She looked between me and Jared. “You two,” she said. “And your dad. You guys are on deck to save the world.”
“Again,” Ren said with a grin. He’d come into his own on the fighting side of things last year, his lean frame giving him an advantage. Not to mention years of living on the street after his parents had been killed by demons when he was six.
I hadn’t known that he and Ana had started seeing each other, but I had to admit they fit.
At that thought, I snuggled closer to Jared, feeling a tiny stir of pain for Mindy—my bestie—and Eliza—my cousin—, neither of whom had somebody at the moment.
“So what do we do about this signature demon dude?” Eliza asked. The leather wrist cuffs she always wore to hide some pretty nasty battle scars caught the dim light as she shifted.
I shrugged. “We do what Mom assigned everyone to do. Laura’s checking her contacts. My dad’s researching the mark. Cutter’s on security. And we wait, I guess. Try to figure out what it means before whatever’s coming actually gets here.”
“I’m already on the forums,” Mindy said, her fingers flying across her keyboard. “At least the ones I visit regularly. DemonSlayer666 is offline, but there are some old threads about signature marks.”
“DemonSlayer666,” Ana repeated.
“He’s very knowledgeable,” Mindy said earnestly.
“You’re taking demon advice from someone whose only knowledge of demons probably comes fromBuffyandSupernatural.”
“They’re knowledgeable,” Mindy repeated, already typing furiously. “We’re not the only ones fighting the good fight.”
She had a point, and I had to smile. Even when the world was falling apart, I could count on Mindy to make everything feel slightly less apocalyptic.
“The new kids arrive tomorrow,” Ren said. “Anyone else think the timing’s suspicious?”
Ana shrugged. “Everything is suspicious now. A butterfly could land on the windowsill, and I’d assume it was a demon spy.”
“Demons don’t slide into insects,” Mindy said absently, still typing. “What would be the point? They’re basically just navigation systems with wings attached.”
She was right. Most of the time, demons are justthere, floating around us in the ether, which is kind of gross when you think about it. But they all want to be human—to experience all those lovely pleasures of the body. I sighed, leaning against Jared. Can’t blame them for that.
But because they want it so much, demons keep an eye out and slide into the body of the unfaithful at the moment of death, right as the soul leaves the body. They can—but hardly ever do—take over the body of someone faithful. Those souls fight. And since the whole point is that demons desperately want experience all our human-y emotions, insects aren’t exactly on a demon’s preferred body list.
“There have been a few recorded instances of demons taking over a hamster,” Mindy added. We all just gaped.
“What? It was in the reading for Mom’s class last term.”
“You actually do the reading for your mom?” Ren asked.
“I doallthe reading. How do you think I found out about the forums?”
“Whatever,Hermione,”Ren said. “But seriously, what door was that prophecy talking about? And how do we know for sure it’s meant for one of you two?” He looked between Jared and me. “Or your dad,” he added, his attention still on me.
I shrug. “We don’t for sure. Not yet. And trying to figure out what the prophecy means before we have more information is just going to make us crazy.”
“Too late,” Mindy said without looking up from her laptop. “I’ve been crazy since I found out demons were real and my bestfriend had been fighting them while I thought we were just doing homework and obsessing about boys.”
That got a weak laugh from the group. We’d all had versions of that moment—the before and after that divided our lives betweennormalandwhatever the hell this is.
“We should try to sleep,” I said, even though I knew none of us would. “Tomorrow’s going to be brutal.”
The group dispersed slowly, everyone drifting toward their rooms with mumbled goodnights. Except for Mindy, who was clearly waiting to chat. Jared lingered, too, his hand still on my shoulder.
“You okay?” His voice was soft.
“Not really. But I will be.”
He studied my face for a long moment, then nodded. “I should let you get some rest.” He glanced at Mindy, who was making a very poor show of being absorbed in her laptop. “Night, Mindy,” he said, before brushing a kiss over my lips.
