by Gwenda Bond
“I asked you a question,” I say. “What do you mean? We’re not guardians.”
The smirk transforms into a smile. I pretend not to notice that it is blindingly hot. He probably can’t help his effect on people—a side effect of being from Hell or something. He’s a living bad idea, a smoldering honey trap.
He leans forward. Into my space. I have the ridiculous urge to move closer. Instead I step back.
“It’s true that both of you aren’t. But you are.” He frowns, and the tiniest line appears between his perfect eyebrows. “Although it is mysterious how you could have gotten this far without knowing.”
At my side, Mag coughs. I’m relieved they haven’t lost the power of speech as I have. “What even are guardians?” they ask.
“From your perspective, they’re the good guys,” he says.
“And from yours?” I volley back.
“Inconvenient, but sometimes interesting.” He winks at me.
Every hormone in my body responds with a command to fall to his gorgeous feet already. Why fight it?
I throw my head back, stifling a scream of frustration. Down, body. Let brain do its thing.
The moon above us is bright and fat, nearly full. Scientific name, waxing gibbous. I scan and confirm the woods that surround us are horror movie central casting woods, sans scientific name. They remind me of half the sinister woodcuts in the books I presumed were faux occult texts before tonight. I expect two girls to come racing out of them in white sheet togas with a chainsaw-toting masked madman behind them at any second. Or a coven. Or a devil.
I do not like these thoughts any more than my reaction to that wink.
I do not like any part of this situation. I want to be safe at the office back behind the monitors. Or at home watching the kind of movie with cults or black rites that—and this is key—stay on-screen.
But if I were in either one of those places, someone else would be there too, I realize. Someone else who must be freaking out.
Bosch. Bosch the very goofy, very neurotic rescue dog. Who we left alone at the Great Escape. Oh no. What if Jared showed up already and called Mom because we didn’t get home yet? But I can’t even worry about that because …
Because poor Bosch.
“The guardian stuff can wait,” I say to Mag. “Dog.”
“Oh no.” They search the horizon as if a car will magically appear.
“You need a favor?” the handsome demon asks, and gives me a smile obviously meant to be charming. I feel as if I’m about to be swallowed whole by a snake. And enjoy it.
“You can’t read minds, can you?” I ask, suspicious.
He huffs a sigh. “Not really. Which is good, because I bet that would get awfully dull.”
I seethe, about to protest that while I may seem outwardly boring my thoughts definitely aren’t.
“But, no, I’m not reading yours right now, if that’s what you’re asking,” he says. “I do feel like you need something, though. From me.”
What is happening? Wild night, kidnapped by a cult, Bosch and mom’s business abandoned on my watch and now a hotter-than-Hell demon insists I’m a guardian, that’s what. I hate asking, but what choice do I have? He’s right. I do need something. “Can you help us get back to town? I mean, before you leave.”
“Before I go back to Hell?” He’s outright grinning now. He looks at Mag. “She is asking me for a favor, isn’t she?” Now he looks back at me. “I’m growing on you.”
I cross my arms. He appeared out of nowhere, so I’m assuming he can do it again. “Do you have magical zappity travel powers that can get us where we need to be or not?”
Mag casts a worried glance back at the big, dark, creepy house where I had the misfortune to find and purchase the grimoire I now blame for this mess. “What she means is, can you please get us out of here? We would like that,” Mag says. “Stat.”
“Don’t worry about the cult,” he says. “They’re busy for now.”
But I can see that Mag is worried. That’s enough for me to fully cave.
“Okay, yes, I need a favor, Lucifuge Rofocale. Can you take us to my family’s business or not?”
Be nicer to the minister of Hell, Callie. I’m afraid to. I want to be home. I want Mag not to be scared and worried anymore. I want to not deal with the guardian questions, and what they might mean for me. I want to pretend he’s a boring, hideous troll. I want to go back to being in the control room, safe.
“It’s just Luke,” he says.
“Luke.” I pause. “Why are you so sure they won’t come after us?”
“Because they’re busy using more of their liberated magical items to prepare for their journey to Portugal tonight. Obviously.”
“Oh. That doesn’t sound good.” But it’s none of my business.
“I can get you to where you want to go,” he says, “in one piece even.” He leans in toward us and this time I don’t step back. “Well, two. I’m assuming you prefer to remain distinct entities.”
“Uh, you assume correctly,” Mag says.
“Distinct entities,” I mutter. Who talks like that? “We’re going to the Great Escape,” and I rattle off the address just in case.
“Got it,” he says, before extending his hand to me. “You have to hold my hand.”
Why was I bothering to worry about ax murderers? The man in front of me seems infinitely more dangerous, the most dangerous thing I’ve ever seen. The moonlight makes his face a shadow and his hair the pale gold of a halo.
Despite every ounce of good judgment I possess, I take his hand. He folds his fingers around mine, and I’m securely in his grasp. It’s like having the nerves of my entire body in my palm. He could talk me into anything right now. My skin sings for more of his touch. I’ve never experienced anything like this.
No way am I letting him know any of that.
“You can hold onto my jacket,” he says to Mag. His face is angled in their direction, but I can feel the heat of his gaze on me.
“I think someone likes you,” Mag says to me. They take a light hold of Luke’s jacket sleeve with a glance to Luke’s and my linked hands.
I can feel my ears turning red, something that always happens when I’m upset or embarrassed. “Great,” I say, playing it off and ignoring the throbbing heat in my palm … and elsewhere. “‘Dear Prudence, I need some advice—what do you do when you find out the minister of Hell is into you and you were hoping to do something with your life that doesn’t involve Satan’s best pals? P.S. What should I do with my life? Because I have no idea…’”
Something zaps me with the force of a lightning strike.
Sure, this is how I die, being a pretend-brave smart-ass to one of the devil’s minions. Sorry, Mag.
I should’ve winked back is to be my dying thought.
* * *
Or so I’m convinced for a long moment. There is a rumble and rattle like we’re too close to train tracks and black shadows swoop around us and my ears detect what my gut says are screams but my brain doesn’t want to work too hard to identify.
Then, those things stop. All of them. At once.
My feet are on solid ground. My eyes open to the familiar, comforting sight of the lobby of the Great Escape. My hand is still in Luke’s.
“You okay?” he asks, tightening his grip a fraction.
“Better now,” I say, steadied. I force myself not to cling, and take my hand back.
Mag’s and my phones are still on the counter. I pick mine up and see—with crushing relief—no missed calls or texts from Mom. That settled, I shout: “Bosch!”
I take off when I remember Bosch is likely closed in the office upstairs. Mag and Luke follow.
“Bosch?” Luke asks, behind me.
I ignore him. I take the steps two at a time and fling the door open. Bosch comes barreling at me with a skidding of paws on hardwood floor and frantic yelps. I bend to catch her and ease her back into the control room.
“It’s okay. Good girl, good girl.
”
“She named her dog Bosch?” Luke asks.
Mag shrugs. “After some scary art.”
“Hieronymus Bosch’s art isn’t scary, it was visionary,” I say, not for the first time. Though I know it’s a ridiculous thing to be saying at this exact moment and it’s also not easy getting the words out around Bosch’s full tackle-and-lick mode.
“I agree,” Luke says. “One of my favorite painters.”
“Callie and you agree on something. How about that?” Mag says.
I stare down into Bosch’s calming brown eyes. Isn’t it time for Luke to get going?
“Don’t you have a crossroads to be at?” I ask, invoking one of the most well-known myths about the devil—what I assumed were myths before tonight anyway. I instantly worry about being so in-his-face. What if he tries to possess my soul? Why do I keep challenging him? It’s not like me. Usually I save my color commentary for rooms where the people it’s directed at are not. It’s reserved for conversations between me and Mag, sometimes Jared or Mom.
“You keep trying to get rid of me, it might work,” Luke says.
His bottom lip juts out a little.
He’s pouting.
In a ranking of cutest, most devastating expressions, his would be up there. I don’t want to get rid of him at all.
This night keeps getting stranger. But that ends now.
I turn my head to Mag. “I guess this is all over, then. I still can’t believe we had cheating cultists here.”
“Cheating cultists who kidnapped us,” Mag says.
“Who were into Latin and brought a dead murderer’s hand with them, all of which is on video.” I gesture to the monitors around us.
“Who put us near a pentagram,” Mag says.
We’re both getting into this now. “And summoned the minister of Hell,” I say. “The minister with the best cheekbones in Hell.”
Luke sniffs, but the pout disappears.
“Who were willing to trade us to him,” Mag says, and whatever fun we were having dies with the words. That was a close call. Far too close for any sort of comfort.
“In a bargain for the Spear of Longinus.” The words are heavy as lead in my mouth.
I stand and point an accusatory finger at Luke. “You told them where it is. You’re going to let them have it.”
Luke frowns, his blond eyebrows drawing together. “Kind of my job. They summoned me.”
Bosch is checking Luke out, sniffing his boots. I wonder if they smell of sulfur. Not that I detected anything when I was holding his hand, except the burning desire to climb him. Maybe I’m wrong, but I have a terrible feeling that even though we’re free this is all extremely bad. Everything that’s gone down tonight.
“Luke?” I say.
“Yes.” His brow unfurrows. He’s immediately at attention. It makes me incredibly self-conscious.
“Please tell me that the spear is a myth, that it’s got no power. That whatever those guys think they’re up to, it’s all just a big dud.”
Luke studies our surroundings. He’s taking in the monitors, our chairs, the clue cabinet that is actually a retired library card catalogue, Bosch’s dog bed. I may not be that much of a student of human nature outside our escape rooms, but I am fairly certain he’s stalling.
“Right?” I ask. “It’s all imaginary?”
Luke pivots and fixes me with a stare. I focus on his forehead so I won’t notice what color his eyes are.
Too late. An almost clear blue.
“Not exactly,” he says.
“Does your asking this have anything to do with the guardian business?” Mag says to me. “You’re going to figure things out, Callie.”
“It doesn’t,” I say, quickly. For whatever reason, I’d rather Luke not hear about my personal flailing. “I’m just curious. How ‘not exactly’?”
Bosch collapses onto her belly with a sigh. A tense silence ensues.
“Not at all exactly,” Luke says finally. “The Holy Lance has long been hidden for a reason. Many have tried to find it, but none have gotten so close in”—he pauses, and it’s like he’s accessing the cloud or something—“at least a century.”
“What is this thing they want anyway?” Mag asks.
“It’s a spear used by a Roman soldier when Jesus was hanging on the cross. One that came into contact with his blood when it was used to stab him,” I say.
Mag and I both grew up going to church more or less every Sunday. Our recreational reading may not be the same, so Mag may not know about these kinds of mystical legends, but they know enough to blink with an understanding of how sacred such an object would be.
“It is a weapon that can be used for many things,” Luke says.
I have a sneaking suspicion he’s trying to downplay this. Why? Because he wants them to succeed?
“And those assmasks are going to get it and bring about Hell on Earth?” I ask. “And you’re not going to do anything about it?”
He scrubs a hand over the back of his neck and studies the ceiling—I have the weirdest thought that he looks like he’s saying a silent prayer. Yeah, right. Then he shrugs a shoulder languorously. It’s not an adjective I use often, but it fits. A state of pleasant inertia. I can guess at the answer before he speaks.
“I can’t, really,” he says. “Even if I wanted to. It’s the sort of thing Fa—the boss likes. But it’s not going to be a good thing. For anyone.”
I stand my ground, which is an unfamiliar sensation. “Why can’t you?”
“I’d have to have someone else who could interfere directly with their task. I made a deal with them.” He starts for the door. “I suppose I should get going. It was truly lovely to make your acquaintances.” He gives me a look, then Mag, then Bosch. Then me again.
My mind works the situation like a puzzle. He’s going to leave. Of course he is. He’ll probably go back wherever he came from. Hell. Like I told him to. The devil’s left-hand man isn’t going to stop what those guys are doing. They’re going to Portugal next to get the Lance of Longinus. The Spear of Destiny. The Holy Lance.
The smart thing would be to wave good-bye to this blond angel-faced demon lord and act like none of this ever happened. Within a week it’ll feel like some distant memory, a movie I watched. It’s too weird to have happened to me. I read books. I have a useless degree and a brain stuffed with facts. I help my mom out. I hang out with my best friend when they have time. I dream of libraries with impossibly tall ceilings.
That’s pretty much it.
Or it has been until now.
See, I’ve read plenty about this particular relic. Hitler wanted to get his hands on it, which says it all. I thought it was in a private collection on display in Vienna … and that its powers were probably fictional. But …
If Hands of Glory and the other things we’ve seen tonight are real, if the Grand Grimoire summoned Lucifuge Rofocale here, and he says this is real too, I have no evidence to suggest it isn’t. We’re the only people who know this is happening. That leaves one solution to this puzzle, and only one. A spike of fear shoots through me, even as I feel the grim satisfaction of knowing I’m correct.
“Wait.” I step forward and grab Luke’s shoulder before he’s quite out the door. “Were you serious before? About me being some kind of guardian?”
He doesn’t turn around. I drop my hand.
“Yes,” he says. “A guardian who, apparently, somehow managed not to get instructed in the art of your sacred duty to fight evil.”
That’s what I’m afraid of. But it makes sense of everything that’s gone down tonight. I can’t ignore things that make sense. Something drew me to that book.
And, if I’m being honest, I want a purpose. A calling. This may be way over my pay grade (which is slightly above minimum wage), but it’s also looking a lot like the answer to my major life problems. This matters.
“We have to stop them from getting it,” I say.
“What?” Mag asks with a double take.
> “We can’t let them get the spear,” I say.
Luke is silent and still and I hold my breath. He’s not going to help us. His job is letting the bad guys win. He said so. He’s a demon.
Maybe his leaving is for the best anyway. I don’t trust myself around him.
But he turns to face me.
“I knew the minute I saw you,” he says, “that you wouldn’t be boring.”
He grins his ridiculously hot grin. What in the world have I gotten myself into?
CHAPTER SIX
LUKE
That was close. I’d almost been forced to come to terms with the fact Callie might not take the bait.
Oh me of little faith.
This is how I wanted the evening to go, more or less—considering my royal screw-up and my impending deadline. I even get to be someone else for a change. Rofocale doesn’t know how good he has it. He could be having unexpected adventures with fascinating people all the time, constrained only by his less personal fear of my father, and instead busies himself keeping his ledger up to date behind that behemoth he calls a desk and hanging out with the most torturous and tortured people the infernal kingdom has to offer.
“I regret this already,” Callie says, and I can tell she means it. I can also tell she responds to my attention and touch—the slight change in her breathing, her eyes lingering on my face and form—even though she won’t admit it. Yet.
Though, for the record, I can’t read minds. Father sometimes seems to be able to, but true omniscience is for the shiny heavenly type of ruler, not the fallen likes of us. I meant what I said before though: Can you imagine how dull it would be the majority of the time? Feed the dog, pet the cat, I’m sleepy, I’m hungry. I’m so bored just thinking about human thoughts I can hardly stand it.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so boring right this second, however, as I watch Callie close her eyes and presumably come to terms with the choice she’s made. Right now I’d give up 10 percent of my good looks for a peek in that brain.