Demon High

by Lori Devoti

  She sighed. “Don’t bother answering. I know he did. You’re having some effect on him. He really shouldn’t be here. Not all demons can handle living with humans.” Her gaze flicked to Brittany andthen shifted quickly to Shane, who had dropped the outcast and returned to the center of the battle. “Anyway, he explained why Kobal wants you to release more demons under him, right? That Kobal draws power from us being here? What he must not have mentioned is that it can go both ways. A demon lord, if he chooses, can channel power into demons under him. And, I think—” She blew a kiss at the outcast who was still lying on the floor where Shane had left him. The boy shook his head and tried to stand. “—that is what he’s done. My guess is, it’s to teach you a lesson. If you won’t release the two demons you agreed to, he’ll just channel more power into the two who are here.”

  “The two— Where’s Oscar?” I asked

  “Where are the teachers, is what I want to know.” Brittany shoved her way through a crowd of girls who had gathered nearby. They seemed torn between staring at Nellie and gazing blankly off into space. “There isn’t a one in sight.”

  She was right. Even the lunch ladies seemed to have taken a coffee break.

  Nellie slid off the table, then scooped up her shoes. With the stilettos perched on her fingers, she smiled. “Last I saw Oscar he was standing outside the teacher’s lounge. If you don’t believe what I’ve said, maybe you should check it out. Now get out of my way. I see a table I haven’t conquered.” She shoved me aside, and sashayed toward the back of the room where a few lost-looking druggies sat staring at the empty table in front of them.

  I honestly couldn’t tell if they’d been hit by the current demon fever or not.

  Brittany, her lips pressed together in a thin line, watched Nellie go. “I wish I didn’t care,” she muttered.

  I grabbed her by the arm. “Don’t say that. You’ve seen what not caring did to Oscar. Pain is better than nothing.”

  She pulled her gaze from the retreating succubus. “Well, then I’m living the high life.”

  Someone else I might have hugged, if I was a hugger. But not Brittany. Instead I stepped into her space. “She’s a bitch. I know you’re too much in the hurt stage to see it, but it’s true. Focus on that.”

  She tightened her jaw. “No, that’s what’s so bad. I do see it. I see everything. I don’t think she’s even using her powers on me. I think I just….I think I love her.”

  Crap. I stepped back. Not sure whether to scream or slap her.

  But Brittany being Brittany, she closed her eyes, took a breath, and then opened her eyes back up. “But, hey, that doesn’t make me special does it? Like you said, I need to get over it. Get over myself.” And she smiled. It didn’t reach her eyes, but it was a start.

  I didn’t give her a chance to slip back. I grabbed her by the wrist and strode toward the door. “We’re accomplishing nothing here. We better find the teachers.”

  Never in my life had I thought I’d be looking for teachers, planning to rat out the entire school and hoping like hell someone would care.

  o0o

  The teachers were easy to find. They were in the teachers’ lounge, and they were definitely lounging. A few were pushing comatose.

  The lounge was strictly off limits to students. There was a giant sign stating as much. The year before someone had planted a bug behind the “Six Signs of Abuse” poster. The tape made it onto the Internet. After that the lounge got unofficially renamed “the rod,” based on the gym teacher’s rant about sparing the rod spoiling most of the freshman class.

  Anyway, since then security had been a lot tighter. But today the door was actually ajar. I shoved it open with my foot.

  Mrs. Adler was laying on the ancient green couch that dominated the room with her feet propped on Mr. Swenson’s, the algebra teacher’s, lap. When Brittany walked in, her fingers fluttered like she was going to say something; then she just dropped her arm back to her side. Across the room, four more teachers stared out the window. They had a direct view of the lunch room. As we watched, a chair crashed through the lunch room window. Two of the teachers turned to each other as if they were going to say something but then turned back, silent.

  I’d seen enough. I walked into the room and bent down next to Mrs. Adler. “Where’s Oscar?”

  Frowning, she pushed herself onto her elbow. “Lucinda. I don’t think you’re supposed to be here.” Then the blank look I’d seen way too many times today rolled back over her face, and she lay back down. I grabbed her by the chin and stared her in the eyes. “Where is Oscar?”

  “That new boy?” Mr. Swenson asked. He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “He was here. We were talking about…something…nothing important.”

  “What is…?” This from one of the teachers by the window.

  Another tapped lightly on the window with a plastic spoon. “Is that him? Walking toward the parking lot? He knows this is a closed campus, doesn’t he?” She looked at Mrs. Adler, who shrugged.

  I jumped to my feet and jogged from the room. Brittany followed.

  “What now?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, but I need to stop Oscar before he leaves campus. We can’t risk him wandering around town and turning Caldera into brain-dead central.”

  “What about Nellie?”

  I stopped mid-stride. “Good point. Can you talk to her? Get her to go somewhere? Somewhere away from people?”

  Brittany hesitated. I could see the war going on inside her. I hated that I’d had to ask her to confront Nellie. But I had to go after Oscar, and Nellie was way more likely to listen to Brittany than she was me.

  “Where do you want us to go?”

  Relieved, I let out the breath I’d been holding. “The pasture? I’ll figure out a way to get Oscar and me there too.”

  She nodded, but as I started to walk away, she stopped me. “You aren’t thinking of doing what Oscar said, are you? Calling on a more powerful demon? Remember what he is. Don’t trust him. Please.”

  I smiled and squeezed her arm to let her know I hadn’t forgotten anything, but as I jogged across the outside eating area and saw Oscar sitting at a table in the cold, any doubts that Brittany had managed to create in my mind evaporated like mist in the sun.

  He was alone, at a table covered in snow, and his face was so sad, so lost. How couldn’t I trust him? How couldn’t I want to save him?

  I stopped running as I approached and forced myself to relax. Perhaps he had caused the weird state of the teachers, but he hadn’t done it on purpose, I knew that. And maybe he hadn’t caused the state at all. What evidence was there that he had? Nellie’s word?

  When I sat down, he looked up. “You saw the teachers, didn’t you? I’m sucking out their life. Do you believe me now? You have to send me back.”

  His hand was resting on the table. He didn’t seem to notice the snow piling up around it. I placed my fingers over his. “Nellie thinks Kobal is channeling more power into the two of you. Is there a way to stop him?” Oscar’s power had been manageable before. He hadn’t been a threat to anyone. If I could undo whatever had happened lately, he could stay. We could keep working on saving him.

  His eyes were sad when he looked at me. Sad, but not lost. I knew he was feeling emotion, that he was with me. It made his words all the harder to hear.

  “You know the answer to that, Lucinda. I can’t change what I am. My fate was decided a long time ago. If it hadn’t been, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be in that grave under the headstone bearing my name. That was the only other fate for me.”

  I swallowed. Somehow I’d forgotten that Oscar should have died one hundred years ago; that being a demon was what kept him alive.

  “So, if we beat the demon thing, you what? Die?” I choked on the word. It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t fair.

  He tilted his head. “I don’t know. I’ve never heard of someone un-becoming a demon. But it makes sense, doesn’t it? If I could trade one fate for
another, it would have to be the only other possible fate I’ve had.” He pulled my fingers to his lips and pressed a kiss on them. “And, honestly, why should it be any different? Why should I get a shot at a whole new life? I lived mine. It’s over. Time for you and the kids of this day to live yours.”

  But I didn’t want to go back to living the life I’d had before. I’d been alone. Yes, I’d had Nana, but she was it. I hadn’t had Brittany or Oscar, or hell, even Nellie. I hadn’t mattered.

  I pulled back. I liked being in the mess I was in, at least more than I liked what my life had been before.

  Was this how my mother had felt? Is this why she got in so deep she got lost?

  “Lucinda?” Oscar’s eyes showed his concern.

  I leaned over the table and kissed him. His lips were soft and warm, human. When I pulled back our mouths seemed to cling to each other. I wanted to lean back in again, to stay there kissing, pretending. But I couldn’t. I forced myself to sit back on my seat. Forced myself not to touch him again.

  “What are our choices, Oscar? I’m ready to make one.”

  “I already told you what I thought you should do.”

  Call another demon lord.

  “Did you work out your deal?” His words were soft, his gaze hopeful.

  I didn’t want to disappoint him, and I wanted to fix this, all of it. I nodded.

  He seemed to relax. His hand found mine. “You can do it, Lucinda. I know you can.”

  He believed in me. How could I fail?

  Chapter 22

  We took Shane Bollock’s car to my house. With Nellie gone, Oscar’s influence had taken over. Inside the cafeteria, the entire student body was passed out. Snagging Shane’s keys had been no challenge at all. Besides he owed me.

  Nana wasn’t home. I wasn’t sure where she was, but prayed she’d stay there long enough for what I had planned to play out.

  Without her there in person, I went to her room to say goodbye, just in case. She had the smallest bedroom in the house, the one that overlooked the back garden. There was a window seat with two big pillows that she’d made herself. Beside it was her collection of romance novels and a reading lamp. I picked up one of the books and thought back to the cafeteria and the lit chick’s performance.

  When things were normal, the lit chick and her friends would have scoffed at these books, just like people had scoffed at my grandmother and me for years. Nana went places, played bingo, went shopping, but she always went alone. I hadn’t really thought about it before, that she had the same life I had, maybe worse. Her daughter had disappeared. People like Brittany’s mother had turned their backs on us. I’d been too young at the time to feel most of that pain, but what about Nana?

  I picked up one of the pillows and squished it against my chest. Pulled the scent of Nana, a flowery perfume she bought at the drugstore on sale, into my lungs.

  My mother had left Nana and me because she was addicted and selfish. Now here I was, facing the same possibility.

  I’d made my choice, and I was going to own it, but I also vowed if I made it through tonight, I’d think of others before I did something stupid.

  Nana would never have wanted me to do what I’d done. My stomach cramped at the thought of telling her, but I realized I had to do that too. My mother had left us with nothing, no explanation. I wouldn’t add that to my list of irresponsibility.

  I set down the pillow and pulled a piece of stationary from Nana’s bedside table. It took a while to write the note, and once I was done, I wanted to crumple it up and start over, but I didn’t. Instead I wrapped it around the money I had left from Brittany’s client, and propped it against her lamp. Then I left.

  It was time to call a demon.

  o0o

  Oscar followed me to the basement. The door to Mum’s secret room was easier to open this time. The boards seemed to pop off with only a slight pressure on the crowbar, and the door didn’t stick at all.

  That seemed symbolic somehow, and not in a good way. Some things should never become easy.

  And calling demons, while maybe not easy, was definitely easier. It seemed almost routine now.

  I walked to the center of the room and pulled the string on the lone bulb. Everything was how I’d left it, meaning the room was pretty much empty of everything except the circle and the statue.

  Oscar stood behind me. “Do you know him?” I asked, pointing to the statue.

  Oscar didn’t say anything so I turned to look at him. His face was pale. “Cresil,” he murmured.

  What exactly did it take to make a demon pale? I guessed I was about to find out. “The demon lord you were thinking of.” I replied. I don’t know how I knew so clearly that the demon in my basement, the one I thought had taken my mother, was also the demon Oscar wanted me to call, but I did.

  I took two quick solid steps toward the statue. It looked unremarkable right now, not the dark omen I remembered from my last visit to the circle.

  That was something.

  I reached for it.

  “No, don’t.” Oscar stepped in front of me. He pushed the statue over with his boot. “This is Kobal’s brother.

  “Kobal has family?” I shuddered.

  “Of a type. It doesn’t really match what you think of as family. Kobal and his siblings fight a lot. Each one is constantly trying to gain a toehold that will get them ahead, put them in a higher position of power than the others.” Oscar looked at the statue. ” But Kobal and Cresil have a special rivalry. They’ve even been known to steal from each other.”

  “Steal what?” Kobal had seemed quite capable of creating chairs, couches, whatever. What would he possibly need to steal from his brother?

  “Souls. Other demons. I told you the demon world is a pyramid. Lords are only as powerful as the sum of the demons beneath them.”

  “So, Kobal and Cresil steal from each other. What does that have to do with me?”

  “Cresil has your mother, and if she was calling demons regularly, working with a lord like Cresil—” He shook his head. “She had to be pretty powerful.”

  I licked my lips. My voice was cold, almost as cold as my heart had just turned. “How do you know Cresil has my mother?” Oscar had made comments about my mother before, and I hadn’t pushed for information. I might have told myself it was because he was a demon, because I knew demons lie, but the real reason was that I was afraid of what he would tell me.

  Now it was time, past time.

  He stared ahead. No answer.

  I moved forward, my fingers tightening around Mum’s bag. “What is going on, Oscar? What happened to my mother?”

  He looked at me then. The lostness was gone; knowledge and understanding were in its place. “I’m afraid to tell you the truth, Lucinda, and you wouldn’t even know if I had. I’m not in a circle. I’m not bound to be truthful. I’ve never been in a circle when speaking to you.” He took a step, a giant one that placed him right in the middle of my mother’s circle. “Do the incantation, call me. Then you’ll know for sure you can believe me. Then you’ll listen to everything I have to say.”

  I didn’t like how he was acting. I picked at a button on my shirt. “If I do, I open myself up to whatever demon is above you,” I murmured.

  He smiled. “You’re learning.”

  A compliment, but one that didn’t make me feel good, not at all.

  Torn on what to ask him next, I rubbed my thumb over the plastic button. “You think Kobal wants me because Cresil has my mother.”

  The tension that had been between us lightened; he nodded. “You’re made from her. You and your grandmother are the closest thing to her that exists. And, even in the demon plane, I’m betting she’d risk a lot to save you.”

  She would risk a lot to save me, but only if she could save me. I stepped backward until my back touched the wall. “You’re saying my mother is still there, in hell. That I could talk to her.”

  He frowned. “I didn’t say that. I said Kobal wants to use you to get to
her, which in turn will get to Cresil and weaken him.”

  I had understood what he was saying, but demon lord plans for me didn’t matter, not now that I’d realized something else. “But to do that, Mum has to still be there, somewhere.” My voice rose. My head was swimming. “I can call her. I know her name.” I jerked up the sleeve of my shirt. “I even have her DNA.” The athame was in Mum’s bag, and I could use my blood. Why hadn’t I thought of it before?

  “Lucinda, no.” Oscar threw his arm out in front of me. I knocked into him, and twisted away.

  Standing across the circle from him, I stared, confused.

  “You can’t call your mother. She is under Cresil’s control. You would have no way of knowing if what she said was true. And she wouldn’t be the mother you remember. Do you think she would want you to see her like that?”

  “Just like I have no way of knowing if what you say is true,” I replied. Not without calling him and opening myself up to whatever demon was above him.

  “Don’t change the plan now. You have your bargain prepared. You know what to ask for. Call Cresil. Tell him about your deal with Kobal. He can get you out of it. Right now, he’s more powerful than his brother, by a paper-thin margin, but still….” He let the words trail off. His gaze deepened; it sucked me in. “Trust me, Lucinda. I’m not who or what I was when I escaped that circle. I would never do anything to hurt you. Not now.”

  Which wasn’t saying he wouldn’t have before, hadn’t before. The realization made it hard to concentrate on what I was doing. My fingers, numb like the rest of me, moved over the cord that held Mum’s bag closed. It fell open.

  “Move out of the circle,” I mumbled. “One demon at a time is all I can handle.”

  He didn’t say a word. He just stepped out of the painted ring.

  Mum’s bag in my hand, I set to work calling the demon who had taken her from me.

  It didn’t take long. Like I said, it was getting easier, too easy. The circle glowed yellow then orange, as if the fires of hell were actually breaking through the veil, leaking into my circle. Then there was a poof and a form stepped through. It was Cresil. He looked like his statue, horns and all.