The next thing she knew, pale morning light streamed in through the window and she heard something walking around in her apartment.
12
The Last One Anyone Should Trust
Celia’s first thought was that it must be a burglar. Then she remembered the monsters and how they were real and she was the doom girl.
Someone or something was in her house.
Celia pulled her faded purple comforter over her head, like if she covered up every inch of her body, she’d be safe. I destroyed a Big, she thought, touching her leather bracelet and willing herself to do something.
She peeked out from under her blankets.
Demetri, tiptoeing past her open bedroom door, froze. He turned his head slowly and looked at her. He winced. “Sorry,” he whispered.
Celia sat up. No one should break into someone else’s house, but she was so relieved it wasn’t anyone dangerous. Besides, she wanted to ask him about why he was at the cathedral and what he knew about magic, prophecies, and monsters. But the first thing she said was “What are you doing here?”
He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Sorry,” he said again. Demetri wore the same ratty clothes and bumpy knit cap as yesterday. He rubbed the dark half-moons under his eyes. “I had a bad dream about you getting hurt. I wanted to come here and leave some protection spells. You are okay, right?” He stared at her intensely.
“Yeah. Kind of?” Celia yawned and scratched the itchy spot on her cheek. Her ribs ached.
“I should leave.”
“You can leave,” Celia said. “But not until you answer some questions.”
Outside the morning light tinged the clouds pink and blue in the east, but darker clouds stretched above them, covering most of the sky. Demetri took his yo-yo out of his pocket. “How’s your cheek?” he asked as his hand moved and flowed around the yo-yo. The plastic circle danced for him.
She rubbed it. “Fine. Itchy where you touched it. Why is that?”
He looked at his spinning yo-yo. “Leave it alone and it will go away.”
Celia checked her alarm clock to see if the electricity had come back. Nope. She grabbed the cell phone to see if it worked. Nope. She glanced around her room, wondering what Demetri would think of the usual mess, with clothes and books strewn across the floor, along with a broken lamp and some broken glass near the window. “You want some breakfast? I’ve got chocolate wafers, or cereal.”
“Do not offer me anything. It sets a bad precedent and makes me think I can take things from you.” Demetri snapped up his yo-yo and stared at the ground. “I told you that already.”
His words made her nervous. “I forgot you’re some kind of klepto or something.” Celia slipped out of bed and padded into the kitchen, wishing she wasn’t wearing the hearts-and-rainbows kiddie pajamas her grandma had sewn for her when she was eleven. Demetri followed, keeping his distance. She filled the kettle with water for tea but then remembered she had no way of heating it. She poured herself a glass of water instead and added a spoonful of melted cranberry concentrate from the freezer. Demetri stood in the kitchen’s doorway. There were so many things she wanted to ask him, but she didn’t know where to start.
“So why were you at the cathedral spying on the hunters?”
“To learn things.”
Celia rolled her eyes and drank some juice. “That explains nothing.”
“You should stay away from the hunters.” He looked toward the front door like he wanted to leave.
“Did you hear about the battle or something? Is that why you’re here?”
“Battle?” He played with the silver salt and pepper shakers on the counter.
Would talking about it betray the hunters? They hadn’t told her to keep anything secret, and Demetri was part of all this, somehow. She touched the small callus on her cheek. “The hunters told me about”—her voice dropped to a whisper—“monsters. I needed proof, so we went hunting and fought Dreck.”
Demetri’s eyes widened. “Dreck? He’s really powerful.” His knuckles whitened around the shakers.
“And stinky,” Celia added.
“They should not have taken you with them. They put you in real danger.”
“It was an accident. We were only supposed to be hunting Littles.”
Demetri’s eyes narrowed to slits. “And did you terrorize any Littles before fighting Dreck?”
“What? No. I helped Dreck’s Little. I let him out of his cage. He seemed nice.”
Demetri nodded. “They’re just kids, you know.”
“Yeah. But then he did attack me a little bit.”
Demetri groaned and closed his eyes. “I came here to make sure no monsters take notice of you. Stay away from all of this, Celia.”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure I can. Anyway, I might be really good at fighting monsters.” She gulped down more cranberry juice. Too warm, but the sourness tasted good. “Dreck almost killed us, but then I ended up finding his heart and destroying him.”
Demetri blinked. Then his lips ticked upward. “You found his heart?”
Celia grinned and sipped more juice. She tried to look tough but had no idea how to. “Yeah. I sort of loved it, in a weird way. Maybe because I’m the doom girl.”
Demetri let out another soft groan. “Why would you say that? You must not become part of this world. It is made of sadness and tragedy.” He looked down at his black-nail-polished fingernails, and Celia thought he might start crying. “If I dragged you into it somehow, I’m so sorry.”
“You didn’t,” she said. “It’s not your fault.” Celia crunched on a handful of dry cereal. “Your friend and one of the hunters dreamed about me before the earthquake. The hunters put out a magic piece of paper that only the doom girl could find, and I found it. You didn’t make the prophecy.” She paused. “Did you?” There was so much she still didn’t understand.
“Nobody makes prophecies,” he said. “They are hints about what’s coming. Like a map, to anyone who knows what to look for.” He frowned. “A really unhelpful map that never makes sense until it’s all over, usually. Whatever anyone tells you, they don’t know anything for certain. You don’t have to be a part of this.”
“Amber and Ruby say trouble will follow me until this is over. Do you have any idea about what I’m supposed to do?”
Demetri shook his head. “Stay home and not think about monsters.”
Celia shrugged. “I can’t. That’s not how brains work. Besides, the hunters say they’ll help me, and if there’s a way I can do good, I . . . I want to do something good.” She chewed on another handful of cereal.
“It’s not safe.”
Yesterday, Celia had almost run home a half dozen times. But she hadn’t, and she’d saved people and been almost like . . . a hero. “The hunters say I have to save the city.”
Demetri stared at her for a long moment. “They are excellent at twisting the truth.”
“At least they tell me stuff and don’t act all cryptic.” Celia swallowed down some more cereal and then opened a drawer to grab some nuts. A glass jar had broken inside, and she carefully retrieved a plastic bag of almonds amid the shards. “So you don’t like the hunters?”
He shrugged and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Their world is black and white. Not gray. Maybe they’re right. Who am I to judge? I’m the last one anyone should trust.”
But anyone who said that seemed extra trustworthy, just by saying it, Celia thought. Only honest people admitted they weren’t perfect. She breathed in his apple-and-sunlight scent as she chewed on some almonds. “Tell me stuff, Demetri. I know there’s a doom prophecy. I know monsters are real. What else?”
He looked back at the front door.
“If you’re not a hunter, how are you involved?” She remembered him feeding shoelaces into a drain when she’d first seen him. And on the roof he’d been chanting and playing with his yo-yo. “You use magic, just like the hunters, don’t you? They force monsters to make spells for them. Is tha
t what you do?”
“My methods are different, but . . . yes.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
Celia smiled. Something inside her relaxed. Demetri was into magic, just like Amber. Maybe it didn’t have to be any more complicated than that. “Is your yo-yo full of magical spells? Is that part of how you do it?”
“You think I’m that good with a yo-yo?”
Celia rolled her eyes, wishing he would give a straight answer.
“It’s just a yo-yo,” he added softly. “It helps me concentrate.” Demetri went still and light pulsed out from him. For an instant, he glowed like the sun.
Celia blinked. “Whoa. What was that?”
“You saw? Most people are blind to magic.”
“Was that your aura?” Celia had an aunt who could see auras. She said Celia had a lavender and green one.
“No. My wards. I wear protection spells, and I made them visible to check their strength. I keep having the feeling that they’re weakening, especially around you. But they’re intact.”
“Like the spray the hunters use to keep Littles away?”
“Their spray stinks and burns any Little who touches them. My wards work a more subtle magic: they make it so no one knows I even exist.”
“Why do you need wards?” Celia picked up some shards of glass and put them in the garbage under the sink.
“To make it hard for them to find me.”
“Who?”
“Monsters.”
“Oh.” Celia paused. Of course. “Can I have one?”
Demetri crossed his arms over his chest and frowned.
“Is that rude? Does it break some magical code of conduct? Sorry. I just thought, since I’m the doom girl and all . . .” She wished she wasn’t always saying the wrong thing around him.
“It’s a good idea. But it comes with a complication.”
“What?”
“Since it’s my ward, I’ll always know where you are if you wear it.” He looked like he wanted to tell her more, but he didn’t.
“So, you’ll have magical GPS to find me?” She gulped down the last of her cranberry juice. “That seems fine.”
Demetri slipped a silver necklace over his head. A granite stone pendant hung down from it. At least seven other necklaces peeked out from beneath his ragged hoodie. He placed it on the formica counter between them.
Celia’s fingers tingled when she touched it. The chain was warm from his body heat, and the ward felt heavier than it looked. She held the gray pendant in her palm. It was flat and oval shaped, with a hole bored into the top of it. “How was it made? Do you know?” He had said he had different methods than the hunters, but he would still have had to get a monster to make it.
Demetri touched the other necklaces around his neck. “Spells take sacrifice. This one took the memory of fireflies.”
“So now that monster can’t remember fireflies?”
Demetri shrugged. “The memories are still there, but what they meant and why they were important fade to gray. Keep the ward on, Celia. It is my best one: grounded and stable.”
“Seriously? I can give it back if you need it.” She ran her fingers over the smooth stone.
“Take it. These are uncertain days. For you, especially, doom girl.”
She slipped it over her head. The necklace felt like it belonged there.
“You could leave Youngstown and never come back, you know,” he said.
“Aren’t there monsters in other cities too?”
“More or less. In some places, a lot less. And the prophecy only extends to the borders of Youngstown.”
“But I have to wait for my parents to come home. Besides, the ferry dock and airport are messed up. The bridges are out.”
“If you get the chance to leave, consider it.”
She shrugged and then nodded, but what planet did he live on where a kid could go and do whatever she wanted? And anyway, how was she supposed to save the city if she bailed?
Demetri watched her with his sad face. “How’s your cheek, really?”
“I can feel where you touched me. Did some magic you have from a spell leak into me? Is that why?” She ran a forefinger over the rough skin.
“Yes.” Demetri stared at her cheek. “I’m sorry.”
“Does it look that bad?” Celia walked out of the kitchen. Demetri pressed himself to the side of the doorway as she passed. She went into her parents’ room to look at her cheek in the mirror. She could just make out a faint pink mark the size of a fingertip, but if she hadn’t been looking, she wouldn’t have noticed. “With everything that’s going on, it seems like the last thing to worry about,” she called back to him. “So tell me about how you learned about magic and monsters. I keep wondering about you.”
“Of course you do,” he said, so quietly she wasn’t sure she’d heard right.
Celia walked back to the kitchen, but Demetri wasn’t there, or in the living room, or even in her bedroom. She found a note taped to the front door, above all the locks. It read, Forget me and everything that’s happened since the earthquake. The note had his sunny apple scent on it. His handwriting looked shaky.
But what if she didn’t want to forget everything? And why had he shown up at all if he didn’t want anything to do with her? Why would he care enough to set up protection spells and give her a ward? And why, even after talking to him, was she still so full of questions?
Celia slipped his note into her pocket and walked into the kitchen. She tried the landline and the cell again. Neither worked. She turned on the radio, but it was all talk about people trapped in rubble and gas leaks. She turned it off.
A knock came from the front door.
Demetri was back? She ran to it and flung the door open.
Ruby and Amber stood dressed from head to toe in black.
“Hey Celia! Ready for hunter training?” Amber asked, and gave her a quick hug.
Ruby walked past Celia and went straight into the living room. She took it all in with one sweeping glance before flopping down on the couch.
Celia searched the room to make sure there wasn’t any evidence Demetri had been there. She saw a new houseplant on the mantel and a bright-red mug on the coffee table that hadn’t been there before. He had said he was here to leave protection spells: maybe these were them. No one but her would notice they were new.
She wanted to keep Demetri secret. He didn’t like hunters very much, so who knew what they thought of him, or if they even knew he existed?
Ruby raised one eyebrow. “The earthquake wrecked your place.”
“I haven’t had time to clean up yet.”
“Ruby made us clean up our apartment before it even stopped shaking,” Amber said. She wore a new pair of black-framed glasses, identical to the ones that had broken the night before. “She’s the worst about cleaning.”
“And Amber thinks doing the dishes once a week is overkill.”
Ruby popped up from the couch and walked into the kitchen. She came back a second later with the box of raisin bran. She jumped over the back of the couch and landed in a sprawl on the cushions. “Let’s get moving, doom girl. We’re taking you Little hunting in the underground; then we have a hunter meeting tonight. We’ll wait while you gear up.”
Little hunting? Did Celia want to do that? What would Demetri think about it? But whatever. He’d run off without even saying goodbye. “I don’t want to hurt anyone,” Celia said.
“Not a problem, my tender-hearted friend,” Ruby said. Her purple hair rose up in spikes across her head. “It’s a catch-and-release mission today. We’re on council orders to move quickly, question as many as we can, and not bother taking any Littles in to headquarters to be locked up.”
Amber stood near the bay windows, staring down at the shaken city. She opened her messenger bag, took out a pile of black clothes, and held them out toward Celia. “I brought hunter clothes for you. I think we’re about the same size?”
“Thanks,” Celi
a said. As she took the clothes to her parents’ room so she could see how she looked in the mirror, she noticed no part of her hesitated or thought about telling them no. She wanted to be out in the world today, learning things, doing stuff, and maybe, if she did everything right, saving the city. Excitement buzzed an inch beneath her skin.
The black wool pants felt scratchy as she pulled them over her legs. They fit perfectly. The two thin, black sweaters hugged her frame and warmed her upper body. Her Demetri necklace made a bump beneath them. The wool coat she put on had lots of pockets and seemed thick enough to keep her dry. Last, Celia pulled up silky black socks and tied on heavy black boots. They were good shoes to run in. She imagined herself chasing monsters.
When she stared at herself in the mirror, she didn’t look like the sad girl anymore.
13
Fortune Favors the Bold
“So, are you okay and all right and all that from yesterday?” Amber asked. “I kept thinking about you and how last night was so bananas. It was a hundred times too much for your first day out.” Amber and Celia walked side by side down the sidewalk, easily matching each other’s strides. Icy flecks of rain fell. They followed behind Ruby. The girl’s purple hair was already starting to droop in the rain, but she still walked with a perfect “don’t mess with me” swagger.
“Am I okay?” Celia ran her hand across her torso, where her ribs were bruised and sore. A memory of being trapped in the dumpster throbbed through her. Then she thought about getting Dreck’s heart and controlling him. “I’m fine. I mean, I think I might have broken a nail, so that’s upsetting, but otherwise . . .” Celia made herself grin at Amber, just like she thought a real hero might. She looked down at her hand and saw that there was a sliver-moon of blood beneath her pointer fingernail. She picked at it, but it didn’t go away.
“You did so good. For the first six months I was a hunter, I never even got near a Little,” Amber said. “Does the city look even worse today than yesterday?”
They jumped over a hole in the sidewalk. The cracked ground seemed to have widened in the night. Pale tree roots reached up through the concrete as though they’d had a sudden growth spurt.
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