Demonosity by Amanda Ashby

holding her book. Then she heard Rachel’s voice ringing out in the distance.
    “By the way, Travis, you still haven’t told me what you’re wearing to Cade Taylor’s Halloween party tonight.”
    Before Cassidy could hear his answer, Nash appeared. “There you are. I’ve been waiting outside for ages,” he started to say, before suddenly noticing something. He narrowed his eyes. “You look like you’ve just won the lottery. Why are you smiling?”

TEN
    C assidy stared into the mirror. An Audrey Hepburn zombie stared back at her. She readjusted her tiara and tried to decide if she’d overdone the fake blood, which was covering her chin. Would anyone even think that she
was
a zombie? Perhaps she just looked like Courtney Love on a bad makeup day, which definitely wasn’t the look she was going for. Especially since Travis was going to be there.
    Travis was going to be there!
    Just thinking his name caused a stab of indecision to go racing through her, and she hurried over to her bed and studied the other costumes that were lying there. She picked up the Lara Croft one. She’d almost worn that last year before Nash convinced her they should go as Bonnie and Clyde. But at least no one would mistake her for a crazy person if she was wearing it. Then she turned to the giant Angry Bird outfit, which she’d spent far too much money on, but decided red wasn’t her color. She chewed at her fake-blood-stained lip, but before she could make up her mind, she heard Nash’s car pull up, so she grabbed the Lara Croft costume and stuffed it into her oversize handbag. At least her choice was now between just two.
    As she raced down the hallway, she caught sight of her dad sitting up in his bed, his knee elevated, just as the doctor had ordered. She poked her head in.
    “Hey, I just thought I would say good-bye,” she said, walking over to his bedside.
    “Wow, you look great. Though I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to watch
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
again without thinking of blood.” Her dad smiled as he put his book aside. “I’m pleased that you’re going out tonight. What made you change your mind?”
    “Nothing,” she said a little bit too quickly, trying not to think about her run-in with Travis this afternoon.
    “Is that code for
boy
?” her dad asked with interest, and Cassidy let out an embarrassed groan.
    “Yes, but you know what? I think I’m just going to cancel, because—”
    “Because nothing,” he cut her off. “Cass, we’ve been through this. I’m feeling much better, so I want you to go to this party, eat lots of brains, and then come home and tell me all about it.”
    “Thanks, Dad.” Cassidy hugged him, careful not to let her zombie makeup smear on his shirt, and then headed out to where Nash was waiting. He was wearing tightly fitted pantaloons and a velvet jacket with ruffles of lace hanging down over his wrists, while his normally dark hair was covered with a stark white judge-style wig, à la the Scarlet Pimpernel.
    He also seemed to be having a boring conversation about particle physics with her mom, which caused Cassidy to roll her eyes before she grabbed his hand and dragged him away with a quick good-bye.
    They hurried down the path, only just avoiding a group of trick-or-treaters who were swinging their pumpkin-shaped candy bags and complaining about being given oranges by one of the other houses.
    “After you, Ms. Hepburn,” Nash deadpanned, holding open the car door. “And can I just say that you look very fetching for a living-dead person.”
    “Thank you, and you look very dashing as well.” She grinned back at him and then suddenly shot him a hopeful look. “So does this mean that you’ve forgiven me?”
    Nash pushed back one of his stiff white curls and reluctantly nodded. “Yes. Apart from the fact that you destroyed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn more about a quantifiable link between science and spirit, which up until this point in time has only been