by Karen L Mead
Maybe it will be normal. Maybe the Watchers will decide they like Tartarus, even though it smells and they’re going stir-crazy, and everything will be fine.
She smirked at the insane optimism of the thought as Dmitri drove her to Silver Crown Academy. Miri had been registered to take the test too, but Sam had decided (over Eugene’s protests) that the Buckleys couldn’t do much to fight off an angel invasion, so they were better off staying back. They were all hanging out at The Daily Grind, distracting a frightened Ethan by playing Sorcery with him and eating lots of cake.
Helena, formerly of the Liddells, was also with the Buckleys, as well as David Fishman. Even if he’d wanted to take the SATs, he’d come far too late to sign up for the test. Cassie was somewhat intrigued by him, but in the chaos, she doubted she’d get much of a chance to indulge her curiosity.
At the school, Cassie, Jay, and Mike hugged outside. As Cassie hugged Jay, she looked up at the sky: cloudy, but no rain yet.
“If it gets bad, I’ll make you remember stuff. Like I did the other time, I promise,” Jay said quietly.
Funny, she hadn’t felt like crying at all, but hearing Jay’s confident reassurance made her want to burst into tears.
“I don’t think that’s going to work this time.”
Jay narrowed his eyes behind his thick glasses.
“I’ll make it work. You’ll see.”
He picked a shiny card out of his breast pocket and held it up with two fingers.
“These days, I keep my promises.”
Cassie looked at him warily, so perplexed by Jay’s sudden evolution in attitude that she almost forgot about the apocalypse for a second. He was changing, becoming a man right before her eyes, but it was likely to be too late.
Mike looked at Jay with slightly widened eyes, then shook his head.
“Damn, Jay’s being cool. World’s gotta be ending, we are so fucked.”
“Hasn’t anyone ever told you that cursing can attract demons?”
Cassie jumped at Azrael’s voice behind her. Jay was quick to put himself between Cassie and the demon lord, gritting his teeth.
Okay, Jay is taking this “protective alpha male thing,” a bit far. But seriously, a demon lord, here?
“How are you here?” Mike sputtered. “It’s broad daylight!”
“Is it? I hadn’t noticed,” said the Demon Lord dryly. “I took one of my familiars and drained them to death in order to get enough energy so I could do this, yet somehow failed to notice that it was daylight. How careless.”
Cassie immediately felt sick.
Is that what Sammael does, every time he travels to the human world without being summoned? I’m going to hurt him, if he ever stops being a rock.
“Cassandra. Do everything you can to stop them. But if you can’t, I will be nearby.”
Cassie was confused for a moment, then grasped his meaning. Unfortunately, so did Jay. He got up in the demon lord’s face.
“You are not going to touch her—”
Cassie pulled him back, annoyed.
Okay, now someone’s getting drunk on the macho man thing, and it’s just getting stupid.
“We have to go,” she said. “The test is starting.”
Other students were walking into the building, perplexed, wondering why a group of Silver Crown students were standing on the lawn, arguing with a man in an expensive suit. Most of the students heading inside were wearing the silver vests that comprised the school uniform, but others were wearing street clothes; not all the students using SCA as a testing center attended the school.
Azrael gave Cassie a withering look.
“If you honestly think your place in the future halls of academia is important right now, the corporate testing industry has you brainwashed into a thrall.”
Cassie had to snicker at that.
“You know what? Sammael said almost the same thing. You pretend you hate him, but you two are exactly alike,” she practically spat.
She turned on her heel and walked into the school, with Jay and Mike close behind.
Well, at least if the world ends, I just gave that guy an amazing kick in the nuts first.
“Did you see his face?” she heard Jay wheeze behind her.
“Don’t care,” she said, lying, a smile teasing the corner of her mouth.
The school had a weird atmosphere. There were plenty of people here, but instead of the normal commotion, everyone was talking in hushed tones. It was almost like the school was the site of a funeral instead of a test. Cassie saw Madison Clarke and her friends standing in a corner, hugging, and wondered for the tenth time why Madison always stood out to her.
“Hey,” Jay said, catching up to her. “Did you and Sam, uh…you know….”
Cassie came to a stop.
“Excuse me?”
Mike was shooting Jay a look that carried a strong message of STOP. CEASE. DESIST, but Jay wasn’t looking at him and thus couldn’t see it.
“I mean, I figured you did because you might not get another chance, right? What was that like?”
Cassie regarded him for a moment, not even sure whether she was insulted or just disgusted.
“Even if we did, how is it any of your business?” she said, and began stomping back toward the classroom.
“They did!” Jay said, joyfully. Cassie had to remind herself that punching him would just be putting her writing hand at unnecessary risk right before the test.
They were talking a class in a normal classroom; a math room, right near the athletic wing. It seemed a thoroughly underwhelming place for the most important test in high school, let alone the end of the world. Cassie exhaled as she took her seat and looked out the window. It looked darker than it had a few minutes ago, but still, no rain.
The proctor explained the sections of the exam, gave the usual spiel about how terrible cheating was, and started the clock. Cassie looked at the answer sheet, knowing there was really no point to filling in the bubbles, but she might as well; it’s not like she had anything better to do until the Watchers made their move.
***
An hour into the test, Cassie was really curious where the Watchers were. It had gotten darker and darker out the window, but there was no thunder, no sign of raindrops.
Am I…am I seriously going to have sit here and take the entire test?
She shot a glance at Mike, sitting across the room. Mike shrugged and gave her a look that communicated something like “no clue on my end!” and looked down at his test. Jay was looking out the window, resting his chin on his palms, not even bothering to look at his test packet. He looked contemplative, like he was reviewing the events in his life up to this point.
Cassie frowned at her answer bubbles, not feeling the way she expected to.
It’s almost like I’ll be disappointed if they don’t attack, and that’s weird. What am I going to do if I was wrong, and nothing happens today? Am I just going to go off to Harvard and not worry about my crazy ancestors?
Just then, as a loud thunder crack echoed through the classroom, she had a nagging thought that had been on the edge of her consciousness for some time.
Wait, how would I be able to go to Harvard in this situation? I need to be with Sam, and he’s not just going to up and move his whole entourage to Boston. Is it possible….
Finally, the pleasant sound of raindrops hitting the pavement outside the window became audible, little pops of exquisite tension. Cassie’s wings, pressed against her back by her clothing, began to vibrate painfully.
…is it possible there was no way in hell I was ever going to go to Harvard in the first place, and no one could bring themselves to tell me?
The skies opened up. Cassie’s back exploded, or so it felt, and she screamed.
Everyone turned to look at her. She stood up, supported herself with the desk and tried to shut out the pain, but it was too strong. It was like someone was trying to rip her shoulder blades apart with their bare hands. Her desk moved forward, the metal l
egs squealing, and banged into the back of the chair in front of her.
“Miss Tremblay—” started the proctor, but there was nothing she could do. In an instant, Cassie was sprinting out of the classroom, Jay and Mike hot on her heels.
Running didn’t help the pain, but at least it gave her something different to focus on. Her sneakers made muted noises as she ran down the tiled hall, grunting, trying to suppress more screams. She was glad she’d had the foresight to wear sneakers and not her chunky boots.
“Where are you going?” Jay yelled from behind her.
She tried to think where she could go, then realized there was only one place she wanted to go. Only one place she could go.
In another thirty seconds, she had busted through the door to the school aquatics center. It was possible the doors had been locked, she wasn’t even sure. Fortunately (if anything about this day could be said to be fortunate), there was no one in there. As soon as she could, she took a running leap into the deep end of the pool and sighed in relief as the water supported her. The pain didn’t go away, but it did lessen.
This is why I had to be here, at the school. It had nothing to do with taking the test. I needed to be near a pool. Because if I wasn’t in water, the stress on my body might have killed me.
She grimaced, knowing that the water was making her relatives stronger, even far away in Tartarus; they could draw strength from it through their connection to her. However, she had no choice. If she had any chance of fighting back against them, she wasn’t going to be able to do it while suffering that kind of agony.
She surfaced, and floated. Her wings seemed to spread out, buoyant. She didn’t need to tread water to keep above the surface; her wings took care of that. Another crack of thunder reverberated through the large room, and her wings seemed to stretch out even more. There was a creak of metal, and Cassie realized that one of her wings had hit the metal ladder at the bottom of the diving board, denting the whole structure. Her wings were solid now.
Jay and Mike came to stand on the side of the pool, clearly not sure what to do.
“Fight them off! You can do this!” Mike yelled.
Cassie screamed again, not in pain but in a bizarre kind of joy; her wings were still growing, and it felt incredible. She still hated this, everything about this, but feeling her wings extend out of her back felt like letting out a sneeze she’d been holding in for a long time.
When her eyes could focus again, she saw Azrael on the other side of the pool from Mike and Jay, pointing at her with both hands. Sam appeared from nowhere and knocked the demon lord on his back before he could fire off a curse at her.
“This is how you do a truce?” Sam snarled, livid.
“It’s her or everyone else, boy!” Azrael said. “I’m sure she tried to fight it, but it’s too late! Our only hope is killing her.”
Sam slammed the demon lord’s head against the blue tiled floor in a move that she was sure would have killed a human, then threw him against the far wall. Azrael’s body jerked, then slid down to the floor, silent. Sam got up and tried to get closer to Cassie, but made an inhuman growling noise when something blocked his path. To Cassie’s surprise, she had a barrier; she had no memory of creating one, didn’t even know how to make one, yet there it was. And it was clearly stronger than any of the barriers Sam had made with her magic; all it took was squinting a little bit, and she could even see it. The smell of chlorine was incredibly strong, like the scent itself was somehow was burning her.
She realized she was screaming again, and tried to stop. She clamped her teeth shut, pushing so hard with her jaw that her muscles began twitching from the effort. For some reason, her arms seemed to be extending; there wasn’t enough flesh to cover them now. Her skin stretched, then ripped with a sickening sound. The sight of her own exposed muscle, striated and pulsing, made her eyes roll to the back of her head.
Chapter 56
Jay couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He had seen strange things since becoming part of the entourage, but nothing like this.
Cassie was surrounded by a nimbus of pale-blue light, nearly white. Her limbs seemed to be getting longer, her jaw more extended, as she screamed. The sounds she was making sounded like they couldn’t possibly have come from her throat; like there were new and complex shapes within her vocal cords that didn’t function like a human’s.
“What do we do?” Jay yelled, straining to be heard over the sound of the near-constant thunder and Cassie’s terrifying screams.
Sam just looked at Cassie, at a loss. From the despair on his face, Jay guessed that he now agreed with Azrael; there was nothing to be done, except kill her before this strange ritual could be completed. But Sam would never be able to bring himself to kill her, so all he could do was watch, paralyzed with horror.
Jay looked to his side and saw Mike holding up his clasped hands, making strange murmuring noises. He bounced up and down a little as he did so, and Jay realized he was probably praying in Hebrew. This was a side of Mike he’d never seen before, but there was no time to wonder about it now.
Left on his own, Jay got as close to the edge of the pool as he could and knelt down. He was touching the barrier, but for some reason it didn’t repel him. He had a feeling it would try to resist him if he got any closer to Cassie, but as long as he was only on the periphery, it would tolerate him; he wasn’t a physical threat the way Sam was. The barrier was that intelligent.
To Jay’s mounting horror, a hand was sticking out of Cassie’s back, between her wings. It didn’t look quite like a human hand, but it was recognizable, with a palm and finger-like appendages. He’d thought the idea of her being a portal was some kind of general thing, like the portal would open somewhere in her vicinity. It had never occurred to him that the Watchers would literally emerge from Cassie’s body, in some weird mockery of childbirth.
“Cassie, listen to me!” he yelled, and the thunder cracked again. The lights in the pool room flickered, but Cassie’s wings illuminated everything with their own blue glow. The water in the pool started to bubble, boiling. Next to Jay, Mike dropped to his knees and prayed louder. All Jay could hear him saying was “Adonai” over and over.
Jay opened his mouth to talk to her about college, about GPAs, about honor societies, but gave up. Looking at her, it was clear she was too far gone to care about things like that. He’d been lucky that trick had worked once. But if he couldn’t shut down this process by calling back Cassie’s rational mind, then what hope did any of them have?
“Cassie, listen! I don’t want to die! Life just started getting good lately!”
Cassie turned her head toward him. Her whole head seemed to have stretched out, and he wet his pants at the sight of her grotesque evolution. He let it go without further thought; probably most people would have soiled themselves at this point. When he had collected himself as much as he was able, he continued.
“I’m seventeen years old, I haven’t had enough time to even live yet. I don’t want the world to end. And I really don’t want it to end for you! You had so much you were going to do!”
Cassie turned her head to the side. The hand that was coming out of her back continued grasping, freeing itself up to the elbow joint.
“Seventeen years old…seventeen years old…” she repeated. Her voice sounded deep, almost male.
If that was what she cared about, he would follow her lead. Before he could continue, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. It was a metal shape, emerging from the bubbling water in the shallow end. Aeka, in her full armor once again. Jay licked his lips and gestured wildly toward Cassie, trying to capture all of her attention.
“That’s right, seventeen years old! I haven’t even had a date yet. I only drank once, at my uncle’s party. It was beer, and it tasted like crap! I haven’t even gotten drunk, ever!”
“You can’t be seventeen years old,” she said, her voice surprisingly casual. “Because if you’re seventeen years old, then I’m seventeen years old…be
cause we were the exact same age when we met…I’m the same age as you…but I can’t be the same age as you…because I’m much older….”
Cassie’s extended mouth began moving, mouthing the number seventeen over and over again. The millennia-old being and the teenaged girl were the same person, and it didn’t make sense. She couldn’t tell if she was seventeen years old or orders of magnitude older, and the discrepancy was confusing her.
“That’s right, you’re the same age as me,” Jay continued, his eyes darting to the other end of the pool where Aeka was preparing. The Knight made a pose like a linebacker and threw her shoulders forward, like she was about to charge.
“You’ve only been seventeen for a few months. Your birthday is in March. You…you might not have even had sex yet, I’m not sure about that one,” he said. He was babbling now, and he didn’t care. Anything to keep her attention off of Aeka. “Did you guys have sex? Is it true that it hurts? Are you pregnant? Do you have a little demon/angel baby inside there? Am I gonna be an uncle?”
Cassie (or the creature that had once been called Cassie) continued to look at him, transfixed by his strangeness. Just then, Aeka took off like a shot; it was like the water pressure had no effect on her running speed. In the briefest of instants, she had crossed the entire Olympic-sized pool and crashed into Cassie’s barrier, which repelled her. She pushed, dogged, like person pushing a broken-down car up a hill, and in a few seconds, she was through. As she barreled into Cassie, the arm that was sticking out of Cassie’s back tried to grab for her, but it was too late; she had knocked the both of them beneath the agitated water. Cassie’s wings thrashed wildly, taking out the diving board, and Sam pushed Jay out of the way as the board collapsed down onto the tiled floor beside the pool.
Thunder crashed.
Chapter 57
Cassie woke up on the couch in the front of The Daily Grind, and had a moment of déjà vu. She’d woken up like this several times, hadn’t she? The first time Sam had ever touched her and drew her magic, she’d fallen unconscious and woken up on this very couch. Then, only Khalil and Dwight had been there, along with some customers who had no idea what had transpired. Now, the shop was empty of customers, but full of vampires.