Dancing With Demons

by Trudi Jaye

  I catch the bus at the end of my street, grumbling under my breath. I’m used to going places in Blade’s truck. The bus delivers me to the usual stop, and I walk slowly along the paths toward the building where the basement lab is hiding from the rest of the campus.

  My thoughts are distracted by what happened last night, and everything I need to organize for leaving. I might have to speed up my timeline for leaving if Connor is canceling the funding. Unless he’s forgotten about telling the authorities about me? He doesn’t need it as a threat anymore; he’s canceled the agreement on his own. Perhaps that’ll be the end of it?

  It’s a nice cool morning, with clear blue skies that will probably turn into a hot day later on. The warm California weather has been amazing for the last few years, but maybe I need to go somewhere in the mountains? Find a hiding spot where I can be alone with my thoughts?

  It’s always been my policy to go somewhere very different to the last place when I move on.

  Moving on reminds me of Blade. His large body sprawled out on my sofa like he’s never slept anywhere so comfortable. What am I going to do about him? Can I really just leave Blade and not tell him where I’m going or say goodbye? What will he think of me?

  Will he miss me?

  I’m so enmeshed in my thoughts I don’t notice the man standing in front of the building until I’ve crashed right into him. I get a flash of black as he holds me steady and then steps back.

  He clears his throat. “Miss Hazel Rushton?” he asks.

  I look up and frown. It doesn’t compute for a second or two. Then I realize he’s wearing a police uniform and holding out a badge in my general direction. My heart leaps into my throat, and I look around wildly for a way out. Three more officers seem to emerge from nowhere around me. I’m trapped. My demon hisses inside my body, and suddenly I’m running. I duck under the arms of one of the officers and sprint as fast as I can. My body doesn’t feel like my own, all I know is that I have to get out of here.

  A hand grabs my arm, and the little demon inside me somehow sends out a bolt of electrical current. He yells and lets go.

  I run.

  My whole body is trembling. I can’t think.

  The quad is just ahead of me, and there are more students milling about there. I head in that direction, not knowing where else to go. If I can just—

  Something grabs me around the legs, and I go down, tumbling to the ground, with heavy hands at my ankles keeping me in place. My glasses are knocked off my face. I kick out, or maybe it’s my demon? It’s hard to tell. There’s a grunt, but the hands around my legs don’t let go. I twist and try to sit up, punching out, hardly knowing or understanding what I’m doing, only knowing that this is my last chance. If these police officers take me in, that’s it.

  I won’t get a second chance to run.

  But another police officer has joined the first, and he’s holding my arms, manhandling me back onto my stomach and clasping handcuffs on my wrist.

  “Miss Rushton? You’re under arrest for resisting arrest, and unlawful flight from incarceration at the Ravenwood Institute. You have the right to remain silent…” The officer keeps on speaking, but I can’t hear him anymore. The demon inside me is bouncing around, making my insides fizz with energy. Everything inside me is saying to run. To escape. To get out of here.

  But it’s too late. I thought I had more time.

  But Connor did it. Already.

  He must have had the damn police department on speed dial.

  “I’m not her. Hazel Rushton. It’s not me,” I say the words in a rush, tumbling over myself in the effort to halt the force of this arrest.

  “I’m sorry, Ma’am, you ran. And you look enough like our suspect that we’ll need to take you down to the station and compare fingerprints.”

  I feel sick. They still have my fingerprints on file from when they locked me up in Ravenwood last time. One of the officers grabs my other arm and drags me to standing. The officer I kicked is scowling at me, and I’m pretty sure he’d like to kick me back. With an officer on each arm, I’m led away, toward the car park, where there’s a police cruiser sitting out in plain sight.

  How did I miss it?

  Because I was distracted. I was thinking about Blade.

  And now he doesn’t know where I am. It could be hours—maybe even days—before he wakes up and figures out that I’ve been arrested.

  31

  “This is all a big misunderstanding,” I say from the backseat of the patrol car. “You’ll laugh when you hear it.” I’m sweating like my body has a lifetime’s worth to make up for, and I can’t see a thing. They grabbed my glasses from the ground but didn’t give them back to me, so everything is a blur of color.

  “Save it for the station,” snaps one of the officers. I think it’s the one I kicked in the face, though it’s hard to tell; all I can see is a blur through the front-seat barrier.

  I’m squashed into the back of the police cruiser, the seat hard under my butt, and my arms twisted painfully in the cuffs behind my back. I feel like I’m going to throw up.

  My head hangs, pulling painfully on my arms, but I can’t seem to make myself sit up properly. Everything is too heavy, like my body is filled with bricks.

  This is it. The one thing I’ve been terrified of for the last five years is actually happening. I’m going to end up back at Ravenwood before Blade even knows I’m gone. Last time, I thought someone would come to save me. I thought my parents’ friends at the compound would know that I didn’t murder them.

  But no one came. No one helped. They believed the police and the doctors. Everyone believed that I’d been the one to brutally stab the two people who meant the most to me in the world. For a while, Dr. Green had me believing it too. She convinced me that everything I saw the night my parents were killed was just a vivid hallucination. A way for me to cope with what I’d done. That was the worst time of my life. I thought I deserved everything Dr. Green did to me.

  It took me a long time to figure out that she was lying; that I did see a demon, and that it killed my parents, not me.

  That was when I learned that it was up to me to save myself. I learned I had to protect myself from other people, because no one else was going to do it for me.

  Which is what I’m going to do now. Somehow.

  I pull my head up. I take a breath. This isn’t going to take me down. I can get through this. The little demon inside me fizzes in agreement. Sparks of electricity make my stomach roil.

  The electricity.

  I used some kind of power from the demon to give one of the officers an electric shock. It must be my chalice power—Freddy did say that I could use the energy from the demons I absorb to give myself power. Maybe that’s what I did? It’s something to test, something I can investigate when I figure out how I’m going to escape.

  Another thing I’m going to test is what’s happening with the demon. It hasn’t taken me over like Blade was expecting. Except… When I ran, it wasn’t my own instincts. The demon took over a little for me, made the decision.

  I swallow hard. I don’t think I’m going to tell Blade about that.

  Blade.

  Will he help me?

  A lump works its way up into my throat. He’s made it clear that the SIG is more important to him than I am. He won’t even kiss me because it will be a conflict of interest for the SIG. That tells me that he’s made his choice. If it comes down to it, he’ll choose the SIG over me.

  That’s okay. I can do this without help. I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it again.

  When we arrive at the station, the officers drag me out of the car, and lead me—none too gently—into the building.

  The stale smells of too many people hit my nose, making it twitch. Dull gray blobs of color assault my eyes, nothing more than a blur. People-shaped outlines are milling around, a mix of officers dressed in black, and ordinary civilians in the seating area. The officers don’t stop; they just pull me through the doors, and d
own a hallway into the back of the station.

  “You can wait in here while we get some of the paperwork started.” One of the officers pushes me into a holding cell and shuts the door, the clang echoing down the hall.

  “Don’t you have to confirm it’s me?”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s you,” says one of the officers. The sneer in his voice is almost a physical presence in the room. I guess he’s not going to be helping me out.

  “Can I at least have my glasses?”

  “Nope.”

  The two police officers stride away, probably to go congratulate themselves on nabbing a violent escapee from Ravenwood. Not that they had to do much. Connor gave the game away.

  The little demon sparks and fizzes in my stomach, and I feel like it’s trying to communicate with me. I have no idea what it’s saying. Can I use that little electricity trick to get out of here?

  Escaping from this cell seems useless without my glasses. I’m not sure how I’d be able to tell who was a police officer and who was a civilian. I wouldn’t know who to run from.

  I swing around and go to sit on the pallet bed in one corner of the cell. I may as well use my time for something useful. I close my eyes and try to focus on the demon. Immediately, I can feel it. Closer than ever before, fizzing and buzzing, full of excitement.

  Taking a breath, I try to grab some of the electricity that I used on the police officer. Nothing. It’s like there’s an invisible barrier that I can’t penetrate.

  Except I know I can because I’ve done it.

  I try again, and this time a fizzle of energy attaches itself to me, and I feel it run along my skin. I open my eyes and see a line of electricity running along my arms, ending in my glowing blue hand. Now that I know only supernaturals can see it, I don’t bother hiding my blue hand. Closing my eyes again, I try to nab another little piece of electricity. It’s harder again this time, and I sense the demon getting weaker and smaller.

  There’s clearly a limit to what I can do.

  I open my eyes and watch as the electricity runs along my arm again. When a throat clears just outside the cell, I jump a mile. My heart pounding, I look up, but all I can see is a blurry outline of a plain clothes police officer. I feel like a little kid who’s been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

  “Hazel,” says the familiar voice of Detective Capello.

  32

  “Hey.” I try to think of something a little more comprehensive, but it’s the only word that comes to mind right now.

  “What was that? What were you doing?” I’m close enough to Detective Capello to make out his eyes, which are like saucers.

  “I… uh…” I struggle to think of a reasonable excuse. And then I realize that he can see me, and that he’s a super. And maybe I can just tell him the truth. “Apparently I have some powers I didn’t realize I had.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

  I let out a breath. “Neither have I. That’s part of my problem.”

  He shakes his head and seems to give himself a pep talk. “Look, Hazel, you have to come with me, right now.” As he speaks, he’s unlocking the cell door.

  “What are you doing?” I ask. “Are you the one questioning me?”

  “No. I’m the one who’s breaking you out.” He’s darting quick glances over his shoulder as he opens the door to the cell. He gives me a quick gesture with his hand, and I don’t need to be asked again. I jump up off the bed and stride over to him. He hands my glasses to me, and I slip them on. He’s thought of everything.

  “Why are you doing this?” I ask as I follow him down the corridor.

  “I looked over your case file. I know what killed your parents, and I know it wasn’t you. But you’re never going to convince a human court of law that it was demons. They’ll just send you back to the mental institution.”

  I don’t know the detective well enough to hug him, but that’s all I want to do right now. “Thank you. I owe you for this. Big time.”

  “Well, I hate to see someone getting screwed over just because they’re a super and can’t explain what’s really happening. I try to help out where I can.” He opens a door and shepherds me into a storage area. “Just play along,” he whispers as he grabs my arm.

  The demon is fizzing inside me, and doubts suddenly start to creep in. Where are we going really? Is this some kind of trick? I don’t know if I can really trust this guy. I know he’s a friend of Blade’s, and in all my interactions with him so far, he’s seemed like a good guy.

  But why would he risk his career for someone he doesn’t know?

  It seems like too much of a stretch, and I tense up, ready to run at a moment’s notice. It seems like it could be one of those traps that you see on television cop shows, where they try to trick criminals into revealing some vital piece of evidence.

  Except I’m pretty sure that kind of evidence is illegal, and they only do that when they need to know the launch codes for the nuclear device that’s about to go off in Grand Central Station.

  Or you know, something like that.

  We come to the back of the storage area, and Detective Capello clutches my arm in an even tighter grip. I almost start struggling until I see the older police officer sitting behind the desk just to one side of where we are.

  “Hey, Morello,” says the Detective. “Just taking the prisoner out for a smoke break.”

  Morello looks up, stares at me meditatively, and then grunts and looks back down at his paperwork. He doesn’t really care.

  “Is that usual?” I ask quietly.

  “He’s under a spell,” says Detective Capello in a low voice.

  “A spell? Like witches?” Are there even witches? The thought is uncomfortable.

  “A voodoo spell. He won’t remember anything. But he could still call for help if he comes out of the trance, so we have to move slowly and carefully. No sudden movements.”

  A voodoo spell? Does that mean…?

  But now’s not the time to ask questions. I just follow the detective toward a large door at the side of the storage area. The demon inside me is simmering, like it’s about to burst into fire, but hasn’t quite reached the right temperature yet. My heart is beating, and my palms are so sweaty I doubt I could actually hold anything right now. He punches in a code, and the door swings open.

  Bright light makes me squint, and I hold my free hand up to protect my eyes. The detective is still pulling me along, his movements agitated, like we’re still not in the clear. I follow him diligently, trying to keep my suspicious mind at bay. Is he really about to set me free? Why would he do that? I don’t understand.

  We’re walking across the parking lot filled with police cruisers and unmarked cars. There’s a gate at the far side, and we’re almost there. Only a few feet and we’ll be free.

  “Hey! Capello! What are you doing with my prisoner?” The voice of my delightful arresting officer sounds out over the parking lot.

  Detective Capello stiffens. He looks at me, and his expression is anguished.

  “The code to the gate is 100badguys. Punch me,” he says urgently.

  “What?”

  “Just hit me. With something, anything, so it looks like I was coerced.”

  Without thinking, I pull on the demon inside me and a surge of electricity rolls over my arms and into my hands. Where I’m touching the detective, it burns into his skin and he yells, pulling back and stumbling back onto the ground. He’s holding his hand like it’s burned badly, but I can’t stop to make sure he’s okay.

  I sprint to the gate, enter the code, and race through it, not looking back.

  33

  Outside the gate, across the road, there’s a white van with a familiar face at the wheel. He gestures to me, and I sob with relief even as I sprint toward him. I can hear the shouts of police officers behind me, but I don’t look back.

  I hope they don’t have their guns handy.

  I grab the handle of Blade’s vehicle, and I’m swingi
ng into the seat as he roars off. I only just get the door shut as we scream around the corner and down the road.

  “Thank you,” I say. My whole body is shivering in reaction to everything that’s just happened. You’d think a person who’s been on the run for the last five years would be more used to adrenaline-filled action sequences, but honestly, I’ve always been so cautious, I’ve never been close to being caught before.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Blade practically shouts the words at me. His eyes are wild, and I don’t know how I missed the seething anger that’s vibrating off him.

  “Pardon?”

  “You’re on the run because they think you murdered your parents, and you didn’t tell me?” He grinds the words out through gritted teeth, like he’s trying not to really flip out. I can feel his jaguar close to the surface.

  “I—”

  “You’re an idiot, that’s what you are. How am I supposed to keep you safe if you keep something like that from me?”

  “I—”

  “How the hell have you evaded the authorities all this time? You’re about as subtle as a blunt ax. You have no sense of self-preservation.”

  I frown, his words starting to really sting. I finally find my words. “I know how to take care of myself. I’ve survived all these years without you taking care of me.”

  He shakes his head, his hands clenched to the steering wheel. I’ve never seen him this angry. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

  Something snaps inside my head. “Because you said you’d choose the SIG over me,” I yell, the words echoing in the confined space of the truck. “You said the SIG wouldn’t do anything to mess with the human system. You said—”

  “I never chose the SIG over you!”

  “You did so!”

  “When? When did I say those words to you?” His eyes are fierce flames, and I can feel the animal in him, closer to the surface than I’ve ever felt it.