by Claudia Gray
“Wait. No.” Dad forced himself to look at her again, or so it seemed to her. “You can’t run off like this. It’s late—out here in the dark—”
Nadia raised one of her hands above her head and let the lingering magic of her spell gain strength, until the light blazed above her like a torch. Dad’s eyes went wide, and she knew he was beyond being able to speak another word.
“I can take care of myself,” she said. Then she turned and walked away from the life she used to know.
By the time the sandbagging was done, the sky was light gray—what passed for sunrise in a town where the sun hadn’t been seen in a long time. Mateo ached from his shoulders to his abs to his thighs; the coarse burlap of the bags had worn away the skin of his fingers, though his hands had been too numb from cold to feel it at the time. Even as he stared down at the raw curls of peeling skin, he couldn’t make himself care about it much. It felt . . . appropriate.
Worn down to the bone. That’s me.
Nobody riding in the truck back to town said much. A few people had taken off earlier in the night, mostly older guys or people who had been injured. Mr. Prasad had thrown out his back, and his wife had driven him home around one a.m., which was why Asa sat next to Mateo in the flatbed of the truck. For the moment, the rain had died down to a sprinkle. Nobody made any effort to shelter themselves from it. They were all soaked, as wet as they could get, and by now no one could care any longer.
Maybe that’s how Elizabeth finishes us off, Mateo thought. She wears us all down until we’re too tired to care. She’s bringing the battle only after she’s sure we won’t fight back.
The truck rumbled toward the town square—and, to Mateo’s surprise, pulled to a stop in front of La Catrina, just as his father walked out. “Everybody!” Dad called. “We’ve got huevos rancheros, toast, and sausage for anyone who wants it.”
A low rumble of enthusiasm and some clapping answered this. Mateo realized he was starving; until this moment he’d been too tired to notice, and apparently most of the guys in the trucks had the same reaction.
Gage breathed a sigh of relief. “Your dad is the greatest human being I have ever known.”
“Yeah, think I’ll hang on to him.”
As they began jumping out of the truck, most people trudged straight toward La Catrina, ready to chow down. However, a few simply waved and headed toward their vehicles or businesses, either too exhausted to eat or too eager to get home and sleep. Among them Mateo saw Asa. Mrs. Prasad had come to pick him up, even now standing beside her car and smiling at the demon she thought was her son.
“Hey,” Mateo called to Asa. “Sure you won’t stop in?”
Asa gave him a look, like, Since when are we best friends? Which was a valid question. But all night—all the weary hours they’d worked—Mateo had thought about Asa’s story.
About how the One Beneath kept His word.
“Apparently Dad’s already making pancakes,” Asa said. “If you think I’m passing up what may be my last chance on earth to eat pancakes, you are sorely mistaken.”
Mrs. Prasad laughed. “Teenagers! So melodramatic. ‘Last chance on earth.’”
Mateo and Asa looked at each other, and for one second it was so funny that Mateo thought he might lose it. Not that the apocalypse was a laugh riot, but—at the moment, Mateo was so tired he couldn’t think straight.
Which was what made it the worst possible moment to see Elizabeth.
To any human untouched by magic, she would have looked bad enough: dripping wet, her once-white dress dingy and torn, hair and skin grimy from the mud. Her ruined shoes sopped through the puddles as though they might come to pieces at any moment.
To Mateo—to a Steadfast, able to see magic—she looked like something out of hell. Around her radiated a strange sort of energy, like a fever made visible, Mateo thought. Her eyes were as flat and black as those of a snake.
All of that, Mateo could have dealt with. By now he was used to the fact that Elizabeth looked like a walking nightmare only he could see. What he couldn’t handle—the thing that drove him completely out of his mind with rage—was that she was also smiling.
Elizabeth was destroying them all, was hurting Nadia, had taken Nadia away from him, and she could stand there and smile.
He didn’t make the decision to go after her. It was more like he saw her smiling, and then his body started running of its own accord. By the time he knew he was going to attack her, his hands were already clenched into fists, and he was only a few feet away.
Her head jerked toward him, but after that momentary surprise, Elizabeth’s smile only broadened.
I’m going to wipe that smile off her face forever, Mateo thought. Just once in her entire long evil life, Elizabeth Pike is going to be sorry.
In the moment before he would have collided with her, an immense weight struck him on the back and took him down. The concrete sidewalk rushed up to meet him as he fell heavily into a puddle. He wanted to swear but couldn’t suck the breath into his lungs.
“What the hell are you doing?” Gage yelled. “Dude, calm down.”
“She’s got you brainwashed.” Mateo tried to throw Gage off—but the breath was still knocked out of him, and Gage was a big guy.
“He’s like this,” Elizabeth said quietly, though not so quietly that the many people watching nearby couldn’t hear. “He was like this when we were together. But I never wanted to say anything. I never wanted anyone to think Mateo was . . . crazy.”
A murmur went through the group, and Mateo braced himself for the usual catcalls about how the Cabots all lost their minds. Instead, someone said, “It’s more witchcraft. That family’s cursed.”
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow; apparently she hadn’t been expecting that. She didn’t seem dismayed, though. Everybody was looking at Mateo, and nobody was looking at her, which was exactly how she wanted it.
“Witchcraft warps men’s minds. They’re not responsible for their actions,” said Asa, who still stood there with Mrs. Prasad. He was smiling, darkly amused, but Mateo knew he’d just been bailed out.
“Whatever you’re seeing isn’t real, buddy,” called a man Mateo hardly knew. “That’s just Elizabeth Pike. You two are friends. Remember that. Try to think about what’s real.” Others nodded and murmured, and the dangerous mood calmed.
Except for Gage.
Gage’s voice was low as he said, “You were like this when you were with Elizabeth? You used to hurt her?”
His best friend was looking at him like he was a horrible human being. No, like he was a monster. It was totally unfair. And there wasn’t one thing Mateo could do about it.
He said the safest thing possible. “We weren’t together. It was one night.”
Mateo badly wanted to add, I never hurt her, but that wouldn’t fly just after Gage had seen him try to attack Elizabeth. And no, he might never have injured Elizabeth, but not for lack of wanting.
“He lies,” Elizabeth whispered as she lay one pale, muddy hand on Gage’s shoulder. Once again Mateo saw that strange shimmer of red around Gage—the lingering magic that proved Elizabeth had him in her thrall.
He could get used to the idea that she was trying to destroy the world as he knew it, but he just couldn’t take her stealing his best friend.
“Gage, come on.” Mateo put his hand on Gage’s shoulder—where Elizabeth had touched him moments ago—determined to shake him out of it if he had to.
But then he felt it again. The jolt.
Mateo had no name for it. This particular burst of energy or heat or whatever it was—it had come to him a couple of times in the past months. The first time had been when he’d awakened Gage out of the thrall. And sure enough, Gage shook his head, the reddish glow around him disappeared, and his eyes looked normal instead of flat and dead.
I broke it. That was me. I can break the thrall. How? Mateo hardly had time to ask himself this question before he realized that this time was different. Because Gage was turning toward E
lizabeth, his expression shifting into horror.
“Oh, my God,” Gage said. He took a couple of steps away from Elizabeth, like she might electrocute him. “What did you do to me?”
Elizabeth glared at Mateo . . . and moved backward.
He’d done something Elizabeth didn’t expect and couldn’t explain, and it had intimidated her. For the first time, Mateo actually felt like he had Elizabeth on the run.
His triumph was brief. She stalked away before he even had time to gloat, which meant he was now alone with a very, very confused Gage. “What did she do to me?”
Explaining was impossible. Mateo tried distraction. “You’re tired. You spaced out, that’s all. Come on, let’s get something to eat.”
Gage shook his head. “That wasn’t me being tired. Mateo, she was inside my head. Like she was controlling me. I know it sounds crazy, but I swear to God—something’s not right.” His eyes widened. “They were talking about witches . . .”
If he hadn’t been so astounded, Mateo would have wanted to applaud. Gage Calloway had just done what virtually nobody else in Captive’s Sound had ever managed: He’d seen right through Elizabeth, on his own.
That hadn’t happened the last time Mateo broke the thrall. Did that mean he’d managed to destroy Elizabeth’s hold on Gage for good? It had to.
“We need to talk,” Mateo said to Gage. It couldn’t be against the First Laws to talk about witchcraft with someone who’d figured it out. Probably.
At that moment, Mateo’s dad appeared. “Come on, son,” he said, scooping one arm under Mateo’s to help him to his feet. “You, too, Gage. You guys have been up all night. And Mateo, you’re not yourself.” Under his breath he added, “Did you take your meds?”
“Yeah,” Mateo lied. The meds were for the seizures he didn’t have.
Back inside the restaurant, while the rest of the sandbag crew helped themselves to the buffet Dad had set up, Mateo and Gage sat in the kitchen away from the rest. This way Mateo could heat his feet by the comfortingly warm stove, and Dad got a chance to fuss over him, while Gage tried to process the fact that the world worked completely differently than he’d ever imagined.
“Witchcraft, real. Elizabeth, bad witch. Nadia, good witch. Jeremy, actually some kind of zombie demon thing called Asa. Verlaine, mixed up in this but nobody really knows how. End of the world, heading our way.” Gage counted these points off on his fingers. “Have I got the basics here?”
“Pretty much. Oh, wait. Ms. Walsh, the counselor at school? She knows about this, too. Okay, that covers it.”
“Then I want to hear more about this end of the world . . .” Gage’s voice trailed off as Dad returned. “Uh, about this new band, The End of the World. Just dropped a new album?”
Mateo stifled a smile; Gage didn’t need to come up with a lie, because his father was far too worried to pay attention to their conversation. “It’s too much strain for you, Mateo,” Dad said as he poured them both some more Aztec hot chocolate. “I understand wanting to help out when there’s trouble, but you can’t pull all-nighters like this. Not while you’re on medication for seizures.”
Cautiously, Mateo ventured, “You heard what those guys said about a curse. About witchcraft.” Maybe he could bring his father into the fold, too.
“Madre de Dios. They’re being ridiculous. They all are in this town!” Dad retied his apron around his waist. “I should have insisted your mother and I move back to Guadalajara. Maybe when things calm down a bit, we should.”
“I don’t want to move to Guadalajara.”
Dad’s hand rested briefly on Mateo’s arm. “Something’s got to change, son. You deserve that much.”
Then he was off, acting like nothing in the world was wrong as he laughed and talked with the group out front. Gage leaned forward and put his head in his hands as he muttered, “Too much new information. Crazy information. My brain is full.”
Best to leave him for a few moments to deal. Mateo took a sip of the hot chocolate and tried to think.
Something did need to change. Something radical. Nadia’s plan for taking Elizabeth out seemed like it was destined to fail, because Elizabeth’s hooks were in her so deeply that it was like . . . like Nadia’s thoughts and emotions weren’t even totally her own anymore.
He had to do this. He had to find a way out, for Nadia—and through her, for everyone else.
Once again he found himself remembering what Asa had said.
The One Beneath keeps His bargains.
Asa went home, ate pancakes, and waited for the very brief period of time it took his parents to fall asleep.
Then, as duty commanded, he went to Elizabeth’s.
The human body he wore was tired, but demonic endurance went beyond that. He took the rickety steps up to Elizabeth’s door two at a time and strolled in—then stopped. “What are you doing here?”
Nadia smiled at him wanly. “I guess I live here now.”
She looked like hell. Her hair was tangled, her clothes inadequate to the chill: by now Nadia Caldani looked less like a part of the human race than Elizabeth did. Worst of all was the way she’d made herself a pallet on one of the few corners of the floor where no broken glass lay. It was as though she thought she didn’t deserve any better.
“A hammock, at least,” he said. “Floors are dangerous. But why on earth are you here? I’m assuming you’re not charmed by the ambiance.”
“My dad saw me cast a spell.” Nadia’s voice was small. “He said his whole life was a lie. That he didn’t even know me. I can’t go home anymore. I can’t stay with Mateo or Verlaine, because I poison them. So I’m stuck here. This is the only place I have left.”
Asa knew how it felt, and how much harder it had to be for her to bear. He at least could always say this was better than hell.
So he went on one knee, low enough to bring his face near hers and slide one hand behind her neck. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I really am.”
Nadia nodded, closing her eyes as tears began to well. He leaned his forehead against hers for a few moments. Although he knew she could not win—it was impossible—he wanted her to go down fighting. To scare Elizabeth and the One Beneath, even if only once. They deserved a scare at least.
And surely Nadia deserved some small victory.
Quickly he kissed her forehead, then stepped away before Elizabeth entered the room.
“Our new resident,” she said, nodding toward the place where Nadia sat. Elizabeth’s smile seemed more strained than usual. Why wasn’t she glad to have Nadia under her wing? Or was there something else troubling her? “Two servants for the One Beneath.”
“You mean, for you.” Asa leaned against the cracked plaster wall. “As you never cease to remind me.”
“You are a demon,” Elizabeth snapped. “During your mortal life you swore yourself to serve the One Beneath so long as He reigned in hell, if only He would grant you one wish. You received what you wanted. Now you owe Him service. Why do I have to remind you of this? Have centuries in hell been insufficient to teach you who and what you are?”
Asa held his hands up in mock surrender. Something was bothering Elizabeth. Someone had gotten the better of her. Obviously not Nadia, who stared at the two of them as though she were too stunned to fully comprehend what was going on. Who could it have been?
Again calm, Elizabeth said, “We can begin our work in earnest now.”
“The town is half-submerged in water,” Asa said. “And you tell us we haven’t even begun?”
Elizabeth’s eyes glinted dangerously. “This world still stands, doesn’t it?”
“What do we do next?” Nadia didn’t budge from her place on the floor. To Asa she looked like a broken doll, an abandoned thing.
“The town’s destruction weakens the mortal world just at the point where the One Beneath will break through.” Elizabeth’s tiny feet wove a twisting pattern through the broken glass on the floor as she walked toward her stove, which glowed with all the stolen g
lory, love, and beauty Elizabeth had amassed during her long and larcenous existence. Asa stared into its orange light until his eyes burned and he had to turn away. “Every proof of witchcraft we give will incite the town’s hatred, as will every person we wound through our magic. That hatred will arm Him with the final weapons He needs to shatter the barrier, and come through to rule at last.”
Nadia’s face jerked up toward Elizabeth’s. Although she otherwise didn’t budge, Asa could sense the difference in her. She no longer looked like someone dead; life had returned to her eyes. “First you used shock,” she said to Elizabeth. “Then sorrow. And finally hate. The shock of the fire, the sorrow of the illness, and hatred because of—of everything that’s happening now. Each time you took human emotion and twisted it into exactly what you needed.”
“Witchcraft relies on our memories. Harnessing the power of group emotion is the next logical step toward greater power. Finally you see it.” Elizabeth’s smile was no longer taunting; her admiration was sincere, and so the scariest thing Asa had ever seen. “You’re finally becoming one with darkness.”
Asa tried to study Nadia’s expression without being noticed doing it. Did she understand that Elizabeth finally trusted her—and was giving her the information she needed?
Or was she becoming lost in the darkness alongside Elizabeth?
She has nothing left, Asa thought. Nadia was no longer even as tied to this world as he was.
He was bound to it by what he felt for Verlaine.
This world could not fall. It could not. It had to endure forever, because Verlaine lived here, and she deserved to be happy. To grow up. To go on.
Everything else Elizabeth said about their tasks that morning was empty for Asa. He took note of it, remembered it, but didn’t care. From that moment on, he had his own agenda. A new resolution burned in him—bright, hot, and deadly.
Maybe he could finish his part in this sooner than Elizabeth expected. Even today.
Classes Canceled Until Further Notice
Rising Floodwaters Endanger Rodman High, Other Municipal Buildings and Homes