An Autumn Dream (5 page)

And people wonder
ed why I didn’t go out and do things. Because fighting demons at the Halloween dance was SO MUCH FUN.

I knew we should have gone
Trick-or-Treating. I knew it! We would be home right now, curled up on the couch eating peanut butter cups and watching horror movies while Sharkrat feasted on Christian Thompson.

That would have been a much better evening, on all accounts.

Life, why are you so cruel to me?

Sharkrat seemed to share my sentiments as it hissed impatiently, drool dribbling from its many teeth as its rat tail swished back and forth in irritation
. I glanced at Christian, wondering if he finally saw what his date actually was, but he was too busy glaring at Evan to even notice.

“Why is he here?” he asked me
. “Who the hell is he, anyway? I’m not into dudes, you know.”

Evan let out a short bark of laughter
, but didn’t answer. He was too busy discreetly working his magic. He had already thrown up a veil to prevent anyone else from seeing what was going on, and was now doing something that involved a dimly glowing blue orb and a lot of finger movement.

“Gabi, come on, answer me.”

I turned around to address the perverted doctor. “Christian, can you please shut up for once in your life?”

He star
ed at me, mouth agape. “What the hell? You’re the one who wanted to come out here—”

“I didn’t come out here for you,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest
.

“Then who
?” Understanding spread across his face. “Her? You’re into girls?”

I smacked my hand against my forehead, wishing it was Christian I was hitting instead
. “Will you look at your date? I mean, really,
really
look! Notice anything a little off?”

Sharkrat
took this moment to hiss loudly like a snake and massive amounts of spittle went flying everywhere.

Christian shrugged
. “She’s hot. What’s wrong with that?”

“Ugh, do you
ever
think with your brain and not with your—”

“Is that a tail?” Christian interrupted
. I felt a flash of triumph. Finally! Sharkrat was dropping its glamour!

I guess
ed the demon was tired of standing around and wanted to start munching on Christian. It launched itself into the air, crashing into Christian and knocking him onto the ground. Its tail wrapped tightly around his wrists, and he screamed in pain. “Get it off, get it off, Gabi help meeee!”

What a baby
.
I looked at Evan, who was crouching on the ground, eyes closed as he concentrated on a spell. “Crap,” I muttered. “Why do I have to save this moron?” I glanced up at the sky, expecting an answer, but of course nothing came to me.

Luck
ily for Christian, I made a habit of carrying Rafe’s knife around with me. Sure, if they had checked my bag, I would have been arrested for carrying a concealed weapon, but it was a risk I was willing to take considering my luck with demons popping up to ruin my dates with Rafe.

Speaking of Rafe,
where
was he? Did I really have to stab this demon and ruin my awesome flapper dress? I heaved a sigh.

He so owed me about forty pounds of peanut butter cups.

“Gabiiiiiiiiii,” Christian pleaded, jerking his head from side to side as Sharkrat tried to take a nice big bite out of his exposed neck.

“Al
l right, all right, shut up, you idiot!” I said, lunging forward with the knife and cutting Sharkrat’s tail clean off. The demon howled with pain before backhanding me across the face. I went flying, landing in an undignified heap on the ground with my dress riding up a lot higher than I was comfortable with. I really hoped Christian wasn’t watching.

“Gabi!” Evan cried, snapping out of his trance and throwing a freaking blue flaming
fireball
at Sharkrat. It screamed and rolled off Christian, frantically patting down its blazing bits. Evan helped me up. “Are you okay?”

My face was throbbing with every beat of my heart
, and I wondered how I would be able to explain the bruise to everyone, especially Dad. He’d probably assume Rafe beat me and go after him with his kitchen knives. “No, Evan, I am
not
okay. Can you please kill this thing so I can go find Rafe and have him drive me home?” I sniffled loudly. “This sucks.”

Evan’s face softened
. “Hey, babe, I’m sorry.” He extended a hand toward me, but I slapped him away.

“Just kill the demon, Evan.”

“All right.” His face grim, he pulled out a knife identical to the one I still clutched and charged toward the demon, which was currently doing the stop, drop and roll on the ground. Even from where I stood, I could smell nasty burnt demon flesh. Stomach rolling, I stood on shaky feet to watch the rest of the fight.

Groaning, Christian sat up and rubbed his head
. “Gabi?” he asked when he saw me. “What the hell is going on?”

I shook my head
. “Don’t talk to me, Christian.”

“You owe me an explanation—”

My temper finally snapped. “I don’t owe you anything,” I screamed, my voice echoing across the deserted courtyard. “Not after what you did to Chloe!”

Confused, he looked at me
. “What I did…?”

“Yes, you asshole
.” I took a menacing step toward him and he flinched, not unlike Rafe earlier. Gee, what did that say about me? Was I really that scary? “Have you forgotten already?” I shook my head, feeling disgusted. “It must be so nice to be the sort of guy that goes around screwing with girls’ hearts like it’s nothing. How do you fall asleep at night, Christian?”

“I didn’t do anything wrong.”

I wanted to hurl my knife at him. I even took another step forward, arm raised when I realized that going to jail for murdering Christian Thompson really interfered with everything I had planned for my life. “Dammit,” I sighed, lowering my arm. I eyed my heels, wondering if I could kick him a few times without getting in trouble.

Christian stood, brushing the dirt from his costume
. I was happy to see the demon’s tail had left thick red welts around his wrists. I may not have been the one to hurt him, but at least he was hurting. He ran a hand through his hair in a way that he probably thought was sexy (but I just found creepy) and said, “Look, Gabi, your sister was fun and all, but that’s all it was. I’m not ready to settle down, you know?” He spread his hands wide. “We’re sixteen years old, for god’s sake!”

“And she’s
fifteen
,” I shot back hotly. “She’s just a kid.”

“Actually,” he said with a smug look, “she’s definitely not.”

I slapped him across the face with the hand that wasn’t still gripping the knife. He stared at me in shock before cradling his cheek with his hand. Squeezing my now-throbbing hand into a fist, I hissed, “You had no right sleeping with her. You had no right taking her heart and stomping on it until it broke into a million pieces, leaving me with the struggle of mending it back together.” My eyes were burning with unshed tears, but I refused to cry in front of this jerk. “Maybe it’s all fun and games to you, sleeping around with everyone you want, but how about you think about someone besides yourself for once in your life? How about you think about the poor girls that you lead on and then drop like yesterday’s trash?”

I was screaming at this point, but I didn’t care
. I needed to get this out; it had been sitting inside me since Chloe had come home crying one night last summer, telling me how Christian had used her until he had gotten exactly what he had wanted. For two short weeks, she had felt like the most beautiful, amazing girl, and once he had tricked her into his bed and dumped her the next day to be with his next catch, she had completely reversed, hating not Christian but herself. It had taken weeks for me to coax her out of the house, which had been a mistake because as soon as she had gone to one party, she had gone overboard: drinking and coming home hung over, expecting me to cover for her, fooling around with other guys to “forget” Christian (which obviously hadn’t worked), and fighting with Dad constantly. It was only now, after the Davenport incident, that she had calmed down to the point that she was almost a completely different person. She may have finally gotten over Christian, but I hadn’t. He had hurt my sister, and I was too overprotective to just let it slide.

I put my hands on my
hips and stared up at him. “You want to know why I hate you, Christian? Why I refuse to give you the time of day, let alone ever go out with you? Because you’re an asshole.” I took satisfaction in the way he flinched at that word. “I would rather die alone than ever be with someone like you.” I allowed myself a bitter smile. “But I don’t have to worry about that, now that I found Rafe. Someone who treats people like they’re actual people and not objects that are meant for possession. He’s sweet and kind and he will
never
force me to do something I’m not ready to do.” It was so true. The boy blushed at the most innocent of things! But I found his shyness endearing and wouldn’t have it any other way. “So leave me and my sister the hell alone!”

Christian was looking at me like I had grown another hea
d. True, these were the most words I had ever spoken to him at one time, but I think this was also the first time someone had told him the truth. I’m sure he had been slapped across the face before, though. He did treat girls pretty badly…

“I don’t see what’s wrong
with having a little bit of fun,” he said quietly. I narrowed my eyes, seeing nothing but red. Did he not hear a single word I had just shouted in his stupid face? Why had I bothered wasting my breath? It was like speaking to a wall, I swear. No, wait, that’s insulting the wall.

“Everything
all right?” Evan asked, startling me badly. I turned to see him walking up to us covered in green demon blood. I wrinkled my nose; I could smell him from several yards away. Behind him was the dead demon, sprawled out on the pavement with its severed head laying a couple of feet from its body.

Christian took one look at the body and the blood drained from his face
. Whirling around, he proceeded to throw up all over the ground.

“Oh
, boy,” Evan muttered, pulling out a cloth to wipe his knife clean. “This one’s a real hero, isn’t he?”

I should probably have felt bad for Christian, but I didn’t
. “He’s a jerk.”

“Yeah, I can tell that.”

“We should have let the demon eat him.”

Evan chuckled
. Putting away the knife, he raised his eyebrows. “How do you want to do this?”

“I-I don’t understand
.” Which was a lie; I knew what he meant.

Evan, for his part, didn’t call me out on my lie
. “How much do you want him to forget?” He gestured to the body. “Just the demon or… everything?”

I felt my cheeks flush, certain Evan could see the deep red stain despite the poor lighting
. He had heard everything I’d said, including the stuff about Chloe.

But there’
s no point in focusing on that
, I thought grimly.
What’s done is done.
I couldn’t exactly ask Evan to wipe his own memory. Besides, he would never tell anyone what he had overheard. He wasn’t like that. He wasn’t like Christian.

I made up my mind quickly.

“Everything,” I said. “Everything that happened after he started dancing with the demon. Just make him think she left him on the dance floor.”

He studied me carefully for a full minute, making me squirm under his gaze
. A quiet Evan was unusual and sort of creepy. “Are you sure?” he finally asked.

“Yeah
.” I turned my back on a still-puking Christian. “Just do it. It’s not like what I said made an impact on him, anyway.”

“It’s a shame I can’t convince him to be a better person,” I heard Evan mutter
. “Magic can’t change personalities, unfortunately.”

“Evan, I’m pretty sure nothing short of a lobotomy would change him.”

He snorted in response.

“GABI
!” The school doors were thrown open with a loud crash and Rafe came charging out, looking like he was  about to kill fifty demons to get to me. He gathered me into his arms, pulling me to his chest so I could hear his rapidly beating heart. “Are you okay?” He pulled back and saw the welt on my face. Rafe swore. “What the hell happened?”

I gestured
toward the dead demon. “Sharkrat hit me after I cut its tail.”

“What
?” The confused look on his face was so comical, I had to smile. But Rafe’s eyes flashed and he shook his head. “This isn’t funny, Gabi! This thing hurt you! What the hell were you doing, fighting it? Did you want to get hurt?”

“No, I—”

“And what was Evan doing, just standing around as usual?”

“I am
standing right here, you know,” the blonde said as he worked his magic.

Rafe ignored him
. “What the hell, Gabi?” His nostrils flared as he struggled to keep his anger in check.