Sorceress

by Claudia Gray

  She couldn’t steal it today; Nadia knew that much. Moving against the Book of Shadows would be dangerous enough at any time—but with Elizabeth just in the next room, able to spring instantly to the book’s defense, it was suicide. What she needed to do was consult the spell book. Learn from it. Accept some of the darkness it had to share.

  Nadia walked into the back room, trying not to think of the last time she’d been there, and all the spiders. What little light filtered through the filthy window illuminated a nearly bare room. The Book of Shadows lay almost in the center of the floor. In a few places, the ceiling had begun to leak—raindrops pattered down onto the wood below—but no water had fallen on the spell book. It kept itself safe.

  She sat down on the floor, crisscross, opposite the book. Her eyes flicked toward the corners, half-expecting to see spiders begin to scurry forth. Nothing like that happened. Yet she was aware that somehow, the book was . . . listening.

  Nadia laid one of her hands on the cover of the Book of Shadows. Was she imagining it, or was it slightly colder than the rest of the room? “Demons,” she whispered. “I want to learn more about demons.”

  When she went to open the book, it let her. The pages were so old and brittle, yellowed with age; in many places, the ink had faded almost to invisibility. Spells were layered on top of spells, drawings on top of drawings, until the pages looked almost scarred. Still, Nadia could make out enough. While the pages didn’t magically flip to the information she needed, she found herself searching in the right area—and that hadn’t been a lucky guess.

  The Book of Shadows wanted her to know what a demon was. How one was made. Why the One Beneath needed demons, ever and always.

  Nadia’s eyes scanned over the words without pausing. As quickly as she read, she absorbed every word, understood every connection. Her mother’s training—her own discipline—and the strange, vital darkness she’d sensed bubbling within her ever since she swore herself to the One Beneath: All of them worked together to help her understand.

  Magic had never come this easily before.

  Once she had finished reading, Nadia closed the Book of Shadows, then once again lay her hand on the icy cover—thanking it, in a way. Then she walked out of the house without pausing, only glancing back once at Elizabeth, who remained as still and silent as before.

  Now I finally know what to do. I can keep Mateo alive. That way, even if I lose, and the One Beneath enters this world, Mateo will at least have a chance.

  Nadia was ready to give up what little she had left, just to give him that chance.

  Both the Lightning Rod and the Guardian were effectively shut down—but in Verlaine’s opinion, that didn’t mean the town of Captive’s Sound should be without news.

  (Besides Weather TV. They had hourly reports on Captive’s Sound by now, with a little special logo, “Rhode Island Rain Rampage.” But that was mostly a chipper meteorologist wearing hip waders and a smile as he kept pointing at a flooded street behind him. The people who lived here already knew about the washed-out roads.)

  Verlaine dressed for the occasion, thinking of all the tough-talking 1940s movie stars who had played intrepid “girl reporters.” Wide-legged, high-waisted tweed slacks and a cream-colored blouse complete with a bow at the neck: one hundred percent Katharine Hepburn. Well, except for the galoshes. Still, Verlaine thought the overall effect worked.

  “You look amazing, sweetheart,” Uncle Gary said as she gave him and Uncle Dave a ride to La Catrina; the Perez family restaurant was turning into a sort of makeshift headquarters for the town’s relief efforts. “Most people would let themselves go at a time of crisis, but not you. You just keep bringing the fabulous.”

  “That’s aimed at me, isn’t it?” Uncle Dave said, between sips of coffee from his thermos.

  Uncle Gary pursed his lips, a look of disapproval exaggerated to be funny. “I didn’t say one word about that god-awful plaid shirt. Not one.”

  It felt so good to smile again. Since the last time she’d seen Asa—that terrible fight, and their even more desperate kisses—Verlaine didn’t think she’d spent one happy moment. Right now, okay, they were headed into an emergency flood situation, but this was about as close to happy as she was going to get for a while. She’d take it.

  Verlaine pulled the land yacht into the La Catrina parking lot. As her dads headed toward where the men were gathering to figure out who needed what done, she put on her trench coat, wished for her fedora, settled for a scarf over her hair and decided to get to work.

  But that was more easily said than done.

  “Excuse me, sir,” Verlaine said as she walked up to one man. “I’m putting something together for the Guardian’s online edition. I was wondering if you’d share a little bit about how the flooding has personally affected you.”

  He stared at her for a moment that went on too long. Rain pattered down around them, and their shelter under La Catrina’s awning felt flimsy. Finally he said, “It’s made me wonder, is what.”

  “Wonder what specifically?” Verlaine angled her phone to get this as a voice memo, and gave him her best smile.

  The man remained unmoved. “What’s causing this. Or I should say, who.”

  “Who?” For one moment, Verlaine felt hopeful. Were people beginning to doubt Elizabeth? Would they turn on her in some crazy torch-wielding mob straight out of an old monster movie?

  Then she remembered who was always suspected of witchcraft first. Women who were outcasts. Burdens. Unliked and unloved.

  People like her.

  Her interviewee stared at her, as though daring her to ask more; Verlaine thought it might be wisest to move on.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Bender?” Riley’s dad—she knew him. No, she didn’t like him, but right now, familiarity was welcome. “I’m putting together a story for the Guardian—”

  “Does it help you? Getting our voices on tape?”

  Verlaine stared down at her phone in her hand. The voice recorder’s needle wobbled with her words as she said, “Well, it makes it easier to transcribe later on.”

  “I mean, do you need our voices for something?” Mr. Bender took a step toward her—just a step—but it took some courage not to skitter back from him. “They say some people think photographs steal their souls. Maybe someone could do that by recording voices, if they knew how.”

  I’ve been accused of soul theft, and it’s not even lunchtime. “You’re tired,” she said, keeping a smile on her face though she knew by now it had to look plastic. “I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

  “She’s giving you trouble?” some other man said from behind her. He walked up to Verlaine, but he spoke to Mr. Bender . . . and every other man around, which was a few dozen by then. Verlaine looked around wildly for her dads; they were talking to the guys in the Red Cross van, still unaware of any fuss.

  Verlaine dropped her phone in the pocket of her trench coat—but left the audio recording on, just in case. In case of what? She hardly knew. “Thanks for your time,” she said to Mr. Bender, and the others who were listening. “I have to run.”

  But someone stepped between her and her car. It was old Mr. Thurman, who ran the hardware store where they bought lightbulbs and snow shovels. His gaze was flat when he looked at Verlaine, like he’d never seen her at all. “She’s always around,” he said hoarsely. “Whenever something goes wrong. You ever noticed that? The first flood downtown. That fever that nearly killed so many people—”

  “Including my own dad,” Verlaine shot back.

  That didn’t help. Instead Mr. Bender laughed, a harsh sound. “See? She’ll do it to anyone? Even the folks who raised her.”

  “Do what, exactly?” She stood up straight, using all of her five feet eleven inches in her best effort at being intimidating. Sometimes that worked.

  Today it didn’t. Mr. Thurman took a step closer to her and said, “Witchcraft.”

  Nobody laughed. Nobody looked embarrassed for him. All these men staring at her, surrounding
her—they believed in witchcraft now. They knew the truth.

  But they were blaming the wrong person.

  It’s not me, Verlaine wanted to shout. It’s Elizabeth Pike. She’s been ruining all your lives for longer than you can imagine. She’s the one you need to go after, not me! Yet if she sicced the group on Elizabeth, right now that was as good as setting them on Nadia, too.

  And Asa . . .

  She looked around wildly, wishing he would appear in that sudden way he had. If Asa were here, he could clap his hands together, stop time, step between the raindrops and take her away from all this. However, Asa was nowhere to be seen.

  Her dads finally seemed to realize something was up—they were hurrying toward her now—but there were only two of them, versus, what, twenty-five others? Thirty?

  At least they can’t burn you at the stake, Verlaine thought wildly, her brain making jokes to try and distract her from the terror. Not in this rain.

  Witches weren’t always burned. They could be drowned. Or stoned. Hanged.

  “You’re wrong about me,” she said as calmly as she could manage. “I have to go.” Then she began walking toward her car, determined to keep her head high and acknowledge nothing.

  Someone stepped in front of her. She jerked to a stop. Verlaine tried to walk around him, but a hand closed around her elbow, and that was it. From the first moment one of them touched her, a line had been crossed and now anything could happen.

  “Stop it!” Verlaine cried out, but the hand spun her around, so hard that she staggered and caught herself against the wall of La Catrina. Hands fumbled at her coat pockets, and in her first fear she thought they were going to rip it off her—but no, they wanted the phone, thinking maybe that it was actually some instrument of dark magic hidden in an iPhone case. No way in hell were they getting her phone. “Stop it!”

  As she slapped at the hands around her, she heard Uncle Dave yelling, “What the hell is going on? Let go of her!” Verlaine knew her dads were fighting to get to her, but could they make it through all these guys?

  A hand fisted in her hair, and she yelped in pain. Roughly someone yelled, “My brother was in the basement of his office the night the square flooded. You could have killed him!”

  “I was trapped, too! I nearly drowned, too!”

  Nobody was listening to Verlaine any longer.

  Her world blurred and fractured, turning into a kaleidoscope of images each more horrifying than the last: angry faces, hands tearing at her hair and skin, fingernails actually digging into the flesh of her wrist, and above her only the gray sky and the relentless rain.

  “Stop!”

  Some of the men around Verlaine fell, tackled to the ground—by Mateo.

  Verlaine could have wept for joy as Mateo wrestled his way through them to stand in front of her like a human shield. “This is our restaurant!” he yelled. “You’re trespassing on private property. Get out of here!”

  Some of the men pulled back—not shamed, but unsure what to do. A guy in the back grumbled, “You’re the one who’s cursed. You should be with us, not against us.”

  “You leave my friend alone.” Mateo’s hands were balled into fists. He was ready to fight for her, even when the odds were twenty-to-one. Verlaine thought that if she weren’t in love with Asa and Mateo weren’t in love with Nadia, she might have fallen for him in that instant.

  “She’s no one’s friend,” Mr. Bender said, and his broad meaty hand thudded against Mateo’s chest, trying to push him away.

  Mateo slugged him.

  Not hit. Not slapped. Slugged. His full fist, powered by the weight of his whole body, smashed straight into Mr. Bender’s nose. Droplets of blood sprayed into the air.

  That seemed to get through to most people—they began backing off—but some other guy turned on Mateo then, and Verlaine had never seen a fight like this. Mateo lost it. He struck at anyone who came near, with all his strength, and he was so much angrier than anyone else that none of his attackers could match him. Every punch, every blow, seemed meant to kill. Verlaine began shaking, even though he was on her side.

  “Verlaine!” Uncle Gary finally pushed through the crowd, too. She launched herself into his arms. When he hugged her close, she was safe and that should have been the end of it.

  But Mateo didn’t stop.

  It’s not just about me, Verlaine thought in a daze. Not anymore. He’s been so angry for so long that he can’t hold it back another second.

  Mateo never stopped, not even when the police car drove up with its sirens wailing. Not when the cops shouted for him to “desist.” Not until the moment they grabbed Mateo, blood on his knuckles and face, and slapped the handcuffs around his wrists.

  So, this was what jail looked like.

  Mateo was the only guy in lockup—hardly surprising in Captive’s Sound, but he was still grateful. This way he could sit quietly on the long bench in this gray, cinder-block room and tell himself he didn’t mind being arrested.

  He did.

  The worst part had been his father. Hearing Dad plead with the cops, the one brush of his hand as he tried to draw Mateo nearer to him instead of letting the police put him in the back of their car: That had been awful. His father could be kind of oblivious when it came to what was really going on, but he’d always stood up for Mateo. Getting arrested felt like letting him down.

  None of it had been good, though. Not seeing those jerks, in a frenzy of fear, going after Verlaine—Mateo knew he’d never forget that, the sight of people going crazy, or of one of his friends screaming and pleading for her life. Not the way Verlaine had cried when the cops cuffed him; she’d tried to explain to the police, but nobody was listening to her anymore (not that they ever had). Besides, her dads wanted to get her the hell out of there, which was definitely the smart move. Were they back at home? He hoped not. Mateo could easily imagine a mob forming there later on tonight.

  Today. Whatever time it was—he’d lost track. The sky was always dark, and the rain was always falling. Day versus night didn’t seem to matter much any longer.

  Mateo got to his feet; his entire body was aching and sore. He’d thrown more punches in that fight than he’d taken, but he’d taken a few. A couple streaks of blood had dried on his shirt and jeans. He wondered what his face looked like. He walked to the bars and tapped on them, surprised at how thick and heavy they were—though he shouldn’t have been.

  Maybe I should have gotten myself arrested earlier, he thought. It won’t matter if I have one of my visions when I go to sleep; no getting out of here.

  Not much of a bright side.

  “Perez!” A policeman came hurrying toward his cell, cloudy-clear vinyl raincoat over his uniform, and a plastic Baggie over his hat. “You’ve been bailed out.”

  “Bailed out?” Mateo’s heart sank. His dad only had so much cash on hand right now—the closings of the restaurant were hurting them badly—and now he’d just had to lay out a lot of it to free his son.

  “What are you so glum about? She’s got the money, so you don’t have to do the time. Besides, don’t know if you kids noticed, but we’ve got bigger problems right now than some juvenile delinquent case.”

  There were so many things wrong with that, Mateo couldn’t even start listing them all. But he didn’t want to argue. She had bailed him out? Could that mean Nadia?

  Heart full, he hurried to the door, walked out into the waiting area, and saw his grandmother.

  Grandma virtually never set foot out of her enormous, gloomy mansion on the Hill. Mateo had never seen her anywhere else. She wore a long black coat that only emphasized the pallor of her skin, with the hood drawn up. Around her head was wound a dark blue scarf, draped just so, intended to hide the terrible scars that warped one side of her face.

  The scarf didn’t hide them completely, though. Nothing could. In his final insanity, Mateo’s grandfather had set a fire that had damaged their mansion—and very nearly killed Grandma. Left behind were the red, twisted creases d
isfiguring her face; they were burn marks but looked more like gashes left by the claws of some great beast. One of her eyes was forever milked over, though that couldn’t diminish the intensity of her disapproving stare.

  “I see it’s come to this,” she said. “Your curse.”

  Mateo glanced over at the cop, but he was paying no attention, already speaking into his walkie-talkie about yet another washed-out road. “What happened today had nothing to do with that. People were freaking out about witchcraft, and going after one of my friends instead of the actual evil witch in town.”

  Grandma cocked her head, clearly interested despite herself. She had believed in some element of the supernatural all along—and knew that Mateo and Nadia understood the real goings on in Captive’s Sound, the ones hidden just beneath the surface. “The flooding—this is dark magic, too?”

  When did Grandma become one of the few people I could talk to about this? Mateo forced himself to focus. “Yeah. This is . . . the end, I guess. Either we stop the people behind this, or they’ll win.” Calling Elizabeth and the One Beneath “people” was stretching the definition a bit, but never mind. “We don’t want to see what it looks like if they win.”

  “That girlfriend of yours, Miss Caldani—”

  Mateo smiled even though his throat was closing up. “She’s on it,” he said. “She’s our best chance.”

  Nadia was the only thing that mattered. Her safety—her ability to go on—that had to come first. When he put it like that, his path became very clear.

  Grandma put one wrinkled hand in the purse she carried, then drew out a single key. She offered it to him, and after a moment Mateo took it. The old-fashioned brass was heavy in his palm. Was this the key to some secret chamber, some ancient treasure of the Cabots that might turn the tide?

  Instead she said, “That opens the front and back doors. There is also a security system, which I have shut off. You may phone the security company to reset the codes if you so desire, although I doubt the occasion will ever arise.”