Maleficium: Duo (Devil's Playground 2)

I rechecked the road, all the nearby windows, and tops of buildings but there was no one around. At least not visible to the naked eye.

Mel, who was standing a few feet away looked over at me with a slight frown on her face. “I think there’s someone close.”

I nodded my agreement.

“Yeah. I feel like that too.”

“I’m in!” Dion announced after about five minutes.

Well, now he just had to start this bad boy and we’d be good to go. Catching movement from the corner of my eye, I swiveled and found myself staring up at one of the masked men I’d seen earlier. Once again, he was watching from the top of a roof.

“What is he doing?” Mel wondered aloud.

I didn’t care as much what he was doing, rather more interested in how long he’d been up there.

He was in a leisure stance, arms crossed, and head slightly bowed as if he didn’t have a care in the world. I wondered if we knew him too. His green LED mask and all black hooded ensemble hid any hints of who he might be.

“Guys, people are coming,” Grace quietly alerted us.

I looked in the direction she was staring to see the man with the large bow gun casually walking towards us. His mask too—wasn’t like the others. It was off white and horned, like a devil. The pig-tailed blonde we’d encountered at the high-school was with him. I wasn’t sure if they’d noticed Dion or not since he was mostly obscured by the truck.

They gave no sign of having realized what he was doing until he drew direct attention to himself.

“What are ya’ll doin? Get in the truck!” he demanded, a hint of urgency making his voice pitch.

Grace immediately back peddled, keeping her back to us—fumbling with the rear passenger door of the truck. I jogged to where she was and helped her climb into the backseat, leaving the front for Mel.

Once she’d slid over far enough for me to fit, I climbed in and slammed the door shut. Twisting to see out the rear window, I noticed the man that’d been watching from the rooftop was no longer there.

Mel made it to safely inside and Dion followed seconds after. The man with the bow chose then to begin loading a bolt, drawing closer to where the truck was parked.

“We need to go!”

“Working on it!” Dion called back, fumbling with something beneath the steering column.

“Get down you two,” I directed Mel and Grace, sliding from my seat to the floor of the truck my damn self.

What felt like long, agonizing minutes passed by before the truck’s roared to life.

“Just a second,” Dion said to himself.

He shifted into reverse and began maneuvering out of the parking spot. The truck inched forward, and then backward. As he was reversing for a third time, the rear window shattered. An explosion of tiny glass shards scattered all over the seat and rained down on Grace and me. There was a loud pop from the front cabin, where a solid metal arrow now protruded from where the stereo and thermostat controls were.

“Fucking drive!” Mel shouted at him.

The truck lurched backward, its bed colliding with the car behind it.

Dion slammed the gearshift into drive, gunning us away from the curb with a loud squealing of tires and burned-out rubber. At the intersection ahead, he took a sharp right. I grabbed the passenger seat’s back pocket to keep myself grounded and from flying like a ragdoll.

“Where do I go?” he asked, not letting off the gas.

I repositioned myself so that I was sitting in an upright position, cognizant of the glass shards all over the backseat. Ciaran said we needed to follow the fireworks. He never mentioned when those would go off or from where.

I didn’t know if we should even listen to him. Mel and Grace seemed certain he wasn’t against us, but I couldn’t be sure he was on our side either. In fact, I bet he had his own agenda entirely. Plus, we still hadn’t told Dion what went down in the bathroom or about the picture in my rear pocket.

The carnival Ciaran spoke of had been presented to us purposely. So, I suppose the part about needing to get there wasn’t a lie. I just wish I knew what would be waiting for us there when we arrived.

“Just drive for a minute,” Mel prompted.

Dion followed her instruction without comment. The truck remained silent, all of us lost in our own thoughts, unaware what was occurring in the part of the city we were heading towards.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

As the clock remained stuck at the devil’s hour, the full moon and city lights lit up his debauchery. I didn’t have words to convey what I witnessed as Dion drove us further into the Devil’s Playground.

Things were getting brutal.