Welsh Road (The Depravity Chronicles) by Joshua Grove Page A

a patch?” Trevor asked.
    “I guess so,
yeah,” Jena answered.
    “Dude, he was
attacked and held prisoner by a Wendigo,” Trevor explained.
    “A what?” Jena
asked.
    “It’s not
important,” Simon interjected. “He thinks he was hallucinating.” Simon paused.
“At least that’s what he was told. He thought it was a vampire.”
    “Are you
freaking kidding me?” Jena groaned. “Vampires?”
    “No, it was the
Wendigo,” Anish said. “An evil spirit that wreaked havoc on Crimson Falls.”
    “Oh, yeah,” Jena
said, recognizing the story. “I remember reading about that. So it was a
demon. I thought the cover story was pretty weak. Kind of like the JFK magic
bullet theory.”
    “Yeah, well,
they’ll throw you in an asylum if you tell people the truth about what’s out
there,” Simon said with a dry laugh.
    Jena identified
with that thought. “Yeah. If you would have told me that demons existed and
looked like a praying mantis/bird and perched on road signs, I would have
signed you into the loony bin myself.”
    “On a different
note,” Anish said, “Jena, do your parents know you’re here?”
    “No, and I told
them not to bother me,” she said.
    “I think we
should let them know where you are,” Anish insisted.
    Jena finally agreed,
though she wasn’t thrilled. Anish was about to discover just how persistent her
mother could be. She was like a dog with a bone that refused to ever bury it.
    As Anish spoke
with Hank and Isabelle, Trevor relayed the story of the Wendigos.
    “Holy crap !”
Jena exclaimed, entranced by their abridged version. “Well I hope this Mantis
demon or whatever isn’t like a Wendigo.”
    “No, so at least
there’s some good news here,” Simon said.
    “Jena,” Anish
interrupted. He gestured to the phone. Briefly, Jena had to speak to her
parents.
    “I can’t believe
you would do this to me,” Isabelle said before Jena even uttered a word. Her
mom was ready to blow a gasket or two.
    “Mom, I blacked
out again. And this man, Anish, he says he can help me.”
    “Well, we’re
coming over there right now,” Isabelle insisted.
    “Mom, just give
me a few hours. I’m safe here. We’ll come to the house and we can talk more
about it.”
    “Fine, but I
don’t like it one bit,” she huffed. “Let me speak to Anish.”
    “Okay, Mom.
Thanks. Love you.” Jena handed the phone back to Anish and sat in the loveseat
across from the boys.
    “So you have the
gift of telekinesis?” Simon asked, still amazed by the prospect.
    “I think so,”
Jena said. “Well, I mean, I know so.”
    “What did you
say you were doing? Moving stuff around?” Trevor asked, equally curious.
    Jena explained
testing her abilities, including the Weird and the frequencies of fainting.
    “That must be
scary,” Simon said. “Passing out and ending up somewhere else.”
    “Tell me about
it,” Jena agreed. “And I killed a freaking demon? I wonder why I can’t remember
that.”
    “We’re going to
find out,” Anish said as he hung up the phone. “But at the moment, that is not
our top priority.
    “How can that not be our top priority?” Jena asked in a huff.
    “Because it
won’t help us right now,” Anish said matter-of-factly. “We will deal with your
blackouts and your activities during said blackouts at a later time. Right now,
we need to devise a plan.”
    “A plan for
what?” Jena asked.
    “Simply put? We
need to bust Nicholas out of the hospital,” Anish declared.
    “Bust out?”
Trevor laughed.
    Jena also
thought it was an odd phrase for Anish to use, but it was certainly clear what
he meant by it. “Why would we do that?” Jena asked. “He’s in a friggin’ coma ,
Anish. How can that be safe for him?”
    “His coma is not
natural,” Anish answered. “More importantly, he is a sitting duck at that
hospital. I am surprised he is not already gone. That he has not already been
taken.”
    “Taken?” Jena
asked. “By whom?”
    Trevor noted her
grammatical