Demon Page 3

  Perry shrugged an apology at his date’s bad manners. Lori smiled weakly to signal that it was OK. Even though it wasn’t. Then Tracey disappeared inside, dragging Perry behind her.

  Lori trailed after, joining the long line of hopefuls queuing for a chance to go through their paces in the school basketball court which, with its makeshift stage of rostra at one end, also doubled as the theatre. Even though she was early, she was almost the last one to sign in. The court was jammed. In a small town like Backwater Ridge, the local school musical was the highlight of the season. Parts were at a premium and the competition would be fierce. Tracey and Perry were right up front. Lori took a seat towards the back and prepared herself for a long wait.

  The three ‘judges’ were already in place near the stage, clipboards in hand to take notes and award marks. Oliver Sessions, The School Principal, Mrs Patten, the Head of the English Department, (who would be directing the production), and the Music Professor, Mr Quentin, in velvet trousers and a silk bow tie.

  The piano was to be played by Mrs Moody, the closest the town came to a professional musician. Mrs Moody not only gave private lessons but accompanied the local ballet school and the occasional tea dance for seniors at the community hall. She also rented rooms, one of which, (the big one at the back) she had let the night before to a young dark in-comer. A biker but, what the heck, he seemed pleasant enough. Well spoken. And he had paid up front, a week in advance, in cash. Mr Moody had been dead some ten years and as Mrs Moody was often wont to remark, ‘a girl had to earn a crust’.

  Miguel Coyote was stopped at the door by the janitor.

  “Sorry son,” he said, looking the biker up and down with ill concealed distaste. “Private property. Only school pupils allowed.”

  “I need to talk to that girl over there,” said Miguel, pointing at Lori. “Won’t take more than a moment.”

  “Have to wait,”

  The janitor, an ex Vietnam vet, didn’t want any trouble but he was in no mood for arguments. He’d been bowling the night before and his recurring back problem was giving him particular gyp this morning. Saturday morning. Usually his day off.

  He closed the door in Miguel’s face.

  One by one the auditions dragged on until everything seemed to be cast. The Good Witch of the East. The Wicked Witch of the West. The Cowardly Lion. The Tin Man. The Scarecrow. Perry got the part of the Wizard himself. Kids who would never make the school basket-ball team were clumped together as Munchkins. Mr Quentin’s Yorkshire terrier, a yappie little animal with a habit of nipping ankles, was typecast as Toto. And it seemed a foregone conclusion that Tracey Barnes would get the plum role of Dorothy. She gave a confident audition, belting out ‘Tomorrow’ from ‘Annie’ and was rewarded with a warm round of applause. She threw a look of triumph in Lori’s direction as she strutted off-stage.

  Lori had been seriously thinking of going home, but this gesture riled her so much, she sat her ground. And then the young biker, who had slipped in the side door while the janitor was in the locker room rubbing liniment on his back, slid into the vacant seat next to her and asked her if she’d bought something or been given something recently?

  Lori looked confused. Her head was somewhere else. At the end of a yellow brick road.

  “What are you talking about?” she said.

  “A Dreamcatcher,” the biker said urgently. “Please. It’s important.”

  Mr Sessions rose and scanned the room. “Lori Morrison,” he announced.

  “I’ve got to go.”

  Lori stood up, knees knocking, and walked up onto the slightly rickety stage. Everybody was looking at her. She had to pinch herself to stop from turning and running out of the hall. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Tracey Barnes, smirking and digging Perry in the ribs. She leaned over to where Mrs Moody was looking up expectantly at her.

  “Over the rainbow” she said.

  “What else?” said Mrs Moody, having played it twenty times already. She launched into the introduction and when it finished, Lori opens her mouth to sing.

  But her voice came out in a squeak.

  There was an embarrassed silence during which Lori wished the ground would open and swallow her. Then a few people started to titter. Tracey Barnes laughed out loud.

  Lori blushed, looking out over the heads of the audience, swallowing in a throat suddenly dry of saliva.

  And then she saw him.

  He was sitting right at the back, close to the door. A young man in his early twenties with slicked back blonde hair and a snakeskin jacket. Slowly he removed his dark glasses. The eyes behind them were yellow, the irises rimmed with black. Snake’s eyes, clever and calculating. As he raised his right hand and gave Lori the thumbs up sign, the diamond in his scorpion tie-pin seemed to wink at her.

  A cold shiver ran through her from the top of her head to the very soles of her trainers. As though somebody had just walked on her grave. Then Lori took a deep breath and turned again to Mrs Moody, still sitting with her fingers poised expectantly above the keyboard, a look of sympathetic concern on her face.

  “It’s the wrong key,” said Lori. “C’s too high for me. Do you think you could transpose it to E flat?”

  Now where did that come from? Lori didn’t even know what ‘transpose’ meant. But Mrs Moody seems to understand what she’s taking about.

  “Sure honey” she said, and brought the intro down a couple of tones.

  And Lori took another longer, deeper breath and closed her eyes and focussed on the dream and began to sing. Really sing. In a voice that she hardly recognised as being her own. It swam out of her mouth like quicksilver and floated over the mesmerised audience like a spell. Clear. True. Pitch perfect. No effort at all. Just like magic.

  When she finished there was a stunned silence. Lori opened her eyes again. People were sitting with their mouths ajar. Like they’d been turned to stone or something.

  Then Perry began to clap and, as though waiting for his signal, the whole auditorium erupted. People were on their feet, stamping and shouting. And Lori, blinking in the unexpected applause, saw Miguel Coyote turn and look over his shoulder towards the back of the hall.

  She followed his gaze. But there was nobody there. The chair where the blonde stranger had been sitting was empty.

  Principal Sessions held up a hand for silence. As the room quietened down, he looked at the other two judges, raising his eyebrows into an unframed question which both answered with a brief nod.

  The Principal cleared his throat.

  “I think we can safely say,” he announced, “that we’ve found our Dorothy.”

  During the cheering and clapping that followed, Perry jumped on-stage to give her a hug and Tracey Barnes leapt to her feet and stalked out in huff.

  5

  Perry found Tracey in the car park. She was incandescent with fury, her amber eyes sparking fire, her halo of auburn hair almost standing on end.

  “How come that fat fool gets the star role?” she said, launching her attack before he could open his mouth. “I’m the one with the looks. I’m the one with the talent. What’s she? A nobody. A nothing.”

  Perry tried to put a conciliatory arm round her. “What are you so hacked off about?” he said. “It’s not like it’s Broadway or anything? It’s only the stupid school play. What does it matter?”

  Tracey shook him off. “It matters to me,” she seethed. “And easy for you to say, Mr Wizard of Oz. You’ve got a part. What am I left with? Understudy to the ugliest girl in town.”

  “That’s not fair, Tracey, she’s not ugly – she’s just – plain. And a little overweight.”

  “Overweight? The great white whale is thinner.”

  Perry sighed and changed the subject. When Tracey got like this there was no point in arguing. It just made her worse.

  “Would it make you feel better if I turned my part down?” he said. “I will, you know. Just say the word.”

  “Oh shut up,” said Tracey, bitterly, and th
en accusing. “You’re only trying to get round me because it’s all your fault.”

  “My fault?”

  “Your fault. If you hadn’t started clapping...”

  “If it hadn’t been me, it would have been somebody else. Face it, Tracey, she was great.”

  “She was NOT great?” spluttered Tracey. “She couldn’t have been great. She’s never been able to hold a tune. And suddenly she can sing like Whitney Houston? Come on.” She narrowed her almond eyes. “There’s something not right about this” she said. “Something weird.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like – I don’t know. Like she was miming or something.”

  “Miming,” Perry threw back his blonde head and hooted with laughter. “Come on, Tracey. Get real.”

  “Don’t laugh at me. Don’t you DARE laugh at me. There’s something not right about this and I’m going to find out what.”

  “You’re getting paranoid, Tracey.”

  “Paranoid? Paranoid? If you think I’m paranoid, if you’re so fond of Lori, Superstar, Morrison, maybe you’d better take her out this evening, rather than me?”

  And she flounced off in fury, cancelling their Saturday night date.

  Back in the warm womb of Lori’s bedroom, a sunbeam, creeping through curtains drawn against the heat of the afternoon, fell across the brass bed-knob, highlighting the dreamcatcher, silvering the cat-gut strands in a celestial spotlight. Deep in the centre of the charm, floating like a foetus in amniotic fluid, the demon stirred in the timeless space of eternity and smiled languidly to itself.

  It had begun. It was all going according to plan. The only fly in the ointment was Coyote. Always Coyote. Always interfering. Or trying to.

  Why was he such a killjoy? Why was he always trying to spoil the fun?

  It really must do something about Coyote.

  “And stay out.”

  Pushing through the crowd, trying to get to Lori, Miguel Coyote had come face to face with the janitor again. The big man had fixed him in an arm-lock and frog-marched him unceremoniously from the building. Miguel could have got out of it, no problem, he was a black belt in karate, but the last thing he needed was to get into trouble at this juncture. His powers were limited. He couldn’t afford to make waves until he’d warned the girl and recovered the dreamcatcher.

  The janitor heaved Miguel onto the asphalt, wincing as the whiplash hit his already aching back and sent his temper into overdrive.

  “When I say you don’t come in, you don’t come in, savvy?” he said, wiping his hands on his dungarees. “Now get outta here before I call the law.”

  Lori emerged from the basketball court surrounded by a gaggle of well-wishers, the majority of whom had either ignored or simply failed to notice her before today. Now they were all over her like a bad rash. Suddenly she was flavour of the week.

  “Nice going, Lori.”

  “That’s some voice you got there.”

  “Need someone to carry that bag?”

  “Gotta lift home, Lori?”

  Lori was on cloud nine. For the first time in her life she was the centre of attention. She wasn’t sure where ‘the voice’ had come, although she had her suspicions, but any small niggles of doubt about the fairness of it were over-ridden by the euphoria of the moment. If this was what fame tasted like, then Lori could do with a lot more of it.

  Out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of a red bandanna and her heart jumped into her mouth. It was the biker, elbowing his way through the throng, trying to reach her. She didn’t want to talk to him. Not now. Probably not ever. Somehow she had the feeling that he was here to spoil her fun.

  It was Mr Quentin who came to her rescue, taking her by the elbow, walking with her across the tarmac towards the school gates while the crowd melted away in twos and threes, in various directions, in a welter of ‘congratulations’ and ‘see-you-laters’. All except for the boy with the leather waistcoat and the long dark hair, who stood patiently waiting for them to pass.

  “Well Lori, I must admit, I never thought you had it in you,” confessed the Music teacher. “And aren’t you a naughty girl, hiding your light under a bushel all these years?”

  Lori said nothing. What was there to say? As they drew abreast of the biker, she retreated behind Mr Quentin, studiously ignoring the newcomer.

  Suddenly, the teacher’s yorkie, which was tucked under his other arm, launched itself at the stranger in the kind of frenzied attack that only a very small, very spoiled dog can get away with, yipping and snarling and baring its tiny teeth.

  Coyote didn’t move. He simply looked, staring the animal down with his pale blues eyes. Eyes cold as ice on a frozen pond. And the dog subsided as quickly as it had erupted, burrowing its head into its master’s armpit, whimpering piteously and shaking all over.

  “Why whatever’s the matter, Baskerville?” said Mr Quentin, noticing Coyote for the first time. “Did the nasty man frighten you?”

  Baskerville made a snuffling noise and Mr Quentin rounded on Coyote.

  “Who are you?” he demanded. “What’re you doing on school property?”

  Coyote nodded towards Lori.

  “I need to talk to her.”

  “Oh?” Mr Quentin’s eyebrows rose towards a hairline heavily lacquered to artfully conceal his encroaching baldness. “Do you know this person, Lori?”

  Lori gripped Mr Quentin’s arm a mite tighter. She should have been delighted that a boy as handsome as this was paying her any attention. With his broad shoulders and his sun-bleached jeans, he was the stuff that romantic dreams were made of. But she had enough sense to know that he couldn’t be attracted by her. Not her. Not plain-Jane Lori. So what did he want? She suspected it was the dreamcatcher. Her lucky charm. And why would he want that? And how did he even know she had it? Whatever, those eyes of his, staring at her as though he could see right through her, made her feel very very uncomfortable. More than anything she just wished he’d go away.

  “I’ve never seen him in my life before, Sir,” she said, blushing in spite of herself at the lie.

  “Then you don’t wish to speak to him?”

  Lori shook her head. “No.”

  “Right. You have your answer young man,” said Mr Quentin. “Sanders!!”

  The janitor came lumbering round the corner of the school building like a bull moose carrying a broom.

  “Yessir?”

  “We seem to have a gatecrasher on the premises. You’re responsible for security. Escort him off, would you?”

  The janitor tucked the broom into the crook of his arm like a knight’s lance and started to lurch towards them, his face reddening with anger as he gathered speed.

  “I already told him twice,” he panted. “Seems some people just can’t take a hint.”

  Miguel Coyote conceded defeat – at least for the moment. With a final accusatory glance in Lori’s direction, he turned and loped away. Loped. It seemed a strange word to use for human movement. But that’s exactly how he ran. Smoothly, elegantly, like a wolf. He covered the ground to the school gates effortlessly and with ease so that by the time the janitor, who looked like a carthorse in comparison, reached the street, he had mounted his motorbike, started the engine and was already half-way down the road.

  And Lori had heaved a huge sigh of relief.

  6

  Mr Quentin left Lori home in his yellow Ford convertible. Baskerville, accustomed to riding shotgun, made enough noise to waken the dead when unexpectedly relegated to the back seat.

  “Do you mind?” Mr Quentin retrieved him and plonked him on Lori’s lap. “Best get used to it now,” he said, with a sugary smile. “He’s going to be your co-star, after all.”

  The yorkie glared at her with baleful orange eyes. Lori sat very still, trying not to move a muscle all the way home.

  Perry’s roadster was already parked in next door’s drive when they arrived. But there was no sign of Perry. Probably inside with Tracey. Probably trying to placate her for
the fact that she’d lost the part of Dorothy. Lori allowed herself a little rush of pleasure at the memory of Tracey’s face when the announcement had been made. Tracey was used to getting what she wanted. Not like Lori, who hardly ever did. But this time she had. Yah, boo, sucks to Tracey Barnes.

  Extricating herself gingerly, sliding out from under Baskerville so as not to provoke him, she thanked the music teacher for the ride.

  “My pleasure. Now don’t forget. It’s read-though Monday. Straight after school. Don’t be late.”

  “Don’t worry, Mr Quentin. I’ll make sure she gets there on time.”

  Lori’s heart did a little jig in her chest. It was Perry. He’d come up behind her and as she turned towards him, he favoured her with the grin that always turned her knees to jello. Was it her imagination or was there something more friendly than usual in the smile? He’d started the clapping after all...

  A sudden commotion back of the house developed into physical form as the Morrison dog, a mangy mongrel of indeterminate ancestry known simply as ‘thing’, came barrelling round the corner, woofing and wagging its tail. Baskerville immediately began jumping up and down like a mop-head on springs, defending his territory, yapping ferociously. As if in sympathy, and to add to the din, every dog in the neighbourhood began to bark.

  At which point, the front door opened and Marge came out, dressed for work. She flinched as the noise hit her.

  “What in tarnation...?” she said, and then, seeing Mr Quentin, she raised her voice and shouted over her shoulder. “Junior. Get out here. Pronto.”

  Junior emerged from the far end of the hallway, with his baseball cap on back to front and a half-eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich clutched in his grubby hand.

  “Wha...?” he said, spraying crumbs in all directions.

  “Take that animal round the back and tie him up before I put my toe in his backside,” shouted Marge, raising her voice another decibel to make herself heard over the racket.