Sorceress (10 page)

“You know what we’re doing right now—you sense that it’s not us, right?” He didn’t know how else to put it. “Something else is affecting us.”

After a moment, Nadia nodded. She turned slightly away as she rebuttoned her shirt; Mateo redid his belt and tried to think about baseball statistics for a minute. Nadia walked a few steps from him, then hugged herself as she leaned against the arched doorway into their living room.

“What’s going on?” he said. “Tell me.”

“Is it so strange, that I’d want you? That I’d want to make the most of some time alone in this house with my boyfriend?” Her smile was crooked. Warped. “Or can’t you believe that you want me? Am I so awful to you now that I work with Elizabeth?”

“Yeah, I’m so not attracted to you that I nearly tore your clothes off.” Mateo ran his hands through his hair. “Think, okay? Just think. We’ve hardly been talking to each other. But now—we come together—and it’s like something else is taking us over. It’s not right. You know it.”

After a long moment, she nodded. “Yes. I know.”

It felt as though he had to beg the truth from her, tear it out word by word. “Then what is it? Tell me. You can tell me anything.”

“Elizabeth’s magic is changing me.”

“Are you okay? What did she do to you?” Had Elizabeth cursed Nadia, too? Wasn’t bringing her under the control of the One Beneath enough? Mateo clenched his jaw.

Nadia shook her head. “Not Elizabeth. At least, not directly. The magic itself is changing me into someone else. Someone I hardly recognize.”

The dark magic he’d felt during the flood—that was what had her scared. “I know you’ve had to do some terrible things, but that’s only because Elizabeth made you. It won’t always be this bad.”

“It’s going to get worse before it gets better. If it ever gets better.”

“Don’t say that. We’re going to win this. You’re learning about how she’s breaking the One Beneath into this world, so we can stop it.”

“I’m not learning enough, and even if I do stop her in time to save everybody else, I don’t think—it’s not going to be in time to save me.” Nadia’s voice broke. Mateo tried to reach out to her again, but she pulled away. As she paced back and forth, she tugged at her messy hair; her eyes were red with unshed tears.

He kept his voice gentle. “You’re not going to die.”

“Death isn’t what I’m afraid of.” She went very still as she turned to him. He sensed that a decision had been made—the wrong decision. Her gaze was distant, as though she’d never been farther away. “I’m afraid of changing forever. I’m afraid of turning into someone I’d never want to be. Already I’ve turned into someone besides the person you fell in love
with. You don’t even know who I am. Who I’ve become.”

She was still herself. But now she was someone else, too—the Sorceress she might become. It was Nadia he loved, but it was the Sorceress who had made him want to forget everything else in the world and slam her against the nearest wall.

He wanted her, and he feared her, and he knew nothing except that he shouldn’t let her go.

So he stood to face her and chose his words carefully. “I’m your Steadfast. That means I keep you strong, right? And you do the same for me. Not with the magic, anything like that—but you keep me going, every day. Even if you’re . . . changing, the most important things remain the same. They have to.” Was he getting through? The expression in her dark eyes was like nothing else he’d ever seen in her or in anyone else. “Nadia—I know you. Better than I know myself. I know you.”

Mateo stepped closer, trying to break down the wall she was building between them, but Nadia shook her head. “Not anymore.”

This can’t be happening. She wouldn’t do this to us. Not when we love each other this much.

Nadia said the words anyway. “We can’t be together anymore. I love you, Mateo. I always will. But it’s over. We’re over.”

ELIZABETH STOOD ON THE SEASHORE, BAREFOOT DESPITE
the cold, exposed to the rain.

Her body was mortal now, vulnerable to injury and sickness. While her strength was greater than that of most humans, it was possible for her to bleed or fall sick. Yet she stood in the weather anyway. If she became ill, she would still be able to cast her magic; no disease would strike her down in the limited time this world had left.

For this spell, she needed to feel the damage she was wreaking upon Captive’s Sound. She needed the chill to creep all the way through to her bones.

Elizabeth’s long chestnut hair caught in the wind. She had stripped down to her white camisole and skirt; her sweater lay crumpled on the damp sand, darkening as the raindrops fell. For the moment the rainfall was lighter. Probably the people in town felt relieved, sure the storms were finally
ending. They did not know, as Elizabeth did, that the lull was temporary. Even now, weather patterns across the country were changing as vast banks of clouds were drawn toward Captive’s Sound. Soon the weather would be altered throughout the world.

“They will know us at last, my beloved lord,” Elizabeth whispered. She knew the One Beneath was near, just beneath the surface of the dark, storm-chopped waves. Listening. Waiting. “They will have time to prepare. The wise will kneel to greet you.”

She sensed His pleasure at the thought, and turned her face upward, smiling into the rain. The shivers sweeping through her felt more like shudders of pleasure.

Within her she sensed the One Beneath’s response to her thoughts—the comforting, total possessiveness He felt at knowing her to be His most perfect servant, and yet something else, too . . .

The One Beneath’s attention wandered, fixated on the thought that Nadia’s heart was not yet fully His own. Oh, yes, she owed Him her loyalty now; the darkness had its claws in her, and Elizabeth was enjoying watching the girl’s slow deterioration. But that fall was not complete until Nadia was at a point of no turning back.

“Do you want her so very much?” Elizabeth whispered.

Yes. He did. He wanted Nadia more hungrily, more passionately, than He had ever wanted anything else.

More, Elizabeth realized, than He had ever wanted her.

She’d been jealous of Nadia before. Jealous of her inherent
fitness for dark magic, which gave her abilities at seventeen that Elizabeth had not acquired until she was nearly a century old. Yet that was nothing compared to the consuming envy Elizabeth felt at knowing how deeply Nadia was desired by the One Beneath.

This girl who disdains Him. This girl who serves Him only because she must. Whereas I have given Him everything, fought for Him, suffered for Him, lived centuries with no thought other than His escape and His glory—

The One Beneath recognized Elizabeth’s jealousy, of course. As she had known He would, He delighted in it. Her jealousy was the proof of her love.

He demands proof still. He will demand proof until the end.

Elizabeth held her hands out. “I will give her to you, my lord. I have given you Nadia Caldani’s service, but I will also give you her soul.”

Then, at last, Elizabeth would be the most loved.

Kneeling upon the sand, she raked one of her hands through the sand to find a seashell, its broken edge sharp as any knife. A thin trickle of blood flowed into the sand in a snaky path, enough for her to travel by. She called upon the bonds that now tethered Nadia’s soul to darkness, and so to Elizabeth herself. The blood bore her out of her own body so that her mind could slip into Nadia’s as thin, swift, and silent as a switchblade.

What she found was pain—fresh and sharp as the cut on Elizabeth’s arm.

The wedge she’d driven between Nadia and Mateo had
worked. Last night they had parted. Without her Steadfast, Nadia would be weaker; without the certainty of her human love, Nadia would be off-balance. More easily confused, and so more easily turned.

Other factors still tied Nadia to the human world, however.

Those would have to go, too.

Elizabeth could not use this spell often—her spell for reaching into the thoughts of another. It was some of the most dangerous magic anyone could perform. As much as she enjoyed contaminating minds, there was always the risk of being contaminated in return.

So she used her spell carefully, slipping into Nadia’s mind and cloaking her suggestion as one of Nadia’s own thoughts.
I need to be with someone right now. I need a friend.

Swiftly Elizabeth withdrew. There was no need to watch Nadia further. She knew Nadia would go to the only friend she had left . . . and because Elizabeth knew the demon Asa, and what he was probably doing, she knew the rest would take care of itself.

No matter how many times Verlaine explained to her dads that being cold and wet didn’t actually make people catch colds (“Those are viruses.”), they would never believe her. So this afternoon, she sat in her room amid the nest of stuff they’d given her just in case: cough medicine, sinus-headache painkiller, a thermometer, an actual honest-to-God hot-water bottle, and the Slanket. As she scrolled through her Tumblr
dash, she saw the usual array of pictures—One Direction, artsy hipster sunset, GIFs of Leonardo DiCaprio chasing an elusive Oscar, One Direction again—and then a quote from a poem. The words struck her as so beautiful that she got a lump in her throat; she knew who this reminded her of, though she didn’t even want to admit it to herself.

She hit Reblog before she could talk herself out of it, then lay back on her pillows.
You really, really need to start getting over this,
she told herself.

As if on cue, her phone rang with the ringtone she’d assigned to Asa—Nick Cave’s “Red Right Hand.”
Asael
, she thought, but pushed that knowledge to the back of her mind. Verlaine took a deep breath before she answered. “You’re not calling to ask me to be in your group for the big project in Novels class, are you?”

“Given that said project is due in February, i.e. some months after the end of the world as we know it, I’m not overly concerned.”

Last night, she’d forced herself to prepare. To think about killing Asa. And yet talking to him—joking with him—felt like the most natural thing in the world. Thinking of hurting him: that was the crazy part.

If she had only a short time left to spend with him, didn’t she want to make the most of it?

Asa’s tone changed, going from dry to—something that made her go warm all over. “Are you all right? I didn’t see you today at school.”

“I’m fine. My dads are just overprotective.” She hesitated. “And you’re okay? I figured you were. You seemed like you
were in better shape than me and Mateo, and since you took off on your own . . .” But she’d worried anyway.

“My shins look like I tried to walk through a field of barbed wire, but besides that, yes, I’m fine.”

“Oh, my God, I know, right?” Verlaine glanced down at her own legs, which were black and blue with the two dozen worst bruises she’d had in her life. “That metal staircase—it was like being caught in a food processor or something.”

His low laughter sent chills along her spine. The good kind of chills. “Are your dads busy pampering you right now?”

“They’re both still at work.”

“So—if you had a get-well visitor, that wouldn’t result in awkward family introductions?”

She hesitated. “You’re right outside my house, aren’t you?”

“Not in a stalker sort of way. More of an adorable-romantic-comedy way.”

Despite the thousand reasons Verlaine knew this was a bad idea, she started to smile. “Come on in out of the rain.”

Instantly, the doorbell rang.

She dashed to answer; when she opened the door, Asa was smiling, too—trim black asymmetrical jacket spattered with rain, cell phone still in his hand. “Gotta let you go,” he said into the phone. “Just ran into this hot girl I know.”

“You don’t want to keep her waiting.” Verlaine cut her phone off just as he did.

Asa stepped into the hallway, but he didn’t fully shut the door behind him. “I shouldn’t stay.”

“Right,” she said. “This is just—checking up on each
other after a life-threatening experience. The most natural thing in the world.”

“Of course,” Asa murmured as he ran one hand through her hair. Verlaine stepped closer, like the rest of her was a whole lot more sure about this than her brain was. “Now, what in the world do you have on today?”

“1970s housedress.” Verlaine had thought the bright pink might cheer her up on a gloomy day. Now she wished she’d worn something sexier, as in, anything besides this comfy sack of a dress.

Asa didn’t seem to mind, though. His fingers traced a line up the side of her neck, then along her chin. “How many files did you get out of the
Guardian
?”

“Not enough. But some. Thanks again for coming with me.”

“You know I’d never have let you go in there alone.”

There it was again, that swoony feeling that made Verlaine forget all the stuff she was supposed to remember, including the pieces of paper upstairs aligned to help her kill the same guy holding her now. “You’d better go.”

“I’m going,” Asa said.

He didn’t move. She didn’t either.

“I am.” He repeated the words like he was trying to convince himself. “I’m going right now.”

Even as he spoke, he leaned toward Verlaine. She parted her lips for the kiss—
how is it this good every time? How?
—and then she was basking in the heat of him, clutching the collar of his jacket in her hands—

“Verlaine?”

She startled, as did Asa. There, standing in the partly open door, was Nadia.

“What are you doing?” Nadia stepped inside to point a finger at Asa. “Have you messed with her head? Is this magic?”

“No! I wouldn’t do that.” Asa actually looked offended. “This is just an ordinary clandestine affair with the enemy.”

“Exactly.” Verlaine nodded. “What he said.”

But that didn’t make it much better, did it? Nadia definitely didn’t think so. Her expression shifted from shock to anger; the fact that Nadia seemed angrier with Asa than with her didn’t reassure Verlaine. “You, get out.” Nadia jabbed her finger into Asa’s arm. “Turn around, walk away, and don’t come back.”

“Hey! This is my house!” Verlaine stepped close to Asa again, to tell him he could stay, but he shook his head.

“Obviously you two need to talk. Just as obviously, I should find an elsewhere to be.” He edged past Nadia in the hallway, as if afraid she might blow up on him like a hand grenade. But he glanced back at Verlaine from the doorway. “I’m glad you’re all right.”

“You too.” She couldn’t help smiling at Asa—but as soon as he’d shut the door behind him, she was alone with Nadia. Her smile faded. Verlaine began, “So it seems like I have some explaining to do.”

“Explaining? What, you’re screwing a demon from hell and you think you can explain that?”

“Screwing?” Verlaine might not have been so incredibly pissed off if she’d actually gotten to have sex with the hot guy. “It’s not like that!”

“Oh, you’re telling me the demon is a perfect gentleman.”

“Actually, he is. Where the hell do you get off telling me who I can date?”

Nadia’s eyes widened. “When he’s a demon! When he serves Elizabeth and the One Beneath! When he was sent here on earth to hurt us any way he can, which he’s already done—remember? You remember that, right? Don’t you see this is just one more way to hurt you?”

“You’re wrong.” Verlaine lifted her chin, using every inch of height she had on Nadia. “Asa saved me at the hospital that day. The One Beneath punished him for it, horribly, sending him to the hell within hell—”

“Funny how Elizabeth never mentioned that.” Nadia crossed her arms. “How do you know that’s true? I mean, the only way you know it is because Asa told you, right?”

“Well—yes—but still. I know this is for real. Just like both of us know Asa doesn’t have any choice but to be what he is. He’s enslaved. He’d help us if he could.”

“Maybe he would,” Nadia admitted, but she wasn’t any less angry. “But listen to yourself. Asa doesn’t have any choice. If he’s commanded to hurt us, or kill us, he does it. The end. You used to remember that. Just last week you were asking me how to kill a demon, and now you’re dating one?”

“Asa’s the one who warned me,” Verlaine shot back. “He told me I might have to destroy him someday, and got me
to find out how. Like, if I kill him, he accepts that. Do you understand how much you’d have to care about somebody to say, ‘I’ll die before I hurt you’?”

Nadia’s eyes widened, and Verlaine realized her friend was on the verge of tears. “Of course I know,” Nadia whispered. “But I also know love only takes you so far.”

As infuriated as Verlaine still was, she could tell Nadia had been wound up even before she barged in here. Maybe some of her bitchtastic temper had nothing to do with Asa. “Did something happen with you and Mateo?”

“I broke up with him, because I had to, for his own good. I can’t be around any of you for a while.” Blinking fast, Nadia rummaged in her backpack. “I just came by to give you one thing before I go.”

Verlaine’s eyes widened as Nadia handed her the Cabot family dagger.

They still didn’t know how the Cabots had come into possession of it in the first place. All they knew was that the hilt bore a magical symbol, and that only a blade like this had the power to kill a demon. This was the weapon she was supposed to use to kill Asa. All the elements for his murder had come together at last.

She didn’t forgive Nadia that moment; it was more as though she was too stunned to remember being angry. Instead of taking the dagger, Verlaine held her hands up in surrender. “I—I don’t know if I’m ready for that.”

“Well, we have to get ready. You can see what’s happening to this town already. Before long, nobody’s even going
to be pretending things are normal. Elizabeth’s only going to get more powerful.” Nadia hesitated, and for a moment she seemed more like her usual self than she had in a long time. “Listen, I get that you . . . think you care about Asa. I know it’s weird. I know it’s awful. But we’re all going to have to do awful things before this is done.”