Love Struck (16 page)

“You're in serious trouble, young lady,” Lou said. “I've warned you about using advanced powers without supervision.”

Like I did it on purpose. I couldn't believe he was punishing me. Hello! I just saved the world—from him. He was probably just embarrassed that my powers worked on him. “It was an accident.”

“We'll talk about this at home.”

Why did I forget to add a clause to my wish? That my parents wouldn't remember any of my stupid moves! That would have saved me a lot of trouble. Instead they remembered everything. Just perfect.

Lou didn't even look happy to see me. If he had been, he would have apologized that he didn't recognize me before and threatened to throw energy balls at me. But nope. He just wanted to look all tough in front of Mom. He probably didn't even care about me at all.

“Let me guess,” I said. “I bet you're going to keep my soul so you can control me from now on.” Lou took a deep breath. But he didn't deny it.

“What!?” Mom said.

I waited for Lou to say something. To prove me wrong, but he didn't. I couldn't even think straight anymore, I was so upset. “That's right,” I said to Mom. “While you were all busy paying attention to how good your hair looked and how cute your boyfriend was, Lou was taking my soul.” I turned back to him. “That's all you ever wanted from me, anyway, wasn't it?”

Lou looked down at the paper. He took another deep breath. “I don't want your soul, Angel. I want you to be safe. You're my daughter. You could have gotten yourself hurt or worse. Just thinking about that makes me . . .”

He stopped speaking and looked up toward the sky. Was he fighting back tears? Over me?

“You didn't act like you were worried about me,” I said, “Not when you were telling Mom about all my powers this morning.”

Lou crumpled up the piece of paper that held the rights to my soul tightly in his fist. “I was doing that to protect you. You see what can happen when your powers go out of control. You need your mother. Keeping that kind of secret from her obviously affects your emotions. Look what happened today. I almost hurt you. And I couldn't have lived with myself knowing that I had done that,” he said, staring right at me with a crazy intense look. “Thankfully it didn't come to that.”

He threw the paper ball to the ground and it burst into flames. I watched as the fire fizzled out. I felt a sense of relief as I looked at the pile of ash. My contract was null and void. My soul was mine again.

“You mean everything to me, Angel,” he said. “Do not scare me like that again.”

Scare him? He was the one who had been terrifying. But as I studied his face, I realized that was exactly the point. Lou wasn't mad at me because I had used my powers. He was mad at me because I put my life in danger. Mad that he almost hurt me. Mad that he couldn't protect me.

He did care about me. For the first time in my life, I knew what it felt like to have a father who worried about me. I moved in closer to him. He held out his arms and I fell into them, and then he wrapped me in a big bear hug as the tears fell down my cheeks.

The devil loved his daughter after all.

“I want in on this, too,” Mom said. She reached out for a hug. “I'm glad you're safe,” she said, pulling me into her so tightly she almost squeezed my breakfast out of me.

“Me too,” I agreed, hugging her back.

“But this doesn't mean you're off the hook,” she warned. Of course it didn't. Mom was the punishment queen. But having a strict mom sure beat having one that didn't care. “You still have a lot of answering to do.”

What was sure to be a lecture from Mom was interrupted by a tap on my shoulder. It was Gabi. “Can you get your dad to pose for a picture with me?” she whispered.

“What? Why?” I asked.

“Because he's
Lou
—the all-powerful, the all-wonderful, the all-spectacular.”

Ugh. Lou had taken the love spell off of Mom, but everyone else in the mall—and the world—was still under it. I looked around. The crowd was watching us intently. Only they were too afraid to get close and risk upsetting Lou. “Not now, Gabi.”

“Come on, please! I thought you were my best friend. You owe me.”

“Fine, you can have a picture,” I said. Lou posed next to Gabi.

“Looks like I have a little bit of fixing up to do here,” he said.

“No kidding,” I said, pointing to the MAKE A WISH sign emblazoned in fire and all his adoring fans staring eagerly at him.

Lou shook his head. “Maybe more than a
little
cleanup. This is going to take more than a wave of my hand. Let me send you and your mother back home. I'll meet up with you afterward.”

“Wait,” I said. “I have some fixing up of my own to do. Can I stay?”

They agreed. So as Lou got to work on his problems, I got to work on mine.

I went to go see Lance and his mother.

The guard that had tried to pull me away from the door was still there. This time I didn't fling him away. I had a better, non-power related solution to get by him without any trouble. “Lou sent me,” I said. Just like Gabi and ninety-nine percent of the world, the guard was under the love spell.

“Lou?!” he said. “You saw him? Is he here?”

“Yep, he's right down that way. By the Apple store.”

He rushed off before I even finished the sentence, leaving me unattended. I knocked on the door. “Lance, Harmony, can I come in, please?”

The door swung open and I went inside.

Harmony was standing a few feet away. “It's over,” I said. “Lou is back to normal.”

“I know,” she answered. “I could sense it. But I'm not surprised. I knew you'd figure out the answer. I knew you didn't need my help.”

That made one of us. She had taken a big risk there. I wouldn't have counted on a thirteen-year-old with whacked-out powers to save the planet. But I guess angels have more faith in us than we do. “Thanks,” I said.

“No,” she said, actually smiling at me for once. “I think I owe you the thank you. Both for fixing the Lou problem and for helping me realize that Lance was ready for his powers.”

I felt like I had my own little halo sitting on my head. Not just because someone finally acknowledged that I had done something good, but because she believed in me. An angel believed in me. Maybe Harmony wasn't so bad after all.

“Is Lance around?” I asked.

She called to him. As he entered the room, he looked calmer and more peaceful than I had ever seen him. Although it could have been because I wasn't banging down his door for once.

I wasn't quite sure what to say. I had turned his life upside down. “I'm so sorry for dragging you into my mess.”

“It's okay,” he said. “Really.”

“I'm sorry you had to find out you were an angel that way.”

He shrugged a shoulder. “I'm happy to know my real identity. I always felt like I was different.”

“Well, you are, like, the biggest star around,” I said. That in itself made him way different than most people.

“Yeah, but this is bigger. This is way cooler.” His face looked almost angelic, if that was possible.

“So what are you going to do?”

“Head back to Hollywood. There are a lot of messed-up people there who could use my help,” he said.

“Sure you don't want to stay? That girl Gabi I was telling you about is worth moving to Pennsylvania for. And she'd make an awesome girlfriend.”

“Angel,” he said and shook his head.

I glanced at the floor. Hey, I had to try. “Well, you're not giving up acting, are you?” If he did, then Gabi would really be upset. Along with most of America and TV executives everywhere.

“Nope. It'll help me reach more people.”

Wow. Hot, famous, and an angel. He was quite the triple threat.

“Well, thanks again,” I said and headed for the door. “Oh, one more thing,” I said turning back. I flashed Lance a big, dimple-filled smile. “Any chance I can get an autograph?”

“I thought you might be here,” Lou said as I exited the backstage area. “Spell reversed, souls returned, wishes taken back.”

I just nodded. I wasn't quite sure what to say to him. I had written Lou out of my life not too long ago. He broke a promise—lost my trust. And until I knew for sure he was over his wicked ways for good, I said I wanted no part of him. Sure, he made some progress today undoing the contracts he made—including mine. But what if tomorrow he slipped back? Reverted to old . . . I mean,
young
Lou? And how was I to know if he really returned all the souls he'd bought at the mall? “Every single one?”

“Yes.” He looked convincing, but he was the devil. He'd win the Olympic gold for lying.

“How did you convince them to give back what they got?” I remembered that when I granted Gabi her unlimited wishes, I couldn't force her to give them up. She had to do it freely. It was part of the deal.

“I can be pretty persuasive when I want to be.”

My eyes got wide. What did that mean? Did he threaten them with an energy ball?

“Relax,” Lou said, looking at my face. “I just made sure I asked to undo the wishes before I took off the adoration spell. They were happy to oblige. Anything for their hero.”

Lou laughed at that.

I didn't. After today, I never wanted to hear about spells again. The thought alone made me cringe. “You didn't leave any of them worshipping you, did you?”

“Would I do that?”

I crossed my arms. That was the point—I didn't know
what
Lou would do.

He shook his head. “No, I didn't leave them like that. Everyone is back to normal.”

“Yeah,” I snorted. “Except that they saw a man do impossible things like stop a tornado and send them flying in the air and watch themselves fall in and out of love with a stranger faster than the contestants on
The Bachelor
.”

“Well,” he said, his mouth moving in a half grin, “I may have taken care of that, too.”

“May have?” That did not sound good. “What did you do?”

“I played around with their memories.”

“But that's dangerous! You're always telling me erasing people's minds could have serious consequences.”

“So could having them remember what they saw,” he said. “But I didn't erase their memories. I made them fuzzy. And just the parts that had to do with powers. They think they saw a magic show but can't remember all the details.”

“Are they going to be okay?”

“They're going to be just fine.”

I had to take his word for it. And truthfully, I was relieved. I didn't want my secret out. Not to anyone. But especially not to Cole. And I didn't need him to remember hating me or even being crazy obsessed. Although I was going to keep a few of those voicemails he sent!

“Shall we go home?” Lou asked.

As Lou and I headed for the exit, we walked by D.L., who was still in the security area. I had almost forgotten about him. Lou and all his talk about undoing the wishes and whatnot distracted me.

“Wait,” I said. “D.L. is in trouble because of me. He wouldn't be in there if he hadn't helped me try and fix the mess I made. I have to get him out.”

Lou shook his head as he sized up the guard. “I don't think they'll listen to a thirteen-year-old.”

“They have to! He can't stay in there.”

“You didn't let me finish,” Lou said. “They won't listen to a thirteen-year-old, but they'll listen to me. I'll get him out.”

I watched as Lou spoke to the guard. I don't know what he said, but it worked! The guard gestured for D.L. to get up.

But instead of just letting him go, Lou pulled D.L. aside. It made me nervous. What did he want with him? I ran up to the two of them and interrupted their conversation.

“Hey,” I said. “Everything okay here?”

“Everything's just fine,” Lou said.

But I wasn't talking to him, I was talking to D.L. I wanted to hear it from him. “Lou, can you give us a few minutes?” I asked.

He nodded and stepped away.

“You all right?” I asked. I eyed D.L., looking for any signs that Lou may have messed with his memory or tried to recruit him for demon duty. But he looked the same as usual.

“Yeah,” he said.

I needed to know for sure that his soul was safe. “What did Lou want?”

“He just introduced himself and told—”

“Introduced himself? Who did he say he was?”

D.L. raised an eyebrow at me. “He told me he was your father. What did you think he was going to say?”

“Nothing,” I said and tried my best to smile. “Did he say anything else?”

“Just told me to stay out of trouble.”

“That's it?” I questioned.

I could feel D.L. studying me. “What's going on?” he asked.

“Nothing. I'm just being dumb. Anyway, I'm sorry I got you in trouble,” I said.

He ran his hand through his hair. “I'm used to it. Besides, nothing happened other than wasting a day sitting here. They never got through to my parents.”

That was a relief. “Well,” I told him, “one other thing happened.” I held up a picture of Lance. “I got you this.”

“Just what I always wanted,” he said, the sarcasm dripping off every word.

“Look at it closer,” I said, swatting the picture at him.