DEMON DOOR (#2 GHOST PORTAL series)

TWO

Louise ordered Avery to go around closing all the curtains as she boiled hot water for tea. He knew better than to question her, though he did wonder what had her so frantic; she was usually one to keep her composure. And those dark circles under her eyes, darker even than her skin, were a cause for concern.

She hadn't been at the house with them, so what was affecting her now? Had some ghosts come all the way from the blast and were haunting her? Or was it something else?

He didn't get a chance to ponder any of it, because she brushed him off, insisting her current state of being wasn't what mattered.

So he obeyed her, and as he tugged the drapes, he noticed the fog outside growing thicker. As if all the smoke from the explosion had followed him and Jamie there, and was now threatening to creep into the cabin and engulf them both whole. As if it wanted them, wanted to filter into their lungs and choke them.

He wondered if Amy had felt this way, when she'd come here. The video footage showed a dense fog, too; had it come after her, wanting to devour her? Had it devoured her?

Shuddering, Avery sat on the couch and pulled a blanket over his shoulders. Jamie had settled on one of the chairs with a larger, fluffier throw-blanket, his face pallid and his eyes cold, stone-like. He'd been so talkative not five minutes before they'd burst into the clearance where Louise lived. But the instant he'd breathed the outside air, he'd been forced to cough his guts up and had made a one-eighty shift in his behavior.

Spooked, Avery would call it. It often hit you after the fact, hours or days, sometimes weeks after whatever had happened to you. Avery and Jamie were used to it, but such an event—an abandoned, haunted house in a forest supernaturally exploding right before their eyes, with a friend of theirs inside—would mark their souls forever. Avery had been spooked from the moment he'd realized they weren't going to die. Maybe it had come to Jamie later, because he was too busy trying to process everything.

"Here," said Louise, putting a hot mug into Jamie's hands, startling him. He accepted, thanked her, and she turned to slip another mug into Avery's grasp as she sat beside him on the sofa. "Now take a few sips, calm down, gather your thoughts. Then tell me everything, okay? I need to know what happened so I can help you, because you both seem to need it."

Avery refrained from saying she needed help, too, clearly, from her bloodshot eyes to her messy hair to the overall concern in her demeanor. But being so blunt would get him a nasty stare and possibly a slap, and he'd received enough of those in his youth when talking back to Louise.

After a few slurps of the tea—an herbal blend that Louise had topped off with a pinch of liquor, likely brandy—Avery felt his insides warming up and his discomfort melting slightly.

"The house is a portal," he said, holding the mug close to his chest, letting the steam coat his face. "A portal to the Afterlife, or so it's called. But also a place to reach Limbo. Afterlife and Limbo... they're real. They're real?"

Louise, sipping from her own brew, nodded. "Of course they are. No matter what you believe in, you have to believe there's more than this world, right? I've taught you this, Avery." She looked about ready to pat his thigh, but refrained. "And I'd assumed as much about that house. That it was a portal, at least. Go on. There's more in there, isn't there?"

Avery pinched his lips. "A demonic realm hidden in the basement, behind some demon door." He held on to the mug tighter, ignoring his palms as they burned.

It's nothing compared to how Jessamine burned.

He shook his head, desperate to rid himself of the horrific images in his mind—of Jessamine being torched to the bone to save the world.