Demon High Page 12

  I couldn’t believe he really thought that, but then I was having a hard time remembering he was a demon at all. Deciding it was a topic going nowhere, I placed my hand on his arm. “Can you tell me more about Holmes? Can you tell me where I can find him? Those boys have been missing a while now, and Angie. She’s a nice enough girl. They don’t deserve what Holmes does to people.”

  As I said it the words really sank in. What Holmes does to people, not long ago people that I’d never met and would never know…Angie, Joshua, real people. I felt sick. I placed my hand on the table to keep from teetering to the side.

  He glanced at me. The sadness was back. I stood there, I don’t know how long, just staring up at him, getting lost in his pain, and sharing my own.

  He placed his hand on mine. It was warm. I moved closer. I wanted to snuggle up against him and hold onto him the way I’d held my teddy bear the nights after my mother disappeared.

  But he didn’t pull me close. He didn’t even squeeze my fingers. He just sighed. “You can’t save everyone, Lucinda. Don’t try. Some things can’t be undone.” He picked up my books and slid them back into my arms.

  It wasn’t until he’d left that I realized he hadn’t answered my question. He hadn’t done anything except acknowledge that he recognized Holmes’ birth name.

  If Nellie had pulled that trick, I would have cursed her. But I couldn’t muster up any anger toward Oscar. In fact I couldn’t muster up much emotion at all. I just felt hollow.

  I sat down and stared at a spot in the asphalt where a bunch of grass had forced its way through. I stayed there through the following period. Finally, when the next bell rang, and a few students wandered past breaking the silence that had engulfed me, I pulled myself together and wandered into class.

  I could have just left then and gone to the drugstore. Brittany would have, but suddenly it didn’t seem all that important. It seemed like something I could just skip.

  Chapter 12

  By the end of school, I’d lost my moment of malaise. The whole unleashing-demons-on-the-world thing had to be getting to me. It was actually kind of reassuring. I think I’d have worried if I hadn’t experienced a little depression.

  Whatever the cause, I was happy the mood had passed.

  I took the city bus to the drugstore. I had to change twice to get there, but I stuck with it. The ride home would be shorter.

  Doris was behind the counter. When she saw me, she gestured to the back of the store with her head. “Manager’s in today. He’s probably eating inventory and fondling magazine pages. Just go on back.”

  “Actually—” I started to step up, but two kids with skateboards under their arms cut me off. Middle schoolers. I waited for them to buy their ultra-caffeinated power drinks, then filled their spot. “I wanted to ask you something.”

  Doris cocked a brow.

  I dropped my backpack onto the counter and rummaged around in it until I found Holmes’ picture. “Does this guy shop here?” I asked.

  She stared at the picture for a few seconds then pinned me with a look. “Why are you asking?”

  My brain stuttered. On TV, people answered, or at most, asked for a little something to make the telling profitable. I hadn’t figured Doris as the “grease my palm” type, so hadn’t been worried.

  I laid the print-out down, and decided to go bold. “I heard he was hiring, but since he’s new in town, my grandmother wants more information on him.” I gave Doris a you-know-adults look, even though she was probably within five years of Nana’s age.

  “Your grandmother sounds like a smart lady.” She picked up the picture. “Funny photo of him. What’s with the hat?” She wrinkled her nose. “Fits him though, with that moustache. I do hate a moustache on a man.”

  Afraid to rush her, I waited.

  She set the page down. “I don’t know much about him, not enough to make your grandmother feel better anyway. He has come in a few times in the last week. He asked for a job. Even talked to the head pharmacist. I think he liked him.”

  “So, he’s a pharmacist?” I asked, my mind buzzing. She recognized him. Our hunch was right.

  “I guess.”

  Two more kids had wandered in, girls this time. They headed for the lip gloss display where Brittany and I had stood the night before. Doris’s gaze followed their every move.

  “The blonde’s going to pilfer something. She’s been working up the courage for a week,” she muttered.

  I tapped the photo.

  “Oh, he calls himself Dr. Howard, but he came in here looking for work. Doesn’t add up.” She shook her head. “Weird he’d be offering you a job, since he was looking for one here.”

  “Maybe since he couldn’t find work, he decided to start his own business,” I offered.

  “Doing what? Takes money to open much these days.”

  I nodded in agreement, pretending her question was rhetorical. She hadn’t mentioned Angie or the hotel. With Angie missing, I knew if I did, Doris would get suspicious, maybe even call the police.

  She looked down at the photo again and picked it up. “Where’d you get this anyway?”

  Sensing things were about to turn in a direction I didn’t want to go, I shot a look over my shoulder at the two girls still twisting the lip gloss display around in circles. “I think the redhead’s got ideas too. She just slipped something into her palm.”

  With a grunt, Doris rounded the counter and moved toward the poor middle schoolers with the focus of a lion after a pair of gazelles.

  As I walked out the front door, the girls ran past me. A lip gloss fell out of the redhead’s pocket and rolled under my foot. I stepped over it and kept going. I hadn’t really thought the girls were stealing. Showed my skill for sizing up character.

  o0o

  It was hard to go back to school the next morning. I felt like I should be doing something. But what? I’d confirmed that Holmes was on the loose and learned the name he was going under now, or at least had told Doris. That wasn’t a ton of help. It was one of his old aliases. She hadn’t seemed to know anything else about him, and she’d been surprised when I said I was thinking of going to work for him. Which meant if Angie had, Doris didn’t know it.

  So, maybe he wasn’t completely repeating his past. Maybe he hadn’t opened his own hotel. But he was here, in the human plane.

  The thought sent a gaggle of goose bumps stampeding over my body.

  I hauled myself to school because, one, I lacked Brittany’s skills to get out of it without getting nailed and, two, I couldn’t think of anything else to do. I needed Brittany’s brain.

  When I saw her strolling down the hall toward me, I barely stopped myself from pulling her into an embarrassing hug. I really needed someone on my side right now, someone I could trust.

  “How was the appointment?” I asked.

  She didn’t flicker a lash. “Good. I may have to go back next week though. They couldn’t find a vein.” She held out her arm. It was bruised around the inside elbow.

  I stared at it. There were parts that were darker than the rest. I squinted…like fingers had wrapped around her arm… I looked up, her gaze was steady, too steady, practiced. Which told me nothing. That look probably came to Brittany easier than a lack of fashion sense did to me.

  “That’s too bad,” I said. “It looks painful.”

  She shoved her book bag into her locker.

  “Why did they need to draw blood, anyway?” I asked. It wasn’t a normal part of most doctor’s appointments, and I didn’t remember a nurse ever leaving behind the darker marks I’d seen on Brittany’s skin. My B.S. monitor was flashing.

  A book fell out of her locker and onto the ground. I bent to pick it up at the same time as Brittany. Our heads collided in the process. With a laugh, I wrapped my fingers around the book’s spine and started to hand it to her. Our dear demon Nellie stared back at me from the cover.

  “You found a book on her?” I asked.

  “Online.” She held out her han
d. “I thought it wouldn’t hurt to research her some more.

  “What about Holmes? Are there books on him?” I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me to look for a book. Guess I was too used to just searching the Internet.

  She dropped the book back into her bag. “I don’t know. I can look during computer lab.”

  Brittany’s bruise forgotten, I nodded. My mind was already moving ahead. “Listen, he’s here for sure. I went back to the drugstore. Doris recognized him.” I filled her in on the little I’d learned.

  “So what do you think? What do we do now?” I asked.

  “Well.” She dug a notebook out of her bag and tucked it under her arm. “We can drive all over Caldera and Bethel, looking for him, ask every person we see, or we can take a more direct route.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We could go back to the circle and call on Kobal.”

  I looked at her, thinking she couldn’t be serious.

  She was.

  o0o

  Adrenaline had started whirling through me as soon as Brittany suggested calling Kobal. I hadn’t given in immediately. I told her it wasn’t a good idea, that calling a demon lord was insanely dangerous. But as she continued to push the point, I began to see her logic. Four students were missing. We’d tried old fashioned research and gotten nowhere. It was time to up our game. Take a risk. We owed it to Angie and the boys. Besides, it was Brittany’s cousin who was missing; I had to respect that by giving her opinion extra weight.

  We had waited until after dinner. Nana was home watching sitcoms and Brittany’s parents were meeting people at some ritzy restaurant. We’d both used the classic “I’m studying at a friend’s” routine.

  The walk across the field seemed shorter. Maybe because all I could think of was getting there and what would happen once we were.

  “What made you think of calling Kobal?” I asked. Brittany hadn’t seemed keen on the option before.

  “Who better?” she countered.

  We were almost to the circle now. I licked my lips. “Kobal isn’t Theodore.”

  “You said Oscar told you calling Theodore was like calling Kobal anyway.” Brittany placed her hand on the line of metal fencing that divided off the cemetery.

  “And look what happened,” I replied. “What if I call Kobal and more demons escape?” My gaze was glued to the circle.

  She shook the fence, checking its stability, then swung a leg over. I watched, sure she was going to impale herself on one of the decorative spikes.

  “It isn’t your fault the demons escaped; it was my cousin and his friends’. There is no one here except you and me, and I’m sure not going to rush the circle.”

  It was a solid point.

  Now behind the fence, she sighed. “You’ll be fine. I trust you.”

  She trusted me. I smiled.

  I walked to the circle and began unpacking my tools.

  “Lucinda,” Brittany said.

  I looked up, thinking maybe she’d changed her mind.

  “You’re humming.”

  Oh. I blew out a breath and went to check the circle. There were a couple of places where dirt was showing through the paint, a big one where the boys had staggered around. I pried the lid off the paint can I’d brought with me and got to work making repairs. While I was at it, I thickened the line all the way around.

  “You done yet?” Brittany was sitting on the ground, peering at me through the bars.

  I was.

  I wiped the brush clean on the grass and dropped it and the can back into my bag. With the candle and athame ready, I started my chant.

  Kobal appeared almost instantly.

  He stretched his wings to their full width, or almost their full width. The sides pressed against the invisible barrier of the circle, as if he was standing under a glass dome. He glanced up and frowned, then pulled them back in.

  “It’s been a while,” he said. He flexed his wings, making the dark feathers on the tips shake. Then he pulled his shoulders back and stretched his neck from one side to the other. Finished with his warm-up, he leveled his eerily clear gaze at me. “Lucinda, are you alone?” He angled his head as if peering past me into the dark. If he could see Brittany, he made no comment on her. He looked back at me. “Have you been having fun?”

  My hand tightened on the athame. The stitching that ran down one side of the handle bit into my skin. “You planned this.”

  “Well.” He tapped his chin. “Planned is bit inaccurate. I had no way of knowing those three boys would come along and be so helpful. But, yes, it did seem to work out.”

  I moved toward the burning candle, fully planning to chop it in half and send the demon back to hell.

  “That won’t solve your problem.” He crossed his arms over his chest and looked down his aristocratic nose at me.

  My hand shook, but I touched the athame’s blade to the wax.

  “Don’t let him get to you, Lucinda. Ask him what we need to know,” Brittany murmured. Her volume was low, the words meant only for me, but of course, not having human limitations, Kobal heard.

  “Listen to your friend,” he said. “You need my help, and I’m willing to give it to you.”

  I rocked back on my heels and looked up at him, but I didn’t move away from the candle. “Why?”

  He smiled. It was a perfect masculine smile. His teeth were white against his dark skin. His eyes twinkled. It was the kind of smile that should have made me tingle all the way down to my unpainted toenails. But it didn’t. It made me want to vomit instead, from fear.

  Kobal was confident. I’d never encountered someone with this same vibrating sureness. It brought out every insecurity I’d ever had, even the ones I thought I’d overcome.

  “Didn’t your mother ever tell you it’s rude to look a gift horse in the mouth?” The tips of his wings fluttered. I got the distinct feeling he was laughing at me.

  “My mother wasn’t around long enough to give a lot of advice. She did though—” I stood, the athame hanging at my side. “—tell me never to trust a demon.”

  He let the laugh I’d sensed inside him free. It was smooth and infectious. Despite the fear curdling inside me I wanted to laugh with him. I felt the corners of my lips turn up.

  “I like you,” he said. “You hide your fear well. I still see it.” His eyes flickered. “And smell it.” He inhaled deeply, his lips curling upward in a carnal smile. “But for a mortal, you hide it well. And you’re young. Lots of time to grow. But then you have always been a promising child.”

  I wanted to ask him what he meant by the last. I didn’t like the insinuation that he had known me, even of me, when I was younger, but again I tamped down my natural reaction and forced my mind to why I was here, why I’d let myself be talked into this insane act.

  “Can you tell us where Holmes is?” I asked. I should have made my question direct, ordered him to tell me, but instinctively I knew it wouldn’t have mattered, knew even with him trapped in my circle I didn’t have the strength to force him to my will.

  “Holmes? Perhaps. Are you saying you want to make a deal?” His wings twitched again; this time his fingers did too.

  “Deal, no. I don’t want to make a deal,” I said the words firmly, somehow managed to keep my need to scream them at bay. Sweat beaded on my brow. I’d drawn the circle and put my will in it. That should have been enough, but something was different tonight. The demon inside the circle was doing something different. My will continued to drain as I talked to him, as if he was leeching it as he talked. I straightened my shoulders and pulled on reserves I hadn’t realized I had.

  His eyes flickered. “Good girl,” he murmured. “For that, you deserve a reward.” Suddenly, he was gone. In his place stood Holmes. The serial killer was dressed in modern clothing, but his moustache was intact. He was sitting in front of a computer monitor, his gaze locked onto the screen. There was a noise, a squeak and he leaned closer until I thought his nose would touch the glass. “So sad, so sweet
,” he muttered, then he stroked the screen.

  With no warning the vignette disappeared, and Kobal stood back in front of me. “Times have changed.” He waved his hand and a high back chair appeared. He sat. His wings pulled in at his sides, framing him. “You know, when our friend was here last, he had no way of seeing his victims. He had to make do with just hearing their whimpers and cries. But today—” He held up both hands, palms up. “—modern technology has changed all that.”

  The drain on my will stopped. It allowed me to relax a bit, not enough for the demon lord to surprise me, but enough I could focus on what he had just shown me.

  Holmes was dressed in modern clothing. The scene was modern—the killer watching Angie, the boys, or another victim I had yet to learn of, on some type of camera, and it was live, or close to it. The idea sickened me, but I couldn’t let my feelings show.

  I tried to look as I thought Brittany would have, as if what he’d shown me was unimpressive. “He’s a demon. Are you saying he’s so weak he has to use human inventions to spy? Perhaps I shouldn’t be worried about him at all.”

  This time Kobal’s laugh was deep and rollicking. “You are precious, aren’t you?” He wiped tears from his eyes and smiled at me with an expression not all that different from a teacher’s when dealing with a particularly slow student. “I’m not going to take that bait and tell you what powers our dear Holmes may or may not have. I will tell you though, that he’s a special case, someone who never quite accepted what he is. Don’t, however, let that lead you to believe he isn’t dangerous. Doesn’t his record speak for itself?” He templed his fingers and waited.

  “How do I know that really was Holmes? You could put out any image. I wouldn’t know.”

  He leaned forward, both hands on his knees. The muscles of his shoulders bulged. “You already believe he’s free. You already believe he’s taken those boys and that girl or you wouldn’t be here. What do you think he’s doing with them? Serving them tea?” He leaned back. “Besides, I have a connection to all the demons under me. I get to experience, at least to a degree, everything they do. It’s part of the fun.” His gaze drifted behind me. “Did you know that, Brittany? Does that add to the thrill?”