demon had turned his back on me, his enormous wings half obscuring his body. “The gate in the East Bay.”
“Gate?”
“To Hell.”
I swallowed. On instinct, I scanned my surroundings, my gecko brain looking for an escape. Shit was getting real. This was it. After what I’d seen tonight, my mind didn’t even doubt the fact there was a gate to Hell here, and that once through it, I was well and truly fucked.
My pulse sped up, sweat broke out on my skin. Maybe I could—
“Don’t,” the demon said, his voice bored. He didn’t even bother to turn around, just kept on making weird gestures in the air.
Drawing, I realized. He was drawing signs. The symbols he wrote lit up for a second before fading again, and I squinted to make out what they looked like. Runes? Some version of ancient hieroglyphs? It was hard to tell.
With a start, I realized that if I really vanished through whatever portal to Hell in a minute, I wouldn’t be able to say goodbye to my friends and family. Not that saying “goodbye” was a feasible idea to anyone who wasn’t in the know about what was actually happening here. The only person who’d understand was Taylor. I’d promised to call her when I was safe.
I almost laughed. Safe I was most definitely not. But I had to let her know, had to give her something.
I took out my phone, opened it to messages, and stared at the screen with the last texts we’d sent each other earlier today, when spending my birthday alone had been the biggest of my worries.
My throat knotted together.
Tay, I began. The priest didn’t work. He caught me. He’ll take me with him in a minute. If you don’t hear from me again…
I paused, my eyes burning.
...please know I love you. Thank you for being my friend.
I hit Send and immediately opened the messages to my mom. My text was simple, the only thing I could write, the only thing that mattered.
I love you.
She’d see it in the morning, and when she next tried to call me, she would only get my voicemail, or a disconnected signal. She’d wonder, worry, call again and again, call my work, where I hadn’t appeared, and then the horror of it would dawn on her. I imagined what losing me would do to her, and my heart broke, its shards piercing me in a million places.
A sob tore out of my throat. Through the tears clouding my vision, I saw the demon turn around, the blurry outlines of a doorway glowing behind him.
I pressed my hand over my mouth, tried to hold in the pain, but it escaped nonetheless, in the tears flowing hot over my cheeks, in the sobs wrecking my body.
“Stop that.” I couldn’t make out the demon’s features anymore, but his voice held an edge I hadn’t heard before.
My only answer was another wet sob.
His wings flared restlessly. He gestured at the doorway. “This won’t hurt you.”
“It’s not that,” I got out between gulps of air. Sniffling, I wiped at my cheeks, my breath stuttering. “I’ll never see them again.”
And they won’t ever see me again. That part was almost worse. Just the idea that I was going to be plucked out of this life, just disappeared like the victim in some gruesome true crime documentary, that my mom would be left wondering, hoping, searching for a clue because she didn’t even have the closure of my body being found… It would tear her apart.
And my dad—I pressed my fist against my mouth in an effort to stem the tangle of emotions associated with him, most of which I’d never dared to examine further. To say my relationship with him was rocky was the understatement of the century. I’d all but cut any contact to him, even though he’d tried, again and again over the years to make amends for his past mistakes. But some wounds just went too deep.
Or so I’d thought.
Now, faced with the prospect of truly never seeing him again… The sharp hurt in my chest seemed too much like regret.
“You can.” The demon’s voice pulled me out of my miserable thoughts.
“What?”
“See them again.” When I squinted at him through tear-clouded eyes, he went on, “You can visit.”
My heart stumbled over its own rhythm. I sniffled, blinked several times to clear my vision. “Really?” God, why did I sound so pathetic?
“Yes. Now stop...that.” He waved at my face.
I pulled a tissue out of my bag and blew my