Larissa woke in an unfamiliar bed wearing a worn white gown with a faded blue pattern. With all the machines and the buzz of activity with nurses and doctors, it didn’t take long to figure out she was in the hospital.

Shit. What had happened? It was all so blurry. She remembered a blinding headache, but why? Had it been one of her visions?

When a nurse entered to check on her vitals, Larissa asked, “Why am I here?”

“Yesterday, you told your coworker you had a headache, and then you passed out.”

At the station? Fuck. Her gut churned. That didn’t look good, especially after she’d been questioned by the investigator. “I’m fine,” she insisted. “I need to get out of here.”

Where was her phone? Roman was going to try to come by her place last night. She had to call him. Once the nurse left, she found her phone in a bag with her clothes.

She called Roman. It rang. And rang and rang. He didn’t answer. She left a short message explaining where she was.

Then she called her sergeant, tapping her thigh as she awaited his answer.

After ensuring she was all right, he said, “We need to talk.”

---

An hour later, she left the station. Although she told herself to keep her head high, it sagged. She plodded down the street.

Snap out of the Charlie Brown walk, and do something productive.

Like what? Finding Roman would be a start. But, where was he? Most likely doing whatever he did as a head gargoyle shifter guarding this city.

Larissa slapped her hand over her forehead and let out a harsh laugh. She was seeing a gargoyle shifter. Admitting that to anyone would lead to an invitation for a shitload of psychological screenings. Her sergeant had informed her she needed to take some time off and had to be screened for PTSD before returning to duty.

Fuck. What a shit show. All the responders would likely have to go through mandatory counseling. She loathed being “shrinked.” If she didn’t talk about something, it was for a reason—not so she could have some counselor drag it out to relive again. She squeezed her hands into fists and then forced herself to relax them. Enough with the investigators and professionals. She’d confide in Roman or Janie, not strangers.

Janie!

It all came rushing back to Larissa. Before she’d passed out, she’d seen demons. And, she could have sworn she’d heard Janie calling for her help.

But, that was crazy. Janie couldn’t communicate in a coma.

Clearly, you need some fresh air.

It wasn’t exactly fresh, not with all the cars zipping by. Still, it was summer in the city, with people and activities everywhere. The summer sun shined with a chipper brightness overhead, incongruent with her inner gloom. Maybe the sunlight would pull her out of her funk.

She hopped onto the trolley and stared out the window. People not directly affected by the attack went on with their day as if it hadn’t happened. That’s what often occurred. Tragedies could cripple, but the farther outside the strike zone, the quicker the comeback.

When she disembarked, the scent from the nearby restaurants wafted over to her, but she had no appetite. How could she eat now? Her stomach was twisted like licorice, as taut as her muscles.

After walking a mile, she reached Janie’s hospital. While waiting in line at the visitor’s desk, she spotted Janie’s parents across the lobby. Her heart ached for them. They had to be losing their minds wondering what had happened to Janie. Not that Larissa wanted to explain how she’d found Janie in a hotel room with an incubus.

The intrusive images flashed in her mind. Glowing eyes. Venom. Hate. Larissa shuddered.

Ah, that’s probably why she’d had visions of seeing them before she’d passed out. Those vicious fuckers were no joke.

Once she received her visitor’s pass, Janie’s parents were gone. Ah, well, perhaps that was for the best. She could delay the uncomfortable conversation for a bit longer.

She hurried up to the wing where Janie rested. A nurse was in the room monitoring the heart machine.

“Any change?” Larissa asked, hearing the unwarranted hope in her voice.

The nurse wrote something on her clipboard before pulling her focus to Larissa’s question.

“I’m afraid not.”

“Damn it,” Larissa said. She hadn’t meant to say it aloud. “I mean, she’s my best friend,” she added. “I hate seeing her this way.”

“I understand,” the nurse said with a sympathetic look. “It’s difficult to see someone you love like this and not be able to do anything to change it.”

A coma. Janie was in her early twenties and in a coma. That shouldn’t happen.

None of it should have happened. Demons shouldn’t have slipped into Boston from whatever motherfucking realm they came from, and they shouldn’t have committed unspeakable acts in their lust for carnage.

Larissa kept her mouth shut as the nurse jotted more notes. After she left the room, Larissa stared at Janie. She looked so young and so small on the bed. Her blonde hair framed her pale face. With her eyes closed, she looked like a sleeping angel.

A lump formed in her throat, and Larissa swallowed it back. Although a damn incubus had done this to Janie, depleting her energy, Larissa couldn’t help but feel responsible. They’d been out together Saturday night, for the first time since the bombings that had torn into Janie’s legs. After months of rehab, Janie had wanted to dance. And she had. Too bad she’d met someone that night who’d almost killed her.

Why didn’t I know something was different about him? Why couldn’t I tell something was off? I should have been able to warn her.

Nothing had been right that night. The demons had clouded people’s judgment with dark magic.

Larissa stared at Janie in the hospital bed. “Did you reach out to me Janie? Or, am I imagining things?”

No response.

Larissa sat with Janie and took her hand. Her skin was cold, so Larissa gently rubbed her unresponsive fingers to share some warmth. The sound of the machines monitoring Janie’s vital signs echoed with reassuring pings.

She'd survived.

“You might get sick of seeing me here,” Larissa said. “I’ve been put on leave.” After a pause, she added, “Since you’re not going to answer me, I’ll guess what you would say: ‘Good, Larissa. You work too much. You need a break. You need to act like you’re twenty-something and not think the burden of saving the world is on you.’”

Larissa brightened, thinking she was close to what Janie would say “I hope you wake up soon. Whatever I can do to help, you know I’ll do it.”

“You’ve always been there for her,” a man’s voice said from the hospital doorway.

Larissa turned toward the door. Her father stood there in jeans and a blue button-down shirt, his usual attire since retiring from the police force after thirty years. His hair was slightly longer than he typically wore it, perhaps only a half-inch more of his salt-and-pepper hair, but it gave him a more relaxed appearance than his usual no-nonsense vibe.

“Dad.” She rose and rushed over to him, pausing a second before giving him a hug.

He gave her awkward back pats at first before returning the hug. They weren’t touchy-feely types, but the circumstances were severe.

After Larissa and her father pulled apart, he cleared his throat. “How is she?”

“No change.”

“Horrible.” He shook his head. “I heard what happened. Well, I heard one version. Your name came up–often. I’m glad you’re okay, but jeez, Larissa, what happened that night?” He stared at her.

He likely had several eyes and ears on the force who would keep him informed–especially when it came to his daughter in a threatening situation. So much had happened in the last few days, not the least of which included demons and gargoyles clashing over Boston Common.

She snorted. “Funny, Dad,” she said. “I should ask you the same thing.”

He cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

“Some twisted shit happened the other night. Demons flew in from some portal and attacked people. Gargoyles guarding the city came to defend them.”

She studied him to see how he’d react, but his expression didn’t reveal anything.

“I ended up being pulled into this altercation, and did things that I never thought were possible.”

That time, he blanched. “What did you do?”

Shot freaking electric beams out of my hands, for one thing.

She fought to keep the snark out of her voice. It wouldn’t help her get the info she wanted from this conversation. “I was able to project energy from my fingertips to defend myself and others.” She didn’t specify that it was an incubus trying to get her to do God knows what because even if he’d been on the force for thirty years, he was still her father, and she was his only child. It would disturb the shit out of him.

“Oh.” He cracked his knuckles.

“That’s all you’re going to say?”

His expression tensed, and a muscle twitched in his jawline. “I’m not sure what to say about that.”

“I find it odd that when I mentioned beings I didn’t know existed, like gargoyles and demons, you didn’t react, but when I mentioned what I did that night, you turned white. You know more than you’re letting on. I’m different. I know this, and you do, too. But why? Is it something with mom?”

He glanced at the floor to his left and covered his mouth. When he pulled his gaze to her face, he dropped his hand. “Yes.”

Larissa inhaled sharply. Although she’d expected this answer, hearing him admit it shook something within her. It was like he’d pulled an integral brick from a fortification she’d erected to protect herself. Her entire life she’d been trying to be normal, something she could never truly accomplish. By removing that piece, her façade threatened to crumble. If those walls crashed down, she’d be exposed as a freak and shunned for being different. She felt like a kid again, worried about the other kids whispering that she was weird.

You’re an adult now. You can handle this.

She raised her chin. “Tell me about it.”

Her dad flashed a glance at Janie. “You sure you want to have this conversation in front of her? We don’t know if she can hear or not.”

Larissa’s gaze drifted to Janie, lying there without any indication she had any connection to the outside world. Janie had stood by her since they’d been kids; she’d been the only one to accept Larissa and her weird quirks, like seeming to sense things before they’d happened.

Larissa returned her gaze to her father. “If there’s anyone whom I trust enough to hear this, it’s Janie.”

Her dad rubbed his eyes. “I’d prefer it to be just the two of us. Let’s get a cup of coffee or something.”

He was stalling. She wanted to demand, “Just say it. Rip it off like it’s a damn bandage.” Pushing him wouldn’t convince him to talk, though. “Fine.”

Minutes later, which stretched on like a decade, Larissa sat across from him in a corner of the cafeteria away from others. Each had a cup of coffee and muffin.

He picked at a blueberry muffin. “They’re nothing like the Jordan Marsh ones, but not bad.” His eyes volleyed from the floor to the cafeteria exit.

She wasn’t going to let him distract her from the matter at hand with his reference to bygone department store baked goods. “Dad?” she prodded.

He avoided eye contact. “All right, Larissa. This is a conversation I never wanted to have.”

“Why?”

“Your grandmother and I have argued about this many times.” He pulled his gaze to her. “I insisted that we raise you to live as normal a life as you could—especially with your mother not around to guide you.” His voice caught, and he cleared his throat. “Maybe I went about it the wrong way.”

Larissa’s heart raced, and her breath quickened. She struggled to control the pacing as she braced herself for what he might reveal.

“Your mother was not like other women,” he said. “She was extraordinary. She could do things that defy logic.”

Larissa leaned forward. “Like what?”

“She could move things around the room. She could create ointments to heal ailments. When you were a baby and crying, she seemed to know what the issue was. I thought it was mother’s intuition, but soon figured out, it went beyond that. If you had an upset stomach, she’d put together some sort of herbal potion, or whatever you want to call it, and it would make you better. Things like that. She called it magic. I don’t believe in that, but then again, I don’t have any other explanation.”

Magic, Larissa mouthed, as if the word itself held some sacred power. She ran her fingers over her mouth. “Was mom a witch?”

He fixed his stare at her, eyes full of torment. “She was a remarkable woman. I loved her. I stayed away from her world that I didn’t understand. Some things you don’t want to know. But, she knew of other beings in the world, like you described. Whenever she’d hint at them, I’d tell her there had to be a rational explanation behind what she thought was out there.”

He took an audible breath. “After your mother died, I saw signs that you might have some abilities that couldn’t be explained, like sensing things ahead of time. I didn’t know what to do. I was still in mourning and desperately missing her. I tried to create a normal life for you as best I could without her in it. Your grandmother helped raise you. She wanted to guide you with your abilities, but I couldn’t let her do it. Your mother was gone. Your life had already changed so much with her death shattering our family. I wanted to make things easier for you and create a structured life without adding all the unexplainable things from your mother’s world.”

A man of few words, he’d never revealed so much at once before. How many years had he been holding this in?

“Was mom a witch?” she repeated.

“Yes.”

Her chest felt heavy, like someone was filling it with rocks. Wait, wasn’t that a thing with witches? A man accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials had been pressed to death under stones.

She tapped her thigh as she struggled to piece what her father was saying together.

“Larissa, are you okay?” he asked.

She should say something, respond in some way, but no words would form. Instead, she nodded in slow motion like she was stuck in a mental sludge.

All those questions about herself growing up. All those things she’d tried to hide. All the years of trying to pass herself off as normal. Long-buried emotions bubbled forth, frothing like a volcano on the verge of an eruption.

She hated emotions like this. Anger. Compassion. Betrayal. She hated emotions period. But, when they were all jumbled up like this, like a frothing cauldron.

Oh God, she was already picturing witch imagery when it came to her damn life. She squeezed her paper coffee cup, creating bends. Staring at it, she tunneled her fury into words.

“You had no right to keep this from me.”

Rage pounded in her veins like the bass through a speaker at a rock concert. She lifted her eyes to him.

“Larissa.” His voice came out resigned. “I did what I thought was best for you.”

“No. For you!” she spat. “You didn’t want your colleagues to know you had a daughter with some freaky abilities. It wouldn’t look good for you on the force.”

“That’s not it—”

“Oh, I know this route far too well,” she seethed. “I’ve been hiding it, too. But, the secret is out. Larissa is a freak. She can fire bolts from her fingers at fuckin’ demons, and for five seconds thinks she’s saved the world!”

Her voice rose at the end, drawing attention to them. She stood up, screeching her chair across the floor.

“Larissa, please.” He gave her a meaningful look. “I can try to come up with excuses. It’s what I’ve been doing for years. But, maybe I was wrong.”

“You think?” she spat.

“I’m not the best person to talk to about your abilities,” he added. “If you want to learn more, talk to your grandmother.”

More important things took priority over venturing down a terrifying path of self-discovery.

She pulled her gaze back to her father. “What I need to do first is learn how to help Janie.”

Her father blinked slowly. “How?”

Good question. She might as well have been a contestant during Final Jeopardy who had wagered all she’d earned, only she didn’t have a clue of the answer. “I don’t know. But, I have to find out.”