Conspiracy Boy (Angel Academy) (21 page)

And hovered.

At least, I thought I was hovering.

Sight and sound had taken a backseat to pure pain, so I couldn’t really be sure whether my body was in pieces or vaporized, or whatever. All I could be sure of was that someone—something—wasn’t letting me go.

Jack?

I thought the word rather than said it. I wasn’t sure if I had lips. The answer came back in a wash of kaleidoscopic pain, centered in the tiniest shard of living sunlight, stitched through every inch of my genetic code.

Not quite.

Mom’s voice rang through my head as my body started to re-form. Piece by piece, it came back online—atoms and molecules crashing into each other in a chorus of baleful screams. I was distantly aware of creatures scratching at my feet, tugging me down to a purple-tinged hell of the Crossworlds. It hurt in ways mortal bodies weren’t supposed to hurt.

I prayed for death.

It was like playing a game of tug-of-war with a rubber band, except the gamers were invisible blobs of evil, and the rubber band was my large intestine.

Let me die,
I begged.

Not a chance,
Mom said.
Tell your father I love him. And your sister…tell her I never stopped thinking about her.

Then the rubber band pulled tighter, and tighter, and tighter, until it shot me up and out of the channel.

Good-bye, my baby girl. Live courageously.

At some point, I must have passed out. Or maybe my brain snapped. All at once, the world went—

Chapter Eighteen:

The Ugly Good-Night

—dark.

Jean-Paul Sartre once wrote, “Hell is other people.” I’m not sure what he based the statement on, but at that moment, I had to disagree. At least other people are
something
. Suffering is
something
. This—whatever I had become—
this
was hell.

Silence filled the space around me. Darkness bled through me. I had the vague sensation of being watched, though there was no one nearby.

I was lost.

I was shadow.

I was nothing.

It might have been hours or days or millennia, I couldn’t tell you. Time fuzzed the edges of my brain, memories and events clicking around like fractured pieces of bone, scattered and fleeting, until they, too, disappeared.

“Amelie,” a voice whispered from far away.

But I couldn’t answer.

Never in my life had I felt so tired and empty. It was like a giant troll had squeezed me until all that remained was the skin my body used to live in. No shape. No form.

“Ami?” it said again, closer this time. “Matt, she’s waking up.”

I wanted to tell the voice it was wrong. I couldn’t be waking up. There was nothing left of me to be awake. Or asleep. Or anything, for that matter.

“Go away,” I mumbled.

“She talked,” the voice squeaked. “Go get Lisa.”

I swear, the four horsemen of the apocalypse couldn’t have made more noise if they’d been riding through a field of firecrackers. After a God-awful scuffle that might have otherwise passed for footsteps, a boulder crashed to the ground beside me. Then something warm touched my forehead.

“She’s alive. You guys, can we have a sec?”

“Take all the time you need.” A couple of the horsemen beat an apocalyptic retreat as my brain chugged back to life. Not happily, I might add.

Once the noise had stopped and the warmth touched my head again, I allowed myself to breathe. It was odd, like the breath had been held captive inside me forever and was just waking up.

“Welcome back, sweetheart,” Dad whispered. “You had us worried there.”

“No kidding.” Another voice spoke. “I seriously thought you were going to kick it and take me with you.”

Okay,
that
voice I recognized. Granted, the last time I’d heard it, it had been on a phone, saying annoying things to my boyfriend.

“I hate you,” I whispered.

“You and the rest of the world.” Lisa laughed softly as her fingers brushed over my forehead, dragging me back to awareness. Awareness of what, I wasn’t sure. Nondeath?

“How long was I out?” I asked.

“Week and a half,” Dad said. “Give or take. You missed Christmas.”

That figured. “Luc?”

“Otherwise occupied,” Lisa said. “Traditionalists like Bud here call him dead. I prefer to think of him as existing somewhere fabulous, surrounded by supermodels and drinking martinis.”

“Evil martinis?” I mumbled.

“Well, obviously.”

It was funny how, even though I hadn’t opened my eyes, I could feel her smiling. Her relief poured into me like a faucet, all light and energy. It totally reminded me of how things used to feel with—

Jack.

I sat up, my body screaming in agony. My eyelids made a sound like tape peeling off as they ripped open for the first time in over a week. Yeah, the whole waking-up thing seemed like an exceptionally misguided decision.

“
Owwww,
” I groaned, and my head flopped forward on to my hands. “Lisa, why do you keep doing this?”

“What, saving your life?” Lisa shrugged. “Self-preservation, mostly. Also, nobody else likes me.”

“You think
I
do?”

I held still while Dad dipped a washcloth in warm liquid and ran it over my eyes. Whatever it was smelled like rose hips and cucumber, and my brain seemed to settle under its heaviness. Gradually, I was able to pry open my eyelids the rest of the way without losing too many lashes.

Holy crapola, my head hurt. And the surroundings certainly didn’t help.

What had once seemed an impossibly bright sun, I could now see was actually a dirty monkey-shaped lamp set in the corner of a rather dark room. Around me, candles and apothecary jars lined the shelves, brimming with toxic potions, and a collection of stuffed bears and battered-by-love dolls stood guard.

Bertle’s attic.

“Am I in hell?”

“Still Louisiana,” Dad said.

“Same difference,” Lisa added.

While Dad wiped down my face, Lisa sat cross-legged on the quilted blanket beside me and put a hand over mine. Strange how normal it felt. This was the same hand I’d held a million times before, through scuffed knees and broken hearts and failed final exams. It felt so familiar, yet at the same time, alien.

“You’re human,” I noted.

“So are you. Is that bad?”

Honestly, I didn’t know if it was good, or bad, or a sign of the coming apocalypse. What I did know was that the dread in my chest that had been there since the first moment I read the prophecy had vanished, and a nugget of uncertainty had taken up residence in its place.

“You guys,” I said. “I saw Mom. She saved me.”

Lisa got quiet, and Bud’s brows drew together. “Honey, are you sure? That seems impossible.”

“It is,” I agreed. “But it was her. She said she loves you both. Even you.” I met Lisa’s gaze. “She said she never stopped loving you. Then she told me to live courageously.”

Dad let out a sharp breath, his eyes widening. “That was her,” he said. “She always used to say that. Our duty was to live courageously and die honorably. Not too bad, as goals go.”

Lisa nodded, her gaze still down. “So,” she said, “are you ready to start?”

“Start what?”

“Living courageously,” she said. “It’s not as simple as it sounds, trust me. I’ve been screwing it up for years.”

“Baby, you need to understand,” Dad interrupted, “there’s a lot of strange things happening right now. It may be hard to accept.”

“Meaning?”

“When the Crossworlds closed, anyone who couldn’t cut ties quickly enough was taken. We lost some good people.”

I frowned. “Lost? What are you talking about?”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Lisa cut in. “We tried to protect everyone. The important ones, anyway.”

Panic started to rise in my throat. “Is Jack—”

“He’s alive,” Dad assured me. “But there were a few we couldn’t get to.”

“Dominic and Petra were in the Nether when it closed,” Lisa said. “They knew what would happen, but they stayed. Petra couldn’t survive on the mortal plane, and Dominic wouldn’t leave without her. So they decided to stay and try to help you out.”

The purple pearly souls I had grabbed on the journey out—that was them.

“And Blake,” Dad added. “He took a few days to fade, but demonblood needs connection to the Crossworlds to survive. He said to thank you, though. The best way you can pay him back is to go be happy.”

I exhaled sharply. So Blake had been right—demonblood
didn’t
make you evil. I guess sometimes it made you kind of awesome.

As much as his sacrifice brought me to tears, I held it back. The look in Dad’s eyes was so sad, I knew there had to be something else.

“Who else?” I asked.

“Ami—”

“
Who?
” I repeated, louder.

“Lyle,” Lisa whispered.

Dad paused for a moment, then sighed. “Yeah.
That
took a while for me to understand. We had him secured to this plane. Petra knew it was coming, so she closed the conduit in time. Matt was with him, to make sure he stayed safe.”

As he trailed off, shaking his head, I remembered the green and glowy shape I’d latched on to trying to pull myself out of the channel. No wonder it had seemed so familiar. I had dragged it back from death at the wharf just a few days ago. “What happened? Why’d he die?”

“The only thing we can figure is he must have done it on purpose—gone in to help pull you and Jack out,” Lisa said. “Ami, I’m so sorry.”

The air had gotten heavy, and my head buzzed like a dead radio station. For the record, I hate crying. It just seems so unproductive and lame—random water shed over some stupid emotion, you know? But for whatever reason, lying there now, tears burned behind my nose and stung my eyes.

This was weird. My whole life, I’d struggled not to be too human. Mostly because Mom and Dad had chosen that life, and I needed to make my own decision. In the Guardian world, humanity equated to weakness and helplessness. Humans were the ones we’d been created to protect—the children of impulse and hedonism. But we were warriors. We weren’t supposed to get caught up in the indulgence of human emotion.

Carefully, so as not to make my brain combust, I sat up in Bertle’s attic bed.

It’s not that this didn’t feel good, hanging out with Dad and Lisa. It
totally
did. The only problem was that whatever had happened to the rest of the world, it was ultimately my fault. I owed it to them to go face them in person.

“I need to go.”

I swung my feet to the side, working my way out of the bed. Predictably, the covers got tangled at my feet, but I managed to kick them away before face-planting on the Oriental rug.

“Baby, wait,” Dad said. “There’s more you should know.”

“Tell me later.” I squeezed Lisa’s hand and gave Dad a kiss on the cheek. “I need to see Jack.”

“Yeah, but—Amelie, wait.” Lisa’s voice faded as I shut the trapdoor. I didn’t bother locking it behind me, but I did pause a moment, just out of earshot.

I had to collect myself.

The world wasn’t the same place anymore—no more demons, no more wars, no more interdimensional battles. I could spend the rest of my life with Jack, facing better than average odds that we wouldn’t end up getting eaten by something ancient and carnivorous. Except for the obvious losses, it seemed too good to be true.

Heart pounding, I made my way down the staircase. Such déjà vu gripped me at the sound of voices in the kitchen, I almost bolted back upstairs. At least Dad and Lisa made me feel safe.

Safer than this, anyway.

“Y’all want more tea?” Bertle’s voice soothed from the kitchen. “I can brew some. Jackson?”

“No, thank you,” Jack’s voice said. “You’ve taken such good care of me, Mrs. Bertle. I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you.”

The floorboards creaked as Bertle shuffled across the kitchen. “Ain’t no need for that, baby. An’ I told you, y’all can call me Benita.”

Okay, that was weird. Why would Bertle need to remind Jack to call her by her first name? He’d been doing that for years. Possibly decades.

Across the hall, winter garlands draped the living room walls, and a leftover voodoo doll–bedecked Christmas tree preened by the hearth. It lent a light scent of pine and spruce to the normally incense-infested house.

A few feet away, Henry stared at the fire crackling in the hearth, and Elder Horowitz dozed on the couch, half covered by an issue of
Entertainment Weekly
magazine. Horowitz looked so casual in his tan chinos and gray sweater, I almost didn’t recognize him.

“Henry?” I whispered over the soft pops of burning pine branches. “Hey, Henry?”

My headmaster turned around, a half smile quirked at his face.

“Well, if it isn’t the prophecy girl,” he said. “Judy and I always figured you’d end up in the human sector. Just didn’t realize you’d take the whole species with you.”

I shrugged. “Go big or go home, right?”

“That’s quite a motto, Miss Bennett,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

“Grateful, I guess. Kinda terrified.”

He smiled, a
full
smile this time. “Tell me about it. I have to revamp the entire St. Michael’s curriculum before school resumes. Apparently, no one wants to study Demonology anymore.”

“Inconceivable.”

“Utterly unfathomable.”

I tiptoed over to give him a kiss on the head, careful not to wake Elder Horowitz. I guess I could start calling him
Mr. Horowitz
now. We probably didn’t have Elders anymore, either, did we?

As I turned back to the kitchen, a twinge of regret hit me. Not that I wasn’t excited to see my friends and find out what had happened over the past week and a half, but it still stuck with me. Lyle wouldn’t be there for final exams—he wouldn’t be there ever again. That was his choice, but it didn’t make it any easier to stomach. And Luc. There would be no more smart-ass cracks, no more mocking my sappiness with Jack. He wouldn’t even be there to make fun of my stupid robes at graduation.

In a few days, when the full gravity of this hit me, I would fall apart. For now, it was all I could do to stay upright, put one foot in front of the other, and keep breathing.

“Henry?” I said, fighting back tears. “I’m sorry. For not being able to bring Headmistress Smalley back. For everything.”

He stared at me for a second and then shook his head. “Don’t be. This was what Judy wanted. Lyle, too. They knew what we needed to sacrifice for it, and so did I,” he said. “Don’t be sorry. You did well.”

I appreciated the reassurance. But really, when you’ve just brought about the end of a species, it’s hard to keep digging for silver linings.

When I got to the kitchen, the first thing I noticed was the silence.

Katie, Matt, and Veronica sat at the table, each holding a cup of tea, though none of them were drinking it. Mostly, they seemed to be staring at Jack, also seated at the table. Dane and Alec lounged in the corners of the room, fiddling with their coffee mugs.

It hadn’t occurred to me to feel self-conscious about my bare feet and sweatpants when I was with Dad and Lisa. Now, however, I wished I’d stopped in the bathroom to put makeup on. Katie, as usual, emanated adorableness in her tailored pants and button-down shirt. Veronica had decided to embrace her inner goth and sported the latest in combat-boot chic. Only Matt broke the stylefest, with his typical sloppy jeans and ripped T-shirt combo.

And not one of them in Guardian uniform.

“Hey,” I said from the doorway. My stomach was already in knots at being so close to Jack. “What’s shakin’?”

Before I could get the whole sentence out, Veronica slammed her mug down on the table and launched herself at me like a teenage homing missile. I had to brace myself on the counter.