Seriously Wicked (20 page)

I cringed, but there didn’t seem to be anything I could do about any of that at this point. So I rounded on Jenah, who was saying, “You don’t take choir.”

“We are
not
related,” I said. “Why do you say those things?”

“Are you sure?” she said. “
A,
your auras are like totally different colors—but they have the exact same spiky green brightnesses around the head. I think it’s a witch thing.
B,
you make the same face when you’re about to get stubborn. She looks like she could be your older sister. You didn’t tell me she was so young.”

“Witches look like whatever age they feel on the inside,” I said. “She usually looks sixty.” I peered through the dim dance lights to where Sarmine was apparently speaking politely to both Miss Crane and Visible Undershirt. “She does look awfully young tonight. Maybe that’s what fooled you into thinking you saw similarities.”

Jenah wrinkled her nose.

“Now look. I have an idea about what to do with the phoenix power,” I said. “So it doesn’t explode and cause fire and destruction and hells knows what else. But I can’t do it without you.”

“Okay,” said Jenah dubiously. “I can’t control an elemental, if that’s what you mean. I just see auras.”

I shook my head. “The demon will do that part of it,” I said. “But look.” I breathed deep and handed her the keys to Moonfire’s garage. “Can you get the dragon up here?”

Jenah looked down at the keys, and I think in that moment she saw how much I did trust her. I mean, not just letting her into my life, but I was giving her the keys to something that represented all the ways I was different from everybody else. How metaphorical was that? It was the sort of thing you wrote five-paragraph English essays on.

Jenah took the keys from me. “I will.”

“I’m not ruining your evening by asking, am I?”

“God, no,” said Jenah. “Real witches instead of an-excuse-to-wear-a-miniskirt witches? I’m all in.” Jenah herself was in a black-and-white-striped miniskirt, tights, and shirt, with a painted-on broken neck (“I’m a crosswalk,” she explained later), but as she always dressed in miniskirts, she was allowed.

“Good,” I said. I checked my phone: 8:05. “You have thirty-five minutes.” That was assuming we found the phoenix, of course. “Um, if you see the school explode, don’t come back.”

I checked my phone yet again and saw the message light blinking. Creepy unicorn guy had returned my Phone Call of Last Resort. I nerved myself and listened to his message. It said he would love to supply me with goat’s blood, and in exchange all he would ask was for me to pose with one of his unicorns for the calendar he was working on. In something schoolgirly, like those cute Japanese girls wear. He started describing the potential outfit in more detail, but I hit “delete” as fast as possible.

So that was now my only option for goat’s blood, and if I had to trade something besides cash for blood, obviously I would’ve picked dance-with-Kelvin in a heartbeat, not that I had that option anymore. I wasn’t in love with Kelvin, but Kelvin was not creepy. If I
had
crushed on Kelvin, maybe that would’ve made everything go more smoothly.

But
could
I crush on Kelvin? I didn’t think so.

I pondered what Kelvin would be like as a boyfriend, rather than dialing that phone number, as I knew I was going to have to do. But I was just putting off the inevitable.

I picked up my phone.

And then a tall guy with a wide pale face strode stiffly into the room. He was wrapped in aluminum foil from head to toe, with occasional green ruffles.

Kelvin.

I was sure he wouldn’t want to talk to me any more than I wanted to talk to him right now, so I turned toward the stage where Blue Crush (minus Devon) was setting up. I looked down at my call log to find Creepy Guy’s number. Maybe Kelvin and I could pretend we hadn’t seen each other.

But a crinkling sound proclaimed that he now stood next to me.

“Um. Hi,” I said. “What are you?”

“Leftovers,” Kelvin said. “Specifically, a leftover six-foot sub. Feast your eyes on the lettuce sticking out. I made the lettuce out of an old dust ruffle. I made the foil out of foil.”

“Clever,” I said. “I’m afraid I’m just me. Maybe I could be leftover me. The me after I’ve had a very long week.”

There was silence except for the crinkling of his aluminum. The dance lights twinkled off his foil. His lettuce ruffles danced in the breeze from the heating vent.

Then Kelvin said: “I lied before. You know what about.”

“About the pig flu. About liking me. About how to multiply exponents. About the fertilization of chicken eggs. About the earth being flat. About the
goat’s blood
?”

“It was cow’s blood,” he said. “The goats were being grouchy and my mother didn’t think it would matter. I didn’t want to be the one who messed up your experiment, so … I used my acting skills on you to pretend I hadn’t. It’s a violation of theater ethics
and
4-H ethics. I’m sorry. I know deep down you already knew all this and that’s why you despised me.”

“Kelvin. I do
not
despise you. I just like someone else and I can’t help that.” I put on my best robot voice: “Love is strange and nonmechanical. Does not compute.”

For once, Kelvin smiled.

Then he held out a cooler. “No payment due,” he said.

Relief, brilliant bold relief. Kissing Kelvin’s cheek would be a bad idea, but I hugged his arm. “Thank goodness,” I said. “Ooh, I crinkled your foil.”

He looked down at me. “It’s more authentic now,” he said.

“Right,” I said. Awkwardly. “Look, I’ll see you later, okay? I’ve got an experiment to get going.”

He nodded and lurched off to talk to a boy in a sparkly dragon T-shirt, not saying good-bye.

I looked at the items on my latest list and made a couple more notes.

•
Trap Devon in a pentagram (blow on it and tap with wand to set the spell)

•
Compound demon-loosening spell (in progress!)

•
Check and see if Devon has located the phoenix
JUST HOPE HE DOES

All I had to do was find Devon. And hope the zombie girls were by the T-Bird, where Jenah told them to meet. I jumped onstage even though Miss Crane turned from her convo with Rourke and the witch to scold me from a distance. “Camellia, dear, really, should you—”

“Hey guys,” I said. “Have you seen Devon?”

The bassist shook his red dreads. “Not my day to watch him.”

The guitar guy said, “No, and if he thinks he can get out of setup just because he’s singing lead instead of me . .!” He waved the cords he was untangling.

“All righty then,” I said, and stepped over black cords to go.

But the drummer said, “I saw him.” The drummer turned out to be a fine-boned black girl with piercings. She stopped fiddling with her snare to point toward the side entrance. “He finally got a reputation, huh? I kept telling him one day he’d be dripping in girls.”

I was suddenly jealous of this unknown girl for sharing Devon’s life before I knew him. For bolstering him in his shyness. For having a history. For being easy in her skin, like Jenah. For being cooler than I was.

What I said was: “Thanks.” I know she watched me go, watched me jump off the stage and dart through the dance, and I wondered if she thought I was hurrying to drip off him, too.

Devon was by the T-Bird talking to some girl dressed as a miniskirted pirate. Miracle of miracles, four of the zombie girls were clustered nearby. This wasn’t entirely due to the magnetic pull of Devon—I had tasked Jenah with phoning them all after school. She told them Devon had a little game for them, and to meet by the T-Bird.

Occasionally one wandered up to Devon and drove off the latest girl to stop and talk to him. Two zombie girls were dressed as witches and two as groupies, both of which seemed ironic. Reese had reverted to idiotic bliss, now that Devon was nearby and smiling her way.

I nodded to Reese and then dropped to the ground behind the mock orange with my backpack and Kelvin’s cooler. I took out the apple-oyster glop for the demon-loosening spell, and carefully swirled in the last, precious ingredient.

“Over here, Avery,” I heard Reese holler, and then the fifth zombie girl (a groupie) hurried from her mom’s car up the hill to the T-Bird.

Reese drove off the pirate girl with a white-toothed snarl, and the zombie girls moved in around Devon.

“Hey chickies,” said Devon. The actual suaveness the demon had learned from Devon receded as the demon got more and more confident that he had his claws in Devon for good, and the faux suaveness that the demon thought was totally the bomb had taken over. He had his collar flipped up again. “What do you girls want?”

“Kiss me,” said the zombie girls in a ragged chorus.

“One kiss per satisfied customer,” said Devon, shaking his finger. “Don’t crowd me, sweet things.” The girls sighed and obeyed, but they stayed in a loose circle around Devon.

Well, not quite a loose circle.

Only an observant observer would’ve noticed that the five girls had evenly spaced themselves around the grinning boy in the middle. They smiled sweetly at Devon.

“This is the life,” the demon said. He looked at the twilight sky as if he wanted to remember it forever. “This is the life.”

That’s when I said, “Now!”

The girls grabbed each other’s hands with straight arms. I ran from the bushes, shoved the bowl of ingredients just between Reese’s feet. I blew on her arm just as I brought my wand down upon her shoulder, freezing the pentagram in place. The magic jolted me just as it had when I tried the self-defense spell.

But this time I was ready for it. I held the wand on Reese’s shoulder while beams of light shot up from all the girls.

Devon was enclosed in a living pentagram.

He expanded for a moment and rippled all colors, just like I’d first seen the demon. Rage was written all over him. Then he shrunk down into a black-haired punk-band boy. “Very funny,” he said to me. “But a human pentagram has certain limitations. Reese, let me out of here.” He motioned for her to drop the hand of the girl next to her.

“No thanks,” Reese said sweetly.

“Ha. Come on.”

“Nope,” she said.

“Avery? Tashelle?”

The other girls shook their heads.

Devon glared at me. “What is this?”

“Cam said you said it’s the only way to prove our love,” said Reese in a singsong recitation. “Whoever holds on the longest wins you forever.”

“For the evening,” I corrected.

Devon turned a smoldering gaze on Reese. “Why don’t you drop hands and I’ll choose you right now?”

Reese looked dubious, but the girls on either side scowled and held her tighter. She tugged a bit and gave up. “Nope,” she said finally. “She said you’d test us to see who’s weak. But my love is strong.” Her eyes burned with zombie fire. “My love is eternal.”

Devon reached out to force Reese and Avery’s hands apart, but his hands stopped an invisible quarter inch from them. He tried to lean on the girls’ hands, tried to push on them, tried to focus power onto them, but nothing. It looked like he couldn’t touch the pentagram girl formation at all. Which is what the book had implied, but it was very reassuring to see it actually work.

“Why you…” he growled at me.

“Temper, temper,” I said.

He smoothed his face. “It doesn’t matter what you hope to do. I’m almost permanently embodied. Devon enjoys having me around, and once he feels the power of us controlling the phoenix, he’ll never want me to go. We’ll be together for all time.”

I hoped the demon wasn’t as confident as he seemed. “But you don’t have his soul yet,” I said. “And what you haven’t noticed is that I stuck a loosening spell inside the pentagram with you. Devon, now’s your chance. The demon’s not bound to you anymore. You can push him out of you.”

I held my breath and watched Devon freeze in the middle of the pentagram.

Tension. Waiting. Surely struggle must be passing behind his eyes, back where I couldn’t see.

Finally he blinked and sneered. “Nearly have him for good,” he repeated. “So what’s the point of this charade?”

My shoulders sagged.

But it isn’t over till it’s over. “At the very least this keeps you where I can keep an eye on you,” I told him. “Have you found the bird? Are you ready to transfigure it so the explosion can be controlled safely?”

“Found it ages ago,” said Devon. “It was obvious.”

“Good. Where is it?”

He snorted. “Let me out.”

“Not till you’re out of Devon,” I said.

“Then it will explode,” he said.

I narrowed my eyes. “Then the blast will take you down, too.” I didn’t plan to let it come to that. “Girls, don’t let Devon down,” I said. “Prove your love for him. Your own personal ‘Hands on a Hard Body’ competition.”

“Ooohh,” the girls sighed. Hands trembled.

“Except you can’t let go!” I said hastily. “That part comes after.”

“Awwww.”

A few kids had stopped to take in the scene. They looked interested until I said, “It’s a skit we’re performing later in the evening.”

“Lame,” said one, and they hurried into the dance.

I checked my cell. Eighteen minutes to explosion. I’d better tear the witch away from Rourke.

The witch had already come to the same conclusion and was stalking out of the gym just as I was returning to find her. Someone’s “spooky” playlist was blaring over the sound system, and I could see Blue Crush trying to tune beneath it.

“I captured the demon,” I said breathlessly. “He knows where the phoenix is hidden and he’s trying to keep the explosion for himself. So he’s in a pentagram till we get down there.”

“You tricked the demon into a pentagram?” A strange emotion crossed the witch’s face. It couldn’t possibly be pride, so it must be anger or jealousy. And then: “You did a spell?”

“Yup,” I said. “Two, if you count the pentagram. Proving that anyone can do magic if you gather the right ingredients.”

The witch shook her head. “Ingredients are only half. It takes your internal magic to push the rest.”

“Right, but all organisms have magic,” I said. “Therefore all humans have magic, witch blood or no. So why not? What’s the difference?”