by Alice Bell
The clock in the foyer said there was time to go past Henry’s classroom (again) before my next class.
I came down the empty hall, and saw a light slanting from the small rectangular window on his door. Blood rushed in my ears, like a warning.
Henry was here?
I hovered outside, for a moment, before standing on tiptoe to peep in. There was Henry, leaning on his desk, talking to his class. He turned, as if he sensed my presence. Our eyes locked.
I ducked down. My cheeks were on fire.
When I peeked again, he was still looking at the door with a puzzled expression. I waved and scuttled off but I heard him come out into the hall. His classroom door creaked on its hinges.
“Ruby?”
My stomach dropped. I went back, closing the gap between us.
“Hey,” he said. He wore a royal blue shirt, open at the collar, no tie. His eyes matched his shirt. His smile made me weak in the knees.
“Where were you this morning?” the words were out before I could stop them. They were wrong. I should have said I missed him. Georgie would have said the right thing.
“Car trouble,” he said. “I had to have the Jeep towed to the garage. I’m driving a loaner.”
Relief flooded over me. There was usually a reasonable explanation for things that seemed foreboding. Now, a giggle escaped my lips.
“What are you doing tonight?” he said.
“Tonight?”
His smile got wider. He closed the door until it clicked behind him. “Yeah, Ruby. Tonight.”
* * *
For the first time since Scarlet Rose had left my all girl writing workshop, I didn’t mourn her absence. At least not quite as much. The girls were working on short stories inspired by a scene in their diaries and their enthusiasm was infectious.
Through the windows, the sky was golden in the winter twilight.
A strange bubbliness had come over me. My mind roved over what I would wear on my date with Henry.
But I couldn’t forget Scarlet altogether. She was the first student I’d let down, as far as I knew. I felt a twinge of sadness, and wondered what she’d written in her diary that had made me so jealous.
Let it go.
The hour went by quickly. As the girls were leaving, I packed books and papers into my pink valise. I called to the twins, Chastity and Charity.
“Do you girls know what happened to Scarlet?” I said.
Charity answered. “Scarlet dropped out.” She had freckles and bigger eyes than her sister.
“Dropped out of school or just the workshop?” I said.
“School.”
“No she didn’t,” Chastity said. “She got her GED.”
“She did?” Charity and I spoke almost in unison.
“Yeah, and she’s going to art school. Or something like that.”
Well, good for her, I thought.
“Her mom’s a famous psychic,” Chastity added.
I frowned. I’d heard about Scarlet’s mother, somewhere. A memory flitted at the edges of my mind. It was shadowy and tall, like a man. My breath caught.
“Are you okay?” Charity said.
I gripped the edge of my desk. “I’m fine.”
After they’d gone, an eerie quiet descended.
8. Devon
I SAT on the edge of my bed. And waited.
It seemed like a long time before a man and a woman, both dressed in black, wearing combat boots and looking official, came in. The woman had long red hair tied in a ponytail. I immediately thought of Ruby.
“Mind putting your shoes on?” the woman said.
“What shoes?” Instinctively, I looked for the gun on her belt but she didn’t appear to be armed. Neither belts, nor pockets adorned her uniform. But she had an athletic shape and I could tell by the hard lines of her body that she was strong.
“Is English the main language here?” I said.
The woman glanced at her partner. “They told us it was your language. We’re being polite. Put on your shoes and come with us.”
Did the guy speak? He was big and brutish looking with a shaved head and thick brow.
I put my feet into the flimsy slippers and stood up, half expecting a pair of handcuffs to be clapped on my wrists. Though no handcuffs emerged, my companions flanked me in an officious manner. We went down a long metallic hall that reminded me of a spaceship. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see stars through a porthole.
They didn’t seem to care for questions but I asked anyway, “Are we still on Earth?”
“No, Toto, we’re not in Kansas, anymore.”
He speaks.
As we neared the end of the corridor, it widened. Light spilled from what I thought must be windows and my pulse quickened. I wanted to see what Not-Kansas looked like outside.
I shot a peek at the redhead, realizing I couldn’t hear her heartbeat. She glanced up and our eyes met. Hers were hazel with sparse lashes. She wasn’t beautiful but she was appealing, in some indefinable way.
“Settle down,” the guy said.
I turned to him. He was shorter than I was but twice as wide, all muscle. I got nothing from him, as far as any kind of psychic energy, and I figured my previous abilities were gone … poof. While I may not be able to read them, it was extremely likely they could read me.
Not in Kansas anymore was about right.
We entered the room and my whole body strained toward the light. But I was disappointed again. Any light seemed to be artificially generated. There were no windows, just more steel-girded walls.
The woman gestured to one of the chairs. The area was set up like a waiting room but I figured it could be some kind of holding cell. Anxiety pricked the back of my neck.
What had Sarah got me into?
“Alright, buddy. Have a seat,” the man clapped me on the back. “Don’t get any bright ideas … heh heh. We’ll be back …” and damned if he didn’t do a dead on Arnold Schwarzenegger impression. Which was disturbing.
What would he consider a bright idea?
I decided to do as I was told. For the time being.
They left. Time yawned. It was too quiet. Where was everyone?
I sat up straighter, resisting the urge to get up and pace, in case someone watched. I had come seeking my own kind but I had the feeling I wasn’t right here either.
I felt dizzy, with nothing to ground me. Unreal.
And yet, was it any worse than my last days on Earth?
My escorts returned. They had a girl with them. She appeared eighteen at most. Ruby had looked impossibly young too.
Somehow, I’d grown old. Not in body but in spirit. Maybe, if I was lucky, I could get at least one thing I’d come for—the answer to what happened to me, how my own death had gone so horribly wrong.
Deep down, I knew the only reason I’d come was to find Zadie. What would I do when I saw her again? Choke her?
Or pull her into my arms and never let go?
The girl had black dreadlocks tied in a ponytail. She was slight, almost frail. She wore the same outfit as I did but on her it looked ethereal. She cast a glance at me and her eyes were golden, like Zadie’s.
A strange buzz licked across my veins.
She dropped into a chair across the room. I waited until our friends left, then sidled another glance at her. She raised an eyebrow. I raised mine back at her. She got up to take the chair next to me.
“Think there’s anyone else coming today?” she said.
She had high cheek bones, lovely lips. The face of an angel.
I shook my head. “Hell if I know. I just got here.”
“Oooh, cranky,” she smiled, showing me her perfect white teeth.
“Do you know where we are?” I said.
“Sure, you’re in the realm, baby.”
Baby? Well, she was friendly. Or just a big flirt. “The demon realm?”
“You call it the realm, okay? No one says demon realm. Or angel realm. Like San Francisco is the city, right? People
don’t go around saying I’m going into San Francisco to see a show. You go into the city.”
“Ri-i-ight.” She was blowing my mind as much as anything else. My head might explode if she kept on talking like it was 1969 and we were in the Haight- Ashbury. In the city, for Christ sake. “So you’ve been here before?”
“Second time around.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means—” she licked her lips, then lowered her voice. “You can escape. Just don’t be like me … and get caught. Three strikes and you’re fucked.”
I digested her words.
“Fucked exactly how?” I whispered, though I couldn’t help wondering what good it did. Surely the powers that be heard and saw all.
“Look. They don’t like you anyway. You know that, right?”
“They?”
“Angels.”
My mind reeled. It figures. Sarah had sent me straight to hell. Bitch.
“What’s your name?” the girl said.
“Devon.”
“I’m Claudia.”
“Claudia?”
“Yeah.”
“It suits you.”
“You think?”
She surveyed the room with her golden eyes, then turned back to me. “Devon, listen. You need friends in here—”
She was interrupted by the sound of a bell announcing the arrival of a woman with frizzy gray hair carrying an old-fashioned clipboard. The woman was wearing real clothes, tailored—a black skirt, white shirt and black dress shoes. “Devon Slaughter?” she looked straight at me. She smiled. She had a kind face which I wasn’t expecting. “Come with me,” she said.
Claudia clutched my arm with her slender fingers. Her grip was iron. “Devon, let’s be friends …”
I stood up, feeling eyes on me. Not just the woman with the clipboard but eyes everywhere. I didn’t know if it was paranoia or a terrific hunch.
“I’ll come find you,” Claudia whispered. “Okay? When I get out of the dungeon.”
A chill came over me, despite the perfect temperature that made me almost forget I had a body.
“Sure,” I said.
“I mean it,” she said.
I cast a glance at her, over my shoulder. She was hunched in the metal chair. Her sexy hey-baby persona had evaporated, leaving behind a dejected looking shell of a girl.
It seemed I would always be reminded of Ruby, no matter where I went.
The woman led me out. “I’m Kaia,” she said. “Lovely to meet you.” She exuded sincerity. And motherly warmth. She had light blue eyes, like the Icarian Sea.
She took me down the sterile hall, in the opposite direction (I thought) of where I’d come from earlier. Kaia waved her hand over a fluorescent button on the wall. An elevator slid open. “We’re going up to the ninth floor,” she said, as if that meant anything to me.
“Great,” I said.
The car was softly lit. Kaia’s unruly gray curls shimmered. The walls were mirrored, like so many elevators I’d ridden in my life. But there was no feeling of upward motion. It was awkward, as if we were just standing there. Waiting for the rapture.
I detected a faint sound, not quite music … maybe (yes) humming.
What did it remind me of?
A million scattered stars.
“I’m so pleased to have been assigned your case, Devon. I think we will get along just fine.”
The doors opened then, and she ushered me out.
It was hard to believe we’d gone anywhere. We walked down another slate gray corridor. I noticed a few differences—artistic touches; a small fountain, a silver sculpture of an angel (the kind with wings), lush ferns outside a frosted glass door that Kaia opened. “This is me.”
It was a sparse office, containing a desk made of light-colored wood and two chairs, one on either side. She gestured for me to sit, before settling behind the desk. Her eyes skimmed down the page on her clipboard.
Behind her, on the gray wall, a giant oil painting depicted seven purple robed figures standing on a pavilion before a crowd of on-lookers. Kaia followed my gaze. “Those are the archangels,” she said. “Our elected leaders. We are currently in a campaign season.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Devon, I’m your assimilation sponsor. You have come here of your own free will which should afford you some privileges. A chance to be a productive member of our society.”
“Okay.”
She folded her hands over her clipboard, showing me I had her undivided attention. “Now, I’m sure you have many questions. Let’s start there.”
Good idea.
“Sure,” I said. “What am I?”
She blinked.
“I mean, what did I become?”
Her face had paled. “Why, you’re a demon.”
Had I really thought I could be anything else? “I just wanted be sure.”
She frowned. “This is highly irregular. Why don’t you … how could you not know?” she flipped through her pages.
I was annoyed by the purse of her lips. I had come seeking answers, and I was regretting my choice.
Kaia raised her pale eyes to mine. “Are you telling me … you didn’t know your sire?”
“Nope.”
She dropped her gaze to the clipboard, once again. I tried to read it upside down. The characters were foreign, a symbolic language I’d never seen before.
“I have only your stats, Devon,” she said. “The information we were able to scan on your arrival. We cannot track demons in the human world. There are too many. We have a serious demon problem … very serious.”
“You’re an angel?”
My question took her by surprise, offended her. Her mouth wrinkled again. “Of course.”
“Well, it’s hard to tell.”
She stiffened. “Excuse me? You and I are quite different species, I assure you.”
I looked her over pretty good. For the life of me I couldn’t detect any visible differences between us, aside from the usual things; color of hair, eyes, skin, age.
“You have much to learn, Devon,” she said. “We are very progressive on the ninth floor but there are still basic rules of conduct. Do not ever stare at angels. You must defer to their superiority. Or believe me, you will be sorry.”
“But … how can I defer to them if I can’t tell they’re angels?”
“Devon, look at what you are wearing.”
I didn’t have to look.
“Demons wear uniforms. You have your assimilation fatigues on. Whereas, angels wear clothes and adorn themselves as they see fit. The archangels wear purple robes among the public. You certainly will not mistake them for demons, will you?”
Certainly not.
“After you’ve assimilated, the fundamental differences between demons and angels will be quite apparent.”
I looked for the kindness I had detected in her earlier. Had I been mistaken?
“Angels live for a long time, Devon. Hundreds of human years. I am three hundred and fifty seven, which makes me middle-aged. And quite good at my job. I will work hard for you, and see that your youth and physical stamina are put to good use. It is important to be useful to others. This will provide you with a sense of meaning, and ensure a good retirement when you are no longer able to be of service.”
“No longer be of service?” My mind reeled.
She misunderstood the question. “Demons age quite rapidly, compared to angels. Due to their humanlike frailties. We certainly don’t expect you to labor in your elder years.”
“I’m not immortal?”
“My goodness, no. There is no such thing as immortality, Devon. Not here.”
“But—uh, what do you mean by service?”
“Demons are the oil that keep our society running. You should be proud of that, Devon. Don’t worry, I have confidence you will thrive here.” She studied her clipboard. “I see from your brain scan that you were educated, as a human. Combined with the fact that you came here of your own free wil
l, you should do well in assimilation, and place quite high. I don’t see any reason why you can’t marry and have a family.”
I gripped the arms of my chair.
She glanced at my white knuckles. “Question?”
I forced my mind to form words. “I’m not sure I understand.”
“What don’t you understand?”
“I had special powers on earth.”
“The human world,” she corrected, gently. She even smiled at me in an encouraging way, and I saw her kindness for what it was—pity for those less fortunate. She was a do-gooder.
“Do I still have powers?”
“Oh dear, I see. Your powers only work in the human world, Devon. Let me explain why. Angels are born to help humans. Our power is inherent. Whereas, demons were only given supernatural powers, by angels, to assist them on their missions. But once demons enjoyed a taste of such powers, they were corrupted. Therefore, demons are no longer sent to the human world on missions. They cannot be trusted.” She paused and held my gaze.
I swallowed.
She gave a little nod. “You are beginning to understand, aren’t you? Demons lusted for the powers they’d abused and thus, been denied. They found escape portals. In the human world they began proliferating. Among other—” she shuddered—“things. You are not meant to have this kind of power, Devon.”
My hands curled into fists. “I was supposed to die,” I said. “I didn’t ask to be a demon.”
Something flickered in Kaia’s eyes, something I wished I could decipher. “You did die,” she said.
Anger pounded in my veins. “Right,” my tone was clipped.
“Devon, I hope you will believe me when I say I’m very sorry for what happened to you.”
I didn’t believe her.
“At the same time,” she went on. “If you were not engaged in risky behavior, as a human, you wouldn’t have been susceptible to—”
“What?” I stared at her (exactly as she’d forbidden me to do). “Are you for real?”
There was a terrible silence. Two bright spots of color appeared on her cheeks.
I knew I should backtrack. Grovel. But I couldn’t.
Her hand went under the desk. I realized she was about to press an alarm, or worse. I thought of Claudia’s fingers digging into my arm, her belief that she was headed for ‘the dungeon.’