by Claudia Gray
While she struggled in the current, his stomach clenched. Asa imagined he could feel the cold water rushing around him, battering him. When Verlaine untied the fire hose around her waist, his hand went to his mouth, and he bit down on his thumb, hard. It was the only way to keep from crying out.
He wanted to jump up, run out of his house, and dash straight to the square. The floodwater wouldn’t stop him. He’d wade into it, daring the current to take him down, and make sure Verlaine was safe—or no, he’d stop time, stop the water exactly where it was and lift her out. He would take Verlaine from the cold water, save that person she seemed so worried about, get her to safety and wrap her in his embrace, where his heat would comfort her. In that moment it seemed worth it, to be a demon, if only he could keep Verlaine warm.
Even as he raised his hands, Verlaine grabbed the man in the water and started back.
Asa breathed out, slumping back onto the bed. A smile spread across his face. You underestimate her. As much as you worship her, you still don’t understand exactly how much she’s worth.
The Weather TV anchors chattered happily about the “death-defying rescue” as Asa watched Verlaine make her way out of the water. Her silver hair was soaked now, sleek against the curves of her head and shoulders, as someone took the weakened man from her—and spat in her face.
First he felt the shock—cold and hot and cold again, as though it had happened to him instead of her. Then came the rage. How dare they? How DARE they? Do you want to know what a demon can do? You don’t. Trust me, you don’t. But you’re going to find out—
Then Asa stopped himself.
He could not help Verlaine, precisely because he was a demon. Even if he went to her now, even if he avenged this outrageous insult, Verlaine would remain isolated, despised and alone. Even if somehow Elizabeth’s plan failed—and by now Asa saw no way for that to happen—Verlaine’s situation wouldn’t change.
Unless . . .
Asa had always known how he could save her. How he could change everything for her. But to do this would mean instant damnation, to be sent to the hell within hell, a place of infinite torment and torture. There he would remain forever. He’d gone to this place once for helping her, but only for a few days. Even that brief time had felt like centuries of anguish. To know that he would be there forever without any hope of escape, ever . . .
He looked again at the television screen. The announcers didn’t seem to have noticed what had happened to Verlaine. Gage Calloway hurried to her side and folded her in an embrace; the sight of another guy’s arms around her shoulders awakened the demonic side of his nature, the desire to slash and hurt. Yet Gage was helping Verlaine more than Asa himself ever could.
Unless.
Asa got up, put on some decent clothes, and headed downstairs. His mother brightened to see him. “You’re up! I was starting to worry.”
His father sat on the sofa, too; he’d thrown out his back sandbagging, which was the only reason he hadn’t been at that town hall meeting tonight. “Can you believe this?” he said, pointing at the screen.
“Nope. It’s unbelievable,” Asa agreed. He looked at his parents—Jeremy’s parents—as though seeing them for the first time. They’d spoiled their son, spoiled him truly rotten, but they’d done it because they loved him so much. It was humbling to be loved like that. Shameful to steal that love.
His mother noticed the coat he wore. “Are you going out in this? And it’s awfully late.”
“My friend Mateo called.” Lies came readily to him. “They’re patching their roof. It’s a mess—this isn’t exactly when you want a leak, right? I thought I’d help out. Stay over there for a couple of days and work on the repairs with them. Don’t worry. His house isn’t in one of the flood areas.”
They beamed. “You’re a good friend,” Mr. Prasad said.
“Don’t forget—you know, cell phone service is getting weird. Because of the storms. I might not be in touch for a while.” Asa wanted them not to worry. He couldn’t protect them from the pain they would soon feel, but he could give them a couple more days of ignorant bliss.
“But be careful out there.”
“I will.” The lie was even easier this time.
He drove to Elizabeth’s house, knowing she was out. Lately she hardly did more than slither in the muck like a serpent, glorying in the disintegration of the earth around them. Only her Book of Shadows stood watch, and it would not recognize a demon as an enemy until too late.
Asa walked across the broken glass, feeling slivers of it slice into his rain boots, even into his feet. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but that stove glowing in the corner, the one that radiated such unearthly light and heat. The fuel inside looked like coals flickering with fire, lit up orange and blue within the ash. They would be hotter than coal could ever be.
Inside its light was everything Elizabeth had ever stolen—all the love she had taken from others in her unnatural lifetime.
He dropped to his knees and opened the stove. Its iron door burned his hand. Skin still red and smoking, he reached inside.
Although he’d tried to prepare himself for the pain, he still screamed.
Hell within hell is like this. It will always be like this. You will feel this forever.
Asa kept going even as his flesh blackened. Even as the pain made him dizzy and weak. Over and over again, he reclaimed everything Elizabeth had ever taken, clutching it in his burned claw of a hand.
Then he would press it against his chest, letting it burn its way in.
A demon was a vessel for dark magic. So much evil he had carried; so much wrong. He could carry this.
Even though it would destroy him.
12
VERLAINE SAT IN THE BACKSEAT OF THE CAR, WRINGING water out of her heavy, damp hair. Every muscle in her body ached, as though she’d been trying out for the Olympic weightlifting team instead of standing in rushing water. She felt so exhausted she thought she might have fallen asleep right then and there, if sheer astonishment hadn’t kept her awake.
Her dads had stayed behind to keep helping with the rescue effort, though only after frantically demanding to know if she was okay; they finally believed her about the eightieth time she told them so. Besides, she had a lift home, and company. Apparently Team Not Evil had a couple of new members.
“So when I texted Mateo earlier, he said he was with Nadia,” Gage explained from the seat next to her. “I figured, hey, Nadia’s dad probably needs to know she’s okay. I knew I couldn’t tell him what was going on, like, in a witchcraft sense, but then he already knew.”
“Not that I’m having an easy time believing any of this.” Mr. Caldani never turned around, but Verlaine could see his eyes in the rearview mirror. He looked shaken, like he didn’t believe where he was. Verlaine couldn’t blame him. Everything about this seemed surreal: talking with everyone about witchcraft like it was no big deal, the ’80s station playing Prince on the car radio, water inside her boots sloshing with every turn of the car. “Of course Nadia told me the truth. She’s my daughter; I believe in her. I just—I don’t think the world I’ve been living in is the world I thought I lived in. At all.”
“I know how that feels. Basically, we live in Night Vale.”
Mr. Caldani frowned. “Where?”
“Forget it.” Verlaine wanted to explain more, about both black magic and podcasts, but knew she couldn’t. She wasn’t even going to be able to remain conscious long enough to get through it all. Instead she took up her phone—somehow, miraculously, still working perfectly. Quickly tapping out a text with her thumbs, she said, “Let’s swing by Dublin Street, okay?”
“What for?” Mr. Caldani said, even as he made the left turn to take them there.
“We’re going to pick up someone who can clarify a few things for you.” At least Verlaine hoped so, since her text hadn’t yet been answered.
Sure enough, just as they pulled in front of Faye Walsh’s house, Faye hurried out, turquoise umbrel
la held over her head.
“You?” Mr. Caldani looked equal parts surprised and betrayed as Faye slid into the shotgun seat. “The school guidance counselor knows about all this?”
“You told them?” Faye gave Verlaine a look. “You know what the First Laws say about men.”
Verlaine was too tired to deal with this. “Gage figured it out himself when Mateo broke the thrall. Nadia told her dad. So don’t try to push this off on me.”
“Mateo broke the thrall?” Faye turned around to stare at Gage. “He’s a man. That’s impossible.”
Gage held up his hands as if in surrender. “All I know is the thrall is broken, and thank God, because Elizabeth’s house—I remember glass, and spiders, and all kinds of scary crap, and we were in the middle of it . . . uh, spending quality time together.”
Mr. Caldani didn’t seem to care about Gage having “quality time” with Elizabeth. His attention remained on Faye. “You’re an adult who knows about—about all of this, and you let Nadia put herself in danger?”
“Listen to me.” Faye turned to him. Her voice was quiet, but the command in it made Verlaine sit up straighter. “Simon, I know you’re upset and scared. You should be. But Nadia’s a witch in her own right. I’m not. I couldn’t have stopped her from taking on Elizabeth if I’d tried, and I didn’t try. You know why? Because as young as Nadia is, she’s the best chance we’ve got.”
Silence followed, leavened only by the slap-slap of windshield wipers and the radio quietly playing “I Would Die 4 U.” Then Mr. Caldani finally looked Faye in the eyes. “Will you help me understand this?”
Faye rested her hand briefly on his shoulder. “Of course.”
Verlaine slumped back in her seat. Maybe she ought to have some kind of reaction to all of this, but she couldn’t. “Faye can do the explaining. You guys sort it out, okay? I’m going to bed.”
Once they’d dropped her off at her house, Verlaine was able to answer the dozen furious/worried/proud/furious-again text messages her dads had sent to make sure she really, really, really was okay. Able to dry her hair, and change into her favorite jammies, the pink-and-black satin ones that looked so 1950s to her. Then she curled into bed, into a ball, and tried not to think about the contempt in that woman’s face in the moment before she’d spit.
They hate me. They’ll always hate me. If I leave the house again, I’ll be spit on again. Hit again.
How long before someone tries to kill me?
How long before they actually do it?
She pulled the pillow over her head, wishing she could hide in bed forever. At least she’d be asleep soon, safe from everything but nightmares.
And then . . . something changed.
Verlaine went very still, then peeked out from under the pillow. “Asa?”
He stood in the center of her room, shaking and wet. The heat that always radiated from him was stronger now, so powerful that she felt it against her skin as though she were standing in front of an open oven.
“Did you stop time to get in here?” Of course he had. That was the weird shift she’d felt, the pause he’d used to get inside. He was almost hidden in the shadows of her darkened room, but not so much that she couldn’t see the intensity in his eyes, or the way his entire body trembled. “Asa, are you all right?”
It occurred to her that he might have come here to try to kill her again, and yet still she was afraid for him, not herself.
“Do you trust me?” he whispered.
Verlaine knew she shouldn’t. Knew she was a fool to admit it. But she told the truth. “Yes.”
“Come here.”
Is this a sex thing? I think this might be a sex thing.
I’m okay with that.
Slowly she pushed back the covers and rose to her feet. Her heart beat faster as she crossed her bedroom to stand in front of him. Asa’s dark eyes searched hers, with a desperation like that of the drowning man she’d saved earlier that night. Then she was close enough to see the blackened, ragged state of his clothing, and—“Oh, my God, Asa, your hand. Are you okay?”
He silenced her with a kiss.
They had kissed passionately before. This went beyond all that. He pulled her close, raked his hands along her body and through her hair, opened his mouth to devour her. Verlaine hadn’t known she could be kissed like this, heat and need taking her over.
But this was more than a kiss—this was something else—something fusing her together with Asa in perfect completion—
“Asa, what’s happening?”
“Shhh.” He framed his face with her hands. She could feel the rain still damp against his skin. By now he was glowing slightly, like he was melting. She was melting, too. “Trust me. Believe.”
Her entire body trembling, Verlaine nodded. “I do.”
“I love you,” Asa said, and kissed her again before she could answer. This kiss went on and on, until they seemed to be one body instead of two, and the joy of it—of no longer being locked in herself, no longer being lonely, being less alone and more loved than she had thought it was possible to be—welled up inside Verlaine until it blacked out everything else.
All of it gone: Sight. Sound. Taste. Touch.
I love you, too, she thought, knowing he would understand her now. Even her mind was his. Then thought disappeared, leaving nothing.
The best part, Mateo thought, was being tangled up with her.
Nadia slept next to and on top of him. Her head on his shoulder, her hand under his pillow, their legs linked. His left arm was starting to fall asleep. He didn’t care. Every part of it was new—the scent of their skin, not masked with perfume or aftershave. Or the tiny sound she made as she breathed, not a snore, but a soft little mmm. Every exhalation was warm against his collarbone.
Last night had been . . . okay, not quite as smooth as he always imagined. He had never thought having sex could involve so much talking. Starting and stopping as they figured each other out. And laughing. How come sex scenes never showed people laughing? Yet somehow it was all so much hotter than those sleek images from movies and porn, because it was real. Because he hadn’t had sex with “a girl”—he’d made love with Nadia, all of her, every quirk and freckle and sigh that made her herself and no one else.
Mateo kissed her forehead, and she stirred. “Mmmm.” Nadia opened one eye to peer at him. “Hey there.”
“Hey,” he said softly. They kissed again, and he put his hand to her cheek—
—then froze as he heard the front door open, and Dad called, “Mateo?”
Nadia stared at him, open-mouthed. Mateo wanted to tell her what to do, but the only words in his mind at the moment were oh shit oh shit oh shit.
Dad’s footsteps came down the hallway. Nadia rolled out of his bed before Mateo could tell her to stay, and he heard her scoot under it. Which was crazy—he’d rather have had his father freak out than make Nadia hide under the bed—but he didn’t even have time to whisper that to her before Dad opened the door. “You okay? Didn’t return my texts last night.”
“I, uh, sorry.” Did I throw away the condom wrapper? I don’t think I did. It’s on the nightstand! Don’t look at the nightstand. Don’t even glance at it. “I was really tired. I fell asleep early.”
“A teenager went to bed early,” Dad said. “Will wonders never cease. Listen, I camped out at La Catrina last night. Could use your help there today if you’re feeling up to it.”
Dad still believed Mateo’s arrest for assault was due to the “seizures,” or maybe the seizure medication. “I can work. Definitely.” At that moment he would have agreed to stand outside La Catrina in a chicken costume—anything—if it would just get his father to leave. It seemed to him like he could feel Nadia under the bed, holding her breath.
But his father’s head was drooping, and his eyes were bloodshot. “I’m gonna catch a couple hours of sleep before heading back to the restaurant.”
Mateo had thought of himself and Nadia as the people fighting hardest to protect Captive�
��s Sound—but Dad fought, too, in his own way, feeding the people who were working hard. “Go ahead. I’ll get in as soon as I can, so no rush. Sleep all you want. Is the restaurant still high and dry?” La Catrina was on a small hill, which he’d hated when his only concern was how heavy the trash bins were.
“For now.” Dad plodded out, and after a moment he heard the door to his father’s bedroom open and shut.
He leaned over the bed just in time to see Nadia stick her head out and look up at him. The urge to laugh seized him, and she bit her lip, and he had to bury his face against the mattress to keep from cracking up. She was still shaking with laughter when she climbed back into the bed with him. “Oh, my God,” she whispered between giggles. Mateo put his arms around her from behind and rolled them both over so they could laugh into the pillow.
When he could breathe again, he looked over at Nadia, who was wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. Even then, her smile was becoming sadder. “I didn’t think I’d ever laugh like that again.”
“I know,” Mateo murmured.
They were both still bound to the One Beneath. Both still doomed. But for now, they were alive, and together, and happy. Maybe this was their last moment to be with each other like this, without anything else in the way. All the more reason to hold on to it.
He folded her against his chest, and she sighed, as though letting go of a great burden.
They’d worry about sneaking her out of the house later. For now, Mateo intended to lie there with her and pretend they had all the time in the world.
Verlaine opened her eyes. She lay across her bed—head perpendicular to the pillow—in her pajamas, totally alone.
She sat bolt upright, hair falling around her face, as she tried to remember exactly what had happened. Asa was here—we kissed—oh, my God, did we kiss—and then—what?
Maybe this was what it was like when you got roofied. But Asa hadn’t done that to her. What had he done?