The Demon Conspiracy (25 page)

“I can always use help,” said Parrish
emphatically. “Especially from such a lovely helper. Shall we
continue the tour?”

“That’d be grouse.”

Grouse? Parrish was a little confused. What
the heck did that mean? “I’ll take that as a yes.”

As they went into the
living room Parrish watched her. There was something special about
a woman wearing work clothes. The accentuated curves and rugged
beauty really caught his eye. Especially
this
woman.

19

THE TOURNAMENT

KELLY

My feelings were hurt because Jon and Chris
had both refused to come watch me play in the Halloween Classic
Open Chess Tournament. I understood Chris, he’d gotten so weird
lately he never left the basement. I’d tried several times again to
read his thoughts and had come up empty. How could that be? I’d
never had any trouble doing it before the cave, though lately he
blocked me the same way Jon did. Then I remembered I couldn’t read
the minds of crazy people. All at once it was clear. Chris may not
be possessed by a demon, not at all. He’d gone crazy!
Unfortunately, that meant whatever was on his mind these days would
stay a secret.

But Jon was my brother. He’d always been
proud of my game, even if he wasn’t much of a chess player himself.
With Jon it was always about family. Not this time. Not while he
was having head problems. My first tournament ever and he’d stayed
home to practice magic. At least Angie, Travis and Melissa were
here to support me.

My first opponent had been a novice teenage
girl who’d entered the tournament on a dare. I beat her fast. But
my second challenger, an elderly woman with green-dyed hair and
purple contacts in her eyes, was much tougher. I have a thorough
understanding of the game and of course I like to read an
opponent’s thoughts to know what moves they might be planning. But
that didn’t work on this lady. This woman was insane, though nobody
knew it yet except me and I couldn’t read her mind at all. She was
a good player, too—but not good enough. I put her away in twenty
minutes.

In my next to last game, the semifinal, my
opponent was a doctor from a local hospital, Dr. Winthrop. He was a
handsome, white-haired man, and perfectly sane, but he’d played
very little chess and it was amazing he’d gotten as far as he had.
I beat him in four moves without reading his mind. Dr. Winthrop was
shocked and embarrassed. Here he was, a medical doctor, a surgeon
no less, blown away by a thirteen-year-old girl!

“No offense, young lady,” said the doctor
after our match. “But I’ll never play this game again for as long
as I live.” He shook my hand and told me good luck, but he left the
tournament clearly shaken. Word spread fast about that match and
from then on and a lot of people were talking about me. I’ll admit
it made me feel a little cocky. But I also felt badly for him.

Now I was in the championship game against a
gray-haired man with a medium-length beard. When I read his
thoughts before the game, I knew that he’d lost only four times in
his life, all to his father when he’d been young and still learning
the game. After that he’d won every game he’d ever played and this
wasn’t his first tournament.

I forgot about being cocky and became really
nervous because the guy, Dr. Morris Leach, planned everything he
did at least four moves ahead. In addition to that he also kept a
vast number of counter moves in his thoughts, and even had
counter-counter moves for many of those. He was a genius with a
fierce memory. I had a great memory, too, and I knew the game just
as well as Dr. Leach. I also knew he’d beat me unless I understood
his strategy, so I made a point to stay inside his head during the
game.

In short, I cheated. Yeah, I know. It’s like
being able to see an opponent’s letters in a game of Scrabble.
Cheating bothered me on several levels, but that was how I’d always
played. I was really good at two things in life: playing chess and
reading the thoughts of others. And I wasn’t able to do the chess
thing without including the mind scans. It would have been like
driving a car with my eyes closed.

Every now and then I sent a little message
to Travis to let him know how things were going.

He’s gonna move his bishop next, isn’t
he?

I’m opening up a huge trap. He’ll never see
it coming.

He’s falling for it!

I tuned in to Melissa’s thoughts once as she
and Angie watched the final game on a big-screen television that
gave the audience an overhead view of the pieces on the board. I
was surprised to learn that deep down Melissa found chess a little
baffling and boring. But she was pulling for me with all her
heart.

All at once Melissa looked
around suspiciously. She
knew
! I quickly backed off and
stayed out of my friend’s mind. Melissa may not have been
telepathic, but she sure was sensitive to anybody who
was.

Back at the game I made what I figured to be
my third-to-the-last move. Two more moves and Dr. Leach would be
toast. Sure enough, though he hesitated, Dr. Leach moved his rook
in front of my pawn. A safe and smart tactic, but it would doom him
in the end. I concentrated on him very hard. I let him know what a
great move he’d just made.

Dr. Leach smiled slightly at the mysterious
compliment that came from somewhere inside his head. But he
remained tense and alert. I had to be very careful in the way I
controlled him. He was much too intelligent to take lightly.

She’s going to win
it
, thought somebody in the audience. I
looked up in surprise. My mind had wandered since his last move. I
didn’t mean to pick up the personal thoughts of people around me,
but sometimes it happened. Just for fun, I tuned in to some
others.

She’ll be the scholarship winner, for
sure.

She could be the next Bobby Fisher!

I’ve never seen anyone play as well as that
girl. I wonder where she came from?

I fought off a smile. It felt awesome to be
admired. All I had to do was make the next move with my bishop
(ironic huh? Bishop wins with her bishop. That’d be a good
headline!) and Dr. Leach would realize he was beaten. There’d be
nothing he could do at all. Then everyone would think I was the
most amazing chess player in the world. Or at least in my part of
the world.

Somebody compared me to
Bobby Fisher!
Oh, yeah, I’m
cool!

And I was, too. Except for
the guilt that had welled up inside me since I beat that very first
kid. It was one thing to beat my friends and family once in a
while, but it was something else entirely to win at this level, and
keep on winning. I reached for the bishop, then pulled my hand
back. All I had to do was make the move and fame and glory would be
mine. But technically I’d cheated. These people didn’t know I could
read their thoughts, not that it would have mattered. They
certainly couldn’t read mine. That wasn’t just
playing
the game, it was
fixing
the
game.

I reached for the bishop again. Dr. Leach’s
eyes got big as saucers, when he realized what I was going to do to
him. He knew he’d lost the match and there was nothing for it. But
I did the unexpected. I left the bishop where it was, and slid my
queen to one side. It was still a good move, if I’d been a
novice.

“Check,” I said calmly.

Dr. Leach nearly collapsed with relief.
Whatever had made me change my mind had completely opened up his
chance to win. He moved his own queen to the space directly beside
his king, blocking my queen. But the move was more than that.

“Check
mate
,” said Dr. Leach, breathing a
huge sigh of relief.

I tried to look as if I hadn’t seen it
coming, but in fact, I’d set up that one, too. I’m not bragging,
it’s just a fact. When I smiled, it was genuine. I turned over my
king in submission and shook Dr. Leach’s hand. The audience was
mostly disappointed, but they still applauded for both of us.

“Good game,” I said.

“
Great
game!” he cried. “You’re the
toughest opponent I’ve ever had!”

“Thank you. You’re really a great
player.”

I left the stage and met the family. Melissa
and Angie hugged me.

“That was an amazing display of strategy,”
said Angie. “If you practice some more, I think you can beat that
guy. He knows it, too.”

Travis hugged me because I was his sister.
But he didn’t say anything out loud.

What went wrong?

Nothing
, I replied.
Nothing went
wrong.

But you had that guy. I could tell.

I made a mistake, all right? I did my
best.

“I don’t think you did your best,” said
Travis irritably. “I don’t understand. If you’da moved the bishop
like you started to, you woulda beat ‘im!” Travis stormed off
without us.

“Beaten him,” I corrected automatically. Of
course he never heard me.

Melissa was bewildered. “For a little guy
he’s pretty intense about winning.”

“Oh, yeah,” I said, embarrassed. “He gets it
from Jon.” There was no way I could explain it to anyone but
Travis, and I wasn’t even sure he’d understand.

“I think you did just fine, sweetie,” said
Angie as she hugged me again. “I’m proud of you.”

20

SPIES

KELLY

Like everyone else in the house I’d grown
sick and tired of the way Chris treated us whenever we went near
his personal domain—the basement. All we had to do was start down
the stairs and he’d yell and threaten to clobber us if we didn’t
get out fast.

“
Stay away from my secret
recipe!” he’d shout at the top of his lungs. I guess being
demonically possessed or crazy, whichever, could turn people into
jerks.

I didn’t like the way he was acting, so I
decided to find out what I could about his “secret recipe.” I did
it the easy way first, by reading his mind, but it was like trying
to run through a stone wall. I was so frustrated I wanted to cry.
My telepathy wasn’t working with him, so I just gave up trying. If
I was going to find out about that recipe, I’d have be very sneaky.
That, plus Chris would have to stay out of the basement for a
while, which he rarely did these days. I finally got my chance that
Saturday after the chess tournament.

I tiptoed through the kitchen, avoiding
places where the floorboards might creak. I opened the basement
door and stood at the top of the stairs, listening. The house was
deathly quiet. The only thing I heard was the wall clock ticking in
the foyer. The basement was empty.

I lightly snapped my fingers. A second later
Melissa popped out from behind the kitchen doorjamb. Her dark eyes
were alert with the thrill of being a spy in action.

“Are you sure Chris isn’t here?” she
whispered, as we started down the stairs.

“Angie took him to the grocery store ten
minutes ago. This might be our only chance to find out about his
stupid recipe.”

“Where’s Travis? Doesn’t he want in on the
action?”

“He’s in the den watching
TV. We’d better leave him out of this in case we get caught. I
don’t want
him
to
get into trouble since it’s
our
idea.”

When we got into the
basement I couldn’t believe how neat it was. Except for a small
area around the workbench where Chris was developing his
product
, there was
hardly anything else in the room. In a far corner he had left a
pair of steel utility shelves against the wall that were loaded
from floor to ceiling with buckets of paint. Adjacent to the
workbench he’d arranged some smaller bookshelves and an old metal
desk that was covered with papers and colorful spills from whatever
he was trying to invent. Some test tubes, beakers, a mortar and
pestle, and an alcohol Bunsen burner were also on the desktop. The
rest of the room was empty.

“He’s really cleaned this place. The last
time I was down here junk was stacked to the ceiling!” Of course
that meant my bedroom was the only messy room left in the house. I
began to have guilt pangs about picking up my clothes.

“Come on,” said Melissa. “Let’s see what’s
cooking.”

We went to the workbench and found measuring
cups, spoons, a blender, more beakers and test tubes, and a dozen
tall jars full of strange liquids. Some of the liquids were clear
and some looked like muddy soup. But most contained bright colors,
like red, orange, blue or green. I leaned over a container and
sniffed the contents cautiously.

“That smells good! Kind of fruity. This
one’s good, too.”

Melissa smelled one. She made a face and
backed away. “Whew! That smells like rotten oranges!” She sniffed
again. Another face. “That’s even worse! There’s fruit flies
everywhere.” Melissa pointed at a jar containing a clear, blue
liquid that was full of almond-sized, brown objects with legs. “Are
those cockroaches? Yuck!”

“This place is gross. What do you think he’s
making? Some kind of fruit drink?”

“If he is
I’m
not drinking it!
Maybe we should get samples of everything? We could get them
chemically analyzed.”

“How much would that cost?”

Melissa shrugged. “Probably too much. Hey,
is that a hairbrush? And it’s full of hair, gross! What’s that
doing down here?”