by Lish McBride
“Shh,” she said. “I think it’s a spell. Can you push the sides of my bag down a little bit more? I can’t see that well.” Ramon shoved down the sides. “Thanks,” she said. “Man, this is so cool. It’s like Practical Magic meets Rachel Ray or something.” Brooke glanced over at Mrs. W. “Or maybe Julia Child.”
Ramon shrugged. “Just looks like fancy cooking to me.” Brooke ignored him and kept watching, her eyes alight with curiosity.
Fascinating as it was, he still felt antsy. When his phone went off, he set Brooke’s bag on a corner table so she could see. Then he excused himself and went out back.
“Hello?”
“Tell me what you know.” The voice had a low growl in it and didn’t sound anything like the person Ramon had heard on the message. This voice wanted to bite his head off. The hair on the back of his neck began to rise. He pushed it down with the palm of his hand.
“Douglas has her, but I don’t know where.”
The man grunted. “That’s okay. I think we do.” He sounded like he was about to hang up.
“Wait,” Ramon said. “Tell me where. He has my friend, too.”
The line went quiet. “Please,” he said. “Fine, but don’t get in our way. And if my daughter gets harmed because of your bumbling, your blood is mine.”
“Understandable.” Ramon said it like people threatened his blood all the time. He ran in and got a pen so he could write down the address.
Once he had the information, he couldn’t stand still. Sitting back down with Brooke and the girls was unbearable. Sam needed his help. Ramon was useless here. He had to go as soon as he could. His heart thudded away at the decision. He was used to being the one that got them in trouble. It was usually his fault they got chased by security guards for skateboarding in the wrong places; it was his fault they’d gotten detention over and over in high school. His fault they got thrown out of the Sadie Hawkins dance. All worth it, of course, but his fault. But he’d never before had to seriously worry about his safety or Sam’s. Except for the Sadie Hawkins incident. He’d almost lost a finger that time.
Things had definitely changed. If they screwed up now, they wouldn’t be getting off with a ticket or a slap on the wrist. He only had to look at Brooke to remember how bad it could go. But what was he supposed to do? It was Sammy.
He snuck past the room where the girls were, through the kitchen, and out the front door, quietly grabbing the keys to Tia’s car on his way out.
23
School’s Out Forever
The whip-crack of pain across my already injured back made my whole body seize up. It didn’t bring me to my knees. I’d already been on those. Now I was on my hands and knees trying to breathe past the pain. Either Douglas was tired of the visceral thrill involved in beating me bare-handed or his hands were getting sore from smacking me around. Whatever the reason, the end result was the riding crop in his right fist. I’d have told him he looked silly walking around a basement waving a riding crop, but I liked myself enough not to.
Douglas grabbed a fistful of my hair and jerked my head back. He leaned down, getting close enough that I could smell the musk of his aftershave. “I can’t tell,” he said through gritted teeth, “if you are intentionally screwing up or if you’re really this useless.”
I licked at a crack on my lip from an earlier blow and wondered why I couldn’t be both.
“I’m trying,” I said, putting as much calm in my voice as I could manage, “as best I can.” He had been running out of patience with me, and I didn’t want that. Normal Douglas freaked me out. Angry, out-of-control Douglas? No, thank you.
Under Douglas’s tutelage, I’d been trying to summon a spirit for what felt like forever. I’d managed the circle after a few tries, but not much else. I wanted to point out that at least I’d gotten better at that. Shouldn’t I get a gold star for effort?
When I hadn’t been able to manage a general summoning of even the most basic spirit, Douglas gave me a list of names. Apparently that old adage is true—names have power. Even with the list, I’d struck out. The spark of ignition was there, but I’d run clean out of gas. Great, now I was comparing myself to cars. If I ever saw Ashley again, I’d kick her.
“I suggest you try again,” Douglas said. His tone had cooled. Not reassuring. No, a definite threat lived in that tone. He held the crop loosely in his grip. If I screwed up again, ol’ Douglas might take a few steps up on the violence ladder. I licked my lips and tried again.
I eased my body into a cross-legged position. It hurt my back more than staying on my hands and knees, but my arms would get too tired the other way. My eyes closed as I took a deep breath.
The basement looked much different when I shut my eyes. When I relaxed and really looked, things floated up from the darkness. Brid shone to my right—twisting copper and emerald. The cage around her held the colors of Douglas. The wards on the bars burned beaconlike at the top. Douglas, with his nauseating swirls of grays, silvers, blacks, and ice blues, stood to my left.
But that wasn’t all. The room itself seemed filled with a shifting haze. I didn’t know what that was. I’d never seen it before. Was it supposed to look like that?
I concentrated on my hazy circle. My blue was a richer color than Douglas’s was. He’d drawn his own circle earlier after telling me that he still didn’t trust mine. I compared the two. Both blue, mine a dimmer electric, Douglas’s a vibrant ice color. The circles didn’t sit still completely. They held to the lines we’d drawn, anchored to the floor, but in the air they shifted and moved, just like our auras did. Mine looked weak. Douglas was right. His circle was better.
Okay, no more screwing around. I called up one of the names Douglas had given me into my mind. Not as easy as it sounds. I was tired from the earlier effort. And the bleeding. I could feel the tickle of southbound blood on my lower back. Ashley had said that I didn’t need blood to summon lesser spirits, but at this point I figured every little bit helped. Keeping my eyes closed, I reached around and swiped what I could off my back. Then I handprinted the floor in front of me with it. Kind of like finger painting in kindergarten, only gross.
I just hoped Ashley was right. With that thought sitting in my mind, a strange thing happened. It felt like something thin inside me snapped, bursting into a million pieces at once. I sucked in a breath, my spine going rigid with the force of it. This was what closing my first circle had felt like. Times a thousand. Every cell in my body took a shuddering gasp. The dam inside me had broken and all my power came rushing out. Years of unused, untouched potential, all at once. I’m not sure where it came from or why it had happened all of a sudden, but I had to let it go. I felt like I’d explode if I didn’t.
Brid gasped, and I heard a sudden commotion in front of me. My eyes popped open.
A giant hole gaped in midair, like someone had cut out a piece of the basement with a pair of scissors.
Ashley, still in Catholic-girl chic, stood in the portal, talking to one of the freakiest things I’d ever seen. And I’d seen a talking severed head and a zombie panda. He—I assume it was a he—stood a good three feet over Ashley, putting him somewhere in the seven-foot zone. He wore a simple linen skirt around his waist, and golden cuffs encircled two of the biggest biceps I’d seen outside of professional wrestling. Though heavily muscled, he wasn’t hulking. In fact, he looked more like a swimmer who lifted weights. A lot of weights. But his head was what gave me pause. He had the head of a jackal. From watching endless hours of Animal Planet with Frank, I’d learned that jackals come in many colors, from brown to black to gold, usually. I’d never seen this particular kind of coloring. His muzzle appeared to be a dark gray, shifting into various silvers all the way down to where the fur of the neck met the human part of the body. Frightening, yes. But he held a kind of terrible beauty as well. As I stared at him, my mouth hanging in slack-jaw style, I could think of only one word—awe.
“I’m just saying these new codes are ridiculous.” Ashley’s arms flailed
about as she spoke, her face vehement. “What do they care if—”
The creature cleared its throat loudly and tipped its head slightly toward us. She stopped, hands fluttering down to her hips. She looked around.
“Geez, Sam, talk about a learning curve.” She whistled and examined the open portal around her. I couldn’t make out anything behind her except a house plant in a very ornate golden pot.
“Seriously,” she said, “this is pretty good. You even brought Ed here. Not many people can summon Ed.” She jerked her thumb toward the jackal-headed man.
Nice to meet you. The voice boomed inside my head.
“Nice to meet you too…Ed.” I gave him a little nod before I turned a slightly panicked look toward Ashley. “What are you doing here?”
Her eyebrows shot up. “You must have summoned me. I was just talking to Ed about some new legislation that came down from on high. Or up from down low, depending on how you look at it.” She scanned the room, eyes in judgment mode. “This place looks different in the light. Not better, mind you, just different.”
Ashley’s face stilled. Since she was very expressive, I couldn’t imagine what had caused her to go all poker-faced on me. I followed her gaze. Oh, right. Douglas. He had that effect on people.
Ashley jabbed Ed in the stomach lightly with her finger, indicating that he needed to look.
Ed twisted his head and smiled. Douglas Montgomery, he said, tongue lolling out in a laugh. Is it finally time?
Douglas looked to be the picture of calm, but I could see his knuckles whitening as he held on to the crop. “It will never be time,” he answered.
You know what people say about the word never. Ed’s tongue curled up over his nose before slipping into his mouth. And Ammut is always hungry.
Douglas gave a tight-lipped smile, then his power flowed over mine. Not a pleasant sensation. It felt like I’d been plastered in gritty mud and stinging nettles. I tried to push back, but I was already drained to pretty much empty. He overpowered me, and the portal snapped shut.
The room got very quiet. I tried to stand up, but exhaustion coupled with the sudden flow and stop of power was too much for my body to take. I wasn’t done healing. Crap, I think I was still bleeding. I’d finally hit the point of enough. I needed sleep and food. I didn’t care which came first.
Douglas’s shoes made crisp sounds on the concrete as he walked over. He cuffed me with the back of his hand. Then he drew back and did it again. And again.
His eyes were fevered, and spittle flew from his lips. Douglas had hit the point of enough as well. He picked me up by my neck and threw me into the concrete wall. The roughness of the wall bit into my back and my scabs and made me scream. My teeth clicked shut as I bit off the sound.
He pushed his face close to mine. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” He shouted the words at me. “Do you?” He hit me again instead of waiting for the answer. Full fist this time. I heard Brid growling in the background, but it was smothered by Douglas’s semi-coherent accusations.
I couldn’t answer him. Even if I had the will and energy to open my mouth, I truly had no idea what I’d done.
He picked me back up by the throat. I realized that I’d been picked up by my throat a lot lately.
Douglas held me there, pinned against the wall. My world began to fade around the edges. His face came in close to mine, and I watched as the anger drained away from him. He’d come to a decision of some sort, but he wasn’t sharing. Instead, his breathing steady, his face calm, he held me against the wall as my vision folded in. Panic gripped me, but I was too far gone to care. I slipped into nothingness.
24
Come Together, Right Now, Over Me
Ramon parked Tia’s car on a side street. The afternoon had morphed from blustery to a more cheerful, partially sunny day as he’d headed north. He estimated that he had fifteen more minutes before the weather did its bipolar thing, probably shifting into a misty rain. He grabbed his skateboard and got out of the car. The skateboard was the closest thing he had to a weapon.
He checked the address he’d jotted down. The mailbox in front of him told him he had the right place, but that was all he had to go on. Douglas’s house seemed to be set back on a big piece of land. Ramon steered clear of the long gravel driveway, choosing to stick to the cover of the trees instead.
The brush was thick, making progress slow. Once the house came into view, Ramon crouched down, trying to get the lay of the land. Not for the first time, he questioned the decisions that had led him away from a life of crime and evil. Casa Douglas was huge. The great expanse of manicured yard should have dwarfed the house, but the flat plains of grass added to the scale of everything. A sea of grass between him and the house. Trees and shrubbery on all sides, blocking any view of neighbors. Huge detailed sculptures dotted the lawn at odd intervals. A few lions and some Greek statues were all he could make out. The house even had some crazy marble columns and a pediment at the top. He couldn’t quite figure out the design, but it looked like gladiators or something. The effect was a bit much for the house, but then again, people did all kinds of crazy things when they had money.
This much land, this big house on the water…Douglas must have deep pockets. That usually meant a lot of security, but Ramon couldn’t see any. Not that he knew what to look for, but the lack of a fence definitely troubled him. If he’d spent more time developing a life of crime, he was sure he’d have been able to spot all kinds of helpful things. He had a large exposed area to cross. All Douglas had to do was peek out the window and Ramon would be history. Still, he needed to try. He took a half step forward.
An arm wrapped around him from behind and yanked him off his feet, making him drop his skateboard. Another hand went over his mouth. The hand smelled like dirt.
“Are you Ramon? Nod if you are.”
Ramon nodded slowly.
“By all that’s holy, would you chill out, Bran? Who else would he be?”
He recognized the other speaker from the answering machine message. The grip on him loosened. Ramon put his hands out, showing he was unarmed, and turned around slowly.
A handful of people stood around him. The group included a couple of the biggest freaking wolves he’d ever seen, and they weren’t leashed. No way those were dogs. At best, they might be wolf hybrids, if that could be considered an at best. Ramon tried to appear calm, knowing that animals sense fear. He didn’t want to do anything to give those wolves an excuse to gnaw on one of his legs.
The man who’d grabbed him was tall, maybe six feet, with a grim set to his face. His brown hair was cut in a short, plain style, like he didn’t give a damn what it looked like as long as it stayed out of his face. He wore jeans and a tank top, despite the rainy weather.
The guy next to him was smaller, but still a bit taller than Ramon. He had auburn hair and a prominent nose. Ramon could see some resemblance to the other guy around the jawline, but where the tall one seemed all business, this one smiled and practically bounced on his feet.
The smaller man held out his hand. The guy had a good, firm handshake and his skin felt hot to the touch. “Sean,” he said. “And this is the rest of the Merry Men.” He jerked to the group behind them.
“So you guys are here to get…?” Ramon couldn’t remember the name. Bridget?
“Our sister,” Bran said. “It would be safer if you’d wait here. We’ll do our best to get your friend out if he’s still alive.”
Ramon squared his shoulders and was getting ready to tell off General Jackass when Sean stepped between them. “You’ll have to excuse Sunshine here; we’re all a bit worried about Brid.” He spread his hands in a “you understand” gesture. “What he means is, our pack leader gave you permission to join us, but we’re worried about your safety. If you choose to come with us, please do what we say.”
Ramon let his shoulders slump. “I understand. I’ve got baby sisters.” He tried to make eye contact with all of them. “But Sammy is family, too. I do
n’t know what’s up with you guys or your giant, mutant dogs, but I’m willing to swallow some ego if it gets my friend out in one piece.”
Sean rolled his neck from side to side and started shaking out his muscles. He looked like a boxer right before he goes into the ring. “Now that we’re all playing nice, shall we get on with it?”
Bran might have been tough looking, but it was Sean who sent a shiver up Ramon’s spine. He looked way too happy about the prospect of violence.
25
I’m Going to Break My Rusty Cage and Run
When I woke, I couldn’t move. The first thing I saw was concrete. I was still in the basement, though I couldn’t tell if I was relieved by that or not. I doubted that Douglas would move me if he wanted to do something nefarious, but there was some comfort to be found in the familiar surroundings. At least I wasn’t in some shiny new hell.
My arms were bound in worn leather straps that appeared to be stained with things I didn’t want to think about. My legs were bound in the same way. The wooden restraint table I’d been admiring had been pulled away from the wall, and I’d been strapped to it. Not very encouraging. I tugged at the straps, bucking my body as best I could, looking for any kind of give. None. I swore, if I survived this, I’d never sleep again. Each time I’d woken up lately, things had gone from bad to exponentially worse.
“Sam?”
I turned my head, but between the restraints and the table I didn’t have much wiggle room. If I angled it up a little, I could just see Brid standing in the cage. At least she looked all right.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I’m tied to a table.”
She gave me a stare that could liquefy stone.
“Sorry,” I said. “I guess life-threatening situations bring out my inner smart-ass. If you don’t count the table, I’m no worse than I was before.” Except my throat felt sore, but I didn’t tell her that. I didn’t want to add to her worries. And the very fact that I thought telling her that would make things worse for her almost made me laugh out loud. She was in a cage, and I was strapped down to a freaking table. Seriously, how much worse could this get?
