by Dina James
Those girls always gave Robin a hard enough time just for talking to Rebecca, saying it was bad for her image. Now with word of their mutual detention circulating, it was just going to get worse.
As Mr. Bradley called roll in her homeroom, Rebecca thought about how Ryan wouldn’t answer when his teacher called his name. His teacher would probably just figure that he’d cut class again. It’s not like the school wasn’t used to Ryan’s absences.
The day seemed to drag on longer than usual, and Rebecca couldn’t help glancing at the clock on the wall far too often. She couldn’t believe how grateful she was when lunch came and she headed into the cafeteria with everybody else. For some reason she was hungrier than she usually was.
Famished, in fact. Even the cafeteria’s macaroni and cheese that looked more like yellow paste than anything edible sounded wonderful, and she couldn’t wait to at least attempt to eat it.
She was even more grateful to find an empty table near the back wall of the cafeteria and smiled as she remembered it had been the one Ryan had been sitting at yesterday in detention. She set her tray down, slid onto the bench seat and picked up her fork.
“No wonder you have skin problems, Spot,” came a familiar mocking voice as Rebecca sat down. “With what you eat, it’s a miracle that huge zit on your neck hasn’t taken over the rest of your face.” Gah. Marla Thompson and her gaggle of brainless bimbos were sitting at the table in front of her. How could she have not noticed them?
Her stomach growled in reply. That’s why she didn’t notice them. She was more focused on her food than anything else.
Why was she so hungry today?
“I swear, Spot. If I had that gross thing attached to me, I’d get three jobs and save every penny I could just to have it removed. At least a scar might make you interesting enough to get you a date.” She ignored Marla and the giggles of the other girls at that table. What was Marla doing in the cafeteria anyway? She usually went out somewhere.
Marla’s next overly loud comment answered that. “It will be nice when my car is fixed and I can actually eat somewhere I don’t have to look at things that kill my appetite.”
As if you have an appetite to kill, Rebecca thought. She wished she were brave enough to say it to Marla’s face.
“No sack lunch today, Spot?” Marla asked. “Grandma too busy playing Bingo to pack one for you?”
Rebecca concentrated on her food, though she’d lost her own appetite.
Instead of trying to take another bite of her macaroni paste, she opened her milk and took a sip.
“Did you and Robin have a good time in detention with the rest of the lowlifes?” Marla continued.
Rebecca picked up her fork, deliberately ignoring Marla.
“As far as I’m concerned, you and Robin both deserve—”
“Why are you bugging me and not hanging out with your new boyfriend?” Rebecca interrupted Marla’s next question. Marla could pick on her all she wanted, but she was not about to say anything bad about Robin! “You know...
the one you had to steal from Robin.”
Marla’s eyes narrowed. The skinny girl stood up.
Rebecca instantly regretted her smart mouth. Why oh why hadn’t she just ignored her like she’d been doing? Now Marla was mad.
She walked to Rebecca’s table. “Not that it’s any of your business, but Bryan is at the dentist.”
Must have gotten a cavity from how sweet you are, Rebecca thought with disdain as she stabbed her fork into what passed for macaroni and cheese.
“And I didn’t steal him from anyone,” Marla hissed as she put both hands on the table, leaning down so that only Rebecca could hear her. “Bryan has his own mind and Robin is a self-centered bitch. She only hangs out with you to make herself look good, which is hilarious since you’re the one who made her look like a dork in front of the whole school, getting her in trouble yesterday! Bryan dumped her because of that. Because of you! Way to go, charity case, screwing over the only person you could remotely consider a friend. I hope whatever you did was worth it.”
Rebecca stood up and shoved her tray away. She ran from the table as fast as she could, biting her bottom lip to keep from crying.
“When will you realize that all you ever do is mess stuff up? Stay out of other people’s lives, Spot!” Marla called after her.
Rebecca heard loud giggling behind her as she made it to the cafeteria doors and out into the hallway.
She choked back a sob. It wasn’t true! She wasn’t the reason Bryan dumped Robin!
Was she?
The bathroom she raced to was blessedly empty. Rebecca ran to the last stall and locked herself in it. She sat down on the toilet and pul ed up her feet so no one would notice her in there. She took breaths as deep as she could, trying to make as little noise as possible, swallowing hard in an attempt to keep the lump in her throat from forcing her tears out in an uncontrollable flood. Marla was not going to make her cry!
It wasn’t true. It wasn’t! Robin would have said something...wouldn’t she have? Not just...asked about her morning and bought her a soda and...
Robin wouldn’t lie to her! She said Marla Thompson was the reason Bryan broke up with her, and that’s what Rebecca would believe.
She’d never hurt Robin. Marla was right in that Robin was the only person Rebecca could call a friend, even if they had a strange relationship only they understood. She trusted Robin.. Robin would have said something, or been angry with her, or...or something if Rebecca had hurt her, even if not on purpose!
Right?
Unless Robin was lying to her, and Rebecca refused to believe that.
She heard the bathroom door open. Rebecca held her breath and stayed very still, hoping someone was just in the bathroom to fix their hair.
“Rebecca?” she heard Robin’s worried voice call. “Rebecca, come on.
I know you’re in here, and I know you’re upset. Come out here.” Rebecca didn’t want to. She didn’t want to see anyone right now. She should just go home. Make up another excuse note or just take the heat when the school called her nana about her missing classes. She didn’t care.
She just didn’t want to be here.
A few moments passed. Rebecca watched Robin’s shoes come closer, stall by stall, until they stopped at hers. The handle rattled and Rebecca heard a sigh.
“I know you’re in there,” Robin said. “Come on out or I’ll come in there and get you.”
“Go away! I’ll just mess up your life more!” Rebecca protested. Ugh, her voice gave her away. It was thick with tears.
“Don’t be stupid,” Robin said. “I’m going to count to three then I’m going to crawl under this door.”
Rebecca sighed. She knew Robin wouldn’t give up or leave until she at least saw her, so Rebecca stood up and opened the stall door.
Robin smiled at her. “Come with me. We’ll go somewhere and you’ll feel a lot better.”
“Are you crazy?” Rebecca said, shaking her head with a wry smile.
“You can’t leave school. Haven’t I gotten you in enough trouble this week?
Marla’s right. Just leave me alone, Ro. You shouldn’t be hanging around me.” Robin just smiled and held an arm out.
Rebecca shook her head and went to her friend, giving her a warm hug.
Robin didn’t hug her back. In fact, she flinched and pulled away. Rebecca leaned back a little, then dropped her embrace in complete horror.
What she saw wasn’t anything like the pretty friend she’d just hugged.
It was a...a thing.
chApter six
A big thing that seemed to grow taller by the second.
Huge gray-green wings rose over its head and shoulders matched the color of its face. Glowing green eyes, like the color of the toxic waste always shown on TV— radioactive green, Rebecca thought insanely—raked over her, making her shiver again. Pointed ears stretched up into long black hair that was neatly separated by two short, curved, shiny black horns growi
ng from the top of its head, making it look even taller. Gray fangs rested upon its gray lips.
Rebecca had never seen anything so disgustingly ugly, yet strangely beautiful. It wasn’t slimy or grotesque...just...ugly.
“Even immature, your power bleeds from you,” said the creature. It clamped a gray-skinned, black-clawed hand around her wrist.
Something inside her moved and leapt, infusing her limbs with warmth, and she knew what the creature was.
A demon. Syd had said demons kidnapped Healers.
Just as the thought entered her mind, the demon tugged her toward the row of mirrors above the sinks lining the opposite wall. “Come.” Rebecca tried to pull away and couldn’t extract herself from the being’s tight hold.
“No! Let me go!” she screamed.
“Go?” said the creature. “Where? Are you not unwelcome here? Unwanted? I have come to take you to a place where you will be more than appreciated, just like you want. You do want that, do you not?”
“What? No!” She fought to free her wrist. “Leave me alone!” The demon looked down at her with a sneer. “You are alone, are you not? And you wish me to leave you here, like this, when there are so many waiting for you?”
Rebecca felt whatever was inside her leap again and crash into her ribcage. She closed her eyes and gasped as images behind them filled her mind.
They wanted her. The demons. Unlike anyone here. How nice, to be wanted somewhere by someone for a change. Yes...there were many waiting for her. Waiting to—
She screamed and her eyes flew open. She didn’t want to be a queen of demons! Her free hand pried at the demon’s fingers around her wrist. “No!” The menacing being glared down at her and released her wrist, only to clamp the same hand around her throat and lift her from the floor without effort.“You will come whether or not I must force your consent,” said the demon. “You will come away from here, where you’ll be celebrated. Among us, you will be appreciated beyond imagination. Not like here. We will lay worlds at your feet, but you must part from this one.” She shook her head and managed to force words out. “Get off!” The demon released her and she fell hard to the floor.
Rebecca didn’t waste a second in screaming. “HELP!” The demon laughed. It grasped her upper arm and jerked her to her feet, its black claws digging deep into her skin. Rebecca screamed again, this time from pain.
“No mortal can hear you now,” it said as it leaned down to lick her face. Rebecca tried to cringe away from its foul breath. “No one can help you. No one will help you.”
It let go of her arm. Rebecca pressed her hand tight against the wound then looked at her hand. She was bleeding, badly. She cupped the injury again and looked up at the demon.
Unconcerned, it clasped a hand around her other wrist. “The pain you feel now is nothing compared to what you will endure if I must force your consent to return with me. Now come. Come, and you will be a queen. A goddess. You will be worshiped.”
Yeah, before you kill me! Rebecca thought as it dragged her to the row of sinks.
“Death for a mortal is inevitable,” the demon replied, and Rebecca knew it had heard her thinking. “Why do you fight against it so? Let us give yours meaning and purpose.”
It leapt with a cat’s grace into the mirror above one of the sinks. Then the demon turned and grasped Rebecca’s arm with its other hand.
Her hand smacked the glass. The demon’s hand tightened on her wrist and tugged her forward a fraction of an inch.
Pain unlike anything she’d ever felt ripped through her. Rebecca’s legs went out from under her as her fingers were forced through the glass of the mirror. She screamed and fought to pull away.
“There will be more, and much worse than this if you do not give your consent,” said the creature in the mirror.
“You’ve...got the wrong...girl!” Rebecca panted as she braced her foot against the sink that always trickled a stream of cold water no matter how many times the maintenance man fiddled with it.
Water.
The hands on her arm.
That warm flush went through her, and she knew water didn’t have to be “holy” to hurt a demon.
Her eyes found the trickle of running water and she shoved her free hand under it. She flung the small palmful at the demon in the mirror and put her wet hand over the demon’s hand on her arm.
It howled and released her. Rebecca fell back, landing hard on her butt.
The demon growled and climbed back out of the mirror.
This time it didn’t look like it was going to ask her to come with it. Her eyes widened and she shrieked as she got to her feet.
“I have no wish to fatigue your abilities in your attempt to flee. Fighting means you will only exhaust yourself, Acolyte,” the demon growled.
“Is that like ‘if you run, you’ll only die tired’?” came a dark voice with a heavy Southern drawl from the doorway. “You guys gotta get better TV
down there, I tell ya. Bad movies lines ain’t scary.” The voice’s owner looked at Rebecca. “Y’okay?”
Rebecca just nodded, staring at him. He was huge. Bigger than even the largest football player on her school’s team, and he didn’t look any older than seventeen. Well, if he combed his shaggy brown hair a little better and changed his clothes from jeans and a t-shirt to something more...mature, he could probably pass for twenty, but certainly not any older. But that wasn’t why she was staring.
Not only was he good-looking on the level of Syd’s gorgeousness, this guy’s muscles literally bulged and rippled beneath his t-shirt as he breathed.
His dark eyes sparkled with what one could only call impishness, and he looked like he was about to start tearing the sinks off the wall before he set the place on fire.
“Who are you?” Rebecca asked stupidly. This guy was just...standing in a girl’s bathroom grinning at a demon like it was normal! What...?
“Name’s Billy. Now how ‘bout you get behind me while I deal with old Armaros here?”
“Armaros?” Rebecca echoed.
The demon growled and Rebecca took a step back, inching in Billy’s direction. She didn’t know who the big guy was or where he’d come from, but she’d take any help she could get about now.
“Oh my God, you see it too,” she babbled. “This is real. This is really real...”
Before she could take another step, the demon had her by the arm again.
The demon closed his eyes in seeming relief and relaxation. “Can you not feel it, anubi? Think of the purpose such power could be put to—” Billy growled, and Armaros opened his fluorescent green eyes.
“Or do not,” the demon continued with a contemptuous glare down at Billy. “I forget your kind is incapable of rational thought.”
“I’m about to rationalize you, buddy,” Billy warned. “Back in your hole, before I really get mad. And leave that little bit of nothin’ you got your dirty mitts on. She ain’t worth the hurt I’ll put on you.” Armaros laughed and shook his head. “Anubi,” he said with a wry smile. “Forever looking at what is in front of them, never what is behind.
Foolish creatures, the lot of them.”
The demon nodded and the door to each of the bathroom stalls opened to reveal a demon, each holding a thick chain leash attached to metal collars of large black dog-like creatures.
Hellhounds.
One of the hounds snarled, black drool glistening at the corners of its mouth. Some of the creature’s drool dripped in gold-colored threads to the floor where it hissed and smoked like acid.
Rebecca’s eyes widened.
Billy laughed and shook his head. “If that’s the way you boys want to play...”
Coarse, shaggy brown fur grew from his skin. The hair on Billy’s head lengthened to meet the identical hair on his back while his ears lengthened into furred points and moved up and closer to the top of his face.
He simply...all Rebecca could think of was that he melted—clothes and all—into a very large...beast.
Sh
e did her very best not to scream. Not only did this new creature —
what had just called himself “Billy” — tower above her, he stood on two legs. The fur that now covered his chest didn’t hide obvious scars. If the fur along them wasn’t missing entirely, it grew in all-opposite directions, unlike the smoothness of the undamaged parts of him.
Anubi, the demon had called him, and Rebecca knew that she was staring a werewolf in the face.
The face. That was perhaps the most frightening thing of all.
The left side looked like it had been torn away then put back together again with glue that never dried. His left ear drooped much further down than the right one, and his left cheek did the same.
Large, sharp canine teeth protruded from the top and bottom of Billy’s long, pointed muzzle. The undamaged right side of his wolf ’s face curled in a sneer at the five other demons that had shown themselves. Rebecca was shocked to hear him speak again.
“So, we gonna do this or what?” came Billy’s voice faintly through the darker, deeper growling that the beast was using to talk.
Armaros laughed. “A lone anubi and an untrained Healer against us and our guardians? I believe you are greatly overestimating your chances.” Billy was on her side! Rebecca hadn’t been sure.
“There ain’t enough of you,” the anubi scoffed. “Pups and all, you wouldn’t make a mouthful. I thought you knew better, Armaros. But I forgot, you can’t count. Six against one makes for poor odds...on your side.”
“One does not need an entire force if one does not intend to fight,” Armaros replied. He smiled, though it emanated nothing but cruelty, and gestured at Rebecca. “We wouldn’t want to damage—”
