I sat on the floor next to Eugene, and took Intro to Demonology out of his lap, the book I thought I wouldn't touch before January exams. Well, maybe passing would be easier now that we've experienced most of the subjects on our skin.
"As I said," Amma stood in front of the blackboard, the beige cotton dress falling to her knees, "The rules are simple. We're brainstorming, there are no bad ideas. We're just throwing stuff that we come up with on the board and figuring out later why it might not be correct."
Dean brought coffee from the cafeteria in the girls' dorm and the smell overwhelmed the room in the best way possible. I crossed my legs on the floor and flipped a few pages.
"Alright, what do we know?" Morta sat on Amma's bed.
"White magic hasn't worked against the black ooze." I said. "And the origin of the ooze is demonic."
Eugene "There is literally nothing in this book or Advanced Demonology that suggests white magic doesn't work against demons."
"Maybe they're special demons." Leon inhaled and held the smoke in his lungs as he spoke, "Great, big demons that are immune to all magic."
Morta put strong demons on the blackboard.
I glanced at Leon, "You're joking, but it might very well be true."
He exhaled, "Everything I say is both true and ironic."
"So deep, such wisdom." I murmured.
"Oh, quit it." Bella looked up from her bright pink toenails. "If you two continue to talk to each other, I'll leave this fucking room."
I raised my eyebrow, "I don't even want you here, Bells."
She rolled her eyes so far back I thought they'd get stuck.
"But white magic is weaker than black magic when it comes to demons, right?" Dean asked, setting the platter with coffee on the table and pouring it into our cups.
"Not necessarily." Eugene stood up, walked to the blackboard, and spread out his hand, demanding the chalk from Morta. "Magic works against all magic." He wrote.
"Okay, sure, but we've never killed a demon." Morta said. "How can we be sure anything works against them?"
"We have banished them." Eugene said. "And captured them."
My eyebrows jumped up, "Captured them?"
"Oh, yes." Dean handed a cup of coffee to everyone. "Eugene and I dug out a book called Scientific Method of Inverse Summoning."
"Ugh." Morta grimaced. "I wonder why no one's ever read that."
"It explains the process of catching a demon." Dean sat back on the floor.
"It's also from the eighteenth century." Eugene added. "So, I'd take it with a grain of salt."
I took a sip of coffee, savouring the taste, "What does it say?"
"Lists all the ingredients." Dean shrugged. "The whole process. It also says they had to banish it immediately after catching it because they only managed to keep it still for a few minutes."
"Awesome." Leon murmured, his voice annoyed.
I glanced back at him, "Like you care about any of this."
He grinned, "You're just trying to pick a fight with me."
"No, she's trying to convince us that she hates you."
I met Morta's tight-lipped smile, and offered a mean stare.
"We're approaching this from a wrong direction." Amma said suddenly, her eyes on the blackboard, which now read strong demon, all magic works against all magic, demons cannot be killed, and Leon is a demon.
We were acing this brainstorming thing.
"We're focusing on what's wrong with the demons." Amma continued, circling the word magic, "I think we should focus on what's wrong with our magic."
For a second, silence ruled Amma's room.
"My magic works fine." Eugene broke it first. "Dean?"
The dark-haired boy raised his head from the cup of coffee in his hand, "Yeah, it works fine. Haven't had any issues since the start of the semester."
The rest of us mumbled the same thing. Magic worked fine, as far as we knew. Neither those with affinities nor those without had any issues.
Amma sucked in her lower lip, frustration knitting her red eyebrows closer together.
"This makes no sense." She faced the blackboard again. "There is no reason why our magic would fail against the demon. Absolutely no reason. It's never happened before."
Out of habit, I touched my wrist. The idea popped in my head immediately.
I sucked in a sharp breath, "Amma..."
The girl faced me, gaze full of expectation.
"Where are demons?" I asked.
She kept staring at me. The rest of the room faced me too.
"Not here." Eugene said, voice careful. "Like spirits, you know?"
"So, they're somewhere else?" I looked at the blonde boy.
"Yes." He answered. "If you're asking me where, I have no idea. Books don't mention it."
My heartbeat picked up the pace, "But they are capable of crossing over to here?"
"Yes." Eugene repeated, chocolate-coloured eyes still locked on me.
"Hypothetically, if the barrier between here and where they are disappeared, would they be stronger?"
Even Leon came closer to the middle of the room.
Eugene's eyes jumped across the carpet, and I could almost see all the books he's read and classes he's attended listing in front of him.
"Logically, yes."
"But we have no idea?"
"It's never happened before." Eugene's eyes narrowed slightly. "What do you know?"
I ignored him and looked at Amma instead, "The door opens when the sign completes."
She dropped the chalk on the floor, "I'm going to lose it. I'm losing it."
"Wait, wait." Morta walked to her and lifted the chalk, she began writing on the blackboard, "How is it possible to summon a demon if they can't even cross over to our side?"
In sloppy handwriting, she wrote demons not here, they're behind a door.
"I don't know." Eugene grunted and flipped through the pages of Advanced Demonology. "This book is fucking useless, all it says is the exact same things we've learned from Intro to Demonology."
"Sweet." Leon murmured. "Less studying."
I was one stupid comment away from throwing him out the window.
"Jade, what you've just said, about a door, what does it mean?" Dean asked in what was probably the politest possible way to ask why I hadn't shared everything.
I looked around the room. In theory, I had no problem sharing this with Eugene and Dean. They broke enough rules with Morta, Amma and me to be in shit just as deep as us if someone found out what we were doing. Bella flipped through a magazine, probably not even aware demons attacked the school at some point.
Leon was by far my biggest problem.
He returned to the window-sill and lit up another cigarette, wind gently blowing strands of his hair off his forehead. The position of the sun threw a shade over his blue eyes. He put his leg on the sill and smiled at me.
"You have to decide at some point whether you trust me or not."
"That's a resounding no."
His smile grew, along with the cockiness in his voice.
"Want me to take another truth serum?"
I choked on my own breath, memory of last night resurfacing in my head.
Bella cleared her throat, "What are you talking about, Leon?"
There was not a single thing I liked about Leon. Not his overconfidence, not his laziness, nor the fact he made every single moment I spent with him feel like a gamble.
"Leon?!" Bella repeated, her voice turning shrill.
He said nothing and held my gaze, smiling.
"Do you two need a moment?" Morta sounded annoyed.
"No." I looked away from Leon, unable to handle his gaze, and my attention shifted to the group. "I think there's something you need to know."
Just like that, gloom and doom returned to our midst.
"You sure?" Amma asked, chalk in hand, ready to probably draw a graph explaining everything.
I nodded, "We're in this together, right?"
The group murmured their yeses.
I took in a deep breath and pulled up my sleeve, revealing the pentagram. The two filled points stared at me, reminding me there was a clock ticking. A clock we could neither hear nor understand.
Eugene and Dean scooted closer to me, taking a look at the tattoo. Bella didn't bother.
"Ominous." Leon whispered behind me.
"The first point filled when that girl died. The second when the black ooze attacked."
It was the shortest, clearest way to explain it.
"We summoned a spirit." Morta took over. "Jade's grandmother. She clarified some things."
"The one that sold your soul to a demon?" Leon asked.
I fought hard not to grit my teeth, "She didn't sell my soul. Or anyone's."
"Also, I don't think demons trade in souls." Amma murmured.
"But, we don't really know what she did." Morta said.
"She said something concerning though." I stared at the tattoo. "When this sign completes, the door will open."
Eugene lay on the carpet and let out a miserable sigh, "Fuck my life."
"Yeah, mine too." Dean rubbed his temples. "I just realised I'm way too hungover to deal with this shit."
Leon sat on the floor and leaned against his knees.
"Does Thar know?"
Him mentioning Thar wasn't a surprise, but the smugness or annoyance I expected was lacking from his voice. This was a genuine question.
"He knows about the pentagram, but he doesn't know about the alleged door." I answered, wondering whether I should have told him and what he would have done if I had told him.
"You're thinking the demons are getting stronger because... something is opening a door for them to pass through." Dean used the word something carefully.
We knew it was sooner a someone.
"Even if the demons are getting stronger, this shouldn't make them completely immune to white magic." Eugene pulled his upper body off the carpet until he was sitting.
"It might." I argued. "When was the last time someone actually had to fight a demon?"
"Goddess, decades ago." Dean muttered.
"We have to know for certain." I rubbed the pentagram on my wrist with my thumb. "Before all the points are full."
Leon cleared his throat, "There's only one way to find out."
My gaze snapped to him, "I see we're contributing now that our ass is on the line."
"There's not much I wouldn't do for your ass, Montgomery."
My smugness disappeared.
"Oh, my Goddess, Leon!" Bella shouted. "Can you be more of a perv?"
"Shut up." Morta grunted. "Unless you have something meaningful to add to the conversation, just shut the fuck up. All three of you."
Before shame could flood me completely, Leon continued.
"I say we go into the eastern wing and take a sample of the black ooze."
"The eastern main hall is sealed off until the Headmaster returns." Eugene said.
"The Headmaster is dead." Leon said.
"Excuse me?"
"What? How?"
I looked at Eugene and Dean, "Long story, one that involves way too much of Leon."
"I heard the black ooze is still alive in there." Leon's lips spread into a smile. "We snatch it and study it. Well, you study it. I don't have time for that."
"How are we supposed to snatch it, genius?" Morta retorted.
"You said it yourself." Leon looked at Eugene. "You found a book about capturing a demon. I bet everything you need is in Lorenia's garden behind the library."
As soon as his suggestion began morphing into an actual plan, the voice of reason in our study group interjected.
"No, no, no." Amma shook her head. "That's way too risky. What if it attacks and kills us? Or worse!"
Morta glanced at her sideways, "Worse?"
"We might get caught!" Amma hissed.
"Not if we're dead." I muttered.
"How hard can it be to sneak into a room without being noticed?" Leon leaned back against his hands. "There are seven of us. Three are enough to catch the black ooze. Four can have their eyes on the teachers at all times."
Amma shook her head, "No, that's too much magic being used at the same time. Especially if we need Jade to use black magic. They'd notice. We'd need a diversion, a big one."
"Party-scale big?" Leon raised his eyebrow.
"You'd need a huge party." Morta tapped her foot against the floor, clearly more into this plan than she'd like to admit. "And our student numbers are dropping."
Leon snickered, "I hear Winston Academy students are transferring here. It's only polite to throw a welcome party."
I buried my head in my hands and grunted, "We're doing this, aren't we?"
"I think we are." Eugene mumbled.
"Oh, yes, we are." Morta let out a laugh.
"This is a horrible idea." Amma said, but still scribbled onto the blackboard in clear, cursive writing.
How to catch a demon in three steps.