Sorcerers of the Nightwing (Book One - The Ravenscliff Series) (2 page)

Devon had been unable to respond.

“I’m sending you to live with a family in Maine. Trust me, Devon. They
will know what’s best for you.”

“Dad, why did you never tell me before?”

His father smiled sadly. “It was for the best, Devon. I know I ask a lot when I ask you to just trust me, but you do, don’t you?”

“Of course I do, Dad.” Devon felt the tears push forward and drop, hot and stinging, one by one down his cheeks. “Dad, you can’t die. Please. Don’t leave me alone. The demons may come
back. And I still don’t understand why.”

“You’re stronger than any of them, Devon. Remember that.”

“But, Dad, why am I this way? You said I’d understand someday. You can’t die without telling me the truth. Please, Dad! Does what I am have something to do with who I am? With my real parents?”

Dad tried to answer, but found he couldn’t. He just closed his eyes and settled back into his
pillows. He died that night.

After the will was read, Dad’s lawyer, old Mr. McBride, told Devon that guardianship had been left to a woman named Mrs. Amanda Muir Crandall, way out on the rocky coast of Maine—in a place called Misery Point.

You’ll find no one there but ghosts.

Ah—but they are your ghosts
, the Voice in his head told him.

The old woman beside him on the bus had kept her
distance the rest of the way. Devon had concentrated on the landscape rolling by outside his window. He’d watched as the day deepened from its heavy blue, threatening rain into a wet violet, blurring like an amateur watercolor. By the time he’d arrived in Misery Point, mist was speckling his window, and Devon had looked out into the dampness with a growing ache of loneliness.

“You’re nearly
a man,” Mr. McBride had told him when he’d put him on the bus.

Nearly a man
, Devon thought. He knew he’d passed innocence a long time ago—the first time the eyes in his closet turned out to be real, in fact—but he still felt very young and very alone riding that bus.

Dad …

In the reflection of the window he tried to remember his father’s face.

How can I face them without you? How can
I learn everything I need to understand? How can I find out who I really am?

Thunder crackled, and suddenly the sky opened. The earth was all at
once bombarded by rain. Devon slid quickly into the Porsche next to the man he was convinced held some of the answers he sought.

“The name’s Rolfe Montaigne,” the man said, reaching over to shake Devon’s hand.

“Devon March,” the boy replied.

Raindrops pounded on the roof of the car like hundreds of tiny tap dancers each in a race to see who was fastest. In the dry interior, Devon found
the smell of the leather soothing, the soft supple seat seeming to embrace him as he settled into his space. The heat was gone, the pressure lifted. He rested his head back and closed his eyes.

Montaigne flicked on the wipers and shifted into reverse, looking over his shoulder as he began backing the car up once more.

“Looks as if we made it just in time,” he said. “It’s supposed to get
pretty bad tonight. You haven’t seen a storm till you’ve seen one at Misery Point.”

“Guess that’s where the name comes from, huh?”

“That and a few other things.” Montaigne headed the car out onto the road. “So where are you headed?”

Devon opened his eyes and looked over at him. “It’s a house called Ravenscliff. Do you know it? Can you drop me there?”

“Do I know it?” Montaigne looked
over at him sharply. “Kid, I wouldn’t drive you up to Ravenscliff if I had garlic around my car windows and a crucifix on my dashboard.”

Devon smirked. “Um, so that’d be a no?”

“What are you going to Ravenscliff for?”

Devon wasn’t sure he should answer. The man might have answers, but whether he could be trusted or not, the Voice hadn’t yet revealed. “Look,” Devon said, “if you don’t
want to drive up there—”

Montaigne shook his head, a smirk creeping across his lips. “I’ll take you as far as the Borgo Pass. You can get a cab there.”

“Very funny,” Devon said. “I get the references. I’ve read
Dracula
. Borgo Pass. Garlic. What is it about this place? Why’s everyone scared of it?”

“It is Walpurgis night,” Montaigne said, laughing, mock blessing himself with his free hand.
He winked over at Devon. “Nosferatu.”

“You don’t scare me, man.”

“I don’t?” Rolfe asked, grinning over at him, white teeth in the dark. “You sure?”

Devon gave him the most unimpressed face he could muster. Maybe he ought to be scared of this guy, but he was sure not going to show it.

The man laughed, and Devon turned to look out onto the watery streets, the rain distorting his view
through the glass. The street beyond was a river of blues and reds and yellows, cast in shadows, the neon of storefronts reflecting crazily.

Silence fell over the car after that, the only sounds the swish of the wipers against the glass and the pounding rain on the roof. The highway rose and became a bridge over a large body of water and Devon could feel the force of the high wind. Montaigne
had to struggle a bit to keep the car on a straight path. Finally, they arrived onto a long narrow stretch of land. Devon knew from looking at a map earlier that Misery Point sat at the end of a long rocky peninsula, jutting out from the coast into the Atlantic Ocean. Wind and water pelted the car windows. He heard again Mr. McBride’s brittle laugh.
Why do you think it’s called Misery Point?

The swaying beams of the Porsche’s headlights cut into the stormy blackness of the crooked road ahead, revealing little but hostile barren branches that reach out across the road. Devon felt almost mesmerized watching them.

“Not that it’s any of my business,” Montaigne said, breaking the uneasy silence, “but is your business at Ravenscliff brief?”

“Not very.” Devon looked over at him, deciding
to try the truth. “It’s only, like, permanent.” He waited a beat. “I’m going there to live.”

“Live? You’re going there to
live
?”

“Well, I certainly hope I’m not going there to die.”

Montaigne didn’t reply. He just looked over at Devon as if the idea was not really so farfetched.

Devon wrestled down a shudder. “My father just died,” he explained, “and guardianship was left to the lady
who lives at Ravenscliff. A Mrs. Crandall.”

Montaigne had returned his eyes to the road. The rain was coming down more furiously now. “Are you a relative?” he asked.

“Not that I’m aware. All my dad told me was that Mrs. Crandall would know what was best for me.”

“Curious.” Montaigne seemed to roll the information over in his mind. “Mighty curious indeed.”

They had come to a red light,
which seemed to swim in the watery darkness beyond the windshield. Montaigne looked over at the boy.

“I’m sorry about your father,” he said.

Devon looked away. He couldn’t reply.

“I know what it’s like,” Montaigne told him. “I lost my father when I was eight.”

The light changed. They appeared to be driving through the center of the village. White clapboard shops, many with their windows
boarded up for the season.

“So why do you say it’s curious?” Devon asked. “Do you know the people who live at Ravenscliff?”

The windshield wipers screeched like angry sea birds. “Oh, yes,” the man replied quietly, “I know them. Very well.”

Devon noted the sarcasm in his voice, but another idea had just occurred to him. “Maybe you knew my father then, too,” he inquired. “Ted March.”

Montaigne considered the name. “Ted March. No, sorry. I’ve lived here in Misery Point most of my life, except for a few years when I was out making my fortune. But I can’t say I recall anybody by that name.” He smiled. “But, then, Amanda Muir Crandall has lots of secrets. If your father said he knew her, I don’t doubt him.”

The man looked over at Devon again. His eyes were deeply set and shone
a brilliant green, even here in the darkened car.

He knows
, the Voice told Devon again.

But what? There was history behind Montaigne’s words, a history Devon was certain could answer many of his own questions. Yet for all of what he might know, Rolfe Montaigne also troubled Devon, even if he couldn’t figure out exactly why. Certainly he felt none of the heat here in Montaigne’s car, none
of the ominous pressure that signaled the demons were close.

“How do you know Mrs. Crandall?” Devon asked.

“I’m an old friend,” Rolfe said. “You make sure you give her my regards.”

Devon didn’t need an extrasensory Voice to tell him that was more sarcasm.

The car splashed through a deep gut in the road, but Rolfe Montaigne didn’t seem to notice. “So you’ll have to transfer to school
here,” he observed.

“Yeah. That’s probably the worst part. I hate being the new kid.”

“What year are you in?”

“I’m a sophomore,” Devon told him.

Montaigne nodded. “Did you talk with Mrs. Crandall at all before coming up here?”

“No,” Devon said. “My father’s lawyer did. I haven’t had any communication with her at all. I do know she has a daughter my age.”

“Oh, yes. Cecily.” Montaigne
smiled. “And then there’s the nephew. Surely you know about Alexander.”

“No,” Devon admitted.

“An eight-year-old.” Montaigne lifted his eyebrows over at him, and once more his white teeth flashed in the dark. “You like kids?”

“Don’t have anything particular against them.”

Montaigne laughed. “After you meet little Alexander, you might rethink that idea.”

He turned the wheel and headed
abruptly off the road, into a parking lot beside a large white house. A sign swung ferociously in the wind, engraved with old Gothic letters: stormy harbor. The tires of the car crunched gravel before coming to a stop.

“Here we are,” Montaigne said, smiling strangely across at Devon. “The Borgo Pass. You can get a cab here to take you up to the house.”

“Thanks for the ride,” Devon said,
turning to open the door.

“Not yet.” Montaigne reached across the boy to snap the car door’s lock into place. “Not so fast.”

Rolfe Montaigne’s face was suddenly no more than four inches from Devon’s.

“Next time,” Montaigne whispered menacingly, “you ought to think twice about who you accept rides from. Anybody could have told you to stay away from Rolfe Montaigne. They could have told
you that Rolfe Montaigne served five years in prison—for killing a young boy just like you.”

“Back off,” Devon said in a small, hushed voice.

Rolfe Montaigne laughed. “Sorry, kid. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

He leaned back into his seat and Devon exhaled. The boy’s hands were tightly drawn into fists, prepared to have used whatever power he might have summoned.

“You totally
did
mean
to scare me,” Devon told Montaigne.

The man was looking over at him. “Just figured you were going to start hearing all sorts of scary stories about me, especially up there at Ravenscliff. Figured I’d let you hear it from me first.”

Devon swallowed. “Did you really kill—?”

“You ask Mrs. Crandall to give you the whole story.” Montaigne opened his car door and stepped outside. In seconds
he was opening Devon’s door, shielding him from the rain with an umbrella. “I’m sure the mistress of Ravenscliff will be only too happy to give you all the details.”

Devon squinted into the rainy darkness, trying to make sense of the place.

Montaigne gestured up at the storm clouds. “Welcome,” he said, “to Misery Point.”

The murky yellow light of the windows of Stormy Harbor burned through
the rain. Devon and Montaigne hurried inside, where the older man shook his umbrella and headed without any further word off to a back room. Devon stood by himself, looking around. The place was dark, paneled in deep brown wood, hung with fishing nets and life preservers. The floorboards were uneven, warped from decades of sea air. A few tables with kerosene lamps were scattered across the floor;
two craggy old men sat against a far wall drinking beer and smoking pipes.

Lining the front wall was a bar edged with stools. Devon sidled onto one, attracting the attention of the bartender. She was a plump young woman with close cut red hair, a dimple in her chin and a gold hoop through her left eyebrow. Somehow her appearance reassured Devon. Someone with an eyebrow piercing couldn’t be
as weird as Rolfe Montaigne.

“What’ll it be?” the bartender asked.

“Coffee,” Devon told her.

She poured him a cup. “Here ya go. Ain’t a fit night out for—ah, you know the rest.”

Devon smiled. “Well, it certainly is beastly out there.”

“You new in town?”

“Yes,” Devon replied, sipping the coffee “Just arrived tonight.”

“Where from?”

“New York.”

“Really now?” She leaned
forward. “You’re a big city boy.”

“Not Manhattan,” he said. “From upstate.”

“Oh.” The bartender folded her arms across her rather large chest. “So what brings you all the way out to Misery Point, at the end of nowhere?”

“I’m going to live with a family here. At Ravenscliff. Do you know the place?”

There it was again, Devon realized: that look. The same look the old woman had given
him on the bus; the same that crossed Rolfe Montaigne’s face in the car.

“Do I know the place?” The bartender laughed. “Everyone in Misery Point knows Ravenscliff. How could we not? That family owns half the freakin’ town.”

“They’re very wealthy, I was told.”

“They’ve got more money than God.” She grabbed a dishcloth and began wiping down the bar. “The Muirs practically built this village.
Bought the fishing fleet, started the tourist trade, everything. There was nothing here before the Muirs. Every schoolkid knows the legends of Ravenscliff—how old Horatio Muir built the house out there on the point and how all the ravens descended on it and came to live there.”

“Ravens?”

“Yup. You know, the big black birds. My grandfather remembers when the place was covered with them. That’s
how it got its name. There aren’t any ravens up there anymore, but the place is still the creepiest thing you can imagine.”

Devon laughed. “I was told all I’d find there are ghosts.”

Her eyes twinkled. “You were told right. Ghosts and a few crazy real live people.” She grinned. “I’m Andrea, by the way. You?”

“Devon,” he told her. They shook hands.

“So you’re really going up to that
house to live?”

He nodded. “Mrs. Crandall is my guardian. My father died. I kind of got left to her in the will.”

“Weirdness,” Andrea said. “That’s one odd lady. Her daughter’s pretty cool, though. Cecily. She comes in here to hang sometimes with her friends. She’s about your age.”

“Well, that’s good. I was beginning to think it was only going to be awkward and boring up there.”

Andrea
shrugged. “Well, those are two adjectives that definitely describe this town. I don’t know what the place you came from is like, but Misery Point can be pretty bleak. Especially, like, in January, February, March. Nobody’s around and most everything except this here dive is closed. Summertime, that’s a different story. In the winter, we’re just under three thousand people, but at the peak of
the season—Fourth of July through Labor Day—we’ve got something like fifty thousand tourists crammed in.”

“Wow.”

“You know, I think it’s the name. You’d think it would keep people away, but no. Everybody wants to say they’ve been to Misery Point and back. Us poor townies—we kill ourselves in the summer trying to accommodate all of them. I suppose we should be grateful. It’s their dollars
that keep us all living from September to May.”

“I’ll be sixteen by summer,” Devon said. “I’d like to get a job.”

“They’ll be plenty of them in the summer. So you’re what? A sophomore?”

“Yeah. I’ve got to start school here in a week. Coming in midsemester is kind of weird. I’m not looking forward to it.”

“Cecily will take care of you. She’s got her own little clique of friends. It’s
not a bad school. I graduated a few years ago. It’s a regional, so that’s cool. At least you’ll meet kids from outside Misery Point.” She fiddled with the ring in her eyebrow. “So you think you’ll stay here for good?”

Devon looked off towards the windows. The rain continued to crash against the glass. “I don’t know,” he told her. “For now, I have no choice. But later …”

His words faded off.
Ever since the will was read, Devon had wondered how long he’d stay in Misery Point. Part of him had rebelled against the idea of leaving Coles Junction and his friends. He missed Suze and Tommy—and especially his dog Max—like crazy. But another part of him had been compelled by the Voice:
The answers are there in Misery Point. Who you are. What you are
.

In the hours after Dad had died, the
heat in Devon’s room had ratcheted up twenty degrees. In his grief, Devon hadn’t thought he was strong enough to withstand whatever it was that haunted him. But he
was
—just as he’d always been: with just one sharp look and a wave of his hand, his armoire had slid across his room, blocking his door. The knob had turned and rattled, but nothing had gotten in.

The answers are here
, the Voice was
telling him.

And Devon agreed:
I knew that from the moment I stepped off the train.

“Anybody tell you about the kid?” Andrea was asking.

Devon returned his eyes to her. “The kid? Oh, you mean the little boy at Ravenscliff.”

She nodded. “‘Little boy’ is a deceptive description. Try monster. Try gremlin. Do you know why they kicked him out of the school he was going to in Connecticut?”

Devon grinned. “I’m afraid to find out.”

Andrea let out a hoot. “He set the curtains in the cafeteria on fire. The cafeteria! Now, I could understand the headmaster’s bedroom, or the math classroom—but the cafeteria!”

Devon shook his head. “Sounds like a kid with a severe case of I-want-attention-and-I-want-it-now.”

“Yeah, Alexander Muir is definitely twisted. Growing up in that house,
I can understand.”

“Too many ghosts?” Devon smiled.

Andrea shrugged. “Hey, that’s what they say.” She leaned in towards him. “You can still hear Emily Muir’s screams at Devil’s Rock. And this is firsthand information, buddy. I’ve heard them myself.”

“Whoa,” Devon said. “Screams? Devil’s Rock?”

“Yeah. It’s the highest point overlooking the sea, out at the end of the Muir estate, the
very tip of Misery Point. Emily Muir threw herself off the cliff fifty years ago. It’s said she found her husband with another woman.”

Devon grinned. “Sounds like some bad horror film on Lifetime.”

“Scoff if you must, but her husband is the worst ghost of all. Jackson Muir. My parents remember him from when they were kids. He was a real live person then, living in that house, and he terrorized
the village. They say he was a warlock.”

“Warlock? You mean like the kind they turn out at Hogwarts?”

She tossed the dishrag at him. “Hey, I’m just repeating what I’ve been told. Poor old Jackson Muir, though. None of his spells could bring his precious Emily back, and so he died in grief and guilt, you know, cuz he’d been cheating on her.”

“You’re just trying to freak me out,” Devon
told her.

Andrea smirked. “Have I succeeded?”

“No.” He took another sip of coffee. “I don’t scare easily. Never have.”

“Well, you just watch out for yourself. Mrs. Crandall is just this side of Looney Toons. I’ll see her driving along in that Jaguar of hers. She’ll show up in some local shop all covered up with silk scarves so that you can hardly see her face and then she’ll haggle over
the price of a ten-dollar pair of sandals.” She leaned over the bar. “And do you know what else is weird about that family? They’ve only got one servant. One! Can you imagine? For that big house? Why, I can barely keep my little one-room apartment clean, and they’ve got fifty!”

“Fifty rooms?”

“Yup. Can you imagine?”

No, Devon couldn’t. But somewhere in those fifty rooms he was convinced
he’d find a clue to who he was and where his strange powers came from.

“More coffee?” Andrea asked.

“No, thanks,” Devon said, draining his cup. He looked over his shoulder. Rolfe Montaigne still hadn’t emerged from the back room. “Is there a phone I could use? I can’t get reception on mine.” He showed her the lack of bars on his phone.

“Get used to that, buddy. Our insufficient cell towers
are legendary. The tourists are always griping about it, but whenever town meeting brings up the issue, the locals always vote it down.” She rolled her eyes. “People here seem to think too many cell towers will give them brain cancer or something, or allow the government to spy on them. You’ll see. This town is rather paranoid.”

“Well, I need to call a cab to get me to Ravenscliff.”

“They
didn’t even send a car to get you?”

“They were supposed to, but no one was there.” Devon took his wallet out of his jacket pocket and withdrew a five-dollar bill, setting it on the counter just as he noticed Montaigne come out of the back room. “That guy gave me a ride here.”

Andrea looked off in Montaigne’s direction and made a face.

“You aren’t messed up with Rolfe Montaigne, are you?”
she asked.

“No, he just gave me a ride. Why? Shouldn’t I be?” Devon looked at Andrea intently. “He told me he went to jail for murder. Is that true, or was he just trying to scare me?”

She snorted. “I’ve told you enough horror stories tonight,” she said. “Don’t get me started on Rolfe Montaigne. I’ll call you a cab. There’s only one guy in town.”

Devon thanked her. She headed to the other
end of the bar to make the call. Devon looked around at the other people in the bar, waiting to see if he picked anything up from them. Nothing. No voice. No heat.

But he knew there were people in this town who held the truth he sought. And he’d find them. Fate—or whatever—had already brought him into contact with one: the mysterious Rolfe Montaigne, who, after waving to Andrea, walked straight
past Devon and out of the place without saying another word. In moments, Devon could hear the engine of the Porsche kick in. The headlights cast their light through the windows behind the bar as Montaigne drove off.

“The cab will be here in about five minutes,” Andrea told him when she returned. “Stop in again. You’ll need to get out of that house often if you want to stay sane.”

Devon promised.

Even before the five minutes were up, the cab honked from outside. Devon rushed out to meet it. The rain had eased up. The windshield wipers flicked back and forth only every few minutes. The driver was a squat man with leathery skin—a fisherman by day, Devon imagined—and dark eyes under a heavy brow. Like everyone else, he was surprised when Devon told him his destination was Ravenscliff, arching
a furry eyebrow at him in his rearview mirror. But he said nothing and drove on.

The moon reemerged from the dark gray clouds overhead, a shy child peeking around a corner past its bedtime. Its light was hesitant, unsure: it came and went, but it was bright enough to illuminate the jagged wet rocks on the side of the road and the roiling sea beyond. The white caps of the waves seemed unbearably
cold to Devon. He listened as they crashed on the beach below.

Finally, up ahead, standing against the moonlight on the top of Devil’s Rock, he saw Ravenscliff. It was little more than a shadow at first, a silhouette, as if it were a painted backdrop on a Broadway stage.

“There she is,” the cab driver croaked.

“Yes,” Devon replied, his eyes caught.

“I don’t much say anythin’ to the
folks I drive,” the man told him, glancing sharply in the rearview mirror. “And God knows I see enough that I could say somethin’. I pick up drunks and take ‘em home to their wives. I pick up politicians and bring ‘em to their mistresses. I don’t say nothin’. Never have. But tonight, I’ll give you a tip.”

“What’s that?” Devon asked. They rounded a curve on the seaside road and began the snaking
drive up the hill. Ravenscliff loomed over them now, black and foreboding, poised on the edge of the cliff.

“You do whatever business you have up there and leave,” the cab driver said. “Don’t ask no questions. Just do what you came to do and get out.”

Devon kept his eyes on the dark mansion. There were only two windows lit, both on the first floor, and their light seemed dull and uninspired,
as if hesitant to disturb the shadows. A tower rose from the east end of the house into the black-violet sky.