I stumbled over a pile of broken stone. “Well, that sounds equal parts fun and terrifying,” I muttered, but Daisy was already too far ahead to hear me.
Nick stood at the back wall. There was a tall opening, probably about eight feet high. It looked like a doorway. Inside, all I could see was darkness.
“Oh, man, I really hope we’re not crawling all the way to London,” I said, but as I got closer, I could see that it wasn’t the opening of a tunnel like I’d originally thought. The doorway led to a shallow alcove, no more than three feet deep.
Daisy smiled shyly at me. “I take it you’ve never traveled by Itineris.”
“I’m not even sure I could spell it.”
To my surprise, Nick graced me with a tiny smile, one that actually looked genuine and not unhinged. Then he walked into the opening. There was no flash of light or surge of magic. One minute he was there, the next he wasn’t. Somehow, that was so much scarier than if there’d been a big light show, or maybe some smoke. Daisy went next. It was the same way with her, like she just blinked out of existence.
Jenna and I stood there, staring at the passageway. “We could go back,” I suggested weakly. “Tell them their magical road thingie didn’t work for us.”
But Jenna shook her head. “It can’t be that bad,” she muttered.
“We could try to go together,” I said. “I think we’d both fit, and that way, if we end up transported to another dimension or morphed into a wall, at least we’d have company.”
Jenna laughed. “All right, then. Let’s do this.”
Hand in hand, we walked toward the opening.
chapter 13
The second we stepped into the alcove, I felt Jenna’s hand slip from mine. Then everything went dark, and I cried out as a vicious pounding started in my temple. It felt like a migraine, only about a hundred times more intense. Dimly, some part of my brain registered that I should stop being surprised when magic stuff sucked way harder than I thought it was going to. God knows I ought to be used to it by now.
But I wasn’t prepared for the awful twisting in my skull, or the overwhelming darkness. There wasn’t even the sensation of flying, another thing I’d kind of expected from magical travel. Instead, everything was very still as the blackness pressed down on me.
And then I was standing outside. Well, kneeling outside, actually, taking big gasping breaths while someone patted my back.
It was Daisy. “The first time is always the worst,” she said soothingly.
“Yeah, Daisy puked all over my shoes after her first ‘road trip.’” Nick laughed, earning him a swat from Daisy.
“That’s because you took me too far, you tosser!Spain. Idiotic. Anything more than a hundred miles is insane for a first trip.”
Jenna staggered to my side. She looked paler than normal, which was saying something. “I had no idea maaaaaagic would be that intense,” she tried to joke, but her voice was high and slightly breathless.
I tried to ask her if she was okay, but talking was still beyond me, so I tried to smile. That hurt too, so in the end, I just slumped against the nearest wall until the pain eased a little.
As the headache subsided, I took in my surroundings. We were in an alley, surrounded by several nondescript brick buildings. Overhead, low-hanging clouds reflected the orange glow of streetlights. There was also a strange smell in the air, a mix of exhaust fumes, old stone, and, I thought, water somewhere nearby.
When I felt like I could speak again, I asked Daisy, “So what exactly was that? A portal or something?”
She fished in her purse and pulled out another cigarette. “Basically. But portals can only go from one specific place to another specific place. An Itineris can go…well, anywhere. You just create the entrance and then tell it where you want to go. That’s why Nick went first, so he could tell it we were going to Shelley’s.”
“If it only goes one way, how are we getting back?” I asked.
“There’s another road opening about a block from here,” Daisy said, pointing to her left.
“So, wait, we could go in that opening and tell itanywhere we wanted to go?” Jenna asked.
“Anywhere,” Nick answered with a shrug. “But like Daisy said, the farther you go, the harder it is. So while I could get in there and say I wanted to go to, like, Madagascar, the trip would probably kill me.”
Next to me, Jenna shuddered. “I can’t imagine being in that thing for any longer than we were.”
“Itineris travel can be especially tough on vamps,” Nick replied.
Then maybe you should have told her that before you dragged us on this little outing, jackass, I thought irritably.
Suddenly I wished Cal were here, and not just because he could have cured my headache in about two seconds.
“They can only be created by very powerful witches,” Daisy continued while I tried to keep my skull from exploding. She flicked open her lighter, her face briefly illuminated in the glow. “Or demons, obviously.”
“So who made the one at Thorne?” Jenna asked.
Nick answered her. “We don’t know.” He grinned. “But since it’s so kickass, I’m gonna say it was a demon.”
I wondered if Alice had made it, but before I could ask any more questions, Daisy broke in. “Okay, as fascinating as this conversation is, we only have a few hours, and I’d like to spend them in Shelley’s, not in an alley. Can we go inside now, please?” I did my best not to gape at her, but seriously. What had happened to the introverted, delicate girl from this morning?
We trailed out of the alley and around to the front of the building. From the outside it looked like a regular, if kind of seedy, nightclub. There was a small awning over the entrance that read shelley’s in white cursive, and people had scratched their initials and insults on the black door.
I looked around for a scary monster bouncer, but there was no one. There wasn’t even one of those cool panels that slides open so you can whisper a password. Then I realized the door was wavering slightly.
Daisy saw me studying it, and smiled. “It’s glamoured,” she said. “Only Prodigium can find it. To humans, it just looks like a particularly drunk and fragrant homeless guy leaning against the wall.”
Well, that was lovely. But she was right. If I squinted just right, I could make out a ghostly figure slumping where the door was.
Then Daisy stepped in front of me, and the door was just a door again. Daisy knocked and it swung open almost immediately. I was assaulted by the smell of smoke and a nearly deafening wave of techno. The light pouring from the entrance was blue and pulsed slightly.
I’d only gone to a club once, back in ninth grade. That had been when Mom and I were living in Chicago, and I’d had a brief flirtation with rebelliousness. I’d gone to some gross black hole of a room with a girl named Cindy Lewis, who’d worn way too much eyeliner and smoked clove cigarettes. My main memories of that night included music that was so loud I was sure I’d done some permanent damage to my eardrums, and some guy who smelled like a brewery grabbing my leg and attempting to slobber all over my face. So yeah, clubs were not exactly my favorite places.
But then, Shelley’s was nothing like that smoky pit in Chicago.
Okay, so there was smoke. And really, really loud music. But other than that, the two places could not have been more different. For one thing, the interior of Shelley’s was huge, much bigger than it had appeared from the outside. There were two levels, the bottom one made up almost entirely of a glossy black dance floor. It was crowded with bodies, and the magic coming off of them was so strong that my skin crawled. I saw lots of Prodigium our age, but there were just as many older people here too. In fact, there was an ancient bearded guy in the corner who looked like he’d probably palled around with Mary Shelley. I saw a werewolf dancing with what I assumed was a witch, his claws making small tears at the waist of her dress. Above the crowd, several faeries floated in the air, their wings beating in time with music, their shiny, pale hair reflecting the col
ored lights.
In the very middle of the dance floor, a guy wearing a purple velvet smoking jacket was dancing, surrounded by several witches. He looked familiar, and when he turned around, I realized it was Lord Byron.
Yeah,the Lord Byron. He’d been our English teacher at Hecate before all the attacks started. Since he was a vampire, people had been suspicious of him. Even after he was cleared, he still hadn’t wanted to come back to Hex Hall. Not like I could blame him.
I thought about going over to say hi, but then he spotted us. I’m not sure, but I think he flipped us off before limping away.
Neither Jenna nor I had been exactly stellar students.
Nick jerked his head toward the back. “Let’s go grab a seat.”
We moved away from the dance floor, to where it was dimmer and less crowded. The music also seemed a good deal softer, so my brain no longer felt like it was leaking out of my ears. Daisy led us to a booth in the back and flopped down on a velvet banquette. Nick sat next to her, leaving Jenna and I to scoot into the seat opposite them.
Daisy pulled out yet another cigarette, this time offering the pack around. Nick took one, but I shook my head when he held the box out to me. “No thanks. Don’t smoke.”
“Fair enough,” Nick replied.
A tall woman with auburn hair came up to the table. She was wearing a bright purple dress that was so short, I thought it might have started its life as a shirt. She would’ve been pretty if her face hadn’t looked like she’d just taken a big swig of sour milk. “You two again,” she said.
Daisy rolled her eyes, but Nick looked totally unruffled. “Ah, Linda, my sweet. I was hoping you’d be our waitress tonight. I’ve missed that sunny smile of yours.”
Linda folded her arms across her chest. “Bite me, freak.”
Nick grinned, and for just a second, he looked so much like Archer that I clenched my teeth.
“Who’s to say I won’t, Linda?” Nick asked, raising his eyebrows. Daisy elbowed him in the side. Linda just glared until Nick waved his hands. “Truce, truce,” he said. “All right then, Daisy and I will have our usual.”
I wondered what that might be. Evil Juice? Some kind of demonic energy drink?
Linda’s surly gaze flicked to Jenna, who uncharacteristically blushed.
“They have any kind of blood you could want on tap,” Daisy offered.
I really didn’t want to think about what that meant.
Jenna gave a nervous smile. “Then a, uh, glass or whatever of O-negative.”
“Fine,” Linda said. “And you?”
“Uh, water is fine,” I said.
“Oh, come on,” Nick said, draping his arm across the back of the banquette. “At least let me buy you a drink.” He flashed that unsettling grin again. I scooted a little closer to Jenna.
“I don’t drink.”
As Linda stalked off, Nick laughed. “Oh my God, a straight-edge demon! I freaking love it!”
“Yeah, I figure occasionally ripping people’s internal organs out is vice enough for me,” I quipped.
It was the wrong thing to say.
Nick’s laugh abruptly ended, and even Daisy bristled.
“Sorry,” I said quickly. “I didn’t mean—” I blew out a breath. “Self-deprecation is like my second language. It was nothing against you guys.”
Daisy seemed placated by that, but Nick was still watching me with an unreadable look.
“We’ve never hurt anyone, Sophie,” he said. “Neither has James, neither have you.”
“Yeah, but we could,” I replied. “Mrs. Casnoff said that demons can be fine for years, and then suddenly monster out.”
Nick’s gaze flicked away from mine. “Isn’t that what they’re hoping we’ll do?” he muttered darkly.
“What does that mean?” Jenna asked, but Daisy leaned forward, cupping her hand around Nick’s knee.
“Let’s not get into all of this tonight,” she said. “We have the whole summer to teach Sophie about demon-hood.”
Nick grumbled, but Daisy caught his chin and gently pulled his face to hers. He kissed her with surprising tenderness, and I felt my face grow hot. I hadn’t realized they were together, at least not like that.
Daisy and Nick finally pulled apart. “Okay.” Nick slouched against the wall, his fingers flirting with the hem of Daisy’s skirt. “If we’re not going to talk about demon stuff, what are we going to talk about?” Even though his tone was friendly, his eyes were hard when he said, “After all, isn’t that why you’re here, Sophie? To get a crash course in all things demon?”
Suddenly I wished I did drink. Why was it that everyone here wanted to get all intense with me right away? “I guess.”
Linda reappeared, setting down Jenna’s glass of blood with a thunk that sent some of its contents slopping over the sides. I think she would have slammed down Nick’s and Daisy’s drinks just as hard, but Nick took them from her before she could. A look of disgust flickered over her face when their hands touched. I guess I should have been offended at that, what with her slighting my demon brethren and all, but I couldn’t really blame her. There was something about Nick and Daisy that made my skin crawl. I could only imagine how creepy they seemed to regular Prodigium.
Especially when I noticed that the liquid in Nick’s and Daisy’s glasses was pitch black and oily looking.
“Um, what is that?” I asked after Linda tossed me a room-temperature bottle of water and huffed away.
Nick quirked his eyebrows at me and raised the glass in a kind of toast. “And so the education begins! This, Sophia, is Cassandra’s Elixir. It’s a potion they brew here at Shelley’s.”
I twisted the cap off my water bottle. “A potion? Like with eye of newt and all that?”
Laughing, Nick dipped a finger in his drink and licked it. Ew. “No, no eye of newt. Just water from the Aegean Sea, a couple of shots of hundred-year-old brandy, and a whole lot of magic. Oh, and a dash of faeries’ blood.”
I took a sip of water to keep my mouth from puckering in disgust.
“What does it do?” Jenna asked, turning her glass of blood around in her hands.
“They say it puts you in the right frame of mind to receive visions of the future,” Daisy said. Then she took her drink from Nick and threw it back like it was water. My esophagus burned in sympathy as Nick did the same thing.
Daisy put down her empty glass, her eyes brighter and cheeks flushed. “But really it just makes everything in here”—she pointed to her temple—“go all…hazy. It’s nice. You should order one.”
“Yeah, I think I’ll pass on hazy for tonight.”
Nick shrugged. “Your loss.” He leaned back in the booth, wrapping his arm tighter around Daisy. She snuggled against him as he said, “So should we get to the bonding part now?” He nudged Jenna’s foot with his own. “Why don’t you tell us how you got vamped? That’s probably an interesting story.”
It wasn’t. It was a sad story, and one that Jenna hadn’t told me until we’d been rooming together for months. I waited for Jenna to tell them that she didn’t want to talk about it.
Instead, she took a deep breath and said, “I fell in love with a vampire. I let her turn me because I bought into that whole eternal love spiel. Then The Eye staked her, and I…I killed someone because I was starving. Eventually the Council took me in and sent me to Hecate.”
Her voice was flat and emotionless, but I could see how much it cost her to tell that story, even such a condensed version of it.
“Oh, wow,” Daisy breathed. “I’m so sorry.” For a second, I thought she was making fun of Jenna, and my hands tightened into fists in my lap. But then I really looked at her, and saw that her sympathy was totally genuine. There might have even been tears in her eyes.
“Yeah,” Nick said, sounding completely sincere. “That’s rough.”
No one at Hex Hall had known about Jenna’s past except me and, I guessed, Mrs. Casnoff. Still, nearly everyone there had treated Jenna like a freak and a ki
ller. But the two demons across from us were looking at Jenna with nothing but compassion.
The music had changed, going from that thumping techno to something softer and slower. It was a welcome relief. “So you two really have no idea how you became demons?” I asked. Hey, if they were gonna pry into Jenna’s personal monster business, I could pry into theirs.
They didn’t seem offended, though. Daisy laid her head on Nick’s collarbone. “We really don’t.” Her face got distant as she said, “Not even dreams. It’s like everything before is just this big black hole.” She waved her fingers dreamily in front of her face, and I saw Nick’s fingers tighten on her shoulder.
“All we know is that someone did this to us,” he said, his voice tight.
Jenna shot me a look before saying, “How could you know that?”
“We can feel it,” Daisy said, closing her eyes. When she opened them, they nearly glowed with unshed tears. “It’s like we were…”
“Violated,” Nick finished, and Daisy nodded slowly.
“Yeah, exactly,” she said. “It’s like everything inside us is different. Our brains, our souls, our blood…”
I found myself nodding. After all, hadn’t Dad said demonhood was literally in our DNA? And I’d been born this way. How weird would it feel to just wake up a demon one day?
“It’s awful,” Daisy continued, her words coming out a little slurred. “All this magic just pounding inside your skull every single day.”
Her words sounded strangled, like she was trying hard not to cry. I had no idea what to say. I mean, I wasn’t exactly thrilled about being a demon either, but I certainly didn’t feel likethat. If that’s what being demons was like for Nick and Daisy, no wonder they drank all the time.
I cleared my throat. “So do you guys actually use your powers?”
But before they had a chance to reply, a loud cracking sound echoed through the room.
“What was that?” Jenna asked, nearly dropping her glass of blood.
“Thunder?” I guessed, even though the sound had been more like the crack of a whip, or wood breaking.
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