Devon turned a smoldering gaze on Reese. “Why don’t you drop hands and I’ll choose you right now?”
Reese looked dubious, but the girls on either side scowled and held her tighter. She tugged a bit and gave up. “Nope,” she said finally. “She said you’d test us to see who’s weak. But my love is strong.” Her eyes burned with zombie fire. “My love is eternal.”
Devon reached out to force Reese and Avery’s hands apart, but his hands stopped an invisible quarter inch from them. He tried to lean on the girls’ hands, tried to push on them, tried to focus power onto them, but nothing. It looked like he couldn’t touch the pentagram girl formation at all. Which is what the book had implied, but it was very reassuring to see it actually work.
“Why you…” he growled at me.
“Temper, temper,” I said.
He smoothed his face. “It doesn’t matter what you hope to do. I’m almost permanently embodied. Devon enjoys having me around, and once he feels the power of us controlling the phoenix, he’ll never want me to go. We’ll be together for all time.”
I hoped the demon wasn’t as confident as he seemed. “But you don’t have his soul yet,” I said. “And what you haven’t noticed is that I stuck a loosening spell inside the pentagram with you. Devon, now’s your chance. The demon’s not bound to you anymore. You can push him out of you.”
I held my breath and watched Devon freeze in the middle of the pentagram.
Tension. Waiting. Surely struggle must be passing behind his eyes, back where I couldn’t see.
Finally he blinked and sneered. “Nearly have him for good,” he repeated. “So what’s the point of this charade?”
My shoulders sagged.
But it isn’t over till it’s over. “At the very least this keeps you where I can keep an eye on you,” I told him. “Have you found the bird? Are you ready to transfigure it so the explosion can be controlled safely?”
“Found it ages ago,” said Devon. “It was obvious.”
“Good. Where is it?”
He snorted. “Let me out.”
“Not till you’re out of Devon,” I said.
“Then it will explode,” he said.
I narrowed my eyes. “Then the blast will take you down, too.” I didn’t plan to let it come to that. “Girls, don’t let Devon down,” I said. “Prove your love for him. Your own personal ‘Hands on a Hard Body’ competition.”
“Ooohh,” the girls sighed. Hands trembled.
“Except you can’t let go!” I said hastily. “That part comes after.”
“Awwww.”
A few kids had stopped to take in the scene. They looked interested until I said, “It’s a skit we’re performing later in the evening.”
“Lame,” said one, and they hurried into the dance.
I checked my cell. Eighteen minutes to explosion. I’d better tear the witch away from Rourke.
The witch had already come to the same conclusion and was stalking out of the gym just as I was returning to find her. Someone’s “spooky” playlist was blaring over the sound system, and I could see Blue Crush trying to tune beneath it.
“I captured the demon,” I said breathlessly. “He knows where the phoenix is hidden and he’s trying to keep the explosion for himself. So he’s in a pentagram till we get down there.”
“You tricked the demon into a pentagram?” A strange emotion crossed the witch’s face. It couldn’t possibly be pride, so it must be anger or jealousy. And then: “You did a spell?”
“Yup,” I said. “Two, if you count the pentagram. Proving that anyone can do magic if you gather the right ingredients.”
The witch shook her head. “Ingredients are only half. It takes your internal magic to push the rest.”
“Right, but all organisms have magic,” I said. “Therefore all humans have magic, witch blood or no. So why not? What’s the difference?”
“The difference between a frog and a pixie,” said the witch. “The difference between a llama and a unicorn. A very big difference.”
“Bosh,” I said. “Then how come I could work the spells?”
The witch looked me straight in the eye. “Obviously, Camellia,” she said, “because you’re my daughter.”
15
CASH
This is how I felt.
I felt like the world had stopped around me and broke into two sections—before, when I thought I was a regular human, and now.
Because deep down I knew the witch—my mother—was telling the truth.
Age lines creased Sarmine’s face, bringing her up to fortyish. “Some friend of yours told you it was bad to be a witch. Remember?”
I cringed. “Sparkle. Yes.”
“The two of you concocted a new story about how I stole you from your parents in some heinous Rapunzel-like scheme. As if any witch would want an ordinary human child.” Her face abruptly aged to that of familiar sixtyish Sarmine. “But that’s what I got.”