Salt (22 page)

Connie looks at the demon one more time before running down the alley. She stands at the end of it, putting up the magic barriers. When she’s out of sight, I move to stand by Carter. Ric is there too, staring at the two of us like we are crazy.

“What are you going to do to it?” Ric asks. Neither of us answer.

The demon is thrashing against the ground in pain. I don’t see any iron, so I’m not sure what incantation Carter’s doing to keep it there. I look toward Ric, and he nods. I guess he’s on board with this. I yank my vial of salt from my necklace.

“Why are you after us?” Carter asks the demon. It hisses in response, and I toss a handful of salt on the demon. It howls, cries, and spits at Carter.

“Answer or I will send you back,” Carter calls.

The demon gets quiet. It stares among the three of us, weighing its options. “You smell good,” it says to me. I hurl salt on the demon because I never want to hear that phrase again. Its flesh starts smoking.

“Kill me! Do it!” the demon screeches. It goes on and on, rambling, saying the same thing over and over again. Carter shouts at the demon, but it doesn’t change its tune, just keeps yelling for us kill it. Carter growls and flings more salt on it.

“What are you looking for?” I ask, stepping forward. It jerks toward me, but it can’t reach me.

The demon laughs and screams. “Smells so good. Kriegen would like that.” Then it goes back into its “kill me” mantra. The sound of that name makes the hair on my arms stand on end. Kriegen—that’s the demon they mentioned in the woods. Carter asks it more questions that it doesn’t answer and a new plan hatches in my head.

I grab Carter’s arm before he can heave more salt on the demon. “Expel this thing.”

The demon laughs some more. Laughs and laughs.

Ric steps up next to me as we walk away. “Is this the new normal?” he asks.

“It’s definitely becoming more frequent,” I say. We turn the corner and I hear Carter mutter the incantation behind us.

After lunch, Ric, Carter and I leave Connie and head to the library, which is empty as usual. Poncho looks happy when I come in with Carter. We haven’t been here in a few days with all the practicing, so maybe the old guy is lonely.

“What can I do for the fantastic duo?” Poncho asks.

“We’re here on official business,” I say, tapping the side of the desk.

“What do you know about a demon named Kriegen?” Carter adds.

Poncho shakes his head. “Never heard of that one. You can look in the database.”

“I’ve got it,” Carter says before he kisses my cheek. He and Poncho go to the computer. I take a seat at one of the tables and pull out Emmaline’s journal. I might as well do something while I wait.

25 September 1841

Will this life ever be one I am proud of? I fear not. It is far too difficult to pretend to be joyful. With each passing day the pretending feels more and more as though it is slowly killing me. “Be happy, Emmaline.” “Smile, Emmaline, the day is a glorious one.” Surely I see no glory in it. I see merely a moment of someone else’s glory.

“Learning things you desired?” Poncho asks me, his eyebrow raised.

“I’m not sure how helpful this will be. But it’s good to know. Thank you.”

Poncho places a book on the shelf and I glance back down at the pages and back up. “Poncho, ever heard of a demon named Azsis?”

“The one who loved Lucifer, they say.”

I put Emmaline’s journal down. “Do you know if it’s still alive? Or how to find it?”

Poncho rests his hands on one of the shelves. “Azsis is a powerful demon, dangerous. Hard to find. It is not one who’s sought out, but one who seeks.”

Great. I stare back down at Emmaline’s journal when I feel Poncho sitting near me. “Sometimes the things you see are not what they seem,” Poncho says.

I chuckle. “Are you a fortune cookie?”

Poncho shakes his head. “Make sure your eyes are open to more than what you see.”

A chill runs down my spine as Poncho leaves me again. Why do people keep telling me that? I stand, about to ask him, when Carter returns. I manage to pull my gaze away from Poncho, who is petting the cat, and look at Carter.

“What happened?” I ask.

“There’s nothing,” he says. “No record of any demon named Kriegen.”

I peer over his shoulder at Poncho. He whistles, picks up the cat, and disappears down an aisle. There’s nothing on Azsis or on Kriegen. Not to mention Alfie and Emmaline Spencer. That seems a little too convenient. Limited information is one thing, but none?

“We’ll find something,” Carter says, kissing my forehead as we sit in our spot overlooking the city. “It doesn’t make sense how there is no record, at all, of that demon.”

“Yeah,” I start. Except it’s not weird. It’s not the first time. It’s got to be all connected. Someone’s hiding something.

I sit straight so I’m facing him. “You asked me once why I wanted to be an Enforcer, but I wasn’t completely honest with you,” I say and then pause. Carter doesn’t take his eyes off me, and I wish he would. I’m not sure what to say next.

“You said it was about your magic,” he says.

“It is.” My fingers twist around my salt necklace. “I wanted to be an Enforcer because it’s the only way I could get into the library. And the library was the only way I could gather information.”

“About?” he asks softly.

“The demon that killed my parents. I’ve been in the library researching that, because I have to find it first.” I tell him how the search for the demon led me to Alfie Spencer and the increase in demon attacks, which lead me to Emmaline Spencer. I tell him about the journal that Poncho found. “The weirdest part is that there has been no information on
anything.
Just like now, with this demon.
”

Carter nods. “And you don’t think that’s random?”

“No,” I say.

“How does the journal lead back to your demon? What connection does Kriegen have to all of this? ”

“I don’t know,” I say. “Not yet.”

Carter is quiet, and I can tell he’s thinking about all of it. It’s too much to be random. It has to be connected.

“Why do you want to find it?” Carter asks, his voice low. He looks past me, out over the city. “Is this all about revenge?”

“No,” I say. “No, it’s not revenge. It’s all about getting my magic back. I know it sounds crazy, but I found a ritual.” He looks at me when I say that word. I take his hand reassuringly. “I can do it, but I need my demon. That’s where it’s all coming up short. There’s nothing.”

Silence falls between us, but Carter hasn’t let go of my hand. I study his face, looking for some clue about what he’s feeling, but he keeps his gaze ahead and his jaw taut. I look over the city, too, in case there are answers in the horizon. Carter places his hand over mine, and I look at him.

“Demons are good at hiding when they don’t want to be found,” he says. “Luckily for you I happen to know a great demon tracker.” His eyes dance. “I’ll help you. If you want me to.”

“You’d do that?” I ask.

He nods. “It may take some time. I have to find commonalities, and figure him out before I can start asking around. I want to know what I’m getting into, but I won’t let you do it alone.”

I kiss him softly, and he wraps his arms around me. “What about this Emmaline woman? Why do you think she’s connected?” he asks.

I bite my lip. I’ve wondered too. She seems like a distraction, but the fact that Gran won’t talk about her, and that all the pieces I’ve found led me to her, I can’t walk away from that. Not until I know why. There’s something about her that I can connect with. Something lost and lonely, and deep inside, that’s the one thing I don’t want to let myself feel.

“I just do,” I say.

“Then I hope she leads you somewhere,” he says. He smiles, but it’s not the same as usual. He doesn’t like any of this, just like Ric didn’t. And I understand their concern, but getting my magic back is all I’ve ever needed. Finally, for the first time, it feels like I may be close to doing exactly that.

Chapter Twenty-Six

We had our last training session with Ellore the next day. She made us do a full practice test simulation, and we passed. Barely. She made us do it again. After the third time, she crossed her arms over her chest and said, “That’s what I expect my trainees to look like out there.”

Carter assures me that was a compliment.

He’s been at my house since then. My head is resting in his lap while I read Emmaline’s journal. I’m hot and tired, but the appeal of Emmaline’s story keeps me moving forward. The test is tomorrow, and Carter’s been shifting through my demon research so he can set up a tracker while I read.

I’ve been ripping through this journal in every spare second I have. I only have like ten pages left, and there’s still so much I don’t understand. Nothing I’ve learned about her explains why our family would write her out of history.

“Want some ice cream?” Carter asks.

I nod but don’t move my eyes from the journal. I think Emmaline and I are connected somehow. The more I learn about her, the more I see myself. She didn’t want to be forgotten, but that’s exactly what happened.

Carter’s hand touches my cheek. “You’re quiet.”

“I can’t stop thinking about her.”

“Her?” He raises an eyebrow.

“Emmaline,” I say, closing the journal. I bite my lip and he nods. “She’s so sad, you know? I get it, Carter. That’s the scary part.”

“So, tell me, then. What do you get about her?”

I scan my room. A place filled with mementos of my childhood, pictures of my family, a board covered in quotes and things that I love, my favorite books. All of these things are part of me and if I was gone, could people just pretend they weren’t part of me anymore? That’s what they did to Emmaline.

Carter is staring at me, his eyes soft and comforting. I touch his face. “Remember when I took you to my parents’ house?” He nods, his movements slower than usual.

“Emmaline wrote that she had a cousin who died in some kind of fire. Her life was so miserable that she wished it had been her. And I can’t help but think that I’ve felt the same way forever,” I say softly.

“Pen—”

“I did. I hated everything I was, Carter, because I wasn’t normal. I work so hard to be this other thing and that’s what Emmaline did and I—”

“You what?”

“I have a feeling that working to not be different destroyed her somehow,” I say. Carter’s fingers twine with mine. I lower my voice to a whisper. I need to say it, but I don’t want him to hear it. I want to be strong, and this isn’t strength. But I still feel it as strongly as I feel anything. “I don’t want it to destroy me, too.”

“It won’t,” he says. “I won’t let it.”

“What if this secret that I’m working so hard to find is horrible?”

“Then we’ll deal with it. Together,” he says. He pulls my chin to face him. “You’re not Emmaline—whatever she went through is the past. Everyone feels invisible sometimes, Pen. Everyone. You are not invisible and you are not powerless.”

I shrink away from him a little. I’m only powerful because he’s around. What happens if he leaves? If we find out my family’s secret is too big, too breakable? Then I’m just me again.

“I see you, Pen,” he says, his hands holding firm to my cheeks. “You’re the sun and the moon and the stars—impossible to miss.” His gaze roams my face until he finds my lips, and my heart beats out of my chest. “I love you, Penelope.”

I pause while his words dance around in my head, and in my heart. He loves me. He looks at me like he’s seeing all of me, even the things I’m afraid to notice and all the stuff I don’t want to see. I believe him. I believe him more than I believe in magic.

I lean into Carter’s hand and kiss his palm. “I love you, too. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“You’ll never have to find out,” he says.

His thumb traces my lower lip. I watch his eyes darken from the soft green to a daring, sparkling shade that makes my heart beat faster. He leans into me, urging my mouth to meet his with gentleness that quickly turns firmer. His tongue dips between my lips and its stirs a craving inside of me, instinctual and sensual. I sigh against his mouth and he groans. He cradles me in his arms and leans us down until my back rests on the ground. His body moves on top of mine, our hips touching, arms tangling, and legs entwining.

“You’re so beautiful,” he breathes. His words whisper across my skin.

He opens his mouth to say more, but I silence him with another kiss. I thread my fingers through his hair, enjoying the way our kiss deepens. I trace my hands down his back, tug on his shirt and lift it up. My nails trail along his bare skin. He tenses under my touch. I pull his shirt off and feel the muscles of his chest. His lips graze my ear, my chin, my neck. God, he kisses everything, and I feel it in my whole being.

His hands shift, slip under my shirt. They create a path for the fire to follow. I tremble from the heat, from desire, from the feel of his warm fingers sliding down my stomach.

“Penelope,” he says. Carter’s voice is rough, his mouth brushing my ear and his breath warm on my skin. Then he pauses. “We should stop.”

I nod because he’s right, but my head doesn’t listen because my lips are on his again and he’s breathing heavier and my whole body is a mess of fire and ice and desire. His hands don’t stop touching me; his tongue doesn’t leave my mouth. My back arches into him. My foot wraps around his, and then his lips and his hands are gone and he’s sitting up on the floor.

My mind is still reeling when he turns back to me. “Your grandma is downstairs,” he says as if it’s the most simple thing in the world. Like it’s an answer to everything. And it is. I mean, really, but in this moment I really hate that they’re all down there.

“Sorry,” I say quickly, sitting up too.

Carter shakes his head. “I’m not,” he says with a smile. “But I
am
scared of your grandma.”

I stare for a second before bursting into laughter. He laughs too, and pulls me next to his bare chest—which I will not think about at all—and kisses my forehead.

“She can be trouble,” I say.

“It’s where you get it from,” he says back.

I kiss him again. He gives me one back before getting up and putting his shirt back on. “I’m going to get us that ice cream now,” he says.

I nod and he tosses me a smile before disappearing out the door. I straighten my hair in the mirror and pick up Emmaline’s journal again.

21 October 1841

I have met the most enthralling and brave man. I was in a quaint part of town where Father does not let us travel, but I was there alone. If Father discovered it so I would most assuredly be reprimanded. It was inappropriate to be with him alone in the tresses of night, but I could not get away. I did not want to. He fawned over me like I was a prize, calling me honest, fair, and absolute. And I fancied him. I found his company refreshing; his words are sweet like honey and his kisses even sweeter. We have planned to meet again at the week’s end.

Connie is outside my room and I yell for her. A giggle fills the hallway, drifts in through the open the door. I hear Thomas’s hearty laugh, followed by hers, and I smile.

9 December 1841

Mayhap I have disgraced my family, but I have found myself in him. With him I feel things I have not felt in all my days. He ravished me with desire and I welcomed it. Now I am weary with wanting more. We steal our touches in the dark, and shadows alone know our secret. If my family discovers the truth they will be vile and destroy my love. I will tell them naught.

I turn the page again. Why is Emmaline’s lover unacceptable? Our family wasn’t upper society in those days, so what could be so bad about it? I doubt he sparkled.

13 February 1841

I have made myself a fool. My hasty actions have now left me without choices. While I am woeful of the reasoning, I am o’er wrought with joy at the adventure of child rearing. My, how things have changed! I will tell my family on the morrow and they will think me unwise and abhor my decisions. But I am uncaring. For he has told me all he has planned, that the babe and I will join him, and I cannot be more overjoyed. I am not hesitant. I do not fear this. I am deserving of rapture and on the morrow it will be mine.

I don’t even pause to breathe as I turn the page. What did she tell them?

4 March 1842

I’m leaving tonight. Then it will happen. He says it is time. My parents, my siblings are vile creatures. They do not even know the whole truth, for that would assuredly push them over the edge. They do not know what he is, what the baby is, what I’m about to become. My heart wants to tell them, but for the safety of my baby I cannot. I should make haste, but I need to record it here in case something happens, in case it goes wrong and I do not survive the transformation.

My love claims it will be a painful one—supposedly usual for a witch. He says it is a physical, emotional, and mental pain. Torment. I am ready, even as he says it is dangerous. The transition to dismiss the essence of holy magic for an endless void is not easy. Some bodies reject it. My essence is part of my soul, so I expect that it would struggle to remain so. A battle is pending. Should I survive it, I shall finally be found.

I turn the page. There’s nothing. That’s the end. How can that be the end? Did she die? A transformation can really only mean one thing, and it’s so abhorrent I don’t know how I could even think it.

“I have chocolate mint and peanut butter swirl,” Carter says. I turn around to face him and his brow scrunches up. “What’s wrong?”

I watch him set the ice cream on my dresser, still trying to process the end of Emmaline’s journey. “It’s over,” I say, passing it to him. He reads over the last line, his eyes widening.

“A transformation? She became a demon?”

I can’t speak, but it’s the only explanation. The only reason my family would wipe her out, would try to pretend that she had never existed. Her lover must have… Did anyone know about this? “What happened to her? Was it successful?”

Carter’s eyes get bright. “I know who can help us find out.”

Carter and I move as quietly as possible toward an old pizza joint, following the tracking device beeps. Now that we knew Vassago has a DNE, he was easy enough to find this time. We just had to enter a number and follow the pulse. A modern-day trail of bread crumbs.

The walls outside the joint are red and a few Nons go in and out the door. But I see our quarry almost immediately, and head in his direction. I’m not sure what to ask him first. Did Emmaline succeed? Is she a demon somewhere? Did she die? Did she choose the demon over her child because of how inferior she felt, or was it something else?

“What are you having?” a growl-like voice snaps from behind the counter. The guy before us is tall, the size of some ex-pro wrestler or gang enthusiast, and his eyes are a bright green. My instinct tells me to fight, to run, but Carter puts his hand on the small of my back, grounding me in place.

“Two slices of cheese and a Coke.”

“Diet Coke,” I say.

The burly guy takes our money, his lip snarled up. I don’t take my eyes off the old man sitting in the corner. He doesn’t take his eyes off me either. Carter presses on my back and we walk together toward the corner table.

“These seats taken?” Carter asks.

Vassago looks up at us, his beard hanging with strings of mozzarella. How does he get so disgusting? “Only if you’d like them to be,” he says.

My whole body is shaking and I know I’ll have to speak soon. The answer scares me almost as much as the question. Carter squeezes my hand.

“You have another request,” Vassago says. His voice is filled with amusement as Big Burly brings our order to the table. He shoots Vassago a look and the old demon waves him off.

I take a breath. “Emmaline Spencer—she was related to me. She fell in love and underwent the transformation. What happened to her?”

He raises an eyebrow toward Carter. “Have you found the one who seeks what you seek?”

Carter’s lips form a straight line. “Not yet.”

“Searching can be so tiresome when you come up with nothing,” Vassago says. His eyes drift back to me. “Have you seen my sock?”

I grit my teeth. I’d like to knock his other sock off. “No. Can’t say I have.”

“Perhaps you will dream about it,” he says.

His words catch me off guard and I balk. He can’t be implying that he’s giving me the dreams. That’s not his power. That’s not even possible. My stomach rumbles and I feel the magic stirring. Carter must feel it too, because he squeezes my hand again.

“Emmaline Spencer?” I ask quickly.

Vassago points to my pizza. “May I?” he asks.

I push the plate toward him and watch as he stuffs a bite in his mouth and chews like a cow. Slow and watchful. The corner of his mouth spreads into a smile. “Your quest is wasteful. Open your eyes, little witch, and find the answer.”

My brain tries to process what he’s saying. He’s getting up out of the chair and no. No. I can’t handle any more of these nonanswers.

“But you didn’t tell me where to go next!” I say.

Carter is pulling me up out of the seat and I push him away, slam my hand on the table in front of Vassago.

“Tell me.”

The demon smiles and then leans back, like he’s bored. “If you looked around, you would be free. The answer is in the past of one you daily see.”

Then he stands up and his metal chair flies across the floor. “Do not contact me again about these matters,” he says.

Big Burly looks at us and a couple other demons are hissing, then Carter is pushing me out the door. My mind is racing. Open my eyes. Someone I daily see. The answer has been in front of me the whole time. Gran. The only person who could know is Gran.

Carter’s phone beeps and I think it’s the tracker, but the look on his face says it’s not. “Poncho found something about Kriegen. I’ll go check it out.”

“I have to go home right now.”

To talk to Gran.

Somehow, I know it’s her. The way she’s worked so hard to protect the secret of my magic—she knows how to hide secrets. But it’s time to come clean.