The Demon's Apprentice (6 page)

The rumble of thunder woke me up. My eyes opened to a still-dark room, with only the red glow of my boxy alarm clock to focus on. It read 5:50. White light flashed at the windows, and thunder rumbled again. The thin hiss of rain followed it, and I sat up. Mom was supposed to enroll me in school today. Visions of walking down the halls of a high school flitted across my thoughts as I tossed the sheet on the bed and grabbed some fresh clothes. In the shower, I imagined sitting in a classroom and taking notes on fascinating subjects, enthralled with the mysteries of algebra, or, for me, the equally strange subject of Home Economics.

The clock showed only three minutes after six by the time I made it back to my room, and I could hear Mom and Dee just starting to move around in their rooms. The morning was going to take forever to go by at this rate. A little less than an eternity later, Mom and I had dropped Dee off at her school, and Mom finally turned her van toward…home.

“Where are we going? Don't we have to go to the school to enroll me?” I asked as we headed down rain-slick streets.

“I need to get your immunization records and your birth certificate transferred over. My lawyer is having them sent by courier to the house. In the meantime, I need to stop by the courthouse and sign the temporary custody papers, and we need to file the motion for…well, it's pretty boring stuff. Do you mind staying at the house to sign for your records?” Mom looked over at me hopefully, and, so help me, I couldn't make myself disappoint her.

“So, I'm not going to go to school today?” I tried to hide my disappointment, but my voice wasn't in the mood to help me out.

“It would probably be tomorrow in any case, sweetie. The school would still have to look your records over and get you scheduled for the right classes and everything. Think of it as…an unexpected three-day weekend. Though, I should be counting my blessings, having a son who
wants
to go to school. Your sister practically has to be forced out the door some days.”

I shrugged. “School's not so bad. I'll deny it totally if you tell anyone I said that, though.”

“Your secret's safe with me. But, more seriously, I'm afraid your father or his lawyer will be there, and I don't want to tempt fate any more than I have to.” I nodded, and my mood went from disappointed to dark. Missing a day of school didn't seem so bad suddenly, when I thought about seeing my father again.

Mom pulled into the driveway and handed me a key. “I'll be back in a little while, and hopefully by then, we can get you transferred over to Kennedy, and maybe grab lunch afterward to celebrate,” she said as I popped the door open. After I grunted a yes and hopped out, she pulled out of the driveway and puttered off, leaving me with a whole morning to myself, nothing urgent that needed doing, and a whole shelf full of books to read.

The knock at the front door came less than half an hour later, just when I was starting the third chapter in the mystery I'd chosen. I memorized the page number and closed the book. Old habits kicked in, and I ducked down beside the couch and bent one of the blind's slats to peer out at the front porch. A cold chill ran down my back when I recognized my father's butler, Jeremy. What in the Nine Hells was he doing here? If my father was going to send someone to bring me back, he'd use a guy with a thicker neck and a smaller brain. Someone who opened doors with his foot instead of knocking politely.

“You're not taking me back,” I said, when I opened the door.

He gave the same neutral smile I was used to seeing from him, but this time, I could see it in his eyes, too. “Of course not, Master Chance. I'd hardly dream of it. I am merely doing my part to maintain the illusion that you actually resided with your father,” he said, his accent still the proper English butler. He sounded like a man who was resigned to his fate, and it made my stomach twist.

“Whether you want to or not,” I said bitterly. I closed my eyes, took a slow breath and opened my Third Eye just enough to see his aura. It was mostly a deep blue, with ugly gray streaks that surfaced in places. Around his neck, though, I could see a band of dark red laced with black tendrils that reached up along his face to hover in front of his mouth like poisonous little vines. It was my own handiwork: one of the first compulsion spells I ever cast. Crude, sloppy as hell, but it worked.

“I wouldn't be able to speak to that, sir,” Jeremy said, still prim. Guilt settled on me like a lead blanket. Jeremy was one of the few guys who worked for my father who'd ever been nice to me, and he was still under the bastard's thumb, while I was walking free. My own promise from Friday night came back to me, and I felt my lips peel back from my teeth in a wolfish grin.

“You should be able to. This is for your own good. Don't move,” I commanded him. The compulsion kicked in with the trigger phrase and he went still. Dulka had made sure that every spell I cast had a counter-hex built into it, in case someone tried to screw him over. I reached up and put my hand into the compulsion's stain on his aura, and felt the greasy, chill touch close around my fingers. It tried to creep onto my aura, and I suppressed a shudder as I uttered the counter hex, “
Adactio spretum
.” The smear dissipated into a fine gray haze on the edge of his aura.

His eyes went a little wide, and I saw his jaw go slack for the first time. He could talk and act freely now, but until I destroyed the focus, the spell could be reactivated. “Oh, I say!” he said.

              “Yeah, say whatever you want.”

He blinked a few times, and his lips went thin as he stood up straighter, which for him was almost impossible. “Your father…is an absolute…wanker!” he finally blurted. “Master Chance, whatever you just did, thank you! You can't imagine what it's been like all the…well, perhaps you can. Even better than I can,” he went quiet as he finished.

I shook my head. “I just undid some of my own work. And, I'm sorry for doing it to you in the first place.”

“No, sir. You needn't apologize. It was all him, and that…thing he called up. Don’t you ever think otherwise. I'm relieved you were finally able to do something about it. Which brings me to the purpose of my visit. Your things are in the car.”

“My things? Jeremy, all of my stuff didn't even fill up a gym bag.”

“Indeed, sir. All of which gives lie to the appearance your poor, much-maligned father was attempting to maintain. Hence, my excursions to such exclusive establishments as American Eagle and…Hot Topic. Shall I bring it in?” He gestured to the tan Cadillac that lurked in the driveway. I followed him to the rear of the car. Bags filled the trunk, and a pair of suitcases sat in the backseat. I grabbed the bags and took them to my room before he could protest. Jeremy took the suitcases without a word, but his expression told me how dismayed her was. All that was left in the trunk when we went back out was a big shoebox and a black backpack. Those we just brought to the living room.

“That should be all, sir. You'll find a laptop computer and other school supplies in your backpack. Here is your last month's allowance, and an advance on next month's, as well. I…should be going.” He pressed a roll of bills into my hand as he turned to go.

“Jeremy, wait!” I said quickly as he turned away. He looked back over his shoulder at me and raised his eyebrows, as if to encourage me to continue.

“What I just did…it's temporary. If my father figures it out, he can get Dulka to activate the spell again.”

“Then I shall be discreet, sir, and make the best use of my freedom while I have it.” His smile resurfaced as he came over to me and put one hand on my shoulder. “It is a gift beyond measure, Master Chance. I assure you, I will not squander it.”

“I'll try to…make it permanent, somehow,” the words tumbled out of my mouth in a rush. “If I can find the focus, I can break the spell for good. I want to fix this.”

“Chance, you have done more than enough.” There was a warmth to his voice that didn't sound like my father's butler was just speaking to his young charge. “You need not take responsibility for the wrongs of others. If you are asking for my forgiveness, you’ve long had it.”

Part of the weight on my heart lifted, and I felt the corners of my mouth try to stretch into a smile, but it was still weak. “Thanks, Jeremy.”

“Think nothing of it, sir. Nothing to forgive.” He gave my shoulder a squeeze and stepped back, then gave me a “Good day, sir,” before he left. Even though I felt better, something still bothered me. The nagging guilt was still there, and seeing Jeremy had just made it worse. In spite of what he'd said, I still felt responsible for all the things I'd done for Dulka and my old man. I paced back and forth as I wrestled with my thoughts, and made absolutely no progress in getting them pinned down by the time my records were delivered. When Mom showed up around two o'clock, my psyche and I decided to call it a draw, but I promised it I wasn't finished with it. I imagined it like some Saturday morning cartoon villain, twirling its mustache and chuckling threateningly as it retreated into the dark parts of my mind.

Mom and I swapped stories about our morning over cheeseburgers and fries. For once, I lost the “Sucks to Be Me” contest. I got new stuff, while Mom had to sit in uncomfortable chairs and deal with assholes all morning.

I practically dragged her to the van, though, because the best part of the day was still to come. I bounced in the seat all the way to the parking lot of Kennedy High School, and it was all I could do to wait until she stopped the van to jump out. The red brick building loomed in front of me, three stories of normal teenage life just waiting to be experienced.

Half an hour later, I was elbow-deep in enrollment forms, while Mom filled out other paperwork. I'd just decided on French for my foreign language credit when a thick file folder with my name on the front of it plopped down in front of me. I looked up to my right to see Mom standing in front of a dark-haired woman in a blue business skirt and matching blazer. The dark-haired woman was glaring at me over the narrow lenses of her glasses. Mom looked down at the folder, then at me, so I opened it with shaky, sweaty hands.

Detention for fighting. Suspended for assault. Suspended for trespassing. Expelled for carrying a weapon. Expelled for possession. Expelled for fighting. My school record read like the rap sheet for a thug in training. I'd never actually seen what my old boss had been putting in my academic file, but none of it came as a surprise. Most of it was watered down for public consumption. I looked back up at Mom, but I couldn't meet her gaze for more than a few seconds.

“I'm sorry, Mom,” I said to the floor. I could still feel Mom's eyes on me, and my gut churned at the thought that I'd let her down already. Bad karma
really
sucked.

Mom's gentle hand on my face was the last thing I expected. She lifted my chin up until I could see her face, and she laid her other hand on my file. “This isn't the boy I see in front of me. It's not the young man I think you want to be, either. But it
is
who Principal Ravenhearst, here, thinks you are, and she doesn't think this young man,” she patted the damning file, “should be in her school. She's only willing to give you one chance. If you step out of line even once, she'll expel you.” Mom's voice was sharp as she spoke, and I couldn't tell if she was angry with me, Miss Ravenhearst, or both of us. Miss Ravenhearst gave us a cold smile, and I figured this was playing out the way she wanted it to. The conditions were almost impossible to meet, and I was betting she knew it.

“If you don't want to deal with this crap, say the word and we'll figure something else out,” Mom offered. Ravenhearst's smile get a little broader, a little colder, and I made my decision.

“I'll take it.” I narrowed my eyes at Ravenhearst, and her smile flipped.

“Chance, you don't have to…”

“I'll take it, Mom. If she's going to give me just one shot, I'll take it.”

It was Mom's turn to smile, and I could see the gleam in her eyes as she turned to face the principal. “Well, then, you heard my son. Get him enrolled.”

I was about to start high school.

Chapter 6

~ Among the cowan, be mysterious. They’ll come to far more useful conclusions on their own than you could suggest. ~ Myrddin Wyltt, 6
th
century Master

Tuesday morning took its sweet time to show up. My breakfast was sharing space in my stomach with a bunch of butterflies as Mom pulled into the school parking lot again. We passed kids milling around near the front doors and along the narrow strip of grass in front of the school. The groups were easy to sort by their wardrobes. Polo shirts and ass-hugging designer jeans didn't mingle with the baggy, strap-laden pants and dark t-shirts; and the sports jerseys and angled ball caps didn't mix often with the dress shirts and earth-tone pants and fedoras.

I took a quick look down at my clothes, and tried to see where I might fit. Black cargo pants tucked into my new black, mid-calf combat boots, and a gray t-shirt with black sleeves under a black leather jacket. The only groups that even looked remotely like me were the pale and tragic goths, and the equally pale group of pimple-faced guys in black trench coats and combat boots. I wasn't sure I wanted to hang out with anyone who dressed like I did.

The van came to a stop. “I'll pick you up here around four-thirty,” Mom said. I nodded, too excited to talk, and I tried for surly acceptance when she kissed my cheek.

“See you this afternoon,” I managed as I hopped out and slung my backpack on my right shoulder. Mom's van sputtered away, and I looked at the school. My brain tried to register everything, lock it away as vividly as possible. For anyone else, this looked like me transferring in from another school. But for me, this was another first. My first day of high school. I wanted to remember this.

I closed my eyes and opened my aura sight. Like any public building, the school wasn't warded. No one claimed any place with a flag in front of it. Flags marked
cowan
territory as well as any glyphs or sigils. Lusty reds and passionate oranges shone in auras all over the place, with an occasional unconventional mauve flash moving through them. The group of trench-coated guys was a spiky, angry gray, and some of the goths had mournful, muddy yellow streaks running through their auras. They were bright, beautiful…untainted. I held my own hand up. Murky red and black taint swirled over my skin: the anger and the corruption of black magick all over my aura. Maybe some of the pretty would rub off on me, and not the other way around.

With a shake of my head, I cleared my aura sight and started for the front doors. Scraps of conversations reached my ears, only a few words making sense at a time.

“…believe she bought the same dress…”

“…kicked his ass on the ghetto level, with my new…”

“…think he'd go out with me? I'd just…”

“… a condensed copy of the
Necronomicon
last week. Only…”

I stopped as I heard the last and tilted my head to hear more.

“… spells. None of the weak crap.” The guy who was talking was one of the trench coat crowd, with a narrow face and shoulder length brown hair.

“That would be so cool,” one of his friends said.

              “Yeah, I figure I'm going to be the most powerful warlock in the city by next week,” the first guy said. “Check it out.” He pulled a thin book from his coat pocket, and I almost choked on a laugh. It looked like a pulp paperback, with a black cover and white lettering and designs, one of the hoax versions of the
Necronomicon
anyone could buy in a mainstream bookstore. If he was a warlock, I was a televangelist.

I turned and headed through the main doors. My locker lurked somewhere in this maze of people and stone, and I didn't have a lot of time to find it. In theory, I knew where it was; I'd even been to it and dumped my books in it yesterday afternoon. Finding it again, though, that was going to be a real trick with so many people in the halls, and I didn't have time to waste on wanna-be sorcerers trying to do mail-order magic.

              With people leaning on the lockers, it was almost impossible to figure out where mine was. The halls cleared some when the first bell rang, and I figured out I'd passed mine about a halfway down the hallway, so I had to backtrack. Like most things I needed to remember, I'd gotten my locker combination down pretty quickly. But getting the numbers to line up and open the lock? Whole different story.

The tardy bell rang just as I coaxed the lock open, and I ran for my first class after I grabbed my American History textbook. Room numbers counted down in my head as my feet pounded on the linoleum. The heavy sound of my boots echoed off the empty hall like doom in my ears. Late for my first class. This day wasn't starting off well at all.

My luck held true when I overshot the room and nearly slipped on the slick tiles as I tried to stop myself. The doorknob only jiggled a little when I tried to turn it, and the little balding man behind the desk gave me a glare through the narrow rectangle of safety glass. He raised a warning finger at me when I knocked. I could see him look back down at his roll-sheet and hear him drone off another name in a nasal voice. I pulled my crumpled schedule out of my front pocket and read the name by American History. Strickland. I didn't like him already.

I sighed and slumped against the door. Great. If Principal Ravenhearst really wanted to get rid of me, I was giving her plenty to work with, right off the bat. Strickland's droning tone kept going behind me, reciting the names of people who knew where his class was and could get there on time. While I was contemplating a suitable Infernal torment for the little man, another sound danced across my thoughts: a girl's giggle.

              “Bra-ad!” I heard her voice rise and fall from around the corner to my right. “We're late as it is! Stop that!” I heard another giggle, and a long-legged redhead came around the corner with one hand swiping behind her blue skirt. Blue straps from her backpack pulled her white button-down blouse tight against her, and showed every curve between her shoulders and hips.

A tall blond guy in a purple jacket with gold sleeves swooped in behind her and caught her up with one arm. He spun her to face him, and his other arm reached behind her to grab a handful of her ass. I could see patches on his jacket sleeve for pretty much any sport with a ball. She gave a little cry and pushed him away, and he gave way with a laugh.

“Mr. Abrams wouldn't dare give us detention,” he said as he pulled her under his arm and turned them toward me. More patches and medals decorated the right side of his jacket, and I could see the big “K” on the left side of his chest. If there was a Kennedy team he
didn't
play on, it was the chess team. “Coach would have his ass if I couldn't make it to practice.”

The girl saw me first, and her face went red, even as Brad ducked his head down to nuzzle at her neck. She slapped his free hand down. “Brad!” she hissed.

He looked up and finally saw me.

The next thing I knew, I was up against the lockers, looking eye to eye with Brad. He had a double handful of my jacket and shirt, and was holding me at eye level, which left my feet not touching floor.

“Getting a good eyeful, you little pervert?” he growled at me.

My brain clamped down on my body's instinct to fight back, but my mouth didn't seem to be in the loop. “Isn't that what a trophy girlfriend's for? So people will look?”Behind him, the girl gave a little gasp, and I saw her gray eyes get wide. Brad just looked at me with a slack expression on his face. “Does she match your car?” Finally, he seemed to get it. One hand left my jacket, and slammed into my stomach. Pain exploded into nausea as I hit the floor.

“My girl isn’t a trophy!” Brad said in my ear as I gasped for breath on my hands and knees. I leaned back on my knees and took a shuddering breath as my diaphragm tried to relax.

“Oh, sorry, do you prefer the term accessory?” I asked the girl when I could breathe again.

Her jaw dropped, but her eyes went to Brad, and I saw pain there instead of wounded pride. She turned and ran down the hallway, and Brad grabbed my jacket again. His right fist went back to his ear.

“I'm gonna beat you six ways from Sunday, asshole!” he said.

Movement to my left caught my eye, and I saw the teacher come around the corner before Brad did. He was a pudgy man with wiry, salt-and-pepper hair that didn’t seem to want to hang out next to his head, and a pair of rectangular glasses that rode low on his nose, letting him peer over them at us with intense green eyes. He had a yellow shirt under a brown sweater vest and brown pants, and somehow he made that look more comfortable than dorky.

“One for every other day of the week, I take it?” the teacher said. A thin smile creased his round face, and I could hear steel in his voice.

Brad flinched and turned to face the man. “Huh?” And I thought I had the snappy comebacks.

“Six ways from Sunday, Mister Duncan. It means once for every other day of the week, which is to say, you will do it many times, or frequently. Not quite the context you had in mind, I'm sure, but I understand that you were threatening violence to this young man. Am I correct?” This guy was smart. I liked him already.

“I dunno what you're talking about Mister Chomsky,” Brad said as he pulled me to my feet. The name sounded familiar.

              “Don't try to lie to me, Brad. To your credit, you're not very good at it. Coach Brenner may have most of the other teachers toeing his little line, but I will remind you that you enjoy no special protection where I am concerned. If you are not elsewhere with extreme haste, you will learn first-hand the definition of the term ‘sidelined.’ Do I make myself abundantly clear, Mr. Duncan?”

“Yeah.” He leaned in closer to me and put his index finger in the middle of my chest. “This ain't over, asshole,” he whispered.

I looked down at his hand, then back up at him and tried to keep any expression off my face. “Are you left handed?” I asked him. He gave me a blank look. “Are. You. Left. Handed?”

“No.”

“Then, the next time you touch me, don't use your good hand.” I stepped back and let the threat hang in the air between us. I probably shouldn't have tried to be a smart ass about it, because it looked like he was going to have to go rough up a smart kid to find out what I meant.

He gave me a sneer and stalked off.

“I don't condone violence as a solution to conflicts, Mr. Fortunato,” Mr. Chomsky said. “Even where people like Mr. Duncan are concerned.”

“How did you know my name?”

“Oh, simple deduction, really. Principal Ravenhearst has informed us of a new student arriving today. Said new student, Chance Fortunato, is in my Physical Science class for fifth period, and Mr. Strickland has him in his first period class. Seeing as you are outside Mr. Strickland's classroom during first period, and you are still carrying your class schedule in hand, I can deduce that you are a new student, and as Chance Fortunato is the only new student we have today, I deduce that you are he.”

“Okay. Um…thanks for…you know,” I stammered.

“You're welcome. And Mr. Fortunato?”

“Yes, sir?”

“While violence is not an optimal solution, I do understand that it can be an excellent deterrent. However, I still cannot condone the implied threat of violence, no matter how well-put.” He smiled and walked past me. “Don't use your good hand,” he chuckled as he headed down the hall.

I revised my first impression of Mr. Chomsky. This guy was really,
really
smart. Still, the way the girl had reacted bugged me. I'd expected her to insult me back or something. Instead, I felt like something I should have been scraping off the bottom of my shoe.

American History wasn't so bad after Strickland let me in, and Algebra was a lot easier than spell theory, even if Mrs. Meyers seemed to teach by hypnosis. Everything about her, from her flat, bored tone, to her old-lady dress in the most boring shade of pastel blue I'd ever seen, seemed designed to numb the brain into a trance. At least in algebra, the formulas stayed the same all the time, and didn't change with the stars.

English was more interesting. Mr. Abrams had the desks in his room set up in a big circle. The man himself was slim and energetic, with a pair of thick glasses that made his watery eyes seem huge on his face. The class was reading
The Scarlet Letter
, and even by my standards, it seemed boring at first glance. Mr. Abrams asked questions about why the characters did things, and explained about the way people did things back then. Maybe I started to like it because it was about sin and redemption; I had a deeply personal understanding of that.

Fourth period was P.E. with Coach Connors. As long as we at least tried to be active, he seemed happy. It was only at the end of the period that I started to worry. Everyone around me stripped out of their t-shirts and gym shorts and headed for the showers. I was hot and sweaty from class, and there was no way I was going to go to lunch smelling like I did.

I grabbed a towel and waited for most of the guys around me to head for the shower, then put my back to the lockers and took my shirt off, and draped the towel across my shoulders so it covered most of my back. The scars on my chest and legs still showed, but there weren't as many of those. I headed for the showers, and felt a wash of relief as I stepped past the partition. The shower heads were on four round pillars with semi-partitioned sections set around them, so I figured I could get in, shower, and get out without anyone seeing the scars on my back. Still, I made quick work of getting myself cleaned up. The locker room was mostly empty by the time I got out, so getting dressed wasn't too bad, and I was headed for my locker to grab my lunch only a couple of minutes after the bell rang.