Steadfast (21 page)

As Verlaine shouted their orders into the tinny drive-through speaker, Nadia sank deeper into thought, coming up with a plan.

“If you’re taking too much of a loss on the margaritas, what’s the point?” Mateo said. He was driving the truck, just in case his dad was able to talk the package-store owner into a free tequila tasting.

“The point is, we make it up by getting people back in the door. After all this craziness? Tonight, they’re going to panic. Tomorrow, they’re going to want to drink; trust me on that one. They come in for the two-for-one margaritas, but then they order dinner.”

Mateo couldn’t see it. Virtually everyone in Captive’s Sound now had a friend or family member in the hospital. Nobody was going to go out for margaritas and nachos. Still, if Dad wanted to buy the retail-price cases of tequila at the place one county over, in the end, it was his call to make. “Sure, okay.”

“Sure, nothing. You’re itching to argue with me, but something’s got you down.” An approaching car’s headlights briefly illuminated his father’s face; he was studying Mateo intently, so much so that Mateo wished he could squirm out of the way. “You know I heard about the sleepwalking, right?”

He didn’t want to talk this over with his dad. Not even a little bit. But he had to talk about it with someone, and there wasn’t anybody else. “I was hoping it kinda got lost in the mass hysteria.”

“Nothing gets past me. You hear that, Mateo? Nothing.” This was almost laughable, considering that Mateo was now Steadfast to a witch, and one of his “oldest friends” had been outed as a Sorceress, and Dad had missed all of it. But Dad’s voice was gentle as he continued, “Anybody can sleepwalk. Lots of folks do it. Doesn’t mean anything, except I’m going to put on another set of locks, because I don’t want you tripping on the steps. Are people giving you a hard time?”

“Only slightly harder than usual.”

“Listen to me. It’s all crap. Everything they say about that curse. Pure. Crap. I watched your mother go through this. All those years she had to take it alone—alone except for your grandmother, which if you ask me, was worse—but you don’t have that problem, okay? You’ve got me. You’ve always got me.”

Mateo knew a lot of guys didn’t get along with their parents; sometimes he was extremely grateful to be the exception to the rule. “Okay. Good to know.”

“And not just me! You’ve got your friends: Gage and that girl, the one with the weird hair—”

“Verlaine.”

“Something like that. Plus you’ve got your girl, huh?”

Mateo remembered how Nadia’s dark hair felt in his hands, the way she smiled at him, how she’d fought through the cold waves to save him from drowning—the memories shone inside Mateo like a shaft of light. “Yeah. I’ve got Nadia.”

“Then hang in there.”

Just when Mateo thought he might be able to stand telling his father a little more, he saw headlights approaching on the road—on both sides of the road. “Hey. That guy, is he passing or what?”

“Watch it. You get crazy people on the highway these days.”

Ahead of them, blue and red lights began to flash. The police? They weren’t speeding, so why would anybody try to stop them?

Mateo realized then that the cops weren’t pulling over the truck. They were blocking off the road completely.

As they reached the blockade, he also saw that these weren’t just police cars. Behind them was a line of vans and trucks. Mateo pulled over to the side, and Dad rolled down his window. “Officer? What’s going on?”

“Return to your vehicle,” said a stiff voice through a megaphone. “This county is under quarantine, under orders of the Centers for Disease Control.”

Quarantine.

The government thought Elizabeth’s dark magic was a plague or pandemic. They were going to rope off Captive’s Sound from the rest of the world to protect people from a disease that didn’t exist.

But that meant every single person in town was now trapped there, within Elizabeth’s reach, unable to escape.

18

VERLAINE HAD THE STORY UP ON THE
LIGHTNING ROD
home page by eight a.m.

Town Under Quarantine
said the headline in the largest type that would fit on a standard page view. People could click through to see the photos she’d taken last night; since she couldn’t sleep anyway, she’d driven along every road that led out of town as far as she could, until she reached the vans and barricades. The sight of government people in white coats conjured up a few conspiracy theories, but while they were fairly rude about making her go back, they didn’t stop her from taking pictures. So apparently no top secret, illuminati-type stuff was going down.

Verlaine hadn’t been able to nail down an interview yet, but she’d been able to find other records of CDC quarantines and how they worked. That gave her material for an info box about how nobody was allowed to leave town, but how these things normally only lasted a few days—until the scientists figured out just what kind of disease they were dealing with.

In this case, the disease was magic. The CDC was good at lots of things, but detecting magic wasn’t one of them. That meant the quarantine might be going on a while.

She’d sent tons of material to the
Guardian
editors, too, assuming Mrs. Chew would ever go ahead and post it. In the meantime, though, anybody eager to learn more about what was happening in their hometown should be led to the
Lightning Rod
through a simple Google search. Mr. Davis couldn’t tell Verlaine she’d overstepped this time. Even Desi Sheremata would have to notice the good work she’d done. The basic updates had gone up an hour ago, in which time the site had received . . .

. . . nine hits. And one comment awaited moderation.

Nine. A total of only
nine hits
. People in town had to be panicking. Medical vans were parked all over the place, everyone had a relative in the hospital, and nobody much could know what was going on. Didn’t they have to be online, looking for information? Didn’t they care what was happening to this town?

She tried to think of something constructive to do. The only thing that came to mind was the one comment she had to moderate, so she opened it up. It read:

Awful, how only the most beloved members of the community have been struck down. Mavis Purdhy with her twins at home who need her—Riley Bender, the homecoming queen—Gary Turner, a caring father—and now so many more, but all of them so dearly missed. It’s as if someone wanted to cause as much pain as humanly possible.

Then again, this amount of pain isn’t entirely human, is it?—Asa

Great. Her only page views were coming from demons who wanted to taunt her.

Verlaine hit
Discard as Spam
, then flopped down on her bed, pulled a pillow over her face, and wished the entire world would just go away.

The last time Nadia had staked out Elizabeth’s house, Verlaine had suggested that she was maybe pushing things too far.

So this time, Nadia hadn’t told Verlaine about it.

She had ducked behind a neighbor’s hedge, partly shrouded by a spell of shadow; this wouldn’t make her totally invisible, but it would make people less likely to turn her way. Nadia wasn’t sure how long she’d have to wait. She was pretty sure Elizabeth didn’t get out much. Not likely to run to Costco, or join a book club. Still, obviously Elizabeth left her house sometimes, and the next time she did, Nadia intended to seize the chance.

Nadia had brought her phone and earbuds, a thick coat, and even a folding seat her dad used when he went camping; she was prepared for the long haul.

Which was why it surprised her so much when, not ten minutes later, Elizabeth’s door opened.

Elizabeth had forgotten what it was like to feel weak.

The muscles in her body obeyed her only sluggishly; her skin burned with what she dimly remembered as fever. She wanted water to drink, so much that at first she thought her old thirst had returned—but it was just this sickness having its way with her.

“We call it infection,” said the demon as he led her along the street. “Are you conversant enough with the twenty-first century to understand infection?”

It was what modern people believed in, instead of evil spirits. Fools. “I want it done with.”

“Then come with me,” he said. He spoke slowly now, as though to a child; Elizabeth wished to scold him for it, but in truth the fever made it harder for her to understand. “The only drugstore in town has been sold out of every useful item since yesterday. But my parents have supplies at my house.”

“They are not your parents. It is not your house.”

Asa’s expression darkened, but he only said, “You’d better hope it’s my Neosporin, hadn’t you?”

They went to the Prasad home, where his parents greeted her with the same glazed delight all humans gave to Elizabeth. For some reason Asa didn’t seem to like watching her charm them into adoring her. Was his humanity getting the better of him already? Had he learned to like these hapless people who were sheltering a demon’s soul in their dead son’s flesh?

When the human world fell, and Elizabeth stood beside the throne of the One Beneath, she would slaughter them before Asa’s eyes. It would be a test for him, a test of his worthiness, a test he would certainly fail.

In the family bathroom, Elizabeth stared dully at a dish filled with shell-shaped soaps—what an odd thing to possess—while Asa worked on her burns. He muttered, “If you’re going to burn gashes in your flesh that will never heal, you might consider keeping your own medical supplies at hand.”

Elizabeth hadn’t entered an apothecary’s shop in nearly one hundred and fifty years, so she didn’t recognize any of the items he’d taken from the medicine chest. No matter. He would fix this, and she could go on.

It was true that the seal had seared her arm terribly. His pathway had been burned into this world; all that remained was for the bridge to be built.

That bridge was weaving itself longer, stronger, and broader every single moment—

She first felt the warning—a shiver in the air that made her hair stand on end. Was it her Book of Shadows? Her sense of magic? As Elizabeth jerked to her feet, Asa sensed it, too. He began backing away as she said, “Stop time.”

He hesitated. The insolent beast
hesitated
. His hatred of her was as obvious as his pride, and he would pay for both.

Elizabeth shouted, “Do it!”

Asa brought his hands together again. For a moment they glared at each other, before she turned and stalked out of the bathroom. His nursing appeared to be at an end, and she intended to deal with this latest interruption immediately.

They went past the Prasads, who were frozen in place in front of their television set. Wordlessly they walked side by side down the few blocks that led to her house . . .

. . . which was on fire.

The fire was frozen, of course. Each orange flame glowed still and slow, like electric lights rather than any natural burning. To judge from the fact that her house still stood and looked relatively undamaged, the fire could only have just started. And yet it had already spread throughout her house. Only magical flame did this.

“Where is she?” Elizabeth had to look over the area two or three times before she saw Nadia Caldani standing there. That spell of shadow had been well cast; even knowing of her presence, it was hard for Elizabeth to focus on her. But perhaps that was only the “infection” of which Asa spoke, muddying her mind.

Elizabeth walked into her house, easily stepping around the tongues of still fire. Every flame was frozen in place, each flicker like a sculpture of glowing gold. The heat remained, but Elizabeth could endure that. For one moment she simply stared at the brilliant light around her attempting to consume her home and spell book.

Asa paid the heat no mind, of course; he was used to hell. He didn’t even take off his coat. “A spell of conflagration. Nicely done. She could have gotten your Book of Shadows if we’d been only a few seconds later.”

Conflagration was indeed a sudden and devastating spell. It worked faster than virtually any defense. With a demon on her side, though, Elizabeth had all the time she needed for a spell of negation.

A wish unspoken.

A promise broken.

The work of a lifetime destroyed.

She held out her hands, allowing her fingers to rest in the heat of the still flames themselves, as she brought the ingredients together. The light was so brilliant she could see through her own skin and muscle, revealing the dark outline of bone.

Lauren Cabot, determined never to marry, defying Elizabeth’s wishes and insisting she had to go through life alone—never able to carry the curse herself lest she self-destruct before bearing the children Elizabeth needed to endure the curse next—and then one day turning her head to look at the handsome newcomer in town, Alejandro Perez—not daring to speak of her longing, but it was there, and in that moment Elizabeth knew the line would continue.

“You don’t interfere with us,” the witch said, “and we don’t interfere with you.” As if her weak, pitiful little coven could interfere with Elizabeth’s great work. But she nodded and even smiled, only waiting for the moment to destroy them all.

Standing in the wreckage of the Halloween carnival, feeling the jagged tears in the world where the One Beneath’s cell had been, thinking of every witch who had given her life’s work, or even her life, to trap Him—but now at last His cell had been broken open and He might now walk free—

Instantly the fire went completely out. Her house wasn’t even damaged; the only evidence of the spell of conflagration was a thin layer of ash lying over every surface. Asa brushed off his black coat with distaste. “What a mess.”

But when he held up his hands to let time resume, Elizabeth shook her head. “Not yet.”