“Let’s hear it,” Ryan says. I demonstrate encouragement by not pressing any harder on the knife.
“Well, at this point you can’t hope to just sneak up on him again. I mean, that’s pretty obvious.”
“That’s not an idea,” I say. “That’s an unhelpful observation.”
“What I mean is,” he continues speedily, “I think the only option is to get some help. You can’t try cornering him again on your own.”
“We tried getting help,” I say blackly. “The librarian killed him.” It is getting harder to not press on the knife.
Aaron swallows and hurries on. “I don’t mean another human being. I mean help from another demon.”
Ryan and I look at each other again. I can’t tell what he’s thinking. I can’t even tell what I’m thinking. This sounds simultaneously like a very good and a very terrible idea.
Aaron sees that he at least has our attention. “I really think that’s your only chance. And it’s a good chance. He’s strong, but he’s not invincible. Not to another demon.”
I sit back on my butt, letting the knife break contact with Aaron’s neck, but still holding it prominently in my hand. I don’t think he’s going to bolt, and my knees were starting to ache from kneeling. I regard Aaron silently. He looks shifty and nervous, but I don’t know if that means that he’s trying to trick us (again), or just that he’s afraid I might still be thinking about stabbing him to death.
“Why would another demon want to help us?” Ryan asks.
“Because they’re not all best friends down there, you know,” Aaron says. He grimaces. “Can I sit up? Please? I promise I won’t try anything.” When we don’t object, he pushes himself awkwardly to a sitting position. “Ow,” he says. “Anyway. Demons are generally not cooperative entities. They fight one another constantly. They form alliances sometimes, but ultimately it’s every demon for itself. And right now there’s even more rivalry than usual, because the demon king is dead, and all the demons who hope to replace him are getting ready to take their shot.”
We’re both staring at him. “How do you know this stuff?” Ryan asks finally.
He shrugs. “You saw my store. This is what I do. I’ve been studying and communicating with demons longer than you’ve been alive.”
“You’d think you’d do a better job of not messing up demon containment circles, then,” I mutter.
Aaron shoots me a resentful glance. “I know demons. I forgot about teenage girls. I never thought she’d run to him like that. I didn’t really get how far gone she was.”
I feel myself go very still. “What does that mean? How ‘far gone’ is she?”
“Oh. Not — I didn’t mean —”
I look him right in the eye. “Do not lie to me, Aaron. Seriously. If I find out you are lying to me I will stab you without any hesitation. What do you mean?”
He shrugs again. “I just mean that she’s really buying it. It’s not too late to get her free — I swear — but she’s not even trying to fight it, as far as I could tell. And, hey, I only saw her for a few minutes. I might not have the whole picture.”
“But?”
“But from what I saw, she’s not super interested in seeing what’s really happening. She wants to believe in whatever lies he’s told her.”
I can’t really argue with him on this one. That’s how it seems to me, too. I wish I’d known some of that stuff about how trapped she felt, how not-seen. I had no idea.
“So you think another demon would be willing to help us?” Ryan says, getting us back on track.
“I — think so. You can never really tell what demons will do. But if he’s making a play for the throne, which I bet he is if he’s here, draining people —”
“He is,” I say. “He said something about that. How Annie was going to be his queen, et cetera, et cetera.”
“All right, then,” Aaron says. “So he’s automatically got a bunch of enemies who also want to be the next demon ruler. There’s a really good chance one of them would be willing to make a deal with you if it meant taking him down.”
“A deal,” Ryan says. He looks unhappy. “Like, a deal with the devil, basically, is what you’re saying.”
“Demons,” I say. “Not devils.”
“Ehh,” Aaron says, “there’s a lot of overlap there, sure. But demons don’t break their deals. They can’t.”
Ryan is shaking his head. “But you said, before — you said that they turn on their helpers once they get what they want.”
“Oh, sure. But that’s because the helpers generally don’t make deals — they get seduced, either through magic or just regular human greed. They volunteer. They trust the demons to treat them well in return for their services. You can’t trust a demon to do anything they don’t have to do. But if you make a deal, they have to do what they agreed to. You just have to be very, very careful that you understand the deal when you make it. They honor the letter, not the spirit. They will gleefully slip through the tiniest loophole if you let them.”
Ryan looks even more unhappy. “You’re not really selling it,” he says.
“You don’t really have much choice,” Aaron says frankly.
“He’s right,” I say.
Ryan throws up his hands. “But — weren’t you listening to what Mr. Gabriel just said? How he’s going to kill all our friends and babies and puppies if we tell anyone?”
I blow this off. “I’m sure he meant other people. Telling demons about demons can’t really count.”
“Cyn.”
“Yes, okay, that’s not a very strong argument. But Aaron’s right — we don’t have a choice. We can’t do this on our own. Not now. And we can’t do nothing.”
Ryan doesn’t say anything for a minute. I suspect he is trying very hard to think of another alternative. I let him. Because, hey, if there is another alternative, that would be fantastic. I would be all over it.
But eventually he just sighs and looks back at me, defeated.
I turn to Aaron. “All right. How do we contact another demon?” He opens his mouth and I point a warning finger at him. “Remember: Lying? Stabbing.”
He nods, barely seeming to hear me. His face has taken on an odd and somewhat disturbing animation.
“I can do that for you,” he says.
We both roll our eyes.
“Seriously?” Ryan asks.
“Because you’ve been so awesome thus far with all the helping?” I add.
Aaron actually looks wounded. “I said I was sorry. I had — reasons. But I won’t try to screw you again, I promise. This could be my way to help make amends.”
Ryan sighs again. “We still can’t trust him,” he says to me.
“I know. So we’ll be careful. But who else do you know that can contact demons?”
“There’s that Wiccan girl in my gym class.”
“Funny. But I don’t think Wiccans deal with demons. Also, I’m pretty sure she would fall into the category that would inspire Mr. Gabriel to start killing our families if we tried to enlist her services.”
“Probably.”
We turn back to Aaron, who is watching us expectantly. “Okay?” he asks.
“Yeah, okay,” Ryan says. “Contact away.”
Aaron looks appalled. “I can’t do it here,” he says. “I need my stuff. I have to prepare. It’s not like I’m just going to pick up the phone and dial up the demon world. We have to go to my apartment.”
Ryan holds up his hands in defeat before I can say anything. “I know, I know. We don’t have a choice.” He sighs again. “Let’s go, then.”
We take Ryan’s car. Aaron makes tentative noises about driving his own car home, but we ignore him. I make him take shotgun; I don’t like the idea of him sitting behind us.
“How did you even know where to find us?” Ryan asks as he starts the car.
Aaron looks slightly embarrassed. “I followed you.”
“Since Friday?”
He shru
gs. “You were obviously in a hurry to take care of your demon. I knew if I followed you long enough you’d eventually get down to it.”
I’m very creeped out to realize that he’s been watching us this whole time. I know, compared to everything else, a little spying seems pretty insignificant, but still. Ew.
Aaron’s apartment turns out to be right above the store. There’s a normalish living room lined with bookshelves and an amazing kitchen with lots of pots hanging from the ceiling and expensive-looking shiny metal appliances and a ton of plants — neat little potted herbs and other green leafy things growing on the windowsills and on top of the cabinets and wherever else space allows. Through another door I can see what appears to be his bedroom, also sporting bookshelves and with stacks of books on the floor beside the bed.
He offers us beverages and snacks, which we decline, and then leads us into another room in the back of the apartment.
This room is obviously where the demon stuff happens.
The windows are tightly covered with blackout shades, and the walls, floor, and ceiling are all painted black. There’s a low table against one wall holding an assortment of candles and containers and more stacks of books. When he turns on the light — which is red — a huge glowing diagram appears in the center of the floor.
“You don’t bring a lot of ladies home, do you?” Ryan asks.
“Not anymore,” Aaron says, rather mysteriously, and without any hint of bitterness or irony.
He moves around the room, selecting items from the table with a sure hand, lighting candles and setting them at certain points along the lines of the diagram. I expect him to consult some books or something, but he seems to know exactly what he’s doing. All of his movements have the practiced air of ritual about them. Even the last few minutes that he spends in front of a small mirror near the doorway, checking his teeth and messing around with the arrangement of his hair.
“All right,” he says finally, in a breathless, anticipatory kind of voice that reminds me uncomfortably of Annie. “Here we go.”
He closes the door and points to the far wall. “Have a seat over there, and don’t say anything until I say it’s okay. Okay?”
“Okay.” We say it together, with the same obvious reluctance. But what else can we do? We have to trust him to do this part. We walk over to where he indicated and sit on the floor, our backs against the wall.
Aaron sits cross-legged at the edge of the diagram. He takes a few deep, long breaths, and then makes a slow series of gestures in the air before him. He starts speaking in a low, measured voice, words that I can’t quite catch and that don’t seem to be anything resembling English.
At first it’s just Aaron, gesturing and speaking, and then all at once there is suddenly and undeniably another presence in the room. It’s like the air gets heavier and darker — a feeling of fullness in the space where before there was just empty air. Aaron picks up a knife I hadn’t seen him lay beside him, and without pausing his flow of words he slices a neat line along the inside of one forearm.
I gasp, but Aaron doesn’t show any sign of having felt the pain of that cut. He leans forward and holds his arm inside the boundaries of the diagram, letting his blood drip down onto the floor.
The fullness grows . . . fuller.
Aaron doesn’t move. He keeps his eyes fixed on the inside of the circle, avidly watching his blood begin to make a small, sickening puddle.
And then there is a demon standing there.
She’s in half-human form, like Mr. Gabriel was that time we walked in on him. She looks like a gorgeous fortyish woman with serious curves, but there are long, sinuous horns twining up on either side of her head and what looks like a pair of giant fins stretching out behind her. Her hands aren’t quite human hands; the fingers taper into long hooklike claws. The claws are painted red.
“Hello, mistress,” Aaron breathes, gazing longingly at her like she’s the only woman who ever existed in the whole world.
And then I get it. Oh, man.
He’s in love with her.
“Oh, hell,” Ryan mutters beside me. Clearly, he’s just come to the same realization.
The demon’s (demoness’s?) head whips toward us, then back to Aaron. She does not look happy.
“What is this?” she asks suspiciously. Her teeth are pointy. “I thought we agreed you were not to contact me again.”
“You agreed,” Aaron says. “I obeyed. As always.”
She raises an eyebrow. “You call this obedience?”
He hasn’t taken his eyes off her once. “I have a very good reason for summoning you, my mistress.”
“Uh-huh. This should be good.”
“I have an offering.”
That doesn’t sound good. Beside me, Ryan’s face is grim. He looks exactly like someone who is trying very hard not to say See? See? I told you!
“There is nothing you have that I want, worm.”
“I have information about one of your rivals and an offer to help you diminish him.”
This stops her for a moment. Then she shakes her head. “Aaron. Why don’t you ever learn? You insist on continuing to bother me with your nonsense, and you use these ridiculous porous circles that allow me to hurt you. . . .” On the word hurt, she gestures and Aaron jerks upward, gasping, as though being lifted by an invisible hook. She looks at him a moment, then makes a small circling motion with one long finger-claw. He screams, blood suddenly seeping through the front of his T-shirt.
But he still never takes his eyes from her, and his gaze is as adoring as ever.
Aaron is a more than little messed up.
The demoness considers him for another few seconds, then shakes her head again, this time in what looks like resignation. “All right,” she says. “What is this about? Quickly, before I grow even more tired of you.”
“These two are trying to bring down a demon who has inhabited their school and taken one of their friends to be his consort,” Aaron says quickly and calmly, for all the world as though he isn’t dangling from nothing and bleeding from at least two places.
“So?”
“They seek assistance, and will bargain.”
She flicks a contemptuous glance at us, then looks back at Aaron. “Seriously? You want me to help a couple of teenagers save their high school?”
“The demon calls himself John Gabriel.”
“Ah.”
“And the girl has some kind of resistance.”
I stare at him. “Hey! How do you know about that?”
“Your demon librarian said something about it. Before he threw you across the room.”
Ryan’s eyes get very narrow. “I thought you were out cold that whole time.”
Aaron attempts a shrug, which doesn’t quite work given his awkward physical situation, but the general message comes across. “I went in and out of consciousness a few times.”
I feel stupidly embarrassed that he knows about my roachiness. “Yeah, well, you saw how much good it did me. He can still kick my ass, apparently. He just can’t mesmerize me or suck my soul out like he can with everyone else.”
Suddenly I have the demoness’s full attention. I immediately wish I didn’t.
“Rrrrrreallllly,” she purrs. She turns away from Aaron and he drops to the floor like a bag of rocks.
I scramble to my feet, because I don’t like how it feels to be looking up at her. Ryan stands up beside me. The demoness stands at the edge of the circle, gazing at me intently. I wonder suddenly if she can hurt me the way she was able to hurt Aaron. Fucking Aaron. Who the hell intentionally creates a demon containment field that allows the demon to reach through it and make holes in your guts?
“Come closer,” she says.
“Uh, no,” I say. “Sorry.”
She widens her eyes slightly and repeats the command more forcefully. “Come. Closer.”
Beside me, Ryan takes a step forward.
“Hey!” I say, grabbing his hand and pulling him back.
I glare at her. “Quit it!”
“Interesting,” she murmurs. “You really are resistant. Not your little friend, though. Just you.”
“So?”
Ryan abruptly jerks upward into the air with a yelp, taking his hand with him. I twist to stare up at him. He stares back, clearly on the edge of (understandably) completely freaking the hell out.
“So come closer,” the demoness explains, “or I will rip his intestines out through his eye sockets.”
Fucking Aaron.
“Okay! Okay. I’m coming, see?” I take a slow step toward her, then another, glancing back and forth between her and Ryan. “Just put him down, all right? Gently! Please.”
She waits until I reach the circle’s edge, then releases him. He drops a little less hard than Aaron did. Maybe that’s what passes for gentle for a demon. At least his guts appear to still be intact.
From the floor, Ryan gives me a little wave that seems to be meant to indicate that he’s okay.
“Now,” the demoness says, “let me get a look at you.”
Then she closes her eyes and holds up her hands, or whatever they are, palms out. I feel a weird tingly sensation. Not good-tingly, like the kind Ryan inspires in my loins and various other places; this feeling makes me imagine thousands of tiny stinger-bearing insects hovering about a millimeter away from the entire surface area of my skin.
The demoness inhales deeply, and then exhales in a long, slow, shuddery breath that I can’t feel against my face even though she’s only a few inches away. She opens her eyes, and her gaze is focused and sharp and alight with interest.
“Oh, yes,” she says, baring her pointy teeth in a terrifying smile. “Did your demon tell you what we call creatures like you?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m a giant super cockroach. Ha-ha, so funny. Hilarious.”
Her smile stretches even wider.
“So. I believe we can be of assistance to each other. You want to drive out this demon, yes?”
“I want to get rid of him forever and save my friend,” I say carefully, mindful of Aaron’s warning about deal making.
She nods. “I can help you. In return, you must allow me to borrow your resistance.”
Uhhhh. “How will that work, exactly?” I ask.
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