Crossed (16 page)

I pat her hand. “I’m sorry I can’t beat your boyfriend senseless.”

That drags a smile out of her. “Whatever else are friends for?”

Armand interrupts us with pizza boxes and bags of supplies. Jo and I dress quickly while Armand takes some clothes to Chi. He comes back and drops a pizza box on the bed next to us, drawing up the room’s only chair.

“It’s not too late,” Jo says, snagging a piece of pizza. “We can still run away. Forget this madness, let the Crusaders fight their own battles.”

“The demons still have our souls,” Armand says and takes a bite of the pizza, making a face as it burns the roof of his mouth.

“We can get them later.”

He shakes his head. “It’s safer now, while the Crusaders are still alive to help distract them. Not to mention, if we die before they’re free, we’ll be trapped in hell forever.”

Jo laughs. “Who cares?”

“You know nothing,” Armand snarls. His reaction startles me, used as I am to Armand’s ability to keep Jo from getting under his skin. “You haven’t seen the Pit. You don’t know—” He catches himself at the sight of Jo’s victorious smirk. He recomposes himself. “As much as I prefer this new nihilistic lunatic thing you’ve got going on—no, I do, I really prefer it to self-righteous know-it-all—” he holds up a hand to forestall whatever she was going to say, “you have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.”

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” I cut in, trying to break the tension. “Chi would never go for it.”

“What won’t I go for?” Chi asks, standing in the doorway in his new armor of a plain white T-shirt, an open plaid button up, and jeans. He pads in barefoot and sits cross-legged on the floor while Jo gives me a meaningful look. Ha, she can’t lie to a Crusader.

Armand must realize at about the same time I do because he smiles meanly. “I’m afraid I wasn’t listening. Why don’t you tell him, Jo?” He tips his head to the side in polite patience.

She grinds her teeth and glares a promise of revenge.

“About abandoning these two assholes to an eternity in hell.” I say, doing a bit of glaring of my own. “Personally, I think it’s a great plan.”

Chi twines his fingers through Jo’s. “Well you’re right, I wouldn’t go for it.” He smiles beatifically. “They may be assholes, but they’re our assholes.”

I laugh and the tension is broken for the moment.

“But seriously,” Chi says. “What won’t I go for?”

Blast, I’d hoped I’d distracted him. Before another battle can break out between Jo and Armand, I volunteer. “Jo doesn’t think you should come with us. It’s too dangerous, she can’t disguise you, and we really don’t need you.”

“Yup, you called it,” he agrees easily. “Not going to happen.”

“Chi,” Jo tugs his attention to her. “You don’t understand what it’s like. You’ll stand out. You’re not, well . . . evil enough.”

He rubs his thumb over the back of her hand. “You’re going.”

Chi only ever sees the good in everyone. How else can you explain the company he keeps? But Jo doesn’t volunteer the personality traits that have recently cropped to the surface. Instead she says simply, “I’m one of them now.”

“I’m not staying behind.”

Jo loses her patience and jerks her hand free. “Dammit, Chi, you’ll die.” Her eyes narrow. “You’ll get us killed, you’ll get
me
killed,” she says cruelly. “Is that what you want?”

Chi is unperturbed. “Or I’ll save you all. There’s only one way to find out.” He levels his gaze at her. “Jo, we promised each other that we’d never try to exclude the other from danger, that it’d always be the two of us. We’re a team.” The irony is, the pact was Jo’s idea, so he’d never be tempted to baby her because of her leg.

Jo’s eyes slide away, but she doesn’t give up.“Chi—’

I hold my hands to cut off her tirade. “Jo, if you want to slam your head against a brick wall, be my guest, but do it on your own time.” I’m getting tired of my new role of referee. “Armand,” I point like I’m calling on a student in class, “Tell us what we need to know.”

He’s enjoying the fight between Chi and Jo and accepts my topic change with reluctance. “There are doors to hell all over the place, which Jo can lead us through.”

“What do you mean? I thought the doors were in the Acheron?” I ask.

Armand shakes his head. “There are doors to hell in the Acheron, but those aren’t the only ones. Which is a good thing, too, as the Acheron is now guarded heavily thanks to our last visit.” His eyes twinkle mischievously, as if our last trip into the Acheron—when he betrayed me and we both almost died—is some kind of shared joke. The black look I give him in return says “too soon.” “But no, there are doors straight to hell—I mean, getting humans into hell to sell their souls is kind of the whole point. They won’t be anticipating a demon leading Crusaders in. How could they?”

“But what about the devil. Jo says he knows what she was planning.”

Armand sends a troubled look at Jo. “Yes, but it’s not like he—” Armand fishes around, trying to find a way to explain. He actually looks at Jo for help, but she shrugs. Armand starts again. “He’s not human or demon. We say ‘he’ but that’s not right either. He or she or it is this bodiless, sentient being. He’s too big, too eternal, to be contained in our tiny ability to understand. He’s not tied to a time or a place or our petty human plans. He doesn’t . . .” Armand gives up with a helpless little shrug. “He can communicate with us, but he’s not…It’s different.” He finishes lamely.

“Reassuring,” I say.

He half-smiles. “Or it could simply be he knows something we don’t.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“He knows what Jo’s planning and thinks it will fail—to his side’s benefit.”

“Was that supposed to make me feel better?”

Armand just shrugs again. “Do you have a better plan?”

I glare at him, taking out my frustrated impotence on him.

He ignores me. “In any case, I know roughly where the souls are kept . . .”

“Roughly?” Jo interrupts.

“A palace that wraps around the Pit.” Armand looks around for a napkin but can’t find one so licks the pizza grease from his fingers before wiping them on his jeans. He picks up a pen from the nightstand and grabs the hotel bible, and starts to sketch a diagram of hell on the flyleaf. I’m not sure if it’s ironic or appropriate.

He draws a circle in the middle. “The Pit. It’s the center of hell and where the,” his mouth twists, “real work happens. Where the souls are tortured. He draws another narrow ring around the first. “This is the palace. It’s where zi-Ben lives.” He pauses again, trying to come up with an explanation that would make sense to us. “Like a mayor maybe?”

“The Mayor of Demonville.” It’s ridiculous, but I can’t seem to laugh.

Armand draws a big blob shape around the rings in the center. “And this is the city, where the demons live, when not in the Pit or stationed in the Acheron.”

“Where’s the devil?” Seems like something I should to know.

Armand doesn’t look up and there’s a pause. “Anywhere. Anywhere you want him to be.”

I glance at Jo, and she also won’t make eye contact. “He was waiting for me.” Her tone is flat. “I went to Baltimore, where I knew there was fighting. The demons found me. They found me so quickly, it’s like they were waiting for me.” Her tone gets colder and her words more brittle. Chi takes her hand again. “I told them what I wanted and they didn’t say anything. I expected taunts or violence, but they didn’t say or do anything. They were like puppets. They escorted me to a door, silent, and just . . . pushed it open.” She trembles then tightens her fist, as if that would stop it. Instead she shakes harder. She jerks her head, either to shake away the terror or in frustration because she can’t, I’m not sure. She looks up. “
He
was waiting.”

“Did you see the rest of hell?” I ask.

She blinks a few times. “Just a room. When I was reborn they . . . kept me for a few days.” She smiles mirthlessly. “An initiation, I suppose. I don’t remember much of the trip out.”

“Jo,” Chi says, and I look away to give them a moment of privacy. My gaze lands on Armand who still watches them. Given his and Jo’s relationship, I expect to see disinterest at best, or a sneer at worst. But I don’t see that. I don’t see it at all. If I didn’t know him better I would say it’s sympathy.

He feels my gaze and turns. Whatever the expression was, it’s wiped clean, replaced with a bright smile. He speaks loudly, and, again, if I didn’t know better, I’d suspect it was to provide Jo and Chi with some privacy. “I say we call dibs on this room. Have you seen the other one?”

I knew this was coming, his viewing us as a . . . pair. After the last week, I don’t blame him. I allowed us to get closer than we should. But that is all over; it’s time to draw back the lines. “No.” The word is cold and harsh, my throat still tight from the horrors in Jo’s voice.

“I’d call the style ‘psychedelic nightmare.’” He glances around. “It makes this room’s late-eighties dinge seem downright serene.”

“I meant no, we’re not sharing a room.” My cold tone brings speculation to his eyes but not surprise.

“We’re not,” he repeats, flat.

“Nothing has changed.”

“So last week was . . .?”

I tip my head. “What did you think it was?”

He pauses, debating his options. “Friendship,” he says. Then, his accent thicker, “Forgiveness.”

I hold his eyes and speak slowly. “That wasn’t me forgiving you. That was me
using
you.” I shrug with deliberate carelessness.

He rolls his bottom lip, weighing his words. His options. “I see. And now Jo is back . . .”

“Now Jo is back.”

He nods slowly and a muscle tics on the side of his jaw.

“Nothing has changed,” I say again. “You are here because we need you to release the souls. You are nothing but a means to an end.”

I see what he no doubt prefers I didn’t: the subtle way he rocks back, as if my words have a physical force, the way his breath catches, almost imperceptibly. Little signs that anyone else would probably miss. I notice them all.

I’d like to tell you that I enjoy his pain, that the revenge is sweet. That my harsh words are only the beginning of a scheme to destroy him. But I can’t.

Neither can I tell you that I don’t enjoy it. That I’ve become a better person who doesn’t delight in the pain of her adversary; that I don’t take a dark delight in the piteous cries of what remains of Armand’s pathetic heart. But I can’t say that, either. Instead I rest in the middle, feeling victorious but a bit sick, like a child who’s eaten an entire cake.

“Tell me . . .” He fiddles with a button on the pocket of his cargo pants, then forces his hand still. He looks up, his eyes betraying his vulnerability even before his words do. “What would it take for you to forgive me?” It’s soft, almost a whisper. As if my forgiveness is a bird he’s afraid to startle away.

I eye him, then lean forward until our mouths almost touch. His eyes drift to my lips. I pause, letting the moment hang, letting it draw long, letting him wait. “Die for me, Armand.” My voice is a seductive, violent purr. “Die for me and set me free from our marriage.”

He closes his eyes as if pained. “I can’t do that.”

“And I can’t do forgiveness.” I bend my lips in a smile. “But cheer up. At least
I
can’t kill you.”

There’s a beat, then he forces a tight smile. “I guess I’ll take what I can get.”

“You always do.”

FOURTEEN

We pack up as soon as we wake, a depressingly simple task. We pack food and water in the bug out bag—mostly power bars, fruit leathers and trail mix. Chi also packs some clothes, since Jo can’t just wish his into being like she can for us, and his holy blades.

Jo doesn’t actually know where any of the entrances to hell are, but Armand does. We take a train to Boston, then a cab to a neighborhood that only the supremely optimistic would call “up-and-coming.” Lucky for us, we’re the apex predators of the urban landscape.

Armand leads us down increasingly narrow and empty streets until we reach an alley that, while it looks like all the others—old, narrow, crumbling turn-of-the-century brick buildings on either side—gives off an unmistakably ominous air. Armand doesn’t hesitate, striding into the alley, peering at each recessed door until he finds the one he’s looking for. He stops before a shabby red door with a small brass doorbell and an incongruously modern sign, white plastic with black typed letters: Everett Bligett, Esq. Attorney-at-Law.

Jo snorts. “Figures.”

“Most people sense the evil,” Armand says, sliding his hands along the red door, caressing it as if its evil vibe is a lover he has long-missed. “But only for a demon will it open into hell.” As if to prove the point, or perhaps to test whether he truly is no longer a demon, he wraps his hand around the old-fashioned brass knob and, after a moment’s hesitation, pushes it open with a shove. Revealed is a dim hallway with dirty molding and a stained indoor-outdoor carpet—not any place I’d ever want to go, but distinctly not hellish. Armand pulls the door closed again and gives Jo a sarcastic little bow indicating it’s her turn. She wipes her hands on her pants, then, realizing how that must look, stops. She grabs the handle and, with an unnecessarily hard twist, pushes it open.

On the other side is no longer the dingy entryway, though it’s hard to tell anything else, as dark as it is. Jo walks through without saying a word, leaving the rest of us to follow.

Once my eyes adjust I see that we’ve stepped into some kind of underground tunnel. We stand on a ledge about six feet wide, not unlike a subway platform, except instead of train tracks the edge drops into a suspiciously squirming river. I look only closely enough to make sure whatever’s in there isn’t going to climb out and get me, then take in the rest of my surroundings, lit only faintly by unevenly spaced lights that dangle in little metal cages.

The “river” is impassibly wide, but I make out the faint arch of a bridge some distance away. The other side of the river is too dim to make out any details at all. The air has a damp, musty feel, like a grave.

“What are they?” Chi asks standing at the edge of the river and staring into its wriggling depths. The river is so dense with long, shiny bodies, that it’s almost more creature than water. They writhe against each other, striving forward and yet gaining very little ground. It’s like a fisherman’s net that has caught only eels, all fighting uselessly to find their way back to sea.

“They’re souls.” Jo scoops up a wriggling grey mass. She pauses, a blank, distant expression sliding across her face. Then she frowns and crushes the grey mass between her fingers. It squirms, releasing a high-pitched squeal.

“Jo, stop it!” Chi says, grabbing her arm. “You’re hurting it,” he adds unnecessarily.

She raises a brow. “Tell him what it did,” she says, pitching it to me. It slaps wetly against my chest and, instinctively, I catch it.

“Just focus on your question and ask it,” she says. “It’s how demons pull information from each other—and our . . .
wards
,” she says with a sneer at the slimy thing in my hands. “See if you can do it.”

I look at Armand, the question
is that true?
written in my expression. He gives a brief nod. I look down at the thing in my hands and do as she says.

It happens almost instantly.

It’s like falling into a ghost’s memory, except not as complete. There’s the moment of disorientation, then I see another place, but it doesn’t swallow me, as it does with the ghosts. Rather than all-consuming, this memory is translucent. It shimmers like a mirage over the grey stone walls of the demon’s lair. But the emotions of the person, I feel them all, as rich and full if I were in the moment.

We trot down sterile halls, fingering a syringe. A pump of excitement that’s not mine thunders through Our blood.

We pet the powerful cylinder in Our hands, then catch Ourself. It wouldn’t do to be seen. We lower our hand back to Our side and Our face stiffens. Prim.

It’s a powerful drug. A dangerous drug.

A drug addict
, I wonder. But it doesn’t feel right. The drug isn’t for her, I can feel it.
Poison
, I understand with sudden clarity.

I note the white, loose, uniform. Scrubs. The white, rubber-soled shoes on my feet.

A doctor
, it comes to me.

Almost there. She’s giddy, almost breathless, with excitement. She turns a sharp corner to the doors to her ward.

It takes me a moment to process the incongruity of suddenly coming face to face with a cartoon character staring back at me. Then I see the sign.

Pediatrics.

I drop the slimy thing and stomp on it. Hard. “She was a doctor,” I tell Chi. “She murdered children. Made their hearts stop so she could resuscitate them and be a hero.”

Chi looks at the slimy thing with horror.

“If she
could
resuscitate them,” I add with another hard stomp. It lets out a high-pitched scream and I lift my foot again.

“Meda, stop.” Chi kicks out, sending my victim skittering back to join the rest of her ilk. His face is grim as he takes in the thousands of doomed souls. “What are they doing here?”

Jo shrugs, scooping up another one. She gets that distant look in her eyes then makes a disgusted face and hurls it back into the river. She scoops to pick up another one.

“Jo,
stop
.” Chi puts a hand on her shoulder and pulls her back from the edge.

“Why?”

“Because . . .” He shakes his head. “All of them might not be evil.” He looks to Armand, as if for help.

“They’re in hell,” is Jo’s caustic response.

Armand shrugs. “Most are. But no, everyone who trades their soul isn’t evil. Case in point.” He nods at Jo. “Sorry, sweetheart, you’re not special.”

She sneers at him.

Armand ignores her and continues. “Sometimes it’s to save someone. A wife, or a child, maybe. Or maybe to undo something terrible, to rid themselves of some guilt that is too bitter to bear. A girl taunts her little sister into taking her horse over a jump that’s too big for her, or a young man watches his wife die in childbirth.”

“And you, Armand?” Jo asks, patronizing. “What poor, sweet innocent did you save with your soul?” She opens her eyes wide in mock sympathy. “Because you’re not really bad, of course, just misunderstood.”

He laughs, a sharp bark of pure amusement. “Oh , Jo, I never thought I’d ever accuse you of naïveté.”

“I guess you missed my sarcasm.”

“I guess
you
missed
mine
.” Before Jo can retort, Armand continues, his accent thickening in grim amusement as he recalls some dark memory from his past. “But no, my reasons were far, far, from altruistic.” The gleam in his eyes, the way his fingers curl into claws, makes me shiver. The Hunger lifts its head curiously, a predator catching a scent in the wind.

“Shocker,” Jo says.

His eyes slide to me. “Not disappointed, are you?”

“I’ve always understood you.”

“Yes, you have, haven’t you.” It’s not a question. Armand returns his attention to Chi. “But to answer your question, they’re waiting. Every evil soul that ever lived is trapped here forever. There is no second death, no escape.” The calm, implacable way he says it somehow makes it worse. He catches my shiver and forces a dark smile. “There aren’t nearly enough demons to torture them all. Plus, there’s the world to ruin, Crusaders to murder, spells to learn.” He shakes his head. “As they say, there’s no rest for the wicked.”

I snort and Jo rolls her eyes.

“This is where all the fresh souls go, waiting their turn. In some cases, again.” He draws a circle with his finger in the air. “It’s a loop.”

Chi shudders, then suddenly looks at Jo, unable to hide his horrified expression. She doesn’t notice. She’s staring down into the river as if mesmerized. She prods a few more with her toe. “Their skin, it’s all nerve endings,” she says, wonderingly. “Their entire body is literally one exposed, raw nerve.” I watch the way they thrash violently against each other and cringe.

Chi wraps his arms around Jo from behind, resting his chin on the top of her head. “It’s okay, Jo. It won’t happen to you. We won’t let it.” But Jo doesn’t seem to hear him. She’s listening to something else entirely.

“The screams,” she whispers and lifts her eyes to mine. “Can you hear them?” She doesn’t wait for a response. Her eyes drift back out across the thousands. “They don’t ever stop screaming.”

Chi pulls her away from the edge, and we walk towards the distant bridge, Armand leading the way. Our feet echo in the hollow cavern despite any attempts to be quiet.

As we near the bridge, three giant ferocious-looking dog’s heads, each easily a story or two high materialize out of the darkness on the other side of the river. Clutched in each of their sharp-toothed maws is a door, ancient by the look of them. Etched into the stone wall above is writing, thousands and thousands of sentences, but in every language ever spoken. The same sentence, probably, though I can’t find one in English so I have no idea what it says.

Which, I have to imagine, sort of defeats the purpose.

“Cerberus, the three-headed dog guarding the gates of hell,” Jo supplies. Good to know her foray into evil hasn’t had any effect on her nerdiness.

“Yes,” Armand agrees, though it wasn’t a question. “We’re hardly the first non-demons to cross its gates.”

I finally find the English engraving among the many. “One to peace, one to pain, one to wait. Choose,” I read. “Charming.”

“Don’t worry, it doesn’t apply to us,” Armand says. “It’s for them.” He points back to the wriggling masses. “When it’s their turn, they get to choose.”

“One of those doors will really let them have peace?” Chi asks, not bothering to disguise the hope in his voice.

“Sure.” Armand’s words might agree, but his tone suggests otherwise. “It leads right to the surface. They walk out, brand new. Human again.” He shrugs. “Or so it goes. No one ever picks that door.”

“Never?”

“Never. Making poor decisions is rather why they’re here to begin with,” he says drily.

“Then what’s the point?” Chi asks. “Why make them pick if it doesn’t matter?”

Armand looks at the doors, his expression inscrutable. “Because disappointed hope has its own special kind of sting,” he says, his black eyes hard in the dim light. He blinks. “But as we’re not one of them, Jo can pick where we go.”

“If I really got to choose, Chi would be above ground right now,” Jo says with a sullen look at the guilty party. Chi shrugs. It’s not something he hasn’t heard a few hundred times in the last twenty-four hours.

“Jo,” I roll my eyes.

“What? He doesn’t belong—’

“No, no, you’re right. Your passive-aggressive comments are both a good use of our over-abundant time and likely to make Chi change is mind. Carry on, we’ll wait.” I tap my foot and she glares. I turn pointedly away. I miss the days when I got to be the brat. “Tell us how it works, Armand. Will we need a spell?”

“No. Hell
is
a spell. It’s not a place so much as the combined construct of the demons’ imaginations.” I give him a look that tells him to speak English. He shrugs. “The doors were made for demons; operating it will be second nature.”

I shoot a look at her to see if she’s still sulking. She’s smiling—which is much, much worse.

“Jo . . .” I start, but she cuts me off.

“Disguises first, don’t you think?” she says too brightly, then a look of intense concentration comes over her face.

A flash of fire flies over my flesh, as if the entire top layer of my skin is being burned away. It’s over before I can even scream, and the breath I took to do so comes out as a gust as I bend, with my hands on my knees. Knees that I can barely see over ginormous boobs.

Ginormous boobs barely covered by hot pink spandex and acres of golden, wavy hair. “The hell?” I jerk upright and look at Armand—his hair is just as offensively blonde, and his face . . .

Jo grins, looking between the two of us. “Awwww,” she says sweetly. “Ken and Barbie.”

I jump at her, but my balance is wildly off; if it weren’t for Chi grabbing my arm, I would have fallen to the ground. He hauls me upright but doesn’t let go.

“Let go, Chi!”

Instead he wraps his big arms around me to hold me back. “Meda, she’s not herself.”

He has a point, she’s not herself. I have a sneaking suspicion she’s rather more
me
. “Fine,” I say and jerk my arm from his grip and try to step away, but find myself curiously off-balance. I look down my freakishly long, spindly legs.