Demon Derby Read Online Free PDF Page A

of old mulch and the guy sprawled heavily across my back. He rolled down my injured legs, grinding bits of glass farther into my skin, and thumped onto the ground.
    “Ow,” I said, wheezing.
    “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” demanded the guy. “You could have hurt somebody.”
    His voice was instantly familiar. Out of all the frat boys to crash into, of course it would be him.
    Rachel’s ex-boyfriend Dylan stood up without giving me a second look, straightening his gold Elvis jumpsuit with furious, jerky movements.
    “Hey!” he snapped. “I’m talking to you.”
    I gaped, trying to regain control of my voice. No luck. He wasn’t even paying attention; he had opened his mouth to berate me further, when he finally looked at me.
    “Oh my God! Casey?” he asked. “Is that you?”
    I nodded, rolling over and struggling to my feet.
    “You’re hurt.” He turned, yelling toward the house, “Somebody get a first aid kit!”
    “Dylan?” I wheezed. “Find my sister? She’s at the kissing booth.”
    His eyes went wide, but I was beyond caring. I could see a tall spike of white hair bobbing through the crowd that was gathering at the end of the driveway, gaping at me like I was a bald-headed leper. And when Rachel emerged from the throng with Kyle in tow, both of them breathless and red-faced from pushing their way through, I let myself cry.

    “So can you tell us what happened, miss?” asked the ruddy-faced police officer.
    The party still raged on outside, but I sat on a ratty sofa in the middle of the frat house common room with Rachel’s arm slung over one shoulder and Kyle’s over the other. Dylan might have been a sock-stuffing dorkwad, but he was also a fourth-year premed student who worked at the local urgent care center in his spare time. He finished tweezing the last of the glass out of my leg and started to wrap it in layers of filmy gauze.
    “Thank you,” I said, gritting my teeth against the burn. At this rate, the only part of my body that wasn’t going to be scabbed over was my right eyelid. My only defense was to joke about it, because otherwise I might start crying again. “I appreciate the help, Dylan.”
    He looked surprised, like common courtesy wasn’t something he encountered very often and he wasn’t sure how to respond.
    “Oh. Sure,” he replied.
    “Miss?” the officer prompted, tapping his pen on his clipboard to get my attention.
    “There was a man in the alley. He … I had to go to the bathroom. He jumped on me. He burned me.” My hand fluttered up to skim the scorched circles dotting the front of my jersey, and I forced it back to my side. “I think he wanted to kill me.”
    Kyle muttered a long series of swear words, his fingers tightening on my shoulder.
    The cop nodded, looking me over clinically. “Flicked a lit cigarette at you, did he? Okay, go on. How did you get away?”
    I debated correcting him. But really, there was no way to say “the guy was crying fire” without sounding like a complete nutjob, so I didn’t.
    “Casey has a black belt in ninjutsu,” said Rachel, squeezing my shoulder gently. “You probably kicked the crap out of the bastard, didn’t you?”
    “Something like that,” I mumbled. I felt ashamed more than anything. I was a black belt, for God’s sake, and ninjutsu doesn’t require a lot of muscle strength. By all rights, I should have kicked that guy’s ass, but did I? Nope.
    The cop’s attitude shifted a little; he looked at me with something like respect. “Good for you, kid,” he said. “So you think you could describe the guy for me?”
    “Tall, thin, wearing all white. Pale skin. Dark curly hair.”
    “Could it have been a wig?” he asked. “Halloween costume?”
    I shrugged. “Maybe.”
    “Approximate age?”
    “Not too old. Late teens, early twenties, tops.”
    “Good, good. Anything else?”
    He cried fire
, I thought. But I shook my head.
    “We’ll have you come down to the station tomorrow to