Fever (8 page)

‘So. Alanna?’ Luke asked.

‘Go ahead. Faster is better,’ Eve said. She thought she’d managed to keep the irritation out of her voice. She couldn’t stop herself from watching him use the cell though. He didn’t have Alanna on speed dial. That was something.

‘Luke, hey, good to hear from you,’ Alanna said. ‘How’re you doing?’ She was one of those girls who sounded like she was flirting no matter what she said. She shouldn’t be flirting with Luke. She was way too old for him.

‘Not that great,’ Luke answered. ‘That’s why I’m calling. We think we might have another demon situation in Deepdene.’

‘We’ve been following the extreme temperatures you’ve been having and the outbreak of Flu X. We haven’t found anything to indicate demon involvement,’ Alanna answered.

‘Nice of you to tell us that. Finally,’ Eve snapped. She shot an outraged glance at Jess, who looked almost as angry as Eve felt.

‘Oh, I’m on speaker,’ Alanna said. ‘I thought this was a private conversation, Luke.’

‘Eve and Jess are here too,’ Luke told her. ‘We—’

‘I’m definitely here,’ Eve cut in. ‘We live in this town, remember. And we’re the ones who told you about the portal. You demon experts didn’t even know about it. As soon as you decided to investigate, you should have called me.’

‘You’re the demon hunter,’ Alanna shot back. ‘You can even smell them, as I remember. I wouldn’t think you’d need our help detecting demonic presence.’

Eve suspected Alanna was jealous of her ability to kill demons without one of the special swords. That made her feel a little better.

‘We want to do some research anyway. We all believe there’s a demon here,’ Luke said. ‘If you come across anything we can use as a starting place, will you let us know?’

‘If you’re nice,’ Alanna replied.

‘When am I not nice?’ he asked.

Was he flirting back? He’d kind of flirted with Alanna when she was here. But, come on, she was
waaay
too old.

‘Luke’s always nice. To everyone,’ Jess said pointedly, getting Eve’s back.

‘Absolutely everyone. You’re nothing special,’ Eve added. Luke raised an eyebrow at her and she gave an apologetic shrug. That hadn’t been exactly necessary – or nice. But she’d enjoyed it.

‘So you’ll call, right?’ Jess asked. She tapped her fingers on the kitchen table.

‘I’ll call you, Luke,’ Alanna said, with just a touch of emphasis on the ‘you’.

Luke said goodbye and hung up.

‘Well, that was helpful.’ Jess took a sip of her soda.

‘Infuriating,’ Eve agreed. ‘I cannot believe she didn’t contact us. Or any of the Order.’ She turned to Luke. ‘Can you?’

‘Definitely not cool,’ he answered. He tilted his head from side to side, cracking his neck. ‘So I guess we go online and start researching demons, and plagues and heat waves.’

‘Oh, my!’ Jess said. They all laughed at her
Wizard of Oz
joke, even though it wasn’t that funny. Laughing felt like it sucked some of the stress out of Eve’s body.

‘Sounds good to—’

Eve was interrupted by Jess’s brother Peter, barrelling into the room. ‘We’re going on lockdown.’ He grabbed an enormous handful of trail mix and stuffed it into his mouth.

‘I want to say “what?”’ Jess said. ‘But I don’t want to see you talk with your mouth full.’

Peter opened his mouth as wide as possible and gave them all a good look. Eve could have predicted that move. She’d known Peter for ever – he was basically her surrogate little brother.

‘OK, so the whole town is going into lockdown,’ Peter said after he’d swallowed, with the aid of a swig from Luke’s soda. ‘Starting at ten o’clock, no one is getting in or out.’

‘That can’t be right,’ Luke told him. ‘It’s completely unconstitutional for one thing.’

‘If you say so, but look.’ Peter flipped on the TV and there was the
WELCOME TO DEEPDENE
sign, and next to it a small booth with a guard inside – a guard in a hazmat suit. The image changed to an aerial view showing a five-metre wire fence being erected around the whole town. The workers erecting the fence were all wearing hazmat suits too.

Luke swore softly under his breath. ‘It’s like we’re watching one of those post-apocalyptic movies.’

Peter didn’t say anything. Not typical. Although he was the one who’d told them the news, Eve thought actually seeing Deepdene being locked down had hit him hard.

‘It went by too fast, but I think that guard had a rifle.’ Jess’s eyes were wide. ‘Are they actually going to shoot people who try to leave?’

A terrifying thought exploded in Eve’s brain. ‘No one can leave,’ she said. She looked at Luke and Jess. They didn’t get it yet. ‘No one can leave,’ she repeated, and the horror on Luke and Jess’s faces made it clear that this time they understood. If their suspicions were correct, they were trapped in their little town – with a demon.

‘I just thought of something else. It didn’t hit me until now,’ Luke said as Jess powered up her laptop a little later that afternoon. She’d positioned it in the middle of her bed so she, Luke, and Eve could all see it. ‘The Order won’t be able to send anyone in if we need them. There’s no way for them to get in with the guards and the fences.’

‘We don’t need Alanna or the Order,’ Eve assured him. ‘We just need us – you, me and Jess. The three of us have taken on demons alone before.’

Luke didn’t remind her that Payne had sacrificed his life when they were battling the wargs together. He wasn’t sure any of them would have lived through that night without the Order.

‘I just put in
plague
and
demon
and got many, many, many hits,’ Jess told them.

Luke checked the screen. She wasn’t kidding. ‘Try doing
heatwave
with those two,’ he suggested. His cell buzzed as Jess added the word to the search. He checked it, and relief swept over him like a cool breeze. ‘Text from Callum. He says he’s sent me an email. Maybe the Order found something useful.’

‘They have been incredibly helpful so far,’ Eve snarked. Luke agreed that the Order should have told them they were looking into the strange happenings in Deepdene. But he was sure they would have if they’d uncovered anything. Probably Alanna and the others didn’t want to call to say they had nothing to say. That wouldn’t have been incredibly helpful either.

Jess turned the laptop towards him and Luke quickly logged on to his gmail account. He clicked on Callum’s message. ‘He sent us a link,’ Luke told the girls. ‘He says it might be useful, but he’s dubious.’

‘I can just hear him saying that. “Dubious” is a Callum kind of word,’ Jess commented.

‘What’s the link to?’ Eve asked.

‘An article on an ancient Egyptian papyrus scroll from some university I’ve never heard of.’ Luke began to skim the article. Eve and Jess moved in closer so they could read it too.

Briefly, Luke was distracted by a whiff of fragrance from Eve. A mix of coconut and sunshine. A mix of suntan lotion and
her
. It made him want to kiss her again.

Man, why had he let a cat screw things up between them? A
cat
. But the kiss had happened so spontaneously. And after the cat, there was just too much time to think, to wonder if Eve had wanted him to kiss her in the first place. She’d certainly bolted out of the kitchen pretty fast. Not that he hadn’t. He—

‘Demon!’ Jess exclaimed, returning Luke to the subject he should have been thinking about all along. She pointed to the word near the bottom of the first page. Clearly she’d been skimming too.

‘
The warning on the scroll is believed to refer to a demon often called Many Faces but sometimes referred to as Amunnic
,’ Luke read. ‘
The demon lives by drinking human blood
.’

‘Back up,’ Eve said. ‘What warning are they talking about?’

‘Back up,’ Jess said. ‘The thing drinks
blood
?’

‘That’s what it said. Blood,’ Luke answered. ‘There’s a translation of the scroll and one of the lines says “Ye shall know him by the coming of the plague”. That has to be the warning.’

‘Sounds like a warning to me,’ Jess said.

‘So this Many Faces or Amunnic brings a plague, is that what it’s saying?’ Eve asked. ‘That sounds sort of like Malphas. He brought bad dreams to weaken his victims with lack of sleep. That way, it was easier to feed on them. Maybe Many Faces wants weak victims too and that’s what the plague does.’

My dad
, Luke thought.
A demon could be preparing my father so it can feed on him. All the others too
. His gut began to churn. His dad was a minister. If he knew he was giving a demon strength that would horrify him more than dying from the plague. ‘Now that we have a name, let’s see what else we can find out.’

Jess did a search for Amunnic and Many Faces. Only three hits came up. ‘I hope one of them says why he’s called Many Faces – that’s freaky.’

Eve laughed.

‘What?’ Jess asked as she clicked the first hit.

‘So much is freaky, it’s like freaky is normal,’ she explained. She laughed again. ‘I know it’s not that funny. I’m just stressed.’

‘Wimp,’ Luke teased, smiling at her.

‘This one just mentions Amunnic–slash–Many Faces in a list of demons. No other info,’ Jess said. ‘Moving on. Another list of demons, but we get a few more details. Sightings in ancient Egypt, which we knew because of the scroll.’

‘Doh.’ Luke slapped his forehead. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t instantly made the connection. ‘Egypt! Where Mr Dokey was!’

‘So maybe he
did
bring back the plague!’ Eve exclaimed. ‘Not as a virus or some kind of bug. He somehow brought the demon to Deepdene.’

‘That would explain why the portal was still closed,’ Jess said. ‘This demon didn’t come through the portal. Eve, maybe that’s why you haven’t been smelling anything demony – maybe that wood-smoke smell comes from the portal, whenever a demon passes through it.’

‘Isn’t it bad enough we have a doorway to hell,’ Luke asked, rubbing his face with both hands, ‘without demons choosing Deepdene as some kind of vacation spot?’

‘I guess the travel brochures didn’t mention that Deepdene has its own demon-fighting witch,’ Eve joked. ‘A witch with a whole team to back her up.’ She looked back and forth between Luke and Jess. ‘I love you guys, you know,’ she added, turning serious.

‘We love you too.’ Jess reached out and gave her a half-hug.

‘Yeah,’ Luke said. And he did love her as a friend. But he was really starting to think he might
love
her too.
Don’t lose your focus
, he told himself. His dad needed him sharp. The whole town did. ‘What else does the entry say?’ Luke asked Jess.

‘Oh. Not good.’ Jess frowned at the computer screen. ‘
The demon is also known as Many Faces for its ability to take on the appearance of any human or animal it chooses
.’

There was a long stretch of silence as they all took in the implications. ‘So it could be anybody,’ Eve said. ‘Or at least it could look like anybody. As many anybodys as it wanted to, sounds like.’

There was a scratching sound on Jess’s door, and Luke started a little.
On edge, much?
he asked himself.

‘It’s just Ringo,’ Jess told them. ‘He scratches when he wants in.’ She stood up and let in her poodle. When Jess sat back down on the bed, Ringo joined her, nosing Eve and Luke, tail wagging furiously.

‘It could even be Ringo,’ Eve said. She’d been scratching the poodle’s stomach and she slowly moved her hand away.

Jess cradled Ringo to her. ‘It could so not be my sweetums,’ she answered, burying her face in his curly hair. ‘I mean it could be,’ she added, ‘but it’s not.’

‘Probably not,’ Luke agreed. ‘But from here on out, we’ve got to be in trust-no-one mode.’

‘Anything else on that page?’ Eve asked.

‘Nope,’ Jess answered. Her fingers flew across the keyboard. ‘And the next entry is just a list of demon names. What next?’

‘How about that line from the scroll? The one about knowing him from the coming of the plague,’ Luke suggested. ‘Maybe cut and paste the line in Arabic. That should narrow things down a little.’

‘On it,’ Jess said.

Luke noticed that Eve had returned to petting Ringo, but her sapphire-blue eyes looked even darker than usual.

‘Mmm. Here’s something about the translation,’ Jess said. ‘It says that the line is often misinterpreted. What it really means is that a plague arrives before the demon, not that the demon brings the plague.’

‘Huh.’ Luke drew his eyebrows together. ‘Like some kind of demon alarm?’

‘It was a curse,’ Eve announced. She pointed to the footnote she’d spotted. ‘It says that Amunnic wasn’t always preceded by the plague. The plague was a curse put on the demon by an Egyptian priest. He wanted to give people a warning that a demon was among them. The curse sent a plague before the demon – a plague and a heatwave – arriving in each place the demon went, to give the people there a warning that a demon was among them.’

Jess frowned. ‘So you mean that the plague isn’t the badness. The plague is just an
announcement
of the badness?’

‘It seems like the priest just gave them something else to worry about in addition to the demon,’ Luke said. He didn’t get it.

‘Yeah, couldn’t the priest have made, I don’t know, rainbows appear when the demon was close? Why make people sick to tell them there’s a demon? That just seems mean.’

‘Maybe curses aren’t that easy to perform,’ Eve suggested. ‘Maybe that was the best he could do. Any power has limitations.’ Luke was pretty sure she was thinking about her own power.

‘Yeah, that’s why you’ve been able to bring down the other demons. Their power has limitations,’ Luke told her, choosing to misunderstand.

Eve reached out and put her hand over one of Luke’s. ‘This is good news for your dad, I think. Good news for everyone who has the plague. Once we kill the demon, they’ll all be OK again. No demon, no need for demon-warning system.’

Luke wasn’t entirely sure that logic made sense. Yeah, no demon, no need for demon-warning system. But maybe that just meant no new people would get the plague and not that the people who already had it would be cured.

‘I can’t stop thinking about the part where it feeds on blood,’ Jess admitted. ‘I just found some more on that. Listen. It says before the curse, the demon could destroy entire communities in days.’ She took a sharp intake of breath as she read on. ‘There was one village – I can’t pronounce the name – where in just a few days, every single person was completely drained of blood.’