The Demon Conspiracy (41 page)

I said it to Melissa, who
responded appropriately. “Thank you,
Kelly
. I told you they’d fall for
it. Like you said, demons are
dumb
!”

I spoke to Angie next.
“Now that you brought us the secret weapons,
Kelly
, I think it’s time to use
them. Don’t you?”

“Uh, well, of course,” said Angie, trying to
catch on. “I mean you told me the demons would come here tonight,
so of course I got the secret weapons.”

Melissa chimed in. “You demons thought you
surprised us, didn’t you? Ha! We’ve been waiting for you. We’ve got
you right where we want you.”

“Yep,” said Angie. She had the basic idea
now. “Right where we want you.”

Grund’s look of confidence slowly faded as
he considered what we were saying. I couldn’t read his mind but his
face was like an open book. Could the humans be telling the truth
this time? Could it really be a trap?

I vigorously shook my can of soda. Melissa
and Angie did the same. “Demon repellent!” I said. “It gets in your
eyes and eats away your eyeballs!” I smiled confidently as if my
story were absolutely true.

Grund exchanged a worried glance with
Seven-eyes. The demon in the living room scratched its head. I
nodded to the others and pulled the tab on my can.

“Now!” I aimed the soda can straight at the
faces of the big demon in the living room. Melissa and Angie did
the same with Grund and Seven-Eyes. The spray from the cans
showered all three demons as they covered their eyes and screamed
horribly.

We tossed the cans and raced up the stairs.
As expected, it was a trap. Lipsludge and Tentacles were in the
second floor hallway waiting for us. Angie shrieked when she saw
them. But I had my own plan. I pointed to the window.

“Go!”

Melissa didn’t argue. She rolled over the
windowsill and out onto the roof. A moment later Angie practically
dove through the window. I remained behind. I raised the bat, ready
for a fight.

Lipsludge spat orders to his cohorts
downstairs. “Gets up here, you foul slime!”

The demons below screamed and ran about the
house. They crashed into walls and knocked over furniture. Another
window smashed.

“She blinded us! With demon repellent!” It
was Grund.

Lipsludge threw up his hands. “Morons! Der
ain’ts no such thing as demon repellent!”

“There ain’t?” The demons stopped wailing.
They came to the foot of the stairs and blinked up at me. In an
instant their expressions changed from fearful to homicidal. They
charged straight for me.

I ducked through the window and took up a
position beside Melissa. We were both ready for battle. We had no
choice. Angie stood beside us. She aimed the pepper spray.

Tentacles tried to climb after us first, but
Melissa cracked him in the head with the steel pipe. Tentacles
screeched and fell back inside the house. Next came Lipsludge.
Angie blasted him in the face with the pepper spray. Lipsludge
froze partly in the window. He screamed and rubbed his eyes.

“It burns!”

Grund shoved the smaller
demon aside and crawled onto the roof. I swung the bat hard.
Whoosh! Grund ducked. I missed by a mile. His quickness surprised
me. I swung again. Whoosh! Nothing but air! I kept swinging, again
and again. Grund dodged to the side. He leaned back. He retreated
to the peak of the roof. The more I tried to hit him the more he
got out of the way. Then, unexpectedly, he stumbled and fell over
backwards. Before he could find a handhold, he dropped off the roof
into the back yard.
Thump!

I grinned at Melissa and Angie and leaned on
the bat, out of breath.

Melissa got excited.
“Who’s next?” She waved the pipe like a madwoman. I’d seen that
insane expression the day we encountered Manson Stanfield in the
school restroom. “Come on! You’re not afraid of a
human
, are
ya?”

The answer to her question came quickly.
Seven-Eyes crashed through the window like a wrecking ball. Melissa
jumped back. Just before it landed she took a wild swing. The pipe
struck the furry beast in the shoulder. Seven-Eyes lost his balance
and landed like a ton of bricks on the concrete driveway below. But
Melissa lost her grip on the pipe. It flew out of her hands and
disappeared in the night.

“Yes!” I said. I exchanged a high-five with
Melissa before we noticed the three other demons had gotten onto
the roof. The creatures stood confidently just a few feet away,
victory grins plastered across their hideous faces.

“We wants da Kelly Bishop,” said Lipsludge,
waving his fist. “We gets her an’ we goes. Gives us the Kelly
Bishop!”

“Go to hell!” Angie used her most defiant
voice.

“Beens there, dones that,” said Lipsludge
matter-of-factly. He let out a shrill whistle. “Klawfinger!
Now!”

Suddenly the giant lobster demon rose from
behind us on the side of the house. It grabbed Angie with one giant
claw and raised her high into the air.

“Got ‘er!” said the huge demon proudly.

“No!” shouted Lipsludge. “Not her! Gets the
little ones! We wants da little ones!”

Klawfinger dropped Angie like a rag doll. I
watched in horror as my foster mother bounced off the edge of the
roof and disappeared over the side.

“Angie!” I had no time to grieve. Tentacles
and the Two-Faced demon came at us from the front. Klawfinger’s
great claws swept in from behind. We were trapped.

There’s always another
way!
I tossed the baseball bat at
Tentacles and took Melissa’s hand.

“Come with me!” We both ran down the slope
and leaped off the roof.

34

SOMEONE ELSE’S
NAME

KURT

Kurt Lazarus squirmed out from under the
dirty laundry pile, desperate to stretch his legs again. But when
he stood inside the cramped hall closet, a shelf jabbed him in the
back. He stumbled against the door and accidentally stepped on
Donnivee’s hand.

“Ow!” she cried.

“Be quiet!”

“Help me up, Kurt.”

“Stay where you are. I’ll check the
hall.”

“But, Kurt….”

“Shhh! Don’t move!” Kurt pressed his ear
against the closet door and listened. It was quiet now, but just a
few minutes ago, man! Did he pick the wrong house to break into, or
what? This place was crazy! Somebody hated these people even more
than Donnivee, if that was possible. For the last half hour it
sounded like he was in the middle of a war zone, but the battle had
moved outside. He pulled the grotesque monster mask over his head
and slowly opened the closet door. The mask made him sweat, but
there was no use giving anyone who might still be around a free
peek at his real face—not without a fight, anyway. He cautiously
stepped into the empty hallway.

The first thing he noticed
was the window at the top of the stairs—it wasn’t there anymore.
Just a big open hole with broken glass and scraps of wood all over
the place. That explained one of the many crashes they’d heard, but
not the
big
one.
The big one had felt more like an explosion or an earthquake. The
whole house had shook.

Kurt knew they had to move fast. If the
fighting came back inside he’d be right in the middle of it. And if
the cops showed up and caught him he’d be dead. No more juvie for
Kurt Lazarus. Nope, he’d be hanging with the big boys in the state
pen. Nobody his age wanted to be locked in a cage with those guys.
He’d be fresh meat. Kurt shuddered. He’d rather die than go to
prison. If he could just get out of here alive he might consider
ending his life of crime.

When he turned to go back to get Donnivee
she was standing right behind him. He bumped into her before he saw
her. He jumped in surprise.

“Ahh! Dammit, Donnivee! I told you to stay
in the closet.”

“I’m stayin’ with
you
. Did you hear what
Kelly told those guys? She told them she was
me
!” She spoke in a low voice, but
not low enough for Kurt.

“Get your mask and be quiet! We’re not outta
here yet.”

He watched, as Donnivee returned to the
closet, retrieved her mask, and put it on. They both still wore the
latex monster hands, but Kurt was used to them by now, and hardly
realized he had them on.

“You heard her, Kurt.” Donnivee went on as
if she really had his attention. “She tried to get me in trouble
just to save her own scrawny butt! What’d I ever do to her?”

Kurt turned in surprise. Was she kidding?
Did she want him to make a list? He decided not to go there.
Instead he clamped a hand over her mouth, and made threatening eye
contact through the masks. “Shut up.” That time she listened.

Kurt led them downstairs and was shocked at
what he saw. Windows and blinds broken, curtains shredded, holes in
the walls, pieces of glass and destroyed furniture everywhere. At
the bottom of the stairs, he stepped on something, and slipped. He
caught himself on the stair rail.

“Whoa! Nice catch.” He reached down, and
found a cell phone, mostly hidden in some kind of black goo.
“Hey-hey, look at this! Wonder whose it is?” He held it up for
Donnivee to see, but she was too afraid to care. Using her shirt
like a rag, he wiped the phone clean, then slipped it into his
pocket.

“What was that?” she asked. “What did you
do?”

“Nothing. Come on.” Kurt practically
sprinted to the back. He slid open the glass door and stepped onto
the deck. He took in a deep breath of the cool night air. Man, did
it feel good to be outside again. Donnivee closed the door behind
them.

“Manson ran out on us!”
she said, a little too loud. “I’m gonna kick
her
tail, too!”

“It’s a
good
thing she ran,”
said Kurt. “She’d be extra baggage. She did the smart thing just
like we’re gonna do. But first we gotta find out what’s happenin’
out front.” They left the deck and followed along the rear of the
house. The back was very dark, except for a flickering, orange glow
on the trees at the perimeter of the yard. It was so dark, in fact,
Kurt couldn’t see Donnivee right beside him.

All at once a piercing shriek filled the
air. Kurt dropped to the ground and crawled under a large shrub. A
glacial chill touched his spine. He’d never heard such a terrible
sound in his life. What the hell was it? Donnivee moved in beside
him under the bush.

“What was that?” she asked, as shaken as he
was. “It wasn’t human!”

“Keep your mouth shut, all right? You’re
gonna get us caught.”

They heard cries and shouts from the front
of the house, but none of it made any sense. Kurt was worried. They
weren’t safe hiding under a bush and one thing was for sure…the
fight wasn’t over.

He got back to his feet and crept to the end
of the house. Donnivee stayed right with him. “There’s a fire in
the front yard,” he said in a low voice, peeking by the corner. “I
can’t see what’s burnin’ unless I go around.”

Donnivee nodded and pressed close to him.
All at once a chorus of shrill, frantic howls pierced the night. It
was a mournful sound, like a host of tortured souls screaming in
agony. Kurt swallowed hard. For the first time in his life he
believed in monsters. He looked down at Donnivee, unable to hide
his fear. Then he remembered she couldn’t see his face behind the
mask. Good thing.

If he ran now he’d be home
in an hour and nobody would realize he’d ever been there. Every
instinct in every bone in his body told him to take off. But he
also knew if he ran, Donnivee couldn’t keep up with him, and if she
got caught the cops would eventually nail him, too. They’d offer
her some kind of deal because of her age and he’d get screwed. No,
somehow they
both
had to get out of there and it’d be a whole lot easier if
nobody saw them. He leaned around the corner to get another
look.

The landscaping on that side of the house
included some tall, thick boxwoods. Beyond those he could see
flames and moving shadows. But he still couldn’t see where the
fighting was because of the bushes and a decorative flagpole
centered in the flowerbed. The pole was about his height and the
flag blocked much of his view. He wanted to rip it out of the
ground and toss it into the fire.

Suddenly, Kurt got the feeling they weren’t
alone. He looked behind them but saw nothing in the darkness. “Put
your mask on,” he said to Donnivee. “In case somebody sees us.”

Unlike before Donnivee didn’t ask questions,
she just did what he told her and pulled on the mask. At this point
Kurt could almost smell her fear. He took her arm and gave her a
gentle squeeze. “Nobody’s gonna know we were here except you, me
and Manson.”

Her tension eased a little. He could tell
because she hugged him from behind.

He only felt safe for a
moment. He got the sensation again, only this time it was more like
he was being watched. He turned quickly. Nothing. But the feeling
festered inside him like spoiled mayonnaise. Somebody was
close.
Real
close. He could almost feel their warm breath. He scanned the
area again, but darkness was darkness.

Then a few feet away, a
set of sickly yellow eyes blinked open.
Three
of them. Except for the color
and the number they seemed to be real. The other weird thing about
them was the way they glowed in the dark. Kurt was impressed.
Whoever it was had on a helluva costume! But why would anybody
other than a thief be wearing a costume tonight?