The Wicked Awakening of Anne Merchant (29 page)

“Only everyone. And, instead of asking for something that would help
you
, jealous little chick you are, you asked Dia to deform
Ben and Garnet’s babies.” He shoves the demitasse into my hands. “Here. You like coffee, and I’ve spent so many afternoons here waiting for you, I’ve learned to make it like a prize barista.”

I take the tiny cup and saucer.

“Well, the rumor mill’s turning out some real crap.” I watch Pilot sit again. “People actually believe Ben dumped me just as I was about to save his life—because
that
would be super-smart of him—and my oh-so brilliant response was to…curse his future kids?”

“It’s not true?”

I roll my eyes.

“Likely story, Merchant. So now Ben’s back with Garnet, where he belongs,” he says, “and Little Miss Artsy-Fartsy realizes she’s pissed away her
Get Out of Jail Free
card on the boy who broke her heart. And comes crawling back to me. Is that it?” He watches me sip my espresso. “And now you wanna get serious about the Big V so you don’t have to watch them anymore, right?”

His assumptions are starting to irritate me. So I cut to the chase.

“Pi, I know who I am.”

“You know you’re a loser death chick who got her ass dumped.”

“No.” I try to stare into his head, as if that might help him focus. “I know who I am. Who I was.”

We sit in silence. He blinks.

“I was Gia. Miss Saligia. The underworld goddess.”

Wheezing through his teeth, like he’s torn between smiling and wondering if he’s got even more to worry about now, Pilot eyes me up. I swirl the black liquid through its perfectly brown crema in the porcelain demitasse. He’s taking a while to process this.

“Look, before you start making BS jokes,” I begin.

He leans in, closer this time, conspiratorially. “Anne, as much as I want out of the underworld, I’m not a moron. I know my rank here. And I know you’ve got—” he lowers his voice until it’s little more than a rumble. “Anne, you’ve still got a lot of demons who dig you around this place. And in other places. You saw how Invidia bitched me out when I blinked wrong at you. I’m not gonna talk smack.”

I was hoping to hear how the demons feel about me. But Pilot doesn’t need to know that. I act stupid so he’ll keep talking.

“Are you saying demons here know who I used to be?” I ask him.

“Not who you were. Who you are.”

“But I’m not her.”

“Yes, you are. You just don’t have any servants. I mean, Harper has more followers than you do.”

I was thinking the same thing. Dia said it himself: Trey Sedmoney worships Harper. And then there’s the Model UN from Hell—slaves if I ever saw them.

“The people who know Anne Merchant think she’s the girl in a coma,” Pilot continues. “The people who know Miss Saligia think she’s on, like, a vacation. Both sides are waiting for you to come back. Wake up. Be your old self again. Question for you: Which side will you choose?”

I focus on the warmth of the cup against my fingertips.

He sips his coffee, and I sip mine.

“You should change your PT,” he says at last. “Embrace who you were. Use it. You were a succubus in the beginning, and then you led thousands of them.”

“What would I do with a different PT? Bat my eyelashes and host a kissing booth…on the off chance that Dia or Hiltop agree to let me, with my history, leave this island? You honestly think that’s the best plan? You think I’m going anywhere the old-fashioned way?”

“Well, if you’re not gonna win it,” he says, “then why are we even talking?”

“I’m wondering the same thing.” I shake my head, disappointed in him. “I would’ve thought you’d have something more creative worked out by now, Stone. Instead, you spent the last month perfecting espresso.”

He rests his chin on his fist and goes quiet for a bit. Thinking, thinking.

“You
had
powers and legions and all that amazing stuff—stuff I’d sell my soul for, if it was worth anything,” he says. “Do you have any powers now?”

“Only the power to drive people away from me.”

“Depending on the person, that can be useful.”

“Ha.”

He looks caught between jumping ship and taking the wheel. I can only wait for him to come up with the idea I need him to. I can’t suggest it or he might not go for it—but if he starts thinking what I’m thinking, this could get interesting fast.

“What if…?” Pilot begins. He’s tapping his lip and looking at Vale Tuefurre, a cafeteria lady. I can almost hear the wheels turning in his head. At once, his gaze hops back to me. “I’ve got an idea.”

“I thought you might.”

“I can help you.”

“How?”

“I could serve you. That would immediately give you a boost of underworld cred.”

Bingo.

“But no powers,” I remind him. “You don’t have any. You’re a punk.”

“Thanks for the reminder.”

“Mephisto wouldn’t notice you’ve left him to serve me?”

“I’m a punk, like you said. I barely register. And with whatever island Teddy finds for him, he’ll have bigger things on the go for the next few months.”

“If you barely register,” I counter, “how could you help me?”

Thinking fast, he darts to the cutlery stand, where he grabs a steak knife. He runs back and, with a single swift motion, raises the knife until it’s just above my ear. A flash of him torturing me the way Dia tortured Eve and Kate makes me recoil. I fall off my chair with a cry. But he straddles me and, in one stroke, swipes at my head.

I squeeze my eyes shut, squeal, and wait for pain.

But there is no pain. Wet blood doesn’t flood my cheek or ooze into my mouth.

I open my eyes to find Pilot holding a large chunk of my hair; blonde strands glisten in his fist. I feel around my head and find a good inch-wide lock missing.

“My hair!”

“Gia’s calling card was her hair. It was her thing. Hey, maybe that’s why you’ve got such crazy-ass hair.”

“What’re you doing with my hair?”

“I’ll help you rebuild your army,” he says, tucking my lock of hair into his pocket. “I bunk with a shit-ton of demons that could serve you again, if they knew Saligia was seriously back. I’d have to tell them in secret. Can’t let Dia or Mephisto hear.”

I consider it with wide, innocent eyes, as if this entire idea isn’t something I’ve been trying to steer the conversation toward.

“If punks, demons, ’n’ shizzle are gonna serve you,” he says, “they’re gonna need a token from you. Hence the hair. I’ll get my dad to send a butt-load of lockets pronto. We’ll clip your hair in the lockets, give ’em out to newbies, and build you up.”

I didn’t know about the hair, but everything else about this meeting is going pretty perfectly. It took me a month to nail down the starting point of my plan: get Pilot to serve me, and then get him to recruit for me. Of course, I know he won’t do it without getting something in return. But I think I might be able to give him what he wants. I’m just waiting for him to get to that part of the conversation.

“You’ll help bring, um, your
kind
on board?”

“My kind and better. I’ll put the word out! I’ll be your mothereffing right-hand punk. Your recruiter.”

“In exchange for?”

He beams, almost looking as genuine as he did when we first met. “The ultimate, Anne-a-bam. I want to live again.”

“You want me to…give you life?”

“Let’s circumvent the Big V. We’ll build you a big army with the right recruits to give you the powers to hand out your own version of the Big V.”

“Do you know who gives out life?” I ask him. I’ve got a list filled with the powers of the demons on staff here, but none of them seem in control of vivification.

“No, but we’ll figure that out.” Then something dawns on him. “Oh, shit, you’re not doing all this just so you’ll be able to, like, put a spell on Ben so he’ll fall for you?”

“After cursing his kids?”

“I totally hate the dude, but he looks really happy with Garnet. He always looked so tortured around you.”

“I don’t want to break up Ben and Garnet,” I promise.

But inside I’m smiling. I can almost feel my heart grow inside my chest. Pilot’s so wrong about Ben. My hard-to-reach Ben, tormented by demons far different from the Cania variety. For the first time in a long while, my soul feels lightened. Ben was his deep-as-the-Atlantic self with me; with Garnet, he’s just playing the game his life depends on. Exactly as I’d hoped he would.

But I know better than anyone that hope isn’t enough.

Hoping Ben will win isn’t going to guarantee that he will. And I need a
guarantee
. I need to know that there’s no one else in the running. With Pilot helping me rebuild the strength of Gia, I’m going to do exactly that—even if a few demons have to get hurt in the process.

And so begins part one: Operation Save Ben.

I have a follower now. Soon, I’ll have more. With their allegiance, I’ll be able to remove obstacles from Ben’s path to the Big V. When that’s all done, I’ll be strong enough to help Teddy destroy Dia.

“Wait,” I say to Pilot. “How will you convince the others that I’m, as you say, seriously back?”

“They know you’re Gia. They just need to see something from you. Put on a bit of a show. Get them talking about you.”

“Show them I’m her.”

“
Wow
them. And,” he lowers his voice as a sophomore passes our table, “humans can serve Gia, too. Human witches serve demon witches all the time. Is there anyone you might be able to coerce into serving you? In exchange for, say, the same thing you’re giving me?” He taps his lip, thinking. “Someone capable of venturing to the dark side.”

“Someone to tiptoe through Hell with me? A Virgil to my Dante?”

He stares at me. “Literary references? Really?”

I stand to leave. I know exactly whom to ask—the only person who’s proven to me she’s capable of doing anything to get what she wants, and the only person here with followers of her own.

I move to shake Pilot’s hand. But, with a quick look to be sure no one’s watching, he bows instead.

And my heart thumps faster.

The heart I share with Gia, a goddess regaining her followers one by one, thumps at double time.

eighteen

GOOD INTENTIONS

HARPER IS CLAPPING CHALK BRUSHES TOGETHER IN THE
empty parking lot when I sneak up behind her and give her a scare: I flick her ponytail, and she jumps. She nearly punches me as she whirls, but I duck.

“You!” she cries. “Comin’ up on me like an outhouse breeze. What’s the matter with you?”

“I’ve got a proposition for you.”

She rolls her eyes. I’m sure she’s not only heard that before but said it herself. And it never comes to any good.

“A real one,” I tell her.

“You planning to turn into a scary devil child on me again? Steal my soul this time?”

“No, but I want to talk to you about that night. Sort of.” She smacks the brushes together.

“Look, I know you don’t trust me,” I say, “but I didn’t kill Gigi. She committed suicide. And I wouldn’t have ended Pilot’s second life if it hadn’t come down to me and him that night.”

“I ain’t judging.”

“Sure you aren’t. Listen, you once said we should both sleep with one eye open. Remember?”

She drops the brushes in a bucket. Stares me straight in the eyes. And starts screaming bloody murder.

I muzzle her with my hand, but she pushes my arm away and screams for help even louder. So I grab her by the hair—it’s the best I can think of—and start tugging and shoving her toward the path leading up to the cliff-top. Her screams turn to short, choppy cries for me to let go of her. I shove her against the hill’s steep incline. She shouts as she stumbles. I can’t see any other option, so I gently—okay, a tad more than
gently
—butt the back of her head against the hillside. She growls at me but quiets down.

Gripping her chin, I get close enough to her face that our noses touch.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I say.

“You’re going to
wish
you’d
killed
me. Let me go.”

“Harper, you saw who I am. You and I both know you’re powerless to me.” With her pinned, I glance over my shoulder, but no one’s here, no one came when Harper cried. Of course they didn’t. Caring about others isn’t the Cania way. “But you’re not totally powerless.”

She’s breathing heavily. Her straight, white teeth are clenched like a growling dog’s.

“Calm down,” I say. “If you want to live again, I can help.”

“You’d better sleep with one eye open now, Murdering Merchant!”

“You’ve done worse. Admit it.” I wait for her to say something; she blinks. “The real reason you don’t like me is because I’m still alive.”

“That’s just one item on a long list.”

“I’m about to give you a chance to live, too. If you trust me.”

“I’d be a damn fool.”

“No, you’d be free.”

Slowly, I release her chin and lift myself away from her. She shakes her hair until it’s straight again and pushes my hand away when I try to help her get upright.

“Trust
you
?” she snaps as she dusts her uniform off. “In what world?”

Her glare doesn’t leave me, and mine doesn’t leave her. But she doesn’t scream. And she walks when I do. We watch each other closely as she follows me into the Rex Paimonde building, to our workshop. No one’s here. I close the door behind us.