Steadfast

12

MATEO SAT ALONE ON THE BEACH NEAR HIS HOUSE, BACK against a large piece of driftwood in the sand, earbuds in, music going. It was a cloudy night, one where he couldn’t see the strange roiling stuff between Captive’s Sound and the stars; the only evidence of magic visible at the moment was the strange glow surrounding the lighthouse. After the whole thing with Grandma, he needed space. Needed to feel like the world hadn’t closed in around him. Right now he just needed to be alone.

But then he wasn’t alone.

“Sorry, am I intruding?” Asa smiled as he leaned against the same bit of driftwood. “I suppose you can barely hear me over all the noise.”

The music stopped. So did the waves, which remained midcurl, seafoam frozen in place like carved alabaster. Mateo yanked his earbuds out as he shifted away from the demon. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Just dropped by, figured we could bitch about Elizabeth, do each other’s nails, make cookies—wait. No. That’s girl bonding, isn’t it? Sometimes I get it mixed up. No gender roles in hell, torment and anguish being more or less universal. So what do we do to be manly and brutish? Smash beer cans against our foreheads? Watch NASCAR? Crochet? What?”

Mateo decided to stay calm. The demon wasn’t going to kill him, obviously. He would have done it long before tonight if that were his only goal. “What do you want?”

“It’s more a question of what you want. You need answers, Mateo. I can give them to you.”

“Like I’d trust anything you had to say.”

“You should.” Asa stretched his arms out across the driftwood, apparently enjoying himself. “You strike me as someone who’s already seen the darker side of life. That is, you’ve seen the truth. I’m here to talk man-to-man. If I were you, I’d take advantage of the opportunity.”

It couldn’t be that simple, obviously. This all had to be some kind of a trick. But Mateo figured—okay, he wouldn’t do anything Asa suggested he should do. He’d just listen to what the guy had to say. Then he could go over it all with Nadia later, and they’d figure out what Asa had been up to for real. They could turn Asa’s words against him.

Keeping it casual, Mateo said, “There’s one thing I’ve been wondering about.”

“Ask away.”

“Why can’t I see that you’re a demon? I’m a Steadfast. I see all kinds of magic, everywhere around town. Old spells. Sources of power. Elizabeth’s true form—though she’s changed since Halloween.”

“Indeed she has. Elizabeth’s not quite the woman she used to be,” Asa said as he picked up Mateo’s phone and started scrolling through the music library. “But, to answer your question, you can’t see the truth about me in part because I can’t see the truth about you. A Steadfast’s identity is hidden from demons; even when I was in the demonic realm, and I knew Nadia had taken a Steadfast, I had no idea it was you. And no wonder, of course. A male Steadfast? Bizarre. Anyway, part of the magic that hides a Steadfast from demons also hides demons from a Steadfast. It puts a curtain between us. A veil. Blocks vision in both directions.”

Was that true? It sounded like it could be. Maybe that was something there was no point in lying about. Asa might be a source of useful information—at least, once you weeded out the lies. Mateo tried again. “What do you mean, Elizabeth’s not the woman she used to be?”

“Before Halloween, she was effectively immortal. Now she’s not.”

“. . . She’s not?” But Elizabeth had lived for centuries. Her power was almost limitless—wasn’t it?

Maybe not. Maybe not.

Seemingly oblivious to Mateo’s reaction, Asa continued, “Elizabeth Pike can die just like any other human being now. Which makes killing her a lot easier, by the way. Not easy, of course. She’s still got four hundred years’ worth of magic on her side. But easier! Now, let’s see. What have you got on this music iPod . . . thing? I admit I’m out of touch after a few centuries in hell.”

“Give me that.” Mateo yanked back his phone; it was warm to the touch, like he’d left it in his dad’s car on a blazing summer day. Asa shrugged.

Elizabeth could die. She could die just like any other person. Like Mom, and all the other people she’d made suffer.

Asa could have been lying, but Mateo didn’t think so. He’d seen the change in Elizabeth for himself. The magic around her was no longer so dramatic, so blinding. She’d lost some kind of power, and if that was immortality—it made a whole lot of sense.

“I know that look.” Asa smiled. “Someone’s thinking about revenge.”

“I never said—”

“Didn’t have to. I’m a demon. I can smell vengeance. Literally, I mean. It’s a little like blood. Metallic. Sharp on the tongue.” Asa turned toward Mateo, all pretense of ease gone. The intensity of his gaze made it impossible to look away. “You want Elizabeth dead? So do I. My boss, also known as the One Beneath, will triumph with or without her. I’d prefer ‘without her.’ Want to hear more?”

“You’re screwing with my head.”

“Of course I am. I’m a demon. But that doesn’t mean I’m not telling you the truth. Nothing screws people up worse than the truth.”

It’s probably all bullshit, Mateo thought. But maybe it’s not, and the part about Elizabeth being mortal again is definitely true. “Yeah. I want to hear more.”

Asa slid a little closer. The heat from him flickered across Mateo’s skin, as though he were standing near a bonfire. “Obviously, Nadia wants to defeat Elizabeth through magic, to undo her spells or counteract them with spells of her own. She’s a witch. Witches are trained to think that way. But Elizabeth’s magic can’t do her one damn bit of good if she’s dead. If you want to stop her, I suggest a more direct approach. Stop worrying about whatever Elizabeth is or isn’t trying to accomplish. Start thinking about how to take her out.”

Murder. Asa was talking about murder. Once, Mateo would have thought he wasn’t capable of that, not unless somebody he loved was in danger, and it didn’t seem like it would be easy even then.

Back then, he’d thought Elizabeth was one of the people he loved most.

I could, Mateo realized. If it was Elizabeth—I could.

He opened his mouth, closed it again. The words refused to come at first, but he got them out. “How do we get to her?”

Asa’s grin broadened. “I like a man who isn’t afraid to admit he wants revenge. I like it very much. You’re wise to act now, before Elizabeth gets her claws into Nadia. Deeper into Nadia than they already are.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, come on. She’s been trying to recruit Nadia. You know this.”

“Yeah, but Nadia would never go for that.”

“She wouldn’t? Are you positive?” Rising onto his knees, Asa made a great show of looking around the beach. The driftwood behind him had been scorched black. “I don’t see her here with you now.”

“We’re all kind of freaked out after last night.”

“If I were young and in love, I wouldn’t let that stop me. Fate has given you absent mothers and highly distracted fathers. Why on earth aren’t the two of you wrapped around each other in carnal delight—tonight, tomorrow night, pretty much any second you’re not eating or sleeping? Or in study hall, once known as chemistry. Could you believe they made us watch Code of the Ancient Maya? How is that science?”

“Nadia and I don’t need dating advice from Satan, okay?”

Obviously bored, Asa held up one hand and made the universal symbol for blah blah blah. “My point is that you’ve left yourself vulnerable. Left Nadia vulnerable. The only thing more compelling than love is power. Trust me: In hell you get plenty of lessons about that one. If magic is still the first thing in Nadia’s life—not you—isn’t it possible that she’ll always choose magical power in the end? Even if that means giving you up?”

“This is the part where you start twisting my mind around,” Mateo said. “I know what you’re doing.”

Asa just laughed. “Keep telling yourself that. The denial can only go on for so long, but you might as well enjoy it while it lasts.” He rose to his feet, brushing sand from his jeans. “I’ll tell you another truth, Mateo. Another hard fact for you to ignore until it’s too late. In every romance, one person loves the other more. Sometimes it’s a lot; sometimes it’s such a slight difference that nobody could ever tell—nobody, that is, except the one who’s loved a little less. He’s always aware of that patch of shadow where the sunlight doesn’t fall. That fraction between how far he’s reaching and how far away she is. The difference between loving and loving absolutely. Nobody else can even see it, but the one who does more than his share of the loving? Eventually he can’t see anything else.”

Mateo wanted to tell Asa he was wrong, but the words seemed to die in his throat. It couldn’t be true . . . could it?

“Oh, look at the time.” Asa made a great show of stretching and getting to his feet. “I should go. We’re finishing Dickens tomorrow. It’s a pleasure to have books again, you know. No libraries in hell.”

As he heard the soft crunch of Asa’s shoes against the sand, Mateo knew he should say something, anything, to let Asa know it wouldn’t be that easy to tear him apart from Nadia. By the time he turned around, though, the demon had vanished as if he’d never been there at all.

Another exciting night here at the bustling media center of Captive’s Sound, Verlaine thought.

She sat behind the desk at the town paper, the Guardian, which came out only once a week and mostly just printed advertising circulars. Verlaine had an internship here, which meant less “covering news of importance to the town” and more “hanging around in case anybody drops off classified ads.” They let her write stories, even ran them on the front page, but Verlaine had yet to see any evidence that either the editors or the citizenry appreciated her hard work.

They don’t just ignore me. They ignore my writing. They ignore anything that comes anywhere near me. It’s like there’s this—chasm between me and everybody else in the world.

She took a deep breath, then another. Deliberately she wound her gray hair into a smooth bun at the back of her neck, which hopefully worked with the whole “sexy secretary” vibe she was going for with this 1960s rose-colored sheath dress. At least she was in control of her look.

But what did it matter how she looked, if nobody was ever going to look at her?

The bells on the door jingled, and she looked up—then scowled. “What are you doing here?”

“Would you believe a personal ad?” Asa said.

“No. Elizabeth pulled that trick last month. I wound up in the hospital for a few days as a result. Now I have a Taser and a much more selective policy about who gets to advertise in the paper.” Verlaine did not have a Taser. In fact she’d gotten no further than thinking it might be a good idea to have one around. But Asa didn’t know that.

He leaned against one of the counters and looked up at the endless musty volumes of back issues that lined the walls. “I wouldn’t have thought this place could afford to be ‘selective’ about much.”

Verlaine bit back her smile in time. “Yeah. Well. It’s not CNN. But this is Captive’s Sound.”

“This used to be a much more interesting publication.” Asa began strolling along the wall, trailing his long fingers over the ridges of the leather bindings. “Back in the day—even further back than these archives go, I’d imagine. When the printing press they worked on was one of the only ones in the New World, and more people knew the reason this paper was called the Guardian.”

She frowned. That wasn’t such an unusual name for a newspaper; usually it meant that the paper was a guardian of truth or liberty or something like that. What else could it mean?

And then she knew.

Slowly Verlaine said, “There’s also a reason this town is called Captive’s Sound, isn’t there?”

Asa drummed his hands against the wall in obvious excitement. “You got there much quicker than I thought you would. Nicely done!”

Once upon a time, the people here knew they were guarding something. But what’s captive in Captive’s Sound?

“So many secrets,” he said, strolling closer to her desk. His smile was brilliantly white against his tawny skin, and already she had begun to feel that strange heat. “So much waiting to be revealed. And I think you’d like to be the one who ripped the lid off.”

“Yeah, right.” Verlaine didn’t like how close he was getting, so she rolled her desk chair farther back. “Like anybody would pay attention to anything I said. Elizabeth took that away from me. Or didn’t you remember?”

It was hard to say exactly how Asa’s expression changed. His smile didn’t fade; his eyes never lost that black, mischievous fire. And yet she knew that he’d only halfway meant everything he’d said before—but what he said now was true. “I remember it well. I see it more plainly than anyone else does—even more than you, Verlaine.”

She could have slapped him. “Oh, you can see my life better than I can? You think there’s a better view than from the inside? Don’t even pretend you know what this is like.”

“Being forever alone? Forever unseen? I have no body of my own. No freedom. No chance my existence will ever change. I know what you endure far too well.”

Of course. Asa was a slave. Maybe that didn’t make him sympathetic, exactly—but it made him pitiable. Maybe he really did know what it felt like to be always on the outside looking in.

Asa’s hands were spread across the counter, and he leaned over it, just far enough for her to again feel the warmth of him glowing against her cheeks. “You’re so much stronger than anyone else knows. Nadia, Mateo—they try, don’t they? But they never understand the courage it takes for you to support and love them when they can’t love you as much in return. They never see how little the world cares for you, and how you dare to love the world back anyway. Nobody reads what you write, and yet you write. Nobody looks at you, and yet you dress yourself like a goddess every single day. Nobody wants you, and yet you keep wanting. You stay hungry. You keep your heart open. You never give up.”

She couldn’t look at him any longer. Her throat hurt, and her breaths were coming too quickly, but she’d be damned if she’d let a demon make her cry.

“Verlaine.” Asa’s voice was soft, and he was closer to her now, leaning over far enough that they could have touched. Even kissed. What would it feel like, to be kissed by him? Would it burn her to cinders? “There are stories you could tell that would force people to listen. Let me share with you this town’s real history. Let me tell you the truth about Elizabeth. Let the two of us try to find an answer together, without Nadia or Mateo or anyone else who can’t see the truth for themselves. Believe in me. Trust me. See me, as I see you.”

Slowly she put her hands on the folder in front of her, thick with old ad layouts and receipts. Her shaking fingers closed around the binding; it helped to have something to hang on to.

It helped even more to have something to swing.

Verlaine grabbed the folder and smashed it into Asa’s face as hard as she could. He staggered backward, all the way into the nearest wall of back volumes.

“Trust you,” she said as she came around the counter, still brandishing the folder in front of her like a weapon. “Believe in you. While you’re trying to manipulate me in the most obvious way possible. Excuse me, but no.”

“You should listen to what I’ve said.” His grin remained in place as he rubbed the side of his jaw, but when she came closer to him, he began backing away.

“I heard you out. And I didn’t hear anything worth my time.”

“Don’t tell me you weren’t affected. That’s a lie and we both know it. What you feel when you look at me—the way you parted your lips for a moment—”

“So what? You’re hot. Big deal. It doesn’t change the fact that you’re a demon.” Verlaine took another swing at him with the folder every few words, pushing him farther and farther toward the door. “A demon! And a liar, and Elizabeth’s partner in crime, and a total asshole.”

She shoved him out the door. The bells on the handle jingled again. And just like that, he seemed to have disappeared.

Inside she felt raw, torn apart. But Verlaine had become very good at putting her own pain aside. That was one of the few benefits of being on the outside looking in: You learned to take anything the world could throw at you.

“Well. Guess that showed him.” She smoothed the front of her sheath dress and went back to her desk to finish her homework. “Bet he’s not so smug anymore.”

If she could have seen Asa at that moment, she would have seen him laughing out loud in sheer delight.

How brilliant she was. How fierce. Asa enjoyed fighting with Verlaine more than he remembered enjoying time with anyone else.

He wanted to watch her from a distance, but he made himself pull back. If he paid any more attention to Verlaine Laughton, Asa thought he might actually become . . . fond of her. That would be disastrous. First of all, she was doomed. Bad long-term relationship prospects there.

Second, he couldn’t save her from whatever danger would come. While there was a bit of wiggle room for him to betray Elizabeth, he could never betray the One Beneath. Rescuing Verlaine from mortal danger would be utterly forbidden. If he broke that rule, he would be forced to endure the worst torments of hell for what would feel like centuries. No girl could be worth that, not even one so daring and delightful as Verlaine.

Even one that made him feel as if he would find it painful when she died.

Yet Asa lingered awhile, watching her anyway.

He was still in a good mood the next morning as he walked through the halls of Rodman High; even the sight of Elizabeth falling into step beside him couldn’t dim his smile. “Don’t tell me,” he said. “You just can’t wait to watch a documentary on Albert Einstein.”

“You know I have my reasons for coming here. How goes your task?”

“Let’s see.” Asa nodded toward the far end of the hall, where Nadia, Mateo, and Verlaine were all walking in.

They must have met up outside. Maybe they even came to school together. But even though the three of them walked side by side, even though they were smiling at one another, Asa could tell—there was a bit of a chill in the air that had nothing to do with autumn. Mateo didn’t have his arm around Nadia. Nadia couldn’t quite meet Verlaine’s eyes. And Verlaine crossed her arms and scowled at both Asa and Elizabeth as the two groups passed.

“The suspicion is still subtle,” Elizabeth said. “They doubt themselves more than one another. But I can see that the seeds have been planted. What next, beast?”

“Watch and wait.” He imagined the elm trees that grew all over town, many of them so old they had pushed up the sidewalks in front of them and broken the paving stones into half a dozen planes and angles. The smallest seed could cause incredible damage, given time and the right conditions to grow.

She asked, “What did you tell them?”

“The most dangerous thing of all. The truth.”

I laid out three possible ways to destroy you. Any one of them might work. All I have to do is hope at least one of them sees it. The faster they’re driven apart, the faster they can stop focusing on one another and go after you. Your work and your undoing, and I managed it in just one night. You’ll be sorry you called me beast soon enough.

Asa glanced over his shoulder at them once more. Really he should have been watching all three of them for signs of discord. Instead he only had eyes for the way Verlaine’s long, silver hair flowed down her back.

Quietly he repeated, “Everything I said was true.”