“No.” He shook his head. “I can explain stealing you from Zahi because the Atrox thrives on competition among its Followers, but I wouldn’t be able to explain helping you escape.”
“The Regulators,” she remembered with a sudden chill.
“The Atrox has to believe that I stole you from Zahi for my own prize and then you escaped from me.”
“Be careful,” she whispered and looked at the shadows. They seemed natural enough, but the Atrox was always around, sending shadows like tentacles as its eyes.
“Don’t worry,” Stanton assured her when he saw her studying the shadows. “It’s not here.”
“How can you tell?”
“Centuries of experience,” he said with a grim laugh, then he stood.
“Caprimulgus!” he yelled angrily.
She translated his Latin. “Milker of goats?” It would have been funny if her hands hadn’t been shaking so fiercely.
“Trust me. It’s a big insult,” Stanton explained.
“Let’s run up the butte and find a better place to hide,” she suggested, worried for his safety.
“No,” he said firmly. “Our chances are better if we separate.”
Serena peeked around the corner of the boulder as Stanton hollered, “Caper!”
The word made Zahi furious. She flinched in anticipation, but nothing happened. Apparently his power wasn’t strong enough to confront Stanton from a distance, because she didn’t feel a change in the air.
“Caper!” Stanton yelled again.
She’d have to ask Maggie what caper meant. Stanton read her mind.
“I just called him a he-goat. That’s the way people with an ordinary knowledge of Latin would translate it, but I really called him the smell of an armpit.” Stanton looked at her doubtful expression. “Maybe you have to have been around for a few hundred years to understand.”
He bent down quickly and kissed the top of her head. “Good luck.”
Stanton darted over the rocks. The Followers ran after him. Stones and pebbles rolled down the butte behind him.
When the running footsteps were too distant to hear, she stood and looked around the rock outcropping.
A Follower grabbed her. The girl was trying to look deadly dangerous with her black lipstick, piercings, and partially shaved head.
“Goddess,” she whispered fiercely into Serena’s ear, and bent her arm back painfully. “Zahi! I’ve got her.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE FOLLOWER HELD Serena tightly, but her mind didn’t try to control her. She started to yell again, but before she could, Serena pushed quickly into her mind.
The girl’s mouth closed and a whimper died in her throat.
She had no barriers against Serena’s entrance. Her mind was frightenly dark and empty, all hope surrendered to the Atrox, no dreams, no plans for the future, only a vast desert of days stringing hopelessly before her. She was only an initiate, waiting to see if the Atrox would accept her as a Follower. Serena relaxed. Someone who had recently turned to the Atrox was the easiest to save. Serena didn’t need to stay in her mind to control her. She slipped back out.
“You’re new, aren’t you?” Serena commented, clicking her tongue pierce against her teeth.
The girl frowned.
“They haven’t even told you anything about mind control yet. Don’t they trust you?”
The girl didn’t seem to understand.
“Sorry,” Serena said. “You’re about to displease your master.” She let the power build inside her head and then she released the force.
The girl put her hands over her face. She leaned against the rock, then slid down its side. Still holding her head, she spread her fingers and looked dumbly out at the shadows in front of her, her eyes uncomprehending.
“You’ll thank me someday,” Serena told her, wondering if the girl had parents who were frantically waiting at home to hear from her. “The Atrox isn’t going to allow you in now that you’ve let me escape.”
Rocks tumbled down the side of the butte.
Serena looked up. Several Followers were running toward her, jumping over craggy rocks. Zahi stood at the top, his hair whipping around his face. She could feel and see the strength of Zahi’s mind crackling through the night air, sparking off rocks and boulders, searching for her.
She turned to run but tripped over a rock. She tumbled and looked back.
“Stop!” Zahi yelled. She slowed, but only for an instant.
She glanced up at the moon, almost lost in the earth’s shadow now.
She ran crazily, leaping over cactus shrubs and rocks, until finally she was pushing through the twirling, jumping, spinning bodies.
And then she saw Morgan dancing with two boys.
“Morgan!” she shouted, even though she knew Morgan couldn’t hear her over the beat of the music. She ran to her.
Morgan had braided her hair with Christmas tinsel and strapped fluffy angel wings on her back. She’d never looked so funked-out and cool. The guys dancing with her wore yellow, pink, and violet glow hoops around their necks and arms, reflector tape on their jeans, and large floppy hats.
“Morgan,” Serena called again as she drew closer.
One of the guys tapped Morgan and pointed to Serena.
Morgan stopped dancing, her fists on her hips. “What do you do? Follow me around? The cool doesn’t rub off, Serena.”
“I need to talk to you.” Serena pulled her away from the boys.
“Why don’t you go back to geek heaven with all your bizarre friends,” Morgan snapped and yanked her arm away from Serena.
“This is way serious,” Serena insisted. “I need your help.”
“Right.” Morgan gave her a spiteful smile.
“Remember what happened to you a month back with those kids who hang out with Stanton?”
Morgan took a sudden step backward and gave her a petulant look. “You can’t threaten me. I’m not afraid of you.”
“Why would you be afraid of me?” Serena demanded. “It’s the others—”
“Please,” Morgan said, and pulled on a gold chain hanging around her neck. A charm that looked curiously like a standing he-goat dangled on the end of the chain. “Zahi gave me this charm. He said it could ward off the evil eye and protect me from your black magic.”
The charm looked demonic and evil.
“I think the charm is bad luck.” Serena felt suddenly worried for Morgan’s safety.
“Right,” Morgan smirked. “I figured you’d say something like that. Did I mess up your plans? I guess you can’t cast any more spells on me. What did you want to do? Get me to stay away from Collin? Have me make a fool out of myself again? I’m so on to you. You may be able to fool the others into thinking you’re just a regular kid who likes to study and dress weird, but I know the truth and I’m going to tell everyone.”
Serena looked quickly around. How soon before the Followers found them? Morgan was vulnerable because she’d already had a run-in with them. Serena didn’t feel as if she had enough power to fight them all. She grabbed Morgan’s hand.
“We’re in danger here. We have to leave.”
“I’m only in danger from you and your magic.”
Someone grabbed Serena from behind.
She let out a cry.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SHE TURNED, ready to fight Zahi. It was one of Morgan’s dumb boyfriends. “Witch, huh?” the guy said in a teasing way and hung an uninvited arm over her shoulder. The brim of his floppy hat hit Serena’s head. “You want to put a spell on me?”
“Get off me,” Serena said and tried to push him away. “Voodoo me,” he leered and tried to kiss her. “Go back to Morgan.” She shoved harder. He stumbled backward, then smiled stupidly at Serena and started dancing in weird jerking steps.
Serena started to walk away from them when he grabbed her again.
“I said leave me alone!” She turned, ready to punch him, but looked into Zahi’s smiling face instead.
> “Goddess.” His eyes dilated and glowed.
Then the night air shuddered and his energy burst into strands of light that twisted toward her. She understood his power to control her now, the subtle way he hid memories from her. Before he pushed into her mind, she sent all her force out and tunneled into his. Maybe she could cloud his thoughts and use that moment to escape. He wouldn’t be expecting her attack.
She thrust into his mind and knew immediately she had made a dangerous mistake. She felt his laughing embrace as his power sucked her deeper and deeper inside him. The rave fell away and she stood in cold darkness. She began to shiver. Something menacing hovered in the shadows around her.
The Atrox. The black night shadows snaked around her, caressing her with unmistakable tenderness and coaxing her forward. What did it want her to see? She took one slow step and then another, afraid of what she might see when the shadows cleared.
“Look, my chosen one,” a steely voice commanded.
The shadows cleared and a mirror stood before her. She looked at her reflection. She was different, her green eyes as deep as newly cut emeralds, her skin flawless and glowing with a strange light. A shiver traveled through her as she felt her evil potential. She had an impulse to run, but where? She was trapped inside Zahi’s mind.
“Look,” the shadow whispered and cradled her. “Look at what I offer you.”
She stared in the mirror again and her reflection changed. She held her cello, lovingly embraced between her knees, hand delicately pulling the bow across the strings. The picture was mesmerizing.
“Look deeper,” the voice challenged.
She touched the gilt edges of the mirror, and suddenly she had no desire to flee. She was playing on a stage, a symphony behind her, the audience enraptured.
“You shall have that.” The voice spoke with complete confidence.
How had the Atrox known her most secret dream? The dream she had been afraid to voice even to her best friend Jimena.
The music rolled over her in waves, her fingers so sure on the strings. Tears formed in the sides of her eyes. Yes, this was what she wanted more than anything, but she had been afraid she wouldn’t . . . couldn’t have the time to make it come true. And here it was. Success without the sacrifice. She would do anything—
Someone tackled her to the ground. The mirror shattered around her, bursting into vapor. Her chin hit the dirt and sharp pain spun inside her head.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE FALL RELEASED HER from Zahi’s hold. Her head ached and thin lines wavered in front of her eyes as if Zahi were still trying to pull her back into his world of dark promise. She looked up.
Zahi stood over her and seemed as baffled as she felt.
She looked around, unable to grasp what had happened. Kids danced wildly, their feet stomping near her. The rapid pulse of the music beat through her.
“Jimena?!”
“Did you think I was going to punk out on you?” Jimena said, and helped her stand.
“Thanks.” She took Jimena’s hand and stood.
Zahi’s eyes burned yellow, his power sweeping around them, but he didn’t seem as invincible as before.
Jimena and Serena concentrated on pushing back his mental attack. Serena felt lost in her own power as it filled the air with an invisible force. Their moon amulets gleamed white and then shot blinding purple bits of fire into the air. Kids nearby stopped dancing and waved their hands through the air in amazement. Some jumped and tried to catch the purple embers floating in the wind like thick snowflakes.
Serena and Jimena released their power.
Zahi stumbled back.
“Come on,” Jimena said, and grabbed Serena’s hand. “You’ve done enough fighting for tonight.”
Serena turned and bumped into Morgan.
Morgan screamed and jumped back. She held out her he-goat charm pinched between white trembling fingers and pointed it at Serena as if it were a knife.
“Stay back,” she yelled.
“Did Zahi do something to her?” Serena asked Jimena as they started pushing through the crowd.
“You were in a trance or something when Zahi had you,” Jimena explained. “Then she saw what we did to Zahi. She’s probably afraid you’re going to put another spell on her.”
“Another? I never put a first one on her.”
“Don’t waste energy trying to figure out Morgan, we’ve got to get away from here before Zahi and his band of Followers get after us.”
Serena watched Zahi put his arm around Morgan. Morgan looked up at him with a coy smile and stared into his eyes.
“We’ve got to get Morgan.” She started back and Jimena stopped her.
“Look again,” Jimena warned.
Morgan lost the fast beat of the music. She entwined her arms around Zahi, still lost in his eyes. Her hips moved snakelike to music only she could hear. Zahi placed his hands on her waist and glanced back at Serena.
“Mine now,” he mouthed, or maybe he had brushed the words across her mind, because she heard them clearly.
Serena darted back to fight Zahi.
Jimena grabbed her hard. “No seas tonta. You did what you could. He only took Morgan to get at you. You think you can fight him now?”
Zahi’s punk Followers swarmed around him and glared at her.
She could feel Zahi’s taunting laughter as she finally turned and followed Jimena.
They continued pushing through the dancers until they were running past the buzzing generators. The fumes from the generators drifted away, replaced by the aroma of desert sage. They slowed and started trekking across the desert through the spiked and twisted Joshua trees. The lunar eclipse threw an eerie reddish color across the moon’s face.
Serena spoke first. “How did you know where to find me?”
“Over at your house, when I touched your forehead to see if you had a fever, I got a premonition so big it almost knocked me on my butt. I saw you at the rave with Zahi. Didn’t take much figuring to know what had caused your flu.”
“I’m sorry.” Serena looked down. “But how did you know I needed help?”
“Because you’d never put some vato in front of your friends. And for sure you would never lie to me. So I got to thinking about what you’d said about Stanton.”
“His warning to me about Zahi?”
“Yeah. Plus Zahi transferred to our school about the same time the new Followers showed up. That’s when I knew he’d put a hold on you. So I blasted up to the desert like a rocket. I would have been there sooner but I had to park about a mile out.”
“Thanks,” Serena said, and hugged Jimena.
They came to a dirt road.
“Let’s take this.” Jimena pointed. “It should hook up to the highway.”
Their feet crunched over gravel and dirt.
Without Joshua trees and scrub to shelter them, the wind battered against them in unrelenting whirls, driving dust into their eyes.
“I saw the Atrox,” Serena said slowly. “At least I think I did. It wasn’t so scary.”
“Wasn’t?” A look of surprise held Jimena’s face.
Serena shook her head. “Do you ever wonder why we’re doing this? I mean, we’ve got Followers always chasing us down and it makes a real mess of our social life. What happens if we tell Maggie we don’t want to do it anymore?”
“We can’t. It’s our destiny. You know that.” Jimena sounded concerned. “Besides, I figure there’s something important waiting for us.”
“But Maggie can’t even tell us what’s waiting for us. She should tell us what happens when we turn seventeen,” Serena complained.
“Maybe she doesn’t know,” Jimena suggested.
“She knows,” Serena said with sudden anger. “Maybe going with the Atrox is easier.”
Jimena stopped and grabbed Serena’s elbow. “You loca? What’s got you?”
Did she dare tell her the truth? “I mean, why not become queen of the dark?”
“Because,”
Jimena insisted.
“That’s not an answer. Why be good when we’re in so much danger and we don’t even know if we get a future? If the Atrox can give us so much, why not be bad?”
“I know bad.” Jimena spoke quietly. “It’s not the answer.” She fingered the scars on her arm as if the return to her memories were making them throb. She caught Serena looking at her. “If you don’t have the scars, then you didn’t have the life.”
Jimena was silent for a long time, the desert wind lashing her hair into her eyes. “I didn’t go looking for trouble at first, but it was always there. I felt like I was caught in this hole and I kept digging, thinking I could get out, but the hole just kept getting deeper and bigger. Then one night at a party, this guy walks in and he takes an AK-47 from his coat and starts shooting. I mean, damn, I’d never seen so many people die. He killed two of my home girls. So the next day at school I got a gun. I walked over to him, sitting all alone in his car and I shot him. I kept pulling the trigger till his friends stopped me. That was the first time I got sent to camp.”
“Did he die?”
“Lucky for me he didn’t. His car got most of the bullets. But I was still going to kill him as soon as I got out.”
“Did you?” Serena asked softly. Jimena had never told her this much about her life before. She had thought Jimena had gone to camp for stealing cars.
“I got out and that’s when I turned evil,” she continued. “I must have been evil to do the things I did before I got caught up again. I didn’t care. I was jacking cars and taking all kinds of risks. Some days I even scared myself. But I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to. Being bad and breaking all the rules can make you feel invincible. There’s power in that . . . for a while . . . and then . . .”
“What?”
“There must be something deep inside people that doesn’t like to be bad, because afterward I felt like I was all alone in the world and nobody could love me after the things I’d done. But I didn’t want to give up the feeling of power I had when I was bad. I felt above everyone. Bigger. Better. A real hard-rock gangster.”
They walked down the road in silence, listening to the haunting wind.