Demon High (29 page)

“So, if we beat the demon thing, you what? Die?” I choked on the word. It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t fair.

He tilted his head. “I don’t know. I’ve never heard of someone un-becoming a demon. But it makes sense, doesn’t it? If I could trade one fate for another, it would have to be the only other possible fate I’ve had.” He pulled my fingers to his lips and pressed a kiss on them. “And, honestly, why should it be any different? Why should I get a shot at a whole new life? I lived mine. It’s over. Time for you and the kids of this day to live yours.”

But I didn’t want to go back to living the life I’d had before. I’d been alone. Yes, I’d had Nana, but she was it. I hadn’t had Brittany or Oscar, or hell, even Nellie. I hadn’t mattered.

I pulled back. I liked being in the mess I was in, at least more than I liked what my life had been before.

Was this how my mother had felt? Is this why she got in so deep she got lost?

“Lucinda?” Oscar’s eyes showed his concern.

I leaned over the table and kissed him. His lips were soft and warm, human. When I pulled back our mouths seemed to cling to each other. I wanted to lean back in again, to stay there kissing, pretending. But I couldn’t. I forced myself to sit back on my seat. Forced myself not to touch him again.

“What are our choices, Oscar? I’m ready to make one.”

“I already told you what I thought you should do.”

Call another demon lord.

“Did you work out your deal?” His words were soft, his gaze hopeful.

I didn’t want to disappoint him, and I wanted to fix this, all of it. I nodded.

He seemed to relax. His hand found mine. “You can do it, Lucinda. I know you can.”

He believed in me. How could I fail?

We took Shane Bollock’s car to my house. With Nellie gone, Oscar’s influence had taken over. Inside the cafeteria, the entire student body was passed out. Snagging Shane’s keys had been no challenge at all. Besides he owed me.

Nana wasn’t home. I wasn’t sure where she was, but prayed she’d stay there long enough for what I had planned to play out.

Without her there in person, I went to her room to say goodbye, just in case. She had the smallest bedroom in the house, the one that overlooked the back garden. There was a window seat with two big pillows that she’d made herself. Beside it was her collection of romance novels and a reading lamp. I picked up one of the books and thought back to the cafeteria and the lit chick’s performance.

When things were normal, the lit chick and her friends would have scoffed at these books, just like people had scoffed at my grandmother and me for years. Nana went places, played bingo, went shopping, but she always went alone. I hadn’t really thought about it before, that she had the same life I had, maybe worse. Her daughter had disappeared. People like Brittany’s mother had turned their backs on us. I’d been too young at the time to feel most of that pain, but what about Nana?

I picked up one of the pillows and squished it against my chest. Pulled the scent of Nana, a flowery perfume she bought at the drugstore on sale, into my lungs.

My mother had left Nana and me because she was addicted and selfish. Now here I was, facing the same possibility.

I’d made my choice, and I was going to own it, but I also vowed if I made it through tonight, I’d think of others before I did something stupid.

Nana would never have wanted me to do what I’d done. My stomach cramped at the thought of telling her, but I realized I had to do that too. My mother had left us with nothing, no explanation. I wouldn’t add that to my list of irresponsibility.

I set down the pillow and pulled a piece of stationary from Nana’s bedside table. It took a while to write the note, and once I was done, I wanted to crumple it up and start over, but I didn’t. Instead I wrapped it around the money I had left from Brittany’s client, and propped it against her lamp. Then I left.

It was time to call a demon.

o0o

Oscar followed me to the basement. The door to Mum’s secret room was easier to open this time. The boards seemed to pop off with only a slight pressure on the crowbar, and the door didn’t stick at all.

That seemed symbolic somehow, and not in a good way. Some things should never become easy.

And calling demons, while maybe not easy, was definitely easier. It seemed almost routine now.

I walked to the center of the room and pulled the string on the lone bulb. Everything was how I’d left it, meaning the room was pretty much empty of everything except the circle and the statue.

Oscar stood behind me. “Do you know him?” I asked, pointing to the statue.

Oscar didn’t say anything so I turned to look at him. His face was pale. “Cresil,” he murmured.

What exactly did it take to make a demon pale? I guessed I was about to find out. “The demon lord you were thinking of.” I replied. I don’t know how I knew so clearly that the demon in my basement, the one I thought had taken my mother, was also the demon Oscar wanted me to call, but I did.

I took two quick solid steps toward the statue. It looked unremarkable right now, not the dark omen I remembered from my last visit to the circle.

That was something.

I reached for it.

“No, don’t.” Oscar stepped in front of me. He pushed the statue over with his boot. “This is Kobal’s brother.

“Kobal has family?” I shuddered.

“Of a type. It doesn’t really match what you think of as family. Kobal and his siblings fight a lot. Each one is constantly trying to gain a toehold that will get them ahead, put them in a higher position of power than the others.” Oscar looked at the statue. ” But Kobal and Cresil have a special rivalry. They’ve even been known to steal from each other.”

“Steal what?” Kobal had seemed quite capable of creating chairs, couches, whatever. What would he possibly need to steal from his brother?

“Souls. Other demons. I told you the demon world is a pyramid. Lords are only as powerful as the sum of the demons beneath them.”

“So, Kobal and Cresil steal from each other. What does that have to do with me?”

“Cresil has your mother, and if she was calling demons regularly, working with a lord like Cresil—” He shook his head. “She had to be pretty powerful.”

I licked my lips. My voice was cold, almost as cold as my heart had just turned. “How do you know Cresil has my mother?” Oscar had made comments about my mother before, and I hadn’t pushed for information. I might have told myself it was because he was a demon, because I knew demons lie, but the real reason was that I was afraid of what he would tell me.

Now it was time, past time.

He stared ahead. No answer.

I moved forward, my fingers tightening around Mum’s bag. “What is going on, Oscar? What happened to my mother?”

He looked at me then. The lostness was gone; knowledge and understanding were in its place. “I’m afraid to tell you the truth, Lucinda, and you wouldn’t even know if I had. I’m not in a circle. I’m not bound to be truthful. I’ve never been in a circle when speaking to you.” He took a step, a giant one that placed him right in the middle of my mother’s circle. “Do the incantation, call me. Then you’ll know for sure you can believe me. Then you’ll listen to everything I have to say.”

I didn’t like how he was acting. I picked at a button on my shirt. “If I do, I open myself up to whatever demon is above you,” I murmured.

He smiled. “You’re learning.”

A compliment, but one that didn’t make me feel good, not at all.

Torn on what to ask him next, I rubbed my thumb over the plastic button. “You think Kobal wants me because Cresil has my mother.”

The tension that had been between us lightened; he nodded. “You’re made from her. You and your grandmother are the closest thing to her that exists. And, even in the demon plane, I’m betting she’d risk a lot to save you.”

She would risk a lot to save me, but only if she
could
save me. I stepped backward until my back touched the wall. “You’re saying my mother is still there, in hell. That I could talk to her.”

He frowned. “I didn’t say that. I said Kobal wants to use you to get to her, which in turn will get to Cresil and weaken him.”

I had understood what he was saying, but demon lord plans for me didn’t matter, not now that I’d realized something else. “But to do that, Mum has to still be there, somewhere.” My voice rose. My head was swimming. “I can call her. I know her name.” I jerked up the sleeve of my shirt. “I even have her DNA.” The athame was in Mum’s bag, and I could use my blood. Why hadn’t I thought of it before?

“Lucinda, no.” Oscar threw his arm out in front of me. I knocked into him, and twisted away.

Standing across the circle from him, I stared, confused.

“You can’t call your mother. She is under Cresil’s control. You would have no way of knowing if what she said was true. And she wouldn’t be the mother you remember. Do you think she would want you to see her like that?”

“Just like I have no way of knowing if what you say is true,” I replied. Not without calling him and opening myself up to whatever demon was above him.

“Don’t change the plan now. You have your bargain prepared. You know what to ask for. Call Cresil. Tell him about your deal with Kobal. He can get you out of it. Right now, he’s more powerful than his brother, by a paper-thin margin, but still….” He let the words trail off. His gaze deepened; it sucked me in. “Trust me, Lucinda. I’m not who or what I was when I escaped that circle. I would never do anything to hurt you. Not now.”

Which wasn’t saying he wouldn’t have before, hadn’t before. The realization made it hard to concentrate on what I was doing. My fingers, numb like the rest of me, moved over the cord that held Mum’s bag closed. It fell open.

“Move out of the circle,” I mumbled. “One demon at a time is all I can handle.”

He didn’t say a word. He just stepped out of the painted ring.

Mum’s bag in my hand, I set to work calling the demon who had taken her from me.

It didn’t take long. Like I said, it was getting easier, too easy. The circle glowed yellow then orange, as if the fires of hell were actually breaking through the veil, leaking into my circle. Then there was a poof and a form stepped through. It was Cresil. He looked like his statue, horns and all.

And he was one hundred percent completely naked. He stroked himself as he stared at me. I forced myself not to shudder, to keep my gaze on his face which was angular and bored. His expression, or lack of one, gave me the feeling whatever he was doing to himself was more from habit than any desire for pleasure.

“What have we here? Melissa’s little daughter. How sweet.” He smiled, showing teeth. There was something stuck between the front two. I didn’t allow my brain to imagine what or who it might be. “And—” His gaze jumped to Oscar. “The blasé boy. Good to see you again…in the flesh.” He drew out the shh, made it sound obscene. “Good to know you wouldn’t disappoint me.”

The demon lord’s attention shot back to me. He smiled.

Unease crept over me. I glanced at Oscar. Pale, he stared at the statue. “Lucinda, have you been down in this basement before? Did you touch Cresil’s statue before?”

My mind flashed to my bare foot colliding with the bone, cold wrapping around me and Cresil’s tongue darting out to lap at my blood.

The demon lord threw back his head and laughed.

My blood stilled.

Cresil rubbed the back of his hand over his face, wiping away tears. “Excuse me, much more like my brother to let out such an explosion, but well, your expression…it was just so perfect.” He shifted his gaze to Oscar. “In answer to your question, Untouchable, yes she did. Even gave me a taste of her blood.” His tongue flickered from his mouth, just as the statue’s had.

I couldn’t look at Oscar. I knew I had made a mistake. I wasn’t sure how or what, but the demon lord’s glee was too intense, too palpable.

Still chuckling, Cresil continued, “Got yourself into a bit of a bind, I understand. My brother is all atwitter with joy.” He grinned. “
Simpleton
.” He tapped his chin with an unnaturally long finger. The gesture reminded me of Kobal; I shivered. “I’m guessing you aren’t happy with your arrangement, and that the untouchable suggested an alternative. As I’m sure he told you, I am more powerful than my brother. I can break the contract you have with him.” He glanced at Oscar. “You did tell her, didn’t you?”

Looking sick, Oscar nodded. “I did.”

Cresil let out a sigh. “I thought you would. It’s so nice when you get what you want while letting someone else do all of your work for you, isn’t it?” He stretched and yawned. “I might even be able to work in an extra nap when we’re done.”

I didn’t understand Cresil’s joy or Oscar’s dismay, but neither mattered, not as long as Cresil could do as he said. “You can break my deal with Kobal,” I repeated.

He pulled his arms toward his chest. “I can, but it would be messy.” He wove the tips of his fingers between each other and flittered them in the air. It was like watching a cat who had just spied a fat sparrow with a broken wing. “And really, there’s no reason to. You’ve already declared yourself to me. You offered me your blood, and then you called me. All that is left are a few tiny technicalities.”