by Cassandra
“Are you hungover?”
“Who told you that?”
“Roger said you were out drinking with Pastor Norman.”
“Why are you making that sound so scandalous. I am…of age, you know.”
“But drinking with…a pastor? Isn’t that like a…I don’t know. Some kind of sin?”
“Not if he’s buying.”
Jessica shook her head, annoyed. “Well, I’ll talk to you once you’ve sobered up.”
Chad nodded. “History class.”
“The last class of the day?”
“Because I can guarantee I’ll be as good as new by then.”
As her luck would have it, it was the day of the history test that she had stressed over. She almost swore at the top of her lungs when she stepped into the classroom and finally remembered. The students sat, and Ms. Mitchell handed out the test papers. How had she managed to completely forget this?
“So, tell me exactly what happened,” Chad muttered out of the corner of his mouth.
Jessica slumped in her seat as if it would make her less conspicuous. Initially, she wanted to ask him if he was out of his mind for finally wanting to talk under such inopportune conditions. Now, she figured it didn’t matter. She would fail anyway.
She stared intently at the test paper in front of her. Dispirited, she waved her hand over the paper and pretended to write while she muttered to him under her breath.
“I was walking home from the ice cream parlor after meeting some friends there.”
“Were you by yourself?”
Jessica sighed. “Yes! Yes, I was by myself, all right. So sue me.”
“Shh!” Ms. Mitchell said from the front of the classroom and glared in their direction.
She lowered her head even farther and tried to pretend that she hadn’t said anything.
“And what happened then?” he asked once the teacher no longer watched them. “By the way, I didn’t judge you for being out alone. You’re nearly a grown woman.”
“Thanks. I’m glad to know somebody feels that way.” she sat up a little straighter—she was nearly a grown woman, after all. “Anyway, it was getting late, so I wanted to hurry and get home. There’s a shortcut if you’re willing to walk through a couple of alleys. The problem is—let’s say those aren’t exactly in the best parts of town. I never expected freakin’ demons to be in them though.”
“Do I have to separate you two?” Ms. Mitchell glared at the two of them again. Several kids in the classroom snickered, including Debbie McCrow.
“Sorry,” Chad said out loud.
“You do realize you’re in the middle of a test, correct?” the woman asked.
“Yes,” Jessica answered slowly.
“And neither of you are finished with the test yet, correct?”
“No,” he admitted.
“Then I suggest you keep your mouths closed! All of this chit-chatting can wait until after class.”
“Yes, Ms. Mitchell,” they whined in unison.
Jessica fought the urge to roll her eyes. She recounted the countless times that Debbie and her minions had tormented her in class, yet Ms. Mitchell rarely ever caught them. On the few occasions when she did, she never reprimanded them so harshly.
Granted, they had never been bold enough to bother her during tests and quizzes, but still—it seemed more than a little unfair.
“You were in a bad part of town. What next?” Chad whispered nearly three whole minutes later.
Jessica shot him a sideways glance. “Later,” she muttered through clenched teeth. She gestured warningly at Ms. Mitchell, even though the teacher was now seated at her desk and graded papers rather than looking at them.
He shook his head. “There may not be time later. I have things to do after I get out of here.”
“Look, you may not be a real student, but I am. I can’t risk getting in trouble like this.”
“Jess—come on. Those demons are a lot more serious than a grouchy history teacher.”
Jessica sighed. He had a point, and there was no arguing against it—she would rather face Ms. Mitchell over vicious demons any day.
She lowered her voice to the lightest whisper possible and continued to recount her night. “Well, first, the lights flickered.”
Chad nodded. “Demons and spirits like toying with electricity to announce their presence.”
“When I saw that, I started walking faster to get out of that alley. But then they went out completely, and I froze. The next thing I knew, I heard laughter.” She paused for a second when she recalled that Chad had told her how demons usually sounded deceptively human at first. In hindsight, that should have tipped her off that it hadn’t been imps she was dealing with.
“Typical demon behavior,” he breathed. “Go on.”
“Well, after that, the lights came back on, and they revealed themselves and attacked me. They were about as big as… I don’t know. Six feet tall or so. They had scaly skin and looked something like a cross between men and alligators, with horns on their heads and vampire teeth.”
He swore. “What did they try to do to you?”
“They scratched me up pretty bad. And one of them seemed determined to rip my leg off.”
Chad shook his head and his mouth contorted into a deep grimace. “How did you get away?”
“I fought them. I had no choice.”
He paused and turned his head completely to look at her in disbelief.
Jessica sighed in exasperation. “Please don’t look at me like that. That’s exactly how my grandmother looked at me when I told her.”
“Uhh. Yeah. Because if you weren’t aware, it’s not exactly normal for a girl your age with no formal training to fight demons head-on.”
“I had no choice. It was either that or die. I wasn’t gonna let demons kill me without anyone around to witness how bizarrely it all went down.”
Chad chuckled and turned it into a cough. He collected himself and pretended to stare at his test paper. “I know one thing for sure. You’re going to have to watch out in case they come back for you.”
“Again, you sound like my grandmother. They can’t come back for me if they’re dead. And considering they dissolved into three piles of ashes, I’m taking that as a sign that they’re dead.”
He turned to face her again with that same dumbfounded expression. “You…killed…demons? Three of them?”
“With a ruler, no less. Who knew anything from geometry class would actually be useful in the real world?”
“Hold up. You killed them with a ruler? Like a ‘twelve inches in a foot’ type of ruler?”
Jessica nodded. “I stabbed them through the eyes. The first time was an accident, but then…” Her voice trailed off and she shrugged. “I don’t know. Something came over me, and I simply went for it. I shoved the ruler in deeper and deeper until it did enough damage to kill it. And then I did the same with the other two.”
“You are unbelievable, you know that?”
She squirmed in her seat and felt decidedly awkward. She still didn’t feel special, and it bothered her that he and her grandmother kept pretending she was. They could believe whatever they wanted, but she knew that she had simply been unusually lucky lately.
“What about you?” she asked to change the subject. “What happened with the demons you and Roger had to help Pastor Norman fight? I saw Roger briefly this morning, but he didn’t have time to talk.”
Chad grinned. “He could have made the time if he wanted to. He probably didn’t want to admit that one of the demons knocked him clean on his ass.”
Jessica pressed a hand to her mouth to muffle the laughter she felt threatening to rise from her throat. “How did that happen? I thought he was trained to fight demons.”
“He’s in training. I guess you can think of him as my intern. But with the way you manage to kill demons and imps with no training, I might have to exchange him for you.”
“No, no, that is quite all right,” she protested.
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He smirked and raised an eyebrow. “What happened to you wanting to come along and help us? You practically threw a temper tantrum when we wouldn’t let you.”
“That was before I actually had the misfortune to see demons up close with my own eyes. I wasn’t ready.”
“You’re still standing, and they aren’t. I think that’s a sign that you’re more ready than you think.”
“Whatever. Back to you. How did your demon fight go? Roger said there was something wrong with them because they shouldn’t have been so close to a church.”
“They stayed in the parking lot, not very close to the actual church. Although even that is still a little unusual. Mainly, they wanted to rattle us a bit. We got them, though.”
“Were they after Pastor Norman?”
Chad shrugged. “Possibly.”
“Why?”
“He’s a man of faith. Demons don’t like that kind of thing. Plus, he is pretty powerful, I must admit. I watched him take out a demon with a glorified water gun.”
“A water gun?”
“Filled with holy water. Only a pastor would think of something like that. Cool as that may be, it’s not half as cool as the girl who killed three demons with a ruler.”
“Look, I promise you—if you’d actually seen me, you wouldn’t have thought it was that impressive. I almost had my ass kicked. Grandma Ethel is the reason I’m here today. If she hadn’t healed me up with her magical ointments, there’s no telling what kind of condition I would have woken up in.”
“So modest,” Chad teased. “Hell, this test is a little ridiculous. I got here, and they want me to know everything about mundane history?” He sighed and scribbled something on his paper, just for the heck of it.
“Chad?” Jessica asked, in the midst of trying to write an answer herself.
“Yeah?”
“By any chance, do you know why demons would come after me? I’m not a pastor or a demon hunter—or even a demon-hunting intern. I’m not a witch. I’m a high school student. Why would I be a target?” Her voice quivered slightly as she asked the questions and countless movies ran through her mind. Things like The Exorcist and all those others where innocent teenaged girls were possessed for no good reason.
“I have a guess.” His eyes roamed over Debbie, Patricia, and Marie.
Jessica raised her eyebrows. “Them? I know they sent the imp after me. But demons?”
Chad gave a rather loud sniff that made Jessica cringe a little. She glanced at Ms. Mitchell, grateful to see that she hadn’t looked at them.
“They’ve definitely been up to something. And I’m sure they don’t smell like demons for no reason,” Chad said.
Jessica swallowed. Feeling a little self-conscious, she glanced downward and remembered how she’d been covered in demon blood when she had shown up to her grandmother’s house.
“Um… Are you sure it’s them? I mean, I didn’t smell so hot last night, that’s for sure. I showered well though, and Grandma cleaned my clothes.”
“Relax, it’s not you. It’s coming from their direction. They’ve been up to something.”
“But why?” Jessica asked. “They’ve hated me for a long time, but this is too much. I haven’t done anything to deserve them treating me like this.”
“That’s the nature of bullies. You don’t have to do much of anything to get them on your case. They have crappy self-esteem. If they think it’ll make them feel better to pick on you, and if they think they can get away with it, then that’s exactly what they’ll do.”
“What am I supposed to do about it?”
Chad smiled. “Your parents seem like decent people, Jess. And I’m sure they taught you to turn the other cheek and to take the high road, and whatever else decent people say about solving conflicts. But the truth is, sometimes, you have to fight fire with fire.”
Jessica raised an eyebrow. “Meaning?”
“Meaning, you need to show them once and for all why they need to stop messing with you. If the fact that you managed to singlehandedly kill an imp and three demons on your own isn’t enough for them to get it, then they are outright stupid. We’ll have to spell it out for them and make sure they understand.”
He was right. She had been taught to turn the other cheek, to try to be the better person. But now, she was beyond fed up with being a target.
“Do you have something in mind?” she asked and rather liked the sound of his reasoning.
“Damn straight I do.”
Jessica grinned and a mischievous joy crept into her. What she wouldn’t give to teach those girls a lesson once and for all. It was only fair that they paid for sending demonic creatures after her.
“Payback is about to go by the name of Jessica Palmer,” Chad whispered.
“I like the sound of that,” she responded as the bell rang.
Ms. Mitchell stood from her desk. “All right, everyone. Please hand in your papers.”
Jessica stared at her test paper. She was already able to envision the less than stellar grade that would be written at the top of it by the time she returned to school next week. With a sigh, she gathered her things and walked to Ms. Mitchell’s desk to turn it in. Chad followed close behind her.
“Not so fast, Ms. Palmer and Mr. Hollingsworth,” Ms. Mitchell commanded as they handed their tests over.
Jessica swallowed nervously. “Is there a problem, Ms. Mitchell?” she asked and made her voice as polite as possible.
The teacher pressed her lips into a tight line. “Ms. Palmer, I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately, but I don’t like it. And as for you, Mr. Hollingsworth—you’re new here, so maybe you don’t know how things work yet. But when I say be quiet, I mean be quiet! The two of you talked through the entire test. Therefore, both your test papers are void.”
Right before their eyes, she ripped the papers into halves, then into fourths, and tossed them in the trash can.
“You will report to Saturday detention, and you will retake the test. But it will be a different test. One much harder than this one since you couldn’t keep your mouths shut. And you will not be seated anywhere near each other. You two could have been exchanging answers, for all I know.”
“But Ms. Mitchell—” Jessica began. She wanted to tell her that if she had bothered to look at their papers, she would see that neither of them had studied and didn’t have answers to exchange, even if they wanted to.
“Not another word, Ms. Palmer, unless you want your parents to hear from me tonight.”
Chapter Nineteen
“I cannot believe this has happened,” Jessica fumed and practically stormed out of the classroom with Chad trailing behind her.
“Relax.”
“Relax? Relax? How can I relax? A Saturday detention? I’ve never had a Saturday detention in my life. I’ve never even had regular detention.” She stopped abruptly in the middle of the hall and Chad almost ran into her. “Oh no… Will this go on my permanent record?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.” When he saw the way the color drained from her face, he held his hands up defensively. “I mean—no, probably not.”
“If it does,” she whispered slowly, “this is all…your…fault.”
“Oh, come on. Think rationally for a second. You have demons versus a Saturday detention. Honestly, which one do you think is more serious?” He made a seesawing gesture with his hands.
Jessica scowled at him. She knew the obvious answer to his question. However, at that moment, all she could think about was her parents’ reaction and the fact that she wouldn’t be able to sleep in on a Saturday morning.
What was the point of a Saturday morning if you couldn’t sleep in?
“Have you seriously never been in trouble at school before?” he asked.
“No.”
“Then you should thank me. No offense, but it sounds like your life was pretty damned boring before I showed up.” He shook his head. “Honestly. Who’s never had detention before?”
“Shut up,” she snapped and felt angry and embarrassed at the same time. “If you hadn’t been drunk—”
“I was not drunk.”
“Well, hungover then—you would have paid attention when I first tried to tell you about the demon attack, and none of this would have happened,” she hissed quietly and tried not to attract attention.
“Okay, okay. I’ll take all the blame if it makes you feel better.”
“No, it does not make me feel better. You can’t erase the detention from my records.”
They made it to her locker. She opened it with a clang and tossed her books inside.
Chad leaned against the wall beside her. “Mark my words—once you’re an adult, nobody really cares about your high school records.”
Jessica rolled her eyes. “Have you ever heard of college? I’m sure they care.”
He waved his hand dismissively. “Colleges focus on your grades. Or sports, if you play.”
“Well, I don’t play sports.”
“Your grades are good though, right?”
“Usually.”
“Then don’t worry about it. A college won’t care about one little stupid detention.”
“Yeah? Tell that to my parents.”
“Hasn’t your grandmother talked to them? They should understand what’s going on by now.”
A tightness formed in Jessica’s chest. “I’m not so sure I want my parents to know about…what happened. It would freak them out too much. I don’t think my grandma told them, and I don’t think I’ll tell them myself, either. Which means I’ll have a hell of a time explaining how I landed myself in a Saturday detention.”
“Leave it to me then,” he offered. “Since you don’t want to tell them the truth, I’ll tell them it was all my fault. That I caused a disruption because I needed to… I don’t know… Because I needed to get sentenced to a Saturday detention to carry out a certain part of my investigation. How does that sound?”
“Like it has nothing to do with me and why I have detention.”