Demon High (15 page)

Brittany gave me a sideways look. Since she hadn’t been around for my “talks” with Nellie or Oscar last night, and I hadn’t filled her in on the details, she was understandably surprised at my somewhat casual manner of addressing them. Actually, I was somewhat surprised myself. But I was tired of being made to feel uncomfortable. Maybe Oscar was right; maybe I gave demons…
people
that power over me. Maybe it was time for that to stop. I deserved to be angry.

“I’m done.” Nellie spun on her pink ballerina flats and started toward the school. “If you decide you want to play, call me,” she tossed over her shoulder. I wasn’t completely sure which of us the comment was directed at, but I was glad to see her go.

“That’s not the way to handle Nellie, but I guess you know that.” Oscar pushed away from the tree.

I frowned. I’d taken his advice and not let Nellie intimidate me, and then he lectured me for it.

He shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. It was the first time I’d seen him in them. They fit him snug at the thighs, then bagged just below his knees.

Brittany cleared her throat. I glanced up, realized my gaze had been locked on Oscar’s lower half.

To cover, I went indignant. “I’m not interested in
handling
Nellie. I just want everything to go back to normal.”

“Do you?” he asked. It was a jolting question, at least to me. Again, I covered.

“Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?”

He jammed his hands deeper into his front pockets and stared at me with those too-dark eyes. “Your life’s different now, right? You’ve got a new friend. You’ve got money. And you have a purpose. All things you didn’t have before.”

My mouth parted and I glanced at Brittany. She acted like she wasn’t listening, but she was sitting two feet away. Of course she was listening.

“I had a purpose,” I said.

“Did you?” he shrugged. “My mistake.” He started to walk away.

“Wait,” I called. I walked up to him, close enough Brittany wouldn’t overhear without really straining, but not so close I had to whisper. “How do you know what my life was like before this? You weren’t here.”

He sighed. “Am I wrong?”

He wasn’t. I didn’t answer. It was too humiliating. I took a step back instead.

This time he called to me. “Think about the circle. About what happened there. You’re missing something, or someone.” Then he continued his trek across the leaf-strewn grass.

Brittany and I were back at her house, on the Internet researching. Again her parents were nowhere to be seen. I wondered if she’d even told them about me, that I was coming over, riding around in her car. That we were becoming friends.

If we were becoming friends.

I glanced at her. Her head was bent toward the screen, her hair hanging forward, hiding her face. Really, Brittany was the only friend I’d ever had. It felt good hanging with her again. Comfortable, like a worn pair of jeans. But were we really friends? She’d dumped me before. I’d acted like I didn’t care, didn’t even notice, but even at that young age it had stung. I’d lost my mother and best friend in a day’s time.

I realized now that her mother had been using mine, probably for something demon related. And now I was using Brittany, or she was using me. I wasn’t sure which. Either way, not the building blocks of a dream friendship.

“I need some help here.” She picked up the mouse and tapped it against her desktop. “Creepy, bloody guy isn’t getting me the hits I might want.”

After the smoking rock, we’d discussed what Oscar had said. When Oscar and Nellie first appeared at school, we’d wondered about Theodore, but we’d overlooked the man in the bowler hat, the one surrounded by screams. We realized now, that had been a mistake, most likely a big one.

“Oscar and Nellie were both human, or played one in Nellie’s case. Theodore too. So he was probably human, or at least had a human name. What did he look like?”

“Blood on his arms? People screaming in the background? You want me to plug that into the search engine?” she asked.

“He wore a bowler hat too. When did people dress like that?”

Brittany typed and tapped a bit. “1800’s.” She tapped a bit more. Then her hands stilled, and she leaned forward. “Serial killers of the 1800’s. I think we have him.” She sat back and pointed at the screen. She was acting flip, but I knew it was just that, an act. Her cousin’s flier lay six inches from her hand. Every few seconds since we’d been here, she had glanced at. Her mouth would tighten and she’d return to her search, more determined-looking than ever.

On the screen was demon number three, complete with bowler hat and handlebar moustache. The blood-stained arms were missing, or at least not visible in the portrait-style image.

There was victory in Brittany’s eyes.

“H.H. Holmes. They think he killed like two hundred people. He was a doctor, or pretended to be at least. He worked at a drugstore for a while.” Softer, she added, “He met one of his victims there.”

I pulled in a breath and held it for second. “Angie,” I said. “You think the whole new job thing wasn’t true? That this Holmes is working at the drugstore?”

Brittany had turned back to the computer. She read out loud, “Holmes’ hotel, later termed the Murder Castle, was completed in 1892, just in time for the Columbian Exposition.” She glanced at me. “The world’s fair in Chicago.” Back at the screen, she continued, “The three-story building contained seventy-one rooms, secret passages and a chute that led to the basement. Rooms were sound-proofed with lead plates and some were outfitted with gas. These rooms were used as asphyxiation chambers. Holmes also had vents connecting some rooms to his office where he could sit in comfort and listen to his guests beg and scream.”

“The voices in the circle,” I murmured.

Brittany shoved the keyboard away, her fingers shaking. “You think he’s here? You think he has Angie and Joshua?”

The coincidence was pretty huge. Holmes had worked at a drugstore. Angie had worked at a drugstore. Holmes had owned a hotel where his guests and employees disappeared. Angie got a new job at a hotel, and now she was missing.

And Brittany and I had seen the man now staring at me from the computer monitor in the circle, minutes before the circle was broken and at least two demons, Nellie and Oscar, had escaped.

I swallowed. “Yeah, and yeah.”

o0o

On the way home, Brittany and I stopped by the drugstore. They were an all night operation, but the guy working there had zero interest in helping us. When I’d shown him a print out of the picture of H.H. Holmes, his only reply was “Nice hat.”

Frustrated, we paid for our sodas and candy bars. Candy bar that was; Brittany made do with a diet cola. We didn’t leave yet, though. We stood by a display of fruit-flavored lip gloss instead.

“What now?” Brittany asked.

I twisted off the soda’s lid and listened to the fizz of air escaping. “We come back tomorrow. And maybe try to get more info out of Oscar and Nellie too.” I took a sip and tried to keep my voice casual. “I can talk to Oscar. Maybe you could try Nellie. I haven’t had much luck with her.” As I started to put the lid back on my drink, I realized what I was doing, putting Brittany with Nellie because the succubus scared me. “Nellie hasn’t….” I stuttered over what to say. I hadn’t admitted to Brittany what I felt when Nellie turned her powers on me. It was an awkward thing to bring up. I wasn’t sure how Brittany would react to it, to me, after hearing about it.

“Do you feel strange when you’re around Nellie? Attracted?” I asked finally.

Brittany’s soda slipped from her fingers. Diet cola spread in a giant circle on the white tile floor.

The oh-so-helpful guy behind the counter let out a curse, then slogged off, to get a mop I hoped. He might have just been heading out for a cig break. Brittany watched him go, then slipped behind the counter and dropped her empty bottle in the trash. “Let’s go,” she said.

I realized as we stepped out into the cool night air, that she hadn’t answered my question.

“About Nellie,” she said. “I would, but I can’t. I’m not going to be at school tomorrow. I have a doctor’s appointment. In Bethel,” she added.

“Oh.” I screwed the lid on my soda a little tighter. She hadn’t mentioned an appointment before, which was strange, but I also couldn’t think of any reason she’d have to lie to me. “Well, maybe Oscar will tell me enough we won’t have to deal with Nellie at all. That would be my preference.”

Busy fiddling with her mp3 player, Brittany didn’t answer.

“Are you good with that?” I asked.

Death Cab for Cutie blared from the car stereo. Brittany punched a few buttons on her player and the music dropped to a safe decibel. She looked up. “What? Oh, sure. Oscar would know as much anyway, right?”

Right. She didn’t look back at me and I let the conversation die. She was keeping something from me, but I couldn’t imagine what.

o0o

The next day I thought about skipping school at least long enough to hit the drugstore, but I called instead and found out when Doris was coming in. She had the noon-to-seven shift. Plenty of time after school to stop by with my long-dead serial killer picture.

Not that I accomplished anything at school. Nellie was MIA too. Which, of course, alarmed me. At lunch I deserted my classroom retreat and looked for Oscar. He was at an outside picnic table, sitting on the top with his feet on the bench below. A senior boy sat maybe a foot away, passed out or comatose or something. His head was down on the table and his eyes were open, but his stare was dead. I wondered briefly if the townie who Brittany and I’d seen picking up Shane’s money was handing out more than steroids today.

As I approached, three lit geeks, all girls, stationed themselves at the table next to Oscar and the passed-out senior. Nibbling on carrots, they talked in loud voices about the symbolism in
Lord of the Flies
(pig head on a stick—you didn’t have to be a brain trust to get that). Oscar stared over their heads. I didn’t think he realized the senior or the girls were there, much less that the lit geeks’ entire “see how smart I am” performance was for his benefit.

“Hey,” he said. “You find what you were looking for?”

The way he was lounged there and his casual “hey,” he looked every bit the human teenage guy. It was getting harder and harder to remember that he was a demon, that while he didn’t have blood dripping from his forearms like Holmes, he had still come out of that circle. Demons were destructive; they encouraged and fed on the worst of human weaknesses. I hadn’t seen Oscar doing anything even slightly demonic, but he was a demon, that hoofed foot was just yet to fall. It was something I had to remember.

I stopped in front of him. The lit chicks pierced me with their stares. Realizing that for once, I was the girl talking to the boy everyone else wanted, I preened a bit. I brushed a bit of my hair forward over my cheek and tried to look like I didn’t notice their attention. “I think so, a name anyway.”

The bell rang. As students, with the exception of the senior, who had yet to move, milled around gathering their trays and lunch bags, Oscar stared off into the distance. I’d hoped he’d jump in and volunteer some more information, but it was obvious that wasn’t going to happen. I moved the books I was holding to my side, propped them on my hip, and waited for his fan club to clear out.

One of the lit chicks got brave and touched his leg. He glanced at her and frowned, not an unfriendly go-away frown, more of a oh-there’s-someone-there frown. She murmured something about a reading at a coffee shop and how she’d love it if he stopped by. I watched the exchange, my earlier confidence dissipating. I was back to invisible Lucinda, no threat to anyone.

After she’d rejoined her herd, I took out my annoyance by poking the senior with my finger. He blinked, but made no objection. After a second poke he wandered off in the general direction of the main building, looking dazed and unaware.

When I was sure he was gone, I dropped my books onto the table beside Oscar. “She’s reading her epic, ‘Death stared me in the Face.’ It’s about her inner tube getting stuck in the Hook slide at Big Geyser Water Park last summer.” I placed my hand over my heart. “It is a stirring depiction of modern teenage angst while facing the reality that none live forever.” I dropped my hand and cocked my head to the side. “You don’t want to miss it.”

“Sounds entertaining.” For just a second I thought I saw a ghost of a smile cross his face and a little thrill shot through me. But then he was back to his solemn self, sad eyes and all.

I sighed. “So, I have a name.”

He slid off the tabletop and shoved his hands into his pockets. “That’s good.”

His tone said he was completely uninterested, but he was my only demon connection at the moment, the only demon connection I felt comfortable talking with at all.

“A name doesn’t tell me much. Is there something you can add to it?” I asked. I sounded tentative, but he hadn’t told me anything before. Why would he now? Besides our last meeting hadn’t ended all that well.

“Me?” He leaned against the table. “Like what?”