Devilish

by Maureen Johnson

  She popped a smoked almond in my mouth. I almost choked on it and started coughing. She slapped my back.

  “Careful, Jane. Death by tapas sounds like a good way to go, but not on my carpet. Now, what brings you here? Did my very generous offer tempt you?”

  “No,” I said. “I’ve just come to tell you that you were wrong.”

  A snicker spread across the room.

  “Oh, Jane,” she said. “Please don’t. Don’t try to wheedle your way through by saying I didn’t give her what she really wanted or something lame like that. My contract is airtight. You won. She lost. End of Allison. Buh-bye and thanks for playing.”

  “She came back to you to save me. She made sure she lost.”

  “That,” Lanalee said, “is because she’s a loser. Seriously, Jane, you’re bringing the room down. Have something to eat. Have you ever had baby octopus? Looks scary, but you’ve never had anything like it. Or maybe …”

  She reached her arm back. Through the crowd, a cup-cake was passed, hand over hand, to her. She held it in front of me. It was red velvet, with deep red icing to boot. I turned away from it.

  “Your favorite. Go on.”

  “All of you,” I said, turning to the crowd. “You all came here for something, right? You were all promised things. You’re all going to follow someone who can’t give you what you want?”

  Lanalee smiled slowly, but there was no contentment in it.

  “They know better,” she said.

  “Do they? What did you give them? Poodle Prom? Free run of Rhode Island? What, was Lichtenstein already taken?”

  This quieted the room.

  “Are you expecting all of these people to follow you from now on?” I asked. “Because you gave them some Catholic school girls from Providence? Is that the best you can do, Miss I’m a Big Scary Demon?”

  “Sorry,” she said, turning her attention to some cup-cakes on the table. “Kind of bored now, Jane. You can go.”

  There was some mumbling now, and some in the crowd were looking at Lanalee with some uncertainty. Lanalee herself seemed quite sure of what she had just said.

  “Not just yet,” I said, “there’s one more thing.”

  “Oh?” she said, licking all the frosting from a cupcake and setting it back on the tray. “What’s that?”

  “I …” I pulled the knife from my pocket. “Have the steak knife of righteousness.”

  “The wha …”

  It was the open-toed shoes that made it so easy—that and the knife itself—and maybe the fact that in the end it’s true … the stressed person can lift a car off a child or slice through human bone. The toes came right off. I dropped to my knees and took them all, all ten, as easy as slicing a pat of butter. I was trying for the big ones, but I ended up getting them all in one solid chop.

  “How are you going to lead them now?” I said.

  Lanalee looked down at in shock … and then, she began to topple. She went backward onto one of the sofas and looked down at her mangled feet. There was a lot of blood—it ran out of her feet and right into the red carpet, where it left a darkened pool.

  There was a lot of screaming and profanity from Lanalee for the next few minutes. I’ve heard some good profanity in my time, but you just can’t compare to a pissed-off demon for that.

  I stood in the center of the room, surrounded by demons, holding a bloody knife—and I had just cut off all of Satan’s assistant’s toes, my best friend’s toes…. I had cut off ten toes, and no matter how you broke that down, it meant that I was in it now.

  Lanalee managed to find the will to speak. She was out of breath, almost hissing.

  “You think that’s going to do it?” she asked. “You think I’ll give her back just because you mangled her?”

  Well, actually, I had wondered if that would work. A tiny part of me had hoped that Lanalee would lose her balance and say, “Now it’s useless! You broke it!” and fly out of Allison’s body in a puff of smoke. But no. I was going to have to go through with the whole plan.

  “So, Jarvis the Genius,” she said, her voice wobbling, “what’s your next move?”

  Lanalee was running pale right up through Allison’s forehead—I could see that through the red bangs. Poor Allison. What had I done to her? Why had she ended up like this?

  The other guests moved quietly to the side of the room to watch this play out. They made no move toward me, toward Lanalee or Allison. They just watched as their hostess writhed in pain and then fell heaving against the back of the sofa.

  “I’m going to let her die,” she said.

  “She won’t die …” I said, looking at the still-bleeding wounds. “It’s just toes.”

  “Oh, she will, though. She’ll bleed to death if I don’t do anything. And I’m not going to do anything. I’m going to sit here.”

  She folded her arms over her chest and set her expression, like she was concentrating on bleeding.

  “The human body goes into shock when it loses too much blood,” she went on. “The circulatory system collapses. It doesn’t take that much to kill a human. She’ll die. I’m going to make you a murderer—unless you want to save me? Want to save me, Jane? Want to keep me alive?”

  She was getting pale now, her skin turning the familiar blue-bready color.

  “So what’s it going to be?” she said. “You going to call an ambulance? Let me go on? Or are you going to let Allison bleed to death?”

  “You’re not Allison,” I said in a low voice.

  “But this is her body. And that’s her blood ruining my gorgeous carpet. They don’t make carpets like this anymore. What a shame.”

  She managed to pull her lips into a grin. David came a little closer and peered down over my shoulder.

  “I kind of want to follow you,” he said. “What do you do?”

  “Get something to wrap her feet in,” I said. “We need to stop the bleeding.”

  “You stabbed her, Mistress.”

  “Yes, I know I stabbed her. Now get towels or something! And don’t call me Mistress.”

  David seemed to be the type who liked commands, and he ran off eagerly and returned a moment later with a pile of luxurious amber-colored towels—heavy Egyptian cotton things, big as blankets.

  “Oh,” Lanalee said, her strength wavering, “what a hero. Jane to the rescue … Jane the pure.”

  “Grab her foot hard,” I said, ignoring her and grabbing a towel and hugging one of Al’s poor mangled feet. “Put pressure on the wound.”

  The blood came fast, filling the towel. I pressed harder.

  “What are you going to do?” David asked.

  “I’m thinking,” I said.

  Lanalee gave me one last look of total disdain, and then her head fell back against the sofa and her eyes shut.

  The group around us had watched this with curiosity up to this point. But when Lanalee passed out, they must have gotten the idea that nothing would be forthcoming to them, and they began to drift off. There was a herd mentality—when one left, another would notice and decide to leave too. In only a few minutes, Lanalee’s friends had left her, toeless and unconscious. Only David remained.

  Allison’s toes were on the carpet. They were so small now that they were detached. They reminded me of mushrooms—little gray mushrooms. With red stuff on them. I reeled and grabbed the other foot from David.

  “Plastic bag,” I said, turning away. “Ice. Pick those up. Put them in the bag. Put them in the refrigerator.”

  “Are you going to eat them?” he said eagerly.

  Now I could see why Lanalee stored this guy in the tub. I shot him a look, and he got moving.

  “Okay, Lanalee,” I said, holding fast to her feet. “No more deals. No more souls on the line. All your friends have left you. But I’m going to get you help. I’m going to save you. I’m even going to save your stupid toes.”

  I grabbed both feet in one hand. The phone was on the side table, next to the sofa, so I had to stand up carefully. As I lean
ed over Lanalee to get the phone and was talking to the operator, she opened her eyes, looked directly at me. I felt her hand on mine.

  I think I laughed when the knife went in. At least, I made the motion, but blood came out of my mouth instead. I remember seeing the perfume bottles on the mantelpiece as I fell back and, aside from the faint, somewhat implausible realization that I was dying, nothing else.

  And I smiled.

  “Got you,” I said.

  forty-two

  The entire horizon was white. White, and a strip of blue, and a gray cloud in the distance. A very square cloud. My mind was thick with clouds. They hung over all my thoughts like cobwebs, gumming everything up and slowing everything down, but I didn’t mind.

  “Jane?”

  Whose voice was that?

  And the air … it had the faintest smell of … green beans? Chicken? Antiseptic spray?

  I made a tremendous effort and pulled my eyes open wider.

  That gray thing was a television. A wall-mounted television. The white-and-blue landscape was a pillow in my face. I was sleeping with my mouth open, and I had a little plug stuck in my nose that was shooting cool air into it. It annoyed me, and I yanked it out. A hand reached over and put it back into place. I pulled it out again, and the hand replaced it. The hand and I battled like this for another few moments—it very much wanted that plug in my nose. And though the air that it supplied was cool and pleasant, I was determined that the plug was going to stay out.

  There were footsteps. Distant voices talking about doctors. This was definitely a hospital. I remembered now—something had been in my chest. My chest was thick and fluffy. Those were bandages. I had been hurt. I had been stabbed in the chest. By a demon. At a party.

  That didn’t help my confusion. I started clawing through those webs in my head, trying to untangle my thoughts. Something about falling off a building and slicing off toes … None of it made sense.

  Neither did the large pink thing that was standing over me, shoving the plug back into my nose. After a fuzzy moment, this resolved itself into a nurse with a long blond ponytail and the darkest tan I’ve ever seen in a New England autumn. She looked a little like Joan, actually.

  “You’re awake!” she said. “I’m amazed.”

  Was I awake? I couldn’t quite figure it out.

  “You’re a miracle,” she said, stroking my hair, “you know that? Everyone on the unit is calling this the miracle of the month. Full moon on Halloween. We knew we were going to see something incredible.”

  I tried to move my mouth, but something was preventing me.

  “Don’t try to talk, honey,” she said. “There was a tube down your throat earlier, when you were in surgery. It’s probably sore.”

  My throat did burn, but it didn’t feel like it had had a tube down it. More like a string-load of fishhooks and lit matches.

  “I know you don’t feel good,” she said sympathetically. “I’ll go and get you something to help you get back to sleep. But first, have a look.”

  The nurse pulled back the curtain that surrounded us. There, in the next bed, was Ally, sleeping soundly, her large forehead resting peacefully on a pillow. She also had a plug in her nose, a plastic mask over her mouth, and tubes coming out of her arms.

  “She lost a lot of blood,” she said. “But she’ll be okay. They got the two of you in here in the nick of time. They even managed to re-attach all of her toes. She’ll probably limp, but it’s better than the alternative.”

  Now it was coming back to me.

  “They got the guy who did this to you two,” she said. “Don’t worry. The police found him at the scene mumbling about the devil. He even had your friend’s toes in a bag. You’re safe now, honey.”

  Poor stupid David.

  So there she was. Alive. But who was I looking at? There’s no way that the nurse could have understood the true meaning of my searching gaze. There was no physical sign.

  “Someone’s coming by to switch on your television,” the nurse said, pulling the curtain closed. “You won’t want it now. You’re still groggy. But your parents might want it. Try to rest now, okay? I’m going to get you some medicine. You’ll go right back to sleep.”

  After reading the monitors around me and making a few notes, she left. I was vaguely aware that a tall guy in a work uniform came in and started doing something to my television.

  “I couldn’t tell you directly,” he said, not turning around. “I couldn’t tell you exactly what you had to do. But I knew you would figure it out.”

  My eyes shot open. From under the baseball cap he was wearing, a tiny tuft of red hair was peeking out.

  I tried to speak, but the burning, blistered feeling prevented me.

  “I don’t have a lot of time,” he said, coming over. “Brother Frank got your parents out of the room for a minute.”

  Did it work? I tried to ask with my eyes. Who is that?

  Owen seemed to understand.

  “It’s the first forfeit I’ve ever seen,” he said with a smile.

  Allison?

  “It’s her,” he said. “You did it. You got her to break the rules. You made her mad enough to attack a human being. She’s never done that before. Not only was Allison returned, but Lanalee probably got knocked all the way down the ladder. Two hundred years of work for nothing. She’s going to be pissed.“

  Allison. That was Allison. My best friend, who had given herself up for me.

  And Owen was here.

  “I was scared,” he said. “I mean, I’m dead. I’ve died twice. I know it’s no big deal, but I didn’t …”

  Owen was finding it hard to contain his emotions. He broke out into the broadest smile I’d ever seen and was gripping the bed rail so hard that it shook. He reached down and took my hand, carefully avoiding the tubes and tape.

  “I couldn’t watch you go there. Put yourself in danger. I made sure Brother Frank was there watching, to call an ambulance. And they all took off, Jane. All of them ran, left town. They always come back, but that doesn’t matter. We beat them this time, Jane. You guys made it.”

  He was rambling now, running his fingers up and down the bed rail. It’s possible that I was on serious painkillers and slightly loopy, but Owen didn’t seem to be the same guy I had known all along. The height, the skinny body, the thin lips and vampire eyebrows were all still the same. Something had changed, though. I couldn’t put my finger on it even as he leaned down over me.

  “I’m not supposed to do this either,” he said. “But these are different rules, and I’ve waited a long time for this.”

  Owen did not kiss like a freshman. He kissed firmly, seriously. He kissed like someone who has been around a long, long time and who has waited patiently for this very moment. I suddenly understood how some things only improve with time, how nothing is lost in the passing. Any kiss I shared with Elton paled in comparison to this. There was an entire century of experience and emotion behind this one.

  This was it. The big romantic moment of my life had come, and my partner was a 116-year-old dead fourteen-year-old freshman. But hey, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. That’s my motto.

  “I have to go,” he said, pulling away. “They’ll be back any second.”

  Granted, he wasn’t about to leap off a building again, but somehow … this made it worse. I couldn’t let Owen go. But I couldn’t speak. So I just grasped his hand and held on.

  “Jane,” he said, “you just beat Lanalee. Brother Frank is never going to let you get away. You’re with us now.”

  I clung to his fingers with all the might I could.

  “Besides,” he said, carefully withdrawing them from my grip, “I’ve been waiting a long time for a girlfriend. I’m not just going to give you up. You’ll see me again. But right now, you have to go to sleep.”

  As he said the words, I felt my body shudder with exhaustion. Maybe I was asleep already. I could barely keep my eyes open as I watched him straighten his cap, pick up the toolbo
x, and go.

  I’m shocked that any story about me would end like this, but there you go. Nothing like a fight with a demon, a dead boyfriend, and a stab wound to the chest to put things into perspective.

  I turned and tried to gaze through the curtain that Allison was resting behind. I could just make out her figure on the bed. There would be a lot of questions to answer. People would want to know what happened in the Tremone house tonight.

  Outside, the sky was clear and flat and bright. The moon was still high. I could hear Brother Frank, my parents, and Joan as they walked back toward the room. Providence, capitol of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, had been saved from an infestation of demons.

  And I was going to get a well-deserved night’s sleep.

  Acknowledgments

  Professionally and personally, many thanks to: Ben Schrank, Josh Bank, Les Morgenstein, Siobhan Vivian, Eloise Flood, Liesa Abrams, Kate Schafer, and Hamish Young.