Neon Blue E Frost (speld decodable readers .TXT) 📖

easy way and the hard way? The easy way is that you’re standin’ outside in that fucking ugly coat when I get there. And the hard way—”

I don’t want to hear what the hard way involves. “I get the picture.”

“Good. See you in ten.”

How he intends to get from Porter Square to Government Center in ten minutes, I don’t know. Maybe he’ll get pulled over for speeding. Here’s hoping that Boston’s finest are on my side for once.

“Fine,” I say and hang up the phone.

Reluctantly, I close up the office and retrieve my fall coat from the hall closet. It’s not ugly. Well, not very ugly. It’s army surplus from the Goodwill store on Mass. Ave.: olive green wool, and warm as toast. Not very stylish, though, I have to admit. I shrug it on self-consciously and cuddle it around me while I wait for the demon.

He pulls up exactly twelve minutes later.

“You’re late,” I say sourly when he rolls down the driver’s side window.

“You’re impressed. Admit it.”

I roll my eyes and remain leaning against the locked front door of the clinic. “Whose car did you steal?” I don’t recognize it. I hope he hasn’t taken one of my neighbor’s cars.

The demon gives me an innocent look, ruined by the strange shadows the streetlights cast into the car and the electric gleam of his eyes. “Steal? I inherited this.” His teeth glitter in the streetlights. “Gotta give the dead bitch this, she had good taste.”

The car is sleek and silver and looks very expensive. Very Rowena. “She’d be delighted to hear that, I’m sure,” I say.

“She’d be delighted to hear anything other than her own screams at this point,” he says. “Stop fucking around and get in.”

I shudder and plod over to the car. He reaches across and opens the passenger door for me. A polite demon. Perfect.

I sink into the seat. The smell of leather rises around me. The demon puts the car into gear and pulls smoothly away from the curb.

“Is she really?” I ask when the silence stretches and I can’t think of anything other than Rowena screaming as her soul is violated over and over again.

“Really what?” the demon responds, without taking his eyes off the road.

“Is she really in Hell?”

The demon grunts. “Why d’you care? She tried to kill you.”

“She’s my friend . . . or she used to be.” I shrink deeper into my seat. “Is she in Hell?”

“You can ask her yourself when we get there.”

I turn away and stare out the window at the passing buildings. “Screw you.”

We drive in silence over the Charles and through Cambridge. The demon navigates the back streets like he’s done it a thousand times. He even makes the correct turn through Harvard Square, weaving through the college students who clot the sidewalks and spill carelessly into the road. I grind my teeth in irritation. Driving in Boston is a trial. I had a hundred near misses before I lost my license. The demon makes it look easy.

“Why d’you want to know what kind of demon I am?” he asks suddenly as we head up Mass. Ave.

His question jerks me back to attention. “No particular reason.”

“Thought you’da figured it out by now,” he says.

That makes me feel particularly stupid. I wish I’d paid more attention in my Supernatural Creatures tutorial. Professor Uela would not be proud. “I told you, you’re my first demon.”

He shakes his head. “The dead bitch had you all wrong, didn’t she? You’re more of a threat to yourself than you were to her.”

I twist around to glare at him. “Stop calling her that. She had a name, Rowena Martin—”

He meets my glare; his eyes flash neon. “Yeah? I wouldn’t know. I got the wheel if I called her anything other than ‘my beloved Mistress.’”

“Why did she summon you, anyway?” I cry, feeling all the grief and shock and hurt at Rowena’s betrayal and death well back up. “She can’t have needed you just to get to Andrew Smith.”

The demon raises an eyebrow, then pulls the car over into an empty parking space at the side of the street. “How fucking stupid are you?” he asks.

I turn my face away.

When I don’t answer he continues, “You think all the dead bitch was doing with the power she stole from me was snarin’ some frat-boy politician? Or that he was her only hump?”

I rub my throbbing temples. My fingers are cold. “I don’t know.”

“Well, here’s a thought. Before you go head-to-head with someone, find out as much as you can about them. Know thy fucking enemy.”

I fume in silence. I’ll remember that.

“If you’d bothered to find out anything about your old ‘friend’ before you delivered yourself to her door like a piece of sushi, you’da known she was screwing half the movers and shakers in the city.”

“Sushi!” I have no idea what he means, but it’s clearly not meant to be a flattering comparison.

“Yeah,” he scoffs. “All wrapped up and ready to be eaten.”

I glare at the darkened storefronts beyond the car window. “She told me she dreamed of world domination.”

“I can believe it. She was settin’ herself up for something big. She barely had a flicker of power, even with the ring, but she knew how to use it.” The demon twists his hands on the steering wheel. The leather scrunches. “An’ then there’s you. You don’t need the ring. You glow so bright it’s like staring into your sun. But you don’t have the first fucking clue how to use what you got.”

“I can think of several ways I’d like to use whatever I’ve got.” All of them involve stuffing him back into whatever pit he crawled out of.

“That’s it,” the demon says. His voice drops to a deep, rough purr. “When you get angry you flare like a supernova.”

I snort. “Too bad you don’t burn.”

“Yeah?” He turns in his seat to face me. “Try me.”

God, I’d like to. I want to so badly my hands start shaking. I clench them together in