I look at the uniform, held up to me like a peace offering when it’s anything but. I look at Teddy. My long, lanky, gray-skinned Guardian who seemed, until I woke to find him standing over my hospital bed, like just another Cania Christy garden-variety demon. Now I’m not sure.
“Put it on,” he repeats.
If my Cania education has taught me anything, it’s that you should never do something without getting something in return. That’s what Pilot taught me when he betrayed me. That’s the foundation on which Cania is built: tit for tat.
So I say, “One piece of clothing for one answer.”
“An exchange?”
I nod.
“Underclothes don’t count,” he says.
“Yes, they do.”
As he grumbles about the clock ticking, he pushes the ball of clothes into my hands and turns so I can drop my hospital gown; evidently, you vivify in the clothes you were last wearing.
After checking to be sure there’s no one around, I stand on the gown, rub most of the muck off my feet, and yank on my underwear, bra, and tights. I’m about to ask my first of three earned questions when Teddy whirls to face me again.
“Hey!” I hunch and cover myself with my balled-up uniform and boots. “This isn’t a peep show, dude.”
Ignoring me, he raises his hand and swirls it down as if he’s drawing a tornado in the air. I see a faint glimmer like a low-hanging cloud. It begins over our heads and curls around our bodies. When his fingertips pass my shoulders, the sounds of the island—croaking frogs, distant barking sea lions, the omnipresent wash of waves— vanish as if they’ve been sealed out, leaving us in a vacuum of silence.
Now we can be honest, he says. Actually, he doesn’t say it. His lips don’t even move.
“What the—” My voice is gone.
He shakes his head. Don’t speak to me, Miss Merchant. Think to me.
Think to you?
We’re in a silencer. It’s a common spell for preventing others—
Oh, the joys of being surrounded by devils.
—from overhearing a conversation. It gives voice to your private thoughts, but only for those within it. So, for God’s sake, don’t start fantasizing about Ebenezer Zin, that foolish boy who parades his eternal youth and beauty like—
Fine! I cut his tirade short. Where was I?
You’ve got three items on. So you’ve earned three questions.
First: Who are you?
My demon name is Ted Rier. I’ve been living in the underworld for the last 150 years.
Doesn’t seem long for a demon.
Is that your second question?
Definitely not. Okay, you said something about my mom trusting you. But if you’re a demon, how could you know my mom? I saw her in my hospital room. She looked more like an angel than, like, a dark soul.
You saw her?
Briefly.
He pauses. After she passed away, I met her soul.
My stomach knots. In Hell?
No, no, no.
Well, don’t scare me like that!
That’s three questions. Put on your shirt to earn a fourth.
I do. Where did you meet her?
Outside the realm of what you can understand. The spirit realm is very different from what you know here. The best way I can answer that question, Miss Merchant, is to tell you this: I’ve been masquerading as a demon.
I zip up my skirt and ask question five. So you’re telling me you don’t actually play for the devils?
I do not. I’m what you might call a secret agent.
I can’t help but smile.
Teddy scowls. I amuse you?
The only secret agents I know are, y’know, made in Hollywood. Like James Bond.
I don’t look the part?
My thoughts betray me: Not even in Bizarro World.
My sincere apologies, but the face and body you scorn are the visages that suit the tastes of Mephistopheles, whom I serve. I was once quite striking, I assure you. But physical beauty—
I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings…
—is hardly as interesting to Mephisto as the ways he can torture and manipulate a growing number of you simple-minded humans.
Got it. Sorry.
Which brings me to the point, if you can collect yourself for a minute, Miss Merchant.
I’m not even laughing! I barely smiled.
He glares at me. To answer your fifth question, I met your mother in secret when I was convening with the rest of the benign spirits aligned in our mission.
Which is… ?
Put on your cardigan.
Oh, for the love of…I hastily button the sweater. What’s your mission?
Our mission, Miss Merchant, is to stop the expansion of the underworld into this world.
So just a small mission, then.
Your mom specifically asked for you. She believes you can do this.
I saw that coming. Taking a deep breath, I nod. If it’s for my mom.
Very good. Mephisto’s reach is growing, in spite of his recent humiliations at your hand and the subsequent loss of at least one of the Seven Sinning Sisters. Now is the perfect time to strike. Or it will be, when we’ve built up enough supporters and we get the right plan in place.
Wait, who are the Seven Sinning Sisters?
He looks at the boots I hold, the last part of my uniform.
I tug them on. There. Boots count as two.
Boots count as one.
There are two of them.
They count as one.
After what you’ve done to me, Teddy, I’d say you owe me as many answers as I want. They count as two.
To my surprise, he relents. Two. Fine. The Seven Sinning Sisters are Mephisto’s most powerful followers. They are seven beautiful dark goddesses, each one a keeper of one of the seven deadly sins. They’re behind everyday destruction, making them exceptionally valuable followers Downstairs and here on Earth. He tilts his head. And now you’ve got just one question left. Hurry up with it. We’re wasting precious time.
But you hear my every thought! No matter what question I think, that’ll be it.
Suddenly, noises rush at me. I wiggle my jaw to pop my ears, and the low caws and sea lion moans that possess the island whoosh around us.
“Is that better?” Teddy asks.
I glimpse someone in the shadows. Both Teddy and I look in time to see Mr. Watso, dressed in fishing gear and looking 100 feet tall, sneer at us, growl a little, and trudge away. I haven’t seen