Demons Forever (Peachville High Demons #6) (29 page)

"And I can disappear if that happens," I said. "As long as I have an exit strategy, it shouldn't be too hard. We just need to spend some time watching her routine and make sure we know when she'll be gone."

"She's at school every morning by seven forty-five," Angela said. "Before I was taken, Brooke would always come to my office and say hello in the mornings."

"Great. What about the rest of her family? What are their routines?"

"Her older sisters have already moved out, so you won't have to worry about them," she said. "her dad works at the bank, and they open at eight. He probably leaves earlier than Brooke in the mornings. It's her mom you might have to worry about."

I cringed. If my glamour was off even the tiniest bit, her mother would spot it in a heartbeat if she got a clear look at me.

"She's a stay-at-home mom?" Mary Anne asked.

Angela nodded. "I don't know if she has any set schedule, really."

"That could be a problem," Jackson said. "You can't go in there if her mom is home. If she sees you taking the ritual items, it's all over."

"Wait," Angela said, raising her eyebrows. "Laura goes running every morning. She's mentioned it several times. It used to annoy me, because she was always bragging about running no matter what the weather was like outside."

"Any idea what time in the morning?" I asked.

"I'm not sure," she said. "I just know she usually doesn't come in to the school on Fridays until about nine because she runs and then showers."

"Since the Harris' house is out in the country, we can go tomorrow morning and hide in the field across from her house. We'll keep a close eye on the three of them and wait until they've all left the house."

"Then what?" Jackson asked.

I shrugged. "Then I walk back into the house and switch out the ritual items."

"And what if Brooke's mom comes home while you're still there?"

"I'll just say I forgot something I needed for school. A book or something. Brooke carries a backpack to school right?"

Angela thought for a second, then nodded. "Yes, she has a blue messenger bag she carries."

"Perfect," I said. "Do you think you can describe it to Essex? If he could make a similar bag tonight, I can take that and glamour it to look like Brooke's tomorrow when she walks out to her car. I should be able to get a good enough look at her to copy her. I can hide the ritual items inside."

"I still don't like this," Jackson said. He gripped the back of his chair. "It's too quick. I think we should take a few days to scope it out and make sure of their routines and maybe find out where they're keeping the items in the house. What if you go in there and you can't find them? If her mom sees you, she's going to wonder what you're looking for."

"I can say I lost my shoe or something," I said. "If I can't find them within fifteen minutes or if she comes home, I can just leave. I don't want to put this off any longer. Every day we hide out here in the crow village is another day Priestess Winter is out looking for us. We have to move as fast as we can if we're going to have any chance of saving Aerden."

Jackson drew his hand through his hair and sighed. "Okay, but I'm coming with you."

I shook my head. "No, you have to stay here," I said. "If something does go wrong, I'll need you to come save me."

He tensed his jaw and took several deep breaths in and out. "If there's even the slightest hint that something is off. I mean, even just a feeling in your gut or Brooke's mom comes in and looks at you funny. Anything. You promise me you'll get the hell out of there, okay?"

I nodded and saluted. "Promise."

He smiled and rolled his eyes. "You're lucky you're so cute."

I stood and hugged him tight, grateful for every moment we had together. "I'm lucky for a lot of reasons."

Leap Of Faith

After breakfast, everyone separated to work on various jobs. Essex and Mary Anne began on the ritual item replicas and the messenger bag. Zara sat alone at the big table writing out as much information as she could remember about her family tree. Jackson, Angela and I gathered in the living room of the large gray house where Jackson and I were staying.

"What can I do?" Angela asked. "Is there anything else we can do now to prepare for the ritual? Besides the items from Brooke's house, what else do we need?"

I went through a mental checklist of what we might need. I could only think of one other thing we'd need besides the ritual items, and I knew it wouldn't be an easy task. "People," I said.

"People?" Angela asked, sitting down on the leather couch at the center of the room.

"We need an army," I said. "The day we go to perform the ritual, I want to have as many people there protecting us as possible. That way if Priestess Winter shows up, she'll have to get through an army before she can stop us."

"The problem is, how do we know who we can trust?" Jackson asked. He sat down in a recliner near the fireplace.

I grabbed a notebook and pencil and chose a spot on the floor, using the coffee table as a desk. "Yeah, that's the hard part. After what Lydia Ashworth told me, I'm scared there's really no way to know what's real and what isn't." I tapped the pencil on the surface of the wood table. "It's already hard enough to tell who is good and who is evil in this town. Now that we know people have been trading favors in exchange for permanent spells and glamours, it's just going to be harder to know who's even really who they say they are."

Angela sighed and rubbed her forehead. "I still can't believe she did that to her own sister," she said. "She betrayed everyone when you think about it."

My heart ached. My mother was dead because of Lydia Ashworth. Someone she trusted and loved as a friend. I shuddered. Trust was a tricky thing. You never really knew if someone could be trusted until you found out they'd already betrayed you.

"The best we can do is go with our gut," I said. "We need to make a list of everyone we think will truly stand by our side when it comes to fighting against Priestess Winter. Some names will be easy to add."

"You can put Joost, Mordecai, Erick, and Cristo on the list," Jackson said. "I know we can trust them and they'll stand by us through the fight."

"Do you know how to get in touch with them?" I asked. "They could be anywhere in the world right now."

"They used to leave me messages in the barn at Shadowford," he said. "I can leave something there just in case they are checking it from time to time. There are no guarantees, but it's worth a shot."

I wrote the names at the top of the list. "Courtney, Lark and her mom are on our side too," I said. "Who else?"

Angela named six women in the Peachville Order she said would stand against Priestess Winter.

"What about the Sullivans?" I asked.

"Who?" Jackson asked.

"The prima family from Cypress?" I asked. "After the ordeal with Caroline, Eloise said she thought of me as one of her own daughters. There's also a piece of their demon inside me. I want to trust them, but to ask them to join us puts them in a tough position."

"And if they die in an attack, the entire town of Cypress would die too," Angela said. "It's risky."

"Still, we need all the help we can get," I said. "I'm going to write them on the list and if they want to join us, maybe they can leave Meredith at home so the whole town isn't in danger. I don't think it will hurt to let them know our plans and let them make the decision on their own."

Jackson and Angela nodded. We continued to list anyone and everyone we could think of, and when we were finished, we had about fifteen names.

"I wish Lea had come," Jackson said.

Hearing her name made my stomach tighten. It was probably my fault she wasn't here.

"She made her choice," I said. "There's nothing we can do about that now."

Jackson looked toward the fireplace, a tight expression on his face. "No, there isn't."

I swallowed, pushing back a rush of jealousy. He had chosen me, so I knew he wasn't upset because he wanted to be with her. Still, it was obvious he cared for her and she had let him down.

"How are we going to let everyone know what we're planning?" Angela asked. "We can't possibly risk going around talking to all these people individually."

I bit my lip. She had a point. We needed to get everyone to one central location and explain our plan to everyone at once.

We could do the meeting here in the safety of the crow village. But how to get everyone here without going to talk to them?

Then, it hit me. I sat up on my knees, excitement dancing through my veins. "The shoes," I said.

Angela scrunched her eyebrows together. "What in the world are you talking about?"

"The cheerleading shoes," I said. "You used to put a memory spell inside them so that when we put them on, we'd automatically know the steps of a cheer or a dance, right?"

She nodded, but still looked confused.

"Could you put a similar spell on the wristbands Essex made?" I asked. "Something that would give people a memory of how to get here to the crow village?"

Her eyes grew wide and her lips parted. Then, she smiled, finally understanding what I meant. "Yes! I could put a movement spell on the wristbands so that when anyone put it on, they would know the steps to take to get here. They wouldn't necessarily understand where they were headed, or why, but the bands could bring them here or to any location we wanted."

"We could mail them out to the people we want to invite," I said. "Maybe we could include some kind of message to let them know it was a secret meeting with me. The wristband would allow them to get into the village. All they would have to do is put it on and follow the steps."

"Very smart," Jackson said. "Of course, once they get here, our secret hiding place won't be a secret anymore."

"It's a risk we're going to have to take," I said. "If we go anywhere else, we'll risk being discovered."

"At the meeting, we can ask everyone to make a decision about whether to help or not," Angela said. "If they decide they don't want to risk their lives for this, we can ask them to take a potion that will make them forget. That way Priestess Winter can't hold them responsible for keeping secrets, but we also won't have to worry about them telling anyone where we are or what we've got planned."

"Good idea," I said.

"I'll go talk to Essex and see if I can get started on the memory spells," Angela said, standing. "I'll have to imbue each one with specific directions from their house to the village. This could take some time."

I looked back over the small list of names. My stomach knotted. We were taking a huge risk trusting these people, but we needed the help. It was truly a leap of faith.

I carefully tore the list from the notebook and passed it to my sister, my hand trembling slightly as I let go.

There Wasn't A Minute To Waste

Mary Anne and I woke up super early to prepare for our trip to Brooke's.

I practiced my glamours, making myself look like Mary Anne, Angela and Zara until I felt confident I could replicate Brooke's body and clothes with nothing more than a brief glance as she walked to her car. The glamour had to be convincing enough to fool her mom if necessary.

My skin tingled. Getting the ritual items was vital to our entire plan. Without them, there was no hope of even attempting to free Aerden. Today had to be a success.

I glanced at the clock. Six-thirty. "You ready?" I asked Mary Anne. "We need to get over there early enough to make sure we don't miss anyone leaving the house."

Mary Anne pushed her hair behind her ear. "I'm ready," she said. "I'll shift to crow form and stay there until we get back unless you need me. Once you're inside, listen close for my call. I'll fly onto the roof and make as much noise as possible if someone is coming back into the house."

I nodded and wiped my sweaty hands on my jeans. "Let's do this," I said.

Jackson stood in the doorway of our gray house, his arms crossed at his chest, worry in his eyes. I brought a hand to my lips and blew him a kiss from the bottom of the steps.

A weak smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. "Be careful," he said. "If you're not back here in two hours, I'm coming after you."

"We'll be back," I said.

I picked up my bag full of fake ritual items. They weren't exact copies yet. Essex had done most of the work and last night, the six of us had gathered around the stones and poured a small part of our energy inside. According to Essex, our gifted power would allow the items to hold their glamours for at least a week. As soon as I found the three ritual items in the Harris house, I would simply have to use my glamour magic to make our fakes look exactly the same before I put them in place.

By the time the stones lost their charge and the glamours faded, Aerden would already be free. Or not. Either way, the ritual would be over and we'd know.

All we had to do was get these items.

Mary Anne shifted into a small black crow, her blue eyes still large and bright. I had already created a strong connection to the core of my power, so becoming invisible only took a moment. Together, we stepped outside the barrier and flew toward the Harris house. I used levitation instead of my demon form so that it wouldn't leave a trail.

It only took us ten minutes to get there. We settled into the field across the street from the house and waited. We didn't dare talk or change from our current forms. There was zero room for error this morning.

Nothing happened for a long time, but finally around seven fifteen, the front door opened and Brooke's mom stepped onto the porch wearing black leggings and an oversized tshirt. She stood on the porch for a few minutes stretching, then stuck her earbuds in her ears and took off down the dirt road.

One down, two to go.

Angela had said Mrs. Harris ran five miles in the morning. At a decent pace, that meant we had about forty-five minutes before she'd be home. The clock was ticking. My toes danced inside my shoe.

When the door to the garage opened fifteen minutes later, I bit my lip to hold back my excitement. Mr. Harris' car backed out and as he drove away, I could see he was alone in the car.