Slate Gray

Chapter 3: Perrin Slate

My father and I pull out of the parking lot in his cherry red, Chevy Silverado and I twist to smack him in the shoulder. Not super hard, but enough to express my frustration. Because I am very frustrated by this turn of events.

"How could you have missed that?" I challenge. "You're supposed to be good at this."

"Careful how you speak to me, young lady," he scowls. "And you missed it too."

"I thought Ace had been thorough. I didn't think to double check her work." Rubbing both hands over my face, I peek at him between my fingers. "On a scale of one to eleven, how fucked are we?"

"Language, please," Dad complains. It's begun to snow, specks of white dancing past my window and the screeching windshield wipers set my teeth on edge as we turn onto a busy street. "I think we're still at a three. It really could just be a coincidence."

"And if it's not?" I press. "If there's something else here?"

"Then that would be an eight. Maybe even a nine."

From his guarded tone, I know his brain is pinging with the same information mine is. That triangle is bad. Potentially, super bad.

"Ace knows something's up," I warn him. "Or at least she suspects."

Dad's eyes throw accusations at me in the rearview mirror. "That's because you're terrible at lying to her."

"Have you seen that face? All cute and wide-eyed? You try lying to that."

"I've successfully managed it twice." He holds up two fingers. "Santa and the Easter Bunny."

"Yeah, until she caught you pretending to be both."

"Took me forever to get out of that net," he grumbles.

I play with the radio to avoid voicing my next concern. A terrifying, bone-chilling concern that threatens to break the dam I've spent the last ten years building. On Loveline, a woman complains about how she can't get her cheating boyfriend to stop cheating. On another channel, Delilah's soothing voice expresses her love for her audience. On a third, a shock jock makes some sort of fake farting noise.

"Do you think..." I swallow, my throat suddenly dry. "Do you think it could be him?"

Dad drums the steering wheel, his expression unreadable. "We shouldn't immediately assume the worst. Not without further proof. If a High-Level Demon is involved, then the triangular configuration pretty much confirms it. They're the only ones who follow patterns and respond to rituals."

Just the phrase spoken aloud, casually dropped from my father's lips, sends a shudder through that internal dam. A High-Level Demon. Here. Near my family. Again.

"Such drama queens," I joke to cover the unease, my sanity a small boat pitching across rippling waves.

"Be grateful they're predictable," Dad counters, oblivious to my distress. "Otherwise, they'd be that much more dangerous."

"So, what? You're thinking possession?"

"Unfortunately."

"But why?" I gripe, falling back against my seat. "Why possess a mild-mannered mall janitor? Why kill those people and risk making Lows? I thought High-Levels didn't play well with others."

"They don't," Dad grunts, tuning into a classic rock station where Mötley Crüe shouts at the devil. I wish I could join them.

We hit a red light and I peek at him in the crimson glow. Shadows form in the crevices of his wrinkles, bushy white brows furrowed over eyes that Ace and I share: pale gray irises encircled by a darker ring of smoke. He's so much harder to read than my sister with her open book for a face.