“Hey,” he says, his voice high and light. “You seem lonely.” The blue demon bug turns to see where the guy’s looking, but its eyes go this way and that, not seeing me.
“Hi,” I say, coming up to stand a few feet from the demon, who’s now making a face that could be a frown. “What’s your name?” I ask the guy.
He bites his lips; they have gloss on them. “I’m Scarlet.” He’s wearing a red shirt—a woman’s blouse.
“Hey, Scarlet. Do you maybe want to get something to eat?” I motion behind me to where I think there’s a twenty-four-hour diner.
He eyes me, cautiously. “I don’t wanna lose my spot. What’s your poison?”
Poison? I’m not sure if he’s trying to sell me drugs or himself. I just want to get him away from the demon. “I’ll pay,” I say, holding up a twenty. The dagger is still tucked away at my other side where he can’t see it. Hopefully.
“I only do one hand-off for that.” He doesn’t seem pleased but he’s not walking away.
My gut sinks, thinking of how this kid’s night probably goes, normally. Give a john his body for an hour, then go buy a few rocks of meth to turn numb, lather, rinse, repeat. He’s probably only sixteen or so, by the look of him up close. He isn’t going to live past twenty out here.
I decide to be honest. “Listen, Scarlet. You’re about to see something very weird, but don’t be scared, okay?”
His shadowed eyes widen.
I pull my amulet necklace over my head and hand it to him. “Can you just hold this for a second?”
The blue demon bug hisses and flies back as I appear two feet away.
“Don’t run off, okay?” I say to Scarlet. “I need that back.”
He just nods slowly, watching me walk toward what appears, to him, to be nothing.
“Okay, sparky,” I say to the demon. “Let’s see what you can do.”
The familiar urge to kill seeps into my blood as I watch the creature round its back like it’s trying to look bigger. Steam rises from my arm, and my chest aches with the burn of my seal, but I clench my insides and try to keep my mark from sparking to life.
My powers seem as hungry and awake as ever at the moment. Maybe even more so, as if my resurrection rebooted them. But I need to hold the fire in as long as possible. I need to figure out how it feels to control it and how I can conserve it better so I don’t end up depleted halfway through a fight.
At the moment, it feels like I’m holding back a freight train.
The demon flutters up, flying high enough to face me. Its buzzing wings press air into me that smells like rot and stings my skin like needles. And then I realize there are actual needles pricking my skin. Red dots appear all over me, like bleeding pox. Thin silver splinters fall away, tinking onto the ground once they hit their mark.
Scarlet must feel it, too, because he squirms and starts itching at the track marks running up his arm.
I hold my hand out to protect my eyes, the jabs sparking all over my body as the tiny darts hit harder and deeper. Time to stop holding the freight train in.
I let go of my insides, releasing the power. It surges into my muscles, my skin, and steals the breath from my lungs.
Something pops at the air and sends Scarlet tumbling back, ass to concrete, just as my mark surges to life with a whoosh of heated air, shoving the demon back in a rush.
I grab it by the ankle before it gets out of range and yank. The wings fold up, stopping their onslaught. The body arches and thuds into the ground, the skull hitting the sidewalk. It barely stuns the creature, but it gives me the perfect angle.
I raise the silver dagger, its light casting over the demon’s blue skin, turning it green. A fleeting urge to rip the bastard’s wings off zips through me, but instead, I slide the blade right into its middle eye slit.
Black ooze gushes out before the body bursts into flames, then disappears in another pop.
I glance over at Scarlet, trying to catch my breath. He’s gaping at the ground where my dagger blade is half-buried in the cement.
He gets back up on his feet, unsteady, and turns his eyes to me and my bloody skin. “Fuck ten elephants, what the hell am I on?”
I start wiping the blood off my face and arms with the bottom of my T-shirt. “Told you it’d be nuts.” I pull out the dagger from the cement, then slap the blade against my leg to break off the rest of the black clay that was the demon’s blood. “You wanna get that meal now?”
Scarlet blinks at me as I slide the sort-of clean knife into my back pocket. He doesn’t speak but he doesn’t run, either. When I walk over to him, holding my hand out for my amulet, he backs up a step and presses it to his chest. “What are you?”
I lower my hand and look at him. “I’m Aidan. And I’m dying for a soda. Do you want one or what? I think there’s a diner a few blocks from here.”
He licks his lips and seems to consider. Then he holds out my necklace. “Can I have some Jack in mine? I think I need it.”
I laugh and slip the amulet back over my head. “How about a little ice cream instead?”
“Big spender, huh? Can the lady have a cherry, too?”
“The lady can buy whatever she’d like.”
He raises his brow. “How much do you cost, handsome?”
“I’m not for sale,” I say, starting to walk down the street, heading for the diner. I’m taken. His question makes the weight of not being near Kara settle back on my shoulders. Panic grips me as I think of how my absence is probably hurting her. I can’t forget why I’m out here on this cold night, instead of home beside her.
“Priceless, then,” he says in a dreamy voice as he comes up next to me and brushes dirt from my shoulder, knocking off a chunk of blackened demon too, even though he can’t see it.
I give him a sideways smile and we walk the rest of the way in silence.
Scarlet’s actual name is Raul. As we walk into the brightly lit diner, he confesses that he uses a new name every night, depending on where he’s hanging around and what shirt he’s wearing. We sit and he eats a double-bacon cheeseburger and fries and I sip my soda. He’s actually great company, talking a lot so I don’t have to. He tells me about his family—mother, five sisters, and grandmother in Guatemala. They sent him with a coyote ten years ago, when he was six, and he hasn’t heard from them since. But he tells me about each of them in detail. He spends about an hour weaving tales about his pet parrot and bemoaning how much he misses it.
For a guy with so many red handprints on his neck and track marks up his arm, he seems fairly chipper. Maybe he’s just glad to be filling his stomach; at the speed he’s ingesting his burger, I’d say he doesn’t chomp down double-bacon anything very often.
He takes a sip from his drink as he studies my markings. After he swallows, he asks, “So, you’re like magical or something?”
I’m surprised he didn’t ask about it sooner. But how do I explain what I am? I don’t even know. “I’m just me.”
He cocks his eyebrow. “You were a lit-up bastard back there.”
I decide honesty’s worked so far, so I just say, “I don’t really know what I am.”
He nods, like he’s accepting the answer, and pops a fry into his mouth.
“So, where’re you crashing?” I ask, trying to sound like I’m being casual. Really, I want to find out if he’s going to be all right; I’m not sure why that demon was with him.
He eats the last three fries on his plate and pushes it away before answering. “Listen, I’m not someone you’d be wantin’ in your life, sweetie.”
“Really, why’s that?” I lean back in the booth, folding my arms across my chest.
He laughs. “Oh honey, you’re too slick to know what’s good for you.” He waves out the window at the city streets. “The less time your lovely ass spends in this town, the better.”
I smile at him, totally floored that he thinks I’m some kind of uptown boy. “I used to crash near the tracks.”
He looks at me like he d
oesn’t believe me.
“I set up in an empty warehouse for a while; it had a nice loft,” I continue. “The owner came around, though, and I almost got caught, so I split. And then there was the alley behind the flower shop.” I smile, watching his face turn from incredulity to amazement.
“What sorta gig you got that took you from alleys to designer cotton?” He nods to my Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt. Sid is insanely fond of shopping and buys stuff way higher on the scale than he needs to. Fruit of the Loom would’ve been fine. Especially considering the way I’ve been going through clothes lately.
“I fell into a gig,” I say. “They pay in clothes.” And trouble. Raul seems interested and opens his mouth to ask another question, but I stand up before he can get it out. The less he knows about me, the better. “I’ve gotta jet, but I’ll be around. You can find me at SubZero if you ever need anything.”
He blinks up at me as I take the check and hold out a hand to shake. He hesitates but takes it after a second.
A flash of red eyes and the sound of running feet and gasping breath bursts into my consciousness before he pulls back.
“You’ve got quite the grip,” he says, shaking out his hand and sitting back in the booth.
I just give him a stiff smile and try to keep myself from noticeably shivering. But because I can’t help myself, before I walk away I say, “I can help you, you know. If you need it.”
His mouth curves up but his eyes look sad. “You bought me bacon. No other help needed, friend.”
And so I nod and walk away. But I’m fully aware that what I saw was his soul running from some demon. Owner or captor, whatever. And from the rising up of my insides, I’m pretty sure my power wants to do something about it. Unfortunately, Raul will have to get in line.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Rebecca
I’m sitting in art theory class only half listening. I can’t believe I’m here, in the real world; I shouldn’t have come. I mean, I thought I could pretend—I’ve been doing it for so long—but I just can’t anymore. I had to get out of that house, though. With Sid all sick and creaky, Aidan gone, Kara not sure about me, and Connor wanting to be “just friends,” I can’t stay there and remain sane. So I called the car service before anyone was awake and left.
First, I sat at Starbucks with the driver. Weird, I know. I bought him coffee and an egg sandwich and we sat reading the paper. A nice guy, Larry. He seemed happy.
Now I’m at school and I’m totally out of it. I can’t stop thinking about that conversation with Connor yesterday. Or his hand on my neck. Or his lips. My God, his lips.
Shut up, brain!
The weirdest part is, it wasn’t Aidan. And I’m okay with that.
The teacher’s voice cuts through my fog.
“I’d like you to incorporate these elements into your final summer project.” He points at the overhead screen, which is sectioned off into four images. “There’s extra credit for those who can incorporate all of them.”
Elements? Project? Oh great. What did I miss?
He continues, “If you’ll turn to page three hundred and five you’ll see more examples. The images might feel disjointed, but each one is like a puzzle of the artist’s mind. I need you to choose one and write a fifteen-hundred-word analysis, along with a visual response in the medium of your choice.”
What, what, what?! I want to bang my head on my desk, but that’s not exactly the action of a sane person, and I’m supposed to be pretending. I just don’t have the mental power or capacity right now to write a paper or do some pointless school project.
The teacher puts an image of another painting on the overhead and begins picking it apart. I should be at the beach instead of here, hanging out with Charlie’s memory and the dolphins. Charlie would know what I should do right now.
“. . . if Miss Emery can find her way back to us.”
My head snaps up at the sound of my name. I was doodling on my notebook—more skulls from the look of it, great—while I was at the beach with Charlie in my head.
“Sorry?” I ask.
He walks toward my desk and glances down at my doodles. “I assume, since you’ve decided to work on something else, that you’re already aware of what the artist was thinking?”
I shake my head. “No, Mr. Hicks.”
He points his pen at my notebook and my skulls. “André Leclair’s Within The Reaches of Angels is what we are discussing, Miss Emery. Not pirates.”
This time, the skulls are attached to full skeletons, three of them. “Yes, sir.”
“So,” he turns back to the front of the room and motions to the overhead, “would you please tell us what you believe Mr. Leclair was trying to portray here?”
I look at the image on the screen, trying not to visibly cringe. It’s basically how I’ve always visualized hell. There’s a skinless figure in the center being eaten from the belly by what looks like a huge viper with sharp fangs. Fire rises at the feet of the figure, and the background is made up of twisted green vines weaving in and out of a wall of . . . skulls.
Suddenly, those hollow eyes of death seem to be staring right back at me. I begin to see smaller creatures in the tongues of the flames, in the eyes of the viper, tiny beasts hiding in the layers of horror. I see the vines attempting to break the wall of death, and I wonder if this troubled artist had the ability to draw the hidden story of the future, like I do.
I put on my deep-thinking face for the benefit of Mr. Hicks and say what I decide he’d like to hear, “I think Mr. Leclair was struggling between his need for religious approval and his realization that he’s been corrupted by impurity and sin. This is obviously an image of the agony and injustice the artist felt.”
Mr. Hicks is properly impressed, and clearly a bit annoyed that I was able to sound smart so easily. “That’s an interesting thought. We know that much of Leclair’s surreal work was seen as overly erotic for the day. Would you like to delve into that further, Miss Fallon?” He points to Loretta Fallon and soon forgets about me. Yes, leave it to Loretta. She’s all about the overly erotic; some of her party activities would make even the liege lords of ancient Rome blush.
Loretta starts theorizing about how society has made men the keepers of the sexual and I half listen, sort of agreeing with her, but not caring enough to add to the discussion at the moment. I’m just glad that I’m not the center of attention anymore.
When class is over, Samantha’s waiting for me outside the door, hugging her music notebook to her chest. “I don’t have anything for an hour because Mr. Smythe got the chlam from sucking face with Mrs. Florence last week.”
“That’s not how chlamydia works, Samantha,” I say. “And Mr. Smythe’s father just passed away, so that’s probably why he’s not here.”
She shrugs. “Well, Loretta said she saw Mrs. Florence making out with him in the green room backstage after the encore performance of Pippin last week. In any case, I’m bored and Apple is skipping to go to her mom’s shop on Rodeo because the assistant called and they got next year’s line in early from France. I think we should celebrate and ditch, too. I miss you.” She side-hugs me. “Plus, you owe me for all the acrobatic lying I’ve been doing for you to my mom and your overprotective father.” Then she starts babbling about purses and why this new line is so much better than the last one because of something to do with the texture patterns they’re going with this year . . . I have no idea. And I really don’t care. Fashion isn’t my thing, even if it is everything to Samantha. The only real reason Samantha and I have stayed friends all these years is because when you peel back the silk and satin, she’s a lioness. She’d never hurt me, and she’d defend me to the death if anyone else tried—socially speaking, anyway.
I agree to tag along because I can’t take school anymore. And if I go to Rodeo with Apple and Samantha, I won’t have to go back to the LA Paranormal house yet and confront Connor. I’m wondering if I should just collect my things from there and head home with Samantha. Then I won’t
have to be in a house filled with tension, and I won’t be lying to my dad anymore, either. Every time he calls, I feel more guilty.
We climb into Apple’s Audi and are soon stuck in traffic on Santa Monica Boulevard. The two girls up front are gabbing about the fall shows they’re planning on going to and trading gossip about some of the designers. Apple’s mom is a queen in the LA fashion community and she always knows everything about everyone: movie stars, politicians, designers, you name it. Apple is always happy to share her dirt.
I look out the window and suddenly wish I’d applied for one of those art residencies abroad like my aunt suggested after Charlie died. Dad certainly has the money. It would’ve given me a goal, and maybe I wouldn’t have felt so disconnected from my life. And I wouldn’t have met Aidan or had my heart broken. And then broken again.
“Some guy in a trash heap with wheels is waving at you, Emery,” Apple says, looking in her rearview mirror. “He’s been following us since we got off the 405.”
I spin around and gasp when I spot the familiar mangy Jeep in our blind spot on the right. Holy crap. Connor? He sees me looking at him and waves for us to pull over. Is he high?
I hold up a finger, mouthing, Just a second! Then I turn back to Apple, growling under my breath as I ask, “Can you pull over?”
She laughs and snaps her gum. “Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously.”
She turns onto Avenue of the Stars and pulls into a hotel valet area. Connor pulls in behind us, brakes squeaking.
I slide out of the backseat and ask Apple to wait, saying I’ll only be a second. Then I stomp my way to the rear of the car as Connor rushes toward me. “What the hell?” I say.
“You left—you can’t just leave.”
“Actually, I can. It’s this weird thing called, you’re not my father and it’s a free country.”
He gives me a look, then shakes his head and leans closer. “It’s not safe right now, Rebecca.”
“Emery!” I say louder than I mean to. I hear whispering and turn to see that Apple and Samantha have gotten out of the Audi and are sharing a cigarette and pretending not to eavesdrop. Perfect. “Call me Emery,” I say more quietly.
Darkness Fair (The Dark Cycle Book 2) Page 21
