“Who is it?” Jessie asks without any introductions.
“It’s me,” I say and before I can add who the me is, Jessie starts talking again.
“Oh, hi, Emmy! Why aren’t you calling from your cell phone? Please don’t tell me your parents won’t let you use your cell phone. That borders on child abuse.”
“No, they are not that insane. I think Ciara’s spell might have broken it.”
“That sucks. So are we still on for tomorrow? Please tell me that you’re not calling to say that you changed your mind about that.”
“No, I definitely didn’t change my mind.” If anything, my mind is more made up than ever. My head is still throbbing from Ciara’s spell. “Actually, we need to do that as quickly as possible.” I tell Jessie all about my Mom’s birthday surprise.
“But your birthday isn’t until December,” Jessie says as if I don’t know that myself.
“Apparently I’m getting my present early this year. This means that if we don’t figure out how to make a new witchlight for Azzie by Saturday, you will have to take him in. And protect him from Logan.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll figure this out. I’m sure we’ll find something at Ciara’s house, and if not, there’s always the Grenaux mausoleum.”
“Actually, there isn’t.” I tell Jessie about the other spell we would need, the one that will bind a witchlight to Azzie.
“We can’t find that in a mausoleum,” Jessie says. I’m pretty sure I can hear disappointment in her voice.
“Anyway, Azzie says that we need to take him with us when we sneak into Ciara’s house. He says that the spells will probably be written in runes, so we will need him to help us locate the right one.”
“That’s a great idea. Do you think he could teach us how to read runes? You know, since Ciara turned out to be such a disappointment in that department.”
“I think he could do a lot of things. But if you want him to teach you anything, you’ll have to let him stay in your room,” I say. “Speaking of which, there’s another reason why I’m calling.” I tell her about Azzie’s voracious appetite, how he ate all the food in our house, and that it hasn’t alleviated his stomach rumbles. By the time I start explaining that I’m not sure my body parts are safe around him, Jessie is laughing into the receiver. “Do you think you could get us something?” I ask. “I’d go to the store myself, but my head is still throbbing from whatever Ciara did to me.” Not to mention the fact that it will take me an hour to walk to the nearest store and back, because I obviously can’t ask my parents to drive me there.
“Say no more, I’ll make sure he doesn’t eat you.”
“Thanks, you’re a lifesaver.”
“So what exactly does he eat?”
“Oh, just about anything. But he really likes frozen food.”
“Frozen food? You mean like ice cream?”
“Ice cream, chicken, twelve pounds of red meat. What have you. Oh, and he was saying something about raw cookie dough. If you could find some, that would be great.”
“Got it. I’ll be at your place in about an hour.”
“Great. Oh, and Jessie?”
“Yeah?”
“I think it goes without saying that my parents should not know about this.”
“Of course,” Jessie whispers conspiratorially. “See you in an hour.”
Chapter 16
While I’m waiting for Jessie to come knocking on my window, I decide to take a quick shower which turns into almost an hour of hot steaming bliss. The scalding water relaxes all my muscles and steams all the worries out of my head. I feel like a bowl of jelly when I finally get out.
I let my hair air-dry—which isn’t really a choice since we don’t have any working hair dryers in the house—and put on a pair of my favorite pajamas that I got for my thirteenth birthday. They still fit me and are the most comfortable piece of clothing I own, despite the fact that they are covered with images of Winnie the Pooh, or maybe exactly because of it. Jessie knows about my obsession with the bear and has already had her fun teasing me, so I have nothing to worry about from her. And it’s not like Azzie can mock me, since he himself is now wearing my Eeyore pajamas.
When I sneak back into my room, I find Azzie sitting in his chair, scribbling something in a notebook. He is so focused on whatever he is doing that he doesn’t even look up at me when I enter the room, which is perfectly fine with me. I hop on my bed to do some homework before Jessie shows up. I open my math notebook and stare at it, perplexed. It takes me a moment to realize that my math homework has already been done, but not by me. At least the handwriting isn’t mine.
I look up at Azzie who hasn’t paid me any attention since I returned from the shower. “Azzie, did you do my math homework?” I ask.
“Yes, but only because I was bored,” he says defensively.
I look back at the assignment, trying to find something wrong with it, a miscalculation or maybe a typo, but everything looks fine, at least to the best of my understanding of algebraic equations. Between Parker and Azzie doing my math homework for me, I’m starting to feel like some kind of popular girl who gets less popular but smart kids to do her bidding. Only I’m not a popular girl, and they didn’t do my homework because I bid them to do it. They only did it because they were bored and had nothing better to do. Not that I mind, though.
I turn to my English homework next, which is an essay on The Great Gatsby. An essay that I apparently have already written. In someone else’s handwriting. “Azzie!”
“What?” he says defensively. “I got bored.”
“Do you even know what I’m talking about?”
“Your history paper?”
“History paper?” I ask, puzzled. “I don’t have any history papers due.”
“Sure you do. You told your mom you were working on it, remember?” He says like he knows better than me what my homework is. And it also means that he eavesdrops on what is happening around the house—which I have no idea how he manages to do and I’m not sure I want to know.
“I made that up as an excuse to go to the library”—and to lie about my detention—“to look for information about witchlights,” I remind him.
“Huh,” he says. “So you probably don’t need those English essays I’m writing for you, either?”
“I do. That’s actually helpful because I’m a little behind on my homework.” Through no fault of my own. “Wait, did you say essays? As in plural? I only need The Great Gatsby one. What else are you writing?”
“Pride and Prejudice. But I’m not finished with that one yet.”
“Wait—what? You’ve read Pride and Prejudice? No, never mind, it’s not important. I really don’t need that essay. I can write my own when I have to.”
“Would you rather I wrote more fanfiction?”
“Uh, you know what? Go ahead with the essay. I’m sure I’ll be able to use it someday.” Unlike his fanfiction. I’ll need to make sure he doesn’t leave any of it behind when it’s time for him to move on. It would be quite embarrassing if someone found Azzie’s fanfiction lying around in my room and assumed I was the author.
There’s a knock on the window. I look up and see Jessie’s face grinning at me through the glass. I smile, jump off my bed, and dart to the window to let her in.
As soon as the window is open and Jessie’s head pokes through the frame, she whispers hurriedly, “Quick, hide Azzie.”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“Don’t ask any questions, just hide him somewhere.”
Azzie gives out a somewhat offended sigh but hides in the closet. I help Jessie into my room. I want to ask where the food is, since she doesn’t seem to have anything on her, but then realize that there’s another face grinning at me through the open window. The face belongs to Logan. Soon the rest of his body appears as he nimbly jumps into my room without any help. Or invitation. Another shape appears behind Logan.
“Cute pajamas, Munchkin.”
I pinch myself to m
ake sure I’m not having a nightmare. I wince at the pain, but it doesn’t make the vision go away. I gape as Parker and Logan stand casually in front of my window, grocery bags hanging from all kinds of weird places on their bodies. I have no idea how they managed to climb all the way up here with all those bags. But at least now I understand why Azzie needed to hide: Parker still has no idea that the little evil exists and that it currently lives in my bedroom.
I’m suddenly acutely aware of my Winnie-the-Pooh pajamas. I cross my arms in front of my chest which doesn’t make me feel any more comfortable. Logan has been in my room many times, but the last time was years ago and he probably didn’t expect to see that the unicorns were still on my walls. Parker, on the other hand—well, let’s just say I’d rather have a couple of fire-breathing demons come in here looking for Azzie than have Parker anywhere near my room.
I give Jessie an incredulous look, then pull her aside and whisper, “Why did you bring them here? What were you thinking?”
“I had no choice, I swear,” she pleads. “My car broke down and Logan only agreed to let me borrow his if he was the one driving it. And that one just tagged along because they were hanging out together. Don’t worry, I’ll get them out of here right away. Please, please tell me you’re not mad at me.”
“I’m not mad at you, I’m just mad at the whole situation. But I guess you wouldn’t be able to pull those bags up here by yourself anyway, so I suppose if it’s between being eaten by a starving demon and having Logan and Parker in my room—no, I think I’d still rather be eaten by a starving demon,” I conclude.
While Jessie and I are talking, the guys unpack some of the grocery bags and the smell of food wafts in the air. My stomach grumbles without my permission—apparently the slice of pizza I had for dinner wasn’t enough. I hear Azzie move in the closet.
“You should put ice cream in the freezer. It’s melting already,” Logan says, holding a large tub of cookie dough ice cream and looking at it the way Azzie looks at those underwear models on my laptop. With saliva dripping out of his mouth.
“Actually, I’m going to start on it right away.” I try to pry the tub out of Logan’s hands before he eats all of it and I’m left with a hungry demon all over again. Logan doesn’t want to let the ice cream go. “Right after you guys leave.”
Logan’s eyebrows shoot upwards, but instead of getting offended, his grin grows even wider. “Jessie told us that your mom is into traditional cuisine, but she didn’t say the situation was this dire.” He lets go of the cookie dough ice cream and pulls out a tub of vanilla and coconut flavored one—my favorite, as he very well knows—out of another grocery bag. “But we came well-prepared nonetheless.”
I give Jessie a grateful look. That was good and quick thinking on her part: telling the guys that I was starving for junk food because of my mom’s new cooking habits. It definitely explains a lot of things, although probably not all of them.
“Wow, your parents really did take all of your books away.” Jessie looks around the room at all the empty bookshelves on my walls. “It looks depressing.”
“The unicorns do brighten up the place,” Parker says through a mouthful of potato chips that he is gobbling down while sitting on my bed.
“I believe that’s mine.” I wrench the chips out of his hands. No need to make him feel comfortable in here.
Parker glances at his empty hands for a second, shrugs, and pulls out a bag of cookies.
“Ugh, give me that.” I try to snatch that one away as well before he opens it, but he is quicker than me this time and hides it behind his back. “Fine. Just be quiet. If Chloe hears you, I’ll be in so much trouble I won’t know what to do with myself.”
Before I can even blink, everyone makes themselves way too comfortable. It doesn’t look like anyone is planning on leaving anytime soon. Parker is still lounging on my bed; Logan sits on the floor, leaning against the footboard; Jessie sits in Azzie’s chair, nibbling on a cracker and reading Azzie’s essay on Pride and Prejudice. The only one who isn’t comfortable is me. And probably Azzie, too. There is no way for me to feed him right now. I could sneak some food into the closet, but Parker will most definitely hear Azzie chomping. I need to get everyone out of my room, but nobody is paying any attention to me. I decide to at least make sure that Chloe doesn’t hear us. Between all the bad things that could happen, Chloe finding out anything else she could hold over my head would be the worst case scenario.
“I’ll be right back,” I say and leave the room.
I don’t knock on Chloe’s door. I swing it wide open and burst inside, like she always does. Chloe sits on the bed, her laptop open in front of her. She snaps it shut the moment she sees me. I’m pretty sure she’s been video-chatting with Derek—she wouldn’t snap the laptop shut so quickly if she’d been talking to one of her girlfriends. Red splotches that appear on her cheeks confirm my suspicion.
“Freak,” she says angrily. “Get out of my room.”
“Believe me, I’d rather be anywhere else but here. I just came to tell you that I have a lot of homework to do and I really need to concentrate. So you have to be very quiet.”
“Like hell I will!” She throws a pillow at me. I duck. The pillow flies an inch over my head and thumps into a wall, then slides down and plops on my head. I should’ve moved sideways. I throw the pillow back at Chloe and exit the room.
Even with all her brattiness, Chloe usually doesn’t resort to physical violence. The fact that she threw an angry pillow at me only confirms my suspicion that she’d been chatting with Derek. Now that she has a boyfriend—is he her boyfriend so soon? She seems to think so, so probably yes—I have to be very careful before I enter her room. I definitely don’t want to find them entangled on her bed in a passionate making-out session. I’d have to gouge my eyes out or get a lobotomy if that ever happened.
I barely have time to get to my room when music starts playing at the highest volume that Chloe’s speakers allow. I smile. Mission accomplished. Now no matter what the guys do in my room, there’s no way Chloe will hear anything. I still secure the door with a chair, though. Just in case.
Parker and Logan both sit on the floor at the foot of my bed, all the food spread out in front of them. And there’s a lot of it. It will last Azzie till, like, morning. I have no idea how he hasn’t clogged our toilet yet.
I sit on an arm of the pull-out chair. Jessie sits cross-legged inside, eating ice cream and reading Azzie’s notes.
“I didn’t know we had an essay on Pride and Prejudice,” she says.
“We don’t,” I say quickly and try to take Azzie’s notes from her, but I’m too late. Logan beats me to it. He snatches the essay and looks at it. I have no idea what Azzie has written in there. His Great Gatsby essay is pretty good, but I haven’t seen this one yet. If by any chance it leans towards his fanfiction, I’m screwed.
“That’s not your handwriting,” Logan says over a mouthful of chips.
“Let me see,” Parker says through a mouthful of something that’s meant for me and Azzie. He wipes his hands on his jeans and snatches Azzie’s essay from Logan. Logan’s lips make a silent Oh when he realizes who wrote the essay, but it’s already too late. Parker already has it. He looks at the sheet of paper and his face changes from curiosity to surprise to shock.
“What the—” he mumbles under his breath. His eyes dart from the paper to me, then back to the paper. Then back to me. Then he looks at the essay one last time and jumps up. “Where’s the little shithead?” he asks angrily. I’m not sure if the question is directed at me or if he is just talking to himself. There’s no way he could be talking about Azzie, could he? It’s not like he recognized Azzie’s handwriting or something. How weird would that be? Um, I suppose almost as weird as me being a witch and harboring a fugitive six-thousand-year-old demon in my bedroom. Yes, at least that amount of weird.
While all these thoughts race through my head, Parker peeks under my bed, checks under my desk, and opens my dres
ser. I’m too shocked to stop him and Jessie’s “What the hell are you doing?” doesn’t seem to affect him at all. However, when he reaches my nightstand where I keep my old diaries, I’m ready to throw him out of the window. Not that I can, but I can try. Only I don’t have to do that, because when he sees nothing interesting inside my nightstand—other than my diaries, of course—he jumps over my bed, in one leap reaches my closet, and swings the door open before Jessie and I can both scream “No!” at the top of our lungs. But it’s already too late.
Parker stares at Azzie. Azzie stares at Parker. There’s a shocked expression on each of their faces, which soon transforms into what I can only interpret as recognition.
“You—” Parker snarls and reaches out to grab the demon. Azzie curses, whooshes right under Parker’s arm, and swoops under the bed. Parker snatches empty air, but that doesn’t derail him. A split second later his legs are sticking out from under my bed while his upper half is struggling with Azzie. I’m conflicted about whom to help—if I can actually help anyone—but then decide to let them deal with it on their own and see what happens. Jessie stands beside me, wringing her hands and cringing every time Azzie bumps his head on the bed frame. She seems to be just as conflicted as I am, not exactly sure who she is rooting for. Or what the hell is going on.
The only calm person in the entire room is Logan. He’s eating potato chips and looking at Parker’s legs with a somewhat bored expression. Really? I mean, I know he’s a football player and all, so these kinds of brawls aren’t exactly foreign to him. But, come on! How could he be this calm?
Parker and Azzie continue struggling and swearing. If my bed had a face, it would be flaming right now from the amount of curses it heard in the last few minutes.
“Logan, do something,” I say.
He gives me a look and a shrug, then finally puts the potato chips down, wipes his hands on his jeans, stands up, kneels behind Parker, grabs his legs, and starts pulling him out. Slowly Parker’s upper body emerges from under my bed. His dark knit sweater and blue T-shirt roll up, revealing a few inches of very bruised skin just above his jeans. I wince. Does that boy have a square inch on his body that isn’t bruised? Soon the rest of his torso appears followed by his arms and hands which are clutching Azzie’s horns so tightly his knuckles are white. Azzie himself is clutching at Parker’s hands and kicking and swearing. I wince again. It must really hurt—being pulled by one’s horns like that.
A Witch and a Secret (Witches of Mystic Hollow Book 1) Page 15