by Scott Tracey
Drew came back in with the map. It was one of those folded street maps they sell in gas stations. I moved the laptop out of the way, and we opened it across the table.
Belle Dam was laid out before us in tiny fonts and lines representing streets. The town angled along the coast to the north, and right from the start I could see how uniform the solid green parks were.
I closed my eyes, picturing the image of Belle Dam from above, the raging tempest of lights and impressions. Everything moving, almost like clockwork.
Fingers of ice pressed themselves along my spine as I opened my eyes. “I get it.” Belle Dam, the map, all of it. “The town is the spell.”
Whatever power Grace had taken, the town was a giant-sized version of Catherine’s restaurant. Everything had been arranged and built up right from the start. Angles and lines that drew the eye inward, and kept something trapped inside.
“You really are a witch,” Riley exhaled. Her eyes were nearly going to roll out of her head.
She stopped clicking long enough for Gregory to lean over the computer and gasp. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Riley grabbed the computer and pulled it off the desk entirely. “None of your business.”
“You were changing passwords,” he shouted. “You’re plotting some sort of coup against me!”
As their bickering intensified, I glanced at Drew and he nodded toward the stairs. He followed me downstairs, which was nearly deserted, and crossed his arms in front of him. “What do you mean, the town’s the spell?”
I started explaining, starting with the day at Catherine’s restaurant, where I’d noticed the geometry of the place. Then I mentioned some of the things I’d figured out about Grace, and how deeply she was ingrained in Belle Dam.
“So Grace turned geography into magic? How’s that even possible?” he asked, sniffing the air.
“I don’t know,” I said helplessly. “I know it’s possible, but actually doing it? That’s like stopping the sun or something. Just because it’s possible doesn’t mean you just wave a hand and it’s done. It’s not that easy.”
“So what’s the point?” Drew looked anxious, tapping his feet on the ground.
“To keep something trapped. To stop it from escaping.” The only explanation I could think of dressed in designer suits and called himself a lawyer. “Grace took his power from him, and locked him away in Belle Dam.”
“Who? Fallon?” Drew’s feet stopped tapping.
I nodded. It made a twisted kind of sense. “He’s not a vampire. He’s not an anything. Jason said the only thing that makes sense is if he was a demon. But demons are too powerful to stay in our world.”
“I don’t understand. You’re saying Grace trapped Lucien here? Why?”
I shrugged. “Maybe she thought he was a threat. I don’t know. You’d have to ask her.” I’d tried once, and I wasn’t about to do that again.
“Guess that just leaves the lawyer. Or Thorpe. But the lawyer’s not gonna help you, is he?”
“Unless there’s something in it for him,” I said. And maybe I was the only one who could offer it to him. Offer him his war, in exchange for answers.
“Oh this should be fun.”
Something in the way Drew said that set off alarms in my head. I looked up and followed his gaze toward the door.
Trey was just about to walk inside, with Jade in tow.
Thirty
They saw us a moment later, and I watched Jade grab onto his arm. Trying to restrain him. It wasn’t a bad plan, actually.
Could today get any worse? I barreled my way to the door and pushed at Trey. I didn’t have much chance to move him any other time, but for once he relented and let me lead him outside. Jade followed us.
“What are you doing with Drew?” she asked.
“Jade, can we have a minute?” Trey looked about ready to explode, and the least I could hope for would be to have that happen in private.
“Huh? Sure?” Jade looked dazed.
It took him some time to get his temper in line. “What the hell are you doing? My mother doesn’t need another reason not to trust you,” Trey said, measuring his words with force.
“I know what I’m doing.” My response was quiet. I hoped I knew what I was doing was a little more accurate, but I had a good head start.
Trey grabbed me, pulling me close. “How am I supposed to protect you if you’re trying to make this a fight.” His eyes kept shifting left and darting right, like he was trying to figure out where to look to meet my own.
Impulsively, I pushed myself forward, forcing a kiss that he wasn’t expecting. Electric fire ignited in my body instantly, lines of fire that started in the veins on my hands and burned their way down. Trey’s mouth was hard at first, unyielding to the pressure. Eventually, he softened, muscles relaxing.
“I know what I’m doing,” I said once the kiss was broken.
“You can’t mess with him.” Trey’s eyes were dazed, but his tone hadn’t changed. “Drew’s a monster.”
I shook my head. “We have an understanding. Besides, he’s not a threat.”
“He attacked Jade! He’s a menace!”
I’d forgotten about that. Attacking Jade was the reason he’d been kicked out of school, although Riley hadn’t believed that was the way it all happened. “It doesn’t matter right now,” I said. “He was just watching out for me.”
“Watching out for you? Are you insane?”
I tried a different tactic. “I can’t do this anymore. Not with you,” I said slowly, pulling myself free of Trey’s hold on me.
“Because of Drew?” The anger flared in Trey’s eyes again. It turned the normal blue-green dark, like lightning about to strike. Was he jealous?
There wasn’t time for that now. “No. It’s just … not in the cards. We’re not supposed to be together, Trey.”
It hurt to get the words out. It hurt more when I saw the changes to Trey’s face. The muscles had gone slack, the mouth dropped open.
“You’re not thinking straight.” Trey started shaking me, his face reddening like heated iron.
“Stop! Don’t you get it?” I was shouting, but I didn’t care. He had to understand. “I’m not your boyfriend. I’m not your anything. So just stop! Your mother isn’t the innocent bystander you think she is.” I tried to sound as hard as possible, as strong as I could be. “She’s just as guilty as Jason.” Trey opened his mouth to argue, but I didn’t give him the chance. I just kept barreling along, digging myself deeper. “That’s why we can’t be together. Because you won’t see the truth about her, and you refuse to see the truth about him. You’re just … blind.”
I walked away then, and he let me go. I think he was in too much of a stupor to actually do anything at all. I couldn’t give up yet. I decided to forgo the hotel and try and talk with Lucien. Nothing I’d learned had pointed me toward an answer. But maybe he’d let something slip, if I could catch him off guard for once.
¤ ¤ ¤
“Mr. Fallon’s in a meeting.” It wasn’t Candy today. I wondered if Candy even still worked here—if Lucien went through secretaries as often as they said he did. I kept walking, straight into the doors to his office. I turned the knob and shoved the door, but the office inside was empty. There was no sign of Lucien anywhere.
“I told you, he’s is in a meeting,” she reiterated, her voice getting higher.
“A meeting where?”
“I don’t know,” she said, sounding perplexed. “He just called, and said he’d be in a meeting all day. That I should reschedule all his appointments.” Her eyes brightened. “Did you have an appointment? I can reschedule that for you.”
I left the office after shaking my head. Lucien could be anywhere. On the elevator ride down, I wondered about Grace. Had she felt pulled
in all these different directions? Is that why she vanished?
If only it were that easy. Maybe I’d like to disappear too.
¤ ¤ ¤
“You’re not listening to me. This was never about the feud. Lucien wanted a weapon of black mass destruction, and you gave it to him.” I cradled the phone in my ear, waiting for Jason’s reply on the other end.
Hours had passed, but I still didn’t have any more of an idea where Lucien was. There was no sign of him around town, and the office didn’t expect him back until tomorrow.
I headed back to the hotel and took the stairs. I needed the movement to help clear my head.
If he’s with Catherine, he could be telling her right now. I knew it was risky, but if Lucien knew I was onto him, then he might do whatever it took to start the war.
“Lucien Fallon has worked for the family for over a hundred years. He’s an employee. An asset. What you need to do is calm down. If you keep acting as irrationally as you have been, the truth is going to come out.” Jason, on the other hand, was quite composed.
I rounded the third floor and stepped out into the hallway. My room was just down the hall.
“It’s going to come out anyway. Don’t you get it? This was all part of the master plan.”
The line crackled, a series of clicks and static bursts before dropping the call. “God!” I slammed the phone together and opened it back up to redial when I saw him standing in front of my room.
“Why don’t we take a walk,” Lucien said.
¤ ¤ ¤
Lucien’s idea of a walk was to head up to the roof. While one half of it was framed by much taller, older buildings, the other offered views out over the city and waterfront.
“It’s breathtaking, isn’t it?” He stood by the railing, palms pressed against the brick ledge as he leaned over it.
“The city? I’ve seen it.”
He glanced over his shoulder and winked. “Of course you have. You’ve seen a great many things so far, haven’t you? To grow up, seeing the world in a way that no one else does. That they couldn’t understand.”
“I know what you’re after,” I said, feigning a confidence I didn’t have. He still had all the power here, and it wasn’t like I could just kill him. “She ripped you open and took out all the stuffing, didn’t she? Took the big, bad demon and neutered him. And now you’re stuck here.”
“You’ve been busy,” Lucien murmured. “Who’s been telling tales outside the classroom?”
I shook my head. “Wasn’t I supposed to figure it out? All the pieces were there.”
Lucien tilted his head to one side. I still couldn’t get a good read on him. “If you’re wondering, I haven’t said a word to Catherine about you-know-what.” He was amused, like he could read my mind even now.
“Why not? Doesn’t that fit in with your goal? I thought you wanted this feud taken to the next level?”
Lucien turned away. I could hear the sound of him inhaling. “There is something intoxicating about violence,” he said, savoring the words, his eyes nearly closed. “But you’re … hollow. Wasteful. I thought I saw the potential in you, but there’s nothing but empty spaces. You’ve squandered a perfectly good annihilation.”
I shook my head, surprised to find myself walking toward the ledge. Closer to him. “Then what do you want from me?”
“Haven’t you learned anything by now? Coming home like the prodigal son, baby-stepping your way into our world. I want for nothing, child. But I have something I know you desire.”
Thirty-One
“You don’t have anything I want,” I said immediately.
Lucien’s only response was a cocked eyebrow, like he knew something I didn’t.
“I’m not involved with him anymore.” I tried to keep my voice steady. Lucien knew about all about Trey, thanks to Catherine. “I can’t be.”
He waved his hand through the air with a dismissive gesture. “As poetic as your love connection was, I’m afraid I’m not much a fan. I suppose Gentry Lansing made excellent eye candy, but he isn’t quite what I’m thinking of.”
“Then what? I’ve already got a father, and you can’t bring my mother back. My uncle’s never coming back here, and pretty soon everyone’s going to know about me anyway.” Lucien was already too late. “I’m not running anymore. And if I have to do this on my own, then I will.”
Lucien turned back toward me, his elbows still resting on the ledge. “I’m resourceful, Braden. I think I can find something to give you.” He glanced over a shoulder at the city, and then back to me. “Don’t you remember the night at the cemetery? The night you uncovered Grace’s Lock?”
I shook my head in annoyed confusion. “Grace’s what?”
The smile widened a fraction. “Oh, you remember,” he said, as if I was just being modest. “The night you unleashed the hellhounds, you also turned a key. Why else do you think Grace would have gone to such lengths to lay down a trap?”
“What about it?” More talk about locks, and keys. Grace really needed a hobby.
“Don’t you remember how free you were that night? How the power that has ravaged your life so thoroughly was suddenly so docile? Everything flowing inside you as smoothly as water?”
I couldn’t forget. That was the first time in my life the witch eyes hadn’t felt like a curse. “What about it?” I repeated.
“You think that was just a happy accident?” His words drawled out, hanging on his lips as he enjoyed the taste of them. “A taste of what it could be. Your life, your gift. It was always possible, you know. All I had to do was bend the natural law—just for a bit—and you were all better, weren’t you?”
Lucien was saying he was responsible? “Y-you couldn’t have done that. It’s not possible.” The hair on my arms stood on end, and I looked down to see a tremor in my hands.
“You should know what I am by now,” he said, and I nodded.
“You’re a—”
“Demon,” he said, cutting me off. “I suppose that’s close enough.”
“Aren’t you?”
“I am so much more than the word can even contain. I am the one who deconstructed the primal forces of this world, relegated to being some sort of modern-day monster under the bed.”
He could fix me. I could see it in my head. Never again suffering the migraines, using a little illusion to hide the supernatural, shifting colors of my eyes. No more sunglasses, unless it was bright outside. Normal.
“Take off your glasses, Braden. Let me show you,” Lucien whispered, his voice husky in the night.
My hands moved by themselves. I closed my eyes by instinct when I felt the plastic above my ears fall away. His hands never touched my skin, but I could feel the pressure of them as they got close.
“Open your eyes. See what the world would be like.”
I did what he said, feeling rebellious hope stirring in my chest.
Belle Dam laid out before me, a painting that surged with lights and colors. The city came into focus wherever I looked, allowing me to pick out each individual pine tree lining Park Street. I could see all the way to the ocean, where boats had once sailed thanks to the lighthouse, free of worry.
Everywhere I looked, there was a story. A memory, secret imprints that were just begging to be told. But the choice was mine.
“Look to the cemetery. See what remains of Grace’s treachery.” Lucien’s voice in my ear, seductive and powerful all at once.
I saw the monument—the dark, charred remains where the lightning had struck. And beneath it, I could see something that was buried deeper than any coffin. Hidden deep within the earth, behind a door that was still opening. As much as it yearned to be free, Grace’s spells had gone far deeper than the hellhounds. But every hour, more power slipped through the cracks. Pushed it further. Wild, raw
magic woven so tightly, so full of all colors that it was hard to pick away at any of them.
“You did that. You opened the way. Can you feel it?”
There was a hum to the magic, a vibration that only I could see and feel and touch. I reached out a hand, feeling it flow through my fingers from miles away. Pure, raw, and channeled in some way I couldn’t understand. I didn’t want to; it was so beautiful.
“Feel the others. See them. Where are they hidden?” His voice cajoled me from across a great distance, but I knew I could do it. His voice lulled my mind, and I found myself wanting to do it.
I stretched out my vision, seeing everything in Belle Dam at once. I held on to the impression of the door, and the secrets hidden behind it. Faint at first, but growing stronger, I felt an echo, and then another. Like ripples in a pond, three points where the magic buoyed outwards, hidden from even the most sharp of prying eyes.
Power. Greater than normal magic. Something far more severe. Deadly, but a beautiful kind of strength. I could do anything if I had that kind of power. All of them connected with one another, three pieces of the whole.
“Your salvation, Braden. I can give that to you. Look at me.”
I pulled my eyes back and focused them on just one direction. It was hard, losing that sense of everything. The rooftop slowly came into focus, and Lucien had his hand over mine. He lifted it up, helping me to settle the glasses back on my face.
I didn’t want to lose this. This control, this power. This was the way it should have been all along.
“And all you have to do is help me unlock the rest of Grace’s secrets. You’re my skeleton key, Braden. I’ve been waiting a very long time for you.”
“And then you go back to wherever you came from?” I asked, my voice wooden. I felt hollow inside, like something had been taken from me. In a way, it had.
Lucien looked me up and down, all fluid movements and shifts. “Where else would I go?” He nodded his head. “I can see you need some convincing. Come.”