by Duncan, Lex
I pursed my lips to keep from saying something I'd regret later. I didn't want to be upset, but her words held weight despite what FaustianSyndrome.Org cautioned against. I cared about her more than anyone. “I'll be back later, okay?”
“Just get out,” she said, turning her head to face the opposite wall.
The guard pocketed his phone. Looked at me, then at Rosie. He had no idea what was going on. “We ready to go?”
Blinking back the sting of tears, I nodded. “Yeah. Ready.”
“Good,” he said, striding past me to the door. “There's a pastrami sandwich in the break room with my name on it.”
I followed him with considerably less enthusiasm. Rosie hadn't moved. “Bye, Rosie.”
Silence.
It was stupid of me to expect anything else.
The guard locked the door on our way out. He hitched his thumb over his shoulder as we walked back to the main wing. “Nice girl, huh?”
“You didn't know her before,” I said, jumping to her defense. Indignation itched hotly at my skin like a rash. “She's not a monster or a bad person or whatever else you're thinking. She's just sick. It isn't her fault.”
“Sure, kid,” the guard replied. He slapped the big red button beside the set of doors that led to the lobby. A loud buzzing noise sounded and the doors popped open, allowing us entry into the more civilized part of the facility. The demons here were better at keeping to themselves. “Now, if you don't mind, I wanna get to lunch.”
“Go right ahead,” I swept him a sarcastic curtsy and reminded myself to request a different escort the next time I visited. This guy's bedside manner sucked.
I told Dante so as I got in his car.
He frowned, waiting for me to put my seatbelt on before he pulled out onto the highway. “That man needs to not be working there if he can't muster a single scrap of sensitivity.”
“Right?” The entire visit left a bad taste in my mouth. Between Rosie and her connection with Gershom, I felt like I needed another shower. And a gallon of Listerine.
“Did she happen to mention anything about the book?” Dante asked. The quiet hum of some dead guy's classical music was playing on the radio.
I changed the station. “Sort of. She told me to ask Gershom about it.”
“Gershom.” He scratched his jaw. “Of course.”
I couldn't decide what I wanted to listen to, so I stopped on a talk show. The host and her guest were discussing the rise in possession rates around the country. Much better than dead guy classical. “Where's he locked up again?”
“A facility in Portland.”
“Portland?”
“Portland.”
“Looks like we're going on a road trip.”
“We'll see.” His eyes narrowed at the radio. “Do we really have to listen to this?”
“What's wrong with this?” I asked.
“It's―”
The host butted in. “Thanks for calling, Dave. Who else have we got on the line? Hello?”
“Yes, hello,” a gruff voice said.
“Hi,” the host replied. “Who's this?”
“Name's Butch,” said the voice. He followed up with a wheeze and a hack.
“Butch,” the host repeated. “What've you got for us, Butch?”
“Emphysema?” I guessed.
Dante sighed.
Butch wheezed. “Yeah, I got a problem with the way this country's handlin' the demons, y'know?”
“A lot of us do, Butch,” the host said. “Tell us what's on your mind.”
“Well, for one―”
“Here we go,” I nudged Dante with my elbow. “Are you ready for this? I sure am.”
“―Why're we just sittin' here on our asses while them monsters kill our kids, huh? Why're we lettin' that one guy and his buddies do everything? What's so special about him?”
“That one guy?” The host asked. “Dante Arturo?”
“Yeah!” Butch shouted, taking a break to hack into the phone some more. “That's the one. What's his deal?”
“Oh my God, Dante, he's talking about you!” My hand flew to his forearm in surprise. “He's talking about you! You're the one guy!”
“Yes, Beatrice,” Dante grumbled. “I heard.”
The host adopted a righteous tone. “That's a good question, Butch. No one quite knows for sure. And yet the government has allowed him and other people like him privileges they refuse to allow hardly anyone else. Where's the logic in that?”
“That's what I'm sayin'!” I envisioned Butch sitting in a run-down log cabin in the middle of the mountains, downing a beer and stuffing a wad of tobacco in his mouth. He probably smelled like deer pee and days-old puke. “Y'know, my cousin said that guy was the Anti-Christ or somethin'. You think he's the Anti-Christ?”
“I think he's more than what he's willing to let on,” the host said conspiratorially. She was loving this. “I think he's hiding something.”
“Yeah,” Butch agreed. “There ain't no reason why huntin' those monsters should be illegal. I say, make it fair game. Put a tax on the parts and bam! We'll all be sittin' pretty in mansions like that Arturo guy's probably got.”
“This is bullshit,” I said, angry at both the host and Butch for grossly misinterpreting Dante's situation. “Your mansion's not even a nice one!”
He reached for the button to turn the radio off. “Yes, Beatrice, thank you. That's enough.”
I slapped his hand away. “No, I want to hear the rest of this. I can't believe these idiots.”
“Beatrice―”
“Shh!”
“That's a bold proposal, Butch, but one I think many of my listeners would agree with.” The host had continued her smear campaign while Dante and I were arguing. “As a country, we need to start holding ourselves accountable for the choices we've made. We need to realize that our salvation does not and should not rest on the shoulders of one man whose morals are questionable at best. We know nothing about him. We don't know what his motivations are, we don't know why the government allows him to do what he does. We know nothing.”
The point of this show was to plant seeds of doubt in the minds of people who didn't know any better. Shows like these preyed on ignorance and fear, twisted the truth into something vicious. There were dozens more like it on other stations, television, the internet. They painted Dante in a dim light, made him a shadowy protagonist in a conspiracy theory, derided him as the Anti-Christ. They were wrong.
But they were right, too.
We knew nothing about him. I knew nothing about him. I'd fooled myself into believing I did, that knowing how he took his coffee made up for everything else, but...
“We need to demand answers from this man,” the host said. “We need the truth―”
Her “truth” was cut off by Dante's fist. Well, his knuckle. Brushing against the power button. It would've been cooler if he'd punched it.
“Those people are stupid,” I reassured him quietly. The hard look in his eyes reminded me of how he'd acted at Mr. Zarcotti's. Cold. Angry. Distant. “Seriously, Dante. Ignore them. They have no idea who you are or what you do.”
He just kept driving.
I suppressed a sigh. My therapist once said I needed to work on my communication skills. I wondered what she'd think of Dante's.
The forest of trees that surrounded his house grew nearer as the amount of curves in the road grew lesser. Moments later, we parked in front of the decidedly un-fancy mansion.
Neither of us moved to get out.
“So,” I said, keeping my eyes trained on the yard. A singular crow was perched on the fountain like a decoration at an Edgar Allan Poe convention and branches of all shapes and sizes poked out of the browning grass. “You never told me what the mayor said. Did you have fun on your date?”
I was aiming for humor but Dante didn't take it that way. “It wasn't a date, Beatrice.”
So much for trying to make him feel better. “I was joking, but okay.”
He leane
d forward, resting his head on the steering wheel and folding his hands in his lap. His eyes were closed and a strange look of peace smoothed the hard lines on his face. I assumed, like most people, that he wasn't the praying type. That his occupation predisposed him to atheism. That there was no way he'd believe in any God that would allow demons to overrun the Earth.
I assumed too much.
Didn’t he tell me once that that was a bad thing?
“Are you okay?” I asked.
His shoulders lifted in a deep breath. He sat up, opened his eyes. “I'm fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, Beatrice.”
“Okay.”
The crow gave a caw and took off into the trees. Yeah, crow. I didn't believe him either. I wanted to. But he never gave me a chance. His method of dealing with his feelings involved locking himself in his office and disappearing for hours on end.
“Dante?” I tore my gaze from the yard.
He continued to stare ahead. “Yes?”
“What did the mayor mean that day in the church? About your acting skills or whatever?”
“I don't know.”
“Does he think you're a fraud?”
“I don't know.”
“How do you know everything you do? Why are you one of the only ones?”
“What are you doing, Beatrice?” His eyes hardened.
“I'm asking you questions,” I said.
“No, you're taking what that woman said on the radio too seriously.”
I shifted in my seat to face him, feeling the familiar burn of anger rise to the surface. “I don't know anything about you, Dante, but I've been living under the same roof as you for almost two months! Why can't you answer a few simple questions?”
I awaited another freeze, another dose of the silent treatment. But it never came. He looked at me, that rare tenderness softening his voice. “Because I don’t want to hurt you.”
“What?” The word fell from my lips like a deadweight, landing heavily between us. I didn't know what else to say. The idea that he would ever hurt me—truly hurt me—was so far-fetched that I couldn't wrap my mind around it. “I don't―”
“Listen to me, Beatrice.” He turned his head and met my gaze.
I sat motionless in my seat. “I’m listening.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but something outside caught his attention. He wasn’t looking at me, but past me.
Unbuckling his seatbelt, he pocketed his keys and got out of the car, slamming the door behind him. I watched as he came around the passenger’s side, fake smile on his lips, and followed him until he…
Oh. Oh my God.
Of all the crappy mansions in all the towns in all the world, she just had to come to this one.
Twenty-One
I followed Dante out of the car and shut my door behind me. “Mother Arden,” I blurted, giving my beanie a self-conscious tug. “I, uh―Hi. What are you doing here?”
“Mr. Arturo invited me,” she said.
Conveniently, Mr. Arturo was on his way back up to the house. And me without a rock to throw at his head. “Oh, did he? When?”
“Earlier today.” Her smile turned wry. “You haven't been returning my calls, so I thought I'd try the land line. We had a very nice discussion and when I asked about you, he said that you were sleeping. At noon. On a school day.”
It wasn't enough for him to ditch me, no. He had to rat on me, too. Thanks a lot, Mr. Arturo.
Hoping to fake my way off this particularly barbed hook, I lifted my arm to my mouth and coughed a couple of times. “Sorry, Mother Arden. I've been so sick lately. I might even be dying. Isn't that sad?”
“Terribly,” she rested her hands on my shoulders and pressed a kiss to my cheek. “You need to go to school, Beatrice.”
I made a noise that sounded like a cross between a groan and a sigh. I hated it when she got all maternal on me. “I know, I know.”
“I hope you do” She cast a long, studious glance up at the house. “This is quite the home. Have you enjoyed it here?”
At least she had the decency not to mention catching Dante and me in the car. “Yeah, it's nice. Quiet. There are a lot of crickets, but it's better than cockroaches, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“The cockroaches never made the squeaky noise the crickets do. Freaks me out.”
“I see.”
“Yep.”
The crow I thought had flown away came back, landing on the rim of the fountain. It pecked at a shingle floating in the water. Flapped its dark wings.
As exciting as bird watching was, it was getting chilly. “You wanna go inside, or…?”
Mother Arden nodded. “That would be nice, yes.”
“Great.” We passed the crow on the way to the porch. It didn't move. Fixed me with a beady stare. A stare too intelligent for its own good. Ignoring it and the weird feeling it stirred, I pulled the screen door open, then gave the main one a push. It smelled like spice inside. “Right this way.”
We barely got through the door when Aralia came zooming in from the kitchen in a pair of heels and a frilly apron. She clapped her hands together, smiling widely. “Welcome, ladies! This is so exciting, we never have company.”
“I'm sure you remember Aralia,” I muttered, gesturing to her like a model on a game show. “Hard not to.”
“Of course,” Mother Arden returned her smile with a prim one of her own. “Very nice to see you again, Ms. Spinosa.”
Aralia flipped her glossy hair over her shoulder as she led the way back to the kitchen. “Please, call me Aralia. We're all friends here.”
“What're you making?” I asked, the spicy smell becoming noticeably stronger. Something sizzled in a frying pan on the stove and a stack of the good porcelain plates was sitting on the counter. I tried using one once and Aralia corrected me severely, saying they should only be used for special occasions, not reheating pizza.
She gave the contents of the frying pan a vigorous stir. “Spiced chicken and rice! Doesn't it smell delightful?”
“Since when do you cook?”
“Since we have guests, Beatrice.” She shook her head, turned the heat on the burner down. “Don't be rude.”
I lifted my hands in mock surrender. “My bad.”
“Your bad indeed,” Aralia said. She averted her attention to Mother Arden and they chatted about the weather, leaving me a window for escape.
“I'll be back,” I told them, edging away between the weekend forecast and the two percent chance of snow for tomorrow evening.
I fled up the stairs and took a right.
The door to Dante’s study was cracked. Muffled speech drifted through it like a badly kept secret. I couldn't make out any of the words, but they sounded harsh. Harsher than I'd ever heard from him. Dante didn't do harsh. His anger came in the form of a cool burn, not a sandpaper growl. Something was wrong.
I nudged the door open. At the sound of its creak, Dante's head snapped up. His brow furrowed and he muttered a quick goodbye to whoever was on the other line and slammed the gold plated receiver back onto its cradle.
“Who was that?” I asked, knowing I wouldn't get an answer. Aralia told me when I first moved in that Dante would lie if he thought it would protect me. Too bad I didn't need protecting. I was stronger now. Wiser. I wasn't the naive girl in the apartment anymore. I wasn't the girl who kept missing the target in the backyard. I was a demon killing, mystery solving badass.
Badasses didn't need protecting.
Dante rubbed his eyes. “That was an old associate of mine.”
“An associate, huh?” I kept my tone light, hoping to get more information out of him that way. You caught more flies with honey, right? My vinegar approach never worked, so honey it was.
He looked at me, scrutinizing my false smile. “Yes, Beatrice.”
“Cool.”
“I suppose.”
Honey wasn't working. Back to vinegar. “Were you gonna tell me that you invited M
other Arden over before or after dinner?”
“I completely forgot.” His gaze fell guiltily to the papers that covered his desk. “It's been a very long day. I should have told you. I’m sorry.”
Oh. He was sorry. He wasn't going to argue or give me some lame excuse. Okay. “It's fine. I guess. You've been busy. We've both been busy.”
“Dante! Beatrice!” Aralia yelled from the floor below.
I stuck my head out the door. “What?”
“Dinner is ready!”
“Okay.”
“What?”
“Okay!”
A pause. “You don't need to shout, Beatrice.”
“Oh my God,” I muttered, throwing Dante a look over my shoulder. “Is she serious right now?”
He crossed his arms over his chest and shrugged.
“What?” Aralia yelled again.
“Nothing!” I yelled back. “We're coming!”
***
Dinner was an awkward affair. The punchline of a bad joke. A nun, a demon hunter, and a succubus walk into a bar...
“Beatrice, I have something to tell you,” said the nun, dabbing the corner of her mouth with her napkin. It was one of those cloth ones you found in fancy restaurants, ornately embroidered with a golden pattern and perfectly tailored for wiping that glob of ketchup off your bottom lip.
Mine sat untouched underneath my plate while I pushed my rice around with my fork. I wasn't that hungry (for once) but Aralia wanted to have a “nice family dinner,” so I compromised. I'd sit here and look pretty and she wouldn't call me out on all the crap I'd been up to lately in front of my overbearing not-mom. A fair trade.
“What's up?” I asked.
Mother Arden placed her napkin on her lap and smiled. “It took some work, but I managed to secure you a spot at St. Agatha's.”
To my left, Max choked on his water. He'd only just arisen from his lair a few minutes ago when Aralia marched down there and demanded he attend. His hair looked like a blond rat's nest and his glasses sat crooked on the bridge of his nose. He wouldn't outright say it in front of company, but Aralia woke him up, and, knowing her, she probably didn't do it gently. A swift smack upside the head came to mind.