Colors of Deception: Demons of Saltmarch, #1

By Courtney Cantrell

Blood in the shower. Worms in the food. And friends who keep too many secrets.

This is not how Holly Idaho imagined life at a Christian university.

Just two weeks into her sophomore year and her life is already unraveling. Her closest girlfriends, Anne and Celia, are hiding something. Peter, her only guy friend on campus, won’t tell her why he’s acting weirder than usual. Owin, who has been like a brother to her, issues cold challenges to her faith.

Holly tries to be patient, but all this rejection leaves her feeling isolated. A few anonymous pranks only make the loneliness worse. But then an unseen intruder terrorizes her at her parents’ house, and Holly realizes: There is more going on here than strained friendships and practical jokes. There is something to fear.

Then Peter stuns her with the truth: a demon is stalking her, feeding her doubts and fears in a final play for her soul. It’s Peter’s God-given task to protect her--but he’s running out of options.

Holly’s faith refuses to sustain her. Her friends succumb to forces beyond her understanding, and Evil feels a lot less evil. As the demon closes in, Holly faces a horrible choice between a heaven she fears and a hell she never imagined possible.

Colors of Deception is the first book in the Demons of Saltmarch trilogy. Approximately 80,000 words.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Consortium Books
• Release date: Apr 12, 2011
• ISBN: 9781936559015

Courtney Cantrell

Courtney Cantrell is the author of epic fantasy series Legends of the Light-Walkers, paranormal fantasy series Demons of Saltmarch, sci-fi epic The Elevator, and oodles of short stories. She was born in Texas and grew up in Germany. At age 12, she penned her first novel, a one-page murder mystery. (The gardener did it.) By age 17, she had finished two full-length YA sci-fi novels. Three transatlantic moves, thirty years, and countless shenanigans later, Courtney writes full-time as a stay-at-home mom. As of 2023, she has survived the collapse of modern civilization and completed 16 novels and two short story collections in multiple genres. Courtney lives with her husband, their daughter, two cats, and an assortment of cross-cultural doohickeys. She blogs haphazardly at courtcan.com and connects with her adoring fans as @courtcan on Mastodon.

Book preview

Dante

Greetings, auguren.

––––––––

Again, auguren, I greet you.

––––––––

In the way of my kind with yours, I make my opening bid. I greet you.

Chapter 1

The dark, awkward figure lurked in a stand of trees halfway up the grassy hill. As I approached, shrugging my book bag higher up on my shoulder, the figure lurched out of the trees and beelined me. I didn't glance up or slow my stride, but he pitched himself into step with me and kept up well enough. In blue jeans and a white T-shirt, he would've blended in with the rest of the student body streaming up the hill to the social sciences building—except for his limp.

Holly, he said.

Peter, I answered, making sure my tone was light but not flippant. Two things. One, they still haven't fixed the caf's digisplay.

He grunted. I told them they only have to replace one of the cathodes.

Mmhmm, I agreed, as though I knew what he meant. Today it said, 'Oklagoma Chrisjan University, veiled shades in mist.'

That's not a hardware problem, that's incompetent user error.

Mmhmm. I smiled to myself. At least my fellow sophomore was talking. He'd once told me he didn't abhor my company because I didn't need to emit a necessary number of syllables per day, the way other girls did—his words, not mine. Two, I figured it out, I went on. The circumference is greater around the top of the globe than at the equator.

He rolled his eyes. The top of the globe.

I Googled it, but now I can't remember what it was called. I'm an art therapy major, not astrophysics or whatever. Besides, you wanted me to figure out the thing about the circumference. You didn't ask for the right terminology.

Fine. Why?

Mass. Velocity. I don't remember that part, either. You didn't ask.

Lunging at my side, he shook his head. Fair enough. You get a B.

What! I gaped at him, feigning shock. Why not an A? 'I bet I got it roight.'

Lack of initiative, he growled, ignoring my Eliza Doolittle impression. It's 'prime meridian,' not 'top of globe.'

Manners, Peter. Your attitude's jumped the shark. Like a bad TV show.

For the first time, he looked at me. Blond eyebrows lowered, and if those baby blues had been lasers, I would've been on my way to that Great Ash Urn in the Sky. Do not talk to me that way.

Aw, c'mon, that was, like, the mildest slang I could think of, like, on the spot.

You shouldn't be thinking of any slang. You should be conversing intelligently, not spouting inanities.

Our second week back at Oklahoma Christian, and I was already thinking it for the millionth time: Oh, Peter.

He'd arrived on campus eight months ago, after Christmas our freshman year, and practically every freshman female—as well as a significant number of sophomores and, rumor had it, a few juniors—had gone berserk over him. I still hadn't gotten over the weirdness of that.

Now I elbowed him, and the lasers heated up a little. I ignored them. But you're so much fun to pretend to talk smack to, Pete.

He opened his mouth to give me what I was sure would have been the ultimate brainy engineer retort. But we'd reached the social sciences building, and the doors were opening to disgorge what my mom would have called a gaggle of tight T-shirted, pony-tailed, heavily made-up females gabbling so loudly they could've won any goosey competition for number of sounds emitted in a ten-second period. As Peter's mouth snapped shut in the face of this auditory barrage, every last pair of glossed lips met in an alluring pout as the girls caught sight of him. Eyelashes fluttered. Heads were tossed.

Images of cabbage sprang to mind. My mind, anyway. I didn't know about Peter's.

Hi, Peter, came the chorus from three or four of the most daring. The rest pulled back shoulders and angled hips to great advantage. A couple femme fatales eyed my baggy shorts, loose cotton shirt, and messy, chocolate brown braids. I tried not to feel frumpy.

But the gaggle might've been inaudible and invisible. Peter was still glaring at me. You, he pronounced, are far too intelligent to talk that w—

He cut himself off, staring. In the direction of the gaggle. My mouth dropped open. Peter, staring at girls? Could it be? Had the day finally arrived that he noticed one? What maven of feminine wiles had managed the perfect appearance and aura to attract the attention of Peter Townsend mid-soapbox? I turned to follow the direction of his gaze.

Oh, fudge, he wasn't staring at them. My sudden dreams of playing Cupid imploded with an inner whimper. He was staring past the girls, his eyes fixed on a poster taped to the inside of one of the building's glass doors. Magic Bean Open Mike Night! proclaimed the poster in bold, bright letters on black construction paper. Poems? Songs? Tendencies toward philosophical forth-holding? Join us, 9:30 tonite, bring friends! I glanced from the poster to Peter, then back again. Of all people, he was not likely to be enamored of the idea of standing up in front of a coffee shop full of fellow students and speaking even a mathematical formula into the microphone, much less a poem or a snippet of philosophy. Why was he staring at that poster?

Faster than I thought he could move, Peter darted forward and flung the door open so hard that it bounced off its rubber stop. His fingers looked stiff as he tore the black poster from the glass. When he turned back to me, the construction paper was shaking in his hands. A weird chill crossed the back of my neck. He wasn't irritated with me anymore. His eyes were wider than I'd ever seen them, and I could tell that my unconscionable use of slang had left his mind. He made a choking noise.

I had to restrain myself from reaching out to him. Peter? Are you okay?

The blood was draining from his face as I watched. Stay away from the coffee shop, he said.

His voice was so hoarse, I wouldn't have known him if I hadn't been staring at his face. Before I could reply, he lunged into his hitching walk, heading toward the engineering center across from social sciences. Under normal circumstances, he'd spend the rest of the day and probably half the night there, if he could get away with holing up in one of the labs while Security did their evening sweep. But suddenly, I didn't think circumstances were normal.

I've never seen him like that. He looked so frightened...and frightening. I had to admit it, even though it was ridiculous. Peter, scary? Most unlikely campus heartthrob, yeah. Weirdest, most antisocial person I'd ever known, definitely. But scary? It was too early in the semester for me to be feeling the kind of academic pressure that makes college kids crazy. But I had to wonder. Being scared of Peter was the most ridonkulous thing I'd ever heard of. That slang term was absolutely the most appropriate, no matter how above-it-all he thought my vocabulary should be.

I sidestepped the gaggle, which had already exchanged sultry come-hither for a frostier look meant to pierce my forehead and pin me to whatever flat surface was handiest and hardest. I yanked open a glass door and hurried inside. That's what I got for receiving the barest smidgen of attention from Peter Townsend, scary or otherwise.

Stupid cripple, one of the geese muttered as the door squealed shut behind me.

So. Apparently there was at least one in that group who wasn't as enamored of Peter as the rest. I whirled around, ready to give her a piece of my mind—but the rest of the gaggle turned on her as they moved en masse down the hill. The unfortunate Peter-hater ducked away from her friends' rebukes. The P.T. Fan Club might be annoying, but they could definitely be useful in defending him.

Peter would have despised me for trying to protect him. If I defended him, he would berate me, and in a much less sociable manner than the one he'd used to take me to task over using slang. An inch shorter than its companion, his right leg plagued him, but he rejected all sympathy. He even loathed for anyone to stand up for him against less compassionate fellow students.

Before I veered into Intro to Art Therapy, I peeked out the window at the end of the corridor, which afforded me a view of the side entrance to the engineering building. I saw Peter lurch to a halt next to the path. A couple of fellow engineers passed him. One of them waved. But Peter had eyes only for the black poster in his hands, his nose all but touching the paper as he shook his head. The motion was so violent, it moved his whole torso back and forth.

Suddenly, he crumpled the poster into a tight ball and threw it, hard. It glanced off the head of an approaching engineer, knocking the girl's glasses askew. In her surprise, she threw her hands in the air, dropping a forest's worth of books and papers. I didn't need to hear her startled exclamation or the furious rant that followed; her stiff posture and vehement book-retrieval motions told the story. Peter ignored her, lunging not into the engineering building as I expected, but back down the hill, toward the parking lot. I lost sight of him behind some trees.

At that moment, Professor Wright's overly loud voice reached me, and I knew he'd spotted me dithering in the hall. I slid into the classroom and into my seat. Wright was one of those profs who believed art students must suffer in order to tap into hidden creativity. He called it creating an emotionally expressive environment. I called it Alliterative Ulcerating Balderdash—quite ignore-worthy. Today, Wright's attempts to pour out his emotionally expressive environment upon my head were not going to keep my attention.

Peter, scary? Peter, scared? Peter, skipping class? It was as unfathomable as the entire Mystery of Peter. Either I'm losing my mind, or he is. This is wacked, fo' shizzle. As some of the gaggle might say.

Oh, Peter.

Make that one million and one.

Dante

If you speak, auguren, I will hear.

If you write, I will see.

Chapter 2

His name, gushed Celia as she swept up to my dorm lobby sofa and flung herself into its cushiony embrace, is Dante.

I got my art therapy textbook out of the way. What?

"He's tall. He's dark. He's brooding. He's perfect."

Who?

The walking cliché in the Music Department, said Anne, rolling her gray eyes and dropping into the plush, upholstered chair across from us. OC's latest attempt at a qualified vocal instructor.

Celia snorted. Like you would know, Miss Business Building. Is it too late to add classes?

Anne sighed. 'Course not, dolt. What, you're gonna take up singing, just like that?

"Your mom's a dolt. And that's what voice teachers are for. To teach singing."

Your face, Anne answered.

Your squirrel, I murmured against my better judgment. I'd been trying to off my friends' Mom game for the last six months, but still it clawed at the inside of the sarcophagus, shrieking its way back into our everyday parlance. I had to grin at Anne and Celia's persistence in resuscitating the silliness in the midst of our dorm lobby's currently studious atmosphere.

Celia glommed onto my show of solidarity. "Have you seen him, Holl? Have you been over there yet? He got hired over the weekend, and everybody's dropping by the music building just to look at him."

Whozit again? I squinted, feigning confusion. Anne tossed me a wink from beneath the brim of her Black Label Society cadet cap.

Celia expelled drama on a heavy sigh, angling her face toward the ceiling. His name is Dante, she said again. "Dante Mullins. Isn't it romantic?"

Mullins. I bit my bottom lip. "Oh, yeah. Romantic. Way so."

Anne executed a theatrical bosom-grabbing and intoned, "Mr. Montague. Mr. Cullen. Mr. Fraser. Mr. Mullins." This last with a you-have-got-to-be-kidding eyebrow raise at an indignant Celia.

I gave up and burst out laughing. At a nearby table, a girl pulled her nose out of her textbook and glared at me. Didn't know this was All-Hallowed Study Time, I thought, then giggled harder and had to cover my mouth.

Come on, you guys, wailed Celia. "It's not funny. You haven't even seen him!"

Come on yourself, Seal, Anne said, grinning. "All last semester, it was Peter. All summer, it was Peter. Up until yesterday, it was Peter. Now, suddenly, it's Mr. Mullins—"

Dante.

So what gives?

Yeah, I said, recovered from giggles. What about Peter?

Celia looked unhappy. "Oh, Peter. He's just...he's just Peter." She spread her hands, appealing for our understanding.

I understood. Make that one million and two. Oh, Peter, was just about the right summation, especially after the weird incident with the black poster. Should I tell them about that? Yet another piece of trivia for our ongoing Mystery of Peter conversation.

Anne's skeptical voice interrupted my perambulator of thought. He's not tall.

Or dark, I added. The blond stubble hair is definitely peach-fuzz-esque.

The antisocial behavior is not brooding mystique or rebellion, Anne went on.

Oh, no, I said. He just doesn't like people. He told me that.

Celia was nodding. "See? He's just Peter. At least he'll talk to you, Holly. I say hi to him, and he won't even look at me."

Anne raised an index finger. That's 'cause you get all twitterpated about him. He's friends with Holl because she's the only female on campus who doesn't want to date him.

But you don't, either, I said.

Anne chuckled. Oh, quit turning pink, Holly. Be proud of your status as Peter Townsend's Only Friend. Without you, who would the P.T. Fan Club pump for information?

I rubbed the bridge of my nose. Fudge, I wish I'd never joked about that.

Well, you did, and it stuck. Just hope Peter doesn't find out you said it, or he'll never forgive you.

It would be a huge crème brûlée, added Celia.

The FudgeSpeak Queen strikes again. Anne shook her head, making her auburn ponytail dance. Just say it'd be a 'big mess' and leave it at that, wouldya?

Seal poked her in the side. Lighten up. Listen, I wanna ask you something. She raised both eyebrows, sliding her bottom lip out the tiniest fraction.

I groaned. The Look. Watch out, Anne.

With Celia's big brown eyes and pixie-cut blond hair, The Look lent her what I thought of as the highest possible degree of adorableness, beating out the likes of Bambi the deer, Peekaboo the comic strip kitten, and whole armies of fat-cheeked, laughing babies. The Look worked on everyone, regardless of gender, including professors. Everyone, of course, except Peter Townsend. I wondered how Mr. Dante Mullins, vocal teacher extraordinaire, would react to it.

Oh, gawd, said Anne, rolling her eyes. What now?

Anne Waylock, I murmured in a warning undertone.

Now Celia bit the bottom lip. Continuation of the impossible-to-resist expression. Well, there's this Open Mike Night at the coffee shop—

Anne groaned. Oh, please, close it up again—

And I thought we could maybe go over there later? Brief flutter of eyelashes, worthy of any campus gaggle, and Seal's Look was complete.

Anne raised her hands in the air, then brought fists to temples. Why, Sealy? Why, oh why, oh why?

Celia wrinkled her nose, grinning. She'd won, and she knew it. Dante organized it.

Holy Mary Mother of God and saints preserve us.

Anne, I swear—

Oh, hush, Holly, you're not even Catholic. And you're not supposed to swear.

I didn't.

Yet. Seal, you know I've got to go the to the game tonight! OC's gonna lay the smackdown on SNU.

"But I want you to see him, Anne! You haven't even seen him yet!"

Anne pursed her lips. "I have all semester to see him. What I want to see tonight is our Eagles tearing the livers out of some Nazarenes."

That's a lovely thought, I put in.

"But I could actually talk to him at the coffee shop. Celia sighed. Oh, girls, he is so hot."

Devil's food cake hot? I asked. We teased Seal about her kitschy FudgeSpeak, but it amused me enough to add it to the mix—in sprinkles and moderate dollops, of course.

Mmmm, Celia answered in a dramatic moan. "Raspberry Bavarian cream."

Dirty! I protested, laughing.

So, Anne said, back to business at hand, before I lose you both to butterscotch rum sauce. The game, Sealy. You want lip. I want some blood.

Oh, good grief, I said. This would not fall into the wisdom category—What was that term again? Enabling? Or co-dependent?—and the specter of irate-scared-scary Peter reared its head in my memory for a moment. I shook my head. Anne. Go to the game. I'll take Hotlips to the coffee shop.

Anne narrowed her eyes at me. I thought you had some big paper to do for Wright.

I shrugged. It's not due for a couple more weeks.

Don't you dare slack off, Holly Elaine Idaho. Anne all but waggled a finger at me. "Unlike moi, you and Sealy have scholarships to maintain. You can't afford a low GPA."

I favored her with a half-grin. Yes, Mother.

Hey, all I know is, there are disenfranchised children all over the US of A who'll need a great art therapist in a few years. Their parents are in the process of screwing them up, and they're gonna have all sorts of dark, dirty, disturbing pictures to draw for you.

Verily, verily, I say unto thee, go have fun at the basketball bloodbath, you blasphemer.

Your mom's a blasphemer.

Your face is a blasphemer, Celia joined in.

Your squirrel! we all three shouted together, eliciting bemused glances from the rest of the dorm lobby's congregation and a quelling look from one of the more uptight resident assistants. I didn't care.

I love you guys, I said. You're the lavishly buttered crumpets of my high tea.

Back atcha, said Anne.

Tritto, said She of The Famous Look. Then her eyes went wide. I have to get ready! What am I going to wear?!

No Olympic hurdler had anything on Celia as she leaped from the confining clutches of the sofa and sped up the stairs, squealing. Anne and I ignored the relieved looks of the more studious girls in the lobby as we followed Seal at a more leisurely pace. By the time she realized we weren't hastening on behind her, she'd have flung three fourths of her bounteous garb across various and sundry dorm room furnishings—including my bed—awaiting our discerning wardrobe input.

You know, Anne said, if Celia McLaren weren't the smartest person on campus, I'd think she had a wad of intercranial cotton candy instead of gray matter.

It's not her brains we have to worry about, I said. It's her heart.

Which, unlike the Grinch's, is about four sizes too large.

I grinned. Big enough to fit the two of us in.

"And weirdo Peter Townsend, which I will never figure out. Maybe Mullins the newb is bringing sexy back, but Sealy cannot convince me she's totally given up on Peter."

Peter. The poster thing was so bizarre...and so not Peter—

Hey. Anne peered into my face as we climbed the stairs. Dude. What's with the sudden morosity and frowniness?

I deepened the frown and tried to glare. Do you have to read my mind all the time?

"Oh, I don't have to. However, you are in possession of this face that's a perfect conduit for every single thought that flashes through your head. Ya cain't blame a girl fer readin' whut's writ in plain sight."

She drawled it out so long—saaaaght—that I had to laugh, which I knew was her intention. Oh, groan and egad. I rolled my eyes. Don't remind me.

Sealy's heart's too big, and yours is tatted out all over your whole body. Don't shoot the messenger.

What about your heart, Anne?

I meant it to sound light-hearted, I really did. I wasn't prepared for the drawing together of her eyebrows, the thinning of her lips...or the sudden shine in her gray eyes. My heart, she repeated. The two words tasted bitter in the air between us. We don't talk about my heart, Holl. It's not a good subject for conversation right now.

I reached out to put my hand on her shoulder, exerting gentle pressure. Hey. Anne! What's wrong? What happened?

Halfway up the staircase, she stopped, one foot up on the next step, turning her gaze to the lobby below. Might as well tell you, I guess. Seal won't keep quiet forever. Before I could ask, she shrugged and went on. I did it again on Friday.

I didn't have to ask...but I did have to claw my way into a casual tone. "Bricktown parties again? Haven't you ever heard of resisting temptation?"

Sure. Her voice sounded as desperately blasé as mine, but with a bitter undertone that twisted pain into my chest. Church. Day before yesterday. Eleven seventeen, precisely, in George's sermon intro. 'The devil prowleth about like a lion, lookin' for her he can deflower.'

I don't think that's how it goes.

It might as well, for how George used it the rest of his talk. You'd think every female over the age of ten is a rouge-wearing, leg-spreading harlot, the way he preaches.

So what happened, Anne?

But she shook her head. And in spite of the unmistakable request of my fingers for her to turn and look at me, she raised her lower foot to the next step, climbing the stairs. With my hand still on her shoulder, I followed. When we reached the landing, Anne started up the next flight without a pause.

I can't tell you yet. I will, eventually— and she briefly squeezed my left wrist —but I can't yet. It's too soon. I'll tell you when I'm ready.

Okay, I said slowly, withdrawing my insistent fingers. She was pulling away, anyway. But, Anne... I scrambled for something significant to say. You've gotta stop sneaking out after curfew. You're gonna break your neck, climbing out of third floor windows like that. Significant. Great, Idaho. Just peachy.

Anne's chuckle tightened the painful twist behind my breastbone. Momma say, 'God make toeholds and handholds so we can use 'em.' I'm always careful. Where's my Holly-Holly-Worry-Free?

I left her in my closet. As surely as Anne had lost the battle against Celia's Look, I was losing this one against Anne's determination to risk her life every weekend. I felt a mental sigh coming on, one Anne couldn't see. Sealy's boys, Anne's parties, and my...my what? My complete terror at the thought of voicing what Anne and I were really talking about? She might be hiding the details of her latest Friday night escapade, but I knew the deeper issue all too well...

...and I am not going to think about that.

I sought refuge in the shallower end of the pool. Promise you'll tell me what's really going on?

Promise. Her nod was so firm, I knew she felt the same relief I did. So what about you?

What about me?

You went all solemn on me there a minute ago. Her voice was still low, but I could hear in it the effort to recover her sharp-edged bounce. What gives with that?

I favored her with an impish grin before I spoke. "Oh, I have to tell you my secrets while you keep yours? That's hardly fair."

She took the teasing and ran with it. Fair, shmair. You wanna talk that kind of stuff, go sit in on Beyert's philosophy class. He rolled the dice on me today and asked me to define Socrates's concept of justice, and all I could talk about was Judge Judy.

I laughed. I couldn't help it—no matter my worries about her or my irritations with her, Anne could always get me to laugh. All right, all right. Uncle. You said something about Peter, and that reminded me of a bizarrity from this afternoon.

We'd reached the dorm's second floor and were stepping into a corridor of rooms. Three freshman girls from Psych were just walking past, and as I said Peter's name, they turned their heads as one to stare. I snapped my mouth shut and stared back. Several moments passed before they picked up their pace and moved off down the hall, throwing curious, predatory glances over slender shoulders as they went.

Peter, I said when they were out of earshot, totally cancels out privacy.

That's what you get for being friends with the guy, Anne observed, unknowingly echoing my earlier, post-gaggle thoughts. So, what about him?

I did a quick word sketch of the incident with the black poster, ending with my concern