Seriously Wicked (12 page)

“Calm, calm,” I said. “What’s really going on here, Sparkle?”

“Cam,” repeated Devon, lower and deeper.

One hand flew to her cameo, the other pointed past me. “Tell me what’s really going on with
him
.”

I whirled and there was a different Devon standing there. He fell into a crouch, his eyes were hard. Black hair flopped, fingers curled into claws around the recaptured pixie.

The demon had woken up.

9

Squash

“Thanks for filling the first task,” the demon said. He stretched. “It’s a rather odd and tingly feeling, being bound to a contract. I’ve done it before, of course, but it’s new and different every time. Isn’t it?” He leered at Sparkle.

“We wouldn’t know,” I said. “Your ‘frogs’ are up here, so why don’t you come down off the roof and go home for the night? Sparkle, I suggest you move along, too.” I motioned us all across the roof to the trapdoor, but nobody budged.

“Task one is not entirely complete,” Estahoth said.

“Aha,” I said. “Devon figured out that the ‘frogs’ just have to be here till Friday, then we can let them go. You should be in favor of that, because as I understand it, your kind likes to avoid completing contracts. Now off we go, down from the roof.” I had to get the demon away from those pixies.

“Quite right,” said Estahoth. “But the reason we like to avoid completing contracts is so we can stay longer. Your mother has worked in a time limit of Halloween. No extensions. Thus all my energies are focused on
him
.” He thumped his chest and a scent of firecracker and mold wafted out.

“Camellia?” said Sparkle. “What on earth is the new boy going on about?” She clutched her cameo necklace like a security blanket.

“Please. Go,” I said. I crossed to the trapdoor and motioned her down it. She stepped onto the rung of the ladder, but didn’t go any farther. My nerves were on edge and the little hairs on my arms stood upright. “Devon, you come, too.” I tried the witch’s firm tone.

The demon pointed a finger at Sparkle. “I know something you don’t know,” he said in a singsongy taunt, and as his finger stayed on her, her face seemed to change, but not just her nose this time, not just her height. Her face aged rapidly, wrinkles forming, jowls drooping. He waggled his finger and then she went back the other way, younger, younger, shrinking. Back up.

“I’m … going to…” Sparkle said, all green and white, and then she slid/fainted down the ladder into the costume room.

“Hells,” I said. “Sparkle?” I stepped onto the rungs of the ladder to see if she was broken or bleeding.

But the instant I did that, the demon laughed and swooped down on the cardboard box.

“You give that here,” I said firmly. “We told you the contract was safe.”

“Just as the old phoenix has to die so the new one can be born,” said the demon. “Just so, we will remake Devon in a new image.” He uncurled his hand and revealed my dark green froggy pixie, dangling by its leg. It blinked rapidly, its wings fluttered. “
Crush
the old.”

I grabbed for handholds to climb back up, but the demon was suddenly there, and he kicked my shoulder hard. I slammed down onto the ladder, my armpit hitting the roof.

The demon loomed above, his hair rippling wildly. “No,” said Devon, forcing the words out of unmoving lips. His eyes were ringed in stricken white. “No!” His hand closed around the frightened pixie. Closed tighter, tighter. A small leg waved frantically.

“No!” I shouted, and grabbed Devon’s pant leg, tried to haul myself out, tried to stop the inevitable. But the demon kicked me free, and then a horrid pressure feeling settled on my head, as if I were being pushed down by hurricane winds. The pressure shoved me, shouting, down the hole and slammed the trapdoor on my head. My fingers slipped on the scarves and beads draped over the ladder. My feet skidded to the floor—I thought I would land on Sparkle, but there was no one there. A wire clothes hanger gouged my arm as I tumbled backward onto my hip.

I heard a muffled squeak—and then the pixie was silent. Everything was silent. Then came a strange sound of hysteria—like someone caught between tears and savage laughter, switching between the two.

I stormed up the ladder and pushed and shoved on the trapdoor. Pried with a coat hanger around the edges. Banged on it with a cowboy boot.

The trapdoor would not budge.

*   *   *

I had to wait twenty minutes for the next bus, and then it was another fifteen to get home. Devon didn’t show up at the bus stop. I sat by myself on a mottled brown seat and brooded, near tears and rage all at once. Whenever I calmed, the memory of Devon’s stricken face as the demon made him kill the pixie would set me off again. I was so furious at the witch I wanted to scream, long and loud without stopping.

I didn’t. I made it off the bus without breaking down in public. I even said thanks to the bus driver.

But the rage and tears coursing through me explained, though not excused, why I was horribly rude to the small form in yellow and black waiting on the doorstep.

“What do you want?” I said.

“Sunshine and butterflies,” said Jenah. She snapped the knees of her fishnets, adjusting them as she got up. “Pretty rose-colored auras shot with streaks of gold. But mostly, to talk.”

“Thanks,” I said, spitting the words out. “I have nothing to talk about.” I just wanted her to go. Everything the witch touched turned to disaster, and it was now spreading rapidly. Anyone that tried to help me would get brought down by my home life. Jenah needed to give up on me and
go
.

“Your hair looks like flying pigs hit it,” said Jenah.

I ignored this and put my key in the lock.

“Did you hide from me in the auditorium earlier?” said Jenah.

“What? No.”

“I thought I saw the back of your shirt.” She touched it. “I called after you.”

“Not everything’s about you,” I said, the desperate words tearing out. Couldn’t she see that she was going to bring trouble on herself? My secrets needed to stay secret. Jenah eyed me and I calmed my voice. “I have to go,” I said, trying to squish down the storm of feelings. “Really. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I ducked in and shut the door on Jenah. I didn’t expect to be in trouble with the witch for being late, because I’d texted her about staying late for algebra tutoring. No, the latest problem was Moonfire. The witch’s horrible tasks for the demon meant I was late for my chores with the dragon for the second day in a row, and Moonfire couldn’t take care of all her needs stuck in that garage. I let Wulfie out the front door to find his favorite bush, and hurried out the back.

Where I ran smack into the witch. Fury flamed. “You horrible, horrible—” I started.

“Your algebra teacher called,” said the witch. She rose from the stone bench near the pumpkin vines and dusted off her peach pencil skirt.

“Hells,” I said, derailed.

“He wants me to come in and talk about your grades,” Sarmine said. “He says you’re too good a student to let algebra slide.”

“I am not letting it slide,” I said, aggravated. “I did badly on my test but I went in to study with Kelvin. But I had to leave studying with Kelvin because of
your
demon problem, and that’s when Rourke got cranky enough to call you. He’ll never let me make up the test now.”

“Why didn’t you just leave a doppelg
ä
nger to sit with this Kelvin person while you did the important things? I know you know the doppelg
ä
nger spell. You helped gather the ingredients when I used it to avoid that dreadful neighborhood block party. Five werewolf hairs, easily collected from Wulfie. One pint of cream. One huff of dog’s breath. Two—”

Her list infuriated me. The witch could get under my skin faster than anybody in the world. “For your information, you have to be a witch to perform that spell. And are you seriously saying that my solution to algebra is to skip out on the tutor? What kind of crazy person are you? You don’t care two cents what happens to my grades, as long as I gather your ingredients and keep track of your demons.”

“I merely pointed out the way to keep this Rourke character from being angry at you,” said the witch. The October wind whisked around us. “As I judge your developing character, you are determined to keep your grades up whether or not you have my support. Thus I save my energy for making you realize that there are other things in life besides human schooling.” She frowned. “As for your chores, I don’t understand your position. I give you all the best tasks and take the mundane ones of cooking and dishwashing myself. Do you know that my mother used to have me scrub out the bathtubs? Like a regular human? With a
sponge
?”

Sarmine on a rant about her mother could go on for ages. I interrupted this digression. “So you think other things in life are more important,” I said. “Like what, settling scores against old enemies? How does causing chaos at school—
my
school—give you the moral high ground? Just so you know, your tasks are wreaking havoc on Devon. I have half a mind to thwart the demon by stopping him from completing his tasks.”

“You have half a mind, period,” said the witch. “A transfigured phoenix is still a phoenix.”

The wind sent a chill down my spine. “You mean it’s still going to burst into fire?”

“It will explode on Halloween,” said the witch, “whether we’ve found where Kari hid it or not. Uncontained phoenix fire will disintegrate your entire school and anyone unlucky enough to be inside the building at the time. I suggest you and your delicate little morals consider that.” She pulled a small packet of dried pepper from her fanny pack and sprinkled it over one of my pumpkins. The wind tickled my nose, along with the pepper dust. I knew I was supposed to ask the witch what spell she was creating, so she could impart some sort of “valuable” lesson about the properties of dried pepper or whatever.

“I have a dragon to tend to,” I said coldly. I pushed past the witch and stalked toward the garage.

“At least I’m doing something with my life,” said the witch from behind me. “You should’ve seen me at your age. Able to work complicated spells, already creating new ones. Causing chaos from here to the Pacific Ocean.”

“I’m so happy for you.”

“And my sister Belarize was even faster. When she was eight and I was four she decided she was sick of being ousted as the youngest. She planted a monster under my bed that almost took my foot clean off. Mother refused to believe my sister had done it. She had a blind spot about Belarize’s lack of morals. You
don’t turn on your family
.” Sarmine harrumphed at the memory, then rounded on me, throwing up her hands. “I just don’t know how to get past your blind spot, Camellia! I give you spells, you reject them. I show you counterspells, you don’t even try. Your attitude toward witchery keeps me up at night. Don’t you know what happens to weak witches? Don’t you understand how cruel the witch world is?”

“I’m not a witch!” I turned and shouted. “Why does everyone keep saying I am? I’m not like you. I’m not like the horrible way you behave. Nothing at all. I’m
not
!”

“You stubborn, blind—” Sarmine breathed out. Her face calmed. All cold and stoic it got, and her hands were steel on her wand. “There’s going to be a punishment for this … for this algebra mess.” It seemed like she’d wanted to say something else, but no. Only mean-just-because Sarmine would say in the same breath that algebra was useless and then punish me for it. “Not for failing your test, but for putting me in the annoying position of having to talk to this Rourke character.”

“No!” I shouted, stomping through the grass, bearing down on her. “I’m sick of your punishments. You have no right—”

“Half an hour mummified by the pumpkin plants ought to do it,” she said.

She plucked one hair from my head, and while I said, “Ouch, what the hell?” she doused it with a spray bottle from her fanny pack, dropped it on the peppered and god-knows-what-else pumpkin, and tapped it with her dragon-milk wand.

Instantly the vines spiraled up, reaching for me. One vine lassoed my arm.

“Oh
hells,
” I said. I yanked my arm out of the tightening pumpkin noose and ran, but a vine coiled around my ankle. I thunked to my knees. Another vine plonked over my shoulders, and its leaves thumped on top of my head. “Let me out!” I shrieked.

“If you’d studied your self-defense spell, you could stop me now,” Sarmine said.

I clawed and tore, but more vines coiled around my limbs, rolling me into the middle of the pumpkin patch. My shoulder hurt where the demon had kicked me. A small green pumpkin bonked my nose. “Get back here!”

I think she said something like “It’s clime you faced up to da tooth,” but I couldn’t hear very well with the giant pumpkin leaves stuffing my ears.

My flailing hand struck an overripe pumpkin and smashed into pumpkin guts. “Sarmine!” I shouted, and then a huge wad of leaves stuffed my mouth, and I choked and stopped yelling. At least I had an airhole for my nose, or I’d really be in trouble.

The vines rolled me over one more time and my nose smashed into dirt. I arched, stretching my neck out of the dirt to breathe, snorting out compost and probably bug bits. I tried not to panic as mulch clung to my nose with my inhaled breaths. Why did my life suck so hard? Flunking algebra, falling for a demon-boy, and finally, smothered to death by a rabid pumpkin.

I wasn’t going to save the world from the witch. I couldn’t even save myself. And who would slop out poor Moonfire’s garage now? Catch the witch doing it. Oh, she liked having the dragon milk and scales around, but what about the dragon herself?

I loved my dragon. I was the one who took care of her. We were going to fly away some day and find both of our families, by hook or by crook—

At this point I realized I was getting light-headed. But the image of me flying dragonback grew stronger and more appealing. Flying through the air, just flying, flying, flying. Air. Blue sky. Abyss. So … pretty—

Hands grabbed my ankles, dislodging my nose from the dirt. I sucked in great snorts of air, and then coughing, muffle-shrieked through the leaves. I kicked, and then whoever was grabbing my ankles sat on my shins. A shearing sound, and then my arm was free, and then I realized that someone was letting me out, so I stopped trying to kick whoever it was and concentrated on that lovely stuff called air going in my nose. I tensed my fist, just in case.