The First Sacrament (The Demons of Stone Chapel Book 1) (8 page)

We heard this story every single year at the Founder’s Day assembly.

The entire set was made up of fourteen piles of paper bound together by some old string and battered covers. Stone Chapel High was currently in possession of them. A gift from the city library during last year’s Founder’s Day assembly. They wanted to share the wealth, I guess.

When I was finished with my task, I took a step back to make sure I'd gotten everything in order. It looked fine, except…

It took me a second to realize it, but after some squinting and a double take, I noticed that The Diaries, numbered with the year they were written on their tattered spines, jumped from 1799 to the floor. 1800 was gone.

“Ms. Hayworth?” I called.

She managed to tear herself away from her inventory taking long enough to attend to my missing book crisis. “What's up?”

I pointed to the Diaries stack. “The Diary from 1800 is missing.”

“What?” Her brow scrunched up behind her glasses. “Are you sure you didn’t just drop it?”

“Positive. I moved all of them directly from the shelves to the floor. Not much room for error.”

“That’s…not very good at all,” she said. She tapped on her clipboard some more. “We have to find that book, Beatrice.”

We spent the next hour scouring every inch of the library without anything to show for it. Poor Ms. Hayworth looked like she was going to have a panic attack. I tried telling her that she’d probably just misplaced it somewhere, but she shook her head and sent me away.

I spent my bus ride home wondering if she would be okay. I mean, she
really
looked ill at the thought of losing one of the city’s precious pieces of history.

And then I got back to my apartment. And all thoughts of Ms. Hayworth and the suspicious case of the Mysterious Missing Book vanished from my mind.

Eight

The last time I saw Mother Arden, we got into an argument. About Rosie. About how I was taking on too much responsibility. About how it was going to kill me one day. So it was funny, then, that when I got home, she was standing in my now empty apartment with an expression that I roughly translated into meaning
I told you so.

“Mother Arden?” My backpack fell to the floor with a thud that echoed hollowly against the bare walls. “What are you―”

She smiled gently, dark eyes crinkling at their corners. “Mr. Arturo contacted me.”

Mr. Arturo was going to get his ass kicked. Once for calling Mother Arden and twice for stealing all my stuff. It was
completely
empty in here. The tubs I kept my clothes in, the couch, the kitchen table, my laptop, all gone. I knew I shouldn't have left.

“I'm glad someone has been looking after you,” Mother Arden said. She was in full habit as usual and the black fabric of her skirts whispered at her feet as she closed the distance between us. She wrapped her arms around me, hugged me tight. “Are you all right?”

I squirmed out of her grasp. The ceiling was clean of blood and the dog was gone. As if it never existed. As if none of what I'd experienced those hours ago never happened. “I'm fine.”

She stared at me. A steady, inexhaustible stare that made me feel eight years old all over again. “You don't need to be, Beatrice. I know what happened here. I know about Rosemary.”

My throat got tight at the mention of Rosie's name. I'd been so caught up in my own problems that I'd barely given her a thought. I was a terrible friend. “She's fine, too.”

Mother Arden held my gaze for a moment longer, then sighed, bowing her head as though in prayer. Dear Lord, please protect my charge because she's too incapable of doing it herself. And grant me the strength not to smack her with a Bible every time she mouths off. Amen.

“Don't be angry with Mr. Arturo,” she said when she was finished praying or thinking or whatever. “I told him to move your things.”

“What?” Did no one care what
I
thought about all this? “Why?”

“It isn't safe―”

My hands balled into fists at my sides. “You don't get to decide what's safe for me anymore!”

“Beatrice―”

“No!” I was too angry to think about what I was saying. “I'm sick of people making decisions for me! I'm not a kid! I can take care of myself!”

“
Beatrice―
”

“Dante thinks he can come in here and order me around and
you
just let him―”

Mother Arden seized my shoulders, shocking the protests from my lips. The look on her face was one I'd never seen from her before. Usually so graceful, so composed, she looked...afraid. “Beatrice,” she said. “Listen to me! For once in your life, just
listen!
”

For once in my life, I listened.

“Something is
wrong
, Beatrice,” she said tremulously. “Something is very wrong. And
you
are getting caught in the middle of it. Don't you understand that? I don't know what happened that would make someone want to harm you, but they
do
and you aren't seeing it!”

I couldn't speak even if I wanted to. I was that eight year old again, rendered powerless by a parent's admonishment.

Her grip slackened, but it didn't slip away entirely. “Let me help you, Beatrice. There's no shame in it. You've always been a stubborn girl, but you can't let that kill you. I won't allow it.”

“I'm not―…” It was a struggle to find my voice again, and when I found it, it sounded small. Childish. “I'm okay.”

She didn't believe me. “No, you aren't. You aren't okay. You're exhausted and frightened and alone. You need to be in a safe place, Beatrice.”

“I don't
have
a safe place,” I said. I'd aged out of the system eight months ago on my birthday. Instead of candles on a cake, I got shoved out of the only home I knew with nothing but a suitcase and some useless well-wishes. That I managed to get this far was a miracle in and of itself.

“Yes,” Mother Arden smoothed my frizzy hair down. “You do.”

She couldn't have meant the orphanage. “What do you mean?”

Behind us, the door creaked open. “Knock, knock.”

That accent...No way. I spun around. “
Aralia?
”

She wiggled her long fingers in my direction. “Hello, darling. Long time no see.”

This was a joke, right? This had to be a joke. “What are you doing here?”

“Isn't it obvious?” She put her hands on her hips. “I'm your knight in shining armor, coming to take you away from this wretched place.” She looked past me to Mother Arden. “I take it you hadn't gotten to that part yet.”

Mother Arden shook her head. “No. I hadn't.”

“What the hell is going on?” I asked.

Aralia and Mother Arden exchanged glances, the kind of glances that said they knew something I didn't. This Keep Things from Beatrice game was getting really old really fast.

Mother Arden spoke first. “Mr. Arturo has graciously decided to welcome you into his home for the time being.”

“Just until we find you a new place to stay,” Aralia said.

Oh my
God.
I was going to rip my hair out. “I'm glad you guys decided to ask me about it first. Thanks for that.”

“It isn't permanent,” Mother Arden said. She reached for my hand, but I moved away before she could. “It's for the best, Beatrice.”

“And you think I couldn't decide that for myself?”

“Your
circumstances
―”

Again with my circumstances! “I don't care what my
circumstances
are! It isn't fair!”

“Ladies,” Aralia stepped between us, cool as a cucumber. “I hate to break up such a touching reunion, but I'm afraid I'm on a bit of a schedule. Mondays are always busy, you see.”

I glared at her. “Were you not listening to what I told Dante this morning? I'm not a couch!”

She grabbed me by my shoulders and wheeled me around to face the door. “Of course you aren't, darling.”

“Hey!” I hated that she was so damn strong. “Let me go!”

“I can't do that,” she sighed. “This would be much easier if you would see reason.”

I dug my heels in, but Aralia kept pushing. “I'm not leaving!”

She stopped. “Do you want to die?”

“
No―
”

“Then you're leaving.”

Resume pushing.

“No!” Full blown temper tantrum, activate. I'd look back on this one day and laugh at how stupid I was being, but in that moment, I didn’t care. If they were going to treat me like a toddler, I was going to act like a toddler. “I'm not leaving!”

“Good
Lord,
” Aralia said. “Excuse me. Mother Arden, yes? Please control your charge before I'm forced to do something drastic.”

Mother Arden appeared at my side in a plume of black and white. “Beatrice! Stop this at once!”

Oh, God. Here we go. She was using The Voice. Yeah.
That
one. The one that made many an orphan cower in fear and shame.

“You complain that I'm treating you like a child, that I won't let you make your own decisions, and then you proceed to act like
this?
” She glowered at me, her face half eclipsed in the shadow of her wimple. “Being an adult is more than turning eighteen, Beatrice. Being an adult means doing things you may not want to do. Being an adult means making decisions you would rather not make. And since you refuse to make that decision, I made it for you. I made it for you and you will
like it
.”

“But―”

She wouldn’t let me argue. “I'm not going to let you throw your life away for the sake of your pride. You will go to Mr. Arturo's and you will thank him for all he's done for you.”

“I wouldn't advise doing that
today,
” Aralia murmured. “He's in a positively
foul
mood.”

Mother Arden took a step back. Composed herself. “Though my colleagues may think differently, I believe that Mr. Arturo is a good man. A great man. The fact that he is willing to let you live with him attests to that.”

Aralia leaned down to speak in my ear. “He
is
unusually invested in you.”

That was
another
thing. Why did he care? Why was he doing this? Was I part of his master plan? Was I being recruited like Max? Giving me the money was one thing but this was just...Too generous to be true.

“You must play the hand you've been dealt,” Mother Arden said. She pressed her lips together as she caught sight of the claw marks on the far wall. “And if that means accepting outside help, so be it.”

“Okay,” I wrenched myself away from Aralia, away from the both of them. “I get it. You can stop lecturing me now.”

“I sincerely hope you do,” Mother Arden replied.

I couldn’t believe I just got yelled at by a nun to move into a demon hunter's house. The world got stranger every day. “Can I do something before we leave?” I asked Aralia.

If she'd said no, I would've done it anyway, but she didn't, so went across the hall to Mr. Zarcotti's door. I couldn't leave without saying goodbye.

But when I knocked, he didn't answer. And when I knocked again, I got the same thing.

He wasn't home.

***

“You shouldn't pout, Beatrice,” Aralia said as we sat in the middle of rush hour traffic. “Think of this as a new adventure. You like adventures, don't you?”

“I'm not pouting,” I said. Okay, maybe I was. But not for the reasons she thought. I still hadn't processed it all. In forty-eight hours, I'd gone from a relatively normal teenage girl with her own apartment to a decidedly
abnormal
teenage girl without the apartment who couldn't take a step in any direction without hitting a demon. The real kicker was that none of this would be happening if the church hadn’t tried
possessing me
in the first place.

I felt like I was sitting in the middle of a dark room, dumb, deaf, and blind, while everyone else hustled around me whispering secrets I wasn't allowed to hear. To say that it was frustrating would've been a colossal understatement.

The cars in front of us lurched forward as the light turned green. Aralia let out a sigh, a frown on her full lips.

“This is why I detest coming here during the day,” she said. “Too many people.”

I stared out the window. A storm was rolling in. A nasty one that made the ocean churn and the wind blow. “Why the sudden change of heart?”

“Pardon?”

I couldn't tell if she was playing dumb or not. “Why is Dante suddenly agreeing to help me? He wouldn't have anything to do with me on Saturday and now he's telling me to move in? What gives?”

We came to another stoplight. Aralia groaned.

“Well?” I asked.

The sharp glint in her eyes made me uneasy. “You should know that I do not like lying, nor do I appreciate liars. I strive to tell the whole truth when I can.”

Uh. “Okay?”

“Dante is quite the opposite. He will likely lie to you if he thinks it will protect you in some way. He’s a fool.”

The first peal of thunder rumbled above us.

The light turned. Aralia eased on the gas. “Though foolish he may be, Dante has a kind heart. He would never forgive himself if something happened to you.”

“He doesn't even know me,” I muttered. I wasn't ungrateful for his help. Really, I wasn't. I was just...confused. In my experience, very few people were willing to stick their necks out for someone like me. Someone disposable.

“He doesn't need to,” Aralia said. A faint smile replaced her frown. “The man cares too much about everyone. In your case, I think his compassion is justified.”

“Is it really that bad?” I asked. I mean, yeah, the demonic symbol drawn in blood on my ceiling was
obviously
a bad thing, not to mention the flayed animal corpse, but...

Rain began to fall in fat drops on the windshield. Aralia turned the wipers up a notch. “Dante seems to think so.”

I guess that settled it.

“Do you still want to hunt demons, Beatrice?” She asked after a right turn and a stop sign.

The million dollar question.

If she'd asked me this on Friday, I would have said yes. For Rosie. For all the bills I had to pay. For practical reasons. Normal reasons. Now? It was Monday evening and so much had changed. I was running headlong across an unknown threshold, straight into the darkest recesses of the world. Without even realizing it, I managed to step in one huge pile of crap. In the mayor's denial, in the church's hidden danger, in the evil that plagued humankind for God only knew how long.