Conspiracy Boy (Angel Academy) (13 page)

“Be nice.” Lisa lifted the knocker and dropped it against the door.

I’d half expected one of those awful, resonant clangs like at the Addams Family house. But no, it was just a normal, benign, little knock. And when the door opened, the girl who stood behind the welcome mat was just an average, pretty, twenty-something blonde carrying a dishcloth and wearing an apron.

With a gold glyph tattooed on her wrist.

“
Um,
” I said.

“Hi, Petra.” Lisa grinned. “Is Dominic around?”

A giant, super-friendly smile spread across the girl’s face. “Sure, come on in. I’m just getting dinner ready. Hi, Amelie. Y’all are staying, right?”

Lisa’s grin held as she looked over at me, preparing myself to flee. “We’d love to, thanks.”

I didn’t say a word. I didn’t think I needed to. Typically, when one is invited to dinner by an assassin, and one’s only ally is a known serial killer—unless one wants to end up on the dinner plate—it’s a good idea to decline.

Against my better judgment, I followed them into the house.

Afternoon sunlight spilled through the windows behind us, casting long beams across the cherry-stained hardwoods. Distant birdsong twittered in through the windows—fascinating, since there were no birds outside. And no living trees. Come to think of it, there was no living
anything
anywhere around here.

“Dom’s in the backyard,” Petra said, shutting off the stove burner. Soft aromas of pasta and garlic infused the air, along with a hint of bay leaves. “For some reason, he decided an herb garden was a good idea. I have no idea why. I mean, it’s not like he eats any of it except the basil.”

“Men.” Lisa sighed. “I’ve told Alec a hundred times to quit hunting rodents, but he won’t. We’ve got more squirrel pelts lying around than I know what to do with.”

“Gross.” Petra checked the oven then turned to me with a smile. “Garlic bread’s almost done. You two grab a seat, and I’ll go let Dominic know you’re here. He’s been looking forward to meeting you, Amelie.”

Like a good guest, I waited until she’d gone before I spoke.

“Lisa, have you lost your freaking mind? Don’t answer that,” I said when she started to reply. “I don’t want to know. We’re going to die here, aren’t we?”

“Don’t be so catastrophic,” she said. “Petra won’t hurt you. I don’t even know if she can.”

“Oh, she can,” I assured her. “I’ve got scars.”

“That was on the mortal plane,” Lisa argued. “Sorry about that, by the way. I just wanted her to check on you.”

I glared at my friend. “Wait,
you
sent her?
You
did that to Lyle?”

“Lyle was an accident,” she reminded me. “Interdimensional travel isn’t exactly a cakewalk, even for people like us.”

“
Us?
” I snapped. “Don’t lump
me
in with these nut jobs.”

On cue, the back door swung open and one of the nut jobs in question entered. He wasn’t what I’d expected, although I’m not entirely sure what that was. Something diabolical. Maybe something dangerous. Certainly not the tanned, scruffy-faced lawn boy who shuffled in with his gardening tools. His dark hair was pulled into a low ponytail with a piece of twine, and his pale indigo eyes twinkled with an amused glimmer that left no doubt—this was a man who smiled a lot. Despite my natural suspicion, I felt myself starting to like him. It wasn’t until he set down the tool basket and gave me a giant bear hug that I realized why.

“Amelie, love,” he said in a light British accent. “Lisa’s told me so much about you. Cheers for looking after Luc all these months. I’ve always said my son needs a proper guardian.”

Over his shoulder, I stared at my smug-looking sister.

Seriously, I couldn’t speak. Even if I’d known what to say, my mouth wouldn’t have formed words.

“Amelie”—Petra looped an arm around my shoulder—“welcome to the family.”

Chapter Thirteen:

Dinner of the Dead

Dominic…Dominic Montaigne.

It didn’t matter how many times it crawled through my brain, the name still sounded weird. This was Luc’s
dad
, for crying out loud. Fathers were supposed to have gray hair and wrinkles and make grumpy comments about how great things were “back in the day.” They definitely weren’t supposed to hang out in alternate dimensions with gardening spades and super-hot assassins eating garlic pasta with pesto. Speaking of which, why the hell was he eating food, anyway? Wasn’t he blood vegan?

“Supper okay?” Dominic asked, staring at my untouched plate.

“Not hungry,” I replied.

“You sure?” Petra chimed in. “Old family recipe.”

“I’m good.”

Petra shrugged and went back to her meal.

I still hadn’t figured that girl out. Sometimes she seemed normal as apple pie, then other times I wondered if maybe the apple pie had been baked from some wicked queen’s enchanted garden.

Instead of eating, I found myself fingering Luc’s pendant. It didn’t seem fair that I should be here, having dinner with his dad, while he huddled on a couch with a sick case of Crossworlds taint and only Alec to keep him warm.

“Ami’s had kind of a rough night,” Lisa explained, “with the jump and all. I gather things didn’t go as planned?”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Petra said. “I wasn’t expecting Jack’s girlfriend to show up. She’s a serious piece of work.”

Lisa frowned. “Jack’s girlfriend?”

“She means Hansen,” I corrected. “They’re not together anymore.”

Petra just raised her eyebrows and looked at her pasta in silence.

Like I said,
evil
apple pie.

After a minute, Dominic cleared his throat. “In any case, I’m pleased you and Luc have sorted things out. It can be odd, the fledgling relationship, until you get used to each other.”

I didn’t know what he meant by “get used to each other,” and I almost didn’t want to ask. My full-throttle hate-on for Luc might have faded, but that didn’t make the idea of getting used to him any less Hitchcockian.

Instead of dwelling on it, I decided to grab the opportunity for intel. “I do have questions about all this. If you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. It must be quite overwhelming.”

Beside me, Lisa gave a small
harrumph
, and I couldn’t help agreeing.

“For starters, what did she do to Lyle?” I jabbed a thumb at psycho Petra. “I know he’s not dead anymore, but is he going to be okay? And why did she attack me? If y’all had just told me Lisa wanted to talk, I would have come. You didn’t need to hurt my friends.”

Petra’s face took on a bashful look as she swallowed her forkful of pasta. “I said I was sorry.”

“No, actually, you didn’t.”

“Ami, it’s not her fault,” Lisa explained. “She’s Netherbound.”

I sighed. “Do I even want to ask?”

“Every time a child of Lucifer draws from the Crossworlds,” Lisa said, “it takes a piece of your soul. The evil stays in your blood until it clouds who you are. Eventually, you aren’t able to live in the mortal world anymore. That happened to Petra. That’s why Alec and I choose to live as we do now—in the human sector. If I kept channeling the way I was the past few years, I’d be Netherbound before I’m thirty.”

I frowned. “I thought Watchers drain the taint. Isn’t that the whole deal with the Guardians?”

“For them, maybe. Not for us,” she replied. “Lucifer may be an archangel, but he’s also a Fallen. So yeah, we have extra power. And yes, a bonded Watcher helps, obviously. But nothing comes without a price. Why do you think Guardians hunted all the Graymasons in the first place?”

“Because they were wicked evil and liked to eat babies, or some such crap. See, I
do
read my Bible stories occasionally.”

“Ami, they’re not stories.”

That took a second to lodge in my brain. Once it did, I would have traded anything to dislodge it. Was that why I always felt so cruddy after I channeled? Because it was eating my soul? Was that why the wards at St. Michael’s had gotten tight for me now that I was channeling without Otrava to dampen my abilities? Because I’d become
evil
?

I pushed the thought away.

“For what it’s worth, I
am
sorry. Lisa told me you didn’t reply to her note, so I assumed you’d resist coming here,” Petra confessed.

“How was I supposed to reply? I’m not a code breaker, you know.”

Lisa rolled her eyes. “
Nine-one-one?
Four-one-one
? That’s
help
and
info
, hello?”

Yeah, that did seem pretty clear now. I opted not to respond, however, in the interest of not sounding like a dipwad.

“Anyway,” Petra continued, “I knew you could bring back your friend. So, are we cool?”

I opened my mouth to tell her no, we weren’t cool. But I just couldn’t. She genuinely
did
look upset about the idea that she’d hurt someone—like a child who tortures a puppy to death without realizing the puppy can’t be awakened with a warm bath.

“Okay, fine. But what about Lyle now? He’s still sick,” I said. “What did you do to him?”

“I needed a conduit,” she said, like that explained everything.

“Meaning?”

Lisa sighed. “She needs a Watcher to draw more than four hundred rohms. For Petra to travel back and forth safely, she has to draw about five hundred. When her blood mixed with Lyle’s at the wharf, it set up a link so she could drain into him remotely. It lets her navigate the mortal plane more effectively.”

“So she’s like a power parasite or something?”

“More or less,” Lisa said. “It was the only way I could think of to get to you. Besides, Lyle’s a decent guy, so he can handle more evil than most.”

I purposely ignored the injustice of the
nice-guy-handling-evil
bit.

If Lyle had been supporting an almost constant low-level energy draw—pure evil or not—it would make sense why he was hungry all the time. And why they had to keep him away from any more exposure to the Crossworlds. His body was probably buzzing with taint.

“But he’s not dying, right?”

“Not yet. Though no guarantees on Luc. Or
you
,” Lisa added.

The three of them did that annoying shared-glance thing, which, had I been sucking down carbs like the rest of them, probably would have gone unnoticed.

I waited patiently while Dominic and Petra finished their dinner, then Lisa cleared the dishes. As she and Petra lined up at the sink to start washing, I almost commented on the irony. They were Graymasons, for crying out loud. Soul swallowers. They could cross world boundaries in an instant and power an entire Nether haven. But they couldn’t manage an automatic dishwasher?

Weirdsville.

While they got to work, I followed Dominic to the front porch. It made a strange contrast—the utterly normal clanging and giggling of a dinner party propped against this dismal, hellacious wasteland. In the distance, the sun had dropped low on the horizon, and purple shadows moved in the sky.

I kept an eye on them as I settled myself on the wood-slatted rocking chair. “Creepy place you’ve got here.”

“It’s home.” Dominic sat back until his head tapped the edge of the chair, dark hair flopping over his perfectly carved brow line. It was odd to see such familiar features on a man who so closely resembled Luc, yet was
not
him. Like stranger danger and guy-next-door comfort, all in one wiggy, little package.

“I must confess, it was I who requested Lisa bring you here,” he said, eyes still closed. “My son has a good heart, but I fear he trusts the wrong people.”

“I don’t get the impression he trusts much of anyone.”

Dominic shrugged. “He trusts you. Perhaps the best decision he’s made.”

It occurred to me I should thank him for the vote of confidence, though I wasn’t entirely sure if he was being serious.

“If Luc trusted me, he would have explained everything to me by now,” I said. “I’m still only sort of clear on what the Society is about. And I’m not at all clear on what I’m doing here.”

Dominic smiled. “I expect you’ll understand soon enough.”

I had to shut up then, not because I got what he’d said, but because Dominic lifted his hand and held it, palm down, over mine. Before I could say another word, he stroked a fingertip along the length of my wrist, drawing an odd purple light to the surface of my skin.

Like a channel.

My first instinct was to pull away. It didn’t feel dangerous or painful. The opposite, actually. It comforted me, like when Bud hugged me at the Society’s fight club. Still, the calm wash of relief that flooded my bones alarmed me.

“Luc is bound to you,” he said, “by blood, power, and prophecy. Whether you decide to honor that is your choice. But I can promise you this—if you deny your birthright, all of humanity will pay the price. And doing the right thing is rarely the same as doing the easy thing.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Now I understand everything.”

Dominic laughed. “Clearly not everything.”

Along the horizon, the sky’s color had deepened to a reddish hue, the sun nearly touching the horizon. Long shadows cast a chill over the earth, making me shiver.

“You should leave,” he said once he’d released my hand. “You mustn’t be here when the sun goes down. Mortal rules.”

I started to ask what mortal rules were, but stopped.

Semper noctis… Always night.
That was the locus code Lisa had dropped when we entered. It wasn’t explicitly sinister, but it did kind of make me want to flee before darkness hit.

“One last thing,” I said before he could stand. “What do you mean Luc and I are linked by the prophecy? That was Jack’s prophecy. He’s the last of Gabriel’s line.”

“Is he?” Dominic gazed at the sky, drawing my attention back to his eyes—those hypnotic violet eyes so much like Luc’s. “Who told you that?”

“Jack,” I said. “The Great Books. I don’t know, everyone?”

“Well, if everyone says it, then it must be true.”

I couldn’t help feeling like a clueless child. The words he’d said were reassuring, but the tone was anything but. It made me wonder what he knew that I didn’t.

“You’re kind of an asshole,” I noted.

He nodded pleasantly. “I do wonder if you’ve been reading the right books. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Agree?”

“That perhaps you should pay more attention to what you see and less to what people tell you,” he said. “Your choices define you, Amelie. Make thoughtful ones.”

And with that bit of useless advice, he stood and walked away.

Like I said.
Asshole.

I shivered as Lisa and I hurried back through the now-chilly bowels of Nether Missouri toward the dried-up pond where we’d entered.

“You okay?”

“Not even close.”

“That’s normal,” she said. “I wasn’t okay, either, the first time I came here.”

“As opposed to now?”

Honestly, the whole thing with Dominic and Petra had been such a whacked-out bucket of weird, it made me want to do something hyper-normal. Like go to the mall or style my hair with ribbons. Were ribbons normal? I didn’t even know anymore.

By the time we reached the portal, the sun was dangerously low. I could barely make out a sliver of orange brilliance on the horizon.

“Hang on,” she said and took my hand. “This is going to be close.”

It wasn’t as disorienting this time, landing back on the mortal plane. I suppose the homing impulse was expectable, that being my first trip to, you know…
hell
. When I opened my eyes, there was still a sliver of orange light in the same place on the horizon, only this time it was getting bigger.

“Sunrise?” I asked.

Lisa nodded. “It’s an opposite pole. Night here is day there. But you can’t cross when it’s night there, which is why we needed to go,” she explained. “Not exactly a dream retirement, but it’s a decent place to hide—
if
you have the right bloodline.”

I caught her eye in the rising light.

“Lucifer,” she said. “That’s how Petra and Dominic can live down there. He’s part demonblood and she’s Lucifer’s bloodline, like us. Also, they’re bonded.”

“I gathered.”

An inexplicable chill crawled down my neck as I remembered the purplish light Dominic had drawn off my skin. It obviously
was
a genuine blood bond they had between them. Still, something inside me balked at thinking of Petra as Luc’s
stepmom.

Ugh, this was getting weirder by the second.

My fingers felt as stiff as dried twigs, and my eyelids were starting to droop. I had to wonder if my brain might go into meltdown soon and stop functioning altogether.

I stumbled back to the cabin behind Lisa, my feet plodding against the damp ground. There was a brief adrenaline spike when we entered the cabin, and I noticed the indentations on the cushions where Luc used to be.

Before I could slip into freak mode, Alec stepped in.

“I didn’t kill him, don’t worry,” he assured me. “I couldn’t take the snoring, so I put him upstairs. You’re welcome to join him.”

“Shut up, Alec,” I said but didn’t have the heart to defend further.

Did it really matter if Alec thought I was with Luc? I mean, half the Crossworlds believed I was engaged to him. And given my conversation with Dominic, it seemed obvious there was something
very
important that I had missed. Not that anyone had bothered to inform me.

At the moment, I truly didn’t care. All I wanted was to collapse somewhere soft with a pillow and the scarf Jack had made for me and not wake up until everything stressful went away.

When I got up to the loft, I saw Luc crashed out at the foot of the bed. His clothes were in rumpled disarray, and his hair flopped in messy strands over his face. Alec must have taken off his shoes and given him a blanket. But the brotherly love ended there. The same dirty pants still clung to his legs, and his socks had shreds of broken leaf stuck to them. At least he’d stopped shivering.