The Boy Who Killed Demons: A Novel Page 12

  He stared bug-eyed at me, his thick lips turning downward into a frown making him look like a bullfrog. He knew then that I didn’t have the comic book in my possession and that I was planning to steal it.

  “You have it here by Saturday, or L’Occulto will be sold elsewhere by Sunday.”

  There was no point arguing with him. I was going to have to steal a comic book that was worth forty thousand dollars (I looked up the price when I got home), or L’Occulto Illuminato would be lost to me forever, and along with that, any chance I had of protecting Sally and understanding what these demons were up to and what I could possibly do to stop them. Ideas started percolating in my head how I was going to do this, and none of them made me feel particularly good. I nodded glumly at Dorthop and started towards the door. I took several steps but then had to stop. I had to ask him if he had read any of L’Occulto Illuminato. For a moment I didn’t think he was going to bother answering me, but then he shifted his gaze up to give me a cold, dead stare.

  “I don’t read any of that shit,” he said, “I just sell rare books. That’s all I do.”

  I didn’t know whether I believed him, but it didn’t matter if I did or not. I had two days to commit grand larceny and betray a friendship, and while I like to act like Wesley is only someone I pretend to be friends with to keep my parents off my back, since realizing what I have to do I’ve also had to admit that that’s not really true. The reality is that Wesley is a friend, and I hate what I’m going to have to do to him. Over the last few hours I’ve even come up with a plan of how I’m going to do it. It’s not foolproof by any means, but it’s the best I’ve been able to come up with.

  It’s eleven forty. My parents are probably fast asleep, but I’ll give it another hour before heading out. Earlier after school ended—when I was racing around like a crazy person looking for Sally and Devin—I placed a small piece of paper between the lock and door frame of one of the school’s side doors. If nobody discovered it, I should be able to get in the school that way. Then it’s a matter of using my burglar picks to see if I can get into the Administration office. It’s the only way I can think of to find out the demon Connor Devin’s address.

  Thursday, September 29th 1:50 AM

  THIS WILL BE A SHORT ENTRY. I HAVE THE DEMON CONNOR Devin’s home address.

  Devin shouldn’t even be going to school in Newton. He doesn’t live here—he lives in Waltham, but someone with some clout must’ve arranged it. Later I’ll have to visit each member of Newton’s school committee and see if any of them are demons. Much later, though, after I’ve dealt with far more pressing issues.

  Getting inside the school was easy. Nobody had found the door I had tampered with, and if the school had an alarm system, it was a silent one, and it didn’t bring any police. It took me all of three minutes to pick the lock for the administration’s office door and less than a minute to get into the locked file cabinets. And then all of another two minutes to get Devin’s address before racing out of there. The adrenaline rush of doing this has left me feeling like I’d chugged a couple dozen double espressos. There’s no way I’m going to be getting any sleep tonight, but that’s okay. I have a lot of extra Italian studying I need to do.

  Friday, September 30th 6:15 PM

  I POISONED WESLEY THIS AFTERNOON AND STOLE A FORTY thousand dollar comic book. But before I write about that, let me go back to yesterday.

  As I had expected, I was far too wired after breaking into my high school’s Administration office to consider sleeping, so instead I spent three hours pushing ahead in my Italian studies, and then two hours on the computer researching different ways to poison Wesley. I ended up with a list of reasonable options, and topping my list was psilocybin mushrooms. From reading about what the effects would be, it seemed like a good choice. It’ll make Wesley feel ill, but shouldn’t cause any long-term damage—plus, after looking around some more, I have a good idea about where I can buy some. There were other options for poisoning Wesley, but psilocybin mushrooms seemed like the safest bet for both of us.

  When seven o’clock rolled around, I left the house as if I was going to school, but I skipped the bus stop and took the subway into Boston instead. I had to try to find those mushrooms, which I did, but I also needed time to test them on myself to make sure they would work the way they were supposed to. Besides, after not sleeping, I would’ve been worthless at school. But even if I had slept a full night, and didn’t need to find a drug dealer, I still would’ve skipped school yesterday. I wasn’t up to seeing Sally after our last phone call.

  I took the subway to North Station, and from there walked to Charlestown and to a street corner where my research told me I’d be able to buy drugs. The area was pretty seedy, but after almost three years of dealing with demons, not much scares me, and within a half hour I’d bought myself a small bag of psilocybin mushrooms. The dealer was a half foot taller than me, rail thin, with a hollowness to his eyes and a feral look about him. From the way his eyes dulled to a glassy sheen, I knew he was sizing me up, trying to decide whether to attack and rob me instead of selling me his drugs, but the dullness faded as he came to the decision that that might not be the best course of action. Once I had a small baggie of dried mushrooms in my pants pocket, I walked back to North Station and took the subway home. I needed to take the mushrooms myself not only to better understand their effect and the portion that I would need to give Wesley, but to make sure they were genuine and that I hadn’t been ripped off by this guy. If I had, I’d move on to one of the other substances on my list, several of which I could buy at a hardware store.

  It was eleven o’clock when I got home to an empty house, and there was a phone message from the school to my parents to let them know that I hadn’t shown up that day. I erased the message. If they followed it up with a letter, I would take care of that, too.

  I picked out half the number of mushrooms that were recommended on the website I had found, ground them up into powder, added it to a glass of water, and drank it. Ten minutes later my stomach started cramping and I felt a chill, like I had a bad case of the flu, and over the next twenty minutes it only got worse. Then I started feeling the effects of the hallucinogenic. That was the one kink in my plan. I wanted Wesley to think he had caught the flu or had gotten food poisoning, but I decided the hallucinations wouldn’t matter. He’d have no idea about what he was given and he was such a dweeb, he’d probably think any hallucinations were because of a fever.

  For the rest of the day, I put on some music, lay on my bed, and felt the effects of the mushrooms. At some point Sally called me on my phone and left a message wanting to know if I had ditched school because of her, and if I had I should grow up. I didn’t want to talk to her then, but that wasn’t why I didn’t answer my phone. When I pulled it out, I saw all these different colored lights shooting out from it. It was pretty wild, and I was mesmerized by it.

  I was still high by the time my parents came home, and I was also hungrier than I could ever remember being in my life. I was so hungry that if they had plated a piece of raw steak or calf’s brains or any other disgusting type of meat, I would’ve scarfed it down without any hesitation. Fortunately my mom had picked me up some vegetable lo mein, and I forced myself to eat it at a normal pace instead of inhaling it like I wanted to. I don’t think my parents suspected that I was high. I think they were too wrapped up in their job and career discussions. If they did suspect anything, they didn’t let on.

  I don’t think I came down from that high until midnight. I decided I’d better give Wesley no more than half of what I took myself. Once I was sure my parents were asleep, I ground up a portion to give Wesley, put that in a plastic bag, then hid the rest of the mushrooms for later. I had plans for them.

  So that was what I did yesterday. Now for today. Well, you already know what I did, but here’s how it happened. First, I took the school bus this morning for the obvious reason that I needed to take the bus home after school. That was part of the plan. Ma
king sure I was on the bus home with Wesley.

  This morning Malphi was waiting at the stop looking every bit as battered as he had two days earlier. He was still avoiding eye contact with me, which was good, and things went without incident. When the bus came and we boarded, I bypassed Curt to sit next to Wesley and led him into talking about his latest comic book buys. I did this casually and without letting on to what I had in mind.

  I skipped homeroom. I still wasn’t up to seeing Sally. I also skipped the cafeteria at lunch for the same reason. The day dragged badly, and it didn’t make it any easier having the demon Connor Devin on my tail all day, but at least I lost him for forty-five minutes during lunch, and I needed that break badly. The only way I made it through the day without cracking up was to focus my thoughts on getting L’Occulto Illuminato into my hands.

  When school ended, I caught up with Curt and Wesley on the bus and again led Wesley into talking about his latest comic book buys. When we got off at our stop, I held my breath waiting for Wesley to invite me over to look at them. For a moment I didn’t think he was going to do it, which would’ve forced me to make the first move, which I didn’t want to do, but just as I was giving up hope he flashed me this sheepish grin and extended the invitation. I think I surprised him when I told him sure, why not. What Wesley did next caught me off guard. Curt was hanging around close by, and Wesley asked him if he wanted to join us. If Curt accepted, my plans would have been ruined. Fortunately, I’d managed to hurt his feelings by spending so much time talking comic books with Wesley that he dismissed the idea, claiming he wasn’t about to waste a Friday afternoon reading Dark Knight comics with a couple of geeks.

  The next big hurdle was Wesley’s mom and his sister, Allison. His dad made a lot of money—I’m guessing more than my parents combined, and his mom didn’t work. When I’d go over there she’d often hover around us, and that would’ve screwed everything up today. I wasn’t so much concerned about Allison. She was only ten and painfully shy, and she probably would’ve spent the time I was there hiding in her bedroom. Fortunately, neither of them were home.

  After we got to his house, we stopped off first in the kitchen, where Wesley brought out two glasses and a container of chocolate milk. The guy’s fifteen years old and he still drinks chocolate milk, but I held my tongue and didn’t mention how pathetic that was. I waited until he poured one glass, and then asked him if he could make me an espresso instead. Wesley blinked stupidly for a moment before telling me that he’s not allowed to have coffee.

  “That’s a shame,” I told him. I pointed out the espresso machine his parents had on the countertop, which cost at least as much as a Honda Civic. “You’re parents have a top of the line Nuova Simonelli. That’s about as good as it gets.”

  “I’m not making you an espresso,” Wesley said. “They’d kill me if I touched that. And they don’t want me drinking coffee.”

  “Again, that’s too bad, but my parents make me a double espresso every morning.”

  “I’m not touching the espresso machine. And neither are you.”

  “Fine,” I said, since I didn’t want an espresso anyway. I didn’t need to be more wired than I already was. “Can you check the fridge, maybe find me a soda?”

  Wesley made a face, but did as I asked. When he had the fridge open and his back turned to me, I slipped the dose of powered mushrooms into his chocolate milk and stirred it with my finger. I had the baggie put away and my finger dried off on my pants while he was still reciting the different soft drink choices. None of them were typical sodas like Coke or Mountain Dew but expensive, natural sodas. I told him I’d take a ginger beer. That’s what it was called—ginger beer, not ginger ale.

  It was maybe twenty minutes later, while we were sitting around Wesley’s room reading comic books—Wesley with the latest X-Men Legacy me with Hellboy—that Wesley started to shift around uncomfortably. He had gotten pale and drops of perspiration were beading along his forehead, and he was making a face like he had a stomach ache. I think he was too absorbed in his comic book to realize that he was in pain, but after a couple of more minutes he put down his X-Men and clutched his stomach.

  “I don’t feel too good,” he told me in a weak and trembling voice.

  Before I could say anything he scrambled to his feet and rushed out of the room, knocking over his glass and whatever was left of his chocolate milk. Once I heard what must’ve been a bathroom door slamming shut, I moved quickly. Wesley and his dad had shown me a number of times the ‘collection room’—a room on the first floor that had been converted to what looked like a small comic book store. I’d brought my burglar picks with me, as well as a pair of sheer leather gloves, and I took both of these out of my backpack and moved fast out of Wesley’s room. Once I was in the hallway I heard Wesley in the bathroom moaning and retching at the same time. I slipped on the gloves and nearly flew down the stairs taking several at a time. The door to the comic book room was unlocked and when I entered it I saw the shelves and turnstile displays that you’d find in any comic book store. Those shelves and displays weren’t where the first edition of Spider-Man was kept. I knew that from the time Wesley showed it to me. The rarest and most expensive comic books were locked away in the closet. It didn’t take me long to get the closet door open—the lock was easier to pick than the one for the high school’s administration office. Inside the closet were several large file cabinets. I remembered which one the Spider-Man comic book was in, and I had that unlocked quickly, too. Inside of it I found two comic books with Spider-Man on the cover, both in thick plastic bags and stiff cardboard for backing. Amazing Fantasy #15 was one of them—it showed Spider-Man swinging through the air holding a bad guy. The other one was what I had expected; the first edition of Spider-Man, which showed Spider-Man trapped inside of a glass casing with the Fantastic Four members surrounding him. I stood confused, not sure which one to take since the Amazing Fantasy had an earlier date stamped on it, but when I heard a car pulling into the driveway, I made my decision and placed the Amazing Fantasy comic back in the cabinet, locked it up, then locked the closet door. I was amazingly calm as I did all this and then raced out of the room with the first edition of Spider-Man tucked under my arm. As I made my way to the staircase leading to the second level, I caught a glimpse through the front window and saw Mrs. Neuberger and Allison walking up the path to the front door. I had no idea whether either of them saw me, but I also had no time to worry about it. Next I was sprinting up the steps two at a time. Wesley was still in the bathroom making retching noises, although now it sounded like he was sobbing with his retching instead of moaning.

  I had the stolen Spider-Man comic book stored away in my backpack and was back in the hallway knocking on the bathroom door and calling out to Wesley so that I would look concerned, all by the time Mrs. Neuberger opened the front door. She must’ve heard me because she yelled out in an alarmed voice, “Wesley, is that you?”

  She had ran to the staircase, and I could see her wide-eyed and frantic at the bottom of it staring up at me. “Mrs. Neuberger, it’s me, Henry Dudlow. Wesley and I were reading comic books when he got sick all of a sudden.”

  She was up the stairs fast after that, brushing past me, knocking on the bathroom door and calling out, “Wesley, dear, are you okay?” I was amazed at how much concern she showed. I doubted my mom would’ve been thinking of anything except how my being ill was inconveniencing her.

  A moan came from the bathroom in response, and Mrs. Neuberger didn’t wait any longer before opening the door. Wesley was sitting on the marble floor by the toilet, one arm hung loosely around the bowl. He turned to face his mom, his skin greenish, his eyes red and puffy. A thick strand of saliva and vomit hung from his mouth. “I don’t feel good,” he told her, his voice like a little kid’s.

  She helped him to his feet, washed off his face, and it was only as she was walking him out of there that she remembered I was there. “You better go home now, Henry,” she said, stiffly, as if she wer
e prescient enough to know that I was to blame for Wesley’s condition. I told Wesley that I hoped he felt better soon, then I got my backpack from his room and squeezed past him and his mom in the hallway so I could head downstairs and let myself out. If Mrs. Neuberger saw me through the window earlier, she didn’t say anything about it or ask me what I was doing downstairs. Allison was standing in the foyer. Like Wesley, she was small for her age and had a slight build. Mousy brown hair, small button nose, not very much chin. She stared at me fixedly as I made my way toward her so I could get out the front door.

  “What’s wrong with Wesley?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. He just got sick.”

  “Did you do something to him?”

  “No.”

  She gave me a look like she didn’t believe me. I pretended I didn’t notice it, got past her, and left the house.

  This all happened an hour and forty-five minutes ago. Over the last two days I’ve bought illegal drugs, poisoned a friend, and stolen a forty thousand-dollar comic book. You’d think after all this I’d be feeling anxious, or worried, or numb. That this would have some effect on me, especially with the way Mrs. Neuberger looked at me or the accusation Wesley’s little sister Allison threw out. Nope. I feel nothing but calm. I don’t want to say this was simply a matter of the ends justifying the means, or something else trite like that. This goes well beyond that. I didn’t ask for the responsibility that’s been dumped on me, and there’s no longer any running from it. When I tried, the demons made it personal by sending one of their own to spy on me in the form of Connor Devin, and now that they’re trying to drag Sally into it, I have no choice about what I have to do. I’m in it for the long haul now. I’ll probably end up the same as Vincent Gilman, but still, I have to do whatever I can to stop these demons. First, I need to get Dorthop’s copy of L’Occulto Illuminato. At least that will give me a fighting chance. After that, I’ll do whatever it takes to get rid of Connor Devin. I can’t have him shadowing me at school all day, and I certainly can’t have him moving in on Sally. And I need to concern myself again with the two little kids who were taken: Ginny Cataldo and Trey Wilkerson. As much as I wanted to convince myself otherwise, I know in my gut that the demons are behind their abductions, and that something big is in the works.