THE MEPHISTO COVENANT

  “Not a thing.”

  She looked in the closet. “She has some new stuff.”

  He came up behind her. “As you keep reminding me, I’m a guy. Her clothes are about as interesting to me as stale bread.”

  “It’s not the clothes, but that they’re new, still with tags, and none of it is stuff she’d wear in Telluride in December. It’s all for warm weather.”

  “Maybe she’s planning to take a cruise. Or a trip to the Bahamas. Doesn’t mean she’s going with Bruno.”

  “She can’t afford to take a cruise. She and Tim argued a lot about money. That’s one of the reasons she was so pissed about me being here, that it would cost them money.”

  He looked at the clothes again and shook his head. “It’s a clue, you’re right, but warm weather could be anywhere in the southern hemisphere.”

  Moving farther into the closet, she toed some bags, shoes, and dirty laundry out of the way, thinking about all the times she stuck things under hanging clothes to hide them from Mom, who could be way too nosy. There was a new tote bag, the tag still attached, and she picked it up to look inside. “Dramamine. Sunscreen. Paperback novel.” She raised her gaze to his. “And a restaurant guide for Key West.”

  “Well, now, aren’t you a clever girl?” He looked very pleased. “I’ll get Zee and Brody to start looking through Key West reservations for next week.”

  “Maybe they should also look at charter boats.”

  “What makes you think he’d charter a boat?”

  “The Dramamine.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Motion-sickness pills, for people who get seasick.”

  His eyes widened. “Then yeah, I’ll have them look at charter boats.” He glanced over his shoulder. “We should get out of here before someone comes home.”

  “I’m ready.”

  Just as they got back in her room to get her suitcases, the doorbell rang. Jax said, “Wait here,” and disappeared. A nanosecond later, he was back. “It’s a FedEx guy, bringing boxes up to the porch.”

  “It might be my stuff from Oakland.”

  Downstairs, she opened the door, saw her name on the first box, and took it as a sign that her things had come just as she was leaving. While Jax loaded everything in the car, she wrote a note and left it on the kitchen table. Short, vague, and simple, she said she was going to stay somewhere else until she could join her mother in Russia.

  Then Jax drove her to the Mephisto Mountain, and when he passed through the mists, she wondered how long she’d be here. Less than a week? Or eternity?

  He looked across the seat at her with a brooding expression, and she knew he wondered the same thing.

  Jax couldn’t sleep, which was weird for him. He usually got into bed, rolled over, and was asleep in seconds. Tonight, he stared at the ceiling and couldn’t get his brain to shut up.

  Dinner had gone way better than breakfast. Sasha asked a lot of questions about how it went with Tim, and after that, his brothers relaxed. Before long, they were like always, joking around, talking about the upcoming takedown, arguing football, ignoring Deacon’s lectures, and praising Hans when he came in to see if the food was good.

  After dinner, he and Sasha had gone upstairs and hung out in his room for a while—he couldn’t stop kissing her—until Mathilda made her go unpack, swishing after her, declaring she would help, and wouldn’t that room on the third floor with the pink and brown be lovely for her?

  Thirty minutes later, they were back, Deacon and another Purg named Alfred toting Sasha’s things. Mathilda claimed it was just too quiet up there, and the “puir girl” wouldn’t get a wink. Before he knew it, the small bedroom that was just past his sitting room—the one where he never sat—was filled with the furniture from the pink-and-brown bedroom, and Mathilda was unpacking, firing off instructions to Deacon, who looked like he always did: disapproving.

  He came to Jax’s room at one point and said in his usual stiff manner, “It’s unseemly for a female not your wife to sleep in the same house with men who are not her brothers. I will take her to live with the Lumina woman who works with the computer.”

  “No.”

  “She should not stay on this floor of the house. I will take her back upstairs.”

  “No.”

  “This is your final answer?”

  “She has a lot to deal with, Deacon. No point making her lose sleep because she’s afraid. If she feels better being closer to me, so be it.”

  Lying in his bed, with her lying in hers, less than fifty feet and two thin walls away from him, he understood why Deacon was so insistent. He saw it as improper, but he also knew it’d kill Jax to have Sasha this close all night and stay apart. Deacon worried he wouldn’t be a gentleman.

  If it wasn’t for the mark he’d leave on her, he was pretty sure Deacon was right.

  But he wouldn’t do that to her, not unless she decided to stay.

  After another hour, he got up, put on a pair of sweatpants, and went to her room. He knocked, she said, “Come in,” and he opened the door. She was lying in the dark, wide awake.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I can’t sleep.”

  “Are you afraid?”

  “No. I just can’t stop thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “You.”

  Surrounded by her scent, he walked close to the bed and watched her pull the covers back. He lay down, she curled into him, and five minutes later, she was asleep. Less than a minute later, so was he.

  FOURTEEN

  BRETT AND CHRIS WEREN’T AT SCHOOL THE NEXT DAY. ERIN asked Sasha why she was at school, and she answered honestly, “I don’t like my aunt, and I’m obviously not real fond of Brett. I’d rather be here than there.”

  Just like she knew it would, the story went around and no one asked her again, until Amanda came up to her before calculus and asked how Brett was doing. “Okay, I guess. I haven’t really talked to him since his dad died.”

  “Why?”

  Sasha was less and less patient with Amanda’s bizarre fixation on a murderer with no soul, so she was a little snippy when she said, “Because I hate his guts.”

  “But don’t you feel bad for him that his dad died?”

  “Yeah, I feel bad for him,” she said with a sigh. “I feel bad for all the Shrivers.”

  Amanda went back to her desk.

  It was Friday, and that afternoon, when they were in the car on the way to the Mephisto Mountain, Jax said, “Let’s not think about school, or the Shrivers, or anything but having a nice weekend.”

  “Works for me,” she said. “How about you, Brody?”

  From the backseat, he mumbled something that sounded like Star Trek.

  “Good Lord,” Jax said.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Brody’s got it for Jenny Brown, which is against the Lumina rule. They’re not supposed to hang out with humans for just this reason. If they get attached, it’s hard for them to get past it. He’ll be mooning over her for ten years, and he won’t look at any of the girls on the mountain because he’ll be obsessed with Jenny.”

  She glanced at Brody, who was staring out the window, a world away. Looking back at Jax, she said, “Why can’t Jenny be a Lumina?”

  “She’s not qualified. They have to exhibit some characteristics of Heaven. It’s hard to explain, but you know it when you see it.”

  “Maybe Brody sees something you don’t.”

  Jax glanced in the rearview mirror and sighed. “Maybe. I’ll look into it, but don’t tell him.”

  “He can hear you.”

  “No, he can’t. He has in earbuds.”

  They reached the Mephisto house and spent the rest of the afternoon eating cookies and watching The Sixth Sense with Mathilda and Hans, who laughed all the way through. Later, Sasha kicked Jax’s butt at Demon Slayer.

  On Saturday, he took her skiing, and she was amazed at how much better she was than last time. “Must be Mephisto,” she said when
they skied off the lift at Revelation Bowl, an area for more experienced skiers.

  “I’m pretty sure it’s my expert lessons,” he said, skiing away from her.

  She chased and was halfway down a black diamond before she realized she was on practically a vertical incline.

  That night, Zee played the piano for her and she cried because it was so beautiful.

  On Sunday, she got the grand tour of the mountain, the stables, Phoenix’s chopper shop, the gym in the old dairy, the tutoring rooms in the pink granite building, and, last, Jax took her to one of the Lumina cottages. A sweet, plump little lady named Tansy, who could be anybody’s grandma, lived there. The cottage was like something out of Disney, wee and quaint, painted outside in a soft robin’s egg blue, and the interior in butter yellow.

  “It’s a lovely life here on the mountain,” Tansy said in a thick southern drawl, “but sometimes I hanker to visit Charleston, and Denys takes me back. We go to Mirabelle’s and have shrimp and grits, then he takes me out to the ocean. Do you like the ocean?”

  Sasha nodded. “I grew up in San Francisco and Oakland.”

  “Pacific is nice, dear, but you can swim in the Atlantic. Maybe next time, you can go with us? I think you’d like shrimp and grits.”

  “I’m sure I would.” She polished off another butter cookie. “What do you do here?”

  “I’m like the Walmart greeter of the Mephisto Mountain. When we have a new Lumina or Purgatory, they stay with me for a while. I look after them until they feel at home. If you decide to come here and live with us, you’ll stay with me awhile. Would you like that?”

  Sasha shot a look at Jax. Tansy was awesome, but if she was made to be apart from Jax, she wasn’t so sure she’d like that at all.

  “Let’s see how it goes,” Jax said smoothly. “Sasha’s just visiting right now.”

  “I hope you’ll stay. You’re very beautiful. Almost as beautiful as Reilly.” She turned her head and called out, “Angel, would you like to visit?”

  Sasha stared when Reilly walked in from the kitchen and smiled at her. “Hi, Sasha.”

  “Hey, Reilly.”

  The girl took a seat on the little chintz sofa next to Tansy. “I’m really sorry about what happened last week. I hope I didn’t freak you out too much.”

  “It’s okay. I understand why you did it. Are you feeling …” Wow, not a good idea to ask a dead girl if she was feeling okay. “Is everything going okay for you here?”

  “It’s getting better. I’m working on deciding what will be my job. I’ve narrowed it down to librarian and helping Key with his bookkeeping.”

  “Do you like to read?”

  Reilly nodded. “If I’m librarian, I can order whatever books I want for the library.”

  “What’s the downside?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I have to dust all the books.”

  They all laughed and visited a little longer before Sasha and Jax left the cottage.

  That night, curled into him in her bed, she asked, “You like it here, don’t you?”

  “Sometimes, I imagine I would like it if I wasn’t always so restless. Most of the time, the idyllic perfection the Luminas create only reminds me how one eighty it all is from who I am. Once, a long time ago, I went off and burned down a few of the cottages. Does that shock you?”

  “No.”

  “They weren’t mad, of course. They rebuilt and prayed for me while I served six months solitary on Kyanos.”

  She wrapped her arms around him and they lay like that until they drifted to sleep.

  By Monday, she was pretty sure she was going to need a sedative to get ready for Jax’s leaving. She thought more and more about staying with him and his brothers, becoming immortal and accepting Jax as her eternal mate, but something held her back. She’d accepted what they did, even saw the necessity of it. That they were sons of Hell seemed less important than the unique ability she had to redeem one of them and give him a chance of Heaven.

  She was so over the moon about Jax, she couldn’t imagine ever feeling like this about anyone else.

  She thought about her mom, and wondered and worried, but she’d had no more e-mails, no phone calls, nothing at all to let her know how she was. On the way to school, she asked Jax if she could see her mom if she stayed with him, and he said no, that she had to cut all ties to the outside world. That freaked her out a lot, but it still wasn’t the reason she hesitated.

  School started, and she went through the motions, becoming more anxious as the day passed, aware that finals began tomorrow and Christmas was three days away. The Mephisto were close to finalizing the plans for the Skia takedown, and once they did that, they’d take Bruno and his lost souls, and they’d be done. Jax would go back to the mountain, and Lucifer would clear her memory of what he was and what he’d meant to her. She’d only remember him as a guy who went to school with her for a while. If she asked, Lucifer would also take away Anabo.

  Later in the afternoon, Amanda stopped by her locker and asked if she was going to the game that night.

  “I’ll be there. Do you want to sit with me?”

  “I’d like to, if it’s okay.”

  “Of course it’s okay.”

  “How is the family?”

  “They’re fine,” she lied. She hadn’t talked to any of the Shrivers since last Thursday.

  “I thought I’d hear from Brett, but he hasn’t called.”

  “You should be glad.” She swung her backpack over her shoulder. “I’ll see you tonight, Amanda.” She realized as she walked away that Amanda was hinting to go home with her, which pissed her off. She didn’t want to hang with Sasha—she wanted an excuse to go to the Shrivers’ house so she could see Brett.

  No one knew she wasn’t living there now, and she hoped they never would. After the holidays, she’d be in Russia and it wouldn’t matter, but for now, she didn’t want anyone asking where she was staying.

  None of the Shrivers had called since she left, so she was surprised to find Chris waiting for her outside the school. It made her sick to see his shaded eyes, so she said hello and tried not to look directly at him.

  Ironically, he asked, “Where are you staying?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “I’m here because Mom wants to know if I can stay with you, wherever it is.”

  “No, that’s not possible. There’s no extra room”—boy, was that a whopper of a lie—“and I’m a guest, so it’d be rude if I brought you home with me.”

  “Are you staying with Erin or Rachel?”

  “No.” She sighed and stared at the University of Colorado printed on his hoodie. “Melanie can’t kick you out, Chris. If she really does it, go to the cops.”

  “I’d rather go with you.”

  “Pretty bad at the house, huh?”

  “It’s terrible. Dad’s funeral is tomorrow, in case you wanted to know.”

  She didn’t, and made no reply.

  He reached inside his hoodie pocket and withdrew an envelope. “The FedEx guy left this for you. Mom told me to use it for an excuse to see you.”

  It was from her mother. She took it and kept her gaze on his hoodie.

  About to turn away, he hesitated. “I wish I hadn’t believed him.”

  “I know. Me, too.”

  He shrugged. “But it’s not like God ever did anything for me. So Eryx doesn’t, either. Same lie, different name.” He walked away without saying good-bye.

  She started to call after him, then didn’t. He was as lost to her as if he were dead.

  Looking down at the envelope, she wondered why her mother would mail a letter, instead of e-mailing. She tore it open and inside was a passport and two plane tickets—one from Telluride to Denver, and the other from Denver to St. Petersburg, Russia.

  Dear Sasha,

  I’ve made arrangements for you to come to St. Petersburg for Christmas, then to stay here with me until it’s time for you to attend university. I’ve already enrolled you at school, and
let an apartment in an old, beautiful building. Bring just one bag, and I will buy what you need when you arrive. I sold your father’s ring to a collector, and it has saved us, so I hope you’ll forgive me. I’ve also found a buyer for the painting who wants to give it as a Christmas gift, so I need you to FedEx it to me as soon as you receive this letter. I will see you soon.

  Mom

  It was a strange note, almost cold, and a million things chased through her mind, all at once. How did she get a passport, which looked real? How had she fixed it so Sasha could be in Russia? Mom didn’t know she had papers now. Why hadn’t she e-mailed, or called, to give her a heads-up? And most confusing of all, why had she agreed to sell the painting? What about Eryx? Had he given up trying to get it? Was he the one who wanted to buy it? The thought made her go cold.

  “What’s that?” Jax asked, walking toward her.

  She held it out to him and he took it, reading quickly. Then he looked up at her with the strangest expression on his face. “She sold the painting.”

  “I guess she was desperate for money, Jax.”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “Will we mail the fake?”

  He nodded. “We can’t risk letting the original back into the real world, where Eryx might get his hands on it. I’ll get a Lumina to take the fake to FedEx as soon as we get home, and she’ll have it day after tomorrow.” He handed the tickets and the letter back to her and went around to the driver’s side of the car.

  She got in and looked at him, noticing his jaw was clenched. “At least now I don’t have to make up a lie about the birth certificate.”

  He didn’t speak.

  “Jax?”

  “Go find Brody so we can get out of here.”

  “Please, Jax, can’t you—”

  “Now, Sasha! Do it now!”

  If he wasn’t so upset, she’d tell him she didn’t appreciate getting yelled at, but he looked like he was either ready to have a seizure, or to start crying, so she got out of the car and went to find Brody, who was probably hanging out with Jenny in the photography room.