“You’re saying that you used to have the same anger . . . issue I do, but you did something and now you don’t? Ever?”
“That’s right.”
“Tell me. What did you do?”
“It’s the blood, Will. It’s all about the blood.”
“You mean his blood.” The blood that made them . . . different. What made them stronger and faster and smarter than regular humans. “It runs through our veins, we can’t change that.”
“Maybe you’re not as smart as you think,” she said.
“Okay. So make me smarter,” said Will.
“I found a way to purge myself of his blood. You’re gonna laugh, but I call it ‘demon dialysis.’ I modified a dialysis machine and used it to filter his blood out of my body, so it’s me running my life, me making my decisions, me staying cool, calm, and collected.”
Will’s eyes narrowed. If she was telling the truth, the consequences were far reaching. He was at once terrified and thrilled at the prospect of purging himself of the Dark Lord’s blood. But being the son of the Prince of Darkness—while a terrible curse—had given him advantages over mere mortals, and helped him fight demons. He couldn’t risk losing what powers he had, could he? But what about Loreli? She obviously had powers equal and in some cases surpassing his, so if she had indeed conceived a system of purifying her blood, she had done so without sacrificing the intellectual and physical abilities she’d inherited from their father.
“You want to think about it,” said Loreli. “That’s good. I’d expect you to. Just know that I can help you, Will. And consider, just consider, the idea that your life could be so much better. You wouldn’t have to be afraid of yourself anymore.”
“I wouldn’t lose any of my powers?”
“I can’t guarantee you anything. All I can tell you is that I didn’t lose even a half a step. What I lost was his . . . his awful hold over me.”
The thought of losing his sense of self, his abilities—even if they were inexorably bound to the Dark Lord—terrified Will. Loreli could see it in his eyes.
“Sometimes,” said Loreli, “in order to get one thing you want you have to let go of another.”
She reached up and slid her fingers around Will’s neck, rubbing in what Will assumed was a gesture of comfort, but he was afraid she might touch his Power Rod retrieval patch, so he firmly removed her hand. It felt sweaty, and he wiped the perspiration from his skin. Loreli now appeared wan and spent, and like what she was: a girl who’d just been wounded by the Devil. She breathed in deeply and exhaled slowly.
“I’m tired . . . I think I need to sleep,” she said. She closed her eyes and sank back into her pillow.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” said Will, softly.
Loreli appeared to already be asleep. Will rose and felt the exhaustion pulling at him, too. He was growing more tired by the second—as if there were weights on his eyelids—and he decided he’d better shut down for a couple of hours himself. Casting a parting glance at his sleeping sister, he went to the master control panel and armed the house. Rudy appeared beside him.
“Hey, you okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” said Will. “Just tired.”
“Where were you? What happened? Did you smoke any demons?”
“A few. I’ll bring you up to speed tomorrow.”
“You still want me to keep a lookout?” Rudy looked behind him at the window. “Emily went to bed. I gave her the last piece of pizza.” Rudy was disappointed about the pizza but hopeful about Emily.
“No. We’re good. If they aren’t here by now, they aren’t coming. Get some sleep.”
Will wearily climbed the stairs, so tired he wondered if he could even make it to his room. He did, and he closed and locked the door behind him. Rudy lingered on the first floor, peering into the guest room at Loreli. She was smokin’ hot even just lying there. Rudy shook his head, dazzled, then went upstairs, too.
A few minutes passed. Loreli opened her eyes and waited. She’d watched Rudy through slitted eyes, and she knew what was coming next. Or rather, who. Another minute passed, the grandfather clock in the hallway ticking. When she saw a shadow in the hallway she closed her eyes again, and kept them closed as she felt someone approaching. It was Natalie creeping into the room. Loreli continued to lie very still. Natalie stared at her, her eyes slowly sweeping over every inch of her adversary, from her cascading hair and her perfect skin to her long eyelashes and the subtly beautiful medallion around her neck. She was flawless. It was easy to see what Will saw in her. Though Natalie was of course unarmed, in her mind’s eye she saw herself bringing a swift death to this interloper, this love thief. Bad thoughts. Bad thoughts.
Loreli spoke, her lips moving, without opening her eyes. “Natalie . . .”
Natalie’s skin prickled. Loreli’s voice was disarming, so smooth and honey-sweet. Already Natalie felt on the defensive. She needed to hold it together, to take control. Was Loreli even awake?
Loreli’s eyes finally opened. Natalie, who had never had the full force of those eyes turned on her before, almost gasped. These were not the eyes of a mere mortal, they were the eyes of a goddess. Frighteningly beautiful, and so alarmingly green they seemed to shimmer in the dull light. Loreli had some kind of intense mojo, an unearthly power not dissimilar to Will’s. She tried to sit up and winced, and only then did Natalie notice she was injured.
“What happened to you?” said Natalie.
“Will and I ran into . . . some unpleasantness. But we’re okay. We . . . protected one another.”
Natalie clenched her jaw and balled her hands into fists. She tried to breathe deeply, but her lungs felt shallow and her eyes watered. With her uninjured arm, Loreli reached over and slid a tube from her coat, squeezed out some cream onto her fingers, and casually spread it over her face as she spoke, massaging it into her skin.
“Natalie . . . I see the way you look at me, I see the pain in your eyes.”
“What makes you think . . .”
But Natalie couldn’t even finish her denial. It was futile. She knew how her eyes belied her emotions, offering them up for all to see. Other people could read her like a billboard.
“I’m sorry for your pain,” said Loreli. “But you must know that Will and I are . . . linked.”
“Linked? You just met,” said Natalie.
“I know. But it feels like we’ve known each other our whole lives.”
Loreli looked at Natalie with pity. She fingered the medallion around her neck.
“Don’t tell me he hasn’t told you about us,” said Loreli.
“No. He wouldn’t . . .”
Her voice trailed off sadly, so Loreli finished the sentence for her. “He wouldn’t tell you anything about me, would he.”
Natalie’s stony silence was her answer.
“Oh, dear. You love him very much, don’t you,” said Loreli. It sounded condescending. “I’m sure he’ll talk to you. When he feels the time is right.”
Natalie’s muscles were tightening and her head felt like it had a metal band around it that was getting tighter by the second. She stared furiously at Loreli.
“I’m here, you’re here, so why not just say what you’re hinting at?” asked Natalie.
Loreli shook her head slowly from side to side. “I wish I could, I really do. But he’s sworn me to secrecy. He won’t let me talk to you about . . . us.”
Us. The word was brutal, murderous.
“He might have kissed you, but Will is in love with me,” said Natalie. But a voice inside told her, It’s over, done, finito, he’s fallen for her.
“Of course he is. But love can be ephemeral, and you’re losing him,” said Loreli.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t even know him!”
“You’re wrong. I do know him. In a way, he and I are closer than the two of you could ever be. You know, he’s different from normal boys. He has different needs.”
“I know what he needs,” said Nata
lie. She tried to be firm with her voice but was quickly losing control. She felt that at any minute the floor would become liquid and she would fall into it and drown. Loreli, with her stunningly beautiful face, just kept smiling that annoyingly condescending smile.
“You used to know. But things have changed.”
“He still loves me.” If she could just say it enough, it would be true, and Loreli would disappear.
“If he loves you, if he truly loves you as much as you believe he does, then ask yourself this question: Why won’t he tell you about us?”
“He will. He would have. He’s been . . . busy.”
Loreli now looked stricken, as though holding in a painful secret. She forced a brave sad smile for Natalie.
“I’m really sorry. I don’t want you to blame me, to hate me. None of this is my fault. Things just . . . happen. Come here. Come closer.”
Natalie wanted to run away. But she moved closer, and when Loreli held out her hands, she took them.
“Your hands are dry. Here, try this.”
Loreli extracted another tube from her coat and squeezed a dollop of hand cream into Natalie’s palm. Numbly, Natalie rubbed the cream in, and it softened her hands instantly.
“That’s better now, isn’t it?”
Natalie didn’t respond, just kept rubbing the lotion into her hands and her wrists. It heated on her skin, and the warmth spread quickly.
“Listen, Natalie. I don’t think he’ll talk to you about us, I think he’ll just . . . stay silent. And keep shutting you out. But it’s worth a try. Go to him. Go and see.”
“I will,” Natalie said, standing up. She turned and left the guest room.
Loreli listened to her light footsteps, silently counting off the seconds as Natalie climbed the staircase. At the top of the stairs, Natalie found Will’s room and tried the door. It was locked.
He would tell her. He would. He had to. She tapped lightly. “Will?”
Loreli’s words echoed. He’ll just . . . stay silent.
She knocked again, harder and louder this time. “Will?”
Keep shutting you out.
“Will, I need to talk to you,” said Natalie.
Silence.
“Please . . .?”
She put her ear to the door. Silence. She took a breath to speak again, louder this time. One last chance. Cross your fingers. This time he’ll do the right thing. This time he’ll come and open the door.
“Will . . . I need you.”
Count to five. One. He’ll come. Two. He’s probably walking to the door right now. Three. He’ll open it and tell me everything. Four. He won’t hide things from me, will he? Five. Tell me the truth, Will, just tell me the truth!
Silence. The door did not open. Shutting you out. Shutting you out.
In his room, Will was facedown on his bed, out like a light, sleeping dreamlessly, a small patch on the back of his ear inflamed from the dab of narcotic potion his sister had rubbed there. Out in the hallway, Natalie turned from Will’s door, and on suddenly wobbly legs she made her way back to her room, closing her door with a click, shutting herself in, shutting the world out. She sat on her bed and gazed out the window, wringing her hands. She felt light-headed as she watched the stars fall out of the sky.
Chapter Eighteen: Seeking Father
Will awakened tangled in his sheets. His head felt heavy. He had to look at the clock twice to make sure it was right. He’d actually slept for four hours straight, a heavy, narcotic sleep, which, judging by the condition of his bed, he’d had to claw his way out of. It was already nearly dawn. He decided that decompressing from the battle in the Under City, combined with the guilt of getting his sister wounded—not to mention inhaling lungfuls of smoke from the burning Fire Lake—had made a potent cocktail that had knocked him out. There were more important things to worry about—like finding and destroying the Dark Lord’s head. He got up and quickly showered and brushed his teeth, then went downstairs to check on Loreli. The guest room was empty, the bed made with precise hospital corners. Obviously her shoulder had healed up just fine, which didn’t surprise him.
In the kitchen a fresh pot of coffee had been brewed. He poured himself a cup.
“Loreli?’ he called. There was no answer.
He moved downstairs and found her in his lab with her own cup of coffee, working on one of his computers.
No one touched his computers. No one. He was about to ask her just exactly what she thought she was doing when she cut him off with: “We have to find the head. You were still asleep and I didn’t want to waste any time.”
She moved out of the way and Will sat down, taking back control of his computer. First he checked the screen monitoring April. Nothing had changed.
Then he turned his attention to Loreli. “It must have been blown off his body in the blast,” he said. His fingers flew over the keys as he brought up the files associated with his extensive searches of the blast area surrounding Mount St. Emory. “The demons have been over every square inch within the blast radius.”
“How do you know?” asked Loreli.
“I had a little encounter with them, here,” he said, pointing to the mountains above which he’d found his Power Rod.
“They must have found his body parts and pieced them together,” said Loreli.
“But they didn’t find the head.”
“And if we can find it . . .”
“Then we can destroy it, and bring an end to this thing once and for all.”
As Will began typing furiously, the monitors lit up around him, displaying graphs and maps and computations.
“Since it wasn’t within the projected coordinates of the blast pattern, we’ll have to look outside it,” said Loreli.
“I’ve already done that,” said Will. “I expanded the parameters for miles and searched everywhere.”
“What if . . . somehow someone or something, an animal maybe, found the head and moved it? It could be someplace that’s already been searched, or even someplace further away.”
“That’s what I’m thinking, too,” said Will.
He continued typing and the U.S. military’s version of Google Earth came up on the screens.
“Wherever the head is, it’s still . . . conscious. I can still hear him in my head sometimes. He’s still able to conjure up thoughts, emotions, still able to propagate evil.”
“If you were him, and your followers couldn’t find you, what would you do?” asked Loreli.
Will thought about it. What would he do if he were immobile and wanted to be found? “I’d send out a signal,” he said. Just like in the Boy Scout handbook.
Will began typing again, searching, going from computer to computer, screen to screen.
“What kind of signal?” said Loreli.
“He’s evil, he exudes evil. Look for acts of violence, crimes, whatever.” Together Will and Loreli worked on the computers, and in an hour they had amassed a list of hate crimes, kidnappings, murders, suicides, and other horrific crimes that had occurred since the blast at Mount St. Emory. They studied them and narrowed the list down, focusing on only the most terrifying. But the crimes didn’t follow any discernable pattern, and Will couldn’t find what he was looking for. He had to find the Dark Lord’s head soon. For his mother’s sake, and for the sake of all those who would suffer should the Prince of Darkness find his way to wholeness again and swing the Sword of Armageddon. Frustration was setting in.
And then he got a break. He happened upon a blogger’s rant about giant hailstones that had killed seven people in Deer Park. Further investigation led him to bizarre reports of four rafters finding a “river of blood” in Noxon, Montana. Sensing that he was on to something, Will shifted the search from crimes to freak occurrences and strange happenings, and came across the scorched adulterers in Davenport, the group of mourners struck blind en masse on the Thompson Falls Dam, and the purity pledge teens whose skin erupted in Potlatch, Idaho. Will suspected that all five events had something in co
mmon: the Dark Lord.
Five more minutes of research, and Will had part of the puzzle solved. The events loosely corresponded to five of the seven plagues listed in the Book of Revelation. Deer Park, Noxon, Davenport, Thompson Falls, and Potlatch. Five events. Five points. By connecting the points where the events had occurred, Will formed a five-pointed star. For Satanists, a potent symbol: the pentagram.
“This is it. This is him. It’s his work,” said Will.
“How do you know?”
“Call it a hunch, whatever, but it’s him. No doubt about it.”
Will used a graphics program to overlay the pentagram on the map. It was rough, but it fit. He calculated the center of the graph and came up with Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
“The head’s here. Coeur d’Alene. Let’s find out what’s happened in Coeur d’Alene . . . anytime after the Mount St. Emory eruption.”
They both began searching, using four different computers.
Loreli was the one who found it. “Will, I think I have something.”
She was pointing to a story about little eight-year-old Zachary Hastings, who had used a baseball bat—a gift from his grandfather—to brutally maim his family. When questioned, Zachary said he’d heard a voice telling him what to do, and that he believed the voice belonged to the Devil. Will’s eyes lit up.
“Bingo. Good work. This is it. Gotta be. I’m gearing up.”
Will was up and packing, loading weapons into his backpack. Loreli watched, amazed. In a matter of hours, Will Hunter had accomplished what a thousand demons had been unable to. He’d found the Black Prince’s head.
“I’ll call you when I . . .” he hesitated. “When I’ve destroyed it.”
Loreli stood up.
“You can’t think I’m letting you go after that thing alone. I’m going with you.”
“You’re injured.”
“I was injured. I’m fine now, thanks to those healing patches of yours. So finish packing, and let’s go.”
Ditching her hadn’t worked so well the last time. Will gave in and finished packing. Leaving Loreli in the kitchen, he went upstairs.
The Rising Page 21
