Demon High (16 page)

“Like where Holmes would go? That’s his name, isn’t it? H.H. Holmes?”

A frown flitted across his face.

I’d forgotten that Holmes wasn’t our killer’s birth name. “Maybe he went by Herman? Herman Webster Mudgett.”

Oscar nodded. “Yeah, that name I know.”

I waited, stupidly expecting him to continue. When he didn’t, I stepped closer. “Why don’t I feel like you’re a demon, Oscar?”

He seemed surprised by my question. It probably seemed out of the blue, and him being a demon, it was a stupid thing to ask. It wasn’t like he would tell me the truth, but he was such a mix of helpful and roadblock, and my feelings when I was around him were such a mishmash, I couldn’t help but voice what was in my head.

A tiny lined formed between his eyes, for once they weren’t sad or haunted, just confused and sincere. “I don’t know, Lucinda. I really don’t. I didn’t ask to be a demon, but I’ve tried to play by the rules.” He glanced around the courtyard. “It’s like when my family died, I lost all control of my life, and I never got it back. I guess I never will. Maybe my confusion confuses you too.”

I licked my lips. “If you hadn’t been hit by that bullet, do you think things would have been different? Do you think you’d still be a demon?”

He got the faraway look in his eyes again. “Our preacher always said some people are bad, just born that way. Maybe that was me, and I never realized it. Maybe if I’d have lived, I would have just found my way to hell a different way.”

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.

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 hand. “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.