Spellcaster (Spellcaster #1) (30 page)

So maybe not letting her fingers shake so much while she typed on the keyboard would be a good idea.

“Okay,” Verlaine said, a bit too loudly, but Elizabeth didn’t react. “As long as you keep the text under five lines, it’s seventy-five dollars for one week, one hundred dollars for two. Which is a whole lot cheaper than virtually any other paper in the world, but hey—it’s the
Guardian
.”

“Under five lines.” Elizabeth’s voice sounded distant. “I’ll have to think how to word it. Thanks for your help.”

“No problem.” The only problem, Verlaine thought, had been keeping this fake smile plastered on her face the whole time.

With a nod, Elizabeth turned to go. She walked back out into the night without ever glancing back.

What was that about?
Verlaine wondered.

Once she was halfway down the block, Elizabeth reached into her bag and pulled out the turquoise Bakelite bracelet. It gleamed brightly in her palm.

Verlaine must have been wearing it earlier today. It would work.

Although Nadia considered calling Mateo to be with her while she attempted the spell, ultimately she decided against it. For one, it was late—eleven p.m.—so if his father realized he was gone or her father realized he was in her house, it would be tough to explain.

Also, the first time she did this shouldn’t be too strong. Spells for removal of magic could be violent or gentle, showy or soft. This needed to be gentle and soft. Nadia was mostly checking to see if it would work—whether she could sneak a sliver of Elizabeth’s magic away without her noticing. That was more likely without the boost to her powers that Mateo provided. (Later, when they had to stop her on Halloween, then she’d need him by her side the whole way.)

Finally, this spell was best cast while in the water, and there was no way Nadia was taking another dive in that freezing cold ocean. Much, much better to run a hot bath.

One thing awesome about living in an old-fashioned house was the old-fashioned bathtub. It was white porcelain, so big about four people could sit in it at once, set up on golden claw feet. Nadia had the squeaky taps turned all the way up, which was the only way to fill the tub before the water started getting cold.

Okay, supplies. Quartz dust. Rose petals. And—the razor blade
.

Nadia set the stuff on the broad shelf beside the tub and took a deep breath. Then she slipped off her robe and sank into the warm bathwater, which covered her whole body up to her neck. She wore only her bracelet.

The dust swirled into the water, making it cloudy and yet softly sparkly. The rose petals floated on the surface. The razor blade—

—this was harder to do than she’d anticipated. Nadia had never cast any spells that called for her own blood, not before this. But blood mixed in water gave certain kinds of magic an accuracy and intensity that couldn’t be matched any other way.

Great. The one time I actually
need
it to be that time of the month, and it’s not
.

She bit down on her lip, held out one thumb, and jabbed.

Ow! Owowowowow
. But she’d done it. Nadia pressed on the tiny cut in her thumb tip until the first fat drops of blood spattered into the water. First they became strange trails of red, then lightened to pink, then vanished.

By the light of her stove, Elizabeth began her work. When she held the bracelet up to that glow, she could feel the response between them; yes, this would do nicely.

But then a cool draft shivered past her—a kind of chill that had nothing to do with temperature.

Her eyes widened. Nadia—reaching out for her. Attempting to meddle. And she seemed to understand precisely how to do it.

Elizabeth’s respect for the girl increased, but she felt no alarm, any more than an elephant would have been afraid of a gnat, even if it knew where to bite.

She set aside Verlaine’s bracelet. That could wait.

First she needed to show Nadia Caldani her place.

NADIA SANK DEEPER INTO THE TUB. THE FINE SPARKLY
dust was beginning to settle to the bottom of the tub, forming lines of glitter that swirled with the water.

Summon the ingredients
, she told herself.
Everything is ready
.

As Simon Caldani finished reading a chapter of
The Trumpet of the Swan
aloud, his son, Cole, said, “Daddy, what’s outside?”

“There aren’t any monsters outside. Promise.”

“I
know
. They’re
birds
. But how come there are so many of them?”

Simon rose from the side of Cole’s bed to peer out the nearest window. Sure enough, there in the biggest tree of their yard were dozens of birds—hundreds of them? It was hard to tell in the dark, because they were all black. Crows? He’d never realized how large crows were before. More were alighting on the tree every moment, the flapping of their wings audible as a weird rustling sound. The rustling seemed to surround their home on every side.

“It’s getting colder,” he said. “They’re migrating.”

“
I
thought birds went south for the winter,” Cole said. He was right, of course. But surely—

“They must be on their way. They’ll move on soon.” With that, Simon pulled the curtains shut. There was something eerie about it, those
masses
of birds, and somehow it seemed as if they were all staring at this house. That was the kind of thing that would give Cole nightmares for sure.

Elizabeth lit her candle. She made her own out of tallow fat, the old way, boiling down the dead flesh herself. How it glistened when it melted—and ahh, the smell. There was no replacing that stink, the fetid odor of real magic. Some people prettied it up, but she preferred to know it for what it was.

Holding her hand out flat, Elizabeth pushed it forward until her fingers were in the candle’s flame. The first flare of heat hurt, but she had long since learned to ignore pain.

She held it there, and held it there. Her skin turned red, and the thin wisp of smoke rising from the candle began to darken. The tallow scent deepened into the smell of smoldering flesh.

Hotter
, Elizabeth thought. Pain-sparked tears welled in her eyes, but they were meaningless. Her fingers had begun to turn black.
Make it hotter
.

Make it boil
.

Nadia
leaned
her head back on the heavy curved rim of the claw-foot tub, breathed in steam and put the ingredients together:

Bone through flesh

Something shattered to the sound of a scream

The destruction of a thing beloved

The air was almost uncomfortably thick with steam now, and Nadia could feel her whole body prickling with heat from the tub—she hadn’t turned the cold tap enough—but she knew she had to concentrate.

An X-ray in shadows of blue and gray, revealing the jagged white fault line where her ulna should have showed through strong, and pain lancing its way up her arm while Mom stroked her hair
.

The car windows the night of the wreck, splintering into spiderweb patterns as they flipped over and over, as all of them shrieked in sudden terror
.

But Nadia couldn’t think; the water was so freaking hot—it almost burned.

Her eyes opened wide as she realized the water was getting hotter. Though the taps were off, the water in the tub was heating up second by second, faster all the time, and she gasped aloud to see steam billowing up—oh, God, it stung, it hurt, it was going to start
cooking
her—

Nadia shoved herself out of the tub, flopping over the side onto the tile floor so hard it knocked the breath out of her. As she lay there in a puddle, skin red and burning, trying to inhale again, the room heated even further and she heard the unmistakable sound of water boiling. She grabbed a towel to hold over her face, coughing into it as the steam thickened until she couldn’t see her own toes. The heat was almost overpowering, and for a moment she thought she might pass out.

But she pushed herself to her feet. The doorknob glowed with heat, but she got to the bathroom window—an old-timey little rectangle that swung out from a side hinge, at least in theory. Nadia had never tried to open it before. Desperately she pushed at its wooden frame, but it wouldn’t budge; the window had been painted shut, probably almost a century before—

—then it gave. A blast of cold air rushed into the room. Although steam still filled the air, already Nadia could see through it again, and the temperature went from unbearable to merely uncomfortable.

A crow landed immediately outside, the wings flapping so close it startled her, so she yanked the window back until it was only open a crack. It didn’t matter; the worst had passed.

She leaned against the beadboard wall, gasping for breath. After a few seconds, she took a washcloth and pulled the glowing-hot metal chain of the stopper out of the tub; what little water hadn’t been evaporated began to drain away, leaving trails of glittery quartz dust behind. She wiped it up, then used the washcloth to undo the lock on the bathroom door.

Elizabeth knew. I wasn’t even all the way into the spell, but she still knew. She nearl
y
boiled me to death
.

She would have killed me, and this spell—it was so little—

Somehow Nadia struggled into her robe and managed to stay on her feet as she walked out of the bathroom. In the hallway she passed her father, who gave her a look. “Honey, there’s steam halfway down the hall. I know girls like their baths, but running the hot-water heater costs money, okay?”

She couldn’t give him any answer but a nod.

Elizabeth pulled her hand from the candle. The flesh had been charred away deeply enough in spots for her to see the bone.

You scare me
, Asa said.
And I’m from hell
.

“Silence, beast.”

She flexed her fingers, ignoring the stark pain this earned her. As Elizabeth watched, the flesh began to bubble, and the skin lightened from black to a charred tan back to its natural pink. The wounds closed over again, restoring her hand to what it had been before.

Immortality had burdened her for so long, but it had its benefits.

Nadia Caldani still lived—Elizabeth could sense that much—but a warning had been delivered. Perhaps it would be heeded, and these pointless distractions would stop. Surely her threat had been clear enough that she needed to take no further action at this time.

Still, she hung Verlaine’s bracelet on a hook near the stove, keeping it close, just in case.

“You should have called me,” Mateo said. He knew he was repeating himself, but he was almost too freaked out to think straight. “You’re safe now. You’re okay.”

“I’m okay.” Nadia’s voice trembled. “But I’m not safe. None of us are.”

The three of them were sitting on one of the outside picnic tables, theoretically eating lunch outside despite the chill, but their food lay there, ignored. The thought of Elizabeth somehow reaching across town to hurt Nadia, to try to kill her—“I never dreamed about her attacking you that way.”

“You weren’t with me. That must be why. You can only dream of the future you’re going to see.” Nadia was trying hard to sound like she was in control again, but he knew better. Besides, what she was saying was no comfort whatsoever. He dreamed of Nadia in constant peril; it was even worse to think that she faced other dangers he’d never see, never have the chance to warn her against.

Verlaine sat across the table from them, huddled in a fake leopard-skin coat with a wide black collar. “How did Elizabeth know you were trying the spell?”

“She must have performed sentry spells—guards around the kind of magic that could damage her plans. Sort of like the barrier around town but more specific.”

His memories of the wreck came flooding back. Looking down at that shattered car, seeing Nadia there, bloodied and trapped in the muck—that was what Elizabeth’s barrier had done. Any step outside the margins Elizabeth had set for them could mean death. “If that’s how we’re going to stop her—but she can sense that we’re doing it—”

“I know.” Her voice was so tired, so shaky. Mateo wanted to put his arms around her; if they hadn’t been in the middle of the quad, with Verlaine only a couple of feet away and people walking by every second, he would have. “I’ll have to think of another way, or—or I’ll have to wait until Elizabeth’s in the middle of her own magic, when she might be too deep in one spell to cast another, or too distracted to notice.”

Verlaine chewed on a fingernail. “Waiting until the last possible second doesn’t sound like the ideal A-game.”

Nadia nodded. “Believe me, I know. But we’re so out of our depth here.”

For a few seconds they all sat there, depressed and slightly scared—and then Gage suddenly sat down at the table with them. “Hey, guys. What’s up?”

“Hey,” they all said in unison. Mateo thought they couldn’t have sounded sadder if the funeral march had been playing.

“Whoa. You guys look like your dogs just died.” Gage paused. “Oh, wait, did somebody’s dog actually die? If so, I’m sorry. Way sorry.”

“No dead dogs,” Mateo said. He managed an expression that might pass for a smile. “What’s happening with you?”

“Something that should cheer you guys up, so I’m guessing I got here in the nick of time. Night before Halloween, my aunt’s place on the beach, it’s party time. An actual fun party, Mateo—you might want to check one of those out sometime. Not the same jerks standing around being rude to one another while everybody acts cool.”

“A party?” Verlaine frowned in confusion, like that was a word in English she didn’t know yet. Then again—nobody had ever asked Verlaine to any of the parties before; at least Mateo had never seen her out. Probably she wasn’t used to being invited. For his part, Gage only now seemed to have realized he’d asked Verlaine, too, but he didn’t seem to mind.

Mateo said, “The jerks are still going to be there, though. They always show up.”

“Yeah, but after the first hour they’ll blow it off because they’re too cool, and then the rest of us can enjoy ourselves.”

“Like, Kendall Bender would be there?” Verlaine didn’t look reassured. “I can think of more fun things to do than hang out with her. Lots more. Up to and including reorganizing my dads’ spice rack.”