The Demon's Apprentice

by Ben Reeder

  “Daddy, please! Help me! Please, don't let it get me!” I tried to crawl to him.

  He looked down at me. “Not everything is about you, you selfish little brat,” he sneered, then he smiled and turned his back. “I'll be back in the morning,” he said over his shoulder. “I expect the divorce to go my way.”

  “Oh, it will, never fear,” the demon said as I felt it wrap its hand around my neck and pick me up. Its other hand grabbed my right arm and slowly began to squeeze. “Now, it's time you learned to behave yourself. Oh, stop your squealing, boy, it's just a few broken bones and damaged muscle tissue. By morning, I'll have your arms and legs working like new again. On second thought, scream all you like. I might as well have a little fun before I start training you. Now, the bones you're about to hear break are called the radius and the ulna. Let's see which one goes first…”

  I hit the floor to the sounds of my own cries. It was dark, and I didn't know where I was. My first thought was that Dulka had somehow caught me. My right arm flung the heavy blanket off me and came to my feet as I heard the door open. The sound gave me a target, and I drew my fist back as I took a step toward it. Light hit my eyes, and I stopped my punch as Mom's startled face registered on my brain.

  “Oh God!” she shrieked. My eyes focused against the light, and I saw her with her arm raised to cover her face.

  I took a step back and lowered my hand. “Sorry, Mom,” I said, panting.

  “Chance, honey, are you all right? You were screaming. What's wrong?” Mom's gentle hands fell on one shoulder and on my cheek.

  “Bad dream. That's all. New bed, I got confused.” The words were coming out all jumbled.

  She guided me back to the bed and sat me down, and I was too confused to do anything else. The pain I remembered in the nightmare was still fresh in my head, and I was having a hard time holding off a panic attack. Dulka had used illusions before to trick me into giving things away, and some part of my head wasn't convinced this was real. Every illusion had flaws, though: minor details that didn't fit, because our two minds weren't in perfect sync. I looked at the wastebasket by my desk. The plastic bags from our shopping trip were there. It was a little detail: small enough that Dulka would probably have forgotten about it. The little divot in the carpet where I'd dropped my pocket knife when I was cutting tags was still there. Again, a tiny detail, something I remembered that the boss might have forgotten. My pulse started to slow, and I realized Mom had just asked me something.

  “What?” I asked her.

  “Is there anything you need?”

  “He can have my old night light,” Dee said from the door. She looked almost as scared as I did. “I'm not scared of the dark anymore.” She didn't sound as confident as she was trying to.

  “I'm good,” I told them. “Just a bad dream, really.”

  “I'll make you a dream sachet. Some lavender, vervain, lemon grass, and St John's wort, for restful sleep.” She left and shooed Dee out with her. A couple of minutes later, she came back in with a little bundle of cloth in her hand. She tucked it under my pillow and kissed me on the cheek. “Sweet dreams, honey.”

  When I lay back down, the panic started all over again. Sweet dreams. I wished. I felt like I was being smothered. The bed sucked me in, the pillow wrapped up around my face, and the blanket was like a lead weight on my shoulders as I lay there trying to sleep. Everything was too…soft. The pillow tilted my neck to a weird angle, and I was sweating from the bedclothes that draped over me like a shroud. I turned on my side, and it helped my neck, but my arm kept flopping off the bed, and I felt like I was falling then. I tried the other way, but with my back to the door, I was too exposed, and I kept looking over my shoulder, waiting for Dulka to slip in and kick me from behind. The blanket ended up on the floor first, then the pillow, but the mattress still felt like it was trying to swallow me. Was I going to have to go for two days at a time without sleep? That had to have been the reason I'd been able to fall asleep the first time.

  Meditation seemed to help me get drowsy, but I jerked awake when I heard a noise in the hallway. My heart was thumping like a drum in my chest, and I couldn't breathe. This wasn't working.

  Quietly, with my gut feeling like I had just eaten a bowl full of hot coals, I slipped out of bed, grabbed my sheet and crawled under my desk. As I lay on the floor, the silent sobs welled up, and I hated myself for my weakness. For eight years, I had slept on the floor, and I didn’t know how to sleep in a bed any more. Even after I was free, Dulka was still screwing my life up. He was invading my mom’s home like a plague, and I hated myself for letting him win. I kicked my own ass over it for what seemed like forever, but then, somewhere along the way, the familiar took over, and I fell asleep.

  By the time ten o'clock rolled around on Sunday night, I figured I was tired enough to at least try sleeping next to the bed. My arms and legs were still carrying a grudge from Friday night, and helping Mom in her garden hadn't made them any happier with me. She'd called it dirt therapy, and it had felt pretty good, but now my body hated me for it. I snagged the sheet and curled up with my back to the bed, and waited for the panic attack to come. After a few minutes, I figured I'd either out-waited it, or it was laying in ambush for me once I nodded off.

  The rumble of thunder woke me up. My eyes opened to a still-dark room, with only the red glow of my boxy alarm clock to focus on. It read 5:50. White light flashed at the windows, and thunder rumbled again. The thin hiss of rain followed it, and I sat up. Mom was supposed to enroll me in school today. Visions of walking down the halls of a high school flitted across my thoughts as I tossed the sheet on the bed and grabbed some fresh clothes. In the shower, I imagined sitting in a classroom and taking notes on fascinating subjects, enthralled with the mysteries of algebra, or, for me, the equally strange subject of Home Economics.

  The clock showed only three minutes after six by the time I made it back to my room, and I could hear Mom and Dee just starting to move around in their rooms. The morning was going to take forever to go by at this rate. A little less than an eternity later, Mom and I had dropped Dee off at her school, and Mom finally turned her van toward…home.

  “Where are we going? Don't we have to go to the school to enroll me?” I asked as we headed down rain-slick streets.

  “I need to get your immunization records and your birth certificate transferred over. My lawyer is having them sent by courier to the house. In the meantime, I need to stop by the courthouse and sign the temporary custody papers, and we need to file the motion for…well, it's pretty boring stuff. Do you mind staying at the house to sign for your records?” Mom looked over at me hopefully, and, so help me, I couldn't make myself disappoint her.

  “So, I'm not going to go to school today?” I tried to hide my disappointment, but my voice wasn't in the mood to help me out.

  “It would probably be tomorrow in any case, sweetie. The school would still have to look your records over and get you scheduled for the right classes and everything. Think of it as…an unexpected three-day weekend. Though, I should be counting my blessings, having a son who wants to go to school. Your sister practically has to be forced out the door some days.”

  I shrugged. “School's not so bad. I'll deny it totally if you tell anyone I said that, though.”

  “Your secret's safe with me. But, more seriously, I'm afraid your father or his lawyer will be there, and I don't want to tempt fate any more than I have to.” I nodded, and my mood went from disappointed to dark. Missing a day of school didn't seem so bad suddenly, when I thought about seeing my father again.

  Mom pulled into the driveway and handed me a key. “I'll be back in a little while, and hopefully by then, we can get you transferred over to Kennedy, and maybe grab lunch afterward to celebrate,” she said as I popped the door open. After I grunted a yes and hopped out, she pulled out of the driveway and puttered off, leaving me with a whole morning to myself, nothing urgent that needed doing, and a whole shelf full of books to read.

/>   The knock at the front door came less than half an hour later, just when I was starting the third chapter in the mystery I'd chosen. I memorized the page number and closed the book. Old habits kicked in, and I ducked down beside the couch and bent one of the blind's slats to peer out at the front porch. A cold chill ran down my back when I recognized my father's butler, Jeremy. What in the Nine Hells was he doing here? If my father was going to send someone to bring me back, he'd use a guy with a thicker neck and a smaller brain. Someone who opened doors with his foot instead of knocking politely.

  “You're not taking me back,” I said, when I opened the door.

  He gave the same neutral smile I was used to seeing from him, but this time, I could see it in his eyes, too. “Of course not, Master Chance. I'd hardly dream of it. I am merely doing my part to maintain the illusion that you actually resided with your father,” he said, his accent still the proper English butler. He sounded like a man who was resigned to his fate, and it made my stomach twist.

  “Whether you want to or not,” I said bitterly. I closed my eyes, took a slow breath and opened my Third Eye just enough to see his aura. It was mostly a deep blue, with ugly gray streaks that surfaced in places. Around his neck, though, I could see a band of dark red laced with black tendrils that reached up along his face to hover in front of his mouth like poisonous little vines. It was my own handiwork: one of the first compulsion spells I ever cast. Crude, sloppy as hell, but it worked.

  “I wouldn't be able to speak to that, sir,” Jeremy said, still prim. Guilt settled on me like a lead blanket. Jeremy was one of the few guys who worked for my father who'd ever been nice to me, and he was still under the bastard's thumb, while I was walking free. My own promise from Friday night came back to me, and I felt my lips peel back from my teeth in a wolfish grin.

  “You should be able to. This is for your own good. Don't move,” I commanded him. The compulsion kicked in with the trigger phrase and he went still. Dulka had made sure that every spell I cast had a counter-hex built into it, in case someone tried to screw him over. I reached up and put my hand into the compulsion's stain on his aura, and felt the greasy, chill touch close around my fingers. It tried to creep onto my aura, and I suppressed a shudder as I uttered the counter hex, “Adactio spretum.” The smear dissipated into a fine gray haze on the edge of his aura.

  His eyes went a little wide, and I saw his jaw go slack for the first time. He could talk and act freely now, but until I destroyed the focus, the spell could be reactivated. “Oh, I say!” he said.

  “Yeah, say whatever you want.”

  He blinked a few times, and his lips went thin as he stood up straighter, which for him was almost impossible. “Your father…is an absolute…wanker!” he finally blurted. “Master Chance, whatever you just did, thank you! You can't imagine what it's been like all the…well, perhaps you can. Even better than I can,” he went quiet as he finished.

  I shook my head. “I just undid some of my own work. And, I'm sorry for doing it to you in the first place.”

  “No, sir. You needn't apologize. It was all him, and that…thing he called up. Don’t you ever think otherwise. I'm relieved you were finally able to do something about it. Which brings me to the purpose of my visit. Your things are in the car.”

  “My things? Jeremy, all of my stuff didn't even fill up a gym bag.”

  “Indeed, sir. All of which gives lie to the appearance your poor, much-maligned father was attempting to maintain. Hence, my excursions to such exclusive establishments as American Eagle and…Hot Topic. Shall I bring it in?” He gestured to the tan Cadillac that lurked in the driveway. I followed him to the rear of the car. Bags filled the trunk, and a pair of suitcases sat in the backseat. I grabbed the bags and took them to my room before he could protest. Jeremy took the suitcases without a word, but his expression told me how dismayed her was. All that was left in the trunk when we went back out was a big shoebox and a black backpack. Those we just brought to the living room.

  “That should be all, sir. You'll find a laptop computer and other school supplies in your backpack. Here is your last month's allowance, and an advance on next month's, as well. I…should be going.” He pressed a roll of bills into my hand as he turned to go.

  “Jeremy, wait!” I said quickly as he turned away. He looked back over his shoulder at me and raised his eyebrows, as if to encourage me to continue.

  “What I just did…it's temporary. If my father figures it out, he can get Dulka to activate the spell again.”

  “Then I shall be discreet, sir, and make the best use of my freedom while I have it.” His smile resurfaced as he came over to me and put one hand on my shoulder. “It is a gift beyond measure, Master Chance. I assure you, I will not squander it.”

  “I'll try to…make it permanent, somehow,” the words tumbled out of my mouth in a rush. “If I can find the focus, I can break the spell for good. I want to fix this.”

  “Chance, you have done more than enough.” There was a warmth to his voice that didn't sound like my father's butler was just speaking to his young charge. “You need not take responsibility for the wrongs of others. If you are asking for my forgiveness, you’ve long had it.”

  Part of the weight on my heart lifted, and I felt the corners of my mouth try to stretch into a smile, but it was still weak. “Thanks, Jeremy.”

  “Think nothing of it, sir. Nothing to forgive.” He gave my shoulder a squeeze and stepped back, then gave me a “Good day, sir,” before he left. Even though I felt better, something still bothered me. The nagging guilt was still there, and seeing Jeremy had just made it worse. In spite of what he'd said, I still felt responsible for all the things I'd done for Dulka and my old man. I paced back and forth as I wrestled with my thoughts, and made absolutely no progress in getting them pinned down by the time my records were delivered. When Mom showed up around two o'clock, my psyche and I decided to call it a draw, but I promised it I wasn't finished with it. I imagined it like some Saturday morning cartoon villain, twirling its mustache and chuckling threateningly as it retreated into the dark parts of my mind.

  Mom and I swapped stories about our morning over cheeseburgers and fries. For once, I lost the “Sucks to Be Me” contest. I got new stuff, while Mom had to sit in uncomfortable chairs and deal with assholes all morning.

  I practically dragged her to the van, though, because the best part of the day was still to come. I bounced in the seat all the way to the parking lot of Kennedy High School, and it was all I could do to wait until she stopped the van to jump out. The red brick building loomed in front of me, three stories of normal teenage life just waiting to be experienced.

  Half an hour later, I was elbow-deep in enrollment forms, while Mom filled out other paperwork. I'd just decided on French for my foreign language credit when a thick file folder with my name on the front of it plopped down in front of me. I looked up to my right to see Mom standing in front of a dark-haired woman in a blue business skirt and matching blazer. The dark-haired woman was glaring at me over the narrow lenses of her glasses. Mom looked down at the folder, then at me, so I opened it with shaky, sweaty hands.

  Detention for fighting. Suspended for assault. Suspended for trespassing. Expelled for carrying a weapon. Expelled for possession. Expelled for fighting. My school record read like the rap sheet for a thug in training. I'd never actually seen what my old boss had been putting in my academic file, but none of it came as a surprise. Most of it was watered down for public consumption. I looked back up at Mom, but I couldn't meet her gaze for more than a few seconds.

  “I'm sorry, Mom,” I said to the floor. I could still feel Mom's eyes on me, and my gut churned at the thought that I'd let her down already. Bad karma really sucked.

  Mom's gentle hand on my face was the last thing I expected. She lifted my chin up until I could see her face, and she laid her other hand on my file. “This isn't the boy I see in front of me. It's not the young man I think you want to be, either. But it is who Principal R
avenhearst, here, thinks you are, and she doesn't think this young man,” she patted the damning file, “should be in her school. She's only willing to give you one chance. If you step out of line even once, she'll expel you.” Mom's voice was sharp as she spoke, and I couldn't tell if she was angry with me, Miss Ravenhearst, or both of us. Miss Ravenhearst gave us a cold smile, and I figured this was playing out the way she wanted it to. The conditions were almost impossible to meet, and I was betting she knew it.

  “If you don't want to deal with this crap, say the word and we'll figure something else out,” Mom offered. Ravenhearst's smile get a little broader, a little colder, and I made my decision.

  “I'll take it.” I narrowed my eyes at Ravenhearst, and her smile flipped.

  “Chance, you don't have to…”

  “I'll take it, Mom. If she's going to give me just one shot, I'll take it.”

  It was Mom's turn to smile, and I could see the gleam in her eyes as she turned to face the principal. “Well, then, you heard my son. Get him enrolled.”

  I was about to start high school.

  Chapter 6

  ~ Among the cowan, be mysterious. They’ll come to far more useful conclusions on their own than you could suggest. ~ Myrddin Wyltt, 6th century Master

  Tuesday morning took its sweet time to show up. My breakfast was sharing space in my stomach with a bunch of butterflies as Mom pulled into the school parking lot again. We passed kids milling around near the front doors and along the narrow strip of grass in front of the school. The groups were easy to sort by their wardrobes. Polo shirts and ass-hugging designer jeans didn't mingle with the baggy, strap-laden pants and dark t-shirts; and the sports jerseys and angled ball caps didn't mix often with the dress shirts and earth-tone pants and fedoras.