Daring the Devil (Reigning Hell Book 1)

by Larry, Natasha

  Bigfoot. Inside the school. Skipping ahead on four tiptoes with sleek orange fur…and a rhinestone necklace. If Bigfoot was small. And a cat. So, not Bigfoot at all.

  I propped my hands on my knees and breathed, eyeing the furball’s path down the hallway toward the gym. How did it get in here? It used its paw to bat open the heavy gym door.

  When I stumbled after it inside, my boots crinkled over little bits of paper littering the floor. I bent to pick up a piece and stared down at an eye from a photo as crystal blue as still water. Another piece revealed a downturned mouth of an older woman, frown lines fanning out away from her lips. Was this some kind of modern art showcase I wasn’t aware of, complete with vanishing cat? I didn’t see it anywhere.

  “Aggie? Kitty? Are you in here?” My voice bounced over the wooden gym floor and cinder block walls.

  A sniffle sounded to my right. My ears perked, I inched around the bleachers. More photo fragments cluttered the floor, and I followed them like breadcrumbs along a fairy tale trail. Except these photo pieces had something sprinkled on them. Something wet. And red. I stopped in my tracks. Blood.

  “Oh no.” I rushed between the thin metal beams holding up the bleachers. “No, no, no.” I skidded to a stop.

  Agatha sat with her head leaned back against the far wall on a pile of photo pieces, tears streaming down her face. And in her hand, she held a bloody knife to her wrist.

  19

  I dashed toward her and lowered myself to my knees. “No, Aggie. What did you do?” I grabbed the handle of the knife, jerked it out of her grasp, and tossed it away. Metal clattered against the slick floor as the blade spiraled out of sight.

  She turned her head toward me. The corner of her mouth turned up. She looked haunted and faraway, as if the ghost of some past pain was with her.

  “Okay, okay. It’s going to be okay.” I patted my pockets, my eyes glued to the blood pooling on the pale skin of her arm. I twisted the bottom hem of my pizza-licking cat shirt, yanked, and tore. Good enough. I wrapped the thin strip to her wrist and secured it with duct tape from my boot. “I’m going to find Mrs. Crenshaw. You’re going to be fine.”

  Agatha let out a thick, heavy sigh. “Relax.”

  “No, I can guarantee you there won’t be any relaxing. What the Hell were you thinking?” I hissed.

  She shivered. “I wasn’t.”

  I took her hand, forcing her to put pressure on the strip of shirt. “Hold that there. I’m going to find Mrs. Crenshaw.”

  She grabbed me by the arm, her grip hard. “No. I don’t…I don’t want anyone to know.”

  “You need help.”

  “Stop being dramatic.” She shook her head as she released my arm. “It’s not deep. Believe me, I’ve had a lot of practice with cutting. Won’t even leave a scar.”

  My hand trembling, I placed it on top of hers over her bandage and bowed my head with a sigh. “Never do that again.”

  “Kasey, it isn’t even the right way.” She made a strange sound in her throat, a cross between a laugh and a hiccup. “Relax.”

  The right way? As opposed to a wrong way to attempt suicide? Neither made much sense to me right then. Still holding my hand to her bandage, I collapsed among the several dozens of pieces of photos while my heartrate returned to semi-normal.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  Her bottom lip quivered. It was a strange expression to see on her face, a complete contrast to the girl who had punched me in the jaw upon our first meeting.

  “Hey.” I switched hands on her bandage to drape my arm across her shoulder. “Talk to me.” I desperately needed her to explain what all of this was about, but I didn’t want to push her either.

  She sighed and rested her head on my shoulder. “You want to hear something messed up?”

  “Sure.”

  “I think you might be the best friend I’ve had in a while. The Devil’s daughter.” She chuckled, a tired sound that lodged a knot in my throat. “Are you my friend?”

  “I hope so,” I said. And I truly meant it.

  She opened the fist of her injured arm and revealed several pieces of a ripped photo. They fell through her fingers and fluttered to the floor.

  “What’s all this?” I asked.

  She sat up and looked straight ahead, her face like stone. “These pictures were in my file. Mikey said that you…that you had a key to Miss Molly’s office. That was how Elia got in there.”

  Sharp teeth clamped down around my heart, swallowing me with regret. “Aggie, I had no idea… I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

  She shook her head. “No, I know. I’m not…” She took a breath. “I was so stupid.”

  “About what?”

  She gestured at herself with a bitter smile. “I let myself believe that he might be interested.”

  I took her hand. “Mikey is a fuckface.”

  She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, tears tracking down her cheeks. “Yes.”

  “And an asshole. You deserve so much better than that Cheetos turd.”

  She tilted her head to gaze at me with her otherworldly blue eyes. Those eyes that seemed to see so much more than what was directly in front of her. “No, he’s just… He just has to put on a show. To protect himself.”

  I nodded, squeezing her hand. She was probably right, but even I knew there were some people who didn’t deserve excuses. “What happened, Aggie?”

  “I came to meet him… Mikey. Outside the library, there was a note to meet him here, in the gym.” She trembled and then squared her shoulders as if she’d just found the courage to say her next words. “And when I got here, there were these pictures all over the gym. Of my mother.” She turned to me, a slight smile on her lips. “She was a teacher. There were tons of pictures of her with her students. Of me and her. Of her and my…dad…” Her smile faded on her last word. “I wish I looked more like her. I got my looks from…” She gritted her teeth. “From my dad. She was much prettier than I am. I did get her eyes though.”

  “They’re kind of amazing.” I gently bumped her shoulder with mine to show I was serious.

  Her muscles tightened as if she were trying with every ounce to hold herself together. “My dad left when I was a kid.” She descended into silence for a moment, then said, “My mom… She couldn’t cope. I learned later that there were things I didn’t know about. He’d write her letters saying how she would be nothing without him. Spent years getting inside her head, and he did it well. When he left, she… I guess all that she was left with were his toxic words.” She took in a shaky breath. “Those words eventually ended her life.”

  I stared at her profile, barely able to draw a breath. How horrible that must’ve been. I would be nothing, both literally and figuratively, without my mom, despite all her flaws.

  “I found her in the tub when I was eight.” She turned to me, her eyes soaked in tears. “That’s why Mikey invited me here tonight. He said…he said the best thing I could do for everyone around me was follow in my mother’s footsteps. He handed me a knife and everything.”

  A strange sense of disbelief crept into my skin, powerful enough to rattle my foundation. I heard the words as they came off her lips, but I couldn’t believe there was any truth behind them. Not that she was lying. Not at all. I believed every heartbreaking word. But this—what Mikey did—wasn’t the kind of thing that actually happened. People weren’t supposed to behave like that unless they were dead set on taking a one-way trip to Hell. I wracked my brain for something to say, only to come up short.

  “For a second…just for a split second, I thought maybe he was right. Seeing her pictures again… Well, it hurt so much.” She turned to me with a pained expression. “Does that make me pathetic?”

  “Of course not.” I stared at her, swallowing thickly. “What made you change your mind?”

  “Honestly?” She stared down at the stained T-shirt strip wrapped around her arm. “These last few days.”

  “I don’t get it.” />
  “They’ve been the most…unusual days of my life.” She barked out a laugh and blinked hard as if she couldn’t quite mold her thoughts into anything explainable. “But I made a friend, and then that friend showed up when I needed one the most.”

  I leaned into her shoulder and looped my arm around hers. “I’m here.”

  “That’s why I do it. Pull my hair out. It started when my mom killed herself.” She sighed and her whole body seemed to sag. “I don’t want to do it. I just can’t help it.”

  Tears burned in my eyes, but I blinked them back. “Are you going to be okay?”

  She nodded and leaned her head on my shoulder. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Anything.”

  She lifted her head and twisted her fingers together. “Is it true what they say…about suicides?”

  I glanced around at the scattered pictures and then forced myself to meet her gaze. “I don’t know. I haven’t heard of anyone who committed suicide who wound up in Hell, but I never asked, and…I don’t get out much.”

  She breathed a shaky exhale. “Okay, Hell princess. Or HP if you’re feeling perky.”

  I laughed. “I like that.”

  Strangely enough, I was feeling rather perky. Maybe because I’d made a friend, and I would make sure to have her back through thick and thin.

  She shoved to her feet and took my hand to pull me up, her eyebrows drawn together. “Who came in here before you? I heard the door shut twice.”

  I sighed. “A cat. A bigfoot cat.”

  “Miss Molly has a cat?”

  “Apparently.” And it had led me right to Agatha. Its agenda, whatever that could be, was likely a lot different than the pizza-licking cat on my shirt.

  20

  Zane got to stay at Miss Molly’s School for Troubled Teens. When he announced that the next morning in the hallway outside the cafeteria, I may have spun in a circle and let out a loud whoop a little bit while he looked on, a wide smile on his face.

  He’d explained to Mrs. Crenshaw that he’d taken too many pain pills for his broken leg, which he’d said had happened at the hospital when he’d gone to see Agatha. He’d said he apologized over and over and that he felt nothing but shame, and Mrs. Crenshaw took pity on him by assigning him bathroom duty for six months. With his broken leg. That made about as much sense as licking sandpaper. Still, he didn’t complain, especially when Agatha and I volunteered to help. Saint Maria wasn’t kidding when she said not to expect big miracles with her necklace, but I would sure take what I could get.

  After the last toilet was scrubbed, Zane, Agatha, and I ditched Miss Molly’s for the afternoon in favor of downtown Jonesborough, its quaint shopping scene, and to search for Not Miss Molly. How hard could it be to find her?

  Since Hell was one big free-for-all now, I was sure Blade had more important things to worry about than searching for Not Miss Molly. But still. He’d showed unwavering loyalty to Mom—and me—so I seriously doubted he’d forgotten about Not Miss Molly. Which was why I needed to help find her despite his warning.

  “I’m going to kill Mikey.” Zane glared at a row of wigs in an aisle of Belle’s Beauty Supply as if hair had done something to him personally. He slumped over his one crutch, having abandoned the other at Miss Molly’s. “Kill with a capital K.” He turned his gaze on Agatha. “What are we even doing here? Why are we not at school doing the killing and the capitalizing?”

  Agatha sighed and glanced at me. “Does he really need to be here for this?”

  “Kinda.”

  More like I wasn’t letting him out of my sight. Demons seemed to be as attracted to him as I was, but I was done sharing. I patted Maria’s flask of holy wine through my cargo pants just in case. Still there, right next to Blade’s flask of holy water. I was pretty much a walking, talking billboard for holy pockets. And holey pockets, but my treasures weren’t in those.

  I stopped in front of a flowing, blonde wig, studied the lines of Agatha’s face, and kept on down the aisle. This place was Hell-sent. My basket was already packed to almost overflowing with mascara, face masks, and homemade soap for Agatha’s sensitive hands to buy with the wad of bills I’d found at the bottom of my backpack.

  Agatha bit her lip while she fretted over wig choices. “I need to tell you something.”

  “As long as it doesn’t include the words, ‘There’s a demon behind you.’”

  “Uh, no.” She frowned. “I overheard some girls talking this morning in the bathroom. They were talking about Miss Molly, saying that if the cops don’t find her in the next forty-eight hours, they’re considering shutting the place down.”

  Zane paled. “Shit.” He wobbled on his one crutch into a row of shampoos and conditioners behind him, and they teetered dangerously. One bottle lost its fight with gravity and exploded all over the floor.

  The Korean store owner strode toward us down the aisle, his dark gaze darting to the leaking bottle of conditioner. “You’re buying that?”

  Agatha let out a nervous giggle.

  “Of course. Sorry.” I waved.

  He narrowed his eyes before straightening a display of hair accessories at the other end of the aisle.

  “Sorry, guys,” Zane mumbled. “My bad.”

  “It’s fine,” I said.

  Agatha and I scooped as much of the thick, white cream back into the bottle as we could, then tossed the bottle into my basket.

  “Miss Molly’s can’t be closed down.” Her hand flew underneath her mousy brown wig and pulled. “We’d have nowhere to go if they can’t find her.”

  Zane squeezed her shoulder. “They’re not going to shut down Miss Molly’s. Who did you even hear talking anyway? Not all the girls at Miss Molly’s are the brightest bulbs.”

  “He’s right,” I said as Agatha winced at the tug of her hand in her hair. “They probably have no idea what they’re talking about. Even so, we do need to find her. Soon.”

  Agatha glanced around the rest of the store then lowered her voice. “Where would the demon inside her go?”

  The owner walked past our aisle and gave us the evil eye as if we were going to push more bottles off the shelves. I waited until he passed and the sound of his footsteps faded.

  “I don’t know. Maybe somewhere with a lot of sin…like a bar or a strip club.” I expected Jonesborough to be crawling with escaped demons, possessed humans, or the scent of brimstone, but I hadn’t seen or smelled anything out of the ordinary today. No angels, either. They all had to be congregated somewhere, though.

  Agatha’s eyes grew so wide I marveled at how strong her sockets must be to keep them in place. “Miss Molly’s at a strip—”

  Zane tipped forward to slap a hand over her mouth, his gaze fixed on me. “That’s an image I could do without.”

  I shrugged. “Sorry.”

  “You good?” At Agatha’s nod, he released her. “I’ll be outside scrubbing that idea from my brain cells.” He limped off and the bell dinged, announcing his departure.

  My gaze locked onto a multi-colored bobbed wig on a head bust next to Agatha’s left shoulder. “Perfect.”

  “No. Nothing will ever be perfect if Miss Molly is at a strip club. What if she’s naked? Oh my god, think of the children.”

  “The children at the strip club? I doubt that’s allowed.” I sidestepped around her, took the wig, and turned to her with a huge smile. “Perfect.”

  She stared at it in horror. “No way.”

  I bounced on my heels and did a spastic little dance. “It’s so perfect!”

  “It has colors, HP. Do you see the colors?”

  “Perfect!” I sang. “Try it on?”

  She held up a hand. “You stay away.”

  “Just try it on. That’s all I ask.”

  She crossed her arms, and her shoulders sagged with a hefty sigh.

  “It won’t hurt anything to try it on, Aggie. There’s no one in here but you and me, and the store guy probably won’t come around unless we drop something.”


  She sank her eyes closed and made a gimme motion. “Fine.”

  With a grin, I waited for her to take off her old wig, then fitted the new one around her sparse hair. When it sat straight, I stepped back. It fixed around her head like a dream. It made her eyes stand out, and she instantly looked the age she should instead of someone who was forced to grow up too soon.

  I clasped my hands in front of me and nodded. “That’s the one.”

  “I feel stupid,” she said, patting it gently.

  “Oh, hush.” I took the hand mirror out of my basket and held it up to her.

  She turned her head this way and that so the ends smacked against her frown.

  We needed some compliment back-up. I put the mirror in the basket again and set it down. “Okay, wait here.” I headed for the front of the store and stuck my head out the door.

  Zane leaned against the red brick wall on the outside, plucking loose threads off his inside-out shirt. “Time to go?”

  “Come here,” I said. “We need your opinion.”

  “If this is about Miss Molly’s strip club demon, I think I’m done.” His mouth slid into a half smile as he adjusted his glasses. “There’s your opinion.”

  “Not about that.” I reached out and grabbed his arm. A shockwave of energy zipped over my skin. I pulled my hand behind me to hide the electrical tremble. “Um, Agatha needs you.”

  He pinned me with a look that doubled my heartbeat. Then his gaze dipped to my mouth, and my insides took flight. Finally, he nodded and hobbled back inside, leaving me feeling scattered.

  A cool breeze ruffled the green awning above my head and lifted the hair along my arms. Light jazz music played from a store a few doors down, lacing between the drone of light traffic and the buzz of pedestrians’ chatter. Comfortable, normal sights and sounds except the unease that gathered at the base of my neck. I could’ve sworn someone was watching me even though I was decked out in cats and rhinestones.

  Maybe it wasn’t a feeling though. I stepped toward the street and lifted my nose to the air. Underneath the smell of car exhaust and sunshine-baked concrete lurked a faint trace of brimstone. My gaze snagged on flashing blue and red lights a block down and across the street. A police cruiser was parked in front of a store.