For a long moment Will could only stare at her. There was no way to argue with the venom in her veins. He shook his head.
“I'm sorry,” he said, and his remorse was genuine. “What we did, Brian and me . . . it was stupid and cruel. I can't even imagine what it felt like, the things that happened to you that night. I'm sure it won't matter to you that we had no idea how . . . effective the spell would be, but—”
“Curse,” Dori snarled, her chest rising and falling as hate boiled up within her. “You know better, Will. ‘Spell' is such a coward's word for what you did. You cursed me!”
When he had come up abreast of his younger self, in line with the others who formed an odd half-circle around the trio in the middle—Dori, Bonnie, burning Trey—he stopped.
“We didn't know—” Young Will began.
Young Brian interrupted him. “For Christ's sake, Dori, yes, all right? We put a fucking curse on you! We're teenage boys. We were screwing around and you were the obvious target. You hated me! Even with all the bullshit and venom you spewed I still never really hated you, but when we had to pick someone to try it out on, you were my first choice. I wanted to tell you I was sorry a hundred times, but I couldn't, 'cause that would mean talking about the magic, and I figured you wouldn't believe me anyway. And you know what? I'll tell you something. After the first couple of months, I stopped wanting to apologize. You were still as nasty to me as you'd always been. So you know what? Fuck you!”
A small breath escaped Will's lips. He stepped toward Brian, one hand out. “Hang on, Brian. Look, none of that is the point.”
Dori had been glaring at her brother. Now a giddy, wild laugh spilled from her and she glanced over at Will. “It isn't? Sounds pretty much to the point where I'm concerned. But no, Will, you've grown up all full of wisdom. Why don't you tell me what the point is?”
Brows knitted in consternation, heart secretly hammering despite his exterior calm, he gestured around the gym. “This. This is the point. Yes, we fucked you over. You were embarrassed and inconvenienced. Humiliated, fine. You lost your boyfriend, who was a prick anyway, by the way. On that count we did you a favor. The truth is, if you hadn't been hit by that car, we probably would have thought the whole thing was a scream. And even if people whispered about you behind your back, you would've gotten over it. But the pain. The hospital. Your legs? We never meant for any of that to happen, Dori.
“But all of this . . . what you've done? It isn't the same, don't you see that? Are you so completely insane that you don't see what you've done?” His voice faltered, and when he spoke again there was anguish in it. God, he missed Lebo. And now the stink of burnt human flesh was in his nostrils. “You've taken lives. You've ruined the hearts of girls who never did anything to you. And this was all for what? To get back at me and Brian?”
Dori smiled, and for the first time he thought he saw some of the girl he knew in there. But whatever remained of her was shattered and jagged like broken glass. “You, mostly. I always hated Brian. He was a fucking weasel. I expected it from him. It was so much worse knowing you were in on it, Will. I always thought you were a good guy. Until you and my brother took my life away. Made me a laughingstock and a cripple.”
He shook his head in horror. “Do you even hear yourself? Look what you've done!”
“I know.” With a beatific smile she laid her head back and opened her arms as if to welcome a lover. The lights flashing around the room dimmed and the shadows flowed toward her, collecting around her, clinging to the contours of her body, even masking her face, though the way it formed on her hair it was as though the darkness had enwrapped each strand.
Released from Dori's grip, Bonnie fell sprawling on the floor, a grateful sob escaping her lips. With one hand she wiped blood from her face, and she got up on her knees, trying to scramble away.
With a flick of her wrist, Dori summoned a cloud of shadow from the air. It knocked Bonnie over, pulled her back, thrust itself at her mouth and nose, and began to gag and suffocate her. Bonnie tried to scream, but the darkness choked her. Her eyes were wide; a veil of shadow moved over her retinas, blacking them out completely. She spasmed and bucked against the parquet floor.
“Dori, no!” Young Brian snapped.
Will's younger self ran to Dori, tried to pull at the darkness, but it slipped through his fingers like mercury. Ashleigh screamed as Eric pulled away from her and ran at Dori.
“Eric, no!”
Cloaked in shadows, music and color passing through her as though she were not there at all, Dori turned to face Eric as he ran at her, shouting obscenities. Will wanted to grab him, pull him back, but he knew it was too late. She raised both hands, middle and ring fingers folded back, and as she muttered something she made a motion as though she were pushing down upon the air.
With a double whip crack that echoed across the gym, both of Eric's legs broke and he crumbled to the ground, crying out in pain and shock. Dori wasn't done. She thrust her tongue out and gave a serpentine hiss. The darkness misted like black spit and floated across to touch Eric's hands. Instantly he began to shout in alarm. His eyes widened in horror as he raised his hands and turned them on himself. Formed into claws, his fingers began to tear into his own face.
The witch scowled at Will. “Makes your little pussy magic act look like card tricks, doesn't it? Now, let's see, what fun have I reserved for Ashleigh?”
“Will!” Young Brian shouted, and both the younger and the older turned to glance at him. “There's no hope for her. Do something!”
Bonnie was dying. Eric was killing himself. Ashleigh was next. Brian was right. This thing his sister had become was beyond redemption. They had no other choice. Eyes locked on Dori's, Will uttered two words.
“Kill her.”
WHEN THEY HAD PLANNED this, Brian had never imagined that the monster those words would be spoken about would be his sister. Back in their time, in the future, he had not seen her for more than three years. Yet as he lurked in the shadows and watched, listening to every word, he felt only the smallest temptation to reveal himself, to abandon the plan. They had known that whoever was behind this was far more adept at magic than any of them, that none of the little spells and hexes they had learned would be strong enough to destroy the magician behind the terror of the past week. That made it all the more important for them not to show all of their cards before they were ready.
The element of surprise would work only once.
From the place where he lurked, so close to the ceiling of that cavernous room, he could have reached out to touch the rafters. Of the seventeen spells he had mastered in the time when he had played with magic, levitation had always been his favorite. Of all of them, it was the one he continued to be drawn to over the years. He had sworn off other magics as too dangerous, and somehow unclean. But levitation still felt as wondrous as he had once naïvely believed that all magic would be.
Above the lights, amidst the echoes of the pulsing music whose dancers had all fled in terror, Brian Schnell walked on air.
It was all he could do as he watched the proceedings below him not to cry out. Bonnie was suffocating. Eric's legs breaking made a report like a shotgun blast. The smoke from Trey's charred remains gathered amongst the rafters, and he had to breathe through his mouth. By the time Will gave the word, Brian was ready.
His eyelids fluttered with the concentration required, but he turned himself upside down, controlling his levitation with the tiniest motions of his hands. Then came the most difficult part: wielding two bits of magic at once. With a whispered summoning, white fire engulfed his fists, mystical flame that would tear through whatever defenses Dori erected. Of the four of them—himself and Will, then and now—the elder Brian had the most knowledge of magic.
It was up to him.
Dori glanced at Will when he spoke those words, then she looked at the others—at their younger selves, at twitching Bonnie who was gagging on shadow, at Ashleigh as she tried to keep Eric from ripping his face off—a
nd she shook her head in amusement. She raised her hands, fingers contorted to cast a spell, and pointed toward Will.
Brian plummeted toward her, air whipping past his face, his hands outthrust beneath him. Memories flashed through him, images of Dori as a girl, his baby sister on her tricycle, eating ice cream on the Fourth of July, wearing makeup the first time. Yet they clashed in his head with other moments, with all the bitterness and cruelty, with Mike Lebo's broken, bloody corpse in the road, with the pale, haunted, fallen angel that Tess had seemed at the lakeside, her body and soul violated at Dori's whim.
In spite of himself, Brian wept.
His hands burned.
He gritted his teeth as he whipped down toward her, praying he could reinstate the levitation spell at the right moment, trying not to think about what he was about to do. The faces of his parents kept intruding upon his mind, and his tears seemed to burn him far more than the white fire that roared around his fists.
Kill her, Will had said. And so he would.
He would never know what gave him away.
Dori tilted her head back and looked up at him. Her mouth opened and he thought she was going to scream her rage. But instead of words, flame gouted from her throat in a bellow of infernal heat that engulfed him completely. Brian smelled his hair burning, felt the fire searing his face and arms, his skin peeling, his tears nothing more than steam.
He grasped at the air, twisting his body around as though he might somehow arrest his fall. Then he struck the floor, his spine shattering on impact.
WILL'S HEART WAS NUMB. There was no room to grieve for Brian. Not when he was absolutely certain they were all about to die.
Dori stared down at her brother's burning, broken body, flames leaping from Brian's clothes and hair even as the last embers on Trey's body flickered and were snuffed out. The witch seemed mesmerized by Brian, as though she had forgotten the rest of them completely.
Young Brian fell to his knees, staring vacantly at the fire that was consuming the body . . . the man he would one day become. “I'm dead,” he said, voice flat and dull. “I'm dead.”
The shadow form that had been thrusting itself into Bonnie's throat dissipated and she gasped and sucked greedily at the air, face twisted into a mask of despair. The blood was drying on her cheeks, but fresh tears streaked her face.
Just a few feet from her, Eric at last regained control of his hands. His fingers were covered in his own blood and his face was unrecognizable, furrows torn in the flesh. Will could see bone. His broken legs were still twisted underneath him, and Ashleigh knelt beside him, shushing him, her hands fluttering about as though she wanted to touch him but was afraid to do so. A soft keening noise came from Eric's throat.
With Dori still stunned, all of her focus on Brian's burning body, Young Will glanced over at his older counterpart. Will nodded to him and the kid went to Ashleigh's side. He reached out and touched Eric's forehead with his left hand, and Bonnie's with his right.
“Sleep,” the kid said.
Mercifully, they did.
The elder Will took a few steps closer to Dori, forcing himself not to look at Brian's corpse. “Ashleigh,” he said, without looking at her. “Get Bonnie out of here. Will, snap Little Bri out of it and get him to help you carry Eric. Go. Leave.”
Young Will stared at him and shook his head almost imperceptibly, mouthing the word “no.”
His refusal was moot. The sound of Will's voice snapped Dori out of the strange trance her brother's death had put her in. Now she trembled as she raised her eyes.
“He tried to kill me,” she said, voice quavering, rising in pitch and volume with every word. Her lips peeled back with hatred, and spittle flew from her mouth as she screamed at Will. “You told my brother to kill me! He was going to kill me! You fuck! You think I've hurt you with all of this, killing your past, twisting it around?”
Dori lowered her voice then, and with every word shadows whispered from her lips. She stepped over her brother's burning body and the flames did not scorch her. The witch walked toward Will.
“I'm just getting started.”
The music died.
Will saw Dori blink and hesitate, a tiny glimmer of confusion in her eyes.
With a loud pop, the brilliant overhead lights went on, dispelling the shadows. The wreckage of the Homecoming dance was all around them. There was blood on the wood floor, and the parquet had melted to black where the bodies burned.
Then Will saw her, standing by the double doors that led into the school.
“Dori,” he whispered.
The witch saw that his eyes were not on her and she turned to see what he had seen. In the glare of the gymnasium lights, the shadows that cloaked her body rippled and gleamed.
Beautiful, raven-haired Dori Schnell, sixteen years old, a junior at Eastborough High, stood just inside the gym. How long she had been there, Will didn't know. In her hands she held a thick sheaf of paper, its significance unknown to him. But the way she held it, with such distaste, as though it was soiled in some way, sent a suspicion scurrying across his mind.
“Well, this is a surprise,” the shadow witch said. “Come to watch?”
Dori started across the gym, limping slightly. “No, thanks. I've seen enough.” As she walked she lifted the sheaf of paper as though it was some kind of offering. “Remember this?”
“How could I forget?” the elder Dori replied.
The girl looked at Will, though she kept walking, approaching her future self but without even the tiniest glimmer of hesitation or fear. “I never liked you, Will. Let's get clear on that. I mean, not liked you, liked you. I never had a crush or anything. You're not my type. But I did think you were a good guy. I hated my brother. It happens sometimes, you know? With siblings. But you always seemed all right, even though you hung around with him. I treated you like crap because you were his friend. You were a shit by association. It made me hate you more, when I found out. When Nick told me about the magic. I hated you both. I still hate you.”
At sixteen, Dori had been far more beautiful than Will remembered. Or perhaps it was the sadness in her now that made her seem so.
“It was easy to find the book. As soon as I could get around I searched Brian's room. It didn't take long. Dark Gifts. Gaudet wasn't fucking kidding, was he? That's the thing with magic. It's a gift, sure, but there are some strings attached. Magic always costs, doesn't it, Will?”
The girl kept limping, and now she had nearly reached the center of the gym and begun to circle around her future self. The witch glared at her, eyes narrowed. The shadows that covered her face seemed thinner now, her expression more visible.
“What're you up to?” the elder Dori asked.
“What's wrong?” said the girl. “Can't remember this part?”
Dori stopped a few feet from the burning corpse of her brother—the way he would one day be, years in the future—and through the flames she looked at Young Brian, the brother she knew, who was on his knees, weeping.
And Will saw sorrow in her eyes.
“I didn't want him to know that I knew. But I wanted the magic. It had hurt me. Scarred me. And I wanted to taste it.” She looked at him, raised the book a little higher. “I made a copy.”
A copy, Will thought. So simple.
The witch took a step toward her, little tendrils of shadow reaching out from her hands. “What's your game, Dori?”
The girl shrugged lightly. “Like I said. I've seen enough.” Then Dori looked at Will again. “I forgive you. Both of you.”
She dropped the stack of paper, her copy of Gaudet's manuscript, into the pyre of flame that was devouring her brother. The white pages ignited instantly, some of them floating away and some escaping the edges of the flames. But the others burned as if they had been hungry for the fire all along.
The shriek that tore from the shadow witch's mouth was a cry of pure hatred, of true evil. Will would have liked to think it was the voice of something ancient and terrible, something
that was not at all human. But he knew better. The magic had tainted them all, but it did not control them.
“You stupid, silly little bitch!” the witch screamed. “Do you have the first clue what you've done?”
Dori nodded. “I've got a pretty good idea, yeah.”
They all watched in silent amazement as the shadows began to melt off of the elder Dori. She held her hands up and stared at her fingers as the darkness receded. Then she shook her head as though there was something inside her skull she wanted out.
“No, no, no, no, no!” she chanted, pounding her forehead with the heels of her palms.
Will understood. Her memories were changing. Dori had seen what her future held, borne witness to the blood and death and horror that she was to cause, and she had rejected it. She had chosen another path. Now the rest of them were seeing the future change right before their eyes. The witch's features began to soften.
She froze. Her head snapped up and she glared at Will, nostrils flaring. “No,” she said, and even under the bright gym lights he saw that her eyes had turned a bloody crimson. “I won't let it change.”
The witch spun on her younger self. “There's a spell. While I still remember. To travel in time. To live your life all over again. We always want to go back, don't we? If I merge with you, you little bitch, I can stop this. I can make sure it all happens my way. All it takes is one little—”
And she lunged at the girl, hands curved into claws.
Dori screamed as the monster her future self had become reached for her. The witch's fingers caught her hair, pulled her close, and she began to utter terrible, guttural words that did not sound as though they came from any human tongue.
“Will!” Ashleigh screamed. “Stop her!”
He was in motion, rushing toward the two of them without any idea what he could do. The witch Dori was so much more powerful than he was. Her magic was fading, but he remembered so few spells, and what he knew was minor, not meant to hurt people. He stumbled over Young Brian, who seemed catatonic on the floor. Will felt a firm hand grab his arm to stop him from falling. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his own face, his younger face, mirrored back at him.
The Boys Are Back in Town Page 34