Path of Night Page 4

  “Hey there, you,” I whispered to the drawing, touching his face with a fingertip.

  I ran down into my bedroom, carrying the picture of Nick pressed over my heart. I spun as though we were dancing together, then threw myself backward onto my bed and held the drawing to the light. In the drawing Nick wore the tuxedo he’d worn to take me to the sweethearts’ dance. His almost-black, curling hair was swept back and he was smiling, the way he did when he looked at me. His smile always made me smile too. He was so handsome.

  Witch prom king, Harvey’s voice said in my mind. Nick kind of was.

  Every girl has that fantasy about starting a new school, don’t they? That they’ll go in their first day and a guy will notice them. Not just any guy. The guy, the best-looking and most talented, the star of the school. The guy who could have any girl—or in Nick’s case, potentially all the girls at once—and who picks you. Instant sparks. Fireworks. I’d told Nick I was dating Harvey, but I was so flattered. I thought Nick saw something special in me.

  Actually, Lucifer had commanded Nick to date me. But that didn’t matter. It didn’t bother me at all. Nick loved me now.

  Harvey said Nick was my favorite person in the world. I didn’t know about that—was I going to pick a favorite aunt?—but Nick was up there.

  Except Nick wasn’t in this world. Not anymore.

  He was utterly out of reach.

  As long as I can hold your hand, he’d said when he asked me out, willing to do anything I wanted.

  I hadn’t held Nick’s hand often. Occasionally, when he was being particularly cute. Usually we just walked together. I’d thought maybe a cool, powerful witch couple should be like that, independent but side by side. I wished now I’d done it more.

  Harvey and I used to hold hands every day, when he walked me home through the woods. Hands clasped, sure of each other, since we were little kids. Nick and I hadn’t had that kind of time. But we would.

  Now I searched my mind for an endearment. I’d never called Nick by any, but Nick called me babe and Spellman. Maybe Nick would’ve liked if I had. I remembered Harvey’s voice, tender and steady, telling a child a story.

  “We’re coming to get you, sweetheart,” I told Nick. “Don’t worry about a thing.”

  Hell was full of books Nick had already read and hadn’t enjoyed. Even the ones Nick remembered liking at the time were different in hell, clever phrases turned clumsy, the gloss on the prose dulled, and the depth of meaning lost. He’d been puzzled before he worked out what was going on. He wasn’t actually reading the books. He was only remembering how it was to read them, his mind filling in the blanks with pieces that weren’t entirely right.

  Nick sighed, pulled a hand through his hair, and tossed another book. It was fine to treat the books with disrespect, since they were an infernal illusion. This cavern wore the mocking appearance of the library in the Academy of Unseen Arts, where books had taught him how to live but shadows leered in every stack. From the corner of his eye, he saw black text across white pages turning gray and bitter as ash.

  If he could have one book that was real. If he could have one.

  If he could choose, he’d want Shakespeare. It seemed Shakespeare had written many important things. The mortal had mentioned Shakespeare as though everybody knew who that was. Nick went to some trouble to acquire the book, but Father Blackwood destroyed it, so Nick couldn’t read much. Then Sabrina referenced Hamlet—not a common mortal name, apparently—in a way that made Nick worry Hamlet might come to a bad end. Nick had been rooting for Hamlet.

  Surely Romeo and Juliet would be happy.

  Nick would pick Shakespeare, but he would’ve taken any book at all.

  A piece of hell, for Nick, was a library in which no comfort could be found. He kept searching, though he knew it was hopeless, but now his gaze fell on a door rather than another book. There were doors everywhere in hell.

  Certain doors, Nick avoided. When he was sick with exhaustion, those doors hung in front of him, promising release. Those doors were steel bars and beckoning shadows. They were the doors on a cage. Nick badly wanted to open the cage doors, but he didn’t trust his own impulse. He wanted it too much.

  This door was carved wood, an ordinary library door. Nick tried the handle.

  A blast of wintry wind blew the door open and hurled Nick through. He staggered into the snow.

  Oh no, Nick thought. Not again.

  Wind howled in his ears like wolves.

  Black night was pierced by the sharp points of falling snow. He felt he was staring through the rips in darkness to a cold, white void.

  Behind him was the cabin with his parents inside.

  His parents had been dead a long time. Even to his fevered eyes, their faces were starting to look all wrong. He’d managed to deceive himself when they were only cold, but the slow bloat was harder to deny.

  He felt small on the mountain, small as a child, crouched shaking on the stone and the snow. He knew what was coming.

  She was coming. His familiar, the only one Nick would ever have.

  He was the last in an ancient and powerful line of witches. Heir to the magic of the Scratch family, born beneath a blood moon in a forest grove and taken home to a long-desecrated church. She’d come that very night. In the morning his parents found a wolf sleeping with their baby, curled together in a cradle made from a hollow tree.

  His parents often told Nick the story of Amalia’s coming. They were proud people, and proud of Nick, born with magic so strong it called a familiar to him as soon as he drew breath. Other witches warned a werewolf wasn’t a safe familiar. The goblins who became familiars usually took a shape that suited their witch companions, but a werewolf was at once too human and not human enough. Their changing shapes came with divided hearts. A divided heart could turn savage.

  But his parents, arrogant then as Nick was now, laughed at the idea of danger. If Amalia was a monster, it reflected more glory on their son for taming her. They scorned the warnings of lesser witches.

  Nick never knew anything else. She was well-known and dear as the light of the moon to him. He took his first steps clutching on to her dark, rough fur. His parents were always busy, distant and important figures. His tales at bedtime were her hunting stories, relayed in whispers only he could understand. She was huge and terrifying to any other kid’s eyes, but she didn’t scare Nick. “Oh, my Amalia, what big teeth you have,” he used to say. She’d snap at him lovingly, strong jaws inches from his skin, and he’d laugh.

  They were each other’s world, until Nick started wanting a wider world. Nick learned to be charming, to draw people to him despite their fear of her.

  Perhaps it was Nick’s fault from the beginning. Amalia got angry and rough with his playmates. Even Nick’s parents grew concerned about what they’d done, letting the big bad wolf into their child’s cradle.

  His parents talked about caging her. Amalia showed him pictures in his mind of how it would be. No more races through the woods, silver light in her fur. No more living wild and free, but only snarling, trapped, hopeless in the dark. Being separated by steel and shadows, forever.

  Nick chose her side. He did what she asked. He begged his parents to take them to the mountains, where Amalia could run with a wolf pack, work out some of her aggression. He promised he’d let her be caged when they went home. Nick lied, and in that lonely cabin far from help, his parents got sick. He did too, but he recovered, and his parents didn’t.

  It was bad luck they fell ill in the mountains, he told himself, then and after. Amalia didn’t do anything. If Amalia did it, Nick killed them too.

  His parents died. Nick lay in the cabin with their corpses for days, sweating out the fever, whining pitifully for help. Until he became desperate for coolness. He staggered out into the snow, falling to his knees. He almost lay down on that endless cold blanket, let himself be covered up by the hand of the night so he would sleep forever.

  Only he heard the howl, more chilling than th
e howl of the wind. He saw the pack racing across the snow, arrowing toward him with Amalia at their head. He believed for a moment she was rescuing him, that she would take him home.

  Then Nick saw her eyes and understood. There would be no going home. She had him right where she wanted him.

  “Nobody’s coming for you,” Amalia said. “Nobody cares that you’re here. You will die alone. There will be nothing left, no sign in any world that you existed. Not a drop of scarlet blood seen on the snow, not a child’s cry heard on the wind, not a whisper, not a tear. You’ll be nothing.”

  Amalia bared her teeth. Smile or snarl, what big teeth she had.

  “Or you can come with me.”

  He felt too sick to stand, but a Scratch should be able to accomplish this much. Get up, he ordered himself. It’s no good if you don’t get up. Nick fought to his feet and went with the wolves.

  It was pure selfishness. He didn’t want to disappear. He should have been stronger, been loyal to his parents. He shouldn’t have gone with her. But he did.

  Now Nick stood again in the place of his surrender, in the falling snow colder than any other snow. He braced himself, waiting for Amalia.

  Another voice came to him instead.

  “Nick, darling,” called his mother from the cabin. She’d taught him to read, taught him his first spells. He couldn’t remember his father’s voice, but he remembered hers. “My poor boy. You must be so cold. Come back to me.”

  “Aren’t you …” The words cracked and broke between Nick’s fever-dry lips. “Aren’t you dead?”

  His mother used to sit in their library at home, reading books of enchantment. He remembered the sight of her beautiful long hair falling onto the pages, her face always turned away from him. She had a sleek midnight waterfall of hair, not like Nick’s, which was always wildly curling and trying to escape control. Nick craved her attention, so he’d climb onto the seat with her and look at books too. When they heard he could read so young, her friends said he was gifted. His mother laughed and said: Naturally.

  He wanted to read books with her again.

  “I’m not dead, silly,” his mother assured him. “That was a fever dream. You’re sick and imagining terrible things that never happened, but I’m alive and well. I’ll take you home. None of it was real, my love, I promise. Open the door. Come inside where it’s warm.”

  Nick turned and looked at his mother through the bars of a cage door. Her face was striped by shadows, but he could see enough. Her eyes were sunk far down into their sockets, her skin a yellow darker than parchment. Teeth grinned through her slack mouth like the skull her face would soon be.

  Older witches who’d known her said Nick was as beautiful as his mother. Nick always smiled. The way he looked was useful. Most important, Sabrina liked it. But Nick didn’t enjoy the moments when he caught unexpected glimpses in darkened mirrors and traced the resemblance.

  “You’re dead,” Nick told his mother. “I don’t remember what you looked like. I can’t even give you a living face in my memory.”

  He turned away from the cage door and his mother. He hadn’t looked back the first time he abandoned his parents, and he didn’t now.

  “You’ll have to do considerably better than that,” Nick drawled to Satan and the winter wind.

  Putting endearments and soft words in his mother’s mouth was an insult to her memory. He didn’t remember much, but Nick knew he’d been proud of her. His mother was a real witch, her heart devoted to the Dark Lord. His parents never spoke of love to him. Amalia was the only one who did. “I love you,” she’d tell him, from the cradle to the mountains. “I’m the only one who loves you, and you belong to me.”

  Amalia was patient whenever he was sick or irritable, giving him the attention he desired. He hadn’t wanted to lose her. Perhaps that was what drew Amalia to him in the first place, that secret unspeakable weakness, the hideous flaw at the very heart of him. How Nick wanted the one thing a witch shouldn’t want: to be loved.

  Perhaps that sick craving was what pulled Nick back here, time after time.

  No matter what else happened to him in hell, Nick always seemed to end up on the cold mountain. Waiting for Amalia, for the moment Nick surrendered.

  He was on his knees again. He didn’t remember falling.

  Get up, Nick told himself wearily. It’s no good unless you get up.

  He would get up. In a minute. He was so tired.

  A witch should not weep, and it was no use crying on the mountain. Tears turned to ice on your face. Wolves had no pity. He couldn’t cry.

  He used to pray to Satan, as any infernal choirboy might. Now that he’d rebelled against the Great Rebel and was holding him prisoner, praying seemed inappropriate. Nick still had the impulse to pray, clasp his hands tight and implore some force greater than he was. Not for himself, but for that which was dearer than himself.

  Let her be happy and free. Let her not do anything too dangerous without me there to shield her. Let that idiot mortal not encourage her in any wild plans.

  All relationships had high and low points, Nick had read. He found that to be true. In Nick’s relationship, he got to be with Sabrina, the world’s most amazing woman, and was forced to deal with the mortal, the world’s most annoying man. No doubt that utter moron was helping Sabrina get into trouble right now, but perhaps what had happened to Nick might teach them caution. Just enough to keep them in their homes and stop them hatching bizarre plots involving evil doubles or dynamite.

  He liked to think of Sabrina at home, with her family.

  Nick bowed his head against the driving wind and bitter cold, waiting for the wolves.

  Let Sabrina be safe. If she is well, this is worth it.

  It was dark in the woods when my friends and I went to summon the goddess. The dome of the sky was black, descending into slate gray, stars growing faint through unfurling leaves. Even the trees, which wore fresh new green under the sun, seemed gray in this absence of light.

  Dawn, the liminal time between night and day, was a good time to summon or banish the spirits.

  “This is like old times,” said Theo. “Sabrina luring us into the depths of the woods, where we aren’t supposed to be. My dad always said one of us would stumble into a bear trap.”

  Roz dimpled. “My dad always said I should stop hanging around with kids who might stray from the path.”

  She and Harvey were walking hand in hand over the uneven earth. He’d often stop to help her over tree roots.

  “My aunt Zelda always said I should stop hanging around with brief, unworthy mortals.”

  I’d never been able to tell them that before. My friends used to think Aunt Zelda disliked them personally. It must be better to know the truth.

  “Tommy always told me to have fun,” said Harvey.

  A hush followed, broken only by the sighing wind through newborn leaves, as though naming the dead made this space under the trees holy. Harvey didn’t fling his brother’s name at me in accusation any longer. He only said it with love, and pain. That hurt me more.

  We had followed the river through the woods for some time. In the shadows, the river waters looked black. Like a path of night.

  Harvey caught my attention. “Here, do you think?”

  The books said to search for a propitious place. I could see mountains through the trees, high and white as sea cliffs. There was a space between the leaves. Light had seized the opportunity to splash down upon the earth in a radiant lake at our feet. I couldn’t tell whether it was sunlight, moonlight, starlight, or some combination of the three. My gaze had been fixed on the dark river, but Harvey’s artist’s eye had seen something else.

  I nodded. Harvey offered me his free hand, and Roz and I clasped Theo’s hands. We stood in a summoning circle, and I began.

  “Lady, oh Lady, our Lady. Eostre, Freyja, Ishtar. Kaguya, Austra, Lady of a Hundred Eyes, the Shining Princess, Lady Star. I summon you. We beg you for aid.”

  The noise of the sof
t breeze through the leaves changed. There was a quality to the wind, almost like breath. Like a woman’s sigh.

  I swallowed and continued.

  “Where shall she find, in foreign land,

  So lone a lake, so sweet a strand!—

  There is no breeze upon the fern,

  No ripple on the lake,

  Upon her eyry nods the erne,

  The deer has sought the brake;

  The small birds will not sing aloud,

  The springing trout lies still,

  So darkly glooms yon thundercloud,

  That swathes, as with a purple shroud …”

  My words crumbled with the earth, shuddering and falling away beneath our feet. I held Harvey’s and Theo’s hands tight, and they held fast to mine. Though the ground was shifting, we didn’t let go of each other.

  The breeze died. I’d thought the woods were quiet before. Only once the silence rushed in did I realize that as a witch I’d been unconsciously aware of the creatures rushing among the trees and beneath the earth. Now they were gone, frozen or flying in terror from the presence of the goddess. Every bird for miles ceased its song. Every leaf was iced with silver.

  The thundercloud rolled in, seething black and purple.

  Though the sky was dark, the pool of light at our feet remained. Under the shadow of the thundercloud, we saw light spread. Its radiance suffused the earth as the ground broke apart, bright liquid flooding through every crack. Light became water, until we stood by the side of a lake. I’d never seen any lake so bright or so deadly still.

  She rose from the lake like Venus being born from sea-foam, a woman tall and pale as a marble column. Her skin was radiant as the surface of the moon, and her profile disdainful as the marble bust of an empress. Silver water cascaded from her white hair as if she were a living waterfall. She was wrapped in a sparkling silver robe topped by a collar of silver feathers. When the Lady turned toward us, every long feather waving behind her head seemed to open a blue staring eye.