Twisted Sister of Mine (Overworld Chronicles) (19 page)

"No, she didn't," I growled. "It's not nice to threaten people."

"She's not a person." Ivy crossed her arms and gave me a stern look. "She's a Darkling."

"Yeah, yeah, a horrible agent of darkness." I held my hands out like a ghost and moaned. "Better watch out, the sweet little angel is going to get you."

My sister's blue eyes went hard. "You are beyond hope, Justin."

"You're the one beyond hope," I shot back. "And your Bigdaddy tried to suffocate me to death in Maximus's underground lair. Who's the evil one now?"

"He did?" For the first time, she seemed a bit unsure.

"Your doughboy pal Bigglesworth tried to kill me today, too. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it."

Ivy quirked her mouth and raised a blonde eyebrow in a
yeah right!
look. "I'm sure you did something to deserve it."

I resisted the urge to grab her by both arms and shake her, instead leaning in, a snarl on my face. "Nobody deserves cold-blooded murder, especially not family."

She flinched away, and I noticed a pink glow coming from her hand. An orb of energy coalesced in her palm. "Don't come at me, bro. I will hurt you."

My anger transformed into acute sadness, like a blade in my throat. I fought back sudden moisture and backed away from her. "You've already hurt me, Ivy." I wiped my eyes. "You think I'm evil, and you think killing me is okay." Drawing in a deep breath to ward off the pain, I gave my sister one last look, turned, and walked away.

"Where are you going?" she said, her voice full of surprise. She ran ahead of me and held out a hand. "Justin, come with me. Come talk with Bigdaddy. Maybe he can forgive you, and we can fix you. Mommy is there, and I'll be there, and you can be a part of a happy family again."

"I can't."

She squeezed her hands together in supplication. "Please? Pretty please with sugar and ice cream and your fave berries on top? I just know if you talk to Bigdaddy he can convince you. I promise we're the good guys."

"You're not," I said simply. "Daelissa is using you to take over the world."

"No, no, no, the Brightlings are good, Justin." She grabbed my hand. "Please, come. I promise you'll see!"

I actually considered it for a moment. Maybe talking to Jeremiah would help me understand why in the world they thought helping Daelissa was a good thing. Had she brainwashed them? Promised them power? I couldn't think of any other reason why they'd want the Seraphim to rule again. "Ivy, do you know what Daelissa and her people did the last time they ruled this world?"

"Oh, they didn't rule it," she replied. "The Darklings invaded and almost killed everyone, but then the Brightlings fought back and almost won, but the Darklings tried to kill everyone by blowing up the Grand Nexus."

"No, it's the other way around," I said.

"Says who?"

"Nightliss."

"Of course she'd tell you that, silly." My sister flashed a grin. "She wants you to help in
her
quest for world domination."

Suppressing a groan, I said, "Ivy, I promise you that's not what happened. Daelissa is lying to you."

"No, she's not. Besides, she's not the only one who says it's true."

I sighed. "You realize your grandparents are going to say it's true because Daelissa told them. That's called circular logic."

"No, my grandparents believe it because another angel told them."

Had Mom fed her these lies? "And which angel is that?" I asked in a tight voice.

"Graeme." She sighed like a lovesick girl. "He's so beautiful. I've only met him a few times, but he's so sweet, too." A girlish giggle erupted. "He brought me a puppy once."

"That's…nice," I said, wondering if Graeme was the fourth and unnamed angel MacLean had mentioned. "What's your puppy's name?"

Her face fell. "Oh, Bigdaddy wouldn't let me keep him. He said Jumpy would distract me from my studies."

I almost made a remark about how evil it was to deprive a little girl of her puppy, but held back. I felt so close to making a connection with her. Heck, maybe if I promised to take her to the zoo this moment, she'd rethink her position. If I could only insert a sliver of doubt—no matter how tiny—between her and the lies Daelissa burned into her impressionable little brain. I just had to figure out how. "Would you like to meet Nightliss and ask her questions?" I said. "If you do that, I'll talk to"—I almost gagged on the word—"Bigdaddy."

Her eyes narrowed. "Are you trying to trick me? You know Nightliss will only capture and torture me."

"I won't let her." I held up my hand palm out. "Promise."

She mulled it over. "I don't know, Justin. How can I trust you?"

"How about if I bring her to you someplace you'll be safe?"

"Well—" her lips pursed. "Maybe that would work, but I wouldn't want Bigdaddy or the others to know, because they'd get really mad."

My heart leapt, and I fought to keep from sounding too enthusiastic. "Sure, just tell me where."

She mulled it over for a moment. "I don't know where."

I couldn't help but notice how adorable Ivy looked when she was deep in thought. Or how much she reminded me of Mom. It was almost torturous to have her so close at hand and not be able to talk to her like a normal human being. The end of the world might be near, but I felt like I might do anything to have her trust me.

"How about this," I said, resisting the urge to touch her shoulder the way a brother or even a friend might. "Let's forget all this end of the world stuff. Do you feel safe with me on campus?"

A blonde eyebrow lifted as she regarded me. "I guess."

"I saw a gelato shop down the hall from the cafeteria. Why don't we get some ice cream and just talk about normal stuff?"

A grin broke on her lips. "Are you buying?"

Her smile infected me, and I grinned back. "Of course."

She looked around. "Well, I kind of sneaked away for some alone time. They're always telling me what I can and can't do, and I'm tired of it."

"I know the feeling," I said. "So, is that a yes?"

Her smile brightened. "Yes!" She giggled and clapped her hands.

We wove through the crowded hallway. Students stopped what they were doing as we passed, some of them staring at Ivy as though she might blow them up with a look. She strode blithely past them, talking to me about her puppy, Jumpy.

"I only had him for a couple of days," she said, lips pouting. "If they trust me with big things, why not little things?"

I nodded in agreement. "Adults can be really stupid," I said.

"Totes!" she said, eyes wide with sincerity.

We entered the gelato shop. Ivy ordered a double scoop combo of Fairy Frost with Mango Unicorn, while I tried the potion master special flavor of the day, Gumper's Concoction Number 101. Even though I couldn't readily identify what it tasted like, it was delicious.

"Where did you go to school before this?" I asked Ivy after we found a seat in the crowded shop.

"The Ezzek Moore Arcane Academy for the Gifted," she said, somehow licking her gelato in between words without pausing. "I didn't know about, well"—she leaned close, a conspiratorial gleam in her eye—"about Mom being an angel." She straightened, licked a dribble of melted gelato from the side of the cone. "I just thought I was really talented."

"I never had that problem," I said. I stopped myself before blurting out how terrible I was with magic. If I ever had to fight her, I didn't want her to know how easy she would have it.

"You went to a nom school?" she asked, her blue eyes bright with curiosity.

"Yeah." I sighed, thinking back to those simple days. "I was a chubby overweight nerd. I didn't know anything about Mom or Dad. I thought I was just a normal human."

"Really?" she asked, ignoring a stream of melted gelato as it ran across her fingers. "What was it like being normal?"

I shrugged. "Pretty normal, I guess."

We shared a laugh.

I told her about the live-action role-playing game, Kings and Castles. I told her about my crush on Katie Johnson, how I'd met Elyssa and Stacey.

"You fell in love?" she asked, blue eyes brimming with curiosity. "Does it feel wonderful?"

"It can be wonderful and scary all at the same time," I said, unsure how in-depth I really wanted to go about it.

"It must be nice having another person who's gooey for you," she said and let out a little sigh before resuming the attack on her gelato.

I continued my story, telling her about the bullying from football players and how I'd finally discovered what I was.

"Football?" she asked. "That's a game?"

"Yeah, you carry a ball shaped like this"—I formed the oval shape with my fingers and thumbs—"and you have to get it into the other team's end zone."

"Weird," she said, eyebrows rising in unison. "People make games out of anything."

I chuckled. "Yeah."

"It makes me really mad that the football players beat you up," she said, her eyes soft with sympathy. "I hate how big people think they can walk all over the little ones."

Ivy looked little, but with her powers, she was anything but. "Yeah, it was rough," I said. "But even having super powers didn't solve everything."

She quirked her lips into cute expression of agreement. "At my gifted school, the strong kids would bully the others. This one guy, Billy Vanderbilt, would make the little kids do everything he said. If they didn't, he'd do terrible things, like make them eat toads, or levitate them upside down, or even make their clothes vanish."

My jaw tightened at the mention of his name. "I've seen him around. He's definitely a mean guy."

Ivy nodded. "He and his group of bullies used to pick on us all the time. One day I got so mad, I cursed them."

I got the impression she wasn't talking about swear words. "What did you do?"

"I made them hungry for bugs. Every time they saw one, they'd get so hungry they had to eat it."

I gagged. "Like spiders and cockroaches?"

An impish grin spread across her face. "Yeah. I even spawned a nest of locusts in their dorm room." She giggled. "They got so sick."

I couldn't help but laugh myself despite how insanely gross it sounded. "Did they know you did it?"

Her expression sobered. "Yeah. I got in huge trouble with Bigdaddy and Bigmomma. Daelissa thought it was funny, but she told me not to do it again."

"Yeah, when I finally beat up Nathan, I only got myself in more trouble." I told her how I'd been blackmailed into playing football and how horribly that had ended up, with the slaughter of all those people. Technically, it hadn't been my fault—it had been Brad Nichols, driven insane by the vampling curse, who'd killed those people.

Ivy took it all in with wide eyes. "Even though we have magic, the noms sound a lot like us," she said and polished off the last bit of her cone.

"We're all human," I agreed.

Ivy giggled. "Not really."

I snorted. "Yeah, sorry. I'm still new to this whole angel and demon thing."

My sister reached a hand across to mine and touched it. "I like you, Justin."

Moisture gathered behind my eyes at this simple statement. I put my other hand over hers. "I like you, Ivy. I like having a little sister."

A tear gathered in the corner of her eye and trickled down. "Maybe we can have a talk like you said, and maybe you'll agree with us."

"I want to have our family back together," I said. "Me, you, Mom, Dad—"

Her hand abruptly jerked from mine. "No, not him."

"Not Dad?"

She shook her head, wiped the tear away. "He's a demon, Justin. You can't make him good."

"But—" the next words died on my lips. If I tried to explain that we were both half and half, it might further alienate her. I didn't know what to say. It was hard enough getting her to accept me. Besides, Dad had more or less abandoned Mom to marry Kassallandra.

Her forehead wrinkled. "Besides, I don't think he's our real dad. He can't be." Her statement sounded like pure denial. Ivy checked the time on her arcphone. "I need to go. Bigdaddy will already be mad at me for sneaking off."

I nodded. "Let's figure out a time and place to have our talks," I said. "I've really enjoyed spending time with you. Can we do it again soon?"

The corners of her mouth curved up. "I'd like that."

"Maybe we could go to a zoo one day."

Her eyes brightened. "Oh, I'd love that so much." Her face fell. "But, I can't. Not until we figure things out." She offered an apologetic grin. "Okay?"

I nodded. "Fair enough." I walked her back to the library.

"I should go on by myself," she said when we reached the entrance. "Just in case, you know."

"I understand," I said.

She suddenly threw herself against me, squeezing me in a tight hug. I returned the hug and felt a surge of joy. There might be hope for her yet.

Ivy let go, gave me a shy smile, and wandered away into the library, vanishing around a corner. I turned a moment later and nearly rammed into a man right behind me.

"Excuse me," I said and tried to walk around him.

He blocked my way, a leer on his face. "Well, well, if it ain't my old buddy, Justin," he said in a cockney accent.

It was Bigglesworth.

Chapter 20

I shuddered, backed away from the creature that had tried to kill me hours before. Bigglesworth sported a sky blue polyester suit and wide-collared shirt imprinted with the photo-realistic image of a forest on it. I choked back my initial desire to snarl and cuss him out, instead, somehow finding the will to keep my mouth shut.

"Cat got your tongue, mate?" He grinned.

"You smell slightly burnt," I said, making a show of sniffing. "Flark."

A shocked look flicked across his face. "I'd like to know how you found out what I am," he said.

I tapped my temple. "I have my resources." Changing subjects, I said, "What did you want with that man you were torturing?"

"A matter for my mistress. Nothing you need concern yourself with." He stepped closer.

I took an involuntary step back as my body flinched at the memory of how painful his touch had been. "Why are you helping Daelissa?"