Highway to Hell (29 page)

Again the motion, the glimmer of unseen sunlight on iridescent wings. A dragonfly zipped across my line of sight. Suddenly, unbelievably, I could smell my mother's perfume.

I could see the jumbled mess of books in my father's study and hear Brigid's gurgling baby coo. I could taste Gran's strong tea, with lots of sugar and milk.

I could feel Justin's lips on mine.

The memories grounded me, made me remember who I was. I was a sensible person who didn't let fear control her.

What was sensible in this situation?

The answer came to me in Lisa's voice.
Not everyone gets the chance to face her demons so literally. Don't waste the opportunity.

So I did what I always do when I can't think of anything else: I started talking.

“Are you Satan?”

All the eyes blinked at once. I'd managed to surprise it. And then it made a nauseating sound, like the hiss of snakes and whine of locusts. I realized it was laughing.

What do you know. The devil had a sense of humor.

The dragonfly landed on my shoulder, and I didn't shoo it away. I wanted to faint, or run, or puke. But the unfathomable concept in front of me was no longer ripping my mind apart. My bravado didn't extend to thinking that was my own doing.

The mouths spoke again.
We are Chaos and Nightmare. No creature rules us.

“So … Hell is a democracy?”

There was a restless stir through the body. They didn't find that very funny.

Do not confine us to human terms. We are indefinable in your philosophy.

That was disheartening, but it—they—were too irritated for it to be entirely true.

“So I'm guessing Milton got it all wrong? That whole fallen angel thing must really piss you off.”

Teeth snapped and fur bristled.
We are not fallen. We are as we were when the
Ruach
moved through the heavens and brought the universe into being. We are perfect.

Ruach.
I didn't know that word, but I got the context. “So, you were created Evil? You didn't rebel and change sides?”

Your mythology is constrained by what your human mind understands. You understand rebellion.
Its agitated parts settled, giving the impression of a sigh.
We are as we have always been. For what creature could rebel against God?

That was an uncomfortable question, coming from the host of Hell. What about free will?

“Then what
is
your nature?”

We destroy. We negate. We oppose and create balance. Without death, there would be no life. Without pride, there would be no accomplishment. Without lust, no creation.

The scary thing was how, on the surface, that made sense.

The dragonfly took off, zipping around my head before disappearing. “So you oppose. And yet you've banded together so we could have this little chat? I'm flattered.”

The snake tongues flicked, tasting the air.
You should be. You are special, Magdalena. The Enemy has given you a great burden.

“Burden?” I shifted uneasily.

You have accepted a gift with a great cost. Your Sight marks you as different, set apart. As long as you continue to use it, you will never have a peaceful, normal life.

Hadn't I just thought that?

Already those you love are pulling away from you, knowing that you must travel your path alone, and far from home.

Now, that was overselling the point. I wasn't alone. I never would be. Hell wasn't the only place that knew my name.

“You are so full of crap.”

Tongues hissed and claws flexed. Eyes blinked and flashed.

“My ‘mythology’ got one thing right. You are the prince-democracy, anarchy, whatever you are—of lies.”

Nothing we've said has been a lie.

“Twisted words, then.” I concentrated on anger, let it burn away the confusion that I couldn't afford here. “I know how your kind works.”

You understand nothing. You are an ignorant child, sparring with shadows.

“Oh, really.” I folded my arms. “If you are all so equal, why do some of you come into the physical world at all? Why try to cross the line between spirit and matter unless it's to become better—
more—
than the others?”

The body rippled with the unrest of its members, and I pushed my luck. “Who has succeeded? That one?” I pointed randomly to a tentacle, and the clawed arms turned to their comrade and ripped it to bits.

“Whose idea was it to meet me here in my dream?” The mouths tried to speak, but the parts were no longer working together. The tongues shrieked their own sounds, the eyes rolled, and the limbs tore at each other.

“You don't fool me. Every one of you wants to rule. Not just your world, but mine, too.”

The squabbling worsened, rising to a frenzied pitch. The
noise pierced my ears. I covered them with my hands and squeezed my eyes shut. The air shuddered, as if with a silent clap of thunder, and when I looked, the body of demons had flown apart, disintegrated, and disappeared, no sign they'd been there at all.

“You should try to wake up now,” said Gran's voice.

I whirled, and found myself in her kitchen, a steaming cup of tea waiting for me. Gran set the pot on a trivet and reached for the sugar bowl.

My heart squeezed in my chest. “Are you really you?”

“Are we going to have this conversation again? There's really no time for it.”

“But there's time for tea?”

“There's always time for a cup of tea. It will cure what ails you.”

“What does ail me?”

“You aren't dreaming, Maggie-mine. You are dying.”

I searched for a joke or a lie in her eyes, but saw only calm resolve. Sinking into one of the chairs, I let out a sigh. “Well. That would explain why I feel so awful.”

Gran pushed the teacup to me. “You need this.”

I lifted it and saw the dragonfly painted on the china. It was the same cup I'd seen in the last dream, but never in real life. “I don't recognize this tea set.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I don't.”

“Maggie, this is your safe haven. There is nothing here that you don't already know.”

I gestured to a nonexistent outdoors. “What about the theology lesson?”

“That's different. The crossroads is the intersection of
the worlds of spirit and of matter, and things meet there that shouldn't.”

“So those were really a bunch of demons rolled into one, just for the purpose of schooling me?”

“And themselves. They know what you fear now.”

Which wouldn't be as much of a problem if I ended up dying. “How much of what they said is true?”

“All of it and none of it. Drink your tea.”

I lifted the cup to my lips, but the smell made my stomach clench and roll. I set it down, and saw that the saucer had become the bone medallion from the two-headed snake museum. “How did this get here?”

Gran looked Heavenward for patience. “It's in your mind, and so it's here.”

I sank my head into my hands, my elbows on the table. “If I'm going to die, I'd really like some answers before I go.”

“It would help if you remember where you really are.”

“Doña Isabel's grotto.” As soon as I said it, the glade appeared through the window, and Doña Isabel herself appeared in the chair across from my gran. At least they didn't acknowledge each other, because that would be weird.

“But you didn't construct the spell on your own,” I said, pointing to the matriarch of Velasquez County.

“No. I am not a witch.”

“So someone helped you.”

Doña Isabel didn't deny it. “You have to see the patterns,
niña.
” She held a saucer in one steady hand, a dragonfly cup in the other. “How do the lines connect?” she asked.

Gran pushed my own cup across the table to me. “You need to drink your tea.”

I ignored her, which I never would have done in real life. “What lines?” I asked with a rising urgency, feeling my time running out.

“Listen to your
abuela,”
said Doña Isabel. “And drink your medicine.”

Gran was suddenly standing beside me, and I had a flashback to childhood as she grabbed my nose until I opened my mouth. Instead of cough syrup, though, she poured tea down my throat. It was tepid and unbearably salty, which didn't make sense unless I remembered that I had a body somewhere, and friends who were smart enough to figure out how to save one astral-projecting psychic not-so-supergirl.

The liquid hit my stomach and immediately began to come back up again. Lurching out of the chair, I fell to my hands and knees, retching up the salt water and with it the black, viscous substance of the demon that I'd swallowed. Only it seemed to have grown, because the blackness kept coming, spreading in a pool like the one at the Velasquez ranch.

“Gran?” I gasped between heaves, clammy with nausea and fear. I thought this was my safe and happy place.

“You brought it in,” I heard her say as the pool reached out dark tendrils to wrap around my arms and drag me under. “And the only way out is through.”

The blackness enveloped me, clogged my eyes and ears and nose, and dragged me down.

T
here was a tunnel, and a bright light at the end of it. From far away, I could hear a voice calling my name.

“Maggie?” My favorite baritone voice. Not gravel deep, not tenor smooth, but pleasantly in between. “Can you hear me? Come back, baby.”

“Wake up, Mags.” Someone slapped my cheek, hard enough to sting.

Only Lisa called me Mags.

“Hey!” Justin protested sharply. “Watch it!”

“Well, don't call her baby. Could you pick a more chauvinist endearment?”

“I'm not the one hitting my unconscious friend.”

I cracked open an eyelid, blearily focusing on the familiar faces above me. Justin and Lisa argued over my prone body. I saw Henry by my feet, and sensed Zeke somewhere near my head. My chest hurt and my throat burned like I'd swallowed battery acid.

“What happened?” I croaked, my thoughts hazy, as if some part of me hadn't caught up with the rest.

They were so busy glaring at each other, it took a moment before they realized I'd spoken. Then Justin, with a wordless sound of relief, yanked me into his arms, holding me so tight that my abused body creaked in protest.

“Ow, ow, ow!”

“Sorry!” He would have let me slip back down to the ground, but I found the strength to wrap my arms around his waist.

“No. It's good to feel stuff.” He was hot and sweaty, his neck red with sun and exertion. Nothing had ever smelled so good.

Lisa flung herself to her feet and paced away from me, as if to hide her discomposure. When she turned back, her wan face had flushed with relief disguised as anger.

“What is the matter with you?” she asked. “Did we not talk about how I didn't want to call your parents to tell them of your demise by supernatural creature?”

“I love you, too, Lisa,” I said, without lifting my head from Justin's shoulder.

She opened her mouth, then pressed her lips together with a scowl. “Whatever.”

I tried to get my bearings, which wasn't easy after the
disorientation of my head trip. We were still under the tree in front of the grotto. The sky was light again, but mottled with dark-bottomed clouds. Not a chupacabra or mosquito in sight. Water dripped into my face and my clothes were soaked. I shivered and touched my soggy and sandy hair. “Why am I wet?”

“We had to get you cooled off.” Zeke twisted open a bottle of sports drink. “Sip this slowly. You don't want to throw up again.”

“Again?” On the ground was a water bottle, uncapped and on its side, a little bit of liquid left inside. Next to it was the package of sea salt I kept in my backpack with the rest of my don't-leave-home-without-it stuff.

There was a sudden, musical sound, so mundanely incongruous with my otherworldly adventures that it took me a minute to figure out what it was. Zeke pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, checked the caller ID.

“I'd better get this.” He stood and walked a few steps away to take the call.

I sipped my Gatorade and grimaced as it went down. “Why does my chest hurt so bad?”

Lisa looked at Justin, who looked at Henry, who was finally the one who told me. “You stopped breathing for a minute or so. Justin had to give you mouth-to-mouth until you started again and Lisa could get you to swallow the salt water.”

I stared at my friends, who couldn't get along except when it came to saving me. “Thank you,” I said inadequately.

Lisa waved a hand and Justin gave a no-big-deal shrug. Like it would kill them to admit that they'd worked together.

Zeke closed his phone with a snap, his expression grave. “I've got to go. It seems that while the sun was behind the clouds, the chupacabra was busy all over. I've got two more dead heifers, and they haven't heard from the guys out in the west quarter yet.” His tone was frustrated, and not just at the situation. I hoped that he wasn't backsliding into denial. “I should have been there.”

“You can't be everywhere.” Lisa dusted off the seat of her jeans and gathered up the empty water bottles. When she looked down at me, her composure was fully in place. “I'll go with Zeke so I can report back. We'll reconvene before nightfall at the Duck.”

I smiled, in spite of everything, at the Scooby-Doo-ness of the plan. “See you then.”

“You sure you're going to be okay?”

“I'm fine.” To prove it, I lifted a hand to Justin, and he helped me to my feet. “See?”

Zeke waited impatiently by the trail. “We need to go, if we're going.”

As soon as they were out of sight, I sank onto the stone bench with a groan. Being stoic is hard work. No wonder I never bother to hide anything.

“What time is it?” I asked.

Justin checked his watch. “About three.”

“Really?” It felt like we'd been there for days, even allowing for my perceived time in dream space.

“Yeah. We have four and a half hours until sunset. Depending on how long the sky stays clear, I guess.”

That was a big if. I shivered in my wet clothes, despite the warmth of the afternoon.

Justin sat and put his arm around me, rubbing my shoulders. “We should get you some dry clothes.”