Justin Gustainis - Those Who Fight Monsters Tales of Occult Detectives

Instead, all I could think as I sat in my kitchen, trying hard not to think at all, was that I hoped those talks about prudence and responsibility had gotten through my daughter’s thick skull.

Allie

“This is stupid,” I shouted, trying to be heard over the music that filled the room and the bass beat that shook the floor. I held tight to the punch that Jeremy had brought me before sliding back into the throng of Coronado High students that filled the huge mansion’s foyer. “We’re going to get into so much trouble!”

“It’s just a party, Al,” Mindy said, leaning close so she didn’t have to yell as loud. “It’s not like we’re doing anything bad. ” She said “bad” in the kind of voice that suggested backseats and kissing and the kind of stuff I’d never done before. And, honestly, didn’t want to do yet, even though I could talk a good game in the girls’ locker room. It wasn’t like I was a prude or anything, but I wasn’t sure I wanted that kind of hormonal rush yet. Besides, I didn’t have the best of luck with boys. The first time I went out with a guy, he turned out to be a demon. The second time he was only a minion, but from my perspective, that was just as bad. Maybe worse. So pardon me if in my almost fifteen years of wisdom, I’m now thinking that maybe I should have my knife-fighting skills honed before I get in the backseat with a boy.

Not that I can explain any of that to Mindy. She doesn’t know my mom’s secret. And she sure doesn’t know that I’m training to be a demon hunter, too.

I took a sip of my punch and almost spit it out. Whatever it had been spiked with tasted nasty. Not that the taste was slowing Mindy down.

“My mom would ground me for a year if she knew I was here, and you know your mom would, too.”

She lifted a shoulder. “So?”

I love Mindy, don’t get me wrong, but she’s been kind of a pain lately. Her parents are getting divorced, so Mom says I’m supposed to be patient with her. But I wasn’t entirely sure that meant that I was supposed to let her drag me to forbidden parties.

“You’re not going to have fun if you don’t relax a little,” Mindy said. “Honestly, Allie. It’s not like we’re picking up guys on the beach or hitchhiking on the Coast Highway. It’s a party. And everybody we know is here.”

I took another sip of my drink, felt my head do a spinning thing, and saw Jeremy smiling at me from across the room. I wasn’t sure I entirely agreed with Mindy’s assessment, but I had to admit that at the moment the perks were pretty good. Party. Friends. A boy who liked me. And, yeah, I know I had the whole justification thing going about so not needing a boyfriend, and so not wanting to deal with the stress of kisses and bodies and all that hormonal stuff, but at the same time, it’s not like I could just flip a switch and not be fourteen anymore. I was a hormonal mess. I knew it, because not only did my mom spend half her life saying so, but also because I got the only A on our health quiz this semester. Trust me. All fourteen year olds are hormonal messes.

Jeremy made a beeline for me, his smile just shy enough to make my stomach do flip-flops. “Did you miss me?” he said. Like Mindy, he had to lean in close, and his breath tickled my ear. I caught Mindy’s eye as Carson drew her away toward the makeshift dance floor. She wasn’t saying anything, but was making embarrassing “go for it” expressions — embarrassing enough to make me think that already she’d hit the punch bowl once too often.

Right as I was thinking that I needed to cut my best friend off, she stumbled over her own feet, a sure sign she was trashed. Instinctively, I took a step forward, but stopped right away, because someone caught her — and he wasn’t Carson. Instead, he was an absolutely dreamy guy who couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old. The kind of guy you see in magazines advertising deodorant soap, the idea being that if you don’t stink, you can land a guy like that.

“Marlin Wheatley,” Jeremy said, leaning close.

I didn’t turn around. How could I, since that would mean I had to stop staring?

“No way is he in his twenties,” I whispered, remembering what I’d been told about our host. “He’s got to still be in high school.”

Jeremy moved slightly, and I imagined he was shrugging. “Dunno. Guess he’s just one of those guys.”

I guessed so. One of those gorgeous, model-perfect, Greek- God-on-a-mountaintop kind of guys with a fabulous mansion overlooking the ocean, who throws awesome parties with cutting-edge music and tables and tables topped with amazing food and mindblowing drinks. Yeah. One of those guys.

Now, that guy was holding Mindy tight while she regained her balance. But he wasn’t looking at her. Instead, he was looking right at me. There was something so familiar about his eyes. If I wanted to, I really thought I could float away in them.

Except part of me didn’t want to. Part of me thought that would be a very bad idea. There was something about him … something deep in his eyes…

“Allie!”

I started, the movement breaking eye contact. I’d been thinking something … worrying about something, and I glanced back at Mindy, but she was upright and holding hands with Carson and everything seemed hunky-dory.

I turned to Jeremy, confused.

“Hey,” he said. “Are you okay?”

“I…”

“You got this look. All worried and … I don’t know.” His brow furrowed. “You don’t want to leave, do you?”

That knocked me back to reality. “I thought about it,” I admitted. “My mom wouldn’t exactly approve.”

As far as Mom knew, the plan had been a movie followed by a sleepover at Parker’s house. (Parker is a girl, so that’s not as risqué as it sounds.) The boys, of course, were not invited to that part of the evening.

“Forget this crap,” Carson had said once we were safe inside the mall. “Tonight’s Marlin Wheatley’s party.”

“Who?” I’d asked, and they’d all looked at me like I was from Mars. Turns out, Wheatley’s some rich twenty-something computer bazillionaire who’d moved to the area a few months ago and has been talking up this party for ages.

“Why?”

Jeremy and Parker had looked at each other and shrugged. “Don’t know. Guess he wants to make sure people come.”

“But why throw it in the first place?”

“He’s a college drop-out geek. This is probably his way of meeting girls. Who cares, anyway? It’s a party.”

I probably could have said something, but I didn’t, and after about thirty minutes, we pulled up in front of the biggest house I’d ever seen. I had no idea where we were, other than that we were on one of the cliffs overlooking the Pacific in a mega-ritzy neighborhood I’d never seen before. Walking to the front door, I could smell the ocean, and the lights of the house seemed magical against the black night sky.

At that one moment, I had absolutely no hesitation about blowing off the movie and sneaking off to a party.

Inside, when I’d smelled the alcohol in the punch and saw the guy I share a lab table with in biology barf into a potted plant, the second thoughts set in.

Still, there was nothing inherently bad about a barfing lab partner, right? Just because he drank too much didn’t mean I would. And I couldn’t deny the biggest, most glaring fact of all — I really liked the way Jeremy was looking at me. If I was a widdle girl who made a phone call to her mommy, would he ever look at me that way again?

“Earth to Allie,” he said. “Come on. Don’t do that to me. Tell me you don’t want to leave.”

“No,” I said, not realizing until that moment that I was certain. “I don’t want to leave.”