Page 54 of Demon Sworn
“Why the fuck do these girls keep turning me down?”
“Free will.”
The tinglies are back. The hair on my neck rises.
I’ve just been spending too much time around my demons,I try to tell myself.That’s all. This isn’t the same kind of talk—
“When I summoned you, you said you’d help me get all my dreams.” William’s face grows dark.
But I could care less about his handsome face right now. I’m trying to stave off a panic attack. My lungs have suddenly become incapable of taking in oxygen.
What the fuck? Summoned?
Fear slides over me, and I recall that party I went to in the graveyard. Shit. Maybe I wasn’t the only person that night to summon demons. Ohhhhhh fuck.
I look up just in time to see David’s eyes flash red.
Dammit. Fuck. Fuck. Damn.
David’s a demon. Does Stacy know? I shake my head as I slide farther back into the alcove and start to shake uncontrollably as fear takes control of my limbs. No. No way she knows. Even though we’ve drifted apart, she’d never be able to resist telling me something like that. Would she?
If David’s a lust demon…my high school suddenly becomes highly suspect. Adam’s dream comes barreling back at me, and the theory I dismissed before circles inside my head. Are Wade and Tim demons too? Have I secretly been surrounded by demons?
Wade and Tim are human, Katrina. Don’t be ridiculous. And besides, David doesn’t even talk to them. He’s in a completely separate group of friends. You’re so desperate to find a connection that you’re trying to fit square pegs into round holes…
I watch David pin William up against the lockers and growl, “Just because you summoned me, doesn’t make me a slave, pretty boy. You were just an excuse for us to get in here. Watch your mouth, or maybe I’ll find a better use for it.”
Fuck. Us? Us to get in here? My knees knock together. David must be part of the group that’s after my demons. He must be part of the murder who’s been attacking them, part of the group who killed my parents. Took Adam. There’s no other reason for demons to come to this nothing school. They must have learned my guys were posing as teachers…
That means that other people at school could be demons. Or worse…demons could be doing to these kids what they did to my parents. Someone could be killing them, body snatching them.
The panic express is leaving the station, folks! It’s full steam ahead into Terror Town! Fuckity fuck.
I need to grab my phone. I need to call Raz. But my hands are shaking so hard that if I try to slide off my backpack and pull out my phone, I’m one-hundred-percent certain that klutz Katrina will rear her head and I’ll drop said phone…making a very angry and pissed off demon rush right towards me.
Yeah, David might only be a lust demon, but they work in murders, and the others are here. Who knows what kind of powers the rest of his murder holds? Nightmares. What else? I think back to the attacks on my guys, but I can’t recall any details that might be useful. I force my mind to turn to my parents. The way they talked to me those last few weeks. How their words were so full of anger. Scorn.
FUUUUUUCK.
I know a scorn demon. A rage demon. I went to karaoke night with an illusion demon.
An. Illusion. Demon.
My hands come up to my face, and I clutch the roots of my hair as if I’m going to rip all of it out. If I wasn’t racked by scared shivers, I just might.
Ohmygod.
If I’m right, the demons are here at Lakewood Prep. Tim. Wade. David. But who else?
Unbidden, my mind snaps back to my confrontation with Alanna, the decathlon captain, in the hall. What did she say to me?
Shut your ignorant yap.
Like before, a seedling of a memory takes root in my mind.
Shut your ignorant yap.
Shut your ignorant yap.
