Chapter One
As an interactive horror experience, with beasts from Hell, mayhem, gore, and dismemberment, it was an impressive event. As a high school prom, however, the evening was marginally less successful.

I should start at the beginning, but I'm not entirely certain when that is, so I'll start with the day I realized that despite my most determined efforts, I was not going to be able to ignore the prom entirely.

The end of April, and a rabid satin and tulle frenzy had attached to every double X chromosome in the senior class. All available wall space--hallway, cafeteria, even the bathrooms--sprouted signage in the most obnoxious colors possible. I was assaulted by flyers in the courtyard, and harassed by thrice-daily announcements. Had I gotten my tickets yet? Had I voted for the class song? Had I voted for the King and Queen? No, no, and Hell no, because voting for royalty was not just moronic, it was oxymoronic.

No one was safe from the Prom Plague. When dog-eared copies of Seventeen magazine started circulating through AP English, I knew I'd soon have to fall back to the band hall and call the CDC from there.

Then one day my neutrality was over. My indifference punctured. Stanley Dozer asked me to be his date.

Stanley Dozer was even lower on the high school food chain than I was, and I was in the journalism club. Sometimes I think God must have a kind of divine craps table; every once in a while He shoots snake eyes and the next baby born is screwed from the jump. I mean, "Stanley Dozer," for starters. Maybe he could have aesthetically overcome this name, but the guy was about six foot five, pale and bony as a corpse, with hair the color of spider webs. His ankles and wrists shot out of his too short jeans and the sleeves of his plaid button-down shirt. I sympathized with the sizing problems, but I had to wonder at the complete inattention to fashion. And by fashion I mean "camouflage."

Back on the middle school Serengeti I learned that, lacking a certain killer instinct, my best bet was to avoid standing out from the herd and making myself a target for the apex social predators, at least until I'd built up a tough skin. Now I'm sort of like the spiny anteater. Small and prickly, trundling along, a threat to no one. Except ants, I guess, which is where the metaphor runs out.

Back to Stanley's ambush. On the second-story breezeway that overlooked the courtyard below, the Spanish Club was selling candy to raise money for their Guatemalan sponsor child and I was taking their picture. Privately I thought little Juanita would benefit a lot faster if they sold tequila shots instead. Not that I advocate underage alcohol, but I bet there were a few teachers who could use a drink this time of year.

"Hi, Maggie!" Stanley's voice startled me.

I spun around, narrowly missing hitting him in his bony chest with my camera. I'm used to looking up, but with Stanley I had to crane my neck and squint. "Oh. Hi, Stanley."

Behind me, the Spanish Club giggled. What was Espa--ol for "Bite me"?

"How are you?" he asked, hefting his book bag onto his shoulder. The canvas bag bore the logo of the natural history museum. High on the geek quotient, but worlds better than the briefcase he'd carried freshman year.

"I'm taking some pictures for the yearbook." I hinted broadly that I was busy. After all, the next box of Chiclets might be the one that sent little Juanita to college.

"I saw you up here, and I thought . . . Well, you know how the prom is coming...

Chapter One
I shouldn't have been surprised. I'm Maggie Quinn: Psychic Girl Detective. Lisa is an amateur sorcerer. We aren't exactly normal college freshmen. Yet there we were, doing the normal college thing, setting off on a Rite of Passage: Spring Break at the Beach.

An odd choice, since I hate any water deeper than a bathtub, I already have a boyfriend, and if you couldn't tell from her nickname, D&D Lisa isn't the beer and boobfest type. Neither am I. But we'd wanted to take a road trip, and the destination had started as a joke. Then I pitched an article to the editor of the Bedivere University newspaper-who seemed amused by the whole World's Least Likely Spring Breakers angle-and to my surprise, Lisa went along with it.

In the end, our reasons don't matter, except to explain how we came to be cruising down State Highway 77 in the smallest hour of the morning, even though we knew-better than most-what kinds of things go bump in the night.

I flexed my hands on the Jeep's steering wheel and sank lower into the seat. It was a long drive, which hadn't seemed so daunting until I realized how much of it was through landscape so desolately featureless, it made me think Dante must have visited here before he wrote The Inferno.

"If I owned Hell and Texas, I'd rent out Texas and live
in Hell."

Lisa paused in fiddling with the radio. "What's that about?"

I shrugged. "Something I read once. Like . . . Did you know Velasquez County has more cows than people in it?"

There was just enough light from the dashboard to see her roll her eyes. "Remind me to never go up against you on Jeopardy!"

Under a nearly full moon, the coastal plain was as flat as a silver-gray sea, cut by a black ribbon of highway and a smaller thread of railroad tracks running alongside. Now and then we'd reach a crossroads, where there might be a grain silo, a water tower, or a tiny fruit stand, deserted for the night and only adding to the barren atmosphere.

It seemed like there should be more traffic-other spring breakers, semis on their NAFTA routes, minivans loaded up like the Griswolds' station wagon in Vacation-but since we'd passed Corpus Christi, the signs of civilization had dwindled to zero. We'd passed the last minimart an hour ago, and with nothing on the horizon but more road-and eventually Mexico-I was beginning to regret the twelve ounces of Coke I'd downed to keep alert in the unrelieved boredom.

"You didn't have to come with me," I pointed out.

Lisa had given up on the radio and plugged my iPod into the adaptor. "Is it so weird to want to do something normal?"

I glanced at her silhouette, arching my brows wryly. "For you? Yes."

"I'm taking a break from my sorcerous studies. It will be just like the old days, except that instead of sitting around in the caf mocking the jock-headed and lame, we'll be sitting on the sand mocking the drunk, sunburnt, and slutty." She bent her long, denim-clad leg to an impossible angle and propped her foot on the dash. "Besides, I'm ahead on all my coursework, so what else am I going to do? Sit around and play World of Warcraft all week?"

Our friendship had endured four years of high school, freshman semesters spent at colleges half a country apart-not to mention the forces of darkness. In the past year, one of us had summoned a demon, one of us had vanquished it, and our friendship had nearly fallen apart. Then we'd had to team up to defeat a sorority who had the devil on speed dial. Lisa had saved my life,...

Chapter One

I shouldn't have been surprised. I'm Maggie Quinn: Psychic Girl Detective. Lisa is an amateur sorcerer. We aren't exactly normal college freshmen. Yet there we were, doing the normal college thing, setting off on a Rite of Passage: Spring Break at the Beach.

An odd choice, since I hate any water deeper than a bathtub, I already have a boyfriend, and if you couldn't tell from her nickname, D&D Lisa isn't the beer and boobfest type. Neither am I. But we'd wanted to take a road trip, and the destination had started as a joke. Then I pitched an article to the editor of the Bedivere University newspaper-who seemed amused by the whole World's Least Likely Spring Breakers angle-and to my surprise, Lisa went along with it.

In the end, our reasons don't matter, except to explain how we came to be cruising down State Highway 77 in the smallest hour of the morning, even though we knew-better than most-what kinds of things go bump in the night.

I flexed my hands on the Jeep's steering wheel and sank lower into the seat. It was a long drive, which hadn't seemed so daunting until I realized how much of it was through landscape so desolately featureless, it made me think Dante must have visited here before he wrote The Inferno.

"If I owned Hell and Texas, I'd rent out Texas and live
in Hell."

Lisa paused in fiddling with the radio. "What's that about?"

I shrugged. "Something I read once. Like . . . Did you know Velasquez County has more cows than people in it?"

There was just enough light from the dashboard to see her roll her eyes. "Remind me to never go up against you on Jeopardy!"

Under a nearly full moon, the coastal plain was as flat as a silver-gray sea, cut by a black ribbon of highway and a smaller thread of railroad tracks running alongside. Now and then we'd reach a crossroads, where there might be a grain silo, a water tower, or a tiny fruit stand, deserted for the night and only adding to the barren atmosphere.

It seemed like there should be more traffic-other spring breakers, semis on their NAFTA routes, minivans loaded up like the Griswolds' station wagon in Vacation-but since we'd passed Corpus Christi, the signs of civilization had dwindled to zero. We'd passed the last minimart an hour ago, and with nothing on the horizon but more road-and eventually Mexico-I was beginning to regret the twelve ounces of Coke I'd downed to keep alert in the unrelieved boredom.

"You didn't have to come with me," I pointed out.

Lisa had given up on the radio and plugged my iPod into the adaptor. "Is it so weird to want to do something normal?"

I glanced at her silhouette, arching my brows wryly. "For you? Yes."

"I'm taking a break from my sorcerous studies. It will be just like the old days, except that instead of sitting around in the caf mocking the jock-headed and lame, we'll be sitting on the sand mocking the drunk, sunburnt, and slutty." She bent her long, denim-clad leg to an impossible angle and propped her foot on the dash. "Besides, I'm ahead on all my coursework, so what else am I going to do? Sit around and play World of Warcraft all week?"

Our friendship had endured four years of high school, freshman semesters spent at colleges half a country apart-not to mention the forces of darkness. In the past year, one of us had summoned a demon, one of us had vanquished it, and our friendship had nearly fallen apart. Then we'd had to team up to defeat a sorority who had the devil on speed dial. Lisa had saved...