HEY! THERE’S NO NEED TO BE INSULTING.
Byleth sat back on her heels. “Got your attention, so apparently there is.”
YOU’VE BEEN CORRUPTED BY THE WORLD.
WE HARDLY RECOGNIZED YOU.
Hell sighed. THEY GROW UP SO FAST.
“Look there’s a Keeper coming…”
WE FEEL ONLY YOU.
BECAUSE THERE’S NO ACTUAL HOLE, IDIOT.
OW.
Didn’t miss that, Byleth remembered. “The point you’re not listening to is that we don’t have much time so like pull it together into one voice, would you, and tell me how to reopen this thing.”
In the long pause that followed she had the strangest feeling Hell was about to ask if she was sure, if she really wanted to wrap the world in a shroud of darkness and pain. All the world, including the Porters and that axworthy guy in the music store and Leslie/Deter and his car. Which was ridiculous because Hell as a general rule could care less about the opinions of and/or motivations of those who offered it a chance to release chaos.
She bit her lip almost hard enough to draw blood.
Was she sure?
ALL RIGHT, HERE’S WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO.…
Too late anyway.
“It doesn’t look like it’s open.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Diana told him, handing over the last of her Christmas money. “The guy who runs this place is a Cousin.”
“Ah, yes, family, where they always have to take you in. ‘A happy family is but an earlier heaven.’ John Bowring.”
“And this particular family is trying to prevent an earlier Hell.” Backpack on her lap, she slid out the door and straightened. “Keep the change.”
“’There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse.’ Washington Irving.”
Smiling tightly, Diana slammed the cab door. “Get a life,” she advised as he drove off, then she turned and raced up the porch stairs, ignoring Samuel’s muffled protests as he banged against the small of her back. Once inside, she dumped him out on the counter and watched incredulously as he raced to the end, flung himself to the floor, charged across the lobby and halfway up the stairs, spun around, returned at an even higher speed, launched himself back onto the counter, across to the desk, to the windowsill, and back to the counter again.
“What was that all about?” Diana demanded, hoping no one had heard.
“I figured out the legs,” Samuel told her proudly. Turning around, he caught sight of his tail out of the corner of one eye and pounced.
“This is so not the time,” she sighed as he spun about like a furry, orange, and not terribly coordinated dreidel. “The demon is in the building. Can’t you feel the dark possibilities opening?”
Head spinning, Byleth struggled unsuccessfully to make sense of the information Hell had just passed through their tenuous link. “Let me guess,” she muttered peevishly, wishing she could rub both throbbing temples, “those instructions were translated from the Japanese by someone whose first language was Urdu.”
CLOSE.
“They don’t make any sense!”
THEY DON’T? After a moment Hell cleared its throat in a vaguely embarrassed sort of way. UM, THAT’S BECAUSE THEY’RE ACTUALLY THE INSTRUCTIONS FOR HOOKING UP THE CABLES BETWEEN A DVD PLAYER AND A DIGITAL TELEVISION.
“Would they make sense if I had a DVD player and a digital television?” she snapped.
NOT REALLY, NO. HANG ON, WE’LL TRY AGAIN.
“That Cousin who’s supposed to be here…”
“Augustus Smythe.”
Samuel’s fur felt as though someone had been standing on a nylon carpet stroking him the wrong way and he had to keep fighting the urge to run up the walls. “He’s not here.”
“You can’t smell him?”
“Oh, I can smell him. But he’s not here.”
“He’s probably bleeding in the basement,” Diana decided, wincing as the cat dropped to the floor with an emphatic double thud. “The blood of the lineage is the fastest way to open a dark hole.”
“At least we know she hasn’t got it open yet.”
“Actually, we don’t know that for sure because my brilliant sister never bothered to remove the dampening field around the furnace room.” Leading the way to the basement door, Diana zipped her jacket back up, wondering why it was so cold. “Okay, full stealth mode until we see how far things have got. We don’t want to spook her into destroying herself.”
“Or the world.”
“Yeah, that too.”
Having hit every possible red light since they got off the highway, Claire was considerably less than happy as she reached into the possibilities to change the light at Division and Queen. “It’s almost as though something was trying to prevent us from reaching the guesthouse in time.”
“Gee, I wonder what that could be,” Austin said dryly. “Or maybe we just should’ve left the highway at Sir John A. MacDonald Boulevard like I suggested, thereby missing the downtown traffic.”
“Nothing personal,” Dean told him, accelerating through the intersection and not even slowing as Claire changed the light at Princess Street, “but it’s some hard to take driving suggestions from a cat.”
“Why?”
“You don’t drive.”
NOW GO RIGHT.
“My right or your right?”
YOUR RIGHT.
“There?”
OH, BABY…
“Oh, stop it,” she muttered, unamused. She’d been pouring all the darkness she had left in her into the stupidly convoluted pattern that sealed the hole, and although she’d thinned it to a thread, it was nearly gone. There might not be enough, even though she could now feel Hell trying to force its way to her from the other side.
“They’ll be sorry.” It was meant to be a snarl. It sounded more like a whine. “They’ll all be sorry.”
“Who’ll be sorry?” Samuel asked, whiskers tickling the edge of Diana’s ear.
“Standard teenage riff when attempting to destroy the world,” she explained, crouched down and peering around the edge of the furnace room door. “So what happens if you two touch? Do you blow up? Like matter and antimatter?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t know?”
His tail lashed. “Hey, I just got here four days ago. You’re the one maintaining metaphysical balances in the world, not me.”
“Well, since this is my first angel/demon crossover, you’d better wait here. We’re trying to save her, not lose you both.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Convince her that there’s another way.” She straightened, pushed the turquoise door completely open, and stepped over the threshold.
There was no reaction. Not from the demon. Not from Hell.
Must be really concentrating.
One step. Two.
Maybe I should just try and knock her off the site.
Three steps. Four.
Then I sit on her until she listens to me.
Five steps. Six.
Just wish I knew what to say.
Seven.
The black-haired girl kneeling in the center of the bedrock floor, palms pressed against the stone, looked up, onyx eyes locking on Diana’s.
Say something, you idiot. Claire can’t be far behind you.
“Whassup?”
Byleth stared at the girl on the stairs in disbelief. “Oh, like that is so over. Take one more step, Keeper, and I punch right through to Hell.” Which was total bluff; she’d gone as far as she could, it was up to the other side now.
WORK TOGETHER, GUYS! TOGETH…STOP THAT!
Clearly, she’d have to stall.
“Send me back now, Keeper, and this is the path I’ll take. You’ll be opening the hole for me.”
“Diana.”
“What?”
“My name is Diana, after a great-aunt my mother was sucking up to. I think she was angling for this totally ugly soup tureen. Got a 1915 chamber pot instead. Frankly, I didn’t see much difference. Old ugly is still ugly.” Two quick steps and Diana was standing on the floor, thankful for the thick-soled winter boots that partially blocked the emanations from Hell.