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It was now common knowledge that Anar and Crowley were in an official rivalry. It was a bit like a relationship – you thought about one another constantly, tried to seek each other out at every opportunity, had pet names for each other (Demon Donkey and Arsewipe, respectively) and it was committed and exclusive. There was just less kissing involved.

The other students divided up into factions; encouraging the hate and animosity. Alexis gained the most popularity, being of noble stock and having better perks to bribe his followers with. Anar ended up with the weaklings following him around, the nerdy students who carried inhalers and were constantly in their demon-forms as a means of protection against bigger, meaner would-be minions.

Anar was fine with this. He’d not intended on being in a rivalry with anyone in the first place, and now that it had happened he wasn’t particularly interested in having the largest fan club.

The lecturers and senior staff fully approved of the teen’s public displays of loathing; it was a sign that they were doing something right in their teachings of evil ways. All demons looked out for themselves, and detested others of their kind. This current situation would see them in good stead for their future careers. They would only make themselves stronger, more resilient, cruel in all the correct ways, with a penchant for causing trouble.

None of this would have happened if Anar hadn’t somehow developed a knack for wielding magic so effortlessly. That and the whole familiar situation. If he’d known back in the summer, when he’d begged his father to let him bring Rap and Rave with him into his occult studies, that it would have turned into such a drama, he'd have not bothered.

Although, that would have left him alone and even more depressed than he was now. For all the mischief they got up to, the dinosaurs were good company, and distracted him from the awful turn his once wonderful life had taken.

They were doing a very good job of distracting him right now, in fact He was supposed to be setting up an altar for a ritual. Demonology was full of rickety tables covered in dusty tablecloths, it seemed. Black cloth, black candles, black robes.

Rap had thrown himself into a very animated impression of Emperor Palpatine, with Rave convulsing on the floor from the ‘lightning’ Rap was shooting at him (he’d got a blue glow-stick from one of his many pockets, cracked it, and was waving it about).

Anar covered his mouth, made Darth Vader raspy noises and waved his baggy-sleeved hands about until Rap pretended to ‘die’. It was all jolly fun, and therefore absolutely not tolerated by the teacher, who demanded to know what was going on. They weren’t too impressed by the reply of: ‘Return of the Jedi, Miss.’

“Where are your familiar’s robes?” she snapped, pointing to Rave who was in his bare scales as usual.

“He doesn’t wear clothes, Miss.”

“He will in my class!”

Anar looked at the six-foot velociraptor and then turned back to the teacher, “if you can get them on him, then good luck to you.”

Rave displayed a full set of razor-sharp teeth and clacked his scythes of inner toenails on the floor.

“I’ll have to write you up on that, Warlock.” With a final glare, she turned to antagonise someone else.

“Why does everyone want me to wear clothes? I don’t get it,” Rave rumbled, grumpily.

Anar shrugged, “when you’re anthro, you gotta cover yourself up, or you’re seen as naked.”

“What’s wrong with naked?”

“I dunno, mate. I don’t make the rules. If I did, things wouldn’t suck so much. Don’t worry about it, anyway.”

“I’m not going to. That’s the nice thing about being a dinosaur, I just do what I want. I’m like the Hulk: you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry! Watch! RAAAGH!” he stomped about, sending terrified students scattering, swatting his tail as he went. Candles flew, molten wax drops arcing over the floor, skulls toppled and clattered, rolling around.”

“Dunno about Hulk, more like Godzilla.”

“I won’t warn you again, Warlock!” the teacher fumed, fussing over the placing of Crowley’s runes as he frowned at the lizard’s antics.

“Alright mate, knock it off, yeah? Pick up the mess and get back here.”

Rave cocked a deaf ear, clicking back to their half-finished table, a look of innocence on his long, scaly face.

“I’ll tidy up after him…” Rap sighed, collecting up the bones and stones that were all over the place.

“What’s all this rubbish for, anyway?” Rave asked as the aardvark flipped his notebook, checking the position of his candles.

“It’s for a ritual. We make the table up in different ways, depending on what we’re trying to do. There’s ceremonies, and sacrifices, and celebrations and all that kind of stuff, yeah? It makes the Dark Lord happy. Or it’s meant to. He probably doesn’t even care. We gotta do it right, or he gets cross. Again, he probably doesn’t even care. But the teacher does, and so far I’m racking up lots of marks, what with my rivalry and all that, so I’m trying to do it right.”

“So you can go home for… the ‘C’ word?” Christmas wasn’t a word you could say too loudly around the lecturers.

“Right! In normal colleges you get a week off at the end of October, but here that’s Hallowe’en time, and Hallowe’en is a big deal for demons and the like. So, we’re in classes for that, with special activities ‘n stuff. We’ve got to find some offerings, and do Midnight Mass. I think we’re helping some of the Underworld workers to cause mischief. I might even dress up as a Headless Horseman, seeing as I can call Destroyer,”

“That’s the bad dream horse, right?”

“Nightmare,” Anar hissed. “He gets arse-y if you say ‘Horse’ around him.”

“Ooooh, we get to meet your other friend!” Rap clapped excitedly.

Rave lunged for thin air, snapping his jaws closed loudly, making the others spin to see what was going on.

“Bloody familiar! Nosey parker!” the dinosaur roared.

A whirling, glittery trail spiralled back to Alexis, whose barbed tail was flickering as he watched them, intently. The pixie landed back on his shoulder.

“Has it been listening in? That’s lame,” Anar frowned.

“He’s lame!” Rave growled, loud enough for the human to hear.

“I’m not the one who can’t even keep his big nose in his shroud,” Alexis taunted, “fancy wearing robes meant to keep you in disguise, and your grey, hairy snout gives away who you are!”

Anar pulled back his sleeve, fully intent on confronting him, but Rap tugged his wing, shaking his green head.

“Time and a place, mate, and Miss Hoobading is already looking at you.”

Anar shuffled his trainers, and murmured agreement, it would be a shame to undo some of his hard work. “It’s Miss Hinkling, Rap, that’s her name.”

“That’s what I said! Hoobading.”

“Please never say her name in earshot, okay?”

Rap picked up the skull off his table and flapped its bottom jaw, “o-kay,” he said, jovially.

“Are you boys still pratting about?!” the teacher swept up to them, her arms resting on the hips of her lacey dress.

“Sorry Miss Hoobading,” said Rap, again flapping the skull jaw to match his words.

Anar drew his grey hands down his long face. Why? Why him? What had he done in a previous life to deserve this?

“You’re very lucky to have a father as important as you do, Warlock, or you’d be in Master Leviathan’s office facing his whip by now,” the mistress hissed.

“Kinky,” mumbled Rave.

“JUST GET ON WITH YOUR TASK!” she roared, her frizzy green hair shaking about her collection of short horns, set on her head like studs of a biker’s jacket. Her violet eyes flashed. Curved incisors gleamed. Her lioness whiskers bristled. She was beautiful when angry.

“Yes, Miss!” Anar squeaked, resisting temptation to kneel in worship as his knees buckled.

The submitting gesture pleased her, and she sneered, haughtily. “Good.”

Rap prodded him with a bony elbow as she left, “she liked that! You’ll get good marks if you keep bowing.”

“I didn’t mean to,” he whined, flushing deep within his raised hood. “Now Arsewipe will take the piss out of me, just you watch.”

Sure enough, Crowley started swooning over on his side of the room, “ooh, yes Miss, yes Miss!” His familiar chittered in laughter, too.

Miss Hinkling rounded on the human, swiping her clawed paws, “your runes are still in the wrong order, Crowley! Sort yourself out! Where are your notes?!”

He shrank down, curling his wings around himself protectively as the teacher swiped at his stones on his table, crossly.

“I expected better from you!” she snapped.

“Yes, Miss!” he peeped, meekly.

“Come on, let’s show him up. Gimme me that page,” Rap grabbed at the notebook. “This bit goes here; those runes should be that way round. Come on you,” he settled the skull back down, “good job we did our homework for this one, eh?”

“I think you should be the demon student and me the familiar, mate,” Anar whispered, gratefully.

“You can sod right off with that one, mate. I wouldn’t be seen dead with a poxy pair of wings. Don’t even get me started with the dress code! This dumb cultist robe is bad enough…” he trailed off, picking at the lining and pulling at hems, “I mean, it’d be alright with pockets, bit of colour, maybe some blue thread on the edges, some buckles.”

Anar rolled his grey, faintly glowing eyes; goodness knows what that robe would look like the next time he saw it. Something from Cyberdog, most probably. Pound to a penny it would be tie-dyed.

Miss Hinkling peered over from one of the other student’s tables, raising her eyebrows at the neat array of artefacts in front of the hapless trio.

Alexis also nosed at them, scowling as always, frantically scrabbling to copy them and get his own arrangement correct, his pixie intervening with high-pitched squeaks.

Rap swished his robe in an attempt to screen off their work, sticking his reptilian tongue out at the cheeky human.

Some of the rest of the class, who were trying to get in Alexis’s favourites list, abandoned their work and came to his rescue, but too many creatures around one small, cluttered tablecloth was not a wise idea, especially with long flowing robes thrown in the mix and naked flames.

Anar remembered the aroma of burning hair very well. You didn’t go through three years of High School without someone setting their fur on fire. He was lucky, being of aardvarkian race, hair only grew in a few select areas, but other classmates were more flammable.

Hands patted urgently at flames as they flickered, Miss Hinkling rushed for the fire extinguisher, familiars zipped about excitedly and the unfortunate student yelped, loudly, in distress. The fire quickly spread to the tablecloth with a ‘whoomph!’

Anar reached inside his sweater for Sharon. He’d still not filled out his form from the last time but he would get around to it, eventually.

Anar’s blood bubbled.

A blue glow lit up the room.

There was a hush. All the lit candles were now put out. So was the still flapping student, the spaniel spinning around on the spot, chasing his tail until he realised it wasn’t on fire anymore. He picked his head up, and looked around.

Anar’s heart hammered. Had he done the right thing? Wrong thing? Who could tell, in this place? Killing your classmates probably got you a merit, and your name engraved on the plaques in the main hall.

He’d be accused of being a show-off again. He was another shot of magic down.

“Thank you, Warlock,” Miss Hinkling said, crisply. “Everyone else, re-light your candles.”

“Re-light my fire! Your love is my only desire!” Rap sang, flicking Anar’s Zippo, happily.

The spaniel looked in the aardvark’s direction for a moment before going back to his table.

Alexis was left alone as the other’s wandered off, too. He spluttered at the mess that had been left behind, he’d have to start all over again.

Rave grinned, “like rats with a sinking ship.”

“I’m not supposed to help other demons,” Anar muttered, wretchedly. “I’m not meant to waste magic, neither.”

“You’re a rebel. Everyone loves a bad boy. Anyway, they was on fire so it was a proper emergency; it’s not like you’re doing dumb good stuff, like helpin’ old ladies cross the road.”

A rebel. For doing something good. Thinking about this topsy-turvy set of rules gave Anar a headache. Miss Hinkling set the extinguisher back down into its wall bracket and came over to admire their table. Her paws passed over the various items, faint flashes of colour following her movements. “Very good, Warlock. You’re living up to your name. Now the incantation, if you would.”

He'd been so preoccupied with fiddly bits of rock that he’d forgotten about this bit. He’d been meaning to finish the translation, along with a hundred other things. He took a breath and uttered the words. In Infernal.

The lecturer said nothing, simply gesturing for him to proceed. He could almost feel the eyes upon him, as he picked up the candles and dripped a single drop of wax upon each rune, in a deliberate pattern. Rituals were a series of actions, and they could not begin until certain things were said. As he hadn’t done his homework, Anar wasn’t actually sure what the words were for, so he simply followed the steps as he’d written them down in his notebook. If he messed up, it could be interesting indeed; he could alter the weather, change his appearance, send one of the items on the table down to Hell, bring something up onto the table from Hell, curse someone (including himself), harm one of the students (no tears if it was Alexis) or activate a spell and send something whizzing around the room (again, no tears if it was Alexis).

A glimmer of green danced before his eyes as he placed the last wax drop. In the middle of all the rune stones was what looked like a shard of sea glass; frosted and smooth-edged.

“Interesting,” the lioness purred. “Well done, Warlock.”

Rap and Rave dived for it, magpies to a fault.

Anar slammed his grey hand down, covering it with a sleeve, “you don’t even know what it is! Can’t mess with this stuff, guys, it’s well dodgy.”

Rap pouted, “what even is it?”

Anar shrugged, “I won’t know until I’ve finished the translation.”

“Could be sweets,” Rap argued. “Like those round, see-through five-pence lollies you get at the Spa shop in Ilchester.”

“It is not a lolly.”

“Won’t know unless you lick it.”

“I am NOT putting anything I’ve summoned from a dark ritual in my mouth!” He removed his hand, uncovering it.

They all peered down at the unusual item.

“Guess I’ve got no choice now but to do my homework,” Anar sighed, scooping it up in the fabric of his robe.