Brimstone Read online

  “There’s this big mandatory party tonight at the Abbotts’ place for all the alums who are coming for Homecoming. I’m going to slip out, go back to the Sigma house.”

  “They just leave their supersecret stuff lying around?”

  “Well, not exactly.”

  He eyed me sternly. “So you’re going to break in.”

  “Of course not. I have a key.” I took a bite of chicken salad, chewed, and swallowed, all under his inscrutable stare. “But there actually is something you can help me with.”

  Once again I had done my shopping at the fine establishment of Grandmother’s Closet. Tonight’s ensemble was very Breakfast at Tiffany’s—black cocktail dress, pearls, and ballet flats. I’d learned my lesson on footwear: you never knew when you’d be facing down hordes of ravenous demon spawn, and kitten heels could be a real encumbrance.

  The Abbotts’ Victorian mansion was brightly lit, inside and out. The doors and windows opened to the veranda for guests to wander. Which they did, squealing with delight when they saw a sister, or clasping hands and slapping backs with a brother.

  The Gamma Phi Epsilon alumni were there, too. Lawyers, CEOs, bestselling novelists. I knew these weren’t all the university’s notable alumni, but being in the room with them, it seemed that way.

  The student members were encouraged to circulate and schmooze. There was an open bar for those old enough to drink, and the pledges took well-orchestrated shifts carrying trays of punch and canapés around. I was bringing an empty tray to the kitchen and checking my watch when Holly came up and wrapped her arm around mine.

  “My mother wants to meet you.”

  “Your mother’s here?” I set the tray on a console table in the hall, since I was obviously not going to get back to the kitchen. “You didn’t say she was coming.”

  “I was hoping her plane would crash.”

  Holly had been hitting the sauce. The only thing that gave her away, though, was the brightness of her eyes and redness of the tip of her nose. Well, and the looseness of her tongue.

  I knew Holly drank, but since her underwear-drawer stash consisted of little airplane bottles, I hadn’t been too concerned. Now I wondered.

  “Should I be worried?” I asked.

  “Only if you’re allergic to brimstone.”

  If she only knew.

  Still clinging to my arm, she pulled me to a corner of the room, where a gorgeous auburn-haired woman in a three-thousand-dollar suit held court in the midst of a bunch of Gamma Phi Eps. They were, man and boy, practically tripping over their lolling tongues.

  It wasn’t simply that the woman was beautiful. She radiated charisma. Once you were in her sphere, it was hard to look away. The power was palpable, raising the hair on my arms. Holly had told me her mother was a lawyer; if she stood in a courtroom and told me the moon was made of green cheese, I would believe her.

  “Holly!” She beckoned her daughter through the entourage. “Is this your new friend?”

  “Mom, this is Maggie Quinn. Maggie, this is my mother, Juliana Baker-Russell-Hattendorf-Hughes.”

  Riiiight. No passive aggression there.

  The multinamed lady shot Holly the briefest of glares, then extended her manicured hand to me with a smile. “A pleasure, Maggie. Holly has spoken of you often.”

  I braced before taking her hand, shields at full power. That battle station was fully operational. “Nice to meet you, Ms.…” No way could I remember all those names.

  “Hughes is fine. Or Juliana, since we’re sisters, after all.” She released my fingers and I resisted the impulse to shake my hand the way a dog shakes off water. “I hear you’re trying to decide between English and photojournalism.”

  “Well, the journalism seems to be out in front at the moment.”

  “Make sure you stay in touch, then. I have some contacts with the news services.”

  “Too bad Jane and Ted got divorced,” Holly said. “She and Mom are like that.” She held up her crossed fingers.

  “Great!” I grabbed my friend’s arm firmly. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Hughes!” Chirruping too brightly, I dragged Holly away before her mother the Death Star could blow up Planet Freshman with her laser eye beams.

  “Very nice,” I drawled when we were out of earshot. “Thank you so much for introducing me.”

  “You’re welcome.” Once we reached the kitchen, she pulled her hand from mine and sagged against the counter, making the busy catering staff reroute around her. “God, why did I wear high heels? I’m six feet tall already. Trade shoes with me, Maggie.”

  “I don’t think they’d fit.” I glanced at my watch. I had to make up an excuse and get out of there to rendezvous with Justin.

  “I hate my mother.”

  The caterers were eyeing us with less annoyance and more curiosity now. I patted Holly’s shoulder, hoping to coax her to use, as my mother said, an inside voice. “She’ll be going back home after the weekend.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” She pulled off the offending shoes and tossed them on the floor. I fetched them before they could trip an innocent food service worker; Holly grabbed an open bottle of champagne, poured a generous helping into a punch glass, and downed it before I could stop her.

  “She killed my father, you know.”

  I stared at Holly, mouth agape, but she went on, oblivious to the dead stop in the kitchen. “He had a heart attack in the middle of fucking her. How’s that for a cliché?”

  “Peachy.” I reached for her arm, intending to lead her to a more private place, or at least relieve her of the bottle. But she easily avoided my grasp.

  “Maybe I’ll just go in there and tell all those boys about that.” She stepped in the direction of the party and yelled, “Stay away from her, boys! She’s a black widow, that one!”

  This was getting serious. There was a room full of alumnae witches in there, and I didn’t know how far sister- or motherhood would protect Holly if she really made them mad.

  “Come on.” I tugged her insistently toward the back door. “Let’s go get some fresh air.”

  “Why?” She looked down at me belligerently. “Because I shouldn’t embarrass my darling mother?”

  “Because you shouldn’t piss her off!”

  A flash of sobering fear entered her eyes. “No. I shouldn’t. Let’s go.”

  Ignoring the staring caterers, I led her onto the back porch, where the bracing air ruffled our dresses and, I hope, cleared her brain. She tilted her head back and stared at the bright stars whirling through the spiral arm barely discernible on the inky fabric of space.

  “Sorry,” she finally said.

  “It’s all right. Nothing like airing family laundry to make a party special.”

  She smiled slightly. “That’s not the half of it. Steven divorced her because she was sleeping around, and this new guy doesn’t even care, as long as he gets his first.”

  “Nice.”

  “She’s a succubus. I don’t want to be anything like her, yet here I am. At her alma mater. In her sorority.”

  Something struck me about that choice of word. “Succubus?”

  “A demon that sleeps with men to steal their souls.”

  “Yeah. I know. But you mean that figuratively, right?”

  She laughed. “How else would I mean it?”

  Well, I’d learned not to take these things for granted. And when I say I got a feeling of power off Juliana Baker-Russell-Hattendorf-Hughes, I mean some serious power.

  “Do you have somewhere to be?”

  I looked at her, startled, probably a lot guilty. “What?”

  “You keep glancing at your watch.”

  Some spy I am. “Oh. No.” Gosh, that didn’t sound guilty at all. “Well, yes. I have to—I need to—”

  She raised her brows expectantly. I made one last-ditch effort at a save. “I’m meeting someone.”

  Her eyebrows shot up even farther. “You are meeting someone?”

  The disbelief in her tone was a little ins
ulting. “Yes. Why is that so incredible?”

  “Because you’re so … Gidget.” She laughed at my offended expression. “Okay. Maybe not. You’re too snarky.”

  “Aren’t you going to tell me I shouldn’t date an independent, or all Sigmas date Gammas, or whatever?”

  “No. I’m rebelling vicariously.”

  I stepped off the porch, then turned back, whispering, “Aren’t you going to tell me not to have sex while I’m a pledge?”

  Laughter in her eyes, she asked, “Would it make you feel better if I did?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. How’s that?”

  “You either. Seriously.” I sobered to warn her. “Stay away from the booze and stay away from your mother.”

  “Deal.”

  26

  “You’re late.” Justin put the car in drive and headed the few blocks to Greek Row. “I was about to go in and get you.”

  “Like Orpheus in the underworld?” I grabbed my jeans from the backseat and pulled them on under my dress. “That’s sweet.”

  “You joke about those things, and I never know how serious you are. Is it any wonder I worry about you?”

  “I know. I get it. I’m high-maintenance. So you’ve said.”

  “We’re not having that argument again. What really bothers me is—God, Maggie! Do you have to do that?”

  I had unzipped my dress and extracted my arms so that I could pull on a black cat-burglar sweater. “What? Don’t be such a prude, Justin.” All the same, I yanked the turtleneck over my head and squirmed into it quickly.

  He cruised past the SAXi house, which was quiet and dark, and looked for a spot to park a few doors down. “What really bothers me is that you keep picking crusades that I can’t help you with. High school, now a sorority. You’re going to a convent next, I know it.”

  “Why is my chastity such a big issue with everyone lately?”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” He parked the car and got out. I buttoned my jeans and wiggled the dress down my legs, stepping out of it as Justin opened my door. Grabbing my camera bag from the floorboard, I climbed out and tugged down my sweater.

  “At least let me go in with you,” he said.

  The SAXi and Gamma Phi Ep houses were quiet, but there was plenty of activity on the street as the other chapters worked on their floats for the morning’s parade.

  “Then who’d keep a lookout?” I checked that I had the right keys. “Distribution of manpower.”

  Shaking his head in frustration, he rested a hand on the roof of the car. “I cannot believe I am so whipped,” he grumbled, “and we’re not even dating.”

  I looked up at him in irritation. One, he was blocking my way. Two, “If you’re looking for sympathy, you’re talking to the wrong person, pal.”

  A rapid series of emotions moved across his face, and he opened his mouth to say something, then snapped it closed. “Later,” he said, and stepped out of my way. I shouldered my bag and headed for the house, walking as though I had every right to be there.

  Technically I wasn’t breaking and entering since, as a Sigma, I had a key to the front door. Maybe, if I got caught, a judge would see things my way. If I ever made it to see a judge. I guess the Sigmas could decide to simply sacrifice me at the next meeting and save the court’s trouble.

  Justin was right. I really had to stop joking about things like that.

  Still, I couldn’t help feeling conspicuous as I entered the foyer, hyperaware of the chapter room to my right. Too easy to picture something lurking behind the closed door, like a monster in the closet. And the more I pictured it, the more powerful and gruesome it became, until it seethed in my mind with reason-killing ferocity.

  Get a grip, Maggie. You’re not five years old anymore.

  But I hurried past all the same.

  The stairs sighed softly under my feet as I climbed to the second floor, holding my camera bag against my side to keep it from swinging. The upstairs hallways ran north and south, with the bathrooms at one end. The storage closets were opposite, so I turned left at the top of the first flight of steps.

  I crept, cat-footed, past the bedrooms, even though I’d done a mental check of all the residents while at the party. The hall seemed endless, but finally I reached the closet and contemplated the solid wood door and the deadbolt.

  Not worried about fingerprints as much as I was psyche-prints, I filled my mind with images of octopi and compasses and indigo auras before I inserted the key and turned the knob. I expected an atmospheric creak as I pulled open the door, but the hinges glided smoothly, without a sound.

  The closet was pitch dark and a little musty, but underneath the smell of old plaster and carpet glue was something spicy, and a little earthy, with a tangy metallic thread: the incense from that first night. I’d found the right place.

  I flipped the light switch with my elbow and stared at the perfectly mundane storage room, maybe ten feet by twenty. Industrial shelves against the walls. Boxes marked “Xmas Lights” and “Skit Night” and a rolled canvas backdrop on the floor. Lightbulbs and Sam’s Club–sized packages of toilet paper. In the corner was a large water heater, and beside it a neat stack of luggage, stored for the semester. No sign of anything the least bit mysterious.

  Poking around, I found a box of white candles like we’d used in the pledging ceremony, and the crimson stoles, folded neatly. Finally I found a few boxes labeled “Initiation,” and inside were a lot of white togas, several skeins of silken cord, and more candles—indigo and crimson.

  With a derisive snort, I pushed the box back onto the shelf. I’d expected something a little more exciting than inventory from the Wiccan Gift Shop.

  About to give up, I made one last turn around the tiny room, this time using all my senses. Nothing leaped out and snagged my attention.

  And by that I mean an actual nothingness; there was a hole in the back corner.

  Everything, even lightbulbs and Christmas decorations, feels like something, even if it’s just the psychic equivalent of white noise. The dead space reminded me of the strange blankness in my head when I woke with the aftereffects of a dream, but no memory of it.

  I walked to the corner, and saw a cabinet. Plain, industrial. Locked. I pulled a Nancy Drew: taking the barrette from my hair, I reshaped the wire clasp until I could slip it between the double doors, catch the latch, and pull it up.

  The monster wasn’t downstairs. It lived in this box.

  A dank smell, like old, wet leaves, rolled out of the cabinet, and with it a feeling of ancient power. I’d felt something like it once before when I’d touched an artifact forged millennia ago for arcane purposes. This tangible energy was not as old, but just as icky. There was a baseness to it; death and sex and blood—the earthy, metallic smell beneath the spicy sweetness of the incense.

  I saw the censer on the top shelf, the burnished metal looking warm even in the incandescent light of the bare bulb. A bowl the size of a candy dish, it had a lid with holes for the smoke to emerge. Turning on my camera, I took pictures of the censer and of the symbols etched in the brass.

  The lamp sat next to it; they looked like a matched set. I took down a plastic bottle, unscrewed the top, and sniffed. Oil, with a pungent smell. I soaked one of my lens-cleaning cloths with a little of it, and tucked it in one of the pockets of my camera bag. Tucked behind the censer was a Tupperware container that held the incense, and I took a sample of that as well. Who knew all those CSI reruns would come in so handy?

  On the bottom of the two shelves was the book, lying by itself. I wiped suddenly damp palms on my jeans. The feeling of danger and power was so strong, I would have rather put my hand in a vat of earthworms than pick up that heavy volume.

  And that’s about what it felt like: when my fingers made contact with the leather binding, my skin tried to crawl up my arm and away from the Evil—capital E—that I sensed inside.

  With a deep breath, I pulled the tom
e from the cabinet, holding it away from my body. It was heavy: big like a coffee table book, and fat like a dictionary. The leather of the cover was pale and smooth, darker where generations of hands had touched it, and worn at the corners and edges.

  No lettering or symbols marked the outside. Gingerly, I set it on top of a box of toilet paper and opened it, letting the thick pages fall where they pleased.

  Calligraphy script, illuminated diagrams, and a lot of text I didn’t understand and wasn’t going to grasp in the short time I had. I snapped pictures of as many pages as I dared then, hoping that was good enough, I closed the book and with great relief slid it back onto its shelf.

  My phone vibrated in my pocket, startling me. I fumbled it open without looking at the caller ID.

  Holly’s voice, tight and quiet. “Victoria and my mother just shot out of here like a pair of greyhounds after a rabbit.”

  “What?”

  “Maggie, I don’t know what you’re doing, what you’re really doing. But they know. And wherever you are, they’re going there now.”

  I didn’t have to be told twice. I shut the cabinet doors, using my impromptu jimmy to hook the latch back in place. The dreadful wrongness disappeared, the blankness coming back down like a curtain.

  Grabbing my camera bag, I dashed out of the closet, locking it behind me, then sprinted down the hallway to Devon’s room. Please don’t let this be the one day she locked her door.…

  It wasn’t. As I fumbled the closet key onto its proper ring, my phone vibrated again: Justin, warning me they were outside. House keys returned to normal, I shoved my own into my pocket and started back out.

  Too late. I heard the creak of footsteps on the stairs and ducked back into the room. What the hell was I supposed to do now? There was a fire escape, but it was on the far side of the staircase.

  The women’s voices came closer, becoming distinct as they neared Devon’s door. I pressed myself to the wall and visualized becoming one with the house. Deflector shields, don’t fail me now.

  “You can’t really think it’s her.”

  “What I think, Victoria, is that you need that girl, so you are blind to the fact that she’s playing you for a fool.”