Sarah Brennan: The Demon's Covenant

“I’ve been all right,” said Alan. “What’s going on with Gerald, Jamie?”

“He hasn’t hurt me,” Jamie told them very quickly. “He came to me after school about—a couple of weeks ago. I was scared, but he didn’t hurt me, and he said he wasn’t going to. He just wanted to talk to me. I didn’t want to, but what else was I supposed to do, go running to Mae after everything she’d done? Call you guys?”

“You could’ve called,” Alan assured him. His voice was warm enough to strike a grateful smile from both Jamie and Mae.

“Oh yes,” Nick said. “Call anytime. I love to chat.”

“He really did just want to talk. I didn’t want anyone else to get involved. I didn’t want to risk Mae getting hurt,” said Jamie. “It’s not that I trust him. I don’t trust him. I know he hurts people, but he was being reasonable. All he asked was for me to hear him out, and I thought that if I did there was a chance he’d just go away.”

“You should have known magicians only want one thing,” Nick said. Jamie abruptly flushed scarlet. Nick smirked and went on, “To recruit you for their magical army of darkness.”

Jamie nodded cautiously. “I said no. I’m still saying no. It’s all under control.”

“Yeah, it’s all totally under control,” Mae burst out. “I saw you in that alleyway, and your new friend froze me before I could say a word or move a muscle. Like someone getting their dog to sit or pressing pause. Like I was a thing .”

Jamie looked at her with wide-eyed concern, but Mae wasn’t ready to forgive him yet. She looked away and her eyes found Nick, still standing apart from them all, still looking out the window. His thumb was casually hooked in the loop of his jeans, and as she looked at his hand resting against his thigh, she noticed something new: He was wearing a silver ring. She could see there were shapes carved in the silver but not what they were, and she was a bit surprised. Nick had never struck her as the jewelry type.

Like it mattered. Like she’d ever really known anything about him at all.

“I’m sorry, Mae,” Jamie said in a small voice. “He doesn’t really think that—that non-magical people are as important as magicians. It’s not his fault, exactly. He started doing magic when he was really young, and his family was terrible to him about it, and then the magicians came for him when he wasn’t much older than ten and he was so grateful, he felt so rescued , he believed everything they believed. It doesn’t mean—”

“That he’s a bad person?” Nick asked. “He kills people. Now I’m no expert, but doesn’t that make you a bad person?”

Jamie glared at Nick. “You’ve killed a lot more people than he has. What does that make you?”

“Not a person,” Nick murmured, not sounding particularly interested. “Surely you remember.”

There was a short and extremely uncomfortable silence.

“If you’re not a magician,” said Alan, quiet and thoughtful, to all appearances entirely unconscious that anyone might be feeling the least bit awkward, “then how did you just do magic?”

“I’ve been practicing,” Jamie admitted. “Just a little. Gerald’s been teaching me some things.” He paused. “I’m sorry. I won’t—I won’t do it anymore.”

Jamie looked guilty, and it broke Mae’s heart, even if she was angry with him. He’d been born with these powers, and he’d hidden them from everyone for years. He’d even hidden them from her, and she hated that. She resented him for lying to her and making her feel stupid, and at the same time she hurt for him when he talked about doing spells as if he’d committed a crime.

Mae wanted to tell him he didn’t have to stop, but she wasn’t about to encourage this connection with Gerald.

Nick did not look terribly concerned about Jamie’s dilemma.

“I can sense the magic on you. This isn’t the trace of some little tricks you’ve been trying out. This is the real stuff.” He tilted his head, considering; Nick always seemed thoughtful rather than worried when people were afraid. “If you haven’t been doing any big magic,” he continued softly, “then someone’s cast a powerful spell on you. Curious about that at all?”

Jamie turned a nasty shade of white.

“Seems like your pal Gerald can’t be trusted,” Nick concluded. “I for one am shocked.”

“Let’s not start panicking when we don’t know for sure what’s going on,” Alan said reasonably. “It might be nothing. Not that I’m inclined to trust Gerald myself, which is why I thought it might be best to come back to Exeter and stay for a while until we do know what’s going on.”

“ I think it might be best to kill them all,” Nick said.

At the same time Jamie said, “You don’t have to do that for me.”

Alan decided that he was going to respond to Jamie. “It’s not a problem. We’re used to moving around, we want to help, and besides, the company’s good here.” He sent Mae a small smile. “Plus, it might be nice to settle somewhere for a while. Maybe Nick could even make some friends.”

Nick scowled out the window. “I have friends in Exeter already. I have—those people, you know, they hang around outside the bike sheds, they’re always hassling Jamie.”

“Those are some awesome dudes,” Jamie muttered. “Don’t let them get away.”

“You might try remembering just one name,” said Alan sharply. “Since they’re such good friends of yours.”

Mae straightened in her chair. She had never heard quite that tone in Alan’s voice before.

“Fine then,” Nick snapped, and directed a dark glance Jamie’s way. “Hey, Jamie. Want to be friends?”

Jamie looked extremely startled. “Um,” he said, and went a bit pink. “Um, all right.” He paused and added, “Friends don’t menace friends with giant terrifying swords, okay?”

Nick snorted. “Okay.”

“See, Exeter’s working out well already,” Alan said, sounding a little amused, and Mae thought she might have been imagining the note of tension in his voice before. “Jamie? Do you think you could make an appointment to see Gerald?”

Mae wondered if Jamie knew some sort of spell to get in touch with the Obsidian Circle, or if possibly Gerald had carrier pigeons.

“Well, sure,” Jamie said. “I have his phone number.” He hesitated for a moment and then said uneasily, “What—what are you planning to do to him?”

Gerald didn’t think that normal people were as important as magicians. He killed normal people and fed them to demons in order to get more magic, and still Jamie could seem worried about him, as if Gerald really was a friend.

Of course, Nick and Alan were her friends, and she knew what they were.

She’d thought of Nick as more than a friend, once, and she’d imagined that perhaps he felt the same way about her.

She had been wrong about that. All he’d been interested in was using her to spite his brother.

It didn’t matter that Nick had never cared. Mae had been interested when she’d thought he was a gorgeous guy whose strangeness she’d put down to the effects of living on the run from magicians. She wasn’t still interested now that she knew he was a demon, put into the body of a baby by the Obsidian Circle magicians and raised human, but a demon all the same; something otherworldly that preyed on her kind. It would be impossible.

She tore her gaze away from Nick, dark and silent at the window, to the friendly face of the guy who’d raised a demon and set him loose on the world.

“I just want to talk to him,” Alan said soothingly, eyes on Jamie’s face. “For now.”

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