Sorceress (9 page)

“Yeah. Explains a lot, right?” Kendall shut her locker door and shrugged. “After school I’m going by St. Mary’s to get some holy water. Like, we’re not Catholic, but Protestants don’t have any holy water, which is a serious problem and I think we should look into it. That should be a story.”

“I’ll bring it up at the next editorial meeting.”

Once she’d really thought about it, the town’s sudden turn toward the spooky wasn’t so astonishing. Maybe they didn’t understand the real supernatural forces at work, but too many strange things had happened for people not to realize something was up. (Also, apparently Mateo was going around filling people in on the details, which she needed to learn more about, pronto.)

Yet Verlaine remembered the first time the town’s fears had fixated on witchcraft. The crowd at the hospital had turned ugly, which had freaked her out, but it was worse than that.

They had turned on her.

When she got home, she immediately locked the door behind her, and put on the chain, too. Grabbed a snack and the cat, went into her bedroom, and locked that door. Still
feeling the need to cocoon, she dug in her closet until she found the leopard-print Slanket her dads had given her as a gag gift a couple of birthdays ago.

Once she was wrapped up in it, Verlaine finally felt a little safer.
A little more ridiculous, too
, she thought as she caught a glimpse of herself in her mirror.
I look like a spotted potato.

Her phone rang; it was Asa.

“I was going to ask how you are,” he said, “but your hello sounded like you were about to start laughing.”

“Because I look like an idiot in this Slanket,” she said.

“What is a Slanket?”

“Something not even hell could come up with. Don’t ask.”

“But you’re all right?”

She bit her lower lip, cradled the phone against her cheek. “Yeah.”

“I couldn’t stay—”

“Because EMTs would’ve figured out something was up. I know that.”
I know you wouldn’t leave me after something like that, not unless you had to.

Dangerous and adored. He was both of these things to her, and she couldn’t untangle one from the other.

“Asa,” she ventured, “how did you become a demon?”

“I traded myself for revenge for my sister’s death.”

It amazed her to think of him being like just another normal guy, with a house and a family and a life. “How did she die?”

“Murdered, by a Sorceress. I don’t think she was a witch;
I think she just—got in someone’s way. Or maybe her death was merely convenient, like Jeremy’s. I only know how much it hurt to lose her.”

“Tell me about her. You must have loved her a lot.”

“I must have done.” His voice was more ragged now. “But you see, when I made my bargain, I wasn’t clear enough. I asked to avenge her. I didn’t also say that I wanted to remember her. Being in the demonic realm—it does things to your mind. Warps your memory of who and what you were before. All that’s left of my sister is how much I loved her. I can hardly picture her face. I don’t even remember her name.”

Verlaine’s throat tightened. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

They were quiet together on the phone for a few moments. She wanted to think of some way to comfort him, but she couldn’t. Maybe it was enough just to listen. To be there.

When Asa spoke again, his words were brisk. “So. You’re warm and safe. And alive. Good job, us.”

“Thank you for coming with me,” she said. “I don’t think I would’ve made it out of there without you.”

“I’m glad I could be there to help you—this time.”

It was always between them, the threat of what was to come.

Just as she hung up, though, she thought . . .
to avenge his sister.

To avenge a sister?

Verlaine climbed out of bed and grabbed Goodwife Hale’s
spell book. By now she’d placed bookmarks in most of the demon-heavy sections, so she was able to immediately flip to the part she’d been thinking of.
Of His Demons and Their Purposes
.

When she’d first found this ledger, she’d been pumped. This was a list of demons! Asa’s name had to be on there, right? But the list went on for page after page, enumerating dozens of demons, and it was clear that the list was far from comprehensive.

What had puzzled Verlaine were the notations beside each demon’s name; they all said things like
For Power
or
To Slake His Lust
. She’d wondered if those were the talents the demons had, the kinds of magic the One Beneath would use them for. But now she realized—these were the things the demons had traded their mortal lives for.

And beside one of those names was written
To Avenge a Sister.

She whispered, “Asael.”

With his true name, she had the final ingredient—the last thing she needed in order to kill him.

She could’ve put this part off longer. But Verlaine figured she couldn’t feel much more scared and awful than she did at the moment; she might as well get it over with.

In the back of Mrs. Walsh’s Book of Shadows, on a page that had never been fully filled in, Verlaine wrote the name. Her handwriting was shaky, but she figured it still counted.

Asael.

Once she’d torn that out, she went to her bookshelf and got something a couple of young men in neckties had given her as part of their missionary work, during the summer; Verlaine had taken it just so they’d feel like they’d accomplished something. Since her dads weren’t very religious, this Book of Mormon was the only holy book in the house. One more page, and atop the verses she wrote again,
Asael
.

By now her hands were trembling, but Verlaine kept going. The last time they’d gotten papers back in Novels class, Asa hadn’t paid much attention to his; Verlaine had been able to swipe it. A paper he wrote counted as something he possessed, didn’t it?

Tears filled her eyes as she wrote
Asael
the third and final time.

She’d thought she couldn’t feel any worse, but she’d been wrong.

Nadia didn’t even go to school that day. She knew she ought to touch base with Verlaine. Maybe she should have wanted to see Mateo, too—even after he’d blown her off last night. He’d gotten in touch this morning, but only because he was freaking out about waking up on Kendall’s porch. The mature thing to do, Nadia figured, was to talk it out with him. What she actually wanted to do was bury her head under her covers for the next twenty years or so.

Her screwed-up feelings about Mateo weren’t why she stayed away from Rodman, though. The truth was a whole lot worse than that. Even now, Nadia could feel the pull
dragging her back toward Elizabeth’s, like it was in her very bones. Was it a kind of magnetism? It was that powerful, that primal.

Almost like being in love
, Nadia thought, and shuddered.

When she walked in, Elizabeth wasn’t sitting in the front room as usual. After a moment, Nadia heard footsteps on the back steps, and then Elizabeth walked in, her chestnut curls damp. Mud was spattered on her hands and bare feet. She smiled. “How fortunate that you’re here. We need to cast another spell of falling apart. A stronger one, this time.”

“What do you mean, fortunate?” Nadia said.

Elizabeth didn’t even seem to notice that she’d spoken. The smile on her face was genuine—almost gleeful.

That was when it hit Nadia: She hadn’t been summoned here. Elizabeth and the One Beneath hadn’t called her. The inexorable, undeniable pull she’d felt drawing her toward Elizabeth’s house—the attraction and the desire—it had all come from inside her.

Panic locked Nadia in its grip, stealing her focus and almost her breath.
It can’t be, it’s impossible, I know my own mind and I would never, ever choose to come here.

Except she had.

It felt good to stand in Elizabeth’s house, amid her magic. The warmth from the stove was strangely intoxicating, as though it gave off a kind of perfume Nadia had never been able to smell before. “The stove,” she said. It was the only thing she could think of to say. “What’s in the stove?”

“Everything I ever stole,” Elizabeth said offhandedly as
she took her place on the floor. “Join me. You know the ingredients.”

As though sleepwalking, Nadia walked to Elizabeth and sat down. Even as her spirit protested, her fingers seemed to move to the agate charm on her bracelet of their own accord. When the time came to summon the ingredients, Nadia dove into it, unable to resist the pull of the spell.

A woman weeping for something lost forever—Sobbing on the bus after leaving her mother’s new apartment in Chicago, knowing Mom would never love her again.
The memory twisted, introducing anger Nadia hadn’t felt, stealing her hard-won forgiveness.

A time when you were cruelly betrayed—Her horrified realization that Mateo had made out with Elizabeth, that he’d kissed her, held her, as tenderly as he’d ever kissed Nadia.
But she didn’t let herself think of the fact that Elizabeth had deceived him, that Mateo had thought he was with Nadia the entire time.

And a time when you cruelly betrayed another—Now. This moment. When she cast a spell of darkness with all her might and betrayed everyone she had ever loved.

The power surged through her like electricity: jolting her bones, her nerves. Nadia gasped as she felt it, and imagined she could hear cracking and crumbling all around her. In the first instant she wondered whether Elizabeth’s derelict house was finally about to collapse, but then she realized the sounds weren’t the kind you heard with your ears.

It wasn’t Elizabeth’s house that was falling apart. It was Captive’s Sound itself—no. Her entire world.

You’re sure you haven’t seen Nadia?
Mateo texted. It wasn’t like her to skip. Once again he thought of how she’d taken off last night, and how she’d blown off the text he’d sent her then. This morning, when he’d been freaking out, Nadia had acted normal, and he thought maybe it would all blow over. Maybe last night she’d been so tired she fell asleep right away. Or Cole could’ve been having his bad dreams again, so maybe Nadia didn’t want to leave her little brother. Mateo had told himself it was no big deal.

But she hadn’t gone to school. She hadn’t texted him to explain—and it was her turn to reach out to him, definitely, so he hadn’t texted her either. By now, Nadia was definitely AWOL.

Verlaine sent back:
Positive, and also, you still haven’t explained how Kendall Bender of all people figured out witchcraft was real.

She didn’t figure it out on her own. Everyone knows, by now. She flat-out asked me, so what was I supposed to do? Lie about it?

Yes. Lying is the game plan. The only plan we have!

Which was depressing. And true.

Mateo had a choice to make. One, spend the night at home. Make some nachos, play Assassin’s Creed, and basically chill out for the first time in what felt like a zillion years. After a while he might even do the homework that was still due because his teachers didn’t know about the impending apocalypse.

Or two, find Nadia and learn what the hell was going on—even if he didn’t like the answer.

He rode his motorcycle straight to Nadia’s house.

Mateo knew she might not be there—and that if she wasn’t, then he’d probably find her at Elizabeth’s. Although he never wanted to set foot in that creepy house, he’d search it top to bottom if he had to. He needed to be with her, to find out what was going on, because otherwise he couldn’t take it.

By the time he reached the Caldani house, Mateo had braced himself to head to Elizabeth’s, but Nadia opened the door. She smiled when she saw him, but the happiness didn’t touch her eyes. “I was wondering where you were.”

“Same thing.” Mateo found it hard to speak. All he could do was stare at Nadia.

She didn’t look like herself. Nadia had never been one of those girls who wore heels to school or did complicated stuff with her hair every day, but she always looked—pulled together. Sleek. Now her hair was loose and unkempt, and her shirt was rumpled, hanging on her crookedly. She looked like . . . like she did after they’d been making out. Even something about her energy reminded Mateo of the way she felt when they’d been kissing, touching, getting to the brink.

Only then did he realize something struck him as odd about the house, something besides the twisted electricity between them. It was the silence. No video games, no cartoons—“Um, where’s Cole?”

“Spending the night at a friend’s house. Dad’s out of town for a mediation meeting, and without the car I can’t pick Cole up in this weather, so a friend’s mom said he could stay
over, even on a school night. Cole thinks he’s getting away with something awesome.” Her voice—low and sultry—suggested that she and Mateo could get away with a whole lot more if they seized the moment.

On one level, Mateo knew that was a bad idea.

On most levels, he didn’t care if it was a bad idea or not. He just had to touch her.

He slung one arm around her neck, pulling her close. Nadia gasped, but when he leaned in for the kiss, she opened her mouth.

They’d never kissed like this before. Like they were starving for each other. He clutched her against him and backed her against the wall. Nadia hooked one leg around his as his hands slid inside her shirt.

Mateo realized this was screwed up. They needed to talk. Like, seriously talk. Instead they were pawing at each other like they wanted to get each other naked this minute. If they didn’t stop soon, they’d wind up in bed.

He didn’t stop.

She pushed his jacket off his shoulders. Mateo pressed his whole body against hers, making her whimper, a sound that took away almost all the self-control he had left. Then her hands went to his belt buckle, and Mateo felt—

—it wasn’t only desire, or need. It was that strange pulse of energy that had coursed through him last night, when Nadia had performed black magic.

That’s what I want so much. The darkness.

Mateo felt like a bucket of ice water had just been dumped
over him. He pulled himself out of Nadia’s embrace; she stared at him, panting, her shirt undone so that he could see the white lace of her bra. “Mateo?” she said. Her voice shook. “What’s wrong?”