Free Fever by Amy Meredith

Order for help,’ Luke answered.
    ‘OK, let’s call Callum,’ Eve said. Callum was a high-level member of the Order. They’d met him when he came to Deepdene to retrieve Payne’s body. Eve had told him the truth about herself, about her powers, about being the current Deepdene Witch. Payne had told his superior parts of her story anyway. Eve thought the Order might as well know the rest.
    ‘It’ll be faster if I just call Alanna. She’s lower level. She’ll be easier to get in touch with than Callum.’ Luke pulled out his cell. ‘I’ll put her on speaker.’
    ‘Wait. You have Alanna’s phone number?’ Eve asked. Alanna was a twenty-something member of the Order, a protégée of Payne’s. She’d come with Callum to Deepdene, and while she was there she’d made it clear she didn’t like Eve. ‘The card Callum gave us didn’t have her contact info on it.’
    ‘She called me once,’ Luke said, suddenly seeming very interested in the bowl of trail mix in front of him. ‘To see if we were having any more problems.’
    ‘Huh.’ Eve was not going to ask Luke why he hadn’t told her about the call. She’d sound like a jealous girlfriend, and she and Luke were so not a couple. They’d kissed one time. That was it.
    ‘So. Alanna?’ Luke asked.
    ‘Go ahead. Faster is better,’ Eve said. She thought she’d managed to keep the irritation out of her voice. She couldn’t stop herself from watching him use the cell though. He didn’t have Alanna on speed dial. That was something.
    ‘Luke, hey, good to hear from you,’ Alanna said. ‘How’re you doing?’ She was one of those girls who sounded like she was flirting no matter what she said. She shouldn’t be flirting with Luke. She was way too old for him.
    ‘Not that great,’ Luke answered. ‘That’s why I’m calling. We think we might have another demon situation in Deepdene.’
    ‘We’ve been following the extreme temperatures you’ve been having and the outbreak of Flu X. We haven’t found anything to indicate demon involvement,’ Alanna answered.
    ‘Nice of you to tell us that. Finally,’ Eve snapped. She shot an outraged glance at Jess, who looked almost as angry as Eve felt.
    ‘Oh, I’m on speaker,’ Alanna said. ‘I thought this was a private conversation, Luke.’
    ‘Eve and Jess are here too,’ Luke told her. ‘We—’
    ‘I’m definitely here,’ Eve cut in. ‘We live in this town, remember. And we’re the ones who told you about the portal. You demon experts didn’t even know about it. As soon as you decided to investigate, you should have called me.’
    ‘You’re the demon hunter,’ Alanna shot back. ‘You can even smell them, as I remember. I wouldn’t think you’d need our help detecting demonic presence.’
    Eve suspected Alanna was jealous of her ability to kill demons without one of the special swords. That made her feel a little better.
    ‘We want to do some research anyway. We all believe there’s a demon here,’ Luke said. ‘If you come across anything we can use as a starting place, will you let us know?’
    ‘If you’re nice,’ Alanna replied.
    ‘When am I not nice?’ he asked.
    Was he flirting back? He’d kind of flirted with Alanna when she was here. But, come on, she was waaay too old.
    ‘Luke’s always nice. To everyone,’ Jess said pointedly, getting Eve’s back.
    ‘Absolutely everyone. You’re nothing special,’ Eve added. Luke raised an eyebrow at her and she gave an apologetic shrug. That hadn’t been exactly necessary – or nice. But she’d enjoyed it.
    ‘So you’ll call, right?’ Jess asked. She tapped her fingers on the kitchen table.
    ‘I’ll call you, Luke,’ Alanna said, with just a touch of emphasis on the ‘you’.
    Luke said goodbye and hung up.
    ‘Well, that was helpful.’ Jess took a sip of her soda.
    ‘Infuriating,’ Eve agreed. ‘I cannot believe she didn’t contact us. Or any of the Order.’ She turned to Luke. ‘Can you?’
    ‘Definitely not