Those Who Fight Monsters: Tales of Occult Detectives

Right as I was thinking that I needed to cut my best friend off, she stumbled over her own feet, a sure sign she was trashed. Instinctively, I took a step forward, but stopped right away, because someone caught her — and he wasn’t Carson. Instead, he was an absolutely dreamy guy who couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old. The kind of guy you see in magazines advertising deodorant soap, the idea being that if you don’t stink, you can land a guy like that.

“Marlin Wheatley,” Jeremy said, leaning close.

I didn’t turn around. How could I, since that would mean I had to stop staring?

“No way is he in his twenties,” I whispered, remembering what I’d been told about our host. “He’s got to still be in high school.”

Jeremy moved slightly, and I imagined he was shrugging. “Dunno. Guess he’s just one of those guys.”

I guessed so. One of those gorgeous, model-perfect, Greek- God-on-a-mountaintop kind of guys with a fabulous mansion overlooking the ocean, who throws awesome parties with cutting-edge music and tables and tables topped with amazing food and mindblowing drinks. Yeah. One of those guys.

Now, that guy was holding Mindy tight while she regained her balance. But he wasn’t looking at her. Instead, he was looking right at me. There was something so familiar about his eyes. If I wanted to, I really thought I could float away in them.

Except part of me didn’t want to. Part of me thought that would be a very bad idea. There was something about him … something deep in his eyes…

“Allie!”

I started, the movement breaking eye contact. I’d been thinking something … worrying about something, and I glanced back at Mindy, but she was upright and holding hands with Carson and everything seemed hunky-dory.

I turned to Jeremy, confused.

“Hey,” he said. “Are you okay?”

“I…”

“You got this look. All worried and … I don’t know.” His brow furrowed. “You don’t want to leave, do you?”

That knocked me back to reality. “I thought about it,” I admitted. “My mom wouldn’t exactly approve.”

As far as Mom knew, the plan had been a movie followed by a sleepover at Parker’s house. (Parker is a girl, so that’s not as risqué as it sounds.) The boys, of course, were not invited to that part of the evening.

“Forget this crap,” Carson had said once we were safe inside the mall. “Tonight’s Marlin Wheatley’s party.”

“Who?” I’d asked, and they’d all looked at me like I was from Mars. Turns out, Wheatley’s some rich twenty-something computer bazillionaire who’d moved to the area a few months ago and has been talking up this party for ages.

“Why?”

Jeremy and Parker had looked at each other and shrugged. “Don’t know. Guess he wants to make sure people come.”

“But why throw it in the first place?”

“He’s a college drop-out geek. This is probably his way of meeting girls. Who cares, anyway? It’s a party.”

I probably could have said something, but I didn’t, and after about thirty minutes, we pulled up in front of the biggest house I’d ever seen. I had no idea where we were, other than that we were on one of the cliffs overlooking the Pacific in a mega-ritzy neighborhood I’d never seen before. Walking to the front door, I could smell the ocean, and the lights of the house seemed magical against the black night sky.

At that one moment, I had absolutely no hesitation about blowing off the movie and sneaking off to a party.

Inside, when I’d smelled the alcohol in the punch and saw the guy I share a lab table with in biology barf into a potted plant, the second thoughts set in.

Still, there was nothing inherently bad about a barfing lab partner, right? Just because he drank too much didn’t mean I would. And I couldn’t deny the biggest, most glaring fact of all — I really liked the way Jeremy was looking at me. If I was a widdle girl who made a phone call to her mommy, would he ever look at me that way again?

“Earth to Allie,” he said. “Come on. Don’t do that to me. Tell me you don’t want to leave.”

“No,” I said, not realizing until that moment that I was certain. “I don’t want to leave.”

He pressed his hands over his heart and pretended to swoon. “Saved,” he said. “I was expecting a mortal blow.”

I laughed, and thought that felt pretty darn nice.

Mom might not think I was ready to make decisions in the field, but we weren’t talking demons here. This was a party. And just because she was a demon hunter didn’t mean she could go in and hijack all of my decisions from me. I was fourteen years old! I was supposed to be going to parties with friends. I’m pretty sure that’s in the rule book somewhere.

“I’m staying,” I said again, just because I liked the way it sounded. Then I smiled up at Jeremy. “In fact, I think I want more punch.”

“You’re Allie, right?”

I dropped the dipper back into the bowl, splattering the pink liquid onto my shirt, as I looked up to find Marlin smiling at me from the kitchen doorway.

“Sorry,” he said silkily. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“No, you…” I trailed off because, hey, he had startled me. What was the point of denying it?