Betrayal (18 page)

‘Alanna? Why Alanna?’ Eve had never liked the girl, but she hadn’t done anything too awful during this visit. In fact, she’d been sort of decent.

‘This morning after you … took off, Luke told me the Order sent Alanna to Deepdene to evaluate you. And you were right! They put up the force field so they could keep you contained while they observed to see what effect the demon blood had. I guess after you took the force field down, they were worried that you might be …’ – Jess hesitated, then rushed on – ‘a threat. And Alanna said that to Luke. She told him she thought your demon side might be taking control of you. I guess when he saw your earring and the sword was gone, he was primed to think bad things.’

Eve shook her head. ‘I guess that explains why Alanna was so much nicer this time. She probably figured it would be easier to
evaluate
me if she acted like she was on my side.’ She noticed that her frozen hot chocolate was becoming unfrozen, but she couldn’t eat it. All this new info was making her dizzy. Luke thought she was going demon? How could he believe something like that if he cared about her at all?

Answer: he couldn’t. He couldn’t care about her. She was just some girl to him. A plaything for the player. She had to be. And she – she almost loved him. Or maybe she completely loved him.

Jess thought you were evil too, for a while
, she reminded herself.
And setting the woods on fire isn’t exactly normal girl behaviour
. It didn’t make her feel any better about Luke.

‘Alanna’s a sneaky witch. No, that makes it sound like witches are bad, and you’re a witch who’s good. Alanna’s a sneaky sneak. I bet she loved making Luke think something could be wrong with you,’ Jess said.

‘Well, it explains a lot,’ Eve agreed. ‘I’m less confuzzled.’ She used the word she and Jess had come up with for a combination of confused and frazzled.

‘I’m still confuzzled about the dress situation,’ Jess admitted. She nibbled on the chocolate stick from her dessert. ‘Now that I’m sane again, I know you didn’t do it. Can you believe I thought you would hurt a Dolce & Gabbana gown?’

‘No. I can’t believe that,’ Eve said with a smile.

‘But then who did?’

‘I guess we’re back to Simon,’ Eve said slowly, trying to think it through. ‘Even though he really sounded like he was telling the truth when Seth asked him about it.’

Jess snorted. ‘We have to remember that Seth was about to punch Simon’s face in. Maybe that gave him the motivation to lie really well. Although I thought he was telling the truth too. Especially when Seth was gone and he was talking just to us.’ She spooned up a bite of her frozen hot chocolate, but didn’t eat it. She stared around the restaurant, frowning.

‘What?’ Eve asked.

‘I keep feeling like someone’s watching me,’ Jess explained. She licked the chocolate off her spoon, but she didn’t seem to be tasting the yumminess. ‘God, maybe Simon is still in stalker mode.’

‘Well, Simon’s no match for the two of us,’ Eve assured her, trying to sound more like her old self. She glanced around the room too, but didn’t see anything unusual. Except for the unusually hot guy – well, hot
man
: he was probably in his late twenties – who’d just walked in. ‘Hel-lo,’ she murmured, giving Jess a little chin-jerk so she’d look over and see him – him with his black hair, and eyes that were so dark there was almost no colour difference between pupil and iris.

‘Wows,’ Jess whispered back. Her eyes widened. ‘Eve, he’s coming right towards us.’

Eve tried to take another look without being obvious about it. But he caught her at it and held her gaze. He spoke into a small mic clipped to his lapel – the kind cops wore – as he strode over to them, his expression grim.

‘Come with me.’ He grabbed Eve’s arm and pulled her to her feet.

‘What? Where?’ Eve exclaimed as he urged her to the door. Her heart skittered in her chest.

‘Who are you? You can’t just drag her out of here!’ Jess exclaimed. When the man didn’t stop marching Eve to the door, Jess pulled out her iPhone. ‘You don’t tell me, I’m calling the cops.’

The man snatched Jess’s phone without releasing his grip on Eve. ‘This doesn’t concern you.’ Eve noticed he had a slight Spanish accent. She tried to memorize everything about him. He wasn’t going to get away with this.

‘Of course it does! She’s my best friend!’ Jess cried.

They didn’t need the cops. Or a phone. All they needed was a loud scream. Eve opened her mouth.

‘You don’t want to do that,’ the man told her. ‘I’m with the Order. We’re connected all over this city. All over the world.’

Eve’s mouth snapped shut. She exchanged a panicked glance with Jess. The Order? She was being kidnapped by the Order. Had Alanna sent in her report? What were they going to do to her?

She imagined herself locked in a cell for the rest of her life. If they even let her live. The thought turned her knees to water. If the man didn’t have her arm, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stand.

‘Is everything all right, girls?’ the waitress called as they reached the door.

‘Fine,’ Eve told her, forcing a smile. She quickly fished inside her purse and threw some money down on the counter to pay for the food and frozen hot chocolates. The waitress couldn’t help. If Eve tried to involve her, she might end up getting hurt.

‘We’re OK,’ Jess added as the three of them hurried out of the café.

‘In,’ the man ordered, opening the back door of a black sedan that was parked in front of the restaurant.

Eve’s brain whirled as she tried to decide what to do. She couldn’t use her power on him. He was human. And the Order would be able to find her wherever she went. Payne had sensed her when he was in Deepdene, and this man had found her among all the people in Manhattan.

‘You know what? There are some things I’d like to talk to the Order about too.’ Like trapping her in her own town. Like one of their members turning her boyfriend against her. She slid into the car, chin high. She hoped he believed the brave front she was putting up. Jess clambered in beside her.

‘Not you,’ the man said.

‘Where she goes, I go,’ Jess said. ‘And I don’t care who you are. If I start screaming about my best friend being abducted, somebody will listen.’

He didn’t answer. Just shut the car door, then got in the front seat. He started the engine and locked the doors centrally from the dashboard.

‘Thanks, Jess. Thank you so much.’ Eve didn’t want her friend to be in danger, but it felt good, so, so good, not to be in this car all alone.

‘Like I was going to let you have this big adventure all by yourself.’ Jess wasn’t bad at putting up a front either.

As the car pulled away from the kerb, Eve noticed that there were no locks on the back doors. There was no way to get out. She began shivering uncontrollably. Jess grabbed her hand, and her friend’s fingers were cold and clammy. ‘What are we going to do?’ Jess whispered.

‘I don’t know.’ Eve hated to say the words. They filled her with hopelessness and despair. But there was no other way to answer Jess.

In what felt like seconds, although it was probably a ten-block ride, the car glided over to the kerb and stopped.

The man, who hadn’t said a word the whole ride, climbed out and opened the back door. He gestured for them to get out. Why had Eve thought he was hot? Now he just looked scary. What did he need all those muscles for anyway?

When she stepped out of the car, Eve was surprised at how ordinary the block looked. A row of townhouses on one side of the street, a large apartment building and more townhouses on the other. The only strange thing was that the block was quiet, way too quiet for Manhattan.

Eve didn’t have much time to think about it. The man whisked her and Jess up the steps of the nearest townhouse. It looked just like the others on the block, but Eve was willing to bet that it didn’t take a retina scan to get into
those
buildings. Once the man’s scan was approved, the lock on the door clicked open.

‘Inside,’ he said.

‘Impressive vocabulary on you,’ Jess commented.

At least neither of us is letting this Order goon see how afraid we really are
, Eve thought as she stepped into the foyer. She couldn’t see much more than the large marble staircase rising in front of them and the rug that lay in front of that.

A creepy rug. Around the border were little faces; some seemed almost human, some not so much.

‘Upstairs,’ the man told them. He let her and Jess go up the polished marble steps ahead of him.

‘Now down there,’ he instructed when they reached the top, pointing to the last doorway on the left. The hall was lined with paintings.

‘I think that’s an original Hieronymus Bosch,’ Jess whispered, nodding towards one that showed an old man surrounded by fantastical and grotesque creatures. She’d gone to a ton of museums on a European vacation with her parents.

‘Impressive eye for art,’ the man said. Was he attempting a sense of humour now? Didn’t he know there was nothing funny about being abducted?

When they reached the last doorway, the man reached over Eve’s shoulder and knocked. There was another retina scanner outside, but the door was opened from within.

‘Callum!’ Eve exclaimed. She didn’t know why she was surprised to see him. She’d known he was high up in the Order. But somehow she just hadn’t thought about the fact that he must have been the one who gave instructions to haul her in. She’d seen the man talking into his mic as soon as he’d spotted her, but she hadn’t stopped to think who he was communicating with.

‘Come in, Eve, Jess. Come sit down. Can we get you something to drink?’ Callum asked.

‘Can you get us something to drink?’ Eve repeated, outraged. ‘You had this man kidnap me and now you’re acting like we’re all friends?’

Callum raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m sorry if Carlos was … abrupt,’ he said, his voice low and calm. ‘It’s just that when he discovered your presence in the city, I felt I needed to see you immediately. Please, sit. I have a few questions.’

They both sat down on the overstuffed flowered sofa in front of Callum’s big desk. The room had a strange mix of elements. The sofa, desk, the row of bookshelves, the huge dictionary on one stand, and the globe on another all looked old-fashioned. But the ultra-thin laptop on the desk was super high-tech, and there were small security cameras mounted in two corners of the ceiling.

Besides the old and the cutting edge were a bunch of things that were just … weird. Over on the bookshelf was what looked like a thigh bone with dozens of tiny dragons carved into it. On the desk, Callum was using a chunk of rock as a paperweight. Brownish red streaks crisscrossed it and Eve was pretty sure those streaks were blood. Amulets on chains and cords hung down over all three of the room’s windows.

‘How have you been, Eve?’ Callum asked as he sat in an armchair to the right of the sofa. Carlos – that was the man’s name, Carlos – remained standing, positioning himself across from Callum.

‘I’ve been completely pissed off, as you’ve probably heard. You trapped me in Deepdene – or tried to.’

Callum leaned forward, clasping his hands together. ‘We did. We weren’t sure whether or not you were dangerous,’ he said simply. ‘Which leads me to this question –
how are
you here? How were you able to leave? Your arrival in the city triggered an alert here; Carlos was expecting to bring in a demon. He didn’t realize until he was at the restaurant that what we had sensed as demon presence was actually the Deepdene Witch.’

‘I have a question first. Where are we?’ Eve demanded.

‘This is the headquarters of the New York branch of the Order,’ Callum answered. ‘We have branches all over the world.’ His tone continued to be genial. ‘I’ve answered your question. Now would you please tell me how you left Deepdene with the barrier in place?’

‘You underestimated how strong my power is,’ Eve told him. ‘I blasted your barrier down. Why are you pretending you don’t know that?’

His eyes widened. ‘Your power broke down the protective barrier?’ He sounded surprised. Eve didn’t get it.

‘Yes, and you already know that!’ she cried, frustrated. ‘Alanna gave you a report. I know you sent her to Deepdene to evaluate me, to decide if I’m a
threat
.’

Carlos cursed under his breath. An expression of alarm briefly crossed Callum’s face.

Eve glanced back and forth between Carlos and Callum. ‘What’s going on?’

‘I didn’t send Alanna to Deepdene,’ Callum replied. ‘I didn’t even know where she was. As far as I know, she’s been missing since Sunday night. She hasn’t answered any of our calls or texts. We’ve all been very worried about her.’

‘What? Well, I saw her this morning,’ Eve told him. ‘She seemed just great. She was busy basically destroying my life.’

‘She’s been saying horrible things to Luke,’ Jess burst in. ‘Trying to make him believe Eve is evil.’

Callum’s brow furrowed. ‘I don’t understand. I thought perhaps she had been taken by a demon or even killed. There was no other reason I could imagine for her breaking contact with us.’

‘What else can you tell us about her actions?’ Carlos asked.

‘Luke got in touch with her just after I blasted through the barrier. He also told her about these dead animals around the border of the town. Alanna supposedly came to town to help. She said she didn’t approve of the Order putting up the barrier at all.’