Hell Week by Rosemary Clement-Moore Read Free Book Online Page A

keeping my seat warm for me."

    "That is not funny." I felt sick, furious at her, terrified for her, and completely freaked by her saying the demon's name aloud. "Do not joke about that."

    "Evil genius sorcerers never joke about Hell, Maggie." Self-loathing clipped her words. "Later."

    She hung up. I called her back immediately, but she didn't answer, had turned the phone off or simply ignored it. For all I knew, she'd blown it up with her magic wand.

    Nothing had been the same between Lisa and me after that night at the prom. Though arguably, neither of us was the same person that we were going in. Facing demons will do that to you. We emerged intrinsically bound by the expe- rience, but in a way, strangers to each other.

    We'd tried to ignore it. But then I'd dreamed about her on Midsummer Night. I'd seen her in a circle of girls I didn't know, some kind of New Agey ceremony that seemed in- nocuous. I got a feeling of renewing energy, something like the smell of green spring grass or the heavy, lush scent of ripe berries. No alarm there. But from my mental perspec- tive I could see Lisa's face, could sense her whip-smart in- tellect crackling behind a carefully neutral expression. And I knew that was trouble.

    Our confrontation afterward was pretty well recapped in tonight's argument. I told her what I thought about her play- ing with fire; she insisted I didn't understand what she was trying to do. I thought I understood very well. Lisa was trying to control the uncontrollable.

    I picked up the ESP book and it fell open automatically to the pages of exercises, worn and gray on the edges, the spine creased where I'd held the book open while I practiced meditations for clarity, protection, and strength. Hokey, yes. I'd felt ridiculous sitting cross-legged and still on the floor. But I did them anyway, all summer long. Clearly, I was no stranger to the need for control.

    F F F

    Eventually, I made it to my desk chair and contemplated the blank screen of my laptop. I needed to get my Rush thoughts down while they were still fresh, but my brain churned restlessly. Opening my playlist, I looked for some- thing soothing.

    Nothing in the library appeased my frayed nerves. Bare- naked Ladies--too flippant. Kelly--too power pop. Joss--too blond. Fiona, Sheryl, Sarah--all too Lilith Fair. Where was the "you've pissed off all your friends and now you're all alone" music?

    Susie Braddock's name leapt out at me. I'd forgotten I had one of her songs. In a new browser window I typed her name into Google. The search engine helpfully supplied the first ten of a gazil- lion entries. I clicked on the official fan page of the Grammy- winning artist, free-associated through Susie Braddock's bio, then on to the Roll Over Beethoven Foundation, and other notable SAXis. Finally I felt calm enough to do some work on my newspaper assignment and started closing win- dows.

    The bottom page was a pop-up window; a lousy ad, though, because I couldn't tell what it was selling. It con- sisted of an animated GIF that took up the entire window, some kind of diagram, like a black and white test pattern made up of circles and linking lines. They pulsed slightly as I stared, so subtly that I couldn't tell if the motion came from the symbols or an optical illusion.

    I went to click on the window, to make it active. But as soon as I touched the trackpad, the whole image disap- peared, and a new box appeared to tell me that MS Extorter had unexpectedly quit.

    Crap. The only thing I hate more than pop-up ads are ones that crash my browser. One Java applet too many, I guess, telling me how I could get bigger boobs, which I might be interested in, or see nude girls on ice, which I defi- nitely was not. 6

    My article appeared below the fold on the front page of Tuesday's Ranger Report. The Greeks were aghast, the rushees were titillated, and the Rho Gammas were on the warpath.

    This was so much better than buried with the obituaries (no pun intended) in