by Claudia Gray
Meteorologists Stumped
Verlaine hit Post, then grabbed her backpack and headed out of the Lightning Rod office. By now she was the only student still on campus; the handful of other students who had shown up today had all been sent home at morning break. Nobody else remained at Rodman High except a handful of teachers hauling their stuff from their classrooms, and one janitor who was valiantly battling the water in the principal’s office with a Shop-Vac.
Today’s outfit: ’50s-style capri pants (good for high-water situations) and a clingy, soft, pearl-gray sweater. She’d knotted a black-and-white polka-dotted scarf around her hair for a sort of retro headband, which also helped keep it dry. But as Verlaine walked out toward the muddy school parking lot, she could take little pride in her latest vintage outfit. The whole thing was hidden under her hooded black raincoat, and anyway, with the apocalypse drawing nigh, fashion was starting to feel less fun. More trivial. More stupid.
And then she heard a strange rustle, and was overcome by the unmistakable sensation that she was being watched.
Verlaine clutched the straps of her backpack as she turned around, but she saw no one anywhere near. No buildings stood especially close to the lot, and hers was among only a handful of cars parked there. She could hear nothing but the patter of rain on her raincoat.
It’s nothing, she told herself.
Once she was in her car, she figured, she would feel better. More secure. The land yacht was basically the same as an army tank, if tanks came in maroon. Instead, though, Verlaine felt even more insecure—like she didn’t have any idea where she was going.
Home. I’m going home. But even her way back to her house had changed. She bit her lower lip as she steered the car around yet another washed-out street. It was like she had to map Captive’s Sound all over again—through alleys, on unfamiliar paths.
The entire way, Verlaine couldn’t shake the sensation that she was being watched.
As she passed one of her neighbors’ houses, she noticed that their front yard looked like they’d put in a swimming pool—which, of course, they hadn’t. The Meades’ yard had caved in from one of the sinkholes that had carved gashes throughout town in October; now the floodwaters had filled the hole completely.
She would take a picture. She’d report. Once she started doing her job again, Verlaine figured she’d stop being so paranoid.
Okay, they’re not home, she thought as she slid the hood of her raincoat back over her head and grabbed her messenger bag. I’ll ask their permission to run the photo later.
Made sense. But now she was all alone, in the dark.
Just take the picture and stop being a wuss. Verlaine lifted her phone, careful to keep the lens dry—
A hand clamped over her shoulder.
She gasped and dropped her phone. It’s wet, she thought, in the strange numbness of panic, before she was spun around to face Asa.
“Wandering around Captive’s Sound as night falls.” His smile was not kind. “I would’ve thought you’d know better by now.”
So she should have felt relieved. It was Asa. Her defender, her friend, her not-quite-boyfriend. But she didn’t.
Slowly, Verlaine said, “You’ve been following me since school, haven’t you?”
“You felt it? All the more reason you should have been more careful.”
How could Asa have followed her when he was on foot? Maybe his demonic speed allowed him to keep up—or he’d just stopped time to catch her wherever he liked. It didn’t matter. Verlaine could only stare at Asa and realize that somewhere along the line, she’d stopped thinking of him as a demon.
She shouldn’t have.
He tilted his head—black coat hanging perfectly from his angular frame, cheekbones highlighting his large, dark eyes—his sensual handsomeness only stronger now that he’d gone back to being scary as hell. “You said you know how to kill me,” he murmured. “Tell me.”
“Don’t you know?” That was stupid. Of course he knew. But why did Asa want her to say it? He stood there, staring, waiting. Almost as though he wanted her to say the wrong thing—
Too bad, because she wouldn’t. “Blade consecrated to white magic? Check. Anointed with the ‘blood of the sea,’ because nobody in ye olden days could just say ‘seawater,’ check. And all three pieces of paper: word of god and word of witch and word of you. So I’m set.” Verlaine lifted her chin. “Satisfied?”
“Almost.” Asa’s voice had become nearly a purr—but not like an ordinary cat. Like a leopard or a panther. Something stronger and more dangerous. “I presume you keep these items on you at all times. Doing anything else would be highly unsafe.”
Verlaine did keep them with her. She thought of it less as arming herself against Asa, more as keeping her dads from finding the knife and freaking out. Or, at least, she used to think of it that way. Now she didn’t know what to believe. Instead of answering him out loud, she clutched her waterproof backpack closer.
Asa’s grin was brilliant in the constant twilight of rain. “Good girl.”
Her mood was shifting from freaked out to pissed off. “Why the pop quiz? Why the stalker act? What’s going on?”
“I’m about to try to kill you.”
Had she heard that right? She couldn’t have.
Asa took a step toward her, and Verlaine skittered backward; the mud sloshed around her boots. “No, you’re not.”
“Oh, yes, I am. You see, I’m making it easier for you.” His entire body had tensed, and she found herself thinking of a panther again, one closing in on prey. “I realize you’re not a natural killer. The farthest thing from it, really. But anyone can kill to defend their own life.”
“Wait. Hang on—wait!” Verlaine held up her free hand, but he was coming closer, and while his eyes remained beautiful, they no longer looked entirely human. The heat of him was close enough to sear the damp air. “Why now?”
“Do you think there will be a good time? That will never come. So today. Now, Verlaine. Now.”
He pounced.
Verlaine screamed as he slammed into her, his weight taking them both down. They fell into the mud, and Asa’s hands pinned her shoulders down. Desperately she twisted to the side, rolling him off her.
Get the knife get the knife get the frickin’ knife—Verlaine managed to reach inside her backpack. Her hand closed around the hilt just as Asa tackled her again.
Their bodies tangled together. The last time they’d been this close they’d been making out in her car, and she’d thought that had to be what love felt like. Whatever love was, it didn’t feel like this—cold and wet, her body shaking, her eyes hot with tears even as her voice shrieked in rage.
Verlaine wedged her feet against Asa’s chest and kicked him back so hard he fell into the deep pool of water, almost going under. That gave her time. Only a few seconds, but that was enough.
She slammed the crumpled three papers on the ground, then stabbed the knife through them. There. Now all she had to do was stab Asa, and he’d be dead. Gone forever.
Asa leaped from the pool, his movements inhumanly graceful and swift. Within an instant he was crouched over her. “And now she has a knife,” he singsonged. “Too bad she doesn’t know how to use it. Maybe I’ll demonstrate.”
He means it. Asa means it. He’s going to kill me if I don’t kill him first.
And yet she also realized, in a flash of terrible insight, that he wanted her to win.
He was ready to die for her.
So she had to be ready to kill.
Verlaine shoved herself up fast enough to body-slam him, the top of her head making contact with his jaw. Her reward was a muffled cry of pain. She seized her momentary advantage, pushing Asa onto the ground and collapsing atop him. The knife was heavy in her fist, but she could angle it, bring it around—
—and she stopped, right there, with the blade just in front of his chest.
“Hesitation. I’m disappointed in you.” Asa’s eyes met hers evenly. “Did you want t
o say good-bye? Waste of time.”
Maybe she’d meant to say good-bye, that and no more before she sent Asa back to hell. But when Verlaine looked at him like that—knowing he’d attacked her only to give her the chance to finish him off, that he was at this moment trying to sacrifice his own life for hers—she knew there was no way she could ever kill him. No matter what the stakes were, even her own life, she couldn’t kill the guy she—the guy she loved.
“No.” She straightened her fingers until the dagger slid from her hand into the mud. “I won’t.”
Asa’s face contorted into a terrible grimace. “You little fool.”
He’s going to kill me after all. Verlaine knew he meant to do it. She could sense it in an almost animal way, her hair prickling upright on her scalp, adrenaline coursing through her veins. Still she didn’t grab the knife.
Lightning-fast, he rolled her over. His weight thudded on top of her, so that he held her down. Asa growled, “Then I have to—I have to—”
Verlaine closed her eyes.
Less than three seconds passed. They felt like years.
When she opened her eyes again, she saw Asa looking down at her. He was shaking. “I’m a fool, too.”
She didn’t know what to say, what to think. She didn’t care. “Shut up and kiss me.”
He did. Verlaine wound her hands in his hair, reveling in the taste of Asa’s mouth as they opened their lips. The kiss was desperate, each of them clutching the other close, not caring about the chill in the air or the mud covering their bodies. Raindrops beat down on Verlaine’s face, wetted Asa’s hair as she wove her fingers through it, and none of it mattered. She only wanted to stay close to him. It had felt like this when they’d tried to save each other from drowning only to find they were trapped.
But as Verlaine tried to pull him even closer, Asa pulled away. “I should go.”
“Don’t.”
“When I’m with you, I want to—I want to talk to you. Make you laugh. Protect you, kiss you, love you—”
Verlaine knew that was bad news, but when she heard him say it, all she could feel was a wild, leaping joy.
“—and none of it does either of us any good.”
“Maybe we should stop worrying about what happens in the end.” She stroked his cheek with one hand. When her fingers touched his skin, he closed his eyes. “Maybe we should stop thinking about anything besides right now.”
He slowly, slowly turned his head and kissed her wet fingertips. Lightning flashed, illuminating them for one brilliant instant—blue-white amid the dark.
Then he stood up, leaving her sitting in the mud. “Sounds nice,” he said. He sounded like his usual sardonic self again. “Forgetting everything else in the world but each other. But I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
Asa smiled grimly. “Because I know what happens in the end.”
In an instant he was gone. Verlaine wondered if he had stopped time—and if he had remained there a long time, watching her, before he left. She wanted him to have done that, even though she knew it was a stupid thing to want.
Probably she should get up from the mud, but she was trembling so violently that she wasn’t sure she could even stand yet. Instead Verlaine crawled to the place in the mud where her phone had fallen. She lifted it from the muck to see the light of its screen.
“It still works,” she said, like that was important, and for some reason that was the moment when she started to cry.
Nadia had taken Asa’s advice about the hammock, mostly because she figured the spiders were still around someplace.
(Weirdly, they seemed to leave Elizabeth alone. Spiders were more perceptive than Nadia had thought.)
Maybe she should have been deeply depressed as she lay there in her hammock amid the dilapidated ruin that Elizabeth called home. Instead Nadia felt numb. Happiness seemed like nothing but a memory, and probably she’d never again get to spend any meaningful time with any of the people she most loved. The one that hurt most was Cole—her baby brother couldn’t possibly understand what was going on, and she hadn’t even gotten to say good-bye . . .
Nadia shut her eyes. She had to stay focused on the one thing that was keeping her going.
Finally she understood what Elizabeth was up to. The ultimate weapon is forged from hate. Elizabeth was forging a weapon now, from the anger and suspicion of people affected by the flood.
What a Sorceress couldn’t understand was that adversity brought people together, too. According to Asa, the men in town had worked side by side all night, each one trying to help the others.
Now that Nadia understood Elizabeth’s plan and its weaknesses, she would finally have a chance to strike back.
Striking back, however, would involve sinking herself more deeply into dark magic than she ever had before . . . beyond the point of no return. Still, if you gave yourself to darkness forever, sometimes you could get something in return. Bargains could be struck. Deals could be made.
If she failed to stop Elizabeth, and the One Beneath ascended into this world—the aftermath would be horrible, but some people would survive. They would live in a more frightening and dangerous world than they’d ever imagined. Still—while there was life, there was hope.
Over the past couple of months she’d already laid as many protective charms and spells on her house and her family as she could. Everything Nadia could do to protect Dad and Cole, she’d done. Maybe they would never even know her magic was the reason they’d survived, but she didn’t care about getting credit. She just wanted to give them a chance. Even in the hellscape to come, they’d have a chance.
Mateo, though . . .
She had to find a way to protect Mateo.
The curse bound him so powerfully to Elizabeth, and to dark magic itself. When Nadia had made him a Steadfast, she had only made him more avidly hunted by the powers of darkness. If she failed in her battle against the One Beneath, she would also have to face the horrible knowledge that she had damned Mateo to death, and to hell.
She had to break the curse. She had to make sure Mateo would be safe. And there was no way Nadia could do that.
Unless she made a bargain.
Nadia knew what the price would be, and it was the worst price she could ever imagine paying.
If that was what it took to save Mateo . . .
Nadia took a deep breath and whispered, “Okay.”
9
THE PHONE RANG, WAKING MATEO UP. HE GRABBED FOR his cell phone, only to groggily realize the call was on their landline, the one that was in the phone book but that no one except telemarketers and political robocalls ever used. And nobody ever called before seven a.m.
Except in an emergency.
He dashed into the living room, hoping the phone hadn’t yet woken up his dad. The only other sound was the constant drumming of rain on the windows. “Hello?”
“This is Simon Caldani. Nadia’s father.” He sounded terrible, like he was sick.
Fear seemed to circle Mateo’s heart, and squeeze tightly. “Is Nadia okay?”
“She’s not with you?” Mr. Caldani’s voice cracked. “I was just sure . . . I’d been counting on her being at your place.”
When the father of a teenage girl actually hoped she’d slept over at her boyfriend’s, things were seriously bad. “Is she missing?”
A long pause followed. “Nadia and I—the other night—she told me some things that I—I didn’t react well.” What could he possibly mean?
Then Mateo knew.
He said, “She told you what’s really going on, didn’t she?”
“Mateo, I—I’m not sure what you mean.”
“You know now. You know the truth.”
Footsteps just outside the kitchen made Mateo look up to see his dad in his rumpled pajamas, shuffling toward the coffeemaker. Dad mouthed, What truth? Mateo waved his hand, like, I’ll tell you later, which actually meant he’d come up with the best lie he could on the spot.
Mr. Caldani said
, very evenly, “I’m not sure we’re talking about the same thing. But—if we are—then you understand why I was unnerved. I . . . reacted badly. But I never meant to hurt Nadia, or scare her away. She took off, and she hasn’t come back home, and I’m worried sick.”
“That makes two of us.”
Nadia was more than able to take care of herself, at least against any mortal danger. Mateo knew that. But she was up against dangers infinitely worse than any mugger or kidnapper could ever be. Now she was facing them alone.
For her to have told her father about her witchcraft—to have broken the First Law against freely revealing the Craft to a man—Nadia had to have been completely desperate.
Hold on, Mateo thought, resolve hardening within him. I’m going to get you out of this. I’ll save you, Nadia.
If it’s the last thing I do.
Even a Sorceress had to sleep.
Nadia stared at Elizabeth as she dozed in her hammock, long chestnut curls trailing down almost to the floor. Some people looked innocent or vulnerable when they slept; Elizabeth did not. She looked more like an Egyptian from a sarcophagus lid: hard, unmovable, just waiting to rise again, stronger than before.
Still, Elizabeth had cast no special enchantments before going to sleep. Nadia knew she would be protected—but probably the protections were for Elizabeth’s personal safety. She wouldn’t have cast protective spells around her things.
She rose from the floor, walking just like normal so that if Elizabeth woke up, she wouldn’t become suspicious.
Nadia glanced over her shoulder. Elizabeth remained sound asleep.
For a moment she considered going through the old cabinet at the far end of the room, the creaking one where Elizabeth kept the bones of the Cabots. Whatever Elizabeth wanted them for . . . it couldn’t be good.
But Nadia didn’t know what they were for. She’d reviewed everything she ever knew about curses; the bones of Mateo’s ancestors wouldn’t allow her to break the curse on him. If they had, she would have stolen them in an instant, and risked Elizabeth’s wrath. Otherwise . . .
If you don’t know what they do, leave them. You can’t use them to help Mateo, so stealing them isn’t worth the risk of tipping Elizabeth off. Instead she went into the back room where Elizabeth kept her Book of Shadows.
