Jillian Cade (13 page)

Nineteen

There was still
no electricity on the home front, obviously. Even though I was dying to tear my father's house apart for more clues about Rosemary-Who-Might-Be-My-Sister—and maybe even look up some of his old lectures on descendants of Asterion—it would all have to wait for sunlight. Besides, I was exhausted. I trudged up to my apartment and dropped fully clothed onto the futon.

I fell into a fractured, restless sleep, one where I found myself reliving the same incident over and over again. I was crouched on concrete with danger barreling toward me. Over and over, I jerked awake before the moment of impact. Over and over, the memory of how I'd been saved slipped away.

Wednesday morning, when I
finally staggered out of bed, there weren't enough minutes left to take a shower or eat breakfast. I made a mental note to rethink the tradition of driving Norbert to school. As I pulled on the closest items of (reasonably) clean clothing—a black denim skirt and a T-shirt screen printed with the word
fight
—I contemplated playing hooky. Maybe even dropping out. After all, I was already living the life of an adult. What more could I possibly gain or learn while being imprisoned five days a week with a bunch of kids whose biggest concern was prom?

Then again, the life I was living wasn't exactly the norm. Either for a teenager
or
an adult. And I did want more from real adulthood than a continued existence as a fake paranormal investigator. I assumed I would need a diploma in order to forge ahead in a different field, but I didn't know what that different field might look like. What did I want to be when I grew up? What would I be qualified to do? Clearly, not family therapy
. . .

While slaloming through traffic, I gave Norbert a rushed and garbled summary of the previous day's events. I glossed over the paranormal portion, as well as the vodka part of the vodka cranberries. I also didn't mention the part where I kissed Sky. I pretty much kept to the horror: getting chased by oversize thugs. In return, my cousin gave me a name.

“Dade Lawson.”

“Who?”

“Remember? That janitor from Valley College who wanted us to put a hex on the trig professor.”

“Right, that guy.” I swerved around a garbage truck and gunned through a yellow light. “We convinced him to go with the Egyptian locust plague instead.”

“Yeah. We put a dozen cockroaches in the professor's desk.”

I nodded. “Lawson thought he didn't get his money's worth.”

“Even though we gave him a partial refund,” said Norbert.

I thought for a moment as I shifted lanes again. Dade Lawson, as I remembered, was basically a more human version of my attackers the previous night: a gym rat who also happened to believe in black magic. “Nah. I don't think he sent the obituary. He wasn't smart enough to come up with something like that. Anyone else?”

“Hey, can you stop zigzagging?” Norbert scrolled on his phone. “One more. Here it is. Marion Blewitt.”

“Who?” Good thing I had Norbert around to keep track of details.

“That old lady in Chatsworth who was convinced her cat was Cleopatra reincarnated.”

I grimaced. “And then Cat-Cleo got run over by a soccer mom in a minivan.” I jammed into a parking space by the school. “We had nothing to do with that.” I wondered if Marion Blewitt was her real name. I suppose I should have wondered that at the time of her case.

“Still, not a satisfied customer,” Norbert said. He hopped out and slammed the door just as the bell rang from inside the school. Then he was off like a sprinter.

I followed, feeling queasy and hot. Coming here was a mistake.

Geometry class started with a discussion of proofs. Considering that my days were already spent trying to prove things that couldn't possibly exist, it was stupid that I had to waste an hour of my time explaining why Triangle A was congruent with Triangle B. Especially when the answer apparently had to involve a bunch of memorized theorems and postulates instead of the simple answer I tried to provide when called on.

“They're just the same.” I slumped further into my chair.

“But
why
?” asked Mrs. Keplin.

“Because they look the same.”

“That's not enough,” said Mrs. Keplin. “I need a theorem.”

“How about the theorem of ‘Duh'?”

Some classmates giggled. Some glared. Mrs. Keplin shook her head and scribbled something in her notebook.

Great. Another year, another class participation grade gone to hell.

At lunchtime, I bought a wilted salad and ate it on the hood of my car, mentally going over everything I knew about Corabelle's case. Given what had happened in Little Tokyo, I needed to explore all possibilities. No matter whether Misty
was
a succubus or
believed
she was a succubus (maybe the difference was unimportant) or was just a crazy fetish queen, I had to take a good look at her connection to Todd Harmon.

When I finished my salad, I jotted down two sets of notes: one that any real investigator would use and one that operated strictly in Lunatic Land. One of the two would lead to Todd Harmon. At least, I hoped so.

A phone search on (sigh!) succubi led me to several websites, including a few that featured articles by my father (sigh again). There was conflicting information about the details, but the general definition was pretty much the same across the board: a succubus was a lady demon who fed off human men.

Exactly what Sky had said.

Maybe he knew what he was talking about. Or maybe he'd just been to these websites too, the difference being he had been a believer going in.

I tried to look at things objectively. If I could buy the existence of succubi (still a leap), then I could also theoretically buy the idea that, in order to live, they required different sustenance than what normal humans needed. If, as these sites claimed, that sustenance was male “life force”—a euphemism for something completely disgusting—then feeding off human men kept succubi alive and made them stronger.

Okay, I could wrap my head around that if it weren't for this one thing: getting certain males to have sex is hardly a difficult task. Especially if you're a hot succubus with the ability to turn dudes to Jell-O with a gaze. Considering the number of horny teenaged boys at my school alone, it seemed like a succubus could screw her way to the top of the food chain in a single afternoon. If succubi existed, why weren't they ruling the world?

I was about to begin a search on “history of demons” when the bell rang. Lunch was over. I had already sent several texts to Norbert with no answer, so I'd finally fired off one to Sky, too. In return, I'd gotten nothing.

Silence from my cousin and silence from my
. . .
whatever he was.

*

When I got to Greek Mythology, the room had been rearranged so all the chairs were facing inward in a big circle. I sat down between two empty seats and dropped my backpack onto one of them to save it for Sky. It wasn't that I
wanted
to be near him; it was that I had some thoughts about Todd Harmon that warranted discussion.

At least, that was the angle I would go with.

If he ever showed up.

After Mr. Lowe sauntered into the classroom and closed the door, and Sky still hadn't arrived, I started to get pissed. I hadn't seen or heard from him all day. Sure, I had contemplated bailing on school myself, but I hadn't actually done it.

I watched Mr. Lowe lift a plastic basket off his desk and drop it onto the desk in front of the seat I'd saved. “You can put your index cards in here.”

Damn it. I had forgotten all about that dumb homework assignment.

I raised my hand and waited for Mr. Lowe to nod at me. “I have to powder my nose,” I told him, using the code every male teacher in every high school knows. This is the one thing that's awesome about menstruation: guy teachers will never—and I mean
never
—stop you from going to the bathroom.

Moments later, I was standing by a dirty sink, skimming a finger over my phone. My connection wasn't great, but I was able to pull up a website dedicated to characters from Greek mythology. It was easy to find a good one: Persephone. Daughter of Zeus and the Queen of the Underworld. She sounded sufficiently badass to me. I pulled out my index card and scribbled her name on it. When I got back to class, I shoved it into the basket among the others while Mr. Lowe's back was turned to the whiteboard.

Whew.

Even better, we were instructed to spend the next twenty minutes of class reading while Mr. Lowe looked over the cards. Translation: quality phone time, hidden by my textbook. I wasn't sure what my next move should be on the case, so I searched “fake obituary” on the off chance it was a
thing
and not a specific threat aimed at me. My heart sank. The only results were about a white-collar criminal in Florida who was scamming life insurance companies.

Just as troubling: still no Sky by the time Mr. Lowe told us he was ready to guess who had chosen which character.

“As I've only met some of you this week, I'm taking chances,” he announced. “Of course, there are those whose reputations precede them.”

Mr. Lowe struck out on his first guess but then nailed two in a row.

Peter Penn—a dude who wore enough black eyeliner to make me look like a ray of sunshine—was Thanatos, the Demon Personification of Death. Our resident hottie, Angel Ortega, was an easy one as Aphrodite: the Goddess of Love, Beauty, and Pleasure. When Mr. Lowe said her name, Angel fluttered her eyelashes. Of course she did.

From across the circle, Lauren-or-Laurel accidentally made eye contact with me. She flushed and looked down, like she'd done something wrong. I wondered if there was a Herald of the Hopelessly Damaged in the stack.

Mr. Lowe looked at the next card and nodded. “Persephone,” he told us, and then paused, letting his gaze drift around the room from person to person.

I waited to hear about Persephone's badassery. I didn't know how much this assignment was worth, but I hoped turning in someone so obviously suited for me meant I'd start off the year with a decent grade.

“This student made a brave choice,” said Mr. Lowe. “Persephone was a beautiful and warm-hearted girl until Death wrenched her away from her mother.”

Wait—what?!

“Persephone was kidnapped by Hades and dragged down to be his bride in the Underworld,” said Mr. Lowe. “She sealed her fate by eating a pomegranate. Nobody can eat the food of the dead and return to the world of the living. Some see her as the Queen of the Damned. Others see her as a cautionary tale.”

That was more like it.

“But astute scholars know her for who she really was. Someone forced to leave home too soon.” His voice softened. “A child missing her mother.”

No, no, no, no, no
. . .

“A girl in pain.” I was frozen, horrified as Mr. Lowe's compassionate eyes settled upon mine. “Persephone?”

Heat burned up my throat, stopping my breath and quickening my pulse. I would rather have been back in that alley. I would rather have been anywhere but there in that classroom for everyone to see me for what I truly was.

Scared.

Tragic.

A victim.

I had no idea what I was going to say, but I opened my mouth—and then closed it.

Lauren-or-Laurel had her hand raised.

“It was me,” she said in her wispy voice. “I'm Persephone.”

Mr. Lowe turned to her, confused. “You're Persephone? Are you sure?”

She nodded, her mouth set in a resolute line. “I'm sure.”

Mr. Lowe glanced back at me. “Why did you choose Persephone?” he asked her.

She swallowed, and her answer sounded more like a question. “I really like pomegranates?”

As the class burst into laughter, I grabbed my backpack and lurched to my feet. “I'm sorry, I have a headache,” I said before charging for the door. Mr. Lowe didn't try to stop me, but I felt his and Lauren-or-Laurel's eyes on me the entire way.

Although I slunk around the halls, ducking into bathrooms and janitor's closets any time a teacher came near, I ended up running into somebody after the bell rang. Not Sky (who'd apparently ditched) and not Norbert (who had a free study period).

No, it was Corabelle who fell into step beside me.

“How far have you gotten on my case?” she asked. She didn't sound happy.

“Far. Really far.”

“Do you know where Todd is?” she demanded.

“Not that far.”

Corabelle grabbed my arm and pulled me to a halt. “Stop screwing around. You're supposed to be working for me, remember? Instead all you've done is waste my money and my time.”

“Not true,” I snapped, yanking my arm away. “I've made a lot of progress. Investigations take time.”