He sat up a little straighter and cleared his throat. “Young man, there are no exceptions, and… and after the damage you caused to this school, you are expelled.”
I tilted my head. I’d heard about this, but it was kind of amazing to watch it happen. He was convincing himself, piece by piece, that nothing supernatural had happened. Denying what he’d seen with his own eyes, even with the evidence that was still all around him. Given enough time, he might actually succeed. I wasn’t going to give him the chance. “And who’s going to make me leave?” I rattled his desk for emphasis.
Maybe I should join the drama club. He paled. “I’ll call the police.”
“You threatened that already.” I looked at the phone, sitting on the floor where I’d knocked it earlier. “Now, Mr. Carlton, I don’t want any trouble, really. I just want to go to class and get treated like anyone else. I only have one special request, and that’s to keep my sword with me. I don’t think that’s much to ask in exchange for protecting your school from the devil.”
“You’re not human.”
“Yeah, I told you that.” I sighed. I was trying to play nice. Well, a little bit at least, but this was taking too long. I leaned on the desk and he flinched. “Here’s the deal. I’m going to stay in school, and you’re not going to stop me. No one is. I’m gonna carry my sword, and unless my father shows up, there won’t be any trouble, okay?” I leaned even closer. The whole office stank of fear. “And no one else has to know about this—no police, no reporters, no school board. Nobody.”
I stood up. “Now, I’m going to class.” I turned toward the door and paused. “I mean it, Mr. Carlton. I’m not fucking around.” To put an extra stamp on it, I teleported out.
I appeared in the hallway, which was much more crowded. First period would start in a few minutes and everyone was either hurrying to grab their stuff before class or loitering to chat with their friends. That stopped when I showed up. A huge circle emptied around me as kids tried to get away.
“Relax, I’m not gonna hurt anyone.” They kept staring, and it started to piss me off, so I turned away. I went down the hall and students parted like the fucking Red Sea. Murmurs followed along behind me.
I walked into homeroom, which was World History this semester. Everything stopped when I walked in. I took my usual seat next to Jayson. He stared at me like everyone else. Chair legs scraped against the floor as kids slid their desks away. Even the teacher was staring at me.
“All right,” I said. “Everybody knock it off. I’ve been going to school with you for months. If I was going to hurt you, I’d have done it already.”
“What are you?” Jayson asked. So I guess Casey and Hayley hadn’t told everyone.
I groaned. I knew I was gonna get asked that all fucking day. There had to be a better way than answering that a hundred different times. I needed a way to tell everybody at once and get it over with. “I’ll tell everyone after school today, in the auditorium.” It was going to be a performance of sorts, so why not have it on a stage? A little louder, I said, “Did everybody hear that?”
Several murmurs of “yes.”
“Good.” Word about it would spread.
The bell rang, and the teacher didn’t do anything. I sighed. The whole day was going to be like this, wasn’t it? “Can we start class now, Mrs. Gertz? I’m here to learn, seriously.”
She pulled out her class list, and with her voice shaking a little, she took attendance.
This was gonna be a long day.
***
After second period, a few kids started following me through the hall. They kept a few feet back, like they were still afraid of me, but they were definitely following me. Hayley came around the corner and waved at me. She glanced down at Animus. “I kinda didn’t think you were serious.”
“Oh, I was serious.”
“And they’re just letting you walk around with a magical sword?”
“I didn’t really give them a choice.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “What did you do?”
“I pretty much told the principal he can’t stop me.”
“Alex—”
“Hey, if my dad shows up again, you’re gonna be fucking happy I’m here.”
She glared at me.
“I’m sorry. I know I probably could’ve handled it better.”
“I’m just worried about you. I don’t want you to get kicked out or go to jail.”
I shook my head. Behind her, I noticed a few kids lingering, watching us with wary interest. “Nobody can make me leave or arrest me. I’d like to see them try.”
She crossed her arms. “Would you?”
I sighed. “Not really. I want things to go back to the way they were before, but that’s not gonna happen.”
“We should go before we’re late for class.”
We went down the hall for a while. At the stairs we split up; she went up and I turned down another hall. A few kids trailed in my wake.
After third period was lunch, and there were more kids following me now, including one of the jocks I’d beat up at the beginning of the year. Hayley and Casey were both waiting for me outside the lunchroom. As we got in line for food, I’d never heard the lunchroom so quiet. People whispered, shifted in their seats, and either stared at me or tried very hard not to look at me at all. We got our food in near silence, Hayley in front of me, Casey behind, and behind him was my trail of followers like the mice after the Pied fucking Piper.
I did my best to ignore it until we got to our usual table and half my friends were missing. I set my tray down louder than I needed to and turned to face the room. “Goddamn it, stop whispering!”
The room got even quieter.
“I’m not going to hurt anybody, so stop your fucking tiptoeing and staring and avoiding me in the halls.”
The jock who’d been following me inched closer. “Are you like, a superhero or something?”
“Or something,” I muttered. “Makes you feel better about me kicking your ass, huh?”
“You could’ve killed me. All of us. But you didn’t.”
“Nope.” We looked at each other for a moment. I nodded to the spot next to me where Jayson sometimes sat. He was nowhere to be seen. “You wanna have a seat?”
He blinked. “Uh… okay.”
Hayley sat next to me like usual, Casey on the other side, and I was relieved to see Lucia hadn’t disappeared. “Hey.” I smiled at her.
“Hey.” She smiled back, although she looked nervous. “Hayley says she knows what you are, but she won’t tell me.”
“I’m telling everyone after school. I don’t want to explain it a million times.” I looked at my lunch, trying to decide if I was hungry or not.
“People said you threw fireballs and ice and fought some kind of like, supervillain or something.”
“Auditorium, after school.”
Casey looked like he was going to explode.
“Don’t say anything. You can keep quiet for a few more hours.” I picked up my fork. If I didn’t eat now I’d regret it.
My next class was gym and it wasn’t even worth trying. I didn’t change clothes or anything, just walked into the gym and sat against the wall. “You can give me a zero for the day,” I told the teacher. “I’ll just sit here and read.” The rest of the class had a halfhearted game of basketball. I could feel them watching me the whole time.
It was a long day, and more and more kids started following me in the halls. A few were brave enough to ask questions, but I kept repeating that I’d explain everything after school.
The last bell rang and I grabbed what I needed from my locker, just like a normal day, except this time I planned to teleport home after my little performance. A whole crowd of kids followed me down to the auditorium, and there was already a line when we reached it. I went in through one of the doors closest to the stage, students moving out of the way when they saw me coming. Inside, the seats were a third full and filling up fast. Even the teachers were there.
I stepped onto the stage and waited, getting more nervous by the minute. The whole school was here, all of them waiting to hear me admit what I’d been hiding this whole time. What if they panicked? I imagined hundreds of screaming people, all trying to get out at once, some getting knocked down and trampled…
I shook my head to clear it.
One of the kids from drama club came up with a microphone stand and set it in front of me, flashing me a smile. I thanked her and turned back to the crowd in time to see the principal walk in. He looked almost as pale as he had that morning. I waited a few more minutes for the last of the students to hurry in.
I tapped the mic to make sure it was on. The whispering in the crowd died. “Hi, everybody.” My heart pounded so hard I wondered if they could hear it through the speakers. “So, I told you I’d explain everything.” I swallowed. “I don’t know how to start without freaking you out. I’m not gonna hurt anybody, so don’t panic or scream or anything.” Everyone stared at me.
“Fine, okay. The man I fought the other day was the devil, and he’s my father.”
Murmurs and exclamations. One guy shouted, “Seriously?” I heard a lot of “crazy” and “no way.”
“I know some of you saw the fight. Weird shit, right? That’s normal life for me. This school, going to class, talking to you guys—that’s weird to me. But I wanted it, wanted the same normal, boring lives you had. I wanted it so bad I ran away from home and lied to all of you to have it. I’m supposed to be evil. I’m supposed to help Satan destroy the world, but I’m not. I won’t.”
So I told them about hating my parents and how I’d saved the world three times last summer. As I talked, I got less and less nervous. It started to feel good to be up on stage, holding the mic, walking back and forth as I talked about fighting Fenrir and battling Satan on the moon.
I liked the feeling of confession after lying for so long. I liked the attention. I left out the part about killing Mom and Ken and the Satanists. They didn’t need to know that.
After finishing the CliffsNotes version of my life, I said, “So, that’s it. Any questions?”
A few hands went up. One guy stood and shouted, “Are you really a demon?”
“Half demon.”
“Where’s your horns and shit?”
“Right here.” I summoned my horns and wings. That made a few people scream. I think a lot of them didn’t really believe what I was telling them. “I got them last year, and they only come out when I want them. And yes, I can fly.”
That distracted most of them. “What else can you do?”
“I can control fire and ice, teleport, talk to some animals, move things with my power. I’m working on shapeshifting.”
“Can you show us something?”
“Well, fire would be a bad idea. I already burned down half the school office.” That got some laughs. “I can make it snow.” I really like that trick. So I made it snow in the auditorium, and moved some pencils and books that people held up for me.
One girl kept raising her hand and I finally called on her. “If you’re the son of the devil, then that makes you the Antichrist.”
“Technically.”
“So you’re like the kid from The Omen?” someone else said.
“No, Hellboy!” another shouted.
“I’m not… well, actually Hellboy isn’t too far off. We both love cats, too.”
Several people chuckled.
I hadn’t wanted this when I started school. I’d wanted to blend in, hang out with my little circle of friends and get good grades. Now, thanks to Satan blowing my cover, I’d just become the most popular kid in school.
Chapter 21
Everywhere I went at school, a little entourage followed me around. I had to shoo them away when I got to class. When I had class with one of my admirers, they tried to get the desk closest to mine. Girls went around glaring at Hayley and saying nasty things behind her back until I warned them to leave her alone or else. Hayley and Casey and my other friends got popular by association, and suddenly our little group of nobodies got more attention than any jock ever had.
The lead jock and two of his friends came up to me the day after my auditorium performance. “That fight we had at the beginning of the year… you seriously could’ve killed us.”
“Easily,” I said.
He hesitated. “Why didn’t you?”
“Well, one, I didn’t want to get arrested for murder or expelled my first week of school. And two, you didn’t do anything worth getting killed for.”
“So, we’re cool?”
“Yeah. But I’m still serious about the bullying thing. You pick on someone and I’ll hurt you.”
He lost some of his color. “Yeah, okay. I won’t pick on anybody.”
The bullies hadn’t beaten anyone up since the fight. They had picked on some kids, but as soon as I made it clear those kids were under my protection, most of it stopped. Anytime I was around and caught them doing something—calling a kid names or shoving someone—I used my power to trip the bully, or shove them into a wall, or spill food on them. For months, a rumor went around that the school was haunted. Now they knew it was me, and I didn’t see or hear about anyone else getting picked on.
Well, not by the bullies, at least.
We had a different kind of bully now that everyone knew I was the devil’s son. A group of six “born again” Christians set themselves on their own little crusade to get rid of me. First they tried an exorcism, full-on Latin and everything, even though they supposedly thought Catholics were false Christians. I laughed at them.
A week later they cornered me in the lunchroom and read from the Bible, the bit about Jesus casting out the demon. I rolled my eyes and waited until they finished. “Guys, first, I know Jesus. We’re friends, and although we have our disagreements, he wouldn’t cast me out of anything. Second, my lunch is getting cold, so get out of my way.”
They glared and shouted stuff at me as I went to the table.
It wasn’t just me they went after. They went after Hayley because she was dating me, and my other friends for hanging out with me. They picked on Casey and called him gay, even though he wasn’t. They didn’t get physical, although they did corner people like a pack of hyenas to shout nastiness at them. It hadn’t been like that before my announcement. I wondered where these fuckers had been hiding. I think they secretly loved me being here because it gave them a reason to act like huge douchebags.
I shrugged it off until the two girls in the group cornered Hayley in the bathroom and called her the Whore of Babylon, a slut, and lots of other things. They finally backed down when she threatened to hit them. She was mad when she told me about it, but I could tell the words had hurt.
That was it. At lunch I went up to their table. Some of them whipped out their crosses, like they thought I was a fucking vampire or something. “Hey, you little shits, leave Hayley alone.”
“Upset at us preaching truth to your whore?” The leader sneered at me. “The Word of God says—”
“Shut the fuck up.” I heated up and had to be careful not to set something on fire.
“Or what? You’ll use your unholy power to hurt us? Kill us?”
I glared at him. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Prove you right, turn you into a fucking martyr.” I really wished I could bring Joshua here and have him give the assholes a lecture, but I bet they wouldn’t even recognize him. “You’re supposed to be followers of Christ. How about you show me where in the Bible he harassed people? I thought there was something in there about loving your enemies, not calling them names.”
From one of the nearby tables, someone said, “Ooooo…” and several people chuckled.
I looked around. “Maybe we can give them a lesson. How about we all be extra nice to these pieces of shit? Open doors for them, give them cookies, tell them they’re pretty. If they tell you you’re going to Hell, smile and give them a compliment. We’ll show them how to ‘love thy enemies.’” I g
ot laughs and several shouts of agreement. The Christians tried to burn a hole in me with their eyes.
One boy shouted, “You’re really beautiful, Michelle.” That was one of the girls who’d cornered Hayley. Everyone laughed.
It was a fun game. We played it for weeks. Every time I passed one of them in the hall I’d think of something nice to say. Completely false of course, but the compliments didn’t have to be real. I don’t think any of the six had to open a door at school for a month. If they dropped something, a dozen people scrambled to pick it up. They were constantly being offered cookies and candy. People taped paper hearts to their lockers, left nice notes on their desks.
For a while they kept up with their insults, but little by little they got quieter. By the end of the month, they seethed in silence. I’d stopped the jock bullies by proving I could kick their asses. I’d killed the so-called Christians with kindness. Metaphorically, of course.
The game fizzled out. Teenagers’ attention spans only last so long, including mine. By May, I’d almost forgotten about them.
Prom was coming, and I was super excited. It was a standard of the American high school experience. Most kids waited until their senior year because of the expense, but juniors were allowed to go. I told Hayley I’d help pay for her dress if her parents were worried about the cost. At first she told me it wasn’t a problem, but then she found a dress she loved and I gave her the money to pay for it.
Her parents didn’t know the truth about me. We’d agreed they wouldn’t understand. We explained the money came from my trust fund. Hayley wasn’t bothered by me stealing money from ATMs as long as the money was coming from the bank and not an actual person’s account. She had about as much sympathy for greedy corporations as I did.
She helped me shop for a tux. We debated about whether to go with traditional black or do something different. I decided I already stood out enough so I didn’t need to make any crazy fashion choices. “Besides,” I told her. “You’re the one that’s supposed to stand out.”
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