I scrambled up. “Hey! That’s not a bad idea. I trick him into a pentagram and that contains both of them. But then what?” I paced the length of the garage, kicking the straw. The demon was going to be around till the phoenix explosion on Halloween, regardless. If I captured Devon and the demon in a pentagram, that would stop the demon from doing bad things. Which might help Devon … or, it might not. Being stuck in a pentagram would stop the demon from things like squishing pixies, but it wouldn’t stop the demon from whispering things into Devon’s mind, poisoning his soul.
“It’s not just a little spell I need,” I said slowly. I remembered my Witchipedia research, and the idea I had dismissed before. “I need a really powerful spell. I need a spell to get the demon out of Devon. If a spell got him in, there must be a spell to get him out. If I can find it.” That would be something good I could do, something right. “That doesn’t solve the exploding phoenix, though.”
“Well, you have till Friday for that,” said Jenah.
“It’s Wednesday.”
“Trying to be helpful,” said Jenah. “How easy are spells? A matter of tapping something with a wand?”
“God, no. Even if you’re right that I can do it, I still have to track down a spell and then puzzle it out.” I thought of the rooftop again. Of banging a boot against the trapdoor while the demon made Devon kill that little pixie so horribly. How many had had the demon made him squish? I plonked the bristle brush into my palm. “I’m going to try. The witch wants me to work a spell? Fine. I’ll figure out how to save Devon. That’s the kind of spell I want to do.”
I swallowed hard at the thought of trying spells, but it had to be done. “Time to step up the game.”
*
After Jenah reluctantly left, I checked to make sure the witch was still gone. I didn’t know where she’d gone, but she despised normal people too much to ever stay out for very long. I checked on Wulfie—he was curled up with his tail over his nose on the living room couch.
And then I snuck into the witch’s study, accessible only from her bedroom. Honestly, I was surprised that she didn’t have any spells to stop me from going in there.
Well.
No spells that I saw, anyway.
The witch had already been gone longer than I expected, and I didn’t want to push my luck further, so I hurried. I tugged book after book from the shelf and thumbed through them, scanning for something obvious. A lot of the books seemed not to be spells at all, but boring political treatises about ecology and the Witch Government. I shoved those back, and also ignored the stacks of trashy witch romances. There was a media tie-in with Zolak the demon hunter in a ripped-up shirt on the cover. After I finished being squicked that the witch had the same crush I did, Zolak’s black hair and knowing look reminded me of demon-infused Devon. I wished yet again that my phone would phone real-world phones or connect to the real-world Internet. Devon must be at home and miserable while the demon planned his next round of attacks. I wished I could tell him I was thinking of him. Reluctantly I shelved the book, though I thought when all this was over, I might sneak it out sometime.
In contrast to the romances, the spellbooks were covered in layers of dust and cobwebs. I was kind of surprised, because the witch is such a neat freak about important things. I wondered if she was getting lazy, ignoring this library of information—or if she already knew everything in these books. Or, if she’d already judged which books were useful and which were heaps of lies, like the Web sites of silly egotistical witches all over WitchNet.
I shut down that worry. I had enough unknowns with this trying-to-do-a-spell thing without wondering whether or not the witch’s books were accurate. Maybe I didn’t know as much as Sarmine did, but I knew Sarmine, and she would not have books around that were heaps of lies.
I took one book that had general information on phoenix, and another about dragon history. An antique one called The Young Witch’s Handbook to Building a WitchRadio (useless for the demon problem, but I thought it might have something about dragon communication in it). I stacked them both on top of a couple of encyclopedic-looking books.
And then I saw the book I needed.
From the looks of it, it was a very well (and recently) read book on demons, but when my fingers came near, it jumped to another shelf. I grabbed again—and it jumped again.
That might be enough to stop an ordinary book browser, but it wasn’t going to stop me. I read the spine of the book next to it out loud: “Witch’s Passion: A Fiery Tale. That sounds promising.” I focused my thoughts and my left hand on Witch’s Passion. The demon book twitched a little as I neared it. I grabbed Witch’s Passion’s spine … and then with my right hand I pounced on the demon book. “Aha!”
It struggled, but as soon as it was off the bookshelf it went limp. “You’re mine now,” I told it.
I nudged the other books on the shelf closer to each other, wiped away fingerprints in the dust … and then I saw a small black wand behind a glass door in the bookcase.
Of course.
If I wanted to work a spell, I needed a wand.
But was the witch going to miss this one? It was behind glass. It must be important. I glanced around the study to see if she had any others. I only ever saw her use her slim aluminum one. I had no idea she had other wands at all.
That’s when I heard the garage door click.