“That’s bunk and you know it.”
“Do I?” He smiled. It was an expression I’d never seen on Stanley’s face. He looked like a cat with a mouthful of canary feathers and whiskers coated in cream. “Unless you mean that the idea of magic is bunk, and then I agree. I mean, you’d have a real hard time proving something like that.”
“You have no idea what you’re dealing with, Dozer.”
“Right now, I’m dealing with a runtish busybody and, according to some people, a jealous witch.” He waggled his fingers and took off. “Buh-bye, Maggie.”
At least I didn’t have to wonder anymore. He did it. The power had given him a burst of confidence equal to any magic spell. The old Stanley could never have gotten the last word with me.
I hoped he enjoyed it while it lasted. Because I had a feeling that when the demon got loose, it wasn’t going to be too happy with the guy holding the leash.
26
“it was the eyes that got me.” Lisa and Justin and I sat in my study. I’d lit some candles—I was trying to clear the smell, not my aura—and the aroma of fresh baked cookies reminded me of Gran’s house, and feeling safe. It made it easier, slightly, to talk about things like demons and curses.
Lisa’s body language made it more difficult, though. She sat on the sofa with both her arms and her legs crossed, a scowl of rejection on her face. “The smell of brimstone, Mags? Doesn’t that seem a little cliché?”
“Clichés have to come from somewhere, don’t they?”
“But a demon.” She glanced at Justin, and then back at me. “You two realize we live in the squarest town on the planet, right? And you think this thing is a demon?”
Justin, sitting in my desk chair, read from the e-mail he’d received from his friend. He’d brought his laptop since my computer had undergone a meltdown.
“According to Henry, Azmael was a minor Babylonian demon. He mentions that the concept of ‘demon’ wasn’t necessarily bad. It basically meant it was a spirit. Like those personal gods we talked about, Maggie.”
Lisa stopped jiggling her crossed legs and relaxed her tightly folded arms. “So this thing might not even be evil. It might just be doling out justice.”
“Karen Foley wasn’t doing anybody any harm,” I said.
“Maybe she was just an accident?”
“It’s connected. But I’m not sure how.” I picked up the sheet with the symbols. “There are six letters in its name. There were six in the clique, three Jocks, three Jessicas. I thought maybe when it reached six, it would be real, or free, or whatever. But judging by this morning, no.”
“Maybe it’s one plus,” Justin suggested.
“Or two plus, or three.” Lisa returned to foot jiggling. “Maybe it’s like…roulette, or something.”
Justin met my eye and shrugged. “It could be that as easily as anything else.”
I rubbed my forehead, as if I could massage out the answer. “Maybe it’s not just the number of victims, but how much juice it gets off each one.”
Lisa rose from the couch and paced restlessly. “This just keeps getting grosser and grosser.”
I half regretted bringing her in. She was the smartest person I knew, but she was having a lot more trouble accepting this than I expected from someone called D&D Lisa.
Justin turned my thoughts back to business. “What do you mean, juice?”
“Why tailor everyone’s tragedy to bring the most fear and loss? There must be a purpose to all that angst. Maybe that’s what the thing is feeding on, what’s making it stronger.”
“Pretty sophisticated for an ancient Babylonian evil spirit.” Justin cast an eye toward the sheet-covered mirror in the bathroom.
“It’s pretty sophisticated for Stanley,” I said. “I wouldn’t think him capable of crafting something like Jessica Prime’s breakdown. But if the demon knows what the summoner knows, maybe it picked up enough to make its own choices.”
Justin leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “So, when will it be? What does your gut tell you?”
“That it is very close. That one more victim will hit the jackpot.”
“I see…” Lisa put a hand over her eyes and held the other out straight-armed, with stage magician drama. “…a trip to Las Vegas in our future.”
“Very funny.” The doorbell rang, and I jumped like a cat.
Justin smiled crookedly. “If the demon is solid enough to ring the doorbell, we’re in real trouble.”
I gave him a that’s-not-funny look, and rose to answer the door. Neither of my parents were home yet.
Brian stood on the doorstep, on his own two feet. I exclaimed in delight and gave him an impulsive hug. “You’re standing up! I was so worried.”
He kept me close longer than I had intended, but not so long that I minded. Only when I stepped back did I notice the cane he carried. “It’s not all bad, but it’s not all good,” he told me. “I need help as the day goes on. But the good news is, it may remit.”
My relief faded a little. “What may remit?”
“My medically impossible MS.” He said it with a lot more humor than I would have.
“Come in.” I backed out of the doorway. “Lisa and Justin are here. We were just talking about what’s going on.”
“Have you figured it out yet?” He followed me down the hall, toward the living room. I used the travel time to hedge my answer, not knowing quite how much to tell him.
“It’s strange and bizarre. Twilight Zone stuff.”
“I guessed that much.” He stopped beside me, met my eye. “Brandon is next, isn’t he?”
“Looks that way.” I held his gaze steadily, gauging his fortitude, letting him see mine. “We’re going to stop it, somehow. Not because of Brandon, but because of what might be set free if it builds up enough freedom points.”
Brian stared at me, not really understanding, but getting the gist. He squared his shoulders, an unconsciously heroic gesture. “Right. We’re the good guys. We stop the bad thing, so it doesn’t take over the world. Simple enough.”
“Man, I wish Lisa were so easy to convince.” I gestured to a chair. “Sit. I’ll call them down.”
He caught my arm before I moved away. “Wait a sec. I want to ask you something.”
I paused, curious at the break in his usual confidence. He’d taken the news about big bad evil with ease. What had him looking so shook up?
“This is embarrassing, because it makes it sound like you’re my second choice.” He smiled at me, a little sheepish, a little roguish. “And you’re not. But I was stuck going with Jess Michaels to the prom, and now she’s dumped me, thank God, so I can ask you.”
My jaw didn’t quite drop, just dipped a little. “You’re asking me to the prom? A Jock—”
“Ex-jock,” he said, waggling his cane. “Jess didn’t want to go with someone who’d had to drop off the baseball team.”
“I don’t know, Brian. I hadn’t planned to go.” I wondered if he knew this, or if he’d just assumed I wouldn’t have a date.
“Why not?” His surprise answered my question and made me answer his more sharply than I meant to.
“It’s just so overwrought. All the angst beforehand, about the date and about the dress. All the expectations: How much money will he spend? Will she put out?” I shrugged. “So much wasted emotion on—”
I broke off as a thought struck me, like an Acme Anvil of Inspiration. I stood there, mouth hanging, while the logic rabbits chased each other through my brain. So much wasted emotion.
“Maggie?” Brian sounded worried. I held up a wait-a-minute finger and ran to the staircase.
“Hey, guys! Come down, quick!” I shouted up, ignoring for the moment Brian’s baffled stare. “Come on!”
Justin and Lisa rushed down the stairs, both of them stumbling to a halt when they saw Brian. They exchanged awkward “Heys” all around, but I overrode them.
“I know when it’s going to happen.”
“When what’s going to hap
pen?” Brian, confused.
“How can you know that?” Lisa, disbelieving.
“When?” Justin, succinct and to the point.
“The thing feeds on emotion, right? On grief and terror and angst and woe. Where can it find all that in one place?”
They stared at me, varying degrees of comprehension in their faces. “So,” began Justin tentatively, “your plan is…?”
“God help me, I’m going to the prom.”
27
by suppertime we’d worked out a plan. It maybe wasn’t the best plan, but it was the best we could do, considering that by “we” I mostly meant Justin and his theoretical knowledge and me and my freaky intuition. Possibly this meant we were doomed, but that was certainly true if we did nothing, so this was better odds.
Or so I told myself.
Lame as it sounds, my first step in the plan? Buy a dress. As the saying goes, I had nothing to wear.
Lisa came with me to the department store; she had an uncanny gift in the clearance racks. I’d seen her reach into a bargain bin full of polyester seventies-revival rejects and come up with a beautiful silk chemise that everyone had overlooked because it wasn’t the current fashion. Which of course didn’t matter to Lisa, as long as it looked good on her.
I was counting on this talent as we hit the mall, because this late in the prom season, everything was on sale, and usually for good reason. She sent me to the dressing room with orders to strip, while she went through the racks like Attila the Hun. By the time I was out of my clothes, she had amassed two armloads of gowns for me to try on.
“What’s with that?” she asked. I’d draped my clothes over the cubicle’s mirror, unsure I’d ever be comfortable in front of a looking glass again. I wondered if Alice spent the rest of her life leery of the Red Queen’s reappearance.
“I have issues,” I explained succinctly, and took the dress on the top of the pile. “White? I’ll look like the bride of Dracula if I wear this.”
“Then don’t try it on.” She whisked the gown out of my hands and replaced it with a purple one. “Maybe you should have come up with an ingenious scheme that didn’t involve formal wear.”
Lisa did not suffer a witch to whine. I stopped complaining and obediently slithered into the slinky purple monstrosity.
“You don’t have to help, you know.”
She zipped up the dress before she answered. Just as quickly, she made a face and unzipped it. “It’s a crazy plan. But if you’re going through with it, I’d better be around to pull your fat out of the fire.”
“Please don’t say ‘fat’ while I’m standing here in my underwear.”
Ignoring that, she turned to rifle through the sartorial candidates. “Say you’re right and this…thing is really waiting for the prom to attack Brandon. He’s not exactly going to stand still to be the bait.”
“He’s not bait, exactly.” Except he sort of was. “He’s just the only known element in a lot of speculation.”
“See, that’s what I mean. Speculation.” She handed over a deep blue dress, ferreted from the bottom of the pile. “Are you sure the salt is effective against it?”
“Yes. I’m certain about that.” I’m not sure my muffled voice sounded very convincing as I struggled to extract my head from the smothering folds of satin. I knew I could fight the demon. Whether I could kill it was another thing.
“But salt. That seems so simple.”
“There’s a folklore precedent.” I wrestled the dress into submission. “Justin could explain it.”
“That’s another thing,” she said, tugging the strapless bodice into place with more force than necessary. “If I had a smart, cute guy like Justin at my beck and call, I sure wouldn’t be dangling after Brian the Jock.”
I turned on her, indignant. “Okay, back up. Dangling after? And what do you mean, my beck and call?”
She put her hands on my shoulders and spun me back around, going to work on the zipper. “Suck it in. I liked this, but they didn’t have it in your exact size.”
I sucked. “Explain ‘beck and call.’”
“I mean that every time you pick up the phone, he comes running.”
“He’s helping me with this problem. It’s an academic exercise—Ow!” She’d pinched my skin in the zipper.
“Sorry. But the thing is, Mags, guys don’t do that for an academic exercise. They don’t come running when something goes ‘bump.’ They don’t climb on your roof and check for boogeymen. They don’t stay up all night researching ancient Mesopotamia, just so they can impress you.”
She finished zipping; I couldn’t breathe, but I was more concerned about her point. Justin had, in a very short time, made himself invaluable to me. Not just for his intellect, but for his friendship. If he walked out of my life tomorrow, I’d be the worse for it. But I hadn’t let myself think—well, not seriously—that he might view me as more than a friend.
“But I’m not dangling after Brian.”
Lisa rolled her eyes. “All I’m saying is, don’t blow the opportunity you have with Justin just because a hot guy totally out of your league suddenly pays attention to you.”
“Give me a little credit, Lisa. Brian’s backbone is still in the embryonic stages. But he’s not like the others.”
Her jaw tightened stubbornly, and I knew there was no point in continuing. “They are all made of the same stuff. He’s just figured out the way to work you is to let you develop his conscience.” She collected the rejected dresses and flung them over the partition. “He’s probably got a bet with Brandon that he can get into your pants.”
Embarrassment scorched my face. “Trust me. He’d have a better chance getting into the space program than my pants.”
She went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “Especially now that he’s got that cane. He’s got to prove something to regain his place in the pack.”
The blind edge to her jock-hate distressed me. Not to mention her lack of faith in my common sense.
“You think I’m that easy to manipulate?” Hurt and anger threaded through my voice.
“No. But I don’t trust any of that crowd not to just take what he wants.”
Something in her tone made me look at her, hard and questioning, but I found her gaze turned inward. Though she spoke with an odd conviction, I couldn’t include Brian in that. Not that my judgment was so infallible. I just couldn’t picture Mr. Don’t-Make-Waves taking unwanted liberties, as Gran would say.
But there wasn’t any point in arguing with Lisa when she made up her mind about something. As I learned when she announced that the blue satin dress was the one.
“But it’s too tight and too long.”
“Yes, but it makes your boobs look great and I’ll get one of my minions to hem it up tomorrow.”
“I can’t pay very much.”
“If the world doesn’t end this weekend, give her one of your Gran’s cookie recipes.”
School flew by on Friday. Half the senior class was absent, mostly the female contingent. Apparently, the prom takes hours of preparation—hair, makeup, nails, etc. What did I know? When I’d asked my mother to explain the use of cuticle cream to me, I thought she would cry in joy. If I’d realized it would take so little to make her so happy—just one day of shared girly-ness and the opportunity to buy me shoes and proper undergarments—I would have mugged some guy and made him take me on a date a long time ago. Too bad I was doing it now solely in the cause of fighting Evil. But Mom didn’t have to know that.
When I arrived at school Brian was in the crowded courtyard, sitting at one of the tables. He stood when he saw me. “Hey!” I said. “You’re not using your cane.”
“I don’t really need it first thing in the morning.” His smile grew forced and I was sorry I’d mentioned it. “Are you all set for tonight?”
“Yeah. I think so.” As ready as I could be to face one of my worst nightmares. Not to mention an ancient Babylonian demon.
“I didn’t know what color your dress is,
so I just got white flowers. Is that all right?”
I stared at him blankly. “Is there some secret code for flowers?”
“No. But Jess—I was told it was important that they match your dress.”
“Oh. My dress is blue, so that would be a trick.” I ducked automatically to avoid a football, lobbed across the courtyard. “But you didn’t have to get me—”
And then I saw his face. Yeah, he did have to get me flowers, because secret mission or not, he thought I was going as his date. Call me clueless—Lisa would—but I’d been thinking of my allies as individually wrapped Ding-Dongs, and he’d been thinking two-packs of Twinkies.
Boy, for a smart girl, I could be an idiot sometimes.
“I love flowers,” I assured him as the football flew by us in the other direction. I saw the big body hurtling after it, right before Brandon bumped heavily into Brian, knocking him over. I wrapped my arms around him, sort of propping us both up and doing nothing to dispel the Twinkie notion.
Brandon ran by us with a grin. “Sorry, crip. Maybe you should use your cane.”
It was getting harder and harder not to just give that guy up for demon chow.
Upstairs in my room that evening, I risked a peek in the mirror to see if I was remotely prom-worthy, and was pleasantly surprised to find I’d turned out passably well. I rather liked the dress. Hemmed to lower-calf, the indigo satin stood out in a full, Dior-esque bell. The tighter-than-it-ought-to-be bodice cinched my waist and gave me actual cleavage. Mom had found a deep rose shrug and a crocheted bag that matched. My shoes were pointy and uncomfortable, but looked great with the dress. Even my hair was cooperating. It lay in a smooth, seal-brown bob, and I’d pinned two blue sparkly clips on one side. Besides the matching earrings, my only other jewelry was Gran’s cross. Better safe, as they say.
My camera would explain my presence at the dance, since I’d been vocal about not going. If Old Smokey sensed a trap and stayed away, I didn’t know if we’d ever be able to anticipate it this well again. Assuming I was correct, which, as Lisa pointed out, wasn’t exactly a certainty.