One Hundred Candles [2] (6 page)

Almost.

six

When most people think of a demon, they probably picture a large, horned creature writhing in a fiery pit deep within the earth. Maybe they imagine a face composed of a cruel and twisted sneer with deep, swirled scars and blood-red eyes. Or perhaps they envision claws and teeth and the growling voice of a lumbering creature hungry for innocent souls. These are the features most people probably associate with demons.

Not me.

I was raised to believe that
demon
was simply a word given to a type of unique energy. My parents theorized that throughout history people had named the different forms of residual energy that the living left behind. For example,
ghosts
and
apparitions
were simply terms assigned to some things that couldn’t yet be explained, occurrences such as phantom footsteps or disembodied voices.

A demon, they said, was a more intense form of residual energy. It was stronger than typical residual energy because it was not the result of repetition or anger or even grief. It was stronger because it was the remnant of something much worse: evil. People might not believe in the paranormal, but they didn’t have to look much further than the local news to hear all kinds of true horror stories. Encountering real demonic energy was, thankfully, a rare experience. My parents took it seriously, and Annalise and I had never accompanied them to an investigation in which there had been any kind of documented violence. They knew how strong that energy could be and they did not want to risk exposing us to it.

So while both Mom and Dad believed that some residual energy could manifest itself in powerful ways, it was still simply energy, not an animated creature with a personality who set out to hurt specific people. It was something to be handled carefully, documented and studied, and then, possibly, diffused.

Demon
was merely a word. But it was one I’d been thinking about a lot lately. It was on my mind as I carefully removed books from my locker before lunch, which may have explained why I was so preoccupied and lost my grip on my chemistry textbook. It hit the floor with a solid thud. “Great,” I muttered. It was the first day back at school, and I’d had problems all morning as I’d tried to balance books with one arm. I was becoming more and more frustrated with the amount of time and effort it was taking me to get to class. As I bent down to pick it up, I lost hold of my English textbook. Before it could hit the floor, though, someone reached out and grabbed it.

I smiled at Harris. “Nice catch.”

He held on to my books. “Yeah, well, it’s good practice for me in the off-season.”

“Catching books instead of catching footballs?”

Harris leaned against my locker. “Whatever works.” He nodded toward my arm sling. “I was thinking about you. I thought you might need a little help today.”

My mind was swirling. He had been thinking about me? He wanted to help me carry my books around? I felt tingly, but I didn’t want him to see me as a feeble girl in need of rescuing. At the same time, I did need some assistance. My arm still ached when I put too much pressure on it, and a pile of heavy books would only make it worse.

“I guess I could use help,” I admitted to him with a smile. I handed him the rest of my stuff and shut my locker. We began walking down the busy hallway. “This in no way means I’m helpless,” I informed him.

“Of course not. It means that I feel guilty.”

I looked at him. “Why would you feel guilty?”

“I dragged you to that party.” We turned down the hall. “I should have known that wouldn’t be something you’d like. I mean, you probably do stuff like that all the time, right?”

“Not exactly.” I realized we were headed in the wrong direction. “I need to stop by the main office first,” I explained. “They messed up my schedule. You mind?”

“Not at all. It gives me an excuse to be late to trigonometry.”

The main office was packed with students, all of them grumbling about scheduling problems.

I eyed the long line. “Maybe I should come back later.”

Harris wouldn’t hear of it. “This way.” He snaked his way past people, his hand firmly grasping mine. I didn’t like to cut, but Harris plowed forward with such confidence that it was hard not to let him take the lead.

“I’m not here about my schedule,” he announced to the secretary. “I just need to speak with Gwyn real quick.” The secretary waved us toward a counter near the back. “She’s an office assistant this semester,” Harris explained.

I had been hoping to run into Gwyn. Our stories were connected, somehow, but she didn’t know it yet. I wasn’t sure how much I wanted to confide in a stranger, but I felt she would believe me. I didn’t know how to approach her. Maybe, I thought, Harris could help me out.

Gwyn lit up when she saw Harris. “What can I do for you?” She leaned across the counter, forcing her chest up and creating sudden cleavage. I watched Harris’s eyes. To his credit, he didn’t even glance down.

“Actually, I need you to do something for Charlotte.”

Gwyn’s wide smile deflated and she stood up straight. “Oh.”

I stepped forward and pushed my schedule across the counter. “Hi, Gwyn. I’m scheduled for economics this semester, but I took it last year at my old school,” I said. “I want to drop the course and add a study hall instead.”

Gwyn didn’t even glance at my schedule. “Your guidance counselor needs to approve this.”

“She approved it last semester. It just didn’t go through.”

“Yeah, well, you need to get her to sign off on the paperwork.”

I felt my frustration beginning to surface again. Why did everything about today have to be so difficult? “I did all the paperwork. It should already be in the computer. And the guidance office is crazy right now.”

Harris smiled at Gwyn. “I know if anyone can help us, it’s you.”

He was so blatantly kissing up to her that I expected Gwyn to laugh in his face. Instead, she leaned across the counter again, her eyes on Harris. “I might be able to do something. Of course, I don’t have access to schedules or anything, but I can give you a pass to study hall and an excuse form for economics.” She sounded unconcerned. “You still need to go to guidance, but this will give you a week extension.”

“Sounds good,” I mumbled.

“Sounds great,” Harris said happily.

I stood off to the side while Gwyn printed out some forms and flirted with Harris. She obviously liked him and he obviously knew it. I wondered if he was like that with other girls. Did he use his looks and charm to get everything he wanted? Or did he have a history with Gwyn? At least now I knew why Gwyn was giving me a little attitude. She must have seen me with Harris at the party and hadn’t liked it. I was actually relieved—it meant she wasn’t judging me based on my family or what we were known for. But now I had to smooth things over somehow so she would talk to me.

For the rest of the day Harris helped me. As soon as the bell rang, he was waiting for me outside my classroom or near my locker.

“You should be careful,” I told him. “I might get used to this.”

“That wouldn’t be a problem for me,” he said. It was the end of the day and I was headed to my final—and favorite—class, AV, where I would edit the daily school news footage with Noah.

Harris smirked when we reached the AV room. “Couldn’t get out of this one? Maybe I can talk to Gwyn again.”

I was slightly annoyed. “I like this class.”

“Well, I guess it’s an easy A.” He smiled at me. “No offense. I just didn’t think that cool girls took AV.”

“Well, they should,” I snapped. “The industry needs more women behind the camera, not just in front of it.” Harris looked taken aback by my little outburst. Even I was surprised by how sharp my voice had sounded. “Sorry. It’s been a long day without painkillers.”

Harris nodded. “I understand. I pulled a muscle once during a game and it hurt for a week. I was miserable.”

In reality, my arm didn’t hurt all that much. It was getting better every day, and I was optimistic that I would be free of my sling before the six-week mark in February that the E.R. doctor had predicted.

I told Harris I would see him later and made my way to the back of the room. Noah was already at the editing station, staring intently at a computer screen. I slid into my seat, feeling like I had returned home after a long absence. As incredibly lame as it sounded, this was where I was in my element. Everything about the classroom felt comfortable. I belonged here, surrounded by equipment I not only knew how to operate, but most of which I could fix, as well.

“What are we working on today?” I asked Noah.

He was frowning at the screen. “Not sure.” He turned the monitor toward me. “This disc was already loaded into the computer when I got here. What does it look like to you?”

I watched the footage. The first thing I noticed was that the video had been shot in black-and-white. The second thing I noticed was that the camera was fixed on one spot, and that spot was the senior hallway of our school. “Is this from a security camera?”

“Yep. Keep watching.”

The hallway, which was lined on both sides with lockers, was empty. The date stamped in the bottom right corner told me that the video had been taken today, just past midnight.

“What am I looking for?” I asked.

“You’ll know when you see it.”

After a minute, I noticed movement at the end of the hallway. At first, it was so slight I had to squint, but as it slowly moved across the screen it got bigger. It was a blurry white shape about the size of a small dog, and it glided across the floor in a straight line. Within seconds, it was out of the camera range.

I turned to Noah. “Show me again.”

“I thought you’d say that.” He typed at the keyboard and the video went back to the beginning. “So,” he said as he sat back, “what was Harris doing out in the hallway?”

“Walking me to class.” I focused on the center of the screen, knowing that the wispy shape would soon appear.

“That was nice of him.”

“Uh-huh.” The shape was moving at the end of the hallway, against the back wall. It was very white and looked exactly like a dog, except for the fact that it was missing feet. A ghost dog? My debunker instincts were on high alert.

“So someone left this for us to find?”

“Yeah. It was right here.” Noah patted the table. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s staged.” I froze the image on the screen. “It doesn’t look like the stuff I normally see.”

Noah moved his chair closer to mine so he could get a better look. “You mean because it’s a dog?”

“Not exactly.” I tried not to allow myself to be distracted by the light scent of Noah’s cologne. I had a thing for guys who wore a slight musky aroma. I liked it so much that part of me wanted to nuzzle into his neck and breathe it in. The image made me blink hard. This was Noah, after all. We were friends, nothing more. Besides, Harris was sending strong signals that he wanted to spend more time with me and he smelled great, too. I banished all semiromantic thoughts from my mind and focused on the video.

“I would expect it to move differently. It seems to follow a straight line. A little too straight, you know?” I squinted at the screen. “I wish I could zoom in on it.”

“Our school security system isn’t that advanced,” Noah said. “What I don’t get, though, is why didn’t the motion detectors go off? There’s one at each of the main doors, and that’s close to where this was shot.”

“No clue,” I murmured. “But it’s got to be a hoax.”

“A hoax set up when no one was around to witness it,” Noah reminded me.

“Right. But the fact that someone slipped us this disc means someone wants us to see it, which probably means that someone staged it and wants an audience.”

“But if it’s fake, why send it to the one person in school with the ability to figure out that it’s not real?”

Noah had a point. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Let me take this home with me. Maybe Shane or my dad can figure it out.”

He grunted. “Yeah, if Shane’s not busy with my mom tonight.”

I had to work hard to suppress a giggle. Noah glared at me. “It’s not funny!”

I held up my hands in mock surrender. “I didn’t say it was!”

“Wow. You two are working hard.” Bliss Reynolds stood in front of our work station, hands on her hips. “I mean, it’s not like we have a million things to cover for my broadcast tomorrow. Please, continue having a good time.”

Whereas I was ready to lunge at Bliss for her sarcasm, Noah didn’t let it faze him. “Hey, Bliss. We were actually about to give you a list of footage that was taped today. Why don’t you decide what you’d like us to edit first?”

Noah handed her his notebook, where he’d scrawled the list. I was impressed—he must have come to class extra early or been stopping by throughout the day to see what had been turned in.

“Well, I guess we could start with the new vending machines,” Bliss said, checking off an item in the notebook. “And I want to do a segment on Mrs. Demarse’s new baby and the sub who’s going to cover for her.”

While Bliss was making her choices, one of her freshman minions ran up behind her, lugging a digital video camera in his scrawny arms. I winced at the way he was manhandling the expensive equipment.

“Bliss! Guess what?”

“Don’t talk to me until you’ve got at least a full minute of crowd shots that I can actually use.”

“What if I got something even better?”

Bliss eyed him suspiciously. “Don’t tease me, Matthew. I’m not in the mood.”

“I thought her only mood was irritated,” I whispered to Noah.

“Irritated is not a mood,” he whispered back. “It’s a state of mind.”

Bliss and I had not started off the school year on the right foot. She originally thought I was trying to take over as senior anchor of the school news. After I convinced her that I preferred to work behind the camera and was not a threat to her dream of becoming the youngest female news anchor of all time, we reached a kind of truce. She was still pushy, crabby and wary of my motives, but she also recognized that I was good at what I did, which in turn made her look good.

Matthew was practically pulling Bliss to one of the computer stations. “You have to see this!”