The Stone Demon (18 page)

As if on cue, some of the gathered faeries began to call out suggestions.

“Cut off all her hair and make her count each strand!”

“Tie her to the tallest tree and let the Joint-Eaters have her.”

“Put out her eyes and throw them in the Spider House!”

“Chop off her hands and melt them down!”

Shrieking and laughter surrounded her, getting louder as each suggestion grew worse and increasingly bloodthirsty. Donna bit her lip and dug her nails into her palms. She didn’t dare move, but the urge to run filled her like hot needles.

Bodies pressed against her on all sides as the crowd of faeries tried to grab a piece of her; her gloves, her scarf, and especially her hair. Donna lost count of how many times small hands tugged at it, and she yelped when a particularly small faery, about the size of her hand, flew on gossamer wings up onto her shoulder and perched there so she could tie painful knots. When one of them bit her, she started to get angry. That was enough!

“Stop it!” Donna shouted, trying to shake the little creature off.

“Stop it,” they mimicked. “
Stop it
!” The fey voices ech-oed her own voice back at her in mocking, high-pitched tones.

They weren’t really hurting her, beyond the hair-pulling and a few pinches that couldn’t do much through her winter clothes, but Donna was getting mad as each minute ticked by. She didn’t have long to act as it was, and this nonsense was nothing but a waste of her precious time. She figured that was the whole point, but her anxiety levels were almost through the roof already.

None of the more human-sized fey were doing anything to help her, and the queen was no doubt highly amused by it all, so it looked like Donna needed to get rid of the little pests on her own. Fine. She could do that. She’d faced down the Wood Queen, the Skriker, and the king of the demons. She could handle a few pint-sized faeries.

She shook a brown-skinned boy with dragonfly wings off her arm and quickly pulled off her emerald glove.

“Oooh!” the female faery on her shoulder cried, gazing at the brightly colored velvet with wide eyes. “That’s pretty.” At least she’d stopped twisting and tangling Donna’s hair for a moment.

The sun flashed against her swirling tattoos, and everyone suddenly realized that “pretty” could also be potentially deadly. Especially when you’re allergic to cold iron. Donna didn’t want to hurt anyone here, but she would if she had to. The fey who were bugging her seemed more of a nuisance than a genuine threat, but they still had very sharp teeth.

Carefully, making sure that they could all see what she was doing, she took off her other glove and waved her arms around.

The faeries scattered, shrieking.

Donna smiled to herself, then turned to face Queen Isolde.

Fifteen

N
avin placed the bronze head on the dresser beside his bed. Newton didn’t say a single word, but that probably had something to do with the fact that he—it—had been stuffed into Navin’s backpack during the ride home.

Newton’s face—perhaps a representation of a deceased alchemist—was hawklike and watchful, with a hooked nose and a chin that protruded just a bit too much. It was carved to look like it was wearing a strange sort of hat, like a skullcap. The eye sockets were hollow, but when the statue spoke—and it could speak—the eye sockets lit up, as though holographic eyes were being projected onto their surface.

When Navin and Xan had first presented Newton with the escape plan, Newton claimed that the whole process was “undignified.” He’d stopped arguing when Navin told him his only other option was to forget being rescued and stay behind to rot in Simon’s lab. Right on cue, Maker created a brief magical diversion so they could get out of the house. It had been close, but they’d made it out with Newton intact. On the ride back, Maker kept reminding Navin to take the statue-bound demon to Donna, but that wasn’t exactly helpful when Donna seemed to have disappeared.

So Navin had brought the statue up to his room, all the time wondering if he was making a huge mistake. He could hear his sister downstairs, doing the dishes. It was her turn tonight, thankfully, so he hadn’t needed to have that particular argument. Their father would be away at the conference until tomorrow, which was another huge relief.

The uncomfortable silence stretched out as Navin and Newton regarded one another.

Newton blinked.

“You blinked first,” Navin said.

“On purpose,” Newton replied. His bronze lips didn’t move when he spoke, which Navin figured was a blessing.

“Uh-huh.”

“What happens now?” Newton asked.

Navin sat on the bed and thought about it. “You told me that you could help me if I helped you,” he finally said.

“I lied.”

“What?” Navin’s heart thudded. “Why would you do that?”

“Duh,” Newton replied. “Hello? Demon?”

“I know demons lie,” Navin snapped. “Xan told me that already. But … surely you don’t just do it for fun. There has to be a reason behind the lie, right?”

“Lying for fun,” the statue said, dryly. “Now there’s an idea.”

“Be serious. You said you’d help me get a demon tear for Donna if I rescued you from the Frost Estate.” Navin glared at the lump of metal, wondering why this wasn’t feeling more weird than it did. He was getting used to this level of crazy in his life, and he wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or not.

Newton made a sound like he was clearing his throat. “Okay, kid. A deal’s a deal. You got me out, I’ll get you your demon tear.”

“Good,” Navin said.

“Boo.”

Nav frowned. “What?”

“Hoo,” Newton said.

“That’s totally unfunny, man.” Navin didn’t like this thing. It was probably the most annoying …
person
he had ever spoken to, and he would far rather be hanging out with Donna, watching a movie, and eating the incredibly bad popcorn she always made.

“Okay, okay,” Newton said. “For real this time. Here it is … ”

Navin crossed his arms and waited.

“All you have to do is lend me your body.”

Navin let the silence stretch for almost a minute before he could trust himself to speak again. “Have you completely lost your mind? What kind of Kool-Aid has Simon been feeding you? There’s no way I’m lending you my body. Whatever that even means.”

The demon sniffed. “Suit yourself. Looks like you just got yourself a permanent roommate. Where will I be sleeping?”

Navin fixed his eyes on the wall and took a deep breath. Several of them.

“What’s the matter?” Newton asked. “Was it something I said?”

“I’m taking you back to Simon’s lab.”

“Now, wait a minute, let’s not be hasty—”

“I wonder what he’ll do to you when he finds out you
forced
me to help you escape.”

Newton made a spluttering sound. “I did nothing of the kind!
You
came to rescue
me
.”

Navin crossed his arms. “No, I remember
exactly
what happened. You used your demon mojo to control me. I’m sure Xan will back me up.”

For once, it seemed that Newton didn’t have anything to say.

“Don’t go anywhere for a minute,” Nav said. “I’ll just find the Frost Estate’s phone number and give the Magus a call … ”

“Oh, you have no sense of humor, boy.”

Navin sat on the edge of the bed and stared into the statue’s creepy eyes. “I have a great sense of humor. I am
famous
for my sense of humor. I’m Mr. Fucking Humor! But right now, comedy is the last thing on my mind. Understand?”

Newton muttered something that Nav didn’t quite catch. Not that he cared to.

“Do. You. Understand?” he repeated.

The statue actually rolled its eyes, with a creepy clicking sound. “Yes. There’s no need to get snippy.”

“Just so long as we’re clear.”

“But you still need to let me use your body.”

Navin sighed. “Not going to happen, Newton. Pick another option.”

“How do you expect me to provide you with a demon tear if I don’t have a body? I can’t cry you a goddamn river while stuck in a bronze reproduction of an ugly-ass alchemist. A dead one, at that.”

“You can move your eyes,” Navin ventured. “And you’re a demon. Can’t you do some kind of demon magic and produce tears?”

“Demon magic? Have you been eating Ironwood mushrooms? Demons don’t do magic. Demons
curse
. We tear apart reality and feed on the blood of innocents.”

Navin shivered. “Stop being so dramatic. You’re hardly in the position to tear apart reality. You’d have trouble tearing open a packet of potato chips right now.”

Newton made a horrific snorting sound that might have been laughter. “Ah, dear boy. And you said you weren’t interested in comedy. If only I could cry tears of laughter right now, we’d be peachy.”

“Shut up a minute. I’m trying to think.”

“I know. I can hear your two brain cells rubbing to-gether.”

Navin’s hand shot out on pure instinct. He grabbed the bronze statue by its base and hurled it across the room—where it landed on the clothes piled on his desk chair.

Newton began to splutter, but Navin was sick of it. He was suddenly sick of all this craziness, all the secrets and manipulation and deal-making. Maybe he wasn’t so used it after all. That must mean there was hope for him yet.

“No more games,” he said. “You’re going to help me or I’ll take you back to Simon’s lab myself and melt you down in that giant furnace.”

The statue lay on its side on top of a
Star Wars
T-shirt, blinking his eyes. “You wouldn’t dare!”

“I don’t know,” Navin said, leaning back against his pillows and forcing his voice to sound casual. “It looked like it could use all the scrap metal it could get.”

“Even if you
did
manage to melt me, it wouldn’t actually harm me. This lump of useless metal is just a shell. My essence would survive.”

“But in what form? Like … as a ghost?” Navin took a guess. “I bet you can’t just leap into another body on your own, otherwise you’d have done it a long time ago. You could be stuck forever, in a sort of limbo. Right?”

“Put me upright on the desk and we’ll talk. I’ll help you.”

Navin raised an eyebrow. He didn’t believe the demon for a minute, but what choice did he have? This was what Donna needed to make the Philosopher’s Stone—and if she couldn’t do it, who the hell knew what would happen. Not just to her, but to the whole of Ironbridge. To Nisha and his dad.

He wondered where Donna was right now. He hoped she was okay.

“I said,” Newton repeated, “that I will help you.” The demon said it with a flourish, if that was even possible.

“How? I won’t let you hurt anyone.”

“There’s a ritual you might be able to do, with my guidance. It will give me a temporary body—”

“I said I’m not doing anything that hurts another person,” Navin declared. “Just because I’m not letting you use
my
body doesn’t mean we can just use someone else’s. Being human doesn’t work that way, Newton.”

Newton sighed. Loudly. “If you would actually hear me out rather than rudely interrupting me, you would realize that I don’t intend to harm a single living being.”

Navin frowned. “Meaning?”

“Meaning, dear boy, we’ll try putting my consciousness into a
dead
body. Take me to the nearest cemetery—stat!”

Navin stared at the demon. “Will that even work?”

“Who knows? Let’s give it the old college try, eh?”

Could things get any weirder?
Navin suspected that he was about to find out.

Sixteen

I
solde was smiling as she watched Donna chase off the faeries.

“Enough,” she said. “We have had our fun with our unwelcome guest. Now let us find out why she has invaded our lands in the first place.”

Taran shook his dark hair away from his pale face and drew his sword. “The court of Faerie demands to know why you are here.” His words were formal, as would be expected considering his role as the queen’s chief advisor.

Donna swallowed, fear warring with frustration. Frustration won. “Taran, you know very well why I’m here. You were at that so-called ‘negotiation’ in the Halfway realm.”

Isolde raised an eyebrow. “Insolent girl. You will answer the question.”

“Your Highness,” Donna said, ignoring the queen’s knight and representative, “I apologize for arriving unannounced. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I could even do it. I tried, because I had to, and it worked. And yes, now I’m here and I wasn’t invited. But I need the Ouroboros Blade, and I’m not leaving without it.”

Cold silence filled the beautiful meadow. Every faery present was watching Donna as though she were a tasty meal served up especially for them. She felt the weight of their hunger and fear, their curiosity and their hatred. But she forced herself to stand tall and withstand the terrible weight of their regard.

“You did not come alone,” Isolde said. It was a statement rather than a question, so Donna didn’t bother to answer. She didn’t want to incriminate Cathal.

Taran took another step toward her. Bright white sunlight flashed from the blade of his sword. “Who aided you in this quest?”

Cathal stared straight ahead. His face was a golden mask.

Queen Isolde narrowed her eyes. They looked like chips of emerald. “Oh, we know who aided her, don’t we, Cathal?”

“Your Highness,” the golden knight said. He stepped before her and went down on one knee. “I wish to help my son survive in the human world.”

The queen tilted her head and stared at him as though she could see inside his soul.
Perhaps she can
, Donna thought.

Taran’s grip tightened on the hilt of his sword. “You have betrayed us, Cathal.”

“I only showed the Iron Witch a weak spot—a way that might be exploited for entry into our lands. Her power did the rest.” Xan’s father smiled, ever so slightly. “Donna Underwood is powerful enough without my aid.”

Queen Isolde waved them away. “This is of no importance. The Iron Witch is here now and we will hear her offer. We can deal with Cathal later.”