Reign Check (14 page)

“Who are you?” he demanded. “What are you doing here?”

“I … I’m Nikki.”

His expression shifted to a sour one, as if he smelled something funny coming from my general direction.

“She’s my best friend,” Melinda snapped. “Don’t bother her.”

“I thought for a moment that she was …” He trailed off, continuing to study me closely, then shook his head as if to clear it. “Never mind. I must have been mistaken.”

“We’re finished, aren’t we?” she asked.

His jaw clenched. He might be sort of cute if he didn’t look so miserable. “Fine, we’re finished. But I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“But I need to—” she began.

“No arguments, Melinda. You still have a long way to go before you’re ready. I’ll be back tomorrow. Enjoy your
party
.” He nearly spat the last word.

In silence, he turned and left through the doors behind me.

Okay, that was intense.

“Who was that?” I asked.

She cleared her throat. “Patrick? He’s, um … he’s my dance instructor.”

I blinked. “He doesn’t look like a dance instructor.”

She laughed and it sounded shaky. “I know, right? Weird. But that’s who he is.”

I scanned her sweats. “I thought you were supposed to wear a leotard and ballet slippers for your dance lessons.”

She looked down at her Nikes. “You’ve clearly never taken ballet, have you?”

“No, never.”

“There you go. Uh, we only wear the fancy stuff for the recitals.”

She was lying to me; it was so totally obvious. But I didn’t understand why.

“Where are your parents?” I asked.

“Gone for the rest of the night, visiting friends from my dad’s old fraternity.” She looked relieved I’d changed the subject. “They told me that if there’s any damage from the party, I’m grounded until I’m thirty.”

“Do they know you and your dance instructor argue so much?”

She crossed her arms. “They’re the ones who hired him in the first place. And Patrick and I don’t argue, we
debate
.”

“Sounded like a loud debate to me. And I don’t think he liked me very much.”

“Patrick doesn’t like anybody.” She walked over to the base of the staircase and leaned against it, trying and failing to look casual. “I’m sorry you had to hear that. He … he has his own way of coaching me, and whenever I want to change something he has a fit.”

“He’s kind of cute.”

She scrunched her nose. “You think?”

I nodded. “I’m surprised you don’t think so. You’re normally the expert on these things.”

She shrugged. “I guess I don’t look at him that way. He’s more like an annoying older brother.”

“How old is he?”

“He goes to the University of Toronto. I think he’s twenty or so.”

“Ancient.” I frowned. “Wait a minute, he’s a student but he’s a ballet instructor, too? Wouldn’t that be a full-time job?”

Her eyes widened a little. “Like I said, he’s weird. Anyway, I seriously need a shower. And time is flying. So …”

“Yeah, you go ahead. I’ll hang out down here.”

“Check out the kitchen. I have a ton of food in there and more to come. Feel free to sample. I’ll be ten minutes, max.”

I nodded as she ran up the stairs to the bathroom. I heard the door close behind her and the shower turn on.

Dance lessons, huh? Color me mega-unconvinced.

Concern swelled inside me at the thought that my friend was hiding something horrible. I’d been so busy with my own life that I hadn’t even noticed she was acting strangely, but now that I thought about it, yeah, she had been. Distracted and worried. And I vaguely recalled her having some fading bruises on her arms and jaw that she’d explained away like they were nothing. And what had I heard her say to Patrick?

I thought you wanted me to fight you.

That didn’t sound like the kind of conversation you’d have with your dance instructor.

I glanced up at the railing on the second floor. The shower was still going. I knew I should go into the kitchen and mind my own business, but I just couldn’t.

Instead, I wandered through the house looking for clues, through the kitchen and down the hall where a framed family photo of Melinda and her parents hung on the wall. The door leading to the basement stairs was ajar. When I’d been here a few weeks ago, before Melinda had her dance lessons every day after school, it had been locked. I pushed it open and slowly descended the stairs.

It looked like a gym down there. Mats on the floor. A treadmill. Weight-lifting equipment. Not completely unexpected.

But there was other stuff, too, that I noticed at a glance. Things that began to totally freak me out.

For instance, there was a sword lying on the ground as if it had been dropped. Swords weren’t a typical floor accessory, so to say it stood out to me would be putting it mildly.

A battered and ripped punching bag hung from the ceiling. The hilt of a knife protruded from it. Also a majorly unusual sight, in my humble opinion, for a home gym.

To my right there was a table on which a selection of sharp knives were displayed. One had a curved blade with what looked like rubies set into the hilt.

Next to the knives was a short stack of books. They looked old, with plain leather covers and yellowed pages. I reached out to open one and noticed my hand was shaking. The book fell open to a page with an illustration of a very familiar-looking horned monster with large batlike wings. My stomach lurched.

I closed the book and quickly went back up the stairs, trying to rationalize what I’d just seen. I think it was safe to say Melinda hadn’t really been taking dance lessons, after all.

“This is in your blood, Melinda,” Patrick had told her. “You’re only making this more difficult on yourself. You won’t be ready.”

“Ready?” she’d replied. “For what? I haven’t seen anything that makes me believe all the crazy things you’ve told me are even remotely true.”

I understood now what she was trying to say. She didn’t believe in demons. All she’d seen was a bunch of illustrations in some old books. It was true what they say—seeing was believing. I knew if I hadn’t seen everything I had with my own two eyes, then I’d never have believed it in a million years.

But it was true. Demons existed, and some of them were really evil.

The realization that was slowly dawning on me was good for one thing. Suddenly, my prophecies and my troubles with Michael and Rhys were the last things on my mind.

Melinda could never know I knew about this. And she could absolutely, positively never find out I was half demon.

My best friend was in training to become a demon slayer.

12

“I just want to have fun tonight and forget everything else,” Melinda proclaimed as she came downstairs after freshening up from her secret (she thought) demon-slayer training session. She looked gorgeous, wearing a form-fitting short red dress I’d never seen before.

“Yeah, me too,” I said, now feeling strange about being in her presence. But she didn’t act any differently than she had before. She was the same Melinda as ever. She scurried around the house, putting last-minute touches on her decorations and ordering her party-planning assistant (aka, me) here and there as we prepared for everyone to arrive.

I watched her suspiciously. She seemed so normal. Was it possible I was overreacting to everything I’d seen downstairs? Was I worried over nothing?

“Hey, Melinda,”
I imagined myself saying to her. “
Is it true you’re a demon slayer? And that Patrick guy is training you, even though you don’t seem too happy about it?”

“Yes, it’s true,”
she’d reply. “
For a demon princess, and therefore my mortal enemy, you’re very perceptive.”

“I’m actually only half demon,”
I’d try to explain.

“Doesn’t matter,”
she’d say.

And then she’d kill me dead.

Was that why Patrick had given me the stink eye? Had he sensed I was a little bit demonic? And were Melinda’s parents demon slayers, too? Was it the family business? They’d never looked at me strangely before, though, so maybe not.

Come to think of it, I didn’t even know what Melinda’s parents did for a living. I knew money wasn’t an issue for them. Melinda had ordered a ton of food for the party, and a couple knocks on the front door announced caterers delivering platters of sandwiches and hors d’oeuvres.

Invited guests began to arrive at seven o’clock. By eight, there were forty or fifty kids in the house. Music blared from a variety of speakers, and the place was so loud I could barely hear myself think.

It was probably a good thing.

Melinda acted as if nothing had changed between us in the last couple of hours—and for her, nothing really had. After a while I could almost pretend that I hadn’t overheard what I had; that I hadn’t gone down to the basement and learned her big secret. But, unfortunately, pretending wasn’t going to make this go away.

Maybe just for tonight.

I avoided Larissa, who, wearing a short, tight green dress, had glared at me so evilly upon her arrival that I thought I might get a scar on my forehead, or at the very least a welt. Her issues were her problem, not mine. I had my own issues to deal with, thank you very much.

I turned to go back to the kitchen and found Chris Sanders standing directly in front of me, his arms crossed over his chest.

“I really need to have that talk with you, Nikki,” he said. “I’ve put it off long enough.”

Oh, great.
I grimaced. “Now?”

“Yeah.”

The gingerbread cookie I’d downed a few minutes before began dancing unpleasantly in my gut. I don’t even want to say what the follow-up jellybeans were now doing at the prospect of chatting with Chris.

“Hey, Chris.” Larissa approached us and snaked an arm around his waist. She held a glass in her right hand and took a sip. “Great to see you. You’re looking mighty
fine
tonight. I’ll have to find some mistletoe later, if ya know what I mean.” She hiccupped.

What was in that glass? Melinda had threatened everyone upon entering the house that this was to be an alcohol-free party, otherwise her parents wouldn’t let her have another one ever again. To me, though, Larissa seemed a bit tipsy.

In Larissa’s defense, however, Chris
was
looking mighty fine. He had this effortless attractiveness about him that I couldn’t help but notice from the first day I’d started at Erin Heights. This calm confidence only helped to ramp up his natural good looks a few levels.

I’d wondered back then if he had any flaws. I now knew they included a major sense of entitlement. If Chris wanted something—no matter what it was—he felt like he should have it. And if he didn’t, he felt he should be able to
take
it, as evidenced by our situation in the back of the limo at Winter Formal.

Admittedly, I hadn’t heard any rumors he’d tried anything like that before. If people hated Chris, it was because they were jealous of him, not because he was a bad guy who did bad things. Maybe the incident with me had been a onetime thing—at least, I hoped so. Or maybe nobody had ever said no to Chris before, like I had. Based on the drooling gaze Larissa had trained on him at the moment, it was possible.

“Hi, Larissa,” Chris responded, although he didn’t look directly at her. He wasn’t looking at me, either. The floor currently held his complete and total attention.

“Am I interrupting anything?” she asked.

“No,” I said at the same time Chris said, “Yes.”

“I didn’t know you were still seeing each other,” she said.

“We’re not,” I said firmly.

“I … ,” Chris began. “Look, I need to talk to Nikki in private. Do you mind leaving us alone?”

Ouch
.

Larissa flinched before giving me the evil eye. “Yeah, sure. No problem.”

Exit stage left.

If I hadn’t been feeling a whole heap of uneasiness, I would have found it very difficult not to laugh.

Chris’s eyes flicked to mine for a moment before he looked away again. It was as if he couldn’t bear to maintain eye contact with me.

“Follow me,” he said, and started walking over to the dining room, where all the coats were piled on the table. He grabbed his coat and put it on.

“Where are we going?” I asked suspiciously, not inclined to go anywhere with him just because he told me to.

“Out to the backyard. I don’t want anyone to hear us talking.”

He didn’t want anyone to hear us discuss what he’d seen when I’d shifted to my Darkling form, thrown a big glowing ball of energy at him, and launched him out the side of the limo we’d been in when he’d forgotten what “no” meant.

Right. This was a discussion I had known was unavoidable, but now I’d finally decided how to handle it.

Denial. One hundred percent. I’d even worked out the convo in my head.

“Hey, Nikki,
” Chris would say.
“What was up with you turning all demonic during Winter Formal?”

“Demonic?”
I’d respond casually.
“Gee, sounds more like a nightmare than anything that could possibly have taken place in real life. I’m sure you were just dreaming.”

“But I saw—”

“YOU WERE DREAMING.”

“Well, okay.”
He’d nod.
“You’re absolutely right. Whatever was I thinking? Demons don’t really exist. Oh, and by the way, sorry for being such an unbelievable jerk to you in the limo. You deserve much better.”

And that would be that.

Feeling a new surge of confidence, I grabbed my jacket and went outside with Chris. The yard was large and snow covered, with tall wooden fences and lots of trees around the edges. In the center was a pool—covered, since it was December—with a big slide. We didn’t venture too far, instead staying on the patio near the doors.

Maybe it would be good to start this on a positive note.

“Here,” I said, thrusting the small wrapped box at him that I’d pulled from my jacket pocket. “I picked your name for the gift exchange.”

He hesitated before taking the present from me. “You didn’t have to get me anything.”

“It’s not a big deal. Ten bucks or less. Rules are rules.”

Ain’t that the truth
, I thought. And I had to follow them all now, didn’t I? I hated thinking about rules, even little, meaningless ones. They only served to remind me why I was here at this party with Chris instead of anywhere else with Michael.

Chris cleared his throat and made quick work of the wrapping, revealing the stylish (not really) keychain with a Christmas tree on it I’d grabbed earlier that day at the mall. Could not have been more innocent or generic if I’d tried: $8.95 before tax.

“Thank you. I need one of these,” he said politely, and tucked it into his pocket. “I have something for you, too.”

“You picked my name?”

“Not exactly.” He reached inside his jacket and drew out a rolled piece of paper, which he held out to me.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a drawing I did. I … I do art sometimes.”

I looked at it skeptically. “You drew me a picture?”

“Uh, no, not exactly.”

“Then what is it?” I dug my hands into my pockets and tried to stay warm. Snowflakes were steadily coming down around us, and the backyard was dark except for one overhead light where we stood on the patio.

“Last week, at the dance,” he began. “When you … you
changed
…”

“Changed?” I repeated.
Here we go
. “Changed my mind about dating you? Yeah, well, these things happen. It’s not a big deal. It was our first date and it didn’t work out. Let’s just forget it ever happened, okay?”

He laughed a little shakily at that. “I remember exactly what happened.”

“Not so sure you do.”

“I do,” he said firmly. “It’s crystal clear in my mind.”

“You were drunk.”

“I’d been drinking, sure, but I wasn’t drunk. You changed into something else.”

“So did you,” I said pointedly.

He cringed at the reminder. “I’m so sorry about that.”

“You should be.” I felt a flare of anger then, but I willed it away. I had enough problems to juggle without turning Darkling in the middle of Melinda’s party. The mental image of the sword downstairs was enough to help me push any demon-shifting thoughts away.

“I didn’t change the same way you did, though.” He sounded so certain that it made me more nervous. “It was the most vivid moment in my entire life. When I saw you—your hair, your eyes … you had wings and horns, and … and a tail.”

Yikes. I had a tail, too? How had I never noticed that little detail before? I guessed because it hadn’t ripped through my clothes like my wings tended to do.

I forced myself to smile, but dread crept over me like an army of spiders. “Maybe you
were
dreaming. You might have hit your head on the pavement and knocked yourself out when you, uh, fell out of the limo. Wouldn’t that make more sense?”

“Of course it would.”

I let out a sigh of relief.

“But I wasn’t dreaming
that
night.” He held out the rolled paper to me again. “I
was
dreaming just before I drew this.”

I studied him, trying to make sense of what he was saying. “I think I’m confused.”

“I had a dream two weeks ago. It was so clear in my head that I had to get up in the middle of the night and draw what I’d seen in case I forgot it. Everything about it felt so real.”

Okay. I’d play along for now. I finally took the sketch from him and slowly unrolled it, moving it more toward the light so I could see. I stifled the gasp that rose in my throat.

The sketch was pencil, detailed, and it was immediately clear to me that Chris was a talented artist. It showed a girl in the forefront who looked a whole lot like me in full Darkling form, black wings stretched out behind her, with the unmistakable Shadowlands castle in the background, dark spires reaching into the gray swirling skies like scary black arms.

An ice-cold shiver not caused by the winter night zipped down my spine.

How had Chris seen this? How had he even dreamed about this? Though he’d seen me in Darkling form in the school parking lot outside Winter Formal, he couldn’t have ever seen the Shadowlands. It was impossible.

“What does it mean, Nikki? Why did I dream about you?” He sounded hoarse and upset and more than a little scared. “And what is that horrible place?”

“You drew this
two weeks
ago?” I said, my voice no more than a whisper. It was well before he’d seen me as a Darkling. Well before
I’d
even known I was a Darkling.