by Karen Mead
Jay, leaning against a tree, was watching them all with an expression Cassie couldn’t read. After Cassie, Mike and Khalil bandied back and forth a few more possible explanations, Jay cut in.
“So I really am the only one who remembers why we’re here.”
Khalil spun on his heel and glared at Jay. “What? Why didn’t you say something before?”
“I was trying to figure out what was going on,” said Jay, pulling himself up to his full height. “For some reason, the protection spell that made all of you forget didn’t work on me.”
“Protection spell?” repeated Cassie, wrinkling her nose. “That sounds...vaguely familiar….”
Jay took a deep breath. “We came here to pick up Ethan, a boy who was kidnapped by a demon and made a familiar. Cassie met him at court last year and promised to rescue him. Ring any bells?”
With that, the spell was broken. Cassie, Mike and Khalil all looked at each other in disbelief.
“Oh my God,” said Cassie, “So that was his protection spell. Anyone who gets near the house to rescue Ethan forgets why they came.”
“That is way, way more subtle than anything Sam would do,” said Khalil. “The question is, why didn’t it work on Jay?”
Jay tried to hide a rush of pride with a nonchalant shrug. “I don’t know, maybe I’m just immune to magic or something.”
“Yeah, right,” said Cassie. “I really doubt that’s the reason, but we can figure it out later. Right now we have to go get Ethan.”
“Right. You two, get in the car like we planned,” said Khalil.
Jay bristled. “A-are you sure? After all, if I’m really immune to this guy’s spells, I might be useful…”
“Get in the car, Jay,” said Cassie in a tone that brooked no discontent. Thankfully, he listened; her intuition told her that no matter what had just happened with the protection spell, she didn’t want Jay any closer to the action than absolutely necessary.
As she and Khalil walked to the house, a thought occurred to Cassie. “You know, you should probably stay back too,” she said. “I need to go in because I’m the only one he knows, but in case I trigger some other spell we don’t know about, there’s no need for anyone else to get hurt.”
“Baby girl? Shut up,” said Khalil, although there was no malice in the words. “I decided to come because it was clear you were going to do this whether you had any help or not. Now if I drove you here and let you go into another demon’s house by yourself, Sam would be right to turn me into a rat.”
Despite the tension, Cassie giggled. “Do you think he can do that? I can never ask him that stuff, it’s too awkward.”
“The thing is, he probably can, but he wouldn’t bother because it’s probably too much work. He would have to read several books on rat anatomy, or whatever.”
“That sounds about right,” said Cassie, as they approached 393 Hemlock Court. “Okay, I’m going to go ring the doorbell. If I die, divide up my My Little Ponies.”
The two of them walked up the stone footpath until they reached the porch. Cassie took a deep breath, than rang the doorbell. Khalil squeezed her hand for support, and they shared a nervous smile. For the moment before they heard footstep coming from the house, Cassie found herself wondering what Sam would think if he saw Khalil holding hands with her; she had a sneaking suspicion he wouldn’t like it.
A redheaded boy wearing an oversized sweatshirt and jeans opened the door. If anything, he looked even thinner than she remembered him from their brief meeting at court, but that could have just been the baggy clothing. “You really came!” he said, his brown eyes filling with a joy that made Cassie’s chest ache. “Is he your master?”
“Ah, no. Ethan, this is Khalil, my friend; he drove me here.”
“S’up” said Khalil. “No one calls me ‘master,’ except for the ladies, of course.”
There was an awkward pause.
“I’ll explain it when you’re older,” said Khalil sheepishly.
“Ready to go?” asked Cassie. “Sorry there’s no time for you to pack or anything, but we want to get out of here ASAP.”
“It’s okay, I already packed a bag.” said Ethan, ducking out of view for a moment. When he reappeared with a packed duffel bag, the relief in his eyes nearly took Cassie’s breath away; it was like he was afraid they would disappear once he stopped looking at them.
“Let’s go,” said Khalil, opening the screen door. There was a pause, as Ethan stood there, unmoving. His body seemed to tremble very faintly, but he made no move to walk out the door.
“Ethan? You okay?” asked Cassie.
“I…I can’t…” Ethan started. Then he turned his face away from them, and Cassie felt a wave of dread wash over her.
“What? What’s wrong?” asked Khalil.
“It’s another spell,” said Cassie, barely stifling the urge to curse. Pascal, that bastard; she could kill him. “He must have compelled Ethan so that he can’t leave the house. Ethan, do you remember that?”
“I know,” the boy said. Cassie couldn’t see his expression, but his voice was thick with tears. “I-I knew he did, but I was afraid to tell you, because then you wouldn’t come.” At that, he did cry, collapsing to his knees in front of the doorway. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything…I shouldn’t have bothered you….”
Acting on instinct, Cassie walked through the doorway and took the boy into her arms; she hadn’t planned on entering the house, but it was too late now. “Shh, shhh, it’s okay. Ethan, what exactly did Pascal say when he compelled you? Do you remember?”
At that, Ethan looked up and met her eyes. “Of course I do.” Cassie nodded; it was a stupid question. There was no way someone who had been compelled would ever forget that moment, at least not without magic altering their memories.
“He said…he said I can’t leave the house without him unless my life is in danger. That’s what he said.”
Rubbing his back to soothe him, Cassie thought about that. “Hmm, okay. That means we just have to put your life in danger.”
At that, Ethan tore himself out of her arms with such force that he fell back on his behind. At his terrified expression, Cassie did her best to soothe him. “No, no don’t worry! We’re not really going to put your life in danger, we just have to do something so that you feel like you’re in enough danger that you can leave the house, okay?”
“Can’t I just carry him out the door?” asked Khalil, who had also entered the house. “He’s light.”
Cassie bit her lip. “I don’t know. I guess it’s worth a try.”
“Okay, hop on, kiddo,” said Khalil, crouching down with his back to Ethan. Taking a moment to wipe his tear-stained face, the boy clambered up onto Khalil’s back.
“Be prepared to stop if anything happens,” said Cassie.
“Like what? See, here I am walking, I think—“
As Khalil cleared the threshold, Ethan began screaming uncontrollably— a blood-curdling scream that seemed entirely too loud to have come from his tiny body. Khalil immediately backpedaled several feet into the house, although it took a few seconds for the screaming to stop.
“Damn, I’m sorry kid. You okay?”
Ethan took in a few ragged breaths before answering. “I’m…okay….” he said hoarsely. “It just hurt a lot, that’s all. Can you put me down now?”
Cassie let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. Of course it couldn’t be that easy.
“So what do we do now? There’s gotta be a way to get him out of the house.”
“Um, well,” said Cassie, scratching her chin. Like all magic, Pascal’s system had to have a weakness, but she had to admit: it wasn’t exactly jumping out at her. “Well, let’s think about the compulsion; it’s a logical request. Pascal wants Ethan to stay in the house, but he doesn’t want him to die if say, the house is on fire,” she said, beginning to pace in the entryway. “So we need to do something to frighten you…something that convinces you that you have to l
eave the house right away…”
There were things she could do that could scare Ethan enough to break the compulsion; summoning Sammael into the living room was one of them. However, was it worth the risk? For all she knew, he might take the boy for himself, without even mentioning what he might do to her for disturbing him. Plus, she didn’t want to reveal her most dangerous secret to Khalil unless absolutely necessary.
She could also try to reach out to the Nameless Ones, what Cassie had taken to calling the strange beings she had seen in her dreams—the powerful, otherworldly beings that seemed to be trapped in their own private hell. She’d never made contact with them outside of a dream, but it might be possible if she were willing. They were nothing if not terrifying. Or….
“Or,” said Khalil in a conversational tone, “We could just set the friggin’ house on fire.”
“Khalil!”
“I’m serious. It’ll work, and who cares if we burn a demon’s house down? Dude’s rich, he’s got insurance.”
“W-well yeah, but that’s—Khalil, he’s going to be furious.”
“He was already going to be furious, and besides, this is the kind of stuff you sign up for when you start kidnapping school kids. Dude didn’t want his house burned down, he shouldn’t have cast a spell that made it necessary.”
“You’re right but, I don’t know, it’s so messy; there’s got to be some other way….”
“Can you think of another way? ‘Cuz, if not, let’s just do it and blow this joint.”
“So we’re going to burn it down?” said Ethan from the floor, excitement obvious on his tear-stained face. Cassie frowned at Khalil.
“I admit I can’t think of anything else, but you seem awfully motivated to do this.”
Khalil grinned, taking a cigarette lighter out of his pocket. “C’mon girl, I’m an angry young Muslim; you think I’m going to miss a chance to blow up a white dude’s house?”
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They didn’t end up using Khalil’s cigarette lighter; Ethan knew where Pascal kept the electric torch for lighting the barbecue grill, and that was much more efficient. Once they had set fire to the drapes, the couches and Pasqual’s varnished wood china cabinets, it seemed pretty clear the fire wouldn’t stop until it had consumed everything.
At first, Ethan couldn’t leave; even though he was scared, it took until the whole front room was filled with flames for him to feel endangered enough to satisfy the compulsion. When he finally sprinted out the door, after the sound of something in the dining room cracking from the extreme heat threatened to deafen all of them, Khalil picked up the boy in a fireman’s carry and raced towards the car, with Cassie close behind him. Just as they reached the Subaru, they heard sirens approaching.
“Hey guys, welcome back,” said Mike as Khalil helped Ethan into the backseat. “Hi, Ethan…and why do you guys smell like campfire?”
“Because we burned the house down,” said Cassie, buckling in as Khalil raced around to the driver’s seat. “It was the only way.”
“You did what?”
Khalil started the car and did a quick U-turn, heading in the direction of the highway. Two fire trucks raced past them, and Cassie didn’t stop being aware of her heart pounding in her chest until they were back on the highway, miles away.
Ethan broke the silence. “That was awesome. I can’t believe you guys just did that.”
“Neither can we,” said Cassie, next to him in the backseat. “You okay? You didn’t breathe in a lot of smoke or anything, right?”
“I think I’m okay,” he said, reaching for his duffel bag on the floor in front of him. Cassie followed him with her eyes, noting that while he was a year older than Hunter, he was smaller. As he unzipped the duffel, his sleeve fell back and she got a brief glimpse of strange markings on his forearm: scars.
A wave of anger passed over her: not only had Pascal used the boy like an all-you-can-eat magic buffet, he’d abused him physically as well. She searched for something to talk about that might take his mind off his captor.
“You didn’t take that game with you by any chance, did you? Because the moron in the front seat wants it.”
“Hey!” said Jay, then there was a pause. “What are you talking about?”
“That game you were going on about,” said Khalil, looking over his shoulder as he changed lanes. “Broken Halo Drag Queens, or something.”
“Broken Halo Messengers!” said Jay breathlessly. “Oh my god, I totally forgot about that!”
“BHM? I brought it. It’s my favorite game,” said Ethan, rifling through his bag. “I also brought her, because she’s pretty,” he said, picking up a small PVC figure of a girl with angel wings and a grenade launcher.
“Risali-chan!” shouted Jay. “Um, this may be kind of random, and it’s totally okay if you say no, but can I have her? I was supposed to pre-order BHM, only my mom signed up for the regular edition instead, so—“
“Sure,” said Ethan, handing the figure over. “I don’t collect these so it’s no big deal.”
“Dude, thanks!” said Jay. “This is so great, this is like, the only one from that series I don’t have. Well, except for Queen Marisana, but she’s super rare so—“
“I think I’ve figured it out: why the protection spell didn’t seem to work on Jay,” said Cassie. “His reason for coming was different from the rest of us.”
“Come again?” said Khalil.
“See, the three of us came to rescue Ethan, so that’s what we forgot when we got in range of the spell. Jay’s primary purpose was to get the PVC figure, so that’s what he forgot, instead of Ethan. The spell isn’t designed to make you forget absolutely everything, because that would be expensive, magically; just whatever you came to the house for.”
There was a brief silence in the car. “Dude, priorities,” said Mike gently.
Jay sputtered, clearly distraught. “I-I, look, it’s not that I don’t care about Ethan, it’s just, you know, I’ve wanted this figure for so long, I guess I just got, you know, hung up on it—”
“She is really pretty,” Ethan said sympathetically.
Khalil shrugged as he drove. “Look man, you may be way too dedicated to your doll collection—”
“PVC figures aren’t dolls!”
“—But if it weren’t for that, we all would have went home without remembering what we came here to do. So, there’s no need to apologize.”
“Yes, your selfishness and crass materialism saved the day,” Mike concluded.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
There was a bad accident on the way home, leading to a several hour wait on the highway. Cassie didn’t really think that Pascal was going to swoop in from across the country and attack them in the middle of bumper-to-bumper traffic, but she felt trapped just sitting in the car. However, she tried not to act as nervous as she felt; Ethan was depending on her.
The bad news about hitting so much traffic was that meant they didn’t get back to Sterling until late that night. Cassie had hoped they would get back earlier; if they came back to the shop during a busy time, with loads of customers around, Sam was that much less likely to go ballistic.
I’m like one of those terrorists who hide behind women and children for protection, she thought sadly. The situations were hardly comparable, but there was an element of truth to the idea.
Khalil found on-the-street parking on a side street near the shop, and there was silence in the car for a moment when he turned off the ignition. Soon, Cassie could hear throbbing bass music coming from a club around the corner, and the regular sounds of the city on a winter Saturday evening as her ears acclimated.
“So, how are we going to do this?” Khalil asked finally.
“We’re going to walk in the front door; there’s nothing else to do,” said Cassie, undoing her seatbelt.
They all got out of the car with a sense of foreboding, except for Ethan, who look
ed full to bursting with excitement. When they got to the Main Street, his face lit up into a grin. “This looks just like New York City, it’s so awesome.”
“This is just downtown, the whole city doesn’t look like this,” said Mike. “New York has a lot more going on.”
“I want to get to know where everything is,” said Ethan, walking slightly ahead of the group in his excitement.
“That’s fine Ethan, but you’re not staying here, remember? We’re taking you back to your parents,” said Cassie quietly.
“Uh-huh,” said Ethan, barely paying attention as they passed a food truck selling Korean sausages and hush puppies.
As they approached The Daily Grind, Cassie could see through the window that there were about 10 customers in the shop. She could also see Dwight working the cash register, a rarity for him. She couldn’t immediately see Sam, which only made her more nervous.
When they entered the shop, Khalil led Ethan over to a table in the corner. “What do you want kiddo, regular hot chocolate or white hot chocolate?”
“Can I have coffee?” asked Ethan, his eyes shining with anticipation.
“No.”
“Okay. White hot chocolate.”
“Kid has good taste,” said Mike, sitting down next to Ethan. “Can I have one too?”
“Fine, but you have to pay for yours,” said Khalil as he made his way to the front. Cassie followed close behind him.
After ringing up an elderly couple, Dwight looked up at Khalil quizzically. “What are you all doing together? And who’s…” he looked past Khalil to the boy sitting with Mike and Jay at the table. “…don’t tell me.”
“Fine, I won’t tell you. Where’s Sam?”
“Cleaning some plates. Listen,” Dwight hunched down low over the counter and scanned the shop to make sure he wouldn’t be overheard. “Are you out of your mind? Sam’s going to throw a fit when he sees you brought the kid here when he told you not to.”
“Told us not to? That’s funny, last I heard, he wasn’t really the boss of us. Or do you know something I don’t?” said Khalil, the angry look in his eyes surprising Cassie. Clearly, this was about more than just Ethan to him.
