Curse of Night

by Emily Goodwin

  “You’re a Nephilim,” Ruby says after a moment of consideration. “No wonder you always scored higher than me on every test.” She stares me right in the eye, and then we both start laughing.

  “I suppose it was a little unfair, though my angel powers, or whatever you want to call them, have been bound until recently.”

  “Because you found out the truth?”

  “Because others found out I’m still alive.” A chill makes its way through me, and Lucas tightens his hold on me. “The demon that was going around the area, burning witches…it…it was looking for me.” I pause, grinding my teeth for a few seconds while everything sinks in even more.

  “Rumors started floating around Hell about the Nephilim who was born twenty-five years ago under a Virgo moon and how I wasn’t actually dead like they were led to believe. So my father thought it would be a good idea to start undoing whatever binding he put on my powers so I could better protect myself, but it puts me at more of a risk of being found by other angels.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Ruby brings her arms closer to her body and eyes my glass of wine.

  “It is,” I say, getting up to get the bottle of wine and three extra glasses, knowing Kristy and Abby could use a drink as well. “Nephilim aren’t supposed to live. When the other angels found out about me, I was ordered to death. Hence the baby swapping.”

  “Wow.” Ruby blinks a few times and then takes a wine glass from me. I set the glasses on the table and fill each one up. She takes a big drink. “So now what?”

  Taking my seat on Lucas’s lap again, I look from Ruby to Kristy, making sure my best friend is interpreting this the way I am. “We do what we always do,” I tell her. “Kill the demons and try not to die in the process.”

  Ruby takes another long drink and leans back in her chair, studying me for a second. Then she shifts her gaze to the sword that’s still resting on the middle of the table.

  “You were pretty good with that thing,” she muses.

  “It’s been a while since I used one,” Lucas says and brushes my hair over my shoulder. “It’s a skill I haven’t forgotten, apparently.” He tangles his fingers in my hair, and I wonder if his mind is going back to his human days when he was forced to fight in the Coliseum.

  “I’m lucky you showed up when you did.” I twist, cupping Lucas’s face in one of my hands. My throat still hurts, and I know I’ll be bruised in the morning if I’m not already.

  “Luck had nothing to do with it.” Lucas slides one hand up my back. “I knew you’d need me.” He flashes a cocky grin.

  “Well, I did. We did.”

  “Yeah, we did,” Ruby says, words coming out a little forced. “So, uh, thanks.”

  “Dinner.” I let my hands drop from Lucas’s face, turning my attention to my sister. “What can I do to help get it ready? I really am hungry.”

  “Um,” she says, rapidly blinking. “I…I think it’s done. I turned the oven off. Strange, isn’t it? I came in and just turned it off. That’s not what I should have been thinking about, but I knew it would burn.”

  Abby rubs her forehead, and it’s only then that Ruby does a double-take from me to Abby and back again.

  “You’re not really related, are you?” she asks, and I shake my head. “And she knows about…about everything?”

  “She does,” I say and get up. “We’re not related, but she’s just as much of my sister now as I thought she was before. Family doesn’t always mean blood.” I smile at Abby and then turn, opening the oven. Warm air whooshes out, and the top of the pasta is perfectly crispy looking. It smells delicious.

  “Let me make sure I’ve got this all straight.” Ruby stands, taking her glass of wine with her. “You’re a Nephilim but only found out recently. Your father faked your death and stuck you with a family of nons to be raised in secret. Necromancers are after you, and you think it’s Ruth, seeking revenge.”

  “Pretty much.”

  She crouches down, holding out her hand for Scarlet to sniff. “I still don’t get how the hellhound fits into this. Who gave her to you? An angel?”

  Lucifer is an angel. A fallen angel, but an angel, nonetheless. “Technically, yes.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah, it’s a lot to take in. You can’t tell anyone,” I say, and nerves prickle through me again.

  Ruby stands up and steps closer. “I won’t. If I’d known…I…I don’t know.” She rubs her forehead and lets out a breath. “I had no idea you were dealing with so much.”

  “I’ve kind of gotten used to it,” I say with a shrug. “Though I was really looking forward to going on vacation. I don’t think I’m going to Disneyland next week anymore.”

  “We’ll go another time,” Lucas assures me and reaches for the sword. “Your blood is on this,” he says, able to smell it. It sliced through enough root-monsters that my blood has been wiped off the surface, yet somehow, it’s still there.

  “How did you know to do that?” Kristy asks, taking the bowl of salad from the fridge.

  “I kind of got a vision,” I tell her. “And then I did what felt right.”

  “You said a spell. In Latin, maybe?” Ruby inches closer to the table, looking at the sword.

  “Enochian,” I tell her. “I don’t know I’m speaking it. It’s an angel-thing.”

  “Why do you even have a sword?” Abby asks, grabbing a wooden spoon. Her hands are shaking, and anger surges through me again.

  First Lucas and now my sister. If Ruth wants me, then she should go after me.

  “They’re for demon hunting. That one actually belonged to Freya’s previous witch before she came to be mine. It’s too heavy for me, though. I usually use an enchanted dagger.”

  “Enchanted dagger?” Phil’s voice comes from the hallway. Penny toddles past him, arms stretching out toward Scarlet. I almost forgot he was here and has probably been listening to our conversation the whole time.

  “Can she—?” Ruby starts, seeing Penny plop down on her butt, giggling as Scarlet gently licks her hands. “Is that—she’s not—this is…this is exactly what I’d expect from you, Callie, oddly enough.” She slowly shakes her head.

  “Scarlet won’t hurt anyone I don’t want her to,” I explain. “I don’t think she understands anything but Enochian anyway, and in her current form, she’s harmless.”

  “What if the kid takes the collar off?”

  “She can’t.” I grab plates from the cabinet. “You couldn’t, either. Only someone with angel blood can. Neat, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know if I’d say that.”

  I set the plates on the counter and start bringing water glasses into the dining room, putting one at each of our spots, well, not Lucas’s, of course. Phil follows suit, and we all silently prepare dinner.

  “Are you hungry?” I ask Lucas, pulling him aside.

  “You’ve lost a lot of blood. Again.”

  “But you should eat.”

  “There’s still a bag of blood in the fridge.” He makes a face at the thought of drinking bagged blood.

  “Is it that bad?”

  “It’s fucking awful, but it will do. You are more important to me.” He kisses my forehead. “Eat, rest, let me fuck you until you pass out, and then I’ll drink from you in the morning. While I fuck you again, that is.”

  I smile up at him, not wanting to break it to him just yet that I’ll probably pass out before anything remotely sexy happens between us tonight.

  “Okay. I’ll warm it up for you.”

  I fill a pot with water, hold my hands over it, magically heat it, and put the bag of blood inside. I wait until everyone else has filled their plates and is in the dining room before I pour the blood into a wine glass. Lucas takes it into the dining room and pulls out a chair for me.

  “This demon,” Ruby says, cutting into her pasta with her fork. “You said it was wearing a crown? Did you get a good look at it?”

  “Yeah. It was gold with black gems along the base.
There were symbols engraved into the metal, and it kind of looked like there was blood dripping along the spikes.”

  “Would you recognize it if you saw a drawing of it?”

  “Definitely.” I break a breadstick in half and stick it in my pasta sauce.

  “Good.” Ruby catches my eye and smiles. “Because an Infernal Dictionary just came into the Academy’s possession.”

  “What’s that?” Abby asks as she gives Penny a few more tiny pieces of pasta.

  “It’s a massive book on demonology,” Kristy explains. “True Infernal Dictionaries are rare and very expensive.”

  “This one is just being loaned for the time being,” Ruby says. “Unless we can come up with the five hundred thousand the owner is asking for it.” She rolls her eyes. “You know how these things go. Books get sold to the highest bidder and end up in the hands of some rich collector who has no idea what the book actually is.”

  “Half a million?” Lucas echoes.

  “That’s a lot for a book,” Phil mumbles.

  “Books have gone for more,” Lucas tells him, taking a small sip of blood from the wine glass. “Is it in poor condition?”

  “It has a lot of wear,” Ruby says. “It was in another Academy before it was stolen and put in the hands of nons for the last fifty or so years.”

  “Do you have the seller’s contact information?”

  Ruby freezes, fork halfway to her mouth. “Why?”

  “I want to buy it,” Lucas says casually. “For Callie.”

  “And I’ll donate it to the Academy once I’m done with it,” I quickly say, knowing how important a book like that could be to future students at Grim Gate. “As long as you promise to bring it to me when I inevitably have another demonic problem.”

  “Are…are you for real?” Ruby lowers her fork.

  “Yes.” Lucas takes another drink of blood before setting the glass down. He takes my hand in his, moving his thumb in little circles on my wrist.

  Ruby looks at him without blinking. “You did hear the part where I said it was half a million dollars, right?”

  “Yes,” Lucas tells her. “If the book is as old and as rare as I assume, then damage or not, it’s a hell of a deal.”

  “He’s lived a long time,” I say. “And he’s good with investing and buys and sells a lot of properties. He just sold an apartment complex in Miami for fifteen million.” I feel weird saying it but feel compelled to offer some sort of explanation to why Lucas can easily drop five hundred thousand dollars without blinking an eye.

  “That’s the real reason she married him,” Kristy jokes, and we all laugh.

  “So once you have the book,” Ruby starts, “we can figure out who this demon is…and how to kill it.”

  “I like this plan.” My lips pull into a smile. “Are you sure you want in?”

  “Yeah,” Ruby assures me. “I do. Like you said, we make one hell of a team.”

  “We do.” I dip my breadstick into my pasta sauce again. “This is really good, Abby.”

  “Thanks.” Abby picks up Penny’s water cup for the millionth time. Each time she puts it on the table, the kid knocks it right off. “Remember Demi?”

  I think back, trying to figure out why the name sounds so familiar. “Oh, yeah! She was our cook for a few years, wasn’t she?”

  Abby nods. “Yeah. You would have been eight, I think, when she got hired. So you wouldn’t…you know.”

  “Right.” I wouldn’t have been in the house long after that. I was sold off to a research lab. “This was her ‘famous pasta,’ wasn’t it?”

  “It was. She works at a restaurant in Lincoln Park now, and Phil and I saw her not that long ago. I mentioned how much I missed her pasta, and she gave me the recipe.”

  I take another bite, getting hit with a memory of the last time I ate this. It was a few days before Halloween, and I was seeing spirits like crazy. It scared me, which made my powers flare up. The man I thought was my dad locked me in my room for an entire week, telling everyone I had chicken pox. I missed trick-or-treating and my class Halloween party, which I was really excited for.

  Everyone is quiet again, with only Penny’s playful babbling and the sounds of forks against plates filling the room.

  “Gotten any new cars lately?” Phil asks Lucas.

  “No,” he replies. “Though once the garage is up at the new house, I’ll have the room for something new.” He looks at me, a playful smile on his face. I nudge his foot under the table, and he gives me the slightest look of protest but relents. “We could go to a car show. Together,” he says, almost able to sell it as his own idea.

  “I go to those every year!” Phil says excitedly, and he and Lucas start talking about some new car that was just unveiled.

  “How is the house coming?” Abby asks. “I can’t wait to see it.”

  “A lot has been done,” I tell her. “And we’ve already done some furniture shopping.”

  “You’re building a house?” Ruby asks.

  “Restoring one,” I say. “There’s a big white house a mile or so down the road. It’ll be at least a month until we can move in and even longer until it’s fully renovated.”

  “Why not stay here until it’s done?” Kristy asks.

  “I’m impatient,” I laugh and get up to get my phone to show everyone the latest photos. There’s a definite heaviness hanging above us all, but we enjoy the rest of dinner.

  Ruby helps clear the table once we’re done, and I invite her to stay for cake. Then Abby says she has a surprise for me, but it’s in her car. She hesitates when she gets to the front door.

  “I’ll walk with you,” Lucas tells her, holding out his arm.

  “Thank you.” Abby loops her arm through his, going out to the car together.

  “Is he as bad as you thought?” I ask Ruby, settling on the couch.

  Ruby’s face tenses, having a hard time letting go of the hate we’ve been taught. Lucas is a vampire. Witches hate vampires. Therefore she should hate Lucas.

  “He’s rather charming. If he wasn’t sipping blood out of a wine glass at dinner, he could almost pass for human.”

  “The blood does take a while to get used to,” I admit. The front door opens, and Abby walks back in, carrying a box wrapped in green-and-red paper.

  “All I have is Christmas wrapping paper,” she says, handing me the box. “And this is half your present. The other half is a spa day with me. Because I really need it, but I think you need it even more. I already bought gift certificates, so we just need to find a day when I don’t work and you’re not busy saving the world from being overrun with, um, tree demons?”

  “What were those things?” Kristy asks, and some of the heaviness sinks back down on us. She waves her hands in the air. “We’ll figure it out in the morning.”

  “Yeah.” I rub my eyes, smearing my mascara. I don’t even care at this point. I still have dried blood in my hair and a rather nasty-looking scab on my arm.

  I tear the paper off the box and open the lid, pulling out a photo album. I’m hit with emotion as soon as I open it.

  “Abby,” I say, looking up at my sister.

  “It’s kind of lame, I know,” she says, looking just as emotional as I feel. I turn the page, looking at childhood photos of the two of us. “I tried cutting out Dad and Scott the best I could. I might have put Zac Efron’s face over a few, too.”

  “That’s you?” Lucas asks, sitting next to me on the couch.

  “Yes, in all my toddler glory.”

  “Did the Martins know you had powers then?”

  I shake my head. “I think they started when I was around three or four, right?” I look at Abby.

  “Right.” Abby closes her eyes, unable to keep the tears at bay. She still harbors a lot of guilt for what happened to me, even though I’ve told her over and over I don’t blame her.

  “I was still blissfully normal then.” I flip another page. “Penny looks just like you here.” I point to a picture of Abby and loo
k at my niece, who’s actually playing with the toys I got her.

  “You didn’t look like a Martin then,” Lucas says, matter-of-factly.

  “No, I guess I didn’t. But I was a cute baby.”

  “You were,” Lucas agrees, and suddenly I’m waiting for someone to point out how it doesn’t matter if I was cute or hideous as a child. It’s not like I can have a baby of my own.

  “Should we have cake?” I ask, flipping another page. “It’s getting close to Penny’s bedtime, I’m sure.”

  “I’d love some cake,” Kristy says, sensing my discomfort. “I’ll put the candles in.”

  Kristy brings the cake into the dining room, and we all gather around the table. Using magic, she lights the candles, and everyone sings me happy birthday, and we talk about things not demon-related as we eat.

  “It’s been a night,” I say as Abby packs up her diaper bag once the night is through.

  “You can say that again.” She shoves a clean diaper back into the bag. “You amaze me, Callie. What you do…what you’ve been through…you’re like a superhero.”

  I wrinkle my nose and shrug. “Nah. I’m just doing what I have to do to get by. And preventing an apocalypse benefits us all.”

  “Are you going to be okay?” she asks, zipping up the bag.

  “Yeah. I’ll be fine. I’ve got everything under control.” I look through the living room at Kristy and Ruby, who are doing dishes. “I never thought Ruby would join my girl gang, but having her definitely helps.”

  “I’m missing a whole story there, aren’t I?”

  “She hated me because I was better than her,” I rush out. “But I think I’ve misjudged her this whole time.”

  “I don’t know how I can help, but if I can, you know you can call me, right?”

  “Always. Though let’s keep our fingers crossed you don’t need to stitch anyone up in the near future.”

  “That’s a good plan.” Abby gets to her feet and turns, looking at Phil. He’s sitting on the couch with Penny, who’s giggling like crazy at Pandora. She’s eating the attention up and has been batting around a plastic mouse for the last few minutes just to entertain the kid.

  “I’m sorry tonight didn’t go quite as planned,” I tell both Abby and Phil as they start toward their car.