A few days later, Mrs. Casnoff pulled me aside and told me that Jenna would be coming back, and my dad would be arriving a week or so after that.
I should probably have been excited to finally meet him, but all I felt was nervous. Was he coming to Hecate in his official capacity, or was it because I was his daughter and I’d nearly been attacked? What would we talk about?
I called Mom one night to talk to her about it. I hadn’t told her about Archer. It would’ve only scared her. I just said there’d been some trouble, and Dad was coming to check it out.
“You’ll like him,” Mom said. “He’s very charming and very smart. I know he’ll be thrilled to see you.”
“Then why hasn’t he tried to see me before? I mean, I get when I was little you didn’t want us hanging out. But what about after I came into my powers? You’d think he could’ve spared a visit somewhere in there.”
Mom got quiet before finally saying, “Sophie, your dad had his reasons, but they’re his to tell, not mine. But he loves you.” After another pause she asked, “Is there something else going on?”
“I’m just really swamped with school,” I lied.
I tried to be happy about seeing Dad, but it was hard to be enthusiastic about anything. I felt like I was moving underwater, and anything people said to me seemed muffled and distant.
On the other hand, I found myself suddenly popular. I guess nearly getting murdered in the cellar by an undercover demon hunter is all it takes to make people want to be your friend. Who knew?
I made that joke to Taylor one evening at dinner. Ever since that night in Casnoff’s study, she’d been a lot friendlier to me, now that she finally realized I wasn’t a spy for my dad. She laughed. “I didn’t know you were so funny!”
Yeah, I was a regular laugh riot. Maybe because making jokes meant that I didn’t burst into tears.
I watched people gather around Elodie and cluck over her sympathetically, murmuring how heartbroken she must be. She wasn’t talking to me, and I missed her. It sounds weird, but I really wanted to talk to her about Archer. She was the only person who was feeling the same thing I was.
I’d stopped meeting Alice in the woods. Mrs. Casnoff had been true to her word and put about a dozen new protection spells over the house, so even Alice’s super-powerful sleeping spell didn’t work anymore. I could’ve just snuck out, but I had a feeling that was what Elodie was doing, so I left her to it. I mean, I’d stolen her boy-friend, even if it had been only temporarily. She could have my great-grandmother. Not exactly a fair trade, but as far as amends went, it was the best I could do.
Besides, I wasn’t sure if I trusted myself with Alice anymore.
Looking back on it, a tiny part of me had been thrilled when that spell on Elodie’s dress had started working. I hadn’t wanted to hurt her—at least I don’t think that I had—but there’d been a definite rush knowing I was capable of a spell like that.
Where would that thrill end?
My attraction to the dark side wasn’t the only thing occupying my thoughts. I thought about that night in the cellar constantly. I kept coming back to Archer pulling out that knife. He’d had plenty of time to stab me and run. So why hadn’t he? I kept turning that question over and over in my head, but I couldn’t come up with a scenario that gave me the answer I really wanted; that Archer wasn’t an Eye, that it had all been a horrible mistake.
A week after Archer left, I was perched on my window seat, flipping through my Magical Literature textbook. Even though he’d been cleared, Lord Byron wasn’t coming back to Hecate. I got the impression he’d said something really rude to Mrs. Casnoff when she’d asked him back, because she pursed her lips a lot when she said we’d have a new teacher. It ended up being the Vandy. I’d thought she might be a little nicer to me after she’d rescued me from a killer, but other than canceling my cellar duty for the rest of the semester (all three weeks of it—really big of her), she showed no signs of softening. We already had three essays due by Friday, which was why I was attempting to find something in the stupid textbook that half interested me.
I’d just started to read a paragraph about Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market” when movement out on the lawn caught my eye. It was Elodie walking purposefully toward the woods. I guess she and Alice had decided the brooms were a little too attention-grabbing.
I told myself that I wasn’t jealous, and that it was fine Alice hadn’t made any attempt to contact me in the past few weeks. Elodie was a better student anyway. I glanced over to the closet, where I’d stashed Jenna’s lion, Bram. I’d had to hide it a few days after she’d left because it hurt too much to look at it. Last week I’d hung the necklace Alice had given me around Bram’s neck for a similar reason. Not like I needed it to keep me awake anymore anyway.
I was still looking at the closet when my door opened.
“Miss me?” Jenna asked with a grin. I don’t know which one of us was more shocked when I burst into tears.
She was across the room in an instant, wrapping her arms around me and leading me to my bed. She hugged me while I cried.
Jenna reached behind her and pulled a box of Kleenex off my desk. “Here,” she said, handing it to me.
“Thanks.” I sniffled into my tissue. Then I let out a deep shuddering breath. “Whew. I feel better.”
“Rough couple of weeks, huh?”
I glanced at her. She looked the best I’d ever seen her. Her skin was still pretty pale, but there was a light rose flush on her cheeks. Even her pink stripe looked brighter.
“Did they fill you in?”
Jenna nodded. “Yeah, but I can’t believe it. Archer really didn’t strike me as the secret demon hunter type.”
I snorted and wiped my nose again. “You or anybody else. You were with the Council. Are they freaked?”
“Big time. From what I heard, Archer and his whole family disappeared off the face of the earth. No one knows what happened, but it seems pretty clear they were all in on it.” Jenna ran a hand through her hair. “It’s crazy to think he was hiding that all this time.”
“Yeah,” I said, looking down at my hands. “It just sucks because . . .” I sighed.
“You hate him for what he did, but you miss him,” Jenna finished.
I looked up at her, surprised. “Exactly.”
She reached up and swept her hair to one side, revealing a pair of light blue puncture wounds just below her ear. “I know a little something about falling for the enemy.”
With a sad smile, she let her hair fall back.
I shifted on the bed to make more room for her, and we both leaned back against my pillows.
“So tell me about London.”
Jenna rolled her eyes and kicked off her shoes. “I never even got to London. The Council has a house in Savannah they use when they have stuff to do at Hecate. I just hung out there while they asked me a bunch of questions, like what vampire made me, and how often did I feed. I’m not gonna lie: it was pretty scary at times. I was sure they were bringing in Buffy at any moment to give me the ol’ stake and shake.”
I choked on a laugh. “The what?”
Blushing, Jenna looked away and rubbed one foot on top of the other. “It’s just this thing this girl there said.”
“A pretty girl?” I asked, bumping shoulders with her.
“Maybe,” she said, but she was grinning from ear to ear. All I could get out of her was that the girl’s name was Victoria, she worked for the Council, and she was a vampire too.
“They have vampires that work for the Council?”
“Yeah,” Jenna said, more animated than I’d ever seen her. “They work all sorts of cool jobs, mentoring younger vamps and acting as security for VIPs in the Council.”
“Speaking of which, you didn’t run into my dad by any chance, did you?”
Jenna shook her head. “Nope, sorry. But I overheard Vix say he would be out here in a few days.”
“Vix?” I asked, doing my startled eyebrow thing.
>
Jenna blushed all over again, and I laughed. “Wow, does Bram know he might have to share you soon?”
“Shut up,” she said, but she was still smiling. “Hey, where is Bram?”
“Saved him for you,” I said, hopping off the bed and going to the closet. I fished Bram out from underneath some laundry and tossed him to Jenna. She caught him with a smile. “Ah, Bram, how I’ve miss—”
Her expression changed, and I watched that pretty flush seep from her cheeks as she stared at the stuffed lion.
Or, more accurately, at the necklace around his neck.
“Where did you get this?”
“The necklace? It was a present.”
“From who?” She raised her eyes to mine, and I saw real fear in them. An uncomfortable prickling sweat broke out on the back of my neck.
“Why? What is it?”
Jenna shuddered and pushed Bram away from her. “It’s a bloodstone.”
I crossed the room and picked up Bram, pulling the necklace over his head.
The large flat stone looked nothing like a bloodstone. It wasn’t even red.
“It’s black,” I said to Jenna, holding it out to her, but she scooted back against the headboard.
“That’s because it’s demon blood.”
Everything within me went completely still. “What?”
Jenna reached into her blouse and pulled out her bloodstone. The liquid inside was pitching and rolling, like there was a storm inside the tiny capsule. “See?” she said. “There’s white magic in my stone. It only reacts like that if black magic is near. And that’s some seriously dark stuff, Sophie.”
Her fingers were clutching her necklace so hard her knuckles were white. “It did this the day of the ball too,” she said, her eyes still on the pendant in my hands. “When you got that dirt out. I should have said something then, but you seemed so happy with the dress, and I thought black magic couldn’t make something so pretty.”
I was barely listening to her. I was remembering that Mrs. Casnoff said no one knew how Alice had become a witch. How she had only spoken to me after Chaston was attacked, how much more alive she’d seemed after Anna.
And Elodie’s face when Alice had given her her necklace.
Elodie was with her right now.
I dropped the necklace, and the stone cracked against the corner of my desk. A drop of black liquid seeped from the crack and sizzled on the floor, leaving a small burn mark.
I was amazed at how stupid I’d been. How naive.
“Jenna, get Mrs. Casnoff and Cal. Tell them to go to the woods, to Alice’s and Lucy’s graves. She’ll know where that is.”
“Where are you going?” she asked, but I didn’t answer. I just ran—the way I had the night I’d found Chaston.
I plunged into the woods, branches scratching at my face and arms, rocks cutting my feet. I was only wearing pajama pants and a T-shirt, but I barely felt the cold. I just ran.
Because now I understood how Alice had been corporeal, how she had all that power even though she was supposed to be dead. That black magic ritual Alice had gotten caught in hadn’t turned her into a witch: it had made her a demon.
You too, my mind whispered. If that’s what she is, that’s what you are.
CHAPTER 31
I was certain I’d find Elodie lying bleeding or maybe even dead when I got to the cemetery. So I was shocked when I saw her standing next to Alice, smiling as she faded away—only to reappear seconds later about a yard away.
She’d finally mastered the transportation spell.
Alice saw me first and lifted her hand in greeting. I stared at her and wondered how I’d ever believed she was just another ghost. None of the ghosts at Hecate had ever looked so real, so whole. Life radiated from her. I felt stupid for not seeing it before.
I neared them, fear racing through me. Elodie had stopped smiling the instant she saw me and was now looking somewhere over my head.
“Elodie,” I said in what I’d meant to be a calm voice, but I know I sounded as strained and scared as I felt. “I think we should go back to the school. Mrs. Casnoff is looking for you.”
“No she’s not,” Elodie answered. She reached down into her blouse and pulled out her necklace. “It glows whenever someone’s looking for me, and tells me who it is. See?” The pendent was glowing, and I could make out my own name etched across it in dull gold.
“Family heirloom, huh?” I asked Alice.
She smiled, but I saw something flicker in her eyes. “Now, Sophia, don’t be jealous.”
“I’m not jealous,” I said too quickly. “I just think Elodie and I should head back to the school now.”
Mentally, I was calculating how long it would take Mrs. Casnoff and, I hoped, Cal to get out here. If Jenna had found them right after I’d left, surely they were only a few minutes behind me.
Alice frowned and lifted her head, sniffing the air—there was nothing even remotely human in the gesture. I felt myself start to shake.
“You’re frightened, Sophia,” she said. “Why on earth would you be afraid of me?”
“I’m not,” I replied, but again my voice gave me away.
The wind blew through the trees, making them creak against each other and sending strange shadows skittering across the ground. Alice turned her head and took a deep breath. This time her expression hardened. “You’ve brought intruders on us. Why would you do such a thing, Sophia?”
She flicked her hands toward the woods, and I could hear a loud groaning, like the trees were uprooting themselves and moving. She was slowing Mrs. Casnoff and Cal down, I realized with horror.
“You led Casnoff here?” Elodie asked, but my eyes were locked on Alice.
“I know what you are,” I said, my voice little more than a whisper. I’d expected Alice to look surprised or at least angry, but she just smiled again. Somehow, that was much scarier.
“Do you indeed?” she asked.
“A demon.”
She laughed, a low throaty sound, and her eyes flashed a reddish-purple.
I turned to Elodie. She looked guilty, but she didn’t flinch from my gaze.
“You did summon a demon,” I said, and she nodded, like I’d just accused her of dyeing her hair, or something equally innocuous.
“We had no choice,” she insisted. “You heard what Mrs. Casnoff said: our enemies are getting stronger all the time. I mean, my God, Sophie, they turned one of ours and used him against us. We had to be prepared.”
She said all of this in the patient tone of a kindergarten teacher.
“So what?” I asked, my voice shaking. “You let her kill Holly?”
Now her eyes dropped, and she said, “A blood sacrifice is the only way to bind a demon to you.”
I wanted to run at her, hit her, scream, but I was frozen in place.
Elodie looked at me with wide, begging eyes.
“We didn’t mean to kill Holly. We knew we needed four to hold the demon and make it do our bidding. But we had to have blood. So I did a sleeping spell on her and Chaston pierced her neck with a dagger. We thought we could stop the bleeding before it was too late, but she just bled so much.”
I could taste bile at the back of my throat. “You could have taken blood from anywhere,” I said. “You took it from her throat so you could blame Jenna for it. Kill two birds with one stone, huh?”
I went on. “You knew that you killed Holly, but you let everyone think it was Jenna. You made me wonder if it had been her.”
“I thought it was her who attacked Chaston and Anna,” Elodie said, a tear trickling down her cheek. “We just thought the ritual had backfired. I never saw Alice before that night with you, I swear.”
Now I looked at Alice. “Why didn’t you appear to them?
Alice shrugged. “They weren’t worth my time. They pulled me out of hell, but I felt no need to serve three schoolgirls.”
She lifted one hand, and Elodie jerked.
“I wondered why it took you so long to
figure it out,” Alice said, still looking at me. “You’re supposed to be such a bright girl, Sophie, and yet you couldn’t tell the difference between a ghost and a demon? Or was it more?”
She turned her hand a little to the left, and Elodie screamed as she flew to the side, landing in a heap against the graveyard fence. She lay still after that, but I didn’t know if she’d been knocked out or if Alice was using magic to keep her from moving.
“Do you know what I think, Sophia? I think you knew what I was but you didn’t want to face it. Because if I’m a demon, then what does that make you?”
My whole body was trembling now. I wanted to cover my ears to block out what she was saying. Because she was right. I’d known there was something off about her, but I hadn’t wanted to question it because I’d liked her. I’d liked the power she’d given me.
“I’ve waited for you for so long, Sophia,” Alice said, and now she looked like she always did—just a girl my age. “When those pathetic excuses for dark witches did their summoning spell, I clawed my way over a horde of demons to be the one brought forth. In the hopes that I could find you.”
Blood was rushing in my ears, pounding at my temples.
“But why?” I whispered through chattering teeth.
Her smile was beautiful and terrible. Her eyes glowed as bright as a furnace. “Because we’re family.”
Then I was flung backward, my back slamming painfully against a tree, the bark scraping me through my shirt. I tried to move, but my limbs were heavy and useless.
“I apologize for that,” she said, moving toward Elodie, “but I can’t have you in the way just now.”
She knelt beside Elodie while I sat helpless and paralyzed. As gently as a mother with a baby, Alice lifted Elodie’s head into her lap. Her eyes unfocused and half shut, Elodie rolled her head to one side as Alice stroked her temple. Then Alice lifted her hand to Elodie’s neck. Two thin claws shot from her fingertips, illuminated by the light from the orb.
Elodie barely flinched as the claws punctured her neck, but I screamed. When Alice lowered her mouth to drink, I shut my eyes.
Hex Hall Book One Page 20
