Hell Week by Rosemary Clement-Moore Read Free Book Online

heroine apart from the hero is the fact that they don't talk to each other? How you always want to smack the girl?"

    I knew exactly what she meant, but I had new sympathy for those morons. "You don't even like Justin."

    "That's not the point. You do."

    "And then there's the way I found out." Time to turn the subject from what an idiot I was. "I had a vision."

    "Like one of your dreams?"

    "No. Well, sort of, but different, on fast forward or something. And awake." I explained picking up Justin's phone, and the psychic slide show. "Images and impressions, really fast. It was weird." And scary, but I didn't tell her that.

    She paused, and like a lot of Lisa's pauses, it was unin- terpretable. "This is a new thing?"

    "Yeah. Maybe it was a fluke."

    "Maybe some jealous Irish witch zapped you through the phone."

    "Gee, I'm so glad you called to cheer me up, Lisa."

    "Don't mention it." I heard a squeak, like bedsprings or a chair, the sound of settling in. "How are classes?"

    "All right so far. Mostly jaunting back and forth across campus, collecting syllabuses. Syllabi? How about you?"

    "Georgetown is pretty cool, but expensive. Good thing I didn't blow through my savings account after I got the scholar- ship. I'll need it to keep me in Diet Coke and eye of newt."

    "Oh, really," I said, in the same matter-of-fact tone. "Do they have one-stop occult shopping over there?"

    "No, but you wouldn't believe what you can get on the Internet."

    "Don't scare me more than I already am." I meant it as a joke, but it fell flat, the way things do when they're too true.

    A pause. I pictured her in a dorm room, a cramped, drab place transformed with posters and throw pillows and thrift store finds. She'd be sitting cross-legged, her chestnut hair falling around her elegant face. The only thing I couldn't imagine was her expression. Regretful? Wistful? Stubborn?

    All three laced her voice when she finally spoke. "I wish you'd understand. Studying this stuff . . . it's something I have to do."

    "Why?" I challenged her, not for the first time. "Because it's there, like Mount Everest? An intellectual challenge you can't resist?"

    "It isn't just idle curiosity."

    "Oh, well, that's a relief. I'd hate to think you were jeop- ardizing your soul to satisfy a mental itch."

    "Jeez, Mags. You make it sound like I'm sacrificing kit- tens or something. I'm making a scientific and theoretical study of occult folklore. It's not any different from what Justin is doing."

    "Justin is studying brownies and green men. You're practicing spells and potions."

    "Your point?" She was 100% stubborn now.

    I pressed my hand over my eyes. "It's harnessing a power that isn't your own and making things happen. It's ex- actly what got us into so much trouble this spring."

    "Maggie, there are things out there. Real things. Scary things."

    "Things we shouldn't be messing with!" I said.

    "Don't you think it's better to understand them? How the supernatural works and how to fight it?"

    "No." I was adamant, but ESP for Dummies mocked me from the floor by the couch. "I think we were lucky the last time, and we should leave that stuff alone."

    "Says the girl with the Psychic Friends Network in her head."

    "I can't help it." Which seemed truer by the day. "You have a choice."

    "No." Her voice was taut with sadness. "No, I really don't."

    I wanted desperately to understand why she thought that, when this path could only be dangerous for her, when she knew what awful bloody things that kind of power could lead to.

    "We always have choices, Lisa."

    "That's what this boils down to, isn't it? You don't trust me."

    Now it was my turn to pause, condemning her with my reluctance to answer.

    "Right." She charged on when the silence stretched too long. "Well, you have no reason to, I guess. Except maybe that we've been friends since the seventh grade."

    "I trust your intentions, Lisa, but--"

    She cut me off. "But we all know where those lead. I'm sure Azmael is