by Claudia Gray
17
AS HE STOOD IN THE BROKEN, WATER-LOGGED ROOM, Simon Caldani thought he’d put together the basics. Elizabeth Pike had been a bad witch, in league with something very like the devil. Nadia was a good witch. There had been an epic battle, during which his daughter had managed to destroy Elizabeth’s black magic, plus the devil.
This definitely called for an increase in her allowance. More to the point, it meant everything was going to be okay. All the old scars would be healed. Which meant . . .
He looked at the stairs, where his ex-wife sat, rubbing the side of her head. As thin as she’d become, as strange as this whole scenario was—even knowing Kim had lied to him throughout their marriage about being a witch—all Simon could think was, She’s come back.
While everyone else hugged and talked, and Nadia and Mateo made out in a way that made Simon think they’d have to have A Talk soon, he walked toward the stairs. Kim’s eyes flicked toward him for a moment before she closed them and went back to rubbing her head.
“Hey,” he said softly. “You all right? Do we need to take you to a doctor?”
Kim shrugged. “I never actually went unconscious. So I guess not.”
“You were pretty out of it for a few minutes.” It was all Simon could do not to brush back her wet hair and check for himself. He wanted to take her to the hospital, have them make her well, so that they could go back home together.
“I feel fine,” she said. “Just pissed off I didn’t give that Sorceress the beat-down she deserved.”
Simon had spent most of the last year of his life trying to cast his wife out of his heart. Every memory they’d made together—even their wedding, even the births of their children—had been changed for him. Every proof of their love now seemed like an illusion; every word Kim had ever spoken to him seemed to have been translated into another language, one he didn’t know.
He’d done well at moving on, but now he had to try to come back to her again.
“Then we’ll go home,” he said to her gently. “You’ll like the house here. And Cole—he’ll be so glad to see you.”
Kim frowned. “I’m going back to Chicago.”
“But the black magic ended. That means this thing you did—giving away your ability to love—that’s over, too. Isn’t it?”
She smiled at him, but that smile had none of the warmth he remembered. “It’s not like the One Beneath put it in a safe-deposit box and hid the key. He consumed my ability to love. Destroyed it, for good.”
At first Simon couldn’t make sense of the words. “That can’t be undone now? Or—or we could bring it back in some other way—”
“You don’t understand how magic works.” Kim got to her feet. Although she was slightly unsteady, she never reached for him for support. “When I gave it up, I gave it up forever. That’s why we call it a sacrifice. Why sacrifices have power in the first place. Because they do what can’t be undone.”
Simon nodded, because he was unable to speak. Why should it be so much harder to watch her leave the second time?
Kim walked toward the door, and Simon couldn’t even tell her not to go. But Nadia called out, “Mom! Wait!” She jogged toward her mother, but she didn’t try to hug her, like Simon had expected. She didn’t even ask Kim to stay. Nadia said only, “Thanks for coming when I called. You made the difference. Your sacrifice—it really did save me after all.”
“Good to know,” Kim said. There was that strange smile again, the one harsher and colder than Simon could ever have imagined. “I’m going to go. I can drive out of town, fly home in the morning.”
Nadia nodded. Now Simon could see how moved his daughter was—the faint glistening of tears in her eyes—but he also saw that she knew nothing would do any good, that the mother she’d known was gone forever.
As Kim opened the door, Simon said, “Can I say one thing?”
“Sure.” She didn’t even seem interested to hear it.
But Simon had to get this out, not for Kim but for himself. “Thank you for protecting our daughter.”
It was the single most important bond between them: the children they’d created and loved, and put before anything else. All this year he’d been so angry that Kim hadn’t lived up to her end of the bargain spouses made to each other—but he’d been wrong. Kim had come through after all, and in the long run, it would help to remember that.
“Okay,” Kim said. Then she walked out of the house, and their lives, for good.
Simon sank back down onto the stairs and put his head in his hands. After a moment, Nadia sat beside him, and he slung one arm around her. He didn’t know if he was comforting his daughter or she was comforting him. All Simon knew was that they’d made it through the worst. So they’d make it through the rest.
Asa slumped in the passenger seat of the land yacht; after the Caldanis had dropped them off at Verlaine’s house, she’d immediately gotten him into her car and started to drive him home.
The Prasads’ home. Not his. But it was the only place he had to go.
“Are you all right?” Verlaine kept looking over at him, like she was afraid he’d disappear at any moment. “What you went through down there—”
“Let’s not talk about it. Not now.” He put his hand on her knee and managed to smile. “Right now I just need to know it’s over.”
“Okay.” Verlaine bit her lower lip, then blurted out, “How are you still alive?”
“You rescued me. Remember?”
Asa would never forget it. Hearing his true name, seeing Verlaine appear in the darkness, impossibly beautiful, made of light—and suddenly being in this body again, wet and cold but instantly free from pain: It was the single most glorious moment of all his centuries.
Verlaine persisted. “I mean, black magic put you in Jeremy’s body to begin with. So when Elizabeth died, you should have . . . left it, I guess?”
“The demonic realm still exists. So do my powers.” Though at the moment, Asa was too tired even to stop time. “Elizabeth put me here, but I keep myself here. For now, anyway.”
“What do you mean, for now?”
“I can’t live this lie.” Asa thought again of Jeremy’s mother smiling at up at him. “The Prasads lost their son. He was murdered. They deserve the truth.”
Verlaine was silent as she considered his words. The only sound in the car was the soft splash of tires through puddles. Asa was grateful that he didn’t have to hear rain anymore.
Then, very quietly, Verlaine said, “You can’t tell them.”
“I have to. They’ll be upset—they’ll hate me for it—but at least I won’t be cheating them any longer.”
“Think about this.” Verlaine pulled the car onto the gravel shoulder of the road, put it in park, and turned to him. “Are you seriously going to tell the Prasads you’re a demon who’s moved into Jeremy’s body? They’re not going to believe you. They’re just going to send you to a psych ward.”
So many people in Captive’s Sound had learned the truth in the past few weeks that Asa had almost forgotten that everyone else still had no idea how the supernatural worked. “Maybe—maybe Nadia could cast a spell.”
“Then you’d leave Jeremy’s body? Can you even do that?”
“Yes,” Asa said, but already he could see the problems. “I don’t have the power to put myself in another body, though. I wouldn’t do it even if I could. I’d have to return to the demonic realm.”
Which now was pure chaos. Which would be riddled with the battles of evil versus evil, the struggle to be the new lord of hell, for eons to come. Not anyplace he wanted to be.
Verlaine took his hand in both of hers. “I know it sucks, lying to the Prasads. But I feel like they’d be happier with you as their son. If you take care of them, and love them, and see them through old age and all the rest—that’s really the only way you can pay them back.”
Like anything made up for the murder of their child. Elizabeth was the one who had murdered Jeremy, but Asa was the one who’d b
enefited from it. If he deceived the Prasads about this, he would keep feeling terrible about it, probably forever.
Maybe . . . maybe that was the price he had to pay for taking over Jeremy’s body. The rent, so to speak.
He imagined the Prasads finding their son’s dead body, mourning him—no. They deserved to be spared that pain. There was nothing else he could do for them any longer, and nothing else he could do for the late Jeremy Prasad, to whom he would always owe a debt.
So he would bear this terrible knowledge alone, and be the best son he could possibly be.
“Besides,” Verlaine said, “if you went away, I’d miss you like crazy.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Asa pulled her into his arms.
“You mean—you’re staying with the Prasads?”
He nodded. “And I’m staying with you.”
She breathed out, a sigh of exhaustion and relief. For a while they simply held each other, as Asa tried to wrap his mind around the idea of . . . a future.
He’d go on from here. Graduate from Rodman High, go to college. Finally find out what it was like to grow up, grow old. He could think ahead to days and months and years to come—the luxury of it stunned him.
Best of all, he could stay with Verlaine as long as she still loved him, and he intended to do whatever it took to keep her in love with him forever.
“So it’s over,” she murmured. “You gave yourself away to avenge your sister, and now you got yourself back again.”
That was correct, as far as it went, but Asa wasn’t able to tell her so. Instead he was overcome by a flash of memory—another moment from his first mortal life, given back to him at last. His eyes widened in wonder, and joy.
“Not just to avenge my sister,” he whispered.
“What? I thought that was why you said you’d become a demon.”
“It was. But that was only half of it.” Slowly he started to smile. “I asked for my sister to be avenged, but I also asked—I asked to be there on the day darkness fell. My sister was killed by the One Beneath’s black magic, so I wanted to see Him fall. To witness His death. He made the deal, probably because He thought He couldn’t die until the end of time.”
Verlaine grinned. “Instead, it’s today. The joke’s on Him, huh?”
For a moment, Asa could almost imagine his sister’s face again. His love for her came back to him, and he thought he’d never known a moment more beautiful than this, when he knew she’d been avenged—and Verlaine was here with him. This was as good as it got.
After as much kissing as Asa could manage, exhausted as he was, Verlaine dropped him at his house. He tried to come in quietly, but as he trudged up the stairs, Jeremy’s mother appeared on the landing. “Jeremy! There you are. You haven’t been answering our texts.”
“I lost my cell phone,” Asa said, which was technically true, if you considered burned in the fires of hell as lost. “Sorry, Mom.”
Mr. Prasad walked out of his bedroom, too, knotting the tie of his bathrobe. “Did everything go well at Mateo’s house?”
“Everything went great. It’s stopped raining, too.” Asa reached the top of the stairs. No doubt his parents could see how exhausted he was, but they’d chalk it up to his helping with sandbags and such.
Mrs. Prasad’s smile grew mischievous. “That pretty girl who came by for you—Verlaine, with the lovely silver hair—she seems to like you quite a lot.”
“I like her, too.” Asa thought of Verlaine’s lips against his. “You’ll be seeing her around.”
“Oh, will we?” Mr. Prasad shared a pleased glance with his wife.
Dad, Asa thought. Mom. That’s who they are to me now. That’s who they’ll always be.
Despite the guilt he still carried, he couldn’t help but be glad.
On an impulse Asa said, “Hey, can I ask you something?”
“Of course,” Dad said. Now his parents both looked worried.
Hastily Asa said, “It’s not a big deal. It’s just—Verlaine, and my friends at school, they’ve given me a nickname. Asa.” He thought fast. “From the middle letters of Prasad. I like it, so I was wondering—would you guys call me that?”
“These phases you go through!” Mom giggled. “It’s just like when you were five and wanted me to pretend you were a dog, and you’d only eat when I put your food in a bowl on the floor.”
“Not exactly like that,” Asa protested.
“If that’s what you want,” Dad said. “Come on, let’s all get back to bed. Good night, Asa.”
“Yes, Asa. Good night.” Mom was still giggling as his parents went to their bedroom.
Asa smiled at them as he quietly said, “Good night, Mom and Dad.”
Mateo helped his dad with inventory all morning. Since the rain had stopped a few days ago, the water had subsided, and now finally trucks could get into town. Which meant La Catrina would soon be open for business again.
“Glad to see people acting like normal,” Dad said as he double-checked the manifest. “Can you believe it was just one week ago they were talking about witches?”
“Weird.” Mateo shook his head, like, Those idiots.
Dad folded his arms as he leaned against the storage room wall. “By the way—the sheriff told me he’s dropping the charges against you.”
His life had become so bizarre that Mateo had almost forgotten about getting arrested. “Whoa. Okay. Good to know.”
“Mass hysteria was setting in. The sheriff knows that as well as anyone else. So you got lucky this time, buddy.”
“Dad. Come on. I jumped in there because those guys were harassing Verlaine.”
With a raised hand, Dad said, “I know. I know. Let’s just hope we never have to deal with anything like that again.”
Mateo turned back to the crates of diced tomatoes to hide his smile. “I have a feeling we won’t have any problems like that for a really long time.”
“Hey, have you decided what to do with the house on the Hill?” Dad got back to work, too. “It’s your place, so it’s your decision. But I warn you, property taxes are a bitch.”
“I’m going to put it up for sale.” The misery of all his cursed ancestors seemed to cling to the place. “Which means you don’t have to worry about paying for college anymore.”
“Oh, you’re Mr. Moneybags now. Well, jefe, does the place need fixing up before it goes on the market?”
Mateo thought of all the broken objects, the curtains ripped from the walls. He’d gone back there just once, with Gage, to bury what was left of Elizabeth—but by then her corpse had turned to so much ash. In the end Gage vacuumed her from the floor, and then they’d burned the bag in an alley.
“Yeah,” he said. “Mostly cleaning up. But we already took care of the worst of it.”
It would have been ideal not to run into anyone while she was breaking into Elizabeth’s house, which was why Nadia had hauled her butt out of bed so early in the morning. Instead, just as she got to Elizabeth’s front door, Kendall came jogging past. “Oh, hey, Nadia!” she called. “Isn’t it, like, great to be outside without getting rained on?”
For once, Kendall seemed truly friendly. Nadia might’ve been happy to see her, except for the awkward questions that had to be coming. “Yeah, it’s great.”
“Also, you know, humidity makes hair look incredibly gross. It’s way better now.” Kendall kept running in place, iPhone strapped to her upper arm; her pink track suit stood out brilliantly against the brown leaves scattered across Elizabeth’s lawn. “So you can start fixing yours again if you want to.”
Nadia thought she already had. Frowning, she put one hand to her ponytail.
Oblivious to having hurt any feelings, Kendall added, “So, do you think she ran away?”
“Elizabeth?”
“Well, duh.” Kendall rolled her eyes. “She was always so skanky and weird. Like how she wouldn’t shower and came to school without shoes on, when she showed up at all?”
The luster Elizabeth had carri
ed around her had disappeared from people’s memories as well. “Yeah. Seriously strange.”
“My mom says Elizabeth probably hitchhiked out of town when it was flooding. I’m like, how would you hitchhike out of here when nobody from out of town could drive in to begin with?”
“Good point,” Nadia said. Already she had begun to relax. Kendall wasn’t going to ask awkward questions, because she already had her own theories about what had happened to Elizabeth. Probably everyone in town would come up with their own story, but Nadia doubted anyone would even go to the trouble of filing a missing persons report.
Elizabeth Pike had slipped out of this world without even a ripple. Soon she would be forgotten by everyone who hadn’t learned who and what she really was, and this town could start to heal.
Kendall said, “Personally, I think she ran away. Can you blame her? Who would want to live in a run-down old house like that?” She wrinkled her nose. “I hope she’s okay, though.”
“I don’t think you have to worry about her,” Nadia said. She jammed her cold hands in the pockets of her coat. “Elizabeth always could take care of herself.”
“Except for that hair. Ugh.” Cheerful again, Kendall slipped her earbuds back in and waved as she began to jog away. Over her shoulder she called, “Hey, if I don’t see you in the next couple of days, Merry Christmas!”
Nadia waved back, smiling, but she waited until Kendall had rounded the corner out of sight before she opened Elizabeth’s front door.
The house looked even more forlorn now. Before, the little stove had cast a strange orange glow that—however creepy—at least warmed the place up a bit. Now the rooms were purely derelict. As Nadia walked toward the back room, she noticed how often she could see through gaps in the floorboards to the ground below. Probably this house would collapse in a few years if the city didn’t condemn it and tear it down first.
She pushed open the back room door slowly, every muscle tense. The last time she’d broken in here, she’d been attacked by hundreds of spiders at once. Yeah, this time she had protective spells ready, but she would just as soon skip the whole spider thing, if possible.