The in Crowd Read online

  Paimon folded his arms over his chest. “No?”

  “No,” said Phist. “Might I suggest that a weekday, maybe Monday afternoon, would be a better fit for any other Circle meetings?”

  “You can sure suggest that,” said Paimon. “I’ll think about it. But,” and now he turned to include all of us, “however things were before, under Dr. Abbadon, they can’t continue that way. You should know that the Acclasia isn’t the least bit pleased with what happened, especially considering that the human women that Abbadon was taking care of and their progeny were all lost.” Paimon turned back to Phist. “Your fault, if I’m not mistaken?”

  Phist shrugged. “I did what I had to. Imagine how much more damage Grayson Diablo would have done to us all if I hadn’t.”

  That was all bullshit, of course. Phist and I had made it up to cover up what had actually happened, which was that I had killed Abbadon and Grayson.

  “Um,” said Gina. “It wasn’t actually Grayson.”

  “True,” said Phist. “It was a demonborn posing as Grayson, using magic to assume his form.”

  “Be that as it may,” said Paimon, “what happened wasn’t good for the Acclasia or the Circle. And rather than allow college students to handle anything as important as the new crop of women that will be impregnated, the Acclasia has decided to give someone else the responsibility.”

  Huh. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or not. On the one hand, there was no way I could participate in the process of turning human women into incubators for demonborn who were being born into slavery. I was glad that I wouldn’t be faced with weighing the women against my cover.

  On the other hand, now I had no ability to help those women, and they would be hurt regardless.

  It was frustrating, being under cover like this. We had to do things that we abhorred, all to preserve our position in the Circle. I hated it already, and it had only been a month.

  No one else reacted.

  Paimon looked disgusted with us. “What’s wrong with you? Are you all idiots? Do you understand what’s happened? You’ve been demoted. All of you. And I, as your new advisor, am paying the price for your previous idiocy.”

  “Well, it was all Phist’s fault,” muttered Ryan.

  Phist sat forward. “You got something to say, Legion?”

  Paimon rolled his eyes. “As interesting as your petty little conflicts must be to you, I would request we move on. To further our humiliation, we have been given a different task. We are in charge of preparations for the Horn Party this year.”

  I had heard of the Horn Party before. I was pretty sure it was the occultist community’s Homecoming or something. I didn’t understand it exactly. I knew we didn’t have a football team, so there weren’t any sports involved.

  When it came to sports, occultists liked to skip the pleasantries and actually beat each other up. The fights were as close as it got to football.

  “Preparations?” said Phist.

  “Yes,” said Paimon. “We are demeaned with the task of setting up tents and tables and decorating and hiring a band. We, the Black Circle, have become nothing more than hired labor.”

  “Way to go, Phist,” said Oliver, giving Phist a nasty look.

  Tess raised her hand.

  “It’s not necessary to raise your hand,” said Paimon. “Just speak.”

  “Oh, okay,” said Tess, grinning at him. “I, um, I just wanted to say that I am willing to help out in any way necessary.”

  “Excellent,” said Paimon dryly.

  “So,” said Tyler thoughtfully. “Does this mean we’ll be in charge of the booze, too?”

  “Yes,” said Paimon.

  “Cool,” said Tyler.

  * * *

  Banks Thorn held up the marshmallow-flavored vodka bottle. “Shots?” She was sitting on the floor with her back against the bed in her room at the Circle house. Like all the rooms in the house, this one seemed vaguely gothic and formidable with dark wood accents hanging ominously around the windows and doors.

  Her bed was the same style, but she’d decorated it with a pink and purple sparkly pillows and blankets. One of the pillows had little fringes. I’d seen her hug it.

  “Ugh, no,” said Gina, who was lying on her stomach scrolling through her phone. “I’m never drinking again.”

  “I have heard this before,” said Tess. She was on top of Banks’s bed. So was I.

  It was girl time at the Circle.

  Not my favorite time.

  “Oh, me too,” said Banks, pouring a shot of vodka. She held it up. “Suther?”

  “Um, I’m good,” I said.

  “You never take shots.” Banks twisted around to look at me on top of the bed. “What? Is it me? Do you secretly hate me, Suther?”

  “What?”

  Banks giggled. “Oh, what the hell, I’m joking!”

  All the other girls laughed.

  I laughed too. Okay, what part of that was funny?

  “Take the shot, come on!”

  I took the shot. I downed it, and I felt it worm its warm way into my stomach, and my head started to get a little fuzzy, just from that first one. Damn it.

  “Good girl,” said Banks, grinning at me.

  “Yeah, you’re all grown up,” said Tess.

  Everyone giggled again.

  I did too, but I didn’t think anything about this was funny.

  Gina sat up. “Do you have any of those pills, Banks?”

  “What pills?” said Banks.

  “The good ones,” said Gina. “You know.”

  “Mmm…” Banks crawled over to her desk and got up on her knees. She started going through the drawers. “How are you still fucking Ryan, Suther?”

  “Huh?” I said. “What? Ryan?”

  “I fucked Ryan once.” Banks pulled out a plastic baggy that had three little white pills it in. She shook the bag at Gina.

  “I think those are E,” said Gina. “Not what I’m looking for. I want the pain pills.”

  “Oh,” said Banks, shoving the bag back into her desk. “I thought that’s what you meant.”

  “No,” said Gina.

  Banks looked back at me. “He was seriously the worst lay I’ve ever had.”

  “Oh?” I said, chewing on my lip. “Really?”

  “He did this thing where he couldn’t stay hard, and he pulled out and started jacking himself off with his eyes closed,” said Banks. “Did he ever do that to you?”

  “Uh, no,” I said.

  Gina laughed. “Banks, it’s you. What the hell is wrong with you? Why can’t you keep Ryan Legion hard?”

  Banks shot Gina an annoyed look, but I could see that she was hurt. “He was probably just drunk.”

  “Yeah,” said Tess.

  “Anyway,” said Banks. “I’m not giving you any pills, Gina.”

  “Pfft,” said Gina. “Oh, did I hurt Banks’s wittle feewings? Poor wittle Banks.”

  Banks picked up the vodka and took a swig straight from the bottle. “What I don’t get,” she said to me, “is why you’re messing around with Legion when you have Phist wrapped around your pinky finger.”

  “I don’t have him wrapped around anything,” I said. “Seriously, I don’t.”

  “Um, hello?” Banks turned to Gina. “You remember how he was when he asked us to vote her into the Circle, right?”

  “Oh, yeah, he basically just ordered us to do it,” said Gina, nodding enthusiastically. “He was like, ‘You have to let her in because I’m very whipped by her pussy, and I can’t live without her.’”

  “He didn’t say that,” said Tess, rolling her eyes.

  Phist had told Tess that he had seduced me only to use me. Apparently, he had not decided to extend this cover story to the others in the group. How did he keep it all straight, anyway? I sure as heck couldn’t.

  “He’s not… even that into me,” I said, inspecting my fingernails. “Plus, don’t you think he’s kind of horrible?”

  “In what way?” said Gina.

  “In the way where he’s really controlling and sexist and troll-like,” I said.

  “Um, have you met a guy not like that in the entire school?” said Banks.

  “True,” said Tess. She turned to me. “I told you this before. If you’re a woman with magic, you have to find your own ways to get your power.”

  “Hey,” said Gina, eyes dancing, “what the hell is up with you trying to sleep with Paimon, Tess?”

  “I’m not!” Tess was defensive.

  Banks giggled, clearly pleased we were focusing on someone besides her to ridicule. I had to admit, shamefully, that I was too.

  “What’s your thing with teachers?” said Gina.

  “I don’t have a thing with teachers,” said Tess. “I had a thing with Abbadon. And you’re still jealous about that.”

  “No,” said Gina, shaking her head. “It’s not as though we all haven’t slept with Abbadon.”

  Tess shrugged. “Maybe, but what he and I had was special.”

  Gina snorted. “And now, Paimon? What’s so special about him?”

  “There’s nothing going on with me and Paimon,” said Tess.

  “Yeah, but you want there to be,” said Banks. “You were all putting on lip gloss and doing your hair. It was adorable.”

  Tess’s nostrils flared.

  Banks held up the vodka bottle. “More shots!” She pointed at me. “Come on, Suther. We need to get you nice and sloppy sometime. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sloppy.”

  Oh, no, that was not going to happen. What was I going to do?

  I licked my lips, searching for some sort of response, but nothing was coming to my mind, and they were all staring at me.

  And then, suddenly, there was a knock on the door, and it opened, and the
re was Phist.

  I’d never been so happy to see him in my life.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Hey,” said Phist, grinning. “I need to steal Suther.”

  “You can’t,” said Banks. “It’s girl time.”

  “Girl time is sacred,” said Gina. “Even if you’re really pussy whipped, you have to bow to girl time.”

  “Maybe it’s something important,” I said, getting off the bed. “Like for our project or something?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” snapped Banks.

  “What’s it about?” said Gina.

  Phist eyed me. “Suther’s pussy.”

  I stopped moving, and I hated him again in that moment. Heat stole over my face, and I hated that too.

  All the girls in the room started laughing. It was a jeering sort of laughter, high-pitched and vicious.

  “What can I say?” said Phist, grinning. “Whipped. Release her to me.”

  “So romantic,” said Gina, winking at me.

  “You guys are still in the honeymoon stage,” said Banks. “He’ll get sick of you, they always do.”

  “So?” said Phist. “Can I have her?”

  “Yeah, sure, fine,” said Banks. She waved at the door.

  I felt embarrassed and soiled somehow. I hated those girls. Tess was vaguely tolerable, but the other two were just two-faced bitches who derived amusement by making other people feel small.

  Phist wasn’t any better. I used to want to kill him, but now I couldn’t. If he died, we became unlaced, and then I died too. For better or worse, we were connected.

  Phist held out his hand to me.

  I ignored it and walked out the door, seething.

  He shut the door behind us and fell into step with me. “What was that? It’s supposed to look like we’re going off to have a little alone time.”

  “You can’t just talk about my… like that.”

  “Huh?”

  I looked up at him and he did seem completely clueless. It was only that no one had ever referred to my girl parts with that word before. It was vulgar, and it made me feel like less than a person, and I didn’t like it. I wanted to punch him.

  Sure, Gina had said it two minutes before, and that hadn’t been as bad, but I still hadn’t liked it. It was just that Phist had been so… graphic about it somehow.

  I put my hands on my hips. “Have you slept with all of them?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “What?”

  I shook my head. “Why are you here?”

  He pointed at the door. “Are you jealous?”

  I smiled tightly at him and I got really sarcastic. “Yes, Phist, I’m jealous. Because what I want is a cocky dickhead like you all to myself. That’s exactly what I want.”

  “Okay, then,” he said, and then he laughed a little. “What the hell is going on with you?”

  “I assume there was a reason you came to get me?”

  “You know, it’s not as if you’re being, uh, faithful to our fake relationship,” he said. “Every day, I hear someone telling me about how you were sitting on Legion’s lap at some party or other.”

  “If you’re not going to tell me what’s going on, then—”

  “Anything I did with anyone before I met you shouldn’t mean anything,” he said. “I didn’t know you back then.”

  I swallowed. Well, he sort of had a point. Not that it mattered, because I didn’t care. And I knew that the Circle was a free-for-all. Hell, the first time I met Phist, he’d been all over Tess. It was the way things were here. I had accepted all of that going in.

  He’d made it clear to me, anyway, he wasn’t my boyfriend. All of this was fake. None of it meant anything, and I knew that.

  His voice dropped lower in pitch. “And anything I did, I had to do.” He turned around, and now he wasn’t looking at me. “Just like you and Ryan.”

  I didn’t say anything, just stuck my hands in my pockets.

  “Come on,” he said, and his tone was gentle now, almost wistful. “Erik wants to see us.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Great.”

  * * *

  Erik was the head of the Resistance. He was this blond, blue-eyed guy who looked like that elf-guy from the Lord of the Rings movies. What was his name? Legli or something?

  Whatever.

  Erik didn’t like witches or warlocks. I got that. My kind imprisoned and enslaved his kind. Occultists bred demonborn and kept them in magical stasis to steal their power, kind of like the robots in The Matrix. From Erik’s point of view, I was one of the bad guys. He also didn’t like the fact that the previous leader of the resistance, Keaton, had fallen in love with my sister Enid.

  They’d died together, which was kind of romantic in a fucked up way, but Erik seemed to blame Enid for Keaton’s demise, and so it didn’t really matter how romantic it was.

  Anyway, the last time I’d seen Erik, he’d been within two seconds of killing me. Phist had talked him out of it. Which wasn’t saying much since Phist didn’t like me.

  Phist seemed to have a grudging respect for me, much the same way that I did for him. Judging from the way he was reacting to my non-fucking of Ryan Legion and my cleavage, he might even find me attractive too.

  So, yeah, things were officially “it’s-complicated” between Phist and me, but deep down we still loathed each other.

  I loathed him, anyway.

  I wondered if it was normal to feel as though one needed to constantly repeat to oneself that they loathed another person. It wasn’t as if I was trying to convince myself—

  “How easy would it be for you to get into the home of the potentate of Acclasia?” Erik was saying.

  We were in the cave where the Resistance was camped out. It was kind of a cross between a Renaissance Fair and Hot Topic. Lacy curtains, tapestries, velvet bedspreads, that kind of thing.

  Erik was sitting on this throne made of welded together metal scraps. His eyes were so blue that they were practically blinding. He was talking to Phist, not me. He hadn’t even said hello to me.

  “The potentate’s house?” said Phist. “I don’t even know where that is.”

  Erik made a face. “I was afraid you were going to say that.” He sighed. “We’ve lost a map. One of the ones we leave for wayward demonborn to find and use to get to us.”

  “Oh, crap,” said Phist. “And the Acclasia have it?”

  “Yes,” said Erik.

  “But those maps are magicked to only reveal themselves to demonborn. For occultists to get into them, they’d need to get through our spells,” said Phist.

  “Well, they’re going to figure those out,” said Erik. “It’s only a matter of time. The occultists in the Acclasia are experts in magic, after all. They’ll crack the spells on the map, and they’ll come right to us. If we can’t get to the map and destroy it, we’ll need to relocate.”

  “Got it,” said Phist. “This is important. I’ll find it and destroy it, I swear.”

  “Not as important as your position in the Circle,” said Erik. “Do nothing to jeopardize your cover, Blake. That is the most important thing of all.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Phist and I stood outside the cave. It was set in a cliff, and there was a winding dirt road where his motorcycle was parked.

  “How are we going to get into the potentate’s house?” I said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I’ll handle this.”

  “I can help,” I said. “I want to help.”

  “Really, Suther, it’s fine,” he said. He fumbled in his pockets and came up with a blindfold.

  “I’m not wearing that,” I said.

  “I know that we can trust you,” he said. “But Erik still thinks—”

  “If you put that on me, I’m going to disintegrate it with magic,” I said.

  He looked down at the blindfold for a moment, and then he let out a low chuckle. He put it back in his pocket.

  “Thank you,” I said quietly.

  “Yeah,” he said. His gaze flicked to the motorcycle and then to my face and then back. “Hey, um, how are you doing?”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “I really want to help with—”

  “I’m thinking maybe I was hard on you about the thing with Legion,” he said.

  “I really am fine with everything.”

  “Are you?” He gave me a pointed look. “Because I remember when I first started this, it can be, uh, tough to deal with. The way they live, the way they act like nothing matters, it can wear on you.”