Sorceress (12 page)

I did this
, she thought.
For you, my beloved lord.

Would He credit Nadia’s help? Would He think so much of the strength Nadia added to the spells that He would fail to understand that Elizabeth, His most faithful and devoted servant, was the creator of it all?

Not after tonight.

And tonight, she would take away the last bonds tying Nadia to the mortal world.

With a smile, Elizabeth summoned the ingredients for moving water, and bid the river to run wild.

“Where the heck are they?”

“I don’t know, Dad,” Nadia said for the fifteenth time in as many minutes. “It’s not like ‘the far bend in the river’ is something we can plug into GPS.”

She was driving the car in an attempt to get her dad to the sandbagging line. Verlaine had come over to babysit Cole for the “few minutes” they’d thought the trip would take, but
she and her father had been lost for more than half an hour now. Unfortunately, the alert that had gone out had been written by locals, for locals, which meant newcomers who didn’t know the exact location were out of luck.

“I knew I should have driven out with Vera’s dads,” her father grumbled. “Would’ve been less trouble all around. At least I could have remembered to ask them.”

“Verlaine,” Nadia corrected him absently. She kept following along the side of the river as best she could. Sooner or later she’d see the sandbagging line. Of course she had no idea what it would look like, but the huge crowd of people would probably be a tip-off.

Then a strange sensation rippled through her—not pleasure, but the memory of it, but twisted somehow. Nadia’s eyes widened as she realized Elizabeth had just cast dark magic of intense power—without her, and yet she’d still felt it.

“Jesus Christ,” her father swore. “The river.”

Nadia gripped the steering wheel as she saw it. The river was rising—no, surging, welling up so deep and so fast that it looked almost like a tidal wave.

In the woods, perched on the wet branches of trees, were countless crows. Elizabeth watched the scene through their eyes.

Now Nadia had an emergency to deal with. The lives of many people she loved were in the balance. This was the exact sort of situation where love could lead to mistakes.

Time for Nadia to make hers.

“Holy shit,” Dad said. When her father actually swore in front of her, Nadia knew it was bad. But she could tell that for herself. Her mind raced ahead, realizing what was about to happen.

The sandbag line. It would be completely overrun, flooded with torrents of water so powerful no one could possibly remain standing. They’d be knocked down and washed away. All those people are out there—Verlaine’s dads—and probably Mateo, too . . .

“We have to stop the car,” she said.

“Stop the car? Like hell. Nadia, we have to get away from this.” Dad’s face had gone white. “The road ahead gets closer to the river. We could be washed out. Or washed away.”

“Not a problem.” There was nowhere to pull over; the ditches on both sides of the small country road were feet deep in water. Nobody else was driving anywhere nearby, so to hell with it. Nadia just stopped the car in the middle of the road. “Dad—hang on, okay?”

“Just what do you think you’re doing, young lady?”

Young lady
meant she was in serious trouble. But she had to get a few feet away from him, right now, because if she didn’t cast a spell to quiet the river, at least a little bit, everyone on the sandbagging line might be dead within minutes.

She pushed open the door and ran into the rain. With a leap she cleared the ditch—barely—and felt cold mud spatter all over her pant legs. Although the mud slipped beneath her feet and made her wobble, Nadia kept running despite hearing her father call after her. The river swelled further; she hadn’t thought there was this much water outside the ocean.

Quickly, quickly, do it now!

Nadia grabbed the agate charm on her bracelet and cast the spell for moving water—moving it backward, slowing it, stilling it.

Her magic crackled against Elizabeth’s; the collision rocked her to her bones. It was as though Nadia could see Elizabeth in front of her for a moment, staring in disbelief and white-hot anger.

Despite that, the waters quieted. Although the river remained storm-swollen, its flow was no longer much greater than it had been a few minutes ago. As the wind whipped her damp hair around her, she wiped the raindrops from her face and tried to think about what might happen next. The surge that had already passed through couldn’t be stopped any longer; Nadia prayed what she’d done would be enough.

“Nadia?”

The voice was right behind her. Startled, Nadia jumped around to see Dad standing there, eyes wide.

Every excuse she could have made, every story she would’ve invented, died unspoken in her throat. There was no getting around this. Nadia had broken another of the First Laws, and this was the one that would tear her life to shreds.

Dad had seen her cast a spell, and he understood what he’d seen.

Dad knew.

“JUST TELL ME,” SAID NADIA’S FATHER, FOR ABOUT THE
six hundredth time since they’d gotten back into the car.

“It’s not important,” Nadia lied. It felt like the six thousandth time. “Can we just keep going?”

“No, we can’t. Because the river—it did something that doesn’t happen in the natural world. I saw the laws of physics change. And I’m almost positive my daughter was involved.” Her dad’s voice was sharp-edged, but he was obviously fighting to remain calm. “It doesn’t make any sense. I realize that. But I know what I saw.”

You can explain magic away easily, most of the time, Mom had said. She’d kept Dad fooled for almost twenty years, but apparently she was better at this than Nadia was.

Dad kept going, though now his words were halting and unsure. “People in town—they’ve been saying—it’s a lot of superstitious nonsense, or I thought it was—but now—now
I just need to understand what’s going on here.”

He looked so hurt. So lost.

Screw the First Laws. She’d broken most of them by now anyway. How could the situation get any worse? Once—just once—Nadia wanted to tell the truth.

She took a deep breath. “I’m a witch.”

Dad blinked. Whatever answer he’d been expecting, it wasn’t that. “What do you—what—is this, I don’t know, Wicca or something?”

“No. That’s a completely separate religion. This is the Craft, the true Craft, that’s been handed down from woman to woman since the beginning of time.” It felt . . . so incredibly good to say it. Just to say it. Nadia had heard the phrase
the truth will set you free
, but she hadn’t truly understood it until this moment. “With my spells I can do almost anything you can imagine. Do you want to see one? Here.”

He didn’t say yes, but he looked too astonished to object.

Swiftly Nadia took hold of the pearl charm on her bracelet and did a spell for light:

She kept the memories sweet and simple.

Getting up early for a school trip back in Chicago, sniffing the delicious aroma of coffee from the kitchen, as she stood at the balcony and watched the first daylight playing on the river.

The night of Thanksgiving, when the clouds had cleared and the moon shone down on Captive’s Sound, the whole town silvered with a thin dusting of snow.

Mateo’s house, his fireplace crackling as she looked from the flames to his face and felt her breath catch in her chest.

Dad said, “Son of a bitch.”

Nadia opened her eyes to see a soft glow suffusing the interior of the car. It was as though she were holding some sort of candle in her hands, though there was no visible flame; the gentle light emanated from the space between her hands, responding to her magic. Her father stared at it with wide eyes.

She wasn’t prepared for what he said next. “Elizabeth tried to warn me.”

“Elizabeth? She tried to warn you about
me
?” It seemed like there wasn’t one single thing in Nadia’s life that Elizabeth wasn’t determined to screw up. “She said something bad about me and you listened to her?”

“She was trying to tell me about your witchcraft.” Dad kept shaking his head. “I wouldn’t believe her. I still can’t believe—”

“I turned back the river,” Nadia interrupted. She wasn’t interested in hearing more about how her father was taking advice from a Sorceress; anger edged every word she spoke. “You’re right about that. I also saved Mateo from the fire at the haunted house, which by the way was zero percent natural. That disease that swept through town last month? Dark magic. I’m the one who saved all those people. But right
now I’m mixed up in something harder than all the rest. Elizabeth, the one you’ve been listening to—she’s a Sorceress, a dark witch, and I’m trying to stop her from destroying this whole town.”

“This whole world” would have been more accurate, but she didn’t want to push Dad all the way to the brink.

“Elizabeth? Your friend?” He looked so confused. “But she seems like a sweet girl.”

“Sweet? That’s the last thing on earth Elizabeth is.” Nadia folded her arms across her chest. “She tried to seduce you. I know, because she told me.”

Then she wished she hadn’t said it, because her father’s face—Nadia never, ever had needed to see her father looking so humiliated. Elizabeth was the one she was angry with. Not Dad. Not even now.

Awkwardly, she added, “You were strong to resist her. Most men—that kind of dark magic—they would have given in. So you proved you’re not like that.”

“Did Elizabeth teach you this?” Dad’s expression was shifting from bewilderment to anger that matched her own. “Did she get you involved in witchcraft and whatever the hell else this is?”

“No. I’ve always been a witch. Mom taught me.”

That made it even worse. Her father went so pale she thought he might faint. “Your mother knew?”

“Mom’s a powerful witch. She taught me, just like her mom taught her since she was a little girl. And when she—Dad, when she left—” This was the hardest part to say, but
the most important. If Dad could understand just one thing, it needed to be what had really happened with Mom. “She didn’t go away because she didn’t love us anymore. She went because she
couldn’t
love us anymore. Mom—she gave up her ability to love. She sacrificed it to protect me from darkness.” The weight of what her mother had done for her bore down on Nadia every day. “It was the most heroic thing she could have done. She—basically she tore open her heart and let all the love pour out, just so I’d be safe.”

It hadn’t worked. That was the worst part. Elizabeth and the One Beneath had designed their traps so well that all Mom’s sacrifice had come to nothing.

“Your mother,” Dad repeated. “This can’t be real. It can’t.”

Nadia lifted her hands; the glowing, unearthly light between them rose with her, reminding him of what she could do.

Dad’s lips parted, and for a moment she thought she saw . . . wonder. Amazement. He knew now, really truly knew that magic was real, that it could be helpful and even beautiful. He understood what she could do, and there was no need to pretend anymore.

Finally, she felt like she might have something to hold on to.

Then Dad said, “You’re telling me my whole life has been a lie.”

It felt like a slap. Nadia gaped at him, unable to find words.

“My marriage was a sham, because I never—I had no idea who I’d actually married. Twenty-three years and I never
even knew her.” His voice had started to shake, and he couldn’t meet her eyes any longer. “I don’t even know you. My own daughter. You’ve been lying to me your whole life. If I don’t know you, I don’t know a single person on this whole goddamned planet, and I never have.”

Nadia realized she was shivering. The cold and the wet had hardly been able to affect her before, as overwhelmed as she’d been by Dad finding out. Now she was chilled to the marrow, and her own father didn’t want her anymore. The light she’d conjured offered no heat.

“I’m going,” she said, opening the car door. “Don’t worry, I won’t come by the house. You and Cole are safe. I promise you’ll always be safe.”

“Wait. No.” Dad forced himself to look at her again, or so it seemed to her. “You can’t run off like this. It’s late—out here in the dark—”

Nadia raised one of her hands above her head and let the lingering magic of her spell gain strength, until the light blazed above her like a torch. Dad’s eyes went wide, and she knew he was beyond being able to speak another word.

“I can take care of myself,” she said. Then she turned and walked away from the life she used to know.

By the time the sandbagging was done, the sky was light gray—what passed for sunrise in a town where the sun hadn’t been seen in a long time. Mateo ached from his shoulders to his abs to his thighs; the coarse burlap of the bags had worn away the skin of his fingers, though his hands had been too
numb from cold to feel it at the time. Even as he stared down at the raw curls of peeling skin, he couldn’t make himself care about it much. It felt . . . appropriate.

Worn down to the bone. That’s me.

Nobody riding in the truck back to town said much. A few people had taken off earlier in the night, mostly older guys or people who had been injured. Mr. Prasad had thrown out his back, and his wife had driven him home around one a.m., which was why Asa sat next to Mateo in the flatbed of the truck. For the moment, the rain had died down to a sprinkle. Nobody made any effort to shelter themselves from it. They were all soaked, as wet as they could get, and by now no one could care any longer.

Maybe that’s how Elizabeth finishes us off
, Mateo thought.
She wears us all down until we’re too tired to care. She’s bringing the battle only after she’s sure we won’t fight back.

The truck rumbled toward the town square—and, to Mateo’s surprise, pulled to a stop in front of La Catrina, just as his father walked out. “Everybody!” Dad called. “We’ve got huevos rancheros, toast, and sausage for anyone who wants it.”

A low rumble of enthusiasm and some clapping answered this. Mateo realized he was starving; until this moment he’d been too tired to notice, and apparently most of the guys in the trucks had the same reaction.

Gage breathed a sigh of relief. “Your dad is the greatest human being I have ever known.”

“Yeah, think I’ll hang on to him.”

As they began jumping out of the truck, most people
trudged straight toward La Catrina, ready to chow down. However, a few simply waved and headed toward their vehicles or businesses, either too exhausted to eat or too eager to get home and sleep. Among them Mateo saw Asa. Mrs. Prasad had come to pick him up, even now standing beside her car and smiling at the demon she thought was her son.

“Hey,” Mateo called to Asa. “Sure you won’t stop in?”

Asa gave him a look, like,
Since when are we best friends?
Which was a valid question. But all night—all the weary hours they’d worked—Mateo had thought about Asa’s story.

About how the One Beneath kept His word.

“Apparently Dad’s already making pancakes,” Asa said. “If you think I’m passing up what may be my last chance on earth to eat pancakes, you are sorely mistaken.”

Mrs. Prasad laughed. “Teenagers! So melodramatic. ‘Last chance on earth.’”

Mateo and Asa looked at each other, and for one second it was so funny that Mateo thought he might lose it. Not that the apocalypse was a laugh riot, but—at the moment, Mateo was so tired he couldn’t think straight.

Which was what made it the worst possible moment to see Elizabeth.

To any human untouched by magic, she would have looked bad enough: dripping wet, her once-white dress dingy and torn, hair and skin grimy from the mud. Her ruined shoes sopped through the puddles as though they might come to pieces at any moment.

To Mateo—to a Steadfast, able to see magic—she looked
like something out of hell. Around her radiated a strange sort of energy, like a fever made visible, Mateo thought. Her eyes were as flat and black as those of a snake.

All of that, Mateo could have dealt with. By now he was used to the fact that Elizabeth looked like a walking nightmare only he could see. What he couldn’t handle—the thing that drove him completely out of his mind with rage—was that she was also smiling.

Elizabeth was destroying them all, was hurting Nadia, had taken Nadia away from him, and she could stand there and smile.

He didn’t make the decision to go after her. It was more like he saw her smiling, and then his body started running of its own accord. By the time he knew he was going to attack her, his hands were already clenched into fists, and he was only a few feet away.

Her head jerked toward him, but after that momentary surprise, Elizabeth’s smile only broadened.

I’m going to wipe that smile off her face forever
, Mateo thought.
Just once in her entire long evil life, Elizabeth Pike is going to be sorry.

In the moment before he would have collided with her, an immense weight struck him on the back and took him down. The concrete sidewalk rushed up to meet him as he fell heavily into a puddle. He wanted to swear but couldn’t suck the breath into his lungs.

“What the hell are you doing?” Gage yelled. “Dude, calm down.”

“She’s got you brainwashed.” Mateo tried to throw Gage
off—but the breath was still knocked out of him, and Gage was a big guy.

“He’s like this,” Elizabeth said quietly, though not so quietly that the many people watching nearby couldn’t hear. “He was like this when we were together. But I never wanted to say anything. I never wanted anyone to think Mateo was . . . crazy.”

A murmur went through the group, and Mateo braced himself for the usual catcalls about how the Cabots all lost their minds. Instead, someone said, “It’s more witchcraft. That family’s cursed.”

Elizabeth raised an eyebrow; apparently she hadn’t been expecting that. She didn’t seem dismayed, though. Everybody was looking at Mateo, and nobody was looking at her, which was exactly how she wanted it.

“Witchcraft warps men’s minds. They’re not responsible for their actions,” said Asa, who still stood there with Mrs. Prasad. He was smiling, darkly amused, but Mateo knew he’d just been bailed out.

“Whatever you’re seeing isn’t real, buddy,” called a man Mateo hardly knew. “That’s just Elizabeth Pike. You two are friends. Remember that. Try to think about what’s real.” Others nodded and murmured, and the dangerous mood calmed.

Except for Gage.

Gage’s voice was low as he said, “You were like this when you were with Elizabeth? You used to hurt her?”

His best friend was looking at him like he was a horrible human being. No, like he was a monster. It was totally
unfair. And there wasn’t one thing Mateo could do about it.

He said the safest thing possible. “We weren’t together. It was one night.”

Mateo badly wanted to add,
I never hurt her
, but that wouldn’t fly just after Gage had seen him try to attack Elizabeth. And no, he might never have injured Elizabeth, but not for lack of wanting.