People started to arrive en masse and the floor of the ballroom began to fill. Stage lights blazed to life and, for a second, I thought I caught sight of Lucas with the stagehands.
First, that was insane. Second, he wouldn’t be that stupid.
Would he?
Maybe. I searched the crowd for another sign of him, but the way those lights seared my retinas, I couldn’t make out much of anyone.
Except for Bournival, signaling to me it was time to start.
It was time to mount the curving iron steps and claim the stage.
At the top of the steps, one hand still clutching the railing, I froze. I’d never gotten stage fright before—of course, I’d never performed for a room full of demons before. Especially not when I’d decided to take my new guitar and make a statement they wouldn’t forget.
A familiar warmth wrapped around me, pushing back the fear.
I turned to see Jim standing in the wings with Nash, giving me a thumbs up. The action was so unapologetically dorky, it had to be real.
He was actually here.
Beside him, Nash’s eyes flashed and sent me a positively sinful grin.
For a single moment, everything in my life was good. Or as good as it could be. Okay, so I was in demon school. So what.
My father was here, watching me play alongside my boyfriend—yeah, after the flowers, I’d decided to upgrade him to full boyfriend status. I had a boyfriend, who led the cool crowd and cheered me on from the wings. And I was on stage with my friends about to play our first gig.
I wished my mother was here, but I had a feeling that she was watching over me.
And the guitar. Man, this guitar.
Sliding the cord over my head and pulling the guitar into position, I held the pose for a moment. Waiting. Once again, those knives of energy shoved into my fingers and burned all the way through my wrists and into my arms.
I didn’t care about the pain. I wanted that burn.
I needed it.
Then I tapped off a count, and we began to play.
We’d started with something simple—songs that everyone knew. Keep it simple and wait for the moment to make our statement. Nabila and Oscar sang with me, I knew only because I could feel the reverberations of their voices inside me, but I couldn’t hear them. I couldn’t hear anything. I could only feel the music as it poured out of me, with the guitar as my translator.
At first, big groups drifted together, shifting from awkward shuffles into flinging their bodies around the floor and gyrating to our music.
After a time, when we slowed things down, the clumps broke into couples, swaying tight on the floor. Then, when the tempo increased yet again, the swaying crowd moved back, in time with our sound.
We were puppeteers and we pulled their strings.
I’d never felt so powerful, so in control.
I was ready to make my point. The next song would show these demons what it felt like to mess with people.
Time to break out the big guns.
When I’d decided to push back at the demons—when Nabila, Oscar and I first realized what this ball meant—we’d talked over all the songs. Like, all of them. Rock, metal, pop, jazz—you name it, we debated it. In the end, we ended up in the weirdest place, with the most unlikely song that somehow just worked.
Tonight, amidst the demons and their creatures, we were going to force a slice of heaven down their throats.
Retro style, with a massive metal twist.
We let silence fall in the ballroom, waiting until every pair of eyes were trained on the stage.
Before us, in the center of the floor, stood Bournival, Churchfield and Thacker had gathered. As I watched, pale-clothed Feeders appeared in the crowd and drew near, as if they’d each been assigned a teacher to serve. They probably had. These Feeders weren’t my fellow students, thank God, but all I could see when I looked at them was Oscar’s mom.
Red and black tendrils wrapped around them, punching through their chests and pulling out strands of foggy, pastel-hued energy.
Churchfield reached out a finger, swirled it through the air, and pulled the energy toward her mouth. She sucked like you would a straw, eating their very essence, and licked her lips.
Time to teach my teachers some damn manners.
I clicked the heel of my shitkickers against the stage. Once, twice.
We hit the opening chorus in perfect harmony.
I’d picked the song because of its hope—how I could take that pop tune and make that hope a sharp-edged punch.
But I’d also picked it for my mom.
For how she’d sing it while making dinner, or when I had the flu. If anyone could have understood fighting demons with 80s music, it would have been Maria Alcantara. Who took no crap and always stood up for the little guy.
Whatever drove Nabila and Oscar, their energy reverberated with mine.
Our music crackled with emotion. I imagined it swirling through the room, slicing through the bindings the demons used to control their servants.
Drawing in a breath, I focused on Churchfield.
Knocking her on her ass—or at least fucking with her control—would sure make me feel as if heaven was a place on earth. Let the angels sing. Or smite. Whatever worked, so long as it hurt her.
I hit the strings of my bone guitar like a warrior would swing an ax.
A weaker instrument would have broken.
Not this.
A roar emerged from my guitar and the amps behind us—a lion, a beast of sound that rushed the audience. Instead of breaking the harmony of the song, the wave took it higher, gave it wings—and blades.
Maybe my friends couldn’t see what followed. But I could.
Beautiful, pure blue energy rippled from the stage. The wave shattered the red and black net that Churchfield and company had cast on the Feeders. Their faces froze, comical surprise stamped on their features and satisfaction rushed through me.
I glanced at Nabila, who gave a wide grin of triumph.
Behind us, Oscar hit the drums with a burst of power, and I knew he’d seen those bonds break.
This is for you, Mom.
As my voice swelled with my friends, as our music filled the massive chamber and shoved back against the dark, for a moment, it was like I had her with me again. I wanted to reach into the song and tell her how much I missed her. How I was trying to make her proud.
Instead, all my loss spilled into the song, the notes echoing from the guitar like tears.
The pain of losing my mother rose in my chest, fresh and vicious as the day the doctors first said I’d lose her. Through all the treatment and battles and burial, I hadn’t had a chance to truly grieve, and pouring it all into this song, letting it drown me, felt good. Too good.
A long, slow clapping began.
I shouldn’t have been able to hear a single pair of hands—but I could. And it chilled me to the bone. With each clap, a shadow seemed to grow behind Churchfield and that central group of teachers.
Candles flickered and were snuffed, and the already dim ballroom grew darker. The shadow swelled in size until it covered the entire ballroom.
The scent of sulfur reached my nose.
Looking down, I saw my beautiful flower bracelet had begun to burn, the purple petals smoking and curling at the ends.
As each petal fell, the sadness and loss I felt grew. And the shadow grew larger. Somehow feeding on the pain, sorrow, and suffering that reverberated from our song and amplified within the chamber. I felt Oscar’s grief for his mother join mine, twisting together, building as Nabila mourned her grandfather.
Our audience had stopped dancing.
Faces wet with tears and twisted with sadness tilted toward the stage. Everyone was sharing in our pain.
The black, swollen shadow absorbed it all, long tendrils reaching from the center mass to coil around us like vines. Our pain, our song, fed him, and we were all suddenly drowning in it and I couldn’t stop playing.
I wanted to
fight it, but I couldn’t.
Lie.
The truth of it slapped me. I didn’t want to fight this feeling, push it back and continue to struggle. It would be so much easier to surrender, to just give in to my sadness and the moment.
So very easy to just let them take everything and enjoy what I could.
I looked up, and found Churchfield watching me, felt the long shards of fingers deep in my brain. In that moment, I understood Oscar’s mother a little better.
Oscar.
Nabila.
I couldn’t lose my friends—not here. Not like this. Unable to speak past the song still charging out of my mouth, I shot them a desperate glance, willing them to understand how much we needed to fight.
Faces strained, eyes wide, they nodded.
Gripping my guitar until the bones dug into my flesh, I willed Churchfield out of my head. I reached for the power and hope in our lyrics, holding onto the connection of our voices.
An audible crack, louder than thunder, shook the ballroom.
A star blazed into life behind me. I spun around, watching in awe as Oscar glowed so big and bright at his drums, that for a moment I thought he was going to become a supernova right there on the stage.
Body nearly lifting out of the seat, arms splayed, he stopped playing his drums.
I felt Churchfield’s hold shatter.
Finally, able to move, I staggered toward them and grabbed Oscar’s hand. Nabila grabbed his other hand. Together we held on, keeping him from shooting into the ceiling as we sang the final chords acapella. We hadn’t planned it, yet the raw honesty of our voices without instruments lent those final lines a fragile grace.
With the final note, the bright light coming from Oscar winked out and he collapsed.
Chest heaving, I struggled to stay standing. Rushing filled my ears, and I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. But I heard Nabila hiss, “Freshy,” and point with a shaking finger to the middle of the floor.
My head jerked up, gaze fixing on the ballroom.
The massive shadow was pulling inward, taking the form of a bipedal figure.
That figure made of darkness was something out of a nightmare, made worse because its face was never solid. Wispy black smoke almost formed an eye or a nose, then swirled into nothing beneath a tattered hood.
I couldn’t see into the depths of the hood—it was all darkness and shadow—but I knew it watched me. I could feel it inside my bones.
It looked like how I imagined Death—all it needed was a scythe.
Skeletal fingers emerged from misty sleeves and disappeared into the smoky hood. It was almost as if he were licking them to savor the last of a good meal. “Now that is a tribute.”
Applause erupted from the audience.
And I knew: This was the Principal, and we’d just pleased him.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Frozen in horror, I stared at that shifting, deathly shadow.
For a moment, I imagined having to bow and act as if I’d meant to please the monster that owned my father’s soul. For a moment, I thought it couldn’t get any more awful than having to smile and leave.
Big mistake.
The shadow that was the Principal began to shrink, to stuff all of its terrible darkness into a compact and familiar form. A short man with graying hair, a round face, and thick-rimmed glasses formed.
Dr. Bartlett.
The kindly hospital doctor who’d counseled me while my mother went through treatment, who’d given me those little pink pills that were still stuffed down in my backpack.
The sight struck like a blow. I’d have fallen if I hadn’t been holding onto Oscar.
“Ashley Alcantara,” he said. “What a treasure you are. How we’ve missed you.”
What the hell would have happened to me if I’d taken those pills? My voice refused to work, my body equally rebellious. I couldn’t make myself play, or move or tell him to “get the fuck out.”
All I could do was stand frozen, but to my credit, the rest of the room was frozen, too.
Bartlett, or what used to be Bartlett, waved a hand in a casual gesture. “The festivities may continue. Claude, I assume you’ve prepared other entertainment?”
“Of course, mon Principe,” Bournival murmured with a slight bow.
He signaled to the right of the stage.
Catching the hint of movement out of the corner of my eye, I saw another band had come to take our places—and gagged. They were shambling bags of rotten meat, strapped with guitars and microphones. Their clothes were dirty, their flesh decaying and they smelled like… well, death.
Oh great, we’d opened for a bunch of zombies.
“Ash,” Oscar gasped, his voice so thready it was barely audible.
Focusing on him, I saw how pale he was—how his skin seemed thin enough to count each of the veins in his face. Holy shit. He looked… drained. Had that glow been his power? Had we… fed from him?
“Move it, Freshy,” Nabila hissed.
“Right.” Giving myself a shake, I took his left side while Nabila supported his right.
Together we pulled Oscar off the stage and, in our wake, the zombies started playing a shitty remix of an already shitty pop song. Pop and zombies, guess it made sense. I glanced at the ballroom and saw that everyone on the dance floor seemed to take the Principal’s display in stride. People were dancing and drinking punch as if a Duke of Hell hadn’t just crawled up out of the pit.
Which was good, because I wanted nothing more than to flee.
“We need to get Oscar home,” Nabila said. “I think I have something I can give him, but… shit, his mom.”
“We can go to my apartment,” I said. “Let’s go out the back—”
My exit was blocked by familiar form. “Dance with me, kiddo.”
Jim.
Dad.
Or was it? Was it something else wearing his skin? I didn’t want him to touch me. My first instinct was to jerk away, but the very human pleading in his eyes got me.
“It’s me,” he whispered. “It’s expected.”
Expected. Did that mean…
I turned to Nabila, hoping she’d tell me Jim was full of shit and we should just leave.
Instead, she shook her head. “Do what you have to—just do it fast. We don’t need any more trouble. We’ll be waiting outside.” She pulled a few pins out of her hair and shoved them, rather unceremoniously into Oscar’s legs and even though his head was lolling bonelessly on his shoulders, his muscles obeyed Nabila’s will.
And my father led me onto the dance floor.
“You look beautiful, Ash.”
A war raged within me.
I was here, dancing, instead of taking my friends home. Because if I did anything else, Oscar and Nabila would suffer. How could Jim just pretend like this was all okay? That this was supposed to be some sweet father/daughter moment while he’d let some Upper demon wear him home—
Be fair. He hadn’t had a choice.
But he’d had a choice when he’d sold his stupid soul. Even though I understood the why of it, I didn’t know if I’d ever get rid of the anger in my heart over that choice. He hadn’t understood what it meant any more than he truly understood what had just happened on that stage.
How we’d both beaten the demons and been defeated within our own song.
“Not so bad, huh, kiddo?” He smiled at me.
Unable to choke out a reply, I simply kept dancing.
I had my right hand in his, my left laid on his forearm, and we were spinning around a fairytale ballroom. It should have been a dream—not a nightmare. When I met his eyes, I realized I was the parent with him, now, too. Just like with Mom’s final days. I had to be the adult, make the hard decisions.
And dammit, that wasn’t fair.
But that’s the cards I’d been dealt.
If I had any hope of surviving, I had to play them. So I danced with him, pretending he hadn’t broken my heart all over again and counting down the seconds unti
l the zombies finished their song and I could leave.
“May I cut in?” Nash tapped my father on the shoulder and I breathed a small sigh of relief.
In a ritual as old as time, my father handed me to Nash.
I’d been happy to see Nash, but something about the whole moment felt wrong. Like my father gave me to him—a transfer of property in front of the whole demonic world. It left me wanting to run screaming from the room, but I pasted a smile on my face and let Nash take me in his arms.
Eyes roamed over us, the gazes almost a physical touch. I hated it.
I also really needed to get off this dance floor and back to my friends.
He leaned down and whispered in my ear, “You’ll get used to it. Let them look. Let them all wish they were me.” He pressed his lips to the corner of my jaw. “Let them all wish they were you. Let them all want.”
I didn’t know what it was about Nash, but my brain liquefied when he touched me.
“In case it escaped your notice, you’re definitely a pretty princess tonight.” He smirked down at me.
My mouth went dry and I mumbled something inane about the winter holiday.
“Yes, I’ll definitely be seeing you. Especially on the solstice. You’ll have a gift for me.” It wasn’t a question.
I blinked at him. “I will?”
“Oh yes. We’ll take a weekend trip to the Redwoods. My family has a cabin there.” His eyes blazed amber. He drew me closer, until I was pressed against the hard line of his body. “You can wear a pretty red cloak and when the moon is full and high, I’ll have a gift for you, too.”
“I… uh…” Lust swallowed my brain. “What kind of—”
Someone’s shoulder collided with mine. The momentary discomfort jerked me out of my lust-laden fugue.
As did Nash’s deep growl. “Watch where the fuck you’re going, dickhead.”
“Sorry about that.” A familiar face grinned at me—Lucas. He was dressed like a maintenance person and didn’t look the least bit sorry.
Nash’s eyes blazed amber. “Forget where you are, meat sack?”
“Did you?” Lucas countered, but he didn’t stay for the fallout. He ambled toward the exit.
Churchfield’s head slowly began spinning in his direction.
Rock and Ruin Page 33
