Storm (20 page)

Chapter Thirty-Six

Carter

Penelope looks at me, and I don’t know who she is anymore. She’s angry, and it practically comes off her in waves. This isn’t
her. Not this girl right here in front of me. This girl saying she’s giving up her life for a demon.

That’s it. They’re trying to get her to come to their side. She’s the sole witch, and if she chooses to work for the demons, then they’ll destroy the witches. I’ve been trying to tell her for weeks now about the pieces of information that I put together, and I didn’t fully understand, but now I do. This was the plan all along—to get her to their side.

“What you’re doing with the Restitution and the demons, it’s not what you think it is.”

Her face gets red, and I swear for a moment her eyes flash a shade of green. I have to be imagining that. “You’re desperate to keep me from my magic. You’d risk my sister for that?”

“That is so not what this about. The demons are using you to get to the dagger. That’s all they want.”

Then, she’s in my face, inches from it. Her skin is red, her eyes large and hot. She’s not being rational. “Listen to yourself. I can’t, Carter. This is over. I’m done.”

I freeze when she walks away. As if she punched me in the gut. “What are you talking about?” She’s not thinking. “No. No way. I’m not walking away from you right now.”

“You don’t have to,” she says with a pause. “I’m walking away from you.”

This isn’t her talking. It’s not her. “Penelope.”

“I don’t want to pretend—and you aren’t supposed to be around me anyway. I’m doing you a favor.”

I grab her hand. She tries to pull it away from me, but she can’t. I’m holding too tightly. I need her to listen. “This isn’t you. You aren’t thinking straight. It’s the void and the demons want the dagger and—”

“Stop it.”

But I won’t stop. Not now that I’ve finally got her listening. “They’ve had their eyes on you for months. It’s all been for this. The Restitution isn’t going to undo any of this. It’s going to hurt people.”

She shakes her head and tries to pull away from me. Her arm twists my hand around, but I don’t let go. That’s when I see it. Her pinky nail is completely black, and this dark trail travels up her hand. I slide up her sleeve. It’s over her wrist, up her arm…

“What’s this?”

She tries to pull her hand away, but I hold on to it and draw her closer. I run my fingers over the black in her veins. I did see something before. This is not good. Whatever it is. “What is this?”

“Let me go,” she hisses through clenched teeth. But I don’t.

“Penelope, what—what is this?” She bites her lip, and doesn’t answer me. That first mark on her nail appeared after our test, when she used the void. “This is the magic, isn’t it? The void.”

She tries to get loose from me again. I refuse to let go.

“Tell me,” I say.

“I said let go,” she shouts, and when she does, a bright light shoots out of her. It knocks me to the ground and knocks the wind out of me. Holy shit. That was her, that light in the warehouse. She really can control it. I start to stand, slowly, but my mind is racing.

“Did I hurt you, too?” she says, her voice full of panic.

Suddenly, I realize she’s what happened to Connie. The way she’s looking at me, on the verge of tears and her face red. A wild, uncontrollable fear dances in her eyes. It’s the same wide-eyed readiness that Lindley Arthur had. It’s the same look Taylor Plum had that day.

I hold out my hands so she doesn’t think I’m trying to harm her, and so she can see me. “I’m fine,” I say, trying my best to sound assuring. Even from a few feet away I can tell she’s shaking. She looks like Taylor when she killed Maple, nervous and terrified. “I’m fine, Pen.”

She nods, wrapping her hands around her stomach. I move toward her slowly. “We can fix this. I can protect you.”

Like a switch, those words change her. She jerks her head up and pushes me away. “I don’t need you to protect me. It’s too late. This is done.”

I shake my head. Her face is so steady, so emotionless, so unlike her. “I told you once I’d fight for you, and I meant it. Even now.”

I take another step forward, watching the tears streaming down her cheek.

“Don’t. Don’t come near me. Don’t follow me.”

“Pen—”

Then she runs.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Penelope

Black veins creep over my chin and up my cheek. That last jolt with Carter has nearly put me over the edge. I pull a hood over my head and try to blend in as I walk through Clarendon, peop
le moving in and out of shops around me. The void is ready. I feel it as if it’s crawling under my skin, waiting. I make a fist with my hands.

The void guides me, burning and itching and waiting for release. With each step I take, each inch I move, it gets hungrier. The blackness seems to be tingling, like a beacon leading me forward, or calling the other demons to me. I’m a trail of breadcrumbs. A rainbow leading to a pot of gold.

I pass a man on the street that I recognize from Enforcer meetings. The void stirs in my stomach. Even though I don’t want to, I stop in the middle of the street and watch as he approaches. He notices me staring and his gaze rest on me while he walks. Does he recognize me? I walk faster, the void burning in my fingers, my arm, all down the trail that it’s created through my body. It wants out. It wants to fight that Enforcer.

I won’t do that. I squeeze my hand tighter until the fingernails stab into my palm.

“Is everything all right, miss?”

I nod, not sure I can manage to talk.
Please walk past me.

Instinct says to run, but if I run then he’ll chase me. So, I nod with a smile, and then I stay frozen in the spot on the sidewalk until the Enforcer passes. I stay frozen there until the magic settles down enough that I don’t feel like puking on my own shoes. Until I can’t feel my fingers from squeezing them so hard. When I’m able, I walk toward Lia where should be. This is almost over, only a few more hours. But now Carter knows the plan. Is what he said true? That she’s using me? He wouldn’t lie to me.
But he doesn’t understand.
I push the thought away. I need to get to Lia, to ask her, to get answers.

The whole time I head in the direction of her favorite hangout, I can’t shake the feeling he’s more right than Lia is. The void scares me a little. It’s not even fully part of me yet, and I have to fight it so hard. That should make me stop, but Connie is still on my mind. It’s not about me or what I have to go through. This is about my sister, about the Statics.

The wind is harsh and bitter as I get off the metro, almost cold. So far from the norm for August. The usual steam of the summer sun is gone, and I miss it. I miss a lot of things.

The magic tingles at my skin, making me feel more on edge than usual. The magic seems to be trying to rip its way out of me, and every inch of blackness burns through me. I am water on a cloth, soaking through.

I scratch at my arm. It’s almost like the void is alive and flowing through me. It’s never felt like this before, this uncontrollable. Walking doesn’t lead me anywhere I recognize from the other night, and I turn down one of the V-split streets. The smell hits my nostrils immediately, the scent of sulfur so strong it feels like I’m standing in it. The bar must be closed now for it to be that strong.

I pay closer attention to the buildings as I walk, trying to find things that look familiar, but I don’t get very far. A demon jumps out from the shadows in the small space between buildings. Its nails carve into the skin on my shoulder before it slams me against the brick wall of the building. The void bubbles and fills me, on the brink of running over, like my stomach is a pot of boiling water.

“You sm—”

“Smell good, I’ve heard,” I say.

The demon smiles, sniffing my neck. “I’ve heard about you.”

“Let me go,” I say. Being near this demon makes my insides go crazier. It moves closer and I knee it in the stomach. It lurches away from me, but then, out of nowhere, three more appear. I stand straight up as one of the demons races toward me. The magic billows like a storm. If the void wants out, then I’ll let it out.

I don’t even have to aim. I stop fighting it, stop feeling any sort of emotions, let go of Carter and Ric and Gran, and my dreams, and all the people and things that have failed me. I don’t need them, or want them. A second later the magic is flowing out of my fingers, bright and beautiful and seductive. This time, it’s not too bright for me to see. Not like with Connie. This time it’s clear, and I’m present. All three of the demons go flying across the alley. I feel invincible as I move toward one of the demons. I’m going to end him. To end all of the demons and the problems they caused me. End all of this.

I don’t need salt.

I just need the void.

The magic moves out of me toward the demon. Its eyes are wide, scared—of me. The light from the void flows out of my fingers and wraps around the demon’s neck. He starts to move, but I move my hand, and his neck breaks.

The other two demons are scattered on the ground, one trying to move, and the magic finds him. I don’t have to figure out what I want it to do. The void already seems to have a plan that I’m not aware of. The void lifts them until they’re both hanging from their feet. Fine by me. One is lifted into the sky, yards above, and dropped down. Hanged upside down by the void. His feet twitch in the air long after he’s dead.

The last demon squirms. “Please,” it says.

I look at it, but I don’t see it. I don’t care. I’m over caring. I want it to suffer, this one demon that has probably made hundreds of thousands of others suffer. I want to know what it’s done, and the demon screams as the light of the void floods into its brain through ears and nose and eyes. It screams as the images flash in my head of the lives it’s ended. Witches that it has tortured and drained. Nons that it’s toyed with, ruined, killed. It’s been alive for centuries, killing and surviving. And it’s never felt any sort of sorrow. Even when the victims said the same word, begged to be spared over and over again, it killed anyway.

Now it will experience that feeling. Vengeance and karma and justice.

“Beg me,” I say. The voice doesn’t feel like mine. It feels deeper, darker, like it’s coming from the void and not from me.

The demon’s eyes widen. “Please don’t kill me. Please. I’ll do anything.” It begs. I listen, probably for minutes, as the demon repents and pleads and tries to convince me. It does convince me.

I want it dead.

The void wants it dead, too.

With a snap of my fingers, the demon bleeds out. Its heart falls to the ground, separate from its body.

For the first time I really feel like the void and I are one.

I stand there amongst the dead, and my stomach calms. The void is patient again, content with waiting. I am calm. In fact, I am pleased with myself. With the damage. Then, there’s a sudden jolt that leaves me breathless, and I stumble backward toward the wall. The familiar burn of the void grows up my chest and my heart beats triple time. I fall to my knees, screaming. My pores are on fire. My ribs contract, tears flow from my eyes and I can’t stop them. I’m not sure how much more it lasts, the burning, the pain. Seconds or minutes, maybe. It stops suddenly, and I let out a sob. Then there’s a jolt again, and I lean over, gasping for air. The pain disappears.

“Well, well, well,” a voice calls. I look over my shoulder and see Lia and another demon, looking from the mess to me. Lia moves toward me and her friend moves around the demons. “Look at this lot. I say, that must have been entertaining.”

I don’t respond as I look around the alley. Three demons are dead, blood and guts and a once-beating heart on the ground. I did that, the void did that. I glance at Lia, who’s only inches from my face. “You good, girl?”

I nod. I guess I am. I should feel sick, feel bad about what I’ve done, but I don’t. They all deserved it. Lia blinks, and then grabs my hand. “Look,” she says.

My hands are a normal color. The blackness is gone from my veins. Only a small dot remains on my pinky.

“Why is it gone?” I ask.

“It’s done,” she says, examining my arms. She says it with awe and pride. Like she was uncertain it would actually work. “You and the void are connected now. You can control it.”

“Perfect timing too,” the other demon says. I look across the alley toward it. It’s clad in the skin of a middle-aged woman, but beyond the skin of the woman, I see demon underneath. The Non is completely gone.

“Who’s that?”

“I’m Bemnel,” it says. Even though it’s in the body of a woman, the voice is obviously male, deep and scratchy. And Irish, apparently. “Mighty good job. She said it was so, and here you is.”

Lia looks me over. “How’d you end up here?”

I stand and dust myself off. I don’t feel any different, yet I feel completely new. It’s a strange feeling, almost like this is who I was supposed to be all along. Conduit of the void, a demon. “I was looking for you. Carter said you were using me, and lying about my sister.”

Bemnel snorts across the alley.

“We had a blood oath, didn’t we?” Lia says. An oath. She was very specific to include my sister. I shake my head. How could I let Carter get to me like that? I haven’t come this far to doubt Lia now.

“Sorry, I—”

“I’m guessing loverboy and you are on the outs,” she says.

“He doesn’t get it.”

Lia moves closer and strokes my hair the way my mom used to. It’s strange that she would know that. “About Carter,” she says. “He’s demon enemy number one. Blacklisted. He’s probably jealous that we actually like you.”

“That doesn’t sound like Carter.”

She shrugs. “Maybe you don’t know him the way you think you do.” I exhale at that comment. “He’s trying to make you doubt me because he probably wants something you have.”

My mind races. What do I have that he doesn’t? “There’s nothing that…” Wait. Wait. I look at Lia. “The dagger. He mentioned the dagger.”

She takes my wrist. “Let’s go,” she says, and Bemnel waves as we flicker out.

Lia flickers me right into my room, and when we get there, Carter’s on the floor with the box I keep under my bed out in the open. The research on Azsis and the Restitution spread out around him.

“Carter,” I say. He whips around to see me. This can’t be happening. “What are you doing in here?”

“It’s it obvious?” Lia says. “He doesn’t trust you.”

I don’t know this boy anymore. Not this one who would sneak into my house and steal from me. His eyes widen. “That’s not what this is.”

“What were you looking for?”

“The dagger,” he says quickly. I turn toward Lia, who nods. She was right. He wants that dagger. What was all that this morning? Did he report me to the WNN?

“You were taking it? I need it for the Restitution tomorrow,” I jerk the box out of his hand.

“I’m sorry, Penelope,” Lia says in my ear.

“I’m sorry, too.” I say.

Carter shakes his head and takes a step toward me. Part of me wants him to hold me, and the other part, the part that listens to the void, hates him. “Stop this. Don’t listen to her. You can’t believe anything she says to you.”

“No, I can’t trust you,” I yell. It could be my imagination, but the whole house seems to shake like it used to with Connie when she got angry.

“It’s a lie, Penelope. She wants to use it to destroy all of us,” he says.

Lia leans into my ear. “Cut off your emotions. Feel nothing for him.”

I look at him, at his face and his green eyes, and the lips I used to kiss. The ones that have betrayed me. I don’t want to feel that. He’s nothing to me now. Nothing but a boy in my room, trying to steal from me. A liar.

And then all the feelings are gone.

“Get out,” I yell. He steps toward me, but the void sends him backward with a powerful gust of wind. “GET OUT.”

And like that, Carter’s out of my house. I hope the landing was painful.

Lia rests a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sure that was difficult.”

“It wasn’t difficult. It wasn’t anything.”

She smiles a half-smile. “Good. I’ll see you in the morning. You have the address?”

“Morning?”

“For the present,” she says, and I nod.

After she’s gone, I keep telling myself it was nothing. I repeat it until I can say it with a straight face. Until it starts to feel like nothing.