by Claudia Gray
They drove together to the forests on the outskirts of town, where a crowd had gathered. Headlights from various cars illuminated the scene: a couple hundred men and a few dozen women, all of them wearing raincoats and boots, forming a sandbag assembly line. Huge dump trucks of sand were parked farther up from the river, where their tires wouldn’t sink too deeply into the gooey mud that now covered most of town. People shouted orders, not out of anger, but to be heard over the rumble of truck motors and the omnipresent rain.
“You there!” one of the men yelled at Asa. “We need young knees and backs at the riverbank.”
So he ran down to join the others at the rapidly forming wall of sandbags. The intense mood caught Asa so powerfully that he’d worked for several minutes—catching the heavy sandbags tossed to him, bracing them against his chest, then settling them into the wall—before realizing he was working alongside Mateo Perez.
“You’re allowed to do this?” Mateo panted.
“My parents are here, too,” Asa said. In the distance, he could see Alejandro Perez helping fill bags with sand in one of the big trucks.
“I didn’t mean that. I meant—isn’t this the One Beneath’s work? Are you allowed to undo it?”
Nobody around them was paying any attention. Why not be honest? “This is more indirect. He wants chaos here, generally, but the flooding of this one river? Probably an afterthought. If it’s a problem for demons to help sandbag, trust me, I’ll know.” The burning straps across his chest were barely there, just a hint of something amiss, at the very edges of his consciousness.
For a few minutes they worked together in silence. Asa’s demonic strength made the labor easier—but not easy. Pillow-sized bags filled with wet sand turned out to be tremendously heavy. He did not complain nor let himself slack for an instant. If frail humans could keep up this punishing work, no demon would fall behind.
Finally Mateo said, “How did you become a demon, anyway?”
“I traded my soul and my service to the One Beneath for something I wanted very badly.”
“What was it? What could be worth serving in hell forever?”
“I wanted revenge.”
“Revenge?” Mateo paused for one moment before resuming his work, slapping another heavy sandbag onto the wall.
“Drop it.” It had been hard enough to tell Verlaine how foolish he’d been, how much of his sister was lost to him. He didn’t feel like saying it all over again for Mateo. “Let’s just say, I understood I was dealing with dark magic. And I knew—I knew the only weapon against dark magic was more dark magic. Fire must be fought with fire. So I called to the One Beneath.”
“How?” Mateo was staring now, fitting the sandbags into the wall almost without glancing at his work. It didn’t matter; the sodden weight of them settled into the others just the same.
“You were hoping for some pagan ceremony? Fire and nudity and chanting? For that, you’ll have to throw a beach party.” Asa smirked. “No, if you want to give yourself to the One Beneath, He knows. He always knows.”
“Did He keep His word?”
So many of the details were lost. He only knew that it had been late at night, and he had been looking up at the stars—so much brighter than they were now, unfiltered by electric light. What had he been wearing? Had he been alone? All he held on to were the stars, his fear, and his conviction.
But no time in hell, no magic in any realm, had the power to make Asa forget the way the Sorceress had screamed when her own dark power had been turned upon her. If only he could hear Elizabeth scream that way, just once.
“He did,” Asa said. “The One Beneath kept His bargain. He always does.”
“You mean the devil lives up to His promises?” Mateo asked. He had never stopped hauling sandbags.
“Of course. You don’t understand Him yet, do you? He always keeps His promises. He’ll twist them against you if He can—and He usually can; He’s talented in that way. But He keeps them. Ironically, the lord of hell is as trustworthy a partner as you’ll ever find. In the end, you always learn you damned yourself more completely than He ever could.”
Asa knew his sister would never have wanted to be avenged at the cost of the entire world’s damnation. Yet here he was, sworn to bring it about, because of his love for her.
When he’d made the bargain, he’d believed . . .
What had he believed? It seemed to Asa there was something important about that bargain he was forgetting. That memory was lost, like so much of his mortal life. How any of it could be more important than being sworn to eternal service to the One Beneath escaped him.
“Was it worth it?” Mateo’s face was closed off, unreadable. Maybe he meant to taunt Asa; maybe he genuinely wanted to know.
With a shrug, Asa said, “An act like that—it goes beyond regret or remorse. I’m transformed now. Not the human being I was. It’s impossible for me to say what it’s worth.”
If he had not sworn himself as demon to the One Beneath, he would never have been forced to live in the body of a dead boy and make a mockery of his parents’ love. He would never have had to help destroy the world.
He would never have met Verlaine, or fallen in love with her.
Beyond regret, Asa thought.
The river rushed over its own banks, widening and deepening, swallowing mud and trees.
At its edges, the water bubbled and moved. The mud writhed. From it rose the figure of a woman, soaked to the skin.
Elizabeth opened her eyes. She could feel the river rushing around her now—and experience the power she had unleashed in the most primal way. By now the currents were so strong the mud itself flowed; Elizabeth thrust her hands into the muck so that she could feel it oozing between her fingers, moving inexorably forward.
I did this, she thought. For you, my beloved lord.
Would He credit Nadia’s help? Would He think so much of the strength Nadia added to the spells that He would fail to understand that Elizabeth, His most faithful and devoted servant, was the creator of it all?
Not after tonight.
And tonight, she would take away the last bonds tying Nadia to the mortal world.
With a smile, Elizabeth summoned the ingredients for moving water, and bid the river to run wild.
“Where the heck are they?”
“I don’t know, Dad,” Nadia said for the fifteenth time in as many minutes. “It’s not like ‘the far bend in the river’ is something we can plug into GPS.”
She was driving the car in an attempt to get her dad to the sandbagging line. Verlaine had come over to babysit Cole for the “few minutes” they’d thought the trip would take, but she and her father had been lost for more than half an hour now. Unfortunately, the alert that had gone out had been written by locals, for locals, which meant newcomers who didn’t know the exact location were out of luck.
“I knew I should have driven out with Vera’s dads,” her father grumbled. “Would’ve been less trouble all around. At least I could have remembered to ask them.”
“Verlaine,” Nadia corrected him absently. She kept following along the side of the river as best she could. Sooner or later she’d see the sandbagging line. Of course she had no idea what it would look like, but the huge crowd of people would probably be a tip-off.
Then a strange sensation rippled through her—not pleasure, but the memory of it, but twisted somehow. Nadia’s eyes widened as she realized Elizabeth had just cast dark magic of intense power—without her, and yet she’d still felt it.
“Jesus Christ,” her father swore. “The river.”
Nadia gripped the steering wheel as she saw it. The river was rising—no, surging, welling up so deep and so fast that it looked almost like a tidal wave.
In the woods, perched on the wet branches of trees, were countless crows. Elizabeth watched the scene through their eyes.
Now Nadia had an emergency to deal with. The lives of many people she loved were in the balance. This was the exact sort of situation wher
e love could lead to mistakes.
Time for Nadia to make hers.
“Holy shit,” Dad said. When her father actually swore in front of her, Nadia knew it was bad. But she could tell that for herself. Her mind raced ahead, realizing what was about to happen.
The sandbag line. It would be completely overrun, flooded with torrents of water so powerful no one could possibly remain standing. They’d be knocked down and washed away. All those people are out there—Verlaine’s dads—and probably Mateo, too . . .
“We have to stop the car,” she said.
“Stop the car? Like hell. Nadia, we have to get away from this.” Dad’s face had gone white. “The road ahead gets closer to the river. We could be washed out. Or washed away.”
“Not a problem.” There was nowhere to pull over; the ditches on both sides of the small country road were feet deep in water. Nobody else was driving anywhere nearby, so to hell with it. Nadia just stopped the car in the middle of the road. “Dad—hang on, okay?”
“Just what do you think you’re doing, young lady?”
Young lady meant she was in serious trouble. But she had to get a few feet away from him, right now, because if she didn’t cast a spell to quiet the river, at least a little bit, everyone on the sandbagging line might be dead within minutes.
She pushed open the door and ran into the rain. With a leap she cleared the ditch—barely—and felt cold mud spatter all over her pant legs. Although the mud slipped beneath her feet and made her wobble, Nadia kept running despite hearing her father call after her. The river swelled further; she hadn’t thought there was this much water outside the ocean.
Quickly, quickly, do it now!
Nadia grabbed the agate charm on her bracelet and cast the spell for moving water—moving it backward, slowing it, stilling it.
Her magic crackled against Elizabeth’s; the collision rocked her to her bones. It was as though Nadia could see Elizabeth in front of her for a moment, staring in disbelief and white-hot anger.
Despite that, the waters quieted. Although the river remained storm-swollen, its flow was no longer much greater than it had been a few minutes ago. As the wind whipped her damp hair around her, she wiped the raindrops from her face and tried to think about what might happen next. The surge that had already passed through couldn’t be stopped any longer; Nadia prayed what she’d done would be enough.
“Nadia?”
The voice was right behind her. Startled, Nadia jumped around to see Dad standing there, eyes wide.
Every excuse she could have made, every story she would’ve invented, died unspoken in her throat. There was no getting around this. Nadia had broken another of the First Laws, and this was the one that would tear her life to shreds.
Dad had seen her cast a spell, and he understood what he’d seen.
Dad knew.
8
“JUST TELL ME,” SAID NADIA’S FATHER, FOR ABOUT THE six hundredth time since they’d gotten back into the car.
“It’s not important,” Nadia lied. It felt like the six thousandth time. “Can we just keep going?”
“No, we can’t. Because the river—it did something that doesn’t happen in the natural world. I saw the laws of physics change. And I’m almost positive my daughter was involved.” Her dad’s voice was sharp-edged, but he was obviously fighting to remain calm. “It doesn’t make any sense. I realize that. But I know what I saw.”
You can explain magic away easily, most of the time, Mom had said. She’d kept Dad fooled for almost twenty years, but apparently she was better at this than Nadia was.
Dad kept going, though now his words were halting and unsure. “People in town—they’ve been saying—it’s a lot of superstitious nonsense, or I thought it was—but now—now I just need to understand what’s going on here.”
He looked so hurt. So lost.
Screw the First Laws. She’d broken most of them by now anyway. How could the situation get any worse? Once—just once—Nadia wanted to tell the truth.
She took a deep breath. “I’m a witch.”
Dad blinked. Whatever answer he’d been expecting, it wasn’t that. “What do you—what—is this, I don’t know, Wicca or something?”
“No. That’s a completely separate religion. This is the Craft, the true Craft, that’s been handed down from woman to woman since the beginning of time.” It felt . . . so incredibly good to say it. Just to say it. Nadia had heard the phrase the truth will set you free, but she hadn’t truly understood it until this moment. “With my spells I can do almost anything you can imagine. Do you want to see one? Here.”
He didn’t say yes, but he looked too astonished to object.
Swiftly Nadia took hold of the pearl charm on her bracelet and did a spell for light:
Sunrise in summer
Moonlight in winter
Fire in darkness
She kept the memories sweet and simple.
Getting up early for a school trip back in Chicago, sniffing the delicious aroma of coffee from the kitchen, as she stood at the balcony and watched the first daylight playing on the river.
The night of Thanksgiving, when the clouds had cleared and the moon shone down on Captive’s Sound, the whole town silvered with a thin dusting of snow.
Mateo’s house, his fireplace crackling as she looked from the flames to his face and felt her breath catch in her chest.
Dad said, “Son of a bitch.”
Nadia opened her eyes to see a soft glow suffusing the interior of the car. It was as though she were holding some sort of candle in her hands, though there was no visible flame; the gentle light emanated from the space between her hands, responding to her magic. Her father stared at it with wide eyes.
She wasn’t prepared for what he said next. “Elizabeth tried to warn me.”
“Elizabeth? She tried to warn you about me?” It seemed like there wasn’t one single thing in Nadia’s life that Elizabeth wasn’t determined to screw up. “She said something bad about me and you listened to her?”
“She was trying to tell me about your witchcraft.” Dad kept shaking his head. “I wouldn’t believe her. I still can’t believe—”
“I turned back the river,” Nadia interrupted. She wasn’t interested in hearing more about how her father was taking advice from a Sorceress; anger edged every word she spoke. “You’re right about that. I also saved Mateo from the fire at the haunted house, which by the way was zero percent natural. That disease that swept through town last month? Dark magic. I’m the one who saved all those people. But right now I’m mixed up in something harder than all the rest. Elizabeth, the one you’ve been listening to—she’s a Sorceress, a dark witch, and I’m trying to stop her from destroying this whole town.”
“This whole world” would have been more accurate, but she didn’t want to push Dad all the way to the brink.
“Elizabeth? Your friend?” He looked so confused. “But she seems like a sweet girl.”
“Sweet? That’s the last thing on earth Elizabeth is.” Nadia folded her arms across her chest. “She tried to seduce you. I know, because she told me.”
Then she wished she hadn’t said it, because her father’s face—Nadia never, ever had needed to see her father looking so humiliated. Elizabeth was the one she was angry with. Not Dad. Not even now.
Awkwardly, she added, “You were strong to resist her. Most men—that kind of dark magic—they would have given in. So you proved you’re not like that.”
“Did Elizabeth teach you this?” Dad’s expression was shifting from bewilderment to anger that matched her own. “Did she get you involved in witchcraft and whatever the hell else this is?”
“No. I’ve always been a witch. Mom taught me.”
That made it even worse. Her father went so pale she thought he might faint. “Your mother knew?”
“Mom’s a powerful witch. She taught me, just like her mom taught her since she was a little girl. And when she—Dad, when she left—” This was the hardest part
to say, but the most important. If Dad could understand just one thing, it needed to be what had really happened with Mom. “She didn’t go away because she didn’t love us anymore. She went because she couldn’t love us anymore. Mom—she gave up her ability to love. She sacrificed it to protect me from darkness.” The weight of what her mother had done for her bore down on Nadia every day. “It was the most heroic thing she could have done. She—basically she tore open her heart and let all the love pour out, just so I’d be safe.”
It hadn’t worked. That was the worst part. Elizabeth and the One Beneath had designed their traps so well that all Mom’s sacrifice had come to nothing.
“Your mother,” Dad repeated. “This can’t be real. It can’t.”
Nadia lifted her hands; the glowing, unearthly light between them rose with her, reminding him of what she could do.
Dad’s lips parted, and for a moment she thought she saw . . . wonder. Amazement. He knew now, really truly knew that magic was real, that it could be helpful and even beautiful. He understood what she could do, and there was no need to pretend anymore.
Finally, she felt like she might have something to hold on to.
Then Dad said, “You’re telling me my whole life has been a lie.”
It felt like a slap. Nadia gaped at him, unable to find words.
“My marriage was a sham, because I never—I had no idea who I’d actually married. Twenty-three years and I never even knew her.” His voice had started to shake, and he couldn’t meet her eyes any longer. “I don’t even know you. My own daughter. You’ve been lying to me your whole life. If I don’t know you, I don’t know a single person on this whole goddamned planet, and I never have.”
Nadia realized she was shivering. The cold and the wet had hardly been able to affect her before, as overwhelmed as she’d been by Dad finding out. Now she was chilled to the marrow, and her own father didn’t want her anymore. The light she’d conjured offered no heat.
“I’m going,” she said, opening the car door. “Don’t worry, I won’t come by the house. You and Cole are safe. I promise you’ll always be safe.”