Chapter 8. |Apples and Allies|

I met the devil way sooner than I had expected.

When he had told me he would intervene and help me out, I didn't think it would be so soon or that he would suddenly walk in as the substitute Calculus teacher.

Yes, you heard me right. There I was, biting at the tip of my Bic and wondering if by any chance, Blake was staring over at my side. This was the only class I had with him and when he came in earlier and spotted my seating position in the middle of the class, he intentionally decided to go pick the seat far end of the class, at the corner.

God, that boy hated me so much and it was all my fault.

Our regular Calculus teacher, Miss Simeon was running late which was very unusual and most of us were already getting all rowdy in the class. For final year seniors, they all acted pretty dumb for my liking and I dully watched, Asher Hu, one of the blonde, football jocks lob paper balls at his teammates while they all guffawed senselessly.

What girls saw in jocks, I didn't understand, but like I said earlier, these jocks were our stars. Our boys. You hated, them, the school hated you. Fact.

I was about plugging my earpiece to listen to some music to calm my nerves when he walked into the class, in a charcoal black suit tailored to perfection. The devil stood before the class, with his dreadlocks looking like he had finally washed and introduced them to a comb, his wide smile showed normal teeth and his pale, sallow skin had a bit of color to it. He held a black briefcase and if I didn't know his true identity, I could have mistaken him for an actual teacher. Only that no normal person could have eyes as black as his, those still stood out distinctively despite his perfect disguise.

"Holy fuck." I swore so loudly, half the class turned to give me a curious look, I quickly buried my face in my palms after that. 

"Hello, everyone," I heard him speak up, even his voice sounded nice and friendly, the madness of this man had no limits. "I'm going to be replacing your teacher, she's currently unavailable for now. You can all call me Mr A."

A? 

It came ten seconds later. Azazel. Also, I had a sneaky suspicion that he had done something to our teacher, in fact, I was sure that he had done something to that nice, young teacher. His eyes swept the class and landed on me briefly, I could have sworn I saw the corners of his lips twitch in a smile.

"Now, I graded the last tests you guys had," he was saying now, his attention completely off me and on his briefcase as he tried to get it open. "And I think it's going to be a good idea to go over some the mistakes you all made."

With that, we launched into the class and the devil, surprisingly, taught very well. He went over the exercises perfectly and made accurate corrections that made us all enjoy and understand the well interactive class.

After the bell went off, he called us one after the other to get our graded test scripts. Naturally, the last two scripts left were Blake and I's and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes when he called out Blake's name.

"Mr Blake Johnson?" The devil was staring down at his script with a smile, making me wonder what he was up to this time. Blake picked up his textbooks, ran his hands through his curls and walked to the front of the class where the devil stood. 

"Very good, Mr Johnson," the devil spoke, smoothly as he stared at the poor boy, they were roughly the same height of about 6ft and squared off equally. "You scored the highest in the class, most of your work showed some advanced level of Calculus."

"I took advanced classes at my old school," Blake told him, receiving the outstretched script and peering down at it.

"Oh...that explains it then." He gave him a smile that was obviously meant to be friendly but turned very ugly, he quickly took it off but not before Blake and I collectively shuddered. The way he was staring at Blake was downright creepy, like the way a fat man on a strict diet would stare at hamburgers.

"Yes, sir." Blake scratched the back of his head, his muscles flexing under the plain black tee he had on. "I should go, thank you."

And without a backwards glance at either the devil or me, still seating down at my position in the middle of the class, he left. The moment he was out of the class, I spoke the words that had been on my mind throughout the entire class.

"What did you do to Miss Simeon?"

"Who?" He looked genuinely confused as he reached for what was the last script on the table, obviously mine.

"Our Calculus teacher, Miss Simeon, what did you do to her?" I got off my seat and slowly made my way towards him. I could notice the head of his black cobra tattoo peeking out of the neck of his crisply ironed, gray dress shirt.

"Oh, so that was her name," he chuckled, mirthlessly and I felt sudden anger flare in my system, that woman was too nice to deserve whatever he did to her. "I took care of her."

"You did what?!" My suspicions were correct, he did have something to do with the disappearance of our teacher. I gritted my teeth and shook in silent fury, cursing the day I met this man. "You killed our teacher."

He looked confused for a second, frowned then sighed like he made a sudden realization. "Killed? Hades, no. She's on a month all expenses paid trip to South Africa."

"Oh." The relief I felt was instantaneous.

"Yeah," he said, dryly as he took off his black suit jacket and went around to take a seat at his desk. I had another class now, and I could already tell that I would be late. The devil reclined in his chair and studied me, carefully before speaking. 

"Killing is strictly out of my jurisdiction, Miss Davies," he informed me, softly, each word carefully delivered. "I cannot take a life, safe for a few clauses to that rule which I can't explain now."

"You cannot take a life?"

"That is correct."

"You only take souls."

"That is also correct," he replied, stretching my calculus test script to me with an unreadable face. "Speaking of correct and incorrect things, your test result was really bad, Miss Davies."

I collected the script and saw the bold, large 'F' scrawled across the corner and felt a frown form on my face. I knew I didn't write this test too well, but I wasn't expecting a grade as bad as this. Suddenly, the room felt hotter and I could feel beads of sweat forming and dropping down my back, steadily soaking the pink, cotton blouse I had on.

"You failed me intentionally," I accused.

"Oh, no, kid. As amusing as that would have been, trust me, it might seem a bit hard to believe but I do have far more pressing things to do than worry about how you would fail calculus." His sarcastic tone pissed me off, his gaunt, aristocratic face showed pure amusement and I longed to yank at his dreadlocks.

"So I really failed?"

He blinked once, then reached over to his briefcase to pull it open and brought out an apple. A bright, green apple which he bit into with a loud crunch, he chewed slowly as he returned to his reclined position.

"Yes, kid. You did fail." He bit into the apple again. "But that's good, in fact, it's perfect. It's the opportunity we've been looking for."

"I don't understand." I should really leave and get to class but I still stood there staring at the devil eat an apple and explain why my being terrible at calculus was going to be of advantage.

"You're horrible at calculus." He talked slowly and deliberately. "That boy is really good at it, I play the role of a caring teacher and pair you up. Simple."

"He won't agree." I almost laughed at his plan, he made it sound so simple, without any complications and the number one complication was Blake. "It's not like you can just ask him to tutor me."

"Who said I was going to ask?" In a flash, he flicked the half eaten apple into the waste and stared at it longingly, which made me wonder why he threw it in the first place.

"Funny fruits, apples, aren't they?"

I didn't reply.