Devilish (23 page)

I think I laughed when the knife went in. At least, I made the motion, but blood came out of my mouth instead. I remember seeing the perfume bottles on the mantelpiece as I fell back and, aside from the faint, somewhat implausible realization that I was dying, nothing else.

And I smiled.

“Got you,” I said.

The entire horizon was white. White, and a strip of blue, and a gray cloud in the distance. A very square cloud. My mind was thick with clouds. They hung over all my thoughts like cobwebs, gumming everything up and slowing everything down, but I didn’t mind.

“Jane?”

Whose voice was that?

And the air … it had the faintest smell of … green beans? Chicken? Antiseptic spray?

I made a tremendous effort and pulled my eyes open wider.

That gray thing was a television. A wall-mounted television. The white-and-blue landscape was a pillow in my face. I was sleeping with my mouth open, and I had a little plug stuck in my nose that was shooting cool air into it. It annoyed me, and I yanked it out. A hand reached over and put it back into place. I pulled it out again, and the hand replaced it. The hand and I battled like this for another few moments—it very much wanted that plug in my nose.
And though the air that it supplied was cool and pleasant, I was determined that the plug was going to stay out.

There were footsteps. Distant voices talking about doctors. This was definitely a hospital. I remembered now—something had been in my chest. My chest was thick and fluffy. Those were bandages. I had been hurt. I had been stabbed in the chest. By a demon. At a party.

That didn’t help my confusion. I started clawing through those webs in my head, trying to untangle my thoughts. Something about falling off a building and slicing off toes … None of it made sense.

Neither did the large pink thing that was standing over me, shoving the plug back into my nose. After a fuzzy moment, this resolved itself into a nurse with a long blond ponytail and the darkest tan I’ve ever seen in a New England autumn. She looked a little like Joan, actually.

“You’re awake!” she said. “I’m amazed.”

Was I awake? I couldn’t quite figure it out.

“You’re a miracle,” she said, stroking my hair, “you know that? Everyone on the unit is calling this the miracle of the month. Full moon on Halloween. We knew we were going to see something incredible.”

I tried to move my mouth, but something was preventing me.

“Don’t try to talk, honey,” she said. “There was a tube down your throat earlier, when you were in surgery. It’s probably sore.”

My throat did burn, but it didn’t feel like it had had a
tube down it. More like a string-load of fishhooks and lit matches.

“I know you don’t feel good,” she said sympathetically. “I’ll go and get you something to help you get back to sleep. But first, have a look.”

The nurse pulled back the curtain that surrounded us. There, in the next bed, was Ally, sleeping soundly, her large forehead resting peacefully on a pillow. She also had a plug in her nose, a plastic mask over her mouth, and tubes coming out of her arms.

“She lost a lot of blood,” she said. “But she’ll be okay. They got the two of you in here in the nick of time. They even managed to re-attach all of her toes. She’ll probably limp, but it’s better than the alternative.”

Now it was coming back to me.

“They got the guy who did this to you two,” she said. “Don’t worry. The police found him at the scene mumbling about the devil. He even had your friend’s toes in a bag. You’re safe now, honey.”

Poor stupid David.

So there she was. Alive. But who was I looking at? There’s no way that the nurse could have understood the true meaning of my searching gaze. There was no physical sign.

“Someone’s coming by to switch on your television,” the nurse said, pulling the curtain closed. “You won’t want it now. You’re still groggy. But your parents might want it. Try to rest now, okay? I’m going to get you some medicine. You’ll go right back to sleep.”

After reading the monitors around me and making a few notes, she left. I was vaguely aware that a tall guy in a work uniform came in and started doing something to my television.

“I couldn’t tell you directly,” he said, not turning around. “I couldn’t tell you exactly what you had to do. But I knew you would figure it out.”

My eyes shot open. From under the baseball cap he was wearing, a tiny tuft of red hair was peeking out.

I tried to speak, but the burning, blistered feeling prevented me.

“I don’t have a lot of time,” he said, coming over. “Brother Frank got your parents out of the room for a minute.”

Did it work
? I tried to ask with my eyes.
Who is that
?

Owen seemed to understand.

“It’s the first forfeit I’ve ever seen,” he said with a smile.

Allison
?

“It’s her,” he said. “You did it. You got her to break the rules. You made her mad enough to attack a human being. She’s
never
done that before. Not only was Allison returned, but Lanalee probably got knocked all the way down the ladder. Two hundred years of work for nothing. She’s going to be
pissed.
“

Allison. That was Allison. My best friend, who had given herself up for me.

And Owen was here.

“I was scared,” he said. “I mean, I’m dead. I’ve died twice. I know it’s no big deal, but I didn’t …”

Owen was finding it hard to contain his emotions. He broke out into the broadest smile I’d ever seen and was gripping the bed rail so hard that it shook. He reached down and took my hand, carefully avoiding the tubes and tape.

“I couldn’t watch you go there. Put yourself in danger. I made sure Brother Frank was there watching, to call an ambulance. And they all took off, Jane. All of them ran, left town. They always come back, but that doesn’t matter. We beat them this time, Jane. You guys made it.”

He was rambling now, running his fingers up and down the bed rail. It’s possible that I was on serious painkillers and slightly loopy, but Owen didn’t seem to be the same guy I had known all along. The height, the skinny body, the thin lips and vampire eyebrows were all still the same. Something had changed, though. I couldn’t put my finger on it even as he leaned down over me.

“I’m not supposed to do this either,” he said. “But these are different rules, and I’ve waited a long time for this.”

Owen did not kiss like a freshman. He kissed firmly, seriously. He kissed like someone who has been around a long, long time and who has waited patiently for this very moment. I suddenly understood how some things only improve with time, how nothing is lost in the passing. Any kiss I shared with Elton paled in comparison to this. There was an entire century of experience and emotion behind this one.

This was it. The big romantic moment of my life had come, and my partner was a 116-year-old dead fourteen-year-old freshman. But hey, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. That’s my motto.

“I have to go,” he said, pulling away. “They’ll be back any second.”

Granted, he wasn’t about to leap off a building again, but somehow … this made it worse. I couldn’t let Owen go. But I couldn’t speak. So I just grasped his hand and held on.

“Jane,” he said, “you just beat Lanalee. Brother Frank is never going to let you get away. You’re with us now.”

I clung to his fingers with all the might I could.

“Besides,” he said, carefully withdrawing them from my grip, “I’ve been waiting a long time for a girlfriend. I’m not just going to give you up. You’ll see me again. But right now, you have to
go to sleep
.”

As he said the words, I felt my body shudder with exhaustion. Maybe I was asleep already. I could barely keep my eyes open as I watched him straighten his cap, pick up the toolbox, and go.

I’m shocked that any story about me would end like this, but there you go. Nothing like a fight with a demon, a dead boyfriend, and a stab wound to the chest to put things into perspective.

I turned and tried to gaze through the curtain that Allison was resting behind. I could just make out her figure on the bed. There would be a lot of questions to
answer. People would want to know what happened in the Tremone house tonight.

Outside, the sky was clear and flat and bright. The moon was still high. I could hear Brother Frank, my parents, and Joan as they walked back toward the room. Providence, capitol of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, had been saved from an infestation of demons.

And I was going to get a well-deserved night’s sleep.

Acknowledgments

Professionally and personally, many thanks to: Ben Schrank, Josh Bank, Les Morgenstein, Siobhan Vivian, Eloise Flood, Liesa Abrams, Kate Schafer, and Hamish Young.