The Devil's Third (14 page)

She stared at me for a long moment, biting her bottom lip. Her eyes held a bothersome somberness I didn’t like. I opened my mouth to tell her to forget the whole thing, going back on what I had resolved to do, when she raised the phone to her ear and invited Tree over, turning away from me.

***

A while later, there was a knock at the door. Tree came in carrying two large pizza boxes with his sketch book and supplies on top. I welcomed the sight with a grin. My appetite was raging, not to mention my eagerness to visually see this cave Paige had talked about. All three of us headed to the kitchen. Tree placed the food on the counter. I got us some plates while Paige filled the glasses with ice and pop.

“If you don’t mind,” Tree said, holding a piece of pizza in his hand, a string of melted cheese hanging off the edges, “I want to eat first before I start sketching.” He lifted the slice above his mouth and lowered the dangling cheese into his mouth.

“No problem,” I replied, taking a wedge myself and biting into it. The spicy, sweet, tomato sauce, exploded delightfully in my mouth, along with the gooey mozzarella and pepperoni. This was an excellent idea.

“Have you heard from Brayden?” Paige asked Tree.

“Yes, I have.” He took a drink, his ice cubes clinking against the glass. “He wants me to try to iron things out with you for him. He told me to tell you he’d choose you over Cassondra any day.”

Paige made a sound of annoyance and rolled her eyes. “He just doesn’t get it, does he?”

“I’m not finished yet,” Tree said, catching our full attention. “He’s been hanging around Cassondra because she’s close to Anwar. Not to mention she’s a sex machine and Brayden can--”

“Stop!” Paige covered her ears to demonstrate her request. “I don’t want to hear about Brayden’s sex life.”

I looked away, stung by her comment. Why would she care? But deep down I knew. She still had feelings for him, and it bothered the shit out of me.

Tree laughed and held a hand up. “Okay. Okay. I’ll spare you the details on the steamy part of his life.”

“Good,” Paige said, taking a slice of pizza out of the box and playfully bumping her hip against his thigh. “Otherwise,”–she flashed me a devious smile and winked– “I’ll go into explicit detail about
my
own sex life.”

I laughed, knowing how horrified Tree would be to hear it. He thought of Paige as a sister and didn’t even want to think about her being less than virtuous. I laughed even harder when I saw the horror on his face.

He shook his head as if he were rolling marbles around in it. “No. Paige. Please don’t.”

She snickered. “Relax. I’m just messing with you.”

His forehead wrinkled, and he frowned. “Don’t do that.” He took another piece of pizza.

Jesus Christ
, the boy can eat. This had to be his fifth one already.

“Anyway,” Tree continued, “Brayden told me he thinks Anwar is having a change of heart toward Bael.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because Anwar has a sneaky suspicion Bael is hiding information from him. At least, it’s what Cassondra told him.” Tree washed and dried his hands before sitting at the table.

“Interesting,” I said more to myself than them.

“It is,” Paige admitted.

I looked at Tree, flipping through his sketch book for a blank page. He plucked a graphite pencil from a white tin box.

“Did Brayden tell you anything else?” I asked.

“Nothing important or stuff you already know, like his determination to steal Paige’s heart from you.”

Instantly, my temper sparked; heat rose to my ears. Paige must have noticed because she cleared her throat to divert my attention from the angry thoughts taking form. I took a deep drink of my Coke, focusing on the dark, syrupy taste. The ice cubes knocked against my front teeth, and the fizzy, coldness slid down my throat. I drank the whole thing and released a loud, drawn out burp. “Excuse me.” I pounded a fist against my chest and released a smaller version of the prior one. “Excuse me again.”

“Damn. Those were some good ones.” Tree laughed. “I’m impressed.”

“Do you feel better now?” Paige asked, laughing as well. She looked happy, which lightened my mood even more.

“Why, yes, I do,” I said.

Tree held the tip of his pencil above a blank page and turned to Paige. “Now describe into detail the vision you saw the other day.”

An hour later, we were looking at Paige’s vision in total awe. I was completely taken aback by Tree’s talent. He’d managed to achieve every fine detail Paige described to him from the depth of the cave to the chamber of columns made out of limestone to the arched portals and the subterranean stream of water.

“Wow. This is amazing,” Paige gushed. “I think you should park your wrenches and be an artist instead.”

“Paige is right,” I said. “You definitely have a gift.”

A shy smile broke across Tree’s face, but his brown eyes were beaming. “Thanks, guys.” He paused to take in his work. “Do you think this cave actually exist?”

“Yeah, I do,” Paige answered, staring at the picture in front of him.

I thought so, too, and felt a spike of adrenaline. I recognized it as excitement. We were one step closer to finding those incantations, and I wondered if we pushed a little harder where it would lead us.

I glanced at the clock on the microwave. 9:42. My gaze shifted on the coffee pot. I wasn’t ready to quit for the night and looked at Tree. “Do you have to work tomorrow?”

He blinked, a bit startled by my abrupt question. “No . . . well, I should go in for a little while because my dad has been covering for me so I could stay by Carrie’s side. Why?”

“I thought maybe I could make a pot of coffee, and we can do some research on this for a while. I figure you can stay the night, and tomorrow we can do some more training.”

“Sounds good to me.” Tree reached into his army green cargo pants and pulled out his phone. “I’m going to call my folks so they don’t worry.” He rose to his feet and went into the living room.

As Tree was talking to his dad, my phone vibrated on the kitchen counter. Paige and I exchanged looks, both of us knowing not many people had my cell phone number, which meant more than likely, this wouldn’t be a pleasurable call. I hated assuming the worse, but according to the sinking feeling I had in my stomach, this wouldn’t be good.

 I picked it up. When I saw the number, I sighed and stared at the ceiling.

“Who is it?” Paige wanted to know, moving to my side, sounding anxious.

“Anwar.” I pressed the talk button. “What is it, Anwar?” I asked, my voice filled with disgust.

“I need to talk to you, Nathaniel.” His phone crackled. Long distance, I gathered.

“I think I’m through talking with you.”

 My thoughts shifted on that moment when I had caught Roeick maliciously bullwhipping Paige’s bare back, and Anwar taking part in her suffering. A blaze of anger whipped through me. My body tensed; heat rose up the back of my neck.

“It’s about Ms. Paige.” He sounded worried, but I wasn’t falling for his tricks anymore. As far as I was concern, he could piss up a rope.

“Said the spider to the fly,” I retorted in a deep, careful voice.

“Nathaniel, please. I think Bael is pla--”

In a fit of impulsive rage, I threw the phone across the room. It struck the wall and shattered, exploding tiny pieces, raining down in the kitchen, scattering like bits of shrapnel.

The good thing was Tree happened to be in the other room talking to his parents, and Paige was standing next to me. The bad part was I didn’t know for sure if Anwar was lying through his teeth or not, but at this moment, I didn’t give a shit.

Chapter Fourteen

Paige

Nathan startled me when he threw his phone across the room. It starburst against the wall, spewing debris everywhere. I turned and covered my face with an arm, but there was no need. Nathan stepped in front of me, using his body as a shield to deflect whatever came flying my way. Scattered sounds of plastic raining on the wooden floors and counter tops filled the room.

“What the . . .” Tree said, running into the kitchen. He took a couple steps back when he saw what used to be Nathan’s phone, now in tiny pieces all over the room. Wide-eyed, he looked at Nathan. “What did I miss?”

“Anwar,” is all Nathan said. He turned to me. “Are you okay?” His voice was low, rough with anger.

I nodded, still shocked at his abrupt behavior. I hadn’t realized, until now, the magnitude of anger he harbored for Anwar. He downright loathed him. That was the thing about Nathan though, if you screwed him over, he was done. He’d keep you at arm’s length with a distrustful eye planted on you, or he’d completely shut you out of his life. It made me wonder how he would act toward me after I betrayed him.

“Why don’t you and Tree hang out in the living room while I clean up this mess?” Nathan asked.

“I can help you,” I offered.

“I need a few minutes alone, if you two don’t mind.” Nathan’s gaze swept from me to Tree.

Tree held his hands up. “No problem. I totally understand.”

I grabbed Tree’s sketch book and followed him into the living room. He turned and gave me a that-was-intense look. I jerked my chin to the loft, signaling we should go up there. He understood right away, and we climbed the spiral staircase in silence. When we reached the top, I thought it would be a good idea to start talking so Nathan wouldn’t get suspicious.

“There’s a laptop up here we can use to see if there are any caves in Africa that might remotely resemble the one I saw.” I set Tree’s sketch book on the wooden trunk used as a coffee table and crossed the room to Nathan’s mahogany desk. I snatched the laptop, placed it beside the sketch book, and sat down.

“I don’t know,” Tree doubtfully said. “I still find it kind of hard to believe a cave like this”–he flipped open his sketch book to the drawing of the cave, and jabbed his finger on it–“does exist.”

“Well, I think it--”

 “
The innocent locked in grief from the illusion before the eyes. An unlikely pair reunites in treachery and affection.”

My whole body became rigid, and my blood turned to ice, raising goose bumps on my arms. I couldn’t move nor remove my gaze off the steel lock on the trunk.

“What’s wrong?” Tree asked.

The cushion beside me shifted against my thigh, and I felt a wall of body heat down the left side of my body. My preternatural hearing picked up the acceleration of Tree’s heart, and Nathan’s shifting feet, lightly scuffing the wooden floor in the kitchen, then pausing. He must have heard Tree’s question and the worry in his voice. A draft of warm air, stirred the hair around my face, and a large image disrupted my view of the lock. Two hands reached out, cupping my cheeks in them, gently tilting my head up. I blinked a couple times to refocus, feeling a crushing grief I hadn’t experienced since my mom died.

“Baby, what is it?” Nathan softly asked. He wiped the tears off my cheeks with his thumbs.

“She had another premonition, huh?” Tree guessed.

The premonition kept replaying in my head, and I couldn’t shake off this gut-wrenching belief somebody close to me was going to die. I opened my mouth to tell Tree yes, but the words from the premonition fell from my lips instead, my voice grim. Tree inhaled a sharp breath that plucked on my nerves like a guitar string being tuned. Nathan leaned forward, resting his forehead on mine and sighed. “This isn’t good,” he murmured.

“What do you think it means?” Tree asked, sounding nervous.

“I’m not too sure,” I replied. “But I have this horrible feeling somebody is going to die.” I wasn’t going to mention it because I could be totally wrong, but Tree needed to know since he was in on this pact with Bael.

“Just because it said ‘locked in grief’ doesn’t mean somebody must die,” Nathan pointed out, trying to soothe the uneasiness out of me. “Maybe it’s a dark spirit locked in grief, and the illusion of the eye is the human vessel.” He paused to look at both me and Tree. “Do you follow me?”

I nodded, and Tree’s worried expression relaxed as he quickly latched onto Nathan’s idea, gladly pushing aside my unfavorable answer for Nathan’s Mickey Mouse version. But deep down, he had to know it wasn’t that simple. And if he didn’t, well then I was going to burst his bubble with my next comment. “I think you’re wrong, though,” I said to Nathan. “It’s too easy a solution for it to be that.”

Tree made a vibrating sound with his lips in an obvious objection. When I looked at him, he gestured toward Nathan. “Nathan is totally right,” he said. “It makes perfect sense.”

“Yeah, it does,” I admitted. “But that’s not what the premonition is talking about.”

“How do you know?” Tree demanded a little too harshly.

His heart was racing, and it became clear to me this situation was getting to him. I needed to find a way to get through to him that it was imperative to keep clearheaded and to look at all facts, not just the ones we’d prefer.

I took Nathan’s hand. “I need some time alone with Tree.”

He glanced at Tree, then back at me. “I’ll call Pip from the room downstairs.”

“Oh. Right.” I slapped the palm of my hand on my forehead. I’d totally forgot we were supposed to call Pip to let him know how things went with Carrie. “I can’t believe we forgot to call him.”

Tree gave us a weird look.“Who’s Pip?”

“He’s the friend Nathan told us about the night before Carrie’s accident.” Tree had a blank look on his face, so I continued. “The one who can erase Aosoth’s memories from Carrie’s mind.” My words came out slow in a don’t-you-remember kind of way. A spark of understanding entered his eyes.

He slapped his knee. “I got it . . . Jeez, sometimes I can be such a space cadet.”

Nathan kissed my hand, bringing my attention back on him. “Come get me when you’re finished.”

He didn’t seem at all bothered or suspicious by my request, which made me realize he trusted me–explicitly. I felt a pang of guilt as I watched him leave the room, hating Bael for putting me in this position. After I heard Nathan enter the room beneath the kitchen, I turned my full attention on Tree. “You need to get it together,” I said in a high whisper. Even though Nathan was in the sound proof room, I still didn’t want to take any chances.