The First Sacrament (The Demons of Stone Chapel Book 1) (10 page)

Scowling, I took the elevator down to the ground floor and was on my way to Dante's car―driven by Max, of course―when the receptionist at the front desk caught me. Her name was Pam and she had a perm.

“Hi, Beatrice,” she smiled. I was on a first name basis with most of the staff here. “Before you go, I have something for you.”

I couldn't find the enthusiasm to smile back. “A million bucks? Please say yes.”

“No, unfortunately.” She rooted around the basket of mail labeled outgoing on her desk and pulled out an envelope, then handed it to me. “Here.”

Knowing exactly what it was, I opened the envelope and unfolded the billing statement to see how much I owed this month. Circled with red pen at the bottom was the total.

Three thousand dollars.

If my jaw wasn't attached to my face, it would have fallen clean off.

Pam rushed to explain. “I don't know if you haven't been getting our letters, but we haven't gotten a payment from you in more than three months. With this place being so in demand, we can't―”

“You're not going to send her away, are you?” I asked, panic bubbling up like cheap champagne. “You can't do that. You can't. I'll get the money, just―
please
don't send her away.”

“There's a waiting list
―”

I didn't give a damn about this
waiting list
. “Well, they're just going to have to wait a little longer, then.”

“Beatrice,” Pam said, getting that concerned look on her face everyone did when they found out about my
circumstances
. “The bill needs to be paid in full by the end of the month. If not, they're going to have no choice but to transfer her. To Portland, probably. It's the only other place in the state prepared to deal with your friend's condition.”

Oh,
hell
no. That wasn't happening. Portland was hours away and Rosie was dying. She was too weak to make the trip. Hell, she'd die on the way there. “I'll get the money.”

“I hope so,” Pam said. She held my gaze. “And Beatrice? Be careful out there. A lot of bad stuff has been happening lately.”

I folded the envelope and slipped it into the back pocket of my jeans. “I know. I'll be fine.”

She wished me goodbye and good luck and I stomped out of that stupid sanatorium. What a bunch of bastards. How could they kick a dying, possessed orphan out when they knew she had nowhere else to go? It wasn't her fault I sucked with money. They should’ve been punishing me, not her. I complained to Max the entire way home and he nodded sympathetically as I knew he would.

“It's bullshit,” I said, slamming the door as I got out of the car. Dante's house was silhouetted against the twilight like a grand old ghost. “You'd figure that with possession rates going up, there'd be more places like the sanatorium to deal with it, but nooo. God forbid we actually try to
help
people!”

Max picked up a shingle out of the yard and tossed it into the trashcan at the side of the house, then returned to me. “No insurance?”

I deadpanned. “You think I can afford insurance?”

“Oh,” he laughed nervously at his own slip-up and shook his head. “Right. Sorry.”

I went back to ranting. “Three thousand dollars? I knew I was behind on my payments, but
God!
It's like they're looking for an excuse to kick her out. That's got to be illegal. Why isn't being an asshole illegal yet?”

Max shrugged. “Then the vast majority of the world's population would be in jail?”

“Fine by me,” I grumbled, my breath materializing in a steamy plume. As September churned onward, the temperatures dropped and everything looked browner, quieter, deader. Except for the sky. The once blue expanse was set aflame by the setting sun and the ocean reflected it like Mother Nature's own mirror. I was still adjusting to the country and I hated all the crickets, but the view almost made up for it.

Max kept glancing over at me like he wanted to say something, but was too afraid to say it. Weird.

“What?” I asked.

He scratched the back of his neck. “Do you wanna go do something? Something not hospital related? Doesn't have to be anything fancy and I could pay, but I think it'd be good to...take a break.”

Maybe I was reading too far into it, but it sure sounded like Max Morrison just asked me out on a date. I didn't go on dates. “Are you asking me out?”

“Uh,” he got redder than a fire truck. It was cute. “It's not a date. Not if you don't want it to be. I mean, not that it was in the first place. Because it wasn't.”

I bit my lip to stop my grin from spreading. Max, it seemed, didn't go out on dates either.

“You don't have to,” he continued, rambling at warp speed. “But you're clearly stressed and I figured getting out of here for awhile would help, so―”

I reached for his hand and he shut up. “Max. Calm down. It was just a question.”

His gaze fell to my hand, then lifted to my face. “Is that a yes?”

“Are you paying?”

“I said I would.”

“Then it's a yes.”

Ten

Saturday nights in the city were bustling affairs. Freaks, fiends, socialites, politicians, and everyone else in between all stepped out in search of a good time. And in Stone Chapel, that good time usually centered around The Inferno.

Keeping with the city's demon theme, The Inferno was a repossessed (no pun intended) apartment building turned night club on the west side of town with boarded up windows and drink names like “Devil's Blood” and “Lilith's Kiss.” Neither of which sounded appetizing to me, but whatever. I wasn’t looking to get drunk. I just wanted to have a good time for once.

A couple of people with neon colored hair and piercings in places I didn't know you could pierce milled around The Inferno's yard as we pulled up. To an outsider, recognizing the building would've been difficult because it looked like every other crappy apartment complex out there, but Max and I were old pros.

The trick to finding The Inferno was the summoning seal above the door. Hard to see at night, but definitely there when viewed up close, it was small wrought iron seal bolted to the building to give Evangelicals a rage induced stroke and the building a more unholy, diabolical feel. Find that seal and you've found the hottest (again, no pun intended) club in the city.

“I've never been here,” Max said. “Have you?”

“Nope,” I replied. I wanted to go to the movies, but Max suggested this place instead. As long as we were out of the house, right? “Rosie and I talked about it, but we never got the chance.”

We crossed the yard to the stoop and stared at the door, unsure of what to do. Muffled rock music pulsed from within like an angry heartbeat.

“Do we go in?” Max asked.

“I guess so,” I jiggled the doorknob. It was locked. “What the hell?”

“Knock?” Max suggested.

I did, but I felt like an idiot for it. Who knocked to get into a night club?

Idiotic or not, the knocking worked because the door was unlocked when I tried opening it again. Max and I exchanged confused glances, then crossed into the foreboding, smoky world that was Stone Chapel's infamous Inferno.

The door closed shut behind us, and with it the last semblance of light was snuffed out. It wasn't just dark in here, it was
pitch-black
. The kind of darkness you stumbled around in until the serial killer in the corner caught you and chopped you into pieces.

I needed to stop watching so many horror movies.

“Uh, Max?” I groped around for his hand. “Where are you?”

“Right here―oof!” He bumped into me. “Found you.”

I grabbed a hold of his hand and took a tentative step forward. No booby-traps yet. “We need to get out of here.”

“But we just got here,” he said.

“Not here,” I sighed. I gestured to the place we were in. Which was pointless considering he couldn't see me do it. “
Here
.”

“Oh,” he replied blankly, letting me know that he still didn't get what I was trying to say. “Yeah, sure.”

I snorted.
Boys.

Slowly and cautiously, we made our way through the darkness without getting chopped up by a serial killer. Obviously, I had no way of knowing where we were going, so I picked the best route I could think of: Forward. And we kept going forward until we hit a wall.

“Wonder if there's a door,” Max said, letting go of my hand. The brush of his skin against the surface of the wall sounded loud in the silence of the room.

Weird, because I definitely heard music outside.

I was going to suggest that we leave when Max let out a triumphant whoop. Following it was a soft clicking noise, then above us, a red neon sign blinked on. It was a line I recognized from English class.

Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.

I had a bad feeling about this.

Max's hand fit into mine, easing my fears a bit. “Ready?”

This was the first time I'd gone out in months. And it was the first time in
years
I'd gone out with a boy. A cute boy who liked me and wanted to do something to cheer me up.

I was going to have a good time here with Max and I wasn't going to be paranoid about it. I was going to have fun, damn it. Even if it killed me.

***

Nine floors for nine circles of Hell. How clever. The floor we entered in had to be Limbo, because the second floor we came to was draped in black and pink silk and smelled strongly of incense. Big, plush couches were scattered throughout, one of them occupied by couple of girls making out. Even if you've never read the
Inferno
, it was clear which circle this was. Lust.

“The amount of work the owners must've put into this place is incredible,” Max said. He had yet to let go of my hand, despite the fact that it wasn't so dark anymore. “There's no way they could have done all this without gutting the entire building.”

I laughed. We were standing in Stone Chapel's most talked about party spot and all Max could do was comment on its craftsmanship. It was...endearing, really. “You're a nerd.”

“Yeah, well,” he shrugged, pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “I'm just saying. It's pretty cool.”

Definitely a nerd. But that wasn’t a bad thing. “I wonder where everyone is. Shouldn't this place be packed?”

“You'd think,” he said. His brow scrunched up in thought. “On another floor, maybe?”

Leaving the couple on the couch behind, we ascended another flight of stairs and entered the third circle of The Inferno. Gluttony. A giant statue of a three headed dog―Cerberus, I assumed―dominated the middle of this floor. The pink and black silk that decorated Lust was passed up in favor of deep green and neon yellow. Looked like stomach bile. Appropriate, sure, but
gross.

No one was there, either.

So, on we went. Up and up through the building, down and down through the circles of Hell like Dante and Virgil themselves. Next came Greed, draped in gold. Then came Wrath, wrapped in red. Sixth was Heresy, made to look like a tomb. Seventh was Violence, guarded by a mannequin with a bull's head in place of a human's. Eighth was Fraud, whose entrance was marked by a pair of great stone wings, veined like a dragon's. The décor changed with each floor, but one thing remained constant: Emptiness.

As far as we could tell, no one was here

That bad feeling returned as we climbed up the last flight of stairs. “Did we miss something?”

“I'm starting to think so,” Max said.

“This better be worth it,” I muttered. A single, naked lightbulb illuminated our way. “My feet are killing me.”

At the top of the stairwell awaited another door, though this one wasn't like the others. The others were plain. Unassuming. Locked the secrets of their floors away under the guise of normality. This door couldn't be bothered with normality. This door wore its evil on its sleeve.

“That's a seal,” Max said, squinting. “A summoning seal and an incantation.”

The incantation was in Latin, so I couldn't understand what it said, but I'm sure it was something about blood and bringing forth the devil's minions and all that. “Isn't that a little dangerous?”

“A
little?
” He wrung his hands together. “It's suicidal.”

I knew we should have went to the movies. “We should go. Let these idiots―”

The door opened. A tall man with an eye-patch and a top hat appeared, dark against the yellow background of the urban night. His left hand was curled around a ruby studded cane and his clothes were tattered, his hair dingy and long. A disturbing intensity infected his rotten smile. “Ah!” He said. “I knew I heard voices!”

I stepped back. This guy looked like he had rabies or something. “We were just leaving.”

“So soon?” The man tilted his head how Rosie did when she was under the influence of her demon. Like a confused puppy. A murderously confused puppy. “You've made it all the way up here! Might as well join the fun!”

“I hate fun,” I said, figuring his definition of the word and mine were two totally different things.

He stared at me, unblinking. “No one hates fun!”

“Well, I do.”

The man sobered a bit, a too wide grin still stuck on his face as he turned to Max. “What about you, my boy. Do you hate fun, too?”

“What are you doing up here?” Max let go of my hand and crossed his arms. “Why is there a summoning seal on the door?”

“You know what it is!” The man said, his exposed eye gleaming with mischief. “Very good, my boy. Very good. You simply must stay. Stay, stay! Won't be as much
fun
without
you!
”

Max frowned. If I looked closely enough, I could see his hands shaking. “You never answered my question.”

“That's because I don't need to.” The man readjusted his hat and moved aside, stooping over in an ungraceful bow. “Please,
stay.
See for yourself. Your little girlfriend can come too, I suppose.”

“I'm not his girlfriend,” I blurted out. Because the demonic seal on the door wasn't the most important thing here. I really needed to get my priorities in order.

The man fixed me with a pointed look. “
Friend
, then.”

There. That was better. We still weren’t staying. “Thanks for clarifying,” I said. “We're gonna―”

“―Stay,” Max said. “We'll stay.”

“
What?
” By some divine miracle, I managed
not
to jam my elbow between his ribs.

“We're staying,” he repeated.

On my list of Things Not to Do When Confronted by a Weirdo with an Eye-Patch,
following him
was right at the top. Max had clearly lost it. It was the only explanation for him wanting to stay.

“Excellent!” The man crowed. He clasped Max on the shoulder and ushered him out the door. “Take a seat anywhere you'd like, my boy. The show will be starting soon!”

By the way things were going, this “show” was going to be a three-ring circus from hell. Great
.

Instead of letting the man touch me, I followed in Max's footsteps and found myself caught in the crosshairs of dozens of curious gazes. The ninth floor wasn't a floor at all. It was the roof. And assembled upon it was a crowd. People in leather and studs and fishnets, staring at me, their blank faces lit by the candles they held.

I felt like I'd just stumbled into a cult initiation.

Joining Max at the front of the crowd, I leaned over and whispered in his ear. “I swear to God, the minute the Kool-Aid shows up, I'm out of here.”

“We need to know what this guy's planning,” Max whispered back. He tilted his head toward the empty space in the middle of the roof. “See over there? Another seal.”

I peered into the darkness and saw it. The faint red outline of the summoning seal painted on the ground. “Max, this is crazy. We need to go before―”

“One for the not-girlfriend,” Top Hat/Eye-Patch Man came waltzing over with a box full of black candles. He held one out to me, then moved onto Max. “And for you, my boy.”

“Got a light?” Max asked, playing the part of wanting to be here
very
well.

The man grinned. A sliver of moon shined brightly above. “Of course, my boy, of course!” He snapped his grimy fingers and the wicks on our candles were set ablaze, startling me so much that I almost dropped mine in my lap.

“How did you do that?” I gasped.

“Magic, my girl!” He winked, then took his place in the middle of the seal. Clearing his throat, he spoke with the giddy excitement of a kid in a candy store. “Merry meet, my friends, and welcome to The Inferno!”

The crowd was quiet.

The man continued. “My name is Gershom, owner of this fine establishment and your guide into a realm beyond earthly comprehension.”

I didn't like this. I didn't like this one bit. This was the part in the movie where the villain revealed his plans and everyone else was forced to endure them until the hero swooped in to save the day. Too bad I didn't see any heroes around.

“Some call it Hell,” Gershom leaned on his cane. “Others, Gehenna.”

I glanced over at Max to see if he was as freaked out as I was. If his grimace was any indication, he was. We should have gone to the damn movies.

Gershom stepped to the edge of the seal, but no further. A wicked expression transformed his face into something less Mad Hatter and more Cheshire Cat. “But those people are wrong.”

The wind gusted, pulling on our candle flames. Goosebumps spread down the lengths of my arms despite my coat.

“It is not Hell, it is not Hades, it is not Gehenna...” Gershom trailed away. He zeroed in on me and Max smiled rotten all over again. “No, it is
Dis.
The demon realm.”

Dis? Outside of English class, nothing I’d ever read or heard about demons referenced this
Dis.
Dante—Alighieri, not Arturo—wrote about it, but it was supposed to be
fiction.