“That's not nothing, I guess.” I let out a quiet sigh. “So, mercenaries? German sorcerers for hire. Sounds kinda unwieldy. Do they have an official title or something?”
“Not that I know of,” Lockwood said. “They are likely a coven that was hired for gold or a trinket in order to find you.”
“What would sorcerers find valuable enough to work with Draven?” I asked.
“Anything that could enhance their magical abilities,” Lockwood said. “Crystals, rare type of wood for their staffs, endangered frog spleen…things that would not be easy to come across for a person with little connection to the world.”
I stuck my tongue out at the last one, wrinkling my nose. “'Endangered frog spleen'? Wouldn't that put them afoul of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service?”
“I'm sure they're very worried about that,” Iona said. “As they shoot magic everywhere.”
“I don’t understand how they found us,” I said. “We picked a place that seemed completely improbable, and they found us in a night.”
“They must have gotten a hold of your hair somehow,” Iona said.
“What? How?” I looked up at Lockwood, my eyebrows wrinkled. “I thought hair magic was a Faerie thing.”
“It is a magic thing,” he said. “In general.”
“Did your house burn down all the way?” Iona asked, staring into the distance as if thinking.
“No,” I said. “A lot of it did, but it was still standing when we left.”
“Then it’s abandoned now?” she asked.
There was that familiar pit in my stomach. When everything sucked, something always had to come along and just make it worse. So much worse. “You’re telling me that they went into my house, and what…found a hair on my pillow or something?”
Iona nodded. “Probably, yeah. That’s how simple it is when it comes to magic.” She made a face. “I hate wizards. Witches. Wiz-witches. Witchards?”
“So basically I need to start shaving my head?” I said.
“I wouldn't suggest that,” Iona said. “It'd throw off the symmetry of your face. Like bangs. You really need to avoid bangs—there's a sweet spot for you, and it's without bangs, but with hair.” She held her hands up in horizontal lines at my chin and the top of my forehead. “This...perfect. Any higher or lower...ugh.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said.
“I'm just trying to help,” she said. “I wouldn't want you to make a bad hair decision. You're in high school, these things are still very important.”
“I might be able to fool these magicians with a spell,” Lockwood said, very clearly avoiding commenting on Iona's hair criticism. “But it is a very complicated incantation. Unfortunately, it will not do us any good until we leave this place, because they already know where we are now.”
“I agree,” Iona said. “It’s best if we move quickly.” She sniffed. “Someone was brewing terrible, terrible coffee here, and I can't get it out of my nose.”
“How long do we have?” I asked, my heart starting to beat more quickly.
Lockwood hesitated. “As long as it takes for them to get back to Draven, wrangle up some help, and get back here. They will not be able to bring that assistance via magic, so... However long it takes to drive here.”
I looked over at my dad. He was still unconscious. “How do we move them?” I asked.
“Carefully,” Lockwood said, moving toward Mill. Iona rose beside me, crouching over my dad. She lifted him easily, cradling his head and taking up the slack as she lifted it off the pillow. I followed after her as she carried him through the archway as Lockwood took up Mill's weight with an arm slung under my boyfriend's chest.
“Laura,” I said as I passed through the archway into the foyer. She was stirring, my mother leaning over her. I started up the steps. “Are you all right?”
Laura was holding her head, and one of her eyes was squeezed shut, her nose wrinkling. “Yeah…” she murmured.
“I’m really sorry,” I said before I could even think. “It’s my fault. You shouldn’t have had to—”
“It’s all right, Cassie,” she said with a weak smile. “Really. I’m okay.”
It didn’t make me feel any better.
“Cassie…” Mill said, with Lockwood's arm wrapped around him. They looked like bros helping each other walk after a night of drinking, and I felt a twinge of guilt.
Could they all just not be like this for a second? Could I not have a second to try and wrap my mind around everything that was going on?
“What?” I asked as I helped Laura to her feet. Mom waited at her other arm, but Laura took up her own weight easily, if a little gingerly, leaning on the banister. She gave me a nod, and I started down ahead of her, my mom giving her a hand as she took her time.
Lockwood held tight to Mill, pivoting him around. His sleeve had been cut away from his arm, exposing a sickly coppery spot just above his elbow. Veins stood out on his waxy biceps, fluorescent green traces moving under the skin.
I stared. “What... What the hell is that?”
Lockwood's face was frozen, strained. He glanced at the wound, but only once; he already knew what he was seeing, there was no need to study it further.
Mill’s face was beyond white as a sheet, waxy and taut. He was almost transparent. His eyes were glassy as he looked up at me, head lolling gently. “I think we have another problem…” he mumbled.
And then he, too, slumped over, Lockwood catching him as he went limp in the driver's arms.
Chapter 14
What were we going to do? There was no obvious way out. I felt like a rat trapped in a maze, looking for the cheese. Except the scientists controlling the whole experiment never bothered to put any in for me, and so I was going to spend eternity running in circles, never finding what I was looking for.
It was a dark prospect, and at a time when all I wanted to do was curl into a ball and never move again.
Dad was unconscious in Iona's arms. Mill was conked out in Lockwood's. Laura had just regained consciousness, but she was almost as pale as Mill, and was holding her head between her hands as if trying to ward off a migraine. She probably was.
“What happened to him?” I asked Lockwood.
“It is difficult to say,” he started, and then shook his head. “It looks as if he has been poisoned, yet—”
“I think this is what a witch’s nightshade spell looks like when it takes effect,” Iona said, cradling my father like a baby and peering down at Mill's arm where he hung limp against Lockwood. “Harmless to anything but vampires, but when it hits them, well…” She glanced up from the wound. “It looks like this.”
“Is he going to be okay?” I asked. I was desperate for someone, anyone, to give me an answer.
Lockwood gave Mill a few gentle pats to the face. “Come on, wake up.” His tone was quiet. The strain in his voice made me that much more nervous.
Mill’s eyes tightened, and when they opened, he blinked a few times.
I sank to my knees. “Oh, thank God.”
“Can you hear me?” Lockwood asked, his eyes scanning Mill’s face.
“Yeah…” he said. “But based on how you asked... I'm guessing I look as bad as I feel.”
“You always look bad to me, forehead,” Iona said. “You're currently still in the range of ugly to my eyes, so you're probably fine.”
“Thank you... So much,” Mill said, barely able to focus on her.
I crossed over to him, and he winced as he tried to push himself back up into a sitting position. With Lockwood’s help, we got him upright again.
“Don’t scare me like that,” I said, putting my forehead against his.
“It’s going to take more than that to keep me away from you,” he said, just barely above a whisper.
I was glad that Mom was up the stairs and didn’t hear. My cheeks burned, but I smiled at him. “You’re delirious.”
“Yeah, and really bad at quoting songs,” Iona said. “Africa? Really? Out of all t
he ones you could have picked?” Mill chuckled, and it turned into a fit of coughing.
“We have to get out of here before the witches get back,” I said. “We can’t take them again, not with three of us down.”
“Especially one of our best fighters,” Iona said. “Yes, forehead, I'm talking about you. I can occasionally say nice things. When I feel like it.” Mill just shook his head.
“We need to move.” I looked at Lockwood. “Can you conjure us up a magic carpet or something? Because if they're coming in cars, we need some way to evade.”
“I can't really do that, no,” Lockwood said.
“The longer we stay here, the more likely we are to be discovered by the police, and I need time to make a compelling argument for—” Mom said.
“I am concerned about this spell,” Lockwood said. “I don’t know how to cure it. As I said, the magic that witch was using is very different to faerie magic—”
“Lana is going to need time to recover from her stunning—” Iona started.
“It’s Laura,” Laura said. “Is it really that hard to remember?”
“Laura, yes, whatever,” Iona said. “The blonde girl, okay? She’s injured.”
“Obviously,” I said. “And my dad needs attention too, at some point.”
“I can only do so many things at once,” Lockwood said. He was dabbing some sort of purple goop onto Mill’s wound. Presumably a faerie healing ointment. Or maybe repurposed hair gel for all I knew.
I felt like there was a clock ticking in my head. Every second we wasted in this house meant it was going to be that much harder to get away undetected.
“I don’t care what we need to do,” I said. “We just have to move. Now.”
“Where are we going?” Iona asked. “Everyone here has been driven out of their homes except Lockwood.”
“I am very likely in that camp now, too,” he said, screwing the lid on the jar of purple goop. It disappeared in his fingers as though he were performing a magician's trick. “The sorcerers will have told Lord Draven I’m involved. I'm afraid we can’t go to my house, either.”
“So where to?” Iona asked.
I was frozen in place, my hand on Mill's cool, room-temperature skin. I stroked his forearm with one finger while I thought. There had to be something. A piece of the puzzle we hadn’t seen yet.
Fear was threatening to overwhelm me. I didn’t let myself look sad. I didn’t let myself look down at Mill. I just sat there. I had to keep my mind working. Mill, Iona, and Lockwood spoke in low breaths, and I ignored them as I tried to think.
There had to be somewhere else we could go. Someone else we knew that could help us.
Gregory’s house was off limits. They'd probably be watching the ruins of my place. The same with Laura's.
Mill’s condo, Iona’s place, Lockwood’s... they were all off limits.
Byron’s house was now no longer safe.
Who did I know that could still help?
I snapped my fingers, almost ready to kick myself for not thinking of it earlier. Duh. Everyone looked at me, attention drawn by the sudden snap. “I know where to go,” I said. And I smiled.
Chapter 15
“Um…what the hell is this? You threw a crazy party and didn't invite me?”
Xandra was staring out onto the front porch of her house, blue hair up in a messy bun on top of her head, exposing the purple she had recently added just above the nape of her neck. She was wearing a baggy, oversized blue sweatshirt with the Florida Gators logo on it, and a pair of track shorts. Her eyes were puffy, and there were creases on her cheeks from her pillowcase.
I sort of grinned at her, doing my best to support Laura, Mom holding up her other side.
Xandra blinked at me. “Cassie, it's…” she rubbed her hands over her face. “It’s two in the morning.”
“I know,” I said, just above a whisper. No reason to wake the neighbors, after all.
The street was quiet aside from the occasional car driving by and the buzzing of the tall power lines over the road. The houses on either side of Xandra's were dark, their occupants likely asleep.
We must have looked crazy, the seven of us crowded on the narrow porch of Xandra’s little bungalow. I was covered in blood from my fight with the witch, and Dad was still unconscious. Lockwood was supporting Mill and muttering under his breath. Iona was carrying Dad, because she'd thrown a fit before we left Byron’s about how she didn’t want to carry Mill, complaining he was too heavy thanks to the weight of his extra-sized forehead.
Xandra stepped out onto the porch in her bare feet and closed the door behind herself.
“Okay, so what's going on here?” She stared at us all. “Is that Laura?”
Laura lifted her head and smiled weakly at Xandra. “Hey.”
Xandra shook her head. “What happened to you people?”
“The usual,” I said, struggling under Laura’s weight. She wasn’t really heavy, but I was tired. Really tired. “I'll tell you everything, but we need to get inside first. Xandra, please. We literally have nowhere else to go.”
“Why aren’t you at your own house?”
I sighed, trying to keep my temper in check. It had been a really long night already. “It got burned.”
“What?” she asked. Her eyes widened. “I saw fire trucks go by, cop cars and everything, all heading in your direction…”
“Yeah, that was for us,” I said.
“Holy crap…” she said. “I had no idea.”
“Yeah, well, can we please come in?” I asked, a bite to my words.
The door opened behind Xandra, and her dad was standing there. He was a tall man with broad shoulders, a balding head and glasses. His blue eyes widened as he took us all in with a glance. “I thought I heard voices. What’s going on here?” He caught sight of me, and I smiled feebly up at him. “Cassie? What are you doing here in the middle of the night? Is that blood on your shirt?”
“A little bit,” I said.
“Come inside,” he said, standing aside and throwing the door wide. “Looks like you guys have been through the ringer.”
We stepped over the threshold into Xandra’s home. The table by the door was littered with bills and keys. Coats and sweatshirts, way too many for Floridians in this mild climate, hung on the row of hooks just inside the door. Cardboard boxes littered one wall of the living room, a partially finished television stand stood in one corner.
“Sorry about the mess,” her had said.
Iona pulled Dad through the entryway, tracing a path over to set him in Mr. Stewart’s recliner. One good grunt and she lifted him like a child, laying him back with a hearty shove to push the seat back.
“This fellow is mighty pale,” Mr. Stewart said, following Lockwood as he placed Mill on the sofa. Mr. Steward threw a red and black plaid Christmas blanket over him. “What happened to these two?”
“It’s a long story,” I said.
Mom stepped out of the crowd and over to Xandra’s Dad. “Hi, I'm Mrs. Howell, Cassandra’s mother.” She held out her hand to him.
“Paul Stewart,” he said, taking it. “Guess we haven’t met formally, have we?”
“No,” Mom said. Her lawyer face was back. “Thank you for allowing us to come into your home. Ours was set on fire by some... crazy person,” she gave me a significant look, “earlier this evening.”
“That’s terrible,” he said. “Are these two suffering from smoke inhalation? Should we get them to a hospital?”
“No hospital,” Iona said. “There's not a doctor in the world that can fix what ails him.” She nodded at Mill. “Maybe a plastic surgeon. Have they figured out how to do a—”
“Will you just lay off making fun of my forehead?” Mill asked, letting out the cranky. “It's not like I have control over it. It's an immutable characteristic. Like the size of that stick up your ass.”
Mr. Stewart looked back and forth between the two of them, apparently unsure what to make of them. “Sorry... you said
a crazy person burned your house down?”
“Why don’t we go in the kitchen?” Xandra whispered into my ear. She was standing at my shoulder, the one that I wasn't using to steady Laura.
“Good thinking,” I said, sparing a glance behind me as Mom eased closer to Mr. Stewart to talk.
“Were all of these people staying with you?” I heard him ask her.
“Yes,” Mom said. “They’re visiting from out of state.”
I glanced at her over my shoulder as I left the room, arching an eyebrow. Did she just? Yeah, she did. She lied right to Mr. Stewart's face. She spared me a brief glance, but all I saw was a flicker of embarrassment before she turned her attention back to him.
I helped Laura into a chair in the quiet kitchen. Xandra sunk down into the chair opposite her. Iona slipped into the room behind us, graceful as a ballerina, taking her own seat.
“Where’s Lockwood?” I asked, taking the last seat at the circular table.
Iona pointed through the opening to the living room. I could just barely see the left side of Lockwood. He was standing in the corner, facing the wall, head bowed, and it looked like he was…chanting or something.
He'd been doing it the whole way here in Laura's car while I drove, Iona following behind me. I figured he was doing something to help protect us, but I wasn’t sure. He didn't answer when I asked him. He just kept muttering.
“Okay so…what the hell?” Xandra asked.
“I’ll keep it simple,” I said. “Draven found out about me and burned down my house.”
“It was him?” she said. “Like, actually him?”
“Not exactly. He sent in a group of vamps to do it, one of them being that former bestie of mine from New York that was turned into a vampire because of my trip up there a few weeks ago.” I puckered my lips. “So... Y'know... You don't have a high bar to clear in the best-ever best friend department anymore.”
Xandra pinched the bridge of her nose. “That's good to know. I like to think I can live up to modest expectations. Now... What was all that?”
“So,” I said, “they came to the house, set it on fire, then we ran to Byron’s to hide—”
Her Lying Days Are Done Page 9
