Of course that had to end.
We’d just finished up and were guzzling water when Michael ambled over.
“Hey, Casey,” he said. “Want a ride home? We could talk more about the … er … stuff from yesterday.”
“Cool,” I said.
Ruthanasia looked from him to me and back again, rolling her eyes. “We all know why you’re on the team, but you don’t have to flaunt it.”
It felt like a punch to the stomach. It hurt even more because the thought had crossed my mind too. Had Michael championed me because of my derby skills, or did I really not belong here? Maybe he just wanted to keep a close eye on me.
From the look on her face, she knew she’d scored a point. I couldn’t even come up with a witty retort.
“You’re wrong,” Michael said, but that just made it worse. I wanted to stand up for myself, but every time I did, I ended up picking fights and feeling crappy about it later. There had to be a sweet spot between being a doormat and a bully, but I hadn’t found it.
“Whatever,” she said.
Then she walked away, but she glanced at Michael first. It was the kind of look that begged him to notice. Like any second now, she’d be flinging off her clothes and throwing herself at him full-bodied. I wondered if all Sentinels had this effect on the ladies or if it was just him. It was going to be fun when she found out I’d kissed him. And that I wanted to do it again.
I’d just finished packing up my stuff when Darcy sat down on the bench beside me. I expected her to launch into a longwinded complaint about not getting to train with the jammers, or to twitter on about pink skates or random hairstyles or dojo gossip, anything. But she was uncharacteristically quiet.
“I really don’t feel good,” she moaned.
I put my hand to her forehead. Her skin was clammy; my hand felt damp after I touched her. I wiped it on my pants when I thought she wasn’t looking, because it was kind of gross.
“Can you take me home?” She didn’t even open her eyes. “I don’t think I should drive if I’ve got the flu.”
“Yeah, let me tell Michael. Do you mind if he follows? That way, he can give me a ride from your place.”
“Sure,” she said faintly.
It didn’t take long to get Darcy settled at her house. Her mom took one look at her, thanked us for seeing her home, and put her to bed. Poor thing. I couldn’t imagine skating with the flu. I hoped I didn’t catch whatever she had.
As we walked down her street toward the parking lot where Michael had stashed his bike, I decided I really should hang out with her more. I’d never had many girlfriends before, because they weren’t really interested in the same things I was. But maybe Darcy was different.
Michael and I made it halfway down the block before either of us said anything, and then we both spoke at exactly the same time.
“Listen, I need to—” I said.
“I’m really sorry—” he said.
Then we both stopped and laughed.
“You go first,” I said.
He stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I owe you an apology. It’s hard seeing that crap around the factory. It makes me feel sick, and I’m not used to having a physical body, let alone having to deal with it going all crazy all the time. How do you handle it?”
“I … What?”
“Bodies. Bodies confuse me. I’ve had this one for almost a year, and it still boggles my mind. One minute, I’m centered and focused and everything’s going well. And the next, I’m getting just buffeted by all these different feelings, and my heart is pumping, and my hands shake, and I have these urges—”
“Oh my God,” I said, covering my ears. “I am not about to have the sex talk with you. I couldn’t handle it.”
His eyes went wide. “No! Not that kind of urge. Like … I want to hit somebody. That kind of thing. I mean … I … You don’t need to tell me about the other stuff. I’ve got a handle on that.”
“How nice for you,” I replied faintly.
By this time we could barely look each other in the eye, and I was entirely certain that I was just as red as he was. But how was I supposed to have known what kind of urges he’d meant? It’s not like my mind was in the gutter, at least not most of the time.
“I’ve never had a temper before,” he said. “It’s hard to deal with. But I have no right to take it out on you. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sorry I jumped down your throat,” I replied. “I’ve been doing that a lot lately, and I’m starting to feel like a real douche.”
“Give yourself a break. You’ve only done it once.”
“To you, maybe. But your head isn’t the only one I’ve bitten off lately for no good reason. I’m just dealing with some stuff. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”
“Will you get mad if I agree?” He looked at me out of the corner of his eye, grinning tentatively.
I didn’t answer, just punched him lightly on the shoulder. We walked for another couple minutes. “Will you tell me more about the bobbleheads now? And those jar things?” I asked. “Because I think … I saw one at the hospital. It scared the crap out of me.”
He didn’t answer right away, and I was starting to think he was going to turn me down, and then I was going to feel like a total fool. But then his hand crept into mine, and our fingers laced together.
“I’m sorry. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, but we can’t talk about it in the middle of the street. Let’s go somewhere a little more private.”
“I know just the place,” I told him.
We wandered down the winding backstreets leading away from the university; a warren of one-ways and dead ends lined with grubby houses for rent and apartment buildings with peeling paint. The sun began to set, reaching pink fingers across the sky, and the streetlights flickered on. I saw a front lawn full of laughing undergrads gathered around a huge pig on a spit, and about sixteen games of touch football. It was a nice walk, actually, and it gave me some time to chill out after the rampant embarrassment of the almost–sex talk. We didn’t say a word until we turned into Clague Park.
My family used to play elaborate Lord of the Rings games here when my sister and I were younger. Dad always wanted to be Gandalf, and Rachel and I used to fight over being Arwen. She usually won; I got stuck being Legolas. Mom didn’t care who she was as long as she got to use an accent. The playground equipment wasn’t particularly impressive, just the basics, but the park itself was ringed by a thick circle of heavy trees that blocked out all hint of the city beyond, so it really felt like we were in Rivendell.
The playground was usually abandoned this late in the day. There weren’t many families with young children in the neighborhood to begin with, and the college kids usually waited until around midnight to play on the merry-go-round. Of course, they were usually drunk, and they often puked all over everything. But if you could get over the faint scent of vomit that seemed to hang permanently in the air, it was a fun place to go.
We walked down the tree-crowded pathway leading to the playground. Under the canopy of green leaves, it felt like we weren’t in the city at all but in some alien wilderness.
Michael steered me down the path with the barest touch of his fingers on the small of my back. I felt that current again, but this time it was muted to a pleasant buzz. So pleasant, in fact, that I didn’t mind being steered for once. As we emerged from the arching branches into the open expanse of the playground, I said, “So are you ready to tell me what’s going on?” He didn’t answer, and I looked up at him questioningly. He didn’t even acknowledge my existence. He was too busy staring at the man in the white suit, the one who’d attacked me in the alley. He sat on top of the chipped monkey bars with a murder of crows clustered around him like little black-feathered worshippers. I knew it had to be my imagination, but it seemed like he sucked up every watt coming out of the park lights, leaving the rest of the playground in shadow.
The man in white flashed a sharklike smile at me.
>
“You’re late,” he said.
So there I was, stuck in a dark, remote park with one guy who supposedly wanted to train me to hunt demons and another who’d burned holes in my chest a couple weeks ago. I looked from Michael to Mr. Lava and back again with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. How could I have been so stupid?
I should have suspected they were in it together.
It was so obvious now that I wanted to smack myself on the forehead. Guys like Michael didn’t choose girls like me over girls like Ruthanasia. This was a trap, and I’d walked right into it.
I shifted away from them both, centering my weight in preparation for the inevitable attack. Michael glanced down at me, and I smiled at him quizzically, trying to look confused and pathetic, when what I really wanted to do was rip his nose off his face. The traitor.
The logical thing to do would have been to fend them off with my demon-zapping katana necklace, but I wasn’t wearing it. The new chain was faulty and wouldn’t stay clasped, and I hadn’t had time to get another one. I’d just have to improvise. My hand slipped into my jacket pocket, and my fingers wrapped around my key chain. One jab with the edge to a pressure point would drop a charging bull. And hopefully a pair of demons too.
Air eased out from between my pursed lips. My muscles wanted to tense, but I forced my shoulders down. This was going to work. They wouldn’t expect a fight. I could see the jump of Michael’s pulse, the vulnerable spot where the neck met the shoulder. He would never know what hit him.
But before I could make a move, he said, “693.” His voice was so cold that it could have frozen fire. It was not the kind of voice you’d use with your BFF.
I stopped. Now I wasn’t just pretending to be confused.
“693? This is not the time for math,” I hissed, clenching the key chain so hard that my fingers went bloodless.
“He’s a Sentinel. We’re not too good with the name thing, remember?” Michael said, not tearing his eyes from the man in white. “He’s Michael #693.”
“692.” The man in white nodded at Michael. “I see you’ve picked up a parasite.”
It was like I didn’t even exist, for all the attention the demon paid me. He leapt down from the monkey bars, the birds taking flight with caws of protest, and he rearranged his suit coat with fastidious care before ambling toward us. Michael shifted, edging in front of me and holding his arms out like I was in desperate need of protection.
On the one hand, it was nice to see that they weren’t working together. On the other hand, I didn’t enjoy feeling like the helpless sidekick.
“Okay, I am totally confused here,” I said. “What’s going on? Is he a good guy?”
There was a flicker of white in the dim light, too fast for my eyes to follow, and then 693 stood behind me, his hands on my shoulders. I could smell him, and it wasn’t the sweet scent of oranges like Michael. He smelled like rotten eggs and burned coal. The stench was worse than I remembered from the alley; my eyes started watering from the stink.
He spun me around to face him.
“I am not a good guy, idiot mortal. I’ve turned demon.” His eyes brimmed over with red, his cheeks sinking into cavernous pits while I watched. The lips pulled back from a leering mouth full of teeth that grew pointier before my eyes.
I froze. Running seemed wise, but how could I run from something that fast?
“Begone, demon!” Michael’s voice was so deep, so loud, that it made my teeth hurt.
693’s face melted back into its usual perfection as he laughed, light and mocking. “You’re so cute when you’re angry. But we both know you’re useless on this plane. There’s nothing you can do without jeopardizing your precious balance.” He drew the last word out into a singsong.
“Stop trying to corrupt me. It won’t work.” Michael’s voice was as hard as his expression.
“I’m not.” 693 smirked. “The last thing I want is to be forced to spend more time with you. It was agonizing enough the first time around. Now, can we get on with this? I’ve tired of playing, and the outcome is inevitable. I’ll devour your little pet, you’ll rant and rave and ultimately do nothing productive. Then I’ll move on and kill the rest of your humans, one after the other. The Master has decreed it.”
I looked up at Michael. He just stood there, staring at 693’s hands on my shoulders, his jaw clenched tight.
“He’s kidding, right? You wouldn’t just stand by while he killed me, would you?” I hissed at him.
His throat worked. “I won’t let him hurt you,” he said, but his voice was weird and growly, not swoon-worthy like usual. I was less than reassured. “Get behind me.”
693 started to giggle, a high-pitched kind of noise that you’d expect to hear only in insane asylums.
“He can’t do anything, cupcake,” the demon said, squeezing my shoulder blades so hard they hurt. “He’s bound by the rules.”
“So are you,” Michael said. I could see the muscles in his arms leap into relief as he shoved the demon away from me, wrenching my shoulder. “You’re not supposed to touch them. You can’t touch her.”
The demon reached around him with giggling deliberation and poked me. “You mean like this?”
Michael smacked his hand away, seething. The demon seemed laughably infantile to me, but every taunt appeared to hit Michael like a punch. I swore I could feel heat rising off his body as his temper rose higher and higher. Eventually it was going to blow, and that seemed like a very bad thing to me.
“Hey,” I said, putting my hand gently on his back. “He’s not worth it. Let’s get out of here.”
Instead of soothing him, my words seemed to have the opposite effect. He shook me off like I was an annoyance. “No,” he said. “I’ve had enough of this crap, and I’m not going to sit back and let him kill again.”
“Wait, what?” I tugged on his sleeve with more urgency this time. “Kill who?”
“Ooooooh. Are you going to tell Mommy on me?” 693 cooed, dry-washing his hands. “Are you going to tell her that I’ve been bad? Because I have. I’ve devoured the souls of two of your skaters already, and it only whetted my appetite.”
“Devoured?” I asked, proud that my voice wavered only a little.
“Didn’t you know?” 693 licked his lips and shuddered with what looked uncomfortably like ecstasy. “The reason he held midseason tryouts is because I ate the souls of two of his skaters. Soullessness tends to be more than most humans can handle. They grew suicidal and crashed themselves into a tree. And he stood by and did nothing. So much for his stellar reputation.”
“I’ll tear you apart, and screw the consequences,” Michael snarled. His head whipped around, and he pinned me under the gaze of his once blue eyes. Now they glowed a dull, faded red, like the embers of a fire left untended a little too long. “Get out of here, Casey.”
For once, I didn’t argue. I turned tail and ran. My frantic flight took me down one of the woodland trails, dimly lit by the light of the rising moon that filtered through the branches. Trees blocked my vision of Michael and 693, and the path was silent except for the usual rustling sounds of the forest and the crunch of my own footsteps. I paused, hands on my knees, chest heaving with exertion.
Dojo hide-and-seek had taught me a valuable lesson: when people search for a hiding spot, they rarely look up. My khaki-shorts-and-brown-tee combo would disappear against a tree, especially in the dim light, so I searched for and found a nice tall trunk that would defy most attempts to climb it. This wasn’t the easiest of freerunning stunts, but if there was ever a time to get over myself, this was it. I could stand here angsting, or I could get to safety.
Marshaling my breath, I ran toward the tree, then planted my foot and shifted my torso the way I’d practiced a million times pre-cancer. My momentum carried me a few quick steps up the trunk, and a quick grab of a convenient branch got me to safety. I crouched comfortably in the crease of the fork, feeling an insane wave of accomplishment. I might have had a soul-eating d
emon on my hands, but at least I’d gotten my freerunning mojo back.
An earsplitting howl broke the silence of the forest. I had expected anger, but 693 sounded triumphant. Which was stupid, because I’d gotten away.
Unless I hadn’t been the target after all. What if he’d picked that fight just to get to Michael? Those red eyes hadn’t seemed like a good thing at all, and if Michael turned, I’d be hiding from two demons rather than one.
I shifted uncomfortably on my perch, squinting at the shadowy path with increased concern. How would I escape them both? And more to the point, why was I hiding when I could help Michael? He had said it from the start: I’d faced 693 before. Michael had been willing to stand up for me; maybe it was time for me to repay the favor.
There was no time to think about it. Either I was doing this or I wasn’t. I pushed myself out into the air before I had a chance to question the wisdom of leaping onto an uneven dirt trail in poor light, windmilling my arms for balance. My heart leapt to my throat, because this landing would be even tougher than the descent off the parking structure, but Michael needed me. I landed with a crunch of dead leaves, transferring the force of my fall into a forward roll and rising into a graceful trot. Under different circumstances, I would have shouted in triumph. Instead, I ran.
When I reached the playground, I could barely believe what I was seeing. Michael and 693 rolled on the ground in what would have looked like a barroom brawl, except for the flickers of white and red energy that withered the grass underneath their bodies. I could hear the smack of fists against flesh and animalistic grunts of pain as they traded strikes, vying for dominance. 693 landed a strike on Michael’s jaw and followed it up by wrapping his hands around Michael’s neck. His gleeful expression told me everything I needed to know. If I planned to act, now was the time.
“Hey, demon!” I yelled, the strength of my voice surprising me. This was such a bad idea. The two of them turned identical red glowing eyes in my direction. “I’ve got a nice juicy soul over here.”
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