Inner Demons

3. A Connection To This Demon

I awoke on Monday morning with a start.

What the hell happened last night?

My lower back ached as if I had suffered a hella sunburn. I shuffled to the bathroom and lifted the back of my t-shirt.

Oh, holy Jesus!

The tattoo on my back was not a fluffy kitten or a sunny daisy. It was a demon. A miniature gargoyle-looking thing with wings, cloaked in a dark, swirling shadow. Its eyes opened and the demon looked at me. I screamed and dropped my t-shirt.

I could feel the demon move across the skin of my lower back. It felt like fingernails raking across my already tender skin.

Anger roared inside of me like a tornado. This was definitely not just a charm or a fun enchantment spell. Something was living inside of me now. They had let something into my body that had a mind of its own. I could feel it taking up residence in its small piece of real estate. A knock on the door to my bedroom startled me. I quickly lowered my t-shirt.

"Yeah?"

Courtney stepped into my room. Her blonde hair was bone-straight and fell across her pale face. "Good morning," she said. "You about ready to go?"

I looked at the clock. I had seriously overslept. "Just give me a couple of minutes," I said.

In the van on the way to school, Courtney talked about some project she had due for school. I only half listened. Ever since Agnes died, Courtney had really started to come out of her shell. I enjoyed hanging out with her sometimes, but this morning I was seriously preoccupied.

Mary Anne, the only other girl who lived with us at Shadowford Home for Girls, was as silent as ever. She kept her headphones on almost constantly and rarely ever said so much as hello to me.

When I got to school, I went around the back way in order to avoid Drake. I was supposed to keep the tattoo ritual a secret from everyone who wasn't on the squad, but if Drake saw me like this, he'd know something was up. I wanted to talk to Brooke and the others first. They owed me a real explanation for lying to me about the seriousness of the so-called tattoo.

I found Brooke in the student parking lot rummaging through her trunk.

"What the hell did you do to me last night?" I kept my voice low, but the anger in it was apparent.

Brooke looked up, her eyebrows drawn together in confusion. "What are you talking about? We started the ritual and you passed out. Then we took you home and put you back in your own bed."

"Stop acting like this was just no big deal," I said. Anger boiled up inside of me, and a bottle cap rattled across the parking lot in front of my foot. I stepped on it to shut it up. "You told me this was just a fun little hazing ritual. No one said I'd be inviting some... thing into my body. I thought it was just a spell, but I can feel this thing inside of me. I can feel its mood and its thoughts."

Brooke sighed and shook her head. "Don't take everything so seriously, Harper. It's just a spell. There's nothing living inside you except the magic ink I injected into your skin. It moves because of magic, not because it's alive or anything."

I took a deep breath to steady myself and keep from saying something I might regret. She was wrong. This was no enchanted ink spot on my skin. "How come you guys all got pretty little images like a horse or a flower, and I got this evil looking demon thing?"

Fear flashed across Brooke's features and she looked away from me, pretending to search for something in her bag. "I don't know," she said. "The ink chooses something deep inside your heart. How am I supposed to know what's in your heart? You're the only one who can answer that."

"Well, I know there's no creepy demon in my heart, if that's what you mean." I followed her as she made her way toward the building. "Maybe you did it wrong. Maybe you messed it up or something. Is there any way to get it removed and start over?"

Brooke stopped and looked at me, for the first time with a little sympathy in her eyes. "Look, I don't know what happened, all right? The shadow demon is a weird thing to come out during the ritual. I've never seen it before, but it's a sacred image for the Order. You should be honored, not pissed."

"So, that's what this thing is called? A shadow demon?"

Brooke nodded. "You'll learn more about them in training, but I can't explain why one ended up on your back. All I can tell you is that somewhere in your past, you have a connection to this demon."

I stood there, dumbfounded, as Brooke left and hurried toward the building. The first period bell rang, but I couldn't force my feet to move. A connection to the demon. My hand went up to the sapphire pendant I wore around my neck. My mother's pendant. It had saved me from Agnes just a couple of weeks ago. Just when I was sure I was going to die, a demon had materialized from the shadows and carried her away.

I'd spent the past few weeks trying to deny what I'd seen. I didn't want to believe it. But now I had a constant reminder of that night tattooed across my back. I shuddered, thinking that my connection to this shadow demon went back much further than a couple of weeks.

"There you are. I've been looking for you everywhere. Why didn't you meet me out front?" Drake's voice pulled me from my thoughts and I forced a smile onto my face.

"Hey, sorry," I said. "I had something I had to do this morning."

He pulled me into a big bear hug. "It's okay, but you should have texted me. I gave you a phone for a reason."

"Sorry," I said. I wasn't used to someone keeping tabs on me all the time.

"Today's the big day, I guess," he said. "How are you feeling? You ready?"

"Ready to learn," I said.

Ready for answers.

"That's my girl."

Drake walked me to class. It took every ounce of my willpower not to flinch as he put his hand on the small of my back.