Speed Demon (4 page)

“Don’t talk to him,” I blurted, with zero tact.

“Why not?”

“He’s working. You’ll distract him and he’ll cut off his thumb or something.” There, that sounded less hysterical, more legitimate. Not like I thought he was a demon and he would know I thought he was a demon if he really was a demon.

“It’s fine,” he said, with another smile. “I’m Mike, by the way.”

“I’m Zoe,” my sister said with a queen’s wave.

Forced to respond, I said, “Kenzie,” then kept walking, straining under Zoe’s weight. You know how you can feel someone’s eyes watching you? Yeah. Felt Mike’s. All the way to the family room. And they were freaking me out. If he was an escaped demon or a demon prison guard, Levi would tell me, right? For my protection and all. He would. I was almost sort of not really sure about it.

I set Zoe down on the sofa next to her pals, who were all industriously cutting something out of paper with scissors. Levi was sitting on the floor, his own project spread out on the carpet in front of him. Unbelievable. He was making a Halloween place mat, a ghost prominently featured in the center of his paper.

“Like it?” he asked me with a grin.

“Lovely.”

Marshmallow Pants walked up and sat on Levi’s half assembled place mat. “Hey, watch it,” Levi said, staring the cat down. “You’re wrinkling my art, dude.” He tried to slide the cat over onto the carpet.

The oh-so-sweet and cute kitten calmly reached out and bit Levi on the hand.

“Hey! That was rude.”

Probably. But funny. I leaned over and picked up some scraps of paper that were littering down to the floor from the couch to fulfill my helper duty obligations and possibly get sprung from my grounding sooner. Clearly I was putting a lot of effort into this. And clearly there was no chance of my parents suddenly feeling sorry for me and announcing an early end to grounding. I was stuck with the full term, so why work too hard?

Zoe jumped off the couch and scooped the cat up. “Marshmallow Pants is a baby. She doesn’t know any better.”

Did we know the cat was a girl? That was progress.

“Yeah, Levi, give the cat a break,” I said. I scratched behind the cat’s ears and got a loud purr.

Levi leaned forward and tried to do the same and got a big old hiss and bared teeth.

One of Zoe’s friends, a big-eyed little brunette who shook like a Jell-O wiggler whenever she was excited, laughed and said, “I don’t think Marshmallow Pants likes you, Levi.”

That made two of us.

My whole day was ruined. I had cheated on Adam and now there was another portal open and Levi was all “can’t tell you” about it. I wanted some ice cream to help me think but I couldn’t even go into my kitchen because of Mike, possible demon, hanging around, strong and silent and somehow offensive. He was like body odor and I wanted him to go away.

I wanted everything to go away.

Except for Adam and his adoration for me.

That makes me sound a little less whiny, doesn’t it?

Maybe not.

My mother, who was doling out glue sticks, said, “Levi, will you drop Kenzie off at the theater later? I need to go to the store and I’d appreciate it if you could drive her.”

“Sure, Mrs. S. I’m happy to drive Kenzie wherever she needs to go.” He gave a sweet and charming smile, just like the one on his driver’s license. His fake driver’s license that came from who knew where. A driver’s license that allowed him to drive, whereas I had none, and therefore no ability to go anywhere, ever. After flunking my test (twice, but who’s counting), I had driven the minivan through the kitchen with only my permit, and that meant no license until eighteen, which was a long wait.

It was a cruel, cruel world, all brought about by Levi, and maybe if I really was a demon slayer, I should just kill Levi too.

 

 

Online research was of no help whatsoever. I couldn’t find any sites that gave step-by-step instructions on how a teenage demon slayer could close an open air portal. If I ever figured it out on my own, I was posting that info online, with sources sited, for other slayers to use. No one else should have to wade through mud the way I was.

I did a little pentagram research and got freaked out. And that was just reading the trigonometric values and the golden ratio descriptions and formulas. I had no idea I was actually going to stumble across math, my least favorite subject after Levi’s driver’s license.

Satanism was almost as scary as the math section. I read out loud, “The Hebrew name Leviathan is often inscribed in the pentagram.”

Nice. That just happened to be Levi’s full name, thank you very freaking much.

I sent him a text message.

I knew he was somewhere in the house, but I was too busy staring at pictures of goats impaled with pentagrams to bother getting up and finding him. Who knew goats could look so evil? I’d never look at cheese the same way again.

Grabbing a notebook out of my desk drawer, I flipped it open to a clean piece of paper and drew a really lame aerial of my house, roof off. I was thinking that if the bathroom was the tip of the pentagram, I really should figure out where all five portals were supposed to be.

On another piece of paper, I drew a pentagram and cut it out. No place mat crafts for me, thank you very much. I was building a model of the top of the demonic correctional facility for demons of envy. Just a typical Saturday.

Spinning the paper around to align the tip with my bathroom, I didn’t like what I saw.

Levi appeared in my doorway, hands in his front pockets. “Are you flirting with me?” he asked. “Because if you are, I have to warn you, your mom is still downstairs.”

That earned him an eye roll. “Hardly. If I was flirting, which I wouldn’t be, I would be more charming.”

“Would you?” He made like that totally surprised him.

I was annoyed but decided to drop it in the interest of conducting business and getting him out of my room faster. “Look at this. If I’m looking at this right, then the points of the pentagram are my bathroom, the kitchen, Zoe’s room, my parent’s room, and the family room. A portal in Zoe’s room is not cool, Levi.”

“Well, no worries.” Levi took the paper with the pentagram and spun it. “You have to have the two tips pointing northward, and the other three down toward hell, where the fallen angels live. That means Zoe’s room does not have a portal in it, so it’s all good.”

“All good” was pushing it, but I was relieved. I didn’t want Zoe possessed by a demon. She already had her moments of Satanism.

“So that means the bathroom and the kitchen,” I said, studying the paper. “Maybe the family room . . . it’s kind of hard to tell on that one. Brandon’s room, which is okay, I guess, since you’re staying there. And . . .” I stopped talking. Squinted. Tried to maneuver the paper a little.

“Your room,” Levi said cheerfully. “That makes sense.”

Yikes. My room? I didn’t want my baby sister possessed, but I didn’t want some demon popping out of my closet while I was sleeping either. “Why does that make sense?”

“Because—” Levi cleared his throat and spun the paper around. For an otherworldly creature, he sucked at lying. “You know, because that’s the way the pentagram works.”

“What are you not telling me?” I snatched the paper out of his hand and set it down next to my Hello Kitty mouse pad. “I could use a little help here.”

“Nothing. I’ve told you everything I can.”

There was the problem.
Can
was that little tag on the end of his sentence that meant I knew squat and he wasn’t going to enlighten me anytime soon.

His cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out to check a text message.

I wasn’t going to ask. Wasn’t going to ask . . .

“Who was that?” Curiosity killed the cat and Kenzie Sutcliffe. I couldn’t help myself.

“Amber.”

Of course it was Amber. His girlfriend. Homecoming queen to his king. Head cheerleader. Ruler of all things pink and gold. Rich, pretty, owned a car to go along with her license . . . Need I go on?

Not that I cared. “Tell her I said hi.”

“Sure.”

The way he said it told me he wasn’t going to say anything to Amber about me at all, and the truth was, why would he? Amber could care less whether or not I greeted her, which just showed I had better manners. She made me feel petty and jealous and disgusted with myself for feeling same said pettiness and jealousy, but at least I could put that aside and say hello. Point for Kenzie’s maturity.

Levi laughed at something Amber had texted him while I stared at my computer screen, the points of the pentagram blurring together.

“She’s at the soccer game.”

I sat up straight. “What soccer game?”

“The traveling team Adam’s on. They’re playing in Hampton Heights.”

I knew exactly where they were playing because Adam had asked me to come to the game, but I had to say no due to my grounding and my afternoon voice lessons at the theater. “Why is Amber there?”

“Because a lot of our friends are on the team.” He wasn’t looking at me, but was staring at his phone while his fingers moved lightning speed.

“Why aren’t you there?”

Levi glanced up and smiled. “I’m keeping you company.”

I wanted to believe him, I really did. But I couldn’t help but be suspicious. Given that Levi always had a goal, I couldn’t help but think he wasn’t just hanging out with me out of the kindness of his demonic heart.

“Why don’t you try out for the traveling team?” Levi was a newfound star on the West Shore High soccer team. He could defy the laws of gravity with his hang time in the air.

“Those private teams are seriously expensive. I don’t have any money.” He shrugged, like it didn’t matter.

“Oh.” I had never thought about the fact that Levi had no income. He seemed to have a decent collection of clothes, a cell phone, an iPod. I guess I’d never bothered to wonder where his spending money came from. It seemed rude to ask him. But when had that ever stopped me with Levi?

“Where do you get
any
money?”

“Demon bank. But I can only withdraw limited funds.” Levi didn’t sound particularly interested in the conversation, his fingers still moving on his cell. “Hey, Amber says Adam just scored a goal. She’s cheering for him.”

That made me forget all about money and the bizarreness of a demon bank, which sounded way too like a sperm bank for my personal comfort. Amber’s cheering for Adam—what did that mean exactly? I felt a nervous sweat breaking out in gross places. I was at home with Levi and we had kissed. Amber was at the soccer game with Adam, cheering him on. That was all sorts of wrong. We needed to do a little body shuffling and get everything back on track. To normal. Levi and Amber, Kenzie and Adam. That was the way it was supposed to be. I was never all that thrilled about Levi hooking up with Amber, but if Amber was with Levi, then Amber couldn’t be making the moves on my Adam.

So I blurted out, “Don’t tell Amber you kissed me.”

That got his attention. He looked up at me, astonished. “Why the hell would I tell her that?”

“I don’t know. But just don’t. Ever. For any reason.” I slapped my hand on the desk, just in case it wasn’t totally clear that I was saying
Don’t do it
.

“Yeah, like I’m totally stupid. Please. I’m not going to say anything. And it was a mutual thing, by the way.”

“What do you mean?” I chewed the pink tips of my dark hair, worried. Bad enough if Adam found out from me, but if Amber told him? Ugh. That scene was too nauseating to think about.

“We kissed each other,” Levi clarified. “I didn’t kiss you.”

Excuse me? “Yes, you did!” I was there. I remembered with total clarity his head bending down and his lips landing on mine first.

“We both wanted it,” he said stubbornly.

Wanted it? Wanted it? Only after he forced it on me. And that was only because I was caught off guard and my brain had actually probably thought it was Adam kissing me for the first thirty seconds, and then by the point of recognition my body was confused and responding purely physically.

“Whatever, Levi. If you’re not going to tell me how to close this stupid portal, just get out of my room.” Before I threw a pentagram at him.

Chapter Four

Levi was singing “
Sexy Back
” at the top of his lungs as he drove me to the theater in my mom’s minivan. I was searching for some way to stab out my eardrums so I wouldn’t have to hear his screeching anymore when I noticed flashing lights in the rearview mirror.

“How fast are you driving?” We were on the highway and that was definitely a cop behind us, signaling for Levi to pull over.

“Uh . . . Eighty-five.”

“That’s twenty miles over the speed limit. You’re going to get a ticket.” Was that glee in my voice? Oh, yeah. Most definitely.

Levi turned the radio down and glanced in the mirror. “I’ve never gotten a ticket and I’ve been driving for decades.”

Sometimes I had a hard time processing that Levi was half a millennium old, given his maturity was close to that of a baby baboon. He had explained to me that his memories faded with time, leaving him with mostly short-term memories (short term being relative in demon speak) and a frozen maturity. He really was sixteen for all practical purposes. But sometimes when he pointed out his age, it was mildly—okay, severely—disturbing.

As was the fact that he’d been driving for decades and I wasn’t even allowed to swing up to the high school or Target because of the car-through-the-kitchen incident.

“Well, you’re going to get one now. Guess you’ll be dropping by the demon bank for a withdrawal because you’re looking at a hundred-dollar ticket.”

“You don’t have to sound so excited about it.” Levi had pulled over onto the side of the highway and parked the van. He checked his seatbelt, ran his fingers through his short brown hair, and waited for the cop.