"I'm not sure I like it here," I told Lillian. We were in our room again.
"Oh, boo-hoo, not everyone likes us," Lillian replied snarkily. "I know it's not ideal, but we have a home now, and friends, and you possibly, correct me if I'm wrong, like a girl. And we're gonna get past... whatever's been going on in my brain... so stop worrying and give me a drawing idea already."
"A strawberry cupcake. You'd like that. But that's not what I meant this time," I sighed. "We're here to fight Eli, right? But all we're doing is regular classes with some weapon use on the side, only to panic every time he shows up. We're not doing anything about him."
"You know what? You're right. We need a game plan. Discuss it over donuts?"
"You're starting to sound like Grey," I teased.
"Well, yeah, but donuts."
"I come bearing donuts!" Grey announced. Kid is on crack or something, I swear.
"I accept your generous offering with the proposal that next time, you only bring chocolate ones," Lillian replied.
"I would say is this really serious enough to need donuts, but I've come to the conclusion not to question you two anymore," Tempest conceded.
"That is an excellent conclusion," I agreed. "However, this is serious enough for donuts, as I'm trying to make an actual plan here."
"A plan to make me into an orphan!" Lillian squealed enthusiastically.
"You seem very excited about that," Tempest remarked.
"Well, I'm hoping it won't go that far," Lillian corrected herself, "but we need to take him down. This school, even as it claims to be here to fight my dad, doesn't actually have a schedule for making that happen."
"We're here to fix that," I added. "The Shadow must fall."
"As much as I'm all for that," Tempest answered, "there's only four of us."
"Though my absentee parental unit knows magic, there's only one of him," Lillian pointed out. "And face it, we're way cooler than him. We can do this."
"I'll eat to that!" Grey chuckled, stuffing his face with an entire donut, which was both disgusting and impressive. "But Lillian has a point. If we can turn his strength into a weakness, it should be easy. With or without the support of Lord Biased's crew, we outnumber the Shadow. The magic part is really the only issue."
"Problem is, Eli doesn't have, like, a magic staff or anything. His magic is part of him. He made the right connections to master it. It's not like we can have a dramatic movie moment where we break his wand and now he's powerless," I explained.
"We need to sever his connections!" That was Lil's big brain moment right there.
"But who or what did he connect to to gain his powers?" Tempest asked.
"Probably some sort of demon. Maybe at a family reunion or something?" Grey suggested. Lillian burst out laughing.
"That's actually a good point," I realized. "We're pretty sure he has black magic, right? Where does that come from? Demons! If we can find out which one or ones he's made a deal with and convince them that he's not keeping his end of the deal or whatever, wouldn't they take his magic away? Then it would be easy to take him down!"
"You want to go convince a demon to do the right thing? What, are you crazy or something?" Tempest scoffed.
"Yes," Lillian and Grey confirmed in unison.
"Wow, thanks, guys. And I never said it would be a one-step, supereasy solution, but do you have any other ideas?" I asked. "Yeah, didn't think so."
"You don't have to be so rude about it," Tempest grumbled. "I never said I wasn't onboard."
"Just one thing: how do you talk to a demon?" Lillian pondered.
"Um... do something bad enough to get sent to his office?" Grey suggested.
"Oh my gosh, you're so lucky Grantham's not here!" Tempest screeched, howling with laughter.
"Hey, I never said Grantham was a demon," Grey pointed out. "That one's on you." He paused. "But seriously, do you want us to get a ouija board or something?"
"Or like, play Charlie Charlie?" Lillian added.
"As dumb as you guys are making that sound, I'm going to seriously consider those ideas yet decline. Those could give you any demon," I explained. "We want Eli's demon bestie."
"I'm getting that carved on your gravestone," Lillian teased. "'Eli's demon bestie'. Famous last words."
"Who said they were my last words? You plotting my untimely demise or something?" I laughed. "Besides, I want my gravestone to say something like 'FREE AT LAST!', so the demon thing is out."
"Here's the deal: you can put free at last if you die of natural causes. If you get killed by Eli, I reserve the right to put 'Eli's demon bestie' on your gravestone as promised," Lillian compromised.
"Let the record show that I never agreed to this," I surrendered. "But back to the issue at hand: summoning a very specific demon or group of demons, and then convincing them to stop granting favor to someone who is clearly following through with whatever deal they made, just by the fact that people are still dying at his hand."
"We could just wait for the Shadow to show up and then scream 'Hey, Eli's demon bestie! Could we talk over coffee or something?!' and see if that works," Tempest offered.
"Et tu, Tempest? But that could work, if we knew the demon's name rather than just repeating something that you guys will clearly never let go. So how do we learn a demon's name?" I pondered.
"If we're taking guesses, I'd say there's a pretty good chance of it being Beelzebul," Tempest muttered, looking up from her phone. "By the research I literally just made, he's pretty widely considered the prince of demons."
"You're right! Matthew chapter 12, verse 24! 'But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons,'" Lillian quoted. "They were wrong, by the way. He drove out demons by the fact that He's literally God. But you get my point."
"She... she actually memorized the Bible," Grey stuttered. "But it's a decent guess, given how powerful the Shadow is."
"So we're just supposed to wait for him to show up again and then yell at his demon bestie?" Tempest questioned.
"One, I resent that. Two, no. We lay a trap." That was the moment where I had my big idea.
"A trap? Where?" Lillian asked.
"I'm not saying I like it," I sighed, "but I know a place."
YOU ARE READING
What Is Your Name?
Fiksi Remaja"The one thing Sky has never told me, though it's the one thing I've always wanted to know, is my mother's name." Sky and Lillian, ages 17 and 13, are all the other's got. They are held by the bond of Lillian's mother, Sky's older sister, the first...
