The Lie Spinners (The Deception Dance) (28 page)

“
Insane!”
Linnie shouts. “You’re hair glows! Does mine?”

“
Sections
do!” I shout back. And then we’re head banging, twirling
our heads around, making our hair dance; and suddenly, for the first
time since Bangkok, we’re laughing. And before long we’re
jumping up and down, making whooping sounds, and I have no idea why,
but I’m smiling. Then, we’re howling at the moon and some
random guys starts doing it with us. Linnie and I spin each other,
throwing back our heads.

When
we break apart some guy with probably a thousand piercings starts
dancing with Linnie. Another guy comes up behind me. After checking
for the tell-tale soul-bound mark, which is easy to check for as his
hands hold me at my waist, I decide: screw it. Why not have a little
fun? It’s just dancing.

The
guy who I have yet to see, however, starts to have a little too much
fun, grabbing my hips and grinding against me, and I’m about to
turn around and tell him to get lost when I feel the guy suddenly
leave. I spin to find two guys, one of them Stephen.

From
the hand Stephen has on the other guy’s shoulder (another
typical college-jock-looking guy), I can tell that I have him to
thank for getting jock guy off of me before I had to do it. Stephen
claps jock-guy’s shoulder before smiling and saying, “Sorry
friend, I’m going to cut in here.”

Jock
guy, obviously assuming that Stephen is my boyfriend or something
good naturedly holds up his hands and turns away, presumably to find
another random chick to dry-hump.

Stephen
pauses, gaze darting to my hair, then back to my face. Then he
reaches for me, wrapping one hand on my waist and he pulls me into
him. I’m surprised by the contact, the fact that his chest
presses against mine, his leg separates mine, his unscarred cheek
brushes against mine. It’s so much more intimate than the
pelvis-grinding-against-my-butt dance that the jock guy was doing.
When Stephen’s body sways to the trance techno, mine echoes
his.

“
I
wish you had left,” He says into my ear as the fingers of his
other hand wrap around my hip.

“
I
told you I can’t,” I say back. I feel my breaths coming
quicker as his hips move against mine. “You shouldn’t be
dancing with me like this…” I say, because I know with
every part of me that this is wrong. What I’m feeling is wrong.
Dangerously wrong.

“
Are
you going to fall in love with me?” Stephen asks into my ear.

“
No,”
I lie.

I
can feel his smile against my cheek. “Then I won’t stop,”
he says, “This is as private as we’re going to get. Just
pretend that you are enjoying yourself.”

“
I’ll
try.” I thank whoever’s up there that the loud music
probably means he can’t hear the shuddering breath I take.

“
I
understand,” he whispers into my ear as our bodies twist around
each other, sync together, “I gave you no explanation, just
told you to leave, I wouldn’t have left either…But you
need to understand
why
you
need
to leave
.
I’m staying to—”

“
You’re
staying to save a girl,” I say.

Stephen
leans back so he can gaze at me with his beautiful blue eyes; a smile
tugs at the scar free side of his face. He regains our locked
position and whispers, “That might be part of it, but it is
much, much more than that; what do you know about the demons from the
Ars Goetia?”

“
I
know that one of them is cross-dressing in Bangkok,” I say.

“
That’s
how you found me; it makes sense.” Stephen fingers squeeze and
release, as if it was more of a reflex than intention. “Did he
mark you?”

I
show him the underside of my arm.

Stephen
releases my hip to brush his finger across my mark. “I see. You
have three now. I’d try to keep it at three, if I were you.”
He sighs. “Do you know who called forth that
Bangkok
cross-dresser
?”

“
I
think so, but I’m very confused…” I say.

“
As
am I,” his lips press to my ear, he whispers so low I more feel
the words breathed into me, than actually hear them, “but what
I do know is that of the seventy two greater-demon nobles of Hell
named in the Ars Goetia, forty-one rank less than Marquis; and, of
those forty-one greater demons, twenty-eight now inhabit human
bodies. Of those twenty eight greater demons that are in possession
of bodies, twenty-seven are on this island. And then you show up
here... Do you understand my meaning?”

I
nod. If I had any color to lose, it would be long gone.

“
Greater
demons don’t follow Andras’ orders; any one of them
could—”

“…
kill
me, I know,” I say.

“
I
don’t know how it’s happening but I do know that
something is coming; something that might make last summer look like
a happy little holiday, and I have no idea how to stop it. I want you
as far away, and protected, as you possibly can be.”

I
whisper back, “I can help you…”

“
How?”

“
I
can’t leave, not without you. Believe me, I don’t have a
choice, and since I can’t go, you might as well use my help.”

“
How
can you help me?”

I
speak slowly, “I’m starting to…understand them
more. I think…I think I’m becoming more like them...”

Stephen
pulls back from me, and he must hear the revulsion I can’t hide
from my voice (or maybe my terror), because he brushes his thumb over
my cheek in a sympathetic caress. “I become more like them
every day,” he says, “and I thank God for it. If there
weren’t people like us, the rest of these guys…”
he nods toward the crowd I almost forgot we’re surrounded in,
“…would not have a chance. I have seen enough evil to
know that you are not it; do not let what happened in City Hall last
summer make you think otherwise.”

If
he didn’t have a grasp on my hip, I might not be able to stand.
It’s like he saw right into that dark place within me and lit a
match. And I want to say so much to him, tell him everything that’s
been cluttering into my mind with no relief…

But
Stephen smiles, kisses me on the forehead, and says, “Though I
am sure that having you help me sort this out would make it so much
easier; if you stay, I only see disaster coming from it. Please, go.”

And
the match flickers out. And I don’t want to let go of him,
there’s so many things I want to say to him, and nothing I can
think to say. So when Stephen pulls away from me, I blurt out, “I
should be congratulating you; I hear you’re going to be a
father.” I’m not sure what possesses me to say it, but
the moment I do, I want to smack myself. Dropping that kind of news
on him after I pretty much humped his leg for half an hour? What is
wrong
with me?

“
Impossible,”
Stephen says, succinctly.

“
How
do you know?” I ask, because I guess I love to torture myself.

Stephen
looks at me with a raised brow, look clearly asking,
do
I need to explain this to you?

“
I
know,” he says, “There is no chance that whatever baby
you are talking about could be mine. Whoever told you that was
lying.”

****

“
She
lied
?”
Linnie says, while folding her sweatshirt and stuffing it in her
backpack; after I finish telling her word for word the conversation I
had with Stephen.

I
didn’t have a choice, the moment I dragged her back into the
door of our bungalow Linnie said, “I saw you and Ste—Nathan
talking, if you don’t tell me, word for word, what you guys
were talking about, I am going to
kill
you.”

So,
to save Linnie from committing
sororicide,
I told her, “I’ll tell you. Word for word. But only if
it’s while we pack.”

Now,
I respond, “Yeah, and I’m thinking that the only
conclusion we can take from that is that
she
is evil
.
Why else would she lie about so significant a detail?”

“
I
hate
her!” Linnie throws down her backpack and starts to pace.

I
grab up Linnie’s dropped backpack and start stuffing it with
her clothing.

“
What
I don’t get is her goal in all this, did she just send you in
here and plan to let you die? What will happen if we can actually
manage to get Nathan to her…?”

Two
questions I pondered all the way as I dragged Linnie back from the
Full Moon Party. And, for that matter,
why
did she say she was pregnant with Stephen’s baby? It kind-of
went against the demon’s plan to make me fall for him…

“
We
can’t,” I respond, “At least not now; we need to
get off this island on the first boat that leaves.” I had
decided this earlier.

The
moment Stephen stepped away from me at The Full Moon Party, he
vanished into the crowd around us; and for the first time since his
body had pressed to mine, I looked at the people pressing close
around me. Twenty-seven. I realized: twenty-seven greater demons
might be in this crowd. And then there was my sister, dancing with
some random guy… around her I saw flashes of neon and I kept
thinking I saw luminescent eyes shining from all directions but when
I looked it was body paint reflecting in the club lights moving
through the crowds. I grabbed Linnie’s hand, and thought of one
imperative:
get
her off this island
!

When
Linnie is safe, and far away from the twenty-seven greater demons, I
will complete my mission; but no way will I let Linnie stay here,
perched on the lips of Hell’s mouth, if it’s about to
open and breathe fire.

“
I
don’t get it…” Linnie says, dragging me back to
the ‘here and now,’ as she pauses her pacing, “You
know, to be perfectly fair, I can’t remember her specifically
saying that it was Stephen’s baby.”

“
I’m
pretty sure she did,” I say, zipping up her bag.

“
She
definitely implied it…”

“
I’m
pretty sure she
said
it,” I say.

“
Okay,
she said it,” Linnie says, as she slings the backpack onto her
back, but I can tell she’s just appeasing me. “But what I
really don’t get is if what he said is happening is truly
happening why didn’t he call for help yet? This isn’t
something one guy can handle; I’d expect him to call in
everyone.”

Me
too. Stephen isn’t an idiot; he has to know this isn’t a
situation one man can handle alone. “Maybe he doesn’t
have a way to call in the troops without alerting the demons; he said
that we shouldn’t phone or email…but we have a way…”

“
The
watch!” Linnie says, excitement lighting up her face.

And
I know that this is one thing we can do to help Stephen before we
flee the island. “We’ll take it to him, right now before
we head to the ferry,” I say, knowing it will be good for him
to know we’re leaving as well. My plan had been to grab our
stuff then to head to the dock and wait there for whatever left the
island first and would take passengers; but since it’s still
dark out, probably only three or four in the morning, stopping to say
a hasty goodbye won’t make us miss any boat. I glance at
Linnie’s bare wrists. “Where did you stash it?”