ARC: Cracked (9 page)

Now that I think about it, I’ve never used a weapon on any of my kills, either. It just never really occurred to me. Using a weapon is just… unnecessary. Like someone with 20/20 vision wanting to wear glasses. Actually it’s a little worse than that. The thought of shooting someone is just vaguely unsettling. Unnatural. I’m not saying I’ve never touched a knife before – it’s not like I eat with my hands – but the thought of sticking it in someone. Just… yuck.

“Why?” I ask.

“Don’t know.” Chi shrugs then smiles. “Probably because nukes in the hands of Satan’s minions would make their job too easy.”

True.

“We’re limited too – we can only kill them with holy blades or holy water. It’s their skin; it’s impossible to saw through with anything else.”

He’s wrong. Apparently demon fingernails also work quite nicely. I fight the urge to touch my cheek.

Chi’s still talking. “Those were the weapons the original Templars were given to fight the demons and we’ve never gotten an upgrade. But even if you do kill them, they’ll just be reborn unless you purify them. That’s their greatest advantage.”

“The smoke?” I ask, and Chi looks pleased.

“That’s right. As a Templar, we can suck the tainted soul out of the body and purify it – stripping the soul of its false life. They still go to Hell, but they can’t come back as a demon.”

“Whoa, what? False
life
?”

“Yeah,” Chi says, like it should be obvious. “Demons are dead.”

“
What?
”

Jo groans. She’s made it clear she doesn’t want to tell me anything, but listening to Chi try to teach is tortuous. “Most demons are people who sold their soul while they were alive. Then, when they die, they’re conscripted to Hell’s army. So they’re dead. Hell brings them back to life by giving them what we call ‘false life’ – corporeal existence. Bodies.”

That would explain my eating habits. I mean, I don’t actually eat
souls
, not really. After all, ghosts are souls and I can’t eat them. Believe me – I’ve tried.

I eat what leaves with the soul at the kill. The life. The demons get it from Hell; I get it from assholes.

I look up and they’re all watching me. I wonder what I let slip across my face, but no one looks suspicious except Jo and, really, that’s normal for her. “Anything else?” I ask.

Chi answers. “Well, they have magic.” This perks me up. “You saw those two teleport out of there.”

But can half-demons do magic? I’m dying to ask but it’s too dangerous with Jo listening. That girl has trust issues. I have to limit myself to a generic “Magic?” and I still feel the weight of her eyes. It’s a reasonable question for both my personas, so I ignore her.

“We spend years studying the types of stuff they can do. Fortunately, it seems to work a lot like ours – they need artifacts and spell books, although theirs aren’t grimoires, obviously.” Chi changes the subject before Jo changes it for him, “Anyway, teleportation and possession are the most common. Also…”

Please say fly, please say fly
.

“…they feed off each other. The more there are, the stronger they are, but it maxes out at some point.”

Damn. But at least that explains the extra burst of power at the asylum – it was more than just a delicious shot of life.

“That’s why you can’t usually catch one alone. They travel in packs. It’s also why it’s so dangerous in the demon headquarters. Not only are there more of them, they’re also stronger.”

Sounds like a place to avoid, at least until I know more. “Where are the demon headquarters?”

“You can’t guess?” Jo gives me a look that says it should be obvious.

“How would I know? I’m new to all this demon stuff.” This part of it, at least.

“Demons are attracted by sin, corruption and power. They always build their headquarters where there’s the highest concentration,” Chi explains.

When he puts it like that, it
is
obvious.

“Washington, DC.”

Chi nods. “At least that’s the East Coast headquarters – LA’s another big one, Chicago too, but they’re spread out all over the world. That’s why we’re in the North Carolina Mountains – close enough to keep an eye on the DC branch, but far enough away to hide.”

“The demons at the asylum – they said something about ‘zi’ and ‘hal’. What were they talking about?” I ask.

“Oh, those are just titles,” Chi says, then scoops another forkful of eggs into his mouth. He swallows, then finishes, “‘Zi’ is a demon in management, while ‘hal’ is essentially a lackey.”

So the demons didn’t believe I looked like management material. That stings.

I open my mouth to ask another question, but apparently Jo thinks I’ve learnt enough for the day and cuts me off. “I’ll need to let Mrs Lee know of my dear cousin’s arrival.”

But that raises other questions. “What’s the plan for today?” I ask. Even Jo can’t quibble with my interest in that one.

Chi answers. “It’s Sunday, no class, no chores – just the games this afternoon. Sunday,” he says happily, “the day of rest.”

Not for this little monster. As they say, there’s no rest for the wicked.

Chi yawns hugely. “I say we catch some sleep and meet back up at lunch.”

His yawn is contagious. Maybe a
little
rest for the wicked, but then it’s back to scheming.

I need to get rid of Jo if I’m going to get all the info I need before I have to evacuate and, to do that, I’ll need a little more intel on my nemesis. When Uri’s the first to finish his food and takes up his tray, I follow him. Jo and Chi are too busy bickering to notice.

I nudge him conspiratorially with my elbow. “Hey Uri, those two always fight so much?”

“What, Chi and Jo?”

No, the other two people here I know. I nod.

“No,” he says. “Actually, they used to be best friends.”

I raise my eyebrows in “surprise” but I already expected as much from the photos at Jo’s. “Really?”

“Yeah – I mean, they still fought all the time, but it was different. More, like, competitive, you know? Chi was stronger, but Jo was faster and smarter – though not as nerdy as she is now. They were the best at
everything
.” His voice is filled with awe.

“So what happened?” But I can kind of already guess – the posies already let slip he ditched her and I think I can guess why. I just need to check my timeline.

Uri shifts uncomfortably, but at my encouragement he answers anyway, leaning forward to whisper. “About two years ago, she got hurt.” He won’t meet my eyes and his floppy hair hangs in his face. “She almost died. She couldn’t even walk for a year… she wasn’t the same. She–” He closes his mouth abruptly because Jo herself clomps up to join us. But it’s fine, I know the rest of the story. Super-athletic Chi stuck with a best friend who can’t even walk? He ditched her and she’s pissed, understandably. I’m a serial killer and
I
think that’s pretty heartless, though he probably doesn’t see it that way. Probably doesn’t even recognize his abandonment for what it was, just drifted away when they no longer had so much in common. He’s still nice to her – he’s not a monster, after all. But then, it’s easy to be magnanimous when you’re the one doing the ditching.

And even though she hates him for it, she still has feelings for her former best friend – although, I suspect they’re no longer the friendly sort. That must piss her off no end. It’s kind of sad really.

Ah well, not my problem. In fact, I fully intend to use it against her. He’s obviously her weak spot. I just need to figure out how.

Uri practically tosses his tray on the pile of dirty ones and scurries away, not looking at either of us. There wasn’t a chance Jo heard us, so I’m not sure what he’s embarrassed about. I scrape my plate – I have blasé down to an art – and Jo does the same.

Then she turns and looks at me. “Come on,
Cuz
, let’s go get you checked in.”

I follow her gimpy stride through the school towards what I assume is the front of the building. The place is such a maze I can’t be sure. We come around a corner into the lobby and there’s a small, messy office with a glass wall separating it from the entryway. No one could come in and out of the front door without being seen.

Or at least, that would be the case if the woman guarding it wasn’t born at least a century ago. You can barely make out her tiny, hunched form between the towering stacks of paper piled on the beat-up wooden desk. She’s decked out in a faded pink floral print and glasses that probably weigh more than she does. Her remaining hair stands up wildly as if it, too, wants to flee like the rest of it has. Gnarled arthritic fingers turn the pages of a paperback novel.

“Jo?” I ask, before we reach the door.

“What?” she snaps. She’s a charmer.

“Are there any Templars between the ages of eighteen and…” I nod towards the upright corpse, “a thousand years old?”

She gives me a hard look. “Yes. Tons. A whole army, literally. They’re out slaughtering our enemies, but could be back within hours if they needed to be.”

I’m pretty sure Jo couldn’t talk about the weather without somehow including a threat.
Forecast today: cloudy with a chance I’ll kick your ass.

Jo keeps talking. “They only leave behind the kids, the elderly, the pregnant–” Her eyebrows lower. “–the cripples and the incompetents.” She starts forward again with her uneven lurch. As she puts her hands on the door, she pauses and looks from Mrs Lee’s floral-decked granny-sweetness back to me.

“Wait here.”

I’m not sure I trust her to go through with it on her own. “What? Why?”

“Because you don’t know anything about Emma.” She looks me up and down. “And, if she meets you, she might just throw you off campus in good taste.”

I stick out my tongue as she pushes into the office. Mrs Lee looks up as Jo enters. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but see Mrs Lee’s eyes blink behind their bottle caps. Then her lips purse, the wrinkles around them folding up into the world’s most complex origami. She turns towards me and I force a friendly wave.

She doesn’t return it, instead she blinks some more and turns back to Jo. Jo says something that makes the old woman come around the desk and pat her awkwardly on the back. They wrap up while I try to look harmless. Finally Jo comes out of the office, clutching a piece of paper.

I wait until we turn a corner down another empty hallway and are out of sight of the office. “What’d you tell her?”

“That you were getting bullied at school for refusing the Inheritance.” Her eyes flick to my scabby cut. “So your parents sent you away mid-semester.”

“Good one.” I mean it. Never having gone to school, it didn’t occur to me that the middle of the semester is an odd time to take a vacation. “Do you think she bought it?”

“Probably.” She shrugged. “Why would I lie?”

The question feels like a trick. I answer slowly. “Because you illegally snuck out to fight demons and rescued a Beacon you now have to hide until you get a chance to unload?” Or, rather, you mistakenly rescued a half-demon who is now under cover as a Beacon so she can learn the truth of her identity?

Turns out there are a few reasons to lie.

“No,
Chi
snuck out to fight demons. I, the cripple, couldn’t do such a thing even if I wanted to. Chi might lie about sneaking out. Amoral Emma certainly would lie about running away. But the poor crippled Jo? No, she’s not capable of doing anything worth lying about.”

It’s good news that Mrs Lee would believe that, but Jo says it like it’s not. “Is that enough to make her not follow up?”

There’s a long pause filled only by the sound of our sneakers on linoleum. Jo looks straight ahead. “I also told her that Aunt Becka threatened to make you come home at the slightest hint that your presence here was a problem. And that I didn’t want that to happen because…” her voice gets even stiffer and she picks up her pace so I can’t see her face. “I need a friend.”

Embarrassing. Even the undead administration is aware how unpopular Jo is. Explains the back-patting.

She continues. “A friend who doesn’t spend all her time talking about demon-hunting, since I’ll never be able to.”

“Guilt card, nice.”

Jo makes a face, not happy with the compliment. We walk the rest of the way in silence.

Jo has a double room but numerous piles of medical equipment are her only roommates. Books are stacked haphazardly on every flat surface and clothes are scattered on the floor. The only other personal item is a single photograph of her parents on the nightstand. It’s informal and they look like they’re at a table having dinner. Her mom leans on the table, her chin resting on her hand. The tip of her nose looks a little pink, like she spent too much time in the sun, and her wild Jo-hair looks especially windblown. Jo’s dad leans back, a satisfied smile peeping out underneath an impressive black moustache, with his arm draped around the back of her mom’s chair. They look relaxed and completely carefree.

A pair of sweatpants hitting me in the head interrupts my staring. I snag them before they hit the ground and change while Jo clears the spare bed. I hope for gossiping, giggling and perhaps a pillow fight, this being my first sleepover, but am disappointed. We crash till lunch.

I shove my plate away, satisfied that the corpse is adequately picked clean. Salmon, that is, not that other kind I so enjoy, unfortunately.

I sit with my usual honor guard of Chi, Jo and Uri. As with this morning, the other students were mystified by Chi’s choice of lunch companions. They’re willing to stop by and talk, but only a giantess named Zebedee actually sits with us. She has a shaved head, perfect mocha skin and a self-confidence that must come from looking capable of eating entire oxen and bench-pressing semis. She isn’t even afraid of Jo, who, when Zebedee arrived, made it clear she wasn’t welcome. Zebedee just flashed her a bright white smile accompanied by a head-cock that said she wasn’t above kicking a cripple’s ass. Jo scooched.

Despite her aggressive entrance and terrifying proportions, Zebedee is actually very easy-going and chats with Chi and Uri, and even occasionally Jo, about the “games” this afternoon. Since my job is to be sulky and unlikeable, I sit there saying nothing and return her friendly “Hi” with a stink-eye.