Diabolical (12 page)

Too bad Quince isn’t here to hear this. Beneath her ambitious restaurateur exterior, Quince’s nonbeating heart belongs to a confirmed romantic.

“I haven’t seen much of Ollie lately, though,” Evelyn says. “Her parents found out about me, us. You know how it goes. We’re in a mixed-species relationship. They told her to keep her distance. The fact that I was my father’s daughter didn’t help.”

“You’re
not
your father’s daughter,” I assure her.

Evelyn beams at me. “How about you? Are you involved with anyone?”

“Quince. It’s Quincie, actually. Our moms were friends before we were born. It feels like we were friends before
we
were born.”

“Just friends?”

“Not since middle school, not really. For years, I tried not to let it show. Until recently, I had control issues with my shift.”

“You held yourself back to protect her.” Evelyn twirls her hair with one finger. “Because that’s not condescending.”

“Wolves are more dangerous than Otters.”

“Than Elk?”

I think about it. “Depends on the Wolf, depends on the Elk.”

For a while, we’re both quiet.

“About the fires in the fireplaces,” Evelyn begins again. “No wood, no control lever for gas. No smoke. The chimneys are sealed, but all we’re getting is heat. Now that we’ve established that neither of us is a bad guy, do you know what’s going on?”

I told Zach I trusted my instincts. “This is what we know about Scholomance Preparatory Academy. . . .”

I don’t mention that Zach is an angel. I do explain that his girlfriend Miranda is Lucy’s best friend. I say that Miranda sent him here to rescue her. Then I explain why.

While I talk, Evelyn brushes her hair. It seems to soothe her. Grooming is something that Otters do a lot.

When I’m finished, she says, “I can’t believe I fell for such a catastrophic bait and switch.” Evelyn tosses the brush onto her bed. “I guess this isn’t my second chance after all.” She frowns. “Do you think the magic here could make me wholly human?”

The question surprises me. “Is that what you want?”

“It used to be,” Evelyn admits. “I wanted to be all human more than anything.”

Given her parents, I can’t blame her. “I understand. There was a time when I thought that I couldn’t control my shift because I was a hybrid. Before I mastered it, I used to wish I was a full-blooded werewolf.”

Evelyn slips down from the desk. “If you were human, you wouldn’t have to shift. It wouldn’t be an issue.”

“True,” I admit. “But I always saw shifting as a blessing. For me, there’s nothing better. Except being with Quince.”

IT’S JUST LIKE
Lucy not to believe Zachary is an angel! Not that it would’ve helped her to escape in that vile place. At the moment, they’re incapable of leaving. Still . . .

Curious about what the Bilovskis are up to, I try to zoom in on the fourth floor of Scholomance Prep, but my screen goes dark. I try the subbasement, and it happens again.

I shake the monitor-com. I’m about to blow Mr. Nesbit a kiss and go downstairs to ask Huan what’s wrong with it when I spin back to two and notice Andrew peering into the hallway. With his black-on-black wardrobe, matching chopped hair, and studded leather collar, he looks like Lucy’s type, except that she requires an actual personality.

The image is snowy, but I can make out Andrew stepping barefoot into the hall. He’s carrying his sheet, rolled into a ball. He takes the elevator to the basement gym and ties one end of the sheet like a noose.

Leaping to my feet, I rush out of the suite without bothering to shut the door behind me. Minutes later, I show my screen to Huan. “We have to do something! This boy is going to hang himself!”

Huan’s brow furls, but he’s looking at me, not what’s happening in Vermont. “Miranda, we talked about this when the guardian Zachary was injured in battle. Our ability to affect what happens on earth is —”

“Zachary is an immortal,” I reply. “This Andrew —”

“There’s nothing either of us can do.”

I suppose this is a taste of how my angel felt when I followed Lucy into the cemetery. More than ever, I understand why he broke the rules to try to save my life.

“My monitor-com is broken,” I say finally. “I can’t see all of this building, and what I can see . . . The reception is awful.”

This time, Huan takes the device and fiddles with it. “What is this place?”

I remember what Joshua said: if Michael finds out where Zachary is, my angel could fall. “It’s a school. A high school. Or a finishing school. It’s a boarding school.” I’m babbling. “Why do you ask?”

“Your device isn’t broken. It can’t transmit from anywhere the divine is absent.”

Isn’t God everywhere? “I don’t understand.”

“These areas you’re trying to view, they’re borderlands and territories of hell.”

SINCE HUAN’S REVELATION
, I haven’t been able to stop staring at my monitor-com. What I wouldn’t give to dive through the screen and emerge fully corporeal, ready to battle by my angel’s side. Unfortunately, I’m stuck here in a rattan lobby chair, my hair nearly covered in celestial butterflies. I shake my head, and they fly away.

Willa is the first student to wake up. She’d slept fitfully. Likely worse because of last night’s champagne.

Willa’s eyes open. She sits up abruptly and glances around the room as though she’s forgotten why she’s there. Then a hand goes to her forehead. She’s probably trying to soothe away a hangover.

Moments later, Willa reaches into the glass shower and turns the control handle to a lukewarm setting. She opens the medicine cabinet to reveal an array of clear gels, lotions, conditioners, shampoos, and the like. Each bottle is marked with the Scholomance logo. I envy Willa for the shower she’s about to take. I adored the feel of warm water pulsing against my bare skin.

As a human girl, I allowed myself the luxury of long showers and steaming hot baths. I spent much of my meager movie-theater earnings at Bath & Body Works. Bloodletting aside, perhaps my greatest regret about my time at the castle is that I had the maids, rather than Zachary, draw my baths. Why didn’t I command him to sponge off my back and shoulders and . . . ?

Willa slips out of her silky pj’s, and I can’t help noticing the scars on her breasts, the backs of her thighs, and her buttocks. She’s had fairly recent cosmetic surgery, and a lot of it — especially for a slender girl her age.

Willa begins to hum a song I don’t recognize. It’s sad and wistful, and as she steps onto the black tile and turns up the water temperature, I long to talk to her. I remember what she told Zachary about her parents packing her and Nigel off to the academy. I wonder if the surgeries were her idea or something else her parents insisted on.

I shouldn’t be invading her privacy. I’m about to zoom away when her eyes widen and she recoils from the glass shower wall. It takes some maneuvering with the controls, but seconds later, I see what’s frightened her.

As if drawn by a finger, the mischievous-looking devil is slowly taking shape — one line, then another, drawn into the condensation on the glass.

Willa shuts off the water.

She opens the shower door and peeks outside.

The bathroom is empty.

When she checks it again, the drawing has streamed away.

Willa grabs two plush gray towels and rushes out into her room. Shivering despite the heat, she wraps up her nude form as she goes.

Catching sight of the image over her fireplace, she jerks back again.

“Stop it!” she scolds herself. “You’re imagining things.”

No, she isn’t.

AN UNGODLY LOUD ALARM
sounds throughout the building. Fire alarm? Security alarm? Beats the hell out of me. I wrap my pillow around my head and get up.

I’m sweating. I kicked the covers off in the night. The fire roars on in the fireplace.

The noise stops. The digital clock says it’s 8
A.M.

A wake-up alarm. It’s not like me to sleep in. The stress of this place is taking its toll. I spent most of last night awake. Beating myself up over what I should’ve said to Lucy. Wondering how I’m going to get us out of here. Missing Miranda.

After a shower and shave, I see the note on Kieren’s door. He’s gone to the basement gym with Evelyn.

I wander downstairs to the first floor. The front door is still sealed tight.

I continue to the dining room. “Morning, ladies.”

Andrew and Nigel haven’t arrived yet. It’s me, Willa, Vesper, Lucy, and Bridget, who’s mysteriously gone gray at the temples. They’re complaining about the heat. The alarm. The ongoing absence of a wireless network. They’re also helping themselves to a continental breakfast: platters of yogurt, croissants, rolls, bagels, various flavors of cream cheese, sliced grapefruit and pears. Pitchers of orange juice and ice water.

Other than the food and drink service, I see no sign of the Bilovskis.

Last night we were served with silver and china. This morning, it’s paper plates, paper cups, and plasticware. Nothing that can be made into a weapon. Much like a prison cafeteria, at least in that way.

“Are you okay?” I ask Bridget.

“Bad dreams.” She glances at her watch. “Orientation starts at 9
A.M
.”

“It does?” Willa asks, picking apart her buttery croissant.

Right then, Kieren and Evelyn come running into the dining room.

“Andrew’s dead,” they announce.

Upstairs in the third-floor seminar room, I’m the first in. The centerpiece is a glass-topped rectangular table with a metal base. A podium stands in front of a chalkboard secured to the wall.
DR. URSULA ULMAN
is handwritten on it. I assume that’s the name of the faculty member or administrator or hell beast who’ll be joining us.

A chalkboard. It’s a low-tech choice for such a modern setting. But evil is old. Sometimes it prefers the retro.

The framed
Codex Gigas
illustration is identical to the rest.

The clock above the door reads 8:58
A.M
. A typeset place card marks each of our chairs. It’s five female students on one side, from back to front: Vesper, Willa, Lucy, Evelyn, and Bridget. Three male students on the other, from back to front: me, Nigel, Kieren . . . and the next student would’ve been Andrew. He hanged himself with his bedsheet from the pull-up bar.

The others trail in. They’re subdued. Bridget is teary. She and Andrew may not have bonded on their road trip, but she spent the most time with him.

“I didn’t think he was depressed,” she says. “I —”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Lucy assures her. Evelyn is quick to agree.

Nigel strolls in last. Blurry eyed. Hungover.

Kieren breaks the news about Andrew.

“Nine becomes eight.” Nigel puffs on a cigarette. “For us, it’s too late.”

I scoot my chair to the foot of the table. Whatever creature is about to appear in this room, I want to face it head-on.

At breakfast, I considered telling the students to lock themselves in their rooms, at least until Kieren and I could find a way out. But what Andrew did — or what happened to him — may be proof that we’re safer together.

“Didn’t you say Andrew was driving a hearse?” Vesper asks Bridget. “I’d call that a tip-off. Plus, his Goth look screamed —”