Fractured (26 page)

He knelt next to me. “I cannot promise a perfect translation.” After a long pause, he said, “Ah … God who is full of compassion, who dwells on high …” He spoke slowly, carefully, with sadness and reverence in his voice. “Grant true rest on the wings of the Divine Presence, in the exalted spheres of the holy and pure, who shine like the stars, to the soul of … Andrea, who … who …”

He cursed and stood up suddenly. “I can’t do this.” He leaned over and rolled Andrea’s body into the tarp.

I slowly got to my feet, heavy with new understanding. Every time he’d chanted over the body of someone he’d killed, he hadn’t been praying for the Mazikin, or even for the body. He’d been praying for the human soul he thought he was freeing, far away in the Mazikin realm, unreachable except for the wishful words of his heart.

What did he have to pray for now?

His usually steady hands were trembling as he pulled the edges of the tarp tight. “I will take her to the basement. They’ll send someone to come and get her.” He picked up the wrapped body, slung it over his shoulder, and turned his back to me. “I’m glad you weren’t badly hurt,” he said, and then marched up the stairs and into the house.

TWENTY-FOUR

I DIDN
’
T MAKE IT
home until four, and suffered through a few hours of dreams in which I stared at the world through a stranger’s eyes, wearing skin that wasn’t my own. Filled with hunger, an insatiable craving for one thing. Something I couldn’t have.

My alarm was almost a relief, but that keen sense of need followed me right out of sleep. I ran to the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror, just to make sure I was still me. I slipped out early and drove to the Guard house, because with Henry gone, I was the only one who could drive Jim and Malachi to school. It seemed beneath Raphael to have to do it.

When I arrived, only Jim was waiting for me. I glanced at his face. Raphael had done a pretty good job—the scarring was faint, and only when Jim turned his head could I see the narrow, silvery tracks crossing his pale, otherwise perfect skin.

He gave me a look I couldn’t decipher but that seemed to fall somewhere between pity and amusement. “Laney showed up this morning and offered to drive Malachi to school.”

We drove in silence. Jim folded his arms over his chest and leaned his head back with his eyes closed. Shutting me out. Or maybe catching a few moments of sleep, which was hard for all of us to come by these days.

Prom posters were plastered on all the glass doors at the front of the school. Just a simple lacy font, white on navy blue.
Memories and Moments
. It was a reminder of what we’d lost—and also that my senior year was rapidly coming to a close. I’d barely noticed. Prom was in three weeks, and graduation was only a month after that. It was hard to believe that a few months ago, I’d assumed I’d be here with Nadia, enjoying all of this. Now that Nadia was gone, I had nothing to look forward to except the hope that I could prevent a bunch of evil spirits from overrunning Rhode Island.

The cafeteria was packed with the before-school crowd. Tegan and Laney were sitting at a table under a row of prom posters, selling tickets to the big party. Jim peeled off to say hi to Tegan, whose face lit up when she spotted him. She tilted her head and frowned as her gaze lingered on his cheek, and when he reached her, she put her fingers up to touch the faint silver streaks on his skin. He pressed her hand to his face and said something that made her expression brighten again, and then both of them were laughing and leaning in close. As I watched the two of them head for their lockers hand in hand, I was glad I’d told him he could take her to prom.

I sank onto the hard cafeteria bench and put my backpack in front of me so that I could use it as a pillow. I’d just lowered my head onto it when someone sat down next to me.

“We won last night,” Ian said. “And no van sightings.”

I raised my head. Ian had his eyes on his large hands, which were gripping his knees in a way that looked painful. “Congratulations?”

His eyes met mine, and he gave me a quick smile; then pivoted so that he was facing me. “Do anything fun yesterday?”

“Hell no,” I said, and was rewarded with dimples.

I wondered if he’d wanted me to go to his game, if his halting silences on the phone yesterday had been him trying to figure out a way to ask me. I was overcome with this sense of want, for this kind of normal thing. Of having a guy ask me to watch his baseball game, of wondering if he liked me, of wondering what it might mean. But now I was a Guard, and on top of that, I’d managed to fall for a guy caught in the same trap. I scanned the cafeteria for Malachi, surprised he wasn’t at the prom ticket table with Laney. I finally spotted him at a table next to the cafeteria line, his back to the crowd, shoulders slumped. He looked … defeated.

“Still with me here?” Ian asked.

“Yeah. Sorry. I’m kind of in a haze this morning. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

He looked over at the prom ticket table. “Me neither.”

“How come?”

He laughed. “Nervous again. I got up in the middle of the night and ate my way through the kitchen. My mom was all over me this morning because I scarfed some stuff she was supposed to take to her book group.”

A chuckle escaped from my mouth, despite my horrible mood. “What did you eat, exactly?”

He shrugged. “They were these little cakes. Really good. I should have known better, though. I mean, they looked kind of fancy. She doesn’t usually buy that stuff for us.” He shook his head, still laughing. “I woke up to her screams. ‘My petit fours! My petit fours!’ I had no idea what was wrong until she barged into my room and waved the empty tray at me. I thought she’d be happy I put it in the dishwasher for her.”

“So a petit four is a cake? That’s what she was talking about?”

His smile brightened his whole face. “Best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth. When she stopped yelling at me, I asked her where she’d gotten them.”

“And she actually told you?”

He raised an eyebrow. “I can be persuasive. There’s a bakery in Barrington.”

“That’s a long drive for a little cake.” It was hard to feel down when he was with me. I looked him over, all carelessly graceful and long-limbed, and wondered how I had managed
not
to notice him in the last year.

“Long drive, yes. But worth it. Maybe we should go sometime.” He gave me a sidelong glance.

I sighed. “I don’t think I belong in Barrington.” It was the wealthiest town in the state.

Hesitantly, Ian slid the tip of his finger along a lock of my hair. I didn’t move away or flinch. I let him, astounded at the warmth in his gaze. “You belong anywhere you want to be, Lela.”

I rolled my eyes. “And a few places I don’t.”

“Will you go to the prom with me?” he blurted, and then looked kind of stunned that he’d actually said it.

I let out a shaky laugh. “You want to go to prom with
me
?” I searched his face for a joke that I rapidly realized wasn’t there.

He gave me a lopsided smile. “Badly enough to eat my mother out of house and home, just to control the nerves. Are you going to turn me down?”

I stared into his bright green eyes and was overcome with the same feeling I’d had last Friday—I wanted this. I wanted this ordinary, normal life. No heartache, no death or killing, no misery. “No.”

He leaned a little closer. “No, you don’t want to go with me, or no, you’re not turning me down?”

“I’m not turning you down,” I said.

He grinned. “Really?”

“Yeah. No promises about my dancing skills, though.”

Ian stood up. “This is awesome. I’m going to buy our tickets, all right? I’ll see you at lunch?”

I nodded mutely, already wondering if I’d made a mistake. What the hell did I think I was doing? But then I looked over at Laney, who was twirling her hair around her finger while she stared at Malachi.

Then she screamed.

I whipped my head around in the direction she was looking and nearly screamed myself. Evan Crociere, that gangly, disheveled drug dealer, was behind Malachi, whose head was still bowed over his book.

In Evan’s hand was a ballpoint pen.

I was in motion before it descended, but it was too late. With utter ferocity, Evan drove the pen right into the side of Malachi’s neck.

Everything in my world narrowed to a point, and the only thing that mattered was Malachi. I vaulted over the cafeteria table where I’d been sitting and sprinted along an aisle, grabbing a tray from the stacks as I ran.

With a crazy glint in his eye, Evan yanked the pen out of Malachi’s neck, painting the wall beside them with a spray of Malachi’s blood. Despite the wound in his neck, I would have expected Malachi to respond more quickly, but he seemed so caught off guard by the attack that he barely had time to lean away before Evan buried the pen in the junction of his neck and shoulder again.

A sound of pain and rage came from Malachi as the pen was ripped from his flesh again, and he began to rise from the table. Blood was streaming down the back of his shirt, droplets splattering onto the floor. And as I got close, I smelled it: incense.

Malachi didn’t get a chance to strike at his attacker. Because I was already there. I leaped onto the table where Malachi had been sitting and blocked the next stab of the pen with the tray. Evan’s eyes popped with surprise as his blow was deflected. Before he had a chance to recover, I drew the tray back and swung it down with all the force of my fury, hitting him in the throat with the edge of it. He stumbled back, coughing, as I caught a handful of his greasy hair and slammed his face into the painted cinder-block wall.

He crumpled to the floor, blood gushing from his nose, eyelids fluttering. But then he raised his head and looked right at Malachi, who was leaning against the wall with his hand pressed to his neck, blood seeping between his fingers.

“You can’t protect her, Captain,” the Mazikin inside Evan said quietly, mocking. “She has to protect
you
.”

I cut off Malachi as he took a step forward, and the Mazikin’s eyes glinted as his gaze slid to me. “You’d better call Sil, Lela,” he whispered, grinning with bloody teeth. “Or what happens next is your fault.”

TWENTY-FIVE

I STOOD IN FRONT
of the full-length mirror. “This is not going to work.”

Tegan appeared at my shoulder, looking like a pixie. Her frilly red tutu-like skirt scraped against the back of my hand as she looked me up and down. “What’s wrong? You look beautiful.”

I snorted. “I can’t move.” I shifted uncomfortably. The strapless pink-satin straitjacket she’d stuffed me into clung to every inch of my torso and legs, all the way down to my knees. “I don’t think I can sit down.” And I didn’t think I could run or fight, which was most important. Judging by what the Evan-Mazikin had said before he’d been carted away by the police, none of us could afford a night off, and unless I gave myself up, the Mazikin had every intention of attacking my classmates every chance they got. Prom seemed like the ideal target for them, so here I was, shopping with Tegan, when all I wanted to do was drive to the Guard house and check on my Lieutenant. Raphael had shown up at school, playing the role of Malachi’s host father and promising to take him straight to the emergency room, so I knew he was okay. Physically, at least. But when I thought about how he’d looked this morning, how miserable and hopeless …

Tegan sighed. “I’ll get you something else.” She’d been amazingly patient with me. This dress was like the eighteenth one I’d tried on.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered.

She nudged me with her hip. “Why? This was my idea. I just wish you were having more fun with it. Aren’t you excited? You didn’t go to prom last year. And this year you’re going with Ian freaking Moseley. He’s probably going to be elected prom king, for God’s sake.”

I reached for the zipper on my dress as I shuffled back to the changing room. “You’re making me feel sorry for Ian, that he’s going with me.”

Tegan scoffed. “Oh my God, Lela, you are so blind. You should have seen him at lunch. He’s so excited to go with you—and so nervous that you’re going to change your mind—that I think he ate about four trays of food in less than twenty minutes as he told us about how you’d said yes. It was bizarre.”

“He eats when he’s nervous,” I said quietly. I’d skipped lunch because I couldn’t get my mind off Malachi and hadn’t wanted to face Ian like that.

Tegan raised an eyebrow at me. “And since you started noticing that he exists, he’s probably eating ten thousand calories a day. Good thing he works out.”

“He doesn’t have to be nervous around me. I’m not going to hurt him or anything.” Actually, I was starting to feel really protective of him. If the Mazikin got him, I’d never forgive myself.

She turned her back on me to root through another rack of sequins and satin. “Yeah? We all saw the way you reacted to Malachi’s stabbing this morning.”

I hid myself in the changing stall. “Malachi was hurt, Teg. I had to help him. If Ian was hurt, I’d want to help him, too.”

“Okay,” she said, her voice dripping with skepticism. “I’m going to hand you a few more possibilities, all right? We’re going to go short. Your legs are totally ripped, and you seem to harbor some kind of grudge against the longer dresses.”

The long dresses seemed destined to trip me up and get tangled at the wrong moment. They made me feel clumsy and slow. I looked down at my legs. I never wore short skirts, or any type of skirt. I wasn’t keen on the idea of people looking at me, and so my clothes tended to be an afterthought. Which made this whole prom dress thing feel really weird. It felt like I was trying to wear some kind of disguise.

Tegan flopped a wine-red dress over the top of the door. “This is the one. Get that on, and get out here.”

I tugged the dress down and examined it. Unlike so many of the others, this one didn’t have a plunging neckline. It was a halter-style neck, with thin silvery straps that circled around and crisscrossed in the back. Feeling hopeful for the first time this afternoon, I pulled it on, carefully untangling my crazy hair as it got caught on the zipper. The front of the dress mostly covered the starburst scar from Henry’s crossbow bolt. Once I had myself decent, I walked into the mirrored vestibule where Tegan was waiting, wearing a cap-sleeved, skintight black dress that made her hip bones look scary sharp. When she saw me, her eyes lit up. “I knew it!” She clapped a few times.