“I swear, Cyn.”
I believe him. I know how much our friendship means to him. And . . . how much he wants it to be more. I don’t think he’d do anything to destroy whatever tiny chance he imagines might still be there.
I sit back, exhaling. “Okay, then.”
“Cyn?” My dad’s voice now, calling up the stairs. “Your mother wants to know if Ryan is staying for dinner, too?”
“Yes,” I call back, not taking my eyes off the two of them. I hate how shaken Peter looks, but it’s his own fault; he was totally asking for it. And the relief in Ryan’s eyes more than makes up for it. I need him to keep believing in himself. And believing that I believe in him, too.
“Now,” I continue. “We are going to go downstairs and have a perfectly normal dinner with my parents. Right?”
“Right,” they answer in unison. They glance at each other, but neither of them says anything else.
“Great.”
Of course, it’s not normal at all. It’s the most awkward family dinner ever. But only in the expected ways that having dinner with your parents and your boyfriend and your attractive, male “camp friend” would be, and Peter and Ryan both try really hard not to make it any worse, and so they both get points for that.
Afterward, I walk them both out to the sidewalk.
“Where are you sleeping, Peter?” I ask him.
“Not here,” Ryan says at once. I jab him with my elbow in the universal gesture of shut up, you jerk.
Peter gives me a strained smile. “My uncle’s place, of course.” He winks at me, but he’s not selling it. Then before I can say anything else, he gives Ryan a weird sort of half salute and walks off down the street.
“His uncle?” Ryan asks.
“It’s what he told my mother he was doing in town. Visiting. I’m sure he’ll end up at some nice hotel or something. Probably a penthouse suite with free champagne and stuff. I’m not worried.”
I am a little worried, though. Peter looked so sad in that last second before he turned away.
“Well, you know I’m not worried, either,” Ryan says, putting an arm around me. “Thanks, for before.”
“Of course. Peter takes things too far sometimes, but not when he really knows better. I just made sure he knows better now.” I look up at Ryan. “How did the voice lesson go, really?”
“It was great. I’m going to kick Jeff’s vocal ass.”
“Of course you are,” I agree. I squeeze him and then lean up for a kiss.
Ryan’s not selling it, either. But I pretend that he is.
In the morning, we all go to school like it’s a normal day. I make Ryan let me check his arm first thing; the red line is at his shoulder now. He swears it still doesn’t hurt, but I’m not sure I believe him. And whether it hurts or not, it’s definitely getting way too close to his heart.
We are running out of time.
I notice that everyone decided to wear comfortable clothing and shoes. Even Diane, which is extremely suspicious, since she is renowned for her impractical shoe choices. (William is dressed comfortably, too, but he usually is, and also he is way too reasonable to try to force his way into a trip to the demon world.)
“You guys are still not coming,” I tell Leticia and Diane as we make our way to the library.
They exchange disgruntled glances. “Told you,” Diane says.
Leticia shrugs and hands Diane a dollar. “It was worth a try.”
They don’t argue, but I see how unhappy they are with this situation. It makes me a little mad. “Have you guys not been listening to how horrible everything has been down there? Why would you possibly want to come with us?”
Diane stops abruptly and puts her hands on her hips. “Do you really not get it, Cyn? Are you that clueless?”
I stop, too, shocked at her tone. Diane is always the calm one among us. The one who remains unruffled no matter what. But she’s definitely ruffled now.
“Do you really not see how hard it is to have to stay behind, knowing what’s happening to all of you, knowing that you’re fighting for your lives, making deals for our lives, and we’re just here sitting in class and going through the day like nothing is wrong? When everything is wrong?”
“D, come on —” Leticia begins, touching her arm, but Diane shakes her off.
“No. I hate this. I hate us being stuck here not knowing whether the rest of you are alive or dead. It sucks.”
“I — I’m sorry,” I say. “I wasn’t thinking. Of course it sucks. I hate that any of this is happening. You know that. But please believe me when I say that you guys being in danger too is not the answer.”
“I know that!” Diane snaps. “I know, okay? But I can’t stand this.” This time when Leticia reaches for her she lets herself be reached. Leticia wraps her in a tight hug and gives me a hard-to-read look over her girlfriend’s head. Sort of half apology and half agreement. With a sprinkling of also hating that any of this is happening.
“Come on, Diane,” Leticia says now, walking Diane forward, her voice forcibly lighter. “If they all die, we’re going to have to be the ones to carry on their legacy and keep their memories alive. And if they don’t, we’re going to have to let them copy our notes from math and history so they don’t flunk out of their senior year. Our job is very important either way.”
“Stop trying to make me feel better,” Diane mutters, but she sounds less mad. “I don’t want to feel better.”
“Too bad,” Leticia says. “That’s what I do. And that’s why you love me, so shut up.”
“You shut up.”
They slow down and I take the hint and keep moving, giving them some space for the rest of the walk to the library.
I’d hoped to convince Annie to stay behind this time, too, but as soon as I quietly mentioned the idea to Peter, he shook his head. All four of us have to go back through for what he’s doing to work. Something about setting up a mirror aspect of the portal spell to reverse the polarity of the something or other. Usually I’m really interested in the technical aspects of things, but after his third attempt at explaining still left me totally confused, I decided I didn’t really need to understand all the details, as long as it does the trick.
Leon greets us warmly at the library doors, then shows Peter where Mrs. Davenforth is so that he can convince her that she needs to stay quietly in her office for the next hour. Leon then goes back and mans the door, ready to turn away any potential visitors.
Peter’s demonic powers of persuasion are really very handy.
The rest of us go back to the reading area and pull the chairs out of the way. Peter starts sketching something complicated on the carpet with lines of demonic energy. I am both terribly impatient for and absolutely dreading the moment when he finishes. Since then, of course, the next step will be the four of us returning to the demon prison and all of the monsters and everything else. And then getting the thing from the Craftsman and then going back to Mr. Gabriel and then —
“Hey,” Ryan says, nudging me gently. “I can see that you are standing there thinking unhelpful thoughts. Cut it out.”
“How can you see that?”
“Your face is exactly like the tragic drama-mask symbol right now.”
“Oh.”
“Cheer up. I hear you’re missing a really boring lab in chem today.”
“Oh, good. I’d hate to be bored when I can be terrified instead.”
“Right on.”
Too soon, but also not soon enough, Peter steps back from his creation. “All right,” he says. “Everyone say your good-byes and then those of you staying behind should go back over there by the wall.”
There is some hugging and murmuring and one extremely lengthy and passionate kiss between Annie and William that we all pretend not to notice, and then Ryan, Annie, and I all stand in a line beside Peter at the edge of the diagram. Only Peter and I can actually see it, but he has placed some books along the closest edge to show Ryan and Annie where it begins.
> “So,” Peter says. “Here’s what’s going to happen. We will all hold hands. On my mark, we will all step over the threshold of the gateway at the same time. Almost immediately, we will get sucked down into a kind of tunnel that will bring us back to the prison. It will be scary and probably also very loud. Do not let go of each other. No matter what.” He looks around at us. “Any questions?”
“Will it hurt?” asks Annie.
Peter looks at her for a long second. “Let’s say no.”
Since I haven’t yet had a trip to the demon world that didn’t feel like knives or ice or fire, I was expecting it to be unpleasant. But I still really wish Peter was more convincing a liar.
“Okay, hold hands.”
We do as instructed. Ryan is on one side of me and Peter is on the other. Annie is on the other side of Peter.
“Everyone is really, really clear on the not-letting-go part, right?”
We all nod.
“Okay. I’m going to count to three. On three, we all step forward. On three. Got it?”
We all nod again.
“One . . . two . . . three.”
We all step forward.
It feels like something has punched through my stomach to grab hold of my spine. And then the something yanks me down and forward into a tunnel of light and pain. Everyone is screaming. I now understand why Peter kept repeating the not-letting-go thing. It’s hard to think about anything but the pain. But I try. I try to focus on my hands grasping Ryan’s and Peter’s. I try to feel secure in the knowledge that Peter is holding tight to Annie. I try to believe that this can’t possibly last very long, that surely it’s already almost over, that any second we’ll arrive back in the room where we left LB and everything will be . . . well, not fine — ha-ha, that’s funny — but at least less painful. Less painful would be really, really welcome right now.
It’s lasting way longer than I thought it would and I want to ask Peter if it’s almost over because I don’t think I can stand much more of this but of course there’s no way to ask because that would require not screaming and I definitely can’t stop screaming because oh my God it hurts so much. I grip Ryan’s and Peter’s hands even tighter, as tight as I can, so tight that I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to let go but that’s okay, we can just hold hands forever, that would be fine as long as the pain would stop.
And then suddenly I smack into a hard surface and for a moment the world just goes away, all of it, even the pain, which is nice, really nice, but then I start to panic about not being able to feel anything because I need to make sure I’m still holding everyone’s hands and I can’t tell, I can’t, I need to look and see but I can’t find my eyes, I don’t remember how to use them.
“Cyn! Cyn, it’s okay! Stop — you can let go.”
“No, no, I can’t, Peter said —”
“This is Peter. Open your eyes, Cyn.”
And now I can remember where my eyes are, and I open them. And it is Peter, and he has let go of Annie’s hand, and she seems okay, and so that must mean it really is time to let go. Still, it takes me a second to force my fingers to release their grip.
Once Annie assures herself that I’m okay, she rounds on Peter and starts hitting him anywhere she can reach with tiny little Annie punches. “You liar!” she shouts. “You said it wouldn’t hurt!”
Ryan, able to move about freely now that I have unclenched my hand from his, gently takes hold of Annie and pulls her away from Peter, who has not attempted to defend himself. “Annie, that doesn’t count as a lie,” he tells her. “Come on. It was too obvious. We weren’t supposed to believe it.”
Now Annie turns on Ryan. “Well, I did believe it! And that was — it was —” She goes limp in Ryan’s arms and starts to cry.
I get to my feet and go to her. A small, petty part of me wants to point out that this is exactly why she should never have come here in the first place. But the rest of me just hates that she’s so upset, and wants to try to make her feel better. “It’s okay,” I tell her. “It’s okay. It’s over now.”
“It’s not over,” she whimpers into Ryan’s shirt. “We’re still here. We still have so much to do. And William is starting to feel like this is all too much, he’s totally going to break up with me soon, I can tell.”
“What? No, Annie —”
“Yes. I can see it. He wants a normal girlfriend who doesn’t have a demonic stalker. I don’t blame him. This is all so crazy and awful. And we still might not even win. It might all be for nothing and then Mr. Gabriel — he’ll get me and I’ll — I’ll have to stay here forever. Forever, Cyn, with him, oh, God, I can’t, I can’t —”
“Shh.” I place one hand softly against her sweet, soft, curly-haired head. “He’s not going to win. Are you kidding me? We’d never let him have you. Don’t you dare worry about that.”
I’m impressed with how calm and sure I sound. I almost believe me myself. Even though inside I know it’s all bullshit, and I’m terrified that she might be right, and he will win, and all of the worst things ever will come true.
“He will not win,” a gravelly voice says from behind me.
LB is — well, sitting is maybe not the right word. He’s crouching on his spider legs in the corner, watching us. I’d nearly forgotten to worry that he hadn’t stayed here as instructed. But of course he did, because here we are. And here he is. I could kiss him. Except still not really, because ew.
“LB!” I say. I go over to place my hand carefully on his mud- and blood-encrusted body. “Thank you. Thank you for staying here like we asked.”
“You have returned,” he says. He doesn’t seem to quite believe it.
“Of course we returned. I promised, didn’t I?”
“Yes. But . . .” He pauses, and I wait for the thinking to happen. “A promise is still not a deal.”
“No, it’s not. A promise is never going to be a deal. It’s its own thing. A promise is a promise. Deals . . . deals you have no choice but to honor, right? But a promise . . . a promise you have to try really hard to keep. It’s not always easy, but it’s really important.”
He looks blankly at me for a long moment. “I do not understand.”
I give him another pat. “I know. It’s okay. People stuff probably seems as messed up to you as demon stuff does to me. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, does it? We’re all together again, and now we can get back on track.”
I focus on my internal compass, which was quiet the whole time we were back in the regular world. It now seems to sense my attention, however, and tugs especially eagerly toward the same wall as before.
“Peter,” I say, beckoning him over. “Can you get us out of this room without triggering another trap? Because I really don’t want to have to make that return trip ever, ever again.”
“Yes,” he says. “But everyone needs to do exactly as I say and step only where I tell them to.” He glares pointedly at Ryan while he says this last part.
“Yeah, yeah,” Ryan says. “Lesson learned, okay? Lead on, O demon guide.”
Peter studies the stone walls for a minute and then the markings along the ground near each passage. He picks the one on the right for no clear reason that I can see, but I am more than ready to trust his judgment on this. And then he successfully guides us all carefully out of the room. Even LB, who I must admit I was pretty worried about with all those extra legs.
The tugging gets more intense the farther we go. I point where it seems to be leading, and Peter walks beside me, watching to make sure we don’t run into any more sneaky traps or anything else. Ryan and Annie walk behind us, and LB brings up the rear. The passages we’re following all slope undeniably downward, and I don’t love the feeling that we’re sinking deeper and deeper into a hole we might not be able to climb out of. But it’s not like we have a choice; the whole point of coming here was to find this guy. So I swallow my misgivings, and I keep walking. And my friends keep walking with me.
The compass seems to be getting a lot more detailed a
bout its directions. More than once it nudges me to the right or left just before Peter points out something suspicious he wants us to step carefully around. Another time it yanks me backward abruptly, and the feeling is so full of warning and intent that I throw out my hand to stop Peter and the others as well.
Everyone instinctually goes quiet and waits. After a second, a large black shadow crosses our passageway up ahead and continues into an adjoining corridor.
Where were you when we were trying to avoid the monsters earlier? I ask it silently. But I think I know. I wasn’t listening to it before, so it wasn’t trying to help me. Now that I’m going where it wants, it’s trying to make sure I actually get there. Maybe this is why Mr. Gabriel thought I had a shot at making it through alive on my own.
After another moment, the compass tugs me forward again. I consider telling Peter he can stop looking for danger, that my GPS has it covered, but decide against it. Just in case. Seeing as how the demon-compass was a gift from Mr. Gabriel, I can’t quite bring myself to trust it all the way.
Suddenly we come around a corner into a large chamber, larger than anyplace we’ve seen inside the prison so far. We stop, staring. The chamber is filled with prison cells. Or what look like prison cells, anyway. Everywhere we look, there are circles of vertical iron bars that stretch up and up until they disappear into the not-ceiling above us.
“I thought you said this wasn’t like a regular prison,” I whisper to Peter.
“Are you seriously calling this a ‘regular prison’?” he whispers back.
“You know what I mean! I thought there weren’t any cells.”
“Well, apparently there are. Sorry. I told you I’ve never actually been in here.”
Inside each circle is a demon.
This must be the deepest prisoner level that the flower monster was talking about.
And these must be the deepest prisoners.
Almost as one, they turn to stare at us. The entire chamber is deathly silent. The demons aren’t moving, they aren’t making a sound, they’re just staring out at us from within their iron cages. They’re all different — all different shapes and sizes and sporting various elements of animals and plants and I-can’t-even-tell-what-else — but there’s a similarity to them, too. It’s something about the coiled tension in each of their stances, the sense of unrestrained danger that emanates from each one. All demons are dangerous, of course; nearly any demon would kill any one of us without hesitation, feeding off our pain and terror and eventual death. But these . . . these demons are worse somehow. There’s an almost palpable layer of insanity coming from each one. Insanity and malice and . . . hunger.
Curse of the Evil Librarian Page 17
