Ryan and I look at each other, then back at Aaron.
“How are we supposed to do that?” Ryan asks. “He’s not an idiot. He’s not just going to stand there.”
“What about the first part?” I ask. “Summoning him into it?”
“Either of you ever do magic before?”
“Uh, no.”
“No.”
“Then I wouldn’t recommend the summoning option. Way too much could go wrong.” He pauses for a moment, thinking. “Here, I know.”
Aaron scoots back in his chair and pulls open a drawer in the bottom right side of the desk. After a few seconds of rummaging around, he sits back with a pleased expression. “Try this,” he says, holding out what looks for all the world like a small strobe light.
“A strobe light?” Ryan says dubiously.
“Little-known demon weakness. Catch ’em by surprise with one of these, and they freeze just like a deer in the headlights. You’ve really got to sneak up on him, though. If he sees it coming, it will never work.”
Ryan takes the strobe light, still looking highly doubtful. I don’t blame him.
“Step two,” Aaron goes on, “is to sever the connection with whomever he’s deputized. You’ll need that person to be there for this, too. Now, there are two ways this could happen. You could convince him to release the person voluntarily, but that’s probably unlikely. The other way involves a little magic ritual.”
“Didn’t you just tell us not to try doing magic?” Ryan asks. He’s clearly starting to get irritated.
“This isn’t as dangerous as the summoning spell. Or nearly as complicated. You’ll just need to mix together a few things, and then it’s simply a matter of performing the symbolic ritual.” He jots down a quick list on a piece of paper and hands it over to me. “I’ve got the hard-to-find ones here in the shop. The rest you should be able to find at any grocery store.”
“And step three?” I ask warily.
“Step three is where you get to kill him. Well, that or banish him back to his own dimension. It depends how powerful he is. But it should get him out of your hair, either way. For that part, you just need to trace the diagram with something flammable — lighter fluid works nicely — and set it on fire. The combination of the flames and the containment circle will either drive him off this plane, or destroy him.”
He stands up. “Just be sure to get all other flammable things out of the way, of course. And bring a fire extinguisher. You don’t want to burn down the whole building.”
We stand up, too. Aaron grabs the papers from the printer, which include instructions for drawing the diagram he showed us, along with a coupon for 20% off our first purchase in the store, and then slips into the back room to get some of the more unusual items on the ritual list. He comes back bearing an assortment of little plastic bags containing various substances. “Erica can ring these up for you upstairs.”
“Thanks,” I say, shaking his hand firmly. Ryan does the same, and then I can’t help asking, “Hey, so, why do you make the front of your store look all scary and uninviting? It’s really nice in here. You probably scare a lot of people off with the black windows and bloody doorknob.”
Aaron smiles. “That’s pretty much the point. We serve a select clientele here. Just folks who already know about us, or find out through friends . . . or who come here because of some particular need, like you two. We don’t want every college kid in town hanging out in here with their laptops and cell phones, ruining it for the rest of us.”
“Oh,” I say. “I guess I can understand that.”
“Try to keep it under your hat, okay?” Aaron calls after us as we head upstairs.
No worries there. I’m certainly not going to go blabbing to anyone about our demon-research errand. I doubt Ryan will, either.
The magenta-haired girl rings us up at the counter and puts everything except the strobe light in a recycled Whole Foods paper bag for us. I take the bag and Ryan tucks the light under his arm, and we go back through the black curtain and into the outside world.
“So,” Ryan says as we walk toward the car. “That was interesting.”
“Yeah. You think he really believes in all this stuff?”
“I think he really does.” Ryan hesitates, then adds, “I sure hope so, anyway. If he’s just messing with us, we’re likely to have a really unpleasant experience back at the library.”
“Yikes. Good point.”
Ryan unlocks the passenger door for me, then goes around to the driver’s side and we both get in. The sun’s going down, and the lighting is getting decidedly romantic to my eye. Okay, naked fluorescent bulbs are romantic to my eye when they’re shining down on Ryan Halsey, but still. This is objectively romantic, I think.
“So what else is on that list?” he asks.
I take out the paper Aaron gave me. All the more esoteric items that he’s already given us have little check marks beside them. The remaining items are all pretty standard. “Salt, baking powder, garlic, rosemary, white glue, and um . . .” I look up at him. “Paprika.”
“Heh. Not what I would have guessed, but I suppose that’s why we consulted the experts.”
“I suppose so.”
We sit there looking at each other for a moment in the darkening car, and oh my God I want there to be kissing, but I guess now is really not the time. It could be the time, my nerve endings whisper slyly at me. Just lean forward and kiss him. DO IT! DO IT NOW!
I can’t.
I want to. I really, really want to. But I can’t. What if he doesn’t want to kiss me? What if he pulls away? I’d never recover. And we have work to do.
I busy myself folding the list, and Ryan clears his throat and starts the car, and off we go.
Maybe later, I promise myself silently. Maybe right before we actually go through with this crazy plan. Because then we might be just about to die, and so I might not have quite so much to lose.
It is Sunday night. I’ve got a Tupperware container filled with the mixture of ingredients from Aaron’s list and a box of chalk (assorted colors) for drawing the diagram. Ryan has a steak knife for the severing ritual and the lighter fluid for the end part. The strobe light is in his backpack, along with extra batteries, matches, a lighter (in case something happens to the matches), a crowbar, a mini fire extinguisher, and a box of chewy chocolate chip granola bars, in case of sudden low blood sugar.
Annie is tied up and gagged in the backseat, wriggling furiously and trying to yell through the scarf we stuffed in her mouth.
I turn around to look at her again. “I’m so sorry, Annie. Please, just try to relax, okay? I swear, you will understand and forgive me eventually.”
Her eyes narrow to angry slits and I hastily turn back around.
It had been pretty easy to kidnap her, really. She hadn’t told her parents she didn’t want to see me, and so I just walked inside her house without ringing the bell, like I have ever since we were little, and her mom, who was knee-deep in laundry and half watching TV, waved me around to the back of the house where Annie’s room is. Annie was sitting at her computer with headphones on, and I was able to jump her almost before she even realized I was in the room. With the usual thumping, running, and screaming sounds of too many little kids in the basement / rec room downstairs and the turned-up volume of the television in the living room at the front of the house, there was no danger of anyone hearing the struggle. I let Ryan in through the window, and while he finished tying her up, I e-mailed a quick vague-but-worried note to Mr. Gabriel in what I hoped was a good imitation of Annie’s style, saying she needed to talk to him and that if he saw this, he should meet her in the library at midnight. It took all my self-control to resist looking for some of those “love poems” she’d mentioned while I was in her e-mail, but I knew I couldn’t risk the distracting and time-consuming throwing up they would probably induce. I left a note on the bed in a decent approximation of Annie’s handwriting, saying that she was going over to my place to hel
p me study for a test. After that, we bundled her quickly out the window and into Ryan’s car. The whole thing took less than ten minutes.
Of course, then we had to hang out in the car with Annie tied up in the back for several hours, waiting for midnight. That part was harder.
“Ready to do this?” Ryan asks.
“Not really. But I guess it’s now or never, isn’t it?” I look over at him in the dim glow from the distant streetlight. We’re parked on the street closest to the back entrance of the school. The e-mail we sent Mr. Gabriel asked him to leave the door propped open for us, but Ryan’s got the crowbar just in case.
We get out of the car and close the doors on Annie’s renewed struggling. It seemed best to leave her here until after we get Mr. Gabriel immobilized. If something goes wrong and we don’t make it back . . . well, then Annie will have bigger problems to worry about than being tied up in the backseat of a car, anyway.
We stand there a moment more, both apparently equally reluctant to put the next part of this insane plan into motion. Because this next part is where everything either works and we win, or it all goes horribly, horribly wrong.
“This is really crazy, you know that?” I ask Ryan.
“Yeah.” He clears his throat. “Hey, I just — you know, in case we’re about to die —”
Oh my God. He’s going to kiss me. He’s going to kiss me in case we’re about to die. Which doesn’t even necessarily mean that he really has liked me liked me all this time, since maybe he just wants to kiss someone before he dies and I’m the most convenient candidate — Shut up, I tell myself. Shut up and accept that he really does like you and he wants to kiss you! He’s going to kiss you! Right here and now!
“Yes?” I prompt, a little breathlessly.
He pauses, looking back at me very seriously. And then: “It’s been a pleasure working with you, Cynthia Rothschild.” He sticks out his hand.
I stare down at it.
He wants to shake hands in case we’re about to die?
I look back up at him, confused. But only for a second. Then I reach out and take his hand. Because, hey, you can’t leave someone hanging like that. And besides, if that’s the best I’m going to get right now, I’ll take it.
It doesn’t have to be, my brain points out in a very sane and level voice. This is unusual for my brain, so I pay extra close attention. This is your moment — the moment you were waiting for. You could pull him toward you right now, grip that hand for all you’re worth and pull him close and plant your mouth right there on his. Because you might be about to die, you know. You really might. So you really should kiss him. It could be your one and only chance.
Yes, I think. My brain is offering very wise counsel here. I’m going to do it. I’m going to kiss him. I’m going to kiss him right now.
But I don’t.
I return his firm, professional grip and let my nerve endings bask in the warm touch of his skin against mine for several long seconds. Remember that, I tell them. That might be the last good thing that happens to us in this lifetime.
I take a breath. I nod. He nods back. He releases my hand. I reluctantly allow this. My fingers curl in against my palm in remembered ecstasy.
And then we dart across the street and creep over to the service entrance behind the Dumpsters.
The door is propped open like we’d asked, and I start to breathe a sigh of relief, grateful that at least we won’t have to try forcing it open. And then it starts to swing farther inward on its own, and from the darkness behind it a voice says, “Annie? Is everything —”
Oh, no! Oh crap! Oh crap!
Ryan wrenches his backpack from his shoulder and thrusts his arm inside, bringing out the strobe light just as the door opens enough to reveal Mr. Gabriel standing a few feet beyond the entrance. Ryan flicks the light on just as the librarian’s eyes begin to narrow in understanding.
And then he freezes, midglare, staring at the flashing light.
“Now what?” Ryan whispers. “We can’t do it here!”
“I don’t think we’re going to get a second chance!” I whisper back. Aaron never actually said how long the strobe light will keep Mr. Gabriel frozen. “Stay there, and I’ll draw the diagram around him right where he is. I think he’s far enough inside that we’ll be able to close the door once I’m done. It will be fine.”
God, I hope I’m right.
I push the door carefully open the rest of the way until it catches, safely back against the wall. Then I fumble for the chalk and kneel down beside Mr. Gabriel’s frozen form. My skin is crawling from being this close to him, but I try to ignore it and focus on making sure to draw a continuous line with no breaks in it at any point. It takes me longer than I expected. I keep shifting along the floor, checking the line, checking the printout from Aaron, trying to draw while my hand is shaking crazily.
“Good?” Ryan says from behind the flashing light when I finally sit back.
“I think so. Yes. Okay.”
He turns off the strobe light.
I’m blind in the sudden darkness, and I freeze, afraid to move and accidentally break the circle. I hear Ryan’s breathing from somewhere to my left, and closer, a stealthy shifting sound that makes me want to scream.
“Oh, nicely done,” Mr. Gabriel says from the darkness beside me.
I stay perfectly still, willing my eyes to adjust right now, so I can see if Mr. G. is safely contained or not. It’s still too dark. The waiting is killing me.
“Did it work?” Ryan asks. Apparently the waiting is killing him, too.
“Oh, it worked,” Mr. Gabriel says in an amused voice.
“How do we know?” Ryan asks, a little defiantly. “You could be lying.”
“If it hadn’t worked,” I tell him, “we’d probably be dead by now.”
“Oh. Good point.”
Mr. Gabriel chuckles, and says nothing.
Slowly, shapes start to become clear around me. There’s just a little light coming in from the streetlights, and other than a few residual ghost images, I seem to have recovered from the strobe’s glare and then sudden extinction. As soon as I can see the edges of the symbol clearly enough, I ease carefully out of my crouch and back away. Mr. Gabriel is standing at what I think might be parade rest in the middle of the chalk symbol. I expected him to be angry, but he seems to be taking it all in stride. It occurs to me that he could be faking.
“Do you think he could be faking?” I ask.
Ryan squints at the librarian. “I don’t know.”
“Only one way to find out,” Mr. Gabriel says, and throws himself forward.
I shriek and leap backward, but he slams to a stop at the chalk line. He could be faking that, too, but I am pretty sure I saw his hand press up against some invisible obstacle right before he stopped moving. Pretty sure. But we need to keep going, because we can’t go back, and so we need to assume that he’s really contained in there.
Ryan finds a light switch, and of course only a fraction of the lights are working, and at least one is flickering annoyingly, but the familiar fluorescent glow of substandard school lighting makes me feel a little better. We’re in a kind of vestibule that connects to the loading dock and the service elevator. Metal shelves hold cleaning supplies against one wall, and there’s an old desk that I guess belongs to the janitor or maybe the security guy who mans the service entrance during the day.
“Okay,” I say. “Step two.”
“Ooh, what’s step two?” Mr. Gabriel asks. He’s standing very still about an inch inside the edge of the symbol. His voice is still amused, but his eyes don’t seem to be laughing, exactly. He has them fixed on me in a very unpleasant way.
“Shut up,” Ryan tells him. To me he says, “Are you sure you’re okay staying here with him while I go get Annie?”
“No need for that,” says a new voice.
We all turn to look.
For one long, uncomfortable beat, no one says anything.
Then, wit
h considerable effort, I find my voice.
“Aaron?” I ask incredulously.
Aaron, Books of Darkness Aaron, is standing just beyond the doorway. With Annie. She’s still gagged and her arms are still bound with the rope, but he’s untied her legs. He’s holding a knife to her throat. His knife is a lot bigger and scarier looking than Ryan’s steak knife. Which is still in the backpack anyway.
“What are you doing here?” I say.
He doesn’t look at me. But Annie does. She looks at me, and then at Ryan, and then at the librarian, and then back to me, and her eyes are even slittier and angrier than they were before. She starts trying to yell things through the scarf that I’m really glad I can’t understand, but then Aaron says, “Shut up,” and presses the knife more firmly against her skin and she shuts up. Her eyes continue to radiate hatred, though.
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Mr. Gabriel says, holding out his hand as far as the chalk will let him. “I’m John Gabriel. And you are?”
“Aaron Litske,” Aaron says, not moving. Of course, he knows about the significance of the chalk. He’s not going to reach over and break the circle. But what the hell is he doing here at all?
“Is there something I can do for you, Mr. Litske?” Mr. Gabriel asks calmly, undeterred by Aaron’s failure to fall for the handshake trick.
“I’m here to make a deal,” Aaron replies just as calmly. “I’ll release you —”
“No!” Ryan and I both shout.
“Shut up!” Aaron shouts back, and in that second he doesn’t look anything like calm. He looks — I don’t know what to call it. Excited, terrified, nervous, happy, and a little sick, all combined into one huge scary overpowering emotional state that lies somewhere far, far away from the land of normal, sane, comprehensible human feelings. The knife makes a visible dent against Annie’s throat, and I can’t move for fear of him hurting her. And then he swallows and seems to regain control, and his face gets smooth and calm and regular-looking again.
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