Seriously Wicked by Tina Connolly

ready to throw at her stupid sparkle lip gloss when Reese’s dim-witted squeal interrupted her. “Ohmigod, who’s that?”
    We all turned.
    Standing in the doorway was a punk-band boy.

 
    7
    Punk-Band Boy
    There was a gaga moment where I didn’t recognize him. For one, this boy had black hair, not blond. For two, I’d just seen him ten minutes ago torn and muddy, carrying a box of froggy-looking pixies. The Devon I knew was nothing like this boy here.
    This boy had style.
    This boy had cool.
    This boy was looking down Sparkle’s shirt.
    “Devon!” I said. I grabbed his sleeve (now not torn). “How are you feeling?”
    He tossed back his ink-black hair and looked amused. I felt six years old. “Hey, Flower Girl,” he said. “Come to get a piece of the action?”
    “Ew,” I said, but all the same I thought I might be blushing. I peered into his green eyes, searching for any trace of Devon there. Surely this wasn’t Devon … but what if Estahoth was already getting to him? Already warping his mind, making him think disgusting inhuman thoughts…?
    He looked back into my eyes, completely unself-conscious and with a smirk in his (now) black eyebrows. A sharp smell of firecrackers curled around him, underlaid with the musty tang of mold. The way he looked at me was like he knew me … inside and out. I suddenly remembered that the demon had actually been inside me for a few seconds in the basement. Then I really did blush, red hot.
    I tossed back my hair and tried to regain my normal cool. I mean, I’ve had a couple boyfriends. Plenty of guy friends. When your life revolves around filling the outrageous demands of a cranky witch, other social interactions seem way less scary. Okay, maybe I wasn’t made of cool like Jenah, and maybe boys didn’t just drop dead at my feet like they did for Sparkle, but in general, boys were not foreign scary creatures. Not compared to two-hundred-year-old warlocks who might give you appendicitis just for asking them if they’d barter three unicorn hairs for a drop of dragon milk (true story).
    So. There was no way any boy was going to get the best of me, no matter how much he suddenly resembled my TV love, Zolak the demon hunter. “Um, this is Devon,” I managed. “With Blue Crush.”
    Reese squealed, and suddenly she and the rest of the girls in the room were sucked into Devon like he was pure gravity. The risers clattered as the girls leaped on him. “Oh my god, we are so booking you to play for us!” said Reese. “You are way hotter than that boy from Pop Pop.”
    “Play for you?” said Devon. He did a thing that was like a wink, but it was way cooler than a wink. “You mean … personally?”
    Reese looked like she was about to faint.
    “Um, maybe we should just stick with Pop Pop,” I said. This new Devon did not need anybody’s help with stage fright. It was weird, but it was like the demon inside him gave him an extra allure. Like he could sing “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” and all the girls in the room would swoon.
    And if a billion girls swooned on him he’d never get the witch’s tasks completed.
    And then Devon’s soul would be eaten.
    “You’re very busy, right?” I said meaningfully at Devon. “Extra-credit science projects to finish?”
    His green eyes fixed me again but this time I managed not to blush. After all, this was not regular Devon. There was a million-year-old elemental in there, warping Devon’s thoughts. “I’m never too busy for my music,” he said. “What’s the gig?”
    I glared back and refused to think about how hot he was with the dark hair and the sudden confidence. “Halloween Dance. You’re too busy. You’ve got ob-li-ga-tions .”
    Despite all the girls clinging to Devon, I noticed that Sparkle was standing apart from him like I was. Her arms were crossed over her chest, she was clutching her cameo, and she was looking at Devon in a very weird way. I couldn’t tell if it was confusion—or fear. Both