Sorceress

  It was just a puddle, now. But later . . .

  Nadia’s eyes widened as she realized the rain Elizabeth had called down wasn’t just some random trick, or cover for something else she meant to do. The rain was the whole point.

  No, not the rain, Nadia thought. The flood.

  4

  USUALLY MATEO LIKED THE OCCASIONAL RAINY NIGHT, because it meant fewer customers to deal with. (Of course, that meant fewer tips, not to mention lower profit for Dad, which was why he only liked them occasionally.) Also it gave him a chance at free salsa and chips, and tonight he got to share them.

  “People are crazy,” Gage said as they hung out in the corner booth, just beneath the faux–Frida Kahlo mural on the wall. “I say, anybody who lets a little falling water keep them from Mexican food? They don’t deserve Mexican food.”

  “Agreed.” Mateo glanced out the nearest window at the still-heavy rains. Honestly, he could see why people wouldn’t want to go out in this.

  Between crunching chips, Gage added, like it was no big deal, “Might run by and see Elizabeth after this. That’s another thing this rain’s not going to keep me away from.”

  “Okay.” Had that come out calmly enough?

  Apparently not. Gage leaned over the table, his forehead furrowed. “Are you sure you’re all right with this?”

  Mateo was definitely not all right with this, but he couldn’t tell Gage the reasons why. “I’m not jealous. I’m not interested in Elizabeth that way. Bring me a Bible; I’ll swear on it.”

  “We don’t have to go dragging Bibles into this. But I know I violated the Bro Code pretty seriously here.”

  Why can’t we tell him the truth? Mateo pushed the frustration aside. “We’re cool. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Surely there was some way to warn Gage about Elizabeth without either revealing witchcraft or sounding jealous—but before Mateo could think of one, he realized table eight was finally ready to pay their ticket and go home. “Be right back.”

  Then it was all how was everything, glad you enjoyed it, see you back at La Catrina soon—but while Mateo was running the credit card through, he saw Gage suddenly stand up from his booth. His movements were jerky, and too fast, as he started for the door.

  For one moment Mateo thought Gage still felt awkward about their conversation, but no, that wasn’t it. The glazed look in Gage’s eyes, the way his body didn’t even seem to be wholly under his own control: That could only be Elizabeth’s work.

  She had taken Gage under her thrall again.

  The last time this had happened, Gage had tried to kill Mateo. Apparently this time Gage had been programmed with another agenda, but what?

  Mateo hurriedly finished up with table eight, then went to his father. “Can I leave?”

  “You’ve got another hour and a half on your shift.”

  “Dad, nobody’s coming in. Nobody. I mean, look at the weather out there. And if anybody did come in, which they won’t, Melanie could handle it.”

  “Fine, fine,” Dad said, giving Mateo a look. “But you give me back an hour and a half this weekend, all right? We need to do inventory.”

  So much for his Saturday morning, but a deal was a deal. “Got it.”

  Mateo threw on his waterproof gear and went outside; Gage was still visible, barely, a dark shape moving farther down Captive Sound’s main street. He had no umbrella, no raincoat, not even boots; Gage trudged through the downpour and the puddles, oblivious. Elizabeth’s thrall outweighed anything else.

  Although he hated to leave his motorcycle behind, Mateo decided to follow Gage on foot. As he ran along the sidewalk, trying to catch up, he noticed how fat the gutters were with rain; already the puddles rippled over the sidewalks in some areas. A few of the lower-lying roads would wash out by morning if the rain didn’t stop . . . and if Nadia’s suspicions were correct, the rain wouldn’t stop anytime soon.

  What does Elizabeth have to gain from this? Mateo wondered. By now he knew very well that Elizabeth did nothing that wouldn’t benefit her, or at least the One Beneath. But he couldn’t see how rain did anything except make everybody wet.

  Finally he got within a dozen feet of Gage, and Mateo stayed back, watchful and cautious. Probably the thrall wouldn’t let Gage notice Mateo any more than he noticed the rainfall, but Mateo was in no hurry for a repeat of their last brutal fight. Gage was a big guy, and only luck had saved Mateo before.

  Luck and something else, he thought. When he and Gage had struggled, something had flashed through Mateo—something related to magic, though he didn’t know how. That was what had snapped Gage out of the thrall, turning him back into himself once more. What was that? Mateo still didn’t know. He kept meaning to ask Nadia, but they’d had bigger things to deal with. Like Armageddon.

  Gage suddenly turned away from the main street, up toward one of the town’s smaller hills. Through the gloom, Mateo could just make out a broad, cast-iron gate in the distance, and he shivered.

  They were walking directly toward the cemetery.

  He pulled the hood of his waterproof jacket more firmly around him and followed Gage up the slope, along the winding path that led into the graveyard. Although the gate indicated that, once upon a time, the town had tried to keep visitors out except at certain hours, the fence around the perimeter had fallen into disrepair decades ago. It existed now mostly as a trellis for ivy, all of which was brown and dead now in wintertime; the small shriveled leaves shook from the raindrops, making whispery sounds Mateo hoped would cover his footsteps.

  Not that Gage seemed to be listening, or paying any attention to his surroundings at all. He weaved through a gap in the ivy, then kept on straight toward the graves. Mateo trailed several steps behind him.

  Should I try to wake him up? They say if you wake up a sleepwalker they’ll die—which is probably fake, but I don’t know—and I don’t know if this is anything like sleepwalking. Was there anything constructive he could do? Finally Mateo took his cell phone and started recording Gage; whatever this was, he wanted Nadia’s take on it.

  Gage’s halting steps ceased when he found what he’d apparently been looking for—a tombstone, one of the older ones, small and thin, curved at the top, tilting to one side. Mateo crouched down low behind the newer tombstone of a Tiffani Montgomery and kept recording, even as Gage dropped to his knees and started . . . digging in the mud?

  Even the mud against Mateo’s knees was sharply cold—just above freezing—so he could only imagine how cold Gage’s hands must be. But Elizabeth had put Gage in a state where he couldn’t feel it even if he got frostbite. Gage dug deeper and deeper, and Mateo’s stomach turned as he realized the goal was the dead body beneath.

  Not a dead body. Gravestones like that—they’re usually at least two hundred years old. Bodies rot long before that. There won’t be anything left but—

  Gage stood up, clenching slivers of white in his hands.

  Mateo swallowed hard. Nothing left but bone.

  His errand not yet complete, Gage began to walk toward Elizabeth’s house. No doubt, tomorrow, Gage would think he’d had another hot date with the girl of his dreams. He wouldn’t have any idea what he’d done, or what had been done to him.

  Mateo stopped filming and watched Gage go; if he couldn’t bring Gage out of his enthralled state, then there was no point in following him farther. Besides, he wanted to investigate the old grave. Once Gage was out of sight, Mateo walked to the tombstone and used the flashlight app on his phone to shine a light on the aged granite. The carved letters had been worn down by wind and rain over the years until they were almost nothing but shadows on dark stone. But as Mateo leaned close, he was able to make out the name:

  Eleanor Anne Cabot.

  One of Mateo’s ancestors—and another bearer of the Cabot Curse, to judge by the brief lifespan noted there. He shuddered as it sank in: Elizabeth was collecting his family’s bones.

  Mateo couldn’t help wondering whether she wanted his, too.
>
  That night, Mateo dreamed of Nadia.

  She stood wearing a cloak of flame; her skin seemed as brilliant and soft as molten gold. Nadia’s dark eyes blazed as she came close to him, slid her warm arms around his body. His hands clasped her beneath her cloak, and felt only bare skin.

  “No one will stop us now,” Nadia whispered. She kept kissing him—his lips, his throat, the exposed skin at the V of his T-shirt. Mateo shuddered as she pressed her body against his. Laughing softly, she continued, “No one will ever stop me again.”

  Mateo wove his fingers through her thick hair. It seemed to be floating around her, as though they were underwater, but he knew they weren’t. Where were they? Alone together in some vast darkness where there was no up, no down—nothing else but the two of them together.

  Why did she look so strange to him, and yet so familiar? Nadia smiled, even more radiant in the gold and the flame—and Mateo remembered.

  This is what Elizabeth looked like the first time I saw her as a Steadfast. This is what a Sorceress looks like. What evil looks like.

  Nadia’s grin only widened. “Wait until you see what I do to anyone who tries to take you from me.”

  Then she kissed his mouth, and Mateo knew she was evil, that she was going to consume him alive, and still he didn’t want to pull away.

  When he awoke—in his own bed for a change—Mateo couldn’t stop shaking. He didn’t think that had been a vision, just a plain old nightmare.

  He hoped so, anyway. If he were wrong, then Nadia was walking down the same path Elizabeth had, and she wouldn’t stop until she was as cruel and twisted as Elizabeth had ever been.

  And still, still, he wanted her.

  Vintage clothing stores never carried raincoats. And retro umbrellas? Forget it. As long as the rains kept coming, Verlaine would be stuck hiding her red floral ’40s swing dress under a raincoat and galoshes that made her look like the Gorton’s Fisherman.

  They held a meeting of Team Not Evil at lunchtime, even though the cafeteria was overstuffed and loud. With the outdoor picnic tables useless in the rain, everyone had no choice but to cram themselves in. Cliques collide with cliques, Verlaine thought, providing color commentary in her head. Will the jocks survive their proximity to the mathletes? Only time will tell. Meanwhile, only our valiant heroes are trying to save the lives of mathletes and jocks alike.

  What made it even weirder was that the school counselor had come to sit with them.

  “Lots of spells require bones,” Faye Walsh said. “Not just black magic, either.”

  Mateo made a face. “You mean, good witches dig up people’s bones?”

  “It’s not like that,” Nadia explained. “Well. It’s like that, but usually it’s one of your own ancestors; in every spell I learned, you looked for the bones of another witch, someone in your own bloodline. It was a way of drawing on your family’s strength. Any witch would be fine with her descendants doing that. I mean, they’re just bones.”

  “They’re ‘just bones’ until it’s your own family,” Mateo insisted. “Anyway, the spells you’re talking about—that’s not what Elizabeth is doing.”

  Nadia shook her head. “No, but I have no idea what it is.”

  Oh, come on. Verlaine just managed to hide her impatience. “I thought the whole point of you going to work with Elizabeth was so you could find out what she was up to.”

  This won her a sharp look. “Actually, the point of my working with Elizabeth was saving everyone in the hospital.”

  Which was totally true, and one of the lives Nadia had saved was Uncle Gary’s. Sheepishly, Verlaine said, “Sorry. It’s just—I didn’t think Elizabeth would keep hiding things from you even after you signed on to destroy the world.”

  “The world won’t be destroyed,” Nadia said, “just completely overrun with demons under the rule of the lord of hell.”

  Verlaine rolled her eyes. “Same difference. Anyway, why would Elizabeth still be hiding things from you? I mean, yeah, really you’re on Team Not Evil, but Elizabeth doesn’t know that—does she?”

  Nadia tugged at the end of her ponytail. “Elizabeth’s not stupid. She understands I’m only working with her because I have to. I think she trusts me only because there are a lot of ways I can’t defy her—not while I’m sworn to the One Beneath.”

  “Then that means—” Mateo’s eyes widened. “That means anything she’s hiding from you is something you have the power to prevent. Or work against, defeat, whatever. If you were powerless to prevent whatever it is she’s doing with my ancestor’s bones, she wouldn’t bother hiding it at all.”

  “Maybe,” Nadia said, brightening.

  “So, all you have to do is get the info from Elizabeth,” Faye said. Verlaine’s eyes widened in surprise, because Ms. Walsh was talking like that would be so easy, instead of potentially fatal.

  Nadia went very still. Despite the roar in the cafeteria, Verlaine almost could have believed everything around them became hushed. “It’s not as easy as asking Elizabeth. Her answers aren’t—straightforward. She teaches by example.” Slowly Nadia added, “But—maybe I could try her Book of Shadows.”

  Mateo and Verlaine shared a look as Faye said, “Didn’t her Book of Shadows try to kill you?”

  “Not kill,” Nadia said. “It tried to trap me, with cobwebs and all the—all the spiders.” A tremor passed through Nadia, and Verlaine didn’t blame her. She had refused to shower in her own bathroom for two weeks after she’d seen a cockroach in her tub; if she’d been Nadia, literally cocooned in webs spun by hundreds of spiders, she probably would have had to go into therapy afterward. “Elizabeth would’ve killed me after she found me there.”

  “That’s not reassuring.” Mateo took Nadia’s hand. “I told you about Gage just to find out what was going on. That’s all. I don’t want you to do anything dangerous on my account.”

  Nadia shook her head, her dangly earrings swinging. “All of this is dangerous. We have to do what we have to do. That’s all.”

  “Wait, okay?” Mateo pleaded. “Let me watch Gage a while longer. Maybe it was a coincidence that it was one of my ancestors. Maybe she just needed bones.”

  Nadia gave him a look. “Mateo. Come on.”

  Mateo gripped Nadia’s hand tighter, and his eyes were wide. To Verlaine, he looked less concerned, more . . . desperate. “Maybe you shouldn’t have Elizabeth’s book.”

  “It would be dangerous,” Faye agreed. “If her Book of Shadows is as aware as you say it is, it wouldn’t want to leave Elizabeth. God only knows what that thing could do on its own.”

  “That’s not what Mateo meant.” By now Nadia was sitting upright, almost rigid. Her words were clipped. “You don’t think I can be trusted with it, do you?”

  That idea hadn’t even occurred to Verlaine, but when she saw Mateo’s cheeks flush, she realized Nadia was onto something. Quietly he said, “It’s dark magic I don’t trust. Not you.”

  Nadia’s expression remained stormy. Verlaine found herself imagining the kind of Sorceress Nadia might be if she really meant it . . . which was a terrifying thing to think about.

  “You have to trust me,” Nadia finally said as she shrugged on her backpack to go. “And I have to trust myself.”

  Verlaine nodded, even though she knew they didn’t exactly have any other choice.

  But if she wanted more information in the near future, she might have to ask someone else.

  Asa knew he shouldn’t have responded to Verlaine’s text. If she was smart (and he thought she was), this might well be her setting the stage to finally kill him. If she was being foolish—if she simply wanted to see him—then his best move would have been not to answer, and definitely not to agree to meet her near the remains of Davis Bridge after school.

  But apparently I’m foolish, too, he thought as he parked his car near the bridge.

  Verlaine’s old maroon car was a few feet away, not too far for a mad dash through the rain. Asa felt lazy, though, and his umbrella was in t
he backseat, so—

  He clapped his hands together, and instantly, time froze. The raindrops hung in the air, thousands of steel-gray, glittering spheres. Some of them were stopped midsplash, tiny sprays of water rising from puddles, logs, the hood of Verlaine’s car. Carefully Asa opened his car door and wove through the raindrops, making his way to Verlaine.

  She sat in the driver’s seat, and for a moment Asa simply stood there amid the hanging raindrops and looked at her. Verlaine wore a red dress with white flowers, cheerful and bright, like the only spot of color in a world gone drab. Her silvery hair was pulled up into an adorably messy knot, with just a few tendrils escaping to frame her long face. His magic had caught her in the middle of applying pale pink lip gloss, so her mouth was slightly parted, her dark eyes focused on her reflection in the visor mirror. Asa would not touch her when she was like this—it would be a violation—but he couldn’t help staring.

  Are you trying to make yourself lovelier for me? Or is the makeup just a shield you wear, like the elaborate clothes—one more way to keep the world from seeing how vulnerable you are? With a sigh, Asa opened the passenger side door, slid in, then clapped his hands again.

  Verlaine jumped as—so far as she could see—Asa instantly appeared by her side in the car. “Holy cats!” She made a face; when she’d startled, she’d smeared pink lip gloss across her cheek. Asa resisted the urge to wipe it away with his thumb. As she scrubbed at her face with some Kleenex, she said, “Do you always have to do that?”

  “The alternative involved getting extremely wet. I thought I’d skip it.” Asa leaned back in his seat, trying to make himself feel as casual as he looked. “So what’s this about? My demise?”

  She jerked back. “Wait. You thought I asked you here to kill you?”

  “Let’s say I knew it was a distinct possibility.”

  “And you came anyway? Do you have a death wish or something?”