Brimstone (26 page)

“Go take a shower. I’ll print your paper and you can do another proofread before school.”

I dragged myself up the stairs and turned on the shower, then went to get clean clothes while the water heated up. When I came back, I was so sleepy, it took me a moment to be surprised by my name written in the fog on the mirror.

Hello, Magdalena
was what it said.

I’ve got to remember to turn on the vent fan was the first thing that came to my mind.

And then my brain caught up, and dread crawled over my skin. The thing knew my name. That couldn’t be good.

Maybe I was dreaming, still lying facedown in a puddle of my own drool, having a nightmare. I closed my eyes, but it was much worse
not
seeing what I knew was there.

The rivulets of condensation that dripped from the letters reminded me of too many horror movies. Steeling myself, I wiped away the fog. Acid yellow eyes stared at me, and I flinched back, but didn’t scream.

The black smoke drifted in the mirror like a negative reflection of the steam in the bathroom. I cast no reflection, but the sulfur-colored orbs floated where my head would be. Fear skittered over my nerve endings, but I was also pissed at the whole Peeping Tom routine, not to mention the destruction of my Senior Theme.

“How do you know my name, you smoky bastard?” I growled at it without expecting an answer, like you growl at the car when it won’t start. So my heart lurched against my ribs when a reply appeared in the quickly refogging mirror:
Summoner knows
.

The summoner knew my name. Super.

“Then what the”—I edited myself under the circumstances—“heck are you doing here? What do you want?”

See you
.

“Great. Just what I always wanted. A stalker.” A semiliterate one at that.

You see me
. The words appeared above the first ones. I saw the demon, so Old Smokey wanted to see me. I got it. It was scary how I got it.

“Well, I don’t want to see you, so bug off.”

In a new patch of fog appeared:
Soon you’ll fear
.

“Why not now?” Stupid question. I was pretty darned scared, at the moment.

Not allowed
.

Everything has rules, Dr. Smyth had said. You just have to know what they are.

Soon
, it wrote.
Magdalena
.

There was a huge power in a name. I wasn’t simply scared that it knew mine. I was sickened. I wanted to curl into a ball and just give up. Soon, it said. The taunting and toying would end, and I would be dead or wish I was.

Soon, but not yet. The mirror was like the dream, I realized. A spiritual construct. I took a deep breath of the steamy air and let the panic run out of me, leaving space for rational thought.

What came instead was an irrational idea. I put my own finger to the fog and wrote: “Azmael.” The eyes recoiled. “Get out of my bathroom, you stinky son of a bitch.”

The blackness in the mirror twisted and contorted in fury, and then turned in on itself and disappeared, leaving the word
Soon
superimposed on my pallid reflection.

I called Justin from the car on the way to school, waking him up. “It’s the name.”

“What?” he asked groggily.

“It’s the thing’s name. I think I may have banished it.” I explained what had happened with the mirror. By the time I was finished, he sounded completely awake.

“I don’t think you banished it completely,” he said. “But you found a way to control its spiritual presence.”

“What do you think it means that it can’t get at me now, but soon it will?”

“I think it’s what you said. The demon is getting stronger with each victim. The last one might not only make him solid, but also free him from constraint.”

“Yikes,” I said.

“That would be bad,” he agreed.

“How do we know the magic number?”

“We don’t know. When he finishes the list maybe. Or perhaps there’s a numerology thing. I’ll read up on it.”

“I’m having Lisa over to my house this afternoon since she couldn’t come yesterday. Can you be there?”

“Sure. No point in studying for finals on Monday when the town might be invaded by a demon before then.”

“I like your sense of perspective.” I pulled into the parking lot. “See you then.” I grabbed my backpack and made it inside with little time to spare. It was amazing how bandying words with the Hell-spawn could eat into your morning.

I told Ms. Vincent about the fire, and asked her if I could have until the afternoon to proofread the paper one more
time. She replied coldly, “You shouldn’t have waited to the last minute, then.”

A thousand arguments sprang to my tongue, but I’d already dealt with one demon today, so I simply laid the paper on her desk and took my seat.

Lisa watched me drop into the seat beside her. “You look like crap.”

“Thanks. Battling the forces of darkness will do that to you.”

“If you mean Vincent, I agree.”

We settled in. I wondered if Vincent was going to actually teach for once. I could use a nap.

“Hey, Lisa,” I said. “Are you going to the prom?”

“Yeah. Tessa and Katie and I are going stag. We didn’t ask you to join us, because we knew you’d rather die.”

“I wonder if Stanley ever got a date.”

“He’s going with Suzie Miller. You know from the play?”

“Really?” I was stunned. Suzie was so cute, and riding her five minutes of fame. She was going to the prom with
Stanley
?

When the bell rang, Vincent rose and came to the front of the room, straightening her cardigan—apple red with school buses for the pockets. No lie. “Today,” she said, “we start your last novel of the year. Fittingly, as you end one segment of your life and begin a new one, we will read
Brave New World
.”

She paused, as if for applause. At the smattering of murmurs and groans, she set her mouth in a thin line and went to the shelves to hand out books.

“Have you read
Brave New World
?” Lisa asked me.

“Doesn’t the future world kind of … suck?”

“I think that sums it up pretty well.”

At lunch, I had a table to myself, which was not that unusual, but everyone kept staring at me, which … well, was becoming more common.

Halfway through my doughy burrito, a girl I’d never met plopped into the seat across from me. I actually did a double-take, because this—the jet-black hair with pale roots, the black nail polish—was Lisa’s old look before she’d given up monochrome as a lifestyle choice.

This girl had a pentagram hanging from a leather strap around her neck. She set her elbows on the table and asked avidly, “Is it true you’re a witch?”

“
Excuse
me?”

“They’re saying you cursed the Jocks and Jessicas. Is it true?” I stared at her stupidly. “If it is, you can tell me. I won’t hold it against you. I mean, those stuck-up posers …”

“You should be careful.” Another girl stood beside me. Unlike her dark counterpart, she was dressed in a flowing pastel blouse over jeans and flip-flops. She looked like a hippie and smelled of incense. “You know the Wicca Rede.”

“The what now?” My fork full of burrito hung midair. From my hand, I mean. Not levitating. Considering the company, maybe I should make that clear.

“The first rule of the White Path: ‘An’ it harm none …’ ”

“What’s that in English?”

“Do what you want, as long as it harms no one.” Flowers-and-Light Girl sat down beside me, but not before
shooting Pentagram Poser a glare. “Whenever you cast a spell to do harm to someone, it will come back on you, three times as bad.”

“Yeah, well.” I dropped my fork onto my tray. “That sucks for someone, but not for me. I didn’t do anything to anyone.”

Wicca girl put her hand on my arm. “I sense a terrible darkness around you.”

That shook me slightly, but then I realized … duh. “Yeah, they call it high school.”

Her mouth detoured into a sulking frown before she rerouted it into a smile. “When you are ready to admit your wrongdoing, my friends and I can help you. We can cleanse your aura and help you remove the negative energy …”

“Well,” said Goth girl across the table, “if you’re ready to rock and roll,
my
friends and I are down with that.”

“Thank you both.” I climbed over the bench and grabbed my tray. “I’ll look for you where the freaks come out at night.”

“Blessed be!” Hippie chick called after me.

I started to say something rude but then figured, what the heck. I needed all the blessings I could get.

Heading out of the cafeteria and into the courtyard, I ran into Stanley. Only as I stumbled back and muttered automatic apologies, it took me a moment to recognize him.

I’d been thinking a lot about Stanley over the last few days but I hadn’t actually
seen
him since Friday. I stared, trying to figure out what he’d changed. And then I realized, nothing much. He’d gotten some clothes that fit—that was
the biggest difference. Other than that: skinny, pale, insanely tall, drab, colorless hair. Check. No briefcase, but otherwise, that was Dozer.

But looking at him was like watching a DVD when you’ve been used to VHS. He looked sharper, more alive. I couldn’t explain it better than that. His shoulders were back, his head was up. And he was
smirking
at me.

“Meet some new friends, Maggie?”

“Don’t even go there. I had to rewrite my entire English paper last night because of you.”

He looked genuinely surprised. “Because of me?”

“Yeah.” I forgot I wasn’t supposed to antagonize him. “You look good, Stanley. Walking around with five less bullies on your case must agree with you.”

His eyes narrowed. “It would agree with anyone. Maybe I should thank you for casting that magic spell everyone is talking about.”

“That’s bunk and you know it.”

“Do I?” He smiled. It was an expression I’d never seen on Stanley’s face. He looked like a cat with a mouthful of canary feathers and whiskers coated in cream. “Unless you mean that the idea of magic is bunk, and then I agree. I mean, you’d have a real hard time proving something like that.”

“You have no idea what you’re dealing with, Dozer.”

“Right now, I’m dealing with a runtish busybody and, according to some people, a jealous witch.” He waggled his fingers and took off. “Buh-bye, Maggie.”

At least I didn’t have to wonder anymore. He did it. The power had given him a burst of confidence equal to any
magic spell. The old Stanley could never have gotten the last word with me.

I hoped he enjoyed it while it lasted. Because I had a feeling that when the demon got loose, it wasn’t going to be too happy with the guy holding the leash.

“i
t was the eyes that got me.” Lisa and Justin and I sat in my study. I’d lit some candles—I was trying to clear the smell, not my aura—and the aroma of fresh baked cookies reminded me of Gran’s house, and feeling safe. It made it easier, slightly, to talk about things like demons and curses.

Lisa’s body language made it more difficult, though. She sat on the sofa with both her arms and her legs crossed, a scowl of rejection on her face. “The smell of brimstone, Mags? Doesn’t that seem a little cliché?”