“At least Luka’s okay,” Hutch said.
“Yeah, Luka is, but if it had been any one of us”—Roxie pointed to herself, me, and then Hutch—“we’d all be dead. We couldn’t have survived that.”
That realization had been keeping me up all night, along with the fact that Gabe and I shared something really meaningful before he’d gotten freaked out and run off. As Roxie had been quick to point out, seeing Luka like that was enough to scare away any rational person.
But it still felt odd and out of character. Gabe had seemed so … distant. He hadn’t even really kissed me before he left, and it had only been a handful of minutes before that when he’d told me that he was falling in love with me.
Of course, none of that overshadowed the fact that there may very well be some kind of monster stalking our campsite. But I was learning the hard way that it was possible to be afraid for my life and nurse a broken heart.
“It’s getting bolder.” Roxie sat down on the bench across from me. “That thing is getting stronger and bolder. That’s what I think.”
After talking to Luka more last night, he’d confirmed what Gideon said—whatever it was that attacked him was impossible to really see or describe. So, we’d ruled out the possibility that it was an animal. Whatever it was had to be supernatural.
“How do you figure?” I asked.
“The attacks have been escalating in frequency and intensity,” Roxie said. “So far, no one has been killed, but Seth and Luka are both lucky to be alive.”
“Maybe it needs to feed to grow stronger,” Hutch suggested. “Like a vampire or demon or something.”
“It’s not a vampire.” Roxie shook her head. “When we were in Poughkeepsie last year, we met a vampire named Claudette. You could see her and describe her. She looked just like a normal person. And vampires trick you into letting you feed on them. They don’t stalk campsites.”
“Everything needs to eat to get stronger,” I interjected. “I mean, Roxie just got food for Luka to help him get stronger.”
“That’s true,” Roxie agreed. “It could just be a strange monster that woke up after a long hibernation, and it’s really hungry.” She paused before adding, “Or it could be a demon or something feasting on us because we have special powers.”
I cast her a look across the table. “You really believe that?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “But I can make fire just using my mind, and Luka can heal himself, and we were both targeted. Is it so crazy to think that there might be a creature that feeds on the supernatural?”
I leaned back, resting my head against the wall behind me, and sighed. “No. It’s not.”
“We need to kill it before it kills us,” Roxie replied matter-of-factly.
“You think it’s a demon, and you think we should kill it?” I asked with an arched eyebrow.
“Yeah. Doesn’t your mom have all kinds of books on demonology?” Roxie asked. “You should talk to her. She might know something.”
“She’s got some books,” I admitted reluctantly.
My mom did have a few books on demonology and the occult, and when she was younger, I know she’d studied it more, so she may know something helpful. But she also hadn’t really been herself since we’d gotten to Caudry. This place was making it hard for her to think straight.
Roxie leaned forward on the table, folding her hands in front of her. “Look, Mara, we have to do something. We’re just sitting ducks here until nightfall. If we don’t start becoming proactive, we’ll be dead.”
“I’ll talk to her,” I said.
“When?” Hutch asked from his perch above me.
“Now, I guess,” I said, since it didn’t seem like either of them would let up until I did. And it wasn’t like just talking to my mom could really hurt anything.
“Make sure you ask her about demons,” Hutch said as I started to get up.
“That is the plan,” I muttered, glancing back at him.
“And also vampires, werewolves, warlocks, and anything else you can think of,” he added.
“I think she’s got it, Hutch,” Roxie told him dryly.
When I left, Hutch was still adding suggestions of things I should bring up, which now included dragons and unicorns. Stepping out into the bright morning sun, the air already felt thick and suffocating. I took a deep breath and hurried over to Gideon’s trailer.
Through the open windows, I heard my mom grunt loudly, followed by a loud banging sound.
“Lyanka, let me help you,” Gideon’s voice drifted warmly outside.
“I’ve got it,” Mom insisted, sounding out of breath.
“Is everything okay?” I asked cautiously.
I leaned forward, peering in through the screen door. Gideon stood leaning against the counter, wearing a tank top and old jeans. In front of him, my mom was hunched over with her hair pulled up in a loose bun, and droplets of sweat stood out all over her tawny skin.
“Everything’s fine.” Mom straightened up, and I saw a large steamer trunk, one I recognized instantly. “It’s here anyway, so I’m done.”
“I would’ve helped you,” Gideon persisted, but my mom waved him off.
“Come in, qamari.” Mom turned her attention to me as she caught her breath. “Stop lurking outside like a robber.”
I pushed in the screen door, my eyes still fixed on the trunk, and asked, “Is that … is that Grandma Basima’s?”
“Yes, and before that it was your great-grandma Elissar’s, and someday,” she paused, exhaling deeply, “it will be yours.”
The steamer trunk was battered and worn from age and travel. It was warped dark brown wood, held together with thick bands of iron.
“It’s about time you see what’s inside, don’t you think?” Mom asked. From around her neck, she grabbed the skull key, taking it off for the first time that I’d ever seen.
45. armed
The key fit in the large lock on the front of the trunk, but evidently, it had not been opened in a while. Mom tried to turn it at first, to no avail, so Gideon took over and put his muscle into it. With an audible and angry click, the lock opened, and Gideon stepped back so my mom could open the trunk.
As Mom lifted the lid, I stood behind her and Gideon, steeling myself for whatever was inside. I half expected evil spirits to come swarming out and melt our faces off like in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
When no spirits came, I leaned forward and gasped in surprise. I’d spent much of my childhood fantasizing about what possibly could be hidden inside the trunk—everything from cursed candles to skeletons to actual monsters were suspected—but somehow, the small arsenal of weapons that it actually contained had never occurred to me.
The trunk was practically overflowing with weapons of every sort—jewel-encrusted swords, ancient daggers with wooden handles, crossbows with ornate designs, something that looked like an ice pick made out of ivory, and even a pistol.
“Weapons?” I asked, incredulous. “Why did Grandma have all this?”
“I told you,” Mom said, giving me an odd look. “For battling the dark arts.”
Gideon picked up the pistol carefully. “Why did your mother have a Luger?” he asked my mom.
He slid out the magazine, and when he cleared the chamber, a shiny silver bullet popped. After all this time one would’ve thought the silver would be tarnished and dirty, but it sat in the palm of Gideon’s hand, shimmering like it was freshly polished.
“Different enemies require different weapons,” Mom explained absently. She crouched down and began rummaging beneath all the weapons.
“And he’d best be careful.” She cast a sidelong glance at Gideon. “That Luger belonged to one of Hitler’s officers before he was decommissioned for hunting werewolves.”
“Fortunately, being a Nazi isn’t contagious,” Gideon replied dryly, but he set the gun aside on the counter. “How did this come into your mother’s possession?”
Mom waved him off. “Basima never told me ho
w she came by most of these. She fought on the side of good more often than not, but she spent most of her time in the company of many unscrupulous characters.”
I reached for a particularly ornate-looking dagger, and no sooner had my fingers brushed the cold steel than Mom slapped my hand, hard.
“Don’t touch. Many of these weapons are cursed.”
“Gideon got to touch them,” I grumbled, rubbing my hand.
“Lyanka, we talked about this.” Gideon’s voice was soft and careful. “Mara is at an age where you must begin to show her how to use these things. And she should help us with this, because we’ll need it.”
Mom breathed deeply. “Be patient. I’ve spent all my life trying to protect her from this, and now I must ask her to join me.”
“Join you in what?” I glanced between the two of them. “Why are you talking about me like I’m not here?”
“Here it is!” Mom exclaimed, ignoring me for the moment, and lifted out a large book that had been buried underneath the armaments.
It was a little bigger than a record, and three times as thick as anything Stephen King wrote. The cover appeared to be made of leather, stretched so taut it had cracked and been sewn together in several places so it looked like a patchwork Necronomicon.
“This grimoire has been in our family for generations,” Mom explained, wiping the dust off the cover. She stood up and held the book to her chest with one arm, then reached out and took my hand. “Let’s sit and talk.”
I glanced over at Gideon, who offered me a half shrug, and then we both followed my mom over to the table. She dropped the book of magic onto the table with a loud thud, and I took the seat between her and Gideon.
“You know who I am,” Mom said, still holding my hand. “I’ve spent my life talking to the spirits, communing with the dead and those that exist on another plane around us. You know the power that I have, the one that I believe you have.”
I nodded numbly. “I know about your power, but I haven’t really shown much of my own.”
Mom smiled sadly at me, then looked to Gideon. “I discouraged you from getting in touch with your power, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.”
Gideon leaned toward me, resting his arms on the table. “And you know what I can do. That I’m a divining rod for others who have extra senses. I felt yours the day I met you, and it’s been growing stronger as you’ve gotten older, the same way it did for your mother. You have the gift she has.”
“Okay,” I said, growing increasingly uneasy with the way they were talking to me like this. It felt like they were about to tell me they were splitting up or they had cancer or something.
“I thought that I could protect you from what became of Basima, and what’s happened to me,” Mom explained. “Of the darkness. Of the insanity.”
She shook her head. “But there is greater darkness out there. There are dangers that will seek to hurt you because of who you are, because of the gifts you have, and if I don’t teach you to protect yourself…” Mom trailed off, swallowing back her tears.
“The thing that’s stalking us”—Gideon motioned to the swamp behind the camp—“it’s not of this world. I felt it last night, when I barely stopped it from devouring Luka.”
It was starting to feel like all the oxygen had been sucked from the room. The heat, the mustiness from the trunk, everything they were saying—it was all coming together into a heady concoction where I felt out of place and disconnected from everything around me.
Somehow, I managed to ask, “What is it?”
Gideon shook his head. “I’m not sure. I’ve never encountered anything like it before. It felt like…” He furrowed his brow, trying to form the words. “Like a black hole. It sucked in all the energy, becoming this indistinguishable darkness that’s almost impossible to look at directly. But what I do know is that it’s powerful, and it’s very hungry.”
I leaned back in the rickety kitchen chair, and it all hit me. I realized exactly what this weird meeting and trunk of magic weapons was about.
“You’re going to try to kill it,” I said. “And you want me to help.”
“A creature like this doesn’t just go away,” Gideon elaborated. “We can’t run from it, and even if we can, that only means that it will harm others. I’ve spent my entire adult life trying to protect those that society forgot or threw away.” He shook his head. “I can’t just leave this thing running loose to kill anything it wants.”
“We have protections,” Mom insisted. “There’s the weapons, and this book is full of incantations to protect you and to ward off evil. I wouldn’t let you join us if I thought you couldn’t be kept safe.”
“You don’t have to talk me into it,” I said. “This thing has been attacking my home and my family. I want to stop it just as much as you do. I’m in.” I squeezed my mom’s hand, trying to reassure her that I could handle this. “Just tell me what I need to do.”
46. tenebris
As I tore the ticket of an older woman with a strong Southern drawl and two pudgy grandkids, I mumbled vade retro me tenebris under my breath.
The creature—demon/monster/whatever—didn’t usually show itself until late at night, and Gideon was convinced it would be untraceable. The plan was to wait for the creature to find us, since it came to the campsite nearly every night. Once the carnival closed, we would prepare to fight back, so when the creature came, we would be ready.
The morning had been filled with preparations and lectures on weapons and memorizing incantations. But we still needed the money, so in the afternoon, we went to work. As Gideon frequently said, the show must go on, so on it went.
Mom had taught me incantations, and they were all in Latin, so I kept repeating them over and over to make sure I got them right when I needed them. The one she told me was the most powerful—vade retro me tenebris—meant “get behind me, darkness.”
When I asked her why they were in Latin, she’d simply shrugged and said, “These spells are quite old, and when they were made, that’s what they spoke. And since they work, there’s no reason to change them.”
The day had been long and hot, and it was hard to focus on anything. The biggest distraction—other than preparing to fight off a creature I didn’t understand—was Gabe. Not his presence, but his absence.
I kept scouring the crowd, looking for him, but he never appeared. We hadn’t had plans today, not officially, but we had seen each other nearly every day since I’d gotten to Caudry. And then last night, we’d shared something really special, before he’d left suddenly.
He’d told me that he was falling in love with me, and when I said, “Me too,” I’d meant it. I felt more for Gabe than I had for anyone else, and I thought he really meant it too. I felt it in the tender way he touched me.
There had been other boys before Gabe, ones who said all the right words and promised a devotion that I didn’t ask for, but only for the night. The next day, they’d be gone without a trace, and I’d never really minded. It was better that way.
But Gabe was different. I believed the words he’d told me. He wouldn’t just end things that way. Just vanishing into the night never to be heard from again … would he?
The day was filled with too many important things to be done, so there was no time for me to go looking for him. When the carnival began to close for the night, I realized sadly that last night might very well have been the last time I ever saw him.
I didn’t linger on that thought, though. There would be plenty of time for heartache in the future. Right now, I needed to focus and prepare for whatever the night had in store for us.
Mom hadn’t done any readings today to help keep her strength up, and when I returned to camp, she was already setting things up. With incense burning in one hand and a mixture of herbs in the other, she walked around the campsite, doing a cleansing ritual to chase away darkness.
She smiled briefly at me but quickly returned to the task at hand, so I went over to join Hutch where he sat at t
he picnic table outside his camper. He had one of the swords I’d seen inside my mom’s trunk, and he attempted to spin it, but his injured shoulder hampered his mobility, and the sword fell to the ground.
“You’ll have to be more careful with that if you want to survive,” Luka commented, leaning against the open doorway of his motorhome. His shirtless torso revealed no signs of scars, or any of the damage that had been inflicted on him last night.
“I’ll be fine,” Hutch mumbled as he scrambled to pick up the sword.
I sat down beside Hutch. “How is it going here?”
“Good. Your mom’s been trying to get us ready,” Hutch replied. “Roxie’s over with Gideon, picking out a weapon.”
“She wants to use her fire, but it’s not reliable,” Luka said.
“Your mom put salt around my camper.” Hutch pointed to a line of white sprinkled in the grass.
It wasn’t actually salt—it was a blend of many things, including ashes and ground gypsum, but I didn’t bother explaining it to Hutch.
“She’s trying to protect you, so the demon thing can’t get inside and hurt you,” I said.
“I told you it was a demon,” Hutch said, sounding more excited about the prospect of a demon than he should.
“You also told me it was a bear,” I corrected him.
“Maybe it’s a bear demon,” he said.
My mom had knelt down in the center of the campsite, with her palms flat on the grass in front of her, and her long halter dress pooled around her. The halter tied at the nape of her neck, showing off the dark ink of the sun and moon tattoos she had beside either shoulder blade.
“What is she doing now?” Hutch asked.
“She’s saying an incantation,” I said, straining to pick up the words she was whispering toward the earth, but I couldn’t decipher them. “I think she’s asking for other spirits and entities to help us.”
“Other entities?” Hutch asked. “But isn’t that like opening a door to more trouble? Don’t we want less spirits around us?”
I shook my head. “Not exactly. My mom is friendly with the other side, and they will help her.”
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