Author's Note: Hello readers! The next chapter will be up tomorrow, since it's technically a two-part with this one as I had to split it up due to how long it was! Also, I'm still doing the dedicating chapters to every new commentor thing! Also also, has anyone noticed that the covers are slightly changed? :)
Chapter 10
"You want to go to Connecticut?" Courtney asks, eyebrow raised.
I shrug. "It's not far from New York City anyway. I think my mom knows where the council is, or knows something at least, and she's left answers back in my house."
"So you're going to find her?" she confirms.
"Oh no. They've already run, I'm sure," I say. "I don't actually know where they've gone."
Courtney looks skeptical, peering at the e-mail from Sebastian I had reopened. "How do you know this from one sentence?"
"It's the context."
I look up to see the others looking undecided. Shifting, I stretch out my leg that has fallen asleep. We have gathered ourselves on the floor in the corner of a waiting lounge. I don't see why we couldn't just have sat on some chairs, but according to Sasha this is better for "blending in". Really, I think we look more suspicious.
After Jesse had explained his brief disappearance (and then we muttered something about malfunctioning machines when they asked what took us so long to get back), the excitement had died down and we quickly figured out we had to decide on what to do next or wander around clueless.
And I decided there needed to be a change in plans.
"I mean," I say, "we don't even know how to find the safe house in New York anyway. I have an exact direction of where I'm going in Connecticut. I live in Stamford: that's extremely close to the border of the state anyway. It won't take more than a day."
Looks are exchanged. Timing is calculated.
"Okay," Sasha finally sighs. "I suppose it won't hurt."
"When does the flight to anywhere in Connecticut leave?" Eric asks.
Vee glances towards the giant boards displaying departure times. "I'll go check." She picks herself up, grunting, and we watch her limp off.
"Does Vee have an ankle injury?" I ask, curious.
Courtney furrows her eyebrows, as if this is the first she's seen of the limp. "I don't know," she says, frowning.
Vee scans the boards for a long while, then she wanders off to find an information desk.
"What's she doing?" Sasha asks
"There probably aren't any one-stop flights," I answer.
Vee returns, mouthing words to herself as if she is figuring something out. "We need to transfer in Cleveland, Ohio," she tells us. "Once we land, there's about twenty minutes before the closest flight to Connecticut takes off."
"We can make that," Courtney says flippantly. "No problem."
"When does the flight to Cleveland leave then?" Sasha asks.
"Two hours," Vee answers.
That's more than enough time. I get up, and my mouth waters from the smell of fried junk food coming from a nearby McDonald's. Sighing, I chide myself, There's time, but no time for that.
"Alright," I say. I run a hand through my hair, figuring that it could be in better condition. "I'm going to the bathroom."
"Maybe I should come with you," Sasha says, standing. "We wouldn't want a repeat like last time."
I roll my eyes.
"Don't die!" Jesse calls after us.
At the same time, Eric shouts, "Have fun peeing!"
Sasha barely holds in the fireball she's about to throw when a few humans look over.
"Calm down," I mutter, placing my hand on her shoulder. "Boys look better when they haven't been burned to a crisp."
"They'll be less annoying as a pile of ash though," Sasha says cheerily.
The bathroom is hard to find, hidden within a deep hallway. I would have walked right past it if I hadn't seen it already earlier.
"Do you really think we can make it onto a transfer flight within twenty minutes?" I ask Sasha.
"Sure," she replies. "As long as Jesse doesn't decide to go missing again.
I snort, pushing open the door to the womens' room. "Let's hope."
The bathroom smells like someone sprayed too much disinfectant. There are two other women in here, though one is leaving right as I have a coughing fit from the smell and wave at the air around my nose. I hope she didn't think I was trying to tell her she smelt bad.
"Someone needs to tone down on the Febreze," Sasha wheezes.
"Or open a window," I cough.
At the sinks, I run some water through my hair, wringing it out and ignoring the dirty looks the woman next to me is shooting me.
Sasha and I ignore her, though I could probably feel her piercing glare even if she were in another room. Finally, I can't stand it, and meet her eyes for a second in the mirror with a challenging look.
The woman bends down to wash her hands, remarking, "Don't you kids have parents?"
My eyes meet Sasha's in the mirror, and I catch her subtle eyebrow lift. I make a face. Don't we look old enough to be here without adult supervision? I certainly think so.
"I don't see how that's any of your business," I say, blunt but polite. Mom would be proud.
I toss my hair in dismissal, but the woman doesn't really take the hint as she sniffs in disapproval loudly.
As I move, the collar of my shirt dips down slightly, and I catch a mark of black right under my collarbones. I squint into the mirror. How big has it spread? It was only a speck when Lilith first plunged the sword in, and now, I can see it climbing up towards my neck and spreading on my chest, stretching out on all four ends like a mutant compass.
"I'm asking for the good of all our citizens," the woman says snootily. "We don't need homeless youth living in the airport."
I sigh. I really should not have started this. "We're not homeless."
"That hair," she continues criticizing. "What on earth encouraged you to do that to it? And lipstick that color? Atrocious!"
I grit my teeth, continuing to wring out the water and bite my tongue, though I suspect my silence will only egg her on. My eyes swivel to the tap she is still washing her hands with, and with a flick of my finger, the water current moves upwards for a split second and soaks the front of her very expensive pant suit.
"My goodness!" she shrieks, running off to find paper towels. The door slams.
"Thank goodness," I mutter. I stretch over to slam down the lever on her still running tap.
In the movement, Sasha narrows her eyes at my neck. "What is that?"
"It's the speck," I reply. "Remember?"
Her eyes widen. "When did it turn to that size?"
"Honestly?" I say. "I have no idea. It's just been spreading like some sort of mutant demon plague infection." I seem to be entering a rant mode with this forsaken mark. "I mean, the mother of demons just shows up in my dreams and stabs me with a giant sword. Who does that?"
Sasha opens her mouth, but I stop her with my hand. "Don't be smart and say the mother of demons."
Her grins indicated that was exactly what she was planning to say.
"Why was it that she did it again?" she asks. She purses her lips in thought. "Something about your ancestor?"
"It was so my ancestor could find me, she said," I tell Sasha, replaying the memory in my head.
"But isn't your demon grandmother dead?" Sasha points out, confused. "That's kind of why Dr. White is batshit crazy now, isn't it? My memory on the whole backstory you dumped on me is a little disconnected. Your grandmother and her mother were killed by Nephilum, right?"
"Yeah," I say. "Besides, she also said he." I pause. "Do you think she meant Uriel?"
Sasha ducks her head down into the sink and turns the tap on, letting her thick hair soak. "Why would the mother of demons be doing something an archangel wants?"
I sigh. "I don't know. I did some reading about her at the House library. You know the Adam and Eve story?"
"Mm-hm?"
"Lilith was Adam's first wife in Jewish folklore. Only when she demanded to be his equal since they were created from the same earth anyway, she was replaced with the more submissive Eve, made from Adam's ribs."
"No way!" Sasha exclaims. "This is legit?"
"This is actual folklore, yes," I say. "Lilith left Adam because she refused to obey him, and then she wouldn't return to the Garden of Eden after she mated with the archangel Samael. I think then there's something about her later not able to have kids but I didn't get that far. Angel-demon mythology is confusing. Everyone seems to have their own ideas."
"The archangel Samael you mentioned," Sasha says, voice slightly muffled from being in the sink. "Was he still in good graces? Maybe it means archangels are allowed to associate with demons."
"I think Samael was commonly both a good guy and a bad guy."
"What?" she asks. "How does that work?"
"He was the angel of Death. And the relationship with Lilith stuff was sometimes claimed to be mistaken identity, people equating Samael with the demon Azazel instead, yet Azazel was sometimes an angel in other lore too named Aza." I pause, checking back to make sure that sentence had just made sense. "From other books I read, I think I've heard something about Azazel being a fallen angel under judgement-" I stop myself. "You know what, too confusing. Different myths say different things. This is probably is really inaccurate anyway."
"I don't know how people professionally study this kind of stuff," Sasha says, turning the tap off and straightening up. Her hair turns a deep red-brown as she smooths the wet locks down. "Like, do they summon their selected demon and interview them, or?"
I snort. "Not quite. Don't forget a lot of the world aren't even capable of wrapping their heads around the fact that demons and angels exist."
"And yet we have their blood running through our veins," Sasha scoffs. "Lucky us."
"Lucky us," I agree.
There's a tap on my shoulder, interrupting anything else spiteful I probably would have added on. For a second, I think maybe it's the snobby lady coming back to scold us, but then my eyes flick up to the mirror.
There's no one there.
"Air?" Sasha asks. "You look like you just saw a ghost."
"Not yet," I reply through gritted teeth. The hand has rested itself on my shoulder. There is no warmth, only weight. "But I will if I turn around."
Sasha backs away slightly, eyes scanning the empty bathroom. Of course she's not going to see anything though.
"I should just keep my mouth shut from now on," she says nervously. "Everytime I use the saying you look like you just saw a ghost, you actually have seen a ghost."
I laugh nervously, then snap my mouth shut. Then open it again, needing access to my words for commanding the spirit into obedience if necessary.
Exhaling, I turn around. And pleasantly, this spirit looks completely human, if you overlook her slightly blue skin. I recall memories of the awful spirit I saw in the grocery store, the very thing that got me caught and taken to Vendetta House. But this spirit is nothing like the gruesome soldier that smelt like blood and had rotting bits falling off his skull. This spirit has no wisps of skin flying into the aether; this spirit is only a smiling girl my age with dark skin that stays where it is, and what appears to be healthy curly dark brown hair. She's wearing jeans and a tee-shirt only slightly stained with dried blood.
"Oh," I say. "Um, hi."
She waves cheerily: looking much more happy and perky than you'd expect from a dead person. I wave back hesitantly, relaxing. She points to the tap.
"What's happening?" Sasha whispers.
"I think it's okay," I reply, turning on the tap slowly, seeing if that was what she wanted. "This one seems nice."
The spirit girl nods, and then makes her fingers wiggle. As I watch her, completely confused, she appears to be making silent sizzling sounds with her mouth.
"Err..." I say, a little lost for words.
"What's she doing?" Sasha asks.
I imitate the spirit.
"Oh," Sasha says. "I know what that means."
Sasha holds out a palm, heating the water running out the tap, and as steam rises, the spirit nods enthusiastically.
"Well," I say. "Sasha, you are definitely way better at interpretation than I am."
Slowly the mirror fogs up, and once there is enough steam, the spirit stretches over to run a finger over the surface.
I'm so glad you're here, she writes, the letters appearing one by one in small cursive.
My name is Adenine Edwards. I'm buried at the back, section 7B. I was killed by Jonah Snyder, my stepfather. He still has the gun in his closet. Do you think you could call the police for me?