Faegen, Trinity - Mephisto Covenant, The

by BTKT

  “Hello, Sasha,” the elbowing brother who had a ponytail said with a smile. “I’m Kyros, but everyone calls me Key. We’re glad you’re here.”

  “We’re glad you’re alive,” said another brother, Xenos, who went by Zee and had severely short hair, a tattoo of a question mark on his neck, and a very large diamond stud winking in one ear, “and we’ll be even more glad if you decide to stay. Do you like music?”

  “Only a lot.” “Like who, for instance?” She named a few of her favorites and he nodded, as if she passed inspection. “Have you ever heard of Arcadia?” “Zee, back off,” Jax said. “She’s not going to like your grunge punk.” “Actually, I have. They’re out of Britain, and played at the Filmore in San Francisco. Some friends and I snuck in and saw them.”

  Jax looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. “You snuck into a concert?”

  “We’d have bought tickets, but it was closed to anyone under twenty-one.”

  The last of the brothers was Phoenix. He didn’t smile. “I have an idea about how to keep you from getting into any more trouble at the Shrivers’.”

  “What is it?” “Don’t go back.” Before she could respond, a deep voice said from behind her, “Breakfast is getting cold.”Turning, she had to stifle a gasp. A man with dark skin and dark eyes stood in the doorway, wearing an outfit that was straight out of the Arabian Nights. He looked ready to jump a horse, grab a broadsword, and raid a village in the name of Mohammed.

  “Sasha,” Jax said, “this is Deacon, our butler.”

  All righty, then. It was weird enough to have a butler, but to have one who looked like Deacon made it severely wack. “Hello, Deacon. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  The man nodded slowly, just once, not making eye contact. Then he turned and left.

  “Did I say something wrong?”

  “No, he’s old school and won’t look directly at a woman who’s not in his family. He’s a Moor, our first Purgatory, who came to us during the Crusades. His wife and daughters were killed by crusaders, and he’s nowhere close to forgiving God for letting that happen.”

  “Why would a Muslim man be named Deacon?”

  “It’s a nickname. He’s been after us for centuries because we’re filthy infidels who offend him, so he’s forever lecturing us. One night, maybe three hundred years ago, Key called him Deacon, and it stuck.”

  Phoenix said, “Let’s eat.”

  Ten minutes later, Jax wondered why he had thought it would be a good idea to introduce Sasha to his brothers. He should have listened to Phoenix, who told him to have breakfast served to her in his room, and to meet with the brothers alone. He’d warned him this could lead to disaster. At the far end of the table, Phoenix ate his breakfast without saying a word, but Jax knew what he was thinking, knew he would take the first opportunity to say, I told you so. Jax decided he’d pound him. Just as soon as he kicked the living daylights out of his other brothers.

  Sasha was insanely beautiful today, her long, blond hair pulled back into some kind of apparatus so that it hung straight and silky to the middle of her back, and her slender body shown to perfection in a dress that wasn’t cut too low, but just enough to show the soft swell of her breasts. She positively glowed, and like a cluster of insects stupidly beating themselves up to get close to the light, his brothers constantly tried to one up each other in front of her.

  Except Phoenix, Mr. I’m Above All of This.

  Deacon was his usual stalwart, silent self, gliding around the table to serve coffee and juice, but once in a while he’d glance at Jax, silently communicating that yes, this was a debacle. Of course, he didn’t help the situation. He worked for the Mephisto to learn humility, but after eight hundred years, Deacon wasn’t humble. He was proud and considered himself above most everyone, especially the Mephisto. He never tired of lecturing, but today, he didn’t say a word.

  Although Jax admitted it wouldn’t have done much good anyway. He and his brothers usually ignored Deacon’s dire warnings of the consequences of bad behavior. If he called down his brothers for acting like stooges in front of Sasha, they wouldn’t stop. As breakfast continued, they got louder and more obnoxious, and Sasha got quieter.

  At one point, she turned to him and said, “Do you eat like this every day?”

  “Not the huge selection, but Mathilda and Hans are good cooks. Do you like the squab?”

  “It’s a little like chicken, but different. Delicious.” She ate another bite. “What is a squab, anyway?”

  “Pigeon,” Key said before Jax could even take in a breath to answer. Then he launched off into the culinary history of pigeons. No sooner had he finished talking, than Ty said, “I have a dovecote with homing pigeons. Did you know homing pigeons orient themselves to where they’re hatched, and no matter where they are in the world, they’ll try to fly back to their home, even if it’s across the ocean? I bought some breeding pigeons from a guy in Brussels, but I have to keep them caged or they’d try to fly back to Belgium.” “You know,” Denys said, “there’s a bar in Brussels where the drinks are all free.” He grinned. “But there’s a five-hundreddollar cover charge.”

  “The best bar in the world is the Black Orchid in London,” Zee said. “Lots of bands got their start at the Orchid.”

  “Did you know we have a greenhouse?” Key asked. “I grow orchids.” He went off about some of his experiments, how he’d developed several new varieties. Sasha kept eating, listening as though everything they said was the most interesting bit of information she’d ever heard. She was so not like him. She was patient and kind and considerate. He wanted to tell his brothers to shut the hell up and stop monopolizing her attention. He became more depressed as breakfast wore on. Even if by some miracle she decided to stay, how could she survive here, with a bunch of clueless guys, angry ghosts, and a job that entailed confronting evil souls, day in and day out? She’d be lonely, maybe, without any girls to hang out with, and who knew how many more years or centuries it might be before one of his brothers found another Anabo?

  When everyone was almost done, Key said, “I’ve given this a lot of thought, and the best solution isn’t to guard Sasha from Brett, but to keep him away from her in the first place. We need something to threaten him with.”

  “He killed Reilly,” Sasha said. “He would probably rather not be arrested and tried for murder, so if you could make him think you have some kind of evidence, he might back off.”

  “I can get a picture,” Jax said, thinking this just might work. “I could say I was taking pictures of Devil’s Ridge with my phone, and happened to capture him shoving Reilly.”

  “He’d want to know why you didn’t already take it to the police,” Key pointed out.

  “The school gossip says I got kicked out of boarding school for smoking weed. I’ll say I don’t want the cops looking at me, so I won’t show them the picture if he’ll leave Sasha alone.” “Wait,” she said, “won’t he want to see the picture?”

  “I’m sure he will, but M can get us a picture of anything that actually happened.”

  Everyone agreed he should give it a try, and as he led Sasha out of the house and down the drive to the car Brody had pulled around, he hoped it would work.

  He opened the door for her ,and she turned to look back at the house. “It’s so amazing, really like a castle: all the gray stone and the million chimneys, turrets, lead glass, and gargoyles.”

  On the winding drive to the highway, she looked from side to side, asking questions. He told her the small stone houses were the Lumina cottages, the big stone building was an old dairy they’d converted to a gym, and the long low building made of pink granite was where everyone on the mountain attended tutoring sessions.

  Farther down the mountain, they passed through the Kyanos mists, and her eyes were wide. “It’s like the fog in San Francisco, except blue.”

  “If people who aren’t Mephisto or Luminas come up this road, it dead ends and all they see is more forest and mountains.
” “What if they hiked farther up? Would they run into an invisible building?” “No. It’s hard to explain, but it’s as if it’s not there to anyone but us.”

  “Is that what Hell on Earth is like? Is that why no one knows it’s there, like scientists or people who drill oil wells?”

  “Yes. Our home and Hell on Earth exist on another plane of reality that only a few can see. Heaven and Hell are in another dimension, one none of us sees until it’s time. I’ve never been to Hell, and I’ve never met Lucifer. M is our go-between.”

  He parked the car in the school parking lot, killed the engine, and handed her an envelope. “This is your birth certificate. It shows that your mom is your natural parent, and that you were born in Moscow. There are also U.S. citizenship papers and a Social Security card. It’s all real, and recorded in the right files with the government.”

  Feeling a huge weight lifted, she wanted to tell him this was awesomely romantic, but Brody was there, so she just smiled and said, “Thank you, Jax.”

  thirteen

  she was surprised to see brett in english. she assumed he’d stay at the hospital by Tim’s deathbed all day, not because he was sad, but because it was a good excuse to skip school. It wasn’t like Brett had any feelings for Tim. He was a lost soul, so grief was no longer part of his makeup.

  He glared at her when she came into the room, and shot such a look of hatred at Jax that Sasha felt sick to her stomach. Amanda, she saw with a sinking feeling, was sitting next to Brett. She avoided looking at Sasha, staring down at her book instead, toying with her necklace, which Sasha could see was the amethyst drop Brett had stolen from her drawer.

  She remembered when her dad had brought it home to her; he’d said he’d bought it from a yak herder in Siberia, which she knew was a made-up story, but she went along and wore it every day for a whole year.

  Seeing it now, hanging around Amanda’s neck, and knowing how she had gotten it, Sasha was mad and sad, all at once. Amanda didn’t know. She thought it was a gift from a boy she liked, a boy she now viewed as some sort of underdog.

  After they sat down, she heard Brett telling East and Julianne about Tim, laying on worry and fear with a heavy hand. Sasha knew just how that must sound to Amanda. Glancing back at her, she saw that she had sympathy written all over her face.

  All through class, while different people read from The Metamorphosis, Sasha tried to think of a new plan, a new way to keep Amanda from joining the Ravens.

  But when the bell rang, she had nothing.

  The day marched on, until it was lunch, and the same group who’d been at the coffeehouse sat together, with a few additions, including a guy on the ski team who used to be best buds with Scott the Molester.

  Mason and Rachel were funny together—he was so big and she was so tiny. Sasha could only guess what had happened between Thomas and Erin last night, but something, for sure. They were so into each other, they didn’t talk much to anyone else.

  After lunch, before fourth period began, while Jax went to find Brett, to show him the picture M had sent to his phone, and to tell him his options, Sasha hung around his locker and nervously waited for him to come back. While she stood there biting her lip, Amanda walked up.

  Trying to play it low key, trying extra hard not to stare at her necklace, Sasha smiled and said, “Hey, Amanda. How’s it going?” “I wanted you to know that Brett’s being supernice to me. I think he’s just really mixed up. Now, with his dad so sick, like

  he might even . . . die, I feel like I need to give him a chance.” “I understand.” “You do?” She looked genuinely surprised. “I get why it’s cool to like a guy when he likes you back.” Amanda looked so relieved, it would be comical if it wasn’t so tragic. “But seriously, Amanda, be careful. You know I don’t like him, and there’s a real good reason for it. Just don’t do what you have to do to join the Ravens. Lead him on about it if you have to, but don’t join.”

  “It’s not that big of a deal, Sasha. I mean, yeah, it’s kinda strange, but it’s not like I have to be a member forever.”

  “How do you know?” “Brett told me.” This was so frustrating. “What if he’s lying? What if you say you give up God and pledge to follow Eryx, and it’s real?” Amanda shrugged. “It’s not like I’m going to worship Satan or become a witch or a vampire or something wack like that. It’s just a club, like a secret society in college.” She looked down the hall, and said, “There he is. I gotta go.”

  Sasha slumped back against Jax’s locker and stared after Amanda, watched her go up to Brett, saw him put his arm around her shoulders. How could she not see what kind of guy he was? It seemed so obvious to her, and it wasn’t like she was alone. People were talking about the basketball game, and how he had acted like such a tool, shoving the coach, then storming off like a big baby. He was kicked off the team, of course, and rumor had it Coach Gill suspended him from the ski team as well. Brett’s popularity had crashed and burned in less than twenty-four hours, and he’d done it to himself. That Amanda could like him . . . it blew her mind.

  “It’s a done deal,” Jax murmured from her left. She turned to look up at him. “Really?” He nodded. “Brett won’t bother you again. He freaked when

  I showed him the picture.” He looked closer and said, “What’s wrong?”

  She didn’t want to tell him, because he’d give her a lecture about free will and how pointless it was to interfere. So she straightened and smiled and said, “Nothing’s wrong. I was just worried about you and hoping it went okay.”

  “It went even better than I imagined.” He glanced around at the still crowded hall. “We’ve got five more minutes until class. You wanna go under a cloak and make out?”

  That sounded so much better than fretting about Amanda. “Only a lot.”

  He grabbed her hand, they walked around the corner into an empty room, and disappeared.

  Rose came during history and waved Sasha and Brett out of class. In the hall, she said quietly, “Mrs. Shriver called from the hospital and said Mr. Shriver’s taken a turn for the worse. She asked me to tell Brett, but I assumed she’d want you to know, too, Sasha.”

  She’d assumed wrong, but Sasha didn’t say that. They followed her to the high school office and signed out for the day, then walked back out into the hall. Brett, she noticed, wouldn’t look directly at her. He said in a dull voice, “Do you want to go to the hospital?”

  “Only for Chris. He doesn’t know what Tim did last night before he came home and smacked me around. He still thinks that’s his dad in that hospital bed, so I’ll go to be with him.” She walked away.

  “Chris joined the Ravens about three hours ago.”

  She stopped cold, turned quickly, and went back to him, shaking so hard, her voice came out in a weird warble. “You’re lying. He wouldn’t do that!”

  “Mr. Bruno went to the hospital and told him he could save Dad’s life if he’d join.” He shook his head slowly, looking at her like he felt sorry for her. “When are you going to wake up and realize, Eryx always wins? He’s what people want.”

  “Not everyone.” “Yes, everyone. People need things, want things, and you’re kidding yourself if you think you can keep anyone from joining.” “I can try. I have to try.” “You might as well spit on a forest fire. No one’s immune.

  No one. Even my dad, Dudley Do-Right. He ate until he was a whale, then worried he’d kick off and Mom would throw Chris out in the street. Bruno promised him he’d stay alive at least until Chris is old enough to live on his own.”

  “Why does she hate Chris so much?”

  “Dad had a girlfriend in Russia who died having Chris, so he brought him home and told Mom she had to raise him like he was hers. People screw things up, then they want it fixed, or they want something they can’t get on their own, so Eryx promises it to them. Chris pledged his soul to save Dad’s life because he knows if the old man croaks, he’ll be Dumpster diving for his next meal.” He got right in her face. “What have you got to
offer people like Dad and Chris?”

  “The truth.”

  “You think that’ll help Chris? You think the truth will save Dad?”

  “It would have if they’d known it before they pledged. Eryx’s promises are lies, sucker bets for desperate people.”

  “Where you’re stupid is not realizing everyone’s desperate. All Eryx has to do is figure out why, what they want, and promise it. Wait and see how many of your new friends believe the truth is where it’s at.”

  It was as if the roof of the school opened up and a lightning bolt of rage hit her out of the clear blue sky. Reaching for his neck, she shoved as hard as she could, and they flew toward the lockers. She held him there, choking the life out of him, ignoring his clawing hands, his desperate kicks. She wanted him to die, right now, so he couldn’t tell Eryx’s lies to anyone else.

  ---

  When she didn’t return for her backpack, Jax got up and left the room, pretending he was about to hurl so Bruno wouldn’t question why he was leaving. As soon as he went into the hall, he looked toward the office and his heart stopped. Against the lockers, she had a choke hold on Brett, and he knew, like he knew his name and that the sun would set tonight, she’d crossed the line between Anabo and Mephisto. He’d known it was coming, that it was inevitable, but thought it would take longer. All those kisses from him had done this to her, and he waited to feel terrible, but it never came. Instead, he thought she was freaking glorious in her rage and determination.

  Realizing he had mere seconds before someone came into the hall and saw them, he popped himself to where she was, pulled her off of Brett, and set her aside. “Be still.”

  Unconscious, Brett slid to the floor, and Jax bent to settle his hands on him and heal the damage to his throat and larynx. Grabbing Sasha’s arm, he walked her away and took the first door he came to, which was the girls’ room, erasing Brett’s memory and waking him up as the door closed behind them. He’d be confused about how he wound up on the floor, but he’d get