Hell Week (28 page)

God, I hated those.

F F F

I sat on Jenna's bed, shivering in the sleeveless white shift she'd handed me. She indicated that the other pledges would arrive soon, too, change their clothes, and we would all wait together. There was nothing to stop me from walking out. I could forget the Plan. While everyone was distracted bringing in the pledges, I could find the grimoire and burn it. Or maybe create a diversion or delay until Lisa and Devon could get there.

The door opened, interrupting my internal debate. I poised for fight or flight until I saw Victoria Abbott, looking smart in one of her designer pantsuits. "Are you ready?"

"Is it time?" I asked, almost not panicking.

"Just about. I was hoping you could settle an issue for me."

Warily, I edged back. "I'm supposed to wait in here."

"You have special dispensation." Smiling almost mater- nally, she stepped back to allow my exit into the hall. I followed her down one flight of stairs, but instead of continuing to the ground floor, Victoria pointed to the left. "This way."

My bare feet slowed as we approached the end of the hall, where Juliana Baker-Russell-Hattendorf-Hughes waited be- side the yawning door of the initiation closet.

"Don't you look pretty," she purred. "Vestal-virgin chic."

"Appropriate, I guess." The temperature seemed to plum- met the closer I got to Juliana. I didn't know if this was literal or if my extra senses were using this as code for Evil ahead, get the hell out. If so, I wished for a shorthand that didn't raise so many goose bumps.

I rubbed my bare arms, deciding to play stupid. "Why are we at the initiation closet?"

"How do you know what it is," Juliana asked, circling me like a cat, "if you haven't been here before?"

"Everyone knows it's where the chapter stores the ini- tiation stuff. And the Christmas decorations."

Juliana shot Victoria an irritated look that would have made me laugh if my terror level hadn't just shot from orange to thermonuclear red.

"Here is what I think, Magdalena Quinn." The glacier glint in her eye drove me back a half step, toward the open closet. "Victoria says we need you. But I think that no matter how much power you have, you are simply more trouble than you are worth.

"In fact," she said, in that voice she used when she didn't want anyone but me to hear, "some thing tells me you're a threat to our sisterhood. And I can't have that."

She moved inhumanly fast. Her hand flashed out and hit me hard in the chest, knocking me backward onto the bare wooden floor of the closet.

"This will keep you out of my hair for now." She stood with one hand on the jamb, the other on her hip. "And if you're very, very good, and don't make a disruptive fuss, then in all probability that water heater in the corner might not spring a leak in the gas line."

"Wait!" I lurched to my feet, and she swung the door closed so quickly that I ran into it, face-first. I grabbed the knob and turned it, pushing all my weight against the wood. It started to open, then slammed tight as, I suspected, Victo- ria added her efforts. The latch caught, and the lock clicked into place with a fatal finality.

I rattled the useless knob in disbelief. What kind of evil was this? Where was the gloating monologue on how clever she was? Where was the time I was entitled to, as the hero, to think of an escape? This was just not right.

Beating my frustration out on the door was hopeless. I would be very lucky if someone heard me, and luck, I knew, was on the Sigmas' side. But the action made me feel a little better, at least until the scrapes on my palms started to crack and bleed.

I sagged against the wood and slid down to rest. Think, Maggie. What would Nancy Drew do?

Nancy would work her way out of captivity with her com- pact and a bobby pin. I had none of my trusty supplies, and was essentially dressed in a nightgown.

Crawling to my feet, I searched for something to pry open the door, or maybe just bang louder. The most promis- ing thing I found was a plumber's helper. Maybe I could plunge the door open.

I tossed it aside and stared at the initiation cabinet, which stood ominously empty. When Lisa and Devon got to my house, Mom would tell them where I was. But even if they did arrive in time, how would they find me? I was cer- tain no one would be checking the closets.

What would the other girls think? Would Holly consider looking for me? Or would she think I'd reneged on my word?

I walked to the carton of toilet paper, and after a thoughtful moment, pulled off one of the flaps. Sitting with my back against the door, I flexed my scraped hand until the sting brought tears to my eyes and blood welled from the splits in the scab.

It might surprise you how much blood it takes to write "Help" on a piece of cardboard. I left off the exclama- tion mark, figuring that was implied. Then I worked the stiff paper under the door, the best distress beacon I could manage. God, maybe luck is on the Sigmas' side, but I really hope that you are on mine.

With nothing else to do, I settled down to wait.

F F F

I dreamed of the vanquished demon Azmael, and its noxious, rotten egg smell. Its miasma invaded my nostrils, my throat. Vanquished, not destroyed, it lurked and waited, and sent out putrid tendrils to choke and poison.

A cough woke me. My own. I shook off the disoriented half-doze and then realized the odor, at least, was real. Jolt- ing upright, I scanned the dark corners of the closet, but nothing moved. No otherness seethed.

But the rotten-egg smell remained.

Of course. The gas water heater. Juliana raised the proba- bility, and it happened. She was the queen, and all karma led to her. Damned Sigmas and their damned luck. Juliana was going to kill me with it.

I crawled to the heater, keeping low. Surely there was some kind of safety valve. I found a knob and twisted it, but had no idea if I'd just made things better or worse.

Again I coughed, my lungs trying to expel the poison. Retreating to the door, I lay down, pressing my nose and mouth to the gap at the bottom.

Think, Maggie, think.

Footsteps in the hall. At that moment, I didn't care if it was the Sigmas or not. I didn't care if they dragged me to their initiation, and if I could never touch another guy, at least a convent was better than being dead.

"Hey!" I shouted, then started to cough. I grabbed the edge of the cardboard distress flag, sliding it back and forth. The mud brown color wasn't eye-catching, but maybe movement . . .

The footsteps hurried closer. I heard the rattle of some tool against wood, then a splintering groan. The door popped open with a shotgun crack, and I looked up to see Lisa standing with a crowbar, and Devon behind her.

"Thank God." And I meant that. I might not be elo- quent, but I was fervent.

Lisa pulled me to my feet. Her face was pale and thin, and there were dark shadows under her eyes. I wondered if she'd slept at all since she left DC. "Nice outfit," she said.

"Nice crowbar," I wheezed.

"Thanks. Your friend knows where they keep things."

Devon offered a ghost of an ironic smile. "Lucky, huh."

I closed the closet door the best I could, considering the splintered latch. "There's a gas leak. Get something to stuff under the door." Eyes widening, she dashed into one of the rooms and brought out a couple of wet towels.

"They're going to know you're in here," I said, wonder- ing why there weren't people running already.

"Devon is still a Sigma," Lisa explained. "She doesn't register as a trespasser. She invited us in, so that gives us a little grace."

"Plus," said Devon from the floor, where she was stuff- ing the towels under the door, "the chapter room doors are closed. I think the insulation works both ways."

"Wait." My brain wasn't quite up to speed. "Us?"

Lisa checked her watch. "Justin is downstairs. In three minutes he causes a distraction. Then we've got to get in there and reverse this spell." "Hel-lo! Gas leak. We have to get everyone out."

She swung the black duffel bag from her shoulder and handed it to me. "If they start the spell, you must do the counterspell. You have to return things to their normal flow. Things aren't meant to be out of balance."

"Excuse me?" I searched her face for a sign she was jok- ing. "Who has to perform a counterspell?"

"You do."

"I thought you came back to do it."

She shook her head. "I'm here to help you. We all are."

"Lisa." Even my voice shook with the trembling of my confidence. "I've never done a spell before."

"Neither had I." That shut me up. So did the look in her eyes as her gaze held mine. "Maggie, you have to do this. The butt-kicking of a righteous woman availeth much."

I didn't feel righteous. I felt like throwing up.

"Remember," she coached me like a prizefighter about to go into the ring. "Stick to the Plan. Reverse the transfor- mation, undo the binding, cut the power supply. Whatever they do, do the equal and opposite. Basic math. Positive and negative numbers . . ."

"Cancel each other out."

She nodded. "Just feel your way. That's what you do. I'll help you."

Devon joined us. "So will I, Maggie. I trust you."

"Great." I managed a wan smile. "Everyone trusts me but me."

"That's right." Lisa shoved the bag into my hands. "So stop whining and let's go."

Nothing like winging it against the forces of darkness. The fire alarm split the air with a brain-melting buzz. My heart bounced around my rib cage like a Super Ball.

"Distraction!" Lisa shouted. At least, that's what I read on her lips, since my fingers were in my ears trying to keep gray matter from leaking out. "Time to go." 38

By the pricking of my thumbs.

We three weird sisters ran for the stairs, two sets of sneakers and my bare feet clattering down the hardwood steps. Justin met us in the empty foyer, gesturing at the closed chapter-room doors.

"Can't they hear the alarm?" he asked.

"It's started." The words fell from my lips with dead cer- tainty. The collected consciousness behind that portal built like clouds before a storm, charging the air with an electric potential. Even through the wood, I could feel the ebb and flow of energy, stinging my skin like nettles. Something wicked this way comes.

"Once the ceremony starts," said Devon, "no one can go in or out."

I yanked on the brushed nickel handle, which was cold to the touch but utterly unyielding. When I looked expec- tantly at Lisa, she frowned back. "When I said I'd help you, I didn't mean I could pull a Hermione Granger on the door."

"Right. But you could try the crowbar."

"Oh." She looked at it in surprise, and I realized that de- spite her show of confidence, she was scared, too.

Justin took the tool from her. "Let me be the chauvinist here." He slid the business end into the gap in the double doors and applied his weight to the lever. The wood creaked and groaned, then gave with a pop. The portal flew open, and thick, fragrant smoke poured out.

No reaction from inside. It was as though what was across the threshold existed in another plane entirely.

"What about the gas?" Devon asked with a cough. "The candles, and the incense . . ."

"Gas?" Justin shot me a look.

"Leak upstairs," I said. "We tried to contain it, and it's got to fill the third floor before it comes down here." I hoped.

"Let's do this," said Lisa, her expression grim and set.

I held my breath and plunged through the door and into the smoky darkness. My companions charged in with me like matinee heroes, then stumbled to an anticlimactic halt at the static scene, silhouetted by flickering candles and wreathed in smoke and mist.

Girls in crimson shifts and bare feet ringed the outer arm of the spiral, crimson candles in each right hand, the left raised, palm up, as if making an offering. A red cord looped each wrist, running from one girl's left to the next one's right, and on around the circle, binding the sisters both literally and symbolically.

Their stillness was eerie. Only their mouths moved as they sang a song of unity, a melody that seemed to thicken the air.

At the heart of the coil were the pledges in their white togas, swaying with the chant, their expressions dazed and unseeing. Around them, at the four points of the compass, were Kirby and Jenna, Victoria and, across from her, Ju- liana, the high priestess. She wore a flowing crimson robe trimmed in gold, and in front of her was a table--no, an altar--with the lamp, the censer, and the book. She made a gesture over the incense, and it curled up and out in a widening circle toward the girls.

I had to get in there and counter the transformation, but as I started for the opening of the inlaid design, a growing resistance opposed me until I was pushing against an in- visible, immovable force.

At my feet, the spiral was the most obvious pattern, but I could see another inlaid piece closing the gap, sealing the outer arm into an ellipse. Justin joined me, his cheeks red, as if windburned. The fire alarm rang in my ears, even though the Sigmas couldn't seem to hear it, and rather than shout over the sound, I nudged Justin's arm and pointed downward.

He drove the iron crowbar into the wood, gouging a fis- sure, severing the line on the floor. The invisible barrier tore open, and it felt like I'd flung open a door to a storm of freezing rain and wind. I tightened my grip on the strap of the duffel bag, and stepped into the metaphysical tempest. The energy raised the hair on my arms like a static charge. The incense was thicker, too, and I could feel something icy and inhuman in the smoke that curled around the girls' bare ankles and caressed their skin.

The first Sigma I came to was Michelle, a sophomore from Denver. She gazed forward like a sleepwalker, chant- ing along with the others. Rummaging in the duffel, I found the tiny silver scissors and snipped the cord that linked her to the girl beside her, undoing the first step, the binding. Michelle blinked, but didn't move until I dumped some black pepper into my hand and blew it into her face.

The reaction was immediate and violent. I wasn't quite quick enough to dodge her sneeze. But then she wiped at her streaming eyes and nose and looked around in cognizant fear. "What . . . ?"