Diabolical

  A gray sheet has been tossed over the print above the fireplace.

  The bedroom door is open. I’m not surprised that the outward-facing, floor-to-ceiling window wall doesn’t include a building exit. But I feel that remote hope squashed.

  Then I’m distracted by the framed family photographs. They cover nearly every visible inch of every surface. A mix of black-and-white and color pictures. Individual and group shots. Depicting babies, children and teens, boys and girls. Snapshots and school portraits. Taken at births, birthdays, holidays, and every days. Every kid has either Mr. Bilovski’s hooked nose or Mrs. Bilovski’s pointed chin, or both.

  Four boys and six girls. They’re always well groomed, wearing clean clothes. At least two had braces. Firmly middle-class. The Bilovskis aren’t that old — late forties, maybe early fifties. With such a big brood, I doubt the kids would all be grown by now.

  “While you’re here,” I begin, “who’s taking care of your children?”

  Lucy glares at me. “What he means is, you have a beautiful family.”

  “Each one my darling,” Mrs. Bilovski replies, carefully removing the tissue wrapping. “Each one my precious, precious babe.” She unfolds a red scarf with the image of a multicolor winged horse printed or painted on it.

  “It’s a Hermès,” Lucy says like that means something. “From Paris.”

  Mrs. Bilovski rubs it against her cheek. “Silk.”

  The scarf was donated by Vesper. So was the tissue.

  “Have you ever been to France?” Kieren asks.

  “Me?” Mrs. Bilovski exclaims. “Gracious, no. I had my babes to look after, and George and I were so involved in the church. It was our pastor who warned us about the Nosferatu. George took it to heart, bless his soul. Bless all of their souls.”

  Mrs. Bilovski glances at the digital clock above the door. It’s 4:30 P.M.

  “Thank you for the scarf.” She stands. “I should get started on dinner. It’s not easy, feeding so many young people. If anyone knows that, it’s me.”

  Lincoln Bee-Gazette, June 16

  BEHEADED CHILDREN DECLARED HUMAN

  By Diana Larkin

  Three medical examiners have independently confirmed that the bodies of ten murdered siblings, ages six to sixteen, were human beings. The children were found beheaded and hanged from a barn ceiling by their ankles Friday night outside Lincoln, Nebraska.

  Although most experts on the supernatural concur that vampires have been extinct since the mid-twentieth century, a media frenzy arose when it was leaked that the word Nosferatu had been spray-painted in red several times on the walls at the murder scene.

  Law-enforcement officials have not been able to locate parents Gladys and George Bilovski. Mr. Bilovski’s sister, Shirley Fieldman, has been quoted as saying that the handwriting matched that of her brother. She also claimed that he was mentally unstable and she had long feared for Mrs. Bilovski and the children’s safety.

  I WATCH FROM MY HAMMOCK as my angel joins the others after dinner in the casual lounge. They’re gathered in a circle on their mattresses. Mrs. Bilovski’s warning hasn’t been forgotten. But after last night’s events, sleeping separately doesn’t seem like such a bright idea either. They’re discussing how to reverse the spell on the building. Having run out of ideas for escape, they’re trying to bolster their hopes of rescue. It’s all they have left.

  “Undoing magic that powerful will come at a cost,” Kieren says. “I’m thinking of paying with the heart of a hellhound.”

  “Kieren!” Evelyn exclaims. She’s seated cross-legged in front of Bridget, who’s braiding her hair. “Last time, those things nearly killed you.”

  “Last time,” he replies, “they caught me by surprise.”

  Quincie starts to say something — either to protest or to offer help when, in a loud, clear voice, Lucy declares, “That was then. This is now.”

  Only it’s not Lucy’s voice, it’s mine! Not an imitation, my voice. Not that I’ve ever talked like that. The tone is menacing, sexual, like it wants to seduce them all.

  “It’s not possible!” Zachary gapes. “She sounds like Miranda. Exactly like her.”

  The not-Lucy, not-me leaps to her feet. “Anything is possible with faith.”

  The demonic force is using me, my angel’s love for me, to lash out at Zachary.

  “That’s not Miranda,” Kieren exclaims. “Zach?”

  The other students recoil. Kieren and Quincie position themselves to protect the rest.

  Mumbling in — is it Latin? — Lucy peels off her T-shirt, reaches to unhook her bra.

  My angel stands, gripping Lucy by the shoulders. “Leave her alone.”

  Lucy — or whoever it is — knocks his hands away and lands an uppercut on his chin that sends him crashing into the wall. It’s the possession, giving her strength.

  Lucy spreads her arms wide. “You all think you were recruited. Chosen. My, what high self-esteem!” She swings her hips to one side, then another. “It was you who chose me. Or at least came close enough to catch my interest.”

  She slides her hands up her bare stomach. “It was you who said or thought or acted in such a way that put the fate of your souls in play. You revealed that you might give up anything, even the promise of heaven . . .” She cups, squeezes her breasts. “. . . for whatever it was that you wanted most.”

  God is always with you, but the devil watches sometimes. Waits.

  It’s a sobering thought.

  Lucy sashays in a tight circle and meets each student’s gaze in turn.

  “Kieren wanted to be wild, the predator untamed.

  “Lucy wanted to know what happened to Miranda.

  “And Zachary wanted Miranda in his bed.”

  Bridget holds up her Bible in an attempt to ward it off.

  The possessed Lucy throws back her head and cackles. “You, Bridget, wanted to be a winner. Nigel wanted to know where he comes from. Vesper —”

  Quincie grabs the holy book from Bridget and smacks it across Lucy’s head.

  Lucy’s mouth falls open, and six tiny gray snakes slither out. They’re hissing, tangled, falling to the black tile and onto her Fighting Coyotes T-shirt.

  Vesper screams, and Nigel yells, “Not again!”

  Suddenly, the serpents disappear.

  Lucy drops to a mattress, unconscious.

  “You can’t let it into your head,” Kieren says. “The demonic is built on lies —”

  “They weren’t all lies,” Bridget says.

  “We may have been tempted,” my angel acknowledges. “But that’s not what matters. What matters is that we each ultimately turned back to the Light.”

  “Once,” Nigel whispers. “Or twice. Who knows how long that’ll last here?”

  An hour later, I’m relieved that Lucy doesn’t remember anything about what happened. She appears unharmed, seated in the circle on her mattress. She keeps inundating everyone with questions, using The Exorcist as her point of reference.

  When Nigel alludes to Lucy’s stripper routine, her hands cover her face.

  That’s when Vesper says, “The devil didn’t mention what you wanted, Quincie.”

  “Or you,” Quincie replies. “Or, for that matter, Evie.”

  Evie is in the restroom, but I know what she wanted: to be wholly human. She confided as much to Kieren on the first night.

  When Vesper won’t stop staring at Quincie, the neophyte gives her a half smile — just for kicks — and asks, “Why? Do you have some O positive to spare?”

  “Willa wanted to matter,” Nigel declares. “She wanted to become more than something her parents could cut out, cut up. More than their paper doll. She wanted to matter to someone besides me.”

  Desperate to clear my head, I stomp down the promenade. How dare the devil do that to Lucy — using my own voice! What I wouldn’t give to crush his horny, scaled head under the heel of my incorporeal tennis shoe.

  I’m about to declare that — loudly and proudly —
to anyone who’ll listen when I spot my victim in the ARTEMIS GYROS T-shirt. He’s sitting off by himself next to a koi pond.

  He looks heartbroken.

  My anger drains away and is replaced by guilt as I duck behind a palm tree.

  I’m probably the last person he wants to see, but I do know him. In a manner of speaking. In the sense that I drained him to death.

  I step down into the lounge and approach. “Hello.”

  He gapes at me. “You’re her, aren’t you?”

  No point in denying it. “I’ll leave if you want me to, but it looks like you need a friend.” Out loud, the words sound even more ridiculous.

  Yet he pats the chair beside him, a clear invitation. “Why are you here?”

  “I . . .” Sometimes I’m still not certain. “I was redeemed, forgiven.”

  “You were?” he asks. “For killing me like you did?”

  Among other sins. “Yes.”

  “Really?”

  Didn’t we just cover this? “Yes.”

  “Ha!” He kicks up his heels and kisses my cheek. “I am Demos, your new friend. My thanks to you for having ascended! My thanks, my thanks, my thanks!”

  “What did I do?” I ask, flustered. “What did I do that was . . . good?”

  “All this time, I have felt tortured, unworthy to cross through the pearly gates. It’s YaYa, you see. My grandmother. I did not come to her bedside when she died. My sister Deira said, ‘She is rallying. There is no need.’ I believed Deira, but she was mistaken. An honest mistake, but . . .

  “When my grandmother lay dying at the hospital, I was eating hot dogs and drinking beer at the Cubs game. I have wondered, ‘How I could face YaYa on the other side?’ But if you, the monster that took my very life, are embraced here and in heaven beyond, how could YaYa not forgive me?”

  MY ANGEL SLUMBERS near the entry to the casual lounge. So does Kieren, one hand on his axe and the other around Quincie. It’s little more than a gesture, these heroes positioning themselves as if to defend the others from an intruder. The next attack is more likely to materialize from nothingness or to rise up from within.

  It’s unlikely that they’d all be asleep at once. I’d blame it on exhaustion, the toll of confronting what must’ve been the devil, filtered through Lucy’s form and my voice. Yet I’d expect such trauma to leave them wide-eyed and vigilant, especially the angel, the eternal, and the shifters. I suspect that this good night’s rest is the result of an enchantment.

  As if to confirm my suspicions, Quincie slips away from the Wolf, and he doesn’t flinch. It’s past lights-out, and the reception on my monitor-com is still sketchy. But I can make out her standing — sleepwalking? — by the fireplace glow.

  As Quincie exits the casual lounge, her previously bare right foot, suddenly clad in a red satin pump, lands on a gold-infused black stone dance floor. Her CELL PHONES WILL BE EATEN T-shirt and borrowed cotton boxer shorts have given way to a red satin evening gown. The neckline drapes at an angle to show off her left shoulder, and a side slit in the skirt reveals most of her left thigh. The ponytail is gone, and the curls, too, as if a stylist blow-dried them out. The effect is straight, sleek, and sophisticated.

  Worried as I am about Quincie, I can’t help thinking how I’ve envied her curls.

  The Scholomance formal living room transforms into a ballroom, and she’s suddenly awake. She lifts the skirt of her gown and abruptly drops it.

  I can focus my viewer on the students sleeping only feet away in the casual lounge. Or I can see from Quincie’s vantage point that the lounge seems to have disappeared. The ballroom in its place appears to be five times the size of the living room. It boasts three magnificent crystal chandeliers and gold leaf on the ceiling and walls.

  Here, in the Penultimate, I’m safe from the Evil One’s mental machinations. Yet as with Willa in her shower, I can see what Quincie sees. It’s not only minds that Lucifer toys with. He can alter the appearance, the experience within his domains, if not reality.

  “Hello, baby.” A handsome rogue greets Quincie from across the dance floor. He raises his wrist to check two watches. “You’re fashionably late.”

  Speaking of fashion, it’s the very image of Bradley Sanguini, modeling a black suit with a white shirt and a dark red handkerchief, tie, and buttoned vest.

  Bradley is the charming, nefarious eternal chef who blessed — cursed — Quincie with his own demonic blood, turning her undead.

  “Hello, baby?” she snaps. “That’s your best sales pitch? You’re not even Brad.”

  He snaps his fingers, and the voice of Eartha Kitt begins singing “C’est Si Bon.”

  “Of course I am.” He dances her way with Fred Astaire grace. “Didn’t the mongrel explain where you are? What the school is? Hell gates swing both ways. I’ve returned to renew our love.”

  Quincie pauses, apparently acquiesing, until he’s within range. Then she kicks him in the throat. The blow knocks back the Bradlike creature. The music stops. The ballroom melts away, and he collides with the Scholomance living-room fireplace.

  As he struggles to his feet, Quincie says, “I personally launched a holy sword into Brad’s heart and turned him into a thirty-foot bonfire. He couldn’t return from hell, at least not any more corporeal than Dr. Ulman, and you’re solid. I can kick your ass.”

  The not-Brad’s eyes burn red. “Insolent child, you will regret —”

  “Oh, please,” Quincie replies. “I’ve dealt with Carpathian magic before, and I’m so over this cheap 3-D mind crap.” She glances at herself, clearly pleased to see her T-shirt and Kieren’s boxers again.

  As the monster disintegrates, she adds, “At least the real Brad realized that a sinfully delicious marinara, sautéed with farm-fresh basil and oregano, is the way to woo me. You run a lousy school and a worse kitchen. Those tuna sandwiches Mrs. Bilovski served for lunch? The iceberg lettuce was wilted, and the fish smelled overripe.”

  Quincie has faced down what may be Lucifer himself and has emerged unscathed.

  Where her soul remains gloriously whole, I squeaked into the Penultimate a mere sliver of my former self. Yet I wonder if I’ve begun to heal, if I could be whole again, too.

  Because I’m bursting with pride and love for Quincie.

  WHERE’S QUINCE? I push up. Grab my axe. Sprint to the living room. She’s alone, seated in front of the fire.

  “Hey, you all right?” I cross to join her. “Are you thirsty?”

  Quince threads her fingers through mine. “I brought a couple Thermoses of porcine blood with me from the B and B. They’re hidden behind the milk in the kitchenette refrigerator upstairs. If I’m careful, I should be okay for a few days. Maybe a week.”

  That deadline could be trouble. We still have no escape route. Mr. Bilovski has a serious hate on for vampires. So we can’t ask his missus to serve Quince animal blood.

  I’ll offer my neck if Quince needs me. It’s something we’ve done once before. Under duress. It was as erotic as terrifying.

  The repeated portrait of Lucifer gazes down on us. It bides its time.

  AFTER BREAKFAST, Quince stops me in the foyer. She glances back at the elevator. “Where’re you going with that axe?”

  She knows I plan to take out a demon dog. Use its heart to try to defuse the mystical charge on the building’s exterior. “Quince.”

  “Take the weekend to heal,” she says. “There’s no immediate reason to push it. Freddy knows better than to charge in. Your family is still in Hawaii.”

  I hate being caged. I want to do something. It sounds whiny even in my head.

  “Stay smart,” Quince urges. “Stay alive. The students need you. I need you. Don’t let this place make you crazy. No suicide missions, capice?”

  I let the axe fall to my side. “What’re we going to do all weekend?”

  Quince’s lips curve. She plants them on mine, licks my top lip.

  Hoots and whistles come from the others, peeking out of the dining room. Scho
lomance Prep isn’t conducive to privacy. “Plan C?”

  “Homework,” she suggests.

  We elect to focus on our Demonic History reports. In the library, Bridget helps me pull and organize stacks of research materials. One for Nigel on hell. On the Mantle of Dracul for Quince. On the KKK for Lucy. On the mafia for Zach. And on Wolves for me.

  “I have to pick a topic,” Bridget says. “I don’t want to fall behind.”

  “How about werearmadillos?” I suggest. “One of my best friends was a ‘Dillo. Travis. Sweetest guy I’ve ever met. You could research the werearmadillo royal family.”

  “There’s a werearmadillo royal family?” she asks, clearly charmed.

  “Books on shifters are over there.” I gesture. “I flipped through. They look okay.”

  Bridget skips off. I’m glad she’s more open to werepeople. I see no reason to mention that Travis was murdered by a fellow wereperson — a Cat.

  By midafternoon, everyone has claimed a spot at the tables. Except me and Vesper. She’s flipping through a fashion magazine in a plush chair. Looks like her zombie report is going as well as expected.

  I tell Evie, “I still can’t find anything on the NCPH.”

  “No worries,” she assures me. “I intend to be my own first-person resource.”

  I don’t need to research Wolves. I’ve been doing that my whole life.

  Bridget and Lucy duck out to go to the restroom down the hall.

  Quince motions me over. She whispers, “How do you know Ulman’s not a regular ghost? How did you figure out she was —”

  “Previously descended. At first, it was just a hunch. But given her power level, and the way the devil’s image seems to flicker within her own, I’m as sure as I can be.”

  Quince is ignoring the Dracul stack to study a book on wraiths. “Could we send Dr. Ulman into the Light?”

  Zach, seated across from her, shakes his head. “The Light won’t take her.”