Falling (The Falling Angels Saga) (4 page)

“That’s easy for you to say,” snapped Erin, shooting a tidal wave of attitude across the table at Maudrina. “It’s not happening to you.”

Since her return, the dark eyeliner and skanky clothing Erin had taken to wearing after Matt’s death had been replaced by a fresh-faced look, complete with jeans and the cute tops I’d seen her wear dozens of times before the change. But Erin still clung to a tiny bit of the anger that in recent weeks, instead of being focused on me, zeroed in on Maudrina.

“It’s not happening to you, either!” Maudrina snapped back.

“It’s not happening to either of you. It’s happening to me,” I said, my voice reflecting the misery that engulfed me like a fog. Erin reached across the table and squeezed my hand.

“I’m here,” she said softly.

Despite knowing that part of the reason she seemed so caring was to irk Maudrina, I felt a sense of accomplishment. My best friend since the fourth grade, who not too long ago had hated me, was telling me she was here for me. It made the heavy sacrifice I’d made last summer almost worth it. Almost.

Maudrina decided not to challenge Erin, but I could tell from her heavy breathing, she was annoyed.

“Food’s almost ready. I hope you girls like Chinese,” Aunt Jaz called. She was standing in front of the old-fashioned cast iron stove, gently stirring soup in a big pot.

Aunt Jaz had taken a Chinese cooking class over the summer. After all her years of southern cuisine, she felt the urge to try something new. We were her first guinea pigs.

Aunt Jazz had greeted us when we arrived with big hugs and boisterous laughter. That was normal for Aunt Jaz. She was in full makeup. That was also normal. What wasn’t normal was the Oriental print dress she was wearing. Typically, Aunt Jaz would’ve been wearing a retro outfit from the fifties, sixties or seventies. This dress was right out of
Vogue
… Okay,
Chinese Vogue
.

It accented her curvy-girl figure in all the right places. It was a summer green—green being Aunt Jaz’s color of choice. But the color was the only thing familiar about Aunt Jaz’s wardrobe. It seemed to me the new outfit and new style of cooking was a result of her disastrous summertime fling with Monsieur Perez. The new wardrobe and Chinese cooking served as signs that Aunt Jaz was putting the summer behind her and moving on. Good for her. I wished I could do the same.

“What kind of soup is that, Aunt Jaz? It smells yummy,” called Maudrina, taking in the fragrant air around us with closed-eyed rapture.

“Sichuan noodle and pork shoulder. A little of the East, with a taste of the South,” Aunt Jaz replied, releasing a wave of boisterous laughter.

“I have to agree with Maudrina. It smells really good,” I said.

“It does,” added Erin in a clipped tone.

“I also whipped us up a batch of shrimp fried rice, but I dipped the shrimp in creole sauce just to spice things up a bit.” There was a tenderness in Aunt Jaz’s voice whenever she talked about cooking. Cooking was her refuge. I believe she couldn’t live without it.

“What do you think of my problem, Aunt Jaz?” As hungry as I was, I was equally hungry for Aunt Jaz’s input. She was an expert on all things paranormal.

“You definitely have a problem, deary. But every problem has a solution.”

“But this time he’s coming for me. He told me as much in my dream,” I said emphatically.

Aunt Jaz stopped stirring and fixed me with a steady gaze. “I don’t like making decisions on an empty stomach. That’s a recipe for disaster. Let’s talk this through over a good meal. Okay?”

I sighed deeply, smiling through my gloom. Aunt Jaz had a way of putting things into perspective. “Okay.”

A short time later, Aunt Jaz placed piping hot bowls of soup in front of each of us, along with smaller dishes of shrimp fried rice containing some of the largest shrimp I’d ever seen. When she finished serving, she wiped her hands on her apron and eased herself onto a high stool.

“Aren’t you going to join us?” asked Maudrina.

“No, no. You girls eat. I want to sit here and catch the looks on your faces,” she said with prideful joy.

We dug in. It was delicious as always. The broth was spicy with a hint of sweet, and the pork practically melted in our mouths. There was very little conversation between us as we ate, aside from a few exclamations of joy in-between spoonfuls of the heavenly soup.

“The trick of it is with the ginger. It’s gotta be
young
ginger, peeled and then thinly sliced.” Aunt Jaz could tell from the emptying of our plates and the smiles on our faces we were enjoying the meal. Her cooking had once again passed the test. Now she was bragging.

“It really is good, Aunt Jaz,” said Maudrina. Finished with her soup, she started in on the shrimp fried rice.

“I told you, Maudy. My cooking just gets better n’ better,” Aunt Jaz said, her bold laughter filling the air. When the laughter subsided, her gaze moved to me. “Now then, let’s talk about you.”

The subject had turned to me so suddenly, tiny knots of tension began kneading into my shoulders again. “Umm… okay. I’m not sure where to begin.”

“You know what the March Hare and the Mad Hatter said: start at the beginning…”

“And when you get to the end…stop,” added Maudrina, completing Aunt Jaz’s couplet. They both broke into easy laughter. It was a joke they’d shared in the past, a sign of their close relationship. It brought a smile to my face, and a bit of the tension drained from my shoulders.

“Why are you laughing? This is serious!” charged Erin, her accusatory stare ricocheting between Maudrina and Aunt Jaz. “We didn’t come here for lunch
or
for jokes,” she said, her gaze finally landing on me. “We came here because we’re worried about my friend.” Although I felt she was going overboard, her voice was filled with concern that touched me.

“You’re right,” said Aunt Jaz. “I didn’t mean to belittle things. I was just trying to lighten the mood.” She was again looking at me. Maudrina rolled her eyes.

I told Aunt Jaz of my day, from waking up and thinking it was Monday, to the strange girl and the warning she’d given me in the stairwell, all the way to the earthquake I’d caused in the math lab. By the time I was finished, the shoulder tension had returned.

“This girl, you say you’ve never seen her before?” asked Aunt Jaz.

“No, and she looked really strange. Her teeth were the weirdest shade of yellow.”

“And it sounded to you like she said the message came from the demon Ibwa?” she asked, scratching her chin.

I nodded. “That’s what it sounded like. But I saw Beelzebub destroy Ibwa when he tried to help me and Roxanne during our trip to hell.”

“Mmm hmm. At least that’s what you thought you saw,” said Aunt Jaz. “It might not have been Beelzebub’s right to destroy him. Perhaps he was only punishing him.”

A swell of hope coursed through my heart. Ibwa had turned on the demons in hell and attempted to help Roxanne and me rescue Guy. We couldn’t have defeated Beelzebub without him. “I want to believe the warning came from him, but I’ve been fooled before,” I said.

“That you have,” said Aunt Jaz. “We all were.”

“She said ‘You can win!’ But why would Ibwa care about the school election?” I asked, my voice rising.

“Maybe it’s about winning at something else. A new challenge,” said Aunt Jaz.

“Like defeating Satan,” Maudrina said, throwing in her two cents.

I faced Maudrina, my eyes growing wide. “It’s a warning that something bad is going to happen to me. I’m sure of it!”

“It might be, but it also might mean something else altogether,” cautioned Aunt Jaz. “I suggest we do nothing for the time being. Let me nose around and see if I can turn up any rumblings in the occult community.”

“Okay,” I said, hanging onto the word so long it came out
oh-kaaay
, emphasizing my feelings of doubt.

“I know that’s not what you want to hear, deary. But give me a few days.”

“Okay,” I said more firmly. “But I’m still going to withdraw from running for junior class president.”

“Why?” asked Maudrina, her question filled with reproach. “Why not just wait and see what Aunt Jaz finds out.”

“The one thing we know for sure is that my dark side got me nominated. My dark side is trying to push me closer to Satan. I’m not going to allow it. I’m pulling out,” I said with finality.

“But maybe Ibwa’s trying to get you to step up for the students at our school who have no voice,” Maudrina said, not backing down.

“Ibwa is a demon. He could care less about the school election,” chimed Erin. “I’m with Megan on this.”

Maudrina hit her with a penetrating gaze. “Of course you are,” she said with enough sarcasm to fill the Super Dome.

“In the meantime, you ladies need to remain vigilant,” Aunt Jaz said, dragging the conversation back to the matter at hand. “We still don’t know how that soul-sucking demon got inside Erin last spring. Someone out there possesses some powerful, dark magic, and that person may have you ladies in their sights.”

Aunt Jaz’s warning, along with the uncomfortableness between Maudrina and me, cast a cloud over the rest of the meal. When Aunt Jaz offered dessert, we all three declined—a first.

Maudrina remained behind to help Aunt Jaz with clean-up while Erin and I took the bus home. During the ride, we remained silent. Even though we’d been friends since childhood, there was uncomfortableness between us. Our renewed relationship still hadn’t found its footing.

As I sat in a window seat, staring at scenery my eyes didn’t see, the tension in my shoulders migrated into my arms and back. My closest friends didn’t care much for each other. And to make matters worse, because of me, they were both in danger.

If they’d never met me, they would have had normal high school problems—passing the French final, searching for popularity, hoping to get asked to the Junior Prom. I was certain the uneasiness between them would resolve itself in time, but the demonic threat hanging over us might blossom into something that could steal their young lives and banish them to hell for all eternity.

“I meant what I said back there,” said Erin. I looked up from my reverie to find her eyes on me. They were needy eyes. “I got your back.”

“Thanks,” I said. “It’s good to know.” I smiled, and she returned the smile. We stared at each other for several seconds, like a couple on their first date, neither of us knowing what to say next.

After a while, I went back to staring out the window. Like the trouble between Maudrina and Erin, I hoped our uneasiness would resolve itself.
Give it time,
I thought.

*

When I arrived home, Tony’s Jetta was in the driveway. The passenger door hung open, and he was exiting our house, hidden behind one of the large boxes that had been decorating our living room.

“I told your mother not to spend so much of our capital on inventory. But you know your mother,” Tony said, peeking out from behind the box. There was a twinkle in his eye and a smile on his face. “That is one stubborn woman.” He reached the car and attempted to shove the box in.

“I heard that.” Suze was poking her head out the front door. They smiled at one another, their love and mutual respect on display.

“She
has
been known to be difficult. Especially when it comes to garage sale bargains,” I replied with a smile of my own.

“Tell me about it,” said Tony, continuing to squeeze the box through the passenger door opening.

“If you two are going to gang up on me, I’m going back inside,” said Suze, her smile spreading into an ear-to-ear grin.

My mother’s relationship with Tony was the one bright spot in my life. There was a time when I wasn’t sure about Tony, a time when I suspected him of being a demon. Nothing could be further from the truth. He was a wonderful man. My mother deserved a wonderful man. She needed someone in her life when I disappeared forever. I hoped one day she’d marry him.

“That looks like a losing proposition.” I thumbed toward the box now wedged in the opening, halfway in and halfway out of the car.

“I got this,” said Tony. He put his back to the box, dug his heels into the driveway, and started pushing. “This is my third box today,” he added. “It just takes a little
persuasion
.” Sure enough, after some shoving, the box began to relent with a prolonged squeal that sounded like a wounded pig.

“Good luck,” I said. I followed Suze into the house.

To my surprise, they’d done a wonderful job with the boxes. There were still a lot of them, but most had been restricted to my mother’s office, the breakfast nook, which now bulged with boxes, looking like an overstuffed closet. It was so crowded you couldn’t even see her desk.

“Better?” asked Suze, watching me take in the changes with a smile.

I nodded. “But you can’t get into your office.”

“I can do my paperwork at the kitchen counter until we sell off some inventory.”

I nodded again. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

“Com’ere,” she said and pulled me into a hug. “You’ve been a wonderful child. I’m so lucky to have you.”

“Is one of us dying?” I asked. It was sort of a joke. Sort of. When your mother hugs you for no reason, you gotta ask.

Suze burst into laughter. “Does one of us have to be dying for me to appreciate my daughter?”

“Yes,” I said without hesitation and joined her in laughter.

Tony entered and observed us hugging and laughing. “What’d I miss?”

“Just an unappreciative daughter is all,” called Suze. “Go do your homework, ingrate,” she said, releasing me and shoving me playfully toward the staircase. “We’ll want to put straight A’s down on those college applications.”

“I knew it!” I called, now laughing even harder. “You’re still trying to get rid of me.”

“You’re darn right I am!”

We were really enjoying each other. It reminded me of the old days.

My phone rang. It was Maudrina.

“Hey,” I said. “I may need to move in with you. My mother’s trying to get rid of me.” There was silence on the other end. “Maudrina?”

“Megan,” Maudrina said. “It’s Aunt Jaz.” Her voice was faint, her breathing coming through the phone in short and erratic bursts.