The First Sacrament (The Demons of Stone Chapel Book 1) (29 page)

But I liked it. I liked it a lot.

Clearing his throat a little, Dante laid back against the pillows, his arms resting stiffly at his sides. I allowed myself to relax atop the hard column of his body, the nervousness slipping away into something more comfortable. Being alone with Dante was a lot like wearing a favorite sweater. Warm and easy and safe. 

“What did Chief Morales say?” I asked, careful not to move too much. I didn’t want to make him feel weird.

“I had to lie to her,” his chest lifted in a sigh. “I told her Rosemary was gone before we could find her. That we found those officers dead.”

“Do they…” I really hated that I had to say this now. “Do they think she’s still alive?”

“Yes, unfortunately.” He paused. The sharp edges of his face smoothed with sympathy. “I’m sorry, Beatrice. I…I didn’t know Vaena…”

“It’s okay,” I said. I couldn’t talk about Rosie right now. It hurt. “You had no idea. And Vaena, she’s just…”

I told him what happened while he was gone. What Vaena said about Rosie, about how she just wanted friends. “Crazy, right? She possesses Rosie because she’s
lonely?
I mean, I guess that’s better than wanting to kill her, but come on.” 

Dante’s hands folded on the small of my back. My breath caught, but I didn’t dare call him out on it. This was too nice to wreck. “Vaena is one of only two girls in my family, and the youngest. My father never…He never much liked her. I think perhaps he sees her as a mistake. If I had to guess, she followed him here because she wants to prove something to him. Her worth. I don’t know.”

That explained her clingy personality. “She really seems to love you, though. In her own creepy way.”

His gaze flickered to the fireplace before returning to my face. “She's still a child, Beatrice. She needs someone to love her. And I do, I love her dearly, but...”

I sat up, noticing the ragged edge in his voice. “But what?”

“I worry,” he said. “About her. About you. About everyone, this whole city.”

I wondered what that was like, to have the weight of the world on your shoulders. Two worlds, even. I whined endlessly to him about my responsibilities and yet he dealt with more than I could imagine on a daily basis. What's worse is that he never complained.

“You're going to tell me I worry too much,” he guessed.

I felt myself blushing as I shook my head. “No, I'm going to apologize for being such a brat eighty percent of the time. I never knew what you were going through. I never asked―well, I
did
ask. I just didn't do it very nicely.”

He pressed his lips together to make it seem like he wasn't smiling. “I should have told you from the beginning. For that,
I
apologize.”

“You're forgiven.” I jabbed at his chest with my finger. “Just don't lie again. Ever. About anything. I mean it, like―Okay, what color's your underwear?”

“
Really
, Beatrice?”

“This is a test and you're failing.”

“But―”

“Don't make me look.”

“Blue,” he said slowly, “they're blue.”

I smiled a little wider. “Thank you.”

Here came the awkward lull. The part where we stared at each other until something distracted us. Only I couldn't find a decent distraction. I kept returning to his mouth. His rare, almost-smiling mouth. How many people had fantasized about kissing it? How many times had
I
fantasized about kissing it? How many dreams had I wasted on him? How many awkward lulls would it take for us to realize that maybe, just maybe, we were more than friends?

I'd never know if I didn't try.

“Hey,” I said, leaning down, “Can I, um―”

Someone knocked on the door.

A cold shot of terror rippled through my body and in my haste to separate myself from Dante, I rolled over and fell off the couch. Dante sat up.

“Beatrice?” He breathed.

“I'm fine,” I replied, remaining on the floor, thinking of how great it would be if I could just melt through it right about now.

I heard the doors open. “Uh, Dante?”

My embarrassment thickened to a sludge in my stomach. Max. It had to be
Max.

“Yes?” Dante said.

“Am I―Am I interrupting something?” Max asked.

Yes, Max, you were.

“No, Max, of course not.”

I groaned, burying my head in the crook of my arm.

“Beatrice?” Max said.

Keeping my face covered, I flapped my free hand at him. “Ignore me.”

“What are you doing―”

“Max, do me a favor and pretend I'm not face down on the floor, okay?”

“Uh―”

“Ignore her,” Dante said shortly. “What do you need, Max?”

To get out of here, maybe? Didn't he have a message board to run? A cartoon to watch? A girlfriend to text? No? Okay.

“I, uh―Actually, I can't remember what it was now.”

Seriously?
Seriously?

“Right, well, let me know when you remember.”

“I will,” Max said. The doors creaked like they were about to close. “I'll see you guys later. Hope you're okay, Beatrice.

“I'm just great, Max.” I lifted my hand in a thumbs-up. “Thanks so much for asking.”

The doors closed. I pushed past the crushing embarrassment to force myself to my feet. Dante stood behind the couch, frowning at me like always.

Redness burned in my cheeks. “Yeah, can we just forget this ever happened? Please? We can both agree to never ever mention it ever again. Ever.”

“Agreed,” he opened one of the doors to show me out. “Goodnight, Beatrice.”

“Yeah,” I kept my head down as I passed him. “Bye.”

Thirty

As we agreed, neither Dante nor I spoke about the not-kissing incident. We focused on the impending Maybe Apocalypse instead.

We had exactly four weeks and two days until the winter solstice. Four weeks and two days before the anniversary of the “earthquake” that killed sixty-seven people. Four weeks and two days to brace ourselves for the oncoming storm. Four weeks and two days to make sure Amarax didn’t get his way.

Four weeks. Two days.

That was it.

To prepare, I trained harder than I ever had. Ran the five miles to the sanatorium and back three times a week. Took weights instead of gym at school. Went out back for target practice no matter the weather. Stuffed my brain full of every scrap of demonic trivia I could find.

Training for the Maybe Apocalypse was difficult, but the more I ran, the more I shot, the more I read, the stronger I got. By the end of the second week, I felt invincible.

I returned from my latest run to find Vaena waiting for me by the door. I'd taken Mo with me this time and he darted off to find his water bowl before she could grab him. She
really
liked Mo. He didn't share her affections.

“
Versmaash
,” she said, hugging me tight. “I must tell you something.”

“Personal space, Vaena,” I reminded her, wiping the sweat off my brow. In addition to training myself, I helped Vaena learn to be more human. She'd progressed in a lot of areas but she still liked clinging to me any chance she got.

“You never tell Malnoch this,” she said.

Oh, God. Not this again.

Dante and I weren't even a thing. We were friends. Mostly. Kind of.

“That's different,” I said, successfully prying her off. Another benefit of weight lifting.

She pouted. Her lip had finally healed and her hair had grown back, though Aralia provided her with a handful of wigs for when we had to take her away from the house. She wore one now, a blonde bob. Rosie would have hated it. “No, you just like him more.”

I didn't want to have this conversation with her. “Don't you have something to tell me?”

“Yes.” Her pout disappeared. “But not here. Upstairs. I want to go to your room.”

“Can I change first―Okay, never mind.”

She grabbed me and we ran up the stairs past Dante's study. He'd been in there all day, according to Aralia. We'd gotten through our rough patch from his shooting, thank God, and with Rosie gone, she'd officially taken up the mantle of Best Friend. We had Sylvie Karlov Saturdays in the TV room, breakfast at Sawyer's on Sundays, and she drove me to school when Max was too busy to make the trip. I even told her about what happened with Dante.

Thankfully, Max moved on as well. He asked me a week ago if it would be weird to take Sadie out on a date. I assured him it wasn't―though I suggested a nice restaurant as opposed to a night club―and they'd been going out ever since. It was cute. Nauseating because they fit so well together, but cute.

Vaena sat cross-legged on my bed, as was her usual pose, and chewed on her fingernails. The least of her bad habits. “There is a man here,
versmaash
,” she said. Her eyes got wide. “Close the door, close the door!”

I closed the door, taking my hair out of its ponytail. “There are a couple of men here. Max and your brother, remember?”

“I am not stupid,” she spat out bits of her thumbnail and brushed them onto the floor. “You have to make him leave.”

“I can't just kick him out,” I said. Whoever he was. I unzipped my hoodie and took off my sweatpants, exchanging them for pajamas. Red flannel pants and a shirt I'd stolen from Dante's room while he was showering.

Vaena was at my side in a flash. Demon speed and all that. “It’s Papa, Beatrice. The man is Papa. Malnoch is too weak, he can’t smell him like I can, but he
is
Papa, or—or at least one of his spies.”

“Okay, okay, calm down.” I gave her shoulder a placating pat, even though I felt like I needed one myself. I wasn’t prepared to meet the parents quite yet. Mostly because I didn’t have a gun on me. “I'll go get him out.”

“Really?” She gripped my hand so tightly that I wouldn't have been surprised if she broke a few bones.

I winced. “Yeah. Now let me go.”

“Promise―”

“I promise, Vaena.”

I couldn't walk out the door without promising her I'd come back. Doubly so for Dante. It was actually really sad. Back in Dis, no one but Dante treated her with any sense of kindness. She, like so many neglected kids, needed stability. And if my simple promises provided that stability, fine. But I couldn't let her keep crushing my hand.

“Seriously, Vaena,” I said, “let me go.”

“Sorry,” she muttered, then returned to my bed. “I will stay here. Get him out. Please. He can’t know I’m here.”

“I'm going, I'm going.”

I closed the door and went down the hall to Dante's study. Usually, I didn't knock. I just went in, sat down, and we went through our lessons for the day. But seeing as he had
company
, I decided knocking would be best. Wouldn't want to be rude to the devil—whoever he was right now.

“Hey,” I said, “it's me. I know you're busy, but―”

The door opened.

“Ah, Ms. Todd,” Mayor Bishop smiled his movie star smile and stuck his hand out in greeting. Everything about him looked polished and waxy, like a runaway from Madame Tussauds. “Mr. Arturo and I were just talking about you. Small world.”

“I―...” I didn't know what to say. There were so many things wrong with this picture that all the wrongness must have messed with my ability to speak in proper sentences.

Dante escorted him away. “Thank you for the invitation, Mayor Bishop. I'll be in touch.”

“Of course, Mr. Arturo,” he said, sauntering down the hall like he owned the place. “Lovely seeing you again, Ms. Todd.”

I waited until we heard the downstairs door close to open my mouth. “Did you have fun?”

“Believe me, I'm just as a surprised as you are,” Dante said. He studied me closely. “Are you wearing my shirt?”

“Don't change the subject.”

“Why are you wearing my shirt?”

“It's comfortable, okay? Why was the
mayor
in your study? Your sister is freaking out, she said she could
smell
your dad on him—”

His lips pressed together, barely containing a sigh. The dark spots under his eyes looked like bruises. “Beatrice, listen to me. We have to be careful.”

I knew he was right, but being careful was getting to be a real nuisance. “Why couldn’t you just have killed him, huh? Make our lives easier?”

“Because if it was that easy, I would have done it a long time ago.”

“Okay, but you could have…I don’t know, spilled some of Aralia’s wine on his suit.”  I was so desperate for retribution that something little like that would have sated me until we got the chance to kill him.

Dante laughed. A short, one-note laugh with just a hint of humor. “I’ll remember that for next time.”

Down the hall, my bedroom door opened. Vaena peeked out. “Is—is he gone?”

“Yes,” Dante said. The humor he regarded me with was flattened by his usual seriousness. “And now we need to have a talk.”

***

We assembled in the study, which I cleverly renamed the War Room, because every good army needed one. Max brought his laptop to record meeting notes and Aralia brought her wine to drink every time Dante looked like he wanted to punch something. At this rate, she'd be blackout drunk within an hour.

“Papa doesn't know I came here.” Vaena said nervously, sitting on the floor next to my chair. “But I’m sure he knows now. I heard him back in Dis, talking, and I wanted to help. Not—not him,
you
, Malnoch.”

“I know, Vaena,” Dante was doing his pacing thing again. Mo watched from the sidelines, ears perked. “I know you're afraid, but we’re running out of time and you need to come clean with us. Now. About everything.”

Vaena looked up at me, black eyes begging for support.

I tried to smile. It was a shaky effort. “It's okay. We won't let him hurt you.”

She chewed her fingernails, beginning slowly. “Papa has been watching for months. He has spies everywhere.”

“What kind of spies?” Dante asked.

“The spying kind?” Aralia muttered as she sipped her wine.

He glared at her. “Thank you, Aralia.”

“You're welcome, darling.” She lifted her glass, a toast to her joke.

He crossed his arms over his chest, exhaling through his nose like an angry bull. “Continue, Vaena. Please.”

“He controls them,” Vaena said after a moment. “You know what he does.”

Dante's jaw clenched. He knew.

“First, it was only one man. Then another, Gershom―”

“Gershom?” The rest of us chorused.

Vaena blinked. “Yes. He tried to kill all of you.”

“We remember.” Max grimaced at his laptop screen.

“He almost got you, computer boy,” she said. “He would have if Malnoch hadn’t showed up.”

“Great,” Max jabbed at his keyboard a little more forcefully. “That’s…that’s really awesome, Vaena. Thanks for telling me.”

Vaena shrugged. “Then, after you, there was a woman. A woman in black.”

A woman in black.
Why
did that sound so familiar?

“Vaena,” Dante asked, “how did you figure all of this out?”

She went back to chewing her nails, a sullen look on her face. “It is easy to go unnoticed when no one cares enough to look for you. And I have not always been in this body. I followed Papa for a time. Learned his plans. I knew you were here, Malnoch, and I wanted to help. I knew Papa would never let me, so...I followed him to Gershom. Then I followed
him
to Beatrice. And I followed
her
to you.”

The perks of being a full demon, I supposed. You could play
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
whenever you felt the urge. “So you were at The Inferno that night?”

She nodded. “Only for a little while. I left before Malnoch showed up.”

I let the rest of the conversation flow around me as I tried to rewind every significant moment of the past few months, every time I left the house. How many times had I walked past Vaena without ever knowing? How many times had I spoken to her? How many times had I looked right at her? She'd been under our noses this
entire
time, and we had no idea.

Demons were like that.

They could be anyone. Anything. Your sister, your mother, your brother, your father, your cat. And you wouldn't know it until their eyes went black, until their voices dipped low, until they tried killing you in your sleep.
That
was what made them so terrifying. Not their super-strength, not their inhuman speed, but their ability to conform. To hide. To indoctrinate.

No one was immune to their power.

Not even the mayor.

“I knew it was him as soon as he came inside.” Vaena said. “I knew it. You should not have let him come in, Malnoch.”

“He shouldn't have been able to get in at all!” Aralia exclaimed. She'd gotten past her third glass of wine and the effects of all that alcohol were starting to show. “I've warded this rubbish heap
multiple
times. This is bloody
stupid.
”

She needed to take another drink because Dante looked like he was about to kick a hole through the wall and then some.

I, however, was more relieved than angry. The mayor was our man all along, but now we finally had solid proof, as opposed to the hypotheses we had before. With Vaena's help, we nailed him to the murders, the kazraach, the church, everything. He denied demons had anything to do with the murders at that first press conference because they had
everything
to do with them. Demons murdered those people in that warehouse. Demons murdered Marion and Mr. Zarcotti. Demons were hunting, planning, watching, waiting. And one specific demon led the charge.

Amarax. The king of Dis. Enslaving―
possessing
―Mayor Michael Bishop to do his bidding. Just like he'd done to Elias Cromwell two hundred years ago.

It was the perfect set-up to an imperfect plan.

Two hundred years ago, no one was around to stop the slaughter. Two hundred years ago, demons poured from the shadows unabated. Two hundred years ago, Henriette's sister and sixty-six others were killed because of Amarax's greed.

Two hundred years later, history was trying to repeat itself. We couldn't let that happen. Too many lives depended on us. Too many lives depended on how well we played into Amarax’s waiting hand.

This wasn't a mystery anymore.

It was a race. A race we had no choice but to win.