“Sorry, won’t happen again,” Ryan tells him. He glances at me and I stick my phone back in my bag. Then he turns back to the kid. “Now go away, please.”
“What are you doing back here? Does Mrs. Davenforth — ?”
“Study group,” Peter says with peculiar articulation. “We have permission.”
“Oh!” the monitor kid says, instantly full of cheer and free of suspicion. “Sorry to have disturbed you, then. Let me know if you need anything! I’ll just be back at the circ desk.” He smiles brightly at all of us, lingering a few extra seconds on Peter, and then retreats back out of sight.
“Did you — ?” Ryan begins.
“Yup,” Peter says. “Now tell me what’s going on.”
We tell him the very little that we know. When we mention Ryan’s hand, Peter steps forward and grabs Ryan’s wrist.
“Hey!” Ryan protests.
“Quiet.” Peter stares solemnly at Ryan’s palm for several very long seconds. “This is really not good.”
“What is it?” I ask him.
Peter blows out a long, slow breath. He lets go of Ryan’s wrist and doesn’t seem to notice the way Ryan wipes it against his jeans as though to scrape off whatever Peter-germs it might have caught during that brief contact.
“It’s . . . a curse. That’s probably the best word for it. A mark of demon magic that’s been, um, embedded and set to ignite.”
“Ignite?” Ryan asks in alarm.
“Not literally. Well, probably not.”
“Great,” Ryan mutters, staring at his palm again.
“Okay,” I say. “Okay, so how do we remove it? What do we do?”
Peter looks at me, and my heart breaks a little at the expression on his face.
“Only Mr. Gabriel can undo it,” he says. “I’m so sorry, Cyn.”
The panic beetles are ecstatic, but I refuse to acknowledge them. “There must be some way to . . .” I trail off as he shakes his head.
“There’s not. This is an ultimatum. He chose Ryan because he knows you’ll do anything for him. And unlike Annie, he’s expendable, at least as far as Mr. Gabriel is concerned. You have to go down there. If you don’t, if you don’t go down and find out what his terms are for undoing the curse, then whatever bad thing he’s implanted in your boyfriend’s hand is eventually going to fulfill its evil purpose in a drastic and horrible way.”
“Down where?” Ryan asks. He knows, though. We all know.
“He’s not going to deal with you up here,” Peter says, answering Ryan’s question but only looking at me. “You have to go to him.”
The stupid (but clearly not so stupid after all) tiny fearful part of me is feeling entirely vindicated right now. There is a big feeling of I told you so coming from deep inside my soul. I give myself one short moment to indulge in silent outrage at the incredible unfairness, to feel complete and utter fury that Mr. Gabriel is doing this to me, to us, yet again.
And then I make all the vindicated and outraged and also really, really sad parts of me shut up, and I try to prepare myself for what is going to come next. Because of course Peter (and therefore Mr. Gabriel) is right, and I will do whatever it takes to save Ryan.
Which means I have to go back to the demon world. Much sooner than I’d hoped. And under far worse circumstances than I ever expected.
I am sure it goes without saying how much this totally, totally sucks.
“Screw that,” Ryan says. “You’re not going down there, Cyn. We’ll . . . we’ll figure out something. . . .”
“I’m telling you,” Peter says, “there’s nothing you can do except to find out what Mr. Gabriel wants.”
Ryan squints up at him. “Yeah, well, I don’t entirely trust your motives on this, sorry.”
Peter opens his mouth to give some angry and indignant reply, but I don’t have any patience for this right now.
“Stop it,” I tell them. “Just . . . everyone shut up a minute.”
Miraculously, they do as I say.
Which leaves me alone with my thoughts and the teeming multitudes of panic beetles churning away in my guts.
Practical. I need to be practical. I have to go, that’s accepted, okay. I mean, not okay, obviously, it’s the opposite of okay, but since it appears to be nonnegotiable, I have to suck it up and move on. Which is not so easy as I’m trying to make it sound, but whatever. Just . . . just keep going, Cyn.
Do I have any chance of going down there and coming back up alive again?
I don’t know.
What would help increase my odds of survival?
Peter.
Even if he’s not the super-strong fighting kind of demon like Mr. Gabriel and his brother and Principal Kingston and Ms. Královna and pretty much all the other demons I have encountered thus far, he’s still a demon. He knows things about the demon world, and about other demons, and . . . and also I really just don’t want to go down there alone. Especially when it appears I won’t even have Aaron or the queen around to be at least vaguely on my side when I do.
Aaron! Right. I turn to Peter. “Can you try to contact Aaron? If I have to go down there, I want to try to get a better sense of what the hell is going on before I do.”
“I can try,” he says. “If it’s as bad as it seems, he might be hard to find.”
“Cyn,” Ryan says. “You can’t . . .”
“I have to. You know that. I can’t just sit here and wait to see what horrible thing Mr. Gabriel is going to do to you.”
“But it’s a setup! I mean, this” — he waves his hand around — “is designed to get you to go down and put yourself in his hands or claws or whatever. You can’t just walk right into his trap!”
“Yes, I can. I’ll go down, and I’ll see what the situation is, and then . . . and then I’ll figure out how to save you and not die.”
He glares at me. “You’re so irritating sometimes. Do you know that?”
“Yeah, well, you knew what you were getting into when you decided to date me, mister.”
“Fine. Then I’m coming with you.”
I blink at him, momentarily without a comeback. It’s true that I desperately don’t want to go alone, but Ryan will be defenseless down there.
But then, if Mr. Gabriel wanted to kill him, he probably could have just done it instead of planting whatever slow-burning curse he decided to go with instead.
But then, there are like a million other demons who don’t have a secret plan involving threatening Ryan to get me to do what they want, and they might kill him just for fun.
But . . .
But . . .
But I need Peter to come with me, if he’ll do it. And there’s no way I can refuse Ryan’s offer and then take Peter. Ryan would never forgive me.
Why do boys always have to make things even more complicated than they already are?
Speaking of which, Peter has apparently decided that the best response to Ryan’s declaration is derisive laughter.
“What are you talking about?” he asks when he finishes laughing. “You won’t be any help to her down there. It’s the demon world. It is full of demons. What are you going to do, sing at them?”
Ryan is standing; I’m not sure when that happened exactly, but he is now at full height and making every use of the few inches he has on Peter. He takes a step toward him, the better position from which to look down at his adversary.
“I don’t know,” Ryan says in a frosty, controlled tone that I have rarely heard him use before. “But if you think I’m going to just sit up here cowering in fear while my girlfriend goes off to the demon world alone to try to save me, you’re even stupider than I thought.”
“Oh, okay, so you’ll go down there and cower in fear instead? Good plan.”
“At least I’ll be there! At least I can try to help her! Unlike some pretend-human guys I could point to.”
“Actually,” I break in, not wanting to let this go on any further. Both boys turn slowly to look at me. There is an uncomfortable
silence.
“You can’t be serious,” Ryan says, understanding what I am about to say.
Peter says nothing. He has grown very quiet and thoughtful as he watches my face.
“Ryan,” I say gently, “I think it’s pretty safe to say that we need all the help we can get. If Peter is willing, we need to bring him with us.”
I turn to Peter, who still hasn’t said anything. I can see that he is struggling with wanting to show up (or at least match) Ryan in the bravery department, while also wanting to never have to go back to the demon world ever, ever again.
“I know, I know the last thing you want is to return after you worked so hard to escape,” I tell him in the same gentle voice. “But surely it’s in your own best interest to help us put down Mr. Gabriel for good, right? The demon queen is the one who granted you your freedom. If Mr. Gabriel comes into power, couldn’t he take it away?”
Peter looks very unhappy as he reflects on the sense in what I am saying.
Ryan looks very unhappy, too.
I decide one more little push is in order. For both of them.
“We could really use your help, Peter,” I say quietly. And then, shamelessly: “I could really use your help.” And then, with just the right amount of reluctance: “But, I mean, if you can’t, of course I understand. Maybe there’s some way you can help from up here.”
Ryan folds his arms across his chest, his mouth twisting up into a smirk.
Peter glares at Ryan, then looks at me. I hate asking him to do this, but I don’t feel like I really have a choice. As he pointed out, I’ll do whatever it takes to save Ryan. And Mr. Gabriel probably really will come after Peter once he’s done with the rest of us. He’s not likely to have forgotten the role Peter played in his defeat over the summer.
“He has no idea what any of this really means, Cyn,” Peter says, gesturing at Ryan. “He can’t even imagine what it’s going to be like.”
“Well, apparently he’s about to find out. Do you really want to send us down there alone and unprotected?”
Peter makes a frustrated sound deep in his throat. “But I can’t protect you! You know I don’t have that kind of strength. I’m not that kind of demon.”
Ryan starts to say something snarky (I can tell the tone just by his quick intake of breath), but I hold out a hand to silence him and take a step closer to Peter. “Then be the kind of demon that you are. The non-evil kind, remember? The kind who has friends and people he cares about.”
“I don’t care about Ryan.”
Ryan huffs a laugh behind me. I don’t turn around. I just keep looking at Peter.
“All right,” he says finally. “But just to be clear, I’m doing this for you, Cyn. Not for him.”
“Fine. And Peter . . . thank you.”
Peter gazes at me for another long moment, then abruptly looks away. “Well, first things first. Let’s see if we can reach Aaron. I’m going to go convince our friend at the desk there that he has pressing business out in the hall, keeping everyone else out of the library for a while.”
“Check for Mrs. Davenforth, too,” I tell him. “She might be in the back office.”
He gives me a thumbs-up as he walks away.
I turn to see Ryan looking at me with a guarded expression. “I suppose I can’t be annoyed about you flirting with him if you’re doing it to save my life,” he says.
“I wasn’t flirting! I was . . . um . . .”
“Playing on his affections?”
“No, that’s not —”
“Shamelessly manipulating —”
“Hey! Enough, all right? Trying to save you, remember?”
He sighs. “Yeah.” He looks down at his palm again.
Dammit.
I walk over and put my arms around him. “I’m so sorry, Ryan. If it weren’t for me, you’d never have been dragged into all this demon stuff in the first place.”
“Sure, but then think of all the fun I’d have missed out on.”
“Yeah, tons of fun,” I say morosely.
“Hey,” he says, giving me a squeeze. “If it weren’t for you, Mr. Gabriel would have killed everyone in the whole school last year. Including me.”
“That’s true.”
“I’m sure you’ll figure out how to save me again. I’m not worried.”
I laugh, despite everything. “I will try to be worthy of your confidence.”
Peter returns, clapping his hands briskly. “All right, cuddle-bunnies. Ready to do this?”
I reluctantly extract myself from Ryan’s embrace. The three of us spend a few minutes dragging the furniture out of the way to make a clear workspace, and then Peter gets to work on the containment circle. I can see the trace of demonic energy he’s using to draw it. Ryan can’t, but he’s familiar with this procedure from when we watched Peter summon Aaron at camp over the summer. Which suddenly seems like a million years ago.
When he’s done, Peter sits down and closes his eyes. We wait anxiously. Ryan reaches over and silently takes my hand in his non-cursed one.
Nothing happens.
Peter opens his eyes and frowns.
“No luck?” I ask.
“Let me . . . let me try again.”
We wait. Still nothing.
“Damn.” He looks up at us. “I can’t find him.”
“I don’t understand,” Ryan says. “I thought summoning a demon — or, well, an Aaron — was, you know, like some kind of compulsion. That he had to appear when you called him.”
“Not exactly,” Peter says, and I am pleased to see that they are both being civil to each other again. “It’s only like that when the summoner is stronger than the summonee, or if you have some sort of special talisman or other helpful device.”
“Aaron is stronger than you?” I ask, surprised. “He’s not even a real demon.”
“No, but his association with the demon queen gives him certain special advantages. Her protection, even in small doses, is pretty significant. Among other things, it makes him harder to summon against his will.”
“But he wanted to talk to me. Why would he resist now?”
“Based on what you saw last time, he’s probably running from someone. If he’s trying to hide, letting himself be summoned would expose him. I think we’re going to have to wait until he’s ready to try again to come to us.”
Dammit. Waiting feels like the last thing we should be doing.
“However . . .” Peter looks suddenly thoughtful. “Ryan has given me an idea.”
He closes his eyes again, then opens them and looks at us. Again. “Whatever happens, just play along, okay? I’m going to have to, uh, do a little performing.”
We nod and wait to see what he’s going to do.
This time when he closes his eyes, his expression changes to something harder and darker than I’ve ever seen on him before. He breathes in and out once, slowly, and then his outline starts to rearrange itself. He doesn’t fully transform into his demon form, but he somehow becomes a bit more horse- and dragon-like, and his enormous demon-antlers stretch up and outward from his head. He seems to concentrate for a moment, and then suddenly a figure appears in the middle of the circle.
It’s not Aaron. It’s not anyone or anything I’ve ever seen before. It’s . . . a very tiny demon.
It looks around, clearly terrified. It’s about the size of a cat, and seems to be sort of half reptile, half ball of fluff. When it sees Peter, it throws itself facedown on the reading-area carpet, tiny arms stretched out in supplication.
“Great One!” it squeaks.
“Cower before me, insignificant worm!” Peter bellows in a voice that sounds nothing like his usual playful tenor. Ryan and I both take an involuntary step backward.
“Wh-what is your bidding, O Master? I live only to serve —”
“You lie! You have forgotten me in my absence!”
“No!” The tiny demon tries to press itself even farther into the library floor. “No, Great One! I faithfully await you
r return!”
I want to look at Ryan to see what he is making of this exchange, but I cannot tear my eyes away from the tiny demon. It clearly worships Peter as some kind of god.
“Prove your faithfulness, worthless one! Tell me what you know of what has happened to the demon queen.”
“O yes, Master!” The demonling seems thrilled with this request, bouncing slightly against the floor in its enthusiasm to answer. “I can tell you much, for I have seen with my own eyes! Her rival — the John Gabriel who was captured — has escaped. He has damaged the beautiful queen and fled away to safety. There was a great battle, and many terrible demons fought and died! The capital writhes in flames, and there is glorious confusion and alarm!”
“Does the queen still live?”
“Yes, Great One! But she is gravely injured, and may yet die. Her consort flits about, seeking assistance, but most refuse to take sides until the outcome is more clear.”
“And the John Gabriel — who helped him escape?”
“Those same demons who saved his life essence after he lost the battle for the throne. His loyal supporters who still want him to be king.” Suddenly the demon lets out a high-pitched, near-hysterical peal of laughter. “They brought him an amulet to make him strong! One to fill with the souls of his enemies to use their strength as his own. But the John Gabriel could not wait — he slew all but a few of his supporters and used their souls instead. Now he is stronger than he has ever been before! But he still has not regained his physical form. That is all that prevents him from ending the queen and taking her reign for himself.”
There is a moment of near silence in which Ryan and I barely breathe and the tiny demon gasps and trembles in the center of the circle. Then Peter says, “You have pleased me, tiny one. I may call on you again. You will earn much favor if you have more to tell me at that time. Especially more regarding this amulet.”
“Yes! Yes, Great One!” the tiny demon squeaks in apparent ecstasy. “I will find out all I can! You will see! I am your most faithful servant!”
“Go then, faithful one,” Peter says, and the tiny demon vanishes.
Curse of the Evil Librarian Page 4
