Brimstone (29 page)

It was Professor Blackthorne, who took in the situation with a glance, and a Monty Python quote.

“What’s all this then?” He cast an eye around the cluster of students.

“Nothing, Teach.” Brandon turned on the smarm.

The chemistry teacher was unmoved. “Do I detect the characteristic aroma of ethanol on your breath, Mr. Rogers?”

“Uh …”

“The correct answer would be no and a prudent retreat,” Blackthorne said, confirming my love for him.

“Er, no, Professor Blackthorne,” said Brandon, smart for once. With a last glare at me, he went to another part of the dance floor, taking Jess with him.

“Thanks, Professor Blackthorne,” I said.

“Think nothing of it, Miss Quinn. I take my duties of chaperonage very seriously.” The gleam in his eye made me doubt the total truth of that. “And now I must be about them,” he said as he left.

A girl from my gym class, Amber Somebody, slid up to us in the lull between songs. “Hey, Brian. I asked the DJ to play a slow dance next.” She ran her hand down his lapel. “Dance with me?”

Brian hesitated. “Well, Amber, I’m here with someone.”

“It’s just a dance. Maggie won’t mind.” She barely glanced my way. “Do you, Maggie? D and D Lisa said you wouldn’t.”

“How helpful of her,” I said. Brian was standing on his own feet again, if tentatively. “But she’s right. I don’t mind.”

Amber leaned in and said more softly. “Come on, Brian. Show Jess you’re no castoff.”

“Well.” He gave me another glance, then looked back at Amber and gave in with a sheepish sort of grin. “But only to show Jess what’s what.”

Call it a hunch, but I had a feeling Amber wasn’t asking just to tweak Jess Minor. Likewise, except for his reluctance to leave me on my own, Brian didn’t seem unhappy, either. It was nice to see something work out tonight.

Justin waited for me at the edge of the dance floor. “You lost your partner.”

“S’okay.” The mirror ball started up and the slow strains of a ballad flooded the ballroom. “I think he’ll be all right.”

Hands in his pockets, Justin nodded to the floor. “You wanna dance?” I didn’t answer immediately, but cast a searching gaze over the room. He assured me, “I’ve got my eye on Brandon.”

“I was worried about Lisa, actually.”

“She’s over there.” A tilt of his head indicated a group of girls ensconced at a table far from the blasting speakers. When Lisa caught my gaze on her, she scowled, pointed to Justin and mimed us dancing. Or something. Looking quickly back to Justin, I smiled tentatively. “Dancing sounds good.”

He smiled and reached for my hand. I stepped closer, my legs suddenly stiff and awkward, feeling my face heat, my heart flutter. Then he slid his arm around my waist, drawing me in, and we were swaying to Sarah McLachlan, and I thought maybe the DJ had redeemed himself. Justin turned my hand in his, tucking it close against his chest, like a prized item. I sighed a little, feeling the knot between my shoulder blades ease for the first time all night.

“We shouldn’t let our guard down.” I said it to myself more than to him.

“Lisa will watch.”

Would she? I wasn’t so sure. “I knew that Lisa hated Brandon and his friends, but I thought it was because they were basically assholes,” I mused aloud as we danced.
I’d gotten used to doing that around Justin. “But something Brian said makes me think there may be more to it than that.”

He sighed. His breath smelled very slightly of peppermint, and stirred the wisps of hair by my ear, tickling my neck. All thoughts raced out of my head, as quickly as that. One breath. “Maggie?”

“Yeah?”

“Before we talk about Lisa or Brian or anyone else, can I ask you a question?”

How could I answer, when all I could think about was the way the fabric of his jacket rubbed the bare skin of my arm. Ah, friction. Finally I knew what the big deal was about.

“Brian who?”

He made a sound that might have been a laugh or a sigh. His arm tightened imperceptibly on my waist, pulling me closer still. It was the most natural thing in the world to lay my head on his shoulder and let the too loud music drum out awareness of the world.

“Justin?”

“Hmmm?” His cheek rested against the top of my head. For the first time in my life, I was glad to be short.

“Were you going to ask me a question?”

“Hell if I know.”

I smiled as we swayed in a slow circle. I saw Amber with her arms around Brian’s neck. She raised her eyebrows at my partner, and gave me a covert thumbs-up.

I closed my eyes again, and when I opened them, we’d gone almost full circle. I saw the klatch of wallflowers, and Lisa’s empty chair.

An icy chill crawled over my skin, leaving a clammy feeling of wrongness in its wake, the sudden certainty that something
bad
was happening.

I jerked up my head, hitting Justin in the jaw. “Lisa’s gone.” I clapped a hand to my skull and ignored the watering of my eyes.

He held his chin and squinted toward the table in the corner. “Maybe she went to the ladies room.”

“No. Something’s wrong.” I searched the crowd.

“Where’s Biff?”

“Who?”

“Brandon! Where’s Brandon?” I saw Jess hanging drunkenly from the arms of a guy definitely not her date. “Where’s Stanley?” He, at least, should be impossible to miss.

Justin scanned the crowd, summing up the futility of his search with a brief but eloquent word.

“Come on.” I grabbed his hand and wove through the intertwined couples until we reached Brian and his partner. “Did you see where Brandon went?”

His head turned with aching slowness. “What?”

Amber looked down at me with annoyance. “What the Hell, Maggie?”

“Exactly.” I pried Brian out of her grip. “Sorry, Amber. You can have him back later. I hope.”

Hurriedly, I explained my worry as we left the dance floor, summing up with, “Brandon, Stanley, Lisa … they’re all missing.” Stopping at our table, I felt underneath it for my camera case. My fingers met only carpet and crumbs. I lifted the tablecloth to look, then straightened, feeling my
stomach sink impossibly lower. “And so is my bag with our stuff in it.”

This was definitely not how the plan was supposed to go. We’d lost track of our bait, our quarry—the human part, anyway—our ammunition, and our ally.

“Okay.” Justin used a let’s-not-panic voice. “Maybe Lisa saw Brandon leaving the ballroom and followed.”

“By herself? She doesn’t even really believe what we’re dealing with.”

“Exactly. She might think she can handle it on her own.”

There was still something not right about that, but I couldn’t think clearly with the alarm bells going off in my head. I snatched the saltshaker off the table and turned for the door. “We have to find them.”

We exited the ballroom by the double doors and paused in the hallway to get our bearings. The lobby lay in one direction, the bathrooms in the other, and straight ahead were glass doors leading to the terrace.

“Check the restroom,” Justin said, “just to be sure. I’ll check the lobby.” Brian’s breath had grown labored just from the walk from the dance floor. “Stay here in case they come back.”

I hiked up my skirts and dashed for the bathroom in a noisy rustle of satin. I don’t know how those girls in the action movies do it. After I’d scouted, I had to slip off my heels and jog back in my stocking feet.

Justin returned as I did. “They didn’t go that way.”

“I know where they went.” It wasn’t entirely the process of elimination. Maybe I was getting the hang of this psychic stuff. I straight-armed the glass door leading to the terrace
that circled the conference level of the Marriott, overlooking the golf course.

Brian followed us out, then had to stop and lean a trembling hand against the wall. His face looked ashen in the dim light. “You guys hurry. I’ll catch up.” When I hesitated in concern, he waved me on.

“He’ll be all right.” Justin grabbed my hand; heart pounding, ribs heaving against my too-tight dress, I ran behind him, down the moonlit path.

t
he plan had been simple. Stick to Brandon. Follow him if he left, especially if Stanley left, too. Use the salt to protect him from the Shadow, since it was the only thing we knew worked. See? Simple.

The stench hit me the moment we rounded the corner. Oh yeah, the demon was here, all right. My gorge rose in my throat and I fell against the terrace wall, losing my struggle to keep down my dinner.

“Jesus Christ, Quinn!” Brandon’s voice rattled my skull. “You’re here, too? What is this, the whole goddamn circus?”

I blinked stupidly, trying to fit the puzzle together.
Brandon stood in the center of the patio, his tux jacket thrown over a wrought-iron chair, a smoldering joint pinched in his fingers. Oddly enough, this was the only part that made sense. What I had to wrap my head around was Lisa with my camera case at her feet, empty now of easy-pour canisters of salt, and Stanley, wild-eyed and belligerent, clasping the now-familiar brazier in his arms.

Justin came to my side, looking green, so possibly he could smell the demon, too, though the other three seemed oblivious.

“Lisa?” She hadn’t even glanced at me. “What’s going on?”

“Yeah, Lisa,” said Brandon. “I’m just out here getting some fresh air, and this one”—he pointed at Stanley—“shows up talking crazier than a shit-house rat. And this one”—meaning Lisa—“starts playing Betty-effing-Crocker.”

I looked at the ground and saw a salt circle on the pavement, white in the moonlight. It looked as though most of the pattern had been put in place earlier and closed just now, where the line was cleaner. Raising my eyes to Lisa’s grim face, I realized she’d been holding out on me, and protesting entirely too much, perhaps from the very beginning.

“Lisa?” I repeated her name.

“I’m fixing this, Maggie.” She still didn’t look at me. “Just let me handle it.”

“Why are you interfering?” Stanley’s drab hair stood up in wispy spikes as he confronted her. “You hate these assholes as much as I do.”

“Shut up, Dozer,” she snapped. “You don’t even know what you’re dealing with.”

“Yes I do.” He held the brazier in both hands. It looked smaller in real life, but somehow … more. As if the evil contained in it were distilled down, latent in the beaten brass. “I’m the one who found the key. I’m the one who realized what it could do. I’m the one who can control it.”

“That thing doesn’t control it, idiot.”

“Lisa,” I cautioned, seeing Stanley’s face flush blood-dark. “Maybe you shouldn’t piss him off too much.” Just in case he could let the leash go early, better not antagonize the crazy guy.

Brian arrived then, leaning heavily on his cane. He stared in obvious confusion and Brandon, seeing him, made a disgusted sound. “You, too, Crip-patrick? This is a real loser convention. I’m out of here.”

“Stop!” At least three of us shouted at him. Justin because he was about to step across the salt barrier, Stanley because he was in full raving lunatic swing, and me, because I could sense the demon waiting, its anticipation invading my brain the way its stink invaded my lungs.

The footballer paused at our outburst, and Justin stepped into his path. He raised his hands in a gesture both calming and emphatic. “You really don’t want to head back right now.”

“Look, dickhead. I don’t even know who you are, but you’d better move before I kick your ass.”

Justin’s eyes narrowed and his face hardened. “You could try.” He may have been bluffing, but he convinced me.

The tension seemed to thicken the air, growing dense
with every harsh word. I didn’t know whether to warn them or not. If we drew the Shadow out of hiding, we could fight it, with Brandon safe in the protective circle. The uncooperative bait, however, was one wild card. The other pushed his way past Lisa to get in my face.

“Do you think you can stop me? No one can stop this now.”

“Geez, Stanley. Did you get your dialogue from an old James Bond movie? Listen to yourself.”

“No, you listen, Margaret Quinn.”

Margaret?

He pushed my shoulder with the hand not holding the brass artifact. Brian stepped forward with a protective “Hey!” but Stanley ignored him. “You are an interfering little bitch and I don’t know why you’re not lying at the bottom of that swimming pool right now.”

I remembered the list of names in my dream, offered to the demon in parchment and blue flame. “You put my name on the hit list?” I don’t know where I found the room for indignation. “What did I ever do to you?”

“You
pitied
me,” said Stanley, pushing at my shoulder again. “And you
meddle
. So I put you on the list. I don’t know why it missed you, but …”

I shoved him back, remarkably restrained in confronting someone who’d tried to kill me. “Maybe because my name isn’t Margaret, jerkwad.”

Stanley stumbled backward; his heels scuffed the line of white crystals, but didn’t break it.

“Maggie!” Justin shouted a warning and a remonstration. I saw immediately why. In the shadows by the terrace wall a nightmare coiled in on itself, writhed into being.

Lisa grabbed Dozer by the arm and yanked him away from the circle and away from me, trying to reestablish control of the situation. “Stop it. Now.”

I looked at her, tried to sort out her involvement in all this. The demon knew my real name, but Stanley didn’t. If Azmael knew what its summoner knew …

Still inside the circle, Brandon took one last hit off his joint and pinched it out, letting the smoke escape slowly on a lazy laugh. “Are you the loser queen, Lisa? These your court jesters?”

 … then Stanley didn’t actually summon the demon.

“Or maybe you got it bad for one of them.” Brandon continued his languid taunt, while Lisa stared at him, loathing in her eyes. “Is it Quinn? Did I put you off guys for good?”

“Shut. Up.” Her voice bit frozen chunks from the night air.

I stared at her. We all did. Nothing moved but darkness and shadow, growing in the corner of my vision.

Stanley didn’t know my full name. But Lisa did.

“I was drunk.” Bone-deep hatred twisted her words.

Brandon met it with indifference. “Duh. It was a college party. Everyone was drunk.”