I almost went with a bow tie. Even though it was James Bond-ish, I didn’t like it. So I went with a vest and tie in light blue to match her dress. And my eyes, she said, although my eyes were paler than the color we picked.
Some of our friends were too young to go, including Casey. Lucia had to beg her parents, and I helped her find a great deal on a dress through the Internet. I also found her a date, which I felt sort of bad about because I don’t think he was really interested in going with her, just going with our group since I was in it. But hey, they were both dateless before I hooked them up, and at least they got along.
I got a limo and a table at the fanciest restaurant in the city. Nothing but the best for me and my friends. The one thing that spoiled the excitement for me was thinking this was the perfect opportunity for my dad to attack. I wanted to wear Animus, but she wasn’t exactly conducive to dancing. I left her in the limo while we ate, but I took her with me to the prom itself. I left her on the table, knowing I could pull her to me if I needed to. She was also handy for making sure no one else took our table. No mistaking that I’d claimed it.
I led Hayley out to the dance floor. She looked like a fairy-tale princess in her long blue dress and diamond jewelry. I’d gotten her earrings and a necklace to go along with the outfit. I admitted the earrings were real, but I lied and said the necklace was cubic zirconia. I didn’t want her to know how much money I’d taken to pay for that. Her hair was done up, making it look almost as short as it had been when I met her.
“You’re beautiful.” I kissed her, a soft brush of lips.
“So are you.” She smiled and laid her head on my shoulder.
“This is better than I imagined. This is perfect.” I wanted to stay like that forever, dancing with Hayley to a sappy love song. Another slow song followed, then a stupid party song. I rolled my eyes but danced to it anyway. I was in too good of a mood to hate it.
We danced a while longer before taking a break. Hayley went to the table to sit down and I went to get her a drink. While I was filling a cup of punch, I heard an argument by the front door. Over the music I caught the word “faggot” and I whipped my head around.
The so-called Christians were surrounding someone. I put my cup down and headed over. They were actually surrounding two guys, one I recognized and one I didn’t. The Christians looked pissed, and the two guys were glaring back. “Get out of here,” the lead Christian shouted. He looked like he might start shoving the guys any second.
“What’s going on here?” I asked.
The lead Christian, Thomas, turned his glare on me. “This is none of your business, devil spawn. This school has been defiled enough by your presence.” So I guess they’d gotten over their glowering silence.
The guy I recognized, though I couldn’t remember his name, said, “They won’t let us in.”
“Why not?”
“Because we’re gay.”
Aha. I looked down and realized the guys were holding hands. And they had matching corsages on their suits. Cute. “Get out of the way,” I told the assholes. “This is their prom too.” The game was really over now. I’d been having such a good time, and these fuckers were putting a damper on it.
“We’re already suffering your abomination, we don’t need these faggots flaunting their unnatural lifestyle in front of the whole school.”
“Why don’t you just go back to standing in the corner and muttering Bible verses,” I said. “The rest of us want to have a good time.”
Michelle said, “Of course you’d be on the side of the homosexuals.” She flicked her gaze to them. “Do you want to stand beside the son of the devil and go down with him to the fiery pit of Hell for all eternity? Or will you repent your sinful ways and come to Jesus?”
Oh, they were in rare form today.
“We just want to dance,” the boyfriend said. “Get out of the way.”
Two of the chaperones were hovering, but with me involved they were reluctant to do anything. I’d rather handle it myself anyway.
“Move,” I growled.
Thomas and Michelle crossed their arms. “Or what?” he asked.
“I’ll make you move.” I motioned for the gay couple to get behind me.
“You won’t touch us. We’re protected by the Holy Spirit and blood of Jesus,” Thomas said.
Michelle added, “You don’t want to turn us into martyrs, remember?”
I wanted to slap her smug face. “I guess we’re gonna find out how strong my resolve is.” Heat was building around me. “Here’s what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna get out of the way, and you’re gonna leave these two alone, you’re not gonna speak to them or even look at them. I’m fucking serious. I’m done playing.” I held up a hand and summoned fire to get my point across.
The so-called Christians looked at me with fear and hatred, and after a breathless second, they moved out of the way. I led the gay couple past them. “Come on, you can sit at our table.”
“Holy crap, you really do have magic powers.”
I looked over my shoulder and gave him a smile. “Yep.” I turned to the guy I recognized. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.”
“Miguel.” He stared at me and awkwardly offered his hand.
I shook it as we reached the table.
Hayley was on her feet, frowning. “What was that?”
“Hayley, this is Miguel and his boyfriend. The Christian clique was trying to keep them out.”
“Assholes,” she growled. See why I love her?
“This is Ronnie,” Miguel said.
I shook the guy’s hand while he looked stunned. “Hi, I’m Alex. I’m guessing you don’t go to our school.”
“No. I go to Central.” He kept staring. “You’re really the son of the devil?”
“Yeah. Talk about daddy issues.”
That surprised a laugh out of him.
I said to Miguel, “You should’ve talked to me earlier. You could’ve come to dinner with us. I can give you a ride home, though. I have a limo.” I smiled.
He grinned back and nudged his boyfriend. “See? I told you we’d be safe here.”
The song changed and Miguel grabbed his hand. “Oh, I love this song! Come on.” He pulled him toward the dance floor.
I turned to Hayley. “Oh, shit. I forgot your punch.”
She laughed.
***
The so-called Christians occasionally ventured out to dance. I noted with some smug satisfaction that for someone who’d called Hayley a slut, Michelle was the one in a low-cut dress with a short skirt. For most of the night, they slunk around the gym glaring at me. They didn’t dare talk to me, and they left Miguel and his boyfriend alone. I spent most of the night dancing with Hayley, and sometimes our whole group danced together, laughing and smiling.
The music stopped so they could announce the prom king and queen. Only seniors were eligible, but just in case, I’d made it clear that I didn’t want anybody putting my name on the ballot as a write-in. It wasn’t fair to cheat a senior out of it. The guy who won wasn’t a jock, but the guy who got the lead in all the school plays. Imagine that, a California school voting for an actor. The queen was a straight-A student and star of the soccer team, bound on a double scholarship for a fancy East Coast college.
Our school didn’t just do king and queen, though. For juniors, there was a “prince” and “princess.” They announced me as prince, and I went up to accept the little crown. After being showered with attention for almost two months, I still felt embarrassed standing up on that stage. I’m not sure what it was, maybe the proof that a majority of the kids liked me enough to vote for me, maybe realizing I was getting everything I wanted and feeling a pang of guilt that I didn’t deserve it.
“Thanks, everybody,” I said. “I know you think it’s cool that I have superpowers, but what I always wanted was this—to go to school, to dance at prom, and yeah, to be popular. You could’ve run screaming when I told you what I was, but most of you didn’t. Y
ou treated me like a star, and now you voted me prince.” A little chill went through me. Prince, Prince of Darkness, Prince of Hell. “That means a lot to me. More than I can say. Thank you.” I stepped back to applause.
The head of the prom committee stepped up to the mic. “And now to announce your junior class princess… Hayley Lambert.”
In hindsight, it seemed obvious, but at the moment I was surprised. I cheered and clapped and grinned like a fool as she came up on the stage. She looked a little teary-eyed as she accepted her crown. “Thank you.” She swallowed before going on. “I never wanted to be a popular girl. I didn’t want to change who I was to try to make people like me. Turns out all I had to do was date that weirdo.” She pointed at me as the crowd laughed.
I stepped up and leaned into the mic. “Hey, they just voted for me because I have superpowers. Live it up.” More laughter.
“See what I have to deal with? But, yes. Thank you. I secretly always wanted something like this.” Hayley stepped back.
After another round of applause for all four of us, the king and queen got their dance, with me and Hayley joining them halfway through the song. I watched the way the light shimmered in her eyes. I leaned close to kiss her cheek, then whispered in her ear, “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” She wrapped her arms tighter around me.
The next song was upbeat to invite everybody else to dance. Miguel and his boyfriend and Lucia and her date joined us. “This is the best night ever,” Miguel said.
“Yeah.”
And my dad didn’t even show up to ruin it.
Chapter 22
He saved that for the last week of school.
I was probably the only kid sad that school was ending for summer. The seniors would graduate on Saturday, and the rest of us finished up the following Wednesday.
On Friday, Satan showed up as I was putting things in my locker at the end of the day. Right in the middle of the hallway, with his usual flare of fire to announce his arrival. The nearest students screamed and rushed to get away from him.
With fear turning in my stomach, I drew my sword. She hummed, far more eager than I was. It helped to give me a bit more courage. “Get out of here!”
Satan held his hands up. “Alex, I just want to talk.” His mouth turned up in that slimy-politician smile.
“Get the fuck out of my school!” I lifted Animus and tensed for an attack.
He blurred forward and I slashed. In a blink, he was there, one hand gripping my arm and keeping the sword away from him. Then the world turned inside out.
He broke away before I could get my bearings. “There, now we can talk without all that screaming.”
I kept my eyes on him, taking in the landscape around and behind him. We were in the desert. “What the fuck do you want?”
“It’s time for a father-son chat.”
“You mean a beating?” I held Animus in front of me.
“If I wanted to beat you, I would’ve done it already. I could’ve taken you to Hell just now, put you in chains so you couldn’t run away. I thought that wouldn’t make you very likely to listen, so I brought you here instead.”
“What makes you think I’ll listen to you at all?” What was his game this time?
“You’ve gotten a taste of it the last few months. That’s why I left you alone.”
“A taste of what?” I knew better, I really did, but I was curious. And I was still afraid to attack him if I didn’t have to. He was ten feet away, just standing there, and no one was around for him to hurt. Well, except for me.
“Power. Adoration.” He grinned. “I admit I never expected you to tell your entire school you were my son. Instead of running away screaming, they crowned you prince of the prom. How much more wonderful would it feel to be prince of the whole world?”
“You’re trying to lure me to the Dark Side again? You think I want to destroy the world and do your bidding because I like being popular?”
“You’re always so focused on the destruction. We have to get rid of the old to make way for the new. This world is Jehovah’s broken failure. I’ll make a new world, a better world. Everyone will bow to you, worship you, love you. What would it be like to have the whole world love you, Alex?”
I gripped Animus tighter, power flowing up my arm like a comforting touch. “Love? Or do you mean fear?”
“What’s the difference?”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“Oh, and you have such noble aspirations? What about Henry? Do you think he obeyed you out of love, or fear?”
“Who?”
“The boy you threatened, demanded that he stop worshipping you.”
Oh, he must mean the bully that tried to kill himself. I’d never bothered to ask his name. “That’s not the same thing. He was picking on Elliot; I just wanted him to stop.”
“And he also stopped worshipping me, and told his parents to do the same.”
“And it’s a good thing he did, because if his family would’ve killed a cat like the others—”
“You would have killed them, right?” His lips curled. “The way you killed dozens of my followers, burned down their houses, left their children homeless and parentless.”
“They’re better off without parents like that,” I growled.
“Are they? Who are you to decide that?”
Dammit. He had me there. I scrambled to find a good answer. “Because I know what it’s like. Because of Tim.”
“Tim?”
“I saved him from his parents that night. They beat him, the way you beat me. He thanked me for killing his parents, and he tells other kids to pray to me.” I closed my mouth with a snap. Oops, that’s not the kind of thing that would help my case.
“What’s that? You have people praying to you?”
“Not the way you tell people to worship me, with evil and greed and killing fucking cats. This was their idea, to pray to me when they’re in trouble. I’m their protector, their savior.”
“Their god.” He laughed. “And yet you say you aren’t tempted to rule the world. It starts small, my son. The worship of your little cult, the adoration of your schoolmates. You’ll crave more and more of it until you want everything.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No. It’s not about forcing people to worship me. I’m not threatening them to make them do it. It’s their choice, and the kids at school just like me.”
He stuck his hands in his pockets and tilted his head. “And why do you think that is, Alex?”
I shrugged. “Because I have superpowers and they think it’s cool.”
“Oh, that’s not all of it. People are drawn to you. You have a natural charm, enough to convince the world to follow you, to love you. That everything you do is in their best interest.”
A little worm of doubt crawled around in my belly. Was I subconsciously using my Antichrist powers to make people like me? “I told you about a million fucking times, I don’t want it. I don’t want to rule the world. I don’t want to destroy everything just so you can be in charge. I haven’t fucking changed my mind, now leave me the fuck alone!” I hurled Animus at him.
With a swirl of fire, Satan was gone. Animus passed through empty air and dropped to the sand several yards away. I hadn’t really expected to hit him, I just wanted him gone.
Sand crunched under my shoes as I went to pick her up. So I enjoyed being popular at school. So I had a cult of teenagers worshipping me as a savior. So what? That didn’t mean I was a power-hungry supernatural future dictator.
Right?
***
Mew-Mew rubbed against my chin. You know he’s not right.
“He’s done a good job of making me doubt myself. Fucking bastard.” I ran my hand through his fur. “What if they only like me because of some kind of demon charm?”
It doesn’t bother you that they might like you for your powers.
“But this is different. I don’t care
if they like me because they think my powers are cool. I do care if I’m somehow manipulating their emotions. Their minds. What if nobody actually likes me?”
He rubbed me again. I love you, and there’s no trick to that.
“I know.” I kissed his nose. Cats were hard to manipulate, even with magic.
He perked up a second before I heard footsteps in the hall. After a quick knock, Hayley asked, “Alex, are you here? Are you okay?”
I’d put my phone in my backpack, and my backpack had been left at school when Satan teleported me away. I should have thought to call her right away when I got back, even if I had to borrow a neighbor’s phone. Or I could have gone back to school to get my stuff.
I jumped off the couch to answer the door. “I’m here.” I opened it to her worried face. “Sorry, I’ve only been back for a few minutes and I left my phone in my bag.”
She sagged. “Oh, thank God. Or whatever.” She set something on the floor, and as I glanced down I realized it was my backpack. Hayley pulled me into her arms.
I squeezed her tight. “I’m fine. He didn’t hurt me.”
She kept hugging me for a long time. When she pulled away, she said, “Casey is still at school. He stayed in case you came back there.”
“I’ll go get him.” I bent to pick up my backpack.
“No.” Hayley grabbed my arm. “I’m coming with you.”
I opened my mouth to argue with her, but there really wasn’t a good reason. And I realized she was worried about me and didn’t want me out of her sight. But was she worried because she actually cared, or because I’d done something to make her like me? How was I supposed to know if I was using a power like that?
“Okay.” I stepped aside to let her in and closed the door behind her. “Is he by my locker?”
She nodded.
I took her hand. “Here we go.”
The hallway was empty except for Casey and a cluster of other kids: Lucia, Miguel, Tavon, and Alice. But were they my friends?
Casey’s face broke into a smile when he saw us. “Alex! Are you okay?” He ran up and looked me over.
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