by Claudia Gray
Well. If extreme moping could be considered unwinding.
Mateo and Verlaine had been so positive and encouraging, but Nadia’s heart still stung from last night’s failure. She still thought the idea had been a good one, in theory—but Elizabeth had charms and protections Nadia could only guess at.
What if she’s just too strong? What if there’s no way for me to take her on? Is it like—like when Cole tells Dad he wants to wrestle? Dad makes a good game of it and they roll around on the floor, but it’s not like he can’t pin Cole in an instant as soon as he’s ready.
Maybe that’s all Elizabeth is doing. Toying with me.
Then a rap on the window startled Nadia from her reverie. She sat upright, brightening as she thought that Mateo must have come to see her. But why hadn’t he come to the front door? Maybe he thought sneaking into her bedroom was romantic. If so, he was right.
Nadia rose and slid open her window—and realized it wasn’t Mateo who’d come to visit.
“Mind if I come in?” Asa smiled. He perched easily on the tree branch; though the limb swayed in the strong wind, his balance remained perfect.
“Yes.”
“Too bad.”
With a leap, he landed on her roof, hands on the windowsill just between hers. There was no sound, as if he were light as a cat. Nadia jumped back, an automatic reflex, but one that allowed Asa to slip through the window and stand in front of her. He wore jeans and a dark gray sweater, the expensive kind with a soft sheen to it. In every way, Asa looked just like the spoiled rich kid Jeremy Prasad had been; only the uncanny grace of his movements and the knowing sharpness of his gaze betrayed his true nature.
“Willow,” he said with a nod toward the pressed leaves and flowers on her walls. “Lavender. Minor protections, to be sure, but even little things add up after a while.”
“What the hell are you doing here?” she said, keeping her voice as low as she could while still making it really clear Asa wasn’t wanted. “Get out.”
“First we should have a chat.”
“Actually, no, we shouldn’t. Get out now.”
“I’ll leave in ten seconds.” That sounded promising—until he lifted his hands and clapped. The sounds of Cole’s movie from downstairs stopped in an instant; the music playing on her computer did, too. Nadia didn’t even bother looking at her clock. She already knew time was standing still. Asa folded his arms across his chest and leaned against her wall. “And yet we still have plenty of time to talk.”
“I don’t know what it is you think you have to say to me. What, are you going to tell me how much fun it is to work for Elizabeth? We both know that’s not true.”
“Elizabeth is cold, cruel, and merciless,” Asa said, startling her with his honesty. “Yes, she wants me to convince you to join her. To start learning from her. But Elizabeth has a weakness—arrogance. For instance, it never occurred to her that I might ask you to start studying with her for my own reasons, not hers.”
Nadia sat back on the corner of her bed. This conversation was changing directions every second. “Why would I care about your reasons?”
“Because I think they’re the same as yours.” Asa stepped away from the wall, coming a little closer to Nadia, close enough for her to again feel that strange, unearthly heat. “Believe it or not, Nadia, we both want the same thing. We want to see Elizabeth crushed, defeated, destroyed forever. I can’t do that. Maybe you can.”
“But you both serve the One Beneath.”
“Precisely. I serve Him, not her. And if you think the One Beneath doesn’t accept deceit and backstabbing among His servants, then, I have to tell you, you haven’t even started to understand Him.” Asa’s grin was fierce, almost frightening. “He loves her, you know. Insofar as the One Beneath can love anyone or anything, He loves Elizabeth. But He would glory in her devastation just as He would in anybody else’s. We’re all just kindling for His fires. There’s no one He wouldn’t burn.”
Her heart was thumping wildly inside her chest, though her fear diminished by the moment. Asa was giving her the one thing she needed most, the one thing she couldn’t get any other way: knowledge. “Okay. You want her defeated. So do I. Joining her doesn’t do that. It only helps her win.”
“Only if you play by her rules, Nadia. What if you played by mine?”
Asa leaned forward then, his hands on the bed, on either side of her. His face was very close to hers, the heat overwhelming. Nadia’s eyes met his, and a shudder went through her, one so delicious that it took her a moment to remember she should be disgusted by him.
But she wasn’t. Not even close.
Asa’s smile broadened. He looked like a panther caught midpounce. “Don’t feel guilty,” he murmured. “You can’t help yourself. Sin, temptation, craving, unmentionable desires: That’s the stuff demons are made of. How else could we be so hard to resist?”
Flushed, Nadia pushed herself farther back on the bed to put at least a few more inches between her face and Asa’s. She had to think clearly now. “Stop playing games and just tell me what you’re suggesting.”
“Join Elizabeth. Work with her. Learn from her. Learn all the magic she has to teach—and she has so much, Nadia, more than any other witch has ever possessed. Discover the countless spells a Sorceress has at her disposal. Tell her you must learn more before you swear yourself to the One Beneath; she’ll accept that. It’s how they all begin, really. You can start as only her student, no more. And you’ll learn enough to destroy her long before the One Beneath ever has a claim on your soul.”
Could that work? It sounded . . . plausible. Even coming from a demon.
Asa backed away, giving her a few moments to think. Nadia pushed her hair back from her face and stared down at her Book of Shadows. It so obviously belonged to a beginner: Crayola spells in the front, blank pages in the back. If she could learn more—become nearly as powerful as Elizabeth herself—
Demons tempted people. That was what they did. And they always tempted them down the path of evil, into the keeping of the One Beneath. So Nadia had every reason to doubt and distrust what he told her now.
Yet she also knew that the hatred in Asa’s voice when he spoke of Elizabeth was absolutely true.
“If I become powerful,” she said, “and I stop Elizabeth for good, that harms the One Beneath. You can’t work against Him. It’s impossible.”
“True enough,” Asa said. “I can’t work against Him. But I can assist in Elizabeth’s destruction, which is what I’d very much like to do. After that—yes, He’ll come after you, and I’ll help Him. But that’s going to happen no matter what, Nadia. At least my way you’d stand a chance, and we’d get to see Elizabeth go down in flames. Your way, you’re just a stick of kindling for his next blaze. Think about it.”
He clapped his hands again; sounds from the rest of the house rushed in, and Nadia let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. When she looked up from her Book of Shadows, Asa was already gone. He must have slipped out the window again, without a sound.
Asa smiled as he walked away from the Caldani home. He’d made a good beginning of it, if he said so himself. Honesty always worked better than lies.
Of course, Nadia didn’t know the other purpose behind the plan he’d suggested—pulling her away from her friends, from the people she loved. He was rather proud of having found a way to do Elizabeth’s work and his own with a single stroke.
Well—not a single stroke. He had two more people to visit tonight.
Seduction was never accomplished in a single conversation, or on a single night. It had to begin slowly. You took people so far, then no further, and waited for them to travel the rest of the way to hell on their own. They always did, in the end.
12
MATEO SAT ALONE ON THE BEACH NEAR HIS HOUSE, BACK against a large piece of driftwood in the sand, earbuds in, music going. It was a cloudy night, one where he couldn’t see the strange roiling stuff between Captive’s Sound and the stars; the only evidence of magic visible at
the moment was the strange glow surrounding the lighthouse. After the whole thing with Grandma, he needed space. Needed to feel like the world hadn’t closed in around him. Right now he just needed to be alone.
But then he wasn’t alone.
“Sorry, am I intruding?” Asa smiled as he leaned against the same bit of driftwood. “I suppose you can barely hear me over all the noise.”
The music stopped. So did the waves, which remained midcurl, seafoam frozen in place like carved alabaster. Mateo yanked his earbuds out as he shifted away from the demon. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Just dropped by, figured we could bitch about Elizabeth, do each other’s nails, make cookies—wait. No. That’s girl bonding, isn’t it? Sometimes I get it mixed up. No gender roles in hell, torment and anguish being more or less universal. So what do we do to be manly and brutish? Smash beer cans against our foreheads? Watch NASCAR? Crochet? What?”
Mateo decided to stay calm. The demon wasn’t going to kill him, obviously. He would have done it long before tonight if that were his only goal. “What do you want?”
“It’s more a question of what you want. You need answers, Mateo. I can give them to you.”
“Like I’d trust anything you had to say.”
“You should.” Asa stretched his arms out across the driftwood, apparently enjoying himself. “You strike me as someone who’s already seen the darker side of life. That is, you’ve seen the truth. I’m here to talk man-to-man. If I were you, I’d take advantage of the opportunity.”
It couldn’t be that simple, obviously. This all had to be some kind of a trick. But Mateo figured—okay, he wouldn’t do anything Asa suggested he should do. He’d just listen to what the guy had to say. Then he could go over it all with Nadia later, and they’d figure out what Asa had been up to for real. They could turn Asa’s words against him.
Keeping it casual, Mateo said, “There’s one thing I’ve been wondering about.”
“Ask away.”
“Why can’t I see that you’re a demon? I’m a Steadfast. I see all kinds of magic, everywhere around town. Old spells. Sources of power. Elizabeth’s true form—though she’s changed since Halloween.”
“Indeed she has. Elizabeth’s not quite the woman she used to be,” Asa said as he picked up Mateo’s phone and started scrolling through the music library. “But, to answer your question, you can’t see the truth about me in part because I can’t see the truth about you. A Steadfast’s identity is hidden from demons; even when I was in the demonic realm, and I knew Nadia had taken a Steadfast, I had no idea it was you. And no wonder, of course. A male Steadfast? Bizarre. Anyway, part of the magic that hides a Steadfast from demons also hides demons from a Steadfast. It puts a curtain between us. A veil. Blocks vision in both directions.”
Was that true? It sounded like it could be. Maybe that was something there was no point in lying about. Asa might be a source of useful information—at least, once you weeded out the lies. Mateo tried again. “What do you mean, Elizabeth’s not the woman she used to be?”
“Before Halloween, she was effectively immortal. Now she’s not.”
“. . . She’s not?” But Elizabeth had lived for centuries. Her power was almost limitless—wasn’t it?
Maybe not. Maybe not.
Seemingly oblivious to Mateo’s reaction, Asa continued, “Elizabeth Pike can die just like any other human being now. Which makes killing her a lot easier, by the way. Not easy, of course. She’s still got four hundred years’ worth of magic on her side. But easier! Now, let’s see. What have you got on this music iPod . . . thing? I admit I’m out of touch after a few centuries in hell.”
“Give me that.” Mateo yanked back his phone; it was warm to the touch, like he’d left it in his dad’s car on a blazing summer day. Asa shrugged.
Elizabeth could die. She could die just like any other person. Like Mom, and all the other people she’d made suffer.
Asa could have been lying, but Mateo didn’t think so. He’d seen the change in Elizabeth for himself. The magic around her was no longer so dramatic, so blinding. She’d lost some kind of power, and if that was immortality—it made a whole lot of sense.
“I know that look.” Asa smiled. “Someone’s thinking about revenge.”
“I never said—”
“Didn’t have to. I’m a demon. I can smell vengeance. Literally, I mean. It’s a little like blood. Metallic. Sharp on the tongue.” Asa turned toward Mateo, all pretense of ease gone. The intensity of his gaze made it impossible to look away. “You want Elizabeth dead? So do I. My boss, also known as the One Beneath, will triumph with or without her. I’d prefer ‘without her.’ Want to hear more?”
“You’re screwing with my head.”
“Of course I am. I’m a demon. But that doesn’t mean I’m not telling you the truth. Nothing screws people up worse than the truth.”
It’s probably all bullshit, Mateo thought. But maybe it’s not, and the part about Elizabeth being mortal again is definitely true. “Yeah. I want to hear more.”
Asa slid a little closer. The heat from him flickered across Mateo’s skin, as though he were standing near a bonfire. “Obviously, Nadia wants to defeat Elizabeth through magic, to undo her spells or counteract them with spells of her own. She’s a witch. Witches are trained to think that way. But Elizabeth’s magic can’t do her one damn bit of good if she’s dead. If you want to stop her, I suggest a more direct approach. Stop worrying about whatever Elizabeth is or isn’t trying to accomplish. Start thinking about how to take her out.”
Murder. Asa was talking about murder. Once, Mateo would have thought he wasn’t capable of that, not unless somebody he loved was in danger, and it didn’t seem like it would be easy even then.
Back then, he’d thought Elizabeth was one of the people he loved most.
I could, Mateo realized. If it was Elizabeth—I could.
He opened his mouth, closed it again. The words refused to come at first, but he got them out. “How do we get to her?”
Asa’s grin broadened. “I like a man who isn’t afraid to admit he wants revenge. I like it very much. You’re wise to act now, before Elizabeth gets her claws into Nadia. Deeper into Nadia than they already are.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, come on. She’s been trying to recruit Nadia. You know this.”
“Yeah, but Nadia would never go for that.”
“She wouldn’t? Are you positive?” Rising onto his knees, Asa made a great show of looking around the beach. The driftwood behind him had been scorched black. “I don’t see her here with you now.”
“We’re all kind of freaked out after last night.”
“If I were young and in love, I wouldn’t let that stop me. Fate has given you absent mothers and highly distracted fathers. Why on earth aren’t the two of you wrapped around each other in carnal delight—tonight, tomorrow night, pretty much any second you’re not eating or sleeping? Or in study hall, once known as chemistry. Could you believe they made us watch Code of the Ancient Maya? How is that science?”
“Nadia and I don’t need dating advice from Satan, okay?”
Obviously bored, Asa held up one hand and made the universal symbol for blah blah blah. “My point is that you’ve left yourself vulnerable. Left Nadia vulnerable. The only thing more compelling than love is power. Trust me: In hell you get plenty of lessons about that one. If magic is still the first thing in Nadia’s life—not you—isn’t it possible that she’ll always choose magical power in the end? Even if that means giving you up?”
“This is the part where you start twisting my mind around,” Mateo said. “I know what you’re doing.”
Asa just laughed. “Keep telling yourself that. The denial can only go on for so long, but you might as well enjoy it while it lasts.” He rose to his feet, brushing sand from his jeans. “I’ll tell you another truth, Mateo. Another hard fact for you to ignore until it’s too late. In every romance, one person loves the oth
er more. Sometimes it’s a lot; sometimes it’s such a slight difference that nobody could ever tell—nobody, that is, except the one who’s loved a little less. He’s always aware of that patch of shadow where the sunlight doesn’t fall. That fraction between how far he’s reaching and how far away she is. The difference between loving and loving absolutely. Nobody else can even see it, but the one who does more than his share of the loving? Eventually he can’t see anything else.”
Mateo wanted to tell Asa he was wrong, but the words seemed to die in his throat. It couldn’t be true . . . could it?
“Oh, look at the time.” Asa made a great show of stretching and getting to his feet. “I should go. We’re finishing Dickens tomorrow. It’s a pleasure to have books again, you know. No libraries in hell.”
As he heard the soft crunch of Asa’s shoes against the sand, Mateo knew he should say something, anything, to let Asa know it wouldn’t be that easy to tear him apart from Nadia. By the time he turned around, though, the demon had vanished as if he’d never been there at all.
Another exciting night here at the bustling media center of Captive’s Sound, Verlaine thought.
She sat behind the desk at the town paper, the Guardian, which came out only once a week and mostly just printed advertising circulars. Verlaine had an internship here, which meant less “covering news of importance to the town” and more “hanging around in case anybody drops off classified ads.” They let her write stories, even ran them on the front page, but Verlaine had yet to see any evidence that either the editors or the citizenry appreciated her hard work.
They don’t just ignore me. They ignore my writing. They ignore anything that comes anywhere near me. It’s like there’s this—chasm between me and everybody else in the world.
She took a deep breath, then another. Deliberately she wound her gray hair into a smooth bun at the back of her neck, which hopefully worked with the whole “sexy secretary” vibe she was going for with this 1960s rose-colored sheath dress. At least she was in control of her look.
But what did it matter how she looked, if nobody was ever going to look at her?
