I sagged back into the chair, breathing somewhat easier knowing Zane wasn’t in pain if he was passed out.
Blade prepared a bucket of water to make a permanent cast for him, but he kept glancing at me. The features on his face pinched, as if he was having an internal battle with himself. An uncomfortable silence permeated the room.
I squirmed in my chair until I couldn’t take it anymore. “Just spit it out already, Blade. You’re mad that I didn’t take that guy’s soul at the crossroads, right? Well, I’m sorry I’m a failure and that I stole the key to the Gates of Hell even though I really, really didn’t.”
After a long silence while he continued working wet plaster over Zane’s leg, he sighed. “Princess, you’re the most talented Hellborn I’ve ever seen.”
What the what? Blade had never given me a compliment, and he hadn’t even eased into giving me that one. He’d gone all in.
“Well… Thanks?” I waited a beat to see if he’d take it back or make some kind of joke out of it, but he didn’t. Could emo-Blade have some kind of heart ticking behind that glistening chest of his? “You’re not telling me something, though.”
“There are a lot more demons who escaped, princess. Me and some of the other guards have rounded a few up, but...”
“Did you ask Metatron to help you?”
The fire in Blade’s eyes blazed. “I didn’t even have to ask. There’s like an angel reunion in this town right now, and they’re all perky happy about helping us find the key.”
I leaned in over the bed and hissed, “Then you better let them be all perky happy about helping you.”
“Yeah, I know, but I don’t have to like it. But without a key to lock the gate behind the captured demons, it’s like we’re trying to stop a revolving door going a hundred twenty miles an hour.”
“Then why doesn’t Mom tell the demons to come back? Have you forgotten she’s the Devil? They’ll do what she says. Problem solved.”
Blade stilled and gazed down at his plaster-covered hands. “See, that’s the thing, princess.”
“What’s the thing?”
He blinked hard at me. “Someone’s after your mom.”
I shivered to the edge of the chair, all of my nerves on high alert. “What?”
“One night, before you were banished, someone snuck past the guards to her chambers. I wasn’t on duty, but…” His mouth settled into a firm line, his red gaze steady but troubled. “They tried to take her out, Kiera.”
Tried to take her out. As in tried to kill her? I wanted to voice the question, but only a series of clicks and swallows sounded from my throat. My eyes filled with tears. Someone wanted Mom dead, the same woman who tucked me in every night despite how busy she was reigning Hell, who made sure her last words to me every day were that she loved me. It didn’t matter that she was the Devil. Like most everything, she could be hurt. And killed.
“I’m pretty sure that’s why you were banished,” Blade continued. “For your protection. She didn’t want to raise an alarm about the assassination attempt because she didn’t want you to hear about it. She made it look like she was banishing you because you didn’t take a soul, to make it look real, like a valid reason. But…”
That was what her letter meant. For my protection, hidden behind humans’ false memories of me and buried in cats and rhinestones that had to have been magicked to conceal my real identity. Except now with my red dress on, I was a walking demon magnet for those who thought I had the key.
“The night after you left and the key went missing, it happened again,” Blade said. “Another attempt on your mom’s life. It was close, Kiera. Real close. Your mom went somewhere even I don’t know about, away from Hell, away from her throne. Someone wants your mom gone, probably the same someone who told the demons that you stole the key.”
I shook my head, unable to comprehend all of this at once. “Why?”
“To empty the throne.” Blade’s red gaze searched my face, his expression a strange mix of worry and concern, neither of which I’d ever seen on him. “So someone else can fill it.”
15
I sat there in the hospital chair, numb, while worry crushed itself into my bones with heavy truths. Mom had been the one to banish me, but she’d seemed so upset while doing it when normally she was a straight arrow. I’d thought she was disappointed with me—and she likely was—but if it had bothered her so much, why do it at all? Because it wasn’t about my inability to take a soul. Not at all.
And Mauve… She’d made it sound as if it was life or death if I didn’t take a soul—which it was, in more ways than one. I had just never considered that it might be my mom’s life. Mauve wanted me to do what must be done to take the throne in case Mom could no longer hold it. And now she didn’t. No one did. But without my magic, I couldn’t take a soul. Even if I did, I didn’t have the key to the Gates of Hell to trap the demons once again. And if I did, what kind of Devil would I be since I had no interest whatsoever in the throne?
I rose on stiff legs and turned toward Agatha behind me for a distraction. And to check on her, I supposed. She was staring ahead and rocking like a girl caught in a waking nightmare. Suddenly, we had more in common than ever.
“You hanging in there, Agatha?”
She stopped rocking and turned to me in slow motion. Her mouth opened, and she jerked her fist through what was left of her hair. Her bottom lip quivered. Then like a pipe bursting with little warning, she began to sob.
I knelt and wrapped an arm around her. Nothing like witnessing demonic possession to squash petty rivalries.
Her breath hitched. “Was that real?”
A lie perched on my tongue. So far, the truth hadn’t gotten me very far. But what choice did I have? Other than asking Blade to alter her memories—which didn’t go clean about 66 percent of the time—all I had was the truth, no matter how much it hurt to voice it.
“Yeah. That was real.”
She turned a pukey shade of green. I eyed the trash bin in the opposite corner just in case I needed it. Or she needed it. Whatever.
She took a few breaths and pressed her hands against her cheeks. “Do you know what that smoke was? And how—how Miss Molly’s voice sounded not…normal?”
My skin went cold. I glanced down at my hands, and for the first time ever, I was ashamed of where I came from, the same place that housed demons who would take over the life of an innocent for no reason. Not everyone was like that, obviously, but why the demons couldn’t be obsessed with fuzzy pitchfork slippers like I was instead of hurting people was beyond me.
When I looked back at Agatha, she was staring at me with a blank expression. All the toughness had been sucked out of her, leaving her as limp as a deflated balloon. She was actually pretty with the soft lines of her face highlighted by the fading natural light, and her big blue eyes held a warmth I’d never seen before.
“Y—You saved us,” she said in a low voice. “Where did you learn to fight like that?”
“I’ve…um…had a lot of training.”
“Wow.” She leaned her head against the wall to study me. “Why did Miss Molly keep calling you princess?”
“The sack is all fixed up,” Blade announced from the other side of the hospital bed.
I pushed to my feet and turned to Zane, grateful for the interruption since I didn’t have the energy to explain what I really was. “His name is Zane.”
Blade wiped his hands on a towel. “Yeah, well, you’re welcome.”
“Thank you,” I said with a sigh. “We have to find Not Miss Molly.”
“No, I have to find the demon. That’s my job. Your job is to keep your head down and don’t go wandering around. Now that the demons think you stole the key, they’ll come knocking to get it back. And I doubt they’ll be gentle, princess.”
Agatha gasped. “Demon?”
My stomach rolled. “You think they’ll kill me?”
“You have a right to the throne, and right now, it’s empty. So, yeah, I’d b
et whoever chased off your mom from Hell will come for you next. But that’s only part of your problem,” Blade said as he strapped his belt back on. “You need your powers back to help protect yourself.”
He was right. My lack of magic was part of my problem. That, finding the key to the Gates of Hell, and staying hidden from demons. I wished I could trade my problems for anything else but those.
* * *
It was already dark by the time we made it back to Miss Molly’s church van in the hospital parking lot. Blade had loaned me his vest to cover the figurative red target of my dress, and his bare chest shimmered in the moonlight. I’d snapped some duct tape off my combat boots, scribbled some circles and triangles on it, and stuck it to my front in the hopes that my terrible drawing looked like a cat and would shield me.
I didn’t know for sure if cats were the reason I hadn’t been attacked before now, but it sort of made sense. The glittery pink demon in the common room back at Miss Molly’s hadn’t seemed to know who I was as she’d sniffed around the room. But she had kissed me, which either meant she had a thing for girls with cat shirts or had sensed something when it felt like she’d probed my mind. Whatever the reason, no more Hell dresses for me.
In the back of the van, Zane lay passed out. Blade had stolen some crutches and a wheelchair and raided the pharmacy before we left, all with the help of his demon persuasion skills and a tiny, hopefully harmless bit of memory altering.
Agatha sat beside me, slumped down in the passenger seat, pulling out strands of her hair. I tried not to stare, but couldn’t help wincing as each strand was plucked from her angry, red scalp. I wanted to take her hands and squeeze them, tell her she didn’t have to do that anymore, but I knew her compulsion couldn’t be cured with words.
Blade leaned in through my open window and rapped on the side of the van. “I’m not going to start on the irony of you driving a church van.”
I sighed. “Good.”
“It’s glamorous.” He glanced at the dust-covered dash. “You do know how to drive, don’t you?”
“Nah, I thought I would just sit here behind the wheel and honk at all the demons coming to get me.”
Mom had taught me to drive during one of our visits to the Nest. She had been so patient, and after a rough spot in which a brain fart made me forget the difference between right and left, she’d said I was a natural. She’d even taught me to change a tire and then rewarded the whole experience with ice cream sundaes. It was one of the happiest days I’d ever had.
Blade shook his head and gazed off, his mouth twisted as if fighting a smile. “If you get pulled over… Don’t get pulled over.”
“Sound advice.”
He handed me his flask of holy water with the naked woman on it. “Since you don’t have your magic.”
I placed it carefully inside the center console, more to hide my shock than anything. Since when did he ever give me random belongings? Between the flask and his vest, his kindness made me speechless. He must really feel bad about Mom’s and my situation, which magnified my worry by a lot, so much so that it dragged my breath out in a shaky sob.
When I thought I could speak again, I turned back to him. “Thank you for everything.”
An intensity washed over him, a look I’d never seen on him before, as if he knew exactly how upset I was. “Straight to school, princess.”
“Yes, Dad.”
“I mean it.”
I gave a curt nod and started the van. It coughed like an old man who had smoked for forty years. “On my way.”
He nodded, rapped twice against the side of the van, and backed away. As I steered out of the parking lot, I stared in the rearview mirror at Blade’s shrinking silhouette. Leaving him behind was almost like leaving home behind all over again, and being stranded in a world I wasn’t quite a part of. Though I supposed I’d never really been part of Hell either. Not really. Maybe my grandparents were right—maybe I should go stay with them since they seemed to sense I wasn’t cut out for the Hell throne.
Yet I couldn’t leave Agatha and Zane alone. Not now. Today’s events had made me all the more aware of their presence and about how my world—whatever that might be—had just completely changed both of theirs. Oops.
Maybe one day they’d forgive me for that.
* * *
When we pulled in front of Miss Molly’s School for Troubled Teens, Agatha helped me transfer Zane to his wheelchair, and we crept through the silent, dark night. After using one of the stolen keys in the front door and sneaking past a sleeping guard, we found the boys’ dorm and deposited Zane in the only empty bed in the room, the sound of loud snores drowning out our labored grunts.
Agatha peered down at him, and the worried pinch on her face matched what I was thinking—that it was wrong to just leave him there. What if he woke up, afraid and wondering what happened, especially since he’d been violated and broken by a demon in the same day? Still, I didn’t know what else to do. It wasn’t as if I could take him to my bed.
We crept back to the girls’ dorm, and that was when I realized what a frightening sight we must have been. Agatha was still dressed in a hospital gown, and I was caked in demon goo. Not exactly invisibility attire if someone happened to be awake.
She looked down at both of us then nodded toward the dorm door. “What if they’re up?”
“Exactly what I was thinking,” I whispered but cracked open the door anyway. It squeaked like a tattletale mouse. I paused, took in a deep breath, and opened it farther into darkness. Everyone seemed to be asleep. No, scratch that. Something shifted at the other end of the room.
“Crap.” I gently closed the door again. “I think someone’s up.”
“Who?”
“Maybe Elia.”
Agatha’s nose wrinkled in clear disdain.
“You don’t like her?” I asked, watching her closely.
“She’s a bully.”
Straight from the lips of the girl who punched me in the face and peed in my bed.
“She gives me the creeps.” She wiped her arms as if suddenly cold. “I don’t want her to see me like this.”
Her shoulders slumped, making her look like some kind of portrait hanging in an oddities museum. Something about it was wrong, and yet, she was still beautiful, even without patches of hair.
I pulled off my backpack, struck by inspiration. “I have an idea. Come on.”
We tiptoed down the hall and around the corner to Miss Molly’s office. After I picked the lock again, the door swung open. I gave the room a cursory glance as I stood. It was empty. I ushered Agatha inside and flicked the lights on.
“What are we doing in here?” she hissed.
“When I was in here last time, I thought I saw a closet.” My gaze swept to one of the doors on the right side of the room. “Yes! There it is.”
Inside the closet, the rack was so stuffed with clothing that the middle of it bulged out. I picked through and found an orange Tennessee Volunteers T-shirt and a pair of gray shorts that were smaller than Miss Molly’s size. I figured she’d seized them from one of her charges.
Agatha chose an oversize gray sweat suit. I peered up onto the top shelf and spotted something furry poking out of a box. Frowning, I reached up, knocking a few items off the shelf that rolled out into the office and hit Miss Molly’s desk with a low bang. I lowered the box, and with a surprised hiss between my teeth, pulled out Agatha’s shaggy brown wig.
She snatched it away from me and hid it behind her back.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted. “I thought you’d want it.”
“I don’t like talking about it.”
“We don’t have to,” I said quickly.
She brought the wig out from around her back and toyed with it. “People always ask why I don’t just stop.” She laughed, a low sound that came from the bottom of her throat. “Like I wouldn’t if it were that easy.”
I remained silent and watched her. I had the feeling she just wanted to unload. If it mea
nt I didn’t have to think about my own problems, I would be anyone’s bucket.
She squeezed her eyes shut and turned her face away while tears leaked out. “I don’t know why the hell I told you that.” She sniffled. “I don’t even think I like you.”
I smiled and went to pat her shoulder, but held back. “I’m not sure I always like me either.”
“You know…” She glanced around, as if looking for someone in the empty room. “Miss Molly has a private bathroom.”
“Does she now?”
“She always let me use it when I first got here…because of my…” She pressed her lips tight. “Anyway, it’s through here.” She moved past the closet and pushed open another door that led into a small, adorable bathroom.
A sea green color painted the walls, and shells—real and plastic—lined the sink and the top of the toilet. A rainbow unicorn shower curtain covered a small walk-in shower, and dragon talons held the toilet paper.
I whistled. “I never pegged Miss Molly as a fantasy nut.”
Agatha nodded. “She said she always wanted to be a mermaid when she was little. Or maybe when she grew up. I can’t remember.”
We both laughed in a stiff, awkward way. She was probably still uncomfortable with me. If I was being honest, I was still a little uncomfortable with her, too, despite the crazy day we shared at the hospital.
“You go first,” I said, stepping back out into the office.
She did and made quick work of cleaning herself up. When she came back out, she wore a tent of a sweatshirt, and her wig sat firmly in place back on her head. The mousy brown color made her look twenty years older and did nothing to bring out those amazing eyes of hers. Maybe she’d let me take her wig shopping someday.
She frowned under my stare and patted her wig. I almost said something to her about a possible shopping date but didn’t know how to word it so it wouldn’t offend her. So I decided to just go take a shower. Words—there were so many of them, yet none of them were labeled How Not To Be a Douchecanoe After a Full Day of Demon Possession Adventures.
I peeled off Blade’s vest and the sticky red dress, then set the water on hot. Then I scrubbed myself down like I was trying to get rid of the top five layers of my skin. Once dressed, I stepped out into the office.
Daring the Devil (Reigning Hell Book 1) Page 11
