She stood up. Wiped the tears off her cheeks with the edge of her sleeves. “Thank you. Seriously. I fucking owe you, Sideways Pike. And remember this: If a bunch of blond guys ever come asking about your magic, you don’t tell them a thing. Not a single thing.” She swayed a little, pulled a face. “Not that they could do much to you now.”
“You’re Addie.” My tongue was heavy. I made my head roll to look at her. Iron-flavored anger bubbled in my stomach, radiated through my body, through every stinging vein. If I could move, I’d be on her. I’d throw her down the stairs.
She looked down at me. Narrowed those enormous eyes of hers. “If you’re my ex, yeah. No one else calls me fucking Addie.” Madeline’s voice was venomous, and she spat out Addie like it was the foulest word she’d ever heard. She wiggled her fingertips, rolled her shoulders, and slipped her hands into her pockets. My sigil filtered pink through the denim. The glow was insulting. I wanted to kick out her teeth.
“Speaking of. His car is outside, which means he’s probably downstairs. Can’t do much to you now, though. Witchfinders go for the specter and, I mean, your specter is thoroughly fucking taken at this point. So, yeah.” Madeline sniffed, took a few steps back. “Don’t look for me,” she said. Turned away from me. “I’ll come find you when you can have it back.”
She closed the door behind her as she left.
TWENTY-ONE
SYMPATHY FOR, WELL, YOU KNOW
“You’re not dead. Did you know that?”
I’d clawed myself halfway to the door. My legs didn’t want to work, and I couldn’t stand yet, but I had enough rage feeding my furnace that I could manage a slithering, desperate crawl. My hands scraped the floor in front of me, driving splinters under my nails.
I stopped mid-motion, wheezing, woozy. No. This was not the fucking time to lose my head. I needed to slither down those stairs, shove my hand down Madeline’s throat, and fish my bloody soul out of her stomach. I needed to get to the door, but my forearms were bruised and sticky, the ground was slick with mold, and I was too damn tired to keep this up if I didn’t focus. What would happen if I fell asleep? How long had it taken Fortune Grier to die?
“I imagine her ex-boyfriend taught her that trick. A witch willfully fraternizing with a Chantry boy—it horrifies me, it makes me roil just to think it. I knew that sigil was bad, Sideways. I knew it. It smacked of witchfinder torture.”
The smell struck and it was overwhelming. Ink. Sour, acrid ink reeked from every direction. I choked on it. My lip curled up, and I sucked in a breath, hard. Tried not to retch.
“I felt your protective spell break earlier. I knew it wouldn’t hold long. The Chantry boy downstairs must’ve assumed that Madeline would be at this party and sensed your spell when he was scrying for you before the party. Witchfinders are very good at breaking protection charms. I am sorry that I was not here to reinforce it. I couldn’t get to you any quicker than this, not with the Delacroix witches after me, not when I wasn’t sure where you’d gone. I am so sorry. I’m sorry that I’m not faster.
“I did one thing for you, though: I arrived when that girl was eating your soul, and I slowed things down inside this room. What took ten minutes for you was ten seconds for the human bodies downstairs. That’s why your friends didn’t come to save you. They couldn’t. It hasn’t even really happened in their sphere of reality yet. I know that might seem cruel, but I need you to believe me: it probably saved their lives, or at least spared them from sharing your fate. None of you know offensive magic. None of you can cast on command. You’re fledgling witches, without a spell book of your own. With the Chantry boy downstairs, if I had let things move at a normal pace, your friends would all be snatched up by now. An entire coven, snuffed out in a night. I couldn’t bear that. I lost my coven. I would never forgive myself if I saw them destroy another. I think I would cease to be me.
“Book devils need witches as much as the other way around. We amplify spell work for you and record all your brilliance, and you give us materials and the kinship we need to survive. The world is not habitable for us, Sideways. Everything wants us dead outside of the likes of you. I want to be your friend. You could use a friend like me right now.”
One of my nails split. Pain wasn’t bad. It was a concrete thing I could feel and I relished it, even though I wanted to sob. I spat, scraped my tongue with my teeth. “Go on.”
“I want to help you. A devil is what makes a spell book a spell book. Every coven has at least one devil among them, to fill the pages of their books, to give them magic and have it returned. We are living archives. We—I—take pride in seeing our covens grow. In providing spells and sigils. In remembering for them. In instructing them. Witchfinders burned my old coven, Sideways. They made my daughters cough their souls out and locked their bodies up, set our house on fire. They burned my book body. That urn you broke was a shell for my ashes. An urn to let me mourn, they said, to let me rest in remembrance. It was an urn to trap me—hateful, vengeful me—in a cage, out of sight. Witches were afraid of me. They were afraid I would hate them for failing to protect my daughters, or that seeing my pain might mean having to admit that they aren’t safe; aren’t invincible and strong like they pretend to be. Nobody was punished. For decades, I was trapped.
“And then came you. You and your girls, you freed me. Offered me a glimmer of hope—what could be more hopeful than a new, bookless coven, bright-eyed and cunning, knocking me free of my urn? I want to be your strange thing, Sideways. I want to get you your soul back, and I want to burn the witchfinders, and I want you and your girls to make a new book for me to live in. Will you let me be yours, Sideways? Would you like me to be your friend?”
Raspy, at the tip of my tongue: “Yes.”
“Splendid.” The ink smell swept over me, and something touched against the burn mark on my neck—something cold, slick, and sultry. “Now, you’ve got to go save your friends, dear. You’ll need magic for that.”
I wanted to scream.
“Hush, hush—no need to fret. I need to live inside you for a while. I won’t stay forever. I would hate that as much as you. I much prefer paper to platelets. But I can keep you alive without your specter, and I can let you use the magic in me to protect yourself and your friends. May I climb through this little wound that Madeline made in your neck?”
“You asking to possess me?” I cracked a mirthless laugh, went limp against the floor for a moment. Breathing hurt. I rolled my head to the side, and tried to fight the tightness in my throat. My eyes felt wasp-stung. They swelled, blurred. I bit my lip. “Fine. Let’s fry him.”
“Lovely.”
The coolness pressed against me, prodded the broken skin. It tickled for a moment. Then, it poured itself inside. It was like a drink of cold water that skipped my mouth, jumped straight for my throat instead. My body was drenched inside out and everything hurt at once. It felt like a billion dancing pinpricks, like my body had been asleep and only now could the blood rush back. I found my feet. Pulled myself upright. My head swam. My body brimmed with static and I felt like I’d zap everything I touched, like billions of volts lived in my fingertips and were itching to slip out.
“Very good. Now. Let’s go downstairs, shall we?”
A song I liked was playing. People still had phones out, but the crowd, drunk with voyeuristic magic rebound, were slipping back into dance mode. Arms flew in the air and the crowd throbbed like a single, beating organ. There was a clearing in the middle of the room where my Scapegracers were pulling themselves upright. Daisy looked ecstatic—I could make out her face across the crowd. She didn’t seem mad that she’d been so unceremoniously dropped on the floor, she just seemed confused. Then I watched her expression change. She was staring at something, or the lack of something. The lack of me, which left the middle of the sigil empty.
Madeline. Where the fuck was Madeline? She’d left her wolf-head upstairs, and I couldn’t spot her in the crowd. Every head of dark hair seemed like it could’ve been her�
��but those people were dancing, dressed in gory little nothings, mindless to the hell that’d happened upstairs.
I elbowed my way through the crowd. My shoulders collided with dancers, who by and large ignored me—until one of them grabbed my arm, wheeled me around. It was Alexis. She was a Frankenstein monster, I think. She gave me a huge, gaping smile that made all her painted-on stitches crinkle up.
“That was amazing! How did you do that? Seriously, I can’t believe it! Jesus H. Christ, Sideways—people are gonna be talking about that for years!” Before I could say anything, her arms were around my waist. I tensed up and peered over the top of her head, toward the rest of the crowd. Madeline, Madeline, where was Madeline? Where the hell had she gone?
My mouth was full of Scratch’s ink. The taste was distracting. If I opened my mouth, would Alexis see the blackness between my teeth?
Whatever. I kept scanning for Madeline in the crowd. There was dark hair everywhere, and then a discordance. I spotted a flash of blond out of the corner of my eye. It was too light, too sugar white to be mistaken for anyone else. I whipped my head around, tried to track the towhead in the crowd. It wove between clustered dancers at a fast pace, strides long and self-assured. Levi. My blood sped up, felt quick, poisonous.
Inside my head, Mr. Scratch said, I wanted to eat him alive.
“Shut up,” I hissed under my breath.
Alexis shifted, pulled away from me. Blinked at me, incredulous. “What the hell?”
“Not you,” I said. I shook my head, tried to focus. My curls stung like nettles where they slapped my cheek. Bit at me. “Don’t worry about it. Talk to you later, alright?”
“Okay, I . . .”
I pulled away from her, trudged deeper into the fray, after the blond hair that was slipping farther away from me. Where was he going?
Toward the sigil, of course. He was covering ground fast. I picked up my pace and forced my way between a couple in the throes of heavy petting, crunched a discarded beer can underfoot. Threw myself in his direction.
In my direct line of sight, two yards away from me, was Yates. She saw me, opened her eyes wide, and waved me over. Then her expression seized up. Her eyes fixed on something just in front of me. Fixed on the face-side of the blond head. Her brows steepled. She took another step back, but the wall of dancers was too thick. She turned and he was already there, inches from her. His pale hand flashed in the darkness, clasped her shoulder, whirled her around.
My heart slammed against my teeth.
I felt the ink course through me, felt it rev up every facility in my body. All the floodgates busted. I jabbed a finger at Levi and snarled, lip curled up in a sneer, and the voice in my spine and I said: “Chett.”
He buckled. Fell forward onto Yates, who kicked him away like he was a rat. He hit the floor with a smack and writhed, clawing at his neck. Gurgling. His sneakers skidded on the floor. The crowd largely ignored him.
The acrid taste was overwhelming. I choked, then brought my wrist to my mouth and spat, smearing the insides of my lips between my carpal bones. My saliva was tinged with black. It looked like I’d gnawed on a pen nib until it burst between my teeth. It left smudges on the back of my hand.
I lunged forward and dove beside Levi. Seized him above the elbows, dragged him upright. Sank my nails into the fabric of his jacket. The veins down the back of my hands looked darker, looked like they were raised over my bones like interwoven leeches. I shook him, snarling like a fucking dog, and his mouth popped open wide. His eyes bulged out of his head, swiveled in their sockets like lottery balls. A thin, sketchy line had snaked itself around his throat. It glimmered there, dark and thirsty. The sigil circle we’d drawn around our Ken doll’s neck looked uglier on him, like a poisonous, angry choker.
Levi pulled against my grip, had to strain his neck to glare me. He curled his lip and spat something that sounded like Bitch. With a jerk of his arms, he wrenched himself free of my grasp, shoulders heaving, ribs spasming under his jacket—
And the whites of his eyes turned scarlet. Levi doubled over, threw his hands over his face. I grabbed him by the hood and yanked him toward the door. He buckled, and suddenly there was a second set of hands on his shoulders. A third seized his wrists, a fourth his hair. Flashes of silky, liquid fabric swept around his body, dragged him off the dance floor. The fists in his hair released him to prop open the door, and the four of hauled him through it, into the cold beyond. The door slammed shut behind us.
Standing on the porch was like the first jump into a lake. Sound dulled, cold sliced bone deep, and we were alone in the dark, surrounded only by neon splatter marks and shapeless, swaying trees.
“So,” said Jing. She shoved Levi to the ground, placed her foot between his shoulder blades and shifted her weight against his spine. Levi gasped, clawed at the lichen-stained concrete, but Jing didn’t let up. She peered down at the back of his head with disgust, and then looked up at me. Cocked a penciled brow. “Who the fuck is this?”
“That’s Chett,” said Yates. She wrapped her arms around her stomach and her chin quivered. Upon her pronouncement of “Chett,” Levi convulsed again, and I imagined the ugly black line growing a little thicker on his throat.
Daisy sneered. Spat beside his head, then tossed an arm around Yates’ shoulders. Yates leaned into the half embrace and Daisy rested her cheek against Yates’ forehead, gave her a little squeeze.
“Thought our spell didn’t work,” Jing mused, twisting her wedge heel between his vertebrae like she was snuffing out a cigarette. “This is the sicko who child-snatched you, isn’t it, Sideways? Shouldn’t it have worked then?”
“I couldn’t talk.” My voice was brittle, jagged. I felt like my insides were melting. My organs were all tangled and fucked up. The ink smell made me sick. “Couldn’t call him Chett. Guess that was part of it.”
He swore, shuddered, whimpered.
Yates flinched and looked away.
“Damn.” Jing stepped off, knelt by his side. Rubbed her hands together and took a fistful of his hair, jerked his head up to make him look at her. If he could look at her. I had an inkling that looking at her might go poorly for him. “Hey there, witchfinder. If I ever see your simpering face again, I’ll smash it in. Are we clear?”
Levi, between wheezes, managed a broken, toothy smile. “Clear as day.”
“Fuck you.”
Levi peeled himself off the concrete and half staggered, half fell down the porch steps. His steps were even, well placed, but he shook at his core and his movements looked zombie-like, agonized. In the light of the half-moon, I could just make out a shadow on his back, a dark smear where Jing’s foot had been.
My vision blurred.
Your friends are nicer than I am. I would’ve eaten him raw, teeth, bones, and all. I would’ve split him like a salmon and flipped him inside out, and I would’ve swallowed his insides down my throat and relished it.
The world spotted, flickered like the swan song of a dingy florescent light. My head swam. Colors inverted and I buckled, swayed forward.
Something caught me, hauled me back, held me in place. I knew without looking that it was Jing. I could tell, somehow.
She pressed her nose into my hair, spoke just loud enough for me to hear. “Hey. Hey. What the fuck happened? You were there and then you vanished.”
I rocked back on my heels. Swayed against her, bracing my weight against her arms and her hands. She held me firm, like a second spine.
“Madeline Kline was Addie.”
Levi was a pinprick in the dark. The night ate him up, black as ink, and I couldn’t spot his shoulders against the trees anymore. He was gone. I thought I heard an engine rev somewhere out of sight.
Madeline was gone, too.
Madeline was gone with a slice of me inside her.
Part of my body wasn’t inside of me. It felt like she’d taken my lungs and my stomach, too. All my guts were gone.
Jing traced her nails down my arms, toward my elbows, a
nd up again. “What do you need right now, Sideways?” Her voice was warm above my ear. “Talk to me. What’s wrong?”
Daisy and Yates glanced at us, leaned in closer.
I looked up at the patch of sky above us that shone through a hole in the slanted porch roof. My voice felt disconnected from my throat and it took concentration to fish it out of my chest cavity, hook it through my teeth. “Madeline took my specter.” My gaze fell, fixed on the vague spot where Levi had vanished. “Because of him, I think.”
Jing went rigid. The air between the four of us went cold, and she breathed something at Yates and Daisy that I maybe could’ve caught if I tried, but my ability to focus on anything was dissolving fast. I thought I heard her say, Well, tell them, and We should, and What time is it?
“Got it,” Daisy said, sounding prickly, but genuinely affirmative. She went back in the house and barked something, and without warning, the music fell dead. I could hear people inside complaining, and the rotting house groaning underneath them.
“Sideways,” Jing said. She adjusted her grip on me, moved until she was in my line of sight. “Delacroix House should still be open if we leave right now. Do you want to go see if they know what to do? Or you can go home if you want. Whatever you wanna do.”
My head nodded, jostling my eyes around in their sockets. “Delacroix House sounds like a good idea. Let’s go there.”
“Of course,” said Yates, all eyes and twisting mouth.
“We’ll leave in ten minutes, tops,” Jing explained to me. “Daisy’s breaking up the crowd, but we don’t have to wait for them to go. She’ll yank the equipment, or pay somebody else to do it, and then we’re gone. Okay?”
There was a well of something in me that burst. I tried to say thank you, but I couldn’t move my mouth. I just hugged her instead. She had the mercy not to comment on the fact that I was crying so hard that I thought it might tear my lungs up.
The Scapegracers Page 28