Diabolical (25 page)

First I glance to the heavens. I imagine my Miranda, my girl, looking down. “Pray for us,” I tell her. “We need all the help we can get.”

THE GIRLS HURRY WILLA
into a hot shower. She’s changed into a school uniform in time for Underworld Governments. By then, Vesper’s body has been removed.

We gut our way through the rest of the morning. Losing Lucy. Willa’s return. Zachary revealed as an angel. It’s a lot to process. Nobody says much, even at lunch.

Then, in Physical Fitness & Combat, Dr. Ulman announces that, starting tomorrow, we’ll pair off in blood matches. Forget that.

Forget the reversal spell on the building. We’re not waiting for rescue.

We’re leaving. All of us. I have faith that we’ll find a way.

But come hell or high water, this was our last day of class.

“Since we arrived,” I begin in the first-floor living room, “we’ve been reacting. Playing by the Scholomance rules. Or paying the price. Although . . .” I nod to Bridget. “The devil clearly underestimated one member of our team.”

Willa is snuggled under Nigel’s arm on the sofa.

“What else
can
we do?” Nigel asks. “We’re up against a ghost who can kill or relocate someone with a flick of her hankie. Whatever possessed Lucy. Then there’s that really tall, bald guy who looks like Zachary and murdered Vesper.”

“He does not look like Zachary,” Quince insists from the chair closest to the fireplace. “They’re both more than six feet tall, appear to be about the same age, and they have a similar build. But Seth’s coloring is much fairer, and he looks sunburned.”

“Don’t everybody freak out.” Zach sips his Dr Pepper. “But I think Seth
is
the devil. If you see him again, don’t trust anything he says.”

Nobody freaks out. But they take a couple of minutes to consider that.

“Isn’t Lucifer a fallen angel?” Evie asks, glancing at the fireplace print.

“A fallen archangel,” I say. “Zach is a guardian angel.”

Bridget moves in from the window wall. “Are
you
a bad angel?” she asks Zach.

“I am not a bad angel,” he assures her. “I’m just not great at my job.”

Willa stands. “I first came to near a stream by the storage area in the subbasement. Then I blacked out again. For days, I guess. Finally, I woke up in a cavern by the lake. The dragon grabbed me and brought me out through the water.”

“Do you know who resurrected you?” Quince asks.

Willa shakes her head. “I don’t remember.”

“It took Lucy to hell by diving back down,” Evie reminds us.

“So the lake leads to both hell and freedom,” Nigel points out. “Maybe.”

“The water isn’t that cold,” Zach adds. “If we could find a way to dry off —”

“We packed blankets,” I say. “They’re in the SUV.”

“Hang on,” Bridget says. “The cavern opening to the lake could be separated from the subbasement by tons of rock. It’s possible that Willa wasn’t carried there, but instead Ulman magically teleported her like she did with Kieren that day from the gym.”

At Willa’s baffled look, Nigel whispers the story to her.

“A lot of things are possible,” I reply. “We have to try.”

“Uh, guys?” Evie begins. “You’re forgetting the three hell dogs.”

“If there were only three originally,” Willa informs us, “then they’re down to two. I saw one with its heart cut out. The other two were eating it.”

Someone beat me to the hunt.

Odds are, whoever it was took that fresh heart as a sacrifice. Used it in a spell to restore Willa. The Bilovskis? I haven’t seen the handyman lately.

“I see no reason to wait,” the angel says. “Kieren, with your nose, you can smell those hellhounds coming. You lead everyone else out.”

“Where are you going?” Quince asks.

“To bring back Lucy,” Zach replies, “from hell.”

I’D EXPECTED TO WANDER
a while with the others through the caves. Fighting off devil dogs, in search of our respective paths.

Instead, when we step off the elevator, there’s a new signpost. One arrow points toward the warehouse area. It reads:
VERMONT
. The other points back at an angle, as if around the elevator car. It reads:
THE KINGDOM
.

Because as long as you’re evil incarnate, why not be pretentious about it?

“This is where we part ways,” I say.

“I’ve been thinking,” Quincie says. “I’m the one with preternatural power. I should go with you and —”

“You should leave with Kieren,” I reply. “If you value what I try to do as your GA, honor that by leaving this place.” Truth is, the Wolf guards her better than I do.

“Don’t you think the devil is out to get you?” With his good leg, Kieren kicks down the sign. “And cocky about it? Why give him what he wants?”

“With every second that passes,” I say, “Lucy is in torment. I don’t care what she signed. It’s my place as an angel to bring her home.”

It’s not total BS, unless you factor in that GAs are supposed to have nothing to do with the demonic. Or, for that matter, battle. But to hell with the rules. Literally.

I take what may be my last look at the remaining students. They’re armed with one battle-axe, a pack of matches, a bottle of aerosol hairspray (from a nearby shelf), two mops, and Vesper’s Persian-plum sheet. The idea is that the alcohol will function as an accelerant in case they encounter the hellhounds again.

Nigel pulls me aside. “Take me with you.”

I’m surprised that he’d separate from Willa, but I’ve got no time to deal with adolescent male posturing. “Give me one good reason I should.”

“I’m Satan’s son,” he replies.

USING MY MONITOR-COM
in the lounge, I can’t see my angel or Lucy at all. I lost sight of Lucy only seconds after the dragon plummeted into the lake. I lost sight of Zachary once he stepped into the subbasement. I can’t see any of the students now.

Frantically, I zoom around the building. Nothing.

Shutting down my monitor-com, I slip it in my pocket. For days, I’ve taken comfort in the idea that, if something fatal happened to Lucy, we’d be reunited in heaven. Now, she’s — as a mortal — been sentenced to hell. What does that mean? Does the devil have claim to her soul, too? And what of my angel?

I wonder if Zachary and Nigel will cross paths with Vesper, and I feel a stab of guilt at having misjudged her, though she was putting on a good act. I wish we’d had a chance to meet, if only so I could’ve shown her the proper way to assassinate a dark lord.

Wondering what to do next, I regard the bloom of a nearby bird-of-paradise flower.

“Miranda Shen McAllister?” calls Renata, the reunion coordinator.

I stand up from the rattan chair. “Is it Lucy?”

I don’t know if I hope so or hope not.

“No, another young lady. Tamara O. Williams. Do you remember her?”

“Yes.” She’s the young weredeer I drained at the Edison Hotel. My last victim.

Renata gestures. “Please sit. You are by no means required to agree to this meeting. Her counselor from the Ascended Souls Mental Health Board, while acknowledging that such an exchange may be cathartic, is concerned —”

“That I’ll say the wrong thing?” Tamara interrupts, coming around the nearest palm tree. “That I’ll upset the darling serial killer? That she’ll have to deal with having ripped away my dreams of being an artist and marrying Corey?”

“Ms. Williams,” Renata begins, “you were warned —”

“What are you going to do,” she asks, “send me to hell?”

“It’s fine,” I reply. “I’ll talk to her.”

“Perhaps somewhere less public,” Renata urges as two elderly ladies and one animal-form werehog retreat from the conversation area. “I can provide a private, neutral room and a qualified therapist to facilitate —”

“It’s fine,” I say again. Since the moment I died, this is the confrontation I’ve been waiting for. I didn’t know it would be Tamara, yet someone would have to hold me accountable for my crimes. I summon up the last vestiges of my royal composure. “We don’t need a babysitter.”

Clearly taken aback, Renata excuses herself.

Tamara tears a long leaf off the closest fern and begins shredding it. She tells me about how she began as a painter and then started doing collage, but decided to go into arts education after teaching at a summer camp for disadvantaged kids.

She tells me about her fiancé Corey, how they met at the Indianapolis airport and ended up seated next to each other on the flight to Boston. She explains how by the time they landed, she was certain that she’d marry him someday. He was a Deer, too, and in animal form, he had the most attractive set of antlers she’d ever seen. “You took all that away from me, from us. I can’t let go. I can’t move on. I watch over him day after day.”

I stay still, penitent, my hands folded in my lap.

Tamara bursts into tears. “He . . .” She gulps. “He kissed my cousin Ellen in the funeral limousine.”

That was not what I was expecting her to say.

“Grief,” I begin. “They were both hurting, and, for a moment, that drew them together. I’m certain they’re both embarrassed and regret —”

Gulping, Tamara shakes her head. “No, they’re dating now on the sly. Our friends, my family, they don’t know. My mother knitted him a scarf for Christmas. They were screwing around behind my back before I died, even after we got engaged. I heard them talking about it.” She sinks into the chair beside mine. “She does things with him in bed, sexual things that I wouldn’t do, if you know what I mean.”

I don’t. I nod anyway and risk petting her shoulder.

“If you hadn’t killed me,” Tamara concludes, “I would’ve married the jerk.”

NIGEL AND I
take cautious steps on a narrow rock path with steep drops on either side. I considered flying down, carrying him, but I don’t know how long the trip might be. The curves and corners are unpredictable. I don’t want to wear myself out or break one of my wings or crash. We have enough to worry about.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I ask.

“I’ve always known,” Nigel says. “For as long as I can remember, Willa’s parents emphasized to me that I was spawn. I tried to be evil, to live up to my legacy. It’s just not me. Now you’re claiming I’m pure of heart. Daddy must be so disappointed.”