An Apple for the Creature

But his legs were moving without his control, carrying him out onto the stage. Jonesy and Anthem came with him, all in a terrified row. They came to the very edge of the circle in which the demon stood.

Bird alone remained where he was.

The audience cried out in fear.

“Hush,” said the demon, and every voice was stilled. Their mouths moved but there was no sound. People tried to get out of their seats, to flee, to storm the doors; but no one could rise.

Ben Franklin chuckled mildly. He cocked an eye at Trey. “This performance is for you. All for you.”

Trey stared at him, his mind teetering on the edge of a precipice. Davidoff, as silent as the crowd, stood nearby.

“At the risk of being glib,” said the demon, “I think it’s fair to say that class is in session. You called me to provide knowledge, and I am ever delighted, as all of my kind are delighted, to bow and scrape before man and give away under duress those secrets we have spent ten million years discovering. It’s what we live for. It makes us so . . . happy.”

When he said the word happy lights exploded overhead and showered the audience with smoking fragments that they were entirely unable to avoid. Trey and the others stood helpless at the edge of the circle.

Trey tried to speak, tried to force a single word out. With a flick of a finger the demon freed his lips and the word, “How?” burst out.

Ben Franklin nodded. “You get a gold star for asking the right question, young Trey. Perhaps I will burn it into your skull.” He winked. “Later.”

Trey’s heart hammered with trapped frenzy.

“You wrote the script for tonight, did you not?” asked the demon. “Then you should understand. This is your show-and-tell. I am here for you. So . . . you tell me.”

Suddenly Trey’s mouth was moving, forming words, his tongue rebelled and shaped them, his throat gave them sound.

“A careless magician summons his own death,” Trey said, but it was Davidoff’s voice that issued from his throat. “All of the materials need to be pure. Vital essences—blood, sweat or tears—must never be allowed within the demon’s circle for these form a bridge between the worlds of spirit and flesh.”

The big screens suddenly flashed with new images. Anthem. Typing, her fingers blurring. The image tightened until the focus was entirely on her fingernails. Nibbled and bitten to the quick, caked with . . .

“Blood,” said Anthem, her voice a monotone.

Then Jonesy spoke but it was Davidoff’s bass voice that rumbled from her throat. “A learned magician is a quiet and solitary person. All of his learning, all of his preparation for this ritual must be played out in his head. He cannot practice his invocations because magical words each have their special power. To casually speak a spell is to open a doorway that might never be shut.”

And now the screens showed Jonesy reading the spells aloud as Anthem typed.

Trey closed his eyes. He didn’t need to see any more.

“Arrogance is such a strange thing,” said the demon. “You expect it from the powerful because they believe that they are gods. But you . . . Trey, Anthem, Jonesy . . . you should have known better. You did know better. You just didn’t care enough to believe that any of it mattered. Pity.”

The demon stepped toward them, crossing the line of the protective circle as if it held no power. And Trey suddenly realized that it did not. Somewhere, the ritual was flawed beyond fixing. Was it Kidd’s sabotage or something deeper? From the corner of his eye Trey could see the glistening lines of tears slipping down Anthem’s cheeks.