Path of Night Page 15

  “Faustus Blackwood!” Prudence snarled. “Where is that coven-murdering traitor, and what did you help him do?”

  “He … bought some of my bones, to use for a spell to tear a hole through time and space,” Frochot stammered. “He went to New Orleans, to buy the last ingredient he needed. P-please, I didn’t know anything about him harming his coven, I just wanted the blood—”

  “What blood?” Prudence demanded.

  Frochot’s sluglike tongue touched his lips. “The best spells are made from blood and bone. It gets so dry here down among my bones, but Faustus had two children with him. He let me have some of the girl child’s blood. Not the boy’s, since he’s worth more …”

  Prudence brought her sword down in a killing arc.

  “Prudence, no!” Ambrose shouted, but she’d already buried her blade in Frochot’s chest to the hilt.

  “I hope my sister’s blood was worth this,” she snarled.

  The bones around the fountain opened up, an earthquake of corpses creating a chasm to swallow them.

  Ambrose and Prudence tumbled fathoms down, onto broken bones. Ambrose rolled on his back to see where they’d landed. In the darkness he made out towering walls and, far too high above them, a circle of faint ghostly light. This was a charnel pit, the walls skulls, the floor made of bones shattered so many times they seemed coarse sand.

  “Frochot used the catacombs to power protection spells,” Ambrose said breathlessly. “That’s why he never left the shelter provided by his bones. He believed nobody would dare kill him down here.”

  Prudence sat up, her little black dress covered in white bone dust.

  “You might have mentioned that before!”

  “I didn’t think you were going to murder him within three minutes,” said Ambrose. “In retrospect, that was foolish of me.”

  He cast a spell to levitate them. There was no result. Prudence’s eyes narrowed, and she cast a different spell to blast them out. The quiet of the catacombs was their only answer.

  There was a reason nobody had slain the warlock of the catacombs before.

  In this pit of bones, their magic didn’t work. They exchanged a look as that sank in.

  “Who lurks in underground cities populated only by the dead and builds booby traps?” Ambrose demanded. “Prudence, people don’t trust one another anymore. It’s shocking.”

  For a time, Prudence didn’t answer. When she spoke, her voice was very calm. “You don’t have to keep making light of the situation.”

  Ambrose shrugged. “It’s my way.”

  “I know that,” said Prudence. “But I killed Frochot. I left you with the oracle at the market. I’ve made too many mistakes. I deserve whatever punishment you wish to inflict upon me.”

  It took him a moment, in the quiet, to absorb the full impact of what she’d said. Ambrose was really looking forward to hunting down Faustus Blackwood.

  “Your own father tried to kill our coven and abducted your baby brother and sister,” he said. “You’re frantic with worry, and furious with him. If you make a few mistakes, I understand.”

  “I told you before,” Prudence hissed. “I do not. Have. Feelings!”

  “Come on, Prudence. Yes, you do. I heard what you said to the seller of dreams. About the boy you liked.”

  A different silence followed this statement. It was a trembling silence, as if Ambrose had plucked too carelessly at a string on a musical instrument. Now they waited in the hush following a discordant note to see if the string might break.

  “Did you,” Prudence said at last.

  “Maybe,” Ambrose suggested gently, “your feelings wouldn’t get in your way as much if you acknowledge you have them. That’s how it worked for me. You don’t need to limit yourself. You don’t need any limits at all. You’re allowed to hate your awful father. You’re allowed to fancy a boy. If I’d known how you felt—”

  “I don’t need your pity,” Prudence spat.

  “—how you felt about him, I would never have mentioned Nick Scratch.”

  “Nick Scratch!” exclaimed Prudence, as though the name was wrenched out of her.

  Ambrose nodded. “It must be hard for you to know he went to hell for someone else when you feel about him the way you do.”

  “Feel the way I do,” Prudence repeated, voice hollow as a skull’s eye socket. “About Nick Scratch.”

  “Someone from the Academy who sacrificed himself,” said Ambrose. “Who else could it be?”

  “You have discovered my secret,” said Prudence. “I was enamored of Nicholas Scratch. I enjoyed the way he ditched me and my sisters for Sabrina. Not to mention, his deeply attractive and not at all obsessive interest in mortal trivia. How he kept piles of books around his bed and I would almost break my neck tripping over them. How Nicky insisted on giving five-hour presentations in one-hour classes. Also, his occasionally terrible hair.”

  “When you lose someone, you miss even the little things about them,” Ambrose murmured sympathetically.

  “Yes,” Prudence said. “I miss. All that.”

  Her voice was very flat. Ambrose supposed admitting these feelings was difficult.

  “Especially the whining about sexy illusion spells,” Prudence added.

  “Whatever you’re into,” said Ambrose doubtfully. “Why didn’t Nick like illusion spells? They’re so sexy.”

  “I know, right?” Prudence demanded. “What a whiner. Who I had romantic feelings for. Sweet lady Medusa, I cannot wait for my epitaph. It will read ‘She Died in a Pit in Paris, Never Got the Bloody Revenge She Deserved, and Was Accused of Having Feelings.’ I expect you sorely regret coming with me.”

  Prudence was braver than Ambrose in the end, because she was the one who admitted what could happen.

  They might die in this maze of bones, far from home. His aunts and Sabrina would never know what had happened to him. Ambrose was suddenly glad he’d sent his silly message to Sabrina. He wanted Sabrina to know.

  Ambrose reached out a hand, feeling blindly among the bones until he found Prudence’s. There was something else he wanted. He didn’t want Prudence to be alone.

  “I’m glad I came. I said ‘with you until the end.’ I know you had no reason to believe me, but I meant it.”

  She sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder. Perhaps it was easier for her to do in the dark.

  Softly, as though it was the most shameful confession she could imagine, Prudence whispered: “I believed you.”

  I watched Dorcas spinning around the kitchen in curtains Theo’d made into clothes. I didn’t think any of the witches had thanked Theo.

  I didn’t know how to thank Theo enough. He’d driven Harvey’s truck off the road to avoid demons. He or Roz could’ve been killed.

  Theo and Roz had left together, Roz conferring with Theo in a low voice I wasn’t meant to hear.

  They were safe now, I told myself.

  “Now it’s Harvey’s turn,” whispered the silver bird with the blue eyes.

  Harvey had stayed with me to go through the books on hell I’d collected from the library at the Academy of Unseen Arts. I wondered if he was scared.

  “’Brina.” Harvey’s voice was low as he leaned across the table. “Are you all right?”

  I was scared.

  I remembered the day the mines collapsed, when I felt helpless as any mortal, terrified Harvey had been killed. I’d hurled myself at him, my whole soul a prayer in his arms. Thank you, thank you, thank you. In that moment, his life was all I wanted.

  “But you’re greedy,” chirped another of my silver birds, perched on a chair.

  “I’m all right!” I told Harvey.

  I glared at the bird, then realized Dorcas thought I was glaring at her. She sniffed and stalked off.

  “Should I eat these birds?” Salem proposed, sitting on a book with his tail curled around his paws. He saw everything I saw.

  “No, Salem, they’re for our quest! Aren’t you worried about Nick?”

&nb
sp; “When I’m worried, I eat,” Salem claimed.

  I shook my head. Salem turned his back on me and nudged Harvey’s hand with a meow.

  “Pick me up and walk around the house, mortal. I will sit upon your shoulder and survey the lesser beings like a king!”

  Harvey stroked Salem absently, worried eyes on me. “You sure you’re all right? ’Brina, you look—”

  I laughed. “Terrible?”

  “Like you hardly ever sleep.”

  I had to work out configurations to open the gates of hell. I had to accomplish this quest. I couldn’t rest while Nick was suffering. I couldn’t stand to lie down and listen to my thoughts.

  “You’re guilty,” chorused the birds. “Greedy. Guilty.”

  I pitched my voice low. “Worry about yourself, Harvey. You’re next.”

  I thought of Roz shaking against me, of Theo fleeing from demons. The worst shadow of danger was on Harvey now. I wanted to call off the whole quest.

  That would be abandoning Nick. How could I, when I’d let Roz and Theo suffer? What would Harvey think if I said: I can’t bear it, if it’s you?

  “That you’re still in love with him,” said the bird. “Your best friend’s boyfriend.”

  I wasn’t. I was in love with Nick, and I needed to get him back.

  “I’m happy,” said Harvey, “to help. That was the worst thing for me, Sabrina, when you seemed so far away. You never told me what was going on. I know you thought I was useless, compared to—”

  “Harvey, no!” I exclaimed.

  “Harvey, yes. Like the time you and Nick shoved me out of your witch school—”

  “We wanted to protect you! We couldn’t let the other witches see you.”

  Harvey rolled his eyes. “No more garbage about protecting me. I’m a witch-hunter who broke into their desecrated church, right in front of the coven. Pretty sure the witches already noticed me.”

  “We did.” Elspeth whisked in to fetch herself a snack. “Everybody in the Academy was talking about it.”

  “You and Nick could’ve just said you wanted to be alone,” said Harvey.

  It never occurred to me he’d see it that way. I truly had wanted Harvey out of danger. I hadn’t wanted him to go at all. When I kissed his cheek and thanked Harvey for always being there to catch me, I wished I could cling to him.

  But I couldn’t. Not then, and not now. I’d made out on my bed with Nick that night, Nick whispering that he wanted to be the one to catch me. It would feel disloyal to correct Harvey.

  He was shaking his head. “All I meant was, it’s great to have the Fright Club. I want to be useful.” He sighed. “Even if it means reading books about hell. They’re messed up. Mind you, so’s the Bible.”

  I pursed my lips. “Since when have you read the Bible?”

  “Since last month when Nick sneered at me for not having read the Bible. It’s got some nice stuff, but ’Brina, I have several issues—”

  “When Nick did what?”

  Harvey sighed. “Sorry, when Nick tried, in his friendly and sympathetic way, to protect me … from being ill-read—”

  I seized a book titled The Next Person You Meet in Hell. “You don’t understand Nick.”

  “He can’t,” sang out a silver bird. “Harvey’s honest. Nick’s a liar.”

  I murmured an excuse and ran upstairs. I looked in my chest of drawers at the jewel and the cloak my friends had brought me. Then I drew the sketch of Nick from under my pillow and smiled.

  I’d been so miserable about Harvey and the heartbreaking mess with his brother. I believed being in love meant doing anything for each other, but Harvey couldn’t forgive me. Then Nick rushed to make me laugh. Nick understood about being a witch. It was such a relief to be happy, to dance away from my problems on the Path of Night with the ideal partner.

  Nick did everything I asked. I thought, this must be love.

  Once, kissing on this bed, I’d whispered to him: “I wish our first kiss hadn’t been during a school play. I wish it’d been real.”

  Nick’s eyes were hooded as he whispered back: “I’m just glad we kissed, Spellman.”

  “He was acting on your father’s orders,” said the bird perched on my wrought-iron bedstead. “None of his kisses were real.”

  I stopped smiling. Nick had disobeyed Father Blackwood for me, been an ally before he was anything else. I’d trusted him, but the whole time Nick was serving a higher authority than Father Blackwood. My father, the Father of Lies.

  Some ally.

  “No,” I whispered. “It doesn’t matter. Enough was real.”

  Theo said the birds helped him when he told the truth. But the birds seemed like my enemies.

  “Because your father is the Prince of Lies,” said the bird. “And you are the Princess of Lies. You and your boyfriend have a lot in common.”

  My gaze dropped to the drawing of Nick on my pillow. We’d lain twined together on this bed, his kisses long and deep and hot, and I’d thought, maybe—

  I’d almost slept with Nick. I could’ve trusted him that way, when he was a spy for Satan.

  “Oh, but it doesn’t matter,” sang the bird mockingly.

  Then a demon loomed from behind my chest of drawers, where the quest objects were hidden. The demon was a shadow, as Roz had described, but with ridged wings like Theo’d said.

  “Attack is vain, be cleaved in twain!” I shouted, and watched the demon slice slowly in half, as though I’d ripped a piece of paper apart.

  I stood breathing hard, then watched as both halves of the winged shadow twitched horribly, rose, and lunged.

  I picked up my lamp and threw it. One half of the demon hurdled my bed, and I heaved the bed up as I ran behind it, knocking over my nightstand. The other half of the demon circled around the bed, giving a low, torn moan.

  Footsteps thundered up the stairs. My door rattled and stuck. My nightstand was jammed against it.

  “’Brina!” Harvey shouted.

  “No!” I yelled. “You can’t help me!”

  I seized the star-patterned bedspread and caught one lurching demon in a net, then leaped on the blanket-clad demon.

  “Nihil,” I hissed. The blanket collapsed in on itself just as the other demon half pounced on my back, claws shredding the black satin of my blouse.

  The door burst open. Salem bounded in, his leaping shadow on the wall far bigger than a cat’s. He seized the demon and shook it in his jaws like a rat. Harvey ran to me, even as I searched frantically through the chest of drawers to be sure the quest objects were still there.

  “Salem,” I said after a moment. “Are you eating the demon?”

  “When I’m angry, I eat,” said Salem, slightly muffled.

  “What are you two doing?” demanded Aunt Zelda.

  Harvey and I spun around. I had the magic jewel in my hands. Harvey had his gun.

  “I can explain, Aunt Z!”

  “Seems obvious,” commented Elspeth, peeping over Zelda’s shoulder. “Clearly, they’re playing valiant home defender and sexy jewel thief.”

  Harvey and I exchanged a glance. I surveyed the wreckage of my room, including the overturned bed and shredded tangle of blankets.

  Aunt Zelda, already wearing a black-and-gold negligee, raised a single shoulder in a shrug. “If that’s all. Do whatever cheers you, Sabrina! Keep it down, though. I need rest to run the coven with maximum terrifying efficiency.”

  She began to close the door, then paused. My blood ran cold.

  “You enjoy the sexy jewel thief game?” Aunt Zelda asked. “You, Harvey? Seems advanced.”

  “It’s super fun so far,” said Harvey in a strangled voice.

  “Probably Nick taught Sabrina and now Sabrina can guide the mortal through it,” Elspeth remarked. “Sweet Satan, Nick was a great sexy jewel thief.”

  “Jewel thieves need privacy!” I yelped.

  Aunt Zelda snorted and closed the door. Harvey and I leaped apart.

  My hands flew to my mouth. “I�
��m so sorry!”

  “It’s … fine,” Harvey muttered. “Are you … okay …”

  His voice trailed off. My eyes followed his gaze, and I hastily pulled the shredded remnants of my blouse up over my shoulder. It wasn’t anything Harvey hadn’t seen before, but I’d bought more black lace since I started dating Nick.

  “I’m gonna go back to researching hell while you get cleaned up!” Harvey announced, negotiating his way around the debris of my possessions.

  Then he stopped. There was an open jewelry box at his feet. Inside shone the gold of the necklace he’d given me the first time he told me that he loved me.

  “Oh,” Harvey said, sounding lost. “I—thought you’d thrown that away.”

  I dived for the box, desperate to shut it up.

  “No,” I whispered. “Why would I?”

  With a visible effort, he smiled. “You’re right. Doesn’t matter.”

  He shut the door. I threw the box into a drawer. I set my room to rights with my own hands, not spells, then spun around so I was wearing pants and a black cowl-necked sweater. I restored Nick’s picture to pride of place on my pillow.

  “Sorry about the commotion, sweetheart,” I whispered, then grinned. “Kind of funny, right?”

  It was always fun to get up to mischief with Nick, tricking Father Blackwood or Dorcas. I never thought he’d trick me.

  “Why not you, like everyone else?”

  “Because Nick would never hurt me!” I snapped. “He told me—”

  “He lied,” piped all the birds in chorus.

  I ran out of my room. As I descended the stairs, I heard a different song. I crept slowly toward the kitchen, pushing the door open. The lights were low, making our turquoise cabinets gleam. Aunt Hilda’s cooking was simmering on the stove. Elspeth was sleeping at the kitchen table with her head in her arms, and Lavinia was peering at what Harvey was reading. Harvey sang a soft song to the ghost child, giving her a butterfly kiss as he turned a page. I leaned against the doorway, the choked feeling in my throat easing.