Steadfast

17

WHEN VERLAINE HAD LEFT THE HOSPITAL THE DAY before, it had been a place too quiet and mournful for her to bear.

Now it was bedlam.

At least a hundred people, maybe more, had crowded into the ER waiting room; everyone was demanding answers about their loved ones or this “mystery illness,” and nobody had any answers to give.

Well, not any answers the crowd was going to get, anyway. The people who knew the truth could be counted on one hand, and included two witches and a demon. Verlaine figured that wasn’t what anybody out there wanted to hear.

She and Nadia had managed to find a slightly less crowded corridor where they could at least hear each other talk. “Elizabeth can’t have been everywhere in town at once,” Verlaine said while they huddled near the vending machines. “Could she? Is there some kind of . . . time-turner spell?”

“Like I wouldn’t be using that every single day if there were. And enough with the Harry Potter stuff, okay?” Nadia leaned against the wall, weary as though she were the one who hadn’t slept. “I doubt Elizabeth made it to every single scene. But she would have made it to a lot of them.”

“Has she completed that disgusting symbol thing she’s burning into her flesh?” Verlaine supported tattoos, piercings, and other body modifications on general artistic principles, but actually using them to summon the forces of darkness was going too far.

“Yeah, but I don’t think completing the symbol is a big deal. I think it’s more about . . . strengthening the symbol. Calling on it. Reinforcing it. Every time Elizabeth burns it deeper into her shoulder, the symbol gets stronger. And so does her spell.”

“Which means what? The One Beneath gets to enter our world?”

Nadia gave her a look like it was bad luck to even say that out loud. Maybe it was. Verlaine decided she’d be a little more careful with her words from now on, just in case. “No,” Nadia explained. “This is just step two of her plan. What she’s doing right now is building a bridge for Him. What she’s building the bridge out of is pain itself.”

“You mean all these people in this hospital—including Uncle Gary—they’re suffering because Elizabeth can use that?” Verlaine hadn’t known it was possible to feel so angry that her head ached and her hands clenched into fists so tight her fingers hurt. But if Elizabeth had been there at that moment, she swore she’d have been able to swing her fists right into Elizabeth’s face, and no dark magic on Earth could have stopped her. “The pain these sick people feel is like . . . bricks, or stones. What she uses to create.”

“Exactly. Her pain mirrors theirs. Makes it stronger.”

“That’s sick.”

“That’s dark magic.” Nadia shoved the sleeves of her sweater farther up her arms, a restless, anxious move.

Verlaine realized there weren’t going to be enough doctors and nurses to go around in this hospital. Who was going to take care of her dad? Fear cut into her deeper and deeper, a scratch turning into a cut turning into a wound.

Nadia lifted her head, and Verlaine turned to see Mateo coming toward them.

“Hey,” he said, attaching himself to Nadia in his usual remoralike fashion. She cuddled into his embrace, and Verlaine wondered what it would be like to know you could be sheltered. Comforted. Cared about. “Okay, I tried asking around, but nobody would talk to me, so I just eavesdropped. Worked way better. They brought in almost forty new patients today. They’re all in the same condition as Verlaine’s dad—comatose, no explanation. The black junk burned their throats and did something to their lungs, but that’s nothing people shouldn’t be able to heal from. None of the doctors understand why the patients don’t wake up again.”

Nadia nodded. “Have they been able to analyze the black liquid?”

“They tried,” Mateo said. “Apparently it destroyed the lab equipment. Somebody’s calling the CDC.”

“The what?” Nadia said.

Verlaine knew this; she’d watched Contagion on Netflix. “The Centers for Disease Control. They have hazmat suits and specialists and stuff, but still, they’re not going to figure out what’s really happening here.”

“We know what’s happening here,” Mateo said. “And we know how to stop it.”

At that moment, both he and Nadia got this weird look on their faces: stubborn and unsure, even though they never let go of each other. Apparently a plan was afoot, and once again, she’d been shut out of it. How incredibly not surprising.

At that point Mateo said he had to go back to La Catrina to help his dad, even though there was no way people in town would so much as leave their houses tonight for anyplace but the hospital. That meant it was up to Verlaine to give Nadia a ride home in the land yacht. Darkness had fallen, and though the lot was crowded with haphazardly parked cars, nobody else seemed to be around. Their footsteps sounded unnaturally loud, as did her car when she cranked it.

“Give it a second to warm up,” Verlaine said, speaking of both her ancient car’s motor and the still-cold air blowing through the vents even though she had the heater on. “Hey, is something going on with you and Mateo?”

Nadia huddled farther down in the seat, wrapping her down jacket around her until she seemed to be buried in it. “We don’t agree on how to go after Elizabeth. And we had a fight, which I keep trying to tell myself isn’t the end of the world. Couples fight, right? I guess after Mom and Dad—it’s hard for me to realize that you can move on.”

“You fought about Elizabeth?”

“That and other things.” Nadia looked almost shamefaced, and Verlaine wondered what level of confession was on the way. But the conclusion was only, “Mateo thinks I don’t love him as much as he loves me, and I can’t figure out why he’d ever believe that.”

Verlaine had to laugh. “Asa.”

“Huh?”

“I would bet any amount of money that Asa screwed with his head. He’s tried to screw with mine. Yours, too, I bet. Am I right?” Immediately Nadia looked abashed, and Verlaine shook her head. “Demons manipulate people. It’s what they do. Asa says so himself. Sounds like he did a number on you two.”

Was she really the only one of their group who understood him?

Nadia shook her head slowly. “Okay, that is—a pretty strong theory.”

“So ask Mateo about what Asa’s said lately. Bet that clears it up right away.”

“I will. Thanks, Verlaine.”

“Whatever.” Verlaine scrunched down farther in her seat, ready to end the conversation but somehow not yet ready to drive.

“Are you mad at me?”

“No. Yeah. Kinda. Not mad at you, just—” Verlaine sighed. “It’s hard being on the outside all the time.”

“I know—it’s got to be weird, but we try. I’m sorry we don’t do better.”

Verlaine was certain that Nadia was completely sincere, but at the moment she just didn’t care. “Do you know what I’d give to have anybody feel about me the way Mateo feels about you? Anybody in the world?”

Nadia’s face flushed. “Are you telling me you’re in love with Mateo, too?”

“No! Of course not!” Sure, Mateo was handsome, but he didn’t do it for her. Unfortunately her type seemed to be limited to either jerks in her class or demons from hell. Mateo was way too nice to qualify, not to mention undamned. “But if somebody ever loved me—if they even could love me—I don’t even know what that would mean. I only know it would be the most amazing thing in the world.”

Nobody spoke for a while. Awkward, Verlaine thought, and she wondered if she should put on the radio or something. Then, very quietly, Nadia said, “I see you sometimes. I mean, the real you.”

“Huh?”

“When I cast a really powerful spell, or other high-level magic is happening around us.” Her words came in a rush, but Nadia kept on, determined. “It’s like—like just for a second, it blocks out whatever else is keeping us from seeing you for who you really are. The last time was when we were out at Davis Bridge, just after it collapsed. Obviously I couldn’t say anything, because we were all swimming for our lives, and now it’s hard for me to even remember straight. But I know it happened. For one second, I loved you so much—”

Hot tears blurred Verlaine’s vision; her hands felt warm and weak on the steering wheel. “So it’s true. What Asa said is true.” There really is something in me to love. It’s in here. It always has been. Sometimes I didn’t believe it but it’s true, and it’s been there all along.

“What?”

“Nothing. Nothing.” Verlaine shook her head as she wiped at her cheeks. “I’m okay.”

Nadia wasn’t deceived. “I made you cry,” she said, beginning to tear up herself. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No. I’m glad you did. I just—I can’t right now, okay? I can’t.”

Instead of replying, Nadia just burst into tears.

For a few minutes they just sat there in the car and cried, no sound in the car except their sobs and the wheeze of half-warm air through the heater. Finally Verlaine punched at the glove compartment. Nadia jumped back, but Verlaine shook her head. “You have to hit it to make it open. Piece of junk.”

She grabbed the packet of Kleenex from the glove compartment, handed a wad of them to Nadia, and started cleaning herself up. When Verlaine had pulled herself together enough to see, she realized that mascara had run all the way down Nadia’s cheeks. “You look like crap, by the way.”

“So do you.”

Then they started laughing, which was probably a sign of hysteria, but whatever. It felt better than crying, even if it did make tears run down their cheeks again.

“Okay,” Verlaine finally said, once they were back to themselves. “I need to get home to Uncle Dave, but I hereby decree that we need an emergency DQ run. There’s no way I can deal with any of this without a Blizzard.”

Nadia slumped back in her seat, obviously exhausted. “Please, yes.”

They could fight the overwhelming evil tomorrow, Verlaine decided. It wasn’t as though anything else could happen tonight to make the situation worse.

As Verlaine drove toward Dairy Queen, Nadia tried to sort through what to do next.

Talking about the collapse of Davis Bridge had reminded her of that crushing failure—but also of why it might have gone wrong. The more Nadia considered it, the more she became convinced that Elizabeth couldn’t have simply sensed the spell on her own. By the time she recognized a spell of forgetting, it should have been too late for her to act to protect herself.

There were only two ways Elizabeth could have slithered out of that one. First, she had access to some form of protective spell that went beyond anything Nadia had come across. Second, she had been warned by someone else . . . or something else.

Demons could sense magic. Asa might have been able to warn Elizabeth in time. But Asa wouldn’t have bothered warning Elizabeth. He hated her—however manipulative Asa was, however many silky lies he’d whispered into Mateo’s ear, Nadia felt sure Asa wasn’t lying about his hatred for the Sorceress who took such glee in enslaving him.

The only other possible way Elizabeth could have been warned was by her Book of Shadows.

Spell books became sensitive to magic over time, even possessed magic of their own. After her spooky encounter with Elizabeth’s Book of Shadows, Nadia felt certain that it had not only power, but a certain level of consciousness. It wasn’t just the best weapon in Elizabeth’s arsenal; it was her collaborator. Her ally.

In the past, both Mateo and Verlaine had suggested trying to steal it. Nadia had told them it was far too dangerous to consider, and she still believed that.

But what if she didn’t try to steal it?

What if she tried to destroy it?

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.