She slammed her door.
“Floor it!” Ghost yelled. Thankfully, the cabbie complied.
The Second Curse
A
lone in the devil’s abode, Abigail ate another nut from the package God had given her. Today, it tasted of a full Italian dinner: salad, spaghetti, and cannoli for desert. The box had kept her alive for weeks. Not the same as eating for real though. Her body had changed, her hands bone thin, her skin taking on the gray tinge of death. And there were other changes. Changes she’d rather not think about.
The box was almost empty. Did that mean she’d be rescued soon? Escape? Or maybe, her purpose would be served and she would die. Blind faith was a human condition, a privilege she’d fought for. She’d stopped trying to make sense of her circumstances a long time ago and simply surrendered to them, holding fast to the hope that this too would pass, one way or another.
The door opened and Lucifer stormed in, face red. Auriel was on his heels followed by a Watcher who could barely hold his illusion together. Flashes of snakeskin broke through spots on his neck and face. He slumped into the nearest chair, and Abigail got a clear view of his indigo eyes.
Cord
. Based on the black blood on his shirt and his struggling illusion, he’d been roughed up by a Soulkeeper. A human couldn’t do that kind of damage.
Lucifer rounded on Cord, dark menace filling the room. “Tell me everything. Every detail.”
“She was a redhead. Tall, thin. Beautiful by human standards. And a twin.”
“A twin?” Auriel repeated, wrinkling her nose. “Twin Soulkeepers?”
“Yes. I smelled them in the crowd, then tracked them down to an alley three blocks east. I saw red hair and attacked. One had transformed into…me.”
“The one who was in Harrington? To think, a filthy Soulkeeper walked through our front door!” Auriel shrieked. “I thought he smelled of sunlight.” She lifted the back of her hand to her nose.
Lucifer paced the length of the great room. “There were two on the list that fit this description. I thought we eliminated them.” Flames filled his narrowed eyes. “Eden. They’ve been hiding.”
Cord cleared his throat, his skin blackening around the mouth. “The twin, the one who didn’t look like me, was smaller. It was as if they worked together to form the illusion.”
Lucifer stroked his chin. “Soulkeepers as a group are not like us. They cannot imitate others on a whim. These two must have a gift, a specialized skill. I could not sense her soul. It must be part of her power to mask her humanity.” His dark eyes turned toward Abigail. “Explain about these twins, Abigail. What is the nature of their power?”
A sharp tug engaged deep within her chest, Lucifer’s sorcery compelling her to speak the truth. She resisted. Centuries living as a Watcher had taught her that Lucifer could not undo her free will, and Abigail refused to help him. She’d die first.
When enough time had passed for him to realize she would not comply, he growled in her direction. “Shouldn’t you have starved to death by now?” The dark one glared at her. He knew. He knew she should be dead by now.
Abigail stiffened.
“There was something else, My Lord,” Cord said, thankfully breaking Lucifer’s maleficent stare. “Another Soulkeeper I couldn’t see. Invisible. I remember his smell but never saw the one who stabbed me in the neck.”
Abigail snorted. She would have loved to see Ghost make a fool of Cord.
A lamp flew from Lucifer’s hand and passed through Abigail’s chest, exploding against the wall behind her. She drifted toward the window, unharmed. If Lucifer was going to kill her, she’d go out making him as angry as possible. Abigail rested her hand on the box in her pocket. No, God promised this would not be her end.
Auriel paced, ignoring Lucifer’s outburst and fixating on Cord. “The Soulkeepers you saw, Cord, were they young ones? Teenagers?”
Cord nodded. “The ones I saw? Yes.”
“The Soulkeepers are almost always teenagers,” Auriel said, running her finger along her bottom lip.
“It is the Great Oppressor’s way to work on the soft hearts of the young,” Lucifer said.
Auriel approached him, pressing herself against his chest. She placed her hands on the lapels of his suit and lifted her eyebrows. “Young ones are required to attend schools here, My Lord.” She grinned wickedly. “All of them. We know three who attend Paris High School.”
Lucifer nodded. “We’ve tried to attack directly before, Auriel, with disastrous results. I’m not ready to expose our cause or risk our numbers. Better to be insidious.”
Auriel shook her head. “They have a system. All the young ones are required to learn the same thing. Perhaps
we
should run the schools and…reeducate them.”
Lucifer pinched her chin and shook gently. “You are a genius, my dear. We keep an eye on the Soulkeepers and win the young humans to our side.” Lucifer grinned. “We take a page from the Great Oppressors book and strike at the young, reeducate them to see things our way. We win their hearts.”
In her ghostly form, Abigail raised a hand to her mouth to cover her gasp. The second temptation. Lucifer was planning to direct it toward
children
. She wanted to do something, to stop him or to alert the Soulkeepers, but she couldn’t even help herself. All she could do was watch and listen.
“What is your will?” Auriel asked, showing more teeth than necessary when she smiled.
Lucifer held up his index finger, the nail extending to a sharp point. “You and I, Auriel, are cut from the same cloth.” He ran his finger down the center of his chest, slicing it open to reveal a black, swirling mass where his heart should have been. Abigail squinted and thought she could see faces in the darkness, souls forever trapped, powering the ultimate evil. Lucifer used his razor-sharp nail to cut a wedge of darkness from the mass, then stabbed into Auriel’s chest.
The blond Watcher yelped in pain, her face twisting as the blackness wormed its way inside her. Black veins tangled under her skin toward her ear. Even through her illusion, Abigail could see her eyes wash red before fading back to blue.
“My second temptation is
ignorance
. Auriel, you are the vessel. Start with the Secretary of Education. Anyone you talk to will adopt your new curriculum: I’ve made you ultra-persuasive.”
“What is the new curriculum?” she asked.
Lucifer shrugged. “No math or science or language. Teach them the virtues of evil. The benefits of war. Greed is good. Prejudice is necessary. Doing evil is their entitlement.”
She nodded. “We teach them the truth. We teach them to think like Watchers.”
Lucifer grinned. “I want Watchers or the influenced running every school in the country. Go. Get started.”
Auriel bowed at the waist and backed from the room, letting herself out the front door. Lucifer waited until she was gone to turn on Cord.
“You failed me, Cord.”
“What?”
“You allowed the Soulkeepers access to Harrington. They know! They know now that I’m running the company, and if they know I’m running things topside, soon those imbeciles in the In Between will know. They could make things … difficult. All because you weren’t more careful with yourself.”
Cord bowed his head. It was useless to argue. Once the devil had your number, he wouldn’t stop calling until you picked up. “Yes, My Lord.”
With a grunt, Lucifer thrust his hand into Cords gut. Abigail had to look away. Cord cried out, a wicked, high-pitched howl that made her cringe. When she glanced back, Cord had lost his illusion entirely, his black scaly skin and leathery wings spasmed on the carpet in a puddle of his insides.
“You are not allowed to die, Cord,” Lucifer hissed. “You will suffer here until I say you may leave, and then you will pull yourself together, capture the nearest human, and heal yourself. And you will not be detected. Do you understand?”
Cord was unable to speak but gurgled in the course of his torture.
Lucifer blinked slowly and turned toward the window, sliding his hands into his pockets. With a deep sigh, he said, “Looks like it’s almost Christmas.” He rubbed his hands together.
It was a full hour before Lucifer freed Cord. Somehow, the Watcher, mouth gaping like a fish out of water, restored his insides to his abdominal cavity. He sewed himself up and hobbled toward the door, a weak illusion snapping into place.
Abigail sighed. God help the first human Cord came across in his current state.
* * * * *
B
onnie, Samantha, and Jesse poured into the Eden School for Soulkeepers, desperate to tell Malini what they’d learned. But it was Gideon who met them at the door. She grabbed him by the shoulders, meeting his eyes. “He’s here. They are all here!” Bonnie stuttered, panting from the run.
“Who’s here?” Gideon asked.
“Not here-here. Not in Eden. He’s topside. He’s running Harrington!”
At that moment, Grace jogged into the atrium, looking from Bonnie to Samantha. “Who’s running Harrington?”
Samantha ran to her mother and hugged her tight, but Bonnie hung back, trying to slow her racing thoughts. She needed to tell them what she’d learned.
“Lucifer,” Bonnie managed. “Watchers aren’t just influencing the executives at Harrington. Lucifer
is
Milton Blake. Cord and Auriel are also executives. He’s playing the game from Earth and Harrington Enterprises is his headquarters.”
Gideon made a sound like a cough and backed up a few steps. Grace’s eyes widened. “You’re sure? You saw this?”
“Close up. I posed as Cord. I was as close to the devil as I am to you,” Bonnie said, suddenly more aware of the wound on her face that kept drawing her mother’s eye. The pain had spread from her cheek to her neck and shoulder.
“You need to have that healed,” Grace said, releasing Sam from her embrace.
“Where’s Malini?” Bonnie asked, swaying on her feet.
“She’s upstairs. Stay where you are. You’re in no shape to climb the stairs. Archibald,” Grace said to the gnome, waiting in the shadows. “Please find the Healer and ask her to come here at once.” He blinked out of sight.
“We have to assemble the council,” Bonnie insisted. “The Watchers know it was me. Cord almost killed me. If it wasn’t for Ghost taking a pair of chopsticks to Cord’s jugular just in time, I’d be shredded.”
Grace crossed herself and approached Bonnie with arms outstretched, but her daughter wasn’t finished.
“And something else,” Bonnie said. “I don’t think Elysium was just about greed, Mom. I think Malini was right; it was one of the six temptations.”
Samantha agreed. “It’s the game. You should have seen the picketers.”
Gideon exchanged glances with Grace. “Malini and Dane’s mission failed. Lucifer didn’t retreat, he advanced.”
Grace nodded. “All this time, we were waiting for the signs. The signs were all around us.”
Abruptly, Ghost blinked into existence next to Gideon. “But think of the implications,” Ghost said. “If Lucifer is Milton Blake, he’s not living in Hell.”
Bonnie pointed a finger at him. “Yes! The secretary made it sound like Cord and Auriel meet him there regularly to talk about highly confidential stuff at his private residence. She said Cord should allow extra time to get across town. He’s living somewhere in the city, Gideon. And if I know Lucifer, he’ll keep his prize close. Abigail might not be in Hell after all. There’s a chance we can rescue her.”
Gideon took a step back, as if he’d been pushed. His eyes widened. “We have to go. We have to get her,” he murmured.
“We will, Gideon. If you can research Milton Blake’s home address in the library, I’ll go myself as soon as Malini gives the okay.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Bonnie saw her mother cringe. But after surviving today, Bonnie wasn’t about to lose her nerve. Abigail had been missing far too long. If she was still alive, they had to do something. It wasn’t just about Gideon. They all needed her. Abigail had forgotten more about the Watchers than any of the Soulkeepers had ever known.
“I’ll find the address,” Gideon said. “And names and pictures of every person in that building, including the doorman.”
Bonnie smiled stiffly, feeling woozy. The foyer swam, then tipped. Gideon caught her before her head hit the floor and a wave of pain rocked her body. Luckily, Malini arrived moments later, healing hand at the ready.
School Days
“J
acob, you’re daydreaming again. You’ll never pass your physics final if you don’t review your notes.” Malini pursed her lips and tapped her finger on his notebook.
“Excuse me for being distracted. It’s hard to concentrate on physics when you’ve just learned the devil is CEO of an international conglomerate and in competition for human souls on earthly soil. We shouldn’t be here, Malini. We should be killing Watchers.”
A calculus textbook hit the table next to Jacob’s hand. “You guys might want to keep it down. I think I heard the word ‘Watcher’ half-way across the cafeteria.” Dane plunked in the chair across from Malini, leaned back, and threaded his fingers behind his head. He closed his eyes.
“Not you, too, ” Malini said. “We’ve got to study. We get through these winter finals, and then we have all Christmas break to work. Gideon found ten properties owned by Milton Blake in Chicago. Abigail could be in any or none of them. After finals, we can search for her and hunt Watchers all holiday.” Malini angrily turned the page in her book.
“Who cares about finals? Abigail could be out there. The world could be ending,” Jacob whispered.
Malini huffed. “And what if it doesn’t? I’ve been accepted at the University of Illinois, Jacob. I have goals. If everything works out, I want to be ready for real life.”
Dane opened one eye to glare at her. Jacob rested his head on his fist. Neither said a word.
“Okay, that sounded crazy,” Malini muttered. “Of course college isn’t more important or more real than saving the world or Abigail, but damn it,
I want to go. I want what everyone else gets to have. I want to sleep in a dorm and maybe join a sorority. I want to wake up late for class and ace the test anyway. I want to study in a library with more books than people until the wee hours of the morning.” She slapped the page of her open book.