A Little Night Magic (21 page)

Pretty
sure, anyway.

She finished pouring the circle, then stood in the middle, closed her eyes, and spoke a few more words. She opened her eyes again and they glittered in the moonlight as she stared at me across the circle. For a moment, her face had a wild look to it, more like a feral dog gauging its prey than a friend looking at a friend.

“You know,” I said, taking a step back. “I think I’m going to need another minute.”

She took a deep breath, then smiled. “I know it’s scary, baby, but if we’re going to do this, we should do it. We are running out of minutes.” She started to walk around the edge of the circle, toward me, and I found myself stepping along the circumference, too, keeping it between us. She pointed toward my feet.

“Now be careful,” she said. “You want to watch your step around that circle. If it gets broken, this could go terribly wrong.”

I stepped back a bit, keeping an eye on the carefully drawn circle. “Wrong how?”

She stopped where she was, and I stopped as well, directly across from her. “What?”

“What happens if it goes wrong?”

“Won’t go wrong if you do what I say,” she said, her voice deepening.

“Okay, you’re officially freaking me out.”

She smiled warmly, and her voice softened. “I know. But it’s for the best, right? I mean, you want to protect your town, don’t you?”

“Right,” I said. “So just … close my eyes and think of Nodaway?”

She laughed. “Something like that.” Her smile faded. “You know, if you want to turn back, it’s not too late. But once we start … well, then it will be tough.”

I thought on that for a moment. Part of me wanted, very badly, to turn back. To run home, to crawl under my covers, and wake up in the sunlight and figure out another solution. But the rest of me knew there was no other solution. The next time someone got attacked, I would no more be able to stop it than I had been able to stop things the other night with Frankie, or tonight with Peach. And the next time, someone might get killed, and if they did, it would be my fault, and the very idea of that was way worse than anything I would be dealing with here, tonight. Davina wasn’t going to let me get hurt, and this was the best shot we had at getting rid of Cain. Once I didn’t have what he wanted anymore, everything would be okay. I just had to suck it up and get through to the other side; maybe I couldn’t save the town from a rampaging redneck asshole, but this much, I
could
do.

“Let’s get this done,” I said, and took a deep breath, raised one foot, and stepped carefully over the powdered line, into the circle. I didn’t realize I was holding my breath or scrunching my eyes until a moment later, when Davina said, “Gonna need to open your eyes, baby.”

I opened them, and she handed me a water bottle. It was pink plastic, and had flowers on the side, which just seemed … wrong for a potion.

“So, I drink this? And that’s it?”

“Yes,” she said. “I already said the prayers for your protection, and the circle has been purified. All you have to do is drink that, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

“How much do I have to drink?” I asked.

“As much as you can. What’s in that bottle is your best shot at surviving this process.”

I felt tears come to my eyes, and my leg muscles began to tremble. “It’s going to hurt, isn’t it?”

Davina reached out and touched my face. “I’m going to take care of you. You trust me, right?”

She’s not your friend.

It was the memory of Cain’s voice in my head now, and there was no way I was listening to him.

“Yeah,” I said. “I trust you.”

Davina smiled. “Good.” She touched the bottom of the water bottle in my hand, nudging it toward me.

“Let’s get this over with, okay?”

“Okay.” I lifted the bottle, pulled the top open, touched it to my lips, hesitated, and then squeezed. “Oh, god,” I sputtered, spitting and choking. It went down like fire, harder than any alcohol I’d ever tasted. Davina rubbed my back and said, “I know, but it’s all we’ve got. Remember, this is what’s going to protect you when we get started. You have to drink it or it’s just too much of a risk.”

The tears splashed down my cheeks, partly from the burning in my esophagus, and partly from the terror I felt, but I thought of Peach being pelted into unconsciousness by walnuts, and I thought of Davina surrounded by gray smoke in the forest, and I forced myself to drink.

The first thing I felt were my arms getting weak and shaky, and the tingling crept up them, starting at my fingertips and going into my chest, bringing along a cold, dark feeling. It was getting hard to breathe, and I was starting to feel a little dizzy.

“Just a little bit more, baby,” Davina cooed. “You’re doing great.”

I put the bottle to my lips and forced a little more down, gagging a bit as I did. The world around me was spinning, and there was yellow light swirling around me in electric wisps, and Davina was sucking it in, her face glowing with the power as it infused her. And that’s when I noticed that there was also something swirling around her: dark gray smoke. I started to stumble and it occurred to me, a little late, that perhaps I’d just done something phenomenally stupid.

A flash went up around us, bright red and crackling, and then calmed; the white powder that had made the circle was burning. I tried to speak, tried to ask a question, but my body felt like it was encased in iron, everything cold and too heavy for me to move. Davina grabbed my shoulders and I screamed as the pain slashed through me, like swords of light cutting from my shoulders into my chest.

“Hush, baby,” Davina said, her voice thick. “It’ll be all over in a minute.”

I tried to scream again, but there was no air inside me anymore. I worked up the strength to open my eyes, and saw Davina standing over me, holding me by my arms like I was a rag doll, her eyes gleaming in the flickering firelight with greed and power and not a bit of concern for my obvious distress.

That can’t be good,
I thought.

I wriggled a bit, but she held on tight. That was when it first occurred to me that I was maybe going to die.

She’s not your friend,
Cain’s voice said again in my memory, and I thought absently,
You’re right. She’s not.

But now, it was too late. I was going to die, and I would be leaving what was certainly an insane person behind to do … who the hell knew what? I felt pretty certain that saving the town wasn’t as high on her priority list as she had led me to believe, though.

Stupid, stupid, stupid,
I thought, but then stopped as I realized that beating myself up wouldn’t help things. I had to work with what I had, which wasn’t much. I closed my eyes again, tried to get past the pain, and did the only thing I could think of doing.

I spit in her face.

14

“Ugh!” she said, releasing one of my arms as she instinctively swiped at her face. I jerked myself out of her grip and shifted in the air as I fell, using the force of my body—for once, I was glad I had some heft to me—to hurl myself toward the flaming edge of the circle. I hit it, breaking the circle with a skid as I hurtled into a world of hurt, and the fire went out instantly. I heard another thud after my own body fell; I figured it was Davina, and gained some comfort from the sound.

“You stupid bitch!”
she rasped, and when I looked up, I saw her, clawing the ground, pulling herself toward me like some demented zombie from a bad fifties’ pulp cover. I took a deep breath and clawed as well, heading toward the gurgling brook. I managed to crawl across it, the coldness from the water shooting sharp ice picks of pain through me. Finally, after what seemed like years, I made it to the other side and turned to see her, on her stomach, stopped at the moving water, shooting me the most vile look I’d ever received in my life. Lacking the strength to speak, I flipped her off and then fell back onto the ground with a thud.

I dipped into darkness then for a bit, and when I came to I was breathing, albeit with a lot of pain, my entire body seeming to protest every breath, every heartbeat, by shooting sharp shards of hurt through every nerve. I lay back on the ground, my chest arching as I gasped for air, and when I opened my eyes I could see vague wisps of yellow light drifting back into me. I followed the trails of light to their source, Davina’s brightly dressed form splayed on the ground at the opposite side of the circle. After a moment, the light dissipated, and the world was silent and dark around us as we both breathed, at first loudly and with effort, and eventually slower, and calmer.

What the hell was that?
I thought, lacking the strength to speak out loud.

You screwed up,
was what came back, and although I knew I had felt the words instead of heard them, I also knew they hadn’t come from me. Telepathy, however, was not the strangest thing that had happened to me lately, so I went with it. I moved my head a bit, trying to get a better look at Davina. She stared back at me, her eyes gleaming in futile fury.

If you think this was bad,
Davina’s voice said in my head,
just wait until I recover and come for you again. You will wish you’d died tonight. Just wait.

“Just you wait, ’Enry ’Iggins, just you wait,” I sang in a scratchy whisper through my burned throat. Then I laughed a bit, which sent pain radiating from my lungs to my toes, and my eyes filled with tears.

Ow.

“That’s right, baby,” Davina said, out loud this time.

I closed my eyes and thought,
Bring it on, bitch.

“Liv!” A man’s voice echoed through the woods, familiar, but I couldn’t place it. I could hear hard footsteps racing through the brush. I stayed on the ground, thinking,
Right here!
but was unable to say anything. Singing to Davina had used up what little strength I’d had left.

“Goddamnit, where the hell are you?” He was frightened, whoever he was.

I opened my eyes. It was still dark, and cold, but there was a hint of the coming dawn on the horizon. I must have passed out, for a couple of hours at least. I turned my head, which throbbed in response, and looked for Davina. She was gone, as was her backpack. As far as I could tell, all evidence of her ever having been there was gone. I closed my eyes and tried to make sense of it. She’d had the strength to get up and walk away, and she hadn’t killed me?

“Liv!”

Tobias.
I recognized his voice, and the relief of hearing it washed over me. I was going to die, sure, but at least I’d be with Tobias when I did. I felt hot tears track down the sides of my face, but I couldn’t move. I closed my eyes and listened to the footsteps. They were getting louder, which meant he was closer. Possibly he’d get to me before I died.

That would be nice,
I thought, and fell into darkness again, coming out only when I felt the
boom
of Tobias as he skidded to his knees on the ground beside me, each vibration shooting pain through my entire body, but I was too weak to even whimper.

“Liv, goddamnit,” he said, running his hand down my arm. It was a gentle touch, but it still hurt like a mother.

I opened my eyes. “Quit it!” I croaked, each word a torture in my ruined throat. I tried to wrench my arm away from him, but it just wiggled a little, and gave me spasms of pain for my trouble.

He leaned over me, his hand gently touching my face. “I need you to stay with me, Liv.”

I could tell he was trying to keep a calm facade, but underneath, there was panic in his eyes. If I didn’t know I was going to die before, I knew it now. Tears pricked my eyes. “Tobias…”

“Stop. You’re going to be fine.” He shrugged a messenger bag off his shoulder and pulled a water bottle out, then put his hand under my head, angling me up.

“Ow!”
I grunted, but he ignored me, pushing the water bottle to my lips and squirting liquid that was
not
water into my mouth. I sputtered it out with what strength I had, finally feeling the desire to live, even though I knew it was hopeless, and I started to cry.

“Liv, listen to me,” he said, his voice calm and even. “You need to drink this. You understand?”

I managed to focus my eyes on his face, his beautiful face. His eyes were red-rimmed and frantic, his hair was a mess, and he looked like he could maybe use a shave, but he was my Tobias, and he was always beautiful to me.

A racking pain shot through my body, and I whimpered. “It hurts.”

“Yeah. I know.” He touched the bottle to my lips and squirted it into my mouth. I sputtered a bit, the stuff tasted like flat beer with dirt in it, but once swallowed it was cool and soothing to my wretched esophagus, and I managed to drink some. I swallowed down as much as I could, then fell back on the ground. The racking pain subsided, but then …

“Oh, god, I don’t feel right,” I said, and Tobias held me while I vomited everything I’d ever consumed in my life onto the ground. After a few minutes, I collapsed against him, the thrumming of his heart next to my ear giving me some comfort through my intense misery. He held me to him, one hand cupping my head as the other wrapped around my middle, pulling me toward his warmth.

“You all done?” he asked after a minute.

“I thought that was supposed to make me feel better.”

“It’s supposed to save your life,” he said “Can you move your toes?”

I looked down at my legs, which still felt leaden and cold. Although breathing was no longer as painful as it had been before, just the idea of moving my toes made me start to cry. “I can’t.”

“Try.”

“It’s too hard,” I whimpered.

“Liv, come on. Just
try.
” His voice was ragged, and I could hear the desperation in it. “Please.”

“Okay.” I sniffled, concentrated, and wriggled my right big toe a little. “Can I die now?”

“No.” He pulled a green hoodie sweatshirt out of his pack and slid it over my head, not bothering to string my arms through the sleeves, then settled me gently back on the ground. I looked up at him as he slung his bag back over his shoulders, the predawn sunlight bathing him in a soft glow that made him look almost unreal. Maybe I had imagined it all. Maybe he wasn’t really there.