by Ali Cross
Of late, he’d adopted a look eerily similar to Hugh Jackman, a careless sensuality that belied the demon within.
“Knowles,” Father said, and then it made sense. Reginald Knowles, the Betrayer. When Odin banished them, Knowles begged to remain. He claimed to have made a mistake by siding with Loki. He’d been exiled to Midgard ever since. “Is everything ready?”
A sick foreboding crawled over my skin. I sat back and turned toward my father—time suddenly taking on the speed and motion of molasses.
“Yes, Your Grace,” Knowles said. His eyes flicked to me and I couldn’t miss the hungry look in them. “All is ready.”
Father nodded, but tapped an elegant finger against his lips for a moment before speaking. He sat up so quickly I flinched. Facing me, he pierced me with his gaze before I had the chance to look away.
“Gather your things. You’ll be leaving for—”
“But—” No. This couldn’t be happening. No, no, no.
“For the human realm—for Midgard. Now.”
I grabbed onto the smooth skull on the armrest, my fingers sinking into the eye sockets. “I can’t.” My brain filled with too many reasons to name—visions of my brief stint on Earth last year and the pain I’d caused, swam before my eyes. No matter how much I hated life with Father and Akaros, living on Earth would be a thousand times worse. But my mouth opened and closed, unable to find a single sensible word to say that might convince him.
Father contemplated me. He neither smiled nor frowned, only stared. Considering me. Judging me. I folded my arms and glared at the scuffed toes of my boots, desperately trying to think of some reason he should release me from this punishment.
Father took a deep breath and addressed Knowles. “This is not a punishment—for her.” Knowles, who had watched my lame attempt at defiance with a smirk, dropped his eyes to the reflective stone of the steps before him. “You will train her in the ways of deception and enticement—two skills in which I daresay you are quite well versed.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” Knowles murmured.
I still gaped like a fish. I couldn’t seem to make my mouth do any more than its most basic of functions. Open, close, open, close. And so the moment passed before I ever found my voice.
“You are dismissed.” Father waved me away with a flick of his wrist. Knowles stumbled back from the dais.
I dared to look at my father, but any resemblance to Hugh Jackman faded as he let his shadow-self stretch beyond him. There would be no argument then. I shot to my feet and ran down the stairs.
I would have run from the throne room, run away from all of them, but Akaros blocked my path. He looked down, his lips twisted into a smile-that-was-not-a-smile, a cruel glint in his eyes.
“I have no doubt you will choose to Become,” Akaros said, his voice slithering into my ears and around my brain. I stared up at him, towering above me, and realized I’d never really had a choice, at all.
chapter two
There wasn’t much I wanted to take with me to the human world. I stood in my bedroom, scanning the few things of value I had, wondering if they had any meaning at all. Father had items from Earth delivered to my room on a daily basis. Clothes, books, music, jewelry—his attempt to dictate how I should dress, act, and think. That I adopted a strictly minimalist approach to life drove Father wild with frustration. Still, he’d send up what few additional items he thought would befit me. Or anger me. The only stuff I had any attachment to were an afghan I’d had for as long as I could remember, The Summer Tree, the book Aaron gave me the day I’d tripped over his feet in the library, and his coat.
It hung in my closet, all the other clothes pushed away from it like death was catching. Because that’s what the coat stood for. Aaron had given it to me the night he drove toward his death. He said he just wanted me to have something—something to remember him.
Now I pulled it off its hanger and swung it around and on, finding that the feeling of death wasn’t so bad after all. The coat had his smell, like kohl pencils and cinnamon-hots.
I paused in front of the one mirror in all of my rooms: a gilded, filigree monstrosity Father insisted upon. I tried to see what humans would see: A teenaged girl, sixteen years old—even though I’d lived in Hell for countless centuries. I am not immortal, but time moves differently in each of the nine worlds, and here it moves as Father directs—sometimes fast, sometimes slow. So slow it feels timeless.
A mess of black hair fell in waves to just past my shoulders. Hair Aaron liked to curl around his fingers while we talked. Skin as pale as you’d expect from an eternity in the cold and sunless realm of Hell. And eyes that weren’t the black of my fathers, but shifted from deep brown to dark green with flecks of gold that had no place in the eyes of a demon.
Then, all black. Black coat, black T-shirt, black jeans, black boots. Boots that clomp with finality when I walk—even if only in my imagination. No jewelry. Nothing else. Just my few things, and a few memories—adornment enough.
When I left my rooms, I found Akaros in the hall, glowering at my hounds. He scowled as he took measure of me, the long, black coat on my back, the old afghan draped over my arm, the dog-eared novel clenched in my hand. Oh, and my iPod—ear buds in, of course. The playlist? Mellow.
I didn’t bother to greet Akaros, just trailed my fingers over the head of a hound, whispering my goodbyes. I shouldered past Akaros as I turned the volume up and pretended I wasn’t marching to prison.
Back in the throne room Father stood on the dais, resplendent and terrifying in his spirit form—a Shadow of his former glory. Giving Knowles one last remember who I am speech, most likely. It’s a wonder Knowles wasn’t curled up on the floor in a puddle of his own urine—instead, he stood, head bowed. I could feel the fear radiating from him like the plague.
“Ah,” Father said, shrugging into his human form as he stepped down the stairs. “You’re ready.” When he reached me, he clasped my arms in his hands and smiled, the picture of fatherly pride. “You still travel awfully light for a girl—if you’re to get along there, you’ll need to master the art of shopping, you know.” He donned an indulgent, even loving, expression, but it only made me cringe. Maybe leaving wasn’t so bad after all.
I might even be convinced to have a positive attitude if I didn’t have to go through the Remembering. Even just thinking about it made my skin crawl.
Father mistook it for fear or regret or something similar, I think, because he pulled me to him and patted my back. “There, there,” he said. And I might have received comfort—if he’d been anyone other than Lucifer. “Cheer up, maybe the whore you befriended last time will still be working at Daniel’s.” He cocked his head. “In fact, I’m sure of it.” He leaned down, his hand at the back of my neck. “You know, you could always bring her home with you.”
I jerked my head, and thrust away the memories of Lucy just as violently. Lucy was an anomaly. A friend I didn’t deserve. I hoped she was far, far away from Daniel’s place by now.
Without ceremony, Father ushered me toward the Door. “Might as well get going, then.” I didn’t bother to say goodbye, I just turned and walked on wooden legs toward the ornate door at the back of the throne room.
Fiery zabaniyah stood guard before the Door, their black-as-night swords dripping a viscous ebony fluid that sizzled as it struck the floor. Their ratty wings would never support their heavy, muscled bodies but there was nothing weak about these creatures. It wouldn’t pay to leave the way to Earth unguarded. Father wouldn’t be able to keep any of the sinners confined to his realm for very long—they’d all make a run for it the minute they got a load of what their eternity held.
The zabaniyah hissed before retracting their blades, and I stepped forward. The Door slid open, the blackness beyond it a gaping maw, hungry to swallow me whole. My stomach clenched with dread, and my skin blossomed with droplets of sweat as fear, real as any demon, clutched my throat.
There was no time in Hell, just an endless array of constant
sameness. But the portal to the other worlds joined the timed with the timeless, requiring the Remembering as its price. Your life, such as it was, flashed before your eyes to the Remembering of every moment of it. In there, I’d face Aaron, see the pain in his eyes as I broke his heart. There’d be no escape from my sins.
Just shy of crossing the threshold, I turned back. Akaros, glorious in his Shadow form; my father, mild and handsome, his hands deep in his pockets. They wore mirrored expressions of benign fatherliness.
But Knowles crowded on my heels, his hand pressed to my back. “Let’s go, then,” he said. And he pushed.
Into the bitter darkness, utterly unprepared—because there could never be a proper preparation—for the Remembering.
I threw my hands over my ears and clamped my eyes shut, but it didn’t matter—the memories don’t come from the outside, the real Door is in your mind—and mine was thrown wide open so I could See.
My love cups my face in his hands, and peers into the depths of my soul with his golden lion eyes. I could stare into those eyes forever—wherever I am would feel like home.
“Remember,” he says, and his lips carry the tang of his tears.
I couldn’t breathe. One memory and my chest felt like an elephant was sitting on it. I gasped for air, and then . . .
I slip from birth into the hands of an ancient man who stares down with rheumy brown eyes, his face lined with sun and years. He wraps me in a soft blanket and for a moment, just a moment, I receive his love. And it is almost heaven.
The world rumbles and the man lurches backward. I catch a glimpse of a chasm opening at his feet before he presses my tiny form to his chest. And though he is frail and boney, there is comfort in his embrace. When a hand falls on his shoulder the man screams, and I scream with him.
For a moment I returned to myself; a millisecond of awareness that the Remembering hadn’t ended yet. A pause before the next memory, the one I dreaded most, thundered down upon me.
I open the door and find Aaron standing on the doorstep. “Hey,” he says. His black hair falls over his eyes, and the silver stud in his bottom lip flashes in the porch-light.
“Hey.” I hesitate for a minute and Aaron turns away. “You can come in,” I say in a rush, then immediately regret it. Daniel is home, and James, too. They’d have a field day with Aaron, who shines with oh-so-much innocence.
I think I can sneak him up to my room without anyone noticing, that I can save Aaron the torture that will be inflicted on him if they find him here.
But I can’t save him at all.
We stand together in the living room while Aaron professes his love for me, and asks permission to date me.
My heart swells to see such bravery in a boy who hides himself from everyone, with his shaggy hair, his long jacket, his piercings and body art. But he looks at Daniel, an agent of the devil, right in the eye.
Courageous, or completely idiotic.
Daniel laughs, and so does James.
Even though I don’t know anything about love—don’t know if it’s even possible for someone like me to love—I have to do something. I could date Aaron. I don’t like him in that way, but it doesn’t really matter. I step forward, my shoulder bumping against his.
But James, Daniel’s mysterious son, grabs my wrist and pulls me to him. He slips his hand beneath the hair at the back of my neck and presses me against his chest. I am drowned in desire. I’m not used to the weaknesses of this human form and when he tips my head back and kisses me, the ice in my veins transforms to fire as I melt in his hands, in his lips.
When he finally lets go, he helps me find my balance and spears me with his ocean-blue gaze. I wobble and my head spins.
“Desi, you realize Aaron is very backward in terms of modern social mores—he still believes dating is an exclusive arrangement,” Daniel says from his seat in a large wingback chair. “Don’t you, Aaron?”
I have forgotten all about him.
He stumbles against the glass coffee table as he runs from the room. Regret slams into me like a tidal wave.
“Aaron, wait,” I call, running after him. I catch the corner of his coat sleeve instead, and he looks over his shoulder. He shrugs hard, but I hold fast, not wanting to let him go—not like this. His coat slides off his shoulders and Aaron glances at it, then at me.
In a heartbeat he has it off and shoves it toward me. “Keep it,” he says. He takes a few steps away, leaving me speechless. When he turns back, the look on his face is like a fist to my gut. The loss and betrayal in his eyes belongs to me—I’d put them there. And the crushing knowledge that I can inflict pain without even trying wracks my body with shame.
“Maybe when you wear it, you’ll feel safe—like I wanted you to,” Aaron says, taking another step away. “Maybe you’ll remember I love you.”
Remember.
I Remember him throwing himself behind the wheel of his ancient VW Rabbit.
I Remember the slam of his door echoing through the night.
I Remember the way Daniel and James laugh as they wander down the hall.
Aaron doesn’t show up for school the next day—or the day after that—and rumors fly. Some people think he’s run away, or been transferred to a school for freaks. I have a darker suspicion.
On the second day the principal comes on the loudspeaker and tells us Aaron has died in a car accident—the night he left my house.
I don’t remember leaving school that day. Or going home. Or anything. All I know is I woke up in my freezing rooms in Hell. That was eight months ago, and I hadn’t been back to Earth since.
I huddled, shivering, on the cold stone floor. My stomach clenched and my mouth stung with the acrid taste of Remembering. A polished black shoe nudged my foot. “Come on, come on. You can’t stay here like this,” Knowles said.
I dragged myself into a sitting position and wrapped my arms around my knees. The door to the crypt stood wide-open, casting Knowles in shadows. I squinted, but still couldn’t see him properly. Not that I wanted to look at him anyway. Instead I stared past him to the sunlit cemetery and tried to prepare myself for a different kind of torture. Human life.
“I’m supposed to drop you off—but I do have my own business to attend to, you know.” Knowles made a noise in the back of his throat as he turned away from me. He paused in the doorway. “Are you coming?”
With a heaving sigh I stood and stomped past Knowles, away from the portal to Hell, and into the cemetery. I enjoyed the solid clomp of my Doc Martens on the pathway, relishing the way my footsteps sounded like gunshots. But after a few moments I realized I didn’t know where to go. When I turned back, Knowles stood at a fork in the path, his hands clasped around the lapels of his suit jacket, an amused expression on his face.
His smile confused me. And angered me. I cut across the lawn, not caring whose grave I stepped over, or if bouquets toppled in my wake. I got to the path ahead of Knowles, then it was my turn to stop and wait while he casually made his way toward me. He flashed that smile again as he approached.
“You are so much your mother’s daughter,” he said, and his tone didn’t sound critical or fearful, it sounded . . . reflective.
He’d known my mother.
Liquid sunlight flooded my veins at the thought of her. I didn’t know the first thing about her—except that she was human. And, I assumed, dead. Despite the golden feeling that swept over me whenever I, rarely, thought of my mother, I didn’t want to know anything about her. That warmth only meant trouble for me. Weakness. I had no interest in anyone who allowed themselves to be bedded by Lucifer.
I followed Knowles to a black Cadillac and climbed into the passenger seat. His car was immaculate, and I wondered if anyone had ever ridden in it with him. It still smelled new, even though it had the feel of age.
Knowles nodded to the imposing building topped with gargoyles, which loomed above the parking lot. “This is where you’ll attend school—St. Mary’s Academy. I work here—as do several of your fa
ther’s . . . employees. You’ll feel right at home.”
I looked at him out of the corner of my eye, trying to decide if he meant that to be comforting, or if it was a veiled threat. One wrong move, and you’re dead, it seemed to say. Except, really. What did I have to fear from death? I knew exactly where I’d go. In fact, I preferred Hell to Earth, anyway.
“Your father tells me you’ve lived with the Masons before,” Knowles said, pulling out of the school parking lot. He pointed the car up a steep tree-lined hill—the road so twisty I couldn’t see much of the way ahead. I didn’t have a chance to respond before Knowles continued. “I’ve not met the man, though I have been briefed.”
I stuck my headphones into my ears, setting my iPod to shuffle. I stared out the window, but all I could see was Knowles’ reflection in the glass. The earphones didn’t stop me from hearing him add, “Akaros told me about the boy—the one you, shall we say, discouraged?”
The ice in my veins returned. So familiar and comforting in its way.
“I didn’t discourage him,” I said. Except, I’d done something, hadn’t I? I didn’t return his feelings. I didn’t stand up for him. I’d kissed James, right in front of him. I might as well have stabbed Aaron in the heart.
And I didn’t stop him from leaving.
I took a long, shaky breath and forced myself to relax. This kind of pain belonged wholly to me and I welcomed it. With deliberateness I reached back to the Remembering and clasped on to the memories. I pulled them close and promised myself never to forget. As long as I was in this world, I’d cloak myself with the pain—and I wouldn’t let anyone else feel for me what Aaron did. Never, ever again.
Sunlight flickered through the canopy of trees. I remembered this place—straight up the mountain would take us to the Peak. I’d heard of it, but had never gone. The rich kids hung out there, smoking their allowances and pretending they owned the mountain—and in a very real way they did.