“Long way down, isn’t it?” she said. “But the perfect height for a couple of girls who might get tossed off in the middle of a battle.” I was most definitely afraid of heights, but now when my body gasped a gasp that it couldn’t physically express, it wasn’t because of the ground smirking at us from all the way down there. It was the demons, dozens of them, that were milling around the parking lot like they were tailgating before a Judas Priest concert. The air was thick with them, creating a heavy blanket of despair that I could feel settling over me.
“Oh, goodie,” Wanda squealed, like a kid who has just been told she’s going to get a cupcake. “Our party crashers have arrived. But don’t worry, they’re for your friends, not for you. You guys are going out with a good old-fashioned splat.” Wanda’s spell still had us bound with a gazillion invisible ropes, but my mind was crystal clear. This had nothing to do with the book. She’d probably planted it herself and painted us as Red Magic dabblers so that the rest of the Synod, who certainly didn’t seem to be in the habit of asking Wanda the hard questions, would take her at her word that Cassandra and I deserved the harshest punishment around.
Now we were up here and everyone else was downstairs, trapped with corn chips and a bunch of cheesy party decorations, their powers suspended while Wanda’s party crashers—a frothing demon horde—gathered on the other side of the wall. Wanda hated our parents, and still held a grudge, so it made sense, even if it was hella immature, for her to hate us. But what did she have against everyone else? Why take out all the other Sitters too?
Then it hit me. She had to take out all the other Sitters because they would never stand for this. Me and Cassandra first, then all of Spring River, and whoever else she needed to sweep out of the way on her path to world Beanie Baby domination. The Synod was clearly full of yes-women, but the Sitters? Girls like Ji-A and Ruby? They’d see right through this, and they’d never let Wanda get away with having anything she wanted if it meant sacrificing the innocent instead of protecting them.
Wanda turned Cassandra and me away from the edge and marched us over to two folding chairs that had been placed in the middle of the roof and sat us down. “I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “And no, this is not going to be like one of those evil gloating scenes in a movie where the villain confesses everything so that the hero gets all the answers they’ve been seeking. For one, I am not the villain and you are most definitely not the heroes, and for two, I don’t have any need to explain myself.”
She pulled a piece of chalk out of one of her pockets and held it up in front of her. The chalk rose, hovering just above her fingers, and then dropped to the ground and started drawing a complicated crosshatch of symbols. They began at my and Cassandra’s feet and then spiraled out, the design growing quickly until it encompassed almost the entire roof. My eyes nearly popped out of my head as I noticed the objects that Wanda had carefully placed on the roof: a teddy bear, torn in two, and a deflated balloon. I knew this ritual well: it was the same one Dion had used on Halloween to call Erebus out, and the fact that Wanda was about to use it now meant she must be getting ready to do the same.
But then, she reached into her skirt and, as if it were Mary Poppins’s bag, she pulled out a metal cup etched with tiny symbols, and a dagger. The dagger was short, with a sharp, glinting blade and a handle of polished onyx with a faceted garnet affixed to the front. Clutching these in each hand, Wanda edged closer to us.
Next to me, Cassandra’s arm jerked straight out in front of her. “Trust me, this is going to hurt you a lot more than it’s going to hurt me,” Wanda said, and laughed. “I’ve always wanted to try this immortality ritual, and I figure why not get all I can out of you while you’re still here? You’ll be in such bad shape by the time this is over, it’s not like anyone will notice.” Then she took the dagger and dug it into Cassandra’s arm, and twisted it. I couldn’t imagine how much it must hurt, but, through no will of her own, Cassandra remained a statue. Blood bubbled up in the wound instantly, and then it started to drip down her arm. Wanda leaned in to catch some of Cassandra’s blood in the cup. My brain was whirring a mile a minute as I tried to connect the dots between everything that was happening. Immortality ritual, sure—how boring. The oldest trick in the evil-witch book. But the ritual to call Erebus out? What did Wanda want with him? Erebus certainly wasn’t a friend, or even a frenemy, but I had no doubt he’d take our side over Wanda’s, and certainly she didn’t want to create yet another adversary.
Rooted to the chair by Wanda’s kinesis, I kept my eyes fixed firmly behind her, on the rooftop door, and despite the horror of what was happening next to me, I realized that something weird was happening to the door. In the quarter inch between the bottom of the door and the ground, something was appearing. It looked as if it was being pushed beneath the door. Something long and black, that looked like…hair? A second later, something black and roundish appeared in the middle of the door. It poked a few inches out, wriggled a bit, and then both things disappeared.
At that moment, Wanda stepped in front of me, and my own arm jerked out against my will. Wanda plunged the dagger in and my arm lit up in agony. Then she twisted the blade and my whole body flooded with pain. “See?” Wanda said. “Didn’t hurt me a bit.” As my blood started to flow over my arm, she waited until a few drops fell to the ground, then leaned forward to catch some of it in the chalice. I’d never liked getting shots or giving blood, and always turned my head away. Wanda must have known that, because she had positioned my arm in front of me in a way that I had no choice but to stare right at it as my blood, bright as red nail polish, pooled and rolled down my arm.
Movement behind Wanda caught my eye. The door—it was happening again. First, the thing under the door. Now I was sure it was a tendril of hair. Long, curly, dark hair. And then, just like before, the circle in the middle, even bigger than before. In fact, it almost looked like…
Wanda moved, blocking my view. She positioned herself facing Cassandra and me, right in front of and between us. She swirled the cup, mixing our blood, and then she began to chant, raising the chalice in every direction as she did quarter turns. By the time she was facing the door, the apparitions had disappeared again. When she was facing us again, Wanda gave the cup one more swirl, then, to my gag-if-I-could horror, she took an enormous swig. Our blood was clearly hard for her to swallow, and after she did, she made a horrible face and stuck out her tongue.
“Ugh,” she said. “I never have developed a taste for blood, especially someone else’s.” Then she chucked the cup over her shoulder. It clattered to the ground, blood splattering as it rolled to a stop in front of the door. Wanda had released our arms, but she was coming for Cassandra again, dagger still in hand. This time, she reached out, grabbed a fistful of Cassandra’s hair, and pulled it taut, then hacked it off in one big chunk.
Wanda came for me next, yanking off the wig I was still wearing and tossing it away, before she went for my real hair. She had a harder time with mine, since it was so short. She gouged my scalp with the dagger at one point, and finally settled for pulling some of it out by the roots, a few strands at a time. My individual cells were screaming in agony, though my body made no sound. I was a black hole, or a building on fire, ready cave in on itself any second. When she had some of Cassandra’s and my hair in her fist, she resumed her position, chanting as she held the hair up in each direction. As soon as she was facing us again, I braced myself. She wasn’t going to, she wasn’t going to, she wasn’t going to, and then, yes, she did. She opened her mouth and shoved the hair right in it. Watching her, I went from wanting to scream to wanting to barf.
But I barely had time to comprehend what was happening, much less what it meant for me and Cassandra, because at that moment Amirah came tumbling butt-first through the door, feet in the air, head and hands on the ground. Ruby was with her, her arms wrapped around Amirah’s waist. They crashed to the ground in a pile of l
imbs, but both of them were on their feet in a second. Amirah dove right back through the door, while Ruby reached down the front of her sweatshirt, pulled out a large bottle of water, and started to unscrew the top.
Wanda was just standing there, dumbfounded, strands of Cassandra’s and my hair poking out of her mouth, when Ruby threw the water in her face. Wanda started to laugh, and then choked on a strand of hair. “What, you think I’m going to melt?”
Amirah tumbled butt-first back through the door, and this time she had Ji-A with her. “Not her!” Ji-A yelled at Ruby. “Throw it on them!”
“Oh, crap!” Ruby shouted, then turned and splashed the water in my face. Some of it went up my nose, and I started to sputter, then realized that I could sputter. The water had broken the spell. Cassandra realized it before I did, but Wanda realized it before both of us. She spat our hair onto the ground and let out an ear-boggling scream. It was a word and a language that I didn’t understand, not something we’d been taught in any seminar or book. It was a word Sitters weren’t supposed to know, a word no one was supposed to know.
In our haste, I hadn’t had time to wonder what the demons were waiting for, but now I knew. They were waiting for Wanda to say the word, the very word she had just said. Within a half second, the sky above us was filled with flying creatures and I could feel the building begin to shake as the wingless ones started their climb. We were beyond outnumbered. Five Sitters on the roof, with dozens of demons coming our way. Amirah was still bringing Sitters through the door one by one, as Wanda’s spell must have kept it impermeable to anyone who couldn’t walk through walls, and it was slow and messy, and the demons were fast and messy. And then there was Wanda, who was shoving our hair back in her mouth as she chanted fast and furious. Cassandra took a page from Janis’s book and picked up her chair and swung it at Wanda’s head. Wanda took a page from Erebus’s book and disappeared. Amirah’s ass appeared in the door again and I ran over, about to use my kinesis to pry it open from the outside, when all of a sudden it was flung wide open. Not by magic, but by Janis, one hand holding up her giant green Grinch suit, the other planted on the door handle.
“Esme, what the…?”
“Watch out!” Ruby screamed from behind me, and I dove at Janis, knocking her away from the door and then covering her as we rolled on the ground. I felt a demon dive-bomb us like a flying stingray and swoop just inches from our feet. A split second later, it went up in flames in midair. The burning demon shrieked until it stopped, dropped, and rolled to put the fire out. Ruby picked up the remaining chair and whacked it. I couldn’t imagine her strength, because the demon had to weigh at least three hundred pounds, but Ruby batted it off the building like it was a Wiffle Ball. I used my kinesis to blast away a demon that was coming up behind Ruby as she went hand to hand with another one.
Suddenly, Wanda appeared right in front of my face and I jumped back. I raised my hand to use my kinesis to push her away, but I felt the now familiar, slamming-into-glass feeling of it being thrown right back at me. She forced my arms to my sides and approached. She still had strands of hair sticking out of her mouth. In one of her hands she held a tiny vial, and in the other something I couldn’t identify. A white crescent-shaped thing that she swiped at my face. I couldn’t move my arms, but I could still jump, which is exactly what I did every time Wanda swung my way. She snarled at me and it felt like something invisible wrapped around my knees and yanked me off my feet. I hit the ground, and I couldn’t move as she shoved the white thing in my face, right under my nose. Then I knew what it was. It was a freaking onion. A raw onion. She pressed the glass vial to my cheek and its edge scraped my skin.
“Just cry, you little brat, and make this easier for both of us,” Wanda stammered, still waving the onion at me and gouging me with the vial. Cry? Then I realized—whatever it was she was trying to do took more than just blood and hair. It took tears.
I started to breathe through my mouth, but Wanda used magic to clamp it shut. Now I had no choice but to inhale deeply, and my eyes started to water. But it still wasn’t working fast enough, because she called the onion a string of bad words and tossed it off the roof. I felt a tear start to slip from my eye, and Wanda used one hand to shove the little vial into my cheek again as she tried to catch the tear. With her other hand, she pinched a piece of skin on my arm between her thumb and forefinger and gave it a sharp, strong twist.
Suddenly, she let me go, and a telekinetic blast sent me shooting backward several feet. Wanda walked to the center of the roof, and I saw her tip the contents of the vial into her mouth, and then raise her arms to the sky in a big V.
Janis’s opening the door had brought a torrent of Sitters onto the roof. Except for Ruby, Ji-A, and Amirah, they didn’t know what was going on with Wanda, but they all knew demons when they saw them, and there were plenty to see. All around me, Sitters and demons were locked in battle and the air crackled with magic. I startled when a demon launched itself at me, but then, zap, all of a sudden it was one-eighth its size, like a Pokémon, and almost cute. In the center of the roof, I could see Wanda chanting as she turned slowly in a circle, her arms still raised in a V. But over the commotion, I couldn’t hear what she was saying.
“Stop her!” I screamed, to no one in particular, and so no one heeded me. I had no idea what Wanda was doing, so I started to run toward her, when a demon broke loose from Ruby’s grasp and made a zooming beeline toward me. I managed to get my palms up to deflect it just before it launched itself on me.
“Where is the Portal?” Ruby screamed. “We can’t Return anything!” I was just about to scream at her that the Portal wasn’t coming when I felt it, that magnetic pull, and sure enough, I looked up and there it was, huge and swirling. I gave a little yelp as I grabbed the nearest demon and tossed it. Except it didn’t get sucked up and flushed like I expected. Instead, it was as though I had thrown the demon straight into the wind. It flew back and thudded against the roof in a collision that made the whole building shake. The Portal was swirling right above Wanda, her hands still held up toward it, the wind it emitted blowing violently and sending her open-placket cardigan flapping and whipping in the air.
All around me, Sitters were flinging demons at the Portal and the Portal was flinging them right back. Wanda stood in the middle of it all, undisturbed. After all, everyone who knew why she was really here was locked in battle with the demon horde. I raised my hand and started to shoot my kinesis at her when a flash of flames licked up the back of her skirt. From across the roof, Cassandra was focused on Wanda as well, but no sooner had the flames flared than they were out again. I focused my kinesis on Wanda’s arms and tried to pry them out of the V shape. Gripping her felt like trying to grab an eel, slippery and gross and impossible to get ahold of, and then, with nothing but a flick of her head, she knocked me off my feet, so hard that I did a backward somersault and landed facedown on the ground. I was seeing stars, and I didn’t know whether that was because there was a Flash nearby or because I’d just hit my head. I started to push myself up, but I couldn’t. I could see Cassandra was also on the ground and struggling to do the same on the other side of the roof, but something was holding us down, like we were rubber-cemented to the roof.
Wanda continued to spin, and the center of the Portal grew darker and darker, and then something moving toward her caught my eye. Not a Sitter, not a demon, but a white pit bull, barreling toward her at full speed. A seventy-two-pound cannonball with teeth was a formidable opponent for almost anyone and anything. But as Pig launched herself into the air, Wanda saw her. With nothing more than a quick nod of her head, her powers grabbed Pig and threw her right over the side of the six-story building.
* * *
—
I screamed like Freddy Krueger was clawing out my insides. I couldn’t tell who else had seen what just happened. I had no idea where Cassandra was, or Amirah, or anyone else, because all I could see was Wa
nda. She was more powerful than me. She had more magic and more experience and she was mean, but right now, in that moment, every atom of my being had been flooded with hatred. My mouth was still open, and I think I was still screaming, but my ears were immune to any sound coming out of me as I instinctively held out my hands and used my kinesis to pull Wanda off her feet and into the air. I was going to do to her exactly what she had done to Pig. I was going to throw her off the roof.
With everything I had, I yanked and threw. But somehow, instead of flying off the roof, Wanda flew up. Straight into the Portal, into the dark heart of it that she had been working so hard to open. Now the flushing sound was deafening. It felt like the air itself was vibrating and it forced me into a ball, my hands clamped over my ears as tears streamed down my face. When the sound and the vibration finally died down, I could hear the screams as everyone around me tried to figure out what had just happened, why Wanda had disappeared but the demons were still here.
But I didn’t care. I started to run toward the stairs, and that’s when I saw him. Adrian was standing there, with a look on his face that was a mix of horror and disgust. He was right in front of the door, and I was ready to push him out of the way if I had to. But I didn’t, because he vanished.
Or, more specifically, he transformed into a giant crow. Shiny black wings flapped wildly as the bird cawed out of my way. For a split second, I stopped, the reality of what I’d just seen slapping me in the face, but time to think about Adrian was time I didn’t have. I’d never moved so fast yet felt so slow in my life as I practically fell down the stairs. I was dimly aware of someone shouting my name and running after me, but I didn’t turn to see who it was. On the ground floor, I pushed through the door to the parking lot, my sharp breath turning my lungs to shredded paper, and braced myself for what I might find.
For Better or Cursed Page 28
