Demons and Magic

CHAPTER 8: The Group Project

Smoke from the burning chicken casserole stung his eyes as he tried putting the fire out, sweat trickling down the sides of his forehead. Alastair, sitting on top of the kitchen counter behind Nathan, just gazed at his back with an impassive look on her face, her hair still as messy as when she woke up.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Nathan snapped as soon as the fire was finally out and whirled around to shoot Alastair a scorn. “I told you to watch over it because there was someone knocking on the door. Why were you just staring at it?”

Alastair shrugged and jumped off the counter. “So, I assume there’s no breakfast, then?”

“No!” He swept his hair away from his face and gazed down at his casserole that is now identical to the smoldering remains of the fire, his disappointment rapidly increasing. “Unless you like eating charcoal, I don’t think this is in any way edible at all.”

“Hi, what’s going on here? I smelled something burning,” Mrs. Pratchett asked as she appeared out of nowhere, the sleeves of her cardigan rolled up to her elbows, one of the few things that indicates that she’s been cooking — or cleaning — or both.

“Well, this Albanian dwarf over here just watched as my chicken casserole was burned to a fine crisp. Tell me, what kind of lunatic is she?”

“Hey! You told me to watch over it,” Alastair said in an unapologetic drawl. “That’s exactly what I did.”

“What the— you should’ve called me when you saw that the food was on fire! That’s common sense.”

Alastair just met his intense scowl with a blank stare, fueling further Nathan’s constantly growing anger.

“Thinking isn’t your strong suit, is it?” Nathan asked in an attempt to menace the intelligence out of this little sh*t and closed the distance between them with just two steps. “You look like one of those people who would be enormously improved by death, you slimy git.”

Alastair just made a face as she scowled back at him, not once looking scared at all. Because why would she? She’s a demon for Pete’s sake. She can snap his neck in two and none of them would be able to keep her in jail.

“What, you little speech defect? Got no more of those smart comebacks of yours?”

“It appears so, yeah.”

He just scoffed and turned to Mrs. Pratchett. “Well, it’s good to know that she’s honest for once,” he gibed and gave Alastair a quick once-over. “And fix your hair. You look like you combed it with an eggbeater.”

Classes, as usual, is pretty much considered as hell for Nathan especially with Alastair sitting just one seat behind him during History while the captain of the school’s Basketball Team constantly sneers at him as he avoided his looks.

“Okay, that’s it for your lessons, let’s proceed to your group project,” their teacher, a short, balding man said and glanced at the clock, leaning against his desk behind him. “Pass in front small pieces of papers with your name on it and we’ll choose your group mates at random.” He ran his gaze at each and everyone in the room. “Come on, folks, move it. We don’t have all day.”

Once everyone has passed their papers, the teacher immediately started calling names and grouping them by five.

“Hernandez, Delvaux, Cardale, Evans, and Montreal,” the teacher announced and the students who were called stood up to sit together.

“ … Warden, Carter, Sanford, Andrada, Riego … ”

“ … Takahiro, Lestrade, Watanabe, West, Marshall … ”

“And last but not the least is the group of” — he fished the last five papers and read them — “Lee, Morrison, Castillo, Travers, and … someone with no surname.”

Everyone chuckled as the teacher peered over his glasses to Alastair who was now flying paper planes that Jackson had taught her how to do.

“Alastair, what’s your surname?” the teacher asked, and Alastair shrugged.

“I have no surname,” she stated with finality and let her plane fly, making it land on top of the teacher’s shining head that half of the class burst out laughing.

The teacher just chuckled, removing the paper that clung into his sweaty scalp. “You can’t not have a surname. Unless of course if you’re royalty. But since you’re in a public school, I don’t think you are.”

Alastair just shrugged again.

“Okay, what’s your father’s surname, then?”

Nathan visibly slid down his seat in fear of hearing her answer that would no doubt be ‘Morningstar’. She can be a huge ass but that doesn’t mean he wants people to get the wrong idea about her. They might think her father’s a pornstar or something.

But to his surprise, that wasn’t even close to the real answer. “Black. Lucius Black from the Noble House of Wessex.”

The people who were listening gazed at her with their mouths agape, unable to process what she just said.

“O … kay?” the teacher just said and wrote that down, probably thinking to himself that she can be quite the lunatic if she wants to. “Go to your group.”

They all stood up, heading towards the back of the room, and Nathan stared in horror as two of the biggest bully in school and Alastair, who is most likely a subclinical psychopath, sat around him with looks that says they’ll pound him to a fine pulp.

It was obvious that someone doesn’t like him getting a peaceful life. Because this? This wasn’t peaceful. This was obviously gonna be war.

“Hey, Chucky, my chocolatey buddy,” Alastair greeted as the Student Council president made his way to their table.

They’ve met before during her first day in school after one of their detention, getting into a few small arguments here and there as he watched over them. By the time they left, Alastair was convinced that he’s her best friend and although it was confusing at best, Nathan just let her get on with her fantasy.

“Quit calling me that, Alastair.” The Student Council president said and scowled, only earning a wave of dismissal from her as she sat mindlessly at an empty chair.

“Whatever you say, Princess.”

“Okay,” he said through gritted teeth and cleared his throat, turning to the rest of the group before he decides to kill someone in the middle of class. “If you were listening earlier, you would know what our project is. But for the sake of those who didn’t, we are going to make a comprehensive presentation about the different kinds of deities from all over the world.”

Warren and Alastair just sat there while staring ahead, looking like they couldn’t care less about what Chuck was talking about while Jace and the other guy in their group pretended to be interested, their attention focused on Chuck.

“Is there any question?” Chuck asked, and Nathan raised a hand.

“When and where are we gonna make the project?”

“Good question,” he pointed and ran his gaze around the three others. “Who’s willing to volunteer their house for it? I can’t do it because my grandparents are over and trust me, you don’t wanna meet those two.”

Nathan forced out a chuckle and looked away, accidentally meeting Alastair’s gaze in the process.

“Warren can offer his place. He’s got a huge swimming pool out back, too.”

Both Chuck and Nathan’s eyebrows furrowed at Alastair’s sudden statement and they stared at the two of them, suspicions rising.

“You’ve been to his house?” Nathan was the first to ask, his arms crossed.

“No. We passed by it while we were heading home, remember?”

“Uh-huh. And you remembered, why?”

Alastair shrugged. “He threw that tomato at you as we were passing. It’s hard to forget, really.”

Warren laughed so hard at this that he almost fell over his seat, giving Alastair a fist bump.

“And you want to go to his house?”

“Who said I wanna go there?”

“Well, you suggested his hou—”

“Would you rather I suggest yours, then?”

Nathan quickly closed his mouth, raising an eyebrow at this, but before he could even find words to ask his next question, Chuck dismissed them with a wave and continued his long ass speech.

“If there are no objections, we’re gonna be doing the project at Warren’s house.” Chuck looked around, fixating his attention especially to Warren who does not appear to be listening at all. Chuck cleared his throat to catch his attention, but not even so much as a glance was given. “Warren, if you don’t want us in your house, you can say—”

“I didn’t say anything,” he finally said, his voice a little hoarse from laughing the whole time.

“It’s settled then. We’ll do it Friday afternoon at Warren’s house. Are there any more questions or objections?”

The guy beside Nathan shot his hand up into the air, and Chuck sighed with the prospect of talking to another dumbass.

“What is it, Travers?”

“What are we gonna bring?”

“Your brain,” he deadpanned. “And if it’s not such a nuisance, you should bring your laptop, too.”

The guy just nodded, seeming a little pissed as he tried to catch Chuck’s gaze.

···

Friday came by in a blur, catching Nathan in sudden surprise, and he groaned as he pushed himself off of the bed. It was still four o’clock in the morning but he already felt like he could die from exhaustion. Yesterday was only his third day at his new work, coincidentally it was also his first over time.

The owner’s sister was supposed to arrive at the store at exactly 10 in the evening — or if possible, earlier than that. A few minutes of delay would’ve been acceptable, but she ended up arriving at 12:13 midnight.

She was a bit overbearing, too, as if her younger brother paid Nathan a reasonable amount to begin with for her to start bossing him around like she’s some kind of empress in a soap opera. It wasn’t helping that Alastair was occasionally disappearing somewhere, too, coming back every ten minutes with popcorn, soda, 3D glasses and the best one yet, the actual flat screen TV.

By the time his boss had arrived to take over the shift, Alastair was already hosting a mini theatre room inside the store, somehow dragging three of the customers there too who managed to spend far more than they had intended to.

Which gave his boss an idea.

All’s good. Except now, he has to set foot into the house of his biggest bully, yet. And all because of a demon called Alastair.