Chloe gave me a cool, almost bored look and then seemed to dismiss me. There was an empty seat next to Chris, and I sat beside him. The table was already set, with all the food in the middle, and now that everyone had arrived, it was time to dig in. The others started loading their plates, so I followed suit, even though I wasn't feeling particularly hungry.
I can't remember what we ate that night, but I'm sure it was good—I never had a bad meal there. But I do remember there was a kind of awkward silence, and eventually I asked why no one was talking.
“It's always a little uncomfortable when someone new joins the family,” Stephen said, and I felt a lump in my throat at the word family. “No one's sure what to say. It gets easier. Maybe after we finish, Chris will show you around.”
Chris nodded. “Love to.”
Chloe muttered something I didn't catch, but Stephen gave her a sour look.
“And you and I will have a chat,” he said, and I suppressed a smile.
After we ate, Chris did indeed show me around. “Don't mind Chloe,” he said. “She's just annoyed because she's not the only girl anymore.”
“Is that what it's all about?” I asked.
“Yeah. She'll cool off. Trust me,” he said. He showed me the living room and kitchen, then led me downstairs to the finished basement, where there was a big theater room as well as a home gym. Then he took me outside.
The grounds were big and mostly wooded. He led me down a path into the woods, and we came to a stream. There was a gazebo positioned over the stream, and we sat down on a bench there.
We didn't talk. I let the sounds of the woods and the stream wash over me. I breathed in the clean, fresh air. It was beautiful.
And my family was gone. I felt my chest tighten. They would have loved it here. My whole body seemed to suddenly ache with their absence.
I felt like I couldn't breathe. I was having my first-ever panic attack. The air seemed to grow hot. My clothes felt pasted on. The world seemed to close in on me.
“It's okay,” Chris said, and I heard worry in his voice. “Just relax.”
Suddenly, the gazebo caught fire. Chris grabbed me and pulled me out of it, then I saw him hurriedly tap something on his phone. When he finished it, he pocketed the phone and held his arms out toward the gazebo.
The whole structure was engulfed in flames, but the fire seemed to shrink a bit as Chris gestured toward it. His brow knitted in concentration, and he looked like he was physically exerting himself.
I was on my knees, struggling to catch my breath, when Stephen came running up to us. Chris dropped to his own knees beside me, exhausted, as Stephen raised one hand at the gazebo. Immediately, the fire began to noticeably shrink. Within a minute, it was gone.
“Sorry,” Chris panted. “I suck at fire.”
“It's okay,” Stephen said, kneeling next to us. “Chris, you did fine. You kept it at bay until I could get here.”
Stephen put his hand on my shoulder, and the tightness in my chest faded.
I looked at him. “You put that out with your mind?”
“With magic, yes,” he said. “It was small enough that I could. I'm sorry I couldn't help at your house. It was just too big by the time I got there.”
I looked at the gazebo, which was charred but still standing. “I started it, didn't I?”
He put his arm around me and helped me to my feet. “Yes,” he said. “But I'll help you learn to control it.”
“I started it,” I said again, and buried my face in his chest as I started sobbing.
EIGHT
I told Evan that story as he drove us, but I had no idea where he was going. He took us down some back roads and eventually up a long, steep hill on a road that hadn't been paved in years, full of potholes and patches. The hill leveled out at the top, into a cleared circle of blacktop.
“I have no idea what this place was used for,” Evan told me as we got out of the car. “But it's one of the most beautiful places around, and hardly anyone knows it's here.”
The hill faced west and overlooked a farm. The sun was getting lower in the sky, which was turning a beautiful orangish color. From here, I couldn't see any roads, just the farmland and the trees beyond it. It was like going back in time—something that, as far as I know, isn't possible even for witches.
“Wow,” I said.
“I know,” Evan replied, sitting on the hood of his car.
I stared at the scene for a moment, then softly said, “I started the fire that killed my family.”
Evan gave me a small nod. “I thought so, after that story.”
“In my sleep,” I said, wrapping my arms around myself even though it wasn't cold. “I must've had a bad dream and that triggered it. Stephen eventually taught me to control it, even in my sleep. That's what the candle was for. Instead of starting a big fire, I light the wick of the candle. And I haven't even needed to do that in a few years. Until last night.”
“You've been pretty stressed,” he pointed out. “Makes sense to me.”
“I killed my family, Evan,” I said. “And now I find out that Grandma was a witch, too, and if she had told me, maybe I wouldn't have started that fire in the first place. We could still be together.”
Evan put his hand on my shoulder. “What happened wasn't your fault. You didn't know. You have to forgive yourself.”
“They'd be alive if it wasn't for me,” I said. “How do I forgive myself for that?”
“The world sucks, Ally. Anything could have happened to them. Look at your parents. Nothing magical about a car accident. Life throws everything it can against us. We have to roll with it.”
He was right. I knew that. But I still couldn't help feeling the way I felt about it. I changed the subject. “So, Derek's a character.”
He smiled. “He is that. When Megan started trashing me at school, Derek jumped in to defend me. Before that, I barely knew him, but it was like an instant friendship. So Megan being a bitch really worked out in my favor.
“His dad owns a couple businesses in town. The Chandler Inn. The Coffee Shop,” Evan continued. “But he also co-owns X-Zone, which is about twenty miles from here. It's like this indoor amusement park. Being friends with Derek means you can get in free, so even though he chooses to hang out with me, everyone still thinks he's cool. They treat him like a king, and they treat me like–”
“The guy who cleans the stables?” I suggested.
He laughed. “Or the stuff the guy cleans out of the stables. But the thing is, Derek couldn't care less if people like him. It doesn't change him. Derek is just Derek. Completely crazy, but really nice and honest.”
“Cool,” I said.
“That's why I'm sticking with you, by the way,” he said, surprising me. “This whole thing is insane. I keep wondering if it's even really happening. But I can tell you're like Derek. You're just you. You're not putting on an act. You're not treating me like crap because you can do all this stuff I can't. And I've learned from him that I want to know people like that.”
I was silent. I was touched by what he'd said and didn't trust my voice not to crack. When I got it under control, I said, “Mary probably isn't at the library anymore, but I'd like to check. I owe her an apology.”
He nodded. “Okay, then let's go to the library.”
* * * * *
The public library was closed when we got there, which I had expected. It was well past eight. But given that a lot of Others can't or don't go out during the day, our libraries often have night hours.
“If it's open,” I told Evan as I approached the door, “all I have to do is give a little magical nudge, and the protective spells will recognize me and let us in.”
I waved my hand, sending out a little stray magic. Nothing happened. I frowned, and reached for the door. It opened easily. It wasn't locked. Evan followed me inside. No lights were on, and I saw no sign of anyone else.
When we got to the Rare Books section, I tensed. The staircase was already extended. It had
n't closed behind whoever had last used it. Something was wrong.
“Stay behind me,” I whispered, and crept up the stairs. The library was really dark. I couldn't see anyone, but I could feel a presence.
Then I heard a moan from behind the desk. I approached slowly and found Mary lying on the floor. She was bleeding and breathing shallowly. Evan and I slipped behind the desk and knelt beside her.
“What is it?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
She swallowed audibly. “Demon,” she said. “Caught me by surprise.”
“Still here?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
She gave the barest of nods and lifted a finger toward the back of the library. I was assessing her wounds. The front of her shirt was soaked in blood. Evan pulled out his healing charm. It would do little to help so severe a wound, but every little bit would help.
I heard a bang in the back of the library, a book thrown aside. I cautiously lifted my head but couldn't see anything in the shadows.
“No time to draw a pentagram,” Mary noted. Pentagrams are used to trap demons. Once caught inside one, they're at the mercy of their captor. They can be bargained with or banished back to hell.
I chewed my lip for a second, then came up with a plan. I outlined it briefly.
The corners of Mary's lips quirked upward. “Not bad. Ruth would be proud.”
I returned her smile. “Let me get you out of here and you can tell me about her.”
I crawled out from behind the desk and grabbed a book from the nearest shelf. I tore a few pages out as quietly as I could. It wasn't quiet enough.
The motion in the back stopped. I heard the demon sniff the air. “Fe,” a deep voice said. “Fi.”
I crumbled the pages into balls, dropping any attempt at silence, and began to dart around the front of the library, leaving them on the floor.
“Fo,” came the voice. Then the nearest bookshelf crashed to the floor. “Fum.”
The demon came into view. For a fleeting second, he seemed huge, a shadowy outline at least eight feet tall. But when he stepped into the light, he looked like a man of average height, wearing a very expensive suit and sporting perfectly styled black hair and goatee. He was holding a book.
Standing near the stairs, I dropped the last ball of paper. The demon looked at me, cocking his head curiously like a dog will sometimes do.
“Alyssa Jane Barrett,” he said. I gasped. “How unexpected.”
I had never seen this demon before, and I was seriously rattled that he knew me. He stepped forward, right into my trap, and I held the book in both hands and channeled magic.
It did nothing.
I had placed the wads of paper on the floor to act as the points of a pentagram. Channeling magic through the book from which the pages had come should have trapped the demon. I looked around desperately for what was wrong.
The demon took another step closer, and suddenly I couldn't move. He was holding me in some sort of telekinetic grip. I was screwed. He flung me back against the wall. He was choking me.
I tried to fight back magically, but it had no effect. He just took another slow step toward me. Soon, he'd be out of the bounds of my pentagram.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Evan dart out from behind the desk. He picked up one of the balls of paper, which had blown out of place when the bookshelf had fallen and moved it back into position. “Now, Ally!” he shouted.
The demon turned, letting me out of his chokehold. I gasped and held the book tightly against my chest, calling magic again. Lines of blue magic shot from each of the balls of paper towards the ceiling, where they connected in one single point of light.
The demon frowned, reaching out to test the cage in which he was now trapped. Then he spoke, sounding more amused than annoyed. “I know your pentagrams are always solid, but I still had to check.”
“I've never seen you before,” I said. ''How do you know me?”
He laughed, a sound like a combination of jackhammers and nails on a chalkboard. He stopped when he realized I wasn't joking. “You don't remember.” I stared, saying nothing.
He shook his head. “We still have the same endgame, you and I. I thought we might actually be able to work together.”
I took a deep breath. “Tell me what you're talking about.”
He clicked his teeth. “I would, but I can't be sure that you and I are on the same side anymore, or if you've gone back to Stephen.”
Mary moaned again, and his eyes turned toward her. “Ah, yes. Well, she's not dead, so I haven't yet broken the terms of our bargain.”
“I would never make a bargain with a demon!” I screamed.
He sighed. “Whatever, Ms. Barrett. Get on with it, then.”
The conversation was going nowhere. Once a demon is set on something, the only way to change its mind is to make a deal. And Faustian deals never end well. “Demon,” I said in a clear voice, “I banish you from this world. Return to the hell from whence you came. Begone from the mortal coil.”
Within the pentagram, a wind picked up, lifting a few stray books off the floor and whipping them in a circle around the demon.
“Until we meet again,” he said, nodding his head. Then he was simply gone. The wind settled. The books fell to the ground, including the one that he had been holding. The blue streaks of energy that had formed the cage disappeared.
And the library's lights came back on, as though the demon's presence had simply sucked them away, and now they returned.
I picked up the book he had dropped, then ran back to Mary. Evan was staring in shock. “What was he talking about?”
“I have no idea,” I answered honestly. “Just help me get her downstairs. We have to get her to a hospital.”
She wrapped one arm around me and one around Evan, and we gently lifted her and slowly made our way downstairs. This time the staircase did retract behind us. She sat down in one of the chairs in the main library and pulled out her cellphone from her pocket. “I'll call an ambulance,” she said. “If you two are here when they get here, it'll mean questions. I'll tell them I was attacked by a man with a knife as I was getting ready to leave for the night.”
I knew she was right, but I hated to leave her. As though she was reading my mind—though it was most likely just the expression on my face—she said, “The healing charm helped a little. I'll be okay. Thank you.” Then she was dialing.
“She's right,” Evan said, taking my arm and pulling me toward the door.
When we got outside, the sun had set.
And the vampire from Kaotique was waiting for us. Evan jumped, but I was too tired to be startled. “Hello,” he said. “I am sorry I didn't get here sooner. I may have been able to help. But I had to wait for the sun to set before I could find you. There was a demon here. I smell it. Are you all right?”
“We're fine, but my friend inside is hurt. She's calling an ambulance,” I answered.
“I will be quick. I approached the local baroness and told her your story. She was not pleased about the attack on your friend here. She had not approved it. She found the one you didn't kill—and you did not mention to me that you had killed one, I might add, a fact with which she was none too thrilled but recognized that it was self-defense and defense of a Rockwell.”
I waved my hand dismissively. “What did she do with the male?”
“She sentenced him to ten days in a coffin,” he replied.
Ten days in a coffin, without blood, would be pretty uncomfortable. Though it seemed to me like it could have been far worse. It was a token punishment.
“Did she bother to ask him why he did it?” I asked.
“She didn't seem to care all that much. She was more concerned with their attack on a Rockwell without her approval. Feeding is one thing and is supposed to involve consent. Kidnapping is another.”
“So, I still don't know anything,” I said.
He replied, “You can ask. The baroness has requested your presence.”
Cr
ap. “Of course, she has, and as I am in her territory, it would be rude for me to decline.”
“She also wishes to meet the boy,” he said.
Evan gasped. I held up a hand to forestall him from speaking. “Thank you for delivering this message,” I said.
He nodded. “She lives not far.” He gave directions. “Good luck, witch.”
I sighed. “My name is Ally, not witch.”
“And mine is Matthew,” he said. And then he was gone. Just gone.
NINE
We watched from a safe distance to make sure the ambulance got there, then we went back to Evan's. He was silent the whole ride, until we parked in his driveway. I moved to get out of the car, but he stayed put.
“You're not really going to meet the vampire queen or whatever she is, are you?” he asked me quietly.
I sat back in the seat. He sounded tired, and in the glow of the light outside his garage, I could see that he was worn out. He looked somehow older than he had when I'd found him with Forrest and Clara, which felt like so long ago. I could only imagine what it felt like for him–almost being bitten by a vampire, then going to Kaotique, Veronica's, the library, the attack in the park, then the one at his house, and now a demon and the thought of more vampires. Maybe he'd thought his life was boring before, but boring also meant safe.
“Yeah,” I said. “I have to. I want to find out what's happening with you, but I also can't refuse her invitation without offending her.”
He rubbed his eyes. “And she wants me to come, too.”
“But you don't have to. You're not a part of the Other community. You're not held to the same customs.”
He looked at me. “Would she see it that way?”
I chewed my bottom lip. “Hard to say.” But I knew the most likely answer. She was a vampire, and an old one since she'd been around long enough to become a baroness. She would be accustomed to having things her way.
“So, I can either stay here alone–which could be exactly what she wants–or go with you, where I might have some protection, but I'll be right in the lion's den.”
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