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The Demon's Covenant (The Demon's Lexicon Book 2) Kindle Edition
Mae turns to brothers Nick and Alan to help her rescue Jamie, but they are in danger from Gerald themselves because he wants to steal Nick’s powers. Will Mae be able to find a way to save them all from the power-hungry magician’s devious trap?
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherMargaret K. McElderry Books
- Publication dateApril 28, 2010
- Grade level9 and up
- File size2041 KB
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© Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Magic on Burnt House Lane
Any minute now,” Rachel said, “something terrible is going to happen to us.”
The area around Burnt House Lane was deserted at this time of night. The cracks in the pavement that Mae hardly noticed by day had turned into shadowy scars along the cement, tracing jagged paths that led into the dark of yet another dead-end alley. They peered down into the alley and made the silent mutual decision to walk on extremely fast. Mae was in the lead.
“Come on, this is an adventure.”
Rachel muttered behind her, “I’m pretty sure that’s what I just said.”
Mae had to concede that this might not have been one of her better ideas. She’d just wanted something different now that she was finally able to leave the house, something a little exciting, and a party in an empty warehouse near Burnt House Lane had seemed the perfect plan.
A streetlamp above slowly winked its single evil orange eye, and night swallowed them at a gulp. The light sputtered back on with a grudging crackle and night spat them up, but by then Rachel and Erica had both walked into Mae’s back and were huddling together.
Rachel was shivering. “I think this may be the worst situation I have ever been in.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” said Mae. “I’ve been in much worse situations than this.”
She shivered and thought of the knife sliding in her sweaty grasp, the terrible resistance as she had sunk it into skin. She remembered the blood on her hands.
Rachel and Erica didn’t know anything about what had happened last month. They still thought she’d run off to London with her poor misguided brother on some crazy impulse.
Her mother thought that too, which was why Mae had been grounded for two weeks, picked up outside school in Annabel’s car like one of the younger kids who ran from school to car, frantic to exchange one cage for another.
Mae closed her eyes, more desperate to escape than any of them, and the dying streetlamps and broken lane faded away. She remembered bright lanterns flooding the forest with gold, dancing with an edge of danger so she wasn’t sure if she was sweating from exhilaration or fear, and black eyes on hers.
She’d seen magic. And now she’d lost it.
She wasn’t thinking about that, though. She was finally out for the night and she was going to have a good time. She was going to see Seb, and she wasn’t going to think about anyone else.
There was a clatter and movement in the shadows. Mae jumped and Erica grabbed her arm, five sharp fingernails biting like a small scared animal.
“It’s fine,” Mae said loudly, more to herself than her friends. She’d walked around Burnt House Lane after dark hundreds of times. She’d never been scared before. She wasn’t going to start being scared now just because she knew exactly what could be watching.
Mae walked on, keeping her stride measured and sure, and nothing followed them that she could hear.
“There’s nothing to worry about,” she told Erica. “Nothing.”
They reached the next alley and saw the warehouse where the party was being held, its windows streaming steady yellow light. Erica took a deep breath, and Mae grinned.
“See,” she said. “What did I tell you?”
“Sorry I got freaked out,” said Erica, who had not said a word all this time, who was always the angel on Mae’s shoulder saying, “Sounds great!” while Rachel on the other said, “We’re all doomed.” “I know the Lane’s safe enough, really. After all, Jamie hangs around here. Can’t really see Jamie strolling through a crime den.”
She laughed, and Rachel on Mae’s other side did too, both of them towering over Mae in their heels, fear melting away in the light.
The warehouse suddenly looked a lot less inviting.
“Jamie’s been hanging around the Lane?” Mae asked. “Since when?”
Jamie hadn’t been grounded. Annabel had assumed Mae was responsible for the whole thing, and Mae had let her. It wasn’t as if they could tell anyone the truth.
Mae had taken the blame and waved Jamie out of the house every night for weeks. He’d said he was going to the library to study; after all, it was his GCSE year, and the tests were coming up soon.
She didn’t know why she’d believed him. He’d lied to her before.
Erica looked uncertain about how Mae would take this, but she said, “Tim’s seen him around there almost every night for weeks.”
Erica’s boyfriend Tim was in Seb’s gang of guys, who weren’t Laners but liked to hang around Burnt House Lane anyway. The Lane was mostly just kids messing around, but far too many of those kids thought hassling Jamie was a good time.
Wandering Burnt House Lane after dark . . . Jamie did not take chances like that. She always told him he needed to take more risks, have a little fun, and Jamie always smiled his lopsided smile and said that he felt he got all the danger he needed in his life eating school lunches.
Mae thought about the very real danger Jamie had been in, less than a month ago. She thought about seeing a black mark on Jamie’s skin and hearing two strangers tell her that her baby brother was going to die.
She could hear the music coming out of the warehouse by now, not calling to her and promising her magic, but steady and reassuring as a heartbeat. She wanted to have fun with her friends again, to find Seb and see where that was going. She wanted to return to her normal life.
And she would, as soon as she knew her brother was safe.
“You guys go ahead, I just need to check something out.”
Mae had already sprinted a few steps away, so when she looked back her friends were superimposed against the light and music, staring at her with identically wide eyes.
“You just need to check something out in the pitch dark, in a dodgy part of town?” Rachel asked.
Mae didn’t need to be told it was dangerous. If it was dangerous for her, it would be twice as dangerous for Jamie, and every minute she spent talking was another minute he could be getting deeper into trouble.
“You’re barely even wearing a shirt! What are you going to do if a mugger jumps out at you, flash them?”
“That’s the basic plan,” Mae told her, and ran.
Mae had walked around Burnt House Lane at night plenty of times before, stumbling out of clubs with a guy who always turned out to be less interesting in the light of day. It was different now, alone with the night air running cool sharp fingers along her bare shoulders, her whole body tense. The moonlight was casting spiderweb graffiti on already scrawled-on walls and the night was full of potential danger.
People who thought it was funny to write “Gaz was here” on the walls might think it was funny to hurt Jamie. Mae was almost stumbling in her hurry through the night, so intent on her search that she put her foot into a slimy puddle. The plastic bag half-sunk in the dirty water clung to her laces as if it was a drowning swimmer. She shook her foot until it slipped off and into its watery, oily grave.
As she shook, she heard a boy’s voice say, “Crawford?” and she turned, wet shoe squishing as she ran toward an alley.
Lurking in alleys around the Lane, Mae thought in outrage. What did Jamie think he was doing?
She was mad about his stupidity right up until she turned the corner and actually saw him: skinny, small, his blond hair standing up in spikes that didn’t make him look any taller. Jamie always seemed a little fragile, and he seemed a whole lot more fragile when he was backed against an alley wall, staring up at three taller boys. The alley looked forlorn, the walls dirty and the dented, lopsided bins leaning against one another like drunks. It looked like the perfect setting for some petty crime.
Then she recognized the other boys.
Apparently Seb McFarlane wasn’t waiting to dance with Mae in the warehouse. Instead he’d decided it would be better fun to corner her brother in an alley.
The other boys were two guys she knew vaguely, part of a crowd who liked to smoke behind the bike shed and grab at clubs without asking.
Seb was tall, dark, and a little dangerous, but he never grabbed. Mae had really thought he was a possibility.
Now he was stalking toward Jamie, and Jamie was shrinking away, and the only possibility in Seb’s future was the possibility of being bitch-slapped by a girl.
He wasn’t that close to Jamie yet, so that meant Jamie had backed into a wall all by himself. Which was just like Jamie.
“Out here all alone?” Seb asked. “You sure that’s good thinking, Crawford? What if you get into trouble?”
Jamie blinked. “That is a concern. I’m glad I have you big strong men here to protect me!”
Seb shoved Jamie hard. “Your helpless act isn’t convincing me.”
“I don’t know,” another boy said lazily. “I think it’s pretty convincing, myself.”
The two boys Mae didn’t really know just seemed bored and ready to mess around, which wouldn’t have been a problem; Mae could have strolled in and made it all seem like a joke until she could whisk Jamie out of there. It was different with Seb, his big shoulders set and his voice intense. He seemed angry.
“It’s an act,” he insisted. “And you should drop it. Or maybe …” He leaned in, very focused, his eyes sharp and his voice soft. “Maybe I’ll make you drop it.”
Jamie swallowed and spoke, his voice equally soft. “I think I’m beginning to understand. Are you, um,” he said, and grinned suddenly, “are you hitting on me? Because I don’t know how ...
Product details
- ASIN : B003JH89ZO
- Publisher : Margaret K. McElderry Books; Reprint edition (April 28, 2010)
- Publication date : April 28, 2010
- Language : English
- File size : 2041 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Not Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 452 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,451,404 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #400 in Teen & Young Adult Arthurian eBooks
- #1,236 in Teen & Young Adult Dark Fantasy eBooks
- #2,515 in Teen & Young Adult Action & Adventure eBooks
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Sarah Rees Brennan is the New York Times bestselling writer of a dozen YA fantasy books which have been Carnegie-listed and Hugo and World Fantasy award finalists, plus tie-in books with Netflix and anthologies with Marvel. Born in Ireland by the sea, she lived in London, New York and Melbourne. A survivor of late stage cancer, she now lives in Dublin near a library founded in 1707. LONG LIVE EVIL, the tale of a dying young woman who walks into her favourite fantasy book to find herself a villain, is her first book for adults.
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When I finished reading The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan I wanted to immediately dive into the second book in the series, The Demon's Covenant and yet at the same time I was hesitant to do so. The reason being that the narration switches POV from Nick to Mae and I wasn't sure how that would work. For you see, I'd fallen in love with this world through Nick's eyes and then I was about to be tossed into a new head and who knows what I might have to relearn. But I did dive in and it wasn't long before I realized that I had nothing to worry about as Brennan is quite the story teller. This series isn't about really about whose eyes you are looking through because each new set of eyes only adds to the magic and realism of the world that Brennan has created.
Demon's Covenant picks up shortly after Lexicon leaves off and its not long before the shenanigans begin. As with Lexicon some of my favorite moments came from Nick and Jamie interacting. I swear Brennan could write a book with just the two of them in a room talking and I would probably love it. I also really liked seeing Nick and the gang through Mae's eyes. Mae is a mortal and she's still new to the whole idea of magicians and demons and yet she is very accepting of the chaos that her life has become. She thinks that she yearns for a normal life but part of her craves that adventure that the Reves brothers brings. Its always hard to go backwards when your eyes have been opened.
This book makes you fall in love with Mae and her strength. She is a kick ass girl who doesn't take crap from anyone but she's vulnerable too which makes her relateable. She's the sort of girl that you want to be if you ever find yourself in a situation where you have to battle demons and magicians. Another thing that I really liked about Demon's Covenant is that it doesn't fall into the book two of a trilogy trap. You know the one, where nothing much happens in book two and its all just a set up for the big climax in the last book. Well, this book doesn't do that. Yes there is set up for what happens in the last book but this one has enough action and plot to stand on its own.
This is one of those books where once you start reading you really don't want it to stop. Its a book where you end up hating coming to that final page because you aren't ready to leave these characters behind. So you are glad that its part of a trilogy because you know there is still more story to be told. If you've been thinking of reading this series but have held off for whatever reason then stop. Pick up all three books, grab your favorite beverage, settle in to a comfy chair and just sit back and enjoy the ride. You won't be disappointed.
To quote my favorite Drasnian spy*...."Trust Me."
Top reviews from other countries
There are demons and fighting and a geeky gay guy, what more could you want?!
Plus mae has pink hair whihc makes her amazing!
Mae is also far too easily manipulated by all of the other characters, which frustrated me a lot. In the first book she comes across as quite a strong individual, one who stands up for her brother and her opinions. Here that same strength is present but the impact is lessened as she takes everything said to her at face value, meaning she ends up being manipulated and turned into a pawn (vague, I know!) for others to use.
However, my ambivalence for Mae is more than made up for by my love for Nick and Alan. These two are brothers in every way apart from genetics. Alan would and does do anything for Nick, a demon who could cause untold damage to the world. And Nick? Well, he tries so very hard to be human enough for Alan, and to a lesser extent Mae and Jamie, while still remaining demon enough for himself. I also enjoyed reading the diary of Daniel Ryves, Alan and Nick's father, which was mainly about how he came to terms with having a demon as an adoptive son. Nick's reactions to this diary were well thought out and human enough that I hope he can come to terms with who he is, a somewhat humanised demon, in the final book.
I find it interesting that Alan lies all the time, he admits he lies all the time, and yet, as a reader, I was still surprised when I realised he was lying to the others. Which brings me back to my point about Mae being manipulated - it's annoying and yet I was being manipulated by Alan myself. The further on through the book I got, the more I felt for Mae. I still don't find her a particularly interesting character but I had more sympathy for her towards the end.
And the ending? Holy bleeding heck. I was a soggy wet mess on the floor. Something completely unexpected happens and that was it, I was sobbing my heart out.
This is very much a character driven trilogy so far and one that depends very much on how you connect to the characters. Had Mae been the narrator of the first instalment, I'm not sure I would have taken to it quite as much as I have. But as Nick and Alan, and their relationship, are the driving force of the trilogy for me, I got enough out of this book to keep me happy.