Girl in the Shadows (22 page)

twenty-nine

The shot rang out with a
crack!
that filled the entire tent.

I braced for impact. The glass shattered as the bullet passed through, and I wanted to take it all back, the whole summer, in those terrifying seconds.

But nothing happened.

Then I remembered I was still onstage and this was still a performance. I rocked back, as if I’d been hit, clapped my hand up to my mouth guard to remove it, and spat the bullet into my palm at the same time. I turned to reveal it to the audience and waved for my mother to come back onstage.

Dez was placing the gun back in its case, his hands visibly shaking.

It’s okay, Dez,
I thought.
We made it. She didn’t decide to take me out to teach me a lesson.

Some light applause had already started—people desperate for a cathartic release from the drama they’d watched play out. Maybe sometimes the audience does sense the machinations beneath the surface, and appreciates what they see all the more for it.

“Are these your markings?” I asked her. Asking people if it was their bullet was a tricky business, inviting closer scrutiny that would take too much time. The question was precise for that reason.

“Looks right,” she said. “Yes.”

I offered the bullet to her, nervous about our hands touching again and expecting her to decline. But she said, “What a souvenir to remember you by.”

There was no zap of electricity when our skin brushed.

“I need you to tell me how to get the coin to you if I can find it,” I said quickly, low enough for only her hearing.

“I don’t think so,” she said, just as low. “Don’t try to follow me, and stop taking these risks. We can never be seen together again. He will find out.”

She held the bullet in the air and gave the smile of someone who’d played a game and won. Which made me, taking my bow at last, the loser.

The crowd didn’t hold it against me. They were on their feet, giving me a rousing standing ovation.

My mother began to slip away into the crowd. I hesitated, torn between taking her order and attempting to catch up with her.

She was already halfway to the exit, her flaming hair beating a steady if not hasty retreat. The lingerers in the audience were approaching the stage, their programs or posters in hand, and there was Thurston at the back of the theater. He’d either slipped in late or I missed him earlier. He offered me a salute. I was a headliner now.

There was no point in chasing after my mother, not tonight. Not unless I wanted to end up fired like Raleigh.

Dez still hadn’t said a word. “You okay?” I asked.

He had a funny expression on his face. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that? What if she’d . . .”

Made him into my killer?
“She didn’t. She wouldn’t. I better start signing.”

More confused than ever, I channeled my mother’s ability to behave out of tune with what would be expected of a normal person in a given situation. In this case, that meant donning a fake mask over my real one, and pretending everything was okay.

What an exhilarating evening. What a brush with death. What a life.

Everyone bought it. But why wouldn’t they? Like all magic, there was a kind of truth in it, wrapped within the layers of deception.

“She’s got to be somewhere around here, doesn’t she?” I asked Dez, in his tiny, hot compartment the next day.

His response was to keep putting his shoes on. “She seems to always be around.”

Dez had been weird for the rest of the night, and so had I. But his weirdness was persisting into the next day. I wanted to talk this out, and he was the only person I had to talk it out with.

When he’d skipped out on lunch, I’d come to find him here. He was not as thrilled as he usually was to see me. By all appearances, he was about to take off somewhere—not that he’d said as much.

“I’m sorry I put you in that position,” I said. That had to be it, right? He was freaked out and mad that he’d had to shoot a gun at me after what I’d told him about my mother and magic. That made sense. “I shouldn’t have. Forgive me?”

“Please, don’t tell me you’re sorry. You don’t have to do that.”

“In your place, I’d be mad too.”

He turned a shadowed grin to me. “Good thing I have no plans to hand you a gun and ask you to shoot. With my luck, you’d hit me right through here.”

He reached out and took my hand and placed it over his heart.

I had the penny he’d given me, which I now thought of as the lucky penny, in my pocket. He’d told me to keep it.

Dez kissed me, but it was a too-brief kiss. “I have to go,” he said.

“Where?”

“With me, that’s where,” Brandon said, appearing outside the opening. “No
girlfriends
allowed.”

I bristled. I couldn’t help it. “What, you going to a strip club? Classy.”

“We are not going to a strip club,” Dez said. “At least, I hope not. We have to go out for supplies. Totally boring. You don’t want to come with us. Swear.”

“Because you’re not invited,” Brandon said.

“Because he’ll be there,” Dez said, giving me another quick kiss.

“Now that’s a convincing argument. I guess I’ll see you later.”

He pulled my hand back up to his heart. “I’ll be heartbroken if I don’t.”

“Sweet talker,” I said.

But I liked it. I got up and out so he could slide the door closed and lock it. He and Brandon set off toward the edge of camp, and I turned back toward it.

I didn’t go far. Dez was still being weird. And this was the second time he’d disappeared with annoying Brandon since we got to El Paso. I knew he owed that creep Rex something and that Brandon considered him a brother. Plus, the way Dez hadn’t outright said I couldn’t come was a technique I recognized from some of the magic books I’d read. It was a con artist’s technique. A way to get people to agree with what you want them to do, by thinking you have their best interest at heart.

I’d been managed into staying behind. His declaration that he’d be heartbroken if he didn’t see me again had also been carefully worded. He had
not
said he’d be back or he’d see me later. It left open the possibility that he might not.

So I followed him.

The lack of a convenient fairgrounds in town meant we were set up at the University of Texas campus (Thurston was apparently a regular donor) in an older stadium called Kidd Field. Our campers and supplies were located in a big parking lot behind it, a little hike away. El Paso was all beautiful blue skies and a lively mix of bursts of green with desert browns. An impressive mountain sprawled right into the city.

The boys were heading in the mountain’s general direction, out on a street with its grand name stamped on it in white: “Glory Road.” I kept my distance. There were only a few students on the sidewalks, and if Dez or Brandon so much as glanced back, they’d spot me.

I breathed a bit easier when they turned onto a busier street, where I’d have more options for hiding. They passed restaurants and shops and, still, they kept walking, up into a more residential area.

Not only did they not look back, they didn’t seem to speak a word to each other. Occasionally Brandon consulted the phone in his hand—looking at directions, maybe. I wondered where they were going.

I hadn’t really envisioned a strip club, but . . . unless they were planning to climb the mountain, which I doubted, there was nothing out here but more houses.

They stopped at a quiet intersection, with homes a mix of very nice and downright stately on all sides, and then approached a big gray house with a cactus garden in front and a tall stucco fence around the backyard. Brandon led the way to the porch and then didn’t even bother knocking. He opened the door, and they disappeared inside.

What on earth?

I moved carefully closer, noting the street sign: Coffin.

It’s just a street name,
I told myself.
No chills necessary.

There must have been people in there, because the sound of music with a lot of bass reached me out on the sidewalk. I heard some sounds of chatter in the backyard.

“A party?” I shook my head. “Seriously?”

Something still didn’t feel . . . right. If they were cutting out, if Dez was blowing me off for some random townie bash, I wanted to know. But I also wanted to see if he was in trouble or in danger from that family friend again. The guy had shown up in more than one city. He could be here too.

Knowing that maybe it was unwise (okay, it was stupid, I’ll admit), I walked up to the door. I knocked, but either the occupants ignored it or the music was too loud for anyone to hear. The thump and thud of the bass resonated—or reverberated—through my head. So I did what the boys had done.

I twisted the knob and opened the door, and then I went inside.

part three

now you see her

thirty

No one noticed my entrance at first. The room was filled with people, lounging on couches and gathered around a TV that wasn’t even on. It didn’t have the feel of a party. Or it was the feel of a party three days in, when everyone’s exhausted and wishes it was over.

Beer bottles covered a living room table and the kitchen counter, but the house was otherwise tidy.

A handful of small children raced around. One of them stopped and peered up at me. A girl of about eight with a tangle of black hair. There was a break between songs, and she spoke into it. “Hail,” she said.

“Um, hi,” I said.

Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t think you’re supposed to be here.”

I didn’t see Dez or Brandon anywhere. “I’m looking for a friend. His name is Dez—do you know him?”

A woman migrated over then and placed a protective hand on the black-haired girl’s shoulder. “Dez is here. But who’re you?”

“She’s not supposed to be here, Mama,” the little traitor said.

“I’m a friend of his,” I cut in. “Just point me in his direction.”

The woman gave a low whistle. She was dressed in a business suit, bright blue, a bizarre sight among everyone else dressed so casually. “Oh, he’s in the shit now.”

She pointed to the sliding doors that opened out into the big backyard. “That way.”

The music resumed its thump and thud, not quite loud enough to drown out a few hoots and calls and barks of laughter, as the woman relayed why I was here to the rest of the people hanging out in the room. I hurried to get to those sliding doors.

And then to get through them and out into the yard.

The smart move would have been to turn tail and leave. But I wanted to know what Dez was doing here too much for that.

I slid the door shut behind me, dampening the noise of the music. The fresh air of the yard was better. Pots of colorful succulents dotted the edges, next to the high fence. The yard also contained people, but there was a far more serious mood here than inside the house. A small cluster of men and women gathered around something or someone in a shady corner, and I made my way over. I still hadn’t spotted Dez.

But I thought I saw Brandon up ahead. “Brandon?” I called softly from the back of the pack. “Dez with you?”

“Who, pray tell, interrupts?” a man boomed out.

Crap.
I recognized that voice.

The crowd turned toward me as one before parting. Two people sat in high-backed wicker chairs, an arch of what looked like scrap metal leaned deliberately against the fence behind them.

It was Rex who had asked the question, and he grinned now in a feral way that made my blood run colder in my veins. He still had that beard that made him look like a devil and a fancy suit on, but today he also sported a pointy crown that looked like it was made of old metal.

And in the chair beside him was my mother, in a sleeveless green dress and a crown of her own.

Dez stood to one side of them, beside Brandon. His eyes were wide with panic; he shook his head at me.

“What is this?” I asked.

But I was figuring it out.

The crown my mother wore was brighter than Rex’s, silver but still tarnished. I realized what her tattoo was, finally—snakes coiled around a crown. The one on her head had rude snake shapes carved into it too.

“You must kneel before the Rex and Regina,” someone nearby said.

The Rex and Regina. My Latin wasn’t the best, but magic books were full of it. I knew enough to recognize the terms for king and queen. Regina wasn’t her name. And Rex wasn’t his. These were
titles
.

My mother, one of the Praestigae, a secret society. Apparently with rulers. She’d been so afraid that some man would find out about me. That I existed.

This man.

The man who’d made my skin crawl talking about curling toenails and clawing out eyes. The man who’d given Dez a nasty black eye. The man Dez owed loyalty to.

Dez had clearly been lying to me this whole time. He’d known my mother was queen of the Praestigae. He’d
known my mother
.

Had he been watching me for her? Had he been
with
me for her?

“Moira,” Dez said, his voice tight and afraid. “You have to kneel.”

I leaned forward, hands over my stomach like I was absorbing a blow. I swallowed the urge to throw up.

This pain was worse than any my magic had put me through.

“Kneel, not bend,” someone else said. It was Brandon. He encouraged me like it was the best idea in the world.

I managed to stand up straight, though I still felt sick. “I . . . don’t think I’ll be doing that.”

“Desmond, you shouldn’t have allowed your little girl to follow you here,” the Rex said. “You were already in line for punishment, but this . . .” He made a dismissive, wet noise. The
tsk
of a devil.

I wanted to say to my mother
What are you doing? Stop this.

She sat there, quiet, hands folded one over the other in her lap. Then she demanded, “Who is this girl?”

So that’s how we’re doing this?

The Rex answered, “She’s from the circus. I met her one night. She ruined my poker game. And now she’s ruining our accounting.”

The Regina, my mother, lifted one beautiful shoulder in a shrug. She was as flawless in appearance here as she had been onstage for the bullet catch. “We could have her thrown out. I could make her believe she’s seen nothing . . . or something else.”

“No,” the Rex said, voice coiled like one of the snakes on my mother’s crown. “You will not expend a drop of precious energy on her. I’ll decide what to do to her . . . or with her . . . later.”

I trembled. Would my mother let something bad happen to me? I didn’t know the rules of this place. She was playing it like we were strangers.

Which we were.

Dez looked like he was trembling too, shaky, like a leaf in the wind. “You shouldn’t be here,” he said.

I went nearer to him, choosing to stare at his shoes rather than look into his face. He had on beat-up sneakers, navy and what used to be white. A breeze stirred my hair into my eyes, partially blocking my view of his feet.

“I’m getting that.”

One shoe moved closer to mine.

“Don’t.” I took a step back.

If he touched me . . . I didn’t know what I’d do. Magically hurt him by accident probably.

How long had he known? When he pretended surprise at the revelation that I had magic, that the woman in front of us was my mother . . . he must have known by then. He might have known who I was the entire time.

During every kiss. Every touch. Our first date.

You lied to him too,
I remembered.

Yes, but then I told him the truth.

The Rex laughed. “This waltz you two are doing is touching, and also dull as the grave. Not that I know how boring it is down there in the dirt . . . Desmond, you could find out. Have you discovered our coin’s location yet? I assume the answer is still no.”

My mother was difficult to read. I didn’t know her well enough. But I knew from the tightening of her lips that the Rex mentioning this in front of me probably wasn’t good news.

“The girl,” she said.

He continued to look at Dez, awaiting a response. “I told you to forget her. She’s no one.”

Dez was trembling. “I already told you. We know the other person who was after it is gone, so now we’re in better shape. I’ll find it. I swear.” He looked at me. “I’ll make this right.”

There’s no way.

“You”—the Rex stood—“are in no shape at all until it is back in our possession. I have no choice but to remind you of your duty. Your father was a careless king. He lost us our luck. Now we need it back.” He paused, and addressed the crowd. “Bring the table I set earlier.”

There was movement at the back, and the crowd parted again. Two boys, maybe ten years old, carried forward a narrow table. Like something that might sit beside the front door in a nice house like this one.

On the table there was a large hammer with a wood handle, the end of the hammer a gleaming threat.

“Liege, may I speak?” Brandon said, like he had to fight the words free. He never talked like that.

“Of course. I would love to hear your report. You are there to watch him, to make sure he doesn’t run.”

“Dez would never leave us,” Brandon said, sounding surprised.

I wanted to see if Dez’s expression had changed, but I couldn’t bear to look at him. I had to get out of here.

“It’s hard to say what people will and will never do. Desmond, what would you say if I asked whether you’d rather me punish Brandon or you for your failures?”

“Me,” Dez said, no hesitation.

“Then you’d just feel noble. Not nearly enough suffering for you to drive home my point.” The Rex reached out and grabbed the hammer. He swung it through the air lazily. “Which is that I am sick of waiting.”

There was no way that table and that hammer were being used for anything good. I prayed this was just a scare tactic.

“We do have your girl here,” the Rex said.

“No,” Dez said.

I curled my hands. It wouldn’t take much to call my magic. My heart pounded, ready to fight.

“But she’s just a girl. Brandon, put your hands on the table, please,” the Rex said. “Flat. And close your eyes.”

“Please do it to me instead,” Dez said with a desperate edge.

“Silence,” the Rex said.

Brandon took a shuddering breath and let it out, his thin chest rising and falling. Then he stepped over to the table, leaving it between the Rex and him. He held out his arms and lowered his hands deliberately to the table. After one last glance at Dez, who was shaking his head in horror, he closed his eyes. The crowd was completely silent.

This couldn’t happen. The Rex would intentionally miss at the last second, right?

“Watch this, all of you. Desmond, no averting your eyes.” The Rex lifted the hammer high overhead.

I couldn’t let him do this. I started to step forward, calling on my magic, the heat flooding me—

And then I felt that press, my mother’s magic sending mine away.

“No,” I said. “No, don’t!”

She shook her head at me, the slightest no.

I might be able to overpower her. She claimed to be almost out of magic, and I had a nearly full cup, as far as I knew. Brandon wasn’t my favorite person in the world, but he didn’t deserve this.

The Rex swung the hammer down, and I shouted, “Mom, stop this!”

The metal smashed into Brandon’s hand. His scream was a horror.