by Cady Vance
I leaned forward a bit more, catching the scent of cinnamon. Even the rain hadn’t managed to wash Nathan clean of that smell. “Pranks?”
“Right.” He flicked his blinker to change lanes. “There was this prank we came up with one weekend. You might have heard about the eighteen-hole graffiti job at the country club?”
The country club graffiti. It was a legend at our high school. Last year, someone had gone through and spray-painted every hole on the golf course. Some were cartoon characters, some were flowers, some were abstract art. But every hole had been painted in painstaking detail.
“No way,” I breathed. “That was you?”
Nathan nodded and gripped the steering wheel tighter. “Me and my friends. We split up and each took a few holes to spray-paint. It was really funny at the time. We were amazed we got away with it. No one ever realized we’d done it, but my dad was certain he recognized my artwork. The cartoony characters.”
The pieces of the Nathan puzzle fell into place in my brain. “And that’s why he doesn’t like your comic aspirations.”
“That’s part of it. Anyway, I felt terrible about the graffiti later because it cost Seaport a lot of money. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. It was supposed to be funny, nothing more.”
“Right, the grass died, and they brought in all that specialty grass to replace it.”
“Yeah.” The car slowed as Nathan looked over at me, eyes sad. “So, see, I’m not perfect. Do you think less of me?”
A small smile tickled my lips and threatened to bloom into something more at the surprise on Nathan’s face. “Not at all.”
And it was the truth. In fact, knowing there were mistakes in his past made me like him even more than I had before. I felt like he could understand me better. I didn’t feel so ashamed of who I was and what I’d done to save Mom. Nathan wasn’t perfect, and neither was I. Plus, I’d thought the whole golf course graffiti thing had been pretty funny.
“Then, you’ll let me help you?” He tapped the dashboard clock. “We have thirty minutes to come up with a plan.”
CHAPTER 31
The clock read two forty-seven.
Nathan had his foot pressed down hard on the gas. Every minute that ticked by was another minute closer to something terrible happening. We were almost there. So close. But if we ran into a pocket of traffic or a tire burst, we wouldn’t make it. I tried not to think of how cold and pale Laura’s face would look, but no matter how hard I stared at the pavement, listless eyes haunted my mind.
I’d never thought of myself as a morbid person, but a lot had changed over the past few days.
So much it was hard to remember what normal felt like.
“Try looking in your rune book,” Nathan suggested. Every idea we’d had so far had sucked. I didn’t think hiding under the cover of my Shadow spell would work this time. At the rate the car was moving, we would only get there a few minutes before Red Tee Guy’s deadline, and I knew I couldn’t risk Laura’s life by him not knowing I’d arrived. It would be easier to take them down if they couldn’t see me, but…if they couldn’t see me, they would kill her.
“Okay, I’ll look, but I don’t think I’ll find anything.”
I slid the old rune old book out of my backpack and started flipping the pages. Nothing looked very promising, probably because I couldn’t tell what most of them did. They all seemed like defensive spells—regular old shaman magic. I wished there was something involving fireballs or super strength.
But I was just a shaman. As much as walking around invisible made me feel like a superhero, I was no Gambit. I needed an active spell. Something that could take them down.
“There’s nothing here.” I threw up my hands as Nathan swerved the car onto the shamans’ street. “What are we going to do?”
“We’re going to have to do the first plan, as flawed as it is,” Nathan said, pulling the car to the curb. “You go in alone. I’ll wait five minutes in the bushes over there.” He pointed to a thick growth by the side of the house. “Then, I’ll come charging in with your knife.”
“I don’t know if that will work, Nathan,” I whispered.
“It’s all we’ve got.”
“Okay, five minutes.” I paused, leaned over, wrapped my arms around his neck and pressed my lips hard against his. He kissed me back, his lips salty from the rain. I wanted to stay here so badly it hurt. But I couldn’t, and I was out the door and jogging to the front stoop. It felt strange ringing the doorbell like I was about to have a domestic conversation. Hello, good neighbor, I’m here to trade my life for my best friend’s. Oh yes, and I brought over the butter you wanted to borrow.
I shifted on my feet, waiting for someone to answer. A million different scenarios spun through my mind. Maybe my clock was wrong, and I was late. What if they’d already hurt Laura? But, even if that were true, wouldn’t they still answer their door? Bring me inside to do the same?
I tried the knob but didn’t need to. The door swung open at my touch, revealing a smearing of blood on the light carpet. I choked, rushed inside and slammed the door behind me, eyes whirling around, fear clutching my heart.
They’d killed her.
Laura.
I stumbled through the hallway, following the trail of blood, my stomach clenching from the knowledge of the sight I was about to see.
I didn’t even attempt being quiet.
There was so much blood. Red was everywhere. It glared at me. I couldn’t imagine what they’d done to her, what kind of injury they’d given to cause so much blood. And what I would do when I found out what that was. My throat constricted, and the tang of vomit gurgled in the back of my mouth. I swallowed it down and tried to walk steady, but I stumbled the rest of the way down the hall and into the living room.
The breath whooshed out of me when the bodies I saw were not Laura. The trail of blood led to Red Tee Guy, who was in a heap by the couch. The other body was Neck Tattoo Guy. I had to turn away because of how his tattoo now looked. Someone had slashed it, turning the blue and black ink to deep red.
They’d both been murdered.
I stopped moving, eyes still flickering around, darting, seeking out whoever had done this, wondering if I were next. It hadn’t been Laura, had it? Had she gotten free and defended herself?
No, this didn’t look like self-defense.
“Laura?” I called out softly. I kept my body still and listened for signs of someone else. Breathing, rustling, anything.
But the only sound I heard was the beating of my own heart, loud enough to wake the dead guys at my feet.
I tip-toed around the blood, careful not to leave my footprints in it. Getting a murder charge would not be the best way to end this hellish twenty-four hours. I didn’t touch a thing, just moved quietly and slowly through the living room, looking for any sign of what had happened, forcing myself not to look at the bodies.
What little I’d seen would haunt me for years. My eyes didn’t need to flash their way to know exactly what they looked like. That image was burned forever in my brain.
Once I was sure the room was otherwise empty, I moved into the kitchen. It looked eerily neat and normal after the nightmare of the living room. Clean dishes were piled in a drain tray on one side of the sink, and an empty coffee mug sat on the other. Nothing else was out of place. The table and chairs were shiny, clean and devoid of any junk, like one of the guys had just cleaned it that day. I looked around and whispered Laura’s name again, but quickly moved on. She wasn’t here.
I felt a pang of guilt at the relief sweeping over me. Someone had taken care of Seaport’s problem. These shamans would never summon spirits into anyone’s house again. No one else would get hurt. No one else would die. But, even though they’d hurt people, did they deserve to die this way, obviously suffering in the last moments of their life? Even though they’d done terrible things, I had a hard time believing they deserved it.
Maybe I was just weak.
After checking the empty b
edrooms and office, I moved back down the hallway at a loss. Had they just been bluffing about having Laura? I should have made them give her the phone and let her say something, give me proof. I’d blindly stumbled into this thing, thinking they’d meant what they’d said.
I tried to ignore the thought trying to break through my shocked haze, but I couldn’t.
What if the person who had killed the shamans had taken Laura?
I collapsed onto the floor and clenched my hands in my lap. This had happened within the past hour. If I’d been quicker, if I’d gotten here sooner, then maybe I could have done something. Laura wouldn’t be gone. Taken by a murderer. No matter how terrible the two shamans had been, they hadn’t sliced anyone’s neck. That took a different kind of person, and it scared the hell out of me to think of Laura in the company of someone like that. Cold, brutal.
I was at my breaking point, and I didn’t know how much more I could take before I needed to crawl into a hole and hide there for days. Block out the world.
I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders and stood. Breaking wouldn’t help anyone. I needed to be strong just a little longer.
“Holly!” Nathan rushed up to me and pulled me into his arms, breathing heavy into my hair. “Thank god you’re okay. When I saw the blood…”
“It was the shamans,” I said, relaxing into his arms as they tightened around me. “Someone killed them.”
He pulled away, and his green eyes searched my face. “Where’s Laura?”
“I don’t know.” My voice cracked, and I glanced around. “Help me look?”
I turned back down the hallway and paused when we passed the door to the garage. My eyes widened, and a blind hope bubbled inside me. I covered my hand with the bottom of my t-shirt and twisted the knob. A musty, rotting scent hit my nose as I blinked at the blinding light. I hesitated before settling my eyes on a wiggling figure tied to a chair.
Laura!
My heart swelled with overwhelming relief as I ran down the steps. She had duct tape over her mouth, but I could tell she was smiling. And not covered in even a speck of blood. I’d never been so happy to see someone in my life. When I reached her, my arms flew around both her and the chair she was trapped in, and I smelled the familiar peachy scent of her shampoo.
My best friend was alive.
“Mmm mmm hm,” she said into the tape.
I laughed and realized tears were falling from my eyes. I didn’t care. Laura was okay. She wasn’t hurt, kidnapped…or worse.
Nathan squatted in front of her and worked to get the tape off her mouth without hurting her face. I watched. My hands shook too hard to help. Laura let out a squeal of pain when Nathan pulled off the tape, but she was smiling too hard to really be mad.
“Sorry about that,” Nathan said with a grin.
“Thank god you guys are here.” Her smile faded. “What, um, happened out there?”
Nathan brought out the knife and started sawing through the tape binding her arms.
I knelt down in front of her. “I was hoping you could tell me. The shamans called me and told me they’d kidnapped you and that I had to come. So, I did. When I got here, they were…incapacitated.”
She broke her arms free when Nathan was done cutting, and he moved on to her legs. “You mean they’re dead?”
Nathan nodded while she rubbed her wrists. “Very.”
“Wow,” she said. “That’s…freaky. Awhile ago, maybe twenty minutes, some guy stopped by. There was a lot of shouting, and I heard some thumping. And then nothing. Before then, I could hear the guys moving around and talking. I had a feeling something had happened.”
Nathan leaned back after cutting off the rest of the tape, and she pulled her legs free. “Did you hear anything else? Like a name, so we know who did this?”
“Does it matter, Nathan?” Laura stood and shook her legs. “They’ve been killing people, and they wanted to kill me and Holly. You know they weren’t going to let me go even if Holly showed up.”
Yeah, I’d figured.
“I do feel kind of uncomfortable about a murderer just offing two shamans, no matter what these guys were doing,” I said.
“Well, they probably pissed off the wrong person,” she said, shrugging as we began wiping off anything she’d touched. The chair, the railing by the steps, the floor where she’d fallen down them. We didn’t want to be connected to this apartment at all, not when the cops finally showed up. When we moved to the door, Laura hesitated, eyes flicking to Nathan.
“That smell…” Laura said, gesturing to the corner where some boxes were piled high in some sort of makeshift fort. “Kylie’s parents. They’re dead.”
“What?” Nathan whirled around and strode toward the corner. I held my hand out to stop him, but he just kept moving.
“I overheard them talking. Kylie’s parents caught the shamans in their house drawing a rune on their bedroom floor. So, the shamans killed them.” Laura closed her eyes, and I felt the shaking of my hands return. Kylie’s parents were dead. That’s where they’d disappeared to. That’s what had happened in their room. I’d had a terrible feeling something bad had happened to them, but I’d hoped I was wrong.
In the corner, Nathan sucked in sharp breath. I wished I could take the image away from him, erase his pain, but there was nothing I could do but wait for him to make his way back over to me, head heavy, eyes cast to the ground. I snaked my arm around his waist and silently motioned Laura up the stairs.
“Be prepared,” I warned when we stepped back into the hall. “I don’t recommend looking into the living room.”
Laura held her breath as we passed, but I saw her eyes dart sideways, her shoulders tensing up. And for a second, I thought I saw a flicker of relief on her face, and I wondered if they’d done more to her than she’d let on. Her entire body relaxed, and there was a spark in her eyes that hadn’t been there when I’d found her. But I didn’t ask. Not now.
I paused at the front door and peeked out the side curtains at the dark, rainy street, making sure no one was outside. When I was certain we wouldn’t be spotted, the three of us stole across the front yard, completely silent. And as Nathan sped his car down the road, a wary smile lit my face. Laura was okay, and soon, my mom would be, too.
CHAPTER 32
On the way to my house, Laura told me and Nathan exactly what had happened with the shamans. She’d been sitting in my living room and reading Shakespeare for AP English when they’d busted in shouting and waving guns. They’d grabbed her and raced around the rest of the house demanding to know where I was.
This could have turned out a hell of a lot worse.
As far as she knew, they hadn’t touched my mom, but I was still anxious to get home and check on her. Make sure she was okay.
“I found out what they were trying to do,” Laura said. “In Seaport, anyway.”
“They told you?” I glanced toward the backseat, streetlights shooting beams of light onto Laura’s face as Nathan drove us closer to my house.
“Sort of. I don’t think they were all there, if you know what I mean.”
I knew exactly what she meant.
“Apparently, they were binding themselves to spirits, and when they did that, they could get part of the life a spirit sucks. Prolonging their life, making them healthy and younger looking and all that.” Laura made a gagging face.
I swallowed.
“That was only part of their plan,” she said. “Apparently, they were going to raid houses for expensive merch once everyone died. That’s why they were going after rich families. I think what they wanted most was the life thing.”
“But if they were already breaking into places, why didn’t they just steal the stuff then?” Nathan asked, turning onto Main Street.
Laura held her hands palm up in a shrug. “Like I said, I don’t think they were all there. The reason I heard all this was because they were having a huge argument about all the holes in their plan.”
“Like having us around.
” I let out a dry laugh. “I bet your dad is freaking out so bad right now.”
“I don’t even want to think about it.”
When Nathan pulled into the driveway, I felt as if I hadn’t seen the familiar white panels and red shutters in years. I’d been running on adrenaline, very little sleep and food, and now that I was home, weariness descended upon me.
Nathan shut off the engine, and every hair on the back of my neck stood up and shouted a warning. My head throbbed in a pulsing beat. Nathan reached for the door handle, but I held out a hand to stop him.
“Something’s wrong,” I whispered, eyes trained on the house for any movement. Something was very, very wrong, and I needed to make sure the wrong thing wasn’t the fact that my mom was…gone. But something—my new Intuition—told me death wasn’t the problem, only danger.
“I think someone’s in there,” I said. “It’s probably Anthony Lombardi.”
Who else could it be? The two shamans who had threatened us were dead. Anthony had fed me lies and sent me on a scavenger hunt around Boston. He must’ve had a reason. He wasn’t the kind of person to do things without careful calculation. I didn’t know why he’d be here, but I had no doubt he was.
“What should we do?” Laura asked, eyes wide.
“I have to go inside and make sure Mom is okay. You guys can go home. You can just sneak into Laura’s car and get out of here.”
Laura’s hair smacked her face as she shook her head. “Not happening. We’ll go in together.”
“Yeah, I’m not leaving either,” Nathan said.
“Why do you think it’s the astrology guy anyway?” Laura asked.
“We found out a lot of stuff in Boston today. He's the one who attacked my mom, and he sent me off on this wild goose chase.” I quickly told her about finding Tyler’s body, meeting Audrey and sneaking into the hospital.
“That’s awful.” Laura leaned forward and gripped the seat.
