Demon High (31 page)

“Tell her the rest, Cresil,” Oscar yelled. “Tell her how you would make her work for you, how you would own her soul.”

The demon lord didn’t seem to hear him. He nodded toward Kobal. “Ask him if he can do the same. He can’t. You will spend the rest of your days serving him, calling him and releasing his demons. Then what? After all of that, at best my brother and I would be equals, and mommy? Well, she’d stay right where she is.” He pulled Mum up beside him and ran one long finger down her cheek. “Do you love her? Enough to save her sixty or seventy years in hell?”

He was right. The outcome was inevitable, but with Cresil it ended here. I wouldn’t have to release new demons into the world, and my mother and I could be together on this plane, at least for a while.

My mouth dry, I lifted my chin to nod, but I fell to the ground instead. Oscar stood over me, his gaze on Kobal. He looked strong and determined, as if he had a purpose, as if he cared.

“Kobal, free Lucinda and Brittany, and take me. You’ll have the upper hand. One demonologist, no matter how powerful, can’t match the power that comes with owning an untouchable.”

“No.” I scrambled to my feet.

I got it now. Oscar hadn’t lost his soul. He’d lost his hope, but not his soul. It kept him immune to things other demons feared, gave him power. But now he was selling it, trading it, for me.

I couldn’t let him.

“Deal!” Kobal bellowed. His feathers changed, became hard and glassy. His wings expanded, and he spun. They sliced through the air. Cresil jumped backward, pulling Mum with him.

I screamed. Her gaze caught mine—sorrow, regret, love. Everything I’d wanted to see there, but not now, not like this.

The circle still held, but I could break it. Mum would be free. Together we could fix all of this. I stared down at the painted line, remembered that first trip down here and the sight of my tennis shoe crossing the boundary. That’s all it would take.

Fingers grabbed me by the arm and jerked me around. “You can’t save her, Lucinda. You can’t save anyone but yourself,” Brittany screamed in my ear.

Only a few feet away, Oscar stared at me, but it felt further, felt as if he was moving away even as he spoke. “Only Kobal’s bargain is ended, Lucinda. Your deal with Cresil still holds. You can never call another demon, never risk being pulled into hell.”

Inside the circle, Kobal and Cresil’s pretense of tolerance for each other had ended. Cresil jerked back his brother’s wings. Blood, or the demon equivalent, dripped from his palms. They shrieked at each other in some language I didn’t understand, didn’t want to understand. It sounded like metal sheering over metal.

From under Kobal’s wing, Mother stared at me. Her eyes were round and sad. She held out her hand, her fingers up. Her lips moved. “Take care of Nana. Forget me,” she mouthed.

I started to move forward again. Brittany’s touch stopped me. Desperation colored her eyes. “Please. Don’t,” she said. She was crying…for me. It was enough to make me hesitate, enough to stop me from breaking the circle before Kobal did it for me.

Oscar’s declaration had made the demon lord stronger, too strong for my circle to hold. His wing had done the impossible. It had sliced through the barrier and was poking out the top.

Brittany let out a gasp.

Kobal spun and spun again until he was a nothing but a giant blur of movement. Thunder, or what sounded like thunder, shook the ground. I slapped my hands over my ears and staggered forward.

The small space seemed to expand, to become endless like a dark spot in space. I was lost, floating, could see nothing and no one for a moment. Then light returned, reality returned, and I realized Cresil and my mother were no longer standing on the ground in front of me. They were flying, circling, higher and higher. I reached up thinking I could grab my mother and jerk her back down to earth. But she was out of my reach.

And then she was gone. Both of them were gone.

With a snap, the room returned to how it had been. The ceiling back in place. The circle back in place, but my mother missing.

Shaking and cold, I reached for my bag. I knew where she was. I knew I could call her. I should have done it years ago.

A hand, cool and smooth, dropped over mine.

I looked up, into Oscar’s face.

“Do as she said, try to forget.” He removed his hand and stepped back.

I stared at him stupidly for a second. I couldn’t grasp what was happening, what he was about to do, but when he turned, I did. I dropped the bag and grabbed him by the arm. He didn’t look at me; he didn’t shake me off. He just placed his other hand on the end of Kobal’s wing and I wasn’t touching him anymore. I wasn’t beside him. He was with Kobal and Nellie inside the circle, but it wasn’t my circle any longer. It was Kobal’s. He was in control now. Because of Oscar, he was the most powerful demon lord, more powerful than Cresil, maybe any demon.

For a second my brain focused on that. Then, like pennies dropping into a jar, a new reality fell into place.

Oscar wasn’t free anymore. He’d given himself to Kobal. He’d sacrificed himself to save me.

I threw the bag and then the athame at the circle. Both fell to the ground and I did too, onto my knees.

“Think of me one last time, Lucinda. Visit my house, stand by my wall. Then forget me, forget your mother, forget everything,” Oscar murmured so low I couldn’t be sure I hadn’t imagined the words.

Kobal spread his wings, making the world behind them appear black. He stared at me for a second, but said nothing. Then he waved his hands and murmured words I couldn’t hear.

My neck tingled. I slapped my hand over the spot and realized I was touching the demon mark, or where it had been. The pain was gone; the heaviness that had clung to me since the day I had made my deal with Kobal was gone too. I knew without looking the mark was also gone, but at what cost?

A new heaviness descended on me. My gaze shot to Oscar, but he didn’t look back. He didn’t seem to see me at all.

With a snap, Kobal folded his wings against his back and with no more notice, the three of them disappeared.

I blinked. The change was too sudden, as unsettling as anything that had happened before.

Swaying, I glanced around. The room was back to normal—a small hidden space with dirt floors, low ceilings and a white circle painted on the earth. Nothing scary here. Nothing at all.

I fell forward across the barrier, panting. I let my head hang down between my shoulders and hated myself for not saving my mother, for costing Oscar his freedom, for everything.

I might have stayed there forever, but Brittany, damn her, crawled next to me and brushed my hair back from my face. “He cared. When he left, he cared. He wouldn’t have made that deal if he hadn’t.”

I dropped to my side and stared up at her. “That makes it worse doesn’t it? Before he didn’t care. They could do anything to him and it didn’t matter, but now he does.” Tears ran down my cheeks. I swiped at them, making mud out of the mix of dust and tears.

She looked at me, appearing far wiser than anyone at school, her parents even, would think possible. “It’s always better to care, Lucinda, always.”

The sun was unnaturally bright. We’d had an early snow fall overnight, just a dusting, but it felt appropriate. Like heaven knew my world had exploded and had exploded a little bit along with me.

Brittany stayed in the car as I walked across the field and through the woods. Oscar’s house was just as I remembered it, nothing more than a rough outline of what it had once been. I stepped over the first line of foundation and tried not to think about what had happened here on my last visit.

My tennis shoes were wet from walking through the snow, and there was enough of a chill I regretted not digging into the closet and pulling out a winter coat. I’d worn my striped sweater instead. Brittany hadn’t even raised an eyebrow.

I flipped up my hood and stared over the snow-dotted patch of weeds.
Visit my house, stand by my wall.
It had been a strange request, one that hadn’t settled in until hours after the nightmare in my basement had ended. Brittany had reminded me of it and asked what Oscar had said.

It could have been meaningless, but I didn’t think so. So I’d come.

His wall, the one he’d stood by when I’d been here before I assumed. I walked to it and placed my feet where his had been, stared into the distance, toward the circle, and felt…nothing.

Oscar wasn’t here. I didn’t feel him. I didn’t feel my mother.
Nothing
. Maybe that had been his point. Maybe he’d known I would come here with expectations, and then, when I felt nothing, realize he was gone, that both of them were gone.

But they weren’t. They were still within reach if I was willing to take the risk. My fingernails scraped over my jeans’ leg. I hadn’t brought my tools. Oscar had told me to stay away from the circle, that Cresil’s deal still held, but if that was true, it was all the more reason for me to go back. I didn’t want to live with a demon contract over my head.

Besides, my home was still at risk and calling demons was still my best bet for saving it. But I wasn’t ready yet. I had more to learn, more research to do. I would take time to do that, as much as I could anyway.

“First love never lasts,” Brittany called. She stepped out of the woods.

“It doesn’t usually end with a trip to hell either,” I muttered.

She stepped over the line of foundation and walked up beside me. “So, what did you find?”

I lifted my shoulders. “Nothing. I was thinking maybe that was the point.”

She arched one perfect brow. “I doubt that.” She looked down. “Is this the wall?”

I nodded. “Has to be. It’s where I saw him standing.”

She knelt and brushed snow off of the pile of rocks and mortar. A few bits crumbled onto the ground. “Doesn’t look like much.” She bent lower, so her face was inches from the ground. “Brittany?” Her hand disappeared into the wall. “There’s a hole here.” With her free hand she felt around the grass. Her knuckles rapped metal.

I bent beside her and parted the snow-covered weeds with my hands. A flat piece of metal, pitted with rust, lay hidden underneath.

“I think this is more than an old wall,” Brittany said, her hand still hidden inside the rocks. “I think it’s a hidey hole.” She pulled back; in her fist was a small leather bag.

“Demon tools?” I asked.

Shaking her head, Brittany held it out to me. “I don’t know, but I don’t think so. Either way, it’s yours.” She dropped the bag into my hand. It was heavy, but I could tell it didn’t contain much.

Brittany turned around and perched on the wall. “Open it,” she prompted.

The bag was leather, but the tie was some kind of cord, maybe silk. As I held it up, I could see it was nothing like Mum’s tool bag. The leather was embossed with flowers and thinner. In better days, it had been supple and soft.

“Come on,” Brittany urged.

The cord wouldn’t loosen, so I used my teeth. After a couple of minutes, the knot came undone. I tipped the bag over my palm. A jumble of gold and red fell onto my gloved hand.

Brittany jumped to her feet. “The necklace. His mother’s ruby necklace.”

The reality of what I was holding took a moment to soak in, but Brittany was right. Hidden inside the bag, tucked inside the dilapidated wall, the necklace had been waiting.

“It’s beautiful,” I said. The light caught on the jewels. They burned red, and the gold glimmered. It was a simple design, tiny links twisted into a heavier rope and then dotted with rubies.

“Rubies are worth more than diamonds.” Brittany eyed the piece with professional detachment.

Where I saw beauty, she saw money. I dangled it from my fingers for a minute, and then with a sigh, I held it out. “How much?” I asked.

Surprised, she looked at me. “I thought you’d want to keep it.”

I did, but I couldn’t. Oscar knew without money I’d have an excuse to go back to the circle. He’d told me to forget. If I was at the circle, I’d never forget and the temptation to call him or my mother would never dull. “Will it pay for a new roof, maybe one year of taxes?” I asked.

Brittany grinned. “You just leave that to me.”

o0o

Brittany sold the necklace, and she was right. It was worth more than diamonds, worth enough Nana didn’t have to sell her piano and I didn’t have to sell my soul.

I got a part-time job at the drugstore, giving me enough extra cash to buy lip gloss and pre-made peanut butter sandwiches.

And Brittany got a girlfriend, a sophomore. I don’t think she told her parents, but she seemed happy and that was a start.

And me? Despite my mother and Oscar’s orders, I didn’t forget. I won’t, but I’m not going back to the circle, at least not tonight.

-o0o-

Lori Devoti is the author of urban fantasy, contemporary and paranormal romance. To learn more about her fiction,
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