The dance floor was packed now, bodies gyrating to the rhythm of the music. Faces flashed beneath the colored lights. He caught sight of Stacy Shipman laughing as somebody tried to whisper in her ear in the midst of the dance. Will felt things shifting around in his mind again, but he felt as though he couldn't latch on to any of the memories there now. His mind was a constant flux of motion and color, and he understood, suddenly, that this was a moment in which nothing was certain.
He scanned the dance floor, then started to rush through the gym, searching each table, peering into the shadows beneath the basketball backboards. Where the hell was everyone? Ashleigh? Young Will? The Brians?
He caught sight of Lolly, Pix, and Kelly Meserve. They seemed to be in the midst of laughing over one thing or another, when suddenly Lolly's attention wavered and she stared at something on the dance floor. A mass of people moved past Will, and for a moment his vision was obscured. When next he caught sight of Lolly her mouth was open, and though he could not hear her he could make out the words.
What the fuck?
Will started toward her, his gaze shifting to the dance floor, trying to see whatever it was that she saw. Then he realized why he hadn't seen any of the others. There were Young Will and Caitlyn. Ashleigh and Eric. Young Brian was dancing with Martina Dienst. And in their midst, Bonnie Winter danced with Trey Morel.
And a swirl of black mist twisted and danced along with them . . . and became Dori Schnell. A grown woman, an adult Dori he had seen perhaps twice since he had graduated from high school. Always beautiful. Her eyes still so very cruel.
It was as though she had been waiting for Will to arrive, for the instant she appeared she glanced over at him and smiled, then reached out toward Trey. With one hand she grabbed him, pulled him away from Bonnie, and kissed him deeply.
Trey Morel began to burn, his hair and clothes engulfed in flames that devoured him. He screamed and fell to the ground, twitching and kicking, as black smoke furled up from his smoldering skin. Bonnie took a step back, face etched in horror, unable to scream, but it was the only step she would take. Dori reached out and twined her fingers in Bonnie's lush red tresses and hauled her down to her knees.
A chorus of screams rippled outward from the center of the dance floor, from the place where Trey was still convulsing, burning alive. Dori yanked hard on Bonnie's hair and once more she glanced over at Will, but there was no smile there, only the feral eyes of pure hatred.
Danny Plumer's words echoed in Will's mind.
It's all about what you and Brian did to her.
The stink of charred flesh filled Ashleigh's nostrils. Eric grabbed her by the arm and shoved her behind him, but his protective efforts could not shield her from the sight of the horror in the middle of the gym. Trey had stopped twitching; the flames that licked up from his remains popped and crackled, his blackened skin peeled, and his limbs seemed to shrink in the blaze.
Where were the sprinklers? Why hadn't the sprinklers gone on?
“Oh, shit. Oh, my God,” she whispered.
Someone broke and ran, and then waves of students and chaperones rushed toward the exits. Ashleigh did not move. None of those at the center of the gym tried to run. All of them were frozen, staring in horror at the burning corpse in their midst and at the two figures illuminated by the flames, orange firelight flickering off their faces, twisting swirls of black smoke from burning human fat hiding them for a moment and then passing.
A raven-haired woman with hatred carved into her features grasped Bonnie Winter by her thick red hair, forcing her to her knees, tugging, making the girl scream.
“What the hell is this?” Eric demanded.
Magic, Ashleigh thought. This is magic. Once you start, everything unravels.
Eric started forward to help Bonnie, but Ashleigh grabbed his arm. “No. Don't move. Don't . . . don't draw her attention.”
The music still played, too loud, thumping in her chest. Ashleigh glanced back and saw that the doors were open. People were shoving, panicked, trying to get out. Fortunately, this woman didn't seem interested in them in the least. There were still hundreds of people in the gym, their exodus illuminated by the striations of colored lights that twirled through the vast room. But in that center circle, Ashleigh saw that there were still perhaps two dozen people who remained, either entranced by Bonnie's plight or determined to help her. Brian was there, her Brian, though his dance partner had taken off. Tim Friel was there, eyeing Bonnie, cautiously moving forward, thinking he could save her. Ashleigh wanted to shout at him to stop, not to risk it.
Will saved her the trouble. He stepped from a shadowy place in the room where the lights seemed not to reach and put a hand on Tim's shoulder. “Hold up, man.”
Ashleigh had studied the elder Will's face enough these past days that she had come to see her Will as boyish, to think of his face as young. But now there was something in his eyes and in the cast of his features that had grown darker and older, and suddenly the difference between him and his future self was negligible.
Caitlyn was crying, muttering to herself. Her face was pinched up into an ugly mask of tears and her hair was a tangled mess. She had one hand up, not quite covering her mouth. Now, without Will to shield her, she turned and ran for the exit.
The raven-haired woman gave another tug on Bonnie's hair and sneered as her gaze ticked toward the retreating Caitlyn.
“Oh, I don't think so,” she said.
Her free hand came up, fingers contorted as if speaking in some cruel sign language, and her lips moved silently.
“No!” Will barked, and he moved to get between the witch and Caitlyn, his own hands sweeping the air in front of him, hooked into claws as though the air were a curtain he could tear down.
Caitlyn merged with the dozens of others pushing out through the doors into the October night, her blond hair disappearing in the throng, multicolored lights playing across the frenzied crowd. Chaperones yelled to them to be careful, to be orderly. And one by one, others who had remained behind to gape in horror at the spectacle at the center of the gym began to move cautiously away. Todd Vasquez. Tim Friel. Kelly Meserve.
The woman let them go. All of her attention was on Will. She arched an eyebrow in surprise. “Well done. I guess you and my brother did more dabbling than I thought. Don't worry, I can catch up to Caitlyn later. Anytime I want.”
Recognition hit Ashleigh and she gripped Eric's arm more tightly, holding on with both hands as her mouth gaped. “Dori?”
With a dreadful slowness, the witch turned and looked at her, nostrils flaring in distaste. “And don't think I've forgotten about you, honey. Precious Ashleigh, everybody's sweet little sister. Nick fucked up, but that doesn't mean you get a pass. You stay right there until it's your turn.”
WILL TRIED TO HIDE his fear from her. Yes, he and Brian had used magic as a game, had tried to impress each other with the little parlor tricks they learned. They'd cast spells and glamours, but they were nothing spells, bursts of light and flashes of fire. There were a few more complicated hexes and things, but they had given up after they'd cursed Dori. Will wasn't capable of anything like what he had seen Dori do—the cloaking shadow, the translocation, the incineration of a human being. By instinct he had blocked her attack on Caitlyn, fending her off with a shielding spell that he and Brian had used when screwing around, dueling with the weak enchantments they'd learned. It was the strongest and only defense he had. Caitlyn was safe, for now, and he had Dori thinking maybe he was a better magician than she expected.
But that wouldn't last. Not if she really planned to kill them.
The bizarre tableau at the center of the gym seemed paralyzed, only the fingers of flame leaping from Trey's corpse still in motion. On her knees, Bonnie whimpered. Will had wondered why she didn't fight, didn't try to reach up and claw at Dori's grip. Now he caught a glimpse of Bonnie's face, barely upraised, and saw streaks of dark blood on her forehead. Dori had her hair pulled so tautly that her scalp was tearin
g, making her bleed. The witch was too strong. There had to be magic in that as well.
“What the hell are you doing?” someone asked, an authoritative voice cutting through the music.
Mr. Murphy stormed across the parquet floor. He had been helping to get people out of the gym safely, and the cavernous room was quickly emptying. A few dozen remained, a herd of teenagers who wanted only to forget what they'd just seen, to get away from the fire and the death. But Mr. Murphy wasn't leaving. Will would have thought anyone would panic, seeing someone burn to death, but the wiry English teacher was holding it together pretty well. He pushed right between Will and Brian and pointed a finger at Dori.
“You let that girl go right now, lady. This situation is bad enough without whatever your problem is.”
Dori's face twisted into a predatory grin and she tossed her hair back. “My problems are your problems, Mis-ter Murphy. Obviously, you don't see that. In fact, I don't think you can see a damn thing.”
Guttural sounds escaped her throat and she passed two fingers across her eyes, staring at Mr. Murphy.
The teacher's face went slack and he stumbled backward. His hands flew up to his eyes. “My . . . my eyes. What'd you do to my eyes?” he cried. “You fucking bitch, what'd you do?”
Dori's upper lip curled back in disgust. “Stupid question.”
Blind, the teacher stumbled away. Will heard him crash into something but he did not dare to take his eyes off of Dori, not even for a moment.
In his peripheral vision he saw Eric move. It was too late to stop him. Will saw Eric pull away from Ashleigh's grip.
“What do you want? What the hell do you want with us?” Eric asked, moving forward but keeping himself between Dori and Ashleigh.
A tiny wisp of flame flickered at the end of her finger as she pointed at him. “With you? Nothing. I don't even remember your name. You were just that cute guy Ashleigh was not fucking. I always thought that was a shame. If you'd been my puppy back then, I would've fucked you silly.” She rolled her eyes, then shot a glance at Ashleigh. “Curb your dog, you stupid twat.”
“Eric,” Ashleigh rasped.
Will watched her as she bit her lip, not daring to make a move. Eric took a careful step back.
“Ah, yes, that was it. Eric,” Dori said.
Still on her knees, face painted in blood, choking on the black smoke from the fire that devoured her dance partner, Bonnie began to tremble and a sirenlike wail issued from her lips. Dori hauled Bonnie to her feet and forced the girl to meet her gaze.
“Stop. Now. Or burn.”
Bonnie fell silent, but tears now streaked across the rivulets of blood on her cheeks. As Dori held on, she shifted her weight back and forth, revealing the limp she had had ever since the night she had been struck by that truck, the night they had cursed her.
Will felt his fear dissipating. He glanced over at Ashleigh and then at Brian, and he could sense it coming off of them as well. Disgust. Fury. There was an undercurrent of guilt in his heart, for he knew that he and Brian had begun the process that had brought them here. They were responsible for that damaged leg that had never healed right, for the humiliation Dori had carried with her after what had happened with her boyfriend that night, all because of the curse. But something inside Dori Schnell had always been rotten. Whatever part Nick had played, Dori had been responsible for everything that had been happening to them, for Mike's death, for Tess's rape. She had just murdered Trey; the stink of his burning still filled the air. And what she was doing to Bonnie . . . They had cursed her, but they hadn't made her capable of this. Will refused to believe that. Something this dark had to have been lurking in her all along. Not that it mattered now, really, how she got this way. The only thing that really counted was figuring out how to stop her.
He nudged Brian, who nodded slowly.
Will raised his hands, recalling the spell in his mind, and spheres of fire manifested in his palms. He ran at Dori, the flames roaring in his hands, and he reached for her. Bonnie saw him first, blinking the blood from her eyes, and she gasped and flinched away, but was held tight by the fingers wound in her hair.
Dori whipped her head around and pointed at him, lips silently mouthing a single word. Even as she spoke, the air around her head shimmered and Will's eyes widened in amazement as all the moisture in the room gathered there. Then suddenly Dori was drowning, her head and shoulders enveloped in a ball of water. It was like looking at her inside a fish tank. With her free hand she reached for her throat, choking, unable to breathe.
Will glanced at Brian, whose arms were outstretched, fingers dangling as though he had been crucified. Beads of sweat ran down his face and the rotating colored lights played across his features. Teeth gritted as though in pain, Brian shot him a hard look.
“Do it!”
This was a magic he had never seen Brian perform before, a spell that must have been incredibly difficult. Seeing it made Will hesitate, but only for a moment. Then he went at Dori again, dark flames in his hands. He lunged for her.
But his moment of hesitation had been costly.
Drowning in water that had appeared from nowhere, Dori pulled Bonnie Winter to her as though she meant to kiss the girl's crimson mouth. Bonnie's face went into the water. Will faltered. Behind him, Brian moaned softly and fell to his knees, weak from effort.
The water spell collapsed, and it splashed to the floor around Dori's feet. The witch smiled, licked blood from Bonnie's face, and then turned to Will. She twisted her arm at a terrible angle in front of her, fingers pointed downward as though she held something within them. Then with a flick of her wrist she turned her hand palm upward.
Will felt himself jerked off his feet, and he fell onto his shoulder. Something cracked inside him; pain arced down his arm and across his back. The breath was knocked out of him and his lungs burned as he pulled himself to a sitting position, glaring at the witch.
“This is all loads of fun,” Dori said, glancing around, “but what I want to know is, where's my brother? And where's Will?”
Will blinked and glanced at Ashleigh, then at Brian, who was shakily regaining his feet.
“What are you talking about, you crazy fuck?” Brian asked. “We're right here.”
The hatred with which she glared at him made them all flinch.
“I'm not talking about you, you little puke. Back here,” she gestured with her hand to take in the whole room, and beyond, “in the old days, you two didn't have a clue. You can't appreciate what you had. Not really. I can wound you, but it wouldn't be deep enough. And why am I even talking to you?”
Dori looked around, shuffling on that bum leg. “They know why we're here. Come on, boys. Don't keep a girl waiting!”
The techno-beat of the previous song had faded, and there was a moment before the next tune on the party mix began. In that momentary lull, Will could hear Mr. Murphy still shouting about his eyes. He turned to see the teacher feeling his way along one wall, desperately trying to find the exit. From the sound system came a synthesized, syncopated beat. Just before the other instruments joined in, a voice rose above the music.
“I'm here, Dori. I've been here. Just watching the floor show.”
Pain lancing through his shoulder, Will scanned the gym, searching for the origin of that voice. There were only a handful of people still in the gym, fewer than twenty, and they were flowing quickly now out the double doors.
All save one.
As they swarmed past him, the man Will James would one day become stood defiantly staring at Dori. He remained motionless as the last of the people exited the building, and Will realized immediately what his older self had been doing. He'd been helping with the evacuation, shielding their exodus, making sure Dori didn't try to attack them or prevent them from leaving. Watching the floor show, Will thought. I don't think so. Getting everyone out of the way, more like.
Future Will started across the gym toward the small group of people frozen in place around the burning corpse of
a kid none of them had known very well. Will found himself hoping his older self had a plan, because for his part, he figured they were all going to die.
HANDS UP as if in surrender, Will walked toward the center of the gym, where Dori had hold of Bonnie and where the remains of Trey Morel still smoldered. Ashleigh and Eric were perhaps a dozen feet from her. Young Brian stood shakily, still drained from the spell he'd cast. On the floor, Young Will sat up with one hand clamped to his shoulder.
It isn't broken, he remembered. Just dislocated. He might have tried to heal it, but he didn't dare waste the energy. Regret and guilt weighed upon him. Healing spells. If I'd just gone to Dori after it happened . . . even if I wasn't strong enough to heal her, if I'd just tried, it might have prevented all of this. But to do that, he and Brian would have had to reveal to Dori what they had done, and neither of them had been prepared to do that.
Will swore under his breath. More than ever, he wished the strings of new memories that were formed every time he altered his own past would show more, would reveal the outcome of his present circumstances. But the scene playing itself out there in the gym was not over yet. Its outcome was still lost in the mists of fate.
“Well, well,” Dori mused, “this is a surprise. You've got balls, I'll give you that. I figured you ran away like Brian.”
As he moved closer Will had a better view of Dori. She was still a young woman, only twenty-seven, but hate had twisted her. Her mouth was pinched with sourness and there was poison in her eyes. Around her, the others remained unmoving, unwilling to break the circuit that had suddenly been established between the two of them.
“You used Nick.”
“He liked it,” Dori mused.
“And it was you who killed that kid Kyle's family, jumping back to our time.”
She gave a small pout. “The little puke who was helping you? He didn't die? Shit. All that popping back and forth for nothing. Well, I can always catch up with him later.”
The Boys Are Back in Town Page 33