My Life As a Teenage Zombie

In Full Bloom

"You little shit!" Leviathan screams, moving toward Si, who fires a few more bullets. They both miss, and the demon smirks as he turns Emily's hands into something reptilian and inhuman. I throw myself between them, and the claws dig into my sides.

I'd attack right back, but that would hurt Emily, and the demon knows this. He sticks his tongue out at me, then tosses me a good distance away. "Don't hurt her!" I yell as I fly through the air, trying to position my body so that I land on my feet.

"You don't need to tell me that," Si says, shooting at the ground to raise the sand. Leviathan raises his hands to block it, so I pull my phone out again and call Daniel. He picks up right away.

"Come here, but don't hurt her when you do."

As it turns out, Si doesn't need their help with this. He ducks below the demon's punch, then cuts his own palm and places it against Emily's stomach, all in a second's worth of time. "In the name of the God almighty, I order you to leave this vessel."

Leviathan screams again, this time in pain rather than anger, and starts walking backward. Si walks after him, cool as a cucumber, reciting a prayer. "No, don't!" the demon says, still backing away. "I can't go back there! I need his heart - please!"

"Begone from here forevermore," Si finishes, and Emily's mouth opens wide. A bright light leaves it, and her eyes glow as well, and then her body falls to the ground, its reptilian hands gone.

Si walks over to her, checks her pulse, then flips her on her side, and looks at me. "Mind telling me what a prince of hell was doing here?"

I don't mind at all, but there's a more pressing matter to attend to. I run toward Simon, then throw my arms around him. "I missed you."

He chuckles uneasily. "It's only been a few days."

"Too long!"

"Okay, Jo. You can let go now."

He can beg all he wants, but he's mine for at least another minute.

"People are watching."

I snap my head to the side, and see the Thorne twins standing there, Damien confused and Daniel amused. "By all means," Dan says, "carry on. I wanna watch."

And just like that, my desire not to let Si go is destroyed. "You ruined it."

"You're with them?" Si asks, eyeing them suspiciously. "Aren't they the bad kids?"

"They're also vampires, Si. If that's your biggest issue..."

He scratches the back of his neck, looking away. "Guess I'm just used to that sort of stuff. So, um, about Leviathan-"

"A prince of hell?" Damien asks, surprised. "Here?"

Daniel's mouth hangs open. "No way."

"How'd you know that was him?" I add. The demon only introduced himself to me, and that was before Si arrived.

"One of my gifts as an exorcist. We can see souls, and that was definitely Leviathan, hell's prince of envy."

"Y-You mean you... got rid of him...?" Daniel asks, looking unnerved. Was that a stutter I just heard? From one of them? Wow. The guy must've been huge.

"Not the first prince of hell I've dealt with," Simon admits. Hold up. Is he secretly a badass?

"Si," I tell him. "How cool are you in the exorcist community?"

He looks away, clearly embarrassed. Too bad. You're answering me. "I'm, uh, kind of a special case for them."

"How come?"