Severed (21 page)

But it wasn’t just concern about Lucas that was making the adrenaline short-circuit her body. Ever since Margaret had shoved her backwards into the Prius and snatched the keys from Cyrus, Evie had been feeling as if she’d tumbled over the edge. And it wasn’t Margaret’s driving and it wasn’t the fact they were heading back to Riverview. No. She took a deep breath and glanced sideways at Margaret – it was something else entirely that had sent her into a freefall spin.

Cyrus’s mum had barely said a word to her since they’d got in the car. Her hands were gripping the steering wheel as if she was sat in the front seat of a rollercoaster car without a seat belt on, and she was leaning forward over the dashboard, her nose nearly pressed to the windshield, as if by sitting that way she could exert some extra forward motion on the car to make it go faster.

She didn’t trust Margaret. That’s what this weird, knotted feeling in her stomach was. It was the same feeling she’d had around Lucas when she first met him – something pricking at her, her senses screaming that she shouldn’t trust him. Back then she’d known instinctively that Lucas had been hiding something from her. It just turned out that the effect he had on other parts of her body overrode her gut suspicion and all her instincts. This time, though, she recognised what her gut was telling her and she wasn’t going to ignore it. Margaret was keeping something from them. Something Evie didn’t think was going to be a pleasant surprise. She pressed her hand to the hilt of Lucas’s blade and felt it dig into her spine. Her foot instantly stopped tapping.

Cyrus leant forward suddenly between the two front seats. ‘Mum, do you want me to drive?’ he asked for the fourth time. ‘We might get there sometime before the army of unhumans invades that way.’

‘No,’ Margaret answered tersely. ‘The way you drive we’ll get pulled over by the police.’

Cyrus huffed and flopped noisily against the back seat. ‘Why aren’t we taking your car anyway? I just got this valeted and now I’m going to have to do it all over again.’

‘My car got stolen earlier today,’ Margaret answered, ‘and, Cyrus, unless we make it to Riverview the least of your problems is going to be getting your car valeted.’

‘Fine,’ Cyrus sighed, ‘no need to remind me. But tell me once again why we’re driving halfway across the state of California for a book that Evie says contains nothing we don’t already know?’

‘I think it may have some hidden clue in it as to the location of the rest of the prophecy. I told you this already,’ Margaret snapped, not taking her eyes off the road. ‘I remember reading something once.’ She trailed off.

‘And you’re remembering this fact only now?’ Cyrus asked, taking the words right out of Evie’s mouth. ‘You didn’t think to remember this earlier, back when it was first mentioned and before you sent the hybrid demon off to hunt down the missing part?’

Margaret didn’t say a word. Evie stared at her, feeling the nausea in the pit of her stomach growing, but Margaret just kept driving with a fixed expression on her face. Her face in profile was striking. She had Cyrus’s square jaw and wide-spaced eyes, and the same short hair, a shade darker than her son’s, though Evie had a sneaking suspicion Cyrus lightened his because those streaks were far too symmetrically spaced to be the work of the sun. Margaret swallowed, her jaw starting to pulse mechanically as she felt Evie’s scrutiny. Evie turned away and stared out of the window instead, trying to imagine what Lucas might make of the situation – what he’d do.

‘And you didn’t think to take this book with you when you skipped town?’ Cyrus went on. ‘You didn’t think
maybe this will come in handy some day. I think I might keep a hold of this?
’

Margaret glared at him in the rear-view mirror. ‘No, I was too busy running for my life – for yours – to think of taking anything.’

Cyrus’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Except for a few priceless antique weapons?’

Evie twisted once more to look at Margaret, whose grip on the steering wheel had tightened so that the bones of her knuckles were practically shearing through the skin. So, she’d run off with some of the Hunters’ ancient weapons. Was that how she’d financed her time on the run? Was that how Cyrus lived his playboy lifestyle and wasn’t forced to work a day job at Starbucks? She wished she’d had the presence of mind to think of doing the same when she had run.

‘That ruby-hilted knife – remember the one, mum? You got a good price for that on eBay last year.’

‘Not here, Cyrus,’ Margaret snapped.

Evie bit back the smile.

‘OK, so the plan is to what? Get to Evie’s house, break in, find this book and then what? Hope to whichever divinity is on our side that the answer’s in it?’

‘It
is
in it,’ Margaret hissed, glancing up to read the interstate signs, then swerving hard across two lanes of traffic.

Cyrus contemplated his mother with narrowed eyes. ‘Well, I sure as hell hope you’re right about this book, because though there is no questioning my skill, I’m not that confident of my chances of emerging unharmed against an army of five thousand unhumans. And if the answer isn’t there then …’

Margaret cut him off. ‘We’ll close the Gateway before they can come through. OK? Stop panicking.’

Cyrus bolted upright, affronted, ‘I’m not panicking. I don’t panic.
Ever
. I’m just cautiously expressing my concern.’

Evie stayed quiet. Cyrus might not be panicking but she sure as hell was. They had just passed the first sign for Riverview and her heart rate had rocketed. She unlocked her fingers from her T-shirt and started flexing and unflexing them, trying to remember the way Lucas used to stroke her palm to get her to relax, then trying to take deep breaths when that failed. She repeated silently the words that Lucas had whispered to her:
It was all going to be fine.
In a few hours they’d be back together, they’d have the book, they’d know what they needed to do and this whole nightmare would be over.

She sank down into her seat as they turned onto Main Street, though she didn’t expect to see any traffic or people about. This was a country town: people went to bed with the sun; there was nothing whatsoever in the way of nightlife. She glanced warily out of the window anyway. Last time she’d been here, which felt like centuries ago rather than just a few days, she and Lucas had left a pile of dead unhumans behind and Victor trussed up like a stuffed pork loin in his own store. But gazing out on the deserted street, painted eerily chiaroscuro under the streetlights and reminding her of a Hopper painting, it was hard to imagine that a demon massacre had occurred right here.

They cruised past Joe’s diner and Evie stared in the dark windows remembering the night she’d served Victor – the same night the Brotherhood had showed up to get her and she’d been outed by Victor as a Hunter. It felt strange to think that once upon a time she’d been a waitress. Now she was a demon slayer slash walking prophecy. How was that for a career move?

She turned her head quickly to look at the boutique on the other side of the road which Victor had set up as a cover. Though he’d employed her as a shop assistant, in reality he’d been training her to fight. The stock room had functioned as a weapons training room. The mannequins Evie had dressed in couture were still in the window, plastic limbs splayed in surprise as if they couldn’t believe the sign hanging on the door announcing that the shop was closing down. Evie wondered if the weapons were still laid out in the back room or if Victor had taken them.

Margaret paused at the next intersection, looking at her for directions. Evie pointed her left. They drove for a few minutes, passing her ex-boyfriend Tom’s house. His bedroom light was still on. She tried to picture him. Was he talking on the phone to Kaitlyn Rivers like he’d once done with her – in hushed whispers under the covers so that his mother couldn’t hear? Was he safe? Would the Elders send anyone to hurt him? Or threaten him? The knots twisted in her gut. How was she supposed to protect everyone she’d ever been close to? She kept staring at the house over her shoulder, checking the shadows, trying to sense if anything lurked in them, until she noticed Cyrus narrowing his eyes at her in suspicion.

‘So,’ she said, turning back to Margaret before Cyrus could ask anything or start jibing her. He already knew enough of her business. ‘Um, Mrs Locke, you’ve been researching the Hunter family all this time?’

‘Mmm,’ Margaret murmured in response, keeping her attention fixed on the road.

‘What were you trying to find out exactly?’ she asked innocently.

Margaret licked her lips and swallowed. ‘I was trying to find out how this all began. Why the Gateway first appeared, I wanted to find out more about the Hunter family.’

‘And did you? Find out anything, I mean?’

‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘I found out plenty.’

Evie waited for her to continue but she didn’t. ‘And?’ Evie finally had to ask.

‘And I’ll tell you later,’ Margaret snapped. ‘Which way now?’

‘Keep going straight,’ Evie said, thrown by the older woman’s tone, ‘then take a left at the end of the road. My house is the last one on the right.’ Evie leant forwards, her heart now in her mouth, gazing at her neighbours’ familiar houses. She’d taken Margaret a slightly roundabout route, so she had to drive past Jocelyn’s place. The porch light was on, though the rest of the house was buried in darkness. Was Jocelyn holding up her end of the bargain? Was she looking after her mum?

Half a mile further on, they came to Evie’s house. Margaret cut the engine and cruised to a silent stop at the edge of the road, pulling onto the grass verge. Evie stared at the old Victorian house. The lights were all out, even the porch light, which her mother normally left on to welcome visitors. Evie scanned the windows upstairs – her own bedroom under the eaves, her mother’s at the far end. The curtains were drawn in both rooms. The house didn’t look welcoming. For the first time in Evie’s life it looked threatening.

Chapter 29

Evie eased open the door and stepped out into the night, the first leaves of fall crackling under her feet. A thin wedge of moon lit the driveway, though beneath the cover of trees at the edge of the plot total blackness lay. She hesitated for a moment, trying to gauge her surroundings, at once so familiar but at the same time now alien. She scanned the area. She couldn’t feel any unhumans. Her heart was beating fast, the blood pounding in her temples, and her hearing was so acutely tuned that she could hear the mournful hoots of an owl down by the river and some rustling in the long grass in the orchard behind the house. But her senses weren’t pricking, so she knew it wasn’t an unhuman or even a human. It was just an animal.

‘Do you remember where you left the book?’ Cyrus asked. He had appeared beside her, his hand casually brushing her lower back.

‘Yes,’ she answered, looking up at the darkened windows, ‘it’s upstairs in my bedroom, under the mattress.’

‘That’s original.’

She started walking up the drive, the crunch of the gravel sounding as loud as buckshot. Cyrus hurried to keep up. Margaret seemed to be staying in the car, which was fine by Evie.

‘Is your mum home?’ Cyrus asked under his breath.

Evie frowned up at the darkened windows, her pace slowing. ‘She should be,’ she whispered back. But now he’d asked the question she realised that was what was bothering her. Her mum’s car wasn’t there. There was only Evie’s old truck, parked by the side of the house.

‘If she’s there, don’t wake her up, OK? Let’s just get the book and leave,’ Cyrus murmured.

Evie turned to him, her eyes narrowing to slits. She needed to see her mum. Cyrus could shove his advice where the sun didn’t shine. ‘I need to warn her …’ she started.

‘What are you going to tell her?’ Cyrus hissed through the darkness. ‘
Run, the apocolypse is coming?
This is not the moment for reunions, hysterics and explanations to family,’ he said, taking hold of her by the elbow. ‘Call her later and tell her you need her help. Tell her you need her to come and get you because you’ve been abandoned by lover boy in Alaska or somewhere else a thousand miles from here. That’ll get her out of town. Well away from any trouble that comes looking for you.’

Evie snatched her arm free and scowled at Cyrus in the darkness, watching the old oak tree slash angry shadows across his face. She bit her tongue and strode off down the driveway. He had a point. Turning up in the middle of the night with Cyrus in tow, when she’d only skipped town three nights ago with Lucas, wasn’t exactly going to be an easy one to explain to her mother. But no way was she ever going to admit to Cyrus that he was right.

On the front porch she pulled up short, her hands hovering at her sides. Cyrus bounded up the steps and drew up alongside her. ‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘I don’t feel anything. There’s no one here.’

Exactly, she thought to herself. Where was her mother? She turned the door handle. It was locked. Her stomach clenched in panic. The front door was never locked. She turned and started heading around to the back door, Cyrus jogging to keep pace with her. On the back porch Lobo’s bed lay empty. The panic trebled.

‘What? What is it?’ Cyrus asked, a note of worry creeping into his voice when he saw the expression on her face.

‘Lobo,’ Evie said, pointing at the dog’s empty bed and water bowl. ‘The dog’s gone.’ She reached for the back door. It fell open.

Cyrus stepped quickly past her into the kitchen, flicking the light switch as he went. A howl sent him jumping backwards. Evie pushed past him, dropping to her knees, holding her arms out wide as Lobo leapt towards her, pressing his muzzle into her shoulder. She grabbed hold of him by the scruff of the neck and buried her face in his fur.

‘Lobo,’ she whispered, ‘good boy, where’s mum?’

The husky dog whined and pawed the ground. Evie sat back on her haunches, her fingers carefully stroking the back of Lobo’s neck where Shula had acid-burnt him. The skin beneath the fur seemed to be healing.

‘There’s a note.’

Evie looked up. Cyrus was reaching for a sheet of paper lying on the kitchen table. She was on her feet in the next second, snatching it out of his hands.