The Reckoning (22 page)

“N
EXT STOP
,
DEAR
A
UNTIE
Lauren,” the demi-demon trilled. “Then straight to the nearest exit and”—she smiled—“freedom for all.”

“Not all.” Tori glanced at me as we walked. “We need to download the project files. There are other kids out there thinking they’re mentally ill, like Peter and Mila. Plus others who might not have come into their powers yet.”

Peter had been at Lyle House when I arrived, and he’d been released before we escaped. I hadn’t known Mila, only that she’d been there before me, and had been “rehabilitated” and sent back into the world.

“I would love to get those files,” I said. “But we don’t have time to access and print—”

Tori pulled a thumb drive from her pocket. I wasn’t even going to ask where that came from.

“

“You have Dr. Davidoff’s password,” she said. “We have access to his office. I can download the files while you’re getting your aunt.”

“And there’s got to be a phone,” Simon said. “I can try my dad again.”

They were right. I’d regret it if we left without those names. And I’d regret it even more if we got locked up again and had passed up the chance to tell Mr. Bae where we were.

We got to the office. It needed an additional code, but the demi-demon knew it. Then I said the demi-demon and I would get my aunt and come back.

“So the sorcerer is staying with his sister?” the demi-demon asked.

“Sister?” Simon said. “She’s not—”

“Sister spell-caster,” I said to him quickly. “She talks like that.”

When we were far enough away, I whispered, “So Simon’s dad really is Tori’s father?”

“The worst-kept secret in the building.” Her singsong tone jarred with the guard’s gruff voice. “And that, my child, is saying a lot.”

“Guess that explains why her mom freaked out when Tori admitted she liked Simon.”

“Oooh, that would be awkward. A lesson to you in keeping secrets. They will come back to haunt you in the most uncomfortable ways. Whether that one feels any guilt, though, is quite another matter. She has the morals of a succubus. I must
admit, it was quite amusing, watching her attempt to seduce the sorcerer. Quite a blow to her ego when she failed.”

“Failed?” I said as we turned the corner. “But if Tori is his daughter, then obviously—”

“Obviously nothing. What do they teach children in school these days? Sex is hardly the only way to reproduce. Arguably the most fun, but if that fails, and you have access to a complete laboratory, with every excuse to procure the necessary bodily fluids…”

“Eww. That’s—”

An alarm bell clanged right over my head.

“Time’s up, it seems,” the demi-demon murmured.

She opened the nearest door with the card and propelled me inside, slipping through after me.

“My aunt—”

“Is fine. She’s only a few doors down, safe for now. You’re the pigeon who’s not in her coop.”

The demi-demon led me across the room to a second door, opening into a big closet. She ushered me inside.

“Simon and Tori—”

“Are, I presume, in possession of functioning ears and brains. They will hear the alarm and take cover, which is what we need to do.”

As I stepped into the closet the guard’s body collapsed. I fell to my knees beside it.

“I believe you’ll find he’s still quite dead.” The demi-demon’s voice came from above my head. “As useful as that
mortal form was, this one is better equipped for sneaking about.”

“I thought you said you couldn’t get out of there without my help.”

“
Implied
, never said. I’m a demon. We know all the loopholes. Now, I’m going to take a look around. You still have that gun, don’t you?”

“Yes, but—”

“Take it out and hope you don’t need to use it. I’ll be right back.”

A rush of warm air. Then I was alone with the guard’s body.

The alarm continued to whoop.

Did I hear the pounding of running feet? A shout? A shot?

Relax. There’s nothing you can do.

That was the problem. I was stuck cowering in my hidey-hole, shaking hands wrapped around a gun that I didn’t know how to fire, knowing there was nothing I could do, nothing that wasn’t so reckless Derek would have reason to yell at me if he were here, and God how I wished he were. I’d take the yelling just to know he was safe—

He is safe. Safer than if he
was
with you.

If he’d been left at the house then, yes, he’d be fine. He had Liz to watch out for him, and he had no idea where we’d gone and no way to come after us. He’d be furious, but safe.

I glanced over at the guard. He lay in a heap, dead eyes
staring up at me. I thought about him, wondered—

Don’t think about him. Don’t wonder anything. Or you’ll get your wish and you won’t be alone in this closet.

I looked away quickly and erased his image from my head. I checked out the gun instead. I’d written shoot-outs in screenplays but, to my embarrassment, had no idea whether the gun was loaded or if there was a safety on it. Stuff like that doesn’t matter in a screenplay. You just say “Chloe fires the gun” and leave the rest to the actor and the props department.

It looked like a Glock, though, and from what I remembered, they didn’t have safeties. Just point and shoot. I could manage that if I had to.

See, you’re not helpless. You have a weapon. Two weapons.

Two? My gaze slid to the guard and I swallowed hard. No, I’d never—

Sure you would, if it came down to it.

No, I—I…

Can’t even finish the denial, can you? You’d do it if it was the last resort. Controlling the dead. That’s your power. Your greatest power.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

“You can’t see anyone coming like that.”

It took a moment to realize that the voice hadn’t come from inside my head. The demi-demon was back.

“What set off the alarm?” I asked.

“I haven’t a clue, but your friends are safe. They’ve
retreated to Davidoff’s reading room. The group realizes you’ve escaped, but, shockingly, they presume you actually tried to get out of the building. Fortunately, you’re nowhere near an exit. Unfortunately…”

“We’re nowhere near an exit.”

“I can get you out. I may even be able to rescue your aunt on the way. But your friends are in the opposite direction, and I can’t possibly—”

“Then I don’t go. Not until it’s safe for all of us.”

“A noble choice. However, there’s only one alternative and I fear you’ll like it even less than my last suggestion.”

“Free you.”

As I said it, my inner voice screamed that I’d been tricked. But I could hear the shouts of the Edison Group. They really
had
been alerted and there was no reason for the demi-demon to do it herself, not when she could have easily escorted us out the door and claimed her reward.

“Free me and you will cripple the magics cast on this place,” she said.

“Great. That’ll help end the experiments, but how does it get us out? It’s not the magic I’m worried about. It’s the alarms and guys with guns. What I need—”

“Is a distraction. And that’s what I’m offering. My magic permeates this place. The disruption will affect far more than their spells. You will get the distraction you need.”

Our plan had failed and she had every reason to lie now and convince me to free her, before I realized I was trapped.

“I made a bargain,” she said. “A demon’s bargain is binding. Free me and I am bound by my word as tightly as these bonds.”

Did I trust her? Of course not. Did I have another option? Not one I could see.

“Tell me what to do.”

F
REEING THE DEMI-DEMON WASN’T
much different from freeing a ghost. I suppose that made sense, since she’d gotten here by a type of summoning.

“Almost there, child,” she said, her warm breath swirling around me. “I can feel the shackles falling. A quarter century of servitude and finally I will be free. The very walls will tremble with my leaving, and they’ll scurry like frightened mice. Just a little more. Can you feel it?”

I couldn’t feel a thing, just wished she’d shut up and let me concentrate.

She let out a cry that made me jump, and the closet filled with whirling hot air. I braced myself. The wind whipped around me, then gradually subsided to a pleasant breeze before disappearing altogether.

Silence.

“Is that…it?” I said.

“Hmm. Do you feel anything else? A vibration, perhaps?”

“No.” I glowered in the direction of her voice. “You promised a distract—”

The closet shook. A dull rumble sounded overhead, like a train chugging across the roof. As I looked up, a sudden tremor knocked me off my feet.

A ceiling tile hit my shoulder. Then another. The tiny room creaked and groaned and crackled, walls splitting, chunks of drywall raining down.

“Out, child!” The demi-demon shouted to be heard above the din. “You need to get out!”

I tried to stand, but fell back to all fours. The room kept shaking and creaking, walls groaning as they ripped open. Drywall dust filled my nose and stung my eyes. I crawled blindly, following the demi-demon’s voice as she led me.

I made it out of the closet and into the main room. It was shaking just as much, the floor tiles buckling beneath me. A chunk of falling plaster hit my back. Another the size of a fist glanced off my injured arm, shattering as it hit the floor, bits flying into my mouth.

As I spat out the plaster, I smelled something other than drywall dust. A sweet scent, strangely familiar.

“
Faster
,” the demi-demon said. “Keep moving.”

As I crawled, the shaking stopped. The groaning stopped. The room went completely silent and still.

I looked around. Dust still filled my eyes, making them water. The floor was carpeted in plaster. The walls were a patchwork of cracks and hanging chunks of drywall.

The room groaned again, softer now, like it was settling, and all that remained was the sweet smell.

The demi-demon kept urging me on. I got to my feet. Outside, I could hear the distant shouts and cries of the Edison Group. Overhead the light flickered like a strobe, throwing the windowless room into darkness.

“You have your distraction,” the demi-demon said. “Now take advantage of it.”

As I stepped toward the door, something brushed my leg. I jumped and looked down. Nothing was there. Another step. Warm fingers stroked my cheek. Hot breath whispered wordlessly in my ear, blowing strands of hair, tickling my neck.

“I-Is that you?” I asked.

“Of course,” said the demi-demon…from across the room.

I looked around. I couldn’t see anything except debris. The light continued to flicker. Distant voices shouted about finding the computer tech.

“Their systems are down,” the demi-demon said. “Perfect. Now go.”

I started forward. At a giggle to my left, I spun. A growl sounded behind me and I spun again.

“The
door
,” the demi-demon said. “Get to the door.”

A blast of hot air knocked me off my feet, flat onto my back.

A giggle erupted above me. Then a low voice, speaking in a foreign language. I pushed up. Another blast slapped me down. Hot air whirled around, drywall dust flying like a sandstorm, filling my eyes, my nose, my mouth.

I crawled toward the door. The wind buffeted me from all sides. That sweet smell—sickly sweet now—made my stomach churn. Invisible hands stroked my head, my back, my face. Fingers plucked my shirt, pulled my hair, pinched my arms. Voices whispered and growled and shrieked in my ears. But the only one that mattered was the demi-demon’s, urging me on, guiding me to the door.

My head struck the wall. I patted around until I found the doorknob, pulled myself up, and turned it. Yanked. Turned. Yanked.

“No,” I whispered. “Please, no.”

Seems those electrical failures might not be so convenient after all.

Fingers ran through my hair. Warm breath caressed my cheek. Hot wind whipped around me. The light flickered.

“Sweet child,” a voice whispered.

“What is she?” another asked.

“Necromancer.”

A giggle. “Are you sure?”

“What have they done to her?”

“Something wonderful.”

“Get away from her,” the demi-demon said. “She’s not yours. Shoo. All of you.”

“Wh-what’s going on?” I asked.

“Nothing to worry about, child. It’s simply a bit of fallout from the liberation ritual. There are usually precautions taken against such a thing, but we didn’t have the time. Or the materials.”

“Precautions against what?”

“Well, when you free a demon, you open a…”

“Portal into the demon world?”

“
Portal
is a strong word. More like a teeny tiny tear.”

The voice continued as we talked. The unseen fingers touched me, poked me.

“These are demons?” I said.

“Hardly,” she said with a sniff. “Minor demonic spirits. Little more than pests.” She raised her voice. “Who are going to be in serious trouble if they don’t heed my commands.”

The spirits hissed and spat and chortled. And stayed where they were.

“Ignore them,” she said. “They can’t do more than touch you, and they can barely do that. Think of them as an infestation of otherworldly insects. Annoying and inconvenient, but hardly dangerous. They can’t manifest in this world without a dead body—”

She stopped short. We both looked at the closet door.

“Quickly,” she said. “Send me back to that guard. If his corpse is occupied, they can’t—”

A thump sounded from the closet. Then a low hiss. I spun and yanked on the exit door. Growls erupted from the closet. As I whaled on the door, I heard a scratching, like nails scraping wood. The click of a knob. The squeak of the door hinges. I spun toward the closet. The lights went out.

F
INGERS BRUSHED MY FACE
, making me jump back from the door. Across the room, nails scraped along the floor.

“He’s coming,” a voice whispered. “The master is coming.”

“M-master?” I said.

“They lie,” the demi-demon said. “It’s just another—”

A wail at my ear drowned her out. I jumped back, knocking over a chair and falling hard. A blast of desert wind whipped my hair in my face, twisting my clothing, binding me. I heard the sounds of struggle, the curses of the demi-demon barely rising over the gibbering and shrieking of the spirits.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it ended. The wind died and the room went silent.

Completely dark and completely silent.

“A-are you there?” I called.

She didn’t answer. Instead, I heard the scrape of nails, then the whisper of fabric as it slid across the floor. I leaped to my feet only to tangle in the fallen chair and topple over it, bashing into another piece of furniture. The back of my head cracked against something and the wound from earlier reopened, blood streaming down the back of my head.

The scratching stopped, and I heard sniffing. Sniffing and the smacking of lips.

I wiped the blood away and scuttled back, thumping into the wall. A chattering, then a hiss, and it went quiet again. I could pick up the distant voices of the Edison Group, and I clung to that, a reminder of where I was, in the lab, not locked away in a basement crawl space with dead bodies crawling toward me.

Umm, actually, yes, there is a dead body—

But it wasn’t a rotting corpse.

True, it’s a nice fresh one…possessed by a demonic spirit.

The scraping started again. I wrapped my arms around myself and squeezed my eyes shut.

Oh, that’ll help.

No, but
this
would. I concentrated on freeing that spirit. I kept at it, as hard as I dared, but that whispering of fabric and scratching of nails kept coming closer, so close now I could hear the scrape of buttons against the floor. I scrambled to a
new spot, hit another chair, and crashed down on top of it.

Just release it. Stop worrying about getting away. Release it.

I closed my eyes. Not that it mattered. The room was so dark I couldn’t see a thing, couldn’t see the guard’s body slithering across the floor, couldn’t see how close it was, couldn’t see it—

Focus!

I released and released and released, but it still kept coming, the whispering and the scratching, the hissing and the chattering. I could hear more now—teeth clicking and grinding. And I could smell that sweet demon odor mixing with the stink of burned flesh, making my stomach heave.

Concentrate.

I did, but no matter how hard I tried, the thing didn’t pause, didn’t growl or hiss, gave no sign it felt anything.

Hot breath seared my ankles. I yanked my knees in and hugged them, blinking hard, desperately trying to see even a shape, but the room was completely dark. Then the scratching and whispering and chattering all stopped, and I knew it was right in front of me.

A sharp rip, like fabric tearing. Then another kind of rip, a dull, wet sound that made the whimper die in my throat, and I huddled there, knees drawn tight, listening to that awful wet tearing sound, punctuated by popping, like bones crackling and snapping.

I squeezed my eyes shut. Dismiss, dismiss—

Something wet and cold flicked across my ankle. I pulled my foot back, hands flying to my mouth, stifling my scream. I leaped to my feet, but icy fingers grabbed my legs and yanked me down. It held me tight, hands climbing up my legs as it pulled itself onto me.

I went wild, kicking and punching, but it held me down with superhuman strength and then it was on me, crouched over me, pinning me, hissing, sickly sweet breath blasting in my face. I felt something cold and wet on my neck. It was licking me, licking the blood.

I punched and kicked and imagined releasing it and for a second felt that iron grip loosen. I heaved and rolled, and managed to get free, scrabbling backward until I hit the wall.

I pushed to my feet and tried to run, but tripped over the chair I’d toppled earlier. I caught myself before I fell, then scurried back, expecting any moment the thing would pounce and knock me down. But it didn’t, and when I listened I could hear a wet rasping noise where I’d left it. I backed away slowly.

With a click, the lights came on, and I saw the guard crouched on all fours, arms and legs bent…wrong, bent where arms and legs shouldn’t bend. It looked like some kind of monstrous insect, limbs broken and twisted, bones sticking through fabric. Its head was down and it kept making those wet rasping noises.

I stepped to the side and saw what it was doing—licking
my blood from the floor. I backed up fast, and it turned its head—completely turned it, the flesh on its neck ripped through, the head swiveling freely. It curled its bloodied lips back, bared its teeth, and hissed. Then it skittered toward me, those broken and twisted limbs moving so fast they seemed to skim the floor, body held only inches above it.

I ran for the closet door. With lightning speed it raced into my path. Then it reared up, hissing and spitting.

“Release it, child,” a familiar voice whispered at my ear.

“Y-you’re back.” I looked around, bracing against the pokes and pinches. “The others…”

“Gone, and staying gone. Only this one remains. Release it and you’ll be done.”

“I’ve tried.”

“And now I’m here to distract it while you try again.”

A gust of hot air whooshed between me and the thing, and it reared again, gaze following the wind as the demi-demon whipped past.

I closed my eyes.

“Your necklace,” she said.

“R-right.” I tugged it off and looked at it, reluctant to put it down.

The thing spun on me again. The demi-demon said something in another language, getting its attention. I set the necklace on a chair, within grabbing distance, then closed my eyes and worked at dismissing it.

I felt the spirit slipping away, snarling. At a click, my eyes
shot open, gaze following the sound to the door.

“Yes, it’s open,” the demi-demon said. “And not a moment too soon. Now finish this.”

Knowing the door was open gave me the extra boost I needed, and the next sound I heard was a thump as the guard’s broken body fell to the floor.

“Excellent,” the demi-demon said. “Now retrieve your trinket and—”

A furnace blast of hot air hit me, so strong it made the others seem like a gentle breeze.

“Wh-what’s that?” I said.

“Nothing, child,” she said quickly. “Now,
hurry
.”