Personal Demons (15 page)

“So . . . when you made this move . . . did he move back?”

She peeks between her fingers and glares at me when I try to hand her a tray. “Like I said, it’s a little fuzzy, but I’m pretty sure I crashed and burned.”

“Oh,” I say, trying to sound sympathetic. I look back at Luc and feel a flutter in my chest when I find him staring at me. I look away and grab a bruised apple from the basket near the register. “Well, I told you guys he’s only messing with us. You’re lucky he shot you down. There was an angel sitting on your shoulder.”

She drops her hand and scowls at me. “I don’t want any goddamn angels. And why do you care anyway? You had Gabe all to yourself last night. I should be grilling you.”

“Nothing happened with Gabe. Nothing’s gonna happen with Gabe,” I say, seriously pissed that I’m letting them get to me. But it’s a lie. Something happened—to me, anyway—and I have to figure out how to make it stop.

We head back to the table, and I throw down my tray with the resounding crash of determination and finality. “We’ve decided we want our table back. Girls only. You’ll both have to find another spot.”

Luc’s expression is amused; Gabe’s a little surprised.

And Taylor’s is livid.

She glowers at me. “Who made you dominatrix of the lunch table?”

I glare back. “Was I the only one having that conversation a minute ago?”

“If you don’t want to sit with them, why don’t
you
move?”

“Fine,” I spit.

“Fine.”

I abandon my lunch tray and storm away from the table I’ve sat at with my two best friends every school day for two and a half years. Angelique Preston, two tables away, smirks at me as I flounder momentarily before deciding there are no good options and storming out of the cafeteria altogether. I glance through the porthole in the door in time to see Riley start to follow me. But Taylor slides into my seat, between Luc and Gabe and grabs Riley’s arm. Riley hesitates and then sits.

And I’m pretty sure I’m going to kill Taylor.

I can’t believe she’s letting
guys
, no matter how hot, do this to us. I feel sick to my stomach as I scrub an angry tear from my face and head out to the courtyard. I sit on the grass in the cool spring sunshine with my back against the building and close my eyes.

Breathe.

“Hey.”

I jump at Reefer’s voice. I open my eyes to find him sitting next to me, staring at me with his muddy-brown eyes. The rest of the band is hanging in the alcove near the gym.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

He doesn’t believe me, but even though I can see the question
in his soft, brown eyes, he doesn’t push. I know it’s selfish, but I need something easy and familiar right now. I lean into him and he loops his arm over my shoulder. We just sit here for a while as he talks about his brother and his dog and how he learned this new guitar riff.

And it occurs to me he hasn’t said anything about us. And his hand is staying put on my shoulder. And it’s me pressing into him, instead of the other way around.

I pull myself out of him and look up into his face. Something’s different.

“So, how are things with the band?” I ask.

He draws a deep breath. “Good. Really good. Delanie’s really great. Thanks for hooking us up.”

The tone in his voice catches me by surprise, and now it’s my turn to question him with my eyes.

He smiles and drops his gaze to his hands.

So, Ryan and Delanie are making their own music.

“That’s great, Reef. I’m really glad it worked out.” And that’s not a lie. I
am
glad Ryan’s moved on. But it doesn’t stop the pang of sadness—and, if I’m honest, maybe regret—I feel.

He squeezes my shoulder and stands. “So, you’re sure you’re okay?”

I smile up at him. “I’m good. Thanks.”

He holds my eyes for a moment longer then turns to head across the courtyard.

I listen to Ryan and the band jam for a few minutes then pull my latest batch of letters from Pakistan out of my bag and thumb through them. When I look up, Luc is standing there.

“Mind some company?”

I look down at the letters. “Busy.”

I’m hoping he’ll go away, but instead he slides down the brick wall and sits next to me. “What are those?”

“Letters,” I say, finding the one from my pen pal, Ghalib, and placing it on top.

But, as I look it over, eager to get it translated, it feels like a bolt of lightning hits my brain and I’m suddenly sick.

Oh, God!

I know this feeling. It always means something bad. Suddenly, I’m glad I didn’t eat any lunch, ’cause my stomach lurches. I roll onto my hands and knees, gagging.

“Frannie!” Luc stoops next to me. “Are you okay?”

I push the vision of Ghalib, lying bloody in a dirt road, out of my head and look at the letter again. Ghalib is dead. I feel like I’m suffocating. “No.” I say, my voice thin.

“What is it? What’s wrong? Are you sick?”

How can I explain this to him without sounding insane? But when I look at Luc, something whispers up from my subconscious, telling me he’d get it. He’s the only one who won’t think I’ve lost it. “I think Ghalib . . .” But I can’t bring myself to say it. “Nothing. I’ll be okay,” I say, the ache in my chest threatening to dissolve into tears.

He picks up the letter and looks it over. His brow creases. “He’s fine, Frannie. He’s going to Afghanistan to visit relatives and look for a job. Nothing’s wrong.”

I don’t have the energy to question how he read it without a translation. “He’s dead.”

“How do you know?”

“I saw him.”

He looks shocked for just a moment, and I realize I was wrong about him understanding. He thinks I’m nuts. He reaches down and loops his arm around my waist. “Let me take you to the nurse.”

“No!” I say, pulling away. “Just give me a minute.” I lie back on the grass, still feeling sick. The vision of Ghalib—and others—won’t leave. Matt was the first, but there have been so many others since then. I’m always the first person to know when a family friend or an old teacher—anyone I’ve ever known—is gone. They’re the faces that follow the lightning in my head. Always dead.

After a few moments, I make myself get up off the ground, and Luc walks with me to Mr. Snyder’s room, where I write a letter to Ghalib. If I knew how to reach him by phone I would, but I already know it’s no use. The date on his letter was a week ago. Mr. Snyder looks concerned, but he promises to translate it and send it off tonight.

For the rest of the school day, Luc doesn’t leave my side. Normally I would have a problem with the whole protective thing, but having him around seems to be helping, and by the time we climb into his car after school, I’m starting to feel a little better.

I feel electric. Totally wired. I wanted to know why Hell wanted Frannie so much, and now I do.
Sight.

She climbs into my car, leans on the door, and closes her eyes. I leave her alone for most of the ride, but finally I can’t take it anymore. I have to know.

“Frannie?”

“Yeah?”

“What happened in the courtyard earlier—what you saw . . . does that happen a lot?”

Her expression turns hostile. “I’m not crazy,” she growls.

“I didn’t say you were. I’m just worried.” And curious.

She looks out the window. “Not a lot, but some.”

“All your life?”

“Just since my . . . since I was seven.”

“What do you see? Things that are going to happen?”

She turns to look at me and a tear slips from her wary eye. “Dead people. I see them dead right before they die.” Her eyes drop to her hands. “But I’ve never been able to stop it.”

I can see how this would be useful to the Underworld. If we knew they were on their way out . . . if we could tag them before they went to Limbo . . . that might improve our numbers.

I try to keep the excitement out of my expression and my voice. “That’s rough. Are you going to be okay?”

“Yeah, I guess,” she says as we reach my apartment complex.

Her eyes dart warily around as we pull in to my parking lot. Not what she was expecting, I’m sure. “This is where you live?”

“Yep. Is there a problem?” I say, fighting the chuckle.

“No,” she snaps.

I roll into a parking spot near the door of my building, between a rusted blue Impala and a dented black Ford pickup, and I watch out of the corner of my eye as she looks it over.

The gray day accentuates the gray atmosphere surrounding this side of town. The four two-story cement buildings were once white, but now they’re a sooty color from decades of dirt, smog, and rust from the gutters. Most of the windows are intact, but here and there cardboard and duct tape substitute for dirty glass. A plastic supermarket bag blows across the barren ground in the subtle spring breeze and catches in the branches of an anemic shrub near the door of my building.

She looks at me and puts up a brave front as she pushes open her door and steps out. “Let’s go.”

“Your wish, my command,” I say as I move toward the building. I hold the door open for her and she tentatively steps through. She follows me up the filthy stairs to the second floor and waits in the poorly lit hall while I dig out my key and slide it into the lock.

“Are your parents at work?” she asks as I step through the door and turn on a light.

“Probably.”

She follows me through. “When will they get home?” Do I detect a shake in her voice?

“No clue.”

“Well, when do they
usually
get home?”

“No clue,” I say again. She just stares at me. “I never knew my parents.” No lie. Demons aren’t big on the whole nurturing concept.

“Oh. Sorry.” Her eyes shift to the gray floor where cheerful yellow linoleum daisies are straining to peek through years of grime. “So, who do you live with, then?”

“No one.”

Her eyes snap back to mine. “You live here by yourself?” A shot of grapefruit permeates the air—Frannie’s fear. Mmm . . .

“Yep.”

Her eyes shoot back to the door, probably planning her escape.

“If you’d rather go to your house, that’s fine,” I say in my most reassuring voice.

“Um . . .” She’s clearly not ready to walk those coals again. “This is fine.”

I go to the fridge and open it. “Great. You want a beer?” I
close the door to the empty fridge as two cold beers materialize in my hand.

“Maybe we should get some work done first.”

I open both beers and hand one to her. “I work better when I can relax,” I say, drawing a long swallow. She looks at the beer in her hand and takes a tentative sip, then looks around.

I’m a demon, not a pig, so I keep the place relatively neat. The kitchen is clean—no dirty dishes or rotting food—mostly because I don’t have to eat. But for that same reason, there’s no table. Or chairs. The short row of cabinets is painted black, and the walls that were once white are now more gray, with the paint peeling off and plaster showing through in places.

The studio is small and, other than the kitchen in the back left corner and the bathroom next to it—which is also clean because I don’t have to do
that
either—there’s a king-sized bed with black sheets, a black quilt, and lots of black pillows that takes up most of the room. It has a large, thick, black rug under it.

“That’s a big bed,” she says staring at the large black mass in the middle of the room. Then her eyes snap to mine and she turns crimson.

“Mmm,” I agree, “and comfortable too.”

Her eyes drop to the floor then flit back to me before scanning the rest of the room, careful to avoid the bed. She makes a circuit of the studio, stopping to look at the three Doré prints near the kitchen, depicting different stages of Dante’s
Inferno
, and a print of William Blake’s
The Temptation of Eve
—the high point of King Lucifer’s career.

She makes her way past the bathroom, and I don’t miss her
stealth glace at me in the full-length mirror on the back of the door. She continues toward the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves across from the bed, pausing to pick up the very old and well-worn volume I left open on the floor: Dante’s
Purgatorio.
I’m partial to Dante, having been his muse. She thumbs through it and her eyebrows shoot up. “This is in Spanish.”

“Italian,” I correct.

“You speak Italian,” she says, unconvinced.

“Sì.”

“Say something.”

“Sii la mia schiava d’amore,” I purr.

Her expression is guarded. “What did you say?”

An amused smile pulls at my lips. “I’ll never tell.” Somehow I don’t think she’d agree to be my love slave anyway.

She stares at me with wide eyes for a moment, then lays Dante back on the floor. She pulls another volume—Proust—from the shelf and cracks it open. “French?” she says with fiery incredulity.

“Oui.”

She scowls. “You’re kidding. . . . How many languages do you speak?”

All of them. “A few.”

She turns away from me, replacing Proust on the shelf, and meanders past my window, which overlooks the parking lot, glancing out on her way by. When she turns back to the room and realizes how close she is to the bed she pulls up short. She leans against the wall between the stereo cabinet with tower speakers and the long floor-to-ceiling rack with just about every
CD ever made, but her eyes scan the wall behind my wrought-iron headboard. It’s covered with a dark floor-to-ceiling mural of home—the lesser inhabited region of the Abyss farthest from the Gates, where the Lake of Fire meets the high stone Walls of Hell.