Maleficium (Devil's Playground Book 2) Read online

  “What would make me unsure?”

  “You know she could die?”

  “The puppet dances as long the puppeteer pulls her strings,” Kyrous cut in.

  Maverick turned towards him and pointed. “Don’t do that. It makes you sound like your crazy ass baby sister.”

  “What can I say? It runs in the family. We have an eloquent way of speaking.”

  “Right, well anyways. We can’t deviate anymore off course. We’ll have to play this out and see who lives and dies,” Maverick continued.

  “Exactly,” I agreed.

  Charon glanced away from the monitors, sparing me a skeptical look. “Aren’t you worried her new friend might swoop in and steal her dark heart away by rescuing her from danger?” Charon asked.

  Now it was my turn to scoff.

  Puppet was mine dead or alive. That was a promise drafted in blood and sealed with an oath from the world we were chained to.

  This went even deeper than that, though. Every demon wants their pound of flesh, and Liliana Serpine just so happened to be exactly what I needed. She was everything I wanted. I’d staked my claim on her years ago.

  “The only thing Lana needs saving from is herself.”

  “And you.”

  “Nothing can save her from me.”

  He grinned and shook his head.

  I stood from my chair and went over to the side table, examining the masks we’d received as graduation gifts years ago. These were more than a simple disguise--they were our identities of sorts. When we slipped these on it was for two reasons only—to play and to kill. Lifting mine as Maverick came to retrieve his, I knew this time would be no different.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Dion saw her before I did.

  He grabbed hold of my arm and pointed to the building on the other side of the road.

  “Look! You see that?”

  I searched the windows trying to spot whatever it was he had. Some were completely dark while a few others had lights on, but nothing abnormal stood out.

  “See what?”

  “Someone just ran by. Sixth story up, six windows from the left.”

  “What type of someone?”

  My answer came in the form of a woman running up to the very window he’d mentioned.

  When she spotted us, she began banging her fist against it. This and the way she kept glancing over her shoulder gave away that someone was pursuing her. She clawed at the glass, frantically searching for a way to open the window, leaving bloodied tracks on the otherwise pristine pane.

  “She’s hurt,” I verbally observed.

  Not only was she hurt, but something prohibited her from lifting the window more than a few inches. I could almost taste her fear and frustration as she crouched down and started yelling out at us.

  “He’s trying to kill me! Please help!” her voice was raw and hysterical, carrying up and down the street.

  “We gotta do something!” Dion boldly exclaimed.

  Before he could take any more than two steps, I was grabbing his shirt to pull him back.

  “Excuse me, we don’t have to do a damn thing. She could be faking it.”

  “Huh?” he looked down at me as if I were insane. “Does it sound like she’s faking it?”

  “A little bit.”

  It didn’t. I just wasn’t going out of my way to save her. She’d be dead when I got there and all those wasted minutes could have gone towards getting back the girls. Since Dion may have been useful later, I couldn’t let him throw on a cape to go be a hero either.

  “Lana. We can’t let her die.”

  I ignored that and began walking again, dragging him along with me. “That’s exactly what we’re going to do because we don’t have time for this. Do you see how high up she is?”

  When he didn’t reply right away, I took the initiative to keep speaking.

  “Whoever is trying to get in that room she’s in will have done so long before we could.”

  That may have been harsh, but I didn’t have a morsel of patience left to fake empathy or understanding for a whole new batch of strangers. The woman’s screams ceased seconds after my logical explanation, proving my point. I released my hold on Dion’s shirt, happy when he continued to walk alongside me.

  “How’d you know that would happen?” he asked quietly.

  “I told you, I’ve been through this before.”

  “You really know this place then,” he said after a minute, a noticeable tremor in his tone.

  “I don’t know anything. I just want to find who I’m looking for and get us all out of here alive.”

  A small part of me wished I could give him more of an answer than that. But what would I even say? I had no idea what the point of all this was or why my family was involved. That woman being here made me even more confused. Who was she and how long had she been trapped in this city?

  Spotting the street sign for where we needed to cross, I slowed down and tapped Dion’s arm. He nodded he understood, and we continued wordlessly, reaching the school almost as soon as we turned the corner.

  It sat at the very end of the road and looked exactly like the kind of building anyone with common sense and who valued their safety wouldn’t enter.

  Not only was it huge, but majority of the windows were covered entirely with what looked like black paint.

  “Are you sure this is the right place?” Dion asked.

  “There’s a big sign on the lawn that says Abyss High.”

  “Yeah. I guess I missed that before.” He let out a nervous laugh, adding under his breath, “All we have to do is stay alive.”

  I silently weighed the pros and cons of divulging that was not all we’d have to do, ultimately deciding that wouldn’t be beneficial for either of our mental states.

  I didn’t know him well enough. I mean, I didn’t know him at all. He was already shaken from the few things that’d happened up until now. I wasn’t going to risk pushing him over the edge. I couldn’t deal with something like that on top of everything else.

  I had my own lengthy list of issues to deal with. Bellicose demons were clawing at my chest and creating havoc inside my head.

  I wouldn’t be any good to either of us if I let them have the control they’d been coveting since this all began. The best thing I could do for our wellbeing was keep myself in check and focus on the hazy path ahead.

  “Hey.” I nudged him gently. “It’s not in my plans to die tonight. I’m sure I can manage to keep you alive too, but don’t quote me on that.”

  He cast a skeptical eye my way, probably trying to determine if I were telling the truth or not.

  “Come on.” I slipped my hands into the back pockets of my shorts and started up the first set of stairs.

  “For what it’s worth, I got your back too. I know we don’t know each other but I would rather have you with me than be by myself.”

  Would he still say that if he knew who I was? Or was he saying that to try and break down one of my stone-barred walls?

  I forced a small smile and went to the left. There were three sets of double doors on the front of the building. I took my time walking by each one of them, peering inside. I didn’t see anything or anyone, so I chose the pair directly in the center.

  They opened without any resistance into a dimly lit lobby. The powerful aroma of bleach and fruity disinfectant seeped out to greet us.

  “Damn that’s strong.” Dion coughed and covered his nose with a forearm.

  “And fresh.” I stepped inside, checking to see if anyone was around a second time before allowing Dion to follow me in. Once he entered the lobby, the doors closed softly behind him.

  Left and right would take us down different halls, both completely dark.

  All the light came from straight ahead, a sure sign that’s what way we needed to go. Of course, this hallway seemed to go on forever.

  A set of clicks had me peering over my shoulder. “What was that?”

  “I think it came from the doo
r.” He reached back and pressed down on the handle. “It locked.”

  “Not surprising,” I mumbled. “Let’s keep moving. It’s not a good idea to linger.”

  We walked forward shoulder to shoulder, keeping to the center of the hall so that we could watch either side. None of the classroom doors were open. I expected someone to jump out at any second.

  Our shoes were mostly silent on the grubby tiled floor, occasionally making a small squeak.

  Arrows began to appear amidst writing on the faded walls, painted in uneven splotches of red.

  “Something wicked…” Dion read aloud. “Something wicked what? They just left it hanging.”

  “This way comes. Something wicked this way comes,” I clarified.

  “Heard it before?”

  I shrugged, cautiously peering inside another empty classroom as we passed by it. “The phrase seems to be a common thing around here.”

  “Exactly how long have you been stuck in this place?”

  That was a good question.

  “This place specifically? For as long as you have. In Goetia? I honestly can’t remember. A few days? A week? I’m not sure.”

  “And you don’t know how to get out?” he fished.

  “If I knew how to do that I wouldn’t be here right now.”

  “Good point. Me and my girl were on the way to a resort when they got us. An ice cream truck forced our car off the road.”

  Oh, yeah. How could I forget the Sweet Tooth replica? I was more shocked that thing was driven beyond the city than I was that they’d used it to hunt someone down. But why him?

  “Were you staying at Royal Palms by chance?”

  “Yeah. You too?”

  “Yup, except I was leaving to go back home. Me and my friends were on a shuttle bus that ended up crashing. Then we wound up here. Well, somewhere like here.”

  “Damn. This is all kinds of messed up.”

  What an understatement. He hadn’t even seen anyone die yet.

  “That means save.” He motioned to the word Servatis that’d been written multiple times on the left side of the hallway.

  “You know this language?”

  “Kind of,” he replied briskly.

  Interesting. I stored that tidbit of information for later. A loud bang echoed from somewhere in the building, causing him to nearly jump out of his skin.

  “What was that?”

  I swallowed a laugh and looked behind us. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  We kept going, passing by a few display cases that’d been set up. There were pictures inside of them, some visibly older than the others. Each photo was accompanied by a name and the year the picture was taken. You couldn’t miss the variation--nearly the same names with different spellings. Both mine and my sisters were amongst them.

  Lana. Lilly. Lamia. Lilliana. Lilith.

  “You alright?” Dion asked, studying the side of my face.

  “Yeah, I think.” I replied quietly.

  This was weird.

  Even weirder was that all the women pictured had dark hair and looked to be about the same age as us when these were taken. Another photo continued the trend with Mel’s full name.

  Melanie. Melaina. Meladia. Melantha.

  These women all had different shades of hair. Some were brunettes and some were blondes like she naturally was. Gracelyn’s name was on a photo sitting between someone named Eve and a guy named Hades.

  Board of Infernal Syndicate hung above the cases on a large golden plaque. I was going to go out on a limb and say that wasn’t the name of the school’s sports team. Forcing myself to leave the odd display behind, I nudged Dion and continued walking.

  Passing through another set of doors that had been wedged open, the arrows directed us to go left.

  I followed them with my eyes, stopping where a tin sign hung from the ceiling.

  Media room.

  The double doored entryway sat back between two solid brick walls. We approached cautiously, each going to a window so that we could see inside. There were rows of bookshelves taking up one side of the room. A few feet in front of the shelves stood a projector aimed at a medium sized projection screen. Dead center were two girls tied to wooden chairs by thin padlocked chains.

  “Mel?”

  Her head lifted, and she stared as if she’d heard me.

  “You know her?”

  “That’s one of my friends,” I replied absentmindedly, chewing my lower lip.

  I was unsure how to proceed.

  She was tied to a chair, which was obviously a major fucking problem, but there were two larger issues at hand.

  Who put her here? And where were they?

  I could see another door on the opposite wall, but it was impossible to tell where it went or if anyone was on the other side because of how dark it was over there.

  “What are you waiting for? Go get her.”

  “Wait!”

  He pressed down on the door handle before I could stop him. His thoughtless action triggered something, causing a crackling sound to erupt from a loudspeaker above us. When the fizzle cleared the girl’s voice from the recorder took its place.

  “I’m so glad we get to play again, but let’s not waste a single second on reminiscing. I’ll count to ten and then we’ll get started. Be quick and cautious, seek out the master. If the clock runs out, their lives become ours.”

  The recording cut and the same girl continued to speak, now counting backwards in an overly cheerful tone.

  “Dammit!” I slammed my hand against the door and took a step back, running my stinging palm across my brow.

  “The fuck was that? A riddle?”

  I didn’t have time to explain this to him. I knew better than to wait around and see if threats were bluffs. My mind was already racing to decipher what the master could be. Or who.

  “Zero,” the voice happily chirped.

  There was a flash, and then a timer appeared on the projection screen.

  Ten minutes?

  Fuck.

  The seconds were already ticking away.

  Mel looked over at the counter, whatever she was feeling cloaked beneath a heavy layer of indifference.

  “Do you know what the master could be?” I asked Dion.

  “Master…?” he trailed off, pressing his forehead to the doors pexi-glass window.

  “Seek out the master…I think… it’s a key? Yeah! There’s a key that opens all the doors in a school.”

  Would that unlock the chain? Screw it. I didn’t have the luxury of standing around to debate that.

  “You know where I can find it?”

  “Usually in the principal’s office.”

  I wasn’t sure how he knew this, but the guy was gradually proving to be somewhat knowledgeable, which made him useful.

  “Stay here. I’ll get it.” I pushed away from the door and took off.

  “Alone?” he called after me.

  “Watch them! And don’t touch anything else!” I ran down the hall and turned the corner, boots skidding from the momentum.

  The overhead lights went off one by one as I made my way back towards the front of the building. Someone had to be controlling them from somewhere else because no one had made an appearance.

  If this was a scare tactic, it failed. The dark didn’t bother me. It’s what may have been lurking within it I knew to be wary of.

  As I got closer to the front lobby the school’s entrance doors came into view, along with six faces staring in at me. It was only because of the neon glow emitting from their masks that I could see them.

  “Eight minutes,” the petulant voice sang over the PA.

  Shit. I wasn’t entirely sure where I was supposed to go. I could only guess where the principal’s office might be.

  I went right at the last second, doing my best to ignore all the eyes I could feel tracking my every move.

  There was a small filter of light coming from a room a little further ahead on the left. I reached it and sa
w a large secretarial desk almost right inside the entrance. I’d chosen the correct direction. Unfortunately, that wasn’t anything to celebrate. I still had to find the key and get back to Mel.

  I entered the main office and headed straight for the closed door labeled with Principal. I threw caution to the wind and went right through it. The room seemed to be empty, thankfully. I felt along the wall until I found the light switch, flipping it up and down a few times. Nothing happened, not even a flicker. I guess I was doing this nearly in the dark.

  From what I could see thanks to the dismal light that was filtering in here, a tall filing cabinet stood adjacent to a large desk. Going down the wall in an organized row to my immediate left were even more filing cabinets.

  Normally I would have skipped over these. It wouldn’t make sense for the key to be there, but I had to remember where I was.

  Nothing was logical here.

  I pulled in a deep breath and then let it out, moving to the first filing cabinet just inside the room. Starting with the upper drawer, I went from top to bottom, sifting through tightly packed manila folders. Names were written at the tops of them, one catching my attention just before I moved on again.

  Margo Suthers.

  Beneath that.

  Susan Suthers.

  I recognized these names. I was just with both women back in Goetia. I knew time was of the essence, but I couldn’t resist not peeking inside. I pulled Margo’s file and flipped it open.

  A death certificate?

  Was this real?

  If it was, it opened yet another door to the realm of confused as fuck. How would someone of gotten this so fast? Or at all? She just died. The writing wasn’t the easiest thing to read thanks to the visibility, but I’m certain it had her cause of death listed as accidental. I didn’t see how being shot with an arrow and then mauled by Cujo constituted as an accident.

  I took another look around the room, trying to count how many filing cabinets there were in total---easily over a dozen. If they all contained death certificates, that would mean hundreds of people died here.

  The thought made me unsettled. I couldn’t begin to make sense of this situation. I wanted to investigate this more, see what the other files said or if ours were amongst them, but there wasn’t any time for that. Mel was far more important than whatever the hell this was. I placed the folder on top of the others and moved on.