Acca

by Christina Bauer

  “I suppose that makes sense.” Mrs. Pomplemousse gestures to the book in Lincoln’s hands. “In that case, how do we proceed?”

  “This device will magically record your words,” says Lincoln. “It’s the only evidence that’s admissible in thrax court. Once I officially start the interview, you’ll answer the questions, and everything that we say and do will be captured in the codex. The Arbiter in Antrum will review all the evidence and decide the case. Does that make sense?”

  “Yes, young man. I’m ready. Begin your questions.”

  “Thank you.” My guy looks regal and smooth a lot of the time, but never more when he’s sitting in some random grandma’s living room and conducting magical interviews. He makes the place seem as important as a palace.

  Did I mention that he’s also a good kisser? That, too. Although, Hell knows when I’ll get to enjoy that again.

  Stupid bets. Stupid demons.

  Lincoln grips the codex in his palms. “I, Lincoln Vidar Osric Aquilus from the House of Rixa, High Prince of the Thrax and consort to the Great Scala Myla Lewis, do hereby begin this interview of evidence.”

  The codex rises from Lincoln’s hands and then hovers in the center of the room. A flare of white light pulses across its cover.

  Mrs. Pomplemousse eyes the book warily. “So it will just hover up there?”

  “Yeah, that’s pretty much it,” I say.

  “No more surprises,” adds Lincoln.

  I lean forward and rest my elbows on my knees. “Let’s begin with the easy stuff. Please tell us your name and where you used to work.”

  “I’m Dolly Pomplemousse. I used to work at Ghost Tower Six.”

  Here’s why that’s an important job. Souls come to Purgatory to get judged for either Heaven or Hell. As the great scala, I’m the only one that can send them to their final destination. While the spirits are awaiting trial, they are housed in Purgatory, using what we call Ghost Towers.

  “And what were your duties there?” asks Lincoln.

  “At the end of every day, I would fill out form 793-BDG for our ghoul overlords.” She lowers her voice. “It was a very long form that recorded all the day’s activities.”

  I let out a low whistle. “I’m sure it was.” Ghouls adore paperwork. “And did anyone interesting ever visit your tower?”

  “Yes. One day, a thrax named Lady Adair came by for an inspection. She said she was a diplomat.” Mrs. Pomplemousse folds her arms over her plump chest. She totally suspects that Lady Adair was lying. But the truth is, Lady Adair did get a job as a diplomatic envoy to Purgatory. Not that she did any actual work. Mostly, Adair used the role to try and cause trouble.

  “And what happened on that inspection?” asks Lincoln.

  “She came into the tower with her father, the Earl of Acca. All of us workers were supposed to act like nothing was happening. You know, so it would seem like a real inspection of how the tower worked. I was in my office and needed a pen, so I went into supply closet 37-X to get one.”

  I lean forward because now we’re getting to the good stuff. I can feel it. “What happened next?”

  “The Earl and Lady Adair came into my office and closed the door. After that, they pulled down the blinds as well. I was hidden inside the closet and something told me, “Dolly, you should stay put.” So I did. Although…” She fidgets with her pillbox hat and veil.

  I roll my hand, encouraging her to continue. “You can tell us anything. No one’s going to judge you.” The Earl, on the other hand, is another story.

  My words seem to help. Mrs. Pomplemousse clears her throat and continues. “My closet was open a crack, so I snooped. Those two seemed mighty suspicious to me.”

  Good instincts there, lady. “What did they look like?”

  “The Earl was a portly fellow who dressed like an actor from a Shakespeare play. His daughter was wearing a long gown. What a pretty little thing she was.”

  “Did they talk to each other?” asks Lincoln.

  “Oh, no.”

  Lincoln frowns. “The Earl and his daughter didn’t speak?”

  “Not that I heard.”

  My shoulders slump. Did we come all this way for nothing? “I thought you said you’d overheard the Earl say something incriminating to his daughter?”

  “I’m sorry to disappoint, but that wasn’t the case.”

  Lincoln and I share a long look. Busted. Sure, we’ve gathered some good evidence so far. However, none of it directly links the Earl and Armageddon. Obviously, when Lady Adair’s body transformed into the King of Hell, it was clear that both of them were in cahoots. And hells bells, I know that Aldred orchestrated that whole thing—Adair certainly wasn’t the type to set up a master plan with the King of Hell on her own. That said, no one would go on record saying they knew Aldred was in league with Armageddon. Insert comment here about Aldred and his blackmailing skills. Long story short, we’d had high hopes for Mrs. Pomplemousse.

  I reset my empty cookie plate onto the table. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Pomplemousse. I’m afraid we wasted your time.”

  “Now, now. I said I didn’t see him speaking with his daughter, that’s all.”

  Great. Whatever. I half rise from my seat. “Got it.”

  Lincoln sets his hand on my wrist, stopping me. “Then who did the Earl converse with?”

  “Why Armageddon, of course.”

  The breath leaves my body. Yes! I sit right back down. “How did that happen?”

  “The girl transformed into the King of Hell, right before my eyes.” Mrs. Pomplemousse sets her hand over her heart. “I swear on my life, that’s the truth.”

  “We believe you,” says Lincoln. Both he and I saw the same show back in Antrum, when Armageddon tried to use Adair’s body to break back into our world. He didn’t make it out of Hell, though. Adair paid the price. “What did they talk about?”

  “The Earl asked Armageddon about their plans to steal the throne from the House of Rixa.”

  I could almost dance for joy. This is the best testimony we’ve gotten so far. It directly implicates that the Earl of Acca was plotting with the King of Hell to overthrow Lincoln’s family. Color me pumped.

  Lincoln leans back in his chair. “Let’s go through what happened, step by step.”

  It takes about an hour. Still, we get everything we can think of from Mrs. Pomplemousse, from the color of Lady Adair’s dress to the exact words from Aldred’s mouth. In the end, Mrs. Pomplemousse looks pretty tuckered out. Lincoln and I aren’t exactly feeling fresh, either, but the evidence is airtight.

  I lean back on the poufy couch and turn to Lincoln. “What do you say? Are we all set here?”

  “I think so.” Lincoln stands up and cracks his neck from side to side. “I’ll just finish the recording, and we’ll be through. Thank you so much for your time, Mrs. Pomplemousse.”

  The elderly woman sets her teacup down with a clink. A crafty look appears in her eyes. “Now, now. Don’t you want to know the rest?”

  My brows lift. “What else is there?”

  “The Earl and Armageddon talked about another plan.” She snaps her fingers, trying to remember. “It was an academy of some kind.”

  My heart pounds at double speed. “What kind of academy? Do you remember the name?”

  Mrs. Pomplemousse taps her chin, her forehead creased with thought. “Ah, I have it. The Wheeler Institute. If things didn’t work out with Adair being possessed, then they always had that.”

  All the oxygen seems to get sucked out of the room. The Wheeler Institute. That’s the same place Desmond had talked about. It’s where he was supposed to take the codex.

  I focus every ounce of my attention on Mrs. Pomplemousse. “What do you know about the school?”

  “Nothing beyond the name. I’m sorry.” She sips her tea. “However, I’m guessing this Earl of Acca fellow wishes you harm. If so, then I should think the last place you should go is the Wheeler Institute.”

  Says her. “Did Aldred and Armageddon sa
y anything else?”

  “Not a word. That Armageddon fellow laughed himself silly and then left Adair’s body.”

  I fold my arms over my chest. “And what did Adair have to say about what happened?”

  Mrs. Pomplemousse’s gaze flickers to Lincoln. A blush crawls up her cheeks. “Well, it’s not easy to explain.”

  Now, I have a pretty good idea why Mrs. Pomplemousse is feeling awkward right now. Adair had some wackadoo concepts about Lincoln. Calling her crazy-ass possessive of him is an understatement. I wave my hand dismissively. “Trust me, Mrs. P. Whatever Adair said, you can bet that Lincoln and I have heard it already.”

  “All right, if you insist. Lady Adair wanted to know if Armageddon had appeared. Her father confirmed the demon’s recent visit. After that, Adair asked if Armageddon had promised to help secure her birthright.” Mrs. Pomplemousse looks away. “She seemed to think that birthright was primarily Prince Lincoln.”

  Mrs. Pomplemousse looks so jittery, I feel like I have to say something. “This is not a shocker, believe us. What happened next?”

  “The Earl dragged Lady Adair out of my office. That was all I ever saw of them.”

  “You said you filed daily reports,” says Lincoln.

  “That’s right.”

  “Did you file one about that incident?” I ask.

  “Of course. My report covered the Earl, Adair, and Armageddon. I even mentioned the Wheeler Institute. No one ever followed up. Later, I tried to find the document. Unfortunately, it had disappeared.”

  The wheels of my mind spin super-fast. The ghouls ran Purgatory until Armageddon invaded. I kicked both of them out of this realm. When Mrs. Pomplemousse started her job, the ghouls were running things, sure. But by the time Adair was a diplomat, Armageddon and the ghouls were long gone. In fact, that’s why Armageddon’s been itching to find a way out of Hell. It was my igni that put him there.

  “Let me get this straight,” I say. “When this all went down, my mother was Purgatory’s President.”

  Mrs. Pomplemousse sucks in a shaky breath. “I meant no disrespect.”

  “No, it’s fine. For a while, Mom kept up a lot of the ghoul’s old practices, even the silly reports that no one ever read.”

  “Exactly. That’s what would have happened at the Ghost Towers.”

  I frown. “Not likely. The Ghost Towers were run by Walker.”

  Now, Walker’s a ghoul and my honorary older sibling. He’s also a genius at operations, architecture, and all sorts of random stuff. I can’t imagine him missing something like a report saying that Armageddon appeared in our Ghost Towers.

  “I don’t know about that. There was a lot of worry in those towers when Armageddon attacked. We kept thinking the walls would burst and release angry spirits everywhere. It was just a form. With so much hullaballoo going on, it could easily have been misplaced.”

  “I suppose so.” I open my mouth, ready to push further, but Mrs. Pomplemousse rises first.

  “If you don’t mind, I do think it’s time to call our discussion to a close. It’s been a rather busy day for me.”

  “Of course,” says Lincoln. “Thank you again, Mrs. Pomplemousse.”

  “My pleasure. It’s nice to speak with two sweet young people like yourselves.” She gestures to my tail. “May I?”

  I shrug. “Sure.” Mrs. Pomplemousse is ex-Arena. If she wants to pet my tail, I’m cool with that.

  My tail slips out from behind me. The arrowhead end points toward Mrs. Pomplemousse at an angle, like offering a hand. Mrs. Pomplemousse smiles and shakes my tail. “I followed your career in the Arena, you know. Myla Lewis. You were the best.”

  “Thank you.” Sadness creeps into my bones, weighing me down. I really miss being able to hunt demons whenever I want to. I clear my throat. No point worrying about the past. My Arena fighting days are over. “We’ll leave you to your evening.”

  “Much appreciated.”

  Lincoln snaps his fingers at the hovering codex. “I hereby close out this recording of evidence.” The book flares with white flame once more. After that, it returns to its regular white color and lowers onto Lincoln’s palms.

  The interview is over. That said, our fight with Acca now has a real start.

  As we walk out of Mrs. Pomplemousse’s house, I want to feel the excitement of our interview victory. After all, this is our best piece of evidence yet. Still, the words about Armageddon’s backup plan set me on edge.

  The more I think about it, the more I don’t like the sound of the Wheeler Institute. Not one bit.

  5

  I’m the great scala, the future queen of the thrax, and a badass quasi-demon warrior. With merely a thought, I can send a soul to Heaven or Hell. My people call me a goddess.

  But, yes, I still live with my parents.

  Don’t get me wrong. It’s on my list to find a cooler HQ while I’m in Purgatory. And I’ll get around to it one of these days. Pinky promise. However, at this point? My limo is dropping Lincoln and me off at the front door of my parents’ mansion. True, we should rush off to Antrum and get the codex back in the court’s official vault, but I’m hungry, and I smell like dead demon and old lady.

  I need to take a break. And since my dad is nothing less than the General of the archangels, there aren’t many places in the after-realms that are safer than Mom and Dad’s house.

  Let the snacking commence.

  I step out of the limo and pause. My parents’ house never fails to stun me. The place is a leftover from when the ghouls ruled Purgatory, so it’s a cross between a Gothic nightmare and high-tech superstore. Did I mention that ghouls love gadgets? They do.

  Getting into the house is quite the process. We’re forced to enter in about a million codes and undergo a few magical scans. At last, Lincoln and I walk through the front door. “Mom? Dad?”

  No response.

  That’s not a big surprise. My parents are busy running Purgatory most of the time. Mom is the visionary, trying to create new programs. Dad is a genius at organizing troops to do, well, anything. Lately, Dad’s been all about cleaning up straggler demons and removing rubble that’s leftover from Armageddon’s invasion. He’ll be thrilled when I tell him we found and killed a pair of dyads. I’ll leave out the part about Aldred and Armageddon being in league with each other. That’s nothing new to my parents in general, and my father in particular. Plus, any news about the King of Hell upsets Dad. He was imprisoned there for twenty years. That’s not something any of us like to chat about.

  I make a beeline for the kitchen. It’s a modern space with lots of gizmos and stainless steel. I scan the counters. Nothing yummy there.

  Time to start rummaging through everything.

  I tear through every drawer and cabinet I can find. All of them are empty of anything delicious. Bummer. My favorite snack is demon bars. They’re basically chocolate-caramel goodness with a little granola thrown in. That way, it seems like health food. I live on these things, and since I’m part demon, my so-called bad eating habits don’t affect my figure. Go me.

  I search through a few more cabinets, finding nothing but real granola, which is a total waste of my time. I check the back corner of some of the larger drawers, which are my favorite hiding places for extra bars. Still nothing.

  Lincoln stands in the doorway. “I thought your mother threw out all your demon bars.” Mom’s on a kick to try to make me eat healthier.

  I crouch down and look under the sink. “She thinks she did.” My fingers brush across the familiar smooth wrapper. “Bingo.” I pull out a mashed-up demon bar. The wrapper isn’t too torn up.

  I deem thee totally edible.

  A smile quirks the corner of Lincoln’s mouth. “You’re actually going to eat that?”

  “Sure.” I pull off the wrapper. “Watch me. Yum, yum.”

  Lincoln shakes his head slightly. “You’d have more energy if you ate actual food, you know.”

  And with that comment, it’s official. Lincoln’s judginess
is ruining my snack break. I glare at him. “Why don’t you go find a carrot, babe?” I stuff another bite of bar in my mouth. “I’m busy.”

  “Not hungry. I ate a healthy and balanced breakfast.”

  I’d stick out my tongue, but it’s covered in food right now. Even I have standards. Instead, I wave my hand over the general vicinity of my mouth. “Still eating here.”

  Lincoln leans against the doorjamb and hitches his right foot over his left. “Once you’re done with your gourmet dining experience, we need to get ready for Antrum.” He raises the Rixa Codex in his hands. “This thing must into the vault.” That codex is filled with hundreds of hours of interviews, including our Mrs. Pomplemousse coup.

  Those bastards at Acca are so going down.

  “Sure thing.” To travel to Lincoln’s land, we have to use an enchanted platform called a Pulpitum. For the record, traveling this way is super fun. Seeing Lincoln’s people? Not so much. They’re totally twitchy around me.

  To be fair, Lincoln’s people have reason to fear me. Lady Adair had a goodly amount of the thrax nobility following her, and she hated my fucking guts. Later on, when she turned into Armageddon, I summoned my igni in front of all the thrax nobility…Aaaaaaaand I might have gone a little overboard. And when I say “gone a little overboard,” I mean that I separated the souls of all the thrax nobles from their respective bodies. It only lasted for a short while, and it made sense at the time, I swear. But after that, they’re terrified of me. Oops.

  Still, I did the right thing. Me and my igni posse got rid of Armageddon in the long run. That said, it doesn’t change my favorability ratings with the thrax. Considering the fact that I’ll rule these folks for the rest of my unnaturally long life?