Diabolical Read Online Free Page A

Hanukkah menorah. Likewise, some holy experiences are tailored to specific faiths — how angels manifest, for example. On this side of death, seemingly contradictory belief systems coexist more comfortably.
    “Why don’t we see how Lucy’s doing?” I say, raising myself onto the cushion. “I bet she’s already missing you.”
    I touch a few buttons and peer at the screen of my monitor-com. The reception isn’t good, static perhaps. Possibly the weather is causing interference.
    I shake the device, which seems to help, and notice that my best friend has had her hair cut. It bounces beneath her chin.
    “My, you’re here early!” exclaims someone I’ve never seen before.
    He’s tall, as tall as a guardian. Perhaps taller. He has no eyebrows or eyelashes or facial hair. He’s bald in a good-looking way. My first thought is chemo, but he exudes health, strength. Perhaps it’s an allergy or stress response or chemical reaction. He’s leaning against a doorframe and watching Lucy unpack. “You were originally expected to be our last check-in, and now you’re our first.”
    “I hope it’s okay that I let myself in,” she says. “The front door was unlocked.”
    “Completely okay. You just caught me by surprise. Have you had a chance to look around yet? It’s a brand-new building, state of the art.”
    “Not yet.” Lucy rubs her arms. “Mr., um —”
    “You can call me Seth. It’s nice to finally meet you in person. I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed our chats on the phone.”
    “About the heat?”
    Seth offers a wry smile. “The heat is on. It’ll take a while to warm up.”
    Who is Seth? Is he flirting with her?
    A chime resonates throughout the ultramodern building.
    “Shall we see who that is?” Seth asks.
    Lucy abandons her stack of sweaters — price tags still attached — and jeans on the platform bed, shoves a key into her back pocket, and follows him.
    Through her window, I can see several inches — feet? — of snow on the ground. Those hills, the pines! That’s not the University of North Texas. Where is she?
    I use the monitor-com to look around. Five identical rooms are located on each side of the hallway, making ten altogether — three on each side to the east of the stairs and elevator, two to the west along with an opposing laundry room and kitchenette.
    The furniture is metal framed and contemporary, in black, white, and gray with glass tabletops and canvas cushions. Each bedroom features an armoire, full-size bed, and dresser (against a side wall); a desk set loaded with office supplies (centered, facing the door); a Euro recliner with matching ottoman (alongside the window wall); and an empty shelf unit next to the unlit fireplace (on the other side wall).
    In addition, each room has a walk-in closet and a restroom with a toilet, sink, medicine cabinet, mirror, towel bar, and glass-walled shower with a black tile floor. Plush gray bath linens have been rolled and piled artfully on metal-bar shelves.
    Back in the main living area, a digital wall clock hangs above the door. The floors are likewise tiled in black, the walls are painted snowy white, and the ceilings soar thirty feet high. The overhead lights are cold fluorescents. The outside-facing wall is made up of tinted floor-to-ceiling windows, and a dead bolt has been installed in each of the thick doors.
    The only pieces of art — framed in silver lacquered metal, hanging above each streamlined black lava-rock mantel — are prints of the same painting, depicting a yellow, potbellied monster with a scaled head, red horns, red claws on his four fingers and toes, and a red tongue protruding from his bluish-green face. The colors are brightly modern to Day-Glo, and the image repeats four times in two rows of two.
    If my eternal-art education is worth anything, the style is a tribute to Andy Warhol. The beast is naked, except for a diaperlike cloth around his waist to cover his privates, though he’s squatting so low that