The Geek's Guide to Wizarding Mastery

Chapter 6

6

We walked uptown toward my dad’s. I don’t know if it was instinct, habit, or the fact that my keys to Mom’s place had been melted by a fire. Either way, Le Chateau seemed like the best bet.

A cab would have been faster, but since I smelled like a barbeque gone wrong, I figured it was better to walk.

Devon started by giving me a blow-by-blow of what the firemen had been doing: running in and out and a lot of hauling hoses mostly. “And then Linda May, sweet little Linda May, was so terrified she needed comfort, and of course she ran to me. I’m telling you man, the fire made 8th Ave crazy.”

“You do remember I was there, right?” I asked, trying not to sound snarky even though I was tired enough to curl up on a subway grate and sleep. “I was the one who saw the fire start and pulled the alarm to get everyone out.”

“Really?” Devon asked, looking surprised for a second but trying to cover up his shock by punching me in the arm. “Good for you, man! Elizabeth must think you’re a hero. This could be the break you’ve been waiting for. Did you ask her out?”

“What? No, I didn’t ask her out!” I ran my hands through my hair. It was gritty from the smoke and orange paint.

Devon grimaced and shook his head, looking down at the sidewalk.

“What?” I asked again, trying not to get angry. “What did you want me to do? Was I supposed to look down, see a fire, and stop on the way to the alarm to ask Elizabeth to be my girlfriend?”

“I mean, girlfriend might have been pushing it, but it would have been better than nothing,” Devon said.

“Sorry, I was trying to make sure everyone didn’t burn to death.”

“What about when you two were talking once everyone was out of the theatre then?” Devon said, nodding and winking at a random dog walker.

The poor girl had two mastiffs, three Chihuahuas, and one drooling pug. Their leashes had all gotten tangled, and one of the Chihuahuas was dangling over the bigger mastiff's back. Being a dog walker was on my top ten list for jobs I never wanted in Manhattan.

“I don’t know how many more chances you can hope to get with Elizabeth.”

“I’ve never had a single chance,” I said as we turned onto Central Park West, “and now she probably thinks I’m a freak, so….” I was screwed. There was something about knowing she thought I had magically started a fire with a cellphone and was now afraid of me that made it seem more true than years of her never speaking to me ever had. My stomach felt heavy and gross.

“Why does she think you’re a freak?” Devon asked. “I mean, you just saved the whole theatre class.”

I pulled the little black demon out of my pocket.

“She’s thinks you’re a freak because you forgot to return the phone? Which, by the way, is not cool, man. You don’t leave a guy phoneless in Manhattan.”

“If you remember, before you had to tell me all about how you made out with Linda May while our school was on fire, Elizabeth wants me to get rid of the phone.” I slid it back into my pocket. Somehow having it out in my hand made me feel exposed, like a big eye in a creepy tower was watching me as I ran toward a pit of lava.

“So then let’s get rid of the phone,” Devon said. “We’ll take it to the purple restaurant and make it their problem to find the vampire dude, and you can tell her you did what she wanted.”

“She doesn’t want me to return the phone,” I sighed, knowing full well Devon was going to laugh at me. “She wants me to throw it into the Hudson to destroy it. She thinks the phone started the fire.”

I started counting to three in my head. Before I got past two, Devon had tossed his head back and roared with laughter. People stared as they walked by.

It took Devon a full minute to speak. “I’m sorry.” He wiped the tears from his eyes. “Was there a stray ray of sunlight you reflected off the screen to ignite the mounds of dried grass in the set shop?”

“No.” I pushed Devon in the back to make him start walking again, and he promptly skidded on sidewalk goop. “There’s an app on the phone, and she thinks I started the fire with it.”

“An app. She thinks you started a fire with an app on a phone you can’t even open?”

“I did open the phone,” I said, “and a fire app thing.”

“How did you open the phone? It should have a password.” Devon turned to me, his laughter fading a little. “Do you have like post-traumatic stress or something from the fire? Because I mean, we could call your mom.”

“I don’t have traumatic stress.” I pulled Devon into the shade of a coffee shop awning. The place smelled like vegan food and almond milk. “And I didn’t use a password.” I glanced around before pulling the phone back out of my pocket. I didn’t know what I was looking for. No one seemed to care about the two teenagers hanging out by the vegan coffee shop. But I still couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was following me. Or that the evil eye was gazing down at me from the Empire State building. “I used my thumbprint.” I pressed my thumb to the button, and the phone opened, showing the same funny symbols as before.

“Whoa!” Devon took it from me, but as soon as it left my hands, the thing turned back off. “Aw, come on.” He pressed his thumb to the sensor, but the screen stayed dark. “Damn. Battery must have died.”

I took the phone back and pressed my thumb back on the button. The screen popped back up. Devon grabbed the phone again, and it was the same thing. Him―phone off. Me―phone on.

“Bryant.” Devon’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Did you buy a phone and rig it to do that to freak me out? Because I mean, good for you, but that’s a lot of trouble for a prank.”

“You found this in the cab. And I would never prank you. I know better.” And really I did. Devon would take any reason to punk you. If you were five minutes late when you were supposed to meet him, you had to spend the next week wondering what his revenge would be. Pulling a prank on him would be the worst idea anyone in Hell’s Kitchen had ever had. Except maybe the next thing I did. That may have been the worst idea anyone in New York had ever had.

Devon was still giving me the I don’t believe you stare with his eyebrows raised and his arms crossed. And Elizabeth thought I had a possessed phone, and my mom’s theatre had burned down, and I had sort of had enough.

“Fine.” I dragged him over to a trashcan by the side of the street, then tapped on the app that showed the picture of the fire. There it was―the still flames with the bar below balancing perfectly centered. I held the phone out like I was going to take a picture of the can and tapped the bar, tipping it all the way to the right.

Big mistake.

Flames shot out of the can and flew ten feet into the air like the sanitation department had decided collecting trash was too hard and installing a giant blowtorch was a better use of resources.

People behind us started to scream. Devon cursed and backed away. I stood there, frozen by the sudden heat. I couldn’t move. I mean, I know I had gone to the fire app to prove to Devon that I wasn’t wandering the city in some PTSD haze. But finding myself in front of a ten-foot-tall pillar of fire, holding a possessed cellphone in my hands, I sort of felt like maybe I had lost my mind. Maybe this wasn’t even New York and I was locked in a cell. Or even better, and less scary maybe, I was still in bed, and this whole thing was a dream. I hadn’t even gotten out of bed yet, and soon I would wake up with cat a*s on my face.

I squeezed my eyes tightly shut and opened them again. There was still a fire right in front of me. No padded white room. No stinky cat a*s.

I tapped the left side of the bar and pulled it all the way down. Just like it had sprung up without warning, in an instant, the fire disappeared with nothing but a melted trashcan to show for itself. Well, that and the sour, nose hair-burning stench of flaming crap.

I turned to Devon who stared, petrified, at where the flames had been.

“See? Not a prank.”

“What the hell?” he muttered. “Not okay. That is definitely not okay. Burning trashcans is not okay.”

The rubberneckers behind us chattered noisily. One woman shouted into her cellphone, “The fire’s gone out, but I think it’s a gas line!” She paused for a second. “Back away. 9-1-1 says everybody back away.”

People immediately scurried down the street or hugged next to the building, still transfixed in fascinated horror.

“You need to move, boys!” the cellphone lady shouted at us as sirens echoed between the buildings.

“Go!” I pushed Devon so hard his feet finally started to work again. I grabbed his arm and dragged him onto a side street out of view of the fire trucks as they pulled up to the melted trashcan.

Two run-ins with the fire department in one day is not a good thing. Especially not when you might have caused the fires. Even if it was by accident.

We cut back around the block and to my dad’s building. The fire trucks had parked down the street, but from here we couldn’t even see what all the firemen were staring at.

Drake was behind the desk like always. “Mr. Adams.” He smiled. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here today.”

“Yeah.” I tried to put my thoughts into an order that didn’t involve a possessed demon phone with the ability to make things spontaneously combust that was currently burning a hole in my back pocket. Not literally. I hoped. “There was a fire at school. Everybody’s okay, but I lost my house key, so I’m gonna hang out here until my mom gets home.” If my mom still had a house key.

“Of course, Mr. Adams.” Drake unlocked the safe beneath the desk. “I would be more than happy to let you into the apartment. I am so relieved you’re safe. Have you called your father?”

Drake led us to the elevator and turned the key to go up.

“No.” It hadn’t occurred to me to call my dad. I mean, how could he be worried about me when he didn’t even know my school had been on fire? Never mind the fact that the more time passed, the more convinced I was that I had caused the fire in the first place. But Drake was still looking at me all concerned, so I said, “Not yet. I’m going to call before I shower.” And I did need to shower. Even though the elevator was a big one, it was still small enough to trap in the horrible smoke and burning trash smell that was stuck to me.

The door opened to my dad’s apartment, and Drake waved us in. “Shall I call for a pizza?”

“Two.” Devon half-stumbled into the apartment.

“Very well.” Drake closed the elevator doors and was gone.

Devon walked into the living room and collapsed onto the couch. I followed him, a little afraid he might be panicked enough to start throwing up onto the carpet. And having to call the cleaning lady to tell her you got puke in the carpet was never a fun time.

I sat on the metal rim of the glass coffee table and stared at Devon, waiting for him to speak. If he could still speak. I wasn’t too sure about that.

“The fire,” Devon said finally, his hands shaking as he dragged them over his face. “The phone started the fire.”

Elizabeth had been right. She had seen it right away.

“Both fires. And the one at school didn’t go out till I put it out with the app.”

Devon scrunched his face and let out the longest string of muttered curses I had ever heard. “We have to get rid of it.”

“Same thing Elizabeth said. I can take it down to the restaurant and leave it with them.”

“No way in Hell!” Devon shook his head, looking as pale as I had ever seen him. “You just burned down half the school with that thing. You can’t keep it. It’s arson evidence, Bry.”

“So we give it―”

“We are not giving the damn phone to people who might want to do more damage with it than you’ve already done! That guy we saw looked evil. He looked like a vampire or demon or something. We can’t give an evil dude something this dangerous. What if he lights us on fire? Or decides to take out Times Square. I can’t have that on my head, man.”

“So, we do what Elizabeth said and dump it into the Hudson,” I said, wondering if I could convince Drake to find a guy to take the phone to the river.

No, it couldn’t be trusted to a courier. I mean, who wouldn’t want to open a package they had been hired to dump into a river. We’d have to do it ourselves.

I turned my wrist over, making my watch blink on. Nearly seven PM. “If we head to the water in a few hours, we should be able to find a place to dump it without getting noticed.”

“No way.” Devon pushed himself to sit up. “The river’s way too risky. What if it washes up and someone finds it?”

“It’s a phone. It’ll be dead from the water.”

“A demon phone that starts fires, and you think water is going to hurt it?” Devon stood up, color coming back into his determined face. “We have to destroy it ourselves. It’s the only way to make sure it’s done.”