I looked at the items on my latest list and made a couple more notes.
? Trap Devon in a pentagram (blow on it and tap with wand to set the spell)
? Compound demon-loosening spell (in progress!)
? Check and see if Devon has located the phoenix JUST HOPE HE DOES
All I had to do was find Devon. And hope the zombie girls were by the T-Bird, where Jenah told them to meet. I jumped onstage even though Miss Crane turned from her convo with Rourke and the witch to scold me from a distance. “Camellia, dear, really, should you—”
“Hey guys,” I said. “Have you seen Devon?”
The bassist shook his red dreads. “Not my day to watch him.”
The guitar guy said, “No, and if he thinks he can get out of setup just because he’s singing lead instead of me . .!” He waved the cords he was untangling.
“All righty then,” I said, and stepped over black cords to go.
But the drummer said, “I saw him.” The drummer turned out to be a fine-boned black girl with piercings. She stopped fiddling with her snare to point toward the side entrance. “He finally got a reputation, huh? I kept telling him one day he’d be dripping in girls.”
I was suddenly jealous of this unknown girl for sharing Devon’s life before I knew him. For bolstering him in his shyness. For having a history. For being easy in her skin, like Jenah. For being cooler than I was.
What I said was: “Thanks.” I know she watched me go, watched me jump off the stage and dart through the dance, and I wondered if she thought I was hurrying to drip off him, too.
Devon was by the T-Bird talking to some girl dressed as a miniskirted pirate. Miracle of miracles, four of the zombie girls were clustered nearby. This wasn’t entirely due to the magnetic pull of Devon—I had tasked Jenah with phoning them all after school. She told them Devon had a little game for them, and to meet by the T-Bird.
Occasionally one wandered up to Devon and drove off the latest girl to stop and talk to him. Two zombie girls were dressed as witches and two as groupies, both of which seemed ironic. Reese had reverted to idiotic bliss, now that Devon was nearby and smiling her way.
I nodded to Reese and then dropped to the ground behind the mock orange with my backpack and Kelvin’s cooler. I took out the apple-oyster glop for the demon-loosening spell, and carefully swirled in the last, precious ingredient.
“Over here, Avery,” I heard Reese holler, and then the fifth zombie girl (a groupie) hurried from her mom’s car up the hill to the T-Bird.
Reese drove off the pirate girl with a white-toothed snarl, and the zombie girls moved in around Devon.
“Hey chickies,” said Devon. The actual suaveness the demon had learned from Devon receded as the demon got more and more confident that he had his claws in Devon for good, and the faux suaveness that the demon thought was totally the bomb had taken over. He had his collar flipped up again. “What do you girls want?”
“Kiss me,” said the zombie girls in a ragged chorus.
“One kiss per satisfied customer,” said Devon, shaking his finger. “Don’t crowd me, sweet things.” The girls sighed and obeyed, but they stayed in a loose circle around Devon.
Well, not quite a loose circle.
Only an observant observer would’ve noticed that the five girls had evenly spaced themselves around the grinning boy in the middle. They smiled sweetly at Devon.
“This is the life,” the demon said. He looked at the twilight sky as if he wanted to remember it forever. “This is the life.”
That’s when I said, “Now!”
The girls grabbed each other’s hands with straight arms. I ran from the bushes, shoved the bowl of ingredients just between Reese’s feet. I blew on her arm just as I brought my wand down upon her shoulder, freezing the pentagram in place. The magic jolted me just as it had when I tried the self-defense spell.
But this time I was ready for it. I held the wand on Reese’s shoulder while beams of light shot up from all the girls.
Devon was enclosed in a living pentagram.
He expanded for a moment and rippled all colors, just like I’d first seen the demon. Rage was written all over him. Then he shrunk down into a black-haired punk-band boy. “Very funny,” he said to me. “But a human pentagram has certain limitations. Reese, let me out of here.” He motioned for her to drop the hand of the girl next to her.
“No thanks,” Reese said sweetly.
“Ha. Come on.”
“Nope,” she said.
“Avery? Tashelle?”
The other girls shook their heads.
Devon glared at me. “What is this?”
“Cam said you said it’s the only way to prove our love,” said Reese in a singsong recitation. “Whoever holds on the longest wins you forever.”
“For the evening,” I corrected.