The Demon's Covenant

Mae turned to see Nick leaning against the door frame, schoolbag slung over one shoulder.

“Going to school,” he said. “This building. Right here.”

“Yes,” said Jamie. “But why do you go to school at all when you’re a …” His eyes slid around the playground. “When you’re a spy?” he offered eventually.

Nick stared at Jamie for a moment, blank black eyes possibly trying to convey that Jamie was a strange human being who bothered him.

“I wonder the same thing myself,” he said. “Alan insists, though.”

“Oh,” said Jamie. “Well. But this is great!”

“Great’s a strong word,” Nick drawled.

He peered through the glass into the darkened hallway of the school. Someone very misguided had painted the hall turquoise once.

Mae couldn’t blame Nick for a certain lack of enthusiasm.

“See, I had this thought,” said Jamie.

“Congratulations.”

“I thought,” Jamie said, narrowing his eyes slightly, “that maybe sometime … I mean, you have trouble reading, don’t you?”

Nick straightened up from slouching against the door frame, which made Mae realize how relaxed he had been before, how relaxed he’d allowed himself to be, since it was just the three of them.

“What’s your point, Jamie?”

Jamie frowned, face screwed up, as if he was trying very hard to think of the exact right thing to say. “The thing is,” he said, “Alan’s really smart, isn’t he?”

A certain tension eased out of Nick’s shoulders. “Yeah.”

“Well, so stuff is really easy for him—because he’s so smart,” said Jamie, who was quick about feelings even if he did say ridiculous things about spies. “So he probably skips over about half the steps a normal not-so-smart person would need for learning something. And when it’s something that doesn’t come naturally to, uh, spies, it must be even harder. But I’m not particularly smart.”

“You amaze me.”

“So we could go over some stuff together,” Jamie persevered. “We’ll be in the same class. It will just be homework. Everyone has to do homework. Maybe sometimes I could read the assigned books to you. Auditory learning helps a lot of people with reading problems. And it would help me remember as well!”

Jamie looked up to see how this sales pitch was going, and frowned some more.

“And if I help you with schoolwork,” he continued in a small, reluctant voice, “it would be great if you could help me with … self-defense.”

“You want to learn how to use knives?” Nick asked. He might have dwelled on the word “knives” an instant too long.

Jamie flinched. “Absolutely,” he said. “Instruments of brutal death? I’m very keen.”

“I see that,” said Nick. There were other people streaming through the gate now, the gloomily murmuring Monday morning crowd about to form where they were standing. Nick glanced over at them, always hyperalert around strangers, body held ready to attack.

He looked back at Jamie.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Jamie blinked and then smiled again, gradual and sweet. “Okay.”

He kept smiling, an obvious hopeful invitation for Nick to smile back at him and seal the bargain. Nick stared at him, face blank as a stone, for a long moment. Then he let one corner of his mouth curl up and looked away from Jamie, as if to indicate that that was as much as Jamie was getting.

Jamie beamed.

Mae and Nick had not exchanged a word yet. He didn’t deserve even a hello, considering the way he’d acted yesterday, but he hadn’t shot down Jamie’s offering of gratitude for Friday. She relented.

“I didn’t do so badly in my classes last year,” she said. “If you little ones need help, feel free to come to me.”

Nick rolled his eyes. Jamie gave her an impish grin. Things seemed all right among all of them for a moment.

The usual morning crowd was not behaving as usual, Mae noticed. Normally everyone massed against the front doors, but today they were scattered around the playground, standing in separate but equally far-flung knots of friends. Every one of them seemed impelled, by some mysterious warning impulse, to keep their distance from the demon.

Mae’s train of thought was cut off by an arm sliding around her shoulders.

“Hey,” said Seb in her ear, squeezing her shoulders briefly and then letting go. “Hey, Jamie.”

Jamie peeled away from Mae’s side and went to Nick’s. Nick’s eyes tracked the movement as if he was not quite certain how to deal with it either, and then apparently he made up his mind. He shifted slightly in front of Jamie, protective.

Unfortunately, he was used to doing that with a weapon in his hand, and he hit Jamie in the chest with his