Straight to Heaven (24 page)

“If you want to see her alive again, you’ll print what we tell you to.” From the corner of my eye, I saw him waving a flash drive. “I’m sending you a file, and I expect to see it on the front page, or else you’re going to have one less reporter at your paper.”

Even as terrified as I was, I rolled my eyes at his ridiculous plan. Didn’t these two realize that neither the
Free Press
nor the
News
would cave in to their demands? But I wasn’t in the mood to laugh when J.T. pressed the barrel of a gun into the soft spot between my jawbone and neck.

J.T. talked about cyber terrorism and bees and zombies and zombie bees. He shouted about how the public schools turned children into radical vegans. He explained that the president was a clone of an alien who’d landed in Roswell. It was nearly word-for-word the same trash I’d read in the manifesto.

I might have sat there all night, tied to that chair and silently begging for the video session to end, but then I heard an inner cry of terror. Unlike the others, this was a wordless message, screamed at a decibel so high that it bored through my skull and into my brain with the intensity of a power drill. At the sound of it, my body convulsed so hard that I knocked the chair on its side while my muscles spasmed. My limbs jittered and twisted.

“She’s having a seizure!” Craig cried.

The psychic scream came again, wordlessly begging me to come to the rescue. Ari was in terrible, terrible danger. That was the first thing I knew. The second was that it wasn’t only Ari in trouble, but Grace and Jasmine as well. My body convulsed again.

One of the men cut the zip-ties loose and spread me out on the floor while the other stripped the duct tape off my mouth and tried to shove something between my teeth. “You never told me she was an epileptic,” Craig said. He knelt on one side of me, and J.T. knelt on the other.

“I didn’t know,” J.T. argued. “Maybe it’s the concussion.”

Once again, my succubus ordered me to fight, but this time, instead of being physical, she directed me to be clever.

“Lilith, you okay?” Craig asked.

I moaned then muttered something. Both men leaned over me to catch what I said.

In that moment, I didn’t think. I acted. Using every ounce of extra strength my succubus could give me, I grabbed the front of their shirts and yanked as hard as I could.

Their skulls cracked together like a pair of cinderblocks being dropped from a second-story window. When I let go of them, Craig’s eyes rolled back into his head, and he listed sideways. J.T., looking dazed, fell backwards onto his butt.

“
MOMMA
!!” This time, it was Grace who screamed.

I stumbled to my feet, still dizzy from my head injury, and knocked into the video equipment which crashed to the ground. Then I staggered upstairs and through the otherworld doorway.

My house was dead quiet.

Panicked, I raced from the otherworld into my bedroom. Maybe I’d come too late. Maybe my family’s outcries had been their final words!

Then I caught a slight whimper from behind Ariel’s bedroom door. Inside, I found Jas, her eyes wide and terrified, rifling through the junk on Ari’s desk. “Where’s your cell phone?” she urgently whispered. “Ari! Where the hell is your phone?”

A muffled explosion shook the house. The glass in the windows rattled, and the beaded curtain that hung in the doorway of Ari’s closet swung crazily, the beads clicking together like chattering teeth.

Ariel started to scream, but Jasmine clapped a hand over her mouth, silencing her. Another explosion erupted, closer this time. This one made the floor lurch so hard that I stumbled and nearly fell on Jasmine.

“Aunt Lil!” Ari let go of Jas and grabbed onto me.

“What is it?” I asked. “What’s going on?”

Jasmine’s complexion was ashy. “I think it might be Karl.”

Karl? The guy was an all around pain in the ass, but he was sneaky and cowardly, not violent.

“No, it’s my mom’s boyfriend,” Ari said. Her eyes were squeezed shut. “Aldo’s coming to get me.”

They were both wrong. This thing – whatever it was – was out to get
me
.

Another blast sent the house rocking once more. My injured skull howled in protest. How was it that my nosy neighbor who’d jumped at the chance to tell my ex-husband about my life now seemed unable to dial 911?

Suddenly, I realized that one member of my family was missing. “Grace! Where’s Grace?!”

Jasmine’s eyes widened in horror. “I don’t know!”

“Get Ari out of the house right now, and call 911! I’ll find Grace.”

I would have dragged Jasmine and Ari into the labyrinthine corridors of the underworld, but I worried they’d get lost or even hurt if I was being hunted there as well.

I hurried from Ariel’s room into Grace’s. To my horror, her bed was empty. My heart pounding, I checked my room and the bathroom. Finding nothing, I half-ran, half-fell down the stairs. My vision was no longer doubled, but at the same time, I wasn’t steady on my feet. I shouted for Grace as I stumbled from the living room and into the kitchen.

Which was now completely destroyed. My cupboards had been torn from the ceiling, my dining room table was smashed, and every window had shattered. Through the broken French doors, I saw an immense hole in my new patio. Crushed kitchen cabinets and smashed lawn furniture floated in the pool.

Grace was nowhere in sight. A sob bubbled up from my chest. Even though the pain made my vision go gray, I screamed, “Grace!”

I went into the den. Standing in the middle of the floor was a beast emitting an otherworld signature so intense that my headache spiked. This was no angel. Its feral face held a grinning mouth of wickedly sharp teeth. Small, pointed ears were pinned back against its skull. A double row of cunning eyes turned to look at me. When it let out a yowl, the ground under my feet trembled and the house groaned as it shifted sideways. The plumbing in the wet bar gave way with a shriek, and a fountain of water gushed up, drenching us.

“Get out of here, Lilith!” William squatted with his arms wide, looking like a very thin, very handsome, sumo wrestler. He kept his eyes fixed on the nightmare, ready to throw himself at it.

“Mommy?” My daughter’s tremulous voice came from behind William. She was wedged in the corner behind one of the chairs.

“Grace!” I ran towards her, but the creature blocked my way. It yowled again, once more forcing me to clamp my hands to my head. It advanced, flames spreading under its feet. William tried to tackle the creature before it could reach me, but the thing twisted and kicked, sending William crashing into the wall.

I made a grab for my daughter, but the creature lifted its hands and sprayed fiery orange pellets that buzzed around my head like angry insects. William flung himself across the floor, grabbed my hands, and yanked me to the ground. The pellets exploded in the empty space where my head had been, raining down tiny droplets of fire that burned like acid on the backs of my arms.

“What
is
that thing?” I asked, terrified.

“I think it’s a little ‘job well done’ gift from Helen.”

The creature picked me up with a flick of its hand. I spiraled towards the ceiling then crashed to the ground. When I landed, my teeth clicked hard, gouging a chunk from the tip of my tongue. My mouth filled with blood.

William scrambled over to me. “Lilith? Lil!”

I got to my hands and knees, spitting blood onto the floor, and crawled towards my terrified daughter. The monster released its magic again. Invisible hands slammed into the wall. Desperately, I searched for a doorway.
Any
doorway. Even the one to the garage would have been fine if I’d been able to reach it.

William picked up a book and threw it at the monster’s head. “Hey, over here!” When the creature ignored him, William threw a lamp at it. “Come and get me!”

William’s attempted diversion didn’t help. It was like I had a target on my back. Once again, unseen arms picked me up and threw me like a rag doll. I toppled over the back of the couch.

From my new vantage point, I spotted another entrance. “There!” I pointed to the doorway.

William crouched behind a chunk of the torn-up bar. “Where?”

Since William was a demon, he couldn’t see it, but I could, and that was all that mattered.

Then I heard something that terrified me even more than the creature’s yowl.

“Lilith!”

It was the very last voice I wanted to hear. “Get out of here, Tommy!” I screamed so loudly that my vocal cords seized.

The beast turned around to face Tommy as he charged down the hallway from the kitchen towards us. I had to get that thing through Heaven’s doorway! I tensed, ready to spring, but the monster predicted my move. It sprayed another round of tiny pellets that opened craters in the couch and ignited the books on the shelves.

“Lil, this way!” Tommy frantically reached for me.

The door to the garage opened. There was my niece, her face pale and her hands shaking, aiming my father’s gun into the room. So she was as good a thief as her mother after all.

“No, Ari! Get out of here!”

The creature raised its hands, dispatching another round of fiery bullets. I ducked in time, but Tommy didn’t. His expression went from fear to surprise to horrible realization. His hands clutched his stomach and, seemingly in slow motion, he dropped to his knees.

“Tommy!” I shouted.

Ariel’s face was set with fierce determination. She put the gun to her shoulder, aimed, and pulled the trigger. The gun bucked, and she stumbled backwards.

The bullet struck the creature in the back, tearing its arm from its shoulder. The damage didn’t kill it, but the impact took it by surprise and made it falter for a second. And a second was all I needed. Seeing my opportunity, I dashed towards the beast and tackled it with every ounce of strength I had, sending both of us through the heavenly doorway.

I hit the ground of Heaven and rolled to the side. The creature let out a howl of terror and outrage when realized where it was. I scrambled backwards like a crab, watching as the atmosphere in Heaven did its work. Almost immediately, the beast’s skin turned gray. Within seconds, it crumbled into fine powder. A moment later, it was hardly more than a pile of ashes.

I collapsed and closed my eyes. I couldn’t stop shaking. Unfortunately, there was no time to gather myself. From the human realm, I heard William calling my name. I crawled through the doorway and back into my house.

“Get the girls out of here,” I ordered William.

I crawled to Tommy’s side. Blood pumped from his open wound. “Oh, no! No!” I put my hands against the hole, trying to staunch the flow. “Tommy!”

His eyes were already glazing. “Lil?”

Across the room, William was trying to hold Ariel back from Tommy while at the same time coaxing Grace from her hiding space. “It’s okay,” he told them gently. “You’re safe now.” William was a mess. Blood smeared on his shirt, and his dark hair hung in his eyes. But his incubus was throwing off charm in order to soothe the girls. “Grace, you have to listen to me.”

Both girls were hysterical. Grace had a cut above her eyebrow and a darkening bruise on her arm. I wanted to go to her, but I didn’t dare leave Tommy’s side. Not that it did any good. By the time I heard the ambulances arrive, Tommy was already dead.

“Take the girls outside to Jasmine,” I told William. “I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going? Lilith? Lil!”

I ignored him and went straight for Hell’s doorway.

Chapter Seventeen

My hands were still covered in Tommy’s blood when I went to hunt down Miss Spry.

I found her in her study, sitting calmly at her desk. Mr. Clerk, well-groomed once more, stood next to her. They were looking over a huge stack of papers.

Miss Spry gaped when she saw me. “Lilith? How in hell…”

“Lilith!” Mr. Clerk rushed forward and hugged me. “You’re all right.” He held me so tightly that I could hardly breathe.

I clung to him. “Tommy…” I swallowed several times but still couldn’t get the words out. “Tommy…” A sob clenched like a fist in my chest.

“What is she going on about?” Miss Spry asked.

Mr. Clerk let go of me and pulled his smart phone from his pocket. After consulting it, he said, “Lilith just lost a friend. Thomas Lefevre, right?”

I nodded.

“Such a pity,” Miss Spry said.

I sank onto her settee, smearing Tommy’s blood onto the upholstery. “Can’t you do something?” I begged. “He was only trying to rescue my family.”

“Sorry, I can’t help you,” she said.

“But you brought
me
back from the dead!”

“Yes, but you were a succubus, my dear. That’s entirely different. This man is human. Raising the dead is not my department. What’s done is done. You’ve won. Patrick? Get the papers for the new contract so that Lilith can sign them, and I can get on with my morning.”

I blinked, feeling slow and stupid. My mind shambled like a sleepwalker. “My new contract?”

She sighed, exasperated. “Don’t you remember? I’m releasing your daughter from her obligation.” Mr. Clerk took a paper from a folder and laid it on her desk. “Come on now, and be a good girl,” Miss Spry said. She held up a pen.

I dragged myself off the couch and took the pen from her. She nodded, pleased, and said, “All you need to do is sign here and initial here.” She paused, “Unless…”

I raised my eyes. “Unless what?”

Her smile was oily. “Well, if this Tommy person is really that important to you, we could change the contract again. Instead of exempting your daughter from the line of succubi, you could opt to save your friend.”

I wondered if she was serious, but one look at Mr. Clerk’s anxious face told me that she was. I set down the pen. “So you’re making me choose between Grace and Tommy?”

“Well, if that’s how you want to look at it,” she said. “I thought I’d offer you a choice, but if you’re not interested…”

Grace or Tommy? Leaving my daughter in the Devil’s clutches was a terrible thought, but so was having Tommy dead. “Where is he right now? Tommy, I mean?”

“He’s probably deciding his fate,” Miss Spry said. “The newly dead get to pick their eternities.”