Deja Demon by Julie Kenner

Author:Julie Kenner [Kenner, Julie]
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2010-06-01T17:22:06.295000+00:00

Twelve

"You’re sure this is a good idea?” I asked Laura as I shelled out twenty-five dollars to buy Allie a wristband that would allow her to go on all the rides without tickets.

“Trust me,” Laura said. She pointed to a spider-looking ride in which the passengers lay on their stomachs and were whirled around in midair. “As many times as they’re going to want to go into the fun house or ride that spinning, whirling death thing, we’ll be glad we coughed up the money for the all-included price.”

“I bow to your shopping savvy,” I said, having learned long ago not to argue with Laura where the value of a dollar is concerned.

“Where’s Daddy?” Allie asked as the ticket-booth man strapped the band to her wrist.

I cringed, but Mindy was one booth over, busily fidgeting with her own band.

“David, sweetie. You need to remember to call him David.”

“Right. Sorry. I know that. Really I do.”

“And the answer is, I don’t know. He’s got to be around here somewhere.”

We both craned our necks, trying unsuccessfully to find the man. The parking lot for the boardwalk and beach was crammed full of carnival rides, tents, ticket booths, and snack shacks. Among all these temporary structures, so many people moved in thick throngs that you would have thought no one in San Diablo had ever been to a carnival before.

“We’re never going to find him,” Allie said, sliding into a whininess I hadn’t heard from her for at least several glorious weeks.

“I promise we will,” I said. “Until we do, why don’t you and Mindy go enjoy the carnival? I paid for that wristband—I at least want you to get some use out of it.”

She aimed a sour expression my direction, but eventually nodded. “Okay, but if you find him, it totally qualifies as an emergency and you have to call my cell phone. Promise?”

“Cross my heart.”

“ ’Kay. I’m gonna see if Mindy wants to ride that thing,” she added, pointing to the spiderlike machine that Laura had tagged right away.

“Fine,” I said. “Go. I’ll be here with my feet safely on the ground.”

She gave a disgusted little shake of her head. “Jeez, Mom. You’re such a wimp.”

Laura laughed as she and Mindy hurried off. “And just like that, you’re reduced to the level of us plebeians.”

“I scream when I find a bug in the bathroom, too,” I said.

“Oh, how the mighty have fallen.”

“Hang on,” I said, twisting quickly to look behind me.

“What?”

I scoured the area around us, seeing no one out of the ordinary. “Paranoia, I think.” But I wasn’t entirely sure that was the case. I distinctly remembered that odd sensation of being watched in the alley on David’s first night back. Then again in my own backyard, and that on a night when a demon’s body had gone missing. (And as far as I could tell, had thankfully stayed missing, not turning up in Dumpsters or ditches or other places that might cause the police to ask all those irritating questions.

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