Personal Demons (7 page)

“There’s nothing he could ask that I can’t answer. Ready for lunch?” He stands and shoots his wad of paper, basketball style, onto the middle of Mr. Sanghetti’s desk.

“He’s gonna give you a zero, you know.”

Luc lifts an eyebrow. “For handing it in early? I’d like to see him try.”

“Yeah, well . . . How do you know so much about history anyway?”

“History Channel,” he says dismissively.

“You must watch it a lot, ’cause the way you talk, it sounds like you were really there.”

There’s that grin again. “Does it? Maybe in a past life.”

And I start to wonder. ’Cause there’s something about Luc . . .

Frannie and I walk into the cafeteria, and my stomach turns as usual, but this time it’s got nothing to do with the food. Gabriel is in
my
seat across from Taylor and Riley. I close my eyes, hoping when I open them he’ll be gone—a figment of my imagination. But alas, he’s still there, all glowing and larger than life. I think about pushing my power at him—maybe knock the chair out from under him and put him on his ass—but no little nudge is going to touch Gabriel. I feel the electricity crackle over my balled fist, which is starting to glow red, and call back my magic before anyone notices.

Frannie’s eyes light up, then she looks at me, shrugs, and strides over to our table, dropping her book bag on the floor and sliding into the seat next to Gabriel. She pulls her chair up next to him—too close.

He shoots me a triumphant glance and moves to put his hand on her back. I’m there in a flash, knocking his hand away. I sit in the chair on her other side, closer than I normally would. I’ll have to risk my heat being too much for her. Otherwise,
the cheater Gabriel will have her tagged by the end of lunch.

Taylor and Riley are beside themselves. At least they’re a bit of a distraction. That will be helpful.

“I’m gonna get lunch. Anyone else hungry?” Frannie says, and I see her foot swing out and kick Taylor in the knee.

“Oh . . . yeah, okay,” Taylor says and grabs Riley’s arm. The three of them meander toward the lunch line, Taylor looking back over her shoulder the entire way.

I glower at Gabriel. “You need to turn this off. You’re going to do some serious damage.”

“This is war, Lucifer. All’s fair.”

“So, your side is resorting to breaking the rules, then? Because it seems so out of character.”

“You’re going to preach morals to me?” He laughs, one loud sardonic bark. “Oh, this
is
special. Besides, I’m not breaking any rules.”

“Maybe not technically . . . I just don’t want Frannie to get hurt.” Yeah . . . right. That’s why I’m trying to drag her into the Abyss for an eternity of pain and torture.

He obviously realizes how absurd that sounds too, because he just stares at me for a long minute before responding. “You know—I believe you. Wow . . .” He continues to stare at me, and I just glare back.

Frannie drops her lunch tray onto the table with the clang of rattling silverware and slides into her seat between me and Gabriel, breaking up our stare down.

“So, are you guys getting caught up?” she says pleasantly, as if it wasn’t obvious that Gabriel and I would rip each other’s
throats out in a second if the opportunity presented itself. “How long did you say it’s been since you’ve seen each other?”

Four centuries. “A while,” I say, glaring at Gabriel again.

Riley and Taylor join us with a flourish of tray crashing, eyelash batting, lip licking, and hair flipping.

“So, Gabe,” Riley says, shoving Taylor with her shoulder for a better position across from him, “where are you from?”

Gabriel looks at her and smiles. “Heaven,” he answers. It’s obscene how he glows when he really turns it on. Anybody looking closely enough would see that glow was more than just his sparkling personality.

Taylor elbows Riley and mumbles, “No shit,” before beaming at Gabriel and asking, “Heaven, where? Is that in, like, Montana or something?”

Gabriel nods, still smiling. “Something like that.”

Taylor and Riley look a little dazed—obviously distraction is the plan since angels can’t lie.

“So you went from Heaven straight to Hell,” Taylor laughs.

Gabriel’s gaze shoots to me. “Hell?” he says, his eyes narrowing.

Taylor leans across the table. “Yeah,
Hades
High . . . get it?”

He shifts in his seat and drapes an arm over the back of Frannie’s chair, looking at me with a sardonic half-smile on his face. “So much for home-field advantage.”

Frannie shifts closer to him, and I feel my power surge. I breathe it back and lean toward her. “Do you want to get together Sunday? We can work on the next English outline,” I say using my most persuasive voice softly in her ear.

“Sorry, I have church and then I go to my grandfather’s on Sunday. How about Saturday?”

I should have known, but it still stings. Gabriel is talking to Riley and Taylor, but I see his smile widen, adding to the sting. Cocky bastard.

I pour on the charm—no power, yet. “You can’t miss one Sunday?”

She smiles apologetically. “You’ve never met my parents, but I’m sure you’ve seen them on TV: the Pope and the Head Nun?”

“That bad, huh?”

“Actually, no. They’re really not that bad.”

Gabriel’s grin widens.

How to explain my family? It’s not that I’m embarrassed by them or anything. I know a lot of seventeen-year-olds who do nothing but bitch about their families. For the most part, mine’s okay. Just really religious. But I
am
sort of the black sheep.

“Let’s just say I don’t always live up to their lofty moral standards.”

A grin stretches across Luc’s face, and he shoots a glance over my shoulder at Gabe. “I like the sound of that.”

Now my face is burning. “It’s really not all that interesting. My sisters just do a better job of toeing the line than I do.”

His eyebrow shoots up. “Mary, Mary, Mary, and Mary?”

He’s such a jerk. “Yeah.”

“Are they older or younger?”

“Two older and two younger.”

“I haven’t seen anyone that looks like you roaming the halls . . .”

“My sisters don’t go here.”

“Really . . . ?”

So, this is where it gets a little embarrassing. Taylor’s grinning at me across the table, and I feel her kick me under it. Bitch.

I stab a cherry tomato with my fork, sending a spurt of tomato juice and seeds into a slimy puddle on the puke-colored table. “I sorta got thrown out of Catholic school.”

He laughs right out loud. “Oh . . . I
definitely
like the sound of that.” His grin is sort of making my heart sputter a little, and his eyes flit to Gabe.

“It’s not as bad as it sounds, really,” I say defensively. “Just a few little things, but they have this ‘zero tolerance’ thing over there . . .”

Taylor can’t contain herself. “She’s a conscientious objector.”

Luc looks at me. “To the war?”

“To the Catholic religion. She asked too many questions in religion class,” Taylor says.

He quirks a brow. “Such as . . . ?”

I glower at Taylor. “Nothing.”

“I would sincerely doubt they throw students out for school for asking ‘nothing.’ ”

“I just had some questions about God.”

He leans toward me intently, his elbow resting on his knee, and his eyes smolder. “Do you buy it? The whole God thing?”

I picture Matt in his coffin. Not how he really looked, I’m
sure, ’cause I never saw him. I was too sick to go to the wake or the funeral. The image that haunts me is the one I saw in my head right before he fell. I push back that image, along with the unfathomable grief that’s trying to worm its way out of the deep pit I keep it locked in, and try to picture that seven-year-old face now, at seventeen.

“I’m still working some things out.” The words squeeze through my tight throat, sounding a little strangled. Really, the only thing I’m working out is how to say the truth out loud. There is no God. There can’t be. ’Cause if there was I’d have to hate Him. It’s just easier not to believe.

“You believe,” Gabe interjects, as if he read my mind.

I glare at him. “You have no idea what I believe.”

He picks up my hand and traces his fingertip over my lifeline, and a shiver races up my spine. “I’ve got an idea or two,” he says, his blue eyes gazing into mine. And suddenly I’m sure he’s seeing right through me—seeing everything. I draw a jagged breath and look away, at Luc.

Concern briefly darkens his face but clears just as quickly. Then he asks, “How about the other side?” with a flash of his eyes and anticipation all over his face. “Do you believe in the devil? Hell?”

I look him dead in the eye. “Yes.”

Gabe drops my hand. “Well, that’s hardly fair.” I hear the smile in his voice, but I don’t turn to look, because I’m not going to risk getting caught in those eyes again.

Luc’s black eyes flare red heat, and his grin widens as he relaxes back in his chair, draping his arm across the back of mine. “Excellent. So we’re on for Saturday? My place?”

Mmm . . . that smile is killing me. But better safe than sorry. “How about my house?”

“With the Pope, the Head Nun, Mary, Mary, Mary, and Mary? Sounds like fun,” he says.

I roll my eyes. “Yeah, loads of fun.”

I sit on the floor in my dark apartment, banging the back of my head against the wall and staring out at the bats flying past my window in the twilight. Pink Floyd’s
Wish You Were Here
shakes my bones.

I’ve never obsessed over a mark before, but all week I’ve watched her at school with Gabriel and I’ve felt things I don’t even have a name for. All I know is I want him dead. He’s got me all jittery, doubting myself, and I’m having to exercise some pretty serious restraint not to climb into my Mustang and charge over to Frannie’s house right now.

What would I do when I got there? I know what I’d want to do—what I’ve been thinking about nonstop since the first day we met.

What if Gabriel’s there? I flash on him doing to Frannie
what I want to do to Frannie and feel a stab of . . . jealousy?
Really?

But I know he would never do that, since it would only work to my advantage. He’s not here for Frannie’s body. He’s here for her soul—same as me. What’s to stop him from just tagging her soul right now? I could go over . . . just to make sure he’s not there . . .

I bang my head into the wall.

And if he
is
there? What then?

I picture myself swooping in like Batman, plucking her half-naked body out of Gabriel’s arms just in the nick of time.

So, that’s what I want to do? Save her from the nasty angel?

In the silence between songs, I’m startled by the sound of my own sardonic laugh. What is it about that girl? She is just a girl. Nothing special. Just a target.
And the object of my fantasies.

I bang my head harder.

I close my eyes and push her face from my thoughts. I replace it with my boss, Beherit, Grand Duke of Hell and head of Acquisitions. I focus on the thought of what he’ll do to me if I fail, hoping fear will take the edge off my obsessive desire.

And it almost works. I feel cold, black dread snake its way through my insides as I picture myself kneeling before Beherit and King Lucifer, awaiting judgment. But the dread shifts to despair that, if my existence ends now, I’ll never know what it feels like to touch Frannie, to kiss her, to
be
with her.

I slam my head into the wall.

Suddenly, I need to know why Frannie is so important—what their plans are for her. But I don’t know, and I won’t. Beherit is paranoid and keeps things close to the vest.

I bang the back of my head against the wall once more to
clear it.
Focus.
Things are going well. The others from Acquisitions weren’t able to find her. I did. The rest of my job should be easy, Gabriel or no Gabriel. He’s just a minor inconvenience. He seems to be riding her hard with his power, but there’s only so far he can take it without working to my advantage. But the image of him . . . with her . . . like
that
, creeps back into my head and I feel my insides twist. I shift the image to
me
. . . with her . . . like that . . . and I feel other things moving inside me.

Tomorrow.
I’ll have her tomorrow.

I pull my sorry self off the floor and meander into the bathroom, where I stand staring at the shower. How does this thing work anyway? I turn a knob and at first the water spraying from the wall is cool, but then it gets warmer. Wrong one. I turn that one off and turn the other one on full blast. Magicking my clothes away, I step into the ice-cold water.

Focus, Luc.

“Why doesn’t anyone in your family ever talk about your brother?” Taylor dusts off the glass of the picture frame with her sleeve before putting it back on my dresser. It’s the one of me in Grandpa’s garage, grease smeared on my face, making rabbit ears behind Matt’s sandy curls. He’s pretending to bang a wrench on my head. We were seven. It was the week before he died.

I press back into my desk chair and swallow the lump forming in the back of my throat, threatening to cut off my airway. “Not much to talk about. It was a long time ago.”