by A and E Kirk
“Ow! Stop! It was just a joke,” came a girl’s voice.
Tristan and I looked at each other, then unwrapped the squirmy creature. At the sight of her, I jumped back.
The girl had short, stick-straight brown hair in a ponytail that usually stuck out the end of her favorite baseball cap. She was of slightly smaller than average height and build. But all I could remember about her was how she’d loomed over me, cold eyes narrowed with malice as she wielded a metal pipe like a baseball bat, trying to hit me out of the park.
Or existence.
“Heather.” My voice was flat.
“My BFF finally came to see me?” Heather beamed with delight and tried to latch me in a one-armed hug but couldn’t with her other arm shackled to a hospital bed. “Awesome! I’ve been so lonely. How are my parents? They haven’t come, either.” She glanced at Tristan. “Is this your boyfriend? Hey, cutie. Is that why you were asking me questions? This is so cool. I’ve missed you, Aurora-bora. Now we can catch up. Tell me everything starting with how you snagged such a hottie and…”
A strangled laugh escaped my throat. I backed up. The sight of her started me shaking.
“No. No, no, no.”
Heather, my former-friend-turned-living-nightmare, kept talking. I covered my ears. Shut my eyes. But I couldn’t stop the flow of memories. Seeing her had launched me back to the worst moments of my life.
I’d never figured out which one of them grabbed my hair and swung me face-first into the side of the building. Too busy clutching my head and getting tossed into the alley. When I’d tried to get up, someone crushed my hand beneath their heel. Another kicked my side like they were trying to make a field goal.
Conscious too sadistically long, I remembered every hate-filled face. Including my former softball team buddy, Heather.
When she’d run into the alley twirling the pipe, my heart had filled with hope. Thought she’d come to save me. But then the pipe swung down. Metal ripped soft tissue and shattered bone. The copper strike of blood gushed from my mouth, from everywhere. I couldn’t block the next blow with my arm limp, mangled, jagged bone jutting out at hideous angles. The pipe exploded my head, knocked out my sight, but not the pain. The shrieks. Would it ever end?
“Stop.” Tristan dabbed my face with a cloth. “Aurora, please.” I’d backed against a crumbling wall. “You screamed,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Stop before we attract attention.”
When I tried to run out, Tristan caught me.
“Please.” I struggled to tug free of him as tears blurred my vision.
“Give her a chance.” He gave me a sympathetic smile and squeezed my hand. “I’ve been in her mind. She’s a victim too.”
CHAPTER 46
Heather sat cross-legged on the bed opposite me, grinning. She’d wanted to sit next to me, hold my hand, but there was no freaking way.
“So you remember nothing about what happened after we left the frat party that night,” I said. “But you remember a woman at the party who was asking questions about me?”
“Like I told ol’ blue eyes here,” she winked at Tristan. “I thought she was a professor, but now I know she’s a doctor. Dr. Jones.”
I nodded. “The one who brought you here.”
“And won’t let me leave until I tell her how you survived.” She threw her hands in the air. “Survived what? You’re fine.”
Debatable.
“I told her you left the party, I stayed and woke up the next morning in jail with a massive hangover and no memory.” She picked at a pretty flower bracelet on her wrist above the leather restraint lashing her to the bed. “Then she brought me here. Do you think I lost my softball scholarship? Maybe it’s just deferred. I’ve kept practicing. I don’t feel sick. Please tell Dr. Jones what happened so I can go home and see my family. Why haven’t they come? Have they asked about me? People are weird here. There’s a girl who lights on fire and a guy who—”
“Heather!” Jeez, I’d forgotten how she could talk. “What does Dr. Jones look like? It’s important.”
“If I tell you, can I go home?” Her look was so pathetically hopeful.
I wanted to hate her. The her with the pipe who broke me in so many ways. But she was mind warped. Because of me. She still thought we were BFFs. I was not equipped to navigate these conflicting realities. Coo-coo crazy was hammering at my door.
“Heather, I don’t know!” I grabbed her shirt. “You’ve got to remember!”
She rolled her eyes. “So dramatic. I’ll tell you, silly.” She cocked her head and smiled. “Anything for my Aurora-borealis who lights up my life forever, remember?”
I released her, my chest suddenly tight. “And Heather who always brings fair weather.”
Man, we were lame.
She grinned. “I knew you wouldn’t forget. Okay. Dr. Jones looks like…” Heather’s voice trailed off. “I usually need a lot of medication before she comes, but…” Her eyes turned glassy. “Dark hair. Brown. In a bun.” Her face scrunched with concentration. “She’s taller than me but not as tall as you, Aurora.” She pointed at Tristan. “More like old blue eyes here.”
“You’re doing great.” Tristan patted her hand. “Keep going.”
“She’s pretty. Maybe. At least her voice is. I love her accent. Like a lullaby.”
“Is the accent Italian?” I asked.
“Could be. Not sure. Her words sound weird, warped somehow, and sometimes her questions go on and on, and if she doesn’t make my head hurt, her voice puts me to sleep, but…” Heather’s lip trembled. “She doesn’t like that. That’s why I like Dr. Oser better. He never hurts my head.”
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“The dreamy doctor. He’s new.” She flumped on her bed. “Wants me to remember more, but…” Her knuckles rapped against her skull. She winced. Her knuckles rapped harder and harder and—
“Relax.” Tristan laid a hand on her arm, his eyes swirling amethyst. Heather went limp. “She needs rest.”
“Because of your hallucinator handiwork?” I said.
“No!” Tristan’s eyes blazed and flashed a deeper purple. “Dr. Jones did this. And I am nothing like her. If I make someone forget, it’s like putting it in a secret box, burying it and planting a garden above it as a nice distraction and new reality. No harm. Nothing vital disturbed. And I never go this deep.” He made a sound of disgust. “Jones took a part of Heather’s mind, shattered it like glass, then pounded it into dust with a sledgehammer. She messed with parts so deep, I won’t even go there.”
“So…it’s bad?”
“Yeah. Plus, her neurological receptors have been overstimulated.”
“Ah.” I nodded like I understood. “So really bad?”
“Heather might start seeing and hearing things that aren’t there. And look.” He lifted the hem of one pant leg. She had an anklet with blinking red lights on a quarter sized metal disk. A Mandatum tracker. “Someone does not want to lose her.”
A vision flashed. Just outside the door. Crap.
“They’re here!” I said as the door burst open and two demons snarled in.
Tristan and I were already rolling back over the bed and taking Heather with us. Tristan’s eyes swirled bright violet.
“Stay down,” he whispered. “I can confuse them into leaving the room if we stay quiet.”
Heather popped to her feet. “What’s going on? Hey, neat costumes.”
The hellions screeched and lunged in. I yanked Heather down. She bumped her head on the floor and stayed there as I threw my hand forward. The demons didn’t explode in a burst of white light, but it was worth a try. Was it really too much to ask for reliable superpowers?
And I was out of Flint’s spikey fireballs. As I searched for a weapon, Tristan made a harsh noise and moved. Fast.
With one hand, he ripped off the rusted metal leg of the bed. He planted his other hand on the mattress and flung his legs over the bed while swinging his weapon in a vicious arc. The metal leg c
onnected with the first demon’s head while Tristan’s feet scissor-kicked the second demon in the shoulder and head.
Twice.
Landing on his feet, Tristan twirled the metal rod side to side with practiced ease, then he conked Twiddle Dee upside the head again before he drove the pipe’s jagged end into Twiddle Dum’s throat. He flicked it out quickly at an angle that severed Dum’s head clean off. Dee was still reeling from the concussion, so the beast didn’t see it coming when Tristan stabbed the rod through its skull.
There was a nasty crunching, along with wet noises followed by a putrid smell and spurting black goo. Then Dum’s head splat onto the floor. Dee’s wormy tongues went limp as he crumpled down. A gag-worthy stench of sewage and rotting meat permeated the air.
Tristan stood there, demon blood splattered against the freckles on his face, chest heaving, his blond locks matted and hanging over his shining purple eyes, squinting hard with a dangerous slant.
“Are there more coming?” he asked.
“Um…” I hinged my jaw back on and continued staring.
Tristan looked at me. “What?”
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” I said. “But sometimes I forget you can fight.”
“Yeah.” His lips pressed into a thin line, his eyes flat. His voice was rough. “Defensive hunter my as—whoa!” His knees buckled.
I caught him and helped him sit. “What’s wrong?”
He blinked. “They…gave me a lot of drugs. Some concoction that brought me up and down. Sometimes I’m hyper alert. Sometimes I’m foggy, out of it. Sometimes I am really ticked off. I went after them a couple of times. They weren’t happy about that.”
“Hence the black eye?”
“Among other things.” He touched his ribs tenderly and winced. “Worst part was there was always just enough in my system that I couldn’t activate my powers so I couldn’t get in their heads and make them let me go.”
“Well, you kicked some serious butt right now, thankfully. As for more coming, I don’t know.” At the tired look he gave me I said, “I know. Worst Divinicus ever. I’ll check the hall.”
Heather sat up, groggy, rubbing her head. “What happened?”
I shoved her down. “Stay!”
She frowned. “Aurora Lahey, when did you get so bossy?”
Then, because not enough had gone wrong, KABOOM!
The ceiling exploded.
CHAPTER 47
The ground quaked. A concussion of air flung us to the floor. Debris pelted. Dust fogged so thick I wasn’t breathing the air, I was eating it.
I hacked and wheezed. Shoved off splintered ceiling panels from my legs. We were covered in crap, but nothing heavy. The hole in the ceiling was on the far side of the room.
“Bugger all! Why did you blow it?!”
“Demon dude said to blow it!”
“He’s stalked Aurora, stole the Flint files, and nearly brought us Hell on Earth! Don’t listen to him!”
“I successfully stalked Aurora, stole the Flint files, and stopped Hell on Earth. I’m exactly the ‘dude’ to listen to.”
“Shut up!”
If I was the worst Divinicus ever, they had to be the worst cavalry of all time.
“You nearly killed us!” Tristan dusted himself off.
“Dude! You’re alive!”
“No thanks to you!” I said.
“Babe!”
Blake jumped down and swept me into his arms. “Damsel rescued,” he winked.
“I needed the rescue!” Tristan limped past rubble, an arm around Heather who was gagging over the twitching demon carcasses.
“Another damsel!” Blake cradled me in one arm and opened the other to Heather. “There’s room for you too, gorgeous.”
“What about me?!” Tristan snapped.
“Dude, you’re cute, but not my type.”
Ayden and Jayden flew into the room, took it all in, then relaxed.
I shoved Blake off. “Where’d you guys come from?”
“Demon dude found us,” Blake said.
“Shut it!” Matthias appeared at the edge of the hole above. “There are hundreds of demons that might have heard us and be heading our way.”
“A small civilization, actually.” Eros’s head popped next to the scowling Aussie. “Who knew?”
“You did!” Logan put a hand on Eros’s face and shoved him back. “You never should’ve let Aurora go down here!”
“I am not her keeper,” Eros said.
“You’re welcome to keep her.” Matthias curled a whip down around Tristan and pulled him up.
“Love you too.” I threw Matthias a kiss.
His head flinched back. “Shove off!”
The gang was all alive. Though I could’ve done with one less member.
Heather gaped. “Did you pick these guys out of a catalog?”
“You’d pick me first, right?” Blake flexed a bicep.
Heather grinned. “Sure, stud. You’re my hero.”
“Ha!” Blake pointed up. “Another one for Team Blake!”
Ayden rolled his eyes. “She’s the only one.”
“How do you get anything done with this constant blabbering?” Eros groaned.
“Hi, Dr. Oser.” Heather smiled and waved at Eros.
“Hello, Heather.”
“That’s Oser?” I scowled at Eros. “Funny, he never mentioned being your doctor.”
“Told you he was dreamy,” Heather sighed.
Eros said, “When the traitor could get nowhere with her memories, I was employed through Aphrodite to see if I could prevail. Alas, I did not.”
Heather’s sleeve slipped back as she continued waving at the god of love. I snatched her wrist and pushed the sleeve further up. Red and pink scars streaked the inside of her arms. Burns.
My hand shook. So did my voice. “They tortured you?” I glared at Eros.
“Of course not.” Heather yanked her sleeve down. “Those happened the night of the party. Dr. Jones keeps asking, but I don’t know how I got them. Do you?” When I shook my head, she shrugged. “Bummer. But I do know how I got these.” She pulled down the T-shirt on the back of her neck revealing four dark pink lines. “It was that stupid cat that came out of nowhere and attacked me in the alley. Ugly right. Wish dudes dug scars.”
“This one does!”
“Shut up, Blake!” I snapped. “Heather, what did the cat look like?”
Heather shuddered. “Grey and snarly. Hey, Aurora, Dr. Jones promised us all a reward that night if we followed you when you left the frat house basement. Maybe my reward will be to get rid of these scars, would you ask her?”
Eros said softly, “Heather, in our sessions you never mentioned anything about a basement or rewards, or an alley, or a cat.”
Heather’s expression froze. Then she jumped up with a squeal. “Hey, I remembered something! See Aurora, you’re so good for me.”
She went to hug me. I dodged her. She pouted, looked hurt, but kept her distance.
“Tell me, dear,” Eros said quietly to Heather. “What else do you remember?”
“I remember Jane’s necklace.” Heather pointed to my chest. “Why do you have it?”
I grasped the umbra stone which had come out of my shirt in all the hullabaloo. “Who’s Jane?”
“She got here a few days ago,” Heather said. “Has the room next to me. Doesn’t talk. Probably why the nurses let us hang out. Normally they frown on my socializing, but all Jane does is draw that necklace. Although, she asked me once if I’d ever seen it. Said she needed it to save the world.”
“From what?” I asked.
“No clue. She didn’t say anything else. Ever. I thought she was nuts. Is she?”
“I don’t know.” I gave Eros a questioning glance, he gave me the umbra stone after all, but he lifted his shoulders and shook his head.
“So, Aurora-bora, my lucky memory charm, can you take me home now?”
CHAPTER 48
We rushed through a serie
s of hallways and up several sets of stairs toward the relative safety of the Novo grounds. Eros was still grilling Heather about her memories of that night, but he was getting nowhere. Then she claimed her head hurt, and she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, talk about it any longer.
Blake had ignored Tristan’s protests and cradled our wounded comrade in his massive arms while chatting away with Heather. Something to do with a bikini and a speedo. I tried not to listen.
Up the last flight of stairs, there was a clinking sound behind us. The Boys turned, ready for a fight. Around the corner came three shiny orbs.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I stared at Flint’s spikey fireballs as they came up the stairs of their own accord and knocked into my heel, like a puppies looking for a pat. I scooped them up and dropped them in my backpack.
Matthias led us out a door and into the desert heat. I gulped a couple of breaths of air which seemed much heavier than the air-conditioned version we’d been dealing with, and covered my eyes, blinking against the sudden sunlight. The smell of chlorine mingled with jasmine and a bundle of floral scents. A fountain gurgled a tranquil sound. We were back at the lush swimming pool where I’d found Ayden and Jayden.
Heather squealed with delight and scurried to the edge, then started splashing her face with cool water. Mr. Grant was at the pool’s far end sitting in a chair. He wasn’t alone. Five demons surrounded him. Three of them held automatic weapons.
“No thank you,” Mr. Grant said. “I’d rather wait here.”
I grabbed Ayden’s arm. “The people talking to Mr. Grant are demons.”
Ayden raised a hand to shade his eyes. “There are two nurses and three guards.” He paused, then added warily, “Armed guards.”
Tristan squirmed out of Blake’s arms and looked from me to his dad then back at me. His brow creased. “They’re not possessed humans?”
“No,” I said. “They’re just demons. Those same ugly haptogian mols. Fat heads, tails, bunch of tongues, even more teeth.” I turned to Eros. “You can see them, right?”
“Yes,” Eros said. “Of course.”
