Drown Another Day Page 12

  “Enough. Goddammit!” I said. “You’ve got me in a check mate here. You know full damn well that I don’t stand a chance. So why are you screwing around with me so much? If you’re going to condemn my soul forever to the Inferno then just hurry up and do it.”

  It might be hard to tell by that last line, but I was actually stalling her. I had a plan. A desperate, foolish plan, but it might just be enough to work. I turned my eyes back to Lis in time to intercept her studious gaze.

  Slowly, teasingly, her tail wagged in a hypnotic wave as she slowly raised it until wiggled between us. Jagged eyebrows rose high as she spoke the words, “After you then, Charlie.”

  My body moved on its own. I’d only blinked for a second, but when my eyes opened again, my hands trembled a hair’s breadth over Lis’ tail. My breath was ragged and sweat dripped from me.

  “Wow Charlie. You’re getting pretty into it. I had no idea you were so hot for me,” Lis teased.

  I flinched at the words. Too close. I’d almost lost my mind. The plan. I had to stick to the plan.

  “One sec,” I told Lis, and using the last of my power, I pushed myself onto my feet and stumbled over to my shredded coat.

  “If you’re looking for your condom it’s in your wallet,” she said. “And probably expired.”

  “Straight to Hell!” I roared.

  I grabbed the metal vial from my coat pocket and palmed it. When I turned around I noticed a soft, almost sweet smile on Lis’ lips.

  “You’re the only person I know who gives me such an awesome reaction every time I yank your chain. I love teasing you. Have I ever told you that?”

  Love.

  The most dangerous thing about Lisistrathiel, I think, is just how familiar you can get with her. I’ve lived in a lonely mansion the whole of my youth, so I’ve never met my neighbors. But whenever I would hear talk about a ‘girl next door’, I’d always imagined them to be a little bit like Lis.

  Barging into the bathroom, leaning against the stark white sink, I groped for the light switch. I didn’t have much time.

  “Top left hand wall, Charlie,” Lis said.

  “Thank you very much,” I muttered, finding the switch at last.

  Grabbing the towel from it’s rack I licked my lips and braced myself. It was do or die now. My vision swam, and the temperature in the room felt like it had tripled. If this last gamble didn’t work, there was no way I’d make it past Lis without…

  “You’re not avoiding me, are you?” she asked as I reentered the room. “Don’t you like me or something?”

  I turned my head towards her and gave her the meanest glare I could manage.

  “Sixteen year old boy, almost murdered by his first love, is saved from certain doom and damnation by a red hot she-devil with objectively the best legs in creation?” I slurred. “Can’t imagine why a kid would find such a woman attractive.”

  Lis blinked. “Charlie? Going on the offensive against moi? I think I’m going to faint.”

  “Speaking of faint, sorry for the trick. But I can’t go to Hell just yet,” I replied, opening the metal vial and pouring the pungent liquid on the towel.

  “Trick?” The she-devil’s nostrils flared. “That smell. It’s heavy but familiar. It almost smells like…”

  I smiled, the metal vial dropping out of my limp hand and clattering to the floor. “Chloroform.”

  In a final desperate move, I mashed the towel against my face and took a long sniff of the chemical. The room spun and consciousness ebbed. I stumbled towards the bed and fell onto it.

  “Oh, see, I hadn’t thought of that,” I heard before blacking out. “Good one, Charlie.”

  Chapter 35

  Four in the afternoon. I should be studying. Any sane person would be studying given what was on the line tomorrow. I just couldn’t do it though. I didn’t stand a damn chance. So I paced aimlessly through the empty halls of my mansion instead.

  The fact that my wanderings had brought me to the she-devil’s room was pure coincidence. The door was cracked open. I peeked.

  Fashion and hairstyle magazines littered the floor of her room. Vials of nail polish and feminine products were everywhere. On the mattress itself lay Lis. Her eyes were closed, and her hands were gathered up behind her head. It looked like she was sleeping. Or at least pretending to.

  “If you wanted to see me naked, you just missed me taking my shower,” she suddenly said, without opening her eyes.

  This is the sort of uncanny crap she loved to pull. “Just got here. Don’t flatter yourself, Devil.”

  “You should be studying for your big day tomorrow, Charles Montgomery Locke.”

  I flinched at the words. Tomorrow was going to be the first day of the rest of my life. One way or another. Tomorrow, I was going to take the Nine Towers examination.

  “I’m not going. There’s no point.” The words spilled from my mouth.

  Jagged eyebrows perked. “What makes you say that, Charlie?”

  “Because I’m crap at this. You said so yourself, didn’t you? I can barely do magic, and you know what they do to those who don’t passing their shitty exam, right?”

  “Charlie, if there weren’t any problems to overcome in the world, life would be super duper boring. Don’t tell me you’re upset even though magic’s about the only thing you aren’t good at.”

  I’d already stormed halfway down the hall by the time Lis caught up to me.

  “Goddamn. Leave me the hell alone for once in my life,” I said. “The one thing that matters. The one thing that my future and my life is counting on, and I’m shit at it! Go on, tell me I’m not.”

  “It’s true,” Lis said, her voice full of sorrow. “You’re downright terrible at magic. You’re so bad that it makes my head hurt. Lamer than a legless tarantula. Weaker than a baby bunny. Worse than--”

  She was messing with me on purpose. I buried my head in my hands.

  “Please, just leave me alone.”

  “Alright Charlie,” she said, grinning wide. “But if I do you’re going to miss out on my super secret best magical technique ever lesson.”

  I shot her my best glare. I tried to resist but in the end my curiosity won out.

  “What technique? We gave up on the arcane shard I can’t shoot straight, didn’t we? Maybe you’ll teach me a more advanced sound bubble so I can be even worse at standing out? Oh, maybe a slightly brighter flash bomb? That way I can annoy the exam supervisors before they wipe my goddamn mind!”

  At the end of the day, that’s that I was afraid of the most. Nine Towers was easily the most prominent alliance of mages and Supernaturals in the world. Part agency, part Human-Supernatural middle man, Nine Towers was also well known for being absolutely ruthless in watch-dogging Mundanes.

  If you didn’t pass the examination, you were unceremoniously mind wiped by Egomancers. No exceptions. No memories of anything but the Mundane world.

  “This is gonna be something new. I’ve been saving it for when you pass the NT exam but there’s no harm in an early present. Wands. And coats. It’s cold outside,” Lis said.

  Grudgingly I obeyed her. Not that I could sense a point to all this.

  Before I knew it, we were in my backyard; a sprawling garden of stone walkways, foot high snow, and dead plants. I wore my favorite black coat and hat. Lisistrathiel was wearing a bright red button up affair with matching red boots. I did my very best to ignore her skin tight black and white striped leggings.

  Goddamn her.

  “Ready,” I muttered.

  “Perfect. Now Charlie, what was it I told you the other week about the trick to your powers?”

  A harsh snort escaped me. “I wouldn’t call what I have ‘power’, Devil.”

  Lis’ eyes narrowed dangerously. Her smile strained. “Humor me.”

  I sighed. “Work smarter, not harder, you said.”

  “Exactly,” she agreed cheerily. “You’re never going to be able to raise a cemetery of zombies or get a lightning bolt to smas
h some poor goon on the other end of the planet. But, I think you have just what you need to be the coolest guy in the world. Watch.”

  Wand gripped tight, Lisistrathiel focused magic into her free hand until it came off her sharp black fingernails like smoky mist. Wrapping her hand around the tip of the wand, she drew her hand along in front of it, the smoke slowly hardening into a long refined blade.

  “Tada. One supernaturally sharp hurts ghosts as well as flesh wand-sword. Your turn,” Lis said.

  On the eleventh try, my meager magical power finally came together to turn my wand into a purple blade. It looked a little warped around the tip, stunted, crooked, and certainly not as refined as the one Lis made. Still, I was a little bit proud of it.

  “Why are you helping me again?” I asked out of the blue.

  “I’ll tell you if you win,” Lis said before pointing behind me. “Oh no, what’s that behind you, Charlie?”

  Turning around to see where she was pointing, I almost managed to say ‘there’s nothing there’ before the first one hit me.

  If I had to guess, I’d say it was a snowball. Perfectly aimed to collide with the back of my neck, fling my hat into the snow, and then slide under my coat and down my back.

  “Hit one already? Two more and you’ve lost Charlie,” Lis taunted.

  A fight, huh? I cracked my neck, rolled my shoulders, and said, “Bring it on.”

  By reflex, I raised my wobbly wand sword fast enough to slice the next snow ball in half, then leaped behind a stone fountain as a fresh salvo menaced me.

  Lis had the upper hand for now, but an idea popped into my head and a wicked smile curved onto my face. I formed sound balls around my feet to deafen the noise of crunching snow, and in my left hand I pooled the rest of my will to form a tiny wisp of light.

  I crept around the far end of the fountain, then placed my back against the nearby wall, ready to strike. Lis however, had been busy. As I turned past the blind spot of the wall, a large snowman tilted forward, toppling onto me with a life of its own. I just barely avoiding being buried alive.

  In the blink of an eye, a half dozen snowmen with black top hats and crooked carrot noses surrounded me.

  A sudden, villainous laugh echoed through the yard. From behind a hedge wall, Lisistrathiel materialized, flinging her hand out to point at me. “Attack, my minions. Give him a chest cold. Give him pneumonia!”

  The snow zombies lurched forth. From all sides they came, shuffling and reaching with branchy hands. I sliced the closest neatly in half, nearly losing my grip on the wand sword in the packed snow. I leaped back, lopping off the branch hands of the snow zombie on my flank.

  As I turned to face the remaining snowmen, another ball of ice collided with my back.

  “Awareness,” Lis called out, circling behind me.

  “Bullshit cheating!” I roared back, as the last of the snowmen lunged.

  Both hands on my wand, I slashed wide, severing two in half, but the last was thick enough to survive. Wand-sword stuck fast I ducked down, avoiding the snow zombie’s headbutt. Seeing my chance I tore my wand-sword out of the snowman’s side and decapitated it.

  Just her left. I turned around in time to watch a massive snowball soar towards me.

  With a roar I cut it in half like I was in a samurai movie, only to see Lis appear right behind. Perfect. I released the wisp out of my hand and willed it to explode in a flash of light, wand-sword ready, my heart thrilled at the thought of actually catching Lis off guard.

  I was a fool. Eyes firmly closed shut, Lis knocked the wand out of my hand sight unseen and pinned me to the garden wall as though I’d never used the flash bomb on her at all. It was over.

  “Oh so close, Charlie,” Lis said, slowly inching her last snowball towards my face.

  I was sure she’d cram it all over my face in a slow, painful way. Instead, she booped my nose with it and then tossed the snowball away.

  “Kidding. That last trick was definitely unfair on my part,” Lis said. “I humbly admit defeat.”

  Suspiciously humble of her.

  “So, why are you helping me?” I demanded.

  Lis grinned wickedly. “Because, Charlie, I like you. Your soul is shining as bright as a star, and that just makes me get butterflies in my stomach.”

  “A total non answer,” I muttered.

  “Of course. So. Feeling more confident?” Lis asked.

  I blinked in surprise, looking at the ruin of the ‘snow zombies’ around me. They were about as fast as creatures a summoner might conjur up. The snowballs as fast as fireballs an elementalist might evoke.

  “I think I’m going to kick this examination’s ass,” I told her.

  Sharp fangs poked out from behind the she-devil’s smiling lips. “There was never any doubt in my mind, Charles Montgomery Locke.”

  Chapter 36

  My eyes opened slowly, painfully. Dream lingered at the corners of my mind. The sound of rhythmic clicking and clacking reached my ears, though it was little more than white noise to me. With a groan and a whole lot of difficulty I managed to sit up on the mattress. Ouch.

  “Wow Charlie. Why don’t you just jump in a tub of salt if you care so little about letting your wounds heal,” spoke a familiar voice.

  “Lis,” I said, regarding my bandaged cuts. “Who’d need to salt their own wounds when they’ve got you around?”

  “That crack you just heard was my delicate feminine heart snapping in half. Ephesians five, line six: Wounds of deadly hate have pierc’d so deep, which would but lead me to a worse relapse!”

  “That’s Paradise Lost. Not the Bible.”

  “Just checking to make sure you didn’t suffer brain damage from all my romancing,” Lis replied, before she caught me gawking. “What’s wrong?”

  I couldn’t help but stare. As I’d turned to face her, I noticed Lis was in rare form. She was wearing her favorite cherub t-shirt, baggy lazy day yoga pants, and black ankle socks with huge stylized wings stitched into the pattern. She was sitting cross legged with a laptop in her lap and a head set upon her head. On a nearby napkin lay three apple cores. Her snack.

  “You’re not going to seduce me?” I asked.

  “Moment’s gone.”

  “Oh. Good,” I replied.

  “You don’t have to sound so disappointed.”

  “Thanks Lis. You always know just what to say to brighten my day,” I muttered, the words dripping with sarcasm.

  “If you have the strength to be annoyed with me then you’re definitely on the mend. Questions?” she asked.

  “Statements. The Angel of Death is here. The same one. I saw him beneath the Ca’ Foscari University.”

  That drew the Devil’s attention. Molten yellow eyes turned up from the screen to stare at me. With a hard smack, she shut the laptop, tossed off her headset and stretched, the toes on her long luscious legs curled

  “Are you quite certain?” she asked.

  “Apparently not, since you seem to think I can’t tell the difference between a Heavenly harbinger of annihilation and a goddamn Halloweener in a skull mask!”

  “You have a track record for making rash assumptions and then taking them as gospel truth for years on end. Trust me Charlie,” Lis said. “Human perception is built on pillars of sand.”

  “Let’s play a game of ‘what ifs’ then. If, against all odds, it’s actually, honestly an Angel of Death, sent from above with it’s great big sword of certain doom and its terrible wings and so on, what could it possibly be doing on the same team as the Olympians?”

  Jagged eyebrows perked high. “Oh. It’s friends with the Olympians too? That would make your Angel a double impossibility then.”

  “Doubly impossible?” I asked.

  Lis nodded, “The lords of Olympus had a great thing going for them. For thousands of years they dominated. First the Greeks, then the Romans, and they were worshiped by proxy in a ton of cultures around the Mediterranean too. Top dogs. However, about two thousand years ago, somet
hing happened that shattered their official worship among mortals and forever turned them into cute mythological curiosities in the minds of Mundanes.”

  Realization thrilled through me. “About two thousand years ago, under the rule of Constantine the Great, Rome converted to Christianity.”

  Lis grinned from ear to ear. “Yes.”

  “The Olympians hate the Dagonians to death, but as much as they hate the fish men, they should hate Angels even more for robbing them of their worshipers.”

  “That is indeed the problem,” Lis said, shrugging. “Can’t imagine a solution to it either. Therefore, there’s a mistake in the math somewhere. You sure the Angel isn’t really some lesser lord of death pretending to be on Heaven’s side?”

  “No wonder you’re so damn sure it can’t be an Angel. But there’s just one issue Lis. The thing I fought in the depths of Xibalba and that I saw slaughter a platoon of Hybrids in Ca’ Foscari’s under-library? It was an Angel. I’m sure of it.”

  “Doubt it.”

  “Lis. We’re talking ‘what ifs’ here, remember? Is there really no chance at all that it could be an Angel on the Olympian side?”

  “Nope.”

  “A Fallen Angel from way back in the day?” I asked.

  “Nah. Those jerks are all accounted for.”

  “A Devil masquerading as an Angel maybe?” I demanded.

  Lis cackled. “What a great idea. I wish I’d have thought of a neat trick like that.”

  “Nothing at all?” I pressed.

  “No,” Lis said, before her eyebrows twitched ever so slightly. “Not a chance.”

  “You just thought of something.”

  “It can’t be, we don’t have enough tin foil to make hats for this theory.”

  “Lis. Tell me,” I asked.

  The she-devil’s eyes went out of focus. Her chin leaned against her gathered hands, and she hunched over on the mattress with a grim look of concentration on her face.

  “If. If there’s an Angel of Death. A real one. And if it’s truly with the Olympians without fooling or tricking or coercing them. Then the Angel is playing on somebody else’s team.”