But here he is, wanting to join our ragged little band of adventurers.
Or pretending to.
But I can’t really see what point pretending would serve. If he wanted to kill us, he could easily have done it by now. I suppose he could be working undercover for Mr. Gabriel, but I just don’t believe he’s that good of an actor. And I can’t see what the point of that would be, either. We’re already doing what Mr. Gabriel wants us to do. Unless he’s been sent to make sure we stay on task? But that brings us back to the acting thing. Little Brother doesn’t seem like the pretending type. He seems very consistently and sincerely his horrible, disgusting self.
We absolutely cannot trust him; I know that. But on the other hand, if he really would help us fight Mr. Gabriel, that would be a huge advantage. Especially since I have not made any progress toward coming up with a brilliant plan for how we can defeat Mr. Gabriel. Again. For good this time.
Everyone is still waiting for me to say something.
Also, the razor balls are getting closer.
Annie leans close to me. “If it helps you decide, I have a feeling he would try to follow even if you said no. He seems pretty determined.”
I suspect she’s right about that.
I look up at Little Brother. “We have an errand to run, and then we’re going to go back and deal with Mr. Gabriel. Do you want to come with us now?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” I take a breath. “Okay. Great.” As before, it’s really pretty far from great — I mean, all of this is — but I don’t have time to find the kinds of words that would be appropriate. Ryan, especially, does not have time. Whenever I catch a glimpse of his hand, the red line tracing its way up his inner arm seems to be just a little bit longer. “Let’s keep moving, then.”
We set out across the grass again, walking swiftly to stay ahead of the razor balls: me, my lovely boyfriend, my lovely best friend, and my lovely, um, Peter. And the unlovely giant spider-monster who falls silently into step behind us, thinking whatever passes for thoughts in that unfathomable bull-bug head.
Peter plucks another blade of grass, which begins to grow and change in his grip and starts whipping around, trying to reach him with its blind and hungry little mouth. He amuses himself with it for a while, then drops it with a quick shake of his hand once it finally manages to pierce his skin.
Annie shudders, and Ryan rolls his eyes.
I still can’t really believe any of this is actually happening.
The wall that marks the inner boundary, once we reach it, appears to be made of a similar kind of black smoke to what we’d encountered at the gate. Similar but not the same; I can see the threads of red that I assume make up the demon-energy wards that will keep the others out. The smoke swirls restlessly within the confines of its wall-shape, but it remains impenetrable to the eye. Like the field of grass and the outer wall, it seems to stretch endlessly in both directions.
“So how do we get in?” Annie asks. “Is there a door?”
“Another excellent question,” Peter says. “I do not believe there is a door. Generally, no one ever goes in. Or comes out.”
But if Mr. Gabriel is correct, I should be able to walk right through the wall. I guess I should check first to see if that’s the case. And then . . . and then what? Leave everyone else here to wait for me while I go off alone to find this amulet-making criminal? The thought makes me feel very cold and small. As much as I hate my friends being in danger, facing this place without them would be even more terrifying. More than terrifying. Impossible.
Ryan nudges me with his hip. “Whatcha thinking, girlfriend?”
I lean my head on his shoulder. “I’m thinking that Mr. Gabriel is a giant asshole.”
“Yeah. We already know that, though. Time for some new, brilliant-plan type of ideas.”
“Yeah.” I take a breath, which fails to be at all calming. “Okay. Here goes. I think I should make sure I can actually get through the wall. If I can . . . maybe I can try bringing you guys in with me. If it’s my resistance that lets me get through, then if I share it with you . . .”
“That makes sense!” Annie says excitedly. “Of course — then we can all go. That’s perfect.”
I’m not sure how she manages to sound so enthusiastic about being able to enter a demon prison. I try to resist letting her inexplicable good cheer raise my spirits, because she’s not supposed to be here and I shouldn’t be liking anything about having her in this horrible place. But I don’t entirely succeed.
“Okay,” I say again. “Okay. I’m going to step through. And come right back. If I don’t come right back, um, that means something went wrong. And if that happens —”
“Don’t let that happen,” Ryan says.
I give him an exasperated look.
“Just go,” he says. “I don’t want to make a contingency plan. Go and come right back. Come right back.”
Annie steps up beside him. She takes his arm. “We’ll be right here, Cyn.”
Okay, I say to myself, because I’ve said it out loud way too many times already. Okay. I walk up to the wall and step through the thick, black smoke.
There’s a tingle against my skin as I pass through. Then I step out into a vast, shadowy corridor. Dark stone walls stretch up into infinity on either side of me, and the stone floor ahead disappears quickly into blackness. I realize suddenly that nothing has been shifty in that demon-world way since we went through the first gate to the outer boundary area of the prison. The walls were just walls; the grass was just grass. Carnivorous grass, yes, okay; but still, it didn’t flicker between grass and various other things. It stayed grass.
Nothing is shifty in here, either. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that it’s a prison. Someday, if we survive, I’ll ask Peter about it. Or Aaron or Ms. Královna or whoever else might know.
But that’s for later. I promised to come right back.
Before I can move, though, I become aware of a slight tugging kind of feeling in my gut. In the thing that Mr. Gabriel put there — the compass. It wants me to step deeper into the prison. Yeah, I know, I tell it silently. Just hold your horses. But I guess it’s good to know it’s working.
I turn around, relieved to find the smoke-wall still where I left it, because it suddenly and way too late just occurred to me that it might not be. Then I step back through.
Everyone else is right where I left them, too.
Ryan and Peter both look visibly relieved, and Annie lets go of Ryan’s arm so she can hug me. Mr. Gabriel’s little brother doesn’t show any reaction that I can recognize.
“It worked!” Annie says once she releases me.
“Yes,” I agree. “So now let’s try to all go through together.”
Peter glances at the wall and then back at me. “What’s it like in there?”
“Dark. Lots of stone and shadows. I didn’t stay long enough to see more than that. Let’s go in and you can see for yourself.”
We get ourselves into a row. Well, the humans and Peter do, anyway. Little Brother hovers uncertainly behind us.
“Come on, LB!” Peter says, patting his thigh like he’s calling a puppy. At the other demon’s blank look, he explains, “That’s what we’re going to call you, I’ve just decided. Because these guys won’t be able to pronounce your real name, whatever it is, and we have to call you something, and ‘Little Brother’ is kind of wearying, not to mention slightly insulting to you, I imagine. So . . . LB. Okay?” He turns back around without waiting for an answer.
“Why do you get to name everyone?” Ryan asks irritably.
“If you wanted to name him, you should have spoken up sooner.”
“Please shut up, you two,” I say. “Everyone needs to hold hands now.” Then I pause, having thought of one potential problem. “Um, someone has to hold the — uh, LB’s, uh, leg. It can’t be Peter, because of demon poison stuff.”
“And because I hate him,” Peter adds, not quite under his breath.
> We learned the hard way over the summer that the spider-demon exudes a kind of poison to which Peter is highly susceptible. It doesn’t affect non-demons, though, so the rest of us should be okay.
Ryan and Annie both suddenly find interesting things to look at on the ground or up in the not-quite-a-sky.
Figures. “Oh, fine. I’ve touched him before. I guess I can do it again.” I turn to face the demon in question. “Um, I’m going to hold on to your leg. So that I can share my special power with you that will let us all go through the wall. Okay?”
He looks at me, then steps forward and holds out a furry appendage in response.
I swallow hard and force myself to grasp it with my hand. It’s just as horrible and bristly and disgusting as I remember. Ryan grabs my other hand, and Annie takes his other hand, and then Peter takes hers.
Trying to ignore the feel of spider between my fingers, I close my eyes and concentrate on the now-familiar process of sharing out my roachy protection. Once I’m sure I’ve got everyone, I open my eyes. “All right. Let’s go. On three. One . . . two . . . three.”
We step forward into the smoke.
And then we all start screaming.
The pain is immediate, as soon as the smoke touches us. We all scramble backward, dropping hands (and leg) and trying to get away from what feels like liquid fire. The active pain vanishes as soon as we move away from the wall, but the memory of it seems to linger on my skin, prickly and hot.
“What happened?” Annie pants, rubbing at her arms frantically. “Did it hurt like that when you went through before?”
“No!”
Peter is staring thoughtfully at the smoke. “It must be something about the wards. You were able to go through without a problem, because of your resistance. When you tried to share it, though . . .”
“I must be spreading it too thin,” I say. “I can’t take everyone together.”
“Can you take us in smaller batches?” Annie asks. “Maybe . . . maybe one at a time?”
I shake my head. “I’m not leaving anyone over there alone. Maybe . . . maybe we all could try again?”
Everyone else emphatically rejects this idea.
We then spend way too much time discussing who to bring over in what combinations. LB is the only one who doesn’t participate in the conversation; he seems content to wait quietly for us to decide what to do next. Mr. Gabriel must have gotten all of the talking genes in the family. As well as the looks and brains.
“Take me over first,” Peter says finally. “I’ll be okay there on my own for a few minutes.”
Ryan endorses this immediately, but I am not so sure.
“How do you know?”
Peter gives me a tiny smile. “I don’t. But at least I won’t smell like prey. Probably if there’s anything wandering around nearby, it will leave me alone.”
I stare at him. “We smell like prey?”
“Uh, yeah. Don’t worry about it. Not something you can help. And it’s not unpleasant, really. Kind of . . . well, kind of delicious. It’s different for each of you, of course — different, uh, flavors. For example, uh, you, Cyn . . .”
We’re all staring at him now. “Please stop talking,” I tell him.
We decide I’ll take Peter, then Annie, then Ryan, then LB. I don’t love the plan of leaving my boyfriend alone with my archenemy’s demonic spider brother, but it will only be a minute, and if LB really does want to get his revenge on Mr. Gabriel, then hopefully he’ll remember that he needs to keep playing nice in the meantime.
God, I hope so.
It still all feels like a terrible idea, but I just keep reminding myself that Ryan will definitely die if we don’t get into the prison somehow.
“All right,” I say, stepping back up to the wall. “Come on, Peter. Let’s get this over with.”
“Come right back, Cyn,” Ryan says, not looking at Peter.
I meet his gaze. “I will,” I say. “I promise.”
Then I take Peter’s hand, wrap him in my protection as fully as I can, and we step through.
I’m braced for the fiery pain, but it doesn’t come. It stings a little, but that’s all. It’s so faint it could almost be my imagination.
We step out of the smoke into the dark prison interior.
“Cheery,” Peter says.
I try to release his hand, but he doesn’t let go. Instead he rubs his thumb lightly against my palm and raises an eyebrow. “Wanna make out real quick before you go back?”
“No,” I say firmly, ignoring the traitorous electron of yes that still lurks elusively somewhere deep inside me. “Stay here. I’ll be right back with Annie.”
I jerk my hand away and leap back through the wall before he can say anything else.
The others are still where they should be. I realize I was once again half expecting that not to be the case. I keep waiting for this horrible place to deliver the next kick in the gut. I know it will; it’s just a question of when.
“Ready, A?”
She steps forward bravely. Like this is nothing. Like she’s not in the freaking demon world about to walk through a wall of smoke to go into a place where the very worst demons of all are sent to keep the other ones safe. Like her whole life and future and immortal soul aren’t still absolutely and terribly at risk.
I wrap my arm around her waist and guide her back into the wall. I can feel her sharp intake of breath at the sting, but she doesn’t cry out. And then we’re through, the now-familiar dark stone walls greeting us with their dark and stony sameness.
But not everything is the same.
Something is wrong.
We both whirl around, eyes wide and searching.
Peter isn’t there.
Oh, crap.
I know instantly that he’s not just playing with us. Peter loves to push my buttons, but this isn’t his kind of joke. Something is really, really wrong.
“Peter!” I yell, before I can think better of it. My voice echoes off into the blackness, and I’m suddenly very sorry to have announced our presence to whatever things might be hiding just beyond the edge of the light, sniffing around for things that smell like prey.
“Where is he?” Annie whispers beside me.
I shake my head. I have no idea where Peter could have gone. Or what could have happened to prevent him from waiting where he was supposed to.
“Let’s go back,” I say. “Come on.”
Annie doesn’t argue. We step back into the smoke and I try not to let myself think that the others won’t still be there when we emerge.
But they are; they’re right there, Ryan looking surprised and alarmed when he sees Annie coming back with me, and LB continuing to have unreadable demon expressions that I can’t begin to decipher.
“What’s wrong?” Ryan asks at once.
“Peter’s gone,” Annie says. “We don’t know what happened.”
“We have to get back over there,” I say. “All of us this time. Come on.”
But it’s no good; it hurts almost as much as when I tried to take all five of us through. There is a split second when I almost think I could push through it, but I can’t do that to Ryan and Annie. Not when they sound like they’re burning to death beside me.
The awareness of time going by with Peter all alone in there is suffocating my brain, making it hard to think straight. He’s been kind of a jerk since we got down here, true, but he’s still Peter and I can’t bear the thought of him dying in this place that he hates and only came back to because he cares about me.
“Try just us,” Annie says. “Me and Ryan. I think . . . I think LB is so big that he’s stretching your power too far.” She turns to look at him. “No offense.”
“But . . . but what if you guys disappear like Peter did? No. No, no, no. I should bring LB through first; he can take care of himself if we get split up. Right, LB?”
His black eyes stare expressionlessly back at me. “Yes.”
I kind of wish he’d jump in with some helpf
ul demon advice right about now, but he doesn’t say anything else.
I turn back to Annie and Ryan. They aren’t looking at me, though. They are looking up and past me. Their expressions are mirror images of startled dismay.
“Oh, come on.” The words come out almost as a whimper. My stomach sinks down to about my knees as I slowly turn around.
The carnivorous grass seems to have caught up with us. Except it’s . . . grown . . . since we last saw it. What’s coming toward us from across the field seems to be an enormous twisty mass of intertwined ropes of green. Thrashing appendages as thick as redwood trunks throw themselves forward, methodically and relentlessly dragging the rest of the demonic vegetation along behind.
I dart forward and grab Ryan’s and Annie’s hands.
“LB,” I say, “I’m going to bring these guys through the wall. Can you hold that thing off until I can come back for you?”
He looks at me for a long second. I resist the urge to repeat the question; I suspect quick thinking is far from his strongest attribute. I wonder if he is trying to decide whether I’ll really come back for him or not.
“Yes,” he says finally. Then he turns around to face the monster grass.
I run at the wall, Ryan and Annie in tow, before he can change his mind.
Curse of the Evil Librarian Page 11
