42

Lucien hurriedly flipped back through the pages and chanted something from the middle, making the portal turn electric blue, then yellow. At last, he slammed the book shut and sighed in frustration before looking at them and shaking his head.

'It's over,' he said dejectedly. 'This was a fool's mushroom.'

'What do you mean?!' said Grace.

'In every thousand thousand-year mushrooms, there is a bad specimen: a fool's mushroom which doesn't do what it's supposed to,' said Lucien. 'Instead of taking you where you want to go, it creates a wildcard portal which can land you anywhere. So no Earth, after all.'

'What?!' exclaimed Kuro. 'Such rotten luck!'

'Isn't anywhere but Hell better?' said Grace. 'If not Earth, perhaps some other realm...'

'No,' said Lucien with a heavy sigh. 'It could land you in the Blue Wasteland – or on Mars – or on the seventh moon of the Land of Regret. Not a good idea. There are only two types of people who would go through this sort of portal: and extremely skilled magician, or a fool. I'm not the former, and I don't wish to be the latter. Trust me, we're better off here.'

Grace looked at him sadly and nodded. 'I suppose it can't be helped, then.'

'No, it can't,' said Lucien his voice cracking as he stared at the portal, which had changed into a dozen colours within a few seconds. 'We did everything right, but...'

He said nothing, and merely gulped. Grace held his hand. He leaned closer to her without saying a word.

'Dawn is breaking,' said Kuro sombrely.

'And so is the portal,' said Lucien. The first ray of true daylight will destroy it all into nothingness.'

The three watched in silence as the yard around them brightened and the portal that had been created with so much hard work faded slowly away – until, with a sudden flash, it flared up before collapsing, leaving behind nothing but dust.

'And once again, our hopes are dashed to pieces and our dreams are brought to ashes,' said Lucien, his voice trembling slightly as he turned away and ran back inside, his hair fierier than usual.

'Lucien!' called out Grace, running after him.

'Leave me alone for a while!' he yelled, and she could hear him running upstairs to his room with what sounded alarmingly like a sniffle.

'Lucien, I know you're hurt,' she said, her heart aching as she heard him cry. 'Let me try to help you!'

'No, I don't want to burden you with my pain,' said Lucien in a broken voice, shutting the door with a bang.

'That's practically the motto of my life,' said Grace, leaning against the door, tears falling down her cheek. 'But it's a very burdensome route. Not sharing your pain makes it twice as heavy. I know.'

Lucien sniffed. 'I've done it all my life.'

'So have I. And I know you're lonely. Just like I am.'

'...'

'So, talk with me. Cry with me. Yell with me. But most importantly, be with me. I never had a real friend before I met you, Lucien. And I can't let my friend be alone, can I?'

For a while, she was met with silence again, until she was about to get up and leave; when the door opened, and Lucien looked at her with his hair sparking and his eyes filled with hot tears that continously fell. He looked rather wild; but all she wanted to do was give him a big hug.

He did it first, though. 'Thank you, Grace,' he said, his tears still falling as he embraced her. 'I'm just so tired; tired of watching my dreams shatter every time I get close to them. So close! We were so close! So close...'

Grace nodded and hugged him tightly with her eyes closed. 'It'll be all right,' she said soothingly, and she found conviction in those words as she spoke them aloud, so she repeated them. 'Everything will be all right. We'll find a way.'

Lucien sighed deeply and let go at last. 'You're right. We'll find a way – together.'

'Together,' smiled Grace, and her cross glowed, making Lucien laugh in spite of himself.

'Now that was some timing! No wonder you felt so healing!'

'I have no idea how this thing works,' said Grace, shaking her head. 'Too bad it didn't work back in the Mainland when I met the Assistant!'

'You met the Assistant?' said Lucien in a sudden panic. 'Bother! That can't be good!'

'Calm down, it's not that bad; Kuro can tell you the full thing later,' said Grace. 'For now, let's all eat something!'

'The sun hasn't even risen yet! This will be the earliest breakfast I've had in a while! But who's going to bell the cat?'

'Hey, I don't want any bells!' said Kuro from a corner, making Lucien laugh again.

'You idiot, we were talking about breakfast! And what's all this about the Assistant? What kind of bodyguard are you?'

Kuro hung his head. 'I know I failed. But I couldn't fight him, you know...'

'We know,' said Grace. 'Now I'm going to fix something for all of us, and you can tell him what happened in short.'

'Gosh I'm really sleepy and tired after all this excitement,' said Lucien, leaning back on the bed with sudden weakness. 'But I'm also starving! Those chants really drained me, you know. So, Kuro, what havoc has the Assistant wreaked this time?'

*  *  *

The aroma of fried meat and eggs and buttered toast remained in the air even after the delicious breakfast had been polished off the plates.

'Gosh, you're good at this,' said Lucien earnestly, and even Kuro nodded. 'Now there's only one thing on my mind that's bothering me: the Assistant's invitation, whenever he sends it.'

'Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it,' said Grace. 'Or not! I don't have to go as long as I'm here, right?'

'Actually, you do,' said Lucien with a sigh. 'I never thought I'd be saying stuff like that, but there are certain rules and principles that everyone in Hell follows, like it or not. And a promise is a promise. So, it's better if you honour it, and as much as I hate the Assistant, I think if he gave you his word, he will honour it as well.'

'Well, so it is, then.'

'Now what?' said Kuro lazily. 'We've eaten, we've talked, we've almost gotten over our extreme disappointment and dismay at our terrible luck—'

'Seriously! One in a thousand!' said Lucien. 'And we had to get that lousy one!'

'Can't we find another mushroom?' said Grace.

'It's called a thousand-year mushroom for a reason, human.'

'Oh, well.'

'Ugh, I'm sleepy, but it's a bit hot to sleep in this room somehow,' said Lucien, closing the curtains. 'Too much sunlight!'

'Well, there are other rooms...' suggested Kuro.

'Oh, yes!' said Lucien, his face lighting up.  'I know! Let's go to the West Tower room!'

'It's not the one that's half-crushed by any chance, is it?' said Grace, following him with Kuro.

'Actually, it is. It happened to be my father's room when he was young. One of his spells made it that way, haha – apparently he was as clumsy as I am!'

Grace laughed. 'I wonder if he was anything like you back in his day – when your mother met him.'

'Maybe he was. My mother would say she saw him in me and gosh, I hated it!'

'What do you think made him change?'

'The Assistant. Bad company. He's the one who gave him all the bad ideas.'

'How old is the Assistant, anyway? He doesn't look that old...'

'He's a demon, and demons don't really age much. But they only live to a hundred – almost like humans. That said, being the Devil's Assistant probably gets him some extra perks of youth and life – however nefarious the methods.'

'You said he stores souls away. Could it be that he drains their life and energy for himself?'

Lucien stopped. 'That's quite clever. I never thought of it...'

'We're here,' said Kuro.

Grace looked around at the room they were in: a chaotic mess that somehow looked perfect in spite of it. 'Now this is where I'd like to be,' she grinned. 'It feels like my old house's attic – comfortable and secluded.'

'And it's so cool!' said the demon gleefully. 'Let's all sleep here until dinner!'

'Hey, what's this?' said Kuro, frowning at a tiny black notebook under a table.

'That's my father's handwriting,' said Lucien, flipping through it with a frown. 'And – oh! Look at the date on this one! This is from when he was nineteen – my age!'

'What does it say?'

'It's a diary of sorts,' said Lucien, reading curiously. 'I didn't know he used to keep a diary! The last entry is from when he was twenty-four – and that's when my mother says he began to change...'

'A relic from his better days,' said Kuro approvingly. 'Not bad!'

'Not just a relic – a log,' said Lucien. 'Of various atrocities by the Assistant that disturbed him. And how he wanted to change that. In the last entries, though, he's definitely more interested in joining him than stopping him.'

'So your father really was good once,' said Grace. 'And he used to hate the Assistant too...'

'Damn, I hope I don't end up like him...' muttered Lucien, reading on. 'But it's his own fault. I can see how he goes from disgust to morbid curiosity to a kind of twisted reverence for that guy. I can see his peak... and his fall. He made a choice. But I won't make it. Simple as that.'

Grace nodded.

'Oh, hang on!' said Lucien in surprise. 'There's a map of the Assistant's mansion!'

'Really?!'

'Yes! Don't know if it's from when he was against him or when he joined him, but there's a whole layout here, room by room... wait, why is this section in red? There's a note next to it which says it's some sort of storage room – and the Assistant's life force is contained in it! – but how? And in what?'

Grace peered over and strained her eyes at the map. 'What's this weird drawing here?'

'That's what I'm trying to figure out!'

'Guess you inherited your drawing prowess from your dad, Lucien,' said Kuro.

'Ugh! Idiot! You're no better – oh, it looks like a girl, doesn't it?'

'What's it doing in the storage room?' said Grace. 'Could it be that I was right? The souls of girls he took are stored in there and become his life force?'

'I think you're spot on,' said Lucien. 'Looks like my father reached the same conclusion – but he ended up joining the enemy and blew everything! But we, on the other hand...'

'We could be different,' said Kuro knowingly.

Grace nodded and looked at him with her eyes shining.

Lucien jumped to his feet, sleep forgotten, and walked up and down the room excitedly. 'Well, friends... looks like we've got ourselves a new mission while we're stuck here: save souls and sabotage the Assistant! And you know what, Grace? You'll have the perfect opportunity to see if this map – especially the red section – is still valid quite soon...'

'How? When?'

'When you go and meet him at his own invitation!'