Brimstone Read online

  “Wait!” I lurched to my feet, and she swung the door closed so quickly that I ran into it, face-first. I grabbed the knob and turned it, pushing all my weight against the wood. It started to open, then slammed tight as, I suspected, Victoria added her efforts. The latch caught, and the lock clicked into place with a fatal finality.

  I rattled the useless knob in disbelief. What kind of evil was this? Where was the gloating monologue on how clever she was? Where was the time I was entitled to, as the hero, to think of an escape? This was just not right.

  Beating my frustration out on the door was hopeless. I would be very lucky if someone heard me, and luck, I knew, was on the Sigmas’ side. But the action made me feel a little better, at least until the scrapes on my palms started to crack and bleed.

  I sagged against the wood and slid down to rest. Think, Maggie. What would Nancy Drew do?

  Nancy would work her way out of captivity with her compact and a bobby pin. I had none of my trusty supplies, and was essentially dressed in a nightgown.

  Crawling to my feet, I searched for something to pry open the door, or maybe just bang louder. The most promising thing I found was a plumber’s helper. Maybe I could plunge the door open.

  I tossed it aside and stared at the initiation cabinet, which stood ominously empty. When Lisa and Devon got to my house, Mom would tell them where I was. But even if they did arrive in time, how would they find me? I was certain no one would be checking the closets.

  What would the other girls think? Would Holly consider looking for me? Or would she think I’d reneged on my word?

  I walked to the carton of toilet paper, and after a thoughtful moment, pulled off one of the flaps. Sitting with my back against the door, I flexed my scraped hand until the sting brought tears to my eyes and blood welled from the splits in the scab.

  It might surprise you how much blood it takes to write “Help” on a piece of cardboard. I left off the exclamation mark, figuring that was implied. Then I worked the stiff paper under the door, the best distress beacon I could manage.

  God, maybe luck is on the Sigmas’ side, but I really hope that you are on mine.

  With nothing else to do, I settled down to wait.

  I dreamed of the vanquished demon Azmael, and its noxious, rotten egg smell. Its miasma invaded my nostrils, my throat. Vanquished, not destroyed, it lurked and waited, and sent out putrid tendrils to choke and poison.

  A cough woke me. My own. I shook off the disoriented half-doze and then realized the odor, at least, was real. Jolting upright, I scanned the dark corners of the closet, but nothing moved. No otherness seethed.

  But the rotten-egg smell remained.

  Of course. The gas water heater. Juliana raised the probability, and it happened. She was the queen, and all karma led to her. Damned Sigmas and their damned luck. Juliana was going to kill me with it.

  I crawled to the heater, keeping low. Surely there was some kind of safety valve. I found a knob and twisted it, but had no idea if I’d just made things better or worse.

  Again I coughed, my lungs trying to expel the poison. Retreating to the door, I lay down, pressing my nose and mouth to the gap at the bottom.

  Think, Maggie, think.

  Footsteps in the hall. At that moment, I didn’t care if it was the Sigmas or not. I didn’t care if they dragged me to their initiation, and if I could never touch another guy, at least a convent was better than being dead.

  “Hey!” I shouted, then started to cough. I grabbed the edge of the cardboard distress flag, sliding it back and forth. The mud brown color wasn’t eye-catching, but maybe movement …

  The footsteps hurried closer. I heard the rattle of some tool against wood, then a splintering groan. The door popped open with a shotgun crack, and I looked up to see Lisa standing with a crowbar, and Devon behind her.

  “Thank God.” And I meant that. I might not be eloquent, but I was fervent.

  Lisa pulled me to my feet. Her face was pale and thin, and there were dark shadows under her eyes. I wondered if she’d slept at all since she left DC. “Nice outfit,” she said.

  “Nice crowbar,” I wheezed.

  “Thanks. Your friend knows where they keep things.”

  Devon offered a ghost of an ironic smile. “Lucky, huh.”

  I closed the closet door the best I could, considering the splintered latch. “There’s a gas leak. Get something to stuff under the door.” Eyes widening, she dashed into one of the rooms and brought out a couple of wet towels.

  “They’re going to know you’re in here,” I said, wondering why there weren’t people running already.

  “Devon is still a Sigma,” Lisa explained. “She doesn’t register as a trespasser. She invited us in, so that gives us a little grace.”

  “Plus,” said Devon from the floor, where she was stuffing the towels under the door, “the chapter room doors are closed. I think the insulation works both ways.”

  “Wait.” My brain wasn’t quite up to speed. “Us?”

  Lisa checked her watch. “Justin is downstairs. In three minutes he causes a distraction. Then we’ve got to get in there and reverse this spell.”

  “Hel-lo! Gas leak. We have to get everyone out.”

  She swung the black duffel bag from her shoulder and handed it to me. “If they start the spell, you must do the counterspell. You have to return things to their normal flow. Things aren’t meant to be out of balance.”

  “Excuse me?” I searched her face for a sign she was joking. “Who has to perform a counterspell?”

  “You do.”

  “I thought you came back to do it.”

  She shook her head. “I’m here to help you. We all are.”

  “Lisa.” Even my voice shook with the trembling of my confidence. “I’ve never done a spell before.”

  “Neither had I.” That shut me up. So did the look in her eyes as her gaze held mine. “Maggie, you have to do this. The butt-kicking of a righteous woman availeth much.”

  I didn’t feel righteous. I felt like throwing up.

  “Remember,” she coached me like a prizefighter about to go into the ring. “Stick to the Plan. Reverse the transformation, undo the binding, cut the power supply. Whatever they do, do the equal and opposite. Basic math. Positive and negative numbers …”

  “Cancel each other out.”

  She nodded. “Just feel your way. That’s what you do. I’ll help you.”

  Devon joined us. “So will I, Maggie. I trust you.”

  “Great.” I managed a wan smile. “Everyone trusts me but me.”

  “That’s right.” Lisa shoved the bag into my hands. “So stop whining and let’s go.”

  Nothing like winging it against the forces of darkness.

  The fire alarm split the air with a brain-melting buzz. My heart bounced around my rib cage like a Super Ball.

  “Distraction!” Lisa shouted. At least, that’s what I read on her lips, since my fingers were in my ears trying to keep gray matter from leaking out. “Time to go.”

  38

  By the pricking of my thumbs.

  We three weird sisters ran for the stairs, two sets of sneakers and my bare feet clattering down the hardwood steps. Justin met us in the empty foyer, gesturing at the closed chapter-room doors.

  “Can’t they hear the alarm?” he asked.

  “It’s started.” The words fell from my lips with dead certainty. The collected consciousness behind that portal built like clouds before a storm, charging the air with an electric potential. Even through the wood, I could feel the ebb and flow of energy, stinging my skin like nettles.

  Something wicked this way comes.

  “Once the ceremony starts,” said Devon, “no one can go in or out.”

  I yanked on the brushed nickel handle, which was cold to the touch but utterly unyielding. When I looked expectantly at Lisa, she frowned back. “When I said I’d help you, I didn’t mean I could pull a Hermione Granger on the door.”

  “Right. But you
could try the crowbar.”

  “Oh.” She looked at it in surprise, and I realized that despite her show of confidence, she was scared, too.

  Justin took the tool from her. “Let me be the chauvinist here.” He slid the business end into the gap in the double doors and applied his weight to the lever. The wood creaked and groaned, then gave with a pop. The portal flew open, and thick, fragrant smoke poured out.

  No reaction from inside. It was as though what was across the threshold existed in another plane entirely.

  “What about the gas?” Devon asked with a cough. “The candles, and the incense …”

  “Gas?” Justin shot me a look.

  “Leak upstairs,” I said. “We tried to contain it, and it’s got to fill the third floor before it comes down here.” I hoped.

  “Let’s do this,” said Lisa, her expression grim and set.

  I held my breath and plunged through the door and into the smoky darkness. My companions charged in with me like matinee heroes, then stumbled to an anticlimactic halt at the static scene, silhouetted by flickering candles and wreathed in smoke and mist.

  Girls in crimson shifts and bare feet ringed the outer arm of the spiral, crimson candles in each right hand, the left raised, palm up, as if making an offering. A red cord looped each wrist, running from one girl’s left to the next one’s right, and on around the circle, binding the sisters both literally and symbolically.

  Their stillness was eerie. Only their mouths moved as they sang a song of unity, a melody that seemed to thicken the air.

  At the heart of the coil were the pledges in their white togas, swaying with the chant, their expressions dazed and unseeing. Around them, at the four points of the compass, were Kirby and Jenna, Victoria and, across from her, Juliana, the high priestess. She wore a flowing crimson robe trimmed in gold, and in front of her was a table—no, an altar—with the lamp, the censer, and the book. She made a gesture over the incense, and it curled up and out in a widening circle toward the girls.

  I had to get in there and counter the transformation, but as I started for the opening of the inlaid design, a growing resistance opposed me until I was pushing against an invisible, immovable force.

  At my feet, the spiral was the most obvious pattern, but I could see another inlaid piece closing the gap, sealing the outer arm into an ellipse. Justin joined me, his cheeks red, as if windburned. The fire alarm rang in my ears, even though the Sigmas couldn’t seem to hear it, and rather than shout over the sound, I nudged Justin’s arm and pointed downward.

  He drove the iron crowbar into the wood, gouging a fissure, severing the line on the floor. The invisible barrier tore open, and it felt like I’d flung open a door to a storm of freezing rain and wind.

  I tightened my grip on the strap of the duffel bag, and stepped into the metaphysical tempest. The energy raised the hair on my arms like a static charge. The incense was thicker, too, and I could feel something icy and inhuman in the smoke that curled around the girls’ bare ankles and caressed their skin.

  The first Sigma I came to was Michelle, a sophomore from Denver. She gazed forward like a sleepwalker, chanting along with the others. Rummaging in the duffel, I found the tiny silver scissors and snipped the cord that linked her to the girl beside her, undoing the first step, the binding. Michelle blinked, but didn’t move until I dumped some black pepper into my hand and blew it into her face.

  The reaction was immediate and violent. I wasn’t quite quick enough to dodge her sneeze. But then she wiped at her streaming eyes and nose and looked around in cognizant fear. “What …?”

  “Fire,” I said. “Get out of here.” She blinked in confusion, and Justin, who’d come into the circle with me, turned her toward the door and gave her a gentle push.

  I let him make sure she got out, and moved to the next girl. Lisa intercepted me, took the pepper for herself, and handed the scissors to Devon. “We’ll do this. Get to the middle.”

  She and Devon got to work; I braced myself and pushed through the remains of the protective outer ring. The full force of the inner circle lashed at me like psychic sleet; I could hear a second chant now, a long, liquid phrase that licked unpleasantly at my ears.

  Jenna’s voice faltered in surprise when she saw me; Kirby snapped at her, “Keep chanting.” The girls were east and west on the compass that was worked into the heart of the spiral, encompassing the pledges. Victoria was south, and to the north, at the altar, was Juliana.

  Victoria’s eyes were closed in concentration, and Juliana ignored me completely. To interrupt her position or her rhythm would risk breaking the spell.

  I tried to remember all of Lisa’s contingencies and instructions. Equal and opposite. Dropping my duffel at the southern end, directly behind Victoria, I took out what I needed. Wooden bowl. Dried herbs. Lighter, which I stuck in my bra to keep handy.

  The chanting didn’t change; I had no warning before a high heel came down on my hand, pinning me to the floor. Only Victoria Abbott would wear pumps with a toga.

  “I wanted you to join us, Maggie.” Her gentle disappointment was completely at odds with the tasteful two-inch heel digging into my palm. “Why did you have to betray me?”

  “Maybe it was after you let Juliana lock me in the closet to die.” I spit the words through teeth clenched in pain. “That doesn’t establish a whole lot of trust.”

  I drove my shoulder against her knee, only meaning to unbalance her, but I heard something snap. She collapsed, holding her leg and shrieking in agony.

  “Oh God.” She writhed and howled, and I stared at her, horrified at what I’d done.

  Kirby hit me from behind and my body met parquet with a bone-jarring crack, driving the air from my lungs. She seized my hair and yanked; I grabbed her wrist to stop her from tearing my scalp as she hauled me across the floor, back out through the spiral. I wheezed and squirmed and dug in my heels, desperate that she wouldn’t drag me out. If I lost this battle, it would not be in a girl fight.

  Fumbling a hand in my bra, I found the lighter. The flame sprang to life, and I hauled myself up by my grip on Kirby’s wrist and held the fire to her arm. Flesh sizzled; she dropped me with a shriek of surprised pain and I hit the ground, leaving a hank of hair behind. In a blind rage she kicked at me, but I rolled away and scrabbled back to the bag.

  She lunged, her mouth twisted in fury, her fingers raised like claws. I flung a handful of cayenne pepper into her face, and she stumbled back like I’d maced her, screaming and wiping at her eyes.

  I rested my hands on my knees, panting for breath, getting my bearings. Devon and Lisa were working their way around the circle, snipping cord and waking the girls. While one came out calmly, another came out terrified and sobbing. Next, I searched for Justin, who was carrying a struggling girl toward the door while she beat on him in blind confusion. It was hard to see through the incense smoke, but it looked as though Justin’s nose was bleeding, and Lisa might have a black eye. Devon just kept cutting the cord.

  “Have you gone crazy?” I looked toward Jenna’s voice and found her kneeling beside Victoria. Her mentor lay curled in a ball of pain, and Jenna pulled her head into her lap and yelled at me, as much in fear as anger. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  I resumed gathering my supplies. “Don’t even go there, Jenna.”

  Her gaze was stricken, accusing, and honestly hurt. “I thought we were friends.”

  “We are.” I was honest, too. “And friends don’t let friends make deals with the devil.”

  “What?”

  I ignored her for the moment. In all this chaos, Juliana had never stopped chanting, and the pledges stood like wax figures, transfixed, bound for the transformation.

  Dropping the bundle of herbs into the wooden bowl, I flicked the lighter and set them to smoldering. Marjoram and basil, sage and clove. This was the second undoing, the retransformation.

  Juliana’s incense was the scent of seduction, of perfumed harems and dark, secret places. It was
the perfume of power and wealth, of worldly pleasures.

  My incense smelled of Thanksgiving dinner, of home, of protection and family. It was the scent of things bigger than ourselves, of intangible treasures. As the smoke wafted over the inner circle of pledges, I saw them quiver, as if stirring in their sleep.

  Lemon oil, to restore and renew. I dripped some into my bowl and blew across the embers. Kaylee and Nikki raised hands to their eyes. Mugwort, smelling of clean, damp earth. The rest of the girls woke up, shaking off the dazed funk the way a dog shakes off water.

  The process had reversed. And Juliana knew it. She stopped chanting, slammed the ornate brass censer down on the altar, and glared at me through the smoke. “You, child, are really beginning to piss me off.”

  “I have that effect on people.” I still had to finish one thing, but I couldn’t move from my position, south to Juliana’s north, and my comrades were still freeing the last of the Sigmas.

  “Holly!” Putting my trust in her, in the independent spirit under her mother’s manicured thumb, I tossed her the vial of lemon oil. She caught it, and I pointed to my forehead. “Put it here. It will cut the last connection—”

  “Holly Eleanor Russell!” Juliana snapped in a very maternal voice. “Don’t you move.”

  Holly whipped her eyes back and forth between us, suspended on a thread of indecision. Then, squaring her jaw, she turned from her mother and went to Kaylee, dotting the girl’s forehead with the oil. Immediate effect. The ballerina-sized brunette started cursing like a sailor and ran for the door.

  The rest of the pledges didn’t question, just fled as they were released. Jenna ducked as Nikki hurtled over her and Victoria in her haste. Finally, only Holly remained, and she, too, turned to go.

  “Freeze!” Juliana’s command halted her daughter as if she had rooted to the spot.

  The equation, hanging in balance, tipped back to Juliana’s side. The pledges were free, and the actives were safe. The pattern was scattered, and chaos was as random as it ever had been or would be. All except here, where the inner circle remained.

  “Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?” Jenna demanded.