Shadow's Edge (21 page)

“But won't Alex suspect something if you're not there?” Gia asked, eyes wide.

“Oh, right.” I stopped. “Okay, you all meet me after the football game, before the dance, and we'll go to the construction site then.”

I stood up from the table and walked into the family room, where my dad was watching a football game on television.

“Dad? Can I talk to you for a second?” I asked quietly.

He broke his gaze from the game and looked at me. Then he sat up a little, his big belly resting on his legs. “Sure, sure. Have a seat.” He patted the couch next to him.

I walked over and sat down, tucking my legs underneath myself. I looked down and played with a string on the couch.

“I know you've said you're proud of me, right?” I
said softly.

I saw him nod. “Of course.” He grabbed the remote control and muted the television.

“Well, I've had to make some decisions the past couple of days. And some things are going to happen in the next day or so. Which might affect the football games. And I don't think you're going to be very proud of me afterward.” I couldn't lift my head. My eyes began to brim with tears, overflowing as they tracked down my cheeks.

“Leah, honey, I don't know what's going on. But I can't imagine there's anything you would do that would make me not proud of you.” He leaned over and put his large hand over mine.

“Yeah, I know. But I know how much you love the football team … and Alex … and how important the new stadium is to you.” I wiped at the tears on my cheeks.

He shook his head. “You girls are what's important to me. All four of you. And your mother. Leah, nothing is more important than family. And yeah, it's been fun for me to watch you go to Westerville and go to the football games, but there's a lot more to life. Family, friends, jobs.” He squeezed my hand.

I lifted my head and looked into his eyes.

“You know that, right?” he added.

I nodded.

“You're not planning on blowing up the team or anything, are you?” he asked, his eyes glinting.

I shook my head and laughed. “No. Just going to … level the playing field with some things.”

“A fair game,” he murmured, nodding.

“Exactly.”

“Well, honey, I support you in whatever you need to do. You know that I love you, Leah.” He pulled me into a hug, holding me tight.

“I love you, Dad.” I hugged him tight.

“You can do anything you put your mind to, Leah,” he said.

I nodded. “I know.” I said it so confidently that it surprised me. But in that moment, in the glow of the television next to my big, burly dad, I believed it.

I can do this.

T
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I stood in the stands, the enormous crowd cheering all
around me. Clasping my hands behind my back, I tried to steady my breath. When I looked at Alex, who was jogging across the field, he waved and lifted his helmet in greeting. I quickly looked away.

My arm still tingled and buzzed from where Ben had squeezed it just a moment before. He'd said, “Great costume. It's different—like you.” Then he leaned forward, his shaggy hair nearly brushing against my cheek, and whispered in my ear, just like on the first day of school by the vending machines. “And I love that,” he said. I didn't have time to stop him before he walked away.

The Wildcats had just won the Homecoming game, beating Brookford Tech into submission. Now it was time to crown the Homecoming Queen. As the crowd shifted around excitedly, a chant began. “State! State! State! State!”

Playoffs would be starting the next week, and every Wildcat fan was hoping that another state title would come home to Westerville. And they were still raving about the huge sign that had just been put up at the main gate, which showed a rendering of the new stadium and the words,
Open for Next Season!

I'd felt a pang walking past it earlier, knowing how many hopes and dreams the new stadium held.

But just as quickly, I'd felt a pang as I thought of Fiona and Oran, and the nothingness destroying the Créatúir.

If only they hadn't involved Fomoriians. If only the construction had progressed naturally. The Créatúir would've continued their assault in the
sceach
and a struggle would've taken place. If only. But that's what I'm here to bring. The “if only.”

I reminded myself that I wasn't choosing sides, that I wasn't siding with the Créatúir against humans. I was simply going to right a wrong. Banish the Fomoriians and take away the developer's wild card in the struggle.

“All right everyone, before we all head inside for the Homecoming Halloween dance, we're going to crown your Homecoming Queen for Westerville High!” Half of the crowd cheered, a quarter rolled their eyes, and another quarter lightly booed.

“Brooke Vaughn!” The announcer yelled. Brooke, dressed as a zombie beauty queen in a long pink ballroom gown, white sash across her chest, and tiara atop her head, shrieked as the announcer came over to place the crown on her head. Since she already had a crown on, the announcer perched the second tiara atop the first.

Caroline, dressed in a sexy zebra-print costume as some kind of promiscuous zoo animal, clapped politely as we watched Brooke accept the bouquet of roses and wave as though she'd won Miss America. After a newspaper reporter took her picture, I trotted down the steps and waved her over to the fence.

“I'm going to be late to the dance, remember?” I said.

“Are you heading over there now?” Brooke said. I nodded. “Can I come?” she asked.

“Don't worry about it. I've already gotten you
too involved,” I whispered as the other cheerleaders crowded around Brooke. “Just go to the dance like nothing's going on.”

“What are you supposed to be?” Lindsay asked as she surveyed my costume. She was dressed as Cinderella.

My mouth curled into a smile. “An Other Realm
Warrior.”

“Ew. What's that?” She wrinkled her nose.

Brooke and I shared a quick glance. I turned sideways, giving Lindsay a full shot of my green sparkly sword, brown dress with a rope belt, and brown suede boots.

“I'm a warrior who kills enemies of the Créatúir.” I put my fake sword in the holster on my belt. “I'm pretty
bad-ass.”

“Oh. Never heard of it,” Lindsay said, shifting her wand from left to right. She laughed.

I shrugged as I turned toward the stands, spotting my sisters waiting by the exit gate. “Gotta run,” I said, and began to jog away.

“Leah!” Brooke called after me. “Wait!”

I stopped and turned around. “What?”

“I'm coming with you. I want to help,” she said, her two crowns still balanced on her head.

I shook my head, my green sword hitting my hip. “I can't let you get any more involved than—”

“What if he shows up?” Brooke said, giving a long glance toward the football players, who were heading back to the locker room to change before the dance.

I sighed. She had a point.

“Okay, just stand back and don't say anything.
Got it?” I started to jog toward the gate again, Brooke following me.

As we reached the edge of the field, my three sisters were waiting.

“She's going to help,” I said, nodding toward Brooke.

Morgana shot me a questioning look, but held out a black backpack. “Ready?”

“Let's go.” I pointed to the car.

Morgana drove, weaving in between parents and teenagers before pulling up to the construction site. We got out of the car and walked over to the edge of the new stadium.

“Hurry, hurry, c'mon,” I said, quickly kneeling down on the ground and opening up a drawstring bag. I handed Morgana a bottle of water and a glass bowl. I passed Gia a stick of incense and tossed Rhea a candle.

We paused and locked eyes for a moment.

“Here you are!” a familiar voice from behind me said.

I whipped my head around and saw Melissa standing behind us.

“I can't let you do this, Melissa,” I said to her.

“You!” Brooke jumped up. “You've been working with Gregg—”

“Ignore her, Brooke!” Morgana cried out. The wind began to pick up, rustling the faraway trees and scattering leaves across the concrete rocks around us.

I stood up and turned to face Melissa. She smirked at me and crossed her arms across her chest. It was only then that I noticed a figure next to her. A diminutive girl with long dark hair and wide green eyes—the same girl I'd seen with her at Buzz.

“You can't stop us,” the girl said.

The blood in my veins ran cold as her voice pinged my eardrums. I'd heard that voice before … in my dreams. When I was the Shaman, I never slept a full night thanks to constant dreams—nightmares—with unintelligible voices I assumed were from the Créatúir.

“Who … ” I started to say, as Melissa and the girl laughed. I saw the girl's wide green eyes turn into
diamonds.

A demon. A Fomoriian.

“I'm Macabee. I've been waiting a long time for one of you Shamans to listen to me,” she said. “But none of you would ever listen. Too strong, I suppose.” Melissa flinched but remained in place.

“How did you—I mean, I thought you were all defeated,” I said.

“Most of us were. I hid during that horrible battle years ago, remained in-between the worlds. Waiting for someone to listen, to understand. To agree to destroy,” Macabee said. Her fingernails grew long, into black talons like I'd seen in the woodcuts.

“You were supposed to protect them,” I said to Melissa.

“Leah, forget her!” Gia's voice broke through. “Let's finish it!”

“I—” I began.

“Yeah, ‘I.' It was always about you, wasn't it?” Melissa looked at me and clucked her tongue. “No matter. Macabee promised that if I summoned her kind, I would gain control over all the Créatúir magic. And what was happening at the construction site was just the icing on the cake. Right place, right time.”

My mind reeling, my words sputtered out. “But—I thought—Alex knew—”

Melissa's eyes glinted green and the reptilian appearance returned. “You're so stupid.” She clapped her hands together and threw her head back, laughing. She squared her head and met Macabee's gaze. “Ready for Créatúir target practice?” she called. The corners of her mouth turned up and her teeth shifted into black points; her eyes blinked horizontally and began to move independently, like they were rolling out of her head.

“Melissa, I think you're turning into one of them. I think they're consuming you. You're becoming possessed by them,” I said. “They're making you do these things.”

Melissa laughed again, a deep growl that emanated from her gut. Macabee smiled at me and pointed a long talon at Melissa's arm, scratching it so deeply that a river of blood spilled out. Melissa didn't flinch as Macabee licked her nail and smiled.

“Melissa—”

“Leah, please!” Morgana cried out. She ran over to me and grabbed my elbow. “C'mon. You can't save her too,” she whispered into my ear.

“Yeah! Let's do this!” Brooke called out from the rock she was perched on.

Morgana and I sprinted back to the circle, about twenty feet away. I sat down next to my sisters and nodded. Morgana poured the water into the glass bowl. Rhea struck a match to light the candle but paused as we heard maniacal laughter. Macabee had removed the box with the orchid latch from a bag. I murmured a silent thanks that we already had the scroll.

I looked at Morgana and muttered, “Did your cat happen to predict any rain?”

“Nope. She said it would be a clear night,” Morgana answered.

“Let's hope this is one of the one-in-ten times that she's right,” I said. “Go ahead,” I said to Rhea, and she lit the candle. She passed the matches to Gia, who lit the incense, blew it out, and fanned it around until it began to smoke.

“I'd hoped you'd be taken down too, once I gave you the sob story about Fiona,” Melissa shouted toward me. “I heard she hardly even put up a struggle when the poison took over.”

I met my sisters' eyes before pouring salt onto the earth. I began to recite the wording on the scroll. “Sword, Spear, Stone, Cauld—”

“What the—” Melissa had opened the box and was staring at what lay inside. She held up a men's magazine with a woman in a bikini on the cover—which was what I'd grabbed off the desk in the club office and shoved into the box.

“Hey, that's sacred to some people,” Rhea called to Melissa.

Macabee stretched her head backward, tilting it unnaturally until it almost touched the middle of her back. She let out a scream that whipped through my bones, chilling my body through my costume as I covered my ears from the piercing shrieks. Melissa stood upright, very still for a moment, like a statue, before launching into a run toward our circle.

“I got this!” Brooke called out, standing up from her rock.

“Brooke, be careful! She's possessed!” I screamed as the wind began to howl around us.

“Oh yeah? Well, I'm a cheerleader!” Brooke threw her body against Melissa's, intercepting her like a football player as she charged toward us. They landed on the ground about ten feet from us, the sound of Melissa's body hitting the ground a thud reverberating through the dirt.

Melissa growled as she tried to throw the Homecoming Queen off of her. Brooke, crowns still bobby-pinned to her head, sat atop Melissa, pinning her to the ground. Melissa reached up and grabbed a handful of Brooke's cornsilk hair as they tumbled on the ground, screeching and hair-pulling, the contrast of their white and tan skins mixed together like a human checkerboard. It was then that I noticed Macabee had disappeared.

“Leah, we have to keep going!” Morgana said. “Brooke's got her occupied!”

I turned and nodded to my sisters. “Let's do this!”

We placed our hands on top of the four elements and I whispered,
“Stone, Spear, Sword, Cauldron. Let thy power—”

My chant was interrupted by a scream from Brooke. Melissa had ripped out a chunk of her hair, stunning her. She took that opportunity to toss Brooke aside, my friend's body spilling out in a mess of tanned limbs, all tiara rhinestones and highlighted blond hair.

Still holding the clump of hair in her hands, Melissa bent down, picked up the box again, and pressed the orchid flower latch on the front. This time, the back of the box shifted and another compartment opened. She removed a piece of paper.

“Good thing I kept some secrets safe,” she said triumphantly, licking her lips. “How about some Fomoriian company right now?” She smiled at me, her features switching places for a moment so that her eyes were on her chin and her ears were in the center of her face.

She looked down at the paper and bellowed,
“Orcas balor auryn á daearen uasail ceallach!”
Then she reached her white arms skyward.

“NO!” I screamed.

Above Melissa, a black cloud of energy began to cycle, like a small, black tornado of dark magic. The wind picked up and whipped across my sisters and me, extinguishing our candle and tipping the bowl of water to the ground.

A loud buzz began to emanate from the black tornado as Melissa stretched out her arms, fingers splayed in the air, guiding the midnight energy to the earth.

The Fomoriians were coming.

I stood up, bracing myself against Rhea, who was still sitting on the ground. I closed my eyes and called for the Créatúir, both Light and Dark. I chanted their names, asking them to come to the mortal realm, to appear before the Fomoriians took shape and became organized and killed them all. Called for them to fight for the Créatúir in a battle against their ancient enemy.