by Kayla Krantz
“What? It’ll be dark soon.”
“I know, that’s what we’re waiting for,” he replies and rests the back of his head against the tree he’s leaning on, staring up through the trees.
“Wait, but they might already see us as a threat. Wouldn’t showing up in the dead of night make an even worse impression?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.
Marcus shakes his head. “The Old Demons prefer the darkness. Plus, it’ll be easier for you to hide your face without the sunlight tattling on you.”
I tilt my head to the side, considering his words. “That’s a good point.”
“I know,” he says and smirks.
I laugh at his arrogance and cherish the feeling before the sound fades. Who knows the next time I’ll be able to laugh again.
15.
WHEN WE FINALLY start to move again, it’s well dark. So dark that I stopped being able to see and have clung to Marcus’ arm for a majority of the trip for fear of falling over my own feet. If he minds, he doesn’t say a word. I wonder how he can see with ease and find myself wondering if demons are capable of seeing in the dark. It would explain why the Old Demons prefer it. They have a technical advantage over their enemies.
Marcus starts to slow down and I squint through the shadows, catching a foggy outline of a building up ahead. It reminds me of a church and the irony strikes me.
“We’re close, aren’t we?” I ask, trying to catch a glimpse of Marcus’ profile in the dark.
He nods. “Yeah, just a few more minutes and we’ll be inside.”
I purse my lips. “Are we supposed to just go inside?”
“As far as I know,” Marcus says and begins to lead the way forward again. His body goes suddenly rigid but I don’t know if it’s from the memories in his head or the task that we’re about to embark on.
My senses are on full alert as we come to a door. I still can’t see anything but my mind is working full speed at guessing what’s around me. I can almost feel the locations of the walls and objects around us even without being able to see them. As soon as we step inside the building, it feels as if we are surrounded with a crowd of demons, watching us and hissing their displeasure.
The way Marcus continues to walk on without slowing lets me know that it’s all in my head. I try to shake the thoughts away but they stay at the back of my mind, haunting me like an old lullaby.
“Are we alone here?” I ask finally.
“No,” a voice speaks up.
It’s not Marcus.
“What’s the matter, little witch?” the voice seethes and I clutch onto Marcus’ arm, mind violently caught between fight or flight. “Are you afraid?”
Marcus wraps his arm around my shoulders as if he senses I’m about to bolt, and says, “We’re not here as enemies.”
“And how do I know that?” the voice hisses and I feel a hand, cold as ice, caress my cheek.
Whimpering, I pull away, but in Marcus arms, I don’t go very far.
“Because we were sent here to help,” Marcus says, voice strong and once again, I find myself envying him.
The hand disappears from my face and I feel the presence shift, most likely closing in on Marcus. His posture does not change. “We’re here to help you get back a book?”
The thing hisses again and then silence. Somewhere in the distance, I can hear water dripping and I look around, frantically trying to see where the beast went and why it’s so quiet. A moment later, a dim light clicks on and even that proves to be too much. I squint, trying to see but all I can make out is a blurry figure. I reach up to rub my eyes and when I open them again, I see the figure is small, hunched over, and cloaked in a red robe, the hood so large that the shadow makes it impossible to see the wearer’s face.
Marcus dips his head so that his eyes are on the floor and whispers for me to do the same. I comply though I’m not really sure why. They already know I’m a witch, don’t they?
“Marcus,” the voice hisses. It sounds ancient, the word a mere rasp from the hooded figure.
“Yes, sir,” Marcus replies, still not looking up from the floor.
The hood shifts in my direction and I know the figure is sizing me up. “You are a long way from home.”
I don’t say anything. I don’t know what I should say. Would it be better to admit the truth or to try and lie?
Luckily, he doesn’t wait for an answer. “You say you’re here to help.” It’s not a question but rather a flat statement.
Marcus seems to interpret it as a question anyway. “Yes, sir. Reddick sent us.”
“Ah,” he says then glances at our arms, where the bind marks are visible. “And what of the witch?”
“It’s a…long story,” I force myself to say and then add an uncertain, “Sir.”
“Reddick says there was a book that was stolen from you,” Marcus says, sounding more like himself and I peer at him from the corner of my eye.
The figure lets out a wheezing laugh and the hood shifts in my direction again. Even though I can’t see his face, I guess that he’s looking at me in disgust simply by the previous noise he made. “Yes, one of our oldest in fact.”
“We’re here to get it back,” I say.
“Well, little witch, that should be easy enough for you considering it’s your kind who has current possession of it.”
16.
MY BLOOD RUNS cold and I know without knowing that Ian has something to do with this.
“My kind? H-how do you know?”
The figure turns its head up just enough for me to see its mouth and the wicked smile that’s etched there. “Your stench…you witches just don’t realize how powerful it is.”
I lift my arm to give an exaggerated sniff at my clothes but I smell nothing. I press my lips into a tight line and avoid asking the one question I really want to know—what did the witch look like?
“How would a witch get in here to begin with?” Marcus asks. “The library is secure twenty-four seven, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but all the guards in the world do not matter when you allow yourself to trust.”
“You trusted a witch?” Marcus asks skeptically.
The figure smiles again. “As do you. They cast a spell over you and get inside your mind. When you’re at your lowest, they strike.”
“That’s not true!” I blurt out and feel foolish for it. I have no idea what the witches who perpetrated this crime had done…Every day I’m learning more reasons to hate my own kind.
The figure says nothing to that. Instead, he takes slow step after slow step closer until he’s about a foot away. My eyes are wide as I watch him, waiting to see what he’ll do next. He’s so close he could kill me with a single swipe of a hidden blade if he has the mind to do so and part of me is sure he does.
He leans closer and his acrid breath fills my nostrils until my eyes stream water. “You smell like him.”
Marcus must sense how uncomfortable I am because he asks the one question I was too afraid to, “What did he look like?”
The demon looks at him and thankfully moves far enough away to ease my anxiety though when he answers Marcus’ question, I feel sick all over again. I never really knew Ian at all.
I break into hysterics and the demon flinches backward as if he thinks I’m about to explode. “What’s wrong with her?”
Marcus is silent and I get it. If we say anything about knowing Ian this demon would see us as alliances and that would put us in hot water.
“P…panic attack,” I force myself to say.
The demon does not move for the longest moment and I fear that he won’t believe me.
“She’s under a lot of stress,” Marcus says, pulling the demon’s attention off of me again. “After all, you did send a demon after her this morning.”
The figure cocks his head to the side. “No, child. We have done no such thing.”
My mouth opens and I have the desire to argue so strong on my tongue but I don’t know how to go about it. I know he’s lying, he h
as to be, but how can I prove it?
“Not even to keep us from coming here in the case we might have sinister ideas for the rest of your books?”
“I can see your intentions better than you think, children. You’d do best to not speak out of turn and remember that your Elders are your Elders for a reason, child,” the Old Demon growls to Marcus.
Marcus and I send each other questioning glances. If these peddlers of black magic aren’t responsible for my would-be assassin then who is.
It’s gotta be whoever killed Ian, I think.
Marcus pulls the side of his mouth up into an uncertain smile in an attempt to ease over the new tension. “Can you tell me a little bit about what was in the book that was stolen?”
The demon is statue-still again, refusing to move or to speak, and I assume he isn’t going to answer Marcus’ question because he’s still too bitter about their tiny spat when he suddenly reaches up and pulls down his hood. His face is one crafted from the darkest of nightmares and now, I’m having a real panic attack.
“It was the most important book in our possession.”
“You said…one of the oldest?” I manage to say simply by avoiding looking at who I’m talking to.
“It was the origins of the riff between the witches and the demons. The history of our world and yours along with the ways of destroying us all.”
“Why would you have a book like that?” Marcus asks, eyes wide. “That’s just asking for trouble.”
“What are we without history? If there was no record of our origins, who would remember where we’ve been, where we’ve come from? Who will keep us from making the same mistakes again and again and again?”
“You’re sure a witch took it?” I ask softly.
“I am never wrong,” he says and fixes me with a look through his half-decayed eyes that rolls my stomach.
“We believe you,” Marcus says.
The demon dips his head. “Now that you know the importance of the mission ahead of you, do you still wish to offer us your assistance?”
Considering our situation, I’m stunned by the question. This demon is no doubt powerful and instead of ordering us to do his bidding, he’s giving us a choice. Even Reddick hadn’t done that.
Things are very strange indeed.
Marcus looks at me and I look right back at him. “Yes, we do.”
“Follow me,” the demon says and pulls his hood back up.
Of course I don’t want to do that. I want to go the opposite way through the door outside and keep going all the way back through last night, back to when I had been an ignorant witch pining for her lost love. But I can’t. It seems like such a long time ago now that it’s almost hard to believe it had ever been real.
My head is bowed as I follow behind Marcus. He looks around, studying the architecture of the next room we enter but I only look up long enough to ensure I’m not going to crash into anything. That single glance tells me that this new room is a library complete with ceiling-high bookshelves stacked with books. I risk another glimpse up, marveling in awe. I wonder how they can tell just one is missing in a room this large.
“Our library has some of the oldest books in the world,” the demon says as we go deeper into the room.
Marcus looks around but he doesn’t seem as impressed as I am. He doesn’t speak as we come to the end of the library. On this wall is a hanging bookshelf that covers ninety percent of it but under the lip where it ends is a door. At first, I almost don’t see it but then the demon reaches out and sets his bone white hand on the golden doorknob.
“The most important books stay in here,” he says and reaches into the folds of his robes to pull out a single key.
The door opens with ease and inside, the room is pitch black until the demon takes one step inside then it’s illuminated with light. Every wall in this room is covered in shelves with books, all of which are covered with a series of intricate bars and locks.
“So, you really trusted him,” Marcus says at last after we have a moment to survey the room.
“Yes, and he used that trust to stab us in the back.”
I know the feeling, I think and drop my gaze once again to the floor. “You said a witch has it?”
The demon nods. “No one on this side of the border has it any longer.”
“And how do you know that for sure?” Marcus asks.
“Call it a gut feeling, if you will,” the demon muses and crosses the room. He sets his hand over the bars but the space behind it is empty.
17.
WE LEAVE LESS than five minutes later and I don’t feel good about the information that I’ve learned.
“If Shadow stole the book from them, who stole it from Shadow?” Marcus asks the same question I have in my mind.
“I don’t know,” I say and my lip trembles. Whoever stole the book from him didn’t just take the book, they took his life as well.
“Whatever happened, the end story is a witch has it now,” Marcus says and runs his hand through his hair. “Any ideas on who that could be?”
I shake my head. “All we can do now is cross the border and investigate.”
Marcus freezes instantly. “You want me to travel to your side of the border?”
I stop and turn to look at him, narrowing my eyes to try and gauge his emotion. “Well, yeah. If you want to help me get the book and break this bind then you don’t really have a choice, do you?”
Marcus looks down at the ground and breathes out slowly.
I take a small step toward him. “Hey, are you okay?”
He looks up at me through his lashes. “Honestly? I’ve never crossed the border before, I don’t know…what to expect on the other side.”
I blink and don’t know how to reply to that. I want to tell him that he’ll be okay, that no one will harm him, that they are good people like he reassured me his townsfolk were, but all of those feel like lies. The truth is, I don’t want to cross the border either. I know Abigail is still waiting on the other side to burden me with questions the second I return.
Or maybe she took up her threat of telling the Elders where I’ve been, who knows?
“I wish there was something I could say to make you feel better,” I admit.
He smirks. “Your people are really that bad, are they?”
I shrug. “They’re not who I used to think they were.”
He must hear the pain in my voice because he doesn’t push the topic further. Instead, he reaches down and takes my hand in his.
“We’ve got this.”
18.
THE WAY BACK to the border is long and exhausting. For fear of being seen after the incident with the demon in the hotel room, we make a camp in the woods that night, and continue our journey in the morning. Marcus has a bit more pep in his movements and I want to believe the sun is to thank for it. When the creek finally comes into view—the invisible boundary line with it—I glance up at him.
His face is stoic, eyes fixed firmly on the small stream of water. “It’s so innocent, isn’t it? A creek. Like it doesn’t separate two bodies of evil from one another, it’s crazy.”
“It is,” I say and hop over it with ease. I glance back over my shoulder to see him still standing rigid on the other side. “What’s the matter?”
“Demons can’t cross running water,” he explains, looking back up at me before tilting his head slightly. “Witches aren’t supposed to be able to either.”
“I’m not a full-blooded witch,” I answer. “Ian wasn’t either. Both of us had one human parent.”
“Huh, okay. The more you know,” he says and shrugs then looks down at the water again. “What do I do?”
“I’ve got an idea,” I say and pick up a couple heavy stones, tossing them into the creek to break up the flow of water. “What about that?”
“Won’t know if I don’t try,” he replies and takes a step forward.
I clench my hands into fists as I watch him navigate and less than a moment later, he’s ma
de it.
“See? That wasn’t so bad,” I say.
“Says you,” he grunts, fingers digging into the dirt as he looks up at me through his black bangs.
“At least you made it.” I shrug and cross to the creek, plucking the stepping stones out of the water before flinging them onto the shore a few feet away.
Marcus shoots me a questioning glance.
“We don’t want just anyone crossing, right?” I explain.
He sits up on his knees and looks around. “It doesn’t seem much different on this side.”
“Why would it?” I ask as if I hadn’t had the exact same thought two nights ago when I crossed the border for the first time.
“Don’t know,” Marcus says and stands to his feet, wiping away the leaves and dirt from his knees before he looks down at me. “Okay, this is your land. Where do we go?”
I sigh. “I have no idea. I guess the first thing is to see how far we get.”
“Expecting company?” he asks.
“Depends on if Abigail was true to her word.”
Marcus scoffs. “Witches.” A pause. “So, I don’t think you’ve told me where we’re going.”
I glance at him over my shoulder, a weird gesture in itself. This entire trip, I’ve been trailing him like a lost puppy, and now it’s his turn to assume the role.
“I don’t know about you but I could use a change of clothes and a hot meal,” I say.
“I get to see your house, eh?” he asks.
“Yeah, but before you ask, no. it’s not glamorous.”
He shrugs. “Perspective is entirely dependent on the individual, isn’t it?”
“Fair enough,” I pout, feeling all the fight leave me.
My feet tread the familiar path with ease and when we make it to my house, I just stare. It’s hard to believe it’s been days since the last time I’ve seen my own front door.
An irritated meow sounds from the shadows behind the hedges that surround the house. A mottled cat emerges, ears flat to her head in annoyance.
“Mushroom, I’m so sorry!” I say, kneeling beside her. “You must be starving.”
