House of the Damned

The Newest Surprise

Nine

The Newest Surprise

A relatively peaceful month passes. Michael avoids Venus to avoid trouble and it works out well enough. No demons come by and Venus spends very little time at the house. No one asks me where I was when they thought I was dead and I’m glad of it. It’s not something I want to talk about at all. Ever. I know it’ll come up eventually though, probably in the form of Ian’s arrival at the house, but I hope to avoid that.

Michael and I are cleaning the meeting room when Richard stops in to talk to me.

“Yvonne was transferred,” he informs me.

“To who?” I ask, afraid of the answer.

“Pluto.”

I shudder. Yvonne and I’ve never gotten along, but I don’t want her to be in Pluto’s possession. I wouldn’t want anyone to be in Pluto’s possession. He’s probably the coldest of the demons. At least, of the council demons.

“She took the transfer of her own will, Cassie. Don’t worry about it. Emily just wanted you to know.”

“Why would she willingly go there? Why would any of us willingly go there?” I wonder.

“Venus can be very persuasive when she wants to be. You know that.”

I sigh. “True enough. That it, Richard?”

“For now, Cassandra. See you later.”

Knowing Yvonne is gone is quite bittersweet. It means that we no longer have any extra crew members at all, but she’s still with Pluto now, which is just horrid.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Michael asks.

“Nope. Talking about it doesn’t change it. Just causes us to fixate on things.”

“Is that why you never want to talk about anything?”

I don’t answer the question; the answer’s obvious enough. Talking about things never seems to help me. I’m content to just ignore everything that’s wrong, else I end up getting that knife out and contemplating suicide again.

“You’re going to explode one day if you just keep bottling everything up,” he warns, his tone annoyed with my lack of answer.

“Probably,” I agree. The question is simply whether I’ll attack Venus or kill myself. Granted, both have the same end result. I die.

Our conversation ends, presumably because he’s annoyed with my answer. We’re finishing up our work when Venus calls me once again. I sigh, drop everything and go find her. She’s down in the living room and actually smiles at me when she spots me.

“Amy is alive and out of the hospital,” she informs me.

I give her a confused look. “Why are you telling me this?”

“It was part of the deal Ian negotiated. He wanted you to know when Amy was okay. I don’t know why and to be rather blunt, I really don’t care, but he wanted you to know. You’ll have to ask him why the next time that you see him.”

I honestly have no plans to see Ian again. With luck, I’ll be dead by the time she claims his soul, though there’s no telling when she’ll do that. It could be ten years from now, it could be ten hours from now. There’s no way to tell.

“One more thing,” she says, handing me a small silver key. “Don’t lose that. You’re dismissed, child.”

I leave the room, twirling the key between my fingers as I head slowly back upstairs. It’s good to know Amy’s okay. She was always like the little sister my parents didn’t give me. She was such a sweetheart and so adorable. It kills me to know that Venus will take Ian from her, because I’m still convinced she needs him. For all Ian’s faults, he was still an amazing older brother and he was good to Amy. He spoiled his baby sister like no other and I helped him with that whenever I could. I miss her, perhaps more than I missed him. Had Ian and I lasted and someday married, she would have been a great sister-in-law.