“Seriously?”
“Yeah, ask her. Then you can start the party on time.” I wouldn’t mind missing some of it for that.
She asked, and her mom gave the okay as long as I promised to be responsible. I told her, “I solemnly swear to look out for him, to keep him safe from cars and candy-snatchers.”
So Lucia picked me up and we went back to her house. “Nice costume,” she said.
“Thanks, ma’am.” I tipped my hat.
The house was decorated inside and out, the fake spiderwebs and hanging ghosts making me smile. Her mom answered the door and invited me in. “Are you sure you want to take him?” she asked.
“Yeah. Maybe I can score some candy too.” I grinned, practically bouncing with excitement.
Lucia’s little brother was in the living room, giving me a wary look. Was I good with kids? I guess I was going to find out. If ghost kids counted, then I was pretty good with them. Her little brother was six and dressed like Batman. “Hi, Oscar. Ready to get some candy?”
He nodded, but he didn’t look too sure about it. Probably just nervous because he’d never met me before. Or did he sense what I was?
“You know what? I want candy too.” I asked Lucia if she had a bag I could use, and she provided me with a pillowcase.
“Are you really trick-or-treating?” she asked, looking like she wanted to laugh.
“Yeah, aren’t you too old?” Oscar asked.
“Too old? No way! And if they don’t want to give me candy…” I pulled my bandana over my mouth and pulled out a plastic gun. “Then I’ll take it all!”
Oscar laughed. “You’re silly.”
“And then you can chase me down and take it back, cause that’s what Batman does, right?”
“Yeah, and then I’ll throw you in Arkham.”
I gasped and put a hand on my chest. “Not Arkham!”
He laughed again.
“Come on,” I said, “before the other kids get all the candy.”
We went from house to house, just like I’d seen on TV and movies. I kept the bandana around my mouth and my hat pulled low, hoping to pass for a tall but younger kid. No one questioned me and Oscar and I loaded up with candy. The packs of kids wandering around, the decorations, the people passing out candy… this was the kind of ritual I’d always wanted.
I went back to Lucia’s house with a half-full pillowcase. Oscar’s Batman bag—to go with his costume—was full.
“I made out like a bandit. Look at all this.” I dropped my bag on the table.
“You really went trick-or-treating?” Casey asked, laughing. He was dressed as a demon, which was just too damn ironic.
“Hell yeah, I did.” I tipped the pillowcase to spread some of the candy on the table, looking for good stuff.
“You just turned seventeen.” Hayley was laughing too. She was a Gothic princess. While I would have enjoyed her prancing around in one of those skimpy costumes like a French maid or a sexy nurse, I was actually pleased she’d chosen something less revealing. She wasn’t a typical teenage girl in many ways, and I liked that.
“I’m way the fuck overdue then, aren’t I?” I plucked out a chocolate bar and unwrapped it.
“Overdue?” Jayson asked.
“Never been trick-or-treating before.” I shoved the small piece in my mouth.
“What? Why?” Lucia asked.
“Controlling parents,” I said around my mouthful. I swallowed and went hunting for the next piece.
I shared my bounty with everyone. When the party wound down a little, we settled in the living room to watch horror movies. It was getting late, and there was school the next day, so Hayley drove me home. I kissed her goodnight and went up to my apartment. I trusted the spell scrolls enough that I’d told Mew-Mew it was safe to be home when I wasn’t there. He’d spent most of Halloween sleeping on the couch. I babbled to him about my night while I took off my costume.
I took a while for me to fall asleep. This had been the best week ever.
***
Alex! Alex! I woke to Mew-Mew pawing at my face.
“What?” I was still half asleep, the tatters of a dream fogging my mind.
They sacrificed cats.
“What?” I sat up, almost knocking him off the bed.
The Queen sent a messenger. The Satanists that worship you killed cats for your birthday. I felt the anger and sadness rolling off him.
“They’re fucking killing cats in my name?” The last of my sleepiness dropped away and my skin heated up. I had to get out of bed before I set it on fire. “I’m gonna fucking kill them.”
It wasn’t just a threat, the way I’d said that to my parents for years, knowing I couldn’t because they were magically protected. “I’m gonna find them, and I’m gonna kill them.” Animus sang to me from the other room. She wanted blood.
Chapter 11
“Can the queen tell us where they were killed?” I started getting dressed.
The messenger is still here. You can ask her. Mew-Mew pointed at the window. I pulled the curtains aside and opened it. A calico cat was perched on the ledge, and I wasn’t sure how she’d gotten up there.
I will ask my Queen for you, cat-friend. Our kin will be avenged! Then she disappeared. After everything I’ve seen, I can still be amazed. I’d never heard of a teleporting cat before.
It was still dark, and I wondered what time it was. I checked the alarm clock. It was just after five and that reminded me that I was supposed to be at school in a few hours. Well, that wasn’t going to happen. I’d have to call in sick. If they didn’t believe me, too bad.
I finished getting dressed and got Animus from the living room. Her power was so strong she practically vibrated in my hands. “I know,” I told her. “You’ll have blood soon.” I tied her sheath onto my belt, hands shaking and a heat shimmer rising from my skin.
The calico came back maybe fifteen minutes after she’d left. The Queen has charged me with leading you to the murderers.
“Am I teleporting with you?”
Yes. Lay a hand on me and I will take you.
I looked over at Mew-Mew. “Do you want to come?”
His tail whipped back and forth. I want to watch.
“Stay clear of me when we get there.” I spent a few seconds getting the heat under control so I could touch both of them. I knelt in front of the window, one hand on the calico, the other on Mew-Mew.
“Okay, let’s go.”
It was the same as when Stefan or one of the gods teleported me somewhere. Despite the circumstances, it was still amazing to travel by teleporting cat. But in the next breath I looked up at the house in front of us, and I could feel the people inside. Evil came off them like a dark mist or a bad smell.
“Back away,” I warned the cats. My anger came rushing back and I stood. Three quick steps up to the front door and I shoved power at it, knocking it off its hinges. The door fell with a booming thud into the front hall. I walked into the house, setting the doorframe on fire.
It was down in the basement, just like the shrine to Satan at my parents’ house. Only this one was dedicated to me, too. The cat’s blood called to me, and the little body buried in the back yard. If I had been a different person, the sacrifice might have felt welcoming. But I was me, and it only filled me with sick rage.
A man ran into the front room, his tie half done. His jaw dropped when he saw me. His gaze flicked down to the door I was standing on, then back at me. His eyes went wide. “You… you’re him!” He dropped to his knees. “My lord.”
Animus leapt from her sheath as I crossed the distance between us. The man didn’t even have time to bow his head. I ran Animus through his shoulder and her singing ran in counterpoint to his screams. I slammed my foot into his stomach, cutting off the shriek, and pushed him to the floor.
“You murdered a cat,” I said as I looked down at him, “in my name. You just made the last fucking mistake of your life.”
I debated making him suffer more, but this
was only the first of many stops. I pulled Animus out and he made a choked scream, still not able to draw a full breath since I was leaning on his stomach. Just as I was pulling her back for a final blow, I felt and heard the other person in the house enter the room. She skidded to a stop and gasped. For a second, I almost threw Animus at her, but I wanted her alive just long enough to know why I was killing her.
Using my power, I pulled her toward me. She screamed as I grabbed her arm and held Animus to her neck. “Shits like you worshipping me is bad enough, but you killed a fucking cat. On my birthday.”
“Don’t hurt me, please.”
“I bet the cat said that right before you killed it.” I pulled back and ran my sword through her stomach. Before she collapsed, I pulled the blade out and chopped off her head. The man was yanking at my foot, trying to pull it off him. He had no chance. I was much too strong.
I tore him apart, the way I’d torn apart the man who’d run over Mew-Mew years ago, only faster. His shriek was cut off as his body burst into a pile of blood, guts, and organs. I wiped Animus on the dead woman’s power suit. The whole scene was gruesome and I turned away, looking for the stairs to the basement. They were behind a door next to the kitchen.
The shrine dominated one wall of the basement. Painted above it was a huge upside-down pentagram with a goat’s head in the middle. On the table sat a picture that made my stomach turn cold. The bully at Elliot’s school hadn’t been exaggerating. The winged, horned, human-faced demon looked a hell of a lot like me. In front of it was a golden goblet filled with congealed blood. The cat’s fear and her death hung over the area.
With a growl I slammed my arm against the table, shattering it, sending candles and the goblet crashing to the floor. How dare they? How fucking dare they? Breaking it wasn’t enough. I threw fire at the broken shrine, instantly engulfing it. The fire shot up and the beams caught on fire. Yeah, the whole fucking house needed to go. Burn it all down, wipe the evil clean. I called more fire and filled the basement with it, trailed it behind me as I went up the stairs, sent it racing along the walls of the first floor.
I threw a fireball at the bodies of the Satanists. I punched holes in the walls, kicked over furniture. It wasn’t enough. The rage kept building.
When I walked out of the house, the fire was climbing to the second story. I asked the calico, “How many more are there?”
***
Not everyone was at home. As the day went on, more and more of them were at work. If the house was empty, I told the calico to save it for later. We’d have to do another round that night. Plenty of them were at home though, so either they worked from home or they’d taken the day off, or they were rich enough that they didn’t have to work. Single men, single women, couples… Animus tasted blood from all of them.
One of the couples had a little girl. I’d already set the house on fire when she came down the stairs, calling for her mom. I might have felt guilty about killing her parents, but all I could think of was how my parents had treated me. I was probably doing her a favor. She screamed when I grabbed her and struggled as I carried her out of the house.
“Stay here,” I told her as I set her down in the yard, well away from the burning house. “Wait until the firemen come.” I used my mind trick, trying to reinforce my words. I waited a few extra seconds to make sure she didn’t go running back into the house. When fire filled the front doorway, I figured it was impossible for her to get back in, so I left.
After that I checked each house before I set it on fire. A few had kids’ rooms that were empty, but most of these fuckers didn’t have children. That was something to be thankful for. I hated the idea of anyone else being treated like I had been.
I ran into more families in the evening. Nothing stopped me from killing the parents, but I let the kids go. I found one boy locked in his room. He looked to be maybe twelve or thirteen and he had a black eye.
He stared at me when I came in. “Who are you?”
“The Antichrist your parents have been worshipping,” I said. “They made a huge fucking mistake.”
He stumbled back and almost fell over his bed. “Please don’t kill me.”
I must’ve looked fucking terrifying, carrying a sword and covered in blood. “Lucky you, you get a pass. You didn’t help kill the cat, did you?”
“N… no.”
“Good. Come on. I’m setting the house on fire, so you need to leave.”
“You’re not gonna kill me? They said you’d be mad because I stopped worshipping you.”
How fucking ironic. I couldn’t help laughing. “I killed them because they murdered a cat in my name. I’m not who they think I am.”
“You killed my parents?” Color drained from his face.
“Yeah. They picked the wrong fucking guy to worship.”
“But you said you’re the Antichrist.”
“Only technically. I don’t want to follow Satan’s plan, I don’t want the world to end, and I love cats,” I said. “Now hurry up.”
He followed me down the stairs and stopped when he saw his dead parents in the dining room. “Oh my God.” He covered his mouth.
“Keep going.” I nudged him toward the front door. As soon as the door closed behind him, I set the dining room on fire. Then on to the living room, where their shrine was proudly displayed. Right in the fucking living room. In a few minutes the whole house was on fire and I walked out.
The kid was on the sidewalk, staring at the house. When he saw me, he turned to run.
“Stop.”
He froze.
“Don’t worship me, not like they did. If you want to make me happy, you should save cats, not kill them.”
He nodded rapidly.
“All right, you can go.”
He ran down the street.
I went on to the next house. By the time we got to the last house, it was late. I’d spent all day killing Satanists, destroying shrines, burning down houses. It wasn’t enough. Rage still filled me. All those poor cats, all those evil fuckers killing them as a birthday present to me. Well, now they were all gone. Every person that killed a cat on Halloween in my honor was dead.
And it still wasn’t enough.
That was the last house, the calico said. Now I will return to my Queen and tell her vengeance has been done.
“Thank you for taking me.”
The calico left. Finally done, Mew-Mew said.
“Not quite. We’ve got one more place to go.” I’d been lying low, avoiding this task because I didn’t want to draw Satan’s attention, but killing a few dozen devil worshippers was sure to get his attention. I might as well go for broke. “I promised Mom and Ken I’d kill them. Now’s as good a time as any.”
***
Coming back to the house was strange. After being away for months, even familiar things looked out of place somehow. The car was in the driveway and the lights were on, so they were home. I couldn’t feel them like I had the other Satanists. They didn’t worship me, after all. And they’d at least been smart enough not to kill a cat last night.
That wasn’t going to save them.
“You can follow me, but keep your distance,” I told Mew-Mew. I ran at the door like a football player going for a tackle and hit it with my shoulder. The door flew open, half falling off its hinges and slamming against the wall. The momentum made me stumble a little. Using divine speed, I was in the living room a second later.
“I’m home!” I grinned at them.
They scrambled off the couch, eyes wide and hearts pounding loud enough for me to hear. “Alex,” Ken choked out.
Mom shifted around the side of the couch and tensed to run.
“Uh-uh. Stay there,” I said, pointing at her. She wasn’t going to run off to the altar and call my dad this time.
“If you come back to us now and promise to be obedient, we’ll forget about the last few months,” Mom said.
The same thing Satan had tried. I laughed. “You’re fucking delusional if you th
ink I’d ever come back.” I drew Animus, her power wrapping around mine. I’d been using my powers all day and they’d never faded. In fact, they’d gotten stronger.
“You put that sword away right now,” Ken said. “If you so much as touch us, Satan will make you wish you hadn’t.” He looked like a rabbit caught in the open with a hawk circling overhead.
It would’ve been smart to kill them right away and get it over with, but I wanted to relish this. My whole life had been miserable because Mom, my stepdad, and later Satan, had punished me, beat me, tried to mold me into their puppet.
“You haven’t met Animus, have you?” I lifted her a little higher. “Animus, this is Mom and Ken. Mom and Ken, meet Animus.” I threw her, straight and true, and she sank into Mom’s left thigh. She screamed and collapsed, falling against the side of the couch.
I used my power to pull Animus back. Ken tried to run. I summoned ice to wrap around his feet, freezing him in place. He grabbed one of his ankles and tried to pull it free. “Guess your protection doesn’t work anymore, huh?” Up until that summer, I hadn’t been able to hurt them with my powers because Satan had put a magical protection on them. My powers had gotten too strong now. I’d even been able to hurt Satan.
“We only wanted the best for you,” Mom gasped out, holding her bleeding leg.
“The best? The best?” I laughed. “Do you even fucking believe the shit coming out of your mouth?” I threw fire at the couch and it went up like dry tinder.
Mom pushed herself away as fast as she could. Ken kept trying to get his feet free. Would he burn before the ice melted? Probably not.
Mew-Mew gave me a little mental nudge to let me know he was there. He stayed just outside the room, well away from the burning couch and my soon-to-be-dead parents. Mom gritted her teeth and pulled herself farther from the couch.
Ken leaned as far away from the flames as he could. “This isn’t a game!” He pulled harder as the ice started to drip. Even over the burning upholstery, I could smell his fear.
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