Salt (13 page)

“Witch,” he says.

Crap. I look at Carter, but he’s frozen. Goldie sniffs the air and walks around the room. A few of the others sniff too. This is bad.

“And power,” another says.

“I smell it, too,” the short blue demon says.

Beside me, Carter tenses. All the demons are staring right at us, like they can see us. We’re in trouble.

“Come out and play, little witch,” one of them shouts.

“You smell good,” another adds.

Carter pulls me forward by my elbow. We make it four steps before I feel his hand on me again, and my legs on the floor. Vividly. The same way it happens when my leg wakes up. The pins and needles and springs are gone. The masking spell is gone. This is beyond bad.

Goldie steps toward us. “It’s two-for-one tonight.”

Carter leans in toward me. “New plan: stay alive.”

There’s a shuffle behind me. I glance over Carter’s shoulder. Before I really make out what it is, magic sideswipes us. I’m midair and my back slams into the side of the bar and I land with a thud. Carter leaps up again and darts away from me, demons chasing him across the bar. Chaos breaks out around me. Magic zooms, sending items falling off the walls; fists are flying, bodies are flying. It’s a lot of flying and none of it is good. I can’t keep track of who is who or what they’re doing. By the time I rise to my feet, demons are scrambling inside from the streets and fighting with one another. Almost like they don’t really know what they are looking for. I dodge two in an effort to make my way back to help Carter, who has three demons attacking at once.

I’m halfway there when I see Vassago tucked into the corner of the room picking at its beard. I change my course and head in its direction, leaping over a demon on the ground to get there. We need Vassago for whatever reason, and there it is, waiting to be plucked. I’m not really sure what I’m going to do when I get there, but that’s why someone invented the fine of art of improv. Or, when that fails, stalling.

It sees me first. I expect it to run, but it doesn’t. Instead, it locks eyes with mine. A smile spreads over its face, one that the Joker would be proud of, and it sniffs the air before it steps toward me.

A demon rams into me, flattening me to the floor. The demon is over me, drool dripping from its fraying human body. It pins my arms down. I’m about to flip it off me when this light flashes through the room. The demon yells in surprise and crawls off me.

Vassago stands in the center of the room, the smile gone from its face. “They are here for me,” it says. The other demons blink, surprised, but none of them move.

“I know what you’re looking for,” Vassago says.

I shake my head and get to my feet. The demons slowly start moving around me, back to where they’d been before.

“You, and I found you,” I say.

“Not me,” it says. His voice is scratchy and thin, like the sound a record player makes when its off its track.

“Yeah, another demon with orange eyes called Azsis. Do you know him?”

Vassago shakes its head. “You’re looking for you.”

I roll my eyes. “I’ve met myself and I’m pretty awesome. I’m not the reason we’re here. He is,” I say, pointing at Carter as he rushes into the room from the other door. His eyes dart around and relief fills my chest.

Vassago turns its head left and nods. “Ahh, yes. As expected. I need a new sock.”

I turn my head in time for it to launch its leg into the air. Its foot is black from dirt and crusty, and it wiggles its weird toes in my face. It touches my nose. I gag and swat it away.

“Get your disgusting foot out of my face.”

Vassago lowers its leg and pouts. Seriously pouts. I’ve never seen a demon pout before. This whole night is full of new—and freaking strange—discoveries.

Its face changes, and it raises its eyebrows. “You are missing something important. Something that changes your life,” it says.

Goose bumps cover my arms. How the heck does this thing know that I’m missing my magic? My question is on my lips, ready to leap out of my mouth, but it speaks first.

“I have answers to questions you haven’t asked yet,” it says, leaning into my ear. “Come and I will show you.”

No, Penelope. It’s still a demon
. “And let me guess, you’ll give me a magic bean, a candy house, and three chances to guess your name? No, thanks.”

Vassago leans into me. Its eyes are emerald; its breath smells like old coffee and dog food. There are bits of something in its beard. I shudder at the thought of what those bits might be.

“You don’t know what you are, Penelope Grey,” it says. I hold my breath as it talks in my face. It even knows my freaking name. How is that possible? I never told it.

“What I am?” I ask. It knows something else. It knows about my magic.
What you are
. That’s the same phrasing Carter used.

I can’t seem to move away from Vassago. My brain tells me to. I know I should, but it keeps drawing me closer. Maybe it’s its power. I can almost feel it, which is something that’s never happened before. It’s wild and enticing. I’m so oddly pulled to it, so distracted by it, that I barely notice that it’s too close to me. That its dirty beard is touching me. And that I’m letting it. It sniffs me, and while I know it’s odd, I don’t think twice about it. I don’t think about anything, really. Just the calming desire to be closer to its power.

“You smell good, little witch.”

There’s a crash and a scream. The air around me changes and it only takes a second for my mind to become my own again, for everything to fall into place. I see Carter holding Vassago up against the wall, his arm across the demon’s throat and salted iron knife at its temple.

“You okay, Pen?” Carter yells at me. The grungy room is quiet, still, waiting. All the demons are on their feet again looking at the three of us.

“Fine, I think,” I stutter. I move to stand at Carter’s side. “What are you doing? I was handling that!”

He laughs, but it’s more like a scoff. “He was spelling you. Didn’t you feel it? He was tapping into your essence.”

I open my mouth to protest, but change my mind. What can I say? I did feel something weird. But I don’t have any essence, so how did it do that?

“She has no essence,” Vassago hisses in a crackling almost-laugh. Carter blinks, like he’s confused, but the demon tries to wriggle out of his grasp and Carter snaps into action.

“Tell me how to find what I seek,” Carter says. His voice is rough and heavy, like nothing I’ve heard from him before. It’s sexy, in a scary-as-hell kind of way.

Vassago’s eyes grow wide and it nods curtly. Carter releases it but leaves the knife extended. The demon’s eyes turn pale, then white, and it heaves in a breath. It’s frozen, and if it wasn’t standing and hadn’t just been talking and breathing a second ago, I’d swear it was dead.

“There is one who seeks the same as you,” Vassago says, its weird eyes looking toward Carter. Then it looks at me. “And one who hides the truth from you. Only when the two meet shall the lost be found.”

A chuckle pours from its throat, but it’s not its voice; it’s something unworldly, and darker. Almost robotic. Then, it falls to the floor. Its eyes are no longer wide and pale, but deep, dark green, so dark they are almost black. It looks up at us quietly.

“I believe you have found all you have sought from me. Leave.”

Carter looks like he wants to say something else, but some of the other demons circle around us and pull Vassago up. The only option we have is to leave, or face an epic brawl. Carter takes a step forward. A demon nearby hisses at us, all of their eyes on me like I’m food. I grab Carter’s arm.

“Let’s go,” I say.

Carter slips his hand into mine before guiding me out a door. I look back as the door is closing and see Vassago’s eyes on me before the wood separates us. I can’t help but feel like it knows something more.

Two witches walk into a demon bar, and somehow they both come out alive.

Chapter Fourteen

I’m too awake to go home. And considering I have a big ceremony tomorrow, it’s probably where I should go, but I’m not ready. The power from our magic is still flowing through me, and I’ve never felt so alive. When I’m trying to wake up in the morning I know I will regret it, but the quiet city at night is nice to walk through with Carter, even if he hasn’t said much. Whatever he’s looking for, whatever he’s lost, it’s weighing on him.

“You okay?” I ask.

He nods. “You?”

I nod back. Glad we had that conversation. I wonder what he’s thinking? Can I ask? “So the thing you’re looking for…?”

He’s quiet again, lost in thought. I don’t expect him to answer, but then he does.

“My mom,” he says. “She left when I was a baby.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“My dad has no idea I’m looking for her. I couldn’t do that to him, you know?”

I do know. I’m on my own quest after all, whatever that means.

“Why demons?”

Carter shrugs. “It didn’t start that way. I always thought demons killed her, but then I learned that they took her instead. I followed some trails and someone mentioned Vassago a month ago. I’ve just missed him in every search, but I kept trying. Then I found him and all I got was a riddle.”

“Sorry,” I say. And I am. My parents are dead, that’s for sure, there’s no denying it. But not knowing? That would suck.

“What he said about you not having an essence—how’s that possible?”

I start to think of a response, but I can’t come up with a lie. I don’t want to lie to him. I’m not supposed to tell anyone. I can hear Gran’s warning in my head. But I want him to trust me the same way I trust him. Which I realize I do. A lot. It’s strange, but he’s proven himself to me.

“Follow me,” I say.

“What is it?”

I don’t answer as I lead Carter a few more blocks. We stop in front of the familiar fading blue house with the oak tree. “This is my house.”

“I thought you lived on the other side of town?” he asks.

“I do. We, Connie and I, lived here with our parents before they died,” I say.

“I didn’t know,” he says. “I’m sorry, Penelope.”

All the memories flood over me. I want to run, but even more, I want to go inside. I never want to go inside. Tonight, I do. I want to tell Carter that nothing really makes sense, but it’s not his mess. My life is not his responsibility. But we’re connected somehow, and I can at least give him this answer.

“I want to tell you what Vassago meant,” I say.

My feet pull me toward the house. I can’t make them stop. Carter’s right behind me, following me inside. I’ve never really told anyone about what happened that night. Not even Connie knows the whole story; I wanted to spare her all the details.

My lips are dry. My hands are shaking and it makes opening the door difficult. The keys jangle together in my hands.

“I usually have to work a lot harder before a girl lets me into her room,” he jokes. I let out a nervous laugh. He looks at me, eyes all calming, concerned, and puts his hand on mine.

“I’ve got it,” he says. Carter pauses in the doorway, his shoulders tense.

I move so he can open the door. The memories pour into me as it opens. The house, the music, the sound of Mom laughing. Even the darkness of our empty home can’t stop them from chasing after me. I bolt up the stairs to the familiar room on the left, Carter on my heels.

I tell myself it doesn’t matter, this place and what happened, but it does. Everything matters. My bed still sits in the corner. Gran couldn’t sell the house because no one was ready to part with it. I guess one day we’ll have to clean out the dusty furniture, sell it. Right now, it’s a reminder of what we lost, as if we don’t feel it enough every second of the day. I take a seat on my old bed, curl my knees up to my chest and lean against the wall. It’s the only way I fit on this bed now. The little girl who used to sleep here is long gone.

Carter stretches so his hands hang off the top of my doorframe, but doesn’t cross the threshold. The only sound around us is the drumming of his fingers on the wall. I’ve never had a boy lingering in my doorway before. Not in this room or in the other.

I look around the room, and it’s so much smaller now. Instinctively, I search for the familiar.

“When I was a kid, my father used to make the stars sparkle in my room. He would bring in the lights from outside and they would dance on these walls.” I close my eyes while I talk, seeing it all replay in my head. I haven’t thought of this forever, but being here reminds me. “It was my own personal night-light straight from the sky outside. I can still see it. The way they would dance and spin and he would kneel down by my bed and laugh with me.”

When I open my eyes, I practically feel Carter’s stare. “Sorry.” I didn’t come here to remember. Remembering is never hard to do. I shouldn’t go to that place where things were happy and normal and not something that can ever be again.

Carter shakes his head from the other side of the room. “You can tell me anything you want.”

“Vassago was right. I don’t have—” I start and then pause. I have to start at the beginning because the rest of the story is too hard. “See that closet right there?” I point to his left, and he follows my finger and nods.

“That’s where they found me the night my parents died.”

“You were here?”

I can’t look at his face, but I hear the surprise in his voice. I stare off into the space. “Dad was coming home from a CEASE meeting. Connie was at Gran’s because Mom usually had patrol on Thursdays, but I was home sick. She stayed with me. We were up here and she was wiping my face with a cloth. We didn’t even hear it come in.”

“Hear what come in?” he asks.

“The demon. It looked like Dad, but it had these orange eyes.”.

I close my eyes. I haven’t thought about all this for years. Gran took me back and forth to therapy sessions for two years after they died. The first thing I said in those sessions, half a year in, was that I didn’t want to cry like they were all crying. That doctor told me that I had live because that was what my parents wanted me to do.

Then when I was old enough, I found out about being an Enforcer, heard that story at the party about the ritual, and never looked back. Looking back meant being weak and that wasn’t something else I could do. But now, it doesn’t feel weak. It feels strong because it means I’m letting someone else in, and that’s really scary too.

“An Enforcer found Dad in the front yard after, in the middle of the night, with demon dust trickling out of his ear. That’s how they figured out something happened inside. The demon must’ve been waiting for him to come home. It killed him and took his body.” Carter inhales from the doorway. I keep talking. “At least, it’s never made sense unless Dad was already dead. There’s no way my father would’ve let a demon have control of him like that if he wasn’t dead first.”

Once I start talking, things I haven’t thought about in years start flooding toward the forefront of my mind, and I can’t stop them now that they’ve come. I shouldn’t be telling all of this to Carter; Gran wouldn’t like it, but I have to trust myself and talking about it feels right.

“The demon with Dad’s form got to my mom first. It was so strong it just grabbed her and she couldn’t do anything. It pinned her to the floor and drained my mom but didn’t kill her right away. Her blood covered everything. I remember screaming—lots of screaming.”

I pause for a breath and realize I’m crying. I feel the bed sink next to me as Carter sits on it. The warmth of his body presses against my leg.

“It was horrible because I could still see my dad there. His eyes glowed orange from the demon, but it was still my dad’s body, hunched over my mother and killing her. It came at me next. Mom’s eyes were open and her cries got fainter. I was so scared and I couldn’t move. I couldn’t move.”

Carter’s hands are wrapped in mine, warmth in the cold. I want to stop talking, but I can’t. I hate that I’m crying in front of him. Nothing says beautiful like snot and soul-bearing. But his fingers run circles on my palm and I don’t think he minds. At least, I hope not.

“Its claws pierced me, and I don’t remember anything after that. I think I passed out—or I just blocked it all. When I woke up, Mom was white. Dead. Her blood was everywhere. So was mine. It covered the flood in dark crimson stains and splashed all over the purple walls. I felt different, weaker. I couldn’t even cry. I pulled myself across the floor and hid in that closet. Closed the door so I didn’t have to see her. I don’t know how long I was in there before they found me.”

Next to me, Carter inhales. His hand is still in mine and I squeeze it, feeling better immediately. More grounded.

“They took your essence,” he says.

I nod, sniffling and taking a deep breath. “The Triad did some tests after, but they just said it was shock. I was still alive, so there was no way that’s what happened. No one survives that. Gran would hold me in her lap while they tested my magic, and everything worked.”

“Because you pulled your magic from her.”

I nod and look at him through my tears, and asked the question that’s haunted me ever since. “Why did I survive?”

He’s quiet, and I wish there were answers behind the shine of his jade eyes. “I don’t know.”

I look away from him and toward the spot on the floor where my purple carpet used to be, back before it was an imprint of a bad memory. “Sometimes I wish I hadn’t.”

“You don’t mean that,” he says quietly.

“I’m a burden to everyone. Everything I have, everything I do, is a lie,” I say, tears welling up in my eyes again. I seriously hate crying.

Carter grasps my chin so he can look at my face. I’m suddenly very aware that we’re alone together in my old bedroom. His hands are too warm against my skin and only inches separate us.

“Not everything.”

I look at him, and I don’t know, it’s like he gets me. I can feel it. Almost as if whatever I’m missing, he’s missing too. No one has ever looked at me that way before.

“You know why I want to be an Enforcer? I want to find that demon and I want my powers back.”

“You have powers with me, Pen.”

I shake my head. “But why you? I’ve met hundreds of witches and you’re the only one I can get magic from aside from my family,” I say. Carter doesn’t respond because there isn’t answer. “And for how long? What if it stops one day? What if I don’t always have you? I need my own magic.” I didn’t want him two days ago, and now the thought of him not being here is a little too scary.

Carter is quiet. “I don’t know. I wish I did. I would do whatever it takes to help you.”

He says it in that way that sets my nerves on edge, and horses gallop around in my stomach.

“You can’t tell anyone about me,” I say quickly. “No one can know that my essence is gone. Gran and Pop have worked so hard to keep it all secret.”

“I promise,” he says. “My lips are sealed.”

This overwhelming urge to kiss him possesses me, and I’m leaning in toward him. I tell myself not to. My body doesn’t listen. I expect him to push me away—I almost hope he will—but he doesn’t. He tilts his head so our lips are closer. His hand trails my arm and my neck and my insides jump around, ready. My whole body is anticipating his touch. What if I mess this up? I start to second-guess myself when he pulls me toward him and presses his mouth to mine.

Then his mouth is all I can think about and I lean into his kiss. My body is on fire as his warmth seeps through our clothes. He lowers me down on the bed, and we’re both way too big, legs hanging off and all over each other, but I don’t even care. My heart is pounding. I’m kissing Carter. It’s reckless, it’s marvelous, it’s right, it’s—the stupid phone rings. Both phones. The WNN tone.

Carter’s mouth lingers for a moment, then he pulls away from me. My lips still tingle. His face is flushed when he looks down at the phone. I ignore mine and sit up. I hate the phone. I hate the WNN. Stupid demons. I was kissing Carter. Holy crap. Why was I kissing Carter?

“Demon attack in region three. Two dead,” he says.

Moment ruined.

He slides his phone back into his pocket and grins at me. I bite my lip. I really want to do it again.

“What time is it?” I say quickly. I pull the phone out of my pocket. After one. “We should go.”

Carter drums on the railing as he goes down the stairs. I stumble over a step and he steadies me. Embarrassing.

Downstairs, I lock the door behind us. I’m trying to think of what to say now. How do you follow up a kiss? I mean, without more kissing. Which I would do if I had time.

“Will I see you tomorrow? We could work on our magic,” Carter says.

“Tomorrow—will you be around the Nucleus House? I may need you. Our magic, I mean. It’s Pairing day,” I say.

“I can probably do that.” He smiles.

I sort of love that smile.

It’s warm out here for it being so early in the morning. I blush, remembering his lips on mine. Maybe that’s why I’m hot.

“Thank you. For helping me with this; I know it’s just an exchange.”

We start down the sidewalk. Man, that was a good kiss. I get hot again, blushing.

Yeah, it’s totally him.

“It’s not,” he says.

“Not what?”

He runs a hand across his chin. “Just an exchange. I mean, I help you; you help me, sure. But”—he pauses and his smile is big and boyish. It’s too adorable—“I like the excuse to hang out with you.”

“Stop it,” I say.

“What? It’s true.”

I swat at him. “You’re ridiculous, Carter Trent.”

“Let’s get you home.” He puts his hand on the small of my back as we walk.