Fever (12 page)

‘The Deepdene library has a big occult section – I guess having a portal to hell will do that to a town,’ Eve added. ‘A lot of the books are really old. We might get lucky and find something that wasn’t online. Something that can narrow down the search and help us find Amunnic faster. Like that he prefers a view of the sunrise from his bedroom window,’ she joked weakly.

Jess shot her a sharp look. ‘Not funny,’ she said.

‘Sorry,’ Eve said. ‘Stress-induced bad joke.’ But she didn’t feel stressed. Her body felt light, as if gravity wasn’t having its usual pull. Walking seemed to take almost no effort at all.
Must be all that voltage I absorbed
, she decided.

Eve caught sight of Megan coming round the corner. Megan’s Dalmatian, Freckles, spotted them a second later, and started barking wildly and rearing up on his back legs like he thought he was a horse.

‘We see you. We’re coming to say hi,’ Jess called to the excited dog.

‘I hope you’re coming to say hi to me too,’ Megan joked when they reached her.

‘Well, Freckles first, or he might explode,’ Eve said. She and Jess both knelt down and patted the dog until he became as close to calm as he was able to get. Luke contributed by scratching him behind both ears.

‘Hi, Megan,’ Jess said as she straightened up.

‘Hi, Megan,’ Eve and Luke echoed.

Megan laughed, but only for a second. Then her expression became serious. ‘I had to get out of the house,’ she said. ‘My mom keeps staring at me, looking for any signs that I’ve got it. Which I understand, but it’s driving me insane. Joss Elroy has it now. And Mr Neemy. Mollie too. It was so weird to be on Main yesterday and not smell cookies baking.’

Eve shook her head sadly. It was just wrong to think of a Thursday without Mollie’s Market filling the street with the smell of chocolate, cinnamon, peanut butter and general yumminess. Pieces of Deepdene were being stripped away every day the plague continued.

‘Have you seen the craziness on Facebook?’ Megan asked.

‘No. What’s up?’ With everything that had been going on, Eve hadn’t checked any of her usual sites for a couple of days.

‘There are all these theories flying around about what’s happening in Deepdene,’ Megan said.

‘What kind of theories?’ Luke asked, and Eve knew he was thinking about the demon.

‘A bunch of people are blaming aliens, if you can believe that,’ Megan explained. ‘They’re saying the aliens designed the plague to wipe out humans so Earth can be colonized. Then there are people who think the government is testing some kind of chemical weapon on the town. A few people are saying Flu X virus is actually intelligent. That it has consciousness and is doing this to us on purpose.’

‘I guess you heard the news about Cathy Jenkins,’ Jess said.

‘Yeah. I’ve been trying to call her. Same deal as Leo. I keep getting sent straight to voicemail,’ Megan said. ‘I’m sure they’re together. Cathy wouldn’t have been able to deal with Leo on one side of the fence and her on the other. They’ve been going out since seventh grade,’ she added to Luke.

‘We should probably get going,’ Eve said, her mind suddenly filled with the image of Leo and Cathy drained of blood.

‘Going where?’ Megan asked. ‘I want to come.’

‘The library,’ Jess told her.

Megan scrunched up her nose. ‘Really? Like for homework? We don’t even know when school’s going to open again.’

‘It’s just something to do,’ Luke said. He gave Freckles another double ear scratch. ‘Sorry, bud. No dogs allowed.’

‘My mom will probably panic if I don’t come home soon anyway,’ Megan said. ‘I’ll see you guys.’

Eve picked up her pace. She was praying that Luke was right and that one of the books in the library would give them something they could use to track the demon.

‘It’s open! I wasn’t sure it would be,’ Jess exclaimed when they reached the library’s wide front steps.

They didn’t need to use one of the library computers to find shelf numbers. They already knew where the books on demons were kept. Eve, Jess and Luke each grabbed an armful and sat down at the nearest table.

Eve found Amunnic in the index of the third book she opened. There was just a short entry. ‘It says here that a merchant ship ran aground in Ephesus with all the crew drained of blood. They burned the ship and prayed for deliverance from the demon Amunnic.’ She put the book aside. ‘Ephesus is in Turkey, I think. That must have been before the demon got to Egypt.’

‘Not helpful.’ Jess looked pale, her eyes rimmed with red. She’d probably gotten hardly any sleep the past couple of nights. Eve was pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to sleep if Luke was lying in one of those beds in the courthouse with his skin rotting away. Not that Luke was her boyfriend the way Seth was Jess’s.

Eve chose another book and checked the index. There was no Amunnic listed. Nothing under ‘Many Faces’ either. She started to put the book in the ‘done’ pile, then realized she ought to search by traits too. There were a bunch of pages listed for ‘blood drinkers’. Most were about vampires, although one page had a brief mention of hellhounds feeding on blood, and there were a couple of pages about the chupacabra, a creature with spines all down its back that supposedly fed mainly on goat blood.

‘Ugh. Did you know some Russian nomads used to drink the blood of the first enemy they killed in battle?’ Jess asked. She’d clearly been searching for blood drinkers too.

They all fell silent as they continued to search for anything that could refer to Amunnic. The words had started looking like streams of black ink to Eve, when Luke spoke up.

‘I think I found something good,’ he announced. ‘Or not good, but important. It’s about how Amunnic kills people.’

‘Don’t we know that already?’ Jess asked. ‘He drains their blood. That pretty much kills anyone.’

‘He does drink human blood according to this, but there’s a whole ritual involved,’ Luke explained. ‘First Amunnic uses one claw to—’

‘Claw? I hate it when they have claws,’ Eve interrupted. ‘Sorry, go on.’

‘The demon uses a claw to open one of its victim’s veins,’ Luke continued. ‘The blood floods out, and Amunnic catches it in a ceremonial ceramic bowl. He has to say an incantation over the blood, and then drink it while it is still warm. The book also says that Amunnic keeps his victims alive for several weeks, taking blood whenever he thirsts.’

Jess swallowed hard enough for Eve to hear. ‘So this demon basically uses people as living wine bottles. Just keeps them around, and drinks when he feels like it.’

‘Yeah.’ Luke rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Yeah,’ he said again.

‘Keeping his victims alive could be a good thing,’ Eve said. ‘I mean, it’s hideous. But it means that everyone Amunnic has taken is probably still alive.’ She reached across the table and pulled the book Luke had been reading over in front of her. ‘The bowl even says Amunnic on it,’ she commented. ‘How old must that thing be?’

She looked up and found Luke and Jess staring at her. ‘Where are you getting that?’ Luke asked. ‘The name?’

Eve tapped the markings around the top of the bowl in the drawing. ‘Right there.’

Neither Luke or Jess said a word. ‘Oh,’ Eve said, getting it. ‘What do you see around the top?’

‘Just a bunch of geometric shapes,’ Luke answered, and Jess nodded along with him. ‘But you see something else, don’t you?’

‘Letters,’ Eve replied. ‘A.M.U.N.N.I.C.’ She sank back down onto her chair, a little shaken. ‘I guess it’s a Deepdene Witch thing, huh?’

‘Well, this is the second time it’s happened,’ Luke said gently. ‘You could read what was written on the arch leading to the portal, even though Jess and I couldn’t.’

‘Part of your demon-fighting arsenal,’ Jess said.

Eve started to shove the book back to Luke, but a paragraph near the bottom of the page caught her eye.
This could be what we need
, she thought.

‘What? Do you see something else on the bowl?’ Luke leaned close.

‘No. But it’s about why Amunnic hasn’t been sighted since approximately 600
BC
,’ she told him. ‘Legend has it that around that time Many Faces was weak from hunger. He was so weak, in fact, that an Arabian magician was able to trap him inside a ceramic vessel.’ Eve tapped the drawing of the bowl. ‘This. The same bowl he used to drink blood.’

‘It seems like Mr Dokey brought back a really cool souvenir from Egypt,’ Luke said. ‘We’ve got to go talk to him. We have to find out whether he has that bowl.’

‘Amunnic’s clearly not in it any more,’ Jess said. She sounded exhausted.

‘But he needs the bowl to feed,’ Eve reminded her. ‘Which is pretty much the same as needing the bowl to survive. We find the bowl, we find the demon.’ She stood up. ‘Field trip to the plague ward, anyone?’

‘You know what I just realized,’ Jess said on their way to the courthouse. ‘Everyone the demon has taken is around our age.’

‘Maybe younger blood is more powerful. Like more vitamins per serving,’ Eve suggested.

‘Then why wouldn’t he be taking kids?’ Luke asked.

A slash of revulsion cut through Eve as she considered his question. ‘Maybe it likes all the extra hormones,’ she suggested. ‘My mom is always telling me how teenagers are raging with them.’

‘It could actually be something like that,’ Luke commented. ‘I know you were half kidding, but animals are really sensitive to the scent of hormones. Maybe a demon could be too.’

‘None of the people taken were sick, at least that we know of,’ Jess said. ‘I mean, none of them was showing symptoms, right?’

‘You’re right!’ Eve exclaimed. ‘So maybe Amunnic can’t feed on people with the plague.’

‘The curse makes more sense then.’ Luke slowed down a little as he explained his theory. ‘It doesn’t just warn people that the demon is nearby, it makes it a lot harder for Amunnic to feed, which could make him weaker.’

‘Maybe weak enough so that magician could trap him,’ Jess offered. ‘The priest’s curse was better than I was giving it credit for. If we’re right, and Amunnic can’t feed on plague victims, maybe that led to him getting weak enough to be captured.’

‘Look at these guys,’ Eve said, jerking her chin at Dave and a couple of his buddies – Phillip and Sean – heading towards them, all wearing bathing suits and flip-flops and carrying rolled-up towels. Dave and Phillip each had a grip on one of the handles of a big cooler.

‘Party down at the beach,’ Sean announced.

Phillip released his side of the cooler and it slammed to the sidewalk a couple of metres away from Eve.

‘Dude!’ Dave exclaimed, still gripping the other handle. ‘What the hell?’

Phillip stared at him, blinking. ‘Slipped.’ He clenched and unclenched his hand.

Eve suspected it was less that his hand had slipped than that Phillip was feeling weak. He was sort of swaying on his feet, like he was on a sailboat.

Jess moved closer to Eve. ‘I think he might have it,’ she whispered. Eve nodded, taking a step back, as if that would protect her.

‘You guys want to come?’ Sean asked. He winked at Jess and Eve. ‘We could use some lovely ladies.’
He doesn’t look that great either
, Eve realized. Under his tan, his skin had an ashen tone, and his hair was damp with sweat. ‘You won’t be the only ones,’ he added. ‘Megan and Elisha are meeting us.’

‘We severely need some beach time. We just want to hang and not think about anything,’ Dave added. And they all knew exactly what he meant by ‘anything’.

‘Maybe later,’ Jess told them. ‘I promised my mom I’d be home by one, and she’ll have a meltdown if I don’t show. Have fun, guys.’ She circled around them, Eve and Luke right behind her. Eve held her breath as she went by, hoping that would protect her, although it felt like the crackling current still whisking through her would annihilate any virus that dared to invade her body.

‘Pretty soon the healthy people will be living in the courthouse,’ Luke said. ‘There will be a lot fewer of them than plague victims.’

‘Not going to happen. Pretty soon Amunnic will be gone,’ Eve vowed. ‘I’m zapping him right back to hell.’

‘I like your style,’ Luke told her as they climbed the courthouse steps. A guard in a hazmat suit was positioned in front of the big double doors.

‘No one allowed in,’ the guard told them.

‘We’re here to visit my boyfriend, Seth Schneider,’ Jess said firmly. ‘It’s OK if we wear hazmat suits. I did it the other day.’

The guard gestured for them to stay where they were, and opened the door. ‘This girl says she was allowed to visit a victim,’ he called to a nurse doing paperwork at a long table that had been set up in the lobby.

Jess moved closer so the nurse could see her. The nurse nodded. ‘She was given approval. She has to get into a suit though.’

The guard stepped back to allow them inside. ‘Wait. The other two don’t have authorization,’ the nurse said when she saw Luke and Eve following Jess.

‘But they’re with me,’ Jess protested.

‘Don’t press it, miss,’ the nurse told her. ‘You’re lucky to get in yourself. The only reason you’re allowed is because my supervisor has a weakness for tears. I don’t.’

‘Neither do I,’ the guard said.

‘Fine.’ Jess turned to Eve and Luke. ‘I’ll tell
him
you said hi.’

Eve and Luke reluctantly turned round and stepped back outside. ‘I want to hear what Dokey has to say,’ Luke said as they walked down the steps.

‘Me too. There’s got to be another way in,’ Eve answered. They circled around the building. ‘Fire door,’ she pointed out.

‘The alarm will go off it we try to get in that way though,’ Luke said. Eve nodded and kept walking, then she stopped. ‘What?’ Luke asked.

‘What if I zap it?’ Eve stared at the door’s
DO NOT ENTER
sign.

‘The door? How would that—’

‘Not the door. The alarm. You open the door, and I zap the alarm before it can go off,’ Eve explained.

Luke raised his eyes brows. ‘It might work. A power surge could short it out.’

‘Let’s try.’ Eve did a guard check. There wasn’t one in sight. She and Luke hurried over to the door.

‘On three,’ Luke said. ‘One … two … three!’ He shoved the door open. Eve darted through, spotted the alarm box, and thrust her hands towards it. She hit it with so much power that it melted before it could give a peep.