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

to summon me specifically. It was that ring. My line’s had a weakness for it since Solomon summoned my sire. Can’t tell you how glad I am the fucking thing’s gone.”

“Is that why you destroyed it? So it couldn’t be used against you again?”

The demon shrugs. “I didn’t know that would happen. She musta put part of her soul in the ring. When I took her, the backlash fried it.”

When he ate her soul, he means. “None of her soul is still in the ring, is it?”

“Nope, it’s all mine now.” The shark’s grin.

I swallow hard, nearly choking on a piece of sausage. “Is she really in Hell?”

The demon lifts a dark eyebrow as he steals another piece of sausage off my plate. I glance pointedly at the half-full serving dish between us. He ignores my glare and rubs the bit of sausage over the tip of his tongue before he answers. “Spicy. You keep askin’ like I’m gonna give you a different answer.”

“Hope springs eternal.”

“Not in Hell.”

I start to snap a smart reply, but, just for a second, there’s something in those dark eyes, a moment of bleakness, that makes me moderate my response. “What’s it like? Hell, I mean?”

“Which part?” He takes another forkful of sausage.

I didn’t know there were different parts. “Whatever part you’re from.”

“Dis. Dark. Smelly. Pits of fire. Rivers of ash. Lots of screaming. You’ll love it.”

I shrug off his sarcasm. “Why would you want to go back to that?”

“It’s home.” The demon takes a drink of sangria and I watch his Adam’s apple bob. My belly tightens. “Where I hang my horns. Same reason you bought yourself a place an’ settled down.”

“What do you mean?”

“I looked through your still picture books today. You were a cute kid. I particularly liked the ones where you’re missing your front teeth.” I wince at the memory. Both of my front teeth were knocked out while I was playing ball with my older cousins. My Dala refused to fix them to teach me a lesson and they took forever to grow in. My cousin Stefan teased me about it for years. “Every picture’s in a different place. An’ none of you standing in front of a house with flowers an’ a white picket fence.”

I frown at this fresh invasion of my privacy. But in comparison to his invasion of my mind, I suppose it’s a small violation. “We moved around a lot,” I say uncomfortably.

I try not to think about those years. The years right after my parents died. When I went to live with my Dala in her little caravan and we moved from Maine to Mexico and back every year. Following the sun. Following the carny circuit.

The demon shifts his legs under the table until he captures my ankle between his. “What about now? Don’t you ever hear the call of the road?”

“No.” I don’t even like having to go long distances. At first, I loved traveling. Loved sitting beside my Dala with the sun warm on my face and the wind in my hair while the blacktop unrolled in front of us. The first sight of the next new town on the horizon. The smell of hay and popcorn, and the sounds of the circus penetrating our little caravan at night to fill my dreams. The shy excitement of the local children waiting to get into the bigtop; seeing their eyes widen at the first sight of the clowns and elephants.

But that was before I saw the truth of it. Before I was old enough to understand what people in their houses with the flowers and fences think of people who live on the road. Before I realized that those shy, excited children would never be my friends. That I would never go to their schools, never play in their parks. Before I understood what words like ‘tramp’ and ‘vagrant’ meant.

“Not much of a gypsy, are you?”

“It’s Roma and no, I’m not.” At least, my cousins don’t think so.

We eat in silence for minute. He rubs the toe of his boot up and down my calf, the faint squeak of leather on leather drowned in the restaurant’s hubbub. “You’re lookin’ pensive. What’re you thinkin’ about, witchy-poo?” he asks.

He could crack open my thoughts and see for himself. That he doesn’t makes me answer him truthfully. “Being alone.”

I was never alone when I was with my Dala. There was always someone around. Even when my grandmother was busy, there were my aunts and uncles and cousins. I had no home, but I was never lonely.

And then my talent manifested. To an extent that none of my relatives had ever seen before. To an extent that none of them, not even my Uncle Billigoat, the strongest talent of his generation, could control. So my Dala packed up the caravan again and the blacktop unrolled one last time as we drove north. Far, far north. First to Wydlins, the ‘special’ girl’s school where I learned to channel the adolescent confusion and anger that had brought down the bigtop. And then over the border to Bevington College where I studied the theory behind the practice I had learned at Wydlins. Where I met Rowena. And where my Dala’s winter cough turned into the deadly pneumonia that neither I nor the gorgio doctors could cure.

So now I live alone. In the house that I’ve made for myself. With flowers in the yard. And a white picket fence if I ever bothered to install it. Where my living relatives will never come, because they don’t understand why I’ve settled ‘in the brick.’ Where I’ve drawn and anchored the ghosts of my ancestors. And where I’ve been perpetually lonely. “You wouldn’t understand,” I say.

“Try me.” The demon wipes his mouth and leans forward onto his elbows.

I look at him evenly. “What would you know about being lonely?”

“What several hundred years of servin’ humans who’ve treated me like a walkin’ talkin’ battery have taught me,” he responds.

“Oh.” Jarred out of my self-pity, I