The Demon Girl by Penelope Fletcher (each kindness read aloud TXT) 📕

the whole of grade six, and I didn’t want to have to fail another exam to keep pace with her.

A milky brown skinned boy with thick cornrows threw a wad of paper at the back of Zoe’s head. “Not cool, Zo. Leave her be.” His black-rimmed eyes looked overly large in his thin face, and his blazer hung open to show his naked chest, belly piercing and marks. Jeans worn and slashed at the knee, his boots were scuffed and unlaced.

I smiled warmly. “Hai, Ro. Where have you been?”

“Slums, on assignment,” he replied. His eyes were on Alex who now stared at the table.

I twisted round further in my seat and bit my lip. I had loads of questions I wanted to ask. The slums were melting pots of every religion, race and minority you could think of. So intermixed there was little distinction between skin colors. Occasionally you got the odd throw backs, like Alex, who were dark and some, were pale or oriental in appearance and feature, but most were a creamy tan.

Slum shacks were shabby structures tacked onto old buildings. Made from wood, plastics, metal basically any material you could get your hands on. Nothing was wasted but then nothing was fixed either. The result was a mish-mash of junk and bric-a-brac homes, riddled with drug dens and whorehouses. The occasional Sect church stood out like a bleeding human in a hungry vampire nest. The Sect took over the churches and gutted the insides to fill them with literature preaching the Doctrine that kept us safe. The luxuries held in Sect churches, like books, candles and fabric were never stolen. Not unless you wanted to be stung up naked outside the Wall for a hungry demon to come teach you a fatal lesson.

As bad as the slums were, it was the place where the most talented and down to earth people lived. For every drug dealer selling slammers, the most popular narcotic of choice since the Rupture since it suppressed the appetite, there was a talented musician strumming a tune and singing a song. For every streetwalker there was a crew of dancers doing their thing. Artists drew on the floors and sides of buildings with chunks of rough chalk, knowing that rains that came every day would wash it away, but still happy to sketch all day long. Yeah, there was good in the slums. As Disciples we had no spare time, and only got to leave the Temple grounds to either train or complete an assignment. I’d only ever had one that had taken me into the heart of the slums. I’d been dying to go back ever since.

Ro saw all the questions on my face and winked at me. “We talk all about it later and I say hai proper,” he said.

It didn’t take long for my mind to wander. The fairy-boy from that morning was running around the Temple looking for me, waiting for me. I hoped no one else saw him. No human could appear and disappear without a trace so quickly, and it would be clear he was ‘other’. That he was a demon that had managed to get around the Wall without tripping the klaxon; after all I’d done it too. The thought of him being discovered was making me feel slightly sick. I even threw up in my mouth a little.

I heard, rather than saw Cleric Tu step into the room. I knew what he’d look like from memory. His hair was a messy confusion of dark curls, and his shoulders were broad. He was young, cheerful and nice to look at. He was also a murderer. Few would call him that since most humans would see the death of a demon as belated justice, even the death of a demon-child.

I took a deep breath and looked up. It wasn’t so bad. I didn’t recoil or blanch at the sight of him. My stomach turned over but no one could see that.

Perched on the edge of his desk, he took a crunching bite of apple. My mouth watered. An apple? Fruit. Where the hell had he gotten that? He definitely had friends in high places, because there weren’t many fruit bearing trees inside the Wall, and getting any fresh produce was rare. Our dietary staples were caffeine, sugar and bread. There were few people wandering around who were not emancipated looking, and it was usually a sure sign the person was a Priest or related to one. Only they could afford to eat enough to be anything other than thin. Maybe it was like a bonus scheme. Kill a demon-child and get an apple. Chucking his crimson blazer and satchel behind him, he smiled, stretched, and a few girls and guys sighed as the muscles on his torso rippled under his thin tunic.

“Who can tell me the standard attributes of identifying a demon?” he asked. Dead silence was broken by a giggle, and the squeak of a shifting chair. His eyebrows rose high at the lack of enthusiasm, mouth pulling down. “Don’t make me pick you one by one.”

A few hands climbed lazily.

I was too busy doodling a picture of silver eyes on my notepad to lift mine. Hs eyes had calmed me down that morning when I was half out of my mind. Maybe on paper they could help too.

“Yes, Jono,” Tu said.

“Vampires,” Jono, a decent looking boy from the upper dwells, began and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his crooked nose, “have a body temperature below fifteen, descendible canine teeth, fixed cellular activity and the appetite for plasma most easily found in-”

“Aint it cruel to call them demons?” Alex cut in thoughtfully. “It be like the vampires calling us bloodsacks.”

Jono sent a scathing look her way, continued as if she hadn’t spoken, “Shifters, can change to a single other form and this metamorphosis tends to present itself during-”

“Why we humans always gotta be placing names on things,” she added after a few beats.

“Then there are witches,” said Jono through his teeth, face twisted sourly, “Who can be male or female, and manipulate matter with the power of-”

“They evil and that’s that,” Ro told Alex and sent her a slow smile. “What else we call them?”

“I’m speaking,” Jono spat, his glare switching between the both of them.

Alex dragged her eyes from Ro’s chest and glared at Jono. “Dwells,” she muttered. “Think reading and writing good makes you better than us.” Tipping her chin up, her voice rose. “I got as much right to talk as you do.”

He sneered at her. “Life sucking mambo.”

She lurched up, knocked her seat over and waved him forward. “You talk much. Let us see how you do with no teeth.”

Mambos were the name of voodoo Sorcerers eradicated by the Sect nearly a decade before. It was well known that Alex’s mother had dabbled in black magic, and was whispered that not only had she dabbled, but was a proficient Sorceress of the craft. Her dark past was not something the upper dwells let Alex forget, and though she did not embrace her origins, she didn’t deny them either.

The sound of Tu slamming his fist on a desk cut above the shouts of encouragement from the other Disciples. “Show disrespect to the slum dwells and you disrespect me,” he said and made eye contact with everyone. “Anybody does it again and we’ll have a problem. Alex, cool it. “

Setting her chair right, Alex sat back down and shot daggers at everybody, mumbling obscenities under her breath. I caught her eye and saw the tears there. I wasn’t the only one, for Jono flushed, the colour spreading out from his cheeks to kiss his hairline and darken his neck.

Satisfied the peace had been restored, Tu’s handsome face returned to its normal cheerful mien. “Carry on,” he said.

“Of course, Lord Cleric,” Jono replied somberly.

Ro, not one to forgive and forget, mimed a neck slicing action at him. He would have to watch his step in the days to come. Ro had come from the slums too, born into one of the gang families who were rumored to have a Bokor in their ranks; a man with white hair who called malevolent corpses back from the grave. I myself thought it was simply the skewed reputation of an old man who was good with herbs and medicine, as did the Temple Priests. The slums had been searched for practitioners of witchcraft and black magic, and none had been found.

“The last is goblin,” Jono continued in a somewhat humbler voice than before. “The gene presents itself from conception and is visible from birth. Disfigurement of the humanoid form can vary from slight to severe. Goblins show increased strength and animal like senses, but have notably low levels of intelligence.”

I rolled my eyes. Demon species classification was easy; a panhandler could have told Tu that information. After all, you should know the full extent of how screwed you were if a demon managed to breach the Wall and cross your path, apart from me, of course. I took a long moment to feel special then scolded myself, because my situation was dangerous and creepy, not special.

“Impressive,” Tu said dryly. “But I think you’ll find you forgot one.”

Jono looked confused. “I named all demons known to man.” He flicked a page of his textbook. His eyes widened and he pushed the book away. “I named all real demons; I didn’t think we needed to reference extinct species. Should I have mentioned the silver backed ape as well?”

A smattering of Disciples laughed, but I found nothing funny about it. So many animals had been lost during the Rupture. During the fighting it seemed everyone forgot that there were other creatures than the ones that could talk, and be heard by fighting back. Nevertheless, intrigued like others around me, I flicked to the relevant chapter in my book. I paused and scanned the summary of demons, and my eyes snagged on the name.

Tu said, “Fairy. There have been eighty-seven recorded sightings of creatures with humanoid appearance in the last year.”

I stifled a little bubble of hysteria. A grin stretched my face until I thought my lips would split down the middle. Alex sent me an odd look, and quirked her eyebrow as if to ask ‘what’s so funny?’ I pulled my face together and waved her away.

“Lord Cleric, you’re asking us to consider fairies flying around the region sprinkling dust and spouting riddles?” Jono’s was incredulous. “They’re practically extinct.”

Ro snorted a laugh and it smothered out the wild giggle I couldn’t seem to contain.

“I think on it, and can’t believe it,” he said. “No Cleric has confirmed sighting of a fairy.” Flicking the side of his nose a few times with his thumb, he snorted again.

He caught Alex watching him from the corner of her eye and winked. She fought a smile. Looked like they were going to make up and play nice again. Ro was a complicated endeavor that Alex could not seem to get a handle on. They were always breaking up, seeing other people then coming back together again. Ro liked Alex, a lot, but he liked guys too, and it seemed to be something she couldn’t get her head around.

The class kept up this train of topic for a while and I tuned out, lazily scratching pictures into the table surface with my pen cap.

“That’s an interesting necklace you have on,” said a hushed voice.

My hand slid to cover the leather tie and circular golden pendant that hung from it. Devlin was leaning out of his chair, closer to me.

“Ta,” I said and turned back around. He moved closer. I shifted away and tried to focus on what Ro was