by Amy Meredith
About the Book
A hot new boyfriend. Prom just round the corner. And not a demon in sight … Things have never been better for Eve Evergold, Deepdene’s kickass witch.
But when things seem too good to be true, they usually are. An evil far greater than Eve has ever known is at work in Deepdene – and it’s hell-bent on turning her closest friends against her.
This time, it looks like Eve is going to have to face her demons alone …
Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Epilogue
Also by Amy Meredith
Copyright
For Team Dark Touch, especially
Ruth Knowles, Jess Clarke
and Natalie Doherty.
Prologue
Killing was harder than the boy thought it would be. The knife was sharp, but his first attempt to slit the rabbit’s throat only made a scratch under the soft brown fur. He’d have to do better next time.
With one hand, the boy tightened his hold on the rabbit. With the other, he tightened his hold on the knife. The animal fought harder, its powerful back legs kicking out as it struggled in the boy’s grip, struggled for freedom, for life.
He didn’t try to slice this time. Instead, he jabbed, and a hot, red fountain of arterial blood arched into the air. The boy turned the rabbit so that the blood splashed down into the shallow stone bowl he’d placed on the floor of the old playhouse. He tried to ignore the hard, fast thundering of the rabbit’s heart – thumpthumpthumpthump – against his body. He tried to ignore the way those hard, fast beats slowed. Then stopped.
When the blood stopped flowing, the boy shoved the animal into the canvas bag he’d brought. Later he would place it where he needed it. But for now, he didn’t want it in his sight. He knelt down in front of the bowl, dropped the knife, and used an old scrap of crayon-covered paper to scrub the wet blood off his hands. Then he reached into his backpack and pulled out the thick candles – one white, one black, one red. He lit them, then stared at them for a long moment, as if he’d forgotten what they were for or even why he was in the old playhouse at all.
He shook his head and picked the knife up again. He wiped it on the floor, then, before he had time to think about it, drew it across his thumb. He let his blood mix with the blood of the sacrifice. The red candle flared in the dark shack, casting strange shadows over the stick-figure drawings he’d hung up as a small child. He pulled a few strands of hair from his head and dropped them into the stone bowl, then used his teeth to bite off a few pieces of fingernail. He added them. The black candle flared.
The boy returned to his backpack and took out a thick book, the leather of its binding cracked with age. He turned to the page he’d marked and began to read, the strange words difficult for his mouth and tongue to form. The white candle flared.
All the candle flames were impossibly high now, as high as the kneeling boy’s head, nearly reaching the ceiling of the small wooden playhouse. When he spoke the last word on the page, all the flames went out at once, the wicks emitting thin trails of dark smoke.
The boy’s body shuddered. Spasms ripped through him again and again, and a howl worked its way out of his throat.
Then he went still. And silent.
He slid the ancient book back into his backpack.
It was done.
Chapter One
‘Oh my God!’ Jess Meredith cried from the end of the Deepdene High hallway. ‘Omigod, omigod, omigod,’ she continued as she raced towards Eve Evergold. ‘Oh. My. God,’ Jess said as she came to a stop in front of Eve’s locker.
‘I don’t have to ask if those are good OMGs or bad ones. You should see the expression on your face – it’s like you’ve been eating sunbeams,’ Eve told her best friend. She smiled. How could she not smile when happiness was zinging out of Jess, turning her cheeks pink and making her blue eyes sparkle?
‘Oh my God!’ Jess squealed in reply.
‘OK, I need more, even though we’re telefriendic.’ Telefriendic was the word she and Jess had come up with to describe the way one best friend can guess what another best friend is thinking. Eve and Jess had huge telefriendic abilities, but today Eve couldn’t figure out anything other than that Jess had something really good – really, really, really good – to tell her. ‘I need more words. No, not just more.’ Who knew how many times Jess could OMG? ‘Different words, please.’
Jess gave a twirl right there in the hall, like she’d suddenly become part of the cast of Glee. ‘Evie, I’m going to the Senior Prom!’ She twirled again, arms out, narrowly missing three people heading for the cafeteria. ‘Seth just asked me. I was starting think maybe … But, no, he asked. I’m, I’m – we have to come up with a new word for how I’m feeling right now! Wowtastic, maybe. I don’t know. I’m going to the Senior Prom!’
‘That’s so awesome!’ Eve gave Jess a hug, trying to pretend that the news hadn’t given her a pang – well, at least a tiny panglet – of envy and sadness. She and Jess had been talking about the Senior Prom ever since they first knew what a prom was, spinning out fantasies of what they’d wear, how they’d do their hair, where they’d go for dinner. And in all those fantasies, they were always together, sharing a limo with their dates, the four of them going down to the beach after the prom and making a bonfire. It had never occurred to her that one of them would go without the other. ‘So when do we head to Manhattan to begin the dress search?’ she asked, getting another panglet.
‘Can we leave now?’ Jess grinned. ‘No, can’t risk it,’ she answered her own question. ‘What if I got suspended for skipping school and was banned from the prom? That would be the ultimate ironic tragedy.’
‘We can still strategize over lunch with Jenna and Shanna and everybody,’ Eve said. This was huge for Jess, seriously huge, and Eve wasn’t going to spoil it because she was having pangs – or panglets. She shut her locker, and she and Jess started for the cafeteria. ‘So should we go geographical, just work our way from Bloomingdales down to SoHo?’ When there was extremely serious shopping to be done, it had to be done in Manhattan. It was absolutely worth a couple of hours on the train to reach shopping nirvana.
‘Or should we go to our faves first, no matter where they are?’ Eve continued. ‘You don’t want to miss out on The Dress because someone scoops it up before you see it.’
‘It’s going to take more than one day,’ Jess replied. ‘Do you think our parents would let us stay in a hotel for a glamorous weekend of shopping?’
It wasn’t as if Deepdene, their Hamptons beachside town, didn’t have a very nice selection of boutiques on Main Street. The little town had a small population – only 2,700 – but a large percentage of that 2,700 were millionaires, celebs of various types – including celebs who hadn’t done anything to be celebs – and all those people liked to shop. They kept the stores on Main thriving – with a little help from Eve and Jess, who were somewhat fond of shopping themselves, even when there wasn’t a prom coming up.
‘Extremely dubious,’ Eve said. ‘But we can just make multiple trips if we have to. The prom’s only two weeks away, though. We’re going to have to shop harder than we ever have before.’
‘I know!’ Jess exclaimed. ‘I can’t believe Seth only asked me two weeks beforehand. I really started to think maybe he wouldn’t.’
‘And I told you h
e was just being a boy,’ Eve reminded her. ‘Boys are so clueless about what it takes for a girl to become prom-ready. You’re lucky he didn’t wait another week to ask!’ she added as they entered the cafeteria and joined the food queue.
‘He asked? Finally?’ their friend Rose exclaimed, turning to face them. The when of Seth’s prom invitation – no one doubted it would happen at some point – had been a topic of conversation at their usual table for weeks. Jess was the only one of their group of friends who was going out with a senior, and they’d all wanted to know every detail.
‘At last!’ Jess answered.
‘Hey, Jenna,’ Rose called. ‘Who had today in the Seth pool?’
Jenna leaned round the two people between her and her friends, then checked her iPhone. ‘What time? Megan had before school. Shanna had after homeroom.’
‘That means Shanna wins,’ Jess announced.
Eve and the rest of Jess’s close friends had each put in twenty bucks and taken a guess at when ‘The Asking’ would occur. Rose gave an exaggerated pout. ‘I was going to buy every eye pencil Urban Decay makes.’
‘Awww. And you only have eighty million eye pencils now. How are you going to survive?’ Jenna teased as they headed for their usual table.
‘Oh! You should make your hair and mani-pedi appointments right now,’ Eve advised Jess.
Jess pulled out her iPhone. ‘I’m going to make you appointments too,’ she answered. ‘It’s not going to be any fun if you’re not with me.’
Panglet. Again. Because she and Jess wouldn’t be doing their first entire prom thing together.
Eve stuck a cheeseburger and a salad on Jess’s tray and then on her own as her friend set the appointments. Jess smiled her thanks.
‘OK, we’re good to go.’ Jess returned her phone to her purse. ‘I saw the most beautiful pink crystal pendant on bluefly dot com the other night. Do you think it would be crazy to pick the jewellery first and then find the dress to go with it?’
‘Pay the nice lady,’ Eve told Jess, who was so caught up in what she was saying that she hadn’t realized she’d reached the cashier.
‘Ooops!’ Jess handed over her money. Once Eve had paid too, they walked towards the table where Rose and Jenna were already eating. ‘So – crazy to start with a necklace?’
‘A challenge, maybe,’ Eve replied. ‘But there’s no wrong way to pick The Dress. You want to start with a necklace as inspiration, why not?’
Jess stopped abruptly, so abruptly that Eve almost ran into her. She turned round and stared at Eve. ‘I just realized that you and Luke won’t be there. I mean, I knew you wouldn’t, but it just hit me. Big time.’
‘Well, no. But you’ll have an amazing time with Seth,’ Eve said. ‘And you and I will do all the girly prep stuff together. So it’s good in a way. When it’s my turn to go to the prom, we’ll get to do all the shopping and primping all over again!’ She didn’t even get the tiniest of panglets that time. She really did want Jess to have a fabulous prom.
‘You and Luke will make one perfect prom picture,’ Jess said. ‘He’s all blond surfer boy and you’re all romantic princess with your long dark curls.’
‘You think we’ll still be together?’ Eve asked. ‘Senior Prom is three years away for us.’
‘Of course,’ Jess said with confidence. She lowered her voice. ‘The demon babe has tamed the player! Luke is never going to be able to even look at another girl now that he has you.’
Demon babe. How much did Eve love the fact that Jess said that so casually? Just so much. She doubted any of her other friends would be able to accept the fact that Eve was part demon without even blinking, the way Jess had.
Eve hadn’t been able to accept it that easily herself. She’d found out the truth when a few drops of her blood had proved fatal to Amunnic, or Many Faces, the latest demon to attack Deepdene. Many Faces had been able to change appearance at will, and fed on the blood of humans – and demon blood was the only way to destroy it. One of the people he’d fed on was Jess’s younger brother, Peter. Eve had been able to find him, and most of the demon’s other victims, before Many Faces completely drained them. But she’d been too late to save Briony, a new girl at school.
Finding out she was part demon had flipped Eve’s world, but knowing that her blood had killed Amunnic and saved lives made her heritage easier to accept. At least for her.
When blood tests done by the Order, an ancient demon-fighting organization, had confirmed that Eve was indeed part demon, it had horrified Callum, one of the Order heads. Eve had seen fear and pity in his eyes the day he’d given her the results of the tests. She could also feel the distrust from Alanna, another member of the Order. It made sense. The Order was founded to hunt down demons. No matter how many demons Eve had killed herself, no one in the Order was ever going to be able to completely trust her.
Eve had gotten used to thinking of herself as the Deepdene Witch, whose mission it was to use her witchy powers to keep her town safe from demons. Amunnic had just been the most recent one she’d had to kill. At first, finding out she was actually one of the things she’d been fighting – part, she reminded herself, just part – had horrified her as much as it had Callum.
Jess and Luke still trusted her though. They’d helped her get past the fear she’d felt when she learned the truth about herself. They acted like she was the same old Eve. Which she was – the same old power-enhanced Eve.
Who knew? Maybe she’d never have gotten together with Luke if she hadn’t been … special. Battling Amunnic side by side had pushed them out of the friend zone and into the couple zone. It had been so intense, and Luke had been staying with her because his dad had been stricken with the plague that warned of Many Faces’ arrival, and … things just happened. Things like kissing. Maybe even things like love – not that either of them had said that word out loud. Yet.
‘You two do know that you’re blocking traffic?’
A warm flush ran through Eve at the sound of her boyfriend’s voice. She turned and grinned at him. ‘You can’t get round?’ she teased.
‘I don’t want to get round,’ he told her. Then he leaned in and gave her a quick kiss.
Life was good. She and Luke were finally together. She had great friends, a shopping trip to Manhattan in the making, and no demons to deal with!
‘I came up with a list of stores that are musts,’ Jess told Eve as they stepped out into the warm May afternoon that day after school.
She flipped open her notebook and Eve peered over her shoulder at the list. ‘Serendipity sells prom dresses now?’ she teased. ‘That’s so weird for an ice-cream place.’
‘We’ll need to keep our strength up and stay hydrated,’ Jess said innocently. ‘Serendipity frozen hot chocolate will take care of that when we’re uptown.’ She looked up from her notebook and gave a little frown.
‘What?’ Eve asked.
‘I think … It looks like Simon Oliver is coming over to us,’ Jess murmured.
Simon had had a crush on Jess for about as long as Jess had had a crush on Seth, so in other words, for years and years. For him, the crush just meant staring at Jess a lot, and talking to her even less than he talked to anyone else. Which wasn’t much. Simon didn’t have any actual friends.
‘Us?’ Eve followed her friend’s gaze. Sure enough, Simon was walking across the quad on what looked like a collision course with them. Which was weird. Simon said maybe half a dozen words to Eve a semester, and then only if she said something first, but talking to Jess clearly gave him the jitters. It had probably been a year since he’d said a word to her.
‘You said hi to him again, didn’t you?’ Jess joked. ‘You got him all talkative.’
‘I actually did say hi the other day,’ Eve admitted. Every once in a while she made the effort. It was just too sad to see him all alone all the time – although maybe that was how he wanted it. ‘I don’t think he heard me. He was walking down the hall muttering to himself. It didn’t even sound like Englis
h.’
‘Probably Klingon,’ Jess suggested. ‘Or whatever they speak in World of Warcraft.’
Definite possibility. Simon had a strong geek vibe going and he had the pallor of someone who spent pretty much all his time indoors.
Eve took another quick glance in his direction. He really was coming over to them. She gave a little wave, and he looked at her like he was trying to interpret the strange gesture.
‘Um, hi,’ he said when he stopped in front of them. Way too close. He always stood too close to people, and he never seemed to realize it. Eve always felt like pulling out that old line from Dirty Dancing – ‘This is my dance space. This is your dance space.’
‘Hey, Simon,’ she said instead.
‘I wanted to ask you something, Jess,’ he blurted out.
Eve blinked in surprise.
‘Sure,’ Jess said. ‘What’s up?’ Eve could tell her friend was a little freaked, but Jess was doing her best not to show it. She was always careful not to hurt anyone’s feelings.
Simon shifted his backpack – which looked like it contained half the books in the library – from one hand to the other, then shot a look at Eve. ‘Alone. If, uh, that’s OK,’ he added.
Eve glanced at her best friend to make sure she didn’t mind being alone with Simon. Jess gave her a quick I’ll-be-fine nod. ‘I’ll wait for you over there,’ Eve said, gesturing to one of the stone benches near the huge maple tree on the school lawn.
When she reached the bench, she sat down and rummaged around in her bag for her lip gloss. She didn’t want to sit there and stare at Simon and Jess, even though she was kind of curious. Make that very curious. Simon and talking – they just didn’t go together. Simon and talking to Jess – that went together even less. As far as Eve knew, when Simon wasn’t in class, he was in one of the cubbies in the back of the school library, hunched so far over a book that it was hard to see his face.
