Demon High

by Lori Devoti

  I shot her a look over my shoulder. I hadn’t told her not to ask questions, but I’d stupidly assumed this would be my game to lead.

  When I glanced back at Theodore he was gone. In his place stood a man with obviously curly hair that had been slicked flat on top and parted in the middle. He was wearing a tux similar to the one Theodore had worn, but he had an added accessory—shackles.

  I frowned. Something about him looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him.

  “Who is it?” Brittany asked.

  The man in the circle held out his hands and shook his head. “Only the biggest celebrity of all. Here, what about this?”

  The man’s face erupted into flames.

  Brittany shrieked. I spun and grabbed her by the wrist. “Remember what I said.” My hand was shaking as badly as she was, but I knew I couldn’t lose it, knew neither of us could.

  Her eyes moved in her face, back to the man burning like a wax figure behind me. She took a breath through open lips then nodded.

  “Too much?” The man spoke through the flames.

  I forced myself to look at him, to pretend the blue blaze engulfing his head was one-hundred-percent normal. “Way, and I think you may be a bit out of touch. When did you die, Theodore?” I knew the answer, but I needed to keep asking him questions. Each one he answered reinforced my position of control.

  “1924.”

  The right year. I still had control, or he was at least pretending I did.

  The flames flickered for a second then disappeared, and Theodore was back in front of us, unscarred and shackle free.

  I let out a breath.

  “What year is it?” he asked.

  “Two thous—,” Brittany began.

  I cleared my throat. “That doesn’t matter. The question is, can you imitate anyone?”

  He tilted his head as if considering. “What’s in it for me?”

  Another question.

  I faced Brittany. It was a bold move, turning my back on a demon, but I needed to look confident. Plus, Theodore’s explosion into fire had shaken me; I needed a moment to remind myself that I was in control.

  “Demons pulled into a circle have to do as the person calling them ask,” I said to Brittany, but to myself too.

  “Ha,” Theodore scoffed behind me. “What’s the punch line?”

  “If the demon refuses, the person who called them can refuse to release them,” I continued. Mother and the book had both said this.

  “You planning on living in this cow pasture?” Theodore asked from behind me.

  “There are other tricks too…” Calm or as calm as I could be, I turned back to the demon. “I’m hoping it won’t be necessary to use them. I’m thinking you have as much to gain from what we have planned as we do.”

  He fluttered his hand. A leather wing chair appeared behind him. He sat, one ankle propped on the opposite knee. “And what do two uneducated girls have to offer the greatest vaudevillian of all time?”

  I smiled. We were in full game mode now. I felt a surge of anticipation. I shoved my hands in my pockets and walked a few steps to the right, pretended I hadn’t heard his question. This I suddenly realized is what my mother had felt, the high that kept bringing her back to the circle.

  I focused on my demon. “What did you sell your soul for, Theodore? Can you imagine what would it feel like to play before an audience again? To hear them laugh? Cry? To be their one and only focus?”

  He leaned his head against the overstuffed chair’s back. “That’s how I got into this to start with.”

  “But I’m no demon, and I’m not asking for an eternal commitment. This gig will be night to night.”

  “Night to night?” He studied the back of his hand for a second.

  Calling a demon was always night to night, time to time. Once you let them go, you had no control over getting them to come back. They could, in theory, figure out a way to avoid your next call, but I was betting Theodore wouldn’t—that he wouldn’t want to. Once he was the center of attention again, he’d eat it up.

  Just like I was eating up the thrill of our negotiations and the sense of power that came with them.

  “Can I be myself?” he asked.

  “No,” Brittany muttered before I could stop her. Luckily, her answer was short and negative. Not the type to offer Theodore much power in return.

  Still, I watched him with extra care as I worded my next sentence. “Today’s audience doesn’t appreciate the same humor audiences did in your day. You want to pull in the big crowds, don’t you?”

  He didn’t hesitate this time. “Of course.”

  I couldn’t hide my smile, but there was no reason to, I’d won.

  We spent another hour discussing details, how to bring Theodore up-to-date on today’s pop culture, when his preferred times to be called were, etc. I planned on being in control, but I also had no reason to antagonize him. If he wanted Mondays off, who was I to question it?

  “Only hecklers show on Mondays,” he explained. His gaze darted to Brittany.

  I shrugged. The reason really didn’t matter.

  Finally, I picked up the athame. “We’ll be back in two nights, and we’ll bring your research materials. How long will it take you to review them?”

  He smiled, a cold knowing smile that for a few seconds had me doubting my choice, but then it was gone and he was back to the somewhat annoying, but harmless vaudeville star. “Your time? Twenty seconds, and that’s with a thirty minute nap.” He laughed.

  Again, I missed his joke, but it wasn’t important. What was important was that he could apparently absorb anything we threw at him—as soon as we threw it.

  “How about DVDs. You have a way to watch them?” This from Brittany who had stayed behind the fence the entire time.

  He raised a brow. “Actually, if you’ve read the material, or seen the performer, that’s enough. I can read your thoughts, if you’re willing. Just step into the circle.”

  A chill passed over my skin, reminding me Theodore was still a demon and still dangerous. I swallowed. “We can bring a player too.” Without waiting for him to reply, I muttered the dousing words and cut the tip of the burning candle off with the athame. An inch of candle toppled to the ground. Hot wax spilled over my hand. It hurt like hell, but I didn’t flinch, didn’t even look up until I’d shoved the blade into the ground and muttered the last few call-breaking words.

  When I did look up, Theodore was gone.

  I’d successfully completed my first demon call, and I’d never felt more alive.

  o0o

  By the time Brittany dropped me off, it was almost two in the morning. I let myself in the front door with my key. The house was quiet. Too pumped up to sleep, I went to the kitchen and stared into the refrigerator for a few minutes. Nothing but two hard boiled eggs stared back at me. Finally, I scrounged around and came up with a half-eaten Hershey bar and a spoonful of Nana’s peanut butter. Chomping both down, I headed for the stairs.

  I was careful, skipping the third and fourth steps which had squeaked as long as I could remember, but I realized now were showing signs of real wear. There was a crack in one and a rusty nail had worked its way out of the other.

  I stomped on the offending bit of metal, trying to shove it back into place with the sole of my tennis shoe.

  “Lucinda, is that you?” Nana.

  I could hear her slippers shuffling over the wood floors. I scurried to the top of the stairs before her door creaked open.

  I was hustling toward the bathroom, intent on trying to convince her I hadn’t been out, just had an early morning snack and potty call, when I heard her door slam back against the wall.

  All thoughts of trying to cover my late night excursion fled. I raced to her room. She was lying on the floor, her upper body angled against the door, her favorite burgundy housecoat bunched around her waist. I dropped to my knees.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Nothing.” She put her hand on the floor an
d tried to push herself up. The bones of her hand were too obvious, her skin almost white against her bedroom’s dark green carpeting. I grabbed her by the shoulder and stared into her eyes. She shook me off, but it was a weak effort and I could tell she’d worked for the energy to do that.

  “I told you it’s nothing. Just stood up too quick, is all. Got light-headed. Question is, where have you been?” She narrowed her steel-blue eyes and tried to look intimidating, but all I could see was her lying there, in her worn bathrobe, frailer than I’d ever seen her. Her skin even looked thinner. As if I could see every blue vein that lay underneath.

  “Out,” I murmured, still staring at her. “Have you been taking your medications?”

  She slapped my hand then shoved herself to a stand. I could see it took every bit of will she possessed to accomplish the feat. “Don’t be trying to change the subject. You know better than to be out late on a school night. You aren’t meeting some boy, are you?”

  The question was laughable, but I just answered, “No.”

  She nodded. “Well, that’s good, I guess. You doing anything I need to worry about?”

  Still riding high from the thrill of calling Theodore, I had no problem keeping my gaze steady. “No, no reason for you to worry about anything I’m doing.”

  She gave another short nod and turned back toward her bed. Her steps were short and unsteady.

  “Nana?” I started.

  She kept shuffling. “Get to bed, Lucinda, and brush your teeth. You reek of peanut butter.”

  I wiped my hands on my jeans and then pulled her door closed. But I waited for a second before leaving, listened to make sure she didn’t fall again. Finally I headed to the bathroom.

  Knowing she’d be listening for the water, I brushed my teeth. It also gave me an excuse to jerk open the mirror that hid the medicine chest where I kept my toothpaste and she kept her pills. The bottles were there, lined up like always. But two of them were empty.

  I took them out and peered at the labels. One should have been filled a week ago. My grandmother wasn’t just selling her things; she was sacrificing her health. I felt sick, gut sick.

  I made note of the medication’s name and then went to my room to research.

  It took longer to fire up my ancient computer than it did to find the drug on the Internet. It was for high blood pressure. There were pages of warnings about missing doses. How it could make you dizzy and lead to kidney disease or stroke.

  This wasn’t a medicine Nana could do without, not that I thought the thyroid med was, either.

  I stared at the screen, wishing I could tell Nana to refill her prescriptions, that money was on the way.

  But there was no way I could admit to my grandmother what I was doing. She would never take another pill. She would walk away from this house where I had grown up and my mother had disappeared. She would do anything to keep me from doing what I’d already done.

  Followed in my mother’s footsteps.

  o0o

  Two days later Brittany and I were back in her car, headed to the cow pasture. We hadn’t really talked about Theodore after I called him. We hadn’t really talked at all. She hadn’t obviously avoided me at school, but she hadn’t asked me to join her at lunch either. It was okay; I wasn’t doing this to rekindle our friendship.

  She did, however, pick me up while Nana was still awake. That made me think she didn’t see me as a total pariah.

  Nana had raised a brow when she saw her, told Brittany she hoped she’d outgrown digging up pirate gold in people’s petunias; then she’d switched the TV channel.

  I’d flushed.

  One of our last play dates together, Brittany had brought over a shovel. We’d dug about fifty holes in the neighbor’s petunia patch before Nana found us.

  I’d forgotten about that, but obviously my grandmother hadn’t.

  In the car, Brittany asked, “Does she…you know?”

  It took me a second to realize she was asking if Nana called demons. It took another for me realize that was why Brittany had ventured into my house. It wasn’t a sign of acceptance. She was just being noisy.

  “She’s against it. Make sure you don’t say anything around her.” Bristling, I slumped lower in my seat.

  Brittany nodded. “I’m good at keeping secrets.” Then her hands wrapped firmly around the wheel, she glanced at me. “He was real, wasn’t he?”

  Still angry, my nod was stiff. I kept my gaze straight ahead and stared out the windshield. “Yeah.”

  She twisted a little in her seat. “I know you said…and I know the rumors, but to see it….” She flattened her hands out, steered with just her palms for a second. “I was scared. I didn’t even realize it at the time, not how scared I was anyway.”

  Mum’s bag lay in my lap. I placed my hand on it. I had been scared too. At least that’s what I’d been telling myself, but there was also an exhilaration.

  Brittany kept talking. “Theodore. He didn’t seem scary. At first he was kind of comical in a pathetic way—someone weak, like would get picked on at school.”

  “Maybe he was,” I murmured. “Back when he went to school. Maybe that’s why he sold his soul.”

  I could feel her gaze on me. “Is that what happened? Is that how he became a demon?”

  I shrugged. “That’s the rumor.” I wasn’t in the mood for small talk.

  “So…” Brittany gave me a sideways glance. “I think we can make a lot of money with Theodore—if he can do what he says. I recorded a bunch of music videos on my DVR, burned them to DVDs.” She gestured to the zippered nylon bag between us. “I also brought some movies. I think actors will be the biggest pull.”

  She turned the car into the field. The tires rattled over the cattle crossing. After she’d brought the vehicle to a stop, she turned and faced me. “But why do this? Why bring me in on it? Why not just call Theodore up and ask him for whatever you want? Isn’t that kind of the purpose of calling demons? You get them to give you whatever you want?”

  I wasn’t sure why she was asking. With Brittany you could never be sure. I stared at her for a second. It was dark, but my eyes had adjusted a while back. She looked sincere, curious, not conniving at all, but that was Brittany’s major talent—looking innocent when she was far from it. And I’d already caught her acting like a friend when in reality she was just studying me.

  “It isn’t smart to ask a demon for anything,” I replied.

  “And doing any of this is?” she asked. “C’mon, give me an answer. I mean, I’m glad you brought me in. This is big, huge. No one else can offer this, but I need to know why. Need to know exactly what I’m getting myself into.”

  I was tempted to tell her she didn’t need to know why, that she was either in or she was out.

  She touched my arm. “Please, Lucinda. I need to know.”

  So I told her, as much as I could anyway. I told her about the house first. I didn’t look at her while I was telling her that. I didn’t want to see her pity or judgment or whatever I might see behind her green contacts. Then I explained how calling a demon and asking him to out-and-out give you something was just stupid.

  “Demons always want something in return,” I said. “My original plan was just to call a demon, let people see him, then send him on his way. But, after talking with Theodore, I realized we can give him what he wants and it won’t cost us a thing. By giving him an audience we’re doing him the favor, not the other way around.”

  “So, there’s no way this can blow up and bite us in the ass?” she asked.

  No way I could see, but I didn’t want to say that. I didn’t want her to doubt me. I wrapped one hand around Mum’s bag and put the other on the door latch. “As long as we don’t ask him for a favor, or answer his questions, we’ll be fine.” I said it with conviction. Believed it, or tried to make it sound like I did.

  I don’t know if she bought my act completely, but when I got out of the car, she followed. Together we walked back across the field, back to
the circle we’d covered with limbs two nights earlier.

  Theodore was prompt in appearance this time. I’d left the DVDs and magazines we’d brought inside the circle before closing it and making the call. As we watched he shuffled his appearance from one mega star to another like Nana shuffled a deck of cards when she was playing solitaire.

  As I watched his face morph from one chiseled chin to another, my stomach swayed. I forced myself to stay steady, to keep my gaze strong. When he was done, he settled into his normal form, and I let out a sigh of relief.

  “So, these are guaranteed crowd-killers?” he asked.

  “These are stars popular today.” I replied, careful to keep the statement one that I might have said independent of his question. “When we come, I’ll give you a sign letting you know which one fits that crowd.”

  “You found a new venue yet? This one is none too fancy—of course, if you’d let me out, I could fancy it up a bit.” He waved his arm and the area inside the circle transformed. Polished wood floors were under his feet. Burgundy velvet curtains hung behind him and brilliant lights cast him in a golden glow. A top hat appeared in his hand and he lowered his upper body to his thighs in a sweeping bow. “How’s that?” he asked, as he stood. “I bet the crowd would like sitting in something like this….” Another flourish and a padded theatre chair appeared beside him.

  “Goodbye, Theodore.” I squatted, athame in hand.

  His eyes narrowed, but didn’t change color as they had when Brittany had insulted him the first time. Still, as I plunged the knife into the ground, I couldn’t help worrying a bit. Theodore seemed harmless. But demons were liars. It was the one thing you could count on.

  If Theodore appeared to be harmless—what was he, really?

  Chapter 5

  It took less than a week for Brittany to find a buyer for Theodore’s first performance, a little longer to actually work out the details. Actually, her cousin, Joshua, who was a student at the state college, found her. Joshua and Brittany had apparently been close at one time. She said they’d grown apart but shared secrets, that because of that he helped her out when he could.