The Wicked Awakening of Anne Merchant (4 page)

“A second recruiter?” I repeat.

“Surely you knew you’d be punished for what you did, Miss Merchant,” Hiltop says.

The main reason I tried to escape Cania Christy was to keep my dad from being as enslaved to Mephisto as Ben’s dad is. Could this be my punishment?

“Your father agreed this morning. It took very little to persuade him.”

I practically growl at Teddy, hoping he realizes just what he’s done. I may be the one being punished, but my dad’s bearing the brunt of it. To atone for my rebellious behavior, my dad—Mr. Stanley Merchant, funeral director in the most expensive zip code in the United States—is Cania’s newest recruiter.

“Why would you punish
him
?” I ask Hiltop. “I’m the one to punish. Punish me instead.”

“Hush. I would think you’d be more interested in the arrival of Dia Voletto.”

“I’m not. Not in the slightest.”

“I thought your
prosperitas thema
was to look closer. And yet you’re missing everything.”

A burst of activity near the water draws my eye. Dia Voletto is getting to his feet, and a dozen of his servants have bolted toward the student body to make room for their leader. Two part the crowd, shoving me and Hiltop back, while two follow closely behind and roll out a deep purple carpet. Six more men cart wood and a gauzy fabric up to the middle of the quad, where they hurriedly pound together pillars and string tulle over them, creating a gazebo. A platform and podium are placed within.

Dia’s entourage, all dressed fantastically, start up to the podium. Dia is in their midst. He glances around, searching the crowd. I’m stunned by how attractive he is, how very different he looks from his predecessor. This twentysomething who could be mistaken for the front man in an Oregon indie band is Villicus’s replacement?

“Is he searching for you, Hiltop?” I elbow my little enemy.

“Guess again.”

No sooner has she uttered those words than Dia’s gaze lands on Teddy, who’s standing next to me. Dia stops in his tracks. His eyelids are heavily lashed. His eyes slide my way and back to Teddy. Most of the students have continued on to the quad, but some stop to watch Dia approach us.

“You,” he says to Teddy. “How do you know this girl?”

A cold sweat breaks out under my uniform. The last thing I want is attention.

“I’m her Guardian,” Teddy tells Dia.

“Her Guardian? You oversee her. You influence her. If I understand right, you brought her back here after she liberated herself.”

“What is your point, Dia?” Hiltop interjects.

Dia and Hiltop meet eyes. You don’t have to read souls to feel the tension between these two. I wish I could slink away unnoticed, but that’s unlikely.

“Ted Rier,” Dia says, “you have a new mission. You will scout the planet for a new home for Mephisto.” He grabs Teddy’s satchel and snaps his fingers.

And Teddy’s gone.

Stunned, I turn and catch my classmate Augusto staring, gape-mouthed, at the now-empty space between me and Hiltop. His gaze meets mine. And then he looks away, busying himself. Has he known all along that we’re dealing with the darkest of all arts here? Does everyone secretly know? Am I the only person who thinks it’s nuts to live like this? Are the rest complacent? Or are they simply smarter than I? They know it’s best not to look closer, as my
prosperitas thema
, or success thesis, would have me do, but to look the other way. Not to fight the madness of this island’s leaders as Ben and I tried to do, but to play along.

How did we ever think we’d outplay the likes of Mephistopheles?

How does Teddy think we have a chance of destroying him or Dia Voletto? And now that Teddy’s gone, what am I going to do? Take on these devils by myself?

Without the slightest look in my direction or another word to Hiltop, Dia continues up the path. I follow the crowd. I keep my eyes open for Ben.

“Miss Merchant,” Hiltop says, catching my sleeve.

I shove her away. “Stop. Touching. Me.”

“I thought you might wish to meet your new Guardian.”

New Guardian.
Dammit!
Because Teddy’s gone now. Thanks for nothing, Dia.

“How could you possibly know who my Guardian is?” I ask her. “You’re not in charge anymore.”

“He’s the only Cania staff member available to take on a pupil right now.”

I turn and cross my arms. “Who?”

That’s when I see him. Over her shoulder. He’s standing by the water. I recognize him instantly: his short, cropped hair and his stocky build. The scowl he wears is vaguely familiar—for weeks, he faked friendly smiles for me.

“Pilot Stone,” I whisper. In place of his Cania Christy uniform are janitor’s coveralls. “I shouldn’t be surprised.”

One day I won’t flinch at the endless life cycle possible in a world run by demons. I’ll accept that a boy can die in a house fire he set, live again here, die by my own hand, and yet live again here.

“You’re like a cockroach.” I watch Pilot stride toward me and Hiltop.

“You can’t keep a good man down,” he says. “After you so cruelly ended my life, I found myself in Mephisto’s domain.”

“Hell. Where you belong.”

Hiltop interrupts. “But I couldn’t leave my protégé to burn like some common lost soul. Especially not with my followers fleeing in the one moment I could actually use their allegiance.”

“I will always be there for Master Mephistopheles,” Pilot says. A beam of sunlight catches the brooch near Pilot’s nametag. He is one of Mephisto’s now.

“Because you’re loyal? Or because you want to avoid, oh, say, the fires of Hell?”

“Get your student under control,” Hiltop warns Pilot.

“His student?” I repeat.

“Miss Merchant,” Hiltop says, “Mr. Stone is your new Guardian.”

“Hold on,
what
?”

Pilot’s my Guardian? Whether a student wins the Big V or not rides almost entirely on how much their Guardian is willing to fight for them during the debate on graduation day. If my Guardian hates me, I don’t stand a chance.

“Pilot’s my punishment?” I guess.

Luckily, I’m only in a coma. I don’t need the Big V the same way everyone else at Cania Christy does. So I don’t need Pilot the way other students need their Guardians. Hiltop is silently following my line of thought.

“If you think you can simply wake up and escape the competition,” she says to me, “never forget that it only takes the tiniest increase in your pentobarbital drip for your coma to become a little less…terminable.”

“You can’t kill me, Hiltop. There are rules.”

Fact: I don’t
know
if those are the rules, but it seems like they ought to be! Demons can’t just run around knocking off the people they want to abuse.

“Rules can be bent. Accidents happen.” She forces me and Pilot to stand shoulder to shoulder and holds us tight, watching us squirm. “Now, if the two of you can try to get along, I’m going to watch Dia Voletto bumble his way through his introduction.”

As she strolls away, Pilot shoves me. “You’re gonna regret the day you ever met me, Merchant.”

“‘Gonna’? As in, future tense?”

“Let the record show I have no intention—zero, zilch, nada—of helping you,” he says, his chest puffy with some delusional sense of power over me. “But I will insist that you change your PT.
Looking closer
is total crap, plus you’re kinduv good at it, so that doesn’t work for me. I’m thinking something like…fitting those birthing hips into a size two. Or having a straight smile.” I run my tongue over my teeth; the tooth Ben inadvertently straightened for me last week is crooked again. “That should guarantee your death.”

“Piss off, Pilot.”

Leaving him swearing after me, I take off to the quad, where I look high and low for Ben. I wind my way closer to the stage. I try not to react when students, noticing me, jab me with their elbows and whisper, “Murdering Merchant.” I don’t care; I just want to find Ben.

Far beyond Valedictorian Hall, I spy Hiltop walking with Dr. Zin. He has his suitcase and his black doctor’s bag. He’s leaving. I stand on my tiptoes, looking for Ben. Where did he go? He wouldn’t get expelled, would he? He couldn’t! Ben isn’t even a student here.

“Attention, students,” calls Dr. Weinchler, who is at the podium with a dizzying array of new-to-our-world demons sitting, leaning, and standing behind him. He’s notorious for speaking quietly and stammering through his words; when almost no one notices him, he glares around in frustration and his wispy white hair floats side to side.

“Attention,” Weinchler repeats. “Be quiet.”

Pilot arrives at my side, grumbling, just as a striking woman dressed in green, with emerald-colored streaks in her wavy hair and a long jade vine tattooed on her arm, swaggers up behind Weinchler. She whispers something to him that makes him grin and replaces him at the podium.

Unlike Weinchler, this woman commands attention.

She doesn’t have to do more than
be here
for the hundreds of people in the crowd to fall silent and stare, in jealous awe, at her. I’ve always thought of myself as relatively comfortable in my skin and cool with how I look, but looking at this woman, all I can think is,
How easy it must be to be her
. No, in truth, all I can think is,
I wish I could be her
. Hating the insecurities that thought reveals, I force myself to stand straighter, hold my head higher, and hope that Pilot’s looking
at me now just because he’s plotting ways to hurt me, not because he’s taking pleasure in the jealousy written all over my face.

The island as a whole, barking sea lions and rustling leaves included, goes silent waiting for the woman in green to speak.

“Good afternoon,” she says at last.

I want to have her voice.

When I tear my eyes from her, I notice everyone else is transfixed, too. It’s not because this woman is beautiful, though she is. No, it’s like she’s the sum of the parts I wish I had; maybe everyone else is thinking the same thing. We all envy her.

“My name is Invidia, and I am pleased to welcome you, students, to the inauguration of the second headmaster in the sixty-five-year history of the Cania Christy Preparatory Academy.”

As we applaud, I wonder about her name. I know Invidia is from the underworld; it goes without saying that she’s a demon of some kind. But while all of Mephisto’s followers have common names, like Kate Haem and Eve Risset (two of the most evil secretaries that ever lived), this woman’s name is classic Latin.
Invidia
. Perhaps all of Dia Voletto’s followers have Latin names. I make a mental note to look up the meaning of
Invidia
after the ceremony.

“Without further ado,” Invidia says, “allow me to introduce the gentleman you have all been anxiously waiting to meet.” She pauses to allow more clapping. With an elegant flourish, she welcomes Dia Voletto to the podium. “Headmaster Voletto!”

If Mephisto and his legions are physically simple or unattractive by design, Dia and his crew might have been created just to be gawked at, stared after, and maybe even yearned for. I could never see Dia Voletto as anything but the underworld führer he is—but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate art when I behold it. Like most interesting art, Dia is composed of imperfect pieces that, together, are unlike anything the world has beheld before. He’s beautiful. And I’m not the only one who’s noticed that: in the corner of my eye, I spy Harper and the Model UN from Hell preening.

“Look at this!” Dia exclaims as he takes his place at the podium and gazes at us all. “Such wonder! Such splendor! Such beauty! Students, thank you for this warm welcome, and please accept my sincere apologies for thrusting such a change on you so swiftly. I
assure you, under my leadership, this school will rise to be the haven of joy and opportunity you all wish it to be.”

The sunlight, which has been flooding the normally cloudy island, glistens off his dark, wide irises. If you didn’t know better, you’d swear there was something charming about Dia Voletto.

“That, of course, brings me to the matter I wish to discuss with you.”

I watch Harper and her gang move closer to the stage, the better to bat their fake eyelashes at Dia. When they move, they reveal Ben, who’s standing just behind the gap they’ve created, the gap that two large boys quickly fill. I try to peer between their massive shoulders even as they snap at me to turn around. I’m
this close
to waving to get Ben’s attention when I stop.

Because he’s not alone.

Garnet Descarteres is standing next to him.

Garnet
. As in, Ben’s ex-girlfriend, Garnet. As in the former valedictorian who traded her soul to be with Ben again. What’s
she
doing with him? Hold on, why’s she stroking his arm?

I face forward before either of them can see me looking.

My heart is thumping so loudly, I’m sure it’ll give me away.

That can’t be what it looks like
, I think. Maybe she was dusting a bee off his sleeve. Or maybe not. I want to look again, to pick up cues, hints, or suggestions, but I don’t dare. I tell myself what Ben told me: that he wasn’t interested in her, that it had always been me, that from the day his funeral service was held in my family home—from the day I saw him in his open casket, and felt compelled to sketch him in those few moments before the mourners arrived, and tucked that sketch into his casket…and, finally, hoping no one would come into the reception room, kissed him on the cheek—it had been me. Ben told me I was the girl with the blonde hair he’d been waiting for. Not Garnet.
Not Garnet
.

“Hey,” Pilot jabs me hard in the side. “Pay attention, psycho.”

I ignore him like the pesky blackfly he is.

“Oh, wait, your mom’s the psycho.”

Ben wants to be with me. I’m sure he does. Yet I can’t seem to fight the clouds of doom, self-loathing, and sadness rolling into my mind. Ben and Garnet? Could it be? So freakin’
soon
?

“And she tried to kill you, didn’t she?”

That’s enough! I hiss at Pilot, “Let’s not compare parents. Your dad’s Sexcapade of the Century hardly qualified him as Father of the Year.”

I gave him what he wanted: a reaction. He smiles.