Tremble (Denazen #3)(86)
Uh, yeah. Like I would dignify that with a response. At this point, Lisa’s friendship was less of a choice than a fact of life. It worked out well—kind of symbiotic, actually. I beat up anyone who messed with her, and she made sure my homework got done. Fair trade, right? Honestly, if not for Lisa’s constant nagging, I’d probably still be crouched in our kindergarten sandbox eating glue and playing with Neferet demons.
“Are you even listening to me?” She prodded me annoyingly in the shoulder.
I swatted her away. “Look, if it means that much to you, I can ask Keller Eastman. I’ll probably get herpes from holding hands with him and die a miserable, humiliating death…but for you, Lisa, it’s worth it.”
“Amelie Lane Bennett.” She gave me that look—the one she reserves for small children and people who wear white after Labor Day. “You need to take this seriously. Guardian bond assignments go up at the end of the year. It doesn’t matter how pretty you are, or how well you fight, or even how perky your boobs have gotten since last summer.”
I frowned and shifted my ladies so they tucked benignly against the concrete wharf ledge. “Can we leave my boobs out of this?”
“I don’t know, can we? I mean, look at you! Stained sweats, holey T-shirt, no makeup. And…this.” She flicked a clump of sweaty red hair poking out the rubber band at my neck. “You have so much potential, Ami. Must you waste it?”
“Lisa!” I grumbled. “Focus! This is life and death we’re dealing with.”
“I know it’s life and death,” she insisted. “There’s nothing more crucial than this dance.”
“Oh, for the love of—”
“I’m just saying, your mom had a great bloodline, but there’s no guarantee you’ll carry it. And with your parents’ history…” She trailed off, too polite to finish the sentence. “You’re lucky they let you stay at St. Michael’s after your mom died. I mean, you could easily have wound up in residential. Or worse, the human sector. Would it kill you to play by the rules occasionally?”
“Would it kill you to mind your own beeswax?”
“Probably,” she admitted.
I tried to concentrate on the sorority girl, but Lisa’s accusation drilled into me. Loathsome though it was, she had a point.
When my parents, Bud and Charlotte Bennett, abandoned the Guardian Community seventeen years ago, they’d tried to pretend things were normal. Not easy, since my dad had been labeled a defector and my mom a traitor to our mission. I suspect they planned to lie to me indefinitely—you know, ignore the fact that our family was about as human as the Loch Ness Monster’s. They’d put me in a human preschool, hid the broadswords and spellbooks, let me have human friends…right up until the day I channeled our kindergarten class turtle into the demon realm.
Thus began my career at St. Michael’s Guardian Training Academy.
My parents enrolled me mid-year with the understanding that I would be properly trained, sheltered from harm, and, most importantly, they would never hear another word about “the war on demonkind.” That denial lasted two years—the exact amount of time it took Mom to get shredded by a demon at a holiday PTA event. Merry Christmas, right?
I suspect Bud still awakens each morning with the faint hope I’ll transform into some tree-hugging, dirt-loving hippie daughter he can be proud of. I, by contrast, awaken each morning with a nasty urge to kill things.
Demonic things.
Big black flappy things, little green squirmy things… We don’t talk about it. It’s one of many topics we don’t talk about.
I lowered the extra binocular lens and tipped up my night goggles.
“Lisa, this is the third night in a row we’ve staked out this location. And the third night you’ve spent driveling about Watchers and bonds and dances. I know it’s important to you, but I need you to respect that this mission, sanctioned or not, is important to me. We’re technically at war here. Professor D’Arcy’s body was discovered not thirty feet from where we sit, and I, for one, am interested in finding out who killed him. Now, are you going to help me or not?”
She squinted her eyes, contemplative. I could practically see the thoughts processing in her head, the gravity of the situation weighing in. Finally, she spoke.
“What about Lyle? He still likes you. And he was at the top of class rankings last year. Any girl would be lucky to land him as a bondmate.”
“You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
“Nope.”
I gave a weary sigh. Seriously, the girl was like a dog with a giant wad of beef jerky. “Lis, I’d rather die a cat lady than go out with Lyle Purcell again.”
“There’s an idea. You could borrow Brutus for the gala,” she mused. “You might get a hairball off the goodnight kiss, but his kitty carrier would make a nice accessory.”
“You’re hilarious. Now shut up.”
I flipped the goggles back down and kept scanning the horizon. A good thing, too. Sorority Sally had collapsed, giggling, against a wrought iron bench, head lolled back and throat bared like the cover of a Gothic romance novel. I guess the greasy homeless dude napping two benches down must’ve had a thing for Gothic romances. As soon as he heard the giggle, he pried open a bloodshot eye, emptied his rum bottle, and hauled himself vertical. Streaks of dirt clung to his coat and his shoulder-length hair dripped with sweat as he staggered toward the girl.