Diabolical

by Cynthia Leitich Smith

  I’D EXPECTED TO WANDER a while with the others through the caves. Fighting off devil dogs, in search of our respective paths.

  Instead, when we step off the elevator, there’s a new signpost. One arrow points toward the warehouse area. It reads: VERMONT. The other points back at an angle, as if around the elevator car. It reads: THE KINGDOM.

  Because as long as you’re evil incarnate, why not be pretentious about it?

  “This is where we part ways,” I say.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Quincie says. “I’m the one with preternatural power. I should go with you and —”

  “You should leave with Kieren,” I reply. “If you value what I try to do as your GA, honor that by leaving this place.” Truth is, the Wolf guards her better than I do.

  “Don’t you think the devil is out to get you?” With his good leg, Kieren kicks down the sign. “And cocky about it? Why give him what he wants?”

  “With every second that passes,” I say, “Lucy is in torment. I don’t care what she signed. It’s my place as an angel to bring her home.”

  It’s not total BS, unless you factor in that GAs are supposed to have nothing to do with the demonic. Or, for that matter, battle. But to hell with the rules. Literally.

  I take what may be my last look at the remaining students. They’re armed with one battle-axe, a pack of matches, a bottle of aerosol hairspray (from a nearby shelf), two mops, and Vesper’s Persian-plum sheet. The idea is that the alcohol will function as an accelerant in case they encounter the hellhounds again.

  Nigel pulls me aside. “Take me with you.”

  I’m surprised that he’d separate from Willa, but I’ve got no time to deal with adolescent male posturing. “Give me one good reason I should.”

  “I’m Satan’s son,” he replies.

  USING MY MONITOR-COM in the lounge, I can’t see my angel or Lucy at all. I lost sight of Lucy only seconds after the dragon plummeted into the lake. I lost sight of Zachary once he stepped into the subbasement. I can’t see any of the students now.

  Frantically, I zoom around the building. Nothing.

  Shutting down my monitor-com, I slip it in my pocket. For days, I’ve taken comfort in the idea that, if something fatal happened to Lucy, we’d be reunited in heaven. Now, she’s — as a mortal — been sentenced to hell. What does that mean? Does the devil have claim to her soul, too? And what of my angel?

  I wonder if Zachary and Nigel will cross paths with Vesper, and I feel a stab of guilt at having misjudged her, though she was putting on a good act. I wish we’d had a chance to meet, if only so I could’ve shown her the proper way to assassinate a dark lord.

  Wondering what to do next, I regard the bloom of a nearby bird-of-paradise flower.

  “Miranda Shen McAllister?” calls Renata, the reunion coordinator.

  I stand up from the rattan chair. “Is it Lucy?”

  I don’t know if I hope so or hope not.

  “No, another young lady. Tamara O. Williams. Do you remember her?”

  “Yes.” She’s the young weredeer I drained at the Edison Hotel. My last victim.

  Renata gestures. “Please sit. You are by no means required to agree to this meeting. Her counselor from the Ascended Souls Mental Health Board, while acknowledging that such an exchange may be cathartic, is concerned —”

  “That I’ll say the wrong thing?” Tamara interrupts, coming around the nearest palm tree. “That I’ll upset the darling serial killer? That she’ll have to deal with having ripped away my dreams of being an artist and marrying Corey?”

  “Ms. Williams,” Renata begins, “you were warned —”

  “What are you going to do,” she asks, “send me to hell?”

  “It’s fine,” I reply. “I’ll talk to her.”

  “Perhaps somewhere less public,” Renata urges as two elderly ladies and one animal-form werehog retreat from the conversation area. “I can provide a private, neutral room and a qualified therapist to facilitate —”

  “It’s fine,” I say again. Since the moment I died, this is the confrontation I’ve been waiting for. I didn’t know it would be Tamara, yet someone would have to hold me accountable for my crimes. I summon up the last vestiges of my royal composure. “We don’t need a babysitter.”

  Clearly taken aback, Renata excuses herself.

  Tamara tears a long leaf off the closest fern and begins shredding it. She tells me about how she began as a painter and then started doing collage, but decided to go into arts education after teaching at a summer camp for disadvantaged kids.

  She tells me about her fiancé Corey, how they met at the Indianapolis airport and ended up seated next to each other on the flight to Boston. She explains how by the time they landed, she was certain that she’d marry him someday. He was a Deer, too, and in animal form, he had the most attractive set of antlers she’d ever seen. “You took all that away from me, from us. I can’t let go. I can’t move on. I watch over him day after day.”

  I stay still, penitent, my hands folded in my lap.

  Tamara bursts into tears. “He . . .” She gulps. “He kissed my cousin Ellen in the funeral limousine.”

  That was not what I was expecting her to say.

  “Grief,” I begin. “They were both hurting, and, for a moment, that drew them together. I’m certain they’re both embarrassed and regret —”

  Gulping, Tamara shakes her head. “No, they’re dating now on the sly. Our friends, my family, they don’t know. My mother knitted him a scarf for Christmas. They were screwing around behind my back before I died, even after we got engaged. I heard them talking about it.” She sinks into the chair beside mine. “She does things with him in bed, sexual things that I wouldn’t do, if you know what I mean.”

  I don’t. I nod anyway and risk petting her shoulder.

  “If you hadn’t killed me,” Tamara concludes, “I would’ve married the jerk.”

  NIGEL AND I take cautious steps on a narrow rock path with steep drops on either side. I considered flying down, carrying him, but I don’t know how long the trip might be. The curves and corners are unpredictable. I don’t want to wear myself out or break one of my wings or crash. We have enough to worry about.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” I ask.

  “I’ve always known,” Nigel says. “For as long as I can remember, Willa’s parents emphasized to me that I was spawn. I tried to be evil, to live up to my legacy. It’s just not me. Now you’re claiming I’m pure of heart. Daddy must be so disappointed.”

  As we descend into darkness, I can already feel the temperature rising, the air heavier with soot. I wish Nigel would put out that cigarette.

  I think we should be shimmying through crevices. Crawling on our hands and knees. Doubling back because of dead ends. Then I bang my shin against a rock.

  I center myself. Then I begin to glow softly.

  “Is he an angel or a firefly?” Nigel says. “Who can tell?”

  Still, it’s too easy. Lucifer has paved this path for us. Sent demons to clear our way with shovels and spells. He’s looking forward to our arrival.

  We hike for what seems like days. It may be minutes, or years. Our supply of water and honey-nut granola bars is dwindling.

  At least we have water. It was Nigel’s idea to wash out the milk bottles in the kitchenette, refill them, and secure them with belts that double as shoulder straps.

  “What are we looking for?” Nigel asks. “How can we tell if we’re getting closer?”

  Lightning illuminates the cavern. Skeletal remains litter the ground, hang from rock walls. Lost explorers, human sacrifices, or both.

  “We’re getting closer,” I reply.

  The damned in hell crave blood every bit as much the undead on earth.

  “Has anyone done this before?” Nigel wants to know. “Brought someone back?”

  Thinking, I narrow my eyes. In the past century, there was only aviator Amelia Earhart, back in 1937. It’s one thing to journey to hell. It�
��s another to somehow locate the soul you’re seeking and escape in one piece. “Not lately.”

  Up far ahead, I see fire along both sides of the path. Lightning flashes again. The stream we’re following starts to boil.

  WE FOLLOW THE BOILING STREAM, our path lit by pools of fiery rock. I didn’t expect to see lava this high up. Or maybe we’ve descended more than I realize.

  “Do you know your mother?” I ask when the mud rain stops.

  “Not personally,” Nigel replies. “I tried to contact her by letter a couple of times. Her agent or personal assistant or whoever probably screens her mail.”

  “She’s famous?” That hadn’t occurred to me. “Like rock-star famous or car-dealer-who-advertises-on-TV famous?”

  “Like red carpet, two-time Oscar winner, five husbands, miscellaneous provocative tattoos, a fake British accent, and seven kids adopted from various countries (and raised by seven nannies) that double as fashion accessories.” He pauses. “I didn’t get either of my parents’ looks.”

  Lucifer is all too capable of seducing a mortal, but it doesn’t sound like Nigel’s mother was an unwitting dupe. I’m guessing she gained her celebrity status, money, and lifestyle in part by birthing Nigel and handing him over to Willa’s family.

  It’s not the kid’s fault. You can’t pick your parents.

  A demon scampers by. It’s apelike in its gait. It’s single-minded in its quest to reach the mortal world, to contaminate it. It’s about three feet tall with a lolling forked tongue, a tail, and hooked horns that bridge from its half-desiccated nose.

  “We should stop that thing,” I say.

  Nigel scoops up a mostly round stone and beams it at the demon. He hits it squarely on the back of the head. It drops, defeated.

  “Good arm,” I say.

  Gas — sulfur dioxide — stings ours eyes and burns our nostrils. Our water supply is exhausted. We’re thirsty. “Save your voice,” I say. “Save your strength.”

  Nigel talks anyway. He tells me about how his dream was to try out for his high-school baseball team. He finally got Willa’s parents to agree — or so he thought — over the holidays.

  Given his parentage, it’s no wonder he’s so erratic. But Nigel keeps going. He’s determined to make this journey for reasons probably even he doesn’t understand.

  Over the next ridge, we come upon the skyline of Lucifer’s vast kingdom, the City of Punishment. It resembles a shadowy version of the classic film depiction of Oz’s Emerald City. Subtract the glittering green. Ixnay the yellow brick road. Heavy on the flying monkeys. Or, rather, flying monsters.

  “HUAN,” I BEGIN in a casual voice, “do you know where I might find my friend, the guardian angel Joshua?”

  He fiddles with the microphone on his stand. “Now, Miranda, ascended souls are encouraged to make peace with the lives they’ve left behind, not —”

  “Not associate with guardians,” I say. “But you don’t understand —”

  “Don’t I?” He scratches his chin. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but Joshua is currently the subject of a disciplinary meeting.”

  “Can you get a message to him?” I plead.

  “Miranda,” he says. “I know you mean well. But it’s your messages — and what Joshua did with them — that’s gotten him into trouble in the first place. It’s time to accept the limits of death. Here in the Penultimate, down on earth, you’re only making things worse.”

  As I shuffle toward my residential tower, a female voice calls, “Miranda!”

  It’s the guardian Idelle, coming up beside me on the promenade. “Have you caught sight of Zachary on your monitor-com?” she asks. “Rumor has it that he fell.”

  It’s too terrible to imagine. If my angel has fallen, I’ve lost him forever.

  FLOWING WATER COMES from somewhere. Goes somewhere.

  Our theory? Downstream is the way to hell. Upstream is the way out.

  I take point. Evie and Bridget back me to either side, each holding a mop. Willa, carrying Vesper’s rolled sheet, behind us. Quince at the rear with the flashlight, matches, and hair spray.

  After a dozen steps, I catch the scent of blood. “Quince?”

  “I smell it, too.”

  Evie keeps her nose to herself.

  “I’ll be back.” Nobody objects to my military tone. It’s nothing to leap on top of the closest supply shelf. Nothing to leap to the next. The one after that.

  So long as I don’t land on my bad leg. Or use any other muscles.

  “Be careful,” Evie calls. “We’ll grab candles.”

  Good idea. I’m not sure how much power is left in the flashlight battery.

  Beneath me are bottles of herbs. Dried flowers. Crustacean powder.

  I find Mr. Bilovski’s and Vesper’s raw, leaking remains on the floor between the twelfth and thirteenth shelves. Their heads have been chewed off. Their noses and cheeks gnawed to meat. Only one of Vesper’s gooey arms remains.

  I pivot. I pour on Wolf speed. Ignore the pain. A moment later, I land beside Bridget. “Mr. Bilovski’s dead,” I say. They don’t need to hear the rest.

  Evie points. “The stream is that way.”

  We pause to stuff our pockets with river rocks. We can always throw them.

  THE CITY OF PUNISHMENT suffers from sprawl. Upon reaching the border, we’re greeted by bellows and shrieks of the damned.

  “They’re descended souls,” I say. “They can’t hurt us. They’ve been expelled from the mortal plane. Ditto when it comes to the essences.”

  Nigel coughs. “Which are?”

  “Formerly undead beings — mostly vamps — whose souls had withered away completely before they were destroyed. The essence is the will, the personality, the whatever-it-was that persisted to animate them after their mortal deaths.”

  Eventually, the relatively smooth rock path turns into a road paved with screaming faces. Eyes blinking, crying; mouths gaping, jabbering nonsense and threats. It’s as if the heads have been partially embedded, faceup, in the lava stone.

  Nigel hesitates. We both do.

  We have no choice but to take another step. Then another. Moving on, crushing cartilage that will heal only to be crushed again.

  “If they can’t hurt us,” Nigel begins again, grimacing, “why can we hurt them?”

  “Because that’s what hell is all about,” I reply. “Them hurting.”

  It’s the vicious genius of Lucifer’s kingdom. Though no longer corporeal, the damned can feel. Like their ascended brethren up in the Penultimate, these souls have a pseudophysical presence. To each side of the road, more of the damned — filthy, bare skinned, on chafed knees and shredded palms — strain to grasp our ankles.

  Beyond them, cannibals tear off flesh by the mouthful. Torture wheels shatter limbs and joints, crush shoulders and hips. Screws twist into skulls.

  As whirligigs spin, the condemned wail and spew vomit.

  Metal claws rip away breasts. Rake tissue from within bodily orifices.

  What they wouldn’t give for nothingness, an abyss.

  I can’t help scanning for Danny Bianchi’s face, Mitch’s, Vesper’s. It’s no use. Hell is vast. They could be anywhere. I won’t fail Lucy, too. I pick up my pace. “Hurry.”

  Nigel, who’s been chain-smoking, replies, “I’m barely keeping up now.”

  Faintly at first, music rises. It wafts through the foul air.

  After a moment, I recognize “Only You (And You Alone)” by the Platters. It’s one of the love songs I crooned to Miranda on our one date, as we swayed cheek to cheek on the dance floor at Chicago’s Edison Hotel. When Elvis’s “Love Me Tender” follows, it’s clear the adversary is trying to poison the memory.

  “Can anything hurt us here?” Nigel asks.

  “Demons. Fallen angels. True and evil immortals.”

  I recall Kieren’s pointing out that my pregame pep talks need work, but there’s nothing I can say to lighten what awaits.

  Our destination is the heart
of Punishment, the headquarters of Lucifer himself.

  WHEN I RETURN TO MY SUITE, Harrison is swinging on my hammock and playing with Mr. Nesbit. “I never did care for these things back on earth, but he’s a lovely fellow. Good company. Perhaps I should adopt a pet. How about a parrot, a red one with blue and yellow wings? Like with pirates — the kind who floss.”

  “Why are you talking about pirates?” I exclaim. “Zachary is missing, possibly in hell. Ditto Lucy. I’m helpless to do anything about it, and it’s as though every time I turn around, I’m assailed by yet another ghost of Christmas past!”

  Harrison reaches up, so Mr. Nesbit can scramble from his fingers up the rope supporting one side of the hammock. “Ghost of Christmas past?”

  I remind him about Cissy and then tell him about my conversations with Demos from Artemis Gyros and Tamara from the Edison Hotel. “Even in heaven, I’m haunted.”

  “You’re not in heaven yet.” Harrison scoots to the right and gestures, inviting me to join him on the hammock. I do.

  “Your Highness,” he begins again, “why do you think this is happening?”

  “Because I was a loathsome, bloodthirsty serial killer.”

  “Ah, yes.” Harrison grins like he misses that side of me. “But that’s not all you were. I’ve seen my share of soul sickness, and in my experience, never has a neophyte mourned her early victims the way that you did. In fact, you’re the only case I can recall of an eternal being put on suicide watch.”

  “It wasn’t that big of a —”

  “Don’t you remember the nights you spent locked in your nursery? The master fretted twice over. He nearly cleared his entire collection of knives from the castle because he was fearful that you might get a hold of one and impale your own dear heart.”

  Mr. Nesbit slips, and my open palm shoots out to catch him.

  “My dear princess, you were the kind of girl who adored furry animals. Who — even in death, undeath, and ascension — is too concerned with her loved ones to embrace her own, hard-earned happily ever after.” He winks. “Remarkable that we’re friends.”