by Jana Oliver
Riley had hit the wall and bounced so many times she didn’t know any other way. Her mother’s death, then the condo fire. Now her dad.
With a tortured sigh, she started with the first bill—the rent. That wasn’t optional unless she wanted to move into a drafty refrigerator box under one of the city’s leaky bridges. It went into the life-really-sucks-if-this-isn’t-paid pile. Electric, gas, and water. Ditto.
She continued on through the rest of them—monthly dues to the Guild Fund, both national and local; cable and cell phone bills. The final one was the biggest—her mom’s medical care.
“$54,344.75?” she said, boggling at the amount. She knew it was outrageous, but not the exact amount. Over the last three years her father painstakingly whittled it down from a high of $65,000. The interest was taking a massive bite out of the payment, and there was still another seven years on the loan.
She’d be twenty-four by the time this was paid off. By then she’d be a master trapper. It seemed so far off.
Riley stuck the bill in the when-everything-else-is-paid pile. “Sorry, Dad, but that’s the way it has to be.”
Using her cell phone to do the math she realized that even if she ignored the medical bill, she was going to be in real trouble in five days when the rent was due. Maybe the life insurance payment would come in really quickly and …
Life doesn’t work that way. Riley had learned that much from watching her dad strain to balance the finances month after month. The urge to binge on chocolate reared its head. After a quick hunt through the apartment she didn’t locate any. She ate a banana instead. No comparison.
While she was rummaging, she found the demon money right where Beck said it would be, another $225, along with paperwork that said he’d sold the demons to a trafficker named Roscoe Clement. Riley had heard of the guy. Her dad had described him in two words and those were “total sleaze.”
Bet Beck shoots pool with him, too.
Slumping into the chair, she counted the pile of cash she’d dug out of their makeshift “bank” inside one of the throw pillows. Her dad had always joked that they looked like drug dealers with the stacks of fives, tens, and twenties on the kitchen table. Keeping money inside a pillow wasn’t really a smart idea, but they’d had little choice. If they put anything in the bank the medical bill dickheads would siphon it right out as part of the claim. They’d learned that the hard way and lived on ramen noodles for a month because of it.
Riley repeated the math.
“Better, but I still need three hundred dollars,” she said. If she could find that somehow, she could pay the rent, the utilities, and leave a bit for food. She’d worry about the rest of the bills when their time came.
Her dad had faced this every day, every week, month after month. He’d remained cheerful, at least around her, but she knew it’d dragged him down. She gazed at the chair. Empty. No smile, no laugh. That emptiness spread throughout the entire apartment, an invisible choking fog.
Riley sprawled on the couch next to Max. The packing box coffee table received a sound kick, startling the cat.
“Where am I going to get three hundred bucks?” she groaned. Max’s answer was to yawn, exposing a long pinkish tongue. He curled up again.
“Borrow it from Beck?” she pondered. Riley shook her head even before she finished the question. He was already trying to take control of her life, and owing him money would only give him more power.
She had to find a way to live on her own or Beck would drive her crazy.
Riley’s eyes lit on her father’s trapping bag near the door. Beck had brought it home for her. She retrieved it and returned to the couch. The sides of it had small tears, and there was dried blood on it. Zipping the bag open, she studied the interior. Her dad always repacked it every night, replacing any supplies he’d used. Since he wasn’t here, the job fell to her.
A plan slowly formed. It was pretty bold, crazy even, but if she could pull it off …
Paul Blackthorne couldn’t trap anymore.
“But his daughter can.”
* * *
Riley parked underneath one of the few working security lights near the old grocery store. The light was on life support, blinking on and off at random intervals. Farther away from the building were other cars with windows steamed opaque because the occupants were busy making out.
Tonight was going to be a bitch. By now her classmates would have heard what happened at the library, maybe even about her dad. She didn’t think she could handle false pity right now. Or insults. Somebody would get hurt.
Riley sat in the car for a few minutes, leaving the motor running. It would be so easy to ditch class. Beck would never know. She could be in Five Points hunting demons rather than hanging around here.
She spied Peter by the front door. He was watching for her, like he did every night they had class. He was holding something—her report. She couldn’t blow him off when he’d gone to all that work. And then there was the computer disk mystery. The longer she’d thought about it, the more it had bugged her. Like trying to guess what was inside a Christmas present, except rattling a disk didn’t tell you much.
As she stepped out of the car Peter saw her and waved. Shouldering her messenger bag, she headed toward him.
He’ll help me get through this.
“Hey, Riley,” Peter said as soon as she drew near. She noticed he kept his voice muted so it didn’t carry across the parking lot. “Glad you’re here.”
“No choice,” she said, then felt bad. “How’re you?”
His smile thinned. “Worried about you.”
She didn’t even think twice when he gave her a hug.
Peter stepped back and opened his mouth. Then he shook his head like he knew nothing he could say would help her heal.
“Here you go,” he said, and handed over the neat stack of paper. “Your report.”
“You’re a great guy, you know that?” she said, all serious.
“Sure am. Destined for fame and fortune,” he joked. “I still think my paper’s better.”
“You would.”
“Hey, Blackthorne,” one of the other students called out. “Trashed any libraries today?”
Before she could respond, a classmate elbowed the ass, then whispered in his ear. The guy’s eyes grew large.
“Sorry, I didn’t know about your dad,” he mumbled. Around them, other kids watched nervously, wondering if she was going to lose it.
Riley turned her back on him. No tears. Not here. She felt Peter’s hand on her elbow, then a gentle squeeze of reassurance.
“Ah, did you bring that computer disk?” he asked. He was trying to distract her, and she loved him for it.
Riley unearthed the disk from the bottom of her messenger bag and delivered it into his eager hands, along with a list of birthdays and other personal information.
“Cool. Now I can hack your bank account,” he said, winking.
“Hack away. We … I don’t have any money.”
Peter cocked his head. “How bad is it? Do you, like, have enough for food?”
“I’m three hundred short for the rent,” she admitted. “I could ask Beck, but he’s…” She shook her head. “Not going there.”
“I’ve got almost a hundred I could loan you.”
She studied Peter anew. He was serious. She knew he’d been laying aside cash for a new hard drive, but he was willing to help her without even thinking about it.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. I have to do this on my own. I can’t sponge off my friends. “Thanks, but I’ll work it out.”
The worried expression on Peter’s face didn’t budge. “What do you have in mind?”
A field trip to Demon Central. Instead she said, “I’m thinking of getting a part-time job.” That wasn’t really lying, was it? Peter would never agree to her trapping on her own. Neither would Beck.
So I won’t tell them. At least until she caught her very first Three.
When Riley dropped the r
eport on Mr. Houston’s desk, the older man looked up, his pale blue eyes barely focusing on her. He murmured his sympathies then returned to his paperwork. That angered her. She didn’t want sympathy, but her dad was more important than a few words that didn’t mean anything.
Riley took her chair and fell into tortured silence despite Peter’s attempts to cheer her up. The new curriculum required teachers to teach multiple subjects, even if they didn’t really understand them. Mr. Houston was a good example. He was great with English, but not so hot with the other classwork.
Like math.
As he droned on about the finer points of calculating the volume of a cylinder, she was light-years away from the here and now. Almost everything triggered memories of her dad; like being in class. She’d sat in on some of his history classes when she was a kid. He was a great teacher, not like Houston, who could put stones to sleep. She’d met Beck in one of those classes. He’d checked her out, then laughed, making fun of her braids and knobby knees, not realizing she was the teacher’s daughter.
“You’re kidding!” Peter exclaimed.
Riley pulled herself back to the present. “What?” she asked, wondering what she’d missed. Peter was never that emphatic about math.
“They’re closing this school,” he said, angling his head toward the teacher.
Houston had a pile of envelopes in his arthritic hands. “These are your assignments. Your next class will meet in the new locations.”
“Why are they closing this one?” one of the kids asked.
“Just are,” Houston said. He looked around at the dead bugs and the maze of multicolored wires protruding from the dairy case. “Any place will be better than this, guys.”
“Got that right,” Peter whispered.
An envelope landed on her desk. Official news always came in white envelopes with neatly typed labels. This one was no different.
BLACKTHORNE, RILEY A. (Junior)
She looked over at Peter, and they ripped open their envelopes simultaneously.
“I’ve got an afternoon class now,” she said. How had that happened? It’d always been at night.
“Where?” Peter asked, leaning over to look at her paper.
“Fourteenth Street. An old Starbucks.”
Silence.
“Peter?”
His face fell. “Damn,” he muttered and handed over his letter. The day got worse. Peter wasn’t in her class anymore. Instead, he was going to be somewhere on Ponce de Leon Avenue at a place named Kids Galore!
Riley returned the letter, trying not to let this news body-slam her. She failed.
“We’ve always been together, ever since elementary school,” she said.
“Maybe if I ask them to change it…” he began. Then he shook his head. “I bet Mom’s behind this.”
If so, Mrs. King had discovered a truly cruel way to separate them.
Peter adopted his game face. “We’ll talk every night after class,” he said, trying hard to put some positive spin on this disaster. “We’ll have twice the stories, you’ll see.”
“Yeah.” He was doing the happy-talk thing, but it wasn’t working.
“Riley?” he said. She looked over at him. “No matter what, I’ve got your back.”
Not if you’re on the other side of the city.
SIXTEEN
Serious nerves kept Riley rooted to the car seat. She sat just inside Demon Central, near Underground Atlanta. Her dad said it was a run-down area, but he’d been too kind. It hadn’t always been that way. When her mom was alive, they’d come down for the New Year’s Peach Drop. It’d been cool back then. Now it was a dump. If she was going to find a demon, it would be here.
Riley had everything she needed—her dad’s trapping gear and the special steel mesh bag to hold the Three after she’d caught it. She’d spent nearly forty-eight dollars for a pint of Holy Water and three spheres from a gun shop on Trinity Avenue. Only one thing was missing—guts.
I can do this. She’d been saying the same thing to herself for the last ten minutes, ever since she’d called Beck and lied to him.
Not a lie. I am tired.
But she had lied, at least about class running late and that she needed to get some sleep and could he watch her father’s grave until midnight?
He’d agreed without giving her any hassle. It would have been easier on her conscience if he’d been a jerk. Instead, he’d sounded really concerned, and that made the lie turn to rock in her stomach. Would borrowing money from him be the end of the world?
Yes.
Time was passing.
Riley tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. If she was truly Paul Blackthorne’s daughter she’d be out there hunting a Three rather than worrying herself sick in the car. She’d be taking care of herself rather than waiting for someone else to do it for her.
Her hand shook as she reached for the door handle.
“I’ll just see what it looks like, then decide,” Riley said, trying to find some middle ground that didn’t allow the stone in her stomach to grow any heavier.
After the trunk lid popped open, she slipped the straps of her father’s trapping bag on her shoulder. It seemed heavier than when she’d hauled it out of the apartment.
“No wonder he lifted weights,” she grumbled, dropping it to the ground. There was the sound of breaking glass.
“Ah, crap!” She’d broken one of the spheres. They were designed to crack easily, and she only had three. Squatting down, she rummaged in the bag. One of them had split open and a sea of Holy Water flooded the interior.
She gingerly fished out the broken glass, trying not to slice her fingers, and tossed the shards into the gutter. After removing the bag’s other contents, she drained the water onto the ground. It splashed on her tennis shoes and her feet began to tingle. Now she’d have cold and holy feet all night.
Her ham sandwich was soaked. That was okay. When she caught a demon she’d haul it over to Fireman Jack and collect her money. Then there’d be a celebratory trip to McDonald’s for supper on the way to the graveyard. She might even supersize the fries.
An odd, shuffling noise caught her notice. She leaned around the truck lid. An old black man made his way up the broken sidewalk, dwarfed by layers of clothes like he was wearing everything he owned. He hunched against the cold, shooting glances over his shoulder every few steps as if he expected trouble.
Once he was gone, Riley repacked only what she needed into her messenger bag and slipped the strap onto her shoulder. Better. After slamming the door and pocketing the keys, she set off into the heart of Demon Central, her heart thudding in her ears.
Fifty feet down the abandoned street she came to a stop.
“There just had to be holes,” Riley muttered. She hated them. Things lived down in those holes. Things that would love to eat her.
She paused and studied the closest abyss. It was jagged and deep, with pieces of metal sticking out from the edges like porcupine quills. She thought she heard water running somewhere underground.
This place was a Three’s dream home—loads of trash strewn around and hardly any light. What light there was seemed to be timid, barely illuminating the center of the street and avoiding the corners entirely. She strained to see into one corner, but it was impossible. Anything could be watching her, waiting, choosing the moment to bring her down.
A few streets over a coyote howled, high and throaty. The howl was picked up and amplified into a wild and energetic chorus. Riley began to shiver.
Was Beck this afraid when he trapped his first Three?
She wasn’t sure. He didn’t seem to be scared of anything, but then her dad had been with him, and that would have made all the difference.
As Riley edged forward her shoes crunched on something. Broken glass and white powder spread in a wide arc on the rippled asphalt. Debris had swirled around that circle, like a hurricane does its eye. Edging closer, she found tracks through the powder. She knelt. The powder came from a shield sphere,
and the tracks were from work boots. Like the kind trappers wore. Dry, rust-brown stains were splattered like someone had shaken out a paintbrush. She picked up a strip of ripped brown leather crusted with dried blood and examined it.
It was from Beck’s coat, the one he’d been wearing the night her father died. She could remember what it had looked like in the hallway, slashed and shredded, coated with his blood.
Riley lurched to her feet, stumbling backward. She barely stifled a cry of anguish.
This is where her dad had died.
What am I doing here?
Her dad and Beck trapped as a team. That wasn’t to keep each other company. Apprentices didn’t start trapping Grade Threes until almost six months in, and then only with a master at their side. Even then, they still died.
Get the hell out of here!
It was her father’s voice, echoing deep inside her head.
Riley executed the turn as slowly as possible, eyes darting from hole to hole, expecting a furry body to be crawling out of every one. She wanted to run, but she kept her movements steady. Demons chased their victims. If she acted as if she were in control, maybe nothing would come after her.
Four steps later she heard the sound.
“Just a rat,” she whispered. Not that she’d seen any, but they had to be down here, right?
The sound grew louder. A sort of sloppy snarl. Muscles tensing and heart jittering, Riley looked over her shoulder. Crouched in front of one of the holes was a Grade Three demon. The thing looked like some monster out of a science fiction movie—four feet tall, a patchwork of black-and-white spiked fur with scimitar claws and horrifically sharp teeth that protruded beyond the lower jaw. The creature rose, stretching like it was limbering up for gym class. It examined her with menacing red eyes.
“Oh … my … God.”
“Blackthorne’s daughter,” it bayed. It slicked its thick tongue across its lips. Drool rolled down its chin.