No Angel (18 page)

“Good evening,” the Headmistress said, entering without waiting to be invited. She looked around at us all, her expression cool and calm as ever. “I believe we need to talk.”

Chapter 30

N
O!” Faith shouted, tackling Michaela around the waist as the other girl leaped for the Headmistress with daggers raised. The two crashed into a shelf, textbooks and papers tumbling over their heads. Faith pinned Michaela’s wrists against the wall. “You can’t hurt her! She’s still my mother!”

“She’s a demon!” Michaela struggled against Faith’s grip. “She’s evil!”

“You heard the others talking, Faith.” The instant the door had opened, I’d thrust Krystal behind me and snatched my keys out of my pocket. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but at least they were metal. Angelic fire crackled around my wings, eager to be released into the mortal world as I pointed them straight at the Headmistress. “She’s knows we’re onto them. She’s probably here to kill us all.”

“If I wanted to kill you, Mr. Angelos, you would already be dead.” The Headmistress did not appear the slightest bit perturbed by the sudden outbreak of weaponry. “And as for evil, Miss Dante, may I remind you that it was not I who attempted to shoot an innocent girl.” She seated herself on Michaela’s swivel chair. “But you have one thing correct.” For an instant, a black aura flickered around her. All our breaths steamed in the suddenly freezing air. “I
am
a demon.”

Michaela made another desperate lunge, Faith barely managing to hang on to her. “Let me go, Faith! You have to let me protect you!”

“Yes,” the Headmistress said unexpectedly. “Release her, Faith. It is the fastest way I can prove my intentions.” When Faith hesitated, her mother barked, “Now! Do not be afraid. She will not harm me.”

The instant Faith’s hands opened, Michaela scooped up her daggers and lunged for the Headmistress. Before I could even blink, let alone move to back her up, she had buried one in the Headmistress’s throat, the other in her heart. “That was the last mistake you’ll ever make,” Michaela snarled.
“Sancte Michael Archangele, defende nos in proelio!”

Nothing happened.

“Are you quite finished?” the Headmistress asked calmly, around the dagger in her neck. A trickle of blood ran down the blade, dark and sluggish. “We do not have long. Even demonic teachers will only sit around drinking tea and complaining at each other for so long before growing bored.”

“Contra nequitiam et insidias diaboli esto . . . esto . . .”
Michaela trailed off, baffled. She looked around as if searching for something. “Rafael? Where’s my guardian angel?”

“Right above you, as always.” The creature was at its customary station, hovering heavenward over Michaela’s head. All of its eyes were fixed on the Headmistress, but its flames were low and dull, like a banked fire.

“The demon isn’t doing anything to stop her?”

“Not that I can see.”

“Or me,” Faith added, frowning as she stared at the angel herself. Only two of its wings beat, slowly, while the rest had drawn tight about its body, muffling its glow. “Though it looks . . . sad.”

“Doubtless due to your appalling pronunciation,” the Headmistress said to Michaela. She took hold of Michaela’s daggers between finger and thumb, drawing them out of her flesh. The wounds closed up the instant the blades left her skin. “Latin may be a dead language, Miss Dante, but there is no need to desecrate the corpse.”

Michaela backed off, looking down at her daggers as if they’d misfired. “I don’t understand. You’re a demon. Why won’t my guardian attack you?”

“Because she knows what else I am,” the Headmistress said. She sat back in her chair, steepling her fingers. “A traitor.”

We all, as one, stared at her.

The Headmistress raised her eyebrows at us. “You never wondered how I could fail to notice for
sixteen years
that my husband was a demon hunter? You did not pause to ponder why I would allow a known Dante to rampage unchecked within my territory? You never calculated the odds of the one male I allow into this school turning out to be an unknowing nephil?” She shook her head. “Remedial critical-thinking classes for you all, I believe.”

“Okay, hold it right there,” Krystal said from behind me. She shoved at my shoulder. “And Raf, sweet as this is, stop squishing me into the wall. I don’t think she’s going to suck my soul out.” She ducked under my arm to face the Headmistress square on, hands on her hips. “I’ll accept that there are a lot of things that make more sense if you’ve secretly been on our side all along. But if you really are working for good, then the thing that
doesn’t
make sense is why you’re letting a dozen demons run around this school!”

“Better this school than the world, Miss Moon. Would you rather Ms. Hellebore was giving weapons lessons to terrorists instead of teenagers? I am powerful enough that here, on my home ground, they must obey me. I drag them in from around the world, kicking and complaining. While they are working for me I am able to curtail their worst excesses.” She gestured around at us all. “The success of that may be judged by the fact that none of
you
, with all your knowledge, suspected what they truly were before today. Miss Dante, have you ever heard of demons behaving this subtly before?”

“No,” Michaela growled. “But that just proves you’re exceptionally dangerous, if you can command lesser demons to act against their natures.”

“Miss Dante, you are quite willfully obtuse.” The Headmistress sighed. “Please ask yourself, if I was evil . . .
why
would I command demons to restrain themselves?”

“You’re reformed,” Faith breathed. Rising hope shone in her face. Taking two steps forward, she reached out to clasp her mother’s unresisting hands. “You’re redeemed! My father’s love redeemed you!”

A pained look flickered across the Headmistress’s usually impassive expression. “Sometimes,” she said with a sigh, “you are
very
much his daughter.” She looked down at Faith’s hands, still clutching her own. “Suffice it to say that I have my own reasons for wanting the Hellgate closed. Gabriel thought that he was double-crossing a demon. He never realized that I was on his side all along.”

“The side of Heaven. You’re good, I knew you had to be good!” Faith paused, a shadow flickering across her expression. She drew back fractionally from her mother. “But . . . why did you fight with him after he told me about the Hellgate? You threw him out, leaving him defenseless against the demons.”

“I had no choice. You see, he did not know about the other demons at this school. I kept them concealed from him, even as I ensured they did not discover his true nature.” She sighed, pulling her hands out of Faith’s and folding them in her lap. “He was still a Dante at heart, and I knew he would not be able to restrain himself if he knew their true nature. But that meant that when he decided the time was right to tell you the truth, he did not realize that the other demons were eavesdropping.” She looked around at us all, lingering on me. “Hell is always under your feet. Listening. Watching. You would do well to remember that.”

“So you just sat back and let the demons kill your own husband?” Krystal said. “Nice.”

“It was that or have them kill him, myself,
and
Faith,” the Headmistress retorted. “If I had attempted to defend him, they would have discovered my treachery, and that would have been the end of us all. I had no choice.”

“You lie, deceiver.” Michaela’s dagger points were rock steady. “You’re still trying to trick Faith into sacrificing her soul to your dark Prince.”

“I will not see my daughter sacrificed to anyone,” the Headmistress said with surprising force. “Not to a Prince of Hell. Not to an angel—oh, yes, Miss Dante, I know what my husband planned for Faith, and I would have killed him myself before I allowed him to risk her in such a fashion. Even a demon may grow to care for her child.” She gestured at me. “Ask Mr. Angelos.”

I thought of my own mother, and the flames flickering over my wings guttered uncertainly. I knew that she would never have done anything to hurt me, and she had been a demon too. “But even if you want to save Faith, why do you want to close the Hellgate? Won’t you be banished too?”

“Yes, Mr. Angelos. I shall be cast down into the deepest depths of Hell, never again to return to the mortal world,” the Headmistress said with perfect equanimity. “I am prepared to face that fate.”

“She’s sacrificing herself. That
proves
she isn’t evil,” Faith said fiercely, pushing my still-outstretched keys down and clouting me with a wing to force me to fold my own. “Stop threatening her.” She turned her trusting blue eyes back on her mother. “I don’t care what they think. I believe you, Mother.”

“Good.” The Headmistress rose. “Because I expressly forbid you to have anything more to do with these people.”

“What?” Krystal, Michaela, and I yelled together.

“But, Mother, closing the Hellgate takes two nephilim. Two half-breeds united to produce as much light as a full angel.” Faith reached back to take my hand. “Michaela’s guardian said so.”

“Did she? In those precise words? Naming Mr. Angelos specifically?” The Headmistress raised an eyebrow at Faith’s sudden, uncertain silence. “I thought not. Mr. Angelos did not feature in your father’s plans, Faith. Channeling the light of Heaven requires a pure soul. Ask Miss Dante. You have been raised specifically to be such a channel, but do you think Mr. Angelos is as virtuous as yourself? Has he not demonstrated the vast depths of his laziness, his arrogance, his wrath?”

“Hey!” I protested.

“Oh, come on,” Krystal said to the Headmistress. “I’m not saying he’s a saint, but he’s not evil incarnate.”

“He is an adolescent male, Miss Moon, which is bad enough . . . but he is also quite literally half demon. And he is rogue, raised by a mundane unaware of his true heritage, unable to provide the discipline required to overcome his tainted nature. Have you not realized that nephilim are balanced between Heaven and Hell? They can channel the light, true, but they can just as easily unleash the forces of darkness. If a nephil reflected
that
power into the world, the Hellgate would become immeasurably larger, rather than closing.”

“Your aura was black.” Michaela’s voice had gone hard and cold. Her dark eyes were fixed upon me, wary. “When you broke my circle, you channeled darkness to do it. That was the power of Hell.”

“You were trying to stab me with a dagger at the time,” I snapped. “You can’t blame a guy for getting angry!”

Krystal bit her lip. “It’s not the only time, Raf,” she said in a very small voice.

“I’m not evil!” Glaring around at them, I put a hand on Faith’s shoulder. “Anyway, you don’t have a choice. You need two nephilim to do this thing, so—” I stopped. Faith had twisted out from under my hand, backing away. “Faith?”

Her eyes met mine, agonized. “What if they’re right, Raffi? My father
died
to give me this chance. I can’t risk wasting it.”

“But if we can’t use Raf, how can we close the Hellgate?” Krystal asked, frowning.

“Not Faith and my guardian angel!” Michaela had lowered her daggers, but now she pointed them at the Headmistress’s heart again. “It would destroy her. I’ll kill you if you try to persuade her.”

“Miss Dante, I may be a demon, but I have no desire to see my daughter harmed,” the Headmistress snapped. “No. The Hellgate can be closed as you thought, Faith. With the power of love. That is what the light
is
, after all. Love itself.”

The greatest light is love
. The angel’s voice rang in my mind like a distant bell. From the expressions on everyone else’s faces, I wasn’t the only one remembering those words. Even Krystal looked like she wasn’t completely discounting the idea. “You’re saying that if Faith’s in love, it would amplify her light? Enough to close the Hellgate?”

“As I said, Miss Moon, Faith can close the Hellgate. She needs only to be united with a suitable partner.”

“Well then, that’s
still
me,” I said, ignoring that recurring twinge of doubt. “So there.”

“Is it, Mr. Angelos?” The Headmistress turned to Faith. “Or is it the one you knew it was, before a vain nephil boy caught your eye with his shallow charms?”

Faith’s eyes widened. “Billy-Bob.”

“It’s a trap, Faith!” Michaela shouted. “I see her plot now. Hell still needs you. The Prince is too powerful to possess anyone other than a nephil. If you refuse him, he can’t enter the mortal world.” She dropped into a combat crouch, crossing her daggers as she glared at the Headmistress. “But you’ve been caught by your own lies, demon. There’s no Billy-Bob at Winchester.”

“There are, however, plenty of Roberts,” the Headmistress said acidly. “Honestly, you thought ‘Billy-Bob’ was his real name?”

“I’m with Michaela. I know Ms. Wormwood was faking those messages.” I started to raise my keys again, but a black tentacle flicked out of nowhere, knocking them out of my grasp before I could channel fire down them. “Faith! She’s lying to trick you into binding with the demon Prince!”

“Kindly do not call my daughter an idiot to her face.” The Headmistress grasped Faith’s wrist, pulling her to her side. “Miss Dante, you well know that bindings cannot be forced. And that a manifesting demon cannot fully disguise their true nature. Forewarned as she is, Faith cannot fail to recognize the Prince, and she would have to accept him willingly. Do you honestly think her such a fool?”

Michaela and I exchanged glances across the tentacles holding me at bay. Faith, catching the looks, tossed her hair. “I
can
recognize a pentagram, you know,” she snapped, sounding very much like her mother. “I’m not about to promise anything to a guy standing inside one.” She hesitated, looking uncertainly at the Headmistress. “But even if Raffi’s not my true love, he’s still my friend. They all are. I—”

“You will obey me!” We all shivered as the temperature in the room dropped at least ten degrees with the force of the Headmistress’s anger. “The other demons are always watching, Faith. They have no reason to fear you and Billy-Bob, for they do not realize the true strength of your devotion to him, but the mere thought of you together with Mr. Angelos fills them with terror. The succubus was assigned to do all in her power to stop that from happening. She failed. Give them any excuse, and their next attack will not be nearly so subtle.”