Love Struck (5 page)

Only Lou wasn't buying it. “Angel,” he said in one of those I-know-you-know-more than-you're-letting-on voices.

“Maybe it was you,” I accused him. “Did you do something to me?” I felt bad blaming Lou for a mess he had nothing to do with, but I was protecting my mother.

She moved between me and Lou. “What is going on? Was it you?” she asked him.

“No, and Angel knows that.”

I chewed on two of my nails. What was I supposed to say?
Surprise, Mom ! Not only do I have powers like my devil dad, but I've been using them to run a dating service and to stick it to my enemies?
I'd have been grounded until I turned twenty-two.

Their stares were getting uncomfortable.

“Well . . . ,” my mom said.

“Fine, I'll tell you. But you can't get freaked out.”

Mom sucked in some air and sat down at the table.

“See, well, it's, um, nothing.” I paced around the kitchen. “I just went to see Lance Gold at the mall, and I snuck backstage. I don't know what happened next. This woman, I guess it was his manager, came out of nowhere, and she knew my name, and the next thing I knew I was acting all weird.” I blurted it all out really fast, minus a few unimportant details. Like me using my powers.

Mom shook her head. “That doesn't make sense.”

“No, it doesn't,” he said. “Harmony Gold wouldn't do that. Not unprovoked.”

What?
Harmony Gold?
How did he even know who I was talking about? Maybe he knew her. Probably from the underworld. I decided to use that to my advantage. “You know, I actually thought she looked a little evil. Demonlike. And, well, we all know you can't trust a demon. Not even to follow your orders. Can't believe she messed with the devil's daughter, though. That was pretty gutsy.”

“She's not a demon,” Lou said. “She's an angel. A guardian angel.”

A guardian angel!
There were angels here on earth?! I don't know why I was so surprised. If there were demons running around the planet, why shouldn't there be angels, too?

“How do
you
know an angel?” I asked.

“A long time ago, I used to be one,” he answered. “Until I decided to work for the other side.”

I knew that. That was ancient history. “What I meant was how does she know what you're up to
now
? If it was so long ago, how does she know you have a thirteen-year-old daughter?”

“We still keep tabs on each other. And we have an understanding. I don't mess with the guardian angels, and they don't mess with me. Although I'm sure Harmony wasn't thrilled to get a visit from you.”

“Maybe that's why she did the love spell,” I said, using the info to enhance my lie. “She was afraid I was going to do something evil, and countered hate with love!”

Mom watched us, but seemed at a loss for words.

“I don't think—,” he began.

“Why is she a manager then?” I asked, cutting him off. I didn't want the conversation to turn to me and my powers. It was better to keep Lou talking about angels. “And what does she want with Lance? If I were a real angel, I wouldn't waste my time working in the entertainment business. I'd join the Peace Corps or something.”

“She's not just his manager. Harmony
Gold.
Lance
Gold.
She's his mother.”

Whoa. “Lance is an angel, too? Then why is he on TV?”

“My guess? Because it would make the perfect cover for him to get to know the people he's supposed to help. Who wouldn't want a visit from their favorite star? In fact, he's not the only magical being in the arts.” I knew that firsthand. I'd recently found out that Mara's Daughters was made up of demons. Though they seemed like good demons. But I wouldn't bet my life—or soul—on that.

“Wait,” Mom said, finally finding her voice. “Why would this woman, angel, whatever, put a love spell on Angel?”

“That's what I was saying, she was probably just protecting herself from Lou's evil spawn,” I answered before Lou could.

“No.” Lou shook his head. “She'd know better. I don't need a kid to do my bidding.”

“I'm not a kid!”

He raised an eyebrow at me. Fine, maybe it wasn't the right point to argue even though I hated that they treated me like I was a child. But I had bigger issues at the moment. Like Mom's questions.

“Then why did she do it?” Mom pressed on.

“What did you do, Angel?” Lou asked.

I racked my brain for a good excuse. I must have had my very own guardian angel, because a second later the perfect answer came to me.

“I asked Lance for his autograph, and his mom probably thought I was trying to get him to sign over his soul, and so she cast a spell on me.”

Mom nodded. She bought it. Yes! Close call averted.

“I'm going to go take a nap now.” I wanted to get away before they asked any more questions.

“Not so fast.” Lou stopped me. “Time to fess up, Angel.”

“Fess up to what?” Mom asked.

“Are you going to tell your mother or am I?” Lou asked.

“Tell me what?” Mom stood up.

I didn't say a word. I couldn't.

“Angel has pow—”

“No,” I screamed. “Don't listen to him.”

Mom threw her hands up over her ears and started to bang them as if they were bongo drums. “I can't hear anything,” she said in a really loud voice. “What's happening?”

What had I done? Oh no. I knew what was happening. I needed to calm down. To get my emotions in check. To stop my powers from going off on their own.

But I couldn't.

This was huge.

My mother couldn't find out my secret.

Mom looked panicked. She moved to the corner of the room where her giant totem pole was resting. She thought it kept evil at bay. Obviously it didn't since the devil was still right there.

“Stop!” I cried.

And she did. Mom stopped, frozen. Because she
was
frozen. I'd turned my very own mother into a statue.

“Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh,” I said over and over again as I shook my mom. But she didn't budge. “Don't worry, I'll fix you. You won't be frozen forever. I promise.” I knew she couldn't hear me, but still . . .

“I got it,” Lou said.

As he started to wave his hand in front of her face, I yelled, “Wait.”

Talk about horrible. I was stopping the devil from fixing my mom. Did that make me worse than him?

“You don't want me to undo this?” he asked, his eyes lasering into mine.

“Of course I do. Just not yet. We need to talk first.” Really, it was for Mom's own good. I needed to convince Lou not to tell her about my special gift so she'd go on thinking I was the same sweet, powerless girl she loved. Not some evil, Mom-freezing, spell-casting monster.

“Waiting a few minutes won't hurt her, will it?”

When Lou told me there wouldn't be any lasting side effects, I made him move with me to the living room. I couldn't have the conversation I was about to have in front of my mother—statue or not. It weirded me out.

“I'm listening.” Lou made himself comfortable on the couch, like he was at home.

I didn't like it, but kept silent about it. One battle at a time. I stood, arms crossed, a few feet away. “You promised you wouldn't tell Mom about my powers.”

“That's not what I said.”

“Oh, right, another one of your loopholes to get out of a deal.
You're
not going to tell Mom. You're going to make
me
do it. I should have known not to trust the devil.”

Lou crossed his hands in his lap. “There's no loophole. If you remember correctly, I told you next time you tried advanced powers without permission, I was going to tell your mother everything. And last time I checked, trying to make someone fall in love with you is an advanced power.”

“I wasn't trying to make anyone fall in love with me.” That was true. I was trying to make Lance fall in love with Gabi.

“Don't you think it's time to stop lying?” he asked.

“Ha!” I said so loudly it could have jarred Mom from her statue state. “That's hilarious coming from
you.
The guy who has done nothing but lie to me from the minute he came into my life.”

“I haven't lied to you.” Lou stood up and stepped toward me.

I backed up. “Um, how about telling me you'd never take a good soul for the underworld, and then I catch you teaching one of your underlings how to do it, which is virtually the same thing?”

“Angel, I've explained this. I didn't know what he was up to. He only came to me when everything got out of control. I was only helping him fix the mess he created. Powers can cause major problems when you haven't been trained thoroughly. I think you may know something about that. But I've changed. The guy who collected good souls was the old me. The new one only guards the underworld, keeping evil souls from escaping.”

“Don't believe you.”

“I know,” he said. “And I want to fix that. Prove to you I can be the kind of father you can count on.”

“Not telling Mom about my powers would be a good start.”

Lou shook his head. “Don't you think this family has had enough secrets?”

I plopped down in the chair. “One more wouldn't hurt.”

“Angel.” Lou sat on the arm of the couch.

Telling Mom was too risky. It would just give her more to worry about, if that was even possible. I balled myself up in the chair.

“Why don't you start by telling me what really happened at the mall?”

“It was nothing. I was trying to make Lance fall for Gabi, and his mom came out in the middle of the spell. She said my name and threw one of her hands in my direction. And that's all I remember.”

Lou nodded. “She put up a shield. It sent the power you were sending out back to you.”

“But then wouldn't I have fallen in love with Gabi, not myself?”

“Hmmm,” he said, his hand stroking his chin. “Tell me exactly what happened, and don't leave anything out.”

I went over the whole story with him again.

“Ahh, that's it,” Lou said, cutting me off in the middle. “Harmony called out your name in the middle of it. Your thoughts must have switched from Gabi to yourself.”

“But how did she even know what I was up to? That I was even using my powers?”

“It's her job,” he said.

“Right,” I mumbled. “Because she's a guardian angel.”

“Because she's a
mother
. And she thought her child was in danger.”

I knew where this was headed . . .

“And a mother should know what her child is up to. Especially when her child is in over her head.” This was clearly no longer about Lance.

“Good thing
I
know what
I'm
doing,” I told him. “I'm safe and sound. There's no need to worry Mom.”

“She wants to know what's going on with you.”

I looked away from Lou. “And she does. She's just missing a few details.”

“Important ones.”

“Not to me.” Me not telling her about my powers was no different than me not telling her that I snuck into horror movies when she thought I was at some Disney film, or Gabi not telling her mom she stuffed her face with junk food whenever given the opportunity. Moms didn't need to know every little detail.

“Trust me,” he said, “the fact that you have powers will matter to your mother. And you know that.”

Yes. I did know that. Which was precisely the reason I didn't want to tell her anything.

Not that what I wanted factored into any of this. Before I knew it, Lou snapped his fingers. We were back in the kitchen.

“It's time, Angel.”

“What happened?” Mom asked when Lou put her back to normal. She squeezed the giant totem pole. “Will somebody please tell me what is going on here?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Beats me.”

Yeah, I know. Lou had just given me that after-school-special speech—the one that was supposed to motivate me to come clean and confess everything. But this wasn't TV, where the truth would result in a big group hug and ice cream sundaes. This was real life, where the truth would result in karma-cleansing baths and exorcisms before bedtime just to make sure my head didn't spin three hundred sixty degrees like those girls in the horror movies.

“Your daughter is what happened,” Lou said. “She has my powers.”

Traitor.

Mom looked like she was going to pass out. She clutched the big wooden stick for support. “For how long?”

“A while now,” he said.

He was totally selling me out. “Don't believe him, Mom. He's still evil. I even heard him trying to take a good soul.”

Lou lowered his head and his voice. “I know you're mad that I'm telling your mother the truth, but she deserves to know.” He looked back up at me. “I even understand you making up lies about me. You're angry. I hope you'll be able to forgive me.”

No way! He was turning this around on me. Making me look like the bad guy. “Mom, he did take that soul, I swear.”

Lou shook his head slightly and put this sad look on his face. What a faker!

Mom looked at both of us. Then her eyes rested on me—and they were filled with anger.

“You don't believe him, do you?” I cried out. “Over your own daughter? He's the devil! He majored in lying.”