Path of Night Read online

  Nick nodded, too tired to speak.

  Prudence lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Took you long enough to catch on.”

  Even though she wasn’t real, it was a comfort to have her near. Her façade had always been that crucial bit better than his. Nick trailed behind Prudence as they entered another cavern, this one smaller and darker. There was faint luminosity on one wall, by turns sharp rippling silver and murky green. Nick couldn’t tell where the light came from.

  Prudence sat with her back to the uneven curve of the stone wall, facing the strange light. Nick slid to the floor beside her.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Darling Nicky, I’m the messenger.”

  Nick scoffed. “You know they shoot those, right?”

  Prudence’s black-cherry mouth curved. “Not before they get the message.”

  The light projected against the cave wall shuddered. Nick had seen movies in mortal movie theaters several times, so he was basically an expert. Movies amused Sabrina, and she had insightful thoughts about symbolism in horror and the feminine grotesque. The mortal tried to hide behind shoulders during violent bits, which made Nick worry the mortal was too stupid to know movies weren’t real. Nick had tried superhero movies and felt the magic didn’t bear logical examination. In Nick’s opinion, movies weren’t as good as books, but everyone else seemed enthusiastic.

  This was similar to mortal movies, but not entirely the same. The image against the irregular rock face of the cavern flickered and wavered, resolving into clarity. There was a depth to the sight, a pitch to the sound, more vivid and real than hell. Nick blinked to make sure he was seeing right.

  It was the mortal. And it was him, not a hallucination made up of the bits and pieces of Nick’s memories.

  “You’re going to show me that idiot mortal until I give in? They truly do torture you in hell. Is there a hot poker shortage?”

  “Watch,” said Prudence.

  “I demand hot pokers! I know my rights,” muttered Nick.

  There were new leaves on the trees in Greendale. A ghost stood at the curve of the road, her leer pitiless as a shark’s in a china doll face. The mortal—oh no—lifted her up in his arms. A sinister revenant, and because it was small, this fool thought it was a baby.

  “Idiot-plated idiot!” said Nick. “That moron would try to carry Satan around.”

  “I already know you think he’s stupid, Nick,” drawled Prudence. “You’ve told me before.”

  “Of course I have. I tell everyone.”

  “Are you sure it’s true?” asked Prudence.

  “Yes,” snarled Nick. “He broke up with Sabrina!”

  “You can’t imagine being so wounded you might do that?” murmured Prudence. “Even now?”

  “No,” Nick lied.

  He’d spent months, in hell and Greendale, wanting nothing more than to be with her. But with Lucifer’s whispers echoing in his mind, with every drop of blood in his veins burning like the fires of hell … perhaps Nick understood better how it might be, to crave a space where you could be alone and heal.

  The mortal was still stupid.

  The mortal called the ghost sweetheart, the worst pet name Nick had ever heard. Was he trying to remind the ghost that hearts were delicious? Over the mortal’s shoulder, the ghost unlatched its jaw, exposing rows of glittering teeth. Demons moved in the trees. Every shadow circling him was a threat.

  The ghost hissed and the demons fell back. Nick blinked. The ghost was guarding the mortal.

  “You cannot keep escaping danger because dark supernatural forces fall in love with you,” Nick told the mortal. “I’m astonished by your current success rate!”

  “You made yourself into a hamster ball for the Dark Lord,” Prudence reminded Nick. “You’re a fool now too.”

  “That was an emergency!” snapped Nick.

  “With Satan’s spawn, there will always be another emergency.”

  Prudence’s voice was amused. The image on the wall flickered and became Sabrina’s best friend Roz, running down a long hall as a shadow demon chased her. As Roz stumbled and fell, the image dissolved away.

  “Wait,” said Nick. “Is she—”

  Theo was in the mortal’s death trap of a truck, blanketed by winged demons. The truck swerved off the road, and the cave wall went dark as the windshield.

  “Are they …” Nick whispered.

  There was the mortal again, walking too near the woods with blood on his face.

  “An evil supernatural creature is going to kill you,” Nick snapped at the mortal. “I hope it’s me.”

  “It’s not going to be you,” said Prudence. “You’re going to die down here. And he’s going to die up there.”

  There were demons covered in staring eyes—oh, the mortal would hate that—on every branch in the nearby trees. The moon was blotted out by a shadow. The mortal’s eyes narrowed as he took aim and fired, again and again.

  “What’s going on?” Nick demanded. “He doesn’t fight like this for himself. Is Sabrina in trouble?”

  “Considering who we’re talking about … what do you think?”

  “Have you noticed those panic attacks have stopped, now he’s hunting?” Nick asked.

  Nick had worked it out. The heaven-sent one, who grew up with the devil’s daughter. Every instinct must have told the mortal there was something wrong. He’d turned that inward, hurting himself, which was just like him.

  Those instincts were meant for witch-burning.

  “I don’t notice mortals,” said Prudence. “But I know witch-hunters are dangerous. He’ll die, but perhaps he’ll kill her first.”

  Nick shook his head.

  Prudence laughed. “With witch-hunters, you can’t ever be sure.”

  Nick decided to ignore her. “Harry, don’t go into the woods.”

  The mortal headed into the woods.

  “I can’t watch this,” Nick said, watching it. “He should be put in a box.”

  Prudence smirked. “Like a coffin? He will be.”

  “A box in which he’s alive!”

  “A cage,” said Prudence.

  “No!” said Nick.

  “It’s allowed if it’s a mortal, right?” Prudence asked. “They don’t matter.”

  Nick was silent.

  The image of the mortal alone in the dark woods faded away. Instead, there was light. The mortal was somewhere safe.

  The image expanded, to show a table littered with books and a witch sleeping at the table. Nick squinted at her. It was Elspeth, from the class below his. As Nick watched, the mortal took off his flannel shirt and covered Elspeth with it. So she’d be warm.

  Why was the mortal doing that? Nick had never found Elspeth particularly appealing. Did the mortal love her now? He was exhausting. And he was touching books that belonged to Nick.

  The ghost child appeared at the mortal’s elbow, and the mortal gave her a hug. The ghost child poofed away, then reappeared at his elbow so the mortal would hug her again. The ghost child was looking up at the mortal as though she’d never seen anything like him before.

  Naturally, she hadn’t. The ghost child was used to the Academy, where they educated people properly.

  Nick made an irritable gesture. “Fine, I surrender to the whims of hell. Make this go away.”

  Prudence shrugged. “This is hell, not a restaurant. You don’t get to order your torments off a menu.”

  “If I’m being shown the world, why can’t I see the best part?” Nick demanded. “Bring me Sabrina.”

  He had reason to believe this demand might be fulfilled.

  He knew the hellebore-patterned wallpaper. He knew the turquoise cabinets. And he knew the books spread out on the table. They were from the Academy library, and Nick thought of every book in that library as his. There was a witch student sleeping at the table and a ghost child drifting over the floor. There was Hilda Spellman, eyes not crystal-hard with judgment but soft blue like summer skies over the mountain. He was loo
king at Sabrina’s house and their school, both at once.

  The mortal dipped his head and rubbed his nose against the ghost child’s—was this an attempt to get his face eaten?—then began to sing a song. Nick gave it two minutes before he realized Hilda was watching. Right on cue, the mortal faltered.

  Except then came a voice that gleamed true gold even in the darkest places. The voice Nick had fallen in love with.

  Sabrina stood in the doorway of her kitchen, her face shining with love. The mortal caught the thread of her song as his eyes caught the light of her face, and they moved toward each other.

  Nick couldn’t watch any more. His throat was closing up. He was speechless with longing. He wanted to go home, please, please.

  But there was no mercy in hell.

  She was there, and he wanted to be there too. But he wasn’t. The mortal was there instead.

  Nick knew what the moment before a kiss looked like.

  When Nick raised his head, the mortal was walking away from the Spellman house, his face uplifted to the sun.

  The mortal said, so happy: “She loves me.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” Nick snarled, wretched.

  The images on the wall flickered again. Nick saw Sabrina in her room, furniture flying, demons attacking. He should be there to protect her, and he wasn’t.

  The next instant, Sabrina was sitting on her bed surrounded by torn fragments of paper, crying her fierce heart out. She only cried like that for one person, and there he was, walking through Sabrina’s bedroom toward her.

  “What did you do?” Nick snapped, but the mortal couldn’t hear. He was looking at Sabrina.

  “I adore you,” Sabrina told the mortal, in her clear voice.

  “I adore you,” the mortal assured her, so gentle.

  Sabrina’s drying tears caught the lamplight in her room, diamond bright, as she smiled.

  The mortal murmured: “If we love each other as much as we can, if we try as hard as we can … surely there’s a chance everything will work out. Don’t you think?”

  “Can you think?” Nick demanded, in a subdued voice.

  Perhaps this was all right. What had Nick thought would happen, in the end? It hurt to watch, but he didn’t wish Sabrina unhappy forever. He wanted her surrounded by love and warmth, light and tenderness, and all good things.

  He’d chosen to sacrifice himself for her. He wanted to make the sacrifice with a little grace.

  “Who’s Nick?” Sabrina asked the mortal, laughing.

  Prudence threw back her head and howled. “That’s rich. She forgot you in a hurry, didn’t she? You never were particularly memorable.”

  Nick sat shocked and still. The images on the wall shifted. Sabrina was standing on a cliff side, the wind in her white hair and a frightening air of determination about her.

  “Babe, you look great and I support you,” said Nick hastily. “But maybe don’t—oh, there she goes.”

  Sabrina took a swan dive off a cliff, with no broom. Sabrina’s mortals were on the cliff’s edge, watching her fall.

  “That was a really good idea you had, sacrificing yourself for the witch equivalent of a lemming,” murmured Prudence.

  “Shut up!”

  “You made me up inside your head,” the hallucination of Prudence pointed out. “I’m not saying anything you don’t know. Sabrina’s always going to throw herself into horror. Rebellion and the fall are in her blood. This will only end when her blood is spilled. You sacrificed yourself for nothing.”

  Lovely Roz was peering over the edge of the cliff, her face concerned. Theo was watching the mortal with a resigned attitude.

  The mortal was peeling off his jacket.

  “I’m not surprised,” Nick said. “I’m no longer even angry. Roz? Eyes on the mortal—”

  Roz’s expression was shocked and horrified when the mortal plunged off the cliff after Sabrina.

  “That was gonna happen,” said Theo. “Okay, birds, I have an idea …”

  At the foot of the white cliffs was a black lake. The mortal and Sabrina had disappeared into it without a trace.

  The picture rippled. Nick understood now that the glow suffusing this cave was underwater light. The light of Sabrina, wrapped in bright feathers, swimming with a scepter grasped in her fist. Cloaked and jeweled, a queen already.

  She aimed her scepter directly at the cave wall. When she wielded her scepter and struck, a dark line appeared, like a crack across the surface of the moon.

  The world might be glimpsed from hell, but nobody could break their way through.

  Her arms were pearl in the murky light, and it felt like she was reaching for him. Nick leaned forward, against his chains.

  Wait. How long had he been wearing chains? They were a heavy weight on his back, with shackles on his wrists, as cold as death. He heard Prudence snarl a laugh in his ear.

  He didn’t take his eyes off Sabrina. She hadn’t been reaching for him. Now there was a golden cup in her hand, matching the scepter. Yet she was still looking in his direction. She couldn’t see him, not with worlds and hell’s gates between them. Except there was something about her eyes. It was the way she looked at him when she touched his face, before they kissed. As though he was really there.

  Nick fought the chains.

  “Sabrina.” His voice was hoarse, as though he’d been screaming. “I’m so sorry. I was never good at being real. But I did really try.”

  The waters roiled around her, moon-white foam and blood. Her mouth was open, bubbles floating from her lips in green and gold. She raised her scepter again.

  The mortal caught her wrist. He was flailing underwater, flannel shirt billowing, but he held on to Sabrina fast.

  “I’ve had it with you,” Nick snapped.

  The mortal’s eyes went to him, widened slightly, then returned to Sabrina. The mortal was pulling her away, and Nick didn’t want her to go.

  Sabrina’s gaze went to the mortal and stayed there. She took him in her arms. They clung together, in the hazy green light, in the shifting shadows. Sabrina’s white hair flared like a halo around them. She was buoyant in the water, the mortal sinking lower, but she bent her face down until her lips found his. Nick saw the mortal’s eyelashes fall dark against his cheeks as his eyes shut, and his hands clasped at the small of Sabrina’s back.

  Sabrina and the mortal were kissing. Caught in the swaying current, with no space between them for either dark or light. Then they began to swim away. Sabrina looked over her shoulder once, her lips moving. Nick couldn’t make out the word she was saying.

  That was the last Nick saw of them. The water receded. He was left alone listening to the fires of hell.

  “She doesn’t love you,” Prudence murmured. “You think you can buy love through sacrifice? Nicky, you always prided yourself on your ability to learn. You know better. Being loved isn’t about what you do. It’s about who you are. You have to be someone else. And you know who.”

  Nick leaned his head back against the stone. “I have no idea who you’re talking about.”

  “Always lying, Nick. Isn’t it time to stop? Aren’t you tired?”

  Nick was so tired, he felt he was burning slowly to cinders. To nothing at all. Prudence’s face was very close to his. Red flames danced in her dark eyes.

  “You wanted love. But there’s no way for love to exist without cages,” said Prudence. “You know that.”

  Nick cleared his throat. “I’ve always known.”

  “So you chose to be caged, instead of her?”

  “Yes,” Nick answered.

  Prudence’s smile was stunningly cruel. “How do you like it in the cage, Nick? Was love worth it?”

  Was anything worth this? And yet, Sabrina’s hands touching his face, her eyes on his. That had been something. More than he’d ever had before. Slowly, Nick nodded.

  “A liar to the end,” said Prudence. “Are you sure you even love her? Or is it that Lucifer directed you toward her, and you were des
perate? Desperately guilty. Desperate for a touch of light from the mortal world. Don’t forget, I’m inside your head. She had a home, not you. She had a family, not you. She had mortal friends, not you. Is that what you loved? Is that why?”

  Home. Family. Friends. Nothing a witch should want. Even though Prudence was a hallucination, Nick was so embarrassed.

  Sabrina’s love for her home, and her family, and her friends was part of what drew him to her, like a moth to a flame. Now he was burning.

  “Why does anyone love a girl?” Nick grated. “I can love her if I want. You don’t get to say how I feel.”

  “It doesn’t matter how you feel, Nick,” Prudence whispered. “That’s the message. You thought you were winning, because you can tell we weren’t real. You missed the crucial part. Nick, you’re not real. Have you ever truly believed in yourself? When have you ever been enough?”

  Nick swallowed.

  “You can’t remember your mother’s face. She was always turning away from you. She never loved you.”

  “I know,” said Nick.

  Prudence trapped his face between her fingers. Her nails cut like claws.

  “And the real me. Nothing you did was good enough, and then Ambrose Spellman won me with a smile. You thought witches can’t feel, but we can. It was never me. It was you. There’s something badly wrong with you.”

  “I know,” said Nick.

  “Sabrina’s aunt recognized you were poison.”

  “I know,” said Nick.

  “None of those mortals will ever be your friends.”

  “I know,” said Nick.

  “And your darling Sabrina.” Her voice curled in a growl around the name. “She’s a sheltered child, so you managed to trick her. She wanted you, that was all. It wasn’t enough. She’s already forgotten you. Nobody loves you. Nobody ever will.”

  “I know,” said Nick.

  Prudence smiled by the red light of hell, and she wasn’t Prudence. She was Lilith, crowned with flames.

  Then her pitiless face changed, snout lengthening and fur crawling from her pores, teeth growing huge.

  “Only I could love you,” said Amalia. “And I died, because you had to chase after a girl.”