“Armando Villanueva! Olly, olly, oxen free!” Marcella roared.
seventeen
Marcella scanned the length of the playground with anxious eyes, searching for signs of Carlos.
And that’s when she heard Darwin howl, “You filthy animal!”
Her eyes went directly to her right, where Armando stood, leaning cockily against an abandoned ice cream truck. A large clown head sat on top of it, leering an ugly, toothy grin, making her shiver. The wild swoops of his red hair, poking out from beneath his pointy hat dotted with multicolored circles, sent irrational fear shooting along her spine. Fighting to ignore her ridiculous fear of anything remotely Barnum and Bailey, Marcella swallowed hard.
Armando’s thick, raven black hair was pulled tightly into a ponytail, making his cheekbones, always lean and rugged, stand out in the harsh glare of the moon. Crossing his legs at the ankles, he pointed upward. “Friend of yours?”
Her pulse screamed to a halt. Darwin, or the body he inhabited, floated high above Armando’s head. Sweat glistened on his wrinkled forehead, his fists clutched tightly to his chest. “Marcella, run!” he warned, his breathing shallow and uneven.
Oh, no. There’d be no more running. There’d only be her and the man she planned to see gone from this plane forever. Instantly, she was beside Darwin, running a soothing hand over his forehead. “Let him go, Armando. He has nothing to do with this.”
“Mi amor,” he cackled, holding out his hand to her. “Forget him. If that’s who you’ve employed to aid you in besting me, I wish you luck. Now, come, give us a kiss, no? It’s been so long since I tasted those luscious lips.” He smacked his own with a perverted slurp. “You’re just as beautiful as the last day I saw you so long ago. You remember the day, don’t you, wife? The day you murdered me in cold blood and stole my son from me?”
She put a finger to her lips in mock thought, giving him a sly smile. “Do you mean the one where I cracked you over the head, ended your miserable existence, burned your pathetic body until there was nothing left but ashes, then summoned your black soul and locked you in a box? Is that the day you mean, husband?” she taunted.
His smile was glacial, his raven eyebrow cocked. “Yeahhh,” he said on a sigh. “I think that’s the one. Oh, the heartbreak to be betrayed by your own wife. Imagine my pain. ‘Inconsolable’ isn’t a word I’d use lightly.”
Marcella let a catty smile spread across her lips. “Then, yeah. I remember it. In fact, it keeps me all warm and cozy on cold nights just like this one. I cover up with the memory while I toast the end to your vile existence with warm milk and freshly baked cookies.”
Bada-bing, bada-boom. Take. That.
“How do you think your lover would feel if the same were to happen to him?”
Kellen. Her stomach dove to her toes. He knew about Kellen. Christ.
“Or what about his sister, Delaney? How do you think her Clyde would feel if she were locked in a box—forever?”
Her temper. Wasn’t everyone always harshin’ on her about her temper? Could be that’s because it gets the better of you, Marcella, was what she thought just before she lost it. “I’ll kill you, you pig! You leave them alone!”
The hard mask of his face changed just a hint, revealing what she was sure was just the tip of his anger. “You murdered me, Marcella. You murdered me and stole my son from me! You took from me and now I’ll take from you!”
Marcella yawned, bored. “You murdered me,” she mocked in his accent, rolling her head on her neck. “Yadda, yadda, yadda. Sooo dramatic. Whiner.”
He cackled again, soft and low. “I don’t think I’ll be the one whining.”
“Where’s Carlos?” she demanded, her eyes flitting from side to side.
“Our great-grandson? He’s fine. Just fine. I’m so proud of him it hurts. He looks just like me. You were the perfect vessel, Marcella, truly a brilliant move on my part, marrying you. I might have had to put up with a lot of your hot air, but it was worth it in the end. You bore me a beautiful child. Now come, we’ll talk over old times.” He waved a hand at the space by his feet as though he were impatient to get on with things. “You’re so far away up there, and we’ve been far away from each other for too long, don’t you think?”
“Show—me—Carlos!” she spat out, lifting her chin to scan their surroundings.
With the click of his foot, he popped open the rusty door on the ice cream truck and smiled. Carlos lay on the floor in his pajamas and, from where she floated, she could see his chest rise and fall with slow, easy breaths. Relief washed over her. “What have you done to him?”
“Just a spell to help him sleep, muchacha. Surely you don’t want him to witness his great-grandmama’s demise?”
If there was ever a time for her memory to be on point, it was now. She didn’t pray often, but at this very second, looking at Carlos lying helplessly in the truck, and Darwin hanging like some parade blimp, she prayed she could remember the words to the spell she needed to end this. Until then, she’d just stall. She moved in closer to Darwin, whispering from the side of her mouth. “Hang tough, friend. This’ll be over soon.”
“Where’s the bloody box, Marcella?” he hissed back, worry eating up the wrinkles on his forehead. “We need the box!”
“Listen closely to me, muchacho. He’ll be too busy with me to keep you up here long. When he drops you, run as fast as those stubby legs will carry you to the car and get that box. You’ll know when to lock it.”
Darwin attempted to protest, but Marcella cut him off. “If ever I needed you to pay attention and do what I tell you to do, it’s now. So hush, and one last thing. You’re the best frenemy a girl could ever have. Now shut it. I’m begging you.”
“How endearing. Are you saying your farewells, dear heart?” Armando tormented from between thin lips, gazing up at her with coal black eyes so full of hatred it took her breath away.
Almost.
“Give me Carlos, Armando. Give him to me and I’ll go with you. I’ll do whatever it is that you want me to do.”
“Don’t be such a silly goose, my heart. Why would I give you the great-grandson I intend to raise? Isn’t this delightful? You, me, the child who should have been mine, all together—at last.”
Delovely. “Let him go. You have no right to him.”
He gave her a forlorn glance. “But you know that’s not true, lover. You robbed me of the chance to raise my son—in my book I think that means you owe me,” he said with menacing glee in his voice.
“I’ll warn you one last time, Armando. Let him go.”
His eyes narrowed to gleaming points of light. “Or what, sweet-ling? You don’t have the power to do anything to me. I, on the other hand, have been a busy, busy bee these last months while I inhabited our beautiful granddaughter who looks just like you. Who knew I’d be such an astute student? And I learned it all with you in mind, mi corazón. I can hurt you, Marcella. You can feel pain inflicted by me, your loving husband. The kind of pain that will be far worse than the confines of any box!” Spreading his arms wide, he heaved his chest upward.
Hoo, shit. That whole dramatic posing thing was never a good sign. Marcella prepared to duck but instead felt the stingingly hot heat of flames lick at her feet. A ring of fire encompassed both her and Darwin, climbing higher and higher until it almost shrouded her view of Carlos’s small body.
“Hey, Armando,” she shouted over the roar of the crackling fire, “is this the best you can do? Got any hot dogs I can roast, weenie? Oh, wait. Silly me. Of course you don’t have hot dogs. Trying to get out to the grocery store to shop has to be hard on someone locked—in—a—box!”
Calm façade gone, Armando did just as she’d expected he would.
He reacted.
And not in the way some might call nonpsychotic.
His roar of rage was a piercing scream—loud with the fury of all of Hell’s minions combined. Black smoke rose in slithering tendrils, twisting and turning until they took shape.
The shapes of those Armando had summoned to help him do his dirty work.
Sissy.
The black shadows, oily and swift, flitted in the air, springing to the treetops, clanging the chains of the swings, scurrying across the sky at warp speed. Creating a raucous symphony of earsplitting sounds.
Darwin hung precariously, wobbling in the fierce wind, flames licking at his host body. Helplessly, he dangled. “Marcella, run! Get out before you get hurt!”
Distract. She needed to distract Armando long enough to get him to drop Darwin. Rising higher, she threw her head back and laughed at Armando in superiority. “Is this the best you can do? Fire and wind? You always were a lazy bastard! Lazy, lazy, lazy—especially in bed! Did you hear that, Armando? You’re lazy! You had all this time to practice and this is as scary as it gets?”
She’d thrown down the gauntlet—given Armando the ultimate challenge. Show me what’cha got, candy-ass. She just hoped his gauntlet didn’t include those damned locusts. They squicked her like nothing else.
Oh, but that crazy, eating-evil-for-breakfast Armando—he had something way scarier in mind.
For fuck’s sake. Really? Like really?
From the top of the ice cream truck the clown’s head began to spin, twisting furiously, its mouth opening wide to reveal teeth like ice picks before the huge head spun off the truck and headed directly for her. Calling her name in deep, demonic tones. Chills of terror raced along her spine.
God! She hated clowns. Revulsion twisted her gut.
However, in his fury, Armando had lost track of Darwin, who dropped to the ground with a crash of packed dirt and a startled yelp. “Run!” she screamed to him, ducking the malevolent clown head, fighting her terror. “Run!”
The winds picked up, roaring, tearing at her dress, dragging her across the inky black sky. Thunder shrieked in bright arcs of white and blue, screaming to the earth in volcanic splashes, cracking the ground. Deep crevasses split open the dirt, swallowing the slide, eating up the hedges along the perimeter.
Marcella saw movement from just beyond the ice cream truck, her stomach rising and falling as Armando’s minions tore at her, sinking their deep talons into her arms, wrapping their fingers of steel around her neck.
And then there was water, blessedly cold sheets of it, washing at her wounds, torpedoing demons in every direction, whipping them against the trunk of the tree in screaming splats.
Catalina was below her, wielding the biggest gun Marcella’d ever seen, firing water upward into the sky. “Kellen! Get Carlos!” she ordered with a bellowed demand.
Marcella’s heartbeat raced as Kellen ran, head down, toward the ice cream truck. His legs pumped, muscles flexed, his jaw clenched.
And that was when Armando spotted him.
Their eyes met, Armando’s with knowledge, hers with palpable fear.
Raising his finger high, he pointed it at Kellen, directing all of his finely honed skills at his back.
“Kellen!” Marcella screamed with a hoarse sob. “Get out of the way!”
Catalina looked up then, her eyes wide in startled surprise, as though she could actually see Marcella, and then she yelled upward. “Marcella! Move!” With the strength of a track star, Catalina ran, hurling herself at Armando’s back, clawing at his hands, gripping his ponytail and yanking it with such force his neck bent backward.
Panic made Marcella react to the fireball Armando had aimed, heading straight for the ice cream truck where a sleeping Carlos lay. She zoomed in toward the opening just as the ball of fire screamed forward, praying she got there in time to take the hit.
A roar, long and primal, erupted as Kellen sliced through the air, knocking her out of the way as Catalina, her foot atop Armando’s chest, hosed the flames.
Armando twisted beneath her, flexing his wrist to reveal long talons. He swiped at Catalina’s leg, making her howl in agony with a hard fall to the ground.
So it was now or never. May her penchant for memorizing every style of shoe Jimmy Choo ever made have kept her memorization skills intact.
“Get Carlos!” she yelled to Kellen, pulling free from him and rising once more to float above Armando. Kellen barreled toward the ice cream truck, hauling Carlos to him, but he didn’t run for cover. He deposited Carlos under a covered seating area then tore something from his pocket.
But her attention was called away when Darwin, in his torn suit, sweat glistening from every inch of exposed flesh, waved his arms in the air from the corner of the playground and pointed.
He had the box. The top was flipped open. In that moment, she’d never loved the Kibble King more.
Her heart crashing in her chest, her hands shaking, Marcella called her husband out. “Armando Villanueva, eres un sucio acólito de Satanás! I bind with thee—” she screeched, only to stop in midsentence when she heard someone else echo the same words.
“Armando Villanueva!” Kellen roared, glancing down to read some piece of paper in his hand with a frown. “I bind with thee!”
No, oh, my God. Noooooo! “Kellen, noooooo!” she screamed. What in the love of fuck was he doing? Her heart raced in time with her mind. She couldn’t remember the spell, but Kellen had it written down? “Come—come—” Oh, fuck. Was it come thee be mine? No, come thee and bind. Shit! She couldn’t afford to get this wrong. Horror seared her gut; fear raged in every cell of her body.
Bad. This was very bad.
Catalina dragged herself from the ground, looking upward, and bellowed, “No, Marcella! No! Don’t do it!”
Darwin’s face went from panicked to stricken as he realized what she was about to do. Kellen stopped reading the passage and looked to him, confusion at this new player in the evil game. Darwin shook his head. “Marcella—no! Kellen, stop! You’re binding your souls to Armando’s—for eternity!”
Well, duh.
Except there was this one little problem with the whole binding thing.
You kinda had to remember the words to do it, and Kellen had them written down.
Oh, ginkgo. How you’ve failed me.
eighteen
Catalina surged across the sky, tackling Kellen, who clutched the paper in his hand like it was the Holy Grail. They went down hard, but Catalina was on her feet in an instant, thrusting Kellen’s hand between her knees and prying his fingers free of the paper with a warrior cry.
Relief flooded Marcella as she began to once again focus on the spell, her mind turning over words that didn’t mesh.
Armando rose up, growing to grotesque proportions, looming over Marcella in all his foul demonicness. His demon form in full view, he opened his mouth wide, tilting his head back and screeching a wail so violent, so infuriated, Marcella shuddered as the sound went straight through her.
She faced off with him, hair soaking wet, eyes wild, dress clinging by threads, ready to suffer his wrath.
Or at least until she could remember the damned words to the spell.
Armando’s clawed fingers reached out to wrap around her neck, squeezing, his laughter filling the dark night. Kellen was below her, Catalina’s retrieved gun in hand, eyes dead and cold, ready to pull the trigger.
The silence pulsed as she hung from Armando’s grip. Ugly, thick, and pulsating with vengeance.
Just as Catalina made her move, leaping at him as though she was the Bionic Woman gone demonic, a voice roared from behind, shaking the playground with a thunderous tremor. “Armandoooooo!”
Armando deflated like he’d been popped with a pin, dropping Marcella from his steely grip.
Catalina stopped virtually in midair, slamming to the ground, landing on her feet with a jarring crash in the middle of the playground’s debris. Surprise shadowed her face, her eyes wide and round.
Kellen fell to the ground, running to where he’d left Carlos and gathering him protectively to his chest. Marcella floated to them, kneeling beside them, running her shaking hands over Kellen’s soot-covered face.
A
man, seriously the size of a redwood, stomped forward; his eyes, cobalt blue and filled with hostile fury, honed in on Armando, piercing him with a glare so overflowing with fire, Marcella cringed. Each step he took boomed, making the hard muscles of his thighs ripple and flex then tighten through the material of his black jeans. One fist, wide and sinewy, clenched into a ball, then unclenched just as quickly when he yanked Armando upward by his ankles, using just one hand.
His blue-black hair gleamed in the glare of the streetlights, as slick and shiny as the skin of an orca, falling to just beneath the collar of his black sweater. His wide shoulders nearly blocked the view of Armando entirely as he raised the demon high in the air, like a prized fish he’d just caught.
To say he was seething would be to understate the infuriated vibe he virtually oozed from every available point of flesh on his body.
But for a moment, something caught his attention, and when he stopped to take note, the breathtaking planes of his face, angled sharply, sculpted in granite, gave him the appearance of something only Rodin himself could create.
Marcella cringed, prepared for this beautiful man to take note of them and hurl all that pissed-off glory their way.
Instead, what had caught his attention was Catalina.
Catalina lifted her chin in defiance at the man’s apparent discovery of her. Crossing her arms over her chest, covered in muddy dirt and soaking wet leaves, she stuck it out in a gesture that dared anyone, even this giant redwood, to take her to task. Her full mouth thinned to a line of pure hatred; her eyes flashed a message clearly only the two of them understood.
Their eyes met—Catalina’s seethed; his glimmered with sparkling blue amusement. It was then that he winked at her suggestively with a slow downward tilt of his long-lashed eye. They faced off in silence, neither speaking a word before his eyes dismissed her to return to his prey, dangling limp and helpless. “Armando Villanueva?” he asked, but it was clearly a mere formality. “How dare you attempt to usurp Satan’s throne?”
“No!” he protested, squirming against the steely hold. “I was bringing the child to my lord and master,” he insisted, fighting for strength in his tone but crumbling miserably under the glare of this man’s disapproval.
My Way to Hell Page 27