Infernal Angel by Edward Lee Read Free Book Online Page A

could she?
    She woke up, sweating on her cot, hemmed in by the padded canvas walls of her room.
    Even if she found a way to get out of this locked psychiatric ward, the Deadpass was destroyed, her only doorway back to the Mephistopolis closed.
    I’ll never get back there, she realized.
    Then a voice seemed to answer her regret.
    The voice said: “Yes, you will.”
    Cassie’s eyes widened in the dark. So now she was hearing voices? Makes sense, she thought. People in psych wards hear voices, don’t they? Crazy people ... hear voices ...
    “But you’re not crazy, Cassie,” the voice returned. It was light and feminine; it even sounded kind of perky. The voice was in her ears, as anyone’s voice would be, anyone else who might be in the room, which presented a problem, of course, because there was no one else in the room. At least, though, she knew it wasn’t a voice in her head, like a hallucination, and Cassie knew this too: she wasn’t talking to herself. What she was hearing was clearly not her own voice.
    “Get up.”
    “What?” Cassie dared answer.
    “Go on, get up. Don’t be afraid. Go to your sink and turn on the water.”
    Now Cassie chuckled at herself. “I guess it’s settled. I am crazy. Some girl just told me to go to the sink and turn on the water. What does she want me to do? Wash my face? Brush my teeth?” But all she did was shrug. If she was crazy, what did it matter?
    She got up and went to the little sink beside the toilet. She turned on the water.
    “This’ll sound a little weird but now I’m going to transfer my image to you.”
    “You’re right,” Cassie said. “That sounds a little weird.”
    “Cup your hands under the water.”
    Why not? Maybe it was just a dream. She was an Etheress, she’d literally been to Hell and back. Plus all the psych drugs she’d had to take during her teen years? I’m entitled to have weird dreams. That’s all this is.
    “It’s not a dream.”
    Cassie cupped her hands under the running water, whistling “Living Dead Girl,” by Rob Zombie.
    “Keep the water in your hands and step away.”
    Cassie did so.
    The voice seemed pleased. “Now. Look in the water. Do it from an angle, don’t look down into the water directly.
    Make it so you don’t see your own reflection.”
    Boy, Cassie thought, I can’t wait to tell R.J. and Dr. Morse about this. They’ll love it. Nevertheless, Cassie did as instructed. She looked at the water in her cupped hands as some of it dribbled through her fingers.
    Cassie stood very still. There was a reflection in the water: a face. Not her face but the face of a pretty girl with long, flowing snow-white hair. The hair looked as though it were submerged in water itself, floating around the girl’s head as though she were lying back in a bathtub or pool. Cassie could make out this face with an alarming detail; she could even see the girl’s eyes, so beautiful yet so strange. The irises of her eyes were beige, surrounded by the thinnest rim of bright violet.
    Yeah, Cassie told herself. This is a dream, that’s all.
    “Hi, Cassie,” the face said, smiling softly. “My name is Angelese.”
    Cassie’s lips trembled before she could respond. “Yeah? Well ... that’s fine but...”
    “What am I doing in the water in your hands?”
    “Well, yeah. For starters.”
    “It’s just a basic Transference Charm. All you need is a medium that’s pure—snow, prism light, running water.
    You could even do this.”
    “I don’t think so,” Cassie said, still not believing she was having a conversation with a reflection.
    “Sure, you could. You’re an Etheress.”
    Cassie could hear her heart thudding. What should she ask next? When someone else’s reflection is talking to you — in a psych ward, no less-what exactly do you say?
    “I’m a Caliginaut, Cassie,” the reflection—Angelese—said next. “I know you don’t know what that is, and I don’t have much time. The charm only lasts a minute or so. So I’ll