the room. "This is my husband Mr. Barlow," she said, pointing out the man.

  "Donald," he got up and smiled and shook my hand. He seemed quite a bit more human than his wife.

  "And our child Henry," Mrs. Barlow said.

  Henry, all of five, dressed in little mini slacks and a button down, got up and shook my hand. "How do you do?"

  I smiled, "I'm good, how about you?"

  "I'm well," he said. "Are you here to get rid of the ghosts?"

  I was pretty sure he spoke better English than I did. Poor kid. "I am indeed."

  "I cant thank you enough for coming," Donald said, "we're at our wits end with this, it just keeps getting worse and worse and we don't know what to do. We called all sorts of building inspectors of course, our first thought was a faulty pipe, or some sort of rodent infestation, but there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the house itself. And then stuff starts disappearing, or it's been moved without any explanation... well it's like something out of a movie isn't it?" He smiled, "but I guess this is all just a day's work for you huh?"

  "Oh sure," I said, "I've seen it all. You wouldn't believe some of the crazy stuff these ghosts get up to." I smiled and winked at Henry, who was completely enthralled by all of it, but apparently too well trained to say anything when the grown-ups were talking.

  "Well the main area of disturbance is Henry's closet," Mrs. Barlow said, walking over to it and opening it up. "Several things have gone missing, and there are quite a few noises, especially at night. Our bedroom is on the other side of the wall and we hear the noises as well."

  I wouldn't normally have thought that stuff disappearing from a kid's closet would be cause for concern. I could swear my own closet growing up had had a black hole somewhere inside it, the way stuff was constantly disappearing from it. But Henry's closet was organized with military precision.

  "Okay well I'll just throw a dispersion spell on the area and we should be done here," I said.

  "That's all it takes huh?" Donald said.

  "Seems awfully simple for two hundred dollars...," Mrs. Barlow said in a whisper I was meant to hear as she stepped back from the closet.

  I couldn't get out of here fast enough. Now what was that damned latin phrase that Henrietta had taught me? It had sounded so much more authentic than the hocus pocus nonsense that I had been planning on using. Something something spiritus. I remembered spiritus because it was just spirit was an 'us' thrown on the end. Simple but vaguely authentic sounding.

  "Something wrong?" Mrs. Barlow said.

  She evidently knew the whole thing was fake, and I knew the whole thing was fake, so why couldn't she just let me get on with it? I glanced back at her, "no just preparing myself, focusing my energy and all that." I was just about to look back to the closet and phone this thing in with a couple of hocus pocus' when I saw a man, dressed in a black suit and tie so impeccable that it made Mrs. Barlow look shabby. He was walking past the door but looked in as he passed and our eyes met, and he paused there in mid-step. He was the most gorgeous human being I had ever laid eyes on, and he, for some insane reason, seemed to be looking at me like he was thinking the same thing.

  "Who are you?" I said, completely taken aback.

  Mrs. Barlow glanced behind her, to where I was looking, "who are you talking to?"

  "The man," I said, pointing. As if I needed to point, he was standing just a few feet away.

  "Oh I see," Mrs. Barlow threw up her hands, "here come the theatrics. Didn't I tell you Donald, it's all a big show, they're a bunch of con artists!"

  "You cant see him?" I said, becoming alarmed.

  Donald looked back a second time, like maybe he had somehow missed a man standing right there the first time he had looked, "Layla there's nobody there."

  Henry gripped on to Donald's leg and started to cry.

  "That's quite enough of your theatrics," Mrs. Barlow said, "you're scaring Henry." Then she leaned down to Henry, "there's no need to be frightened dear, the young lady is only pretending that there's a ghost to scam money from your father and I."

  I looked back at the man, who was completely fixated on me and seemed to be ignoring everything else that was happening. There was no way. He wasn't a ghost, that was impossible. Right? And then I knew what was going on. "Henrietta put you up to this didn't she?"

  "I beg your pardon?" Mrs. Barlow said.

  "Yea, haze the new girl right? Oh no a real ghost!" I said in mock surprise, then smiled, "I have to admit you had me there for a second."

  "I'm confused," Donald said, looking at me like I had lost my marbles, "if there really is a ghost then shouldn't you be casting your spell on it?"

  I rolled my eyes, "what, you want me to make an idiot of myself? Are you taping this for later, going to show it around the office maybe?" But Donald didn't say a word. "Whatever, fine." I stared the ghost down and pretended to get real serious, "Hocus pocus spiritus disappearus!" I did some jazz hands and then waved my arms in the air for added effect. "There, happy? Can we all just drop the act now?"

  "If you think I'm paying you a dime for any of this," Mrs. Barlow said, pointing her perfectly manicured finger in my face, "you've got another thing coming missy."

  "Whatever," I said, shoving her finger out of my face, "you people are nuts.
This is the weirdest job ever. If I wasn't being paid so much I would be out of here so fast."

  "I'm confused," Donald said, "is this some sort of prank TV show, or... ?"

  Donald and Mrs. Barlow were both staring at me, completely at a loss, like big men in white suits should be coming to strap a straight jacket on me. "Fine," I said, starting to get really annoyed now, "you don't want to fess up, then how about this." I walked over to the man. They thought they were so damned funny, but I wasn't going to be the butt of anyone's joke. As I got closer I took a better look at the stranger. He hadn't said a word, just continued to stare at me like he was the one seeing a ghost. I had no idea what that was about, but it was definitely a little unnerving. He had a hard, clean jaw and wavy brown hair, and his suit hinted at a hard, 'V' shaped chest and broad shoulders beneath, but the thing that made me quite literally miss a step were his eyes. Deep and piercing, and iris' that were inky black. My eyes seemed to be locked on his, and it took a real effort to wrench them away from his gaze.

  It was like the stranger's stare had temporarily erased my mind, and I tried to remember what I had walked over to him for in the first place. Finally it came back. I was about to expose their little hazing routine. "If he was a ghost, could I do this?" And I stuck my hand out to poke the so-called ghost in the chest but my finger just kept on going, right through his chest without the faintest bit of resistance. I snatched my finger back and gasped and looked again at the man with the black eyes.

  "Seffora, could it really be you? Have you come back to me after all these millennia?" the ghost said.

  "What. The. Fuck," I said, backing up slowly. I really, really hoped that this was some sort of very elaborate 3D projection or something, and not an actual ghost. Because ghosts didn't exist. They definitely did NOT exist.

  "Naughty word!" I heard Henry say somewhere behind me, but it barely registered, all that registered were mystery man's eyes locked on mine, consuming me like two small black holes.

  The ghost followed me in to the room, maintaining a distance of a couple of feet between us. "You've come back to me my love. After two thousand years you have moved heaven and earth and found your way back to me. I'm so sorry my love, I'm so sorry for what I did. Can you forgive me?" He reached out to touch my face but his ghostly hand only slid through my solid skin.