The Demon's Covenant

The
DEMON'S COVENANT

 

Also by Sarah Rees Brennan

The Demon's Lexicon

 

THE DEMON'S LEXICON TRILOGY
B
OOK
T
WO

SARAH REES BRENNAN

 

MARGARET K. McELDERRY BOOKS

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

www.simonandschuster

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2010 by Sarah Rees Brennan

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

M
ARGARET
K. McE
LDERRY
B
OOKS
is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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Book design by Mike Rosamilia

The text for this book is set in Dante MT.

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Brennan, Sarah Rees.

The demon's covenant / Sarah Rees Brennan.—1st ed.

p. cm.—(The demon's lexicon trilogy)

Summary: Seventeen-year-old Mae feels that even though her world is out of control, she must find a way to protect the demon Nick from his brother Alan's betrayal.

ISBN 978-1-4169-6381-3 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-4424-0617-9 (eBook)

[1. Demonology—Fiction. 2. Magic—Fiction. 3. Secrets—Fiction. 4. Brothers—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.B751645De 2010

[Fic]—dc22

2009040798

 

F
OR
C
HIARA
—my best friend, and the best thing I ever found in a library

Someone very wise once told me the second book is harder than the first: If the last one took a village, this took a city. But luckily I had a wonderful city to hand, and to thank!

Thanks to Kristin Nelson, agent extraordinaire, and the whole fabulous team at the NLA.

Thanks to Karen Wojtyla, otherwise known as the mistress of my soul, who, ably supported by Emily Fabre, stopped me babbling and using Terrible Romantic Clichés. Thanks to my UK editor, Venetia Gosling, who quite agreed with her, and my copy editor, Valerie Shea, who agreed with both of them!

Thanks to Simon & Schuster in their entirety, both in the US and in the UK, and to all my lovely foreign publishers as well. Your amazing support of the first book means that I trust you all absolutely with this one!

Thanks to Nicole Russo and Anna McKean, for organizing the best US tour ever, and Scott Westerfeld for making every day of it fun. And to Kathryn McKenna for going around England with me, and the whole publicity team at S&S UK! Thanks to all the librarians and booksellers I met and have yet to meet—it's an honor and a privilege!

Thanks to Saundra Mitchell, who read the second draft and told me I would get there, and to Justine Larbalestier, who read the fourth draft and told me I had.

To Team Castle: Ally Carter, Jennifer Lynn Barnes, Sarah Cross, Carrie Ryan, Diana Peterfreund, Robin Wasserman, Maureen Johnson, Holly Black, and Cassandra Clare, in memory of kittens, murders, and snickerdoodles.

To the S Club, Susan and Sinéad, due to much writing and more cupcakes.

To the Clique, who know who they are and keep me sane(ish).

To my friends and family, who showed up at events, cheered me on, and (shockingly) still answer the phone when I call, despite suffering through all that.

Thanks to Natasha, who never stops believing, and Jenny, who wishes we both would.

And thank you so much to the fans of
The Demon's Lexicon
, whose response to the book has awed and delighted me. The emails, the art, getting to meet and talk to you guys—I would still write if nobody read the books, but you all make it ten times more fun.

1
Magic on Burnt House Lane

Any minute now,” Rachel said, “something terrible is going to happen to us.”

The area around Burnt House Lane was deserted at this time of night. The cracks in the pavement that Mae hardly noticed by day had turned into shadowy scars along the cement, tracing jagged paths that led into the dark of yet another dead-end alley. They peered down into the alley and made the silent mutual decision to walk on extremely fast. Mae was in the lead.

“Come on, this is an adventure.”

Rachel muttered behind her, “I'm pretty sure that's what I just said.”

Mae had to concede that this might not have been one of her better ideas. She'd just wanted something different now that she was finally able to leave the house, something a little exciting, and a party in an empty warehouse near Burnt House Lane had seemed the perfect plan.

A streetlamp above slowly winked its single evil orange
eye, and night swallowed them at a gulp. The light sputtered back on with a grudging crackle and night spat them up, but by then Rachel and Erica had both walked into Mae's back and were huddling together.

Rachel was shivering. “I think this may be the worst situation I have ever been in.”

“Don't be an idiot,” said Mae. “I've been in much worse situations than this.”

She shivered and thought of the knife sliding in her sweaty grasp, the terrible resistance as she had sunk it into skin. She remembered the blood on her hands.

Rachel and Erica didn't know anything about what had happened last month. They still thought she'd run off to London with her poor misguided brother on some crazy impulse.

Her mother thought that too, which was why Mae had been grounded for two weeks, picked up outside school in Annabel's car like one of the younger kids who ran from school to car, frantic to exchange one cage for another.

Mae closed her eyes, more desperate to escape than any of them, and the dying streetlamps and broken lane faded away. She remembered bright lanterns flooding the forest with gold, dancing with an edge of danger so she wasn't sure if she was sweating from exhilaration or fear, and black eyes on hers.

She'd seen magic. And now she'd lost it.

She wasn't thinking about that, though. She was finally out for the night and she was going to have a good time. She was going to see Seb, and she wasn't going to think about anyone else.

There was a clatter and movement in the shadows. Mae jumped and Erica grabbed her arm, five sharp fingernails biting like a small scared animal.

“It's fine,” Mae said loudly, more to herself than her friends. She'd walked around Burnt House Lane after dark hundreds of times. She'd never been scared before. She wasn't going to start being scared now just because she knew exactly what could be watching.

Mae walked on, keeping her stride measured and sure, and nothing followed them that she could hear.

“There's nothing to worry about,” she told Erica. “Nothing.”

They reached the next alley and saw the warehouse where the party was being held, its windows streaming steady yellow light. Erica took a deep breath, and Mae grinned.

“See,” she said. “What did I tell you?”

“Sorry I got freaked out,” said Erica, who had not said a word all this time, who was always the angel on Mae's shoulder saying, “Sounds great!” while Rachel on the other said, “We're all doomed.” “I know the Lane's safe enough, really. After all, Jamie hangs around here. Can't really see Jamie strolling through a crime den.”

She laughed, and Rachel on Mae's other side did too, both of them towering over Mae in their heels, fear melting away in the light.

The warehouse suddenly looked a lot less inviting.

“Jamie's been hanging around the Lane?” Mae asked. “Since when?”

Jamie hadn't been grounded. Annabel had assumed Mae was responsible for the whole thing, and Mae had let her. It wasn't as if they could tell anyone the truth.

Mae had taken the blame and waved Jamie out of the house every night for weeks. He'd said he was going to the library to study; after all, it was his GCSE year, and the tests were coming up soon.

She didn't know why she'd believed him. He'd lied to her before.

Erica looked uncertain about how Mae would take this, but she said, “Tim's seen him around there almost every night for weeks.”

Erica's boyfriend Tim was in Seb's gang of guys, who weren't Laners but liked to hang around Burnt House Lane anyway. The Lane was mostly just kids messing around, but far too many of those kids thought hassling Jamie was a good time.