“Who, the little ginger girl? We’ll get to her in a minute. Anyway, do sit down, dear friend. We have so much to catch up on,” she said, patting the seat next to her. I sat opposite from her instead, and she gave me a false pout.
“Aw, I’m offended, Angelique—is it still Angelique? I’m not sure what you go by now, since you keep such interesting company these days.” She gave me a condescending smile. “Reincarnated soul mates? How adorable.” Megan folded her arms and casually rested against the back of her bench. She was sizing me up. I was doing the same. I leaned back on the palms of my hands and stretched out my legs, crossing my ankles and trying my best to look nonchalant.
“I wish I could say the same for you,” I retorted, giving Megan a withering look. “Worshipping Sonneillon? The demon of hate? Really? Scorned by the hot boy, so the good witch goes bad. Come on, Megan. Could you be any more pedestrian?” Laughing, I rolled my eyes at her—and hit my intended target.
“You don’t know anything.” Megan glared at me, narrowing eyes covered in so much makeup, she looked like a Goth panda bear…to cover up the black eye Emma had given her, I realized. Soon Megan would have a matched set, if Emma or I had any say in it.
“Just trying to catch up, dear friend. How’s your eye? Looks sore,” I clucked, feigning concern. I could feel her boil over with fury, which just fed my own.
“Cute.” She smirked, twirling a finger around her once lustrous brown hair, which now hung there limply. Yep, evil was definitely not a good look on her. “By the way, Angelique, where’s the honor in the good little witch? Passing along my Emoveo spell just like that to your little magical protégé, or whatever that Emma is trying to be? That’s straight-up tackiness.”
“She did the spell better than you ever did.”
“You really want to question my abilities? You’re the one with a friend in the hospital,” Megan snapped, but then her self-assured demeanor returned as she smoothed out the front of her chiffon shirt. “But actually, I should thank you. That was all I needed to know you were helping her out. Came in really handy tonight—I did a little cloaking spell so you wouldn’t be able to see my aura. Boo!” she exclaimed, holding her palms up and putting a false expression of surprise on her face.
So that’s where the hole in my empathy was coming from… .
Megan clasped her hands together in delight. “Oh! Tonight worked out so well for me. You couldn’t have given me a better present, really.”
“So Brendan Salinger pulls a pump and dump on you, and you’re still so hard up that you made his girlfriend’s cousin sick? That’s a new level of pathetic, you know.” She flinched when I deliberately used such crass terms to describe her time with Brendan. I never spoke like that—it was boorish—but I did it for effect. And it worked; I could still feel the sting of my comment rolling off her narrow shoulders.
“You’re so myopic, Angelique. Open your eyes. This has nothing to do with Brendan for me and you know it.” Megan shot back. She’s lying. “You mentioned Sonneillon, so I take it you went to the library and did your little good-girl witch investigation? Really, Angelique, you’re so damn precious.” Megan’s voice was heavy with disdain as she clasped her hands together, cooing as she spoke.
“You know what, I’m sick of this conversation.” I leaned forward, glaring at my one-time friend. “Consider the witty banter portion of this evening over. What the hell is it going to take for you to remove whatever hex it is that you put on Ashley?”
“You know what I want,” Megan replied plainly, holding her thin wrist up and dragging her index finger across the blue veins. “I want blood. Specifically, I want her blood. Originally I was just going to make Emma collapse tonight, get what I needed and leave. Maybe if I was feeling charitable, I would break the hex. But now that I know it’s her cousin’s hair clip I have, not Emma’s, this is way better.” Megan gloated, a sinister smile on her face. “I saw the protective way she was guarding that little girl. Face it, Angelique, I have you guys right where I want you. So, I figure Emma can meet me, oh, once a month to make sure I’m never out of the elixir.”
I couldn’t even pretend to hide my revulsion. “You can’t demand that! She’s not some kind of ATM for blood!” I cried in shock. The thought made my stomach churn. “What person can handle being bled once a month? Or are you truly that crazy?”
“She can take iron pills. What?” Megan blinked innocently. “It’s that, or I keep her little ginger unconscious indefinitely.” She crossed her arms triumphantly. A plan began to form in my mind—not much of one, but a stop-gap to at least help out Ashley. Being magically unconscious can’t be good for your health.
“I know it’s a challenging thing to ask a crazy person, but try to be reasonable, Megan. She won’t agree to anything while you’re holding Ashley’s well-being over her head,” I argued. “You need to break the hex. Tonight. If you agree—and give us the clip—then you’ll get a nice little sippy cup of her blood. Consider it a one-time donation, you vampire.” I’ll give her fake blood; she’ll never know the difference.
“Are you kidding me? No dice,” Megan scoffed, pulling her stringy hair out of her face.
“Then no deal,” I replied firmly, crossing my arms. “It’s not like you’ve got a ton of goodwill to go on here, Megan. I sure as hell won’t vouch for you. And I come from a pretty damn powerful family. You know I do. We’ll break your hex, and then you’re left with nothing. In fact,” I added, feeling confident, “you know we can do it. I’ll drag my mother into this. My aunt. My cousin. Do you really want that many powerful witches on your bony ass? I just want Ashley better—now.”
Megan’s charcoal-coated eyes widened as she realized that what I was saying was true.
“Okay, fine. Deal. I have a few conditions, though,” she said, a menacing smile crawling slowly across her face. “First condition—tonight, we swap. You give me a little sample, I do a test right in front of you—and if it’s legit, you get to break the hex.”
“Fine.” I shrugged casually. Damn it. At least I knew I could count on Brendan to practically hack open an artery for Emma.
Then a satisfied smile crept across Megan’s face. “I’ll get the rest of what I need tomorrow. I need to be the one to spill the blood for the spell to work. Don’t think you’re showing up with some barbecue sauce in a cup. And—” she paused for effect “—it has to be Emma.”
“You just need the blood of true lovers, idiot. It doesn’t have to be her.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Megan sneered. “And I know Brendan probably would step in and happily take Emma’s place. I’m sure he has a total hero complex where she’s concerned.”
“Sounds like someone’s a little bitter,” I observed casually.
“Don’t try to psychoanalyze me, bitch,” Megan practically screamed at me, her hand gripping the edge of her marble seat. Yep, definitely hit a nerve there. Then she took a deep breath and calmed down. “We wouldn’t even be in this situation if you had been a good friend and supported me.”
“In forcing someone to love you? Are you mental? That goes against everything Wicca is about.”
“Don’t get so holier-than-thou. You did the attraction spell, remember?”
“True. And even then, his interest in you was reluctant at best, wouldn’t you agree?” I raised an eyebrow at Megan as she gave me a dirty look, her thin face pinched up in disgust. Wow, evil really is a bad look on her. She was once cute. Still, I couldn’t resist provoking her a little more. “It’s a moot point now anyway, and you know it. Brendan would have just dumped your ass the minute he met Emma, anyway—no spell can compete with that.” I smiled triumphantly.
“Whatever.” Megan dismissed me with the weak go-to comeback she always used when she couldn’t think of anything clever to say. “Look, I just want her blood. I want payback. That bi
tch gave me a black eye and used my own spell against me.”
“And this has nothing to do with you wanting a little scorned-woman vengeance on the one girl who locked Brendan down?” I needled her again, but she just casually held out her scrawny hand, inspecting her nails. They looked brittle.
“Sure, that’s entertaining the hell out of me,” Megan replied coolly, twisting the gold cuff on her thin wrist. “But I’m not the one who still wants him.”
Liar. You’d take him in a heartbeat. But something she said didn’t sit right with me.
“What are you talking about? You’re not the one who still—”
“Whatever. Nothing. Look, don’t you have a little plan to put into action?” Megan barked, dropping her hand to stare coldly at me. “Go get me my blood and tell her to get ready to meet me tomorrow. The little wannabe witch can spend the rest of the day in bed recovering and crying,” Megan cooed, pretending to sulk. “Poor baby.”
“Don’t feel too bad for her, Megan—I doubt she’ll be alone in that bed,” I retorted coolly, and she just glared at me. I would have been embarrassed at how shamelessly I was baiting her if Megan didn’t deserve it so much.
“Give me your number, and meet me in thirty minutes,” I ordered, standing up and handing her my phone. “You’re giving me Ashley’s clip tonight.”
“Fine. But make it two hours. I have something to take care of.”
“Two hours?” My jaw dropped, my mouth agape. “You want to leave Ashley unconscious for two more hours? You’re a sadist.”
“What, she’ll be fine.” Megan shrugged. “She only convulsed because the spell was originally meant for Emma. No harm done.”
“How do you look at yourself in the mirror anymore?” I asked, less to be insulting and more because I was curious. How did she go from being my friend to this hollow, evil shell in front of me?
“How do you not take advantage of something like this?” Megan said, and the honest way she spoke surprised me. “Think about it—all the power that just one little bloodletting can give you. Every spell I do will be a success. Anything I want is mine for the taking. No one’s going to hand you anything in life. I thought you would understand that, of all people.” She paused, looking at me critically. “Why haven’t you taken advantage of it?”
“Because it’s wrong,” I shot back. “It’s so wrong.”
“You’re so sanctimonious,” Megan said, rolling her eyes. “It all evens out in the end. Anyway, two hours. My neighborhood. Come alone. And don’t even think of screwing me over, Angela.” Megan stressed my given name, ridicule dripping from her voice as she programmed her number into my phone.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, Meggie.” I repeated her mocking tone, using the childhood nickname she hated. Megan returned my icy stare as I grabbed my phone back.
“You better not, because things will get much worse for your little BFF if you do,” Megan vowed, adding, “and tell her she better have my athame. I’d love to see the look of fear on her face when I use it to slice open her skin.”
“You’re disgusting. Two hours,” I ordered before storming away toward the pizzeria where Brendan was waiting. I knew part of the curse was that Archer be reincarnated into Hottie McHotterson, as Emma would say, but damn, the boy didn’t have to act on it all the time. Part of me wanted to wring his neck for ever being such a tart. And another part of me dreaded delivering the news that his past career of slutting around Manhattan was the root cause of this whole problem. As irritating as I found Brendan, I knew his feelings for Emma were genuinely pure, and the news would devastate him.
I collected my thoughts as I walked the two blocks north on Lexington to the pizzeria, where I found the boys in the back. Brendan was sitting with Cisco and his boyfriend, and one other guy who looked vaguely familiar. They were clustered around a lacquered wooden table littered with red plastic trays, pizza crusts, grease-soaked napkins and half-full wax cups of fountain soda. But I could hear them before I could see them—they were loudly recapping their victory and fist-bumping every chance they got. The empath in me was hit with such a display of he-man testosterone swagger I was worried I’d feel like trying to write my name in the snow.
“Hey, guys, congrats on, um, fighting. Yeah,” I announced myself awkwardly, not really sure what to say. I just needed to get Brendan out of there. Of course, he had to be a perfect gentleman and stand up and offer me his chair, going to another table to pull over three more red plastic chairs. Pain in the ass.
“Angelique, sit down. Where’s Emma?” Cisco asked warmly, just as the other kid with stupid Brendan-esque hair asked, “Where’s Ashley?”
“Sorry, I can’t stay. Neither can you, Brendan. We have to go,” I said bluntly. No time to be pleasant—we were on the clock.
“What’s wrong?” Brendan asked suspiciously, dropping the red chair he was in the middle of pulling over. I sighed as he casually leaned against a worn mural of Italy on the tile wall behind him. Might as well spill some of it, it’s not a secret that Ashley left the dance in an ambulance.
“Ashley got sick and she’s at the hospital. We don’t know what’s wrong. Emma’s with her, but Brendan, we should go.”
As everyone started asking questions like “Is she okay?” and “What happened?” the black-haired kid stood and instantly said, “I’ll come with you guys.”
“No, um—no, we should just go,” I stammered, wishing Brendan could read minds, instead of just standing there with a worried look on his face. And then I had a flash of inspiration.
“Brendan, let’s go. I have to meet up with Emma’s friend from the park in a little bit.”
Brendan grabbed his hoodie off the back of his chair, his backpack off the floor and flew out the door without saying goodbye to anyone, leaving me running after him and the table of guys staring after us, confused.
Once we were outside, Brendan whirled around, panic in his eyes. “Where is he? Where’s her attacker? Is Ashley really in the hospital? Where’s Emma?”
“Emma’s fine, she’s at Lenox Hill with Ash— Brendan! Wait up!” I called as he started off toward the hospital. I ran after him, grabbing his elbow and pulling him back to walk at my pace.
“There are a few things you need to know before you see Emma.”
“What’s going on? Did— No, are you lying to me? Is Emma hurt?” Brendan asked suspiciously, worry creasing his forehead as he picked up his pace again.
“No, she’s fine—for now. But… Oh, damn it, Brendan, stop walking so fast!” I huffed, losing my breath trying to keep up with him. I grabbed his elbow and pulled him down a side street, forcing him—with some difficultly—to sit on a stoop.
“Fine. I’m sitting. Look at me, sitting here, not going anywhere,” he said, clearly exasperated with me as he rested his elbows on the step behind him. “What aren’t you telling me?”
I took a page from his style book and leaned against the black-painted iron banister. “I’m just going to plunge right in here, Brendan. Remember Megan?”
He stared at me blankly. And then his jaw dropped. “Freshman-year Megan?”
I nodded, and he sat upright.
“Crazy Megan?”
“That’s the one.”
“The one who cut off my hair in class—that Megan?” Brendan reached back to touch the crown of his head, where he once sported a bald spot from Megan’s dark-magic efforts. His mess of black hair was a lot shorter then.
“Yeah, that was for a love spell she tried to get me to do with her,” I admitted sheepishly.
“So Megan was a witch? A real, honest witch? Like you and Randi and my girlfriend?” he asked, his mouth wide-open in disbelief. “I thought she was just a wackjob. I mean, this was before I knew magic was real, but…wow.”
“Well, she is. A dangerous one. And
she’s behind all of this.”
I took a deep breath and told Brendan what happened tonight—from Ashley’s collapse right up to Megan’s demand for Emma’s blood.
When I was done talking, he leaned forward, burying his face in his hands and taking a deep breath. Then Brendan stepped off the stoop onto the sidewalk. He walked back and forth for a moment—not quite pacing, but almost like he didn’t know which direction he was going, his right hand raking through his hair so violently I thought he’d give himself another bald spot.
And then he reared his foot back and kicked a garbage can, leaving an impressive dent in the thick metal.
“Well, that’s not smart. You’ll break your foot,” I snapped, annoyed. And then my irritation with him melted away, when Brendan turned to face me with damp eyelashes. I didn’t need to be an empath to know he felt so guilty, so grief-stricken, that he was drowning in it. It was threatening to stream down his cheeks.
But I was an empath, and I knew what he was feeling. And it was excruciating.
“What am I supposed to do?” Brendan asked, collapsing back on the stoop, his head in his hands. “From the moment I met her, I’ve brought her nothing but trouble and pain.” He raised his head and looked at me. “I know you agree.”
He didn’t say it accusingly, but plainly—honestly. Completely without judgment, which surprised me, given our mutual acrimony. I nodded in agreement, cautiously sitting across from him on the stoop.
“Before, it was who I was—her reincarnated soul mate, of all things. I couldn’t help that. But now, knowing it’s what I’ve done that’s brought this on her and her family…” He trailed off, and flipped his hood up, resting his forehead on his hand.
I wouldn’t have believed it if I wasn’t there to see it. I still couldn’t be sure since he had his hood up. But Brendan Salinger—heart-taker, troublemaker, rule-breaker—was moved to tears. In front of me. Me. And he didn’t seem to care. The Brendan Salinger I thought I knew would have demanded that this Brendan hand over his man card ASAP.