Prophecy Girl (Angel Academy) (11 page)

Normally, students drove themselves to the test site, but since Katie didn’t have her license and Lisa wasn’t dumb enough to let me borrow the Prius, Jack would be my chauffeur for the day. Amped as I felt at being in a car with him, my excitement turned to horror when I saw the rust-covered scrap heap he approached. It looked like a lump of white Play-Doh that had been rolled in mud, then fashioned into a car by a three-year-old.

“What is this?” I asked.

“What does it look like?” Jack yanked at the passenger door but it didn’t budge. He pulled harder, and the handle came off in his palm.

“It looks like my grandma’s old VW Rabbit after the Berlin Wall fell on it. Twice.”

I watched him reach through the open window to pop it from the inside. The door gave a screeching howl of pain as it fell open, revealing ripped upholstery and—no kidding—rust holes in the floor so big you could see the pavement below.

“Is it roadworthy?”

“Yes, it’s
roadworthy
.”

I eyed the thing with uncertainty. “Are you sure?”

“Get in the car, Miss Bennett.”

I squinted up at Jack. “So, where are your glasses today? Can you even see enough to drive? How many fingers am I holding up?”

Jack heaved an exasperated sigh. “Just get in the car.”

The morning clouds had cleared by the time we pulled up to a pale blue, Empire-style house. Yellow sunbeams stretched lazily above the line of trees, promising a scorcher of a day. My palms still felt sweaty, but I knew it wasn’t from the heat. Much as I liked to cop an attitude about school, the truth was some things actually
were
important to me. This test was one of them.

Goosebumps rose along my arms as I studied the place.

It definitely looked like a house that could be haunted, even by the most conservative New Orleans standards. Cobwebs draped in languid strands across the corners of the window frames, and the front staircase shed paint chips like a dog with dandruff. Palm fronds and fleur-de-lis were etched with handmade precision into the ironwork, details rivaling any of the old mansions on St. Charles. Still, something about the sag of the gallery left me with a tight seed of nervousness in my belly. The whole thing looked like it might tumble down at the slightest sneeze. Wrought iron lanterns hung on either side of the front door, one with its bulb blown out and the other dangling at an odd angle. Vines had grown up along the lower half of the hardwood siding, and some of the planks had started to rot under the growth. Whoever was in charge of maintenance and repair had some serious explaining to do.

“Charming,” I commented as Jack’s engine sputtered to halt. “Is this where you take all your dates?”

He ignored me. Understandably.

“Your task is to locate the demonic manifestation inside the house, open a portal, send the creature back to the Crossworld, and close the portal without incurring any damage to the house. You’re permitted to use me as an energy repository, though you will lose points if that energy output exceeds fifty rohms. You have thirty minutes,” he said with a glance at his watch. “Starting now.”

I took a deep breath as Jack trailed me to the front door, clipboard in hand. “It’s locked,” I observed, my thumb
thwapping
the handle. “What am I supposed to do?”

He jotted down some notes on his clipboard. “Maybe you should give up and go home. One little homicidal demon wandering the human world won’t make a difference.”

I glared at him. “Matt said he got a pep talk at his test. I don’t rate a pep talk?”

“You want a pep talk?” He made a fist with one hand, then punched it through the air in a victorious motion. “Go get ‘em. You’ve got twenty-eight minutes.”

“Dude, do
not
join the pep squad.” I crouched by the door and peered at the lock. It looked like a basic security set-up, no visible demonic booby-traps…not that I’d know what those looked like.

It took me a few seconds to blow the dust away and draw an opening glyph on the lock. My finger-strokes hissed as the shape flared and sank into the metal surface. I placed one hand over the symbol and spoke, “
Abertura
.”

With a
click
, the door fell open.

Cool air seeped out from the foyer, carrying with it the inevitable musty odor of last night’s rainstorm. Jack must have administered at least ten tests so far, though I was betting none of them had been here. The dank taste of mold collected at the back of my throat as I watched cockroaches scurry for cover.

“Home, disgusting home,” I mumbled.

My Guardian spidey-sense tingled as it led me up the stairs toward what looked like a teenager’s messy bedroom. It would probably be a Chelax demon. FYI, teenagers and Chelax demons go together like bread and butter, sugar and spice, movies and popcorn, pizza and… What goes with pizza?

Eh, never mind.

I touched the door lightly, the creaky hinge inching open. For all the atmospheric build up of the house, I had to admit I was disappointed. There were no pentagrams, no animal sacrifices, no voodoo talismans. It just looked like a boring, old room. We’d been told to expect the unexpected for our tests, but this wasn’t quite what I’d had in mind.

Semi-rumpled piles of dark laundry were folded at the foot of the bed, a couple of teenage romance novels scattered around. Other than that, it was completely empty. No orb, no vortex, no giant mess at the hand of the angry demon. The only disruption I could make out was a quivery black mass in the corner about the size of an overweight Labrador.

I regarded the demon, only vaguely aware of Jack’s silent presence behind me. “Why is it acting like a spanked puppy?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps you should ask it?”

I frowned at him. “Isn’t sarcasm the opiate of the masses?”

“You’re thinking of religion,” he replied. “Sarcasm is the Xanax of the morally bereft.”

With my index finger, I sketched the requisite four binding wards (North, South, East, and West) to make sure nothing snuck through from the other side.

“I have a theory on why you never got bonded,” I said. “I think you ridiculed all your potential bondmates until their self-esteem imploded. Then, when it came time to list prefs, no girl could write your name without bursting into tears. Am I close?”

He tucked the clipboard against his chest. “What makes you think I’m not bonded?”

“Are you?” I asked, looking around innocently. “Where was she yesterday? Why isn’t she helping you with this Graymason thing? Enforcement
never
breaks up bonded pairs,” I pointed out ultra-reasonably. “That would be suicide.”

“Maybe she’s dead,” he said, his face perfectly blank.

I shot him a skeptical look as the glow of the wards intensified. “Nice try, but I don’t think so. You’ve seen those guys. They’re like shells, or something. You don’t feel like that to me.”

Electricity crackled up my arms, and the skin between my fingers began to pink as I called open the Crossworld channel. I had no idea why everything was going so seamlessly. Maybe it was the mold count in the house or the last gasp of summer ragweed. With school starting and the whole business with the incident report last night, this was the second day in a row Bud had forgotten my allergy meds.

I began the portal incantation, “
Caret initio et—
”

“Include translation, please.”

“Seriously? Am I five years old?”

He made a few notes but said nothing. Smug bastard.

“Fine.” I cracked my knuckles and wiggled my fingers theatrically. “
Caret initio et fine.
There is no beginning and no end.
Ab initio, ad patres.
From birth unto death.
Deficit omne quod nasciture.
Everything that is born returns.”

In an icy hot rush, energy shot out of my fingers into a wide arc in front of me. The air between the wards began to ripple as if someone had painted the scene on a bed sheet and given it a rough shake. A sound like ripping silk echoed through the room and, when I glanced up, the portal had opened. Disaster free.

Hah!
I felt a nugget of pride bloom in my chest.
Take that, Jackson Smith-Hailey!

The pride might have lasted more than a nanosecond if I hadn’t caught Jack jotting what looked like a frowny-face at the top of his clipboard. Annoyed once more, I turned my attention to the center of the room.

Looking into a Crossworld portal is a little like looking in a mirror, only it’s made of thickened energy instead of silvered glass. I managed to hold it open with one hand while the other scrawled an immobilization glyph over the Chelax demon. Not that the poor thing needed it. His eyes were so wide with fear he looked like a harsh word might convince him to hurl
himself
into the portal.

Tendrils of oily dust whipped about the room, then curled back in wild, chaotic arcs. “Something’s wrong,” I noted. “This doesn’t feel right.”

Jack gave me a dismissive touch on the shoulder, drawing the last shreds of darkness out of my head. At the same time, little spurts of golden light flashed over my skin. “Try not to think about it,” he said. “A job well begun is half done.”

“Thank you, Mary Poppins.”

I tried to focus on my breath and not on the deafening sirens in my head as the demon tumbled into the portal. I was about to turn toward Jack for approval when the world…shut off.

Seriously.

Whatever platitudes he was about to spout were lost under a curtain of thick, black silence. And when I say “black” and “silent,” I don’t mean “kind of dim” and “naptime quiet.” It was as if someone had dropped one of those heavy, fireproof blankets the EMTs use in emergencies over the entire building. It shut out
everything
. Light, street noise, air, even the sounds of birds and crickets vanished. The result was something so oppressively empty it felt deafening.

“Okay, what just happened?” I whispered, certain that anything louder than a whisper would shatter my eardrums. I was wrong. Even if I had screamed, the words wouldn’t have made it more than a few inches in front of my face. They disappeared as I said them, sucked into oblivion.

Jack’s hand still rested at my shoulder. He tightened it now. “Don’t move,” he said.

The cadence of his voice suggested yelling though I could barely hear him. His arms threaded snugly around me, tugging me against the firm lines of his chest.

“What’s going on?” I said louder.

“Don’t let go of me.”

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

His lips must have been just a few inches away from my ear, but I swear, it sounded as if he was whispering from the end zone of a football field. All noise seemed to evaporate like an early morning fog. With both hands tight around my waist, he started moving toward the place where I remembered the door having been. Maybe. Frankly, I couldn’t tell squat given the sensory deprivation tank the room had become. Jack, thankfully, could. When we’d reached the doorframe, he freed one hand, groping at the wall in search of
a
doorknob.

With sight and sound gone, the rest of my senses seemed to sharpen into hyper-focus. Jack’s touch was velvet on my arms and he smelled amazing—like shampoo and marshmallows and something uniquely musky. Sunshine, if sunshine had a smell.
Sigh, I could die happy now.

Wait, not literally.

Watcher, you are a traitor to the Guardian line. Surrender now, and the girl won’t be harmed.

It was odd how the words seemed to appear in my head, deep and scratchy, like sandpaper. I tiptoed up until my lips brushed Jack’s earlobe. “What is that?”

Jack’s entire abdominal wall tensed as he shouted back, “
Ant hill
.”

Except he said “ant hill” the way most people said “certain death” or “gushing bloodbath.” Which is why it took me a minute to get that he wasn’t saying “ant hill” at all.

Anakim
.
The Gray One?

“Seriously?” I asked, trying not to freak out.

“No escape,” he yelled. “It’s okay. Tell Smalley…perceptual vortex. Warded perimeter.”

It’s okay?
No, it was definitely not okay! I knew about warded perimeters. We’d studied them junior year so we could understand how the one around our school worked. I’d even drawn a few simple ones myself around my house. But unlike my or St. Michael’s wards, this one wasn’t letting
anything
through. Not nature or light or sound. Nothing. There would be no call for help, no signal to the outside. If a Graymason was holding it, I probably couldn’t even channel an energy burst. The only reason Jack and I could sense one another at all was because we’d been touching when the barriers went up. Now, I understood why he’d said not to let go of him. If we lost physical contact for even a second, I’d never find him again.

The choice is yours, Son of Gabriel. Surrender, and she goes free
, the voice repeated.
Fight, and she dies with you.

“Is this part of the test?” I shouted.

I felt Jack shake his head. “Thought you…Gray One…kill me… Not enough time.” He sighed. “Gotta go.”

“
Go
? With him? Are you deranged?” I yelled, genuinely curious.

Clumps of hair fell into my eyes but I blinked them away blindly. I was too afraid to loosen my hold for even the second it took to brush them back. If this was the end, I couldn’t think of anyplace I’d rather be than in his arms. Lame, I know, but totally true.

My mind flipped through the possibilities for escape. Weapons? None. Emergency beacons? Not likely.

This sucked! I was going to die, and I’d never even been to the beach. Or bowling. Crap, I hadn’t done anything cool!

Panic gripped my heart as Jack’s arms loosened around me, the tips of his fingers sliding up to cup my face.

I clung to him like a barnacle. Granted, we’d had our issues, but if he thought he could push me away
now
he had another think coming. Not until I felt something brush my lips did I understand.

He wasn’t pushing me away.

Last summer, when Lyle tried to kiss me, it was like kissing an impatient guppy. Clumsy, greedy, and so,
so
messy. This was none of those things.