The Hearts We Sold(12)

SEVEN


T he demon moved through the chaos, unseen and unnoticed, until it came to a neighboring building. There was a side entrance, the kind kept locked from the outside, but it simply reached down and yanked the door open, vanishing inside.

Dee knew where that door led—the hospital basement.

Because of course it did.

Her heart jolted up into her throat. “Couldn’t have lurked on the roof,” she said aloud, just to hear her own voice. If she sounded normal, she could fool herself into believing this was normal.

Dee paused, gathered herself. And stepped through the door, letting it click shut behind her.

This building’s basement defied cliché. It wasn’t dark, creepy, or dirty. Rather, its cinder-block walls were kept free of cobwebs by the ever-diligent janitorial staff. Dee had been here once before, when an orderly needed extra cleaning supplies. The basement was mostly storage, although there were a few abandoned areas that might have doubled as classrooms. White paint flecked off the ceiling. Down here, the shouts and noise were gone; it was utterly and painfully silent.

Dee tried to walk quietly, but doing so in flip-flops was all but impossible. Her fingers were tight on the strand of yarn, and she held it like a talisman, as if it could lead her to the demon. There were stories about this sort of thing—heroes entering mazes with enchanted balls of yarn. But then it was to kill an evil monster, never to make an ally of it.

She glanced in every open doorway, into rooms full of folding chairs and buckets and mops. She tried a few locked doors.

Then she saw a figure in one of the storage rooms. It stood with its back to her, lit up by the pale white of the industrial fluorescents.

It wasn’t the demon.

When he turned, she saw he was definitely human, a man or a boy, or something in between.

His mouth was hooked upward in a sly smile, as if he’d been caught doing something he knew he wouldn’t be punished for. His eyes were blue—not the unnatural brightness of the demon, but an honest, human blue—and his jaw had a sharp edge. He slouched a little. His features wouldn’t have been considered handsome by themselves, but when put together, somehow they made him look good.

For a moment, Dee felt herself flush—and then she saw his clothes.

Jeans with holes in the knees, badly worn shoes, and a secondhand parka. Do people actually wear parkas in Oregon? she thought wildly.

She went hunting for a demon and found some homeless boy instead. The demon must have stepped into one of those locked rooms and left her to blunder on ahead.

Dee and the homeless guy regarded each other for a moment.

“You’re not heartless, are you?” he said, and Dee had no idea how to answer. Was this his way of asking for a handout?

“Um, no,” she said. “Sorry, but you’re not supposed to be here.”

He blinked at her. “What?”

She tried to think of a tactful way to answer. “I know it’s warm,” she said hesitantly, “but you’re not supposed to come down here. There’s a shelter a few miles away—I can tell you how to find the bus stop, give you a little money for it—”

Footsteps rang out and before Dee could react, another guy, probably only a little older than the homeless one, thudded down the hall. He had the blunt, hard-edged face Dee had come to expect from high school jocks. He carried himself with a kind of arrogant assurance. But none of that swagger reached his expression—he smiled at the pair of them like they were all old friends.

“Lancer, you sad bastard,” he said fondly, directing a look at the homeless boy. “How many times have people tried to hand you spare change this week?”

The homeless one said, “Counting this time? Three. I don’t see why.”

The jock snorted. “I know you can afford a mirror. Or do you just not care what you look like?”

The homeless boy looked at himself, as if surprised to see clothes there. “My last mirror went into a multimedia piece.”

The jock rolled his eyes. “He’s not actually homeless,” he said, finally directing his words toward Dee. “He just dresses like it.” He turned so that he fully faced her. “You new?”

“Not unless the Daemon’s started recruiting rich prep school kids,” said Not-Homeless. His gaze was fixed on the Brannigan logo on her shirt.

“I’m not a rich prep school kid,” she said. “I’m—I—” She floundered, unsure of what to say.

“Lost?” asked the jock, not unkindly.

“No,” said Dee. “You—do you know there’s a fire outside?”

“Yep,” said Not-Homeless, not sounding the least bit worried. “And that’s a good thing.”

She gaped at him.

“As long as that building burns,” said the boy, “no one will come looking down here.”

She found her words again. “Who are you?”

“James Lancer,” said Not-Homeless. His name didn’t quite fit him. It sounded straightforward, and this young man looked about as off-kilter as they came. “And this upstanding individual is Carroll Medina.”

“Cal,” said the second boy, a little despairingly. “Everybody calls me Cal. And you are…?” He squinted at Dee.

“Looking for someone,” said Dee. She put her hands on her hips and tried to appear imposing, if only so she wouldn’t feel so flustered. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen—I don’t know, um, a…?” She hesitated, unsure of whether or not to reveal her secret.