Under a Spell (25 page)

Will chose that moment to stick his head through the front door. He looked from Nina, still soldiering in front of her bedroom door, to Kale and Lorraine, then finally, to me.

“No one invites me to the party?” He stepped into the apartment and shook an enormous bag of potato chips. “I brought crisps.”

“This isn’t a party, Will,” I said, pulling him into the apartment and throwing the lock behind him. “Lorraine and Kale are trying to help me—help us—find Alyssa.”

He cut his eyes to me, the displeasure evident. “Thanks for calling on me.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Sorry, it was sort of last minute. Lorraine?”

She turned to me. “Are you still wearing the talisman that I gave you?”

I felt the blush crash over my cheeks. “Yes. I mean, right now, no, because I just got out of the shower. But I was.”

“Put it on. And bring me the bag, too.”

I went to my room, Will following a half-step behind me. “What’s this all about?” he said, closing the bedroom door softly.

“I don’t follow. What’s what all about?”

“You call in the witch brigade on our assignment, but you don’t call me?”

I shoved aside the heap of laundry on my chair and dug around for the talisman. “It wasn’t like I was trying to cut you out of anything, Will. It just happened that way. I would have called you.”

I brushed past him and he reached out, his hand closing around my elbow. He pulled me to face him. His lips were pressed in a thin straight line. “When would you have called me? When you were in grave danger?”

I took a step back, trying to shake his grip, but he held on for a silent beat, then finally let go. “I know I’m not Alex, but I’m your partner, Sophie. I’m here to help you.”

There was something about the earnest look in his eyes that stung my heart. There was Alex, his eyes cold and hard, pushing me away, and here was Will, begging to be a part of my life. And there was me, straddling the chasm between them both.

“I really am sorry, Will.”

I walked out of my room leaving Will behind me, a lump growing in my throat. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was apologizing for, but I knew it had nothing to do with not calling him tonight.

I cleared my throat and approached Lorraine and Kale. “I really appreciate you giving me the bag and . . .” I reached into my shirt to show off the talisman, than was immediately sorry I did so. “This thing. Like I said, other than the shower, I haven’t taken it off.” I said the last part while holding my breath. “But I’m not really sure it’s exactly helping—”

Kale took the bag from me and upturned it on the dining table. Another series of rocks poured out, along with the rolled scrolls and herbs.

“I think what Sophie means to say is that we’ve got a girl missing, a hole full of bones, a hell of a lot of hoodoo voodoo going on in the schoolhouse, and no idea why you’ve given us a stinky bag full of rocks and wallpaper samples.”

I was startled that he was defending—or explaining—on my behalf as Lorraine and Kale paused and looked at him. He had his hands on hips, eyebrows raised, obviously expecting an answer.

I was expecting them to turn him into some kind of amphibian.

Lorraine ignored him. “Star maps and calendars, Soph. Remember when I taught you about those?” Lorraine was bent over the table while Kale was clearing it. She piled my stained place mats and the coupons I would get around to using someday on the floor while Lorraine threw out the star maps and secured them with a polished rock at each corner.

“I need a picture of the girl,” she asked without looking up at me.

Will shrugged and handed me Sampson’s file. I took a guess and laid Alyssa’s grinning mug in her hand.

“No,” Kale said, taking the photo from Lorraine. “We need the picture of the one who was sacrificed. The one with the carvings.”

My throat went dry, but I sifted through the stack, pulling out the photo. I wouldn’t let myself believe the ruined flesh could be Cathy’s; that what had happened to this lifeless thing had anything to do with the smiling girl I had seen in her mother’s photograph.

“You guys should get back,” Kale directed us as she lit the two candles and positioned the photograph on the star map.

“With pleasure,” Will said, moving onto the couch.

“I’ll leave you to this,” Nina said, opening her door three inches and shimmying through.

Lorraine stood in front of the table, which had quickly become a kind of altar. Candles flickered and the stars on the maps seemed to glitter as Lorraine’s palms went over them. Soon the chicken feathers were unbound, their edges burnt. They were scattered and dotted with oil from a tiny jug Lorraine produced from her pocket, and everything was tossed as Lorraine began to mumble. Kale joined her from the other side of the table and both of their voices dropped to the same octave and soon became the same throaty whisper. It got deeper, heavier, and I wasn’t sure if I was hearing it or feeling it as the words reverberated through my chest. My heart started to match the pulse of their speech. My breath rose and fell with theirs. My eyes may have been closed, but I couldn’t tell. Everything I saw was in a deep, red haze and the smell of blood—metallic, thick—was suddenly overwhelming. It was in my nose, I felt it pressing against my eyes, on my lips. I felt the heat dribble in, a tiny drop at a time, until the blood was pouring over my bottom teeth, filling up my mouth. My whole body started to shake and then it was like I was breaking apart—inch by inch.

I heard someone cough and sputter, then felt heat on my cheeks. I opened my eyes and the candle flames seemed to have amassed into one giant orange roar. Lorraine and Kale’s voices rose to a crescendo and the flame seemed to follow. Will’s face was drawn, the dancing firelight flickering in his eyes. I was mesmerized until I heard the crack—so loud, so unholy that the entire building seemed to tremble under the vibrations and all of my friends—Will, Lorraine, and Kale—were lifted off their feet and thrown backward. In an instant, the fire went out, the apartment was blanketed by a bone-chilling cold, and the only sound was the heartbreaking crush of body against wall. Will shot backward, his head smacking the edge of a framed photograph with a sickening crunch. Glass showered over him as he slumped down the wall and huddled on the ground. Lorraine was launched sideways toward the kitchen, her spine crushing against the countertop and bending so far backward that her skull scraped against the tile while her legs folded uselessly underneath her. And Kale tried to brace herself by digging her nails into the table, but whatever was pushing was too strong. There were bloody grooves where she’d dug her nails in, and now she lay like a crumpled rag doll against the baseboards.

I heard myself scream. I felt myself yanking handfuls of hair as my legs turned to useless rubber. My mind warbled as I tried to think of who to go to first—Will, bloodied and unmoving; Lorraine, silent, eyes frozen wide with terror; or Kale slumped and whimpering.

But I wasn’t moving. And I hadn’t moved. The explosion had done nothing to me. I wasn’t singed by the mammoth flame or pierced by the shower of broken glass. I was spared.

“Oh my God!” Nina shouted as she flung her bedroom door open. “Oh my God, what happened?”

Vlad raced out beside her and cleared the overturned table in a single leap. He silently landed a hairsbreadth from Kale and fell to her, gingerly brushing her hair aside, his voice low and soothing as he worked to cradle her. I saw her blink, the confusion in her eyes, the tiny splatters of broken blood vessels spider-webbing.

Nina had her palms pressed against Lorraine’s ruined back and she was looking at me, her mouth moving, color pulsing in her cheeks. She was saying something, she was screaming, but it was all a muffled blur.

Will.
“Will!” I could finally make my lips work. I could finally make my legs work, pushing them, taking steps that seemed achingly slow. I tried to close the distance between us, I tried to reach his silent, crumpled form, but I couldn’t move fast enough. The air in the room seemed to push against me until finally, I was there, dropping to my knees, feeling his warm flesh underneath my palms. I pushed his arms aside and pressed my ear against his chest, praying silently to hear a beat.

There was silence. Dead silence. And then, a beat, and a second one, and I was crying. I raked my hands through his hair and murmured his name, relishing the steady sound of his heart until his eyelids fluttered and opened.

“What?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” I wailed, the tears rolling down my cheeks.

“She’s okay,” Vlad said, and even without looking I could hear the smile in his voice.

“Sore,” Kale croaked.

I straightened, my hands still cradling Will’s head. “Lorraine? Lorraine?”

Nina’s coal-black eyes were heavy with emotion. She said nothing. There was no rhythmic rise and fall of Lorraine’s chest. No triumphant gulp of air or even a pitiful moan. There was just . . . nothing.

I remember the beeping because it was the only thing I could hear outside of the blood pulsing in my ears. People talked to me and jostled me, and I signed something and nodded a lot. I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t anymore. My entire body felt papery thin and sucked completely dry.

We were in the hospital and Nina had both of my hands in hers. There were flashes of light and my head was cold and Will was looking down at me. I sprang to my feet and threw my arms around his neck and crushed myself to him, finally feeling his warmth as it seeped through me, made every fiber of my being hot and awake and alive again.

“Will, Will, Will,” I was mumbling into the crook of his neck, feeling the edges of his hair on my cheeks, inhaling his sweet, cut-grass-and-soap smell. And then the picture skewed and fish eyed. I could hear nothing but a deafening sizzling and hideous crackling, and the overhead lights were popping and smoking. . . .

I heard someone cough and sputter; then I felt the carpet against my knees, the heat of it as it brushed against my palms.

“Move her!” someone yelled.

I wanted to cry out as someone pinched my skin, as they tried to extract me from the ground I had melded to. I felt my head bobbing backward and was vaguely aware of movement, no blood now, then something cool washing over me and finally, softness.

I woke up sputtering in the darkness.

“Where am I? What the hell—where am I?”

I heard ChaCha’s surprised little yelp and felt her paws pitter across my bare skin. I shivered, then was finally able to push against what held me down and sit up. There was a click, and a tiny slice of yellow light. I squinted.

“Will?”

“She awakes!”

I heard a shuffle in the darkness and then the bed depressed. Will was next to me, sitting on my bed, his thumb brushing over my wrist as he counted. I tried to struggle free, but he was strong—and it was nice.

“Am I in my bed?”

“You are, and you’re alive.” He let go of my wrist. “Properly so.”

I leaned back against my pillows and rubbed my palm over my head. “What happened?”

“I was hoping you would tell me. What do you remember?”

“Stars. Darkness. Did Lorraine come over?”

Will nodded.

“And Kale, she was here, too, right?”

“Yes, Kale, too.”

I ran my tongue over my lips—they were dry and cracked. “So Lorraine and Kale—they’re okay.” I smiled, giggled. “They’re okay.”

The soft smile that played at the edges of Will’s lips was gone. “They will be.”

“What?”

“You passed out at the hospital, Sophie. As far as places to pass out, that was a capital choice, but we were there—do you remember any of this?”

My heart did a little half-beat as I reached out and gingerly threaded my fingers through Will’s hair, stopping just short of the bandage. “The spell.”

Images of Kale vaulting across the apartment and the shower of glass breaking over Will filled my vision, and I pinched my eyes shut, pressing my palms against them. “Kale—Kale. Is she—?”

“She’s fine,” Will said calmly, pulling my hands from my eyes. “I can’t say the same for your little otter mate though.”

I tried to sit up, but Will lulled me back down. “I have an otter?”

“Little plaster guy in the bookcase out there?” He jutted his chin toward the living room. “Kale used it as a thank-you gift on Vlad’s forehead.”

I frowned. “Oscar Otter?”

“I’ll pick you up some epoxy later.”

I snuggled back into my pillow and then sat bolt upright. “Lorraine!”

She was suddenly all around me, her body crumpled in an impossible S shape. Her eyes closed so gently, her lips slightly parted. The rivulet of blood at the edge of her lip burned into my vision and I gasped, breaking into a heartbroken sob. “Lorraine. Is she—is she—”

I couldn’t push the word
dead
past my lips. I couldn’t attach the two—Lorraine and death—but I couldn’t get the image of her pale face so peaceful, so calm—so marred by that velvety drip of blood out of my mind.

“She’s going to be fine. She has a broken back, but there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of internal damage.” Will chuckled. “It was an interesting one to try and explain away, though.”

I let the tears drip silently. They slid down my cheeks and into my ears, and I couldn’t stop them. “She’ll never forgive me,” I whispered. “And Kale, Kale will never forgive me.”

Will pressed a thumb across my cheek and picked up a tear. “Neither of them will blame you. They knew—probably better than any of the rest of us—what they were getting into. Lorraine said herself that we were dealing with someone very powerful.”

I sniffed. “And we still don’t even know who it is. Do we?”

Will shook his head and brushed another tear from my cheek. “No, love, I’m afraid we don’t. The whole being blown across the room then having our star investigator pass out on us kind of flattened the investigation.”