For now, though, I was willing to leave the matter of the fairy and the demon to my dear old dad. I bumped into Kanesha outside the house. “I talked to you know who.”

“And?”

“He’s going to try and convince our less than heterosexual friend to go back home for a bit.”

“Less than…oh dear. What kind of convincing?” She tailed off as I felt the heat grow in my face. “Well, what do you expect? The stories do make it clear…”

“…but he doesn’t have to talk about it to me!”

Unfairly, she laughed. I was unable to stay mad with her, though. I followed her inside and, relaxed for once, we curled up on the couch and watched a romantic comedy. It wasn’t that funny, but it was fun to watch it with her. Maybe that’s what being in a relationship meant.

People would do things for their partners they wouldn’t normally do because when the other person’s happy, you’re happy. It took this to teach me that. And it was pretty late before we finally made our way to our separate beds.

The next day, the history teacher was present, but looked hung over. Or like he’d been doing other things last night than sleeping.

I wished he wasn’t there. Melchior, or whichever demon it actually was, would do something else today. I could feel it in the air. “Be careful,” I murmured to Kanesha.

“I won’t touch any black sticky stuff.”

The idea of her dying scared me. I wasn’t even sure what would happen, or what it really…but I managed to conceal it. “I trust you.”

I did trust her. To look after herself. To look after my heart. It wasn’t entirely easy to do so, but I did trust her. She was a good person and I knew it.

I thought in that moment that I hadn’t really done enough to deserve her. But then the fire alarm went off.

I was almost relieved as I headed back outside. If the alarm had been set off, then whatever it was had been spotted quickly and people would be clear. I hoped.

If anyone died, I wanted to take it out of the demon’s hide, but I wasn’t stupid. I knew who I could and couldn’t take on. I was totally going vampire hunting or something after this, just to remind myself that there were plenty of things I could handle.

As soon as we were outside, clouds gathered. No. Oh no. They weren’t natural. I could see the greenish tinge to them.

“We need to get back inside. Now.”

Kanesha’s face was pale. “I see it. But there’s no way they’ll let us.”

If it started to rain…would it be more liquid hellfire or acid or…something? It wouldn’t be rain, I knew that.

A name came to my lips. The name of the one person I knew could do something about this. “Thor.”

“It’s not…”

“No. Hush.” I was sure I had got Loki’s attention, but that was different. We were connected. He couldn’t stop this, though. It wasn’t his specialty. Thruor could call Thor. I probably couldn’t, but I had to try, even as I pushed Kanesha behind me back towards the building.

If I could save nobody else, I would save her.