Spell Bound (15 page)

Jenna shook her head slightly, like I’d just slapped her. “What?”

Tell her you’re me! Or I’m you. Whatever!
I demanded.

I didn’t actually expect Elodie to respond. It wasn’t like she usually listened to my mental commands. But this time, thankfully, she did.

“It’s Elodie,” she told Jenna. She breezed through the explanation of just why she could use me as her personal puppet so quickly that Jenna could only blink in response.

“If Sophie hadn’t used
my
magic in
her
body,” Elodie summed up, “she would’ve been dead like, ten times by now.”

Okay, it was only twice
, I grumbled inside.

Elodie ignored me. “And no,” she said, raising my hand to cut off Jenna’s next question. “I can’t possess anyone else. Trust me, I’ve been trying to get inside Lara Casnoff ever since we got here. Which…sounds really wrong.”

I felt my shoulders shrug. “Anyway, you looked like you were about to eat your own lip, and that’s totally gross, so I figured I oughta swoop in and put your mind at ease. Last night, when I was trying my hardest to possess anyone who’s not
this
freak, I overheard the Casnoffs talking. Apparently, turning a vampire into a demon seems like an awesome idea, so that’s why you’re here. No staking on the agenda.”

Using Elodie as a spy hadn’t even occurred to me.
Oh my God, this is perfect!
I shouted. Well, mentally shouted.
Of course! They can’t see you unless you want them to; you can go anywhere in the school, and
—

Jeez, not so loud
, she interrupted
. I’m in your head, so use your
inside
inside voice
.

Elodie went to brush my hair out of my eyes, muttering, “God, how does she live like this?”

If you promise to stop taking over whenever you feel like it, I promise to get a hot oil treatment
, I replied, and she snorted.

Jenna folded her arms tightly across her chest. “So, what—you’re like, helping us now?”

My eyes rolled. “No, I’m on Team Take Over The World With A Demon Army. Of course I’m helping you. Mostly so that whenever this is over, Sophie can get back to important stuff. Like how to unbind me from her.”

Jenna nodded, distracted. “You’ve done magic through Sophie, you said. Can you try to do some now? Like, something simple?”

“This place has some kind of magic blocker on it,” Elodie said, even as the same thought went through my brain. “No unauthorized persons can do spells.”

“Right, but the Casnoffs don’t even know you’re here,” Jenna said, a slow grin spreading on her face. “A ghost using a powerless demon to do magic? Bet they didn’t think of that.”

Worth a shot
, I said to Elodie. Apparently she agreed, because my fingers came up, and there was a brief surge of power in my veins. Sparks flew, and within seconds, Jenna’s pink stripe was the same white-blond as the rest of her hair.

“Holy crap,” Jenna said, pulling her hair in front of her eyes. “It worked!”

Relief flooded through me, and I wasn’t sure if it was mine or Elodie’s.

There was a sudden banging on our door. Jenna jumped, and Elodie flicked my hand out toward her.

Bright fuchsia snaked down Jenna’s hair again, and then, with that same awful, disorienting sensation I’d felt the night with the werewolf, Elodie was gone.

I sat down on my bed, trying to catch my breath, as Jenna opened the door. The Vandy stood there, glaring at us, and my heart plummeted. They knew. They’d sensed magic happening in here, and now they’d sent the Vandy to come collect us.

I sat there, trying not to pant in terror, while Jenna openly trembled.

“You were told to report to the greenhouse,” the Vandy said, her eyes going back and forth between us. “Now, get your skinny butts down there.”

You know when you have the most inappropriate reaction to something ever? I was so happy that we weren’t being hauled off to be murdered that I burst out laughing. I mean, big, loud, honking laughter. Jenna shot me a panicked look as the Vandy’s scowl got even darker. “What’s so funny, Miss Mercer?”

I stood up on wobbly legs and did my best to stop cracking up. “Sorry, it’s just, um…”

“You said ‘butts,’” Jenna blurted out. “And Sophie’s got a really immature sense of humor.”

“Right,” I said, seizing on that. “Butts. Ha ha!”

I think if the Vandy
could
have murdered us right then and there, she probably would have. Instead she just thrust one finger toward the staircase and said,

“Move it.”

We scrambled from the room.

Outside, the sky was every bit as gloomy and gray as it had been the day before. The fog seemed to have moved out a little bit, so we could make our way down to the greenhouse without fear of getting absorbed. Still, the ground felt mushy underfoot, and the grass, once bright emerald green, was now a sickly whitish-brown, like the underside of a mushroom. As we passed a huge oak tree, one of its blackened branches gave an ominous crack.

Once we were sure the Vandy was far enough behind us to make eavesdropping impossible, I lowered my head close to Jenna’s and said, “Okay, so we have a ghost-spy.”

“A ghost-spy who can do magic,” Jenna added.

I nodded. “Even better. Which means that maybe the playing field is leveled after all.”

Jenna squeezed my hand, and I was actually feeling kind of optimistic as we approached the greenhouse. I mean, I wasn’t going to start
skipping
or anything (mostly because I was afraid I’d slip in all the muck), but all in all, I felt worlds better.

Through the glass walls of the greenhouse, I could see most of the other students standing in a circle, and I was in a good enough mood to joke to Jenna, “Ooh, wonder if we’re gonna play Duck, Duck, Demon.”

She laughed, but the sound died in her throat almost immediately as the crowd inside the greenhouse parted enough for us to see what they were all circling around.

There, shimmering chains of magic wrapped around his wrists, was Archer.

J
enna and I slid through the door as inconspicuously as we could. My heart was hammering, and all I wanted to do was rush to Archer, but Lara was standing right next to him, a smirk on her face. “This whole ‘lying low’ thing sucks so hard,” I whispered to Jenna as we fell to the back of the crowd.

She gave me a sympathetic look, and then we turned our attention to Lara. “Students,” Lara said. “As many of you have heard, Mr. Cross here is a member of L’Occhio di Dio.” She walked closer to Archer and unbuttoned the top several buttons of his shirt, pulling the fabric away to reveal the gold-and-black tattoo just over his heart. I heard several gasps from the crowd. Of course, everyone had heard Archer was an Eye, but hearing about it and actually seeing proof were two different things. “And The Eye are our enemies,” Lara continued, circling Archer. I met his gaze, and he tried to smile at me, but I could see he was shaking.

My hands curled into fists, nails biting into my palms. My magic was like a tsunami inside me, pounding against its prison.

“But Mr. Cross is far and away the worst of L’Occhio di Dio. Would anyone care to tell me why?” Her gaze locked on mine. “Miss Mercer? Since you’re the one he tried to assassinate last year, why don’t you inform your classmates of the danger Mr. Cross represents?”

“He wasn’t sent here to as—assassinate me,” I insisted. I probably would have sounded more confident if I hadn’t stumbled over the word “assassinate.”

I cleared my throat, and kept going. “He was sent here to watch me, nothing more.”

“And was he also sent to watch Elodie Parris? Why exactly, Miss Mercer, would The Eye have such an interest in you?”

I was standing on shaky ground, and Lara and me both knew it. It was like she had woven chains around me, too, only with words instead of magic. I didn’t want to own up to my demon-ness in front of the entire student body—after all, everyone at Hex Hall still thought I was a regular witch—and I was afraid that anything else I said was just going to get Archer in more trouble. So even though I felt sick, I lowered my eyes and pressed my lips together.

“I can tell you what The Eye wanted with Sophie,” Archer spoke up. He was grinning, but his voice was tight with pain. “We heard she was particularly skilled at Chutes and Ladders, and since The Eye holds a Chutes and Ladders tournament every summer—” His voice broke on a cry of pain as Lara twisted her fingers, and the glowing threads of magic around him burned white hot for a moment. I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming.

“Archer Cross is not only a member of L’Occhio di Dio, but he’s also a traitor to his people,” Lara said, moving to stand closer to him. “He represents the greatest threat any of us can ever face. Which is why he’ll be so very useful to us.”

Jenna slipped her hand in mine and squeezed my fingers as Lara said, “Today, we’ll be using Mr. Cross for practice. The ritual I discussed last night will increase your powers, but first I need to see what we’re working with.” And then, like she was getting us ready for a game of Red Rover, she clapped her hands and said, “All right, everyone, line up. You will each get one chance to use your most powerful attack spell on Mr. Cross. I do ask that you don’t do anything that will kill him. Mr. Callahan is on hand to heal him, but even his powers only go so far.”

Mouth dry, I looked up. I’d been so focused on Archer in the middle of the room that I hadn’t noticed Cal, standing at the very back of the room, leaning against the gallows. His arms were folded over his chest. He was watching me, the expression on his face a weird mix of relief, anger, and tension. I lifted my fingers in a kind of wave, and he nodded in return. Jenna followed my gaze, and her grip on my hand got tighter. “Cal,” she murmured. “That’s at least one more thing in our favor.”

And it was. Too bad it was impossible to feel happy about anything as I spent the next few hours watching my classmates torture Archer. Because I didn’t have magic, I was allowed to sit the exercise out and watch. And Lara ensured that I watched. The first time I tried to shut my eyes, I realized they were frozen open. I couldn’t move my neck either, so turning my head away was out of the question.

Michaela was the first witch to go. She hesitated, and her attack spell, when she finally cast it, was weak. It bounced off Archer’s chest and barely made him rock back on his heels.

I thought maybe they’d all do that. I mean, sure, Archer was the “enemy,” but it wasn’t like these kids were killers. And if it hadn’t been for Lara, maybe they would’ve gone easy on Archer.

But when Michaela went to stand at the back of the line, Lara sent a bolt of magic crashing into her back that brought her to her knees.

“The next person to purposely hold back will get far worse than that,” Lara declared, and I wondered how I could have ever thought that she was nice. Or sane.

So I sat there, tears streaming down my face, and watched Archer take one attack spell after another from the witches and warlocks. The faeries froze him with ice, or burned him with heat. One conjured a vine out of thin air that wrapped itself around Archer’s throat until he passed out.

I don’t want to talk about what the shapeshifters did.

After every attack, Cal walked forward and laid his hands on Archer’s body until Archer regained consciousness, or stopped bleeding, or started breathing again. Each time Archer stood up to face yet another kid, he looked a little paler, a little more broken, and the closer Jenna got to the front of the line, the more my stomach twisted itself into knots. The idea of watching my best friend bite and drink from the boy I loved was so wrong, so nauseating, that I couldn’t let myself even contemplate it. Thank God, in the end, I didn’t have to.

Taylor went right before Jenna, and when Cal knelt next to Archer to heal him, he looked up at Lara and said, “That’s enough. Any more, and I won’t be able to bring him back.”

Lara frowned, but waved her hand and said, “Fine. You’ll get your shot tomorrow, Miss Talbot.” She turned her attention back to the rest of the group, all of whom looked…I don’t even know what the right word is. Shattered. Depleted. There’s no worse feeling than being forced to use your powers to hurt someone.

“Good work today,” Lara said, and you would’ve thought we’d all just aced a math test or something, not tortured a classmate. “Now that I have a better idea of your various strengths, we can work on honing your powers. Everyone back to the house.”

No one spoke a word as they shuffled through the doors. Jenna came back to sit by me, and as soon as Lara left, I could move again. Blindly, I ran to Archer, who was sitting on one of the thick mats we’d used in Defense. His elbows rested on his raised knees, and he had his head in his hands. I knelt in front of him, awkwardly wrapping my arms around his neck. He uncurled himself, pulling me to him. For a long time, we held each other, my hands fisted in his hair; his, stroking my back.

“I’m okay,” he said at last. “I know that’s hard to believe, but nothing hurts. I mean, except for my mind and soul, but those were always a little broken.” Gently, we disentangled ourselves and rose to our feet. “Your magic is awesome, man,” he said to Cal, who I just realized was standing at the edge of the mat, next to Jenna. “Although I have to say, now that you’ve brought me back from the edge of death—what, like, hundreds of times?—I’m starting to feel like our relationship is a little unbalanced.”