The fiery heat assaults us again as soon as we emerge from the alley, and within a few steps it starts to be hard to breathe. With my free hand, I pull the neck of my shirt up to cover my nose and mouth. Ryan notices and does the same. Peter doesn’t seem as bothered by the burning, ashy air, at least on a physical level. He does look deeply troubled, though. As much as he hates his home world, it must still be quite a shock to see it like this.
Ryan looks around warily; I suppose he didn’t get much of a chance to observe our surroundings when we first arrived. “Why is everything . . . moving?” he asks through his shirt.
Oh. Right. The shiftiness. “It does that,” I tell him. “You kind of get used to it.”
He gives me a very skeptical look, but says nothing.
It soon becomes clear that the good thing about following the scary demon is that the other scary demons seem to know we are spoken for, and they leave us alone. I see several watching us hungrily from various shadowy places along the way, but they never do more than watch and occasionally salivate noisily as we pass.
The bad thing is that I know every step we take is one that brings us closer to Mr. Gabriel. Which, yes, is the reason we came here, but . . . I’m not ready. I’m still reeling from the shock of learning he’s free. There hasn’t been time to wrap my mind around the idea of having to face him again. Especially not like this — so abruptly and without any chance to prepare.
I still have nightmares about our last encounter — ones in which we don’t manage to defeat him. In my dreams I have seen all of his terrible desires played out in full. I have seen him drag Annie screaming back to the demon world; I have seen him take revenge on everyone I love; I have seen him come for me, at the last, the blood of my family and friends still fresh upon his horns and claws and face. In my dreams he is always radiant with joy as he begins the long, slow process of killing me, ripping aside my resistance like so much tissue paper, his eyes fixed on mine as he takes in my final, hopeless understanding of his victory. You were never strong enough to stop me, he whispers. You never had a chance of saving anyone. He says more, sometimes, but usually by then I am screaming too loud to hear the words.
Stop it, I tell myself firmly. I know those are lies. I was strong enough to stop him. I did stop him, dammit. I killed him! Or — I helped kill him, anyway. It’s just that someone managed to snag his soul before it could finish fading away into oblivion.
I stopped him once — twice, in fact! — and I can do it again.
I have to believe this is true.
We turn down a narrow pathway between darkly looming structures, and the light from the fires begins to fade until it’s hard to see very far in front of us. Mr. Crunchy slows, and I know what that must mean, and I am afraid I am about to throw up all over the dark and shifty landscape. There is a building/boulder/impossible geometric shape ahead of us with a ragged opening maybe twice as wide as the alley where Mr. Crunchy had found us. It still seems way too narrow for him, but apparently it’s just wide enough. He contorts himself into an astonishingly compact size to squeeze through it, then sticks his smiling head back out to make sure we understand we are to follow him inside.
One by one we climb through into the rubble-strewn interior. I manage not to throw up. I hold on to that as a small victory to savor. I will take all the victories I can get right now.
My eyes are still trying to adjust to the even-more-dark of the space we’ve just entered. There’s a large moving patch of darkness ahead that I assume is Mr. Crunchy. I can hear the sound of his pointy limbs scraping against the floor, and the sound of Peter and Ryan breathing beside me. Everything else is quiet.
And then Mr. Gabriel speaks slowly and softly from somewhere in the blackness.
“Dear Cynthia. Words simply cannot express how delighted I am to see you once again.”
The sound of his voice is like a shard of glass slicing into my brain. Even though I’ve been hearing it in my dreams for months, hearing it in reality is, unsurprisingly, much worse. So much worse. I feel myself trembling. I want desperately to be strong and brave but my legs feel like they might give out at any moment. Not ready, dammit. I’m just not ready for this.
Ryan places a hand on my lower back, steadying me. Somehow, he is handling this moment better than I am. Maybe he already used up all of his available terror by being almost eaten upon arrival. Or maybe he’s just acting. Well, I may not be as talented in that department as he is, but I can sure as hell try.
“What do you want?” I ask the blackness. “And . . . where are you?” Because I still can’t see him. I need to see him. I need to know where he is.
“Where am I?” Mr. Gabriel muses from the darkness. “Where indeed. It’s a more complicated question than it used to be. One of the few advantages of my non-corporeal form is my ability to be almost anywhere. For example —”
Suddenly I feel his breath on the back of my neck and I scream, whirling around.
And then I feel a finger trace along my arm. I snatch my arm away, still trying as hard as I can to see him, but he’s either invisible and masking his aura or he’s just moving too fast for me to glimpse.
“Stop that!” I shout at him, hating the tremor I can hear in my voice.
“No,” he whispers in my ear, and I jerk away again, but not before I feel something hot and wet flick against my skin.
I scream again before I can help it.
“Cyn — Cyn, what?” Ryan asks, sounding a little panicked.
“He’s . . . he’s here. Touching me.” I shudder in revulsion and scrub furiously at my ear.
“But . . . I didn’t see . . .”
“I did,” says Peter. “He’s gone now, though.”
“Am I?” Mr. Gabriel asks.
There is a new movement in the shadows. I half expect to see Mr. Gabriel’s giant-spidery little brother come high-stepping out of the black, but instead a soft light begins to beat back the darkness in the cave/abandoned shell of a building/strange formless hole we seem to be in. Ryan, Peter, and Mr. Crunchy all slowly become visible. And then part of the light seems to bend inward, intensifying, and the all-too-familiar features of Mr. Gabriel begin to assemble themselves. In seconds he is standing there, gazing back at us. He looks like the human librarian version of himself, unfairly good-looking with a disarming smile, dressed in his school uniform of jeans and a button-down shirt.
“Sorry,” he says, not sounding the least bit sorry at all. “That was rather childish. I just so enjoy hearing you scream. But there will be plenty of time for that later, of course.”
I want to say something clever and defiant, but I’m too busy just trying to pull myself together.
He looks around, acknowledging my companions for the first time. “I must say I didn’t expect you to bring the boyfriend. And . . . the expatriate! Ah, Cynthia. You always were full of surprises.”
He takes a step forward, and as he moves it becomes clear that he’s not quite solid; I can just make out the shape of something behind him.
Mr. Gabriel notices me looking, and his smile twists wryly.
“Yes. Still not quite back to my old self, as you see. But I will get there. Very soon.”
The something behind him appears to be a person pushing a small cart. Or . . . not a person, exactly. A demon in person-shaped form. Its features are rough, like the lazy demons who posed as security guards during the lead-up to Sweeney Todd. The cart looks like something from IKEA, stained a dark faux-wood color. On top of the cart is a golden urn.
The urn is pulsing with red demon-energy.
“So is that where you are for real?” I ask, pointing at the urn. “Your essence, or whatever?”
“For now,” he says. “Although, as I demonstrated, I don’t have to stay in there completely.”
I have to fight the urge to scrub at my ear again.
Ryan and Peter are standing silently to either side of me. Mr. Crunchy has managed to extend himself almost entirely vertically along one wall, le
aving most of the space clear for the rest of us. Other than the rough-featured cart-pusher, there doesn’t seem to be anyone else here.
“How nice for you. Now please remove whatever that thing is that you put in Ryan’s hand.”
Mr. Gabriel turns his flickery smile to Ryan. “I didn’t really expect you to come with her, Sweeney. Very gallant of you. How’s the hand? Does she know how much it hurts?”
“He’s exaggerating,” Ryan tells me quickly. “It just stings a little.”
Mr. Gabriel’s smile widens. “It will get worse.”
“Stop screwing around and tell me what you want,” I say. The fact that he’s sort of just a hologram makes me feel a bit less terrified, but only a bit.
“And you,” he says, ignoring me and turning to focus on Peter. “You are a surprise, as well. I did plan to see you again, of course. When it is time to pay you back for all the trouble you caused me. But not yet.”
“I’m not sure I believe you,” Peter says. “How else did you think Cyn was going to get down here?”
“Oh, she’s resourceful. I knew she’d find a way.”
“Hello?” I break in. “Can we get to the part where you make your unreasonable demands, please? I’m missing AP Psych for this.”
Mr. Gabriel sighs dramatically and turns back to me. “Always so impatient. Very well, Cynthia. What I want is your assistance in regaining my original physical form. Now that I’m not in such a rush, I find the idea of taking over someone else’s body rather . . . distasteful. I want my own back.”
“Isn’t it bound to be kind of gross by now?” I ask him. “Decomposing in a shallow grave somewhere or whatever?”
“I don’t mean my actual former body, although thank you for that lovely mental image. I mean I want to create that body anew.”
“That takes a lot of power,” Peter says. “I’m guessing you’re not quite up to it right now.”
“Yes, well, obviously, or else I wouldn’t have needed to call upon your roachy human friend, would I?” Mr. Gabriel sounds like he’s the one getting impatient now. I guess he’s annoyed that we keep interrupting his little speech.
“And what am I supposed to do, exactly?”
That seems to be the right line. Mr. Gabriel smiles brightly at me.
“There is an object I require. Something that will allow me to re-create my body far more quickly than I could on my own. I need you to fetch it for me.”
“Okay, well, first, I don’t think so. And second, why can’t you just fetch it yourself? Or send one of your minions to do it for you?” I gesture toward Mr. Crunchy, who looks pleased to have been included in the conversation.
“My physical mobility, as you have seen, is limited at the moment. And the object I want is in a place where a physical presence will be necessary. My minions are needed for other tasks, and even if they weren’t . . . this task is one where your special ability will come in particularly handy.”
“What about your powerful amulet? Why can’t you use that to make yourself a new body?”
He looks at me sharply. “Heard about that, did you? How — ?” He shakes his head, probably realizing there’s no way I’m going to tell him. “Well. I will, in fact, be using the amulet. But there’s something I need you to do for me first.”
“Where is the amulet, anyway?” I ask, abruptly distracted. I realize he’s finally about to get down to business, but suddenly the amulet is all I can think about. “I mean, you can’t exactly be wearing it, since you don’t have a body. Is it in the urn with you?”
“That’s none of your business,” Mr. Gabriel says, somewhat primly.
“Well, it kinda is,” I say, taking a step toward the cart. I’m getting a terrifying idea. Because what if it’s just sitting in there, right there on the cart, and someone could just walk over and —
Suddenly the blank-faced cart-demon explodes into a mass of tentacles and teeth and unidentifiable patches of fur and scales and claws. It bursts through the flickery image of Mr. Gabriel and slams me backward against a broken column of jagged stone. I cry out in surprise and pain and find myself blinking up at two tiny, malevolent eyes set above a giant mouth filled with too many teeth and at least three extra tongues.
“I said, that’s none of your business,” Mr. Gabriel repeats in a chillingly soft voice. “Now apologize to my associate for insulting his ability to do his job, please. Otherwise he is likely to feel a strong need to prove himself to you, and I would prefer not to have you . . . damaged . . . before you are able to complete my errand.”
“Sorry,” I whisper without a moment’s hesitation. Oh, God. I stare up at those empty, enraged eyes and babble helplessly. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I swear, please go back over there and I’ll just stay over here far away from the cart and it will all be fine, I promise.”
One of the thing’s tentacles slides forward and wraps itself around my throat. My breath stops. My entire field of vision is filled with flashing teeth and writhing tentacles and those horrible, horrible eyes. Ryan makes a desperate sound from somewhere nearby, but I can’t tell where he is. I can’t see anything but the demon, who seems to be trying to decide whether to drive his lesson home even further. If I could speak, I would assure him that it’s not necessary. Lesson learned, no going near the cart. No even thinking about going near the cart. Going near the cart is now the last thing I ever, ever want to do.
After an eternity of breathless silence, the noose around my neck loosens, and the demon draws back. It turns away and shrinks back down into its humanish shape and stands quietly in its place once more behind the cart.
Ryan rushes over to my side, now that my side is no longer blocked by a wall of horrible demon.
“Cyn! Are you okay?”
I nod and slowly sit up, not quite able to make my voice work again yet. It’s amazing how easy it is to forget sometimes that all of these creatures are monsters. Especially when Mr. Gabriel is standing there yammering on in his librarian persona and acting like he’s just some super-arrogant human kind of villain. Any of them could kill us with the barest effort. Even my roachy protection won’t save me from a tentacle around the neck. Or a claw to the jugular or any of the countless other ways these demons could physically snuff out my life.
“Please,” I say to Mr. Gabriel at last. “Please just take that thing out of Ryan’s hand, and I’ll do your stupid errand, okay?”
He clasps his hologram hands behind his hologram back.
“We both know that’s not how this works, Cynthia. I’m not removing anything, and you’re going to do exactly what I want, because if you don’t, that little red line is going to travel all the way to your boyfriend’s gallant heart, and then he will die in agony.”
Ryan, in my peripheral vision, glances at his palm.
I root around inside myself, trying to reclaim my courage from wherever it went scurrying off to when the cart-demon attacked me. I cannot just roll over on this. I cannot. I climb back up to my feet.
“If you really need me to do this for you, then you won’t let Ryan die, because you know I will never help you if you hurt him. So just undo your curse or whatever now, and then we’ll talk.”
He smiles and shakes his head.
“Unfortunately for you, I don’t need you to do this. I want you to do this, because it’s the fastest way for me to get the rest of what I want. If you don’t do it, then it will take me longer to get my physical form back. Probably a lot longer. But I’ll still get there. I don’t feel like waiting, but if I have to, if you make it so I have to, then you’d better believe I’m going to console myself by torturing and killing all the people you love. Starting with your darling boyfriend.”
I stand there, taking this in. If he’s telling the truth, then I don’t have much to bargain with.
I turn to Peter. “Is he telling the truth? Do you know? Can he re-create his body without my help?”
Peter nods. “Yeah, I think he can. It would take a while, but . . . yeah.”
I continue to stand there, hoping for some brilliant idea to occur to me for how to get out of this, but nothing comes. Ryan will die unless I agree. Of course, Mr. Gabriel will kill us all later anyway, even if I do what he wants. But at least that will be later, instead of now. Oh, but . . . hmm.
I take a breath. “Are we making an official deal here, Mr. Gabriel?”
I sense Peter and Ryan both going very still beside me.
“Are you agreeing to take on this task?”
“Cyn,” Ryan says, “wait.”
“I will take on this task if you agree to remove your curse from Ryan and to leave all of us alone forever after that. ‘All of us’ to include the three of us here, all of our families and friends, and especially Annie. And William.”
Mr. Gabriel’s face, which had been smiling good-naturedly for the last several minutes, goes dark at the mention of Annie and William.
“No. That is not the deal.”
“Then what is the deal exactly?”
“You will complete the task, and I will remove the curse. That is all.”
“And so then you’ll get your physical body back and come right after us? I don’t think so.”
“If you do not agree, your boyfriend will die.”
“If I do agree, my boyfriend will still die, apparently. Along with everyone else I care about. You’re not giving me much incentive.”
We stand there glaring at each other. I hear the creaking of Mr. Crunchy’s enormous limbs as he shifts uncomfortably against the wall. Everything else is silence.
“If you agree,” Mr. Gabriel says at last, “I will remove the curse from your boyfriend and promise not to harm him ever in the future.”
“Cyn, no,” Ryan says.
Curse of the Evil Librarian Page 7