Sorceress

  She hit Reblog before she could talk herself out of it, then lay back on her pillows. You really, really need to start getting over this, she told herself.

  As if on cue, her phone rang with the ringtone she’d assigned to Asa—Nick Cave’s “Red Right Hand.” Asael, she thought, but pushed that knowledge to the back of her mind. Verlaine took a deep breath before she answered. “You’re not calling to ask me to be in your group for the big project in Novels class, are you?”

  “Given that said project is due in February, i.e. some months after the end of the world as we know it, I’m not overly concerned.”

  Last night, she’d forced herself to prepare. To think about killing Asa. And yet talking to him—joking with him—felt like the most natural thing in the world. Thinking of hurting him: that was the crazy part.

  If she had only a short time left to spend with him, didn’t she want to make the most of it?

  Asa’s tone changed, going from dry to—something that made her go warm all over. “Are you all right? I didn’t see you today at school.”

  “I’m fine. My dads are just overprotective.” She hesitated. “And you’re okay? I figured you were. You seemed like you were in better shape than me and Mateo, and since you took off on your own . . .” But she’d worried anyway.

  “My shins look like I tried to walk through a field of barbed wire, but besides that, yes, I’m fine.”

  “Oh, my God, I know, right?” Verlaine glanced down at her own legs, which were black and blue with the two dozen worst bruises she’d had in her life. “That metal staircase—it was like being caught in a food processor or something.”

  His low laughter sent chills along her spine. The good kind of chills. “Are your dads busy pampering you right now?”

  “They’re both still at work.”

  “So—if you had a get-well visitor, that wouldn’t result in awkward family introductions?”

  She hesitated. “You’re right outside my house, aren’t you?”

  “Not in a stalker sort of way. More of an adorable-romantic-comedy way.”

  Despite the thousand reasons Verlaine knew this was a bad idea, she started to smile. “Come on in out of the rain.”

  Instantly, the doorbell rang.

  She dashed to answer; when she opened the door, Asa was smiling, too—trim black asymmetrical jacket spattered with rain, cell phone still in his hand. “Gotta let you go,” he said into the phone. “Just ran into this hot girl I know.”

  “You don’t want to keep her waiting.” Verlaine cut her phone off just as he did.

  Asa stepped into the hallway, but he didn’t fully shut the door behind him. “I shouldn’t stay.”

  “Right,” she said. “This is just—checking up on each other after a life-threatening experience. The most natural thing in the world.”

  “Of course,” Asa murmured as he ran one hand through her hair. Verlaine stepped closer, like the rest of her was a whole lot more sure about this than her brain was. “Now, what in the world do you have on today?”

  “1970s housedress.” Verlaine had thought the bright pink might cheer her up on a gloomy day. Now she wished she’d worn something sexier, as in, anything besides this comfy sack of a dress.

  Asa didn’t seem to mind, though. His fingers traced a line up the side of her neck, then along her chin. “How many files did you get out of the Guardian?”

  “Not enough. But some. Thanks again for coming with me.”

  “You know I’d never have let you go in there alone.”

  There it was again, that swoony feeling that made Verlaine forget all the stuff she was supposed to remember, including the pieces of paper upstairs aligned to help her kill the same guy holding her now. “You’d better go.”

  “I’m going,” Asa said.

  He didn’t move. She didn’t either.

  “I am.” He repeated the words like he was trying to convince himself. “I’m going right now.”

  Even as he spoke, he leaned toward Verlaine. She parted her lips for the kiss—how is it this good every time? How?—and then she was basking in the heat of him, clutching the collar of his jacket in her hands—

  “Verlaine?”

  She startled, as did Asa. There, standing in the partly open door, was Nadia.

  “What are you doing?” Nadia stepped inside to point a finger at Asa. “Have you messed with her head? Is this magic?”

  “No! I wouldn’t do that.” Asa actually looked offended. “This is just an ordinary clandestine affair with the enemy.”

  “Exactly.” Verlaine nodded. “What he said.”

  But that didn’t make it much better, did it? Nadia definitely didn’t think so. Her expression shifted from shock to anger; the fact that Nadia seemed angrier with Asa than with her didn’t reassure Verlaine. “You, get out.” Nadia jabbed her finger into Asa’s arm. “Turn around, walk away, and don’t come back.”

  “Hey! This is my house!” Verlaine stepped close to Asa again, to tell him he could stay, but he shook his head.

  “Obviously you two need to talk. Just as obviously, I should find an elsewhere to be.” He edged past Nadia in the hallway, as if afraid she might blow up on him like a hand grenade. But he glanced back at Verlaine from the doorway. “I’m glad you’re all right.”

  “You too.” She couldn’t help smiling at Asa—but as soon as he’d shut the door behind him, she was alone with Nadia. Her smile faded. Verlaine began, “So it seems like I have some explaining to do.”

  “Explaining? What, you’re screwing a demon from hell and you think you can explain that?”

  “Screwing?” Verlaine might not have been so incredibly pissed off if she’d actually gotten to have sex with the hot guy. “It’s not like that!”

  “Oh, you’re telling me the demon is a perfect gentleman.”

  “Actually, he is. Where the hell do you get off telling me who I can date?”

  Nadia’s eyes widened. “When he’s a demon! When he serves Elizabeth and the One Beneath! When he was sent here on earth to hurt us any way he can, which he’s already done—remember? You remember that, right? Don’t you see this is just one more way to hurt you?”

  “You’re wrong.” Verlaine lifted her chin, using every inch of height she had on Nadia. “Asa saved me at the hospital that day. The One Beneath punished him for it, horribly, sending him to the hell within hell—”

  “Funny how Elizabeth never mentioned that.” Nadia crossed her arms. “How do you know that’s true? I mean, the only way you know it is because Asa told you, right?”

  “Well—yes—but still. I know this is for real. Just like both of us know Asa doesn’t have any choice but to be what he is. He’s enslaved. He’d help us if he could.”

  “Maybe he would,” Nadia admitted, but she wasn’t any less angry. “But listen to yourself. Asa doesn’t have any choice. If he’s commanded to hurt us, or kill us, he does it. The end. You used to remember that. Just last week you were asking me how to kill a demon, and now you’re dating one?”

  “Asa’s the one who warned me,” Verlaine shot back. “He told me I might have to destroy him someday, and got me to find out how. Like, if I kill him, he accepts that. Do you understand how much you’d have to care about somebody to say, ‘I’ll die before I hurt you’?”

  Nadia’s eyes widened, and Verlaine realized her friend was on the verge of tears. “Of course I know,” Nadia whispered. “But I also know love only takes you so far.”

  As infuriated as Verlaine still was, she could tell Nadia had been wound up even before she barged in here. Maybe some of her bitchtastic temper had nothing to do with Asa. “Did something happen with you and Mateo?”

  “I broke up with him, because I had to, for his own good. I can’t be around any of you for a while.” Blinking fast, Nadia rummaged in her backpack. “I just came by to give you one thing before I go.”

  Verlaine’s eyes widened as Nadia handed her the Cabot family dagger.

  They still didn’t
know how the Cabots had come into possession of it in the first place. All they knew was that the hilt bore a magical symbol, and that only a blade like this had the power to kill a demon. This was the weapon she was supposed to use to kill Asa. All the elements for his murder had come together at last.

  She didn’t forgive Nadia that moment; it was more as though she was too stunned to remember being angry. Instead of taking the dagger, Verlaine held her hands up in surrender. “I—I don’t know if I’m ready for that.”

  “Well, we have to get ready. You can see what’s happening to this town already. Before long, nobody’s even going to be pretending things are normal. Elizabeth’s only going to get more powerful.” Nadia hesitated, and for a moment she seemed more like her usual self than she had in a long time. “Listen, I get that you . . . think you care about Asa. I know it’s weird. I know it’s awful. But we’re all going to have to do awful things before this is done.”

  She kept holding the dagger out, and finally, Verlaine took it. The metal felt cold in her hand.

  Nadia’s expression became closed, forbidding. “It’s only going to get harder if you wait. And Elizabeth’s only going to get stronger. If you intend to stop Asa, you’d better do it soon.”

  With that, Nadia slung her backpack over her shoulder again and walked out into the rain. Verlaine didn’t even shut the door. She just stood there, frozen, watching her friend go and feeling the weight of the heavy knife in her hand.

  In her memory, Asa’s voice whispered, Kill me if you can.

  “You guys broke up?” Gage said.

  “We’re not broken up.” Mateo’s fists were jammed in the pockets of his waterproof parka as he and Gage walked along. Gage had offered him a ride to the restaurant after school; Mateo, sick of riding his motorcycle through unending rain, had agreed. But nobody was allowed to park anywhere near the town square during the flooding, so they still had to go the last few blocks on foot. “Nadia and I just—aren’t seeing each other right now.”

  From beneath the hood of his raincoat, Gage gave Mateo a look. “To me that sounds like being broken up.”

  “You don’t understand. She’s got a lot to deal with. That’s all.”

  “Whatever you say.” They trudged on another few moments in silence, during which Mateo stared miserably at the gray, wet world around them. Down the streets he could see wooden barricades painted with yellow reflective tape, weighted down by sandbags in case the water there got higher than two or three inches. Half the businesses were closed again. La Catrina would soon have to follow suit. He knew Dad was careful with money, and saved a lot, but two closings in two months: They’d take a hit.

  Worry about money later—after you worry about surviving the end of the world, okay?

  Gage cleared his throat. “Listen, I’m just asking this, okay? Don’t get offended.”

  “Uh, I’ll try. What?”

  “You and Nadia breaking up—does that have anything to do with your feelings toward Elizabeth?”

  “No. It has zero to do with that.” Mateo tried to keep his voice level. Merely hearing the name Elizabeth now had the power to make him want to put his fist through a wall.

  “Not that I don’t trust her,” Gage said. “But I didn’t want you to be—I don’t know. Jealous.”

  Jealous? Jealous of the way this crazy evil witch turns you into her zombie whenever she wants? You’re so stupid, Gage, you don’t even see—

  Then Gage finished, “I’d hate for anything to mess it up for our friendship, you know?”

  Mateo took the anger, reminded himself that it belonged to Elizabeth, and pushed it away from Gage. “Yeah, I know.”

  They parted ways just before Mateo walked into La Catrina for the dinner shift—which promised to be as dead as virtually every other shift since the rains had begun. He put up his stuff, waved to his dad in the kitchen (who was getting the refried beans started) and headed out front to start setting up the tables. Just as he did, someone rapped on the front door.

  “We’re—” Mateo called out, but as he looked up, he recognized who stood there, and the final word choked off.

  Beyond the glass panels of the door, beneath a turquoise umbrella, stood Faye Walsh. She was one of the only people in town who knew what was really going on, and the only adult, so far as Mateo could tell.

  More than that—she was a Steadfast, just like him.

  Dad was busy enough that Mateo was able to let her in and sit with her for a while near the bar, talking in a low voice. Given that Faye was faculty at the high school, maybe it should have felt weird to vent to her about what had happened with Nadia. Then again, a guidance counselor ought to have the listening thing down pat.

  “So what do you do?” Mateo finally said. “When the witch you’re bound to pulls away from you? I’m supposed to be her strength, and right now Nadia needs all the strength she can get.”

  He didn’t mention the darkness within Nadia, and how powerfully it had drawn him. Mateo liked Faye and everything, but there was no way he was going to talk about his sex life with a faculty member.

  Faye considered that for a moment before she answered. “Well, you know I was Steadfast to my mom. She pulled away from me only when she realized Alzheimer’s was getting her. That was when she turned away from witchcraft entirely.”

  Insert foot in mouth. “I’m sorry. I forgot.”

  Faye shook her head. “No, it’s okay. You made me think. The fact is, Mateo, as important as it is to stand Steadfast to a witch, we can’t solve all their problems for them. We can’t fight their battles. I did everything in my power to support my mother in the Craft, but ultimately we came up against an enemy neither one of us could defeat.”

  “I get that, but you were dealing with a disease. This is about dark magic. This is about exactly the kind of thing a Steadfast is supposed to help with, right?”

  “You said Nadia feels compromised by the darkness. That she feels like the magic she’s casting with Elizabeth is getting to her.”

  Is it ever. He remembered the heat between them, the way they’d almost made love right there, up against her wall. Mateo ran one hand through his hair, wondering why nobody understood this the way he did. “Yeah. But that’s just another reason Nadia and I should be together.”

  Faye’s full lips pursed; she looked a little like his mother had before she’d told him bad news. “As Steadfasts, we make our witches stronger. We enhance their magic. That means you strengthen the darkness in her just as much as the light.”

  “I can’t believe that. I won’t.” Once again he found himself struggling to hang on to his temper. “Loving people—caring about them—that’s just what black magic doesn’t allow, right? Or being loved back. If that’s true, Nadia needs me to love her more than ever.”

  “Maybe so,” Faye admitted. “I thought Nadia never should have taken this on. I still doubt her judgment.”

  “She had to,” Mateo reminded Faye, though he knew they’d all gotten in over their heads, so Faye wasn’t totally wrong.

  “Still, this is where we are now. Nadia has to fight that darkness, and for now she feels like she has to fight it alone. If you love her, trust her. Believe what she says. And you have to accept that sometimes—sometimes, a Steadfast can’t save their witch. Sometimes it’s your job to stand against her. To stop her, if you can.”

  That was exactly what Nadia would have said. But Mateo shook his head. “It’s my job to save her. And I will.”

  Now he just had to figure out how.

  Asa sat at his computer at home, scrolling through Verlaine’s Tumblr. For the most part it seemed to be dedicated to coverage of under-reported news stories, K-pop, vintage fashion, and Doctor Who. Every post felt like a peek into her thoughts, a way of snooping around in the soul of this girl he had to stay away from, but wanted so much.

  And some of the posts were moodier—deeper glimpses than the others. Melancholy black-and-white portraits. A GIFset of a girl from some television show saying
, “I try and I try—and I am never the one.” And a bit of love poetry from Pablo Neruda:

  I love you as certain dark

  Things are to be loved,

  In secret, between the

  Shadow and the soul.

  Maybe she just thought they were pretty words. Maybe she hadn’t been thinking of him when she posted this.

  But maybe she had.

  He closed his eyes, thinking of the way she’d kissed him this afternoon. If only Nadia hadn’t come in—they could have had hours together in her house, in her room. Oh, for a couple of hours in Verlaine’s arms . . .

  “Jeremy!” his father called.

  He turned, confused. Dad sounded alarmed. Scared?

  Asa went down the stairs two at a time, loping to the front door to see his father zipping up his parka. “What’s up? Where are you going?” It was almost dinnertime; he could smell his mother’s curry simmering.

  “I just got a call—the river’s overflowing its banks. Every able-bodied man needs to go out and start helping with the sandbags. That includes you, if you’ll go.”

  “Of course I’ll go,” Asa said. He was offended by the suggestion that he wouldn’t—until he remembered that his parents still judged him by the real Jeremy’s actions, sometimes, and Jeremy probably would have refused to so much as get his shoes wet.

  “Women are able-bodied, too!” his mother called from the kitchen. “Let me put this up and I’ll come with you!”

  Asa would have liked to argue. His mother was a tiny woman, barely over five feet. And yet he knew better than either of his parents could just how serious the situation really was. Captive’s Sound needed all the help it could get.