The Unfortunate Story of Roddy Mayhem, Julie Steimle [i can read book club TXT] 📗

all? I never thought I’d see one go after one of us.

“What are you doing?” Dervish shouted at them, clearly not believing it either.

“Having fun!” they screamed, laughing.

“Pull his shorts over his head!” Tom called out to them.

“No!” Dervish screamed, just as his shorts got yanked over his head.

It blew my mind, watching it.

They loved it.

Loved it.

But then Dervish shouted out, “Throw all the furniture at him!”

And the imps obeyed, cackling with joy.

Two could play at that game apparently.

However, Tom, laughing as if he was having the time of his life, dodged, flipped, and then slapped Dervish on the head, calling out, “Tag! You’re it!”

And all the other imps tagged him too, like a game.

That’s when I realized why the imps loved Tom Brown and had called him Trouble. He was one of them. The guy naturally generated chaos and adored it—and he wasn’t mean-spirited about it. He just made pure mischief. Imps were not malicious demons after all. Just troublemakers. And watching the chaos he made, his own friends had to duck from the flying debris, fully aware Tom made a mess in his wake.

As the chaos continued, Dervish battling Tom Brown for supremacy over the imps, I ducked once more to a corner to slip out through a wall.

“Where are you going?” Jester asked, his eyes sharply on me.

“Look, I don’t want to be involved in any of this,” I said, hands raised. “Keep me out of it.”

“Keep you out?” Jester huffed angrily. “You are one of us. That… That… That Tom is a traitor!”

I shook him off. “I am not one of you! I’m a freelancer!”

“That’s not what he means!” Piranha retorted, staring at me as if I had committed a huge sin.

I whipped toward her. “You gotta run! Whatever deal the Unseelie Court is trying to make with the gang, it is a bad idea—especially if wonder-imp Trouble is against it.”

They stiffened on that. Our eyes set on Tom as he battled Dervish. Dervish was losing. Tom had gotten his gun, had pantsed Dervish, doused him in beer, and was now swinging him around by one horn and a leg singing: “I’m a little teapot” as if he were merely playing in a playground with a bunch of school kids. His own pals got out far of his way—though I noticed the wolf guy’s eyes were on me.

“I gotta get out of here,” I muttered, feeling the weight of that wolfish stare.

Tom chucked Dervish to his two friends who immediately pounced on him and bound up his wings with something like a hemp rope. It was like watching them anchor Dervish to the ground, taking away his ability to go through walls or the floor. He was given weight and substance. They could cuff him.

“Oh crap…” Jester backed away.

Piranha followed him, feeling instinctively they were definitely in the wrong place at the wrong time.  

I pressed against the outside wall, leaning into it. The wolf-guy was following me, tracking me like prey as I pushed through. His imps were screaming for him to bite me.

I pushed further through the wall.

“Hey!” the wolf-guy called out. His voice grew fuzzy as I went through the wood and plaster. “That guy’s got my earpiece!”

Something thumped against the wall as I fell out on the other side. Outside in the alley, I ran.

Can’t Escape the She Demon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three

 

 

And I ran.

I hardly looked back

Hardly.

But that means I did once.

And I crashed into someone.

“OW! Watch it!” she said.

I stiffened, whipping my eyes back to the person I had collided with. And just my luck, it was her. The demon.

I jumped away.

“What’s your problem?” that woman demon said. Her eyes were red. They had been orange, but they had gone red in her irritation. The imps around her were tense, annoyed with her. She ignored them. I knew she could see them, but she ignored them.

“Nuthin’.” I backed away.

She reached out faster than I could see, and grabbed my arm. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on cowboy. Where are you going?”

“Eve!” a voice called out.

I tried to run, but she was remarkably strong. She held me there.

Up ran that wolf guy. I stared with a shiver at them both.

He was smiling—at her.

“Fancy you being here! I was about to call you about dinner tonight,” he said. His eyes then turned to me. He extended his hand. “Hand it over.”

 I blinked at him. “What?”

Flicking his fingers, the guy said again, “The Bluetooth ear piece you stole from my car. Hand it over. I know you are the one who took it.”

My face flushed. Who was this guy? How did he know?

The demon woman blinked at him then looked to me. “You stole from his car?”

I ducked away from her, trying hard to get out of her grip.

But he took another step closer to me and said, surprisingly without malice, “Come on. Just hand it over. I won’t prosecute.”

I quickly dug into my pocket and extracted the technological wonder. I stared at him as I passed it back. “Why?”

He shrugged, taking it back. “Tom Brown was my old roomie back at Gulinger Private Academy. He used to steal from me all the time. He still does actually.” He stuffed it into his pocket. “No harm no foul, right?”

I stared. Then I looked to the demon lady he was so comfortable with, though it made no sense how or why.

He looked also, smiling. “You can let him go.”

But she laughed, shaking her head. “Nope. I can’t. This guy keeps stealing from Hanz’s wallet every time he meets me at the beach. I can’t stand it anymore.”

She was going to kill me. I closed my eyes.

“Yeah, but you are freaking him out,” the wolf-guy said.

I opened my eyes. He sounded and looked a little weary at the mention of this Hanz, as if it hurt him hearing about the guy.

“Rick…” She reacted like an annoyed friend. But their imps were silent except for Rick’s telling him to bite me as punishment for stealing from him. She shook her head and turned her oranging eyes back on me. “Look. You can’t go on stealing from everybody. I thought my note would be enough motivation for you to think about turning over a new leaf. Get a job.”

I stared.

She was the one who bought me breakfast? I couldn’t believe it.

That wolf-guy Rick blinked and then shook his head, chuckling. “Eve, he’s a kid.”

She rolled her eyes, moaning. “I know. But…”

“But what?” Rick then looked at me, a crooked thinking expression settling in his gray eyes. “Hey, do you want to get off the streets and have a life?”

This time I really stared. He didn’t make any sense. “I am alive.”

“No.” He shook his head, chuckling weakly. “Not what I meant. What I meant was, I know a place where you can have a future. Like Tom. You don’t have to grow up on the streets. You can come to Gulinger.”

I had no idea what that meant. What was a goo-linger? Sticky stuff that stayed? Was it like shoe goo? Or like Goo-be-Gone?

“Hey!” That arsonist ran up, waving. “Howie! Running off like that is not very— Eve!” The man brightened on the sight of the demon woman. He straightened up his tie, brushing back his hair with a smile. What was with these people? Did they not understand that she was dangerous? I was still freaking out.

She hadn’t let go.

“Hey, Dan!” She smiled her vampire-teeth grin. Her fangs were intimidating. “How are you? It’s been a long time.”

“Can’t complain,” that arsonist Dan said. He then looked on me. His eyes then whipped to Rick the wolf guy. “Did you get it back?”

“Got it,” Rick said, lifting the cool tech. I didn’t even get a chance to try it out.

Dan then smirked. “Are we going to bring him back?”

Rick eyed me then closed an eye. “I dunno. It depends if he wants to go to Gulinger or not.”

Dan laughed. He then gazed at me. “What do you say? Are you interested?”

I squirmed. “What is a goo-linger?”

Rick laughed. Even his teeth had something of a wolfishness about them. He shook his head and replied, “It is an exclusive private school in New York City for unusual people like you and me.”

The ‘and me’ caught my attention. I knew he wasn’t a halfer. But what was he?

“I don’t have any money for something like that,” I said, shrinking back. I hardly had money for anything. He had to be crazy.

He just smiled at me, almost fondly. “Don’t worry. You can go on scholarship. It is where Tom graduated from.”

I stared, not sure what I had heard. “What?”

“He said,” that demon lady repeated in a loud voice as if I were hard of hearing, “That is where Tom… —Who is Tom?”

“My old roommate, Tom Brown,” Rick replied. “I told you about him, remember? He’s here, you know.”

“No kidding.” She laughed. Then she looked around as if to see him. “The imps talk about him all the time, you know. They love him.”

Rick glanced at me, smirking. He said, “Look. I have a lot of money which I inherited from my father and he had inherited from his father. And my grandpa set up a school for people affected by the supernatural realm. I went there for my safety, and Tom went there also—for his. So, if you want a real life, a life with a future instead of stealing and living on the street, I suggest you take this offer and come to Gulinger Private Academy where you can start over.”

Start over.

Shivers ran down my body.

Start over.

What a prospect. I had never thought such a thing was even an option.

I looked at the demon woman who had still not let go. “Did you go there?”

She shook her head, thinking on it only briefly. “No. I had a family. I went to regular high school.”

Phenomenal. She was a freaky demon, and she had gone to a regular high school. How was that possible? Where did these guys come from?

“But you’re a vimp,” I murmured. “All the imps are scared spit-less of you.”

Rick’s eyes widened a little, and then he just shrugged.

But Eve the demon merely returned the look with a dry stare. “So?”

My mind was blown—again.

I just didn’t know if it was real. This whole offer.

“It’s real,” Dan said.

I blinked, staring at him. He was a mortal. But there was still something dangerously magical about him. “Did you go to that school?”

Dan shook his head. “Nope. I went to regular high school in a witch town.”

I stared more. Seriously. These were weirdoes. Where did they come from?

Dan patted me on my shoulder and grinned. “Welcome to the wider world, kid. And you’d better make up your mind fast, because the police with us just want to arrest the entire gang.”

Rick closed his eyes, moaning out. “No… no. I mean, come on….” He shook his head at Dan. “Most of them are kids.” He started his march back down the alley as if to give someone a piece of his mind. And I knew he meant it.

“Yes,” I said, my limbs shaking, realizing this was real. “I want to go to that school.”

Eve and Dan grinned at me.

“And you have to save Piranha and Spastic and Jester and… and Wispy.” I looked to