Diabolical (31 page)

You’ll recall that archangels not only provide leadership to the lower ranked, but also on occasion lead heaven’s forces into battle. Consequently, a chariot has been reserved for you at the stables. Sword practice is Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8
A.M.

P.S. Congratulations, Zachary! You are now middle management with a legion of your own guardians to supervise. I could not have conceived of a more fitting punishment.

WHEN I HEAR RENATA’S VOICE
over the sound system (“Attention, Miranda Shen McAllister! Attention, please!”), calling me to the reunion desk, for a moment I’m certain it must be Zachary at last. Then I realize, no, I’m off to meet another newly ascended soul.

Guardian — I mean,
arch
angels — don’t arrive and depart through the Penultimate processing system. My boyfriend, an archangel. Imagine that!

According to Idelle, it means he’ll have to spend quality time in his office at the Penultimate, yet he’s no longer limited to this way station or earthly service. His place of work will be here. He’ll come. He’ll go.

Yet from the time he returns, heaven will be his primary residence.

His. Mine.
Ours.

I’m surprised when Harrison meets me at the reunion receiving area.

Then I catch sight of Renata, escorting Nigel forward. He’s complaining that no one will let him have a cigarette.

“Dear boy,” Harrison begins, “I can’t have a cigar either. It’s part and parcel of the Penultimate experience.” My fellow former eternal grins. “A final cleansing of the soul before passing through heaven’s gates.”

Nigel glances at Renata. “I don’t know these people. I don’t have any family or friends. I don’t even know why I’m here. My father is —”

“I’m Miranda.” I take Nigel’s hands in mine. “Zachary’s girl. This is Harrison. We’re your family now.”

At that very moment, the chariot of the archangel Gabriel touches down on the nearby promenade, and the crowd scatters.

“Hey, Nigel!” Vesper calls, climbing out. “Who’re your friends?”

Two days later, the “doctor” on stage with me in the theater raises his chin. “Hark! she speaks: I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.”

I tap in to my inner eternal, the moments when the madness took me. “Out, damned spot, out, I say! One, two — why, then ‘tis time to do’t. Hell is murky! Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier and afeard? What need we fear who knows it when none can call our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?”

“That’ll do,” calls the director, making a note on his chart. “Next.”

I’d been hoping for a “Brava, Miranda!”

Exiting the round theater, I scan the entertainment district for Harrison and Nigel, who promised to toss rose petals at my feet as I descended the stairs.

Did they forget?

About halfway down, I let the loneliness soak in. I feel foolish in the period Scottish nightdress I’m wearing for the audition.

I’m not utterly self-absorbed. I understand that my angel couldn’t return home right away. He took Willa out for ice cream. He called to check on Bridget and Evelyn and Lucy. He gave Joshua tips on being earthbound, raised his glass to toast Freddy, indulged one last time in Nora’s bacon-wrapped prawns. Zachary went howling with Kieren. He flew Quincie over Mount Bonnell and told her she’s his hero. He took a day, two, to say his good-byes.

The tick of each second resounds like a gong.

“Miranda?” calls a voice from above.

“Zachary?” Glancing up at him in battle gear, I lose my balance on the stairs.

No chance of my falling anywhere, except more profoundly in love. My angel spins me, and it’s as if I’m flying, too. Weightless, we dance among the stars.

We glide above the Penultimate, away from the stables and the arts district, past the honeycomb-shaped towers. Blue-and-black butterflies flutter behind us like a bridal train. Finally, we land at heaven’s gates. We’re laughing, giddy.

Touching down, he says, “Hold out your hands.”

My angel reaches for a pouch tied to his belt and opens it to nudge Mr. Nesbit into my palms. “I’ve searched everywhere for you.” He gestures to the side. “And Grandpa Shen is so excited. He’s waiting beyond those clouds. He wants to cook us bacon-fried rice for dinner tonight.”

Yes! I set my gerbil on my shoulder and give my angel a kiss that makes Saint Peter blush. I revel in the feel of his lips against mine, thread my fingers through his gold mane, and caress his feathers.

Touch, only touch, and for this moment, it’s enough.

On the other side of the gates, we’ll build our eternal lives, lives blessed with a whole new array of tantalizing and heavenly pleasures. If there’s bacon-fried rice in heaven, who knows what other possibilities await?

I remember the first time I saw Zachary. He appeared as if ripped from Eden. Yet he was heaven-sent, and now he’s home again. We both are — almost.

“Ready for ever after?” he asks, offering his arm.

I rest my fingertips in the curve of his elbow. “I am now.”

With my angel at my side, I cross into the divine.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The Scholomance in this novel is inspired by a school of the same name mentioned in Abraham Stoker’s
Dracula
(1897). It was Stoker’s work that spawned this and three of my previous books —
Tantalize, Eternal,
and
Blessed
— which feature characters that appear herein.

Each sequential story inches closer to that classic novel, and in
Diabolical,
we touch on a landmark from Dracula’s own history. He was once a Scholomance scholar, though I reinvented and updated SP for my own fictional purposes.

Beyond that, in reference to his battle-axe, Kieren challenges Mr. Bilovski to “come and take it,” if he dares. This expression was used as a slogan in the Texas Revolution and appears on a historic Texas flag.

Careful readers may also notice nods or tributes to Kathi Appelt, Animal Planet (“Hellhound”), Fred Astaire, Stephen Vincent Benét, Dante Alighieri, Sir Francis Bacon, L. Frank Baum, Helen Eileen Beardsley, Otto Binder, William Peter Blatty, Bob Carroll Jr., Chris Carter, Warren Casey, Madelyn Davis, William C. DeMille, Charles Dickens, Amelia Earhart, Douglas Fairbanks, William Friedkin, Sigmund Freud, Bruce Geller, Fred Ebb, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Emily Gerard, Laurell K. Hamilton, Katharine Hepburn, S. E. Hinton, the History Channel (“Gates of Hell,”
Hell: The Devil’s Domain
), Washington Irving, Jim Jacobs, John F. Kennedy, Fritz Kiersch, Stephen King, Rudyard Kipling, Jack Kirby, Eartha Kitt, Mort Lachman, Noel Langley, Stan Lee, Jonathan Lemkin, C. S. Lewis, Astrid Lindgren, George Lucas, Elliot S. Maggin, Judith Martin, Vera Matson, John Milton, Andrew Neiderman, Michel de Nostredrame, William Paley, Luciano Pavarotti, Al Plastino, the Platters, Alexander Pope, Elvis Presley, Buck Ram, Gene Roddenberry, Florence Ryerson, Walter “Jack” Rollins, John Romita Sr., Tom Schulman, Melville Shavelson, Charles M. Schulz, William Shakespeare, Anthony Trollope, Mark Twain, Mies van der Rohe, Andy Warhol, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Len Wein, Peter Weir, Joss Whedon, E. B. White, Oscar Wilde, and Meredith Willson.

That said,
The Blood Drinker’s Guide, Eternal Elegance, Baba-Yaga’s Junior Encyclopedia, Interfaith Archaeology Bulletin,
and a number of other media references or (mis)representations sprang completely from my imagination.

In terms of locales, Sanguini’s: A Very Rare Restaurant in Austin and Scholomance Prep in Vermont are both fictional. So is Chrysanthemum Hills Cemetery in Dallas and both the Edison Hotel and Artemis Gyros in Chicago.

Likewise, you’d be hard pressed to find Norma & Harry’s B and B in Montpelier, but if you did, there would be wild, wonderful gardens and soup with bread for dinner. I set the academy outside Montpelier because it’s one of my favorite places, where I’m on a faculty myself (though I usually lack Dr. Ulman’s disciplinary flare).

As to the question of an original Scholomance in the Carpathians, some say it does exist. Make of that what you will, dear readers, and travel safely.

I’m putting my faith in the angels and in you.

THANK YOU

For research and other support, my thanks to Salima Alikhan, Ann Angel, Gene Brenek, Alissa Cornelius, Lynne Kelly Hoenig, John Kandler, Anne Mazer, Steve Nelson, Susan Robertson, Leda Schubert, Christy Stallop, the Vermont College of Fine Arts family, and City of Montpelier planning and zoning assistant Audra Brown. Special cheers to the children’s-YA creator community, especially here in Austin.

Moreover, my undying appreciation goes to my editor Deborah Wayshak, the whole team at Candlewick Press, my agent Ginger Knowlton, and her assistant Anna Umansky. For everything else, here’s to my very cute husband Greg Leitich Smith as well as our kitty cats, Mercury, Bashi, Blizzard, and Leo. I love you guys.

P.S. I promised to name Evelyn’s wereelk girlfriend, Ollie, after author Ann Hagman Cardinal. So, let it be known that the character’s full name is Olinda Ann Cardinal.

CYNTHIA LEITICH SMITH is the acclaimed and best-selling author of
Tantalize, Eternal,
and
Blessed
as well as
Tantalize: Kieren’s Story,
a graphic novel illustrated by Ming Doyle. About
Diabolical,
she says, “Angels slip. Souls waver. Not every Wolf howls with the pack. Yet we all deserve a second chance, even if it might be our last.” Cynthia is on the faculty of the MFA program in writing for children and young adults at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband, author Greg Leitich Smith.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

Copyright © 2012 by Cynthia Leitich Smith

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.