Demon High (2 page)

Nana was selling her things, but her things were limited. I had to do my part. It was time, past time.

I’d lived with Nana all my life. She was the only person who had never left me. My mother left. I wasn’t even sure she didn’t choose to leave. No, correct that. She did choose to leave, by choosing to call demons, constantly.

My grandmother had warned Mum about calling them as much as she did. She told her it could be addicting, but I think Mum was lost from the beginning.

The rush she got from that circle was impossible to miss, even for a six-year-old.

After she’d spent time in the basement calling, she would glow for days afterward. But eventually the rush would wear off. Then she’d crash, get the shakes—show all the classic signs of withdrawal. And she’d be back in the basement, inside her circle, chanting.

Times would be perfect then, for a while. I’d get gifts; Mum would be happy and kind. Life in general would be good—for months, weeks…days. The time kept getting shorter until one day she went down into the basement and never came back.

Calling demons was stupid. No doubt about it.

But sometimes, stupid is all you got.

I wedged my body behind the old furnace. It was made of iron and huge. Behind it was a door my grandmother thought was hidden. And it was—if you didn’t know it existed. But I’d watched my mother go in and out it on too many occasions.

Nana had boarded the door up after Mum disappeared, but I knew her calling tools still lay somewhere behind it. I knew because Nana wouldn’t have touched them. She was afraid of them.

I slid the tip of a crow bar under the top board and leaned. The wood creaked. I stopped and checked the damage.

No cracks. That was good. I’d need to board the door back up when I was through, so Nana wouldn’t know what I’d done. I wouldn’t need to get in here again. I just needed Mum’s tools. I’d be doing my demon calling outside the house.

That was an important part of my plan—calling places outside of this house. Mum had used the space too often, weakened the veil here. I figured that’s how she’d got caught, something nasty, maybe even a demon lord, had got through and snatched her.

Secure my work so far would be easy to cover, I continued sliding the bar under the wood and leaning until the first board popped loose. I continued working on the remaining two until the door wiggled under my hand.

The door stuck a few inches in, but I put my shoulder against it and pushed. It scraped over dirt as it inched inward. The basement had a cement floor, but this little room was still dirt, walls and floors. Cobwebs grabbed onto my hair and face as I stepped inside.

The space was tiny, probably originally meant as a root cellar, or maybe not. Demon calling was in the blood. Generations of Dents may have used this space for the same purpose my mother had. Nana might know, but I sure wasn’t asking her.

I pulled the string on the lone light bulb that hung from the ceiling. Amazingly, it worked. I’d brought a flashlight just in case, but was pretty happy I wouldn’t need it. The glare of the stark bulb felt warm, gave me a tiny sense of security. Enough that when the door creaked closed behind me I didn’t jump, at least not visibly. Feeling stronger than I’d thought I would, I left the door closed and turned to face the room.

A circle drawn with white paint dominated the floor. It was impossible to miss. I knew it was paint without touching it. My mother had made a lot of jokes about people who drew their circles with chalk—said they were one smudge away from “home.” Most people thought of home as a good place, but I’d known by how she’d said the word, it wasn’t.

Mum must be “home” now too. I drew in a breath and let my body adjust to the cold clamminess that had suddenly formed on my skin. There was moisture in the corner of my eyes too. I blinked that away. Even when I was six Mum hadn’t hid the dangers of what she did from me. She’d raised me to be pragmatic.

Mum was gone. Nana and I were here…in this house. I needed to keep it that way.

I stepped closer to the white line. I let my foot break the circle. My feet were bare. I didn’t like wearing shoes when I didn’t have to. My toes looked strange poking into that circle, made the whole demon thing seem like something I’d dreamed, but then I looked up and saw my mother’s leather pouch laying open on the other side of the room. It was flat, empty.

I looked in the circle then. An athame and stone bowl lay near the center. The athame was shoved hilt to dirt into the floor, but the bowl was turned over. The dirt was darker around it. I didn’t want to think about what had been in that bowl that the stain was still there ten years later. So I shoved that question into a little box in my head where I kept my grief and shut it off too, concentrated on finding the rest of Mum’s tools instead.

They were all there, but they were scattered—as if a big wind had exploded from the center of the room…the circle…and blown them to the four corners.

I didn’t think about that, either. I just went about picking everything up and shoving the items into Mum’s leather pouch.

When the bag was bulging, I turned to leave. I got as far as the door before I stumbled. My bare toes made contact with something hard and cold. A shiver shot through me and it took all the courage I could muster to look down and see what had stopped my step.

It was a statue, about six inches tall and carved out of something white—bone. Had to be from a big animal—or a human. I gripped the bag tighter. My hands were sweating now. If Mum had been there she would have laughed. Here I was wanting to call demons and the sight of a little bone statue almost sent me running.

Not just the sight, I corrected mentally, the touch too. It had been…slimy. Crawled up my leg and wrapped around my calf. I could still feel it even though the object was no longer in contact with my skin. I picked up my foot and shook my leg.

It was a silly thing to do, but it made me feel better, broke the tension somehow.

I managed a chuckle at myself then, and ordered my knees to bend so I could get a closer look at the figure. It was one of Mum’s tools. I might need it.

I should take it.

I reached out thinking if I grabbed the thing fast, I’d get past the part of my brain that was screaming no, but it didn’t work. My hand stopped three inches above the small statue and hovered there, shaking.

I started humming, a bad habit I was trying to break. I managed to stop the sound, but gave up on picking up the figurine. I lowered my hand to the ground beside the thing instead and stared at it.

I knew instantly I was looking into the face of my mother’s killer. Horns sprouted from his forehead and curled down the back of his head, ending at his shoulders. His face was long and angular, but strangely attractive…aristocratic.

A demon lord
. Where had my mother found the object? And more important, why had she called him up?

His eyes seemed to glimmer, to watch me. Something urged me to pick up the statue. My hand even moved toward it. I curled my fingers into the dirt. A nail broke off into the packed earth, and pain shot through my finger. I winced and glanced at my hand.

Blood beaded where the nail had been; it mixed with the dirt.

Someone exhaled, sighed. I thought for a second it was me, like my humming, but then the statue turned his head and his tongue, skinny and white, flicked from between his teeth and lapped at the blood-stained earth.

I picked up the bag and ran like hell—from hell or “home” or whatever lived in my basement.

o0o

The next day, I was back at school. The statue was still in my mind, but I’d convinced myself it wasn’t an issue. It had been lying in the basement for ten years and nothing bad had happened. Why worry about it now?

Besides, I had other things to worry about, like why I had gone into the basement in the first place. I needed money, about five grand to start, and that would just cover our back taxes. I’d need more if I wanted to work on fixing the house up.

I’d never had a job; Nana had always insisted I concentrate on school. And getting a regular job now that paid minimum wage wasn’t going to solve our problems, but that was fine. I had a potentially much more lucrative option at my fingertips.

I’d spent the night studying Mum’s book and working out my plan. Now I all I needed was a client.

Brittany George
. She was cute, with red hair that bounced when she walked and a wardrobe that screamed money. It goes without saying she was popular too. And even better for my needs, she hung out with college kids.

My school wasn’t small. My class had around five hundred kids in it. But it was still kind of a small pool for my business plan; plus if I went after local business, there was a big risk Nana would find out. And admitting to Nana that I was calling demons wasn’t an option.

I needed access to the state college located about a half an hour away in the bigger city of Bethel, and Brittany could give me that.

Staying “in” with college kids was a lot of work. Brittany’s main goal in life was to keep her spot. This meant not only perfecting her image through shopping, but having access to things college kids wanted…fake IDs, tickets to sold-out concerts, test answers. Brittany was an acquisition specialist. You name it, she could get it, but she specialized in the “unique.” She lived to be the one person who could get what no one else could.

I was pretty sure what I had to offer would fit that bill.

I stepped into between-class traffic. “Brittany,” I called, forcing my voice to sound more confident than I felt. Over the years, I’d developed a talent for blending into walls. Stepping out of that mode was difficult, and I didn’t do it with grace.

A freshman, apparently surprised by my sudden appearance from obscurity, hopped to the side to avoid me, colliding with Shane Bollock, junior and star wrestler, in the process. I stammered out an apology, but the freshman just darted a glance at Shane and scurried away.

Shane frowned after him. I opened my mouth to apologize to the wrestler too, but his gaze traveled over me and settled instead on Brittany. He soaked in each and every curve. I could literally see his eyes moving back and forth in his face.

I pulled my worn hoodie more closely around my body and tried to disappear, but standing exposed in the middle of the hallway, it was impossible. Shane might not have seen me, but Brittany did. Both her eyebrows shot up.

I suddenly regretted calling her.

Brittany and I had been tight as preschoolers. Her mother was one of my mother’s only friends. She had dropped by every Wednesday, Brittany in tow. The grown-ups would go off to some other room and Brittany and I would play for hours, unsupervised. After Mum disappeared, though, the Georges did too. At least from Nana’s and my lives.

Brittany and I hadn’t exchanged two words since middle school. I even remembered what they were. “Go away.”

And now I’d yelled at her in the middle of the busy hall. I wanted to sink through the floor.

The crowds had parted though and there was no avoiding her emerald green gaze. I waited until the worst of the crowd had shoved on past then pointed at myself. “Lucinda…Dent. We used to—”

“I know.” She grabbed me by the arm and spun us both around, so her back was to the remaining stragglers. “What?”

The impatience showing behind her green contacts was hard to miss. I flashed back to when we were six. I grabbed her index finger and pulled it away from my sweater. Her eyes rounded, and she dropped her hand.

She also turned so she was facing the hall again. With the exception of one lovesick couple curling their tongues around each other’s, the corridor was empty. At the sight of the nearly abandoned hall, Brittany’s shoulders lowered and she let out a relieved breath.

“What?” she asked.

“Ever call a demon?” I blurted.

Brittany’s entire body jerked.

Unaware of our interaction, the couple tore themselves apart and disappeared into their respective classrooms. Brittany didn’t move, so I stepped closer.

“I don’t guess you’d know anyone who would want to,” I murmured. Then I turned and walked toward the doors that led outside. My legs were shaking. If she didn’t follow me I didn’t know what I would do. My plan began and stopped with Brittany.

As my hands touched the metal bar that opened the door, she cursed.

I knew then I had her.

o0o

“You don’t look like a witch.”

I was sitting on a huge, psychedelically-painted rock about a hundred and twenty yards behind the school. It used to be called “smoking rock” back before cigarettes were banned. It was still the gathering spot for any kind of unsanctioned-by-school-officials activity.

I ran my fingers through my short undeniably blonde hair. It was the only part of me that stood out, and since I cut it myself with Nana’s sewing shears, not in a good way.

“Yeah, and you don’t look like a black marketer,” I mumbled.

She grinned. “Me? You’ve been gossiping.”

I angled my head. “I’ve known you—”

She waved her hand. “I didn’t say it wasn’t true. Just that you’ve been gossiping.” She shrugged. “I didn’t expect it of you.”