Hades (21 page)

“For you,” Hanna corrected. “And even so, he is just a

boy with a valiant heart. How can the strength of one man

stand against Jake and an army of demons?”

“He can,” I countered, “if he has the power of Heaven on

his side. After al , Christ was a man.”

“He was also the Son of God, there’s a difference.”

“Do you think they could have crucified him if he wasn’t

human?” I asked. “He was flesh and blood, just like Xavier.

You’ve been here so long you underestimate the power of

humans. They’re a force of nature.”

“Forgive me, miss, if I cannot hope as you do,” Hanna

said humbly. “I don’t want to raise my dreams out of the

dust only to have them cut down. Can you understand that?”

“Yes, Hanna, I can,” I said at last. “That’s why if you don’t

mind, I’l hope enough for the both of us.”

I thought about Hanna’s story for a long time after she left.

Although I wanted desperately to go and check on Venus

Cove, I couldn’t free my mind. It remained stuck on Hanna

and the hardships of her young life. I thought about how little

I real y understood about human suffering. What I knew

about the blackest episodes in human history was nothing

but cold hard facts. Human experience was so much more

complex. There was probably a lot more I could learn from

Hanna than I’d realized.

There was one thing I did know; Hanna had made a

mistake. But she had expressed regret and she was sorry

for her actions. If she was destined to live beneath the

ground for the rest of eternity, then there was something

wrong with the system. Surely Heaven couldn’t stand by and

let such corruption go unpunished.
Vengeance is mine,

saith the Lord. I will repay.
Hanna was wrong. Heaven

would seek justice. I just had to be patient.

13

Speak of the Devil

I had no idea what time it was in Venus Cove, but I kept

imagining Xavier’s bedroom with its sports paraphernalia

and lopsided piles of textbooks on the carpet. For some

reason that’s where I most wanted to go. The thought of

being in his room surrounded by his things made my heart

race with longing. Where was Xavier right at this very

moment? Was he happy or sad? Was he thinking about

me? One thing I knew with certainty was that Xavier

possessed the kind of decency that made heroes out of

mortals. He had never abandoned his friends in times of

need and he wasn’t about to abandon me now.

I felt cold and saw that the embers in the grate were

dying. I reached for the wine-colored throw draped over the

foot of my bed and wrapped myself in it. The candles were

burned almost to the wick and cast strange elongated

shadows across the wal s.

Having decided that I would not be left to languish in

Jake’s airless kingdom somehow made me feel calmer. As

soon as I felt the first waves of sleep, I focused my energy

on reconnecting with Xavier in my mind. My body grew

heavier and yet I felt an indescribable lightness. It was not

possible to pinpoint the exact moment of scission, when

matter and spirit chose to fol ow different paths, but I knew it

was happening the minute the details of my hotel room

blurred and suddenly the plaster rose on the ceiling was in

front of my nose. Al I had to do then was al ow myself to

drift.

As I drifted, like a humming vibration, I travel ed through

time and space and over water until I reached my final

resting place. I was standing in Xavier’s bedroom. I didn’t

land there so much as blow in like a wind under the door.

Xavier had thrown himself ful length across his bed and

was lying on his stomach, face buried in the pil ow. He

hadn’t even bothered to take off his shoes. On the floor a

hefty volume of the Princeton Review’s
Best 371 Colleges

lay abandoned. His mom, Bernie, had arranged a copy for

me too—insisting we both had to make a list of our top ten

choices. I smiled at the memory, recal ing the conversation

Xavier and I had had only days before the Hal oween party.

We’d been lying on the south lawn taking turns reading

aloud the most interesting statistics about our short-listed

schools.

“We’re going to the same col ege, right?” he’d asked, but

it was more of a statement than a question.

“I hope so,” I replied. “But I guess it depends on whether

they
want to station me somewhere else.”

“
They
can just butt out. No more ifs, Beth,” Xavier said.

“We tel them what we want now. We’ve been through

enough to have earned that right.”

“Okay,” I said and meant it. I took the hefty volume from

him and flipped causal y through the pages.

“What about Penn State?” I asked, trailing my finger

down the index.

“Are you kidding? My parents would have a combined

coronary.”

“Why? What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s known as a party school.”

“I thought the choice was up to you.”

“It is, but that doesn’t mean they’re not rooting for Ivy

League. Or at least somewhere like Vanderbilt.”

“University of Alabama?” I asked. “Mol y and the girls

have applied there. They want to be sorority sisters.”

“Another three years with Mol y?” Xavier wrinkled his

nose teasingly.

“I like the sound of Ole Miss,” I said dreamily. “What do

you think? Oxford would be just like here, our own little

world.”

Xavier smiled. “I think I like that idea. And it’s close to

home. Put it on the list.”

The conversation replayed itself in my head as if it had

happened yesterday. Now, here was Xavier, slumped on

his bed, al plans for the future abandoned. He flipped over

to lie on his back, eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. He

looked lost in thought and his face showed visible signs of

exhaustion. I knew him wel enough to be able to read his

mood. He was thinking:
What now? What do I do now?

What more can I do?
Xavier’s rational side was very

strong. It was the reason so many people brought their

problems to him. Even students he didn’t know very wel

would come to him for advice on which AP class to take or

what sport to try out for. Whatever the question they rarely

walked away disappointed. Xavier had this uncanny ability

to examine a problem from al angles at once. In fact, the

tougher the problem, the more determined he was to solve

it. Except the one facing him now floored him completely.

This time it didn’t matter how many angles he considered it

from. He had no answers and I knew it was kil ing him.

Helpless was not something Xavier was accustomed to

feeling.

I thought of al the things I so badly wanted to whisper to

him.
Don’t worry
.
We’ll work this out. We always do. We’re

invincible, remember?
It felt strange, our roles being

suddenly reversed. This time it was my job to try and get

Xavier through. I wil ed myself forward so I was hovering just

inches away from his face. His eyes were half open, slivers

of sky, but melancholy, missing their usual bril iance. His

light walnut-colored hair fel across the pil ow and his lashes

glistened with unshed tears. The wave of emotion that hit

me was so strong I almost had to turn away. Xavier was

never like this. His eyes were ful of life even when he was

being serious. He could brighten a room just by entering it.

This was the senior class president of Bryce Hamilton;

respected and loved by the entire school population. He

was the one person nobody ever spoke a bad word

against. I hated seeing him so defeated.

A tentative tapping at Xavier’s door startled me so much

I flew across the room, generating a rush of wind that

almost overturned a chair, but Xavier barely seemed to

notice. A few moments later, the door opened a crack and

Bernie stuck her head into the room. She looked

apologetic for interrupting his privacy, but as soon as she

saw her son lying listlessly on the bed, concern flooded her

face. She covered it quickly with feigned cheerfulness. I

could see in her expression her love for Xavier and her

intense desire to protect him. He looked so beautiful he

could have been an angel himself, but so profoundly sad, it

frightened me.

“Can I get you anything?” Bernie asked. “You hardly

touched your dinner.”

“No, thanks, Mom.” Xavier’s voice was flat and lifeless. “I

just need some sleep.”

“What’s going on with you, honey?” Bernie inched toward

the bed and tentatively sat down. She looked wary; worried

that invading the space of her troubled teenage son might

not be the wisest idea. Xavier’s unresponsiveness told her

he wanted to be alone. “I’ve never seen you like this before.

Is it girl trouble?”

I realized his mother had no idea what’d happened. He

hadn’t told her I was missing. I guessed it was because

she’d want to contact the sheriff, demand to know why they

weren’t investigating my disappearance more thoroughly.

“You could say that,” Xavier said.

“Oh, wel , these things have a way of sorting themselves

out.” She laid a hand gently on his shoulder. “And you know

your father and I are always here if you need us.”

“I know that, Mom. Don’t worry about me. I’l be fine.”

“Don’t take it so hard,” Bernie said. “When you’re young

everything feels a hundred times worse than it is. I don’t

know what happened between you and Beth, but it can’t be

so bad.”

Xavier let out a short, humorless laugh and I guessed

what he was thinking. He wanted to say, “Wel , Mom, my

girlfriend was abducted by a demon ex-student of Bryce

Hamilton and dragged into Hel on the back of a motorbike

and right now we’ve got no idea how to bring her back. So,

yeah, actual y it is that bad.”

But instead he shifted his weight to look across at her.

“Just let it go, Mom,” he said. “This is my problem. I’l be

okay.”

I could see in his eyes that he didn’t want to worry her. My

family was already beside themselves; there was no sense

in getting Bernie involved. The less she knew, the better for

everyone. My disappearance wasn’t an easy thing to

explain and not exactly the news you’d want to break to an

overprotective parent just before you were due to take your

SATs.

“Okay.” Bernie leaned down to kiss his forehead. “But,

Xavier, hon …”

“Yeah?” He looked up but couldn’t hold her gaze.

“She’l be back.” Bernie gave him a knowing smile.

“Everything wil work out fine.” Then she got up and slipped

out the door, closing it softly behind her.

When she was gone, Xavier final y al owed his

exhaustion to overcome him. He kicked off his shoes and

rol ed onto his side. I was glad that soon he would fal into a

deep sleep and the torment of feeling so helpless would

disappear, at least for a few hours. Just before physical

exhaustion took over his body I saw him rummage under

his pil ow and withdraw something I recognized

immediately as one of my cotton knit sweaters. I’d worn it a

lot over the summer on cool evenings. It was a pale aqua

color and had tiny daisies embroidered around the

neckline. He said he liked the way it brought out the auburn

streaks in my hair. Xavier pushed his pil ow aside and

buried his face in my sweater, inhaling deeply. He stayed

that way a long time until his breathing changed and