Curse of the Evil Librarian

by Michelle Knudsen

  Peter exhales heavily, then returns to his human shape.

  “So, who was that?” I ask, finally.

  “Old friend,” Peter says. “I used to kind of look out for him, when I was still in the demon world.”

  “An old friend who calls you ‘Great One’?”

  Peter gives me an annoyed look. “You must understand by now that things work differently down there. ‘Friend’ doesn’t mean the same thing in the demon world as it does up here. There isn’t a whole lot of goodwill and generosity of spirit. Only power and protection and exchanges of favors.” He makes a sad face, then adds, a little wistfully, “I think he really missed me. Poor little guy.”

  “So what was all that about the amulet?” Ryan asks.

  Yes. Important question.

  “I have heard of such things from time to time,” Peter says slowly. “Items of great power, used to amplify or increase a demon’s strength or talents. It explains a lot. Like how Mr. Gabriel was able to punch through to our world and plant his curse.” His expression is grim. “It’s definitely not good news. Items like that are rare. Their creation is one of the few things that counts as true criminal activity in the demon world, because of how they can upset the balance of power. Kings and queens aren’t generally fans of things that can give others the strength to unseat them. They were outlawed to prevent precisely what Mr. Gabriel is trying to do right now.”

  “But he still doesn’t have a body, right?” I ask.

  “Right, but that’s less limiting in the demon world than you might think. I mean in the short term, anyway. He’s still got most of his abilities. And if he’s really even stronger than he was before . . .”

  “So . . . okay, just trying to get all this straight,” Ryan says. “His loyal friends, who saved him from dying all the way in the first place, broke him out of wherever the queen had him locked up, and they gave him this powerful amulet, and then he killed them and . . . and fed them to it?”

  “Yes, pretty much. Most of them, anyway.”

  “And so now he’s super strong, but still has no body. But that isn’t really holding him back from doing major damage to the queen or hiding out in people’s lockers to put horrible curses on them.”

  “Well, to fight the queen, he would need some kind of physical form. But he may have borrowed one of his supporters’ bodies for that. Or else his supporters damaged her on their way to free him. That seems more likely, actually.”

  “Okay, but regardless,” I break in, “he is now free and super powerful and dangerous. And I am supposed to go have a chat with him to find out what he wants in exchange for not killing my boyfriend, and also, how the hell did the queen let him get loose when everyone swore to us that that would never, ever happen?” I realize I have screamed this last part when I notice how Ryan and Peter are both staring at me. I sit down shakily in one of the chairs.

  “Oh, God,” I say in a much, much smaller voice. “I can’t believe I have to go back down there.” I put my face in my hands to prevent the panic beetles from spilling out of my eyes.

  Ryan and Peter are both at my side in an instant. My face is still in my hands, but I can totally picture the awkward moment when they look at each other and then Peter backs off and Ryan sinks down beside me.

  “You don’t have to go,” Ryan says. “I’ll go. Or . . . Peter and I will go.”

  “Wait, what?” Peter asks.

  But I’m already shaking my head. “He doesn’t want you. He wants me. He wants revenge, and he also probably wants to use my power for something.” I take a breath and look up at him. “But thank you for offering. God, I wish I could take you up on it. Except, you know, I wouldn’t.”

  “Yeah,” Ryan says. “I know.”

  “But, hey, we’ll all go together! It will be like a road trip. Except, you know, in hell.”

  Ryan puts his hands on either side of my face and looks deeply into my eyes. “You’re about to completely lose it, aren’t you?”

  “Possibly,” I agree. “This is just really not how I envisioned today going, you know?”

  “Yeah,” Ryan says. “Trust me, I know.” He lets go of my face so he can stare at his palm again.

  There is a sudden displacement of air in the room, and then Aaron is standing in the containment circle.

  “Aaron!” Ryan, Peter, and I all shout in unison.

  He winces. “Shh! Not so loud.” He looks just as awful and blood covered as I remember.

  I stand up and lunge toward him. Peter grabs my arm and yanks me back before I can cross the circle’s edge. Which I guess is a good thing. Except that I really want to throttle Aaron, I have suddenly realized. I want to lock my hands around his throat and squeeze as hard as I can. I want to hurt him in some deep and significant way for not preventing this catastrophe from occurring.

  “What happened?” I growl at him. “How did he get out? This is exactly what you promised us would not be possible!”

  “Oh, so now you want to talk to me,” Aaron grumbles.

  “Do not try my patience right now, Aaron. Besides, weren’t you about to beg me to help you? Isn’t your beloved mistress at death’s door at this very moment?”

  “She is not at death’s door!” Aaron shouts. “She’s going to be fine! She —”

  “Aaron,” Peter breaks in gently. He releases my arm and takes a step closer to the circle. “Tell us what happened.”

  Aaron looks at Peter, and all his bravado seems to dissipate at once. He sinks to the floor, his voice cracking as he speaks. “It’s my fault. I didn’t . . . I didn’t realize. . . .”

  Peter sits down on the floor on the outside of the circle across from Aaron. Ryan steps up beside me, but we both remain silent. It seems clear that Peter is the guy for this job.

  “He was safe. We had him contained in so many layers of protection that there should have been no way anyone could get him out. But then . . . I got distracted.”

  “But you weren’t responsible for keeping him contained, surely . . . ?”

  “No.” Aaron shakes his head. “No, of course not. But there was this demon — they come sometimes, you know, to talk to me. Because they’re curious about humans, or because they want to see about trading favors with someone so close to the queen, and usually it’s fine. I can see what they’re after and decide whether to deal with them or not. But this one . . .” He stops and shakes his head again. “I got so caught up, I forgot to pay attention. And I had no idea he was one of Mr. Gabriel’s. He got inside my head. I mean he literally got inside my head. I’d let my defenses down, and he . . . well, he got in. And I knew all the things about how Mr. Gabriel was contained, of course. She trusted me with that information. She trusted me and I didn’t keep it safe and now she’s . . .” He stops and looks up at me with wide, desperate eyes. “Please. Please. You have to help her.”

  “Mr. Gabriel was here,” Peter says. “Do you know that? He marked Ryan with some kind of time bomb to get Cyn to go down and deal.”

  “Of course he did.” Aaron turns toward me again. “He wants your help, too. But you can’t. If you give him what he wants, he’ll kill us all.”

  “If I don’t give him what he wants, he’ll kill Ryan.”

  “Better him than all of us,” Aaron says. He looks apologetically at Ryan. “Sorry, but you know it’s true. The needs of the many . . .”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Ryan waves this away. “What can you do to actually be helpful?”

  Aaron turns suddenly and looks over his shoulder.

  Then he vanishes.

  “That wasn’t really what I meant,” Ryan says.

  There’s a kind of rushing, roaring sound, and then the circle so recently vacated by Aaron is filled with a mass of teeth and tentacles and evil-looking bloodshot eyes.

  I scream before I can help myself and fall back hard against the floor. Ryan rushes over to me while Peter shouts “Crap! Crap!” and finally does something to close the containment circle. The demon disappears in a flash of ma
gic energy.

  “Sorry,” Peter gasps. “Sorry! My fault!”

  “Yeah,” I say, still trying to catch my breath. “Please don’t let that happen again.”

  Ryan helps me up and we all grab chairs.

  Then we all sit in silence for a few moments.

  “So,” Ryan says finally. “The demon world is going to be, like, full of those things, isn’t it? I mean that thing that showed up after Aaron. Somehow I hadn’t really been thinking about that part.”

  “Well,” Peter says, “you won’t be wading through them like grass in a field. I mean, they have lives and stuff. Most of them will be busy doing other things.”

  “Just not the ones who want to kill us for Mr. Gabriel,” Ryan says.

  “Right. Although since he killed a lot of those demons already, there shouldn’t be too many of those. So that’s something. But we’ll need to be on the lookout for other random demons who might just happen to notice us and want to kill us for no reason in particular. And also for anyone who’s not currently a supporter of Mr. Gabriel but who sees which way the wind is blowing and now thinks they might be able to curry favor with him by doing bad things to us. And —”

  “Stop,” Ryan says. “Please.”

  “Okay,” I say. “So how do we even get there? If Mr. Gabriel really wants me to come, shouldn’t he have, you know, sent a car, or something?”

  “I can get us there,” Peter says reluctantly.

  “Great,” I say. Although, of course, it’s not great. It sucks. I don’t want to go back. But there is no sense thinking about what I want and don’t want. I know what I have to do. “Do you need to do anything to prepare, or can we go anytime?”

  “We can go anytime.”

  “Great,” I say again. (It’s still not actually great.) “Then can you please go and use your demony influence to get Annie, William, Leticia, and Diane out of their classes without any teachers making a fuss and bring them here? Then we can fill them in before we hit the road. I can’t leave them in the dark about this. I promised I wouldn’t.”

  Peter nods and heads out. Ryan looks at me.

  “So we’re going right away, huh?”

  “What would be the point in waiting?”

  “To, you know, put off the time when we have to go to a terrible, scary place.”

  I smile at him. “I wish we could. But that thing on your hand is already spreading.”

  “What?” He stares down at his palm again.

  “I saw it when you helped me up before. Tiny red line stretching toward your wrist.”

  “Well, crap.”

  “Yeah.”

  To avoid having to think or talk any further about what’s happening or what we’re about to do, and since we seem to be done with the demon summoning for the time being, Ryan and I move the furniture back into its original position. Before long, we hear the library doors open, followed by footsteps and voices. Peter and the others appear from around the bookshelves.

  “Peter already told us the whole story on the way here,” Leticia says.

  Annie comes over and stands in front of me, crossing her arms. “We’re coming with you.”

  Everyone is looking at me. I consider my options carefully.

  Annie has her stubborn face on. They all do, actually. Well, except Ryan and Peter, who have their curious faces on instead as they wait to see what I will do. My first impulse is to ask Peter to give them all some kind of temporary paralysis so that we can make our escape without any further argument or interference. But that would not be very diplomatic of me.

  “I don’t think that’s really the best idea,” I say finally.

  “That’s too bad,” Annie says. “You can’t make us stay behind.”

  “Well, actually I’m pretty sure I can. I mean, if I ask Peter nicely not to bring you with us when we go.”

  She raises her eyebrows. “Then we’ll start looking into ways of following on our own. Aaron’s old bookstore is still there. We could go and do research and start experimenting wildly with dark magic and arcane practices that we don’t even begin to understand.”

  “Annie, that would be really stupid. And you know it.”

  “So don’t put me in a position where I have to do that.”

  I look around at the others in exasperation. “Are you all insane? Why would you possibly want to come? I don’t even want to come! I’m only going because I have to.”

  Annie hasn’t moved. “You only have to because of me. If I had never gotten involved with Mr. Gabriel in the first place, you would never have had to do any of this.”

  “But that wasn’t your fault. He brainwashed you!”

  “Guys,” Diane breaks in, “none of that really matters. That’s all in the past. What matters is what we can do right now. And we want to help you, Cyn.”

  I shake my head. “It won’t be like it was at camp. That was just two demons. And only one of them had an actual body. And we were ready, and we had a plan. . . . This time . . . this time there is no plan. We’re going because if we don’t, then Ryan will die, and then Mr. Gabriel will probably do some other terrible thing to try to get me down there.”

  “Which is exactly why you need all the help you can get!” Annie insists.

  “Annie, he’s going to be there. We are going to talk to him. Do you really want to be present for that?”

  Her expression goes a little twitchy, but she still doesn’t look away. “Of course not. I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to go anywhere near where he is. But I don’t want to sit up here pretending everything is normal while you’re down there without me. And maybe I can help! I know him better than anyone else does. I mean, yes, it was mostly lies and supernatural coercion, but” — her tongue seems to stumble over itself, and now she does look away — “but not all of it.”

  I look at Leticia, feeling a little desperate. “And you? What’s your excuse?”

  She shrugs. “We’re your friends.”

  I sit down and put my face in my hands again.

  “This is what I think,” I hear Ryan say. I raise my head again so I can see him. “I think I get to decide on this one, because I’m the one with the horrible demon curse embedded in his hand. And I think only Cyn, Peter, and I should go. Annie, I understand why you want to come, I really do, but think about it. What if bringing you down there turns out to play directly into Mr. Gabriel’s plans? What if we can’t stop him from grabbing you? Let us go and figure out what he wants.”

  “But we know what he wants,” Annie says. “He wants me. And he wants to be the king of the demons.”

  William puts an arm around her. “Annie, maybe you should listen to them.”

  She looks mournfully at him. “I thought you were going to be supportive!”

  He looks pretty mournful himself, but he stands his ground. “I understand why you want to help. I do. But this doesn’t sound like the best way to do it. What they’re saying makes sense. This guy is serious bad news; you’ve told me that yourself. It doesn’t sound like a good idea to walk willingly back into his life. Afterlife. Whatever.”

  “But I can’t just sit here doing nothing!”

  “I think you can,” William says. “At least just for right now. Wait until they find out a little more information. Maybe you’ll be able to help later in some specific way. Some really important, valuable way. You don’t need to go rushing in right this second and maybe blow your chance.”

  “Yes,” Ryan says, shooting William a grateful glance. “If Mr. Gabriel still wants you, then bringing you down to him is the last thing we should do. If nothing else, as long as you’re not there, you’re a potential bargaining chip. I mean not really, obviously — but if he thinks there’s a chance we’d give you up somehow, it would give us time to try to figure something out.”

  “He also wants revenge, though,” Diane says. “What if when you show up he just kills all three of you on the spot?”

  “I don’t think that will happen,” Peter says. “He
needs Cyn for something. Something only someone with her ability can do. Otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered with the mark on Ryan’s palm. He would have just killed him, to punish her. If he had strength and freedom enough to cast the curse spell, I think he could have cast a deadlier one.”

  Something just occurred to me. “Wait. Ryan, you said you saw Mr. Gabriel through the portal. But if he’s still only in spirit form, how — ?”

  “It was just a projection,” Peter explains. “He could make it look like anything. And he would have wanted Ryan to recognize him, so he could tell you what happened.”

  Leticia raises her hand. I realize she’s the only one who hasn’t been super vocal about coming with us. “Can I ask a question? Even if you’re right that Mr. Gabriel needs Cyn’s power for something, so that’s why he’s not just killing everyone right away — we’re all clear that he’s going to try to do that eventually, right? That once he gets whatever he wants, he will at that point start killing everyone Cyn cares about?”

  “Not if we can stop him,” I say.

  No one looks especially confident about that potentiality. I’m sure I don’t, either.

  “And why exactly do you have to go down there right now without any time to think or plan?” Leticia continues. “Can’t you, like, at least get some weapons or something?”

  I open my mouth to explain why that’s not possible. And then I realize that I have no idea why it’s not. This all feels so urgent, has felt so urgent since the second I saw Ryan’s hand, but is it really? Could we take a little more time? I turn to look inquiringly at Peter.

  “The kind of weapons we could get up here wouldn’t be any help,” Peter says. “And we do have to hurry. I don’t know exactly what Mr. Gabriel’s curse will do to Ryan, but I do know that placing that mark was like lighting a fuse. The clock is ticking.”

  “Okay!” Ryan says abruptly. “Enough talking. I stand by my resolution that I get to decide who goes, and I have decided. Now let’s please just get this over with.”

  “Okay,” I say, standing up.

  “Okay,” says Leticia.

  Diane twists her mouth to the side, but then nods. “Not okay,” she says. “But I guess I accept it.”