Hell Week (24 page)

He could have stopped me when I rose up on my toes and pressed my lips to his, but he didn't. I think he considered it, because he froze for a moment, not in horror, thank God, but indecision. And then he pulled me close, and kissed me back.

Friends don't kiss like this.

There was nothing chaste or amiable about it. His hands cupped the back of my head, fingers threading through my hair. I wrapped my arms around him, kissed him with my whole body--my whole being. My nose was stopped up from crying, and I couldn't breathe and I didn't care, because if I pulled away to take in oxygen, this glorious moment might end.

It did. Justin put his hands on my waist, pushed me back just a little, his eyes dazed in what must have been a reflec- tion of mine. "I'm still the TA for your history class."

An incredulous laugh bubbled out of my throat. "This is your big objection?"

"No." He drew me back in. "I'm just getting that off my chest."

And then he kissed me again, and it didn't seem possible that it could be better than the last one, but it was. For a law- ful good square, Justin knew a lot about kissing. Granted, I didn't have a huge basis for comparison, but I didn't have to be a rocket scientist to recognize an explosion when I felt it.

I don't know how we got to the couch. I don't know how we ended up horizontal, tangled in each other, our breath loud in the silence but still drowned by the pounding of my heart. His fingers danced across my ribs, and I gasped at the tickle. He started to pull away but I caught his wrist, kept his hands where they belonged, against my skin. I suppose that's how I lost my shirt. The more of him I touched, skin against skin, the more I could feel him in my blood, like a drug, like a shot of tequila. The denim of our jeans rasped as we wrestled closer still. He nuzzled the curve of my neck, the line of my collarbone. I kissed his shoulder, the indentation of muscle in his bicep, and he trembled. A rush of power zinged through me. I was invincible. I could have it all.

When his fingers touched the clasp of my bra, I wanted to shout Yes. Do it. I wanted it more than anything ever, but more than that, I deserved it. I'd waited all this time and I was entitled to this.

The very foreignness of the thought was a splash of cold water. And I heard my voice like a stranger's: "Stop."

That was so not what I wanted to say.

Justin stopped, of course, but his hands shook. I moved away, all the way to the other end of the couch, before I could change my mind. "I need to think."

"Yeah." He sat up . . . slowly . . . and rested his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. "Okay."

I'd reduced him to one-word answers. Which was fair, I guess, because I was incoherent myself.

"This feels weird. I mean, I want to do this, but my head feels strange."

"I know." He sat back, looked at me with an expres- sion of chagrin. "Too fast," he said, still monosyllabic. Still breathless.

That was only part of it. I was old enough to vote and in love with the guy, so it wasn't as if I would cry if my untested virtue died a timely death tonight. Except that I was getting a feeling--maybe it was my intuition, back in the game after two months on the bench--that I knew why the pledges had a proscription against sex. The strangeness of my thoughts, driving and hungry, made me think this wasn't solely be- tween Justin and me.

"Let's get out of here." He rolled to his feet. Handing me my shirt, he pulled on his own. "I can't think with you sitting there."

Probably one of the nicest things he'd ever said to me.

F F F

As I don't go to church much on Sunday, it seemed par- ticularly weird to be there on a Monday night. Especially after the way I'd spent the last hour of it.

"You pick the weirdest places to take a date."

Justin looked down at me in amusement as he pulled open the heavy, carved wooden doors. "You're one to talk."

Good point. When you almost die on your first date, you shouldn't cast stones. I ducked under his arm to enter. Automatically, my hand went to the font just inside, and I dipped my fingers and crossed myself. Some things were just like riding a bicycle, I guess. Spectacles, testicles, watch and wallet. Jimmy Lopez had taught me that when we were kids. He'd thought it was the funniest thing ever, but I guess you do when you're an eight-year-old boy.

I'd grown up in this church, and the wooden pews and stained-glass windows formed my idea of what a sanctuary should look like. It was a warm, solid place, and despite my lingering feeling of trespass, I was aware of a peaceful wel- come, too.

Footsteps echoing on the stone floor, I followed Justin down the side aisle to an alcove. Under an icon of the Madonna and Child was a rack of votive candles, each in a red glass holder. A few already burned; I reached out a fin- ger and touched the fluted glass edge of one, then another. Someone's mother, dying in hospice care. A husband, lost to cancer.

This was becoming natural, the sixth sense integrating with my others. The thought came to me that this may be a Sigma gift, too. Maybe not the Sight itself--I'd had that al- ready, except the Dead Zone thing--but the skill I'd devel- oped. Or maybe it was because I'd gotten so much practice around them. Nothing like battlefield training.

The strike of a match made me look up at Justin as he lit two candles, side by side. They flared brightly as he touched the match to the wick, then flickered in tandem. His par- ents. I glanced up at him, but his gaze was turned inward; not sad, exactly, but poignant. My fingers reached for his, and he squeezed my hand tightly.

"Have they been gone long?" I asked. He'd never spoken of them.

"Since I was ten."

"Does it help?"

He handed me the matchbox. "It can't hurt. Sometimes rituals have deeper power, sometimes they just give us comfort."

I thought about Cole as I shook out a match and struck it. Remembering his friendly nature and his talent and poten- tial, I held the match and let the flame creep closer to my fingers.

I hope you're at peace, Cole. Forgive me for not seeing until it was too late. I swear, I'm going to stop these girls from harming anyone else.

It did help. But not as much as solving this mystery would.

F F F

That night, it was as if the dream had been waiting for me, long past patience. It drew me down swiftly, as soon as I closed my eyes, with no time to prepare.

I stood in the empty Sigma Alpha Xi chapter room; the phi spiral on the floor, instead of being flat, inlaid wood, descended into the ground. Standing at the outside arm, I felt the cold reaching up from below, from the dark well of earth.

Okay, Maggie. You're not going to find out what's going on from up here.

I stepped onto the path, spiraling down and down; I kept to the outer edge; the other side dropped into nothingness. The cold intensified as I descended and the natural light faded, until I was seeing only by the frigid pale phosphores- cence that came from the spiral itself.

Dream time was stretchable, like Silly Putty; I walked until my feet were blistered and my skin was numb with cold. How long was this going to go on?

Indefinitely. Phi was an irrational equation. Self- symmetrical, to the infinite power.

The realization brought me to a halt, and in the same in- stant, an icy wind roared from below, whipping my hair and tearing at my skin. I pressed myself back against the spiral wall, shielding my watering eyes. In the center of the well, a frosty vapor formed; wisps of winter breath that twisted to- gether into something . . . No. It was some thing. No shape of man or beast, but a creature nonetheless.

The wind became sleet. I squeezed my eyes closed as ice lashed at my cheeks. Just a dream. The glacial storm flayed my skin, and I clung to that thought. A thing of spirit, not of body. My muscles cramped, my limbs drew in to protect my vital organs from the cold. I tried to scream, but the howling gale snatched the sound away as I tried to force myself to . . .

F F F

Wake up.

In my own bed, I lay curled in a tight, shivering ball, too painfully cold to move, too miserable not to. Reaching over, I grabbed the fallen quilt from the floor and pulled it around me, my teeth chattering in the silent room.

This was what the thing on my door had kept me from seeing, this frozen well connecting the Sigmas to an infinite power. I'd been thinking Faust, and Mephistopheles. I should have been thinking Inferno. The center of Dante's Hell was not fiery, but frozen.

Not just capital E then. Capital, boldface, italic E. And I was going to have to find a way to stop it. 33

At seven the next morning, I let myself into the Sigma Alpha Xi house. The atmosphere was heavy with slumber, and I headed for the stairs. I had to maintain my cover--until Lisa finished her translation, or until initiation--only I didn't want to lose anyone else in the meantime.

But Devon's room was empty.

Not just vacant. Unoccupied. Her bed was stripped, her walls naked. Her closet and bookshelves, bare. The sea- side mural was the only evidence that she'd ever been there at all.

I stood in the doorway and cursed--mostly myself, for not coming back last night. Then I turned to go, and found Kirby standing in the hall behind me.

"Looking for Devon?" she asked, arms folded.

"Yes." I kept my hands at my sides and my cloaking de- vice set on harmless. "I was worried about her."

"Don't be." She reached around me and pulled the door shut. "She decided to go home."

"But there are only two weeks left in the semester."

"She's devastated, as you can imagine, and she wanted to be with her family." Kirby looked me in the eye, and I felt a Juliana-esque chill, slight but distinct. That was new.

"Was there anything else you wanted to know, Maggie?"

The way she phrased the question said I'd reached the bounds of justifiable curiosity, at least in the Kirby camp.

"No, ma'am. Thank you."

I left the house and headed for the Jeep, unsure what to do next. Journalism class was one option, but Hardcastle was hard to listen to even when I wasn't distracted by life- and-death matters.

Journalism made me think of the Report, which re- minded me of another inspired guy I'd talked to yesterday. It was a long shot, but I felt better about those since de- spelling myself. Grabbing my cell phone, I scrolled through my recent calls and found the number I wanted.

He picked up on the fourth ring. "Mmph."

"Troy Davis? This is Maggie Quinn from the Ranger Report."

"Wha?" A fumbling clatter. "What time is it?"

"I have one quick question. Do you know any Sigma Alpha Xis?" "Whaaa?" Still barely coherent. "None of them would have anything to do with me."

"What about a blond girl. Short hair, pointed chin. Bossy."

"Oh, her. Legally Blonde Girl. Yeah." He sounded more sleepy than lascivious. "We just, like, hooked up last Thurs- day at a club, you know?"

"Thanks." I hung up and drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. Cole had writer's block when he and Devon were on a break. Troy the trainer had a great idea after hook- ing up with Brittany--who had said she liked football guys.

I was just closing my mental fingers around the next variable of that equation when the phone rang.

Justin spoke as soon as I answered. "I think I've found something." His voice rang with excitement, and my heart sank.

"Are you okay?" I asked. We'd only made out. How badly could he be affected?

He kind of laughed at the question, which was both reas- suring and not. "Where are you? Do you have class?"

"Why?"

"Let's meet at your gran's place. I think she can help."

"Gran?"

"Wake up, Maggie. Let's get to work."

He hung up without once saying the word careful. Now I was really worried.

F F F

Gran was not only up and finished with her treadmill time, but she also had a pot of tea steeping, with three cups set out, when Justin and I arrived.

She poured as she listened to Justin's question, then sat back and looked at us. Him. Then me. Then back to him. I could feel myself blushing all the way to the tips of my ears.

It didn't help that he looked as though he hadn't slept at all. Not scary bad--who hadn't pulled an all-nighter once or twice? But still.

Finally, Gran took the spiral notebook he'd brought and peered at the handwritten entry. "Liannan Sidhe." Then she studied us again, her eyes narrowing. "How did this come up in conversation, then?"

"Hypothetically," I assured her. "We just need to know more about it."

She made a doubtful face. "I never told you about the Liannan Sidhe?"

"No." She'd told me the Sidhe--"shee," she said, slurring the sh--were Irish fairies who lived under hills and danced in fairy circles that trapped the unwary. There were the Dannan Sidhe, the bright folk, and the Bain Sidhe, who, if you saw one, you were basically screwed. But I'd never heard of this variety.

She poured a mug of tea, added sugar, stirred it. Obvi- ously trying to kill me with impatience.

"Liannan Sidhe are female fairies who inspire creativity in human men who they . . . Well, let's say love."

Granspeak for hooking up, I guess.

"So, it's like a muse," I said, remembering Devon's word.

"To a fearsome degree." She sipped her tea. "The inspi- ration of genius, but it burns the man out like a candle while the Sidhe feeds on that creative energy."

"Why couldn't you have told me about that when I was a kid?" "Well, I didn't want to scare you out of being creative. Besides." She cleared her throat delicately and glanced at Justin. "There's the sexual component."

He blushed, and discovered something very interesting on the ceiling. I tried to keep my own mind on the line of in- quiry. "So these fairies sleep with men, feed off the creative energy, and then . . ."

"The man usually dies."

"Dies?" asked Justin, not blushing now.

Gran nodded, and I narrowed my eyes at her. "Are you sure this isn't a cautionary tale? Don't go into the woods or the big bad wolf will eat you?"

"I'm only telling you what I heard as a girl."