Chapter Fifteen
I woke to harsh sunlight, illuminating the gossamer curtains that hung on the windows of my bedroom. I blinked and groaned, wishing I could will the light into nonexistence. I rolled onto my side and met a purple satin facemask underneath a wild fall of chestnut curls.
Marise lay spread-eagled next to me on the bed, taking up the vast majority of it. A trail of drool oozed unbecomingly from the side of her mouth. I shoved her none to gently but she only snorted loudly and rolled on her side.
As the morning fog slowly cleared from my head, I distantly recalled her barging into my room at some point in the night with a large body pillow tucked under one arm and a scowl on her face. Apparently my mother gave her room away to one of our many visitors and we were now forced to share.
I slid carefully from the bed, as if she wasn't sleeping with the depth and delicacy of a hibernating bear. I couldn't risk waking her. It'd been years, but I couldn't imagine that her disposition would be sunny if I woke her before she achieved the requisite amount of beauty sleep.
My dress from the night before hung limply over the closet door. I caught a slight hint of a familiar scent as I moved past. Sandalwood, ginger and fresh-turned earth. Valentine.
A shiver ran through me despite the warm sunlight streaming through the window. Shaking off the sudden feeling of dread, I moved quickly to the dresser.
I winced at the sound of wood against metal as I pulled open the top drawer. I shot a glance back at the bed, but Marise lay unmoving, still snoring. The first thing my fingers touched was an old UCLA sweatshirt and I pulled it quickly from the drawer along with a pair of faded jeans.
My footsteps were whispers across the wooden floor as I closed the door on my sister's snores. I could still hear her nasal growl through the wall. That was Marise—ladylike and delicate to a fault.
The house was eerily quiet as I walked down the main stairs. I breathed a sigh of relief. All of our guestrooms were full but it seemed as if I was the only one up. As tradition dictated, the party continued until dawn broke the sky. I retired to bed long before then, exhausted and discouraged.
I didn't see Valentine again. Throughout the night, I would catch a whiff of his unique and intoxicating scent but every time I turned to look he was gone. Only his laughter would trail back in the wind as he stayed one step ahead of me.
While Valentine laughingly eluded me, I spent most of the evening avoiding Darius. It was too much to ask that he would understand my failure. I had nothing that Valentine wanted. I would have to find my own way to protect myself.
I padded across the foyer towards the kitchen, the tile cool against my bare feet. A bowl of sugarcoated cereal would do wonders for my mood. The kitchen was bright and clean. There was no evidence of the raucous activities of the night before.
Reaching high above the fridge, my fingers touched the box of Honey Sugar Bears I kept hidden in a dusty spot between the top of the refrigerator and the cabinet. My mother would have a fit if she found it in her kitchen.
Happily crunching on a mouthful of milled corn and high fructose corn syrup, I walked into the dining room. I came up short. My father sat at the head of the long table, one leg folded over the opposite knee and the business section of the paper unfolded in front of him.
I swiped at a dribble of milk that trailed from one corner of my mouth and tried to speak without spitting out bits of food. "Good morning, Father."
He cleared his throat and turned a page in his paper without looking up. "Good morning, Helena."
I sat gingerly on the edge of a chair on the opposite end of the table. My cereal bowl made a loud clinking sound against the wood of the table and I glanced over at him. He studiously ignored me.
We sat in silence for several minutes.
"Tonight is the spring sacrifice." His voice startled me and I froze with the spoon halfway to my mouth.
I swallowed before speaking softly. "I know."
In years past, the spring sacrifice was human. Since the advent of modern forensics and the furor that missing virgins tended to cause among local news outlets, we'd switched to livestock. At the beginning of every spring, a yearling goat was ritually cleansed and beheaded as an offering to the gods. It was a good idea to stand back at least fifteen feet to avoid the spray.
My father closed his paper and leaned back in his chair. "Have you made any headway with the issue we discussed?"
"Nope." I took a large bite of cereal and chewed slowly.
"Is that it?" He was giving me the look of condescension and faint disappointment that had been a staple of my childhood.
"You've given me an impossible task." I tapped my spoon lightly against the bowl. "Do I owe you something else?"
I expected anger but his voice remained even. "Valentine has been a thorn in my side for a very long time."
I wanted to ask how long but good judgment kept my mouth shut.
"We slide through the dark, playing shadow games with the humans." His voice was tight and barely controlled. "We are better than humans. We shouldn't live in their world. They should live in ours."
The intensity in my father's eyes was disturbing. I swallowed sharply. "Valentine doesn't seem to have much love for humans. I'm sure you can figure something out."
Ethan stood and crossed to the window, parting the heavy curtains. From the table I could just make out the street below, sedate on a Saturday morning. A little boy chased a red ball down the sidewalk.
"Valentine is old guard. He is compelled to play by some ancient set of rules that only he understands. Humans walk the earth, oblivious and blind, while magic remains hidden. Valentine sees no gain in a new world order." My father turned away and faced me, his eyes hard as obsidian. "Valentine rules the Blooded. Whoever kills him takes his place. With our warriors behind me, I can control the world."
"Does Darius know about this part of the plan? I didn't get the impression that he planned to trade one master for another."
"I will take care of Darius. All you need worry about is the task you've been assigned. Find a weakness. Leave the rest to me."
"I hate to derail your carefully laid plans for world domination, Father." I pushed away the bowl of Honey Sugar Bears, my appetite a distant thought. "Valentine doesn't want me."
"Convince him." His voice was laced with threat. "You don't have a choice, Helena."
"Is that all I am to you?" I whispered. "A tool. A weapon."
"You are what you were meant to be." Ethan's hands clenched the back of his chair, knuckles white. "Prove that you are one of us. Or I will treat you as if you are not."
With that, Ethan left the room. The folded newspaper lying limp on the table was the only evidence of his presence in the room. A few Sugar Honey Bears left floating in my bowl mocked me with their molded smiles.
I grabbed the bowl off the table and walked into the kitchen, dumping the contents into the sink. The house was beginning to come alive, the sounds of low voices and the creak of the floorboards floated through the walls.
I needed to get out of the house.
My clothes were embarrassing to say the least, but I couldn't risk the dragon's lair upstairs to get something out of my room. Marise would only stay asleep so long.
With my bag slung over one shoulder, I grabbed a pair of rubber galoshes out of the mudroom and pulled them on. I caught sight of myself in a mirror hanging next to the coat rack. My sweatshirt had a bleach stain running down the front and my jeans were worn out in the knees. The purple rain boots only added to my air of homelessness. At least I didn't smell bad.
Sunlight warmed my face when I opened the front door. My messenger bag bumped against my legs as I jogged down the driveway and out onto the street. I didn't have keys for any of the cars lining the driveway, but there was a bus stop four blocks away.
A city bus rolled up as soon as I reached the stop. I dug in my pocket for a couple of crumpled dollar bills and plunked them into the fare machine. I slid into a plastic seat with
a sigh and rested my bag on my legs.
I glanced around the bus. Except for a Hispanic woman in a housedress who leaned against the window, obviously asleep, the bus was deserted. Streets passed by in a blur and a robotic voice announced each stop as we past. The voice and rhythmic thumping of tires on pavement were soothing. I almost wanted to join the woman in the back in la-la land.
The public library loomed on the corner of Hollywood and 5th. I pulled the cord and the bus rolled to a smooth stop. I jumped down the stairs with a hasty thank you and jogged up the large stone steps.
As soon as I entered the airy interior of the library, I immediately felt more peaceful. There was a certain serenity to the hushed interior of libraries. They were one of the few places where I knew I could find undisturbed quiet.
I found a table upstairs, lost deep in the reference section. I pulled up a chair and sank gratefully into it. I reached into my bag for Cynthie's grimoire and it thrummed beneath my fingers, an audible hum that I feared could be heard all the way to the periodicals.
It flipped open on its own when I placed the book on the table. The neat handwriting called to me like a siren song. I mouthed the words slowly as their meaning sunk in.
A Spell for Binding.
I read quickly through the description. The spell detailed a way to exchange a part of the caster's soul with another willing person, transferring their power with it. I had enough power to worry about, I didn't want to deal with anyone else's. Useless. I turned the page.
The next entry seemed more promising. It was a detailed account of how to erect a circle of protection. If only I could figure out how to build one of those around my entire life.
"Hex?"
I jumped and slammed the grimoire shut, my heart in my throat. I turned to see Sam standing behind me with a stack of books held in the crook of one arm.
"Hey, Sam," I said with a wan smile.
She raised an eyebrow and slid into the seat next to me. "I thought you were busy this weekend."
I caught the faint hint of accusation in her voice and immediately jumped to reassure her. "I had to get out of the house. Too much family time, you know."
Sam made sound deep in her throat and shrugged. Her gaze came to rest on the book still laying closed in front of me on the tabletop. "What's that?"
My hand moved protectively over it before I had time to think of a response. "Nothing," I said quickly, hoping she couldn't hear the caginess in my voice. I gestured to her stack of books. "What are you up to?"
"More research," she said with a shrug. Sam tapped the first book in the stack with one finger. "These are all about Wicca."
I glanced down the titles on the spines. All junk. "Have you looked through the book I gave you?" I tried to keep my voice casual.
"Not really," she said sheepishly. "All that fortune telling stuff seems a little silly. I want to find something that feels a bit more real."
"Real," I repeated. The irony was deep.
"Yeah, sorry." She started rifling around in her backpack. "You can have it back if you want."
"No thanks," I said with a sigh. "Hang onto it." I wasn't sure what I expected, a real ally perhaps. But the chances of Sam stumbling on something useful, from a book she checked out of the library no less, were slim to nonexistent.
"So you never told me about your date with Zach," Sam said. "How was it?"
I could feel my cheeks redden. "It went okay."
"That's it?"
"No, I mean yes..." I stopped before the stuttering got out of control. "It was a non-event."
"So will we be seeing this non-event around more often?" Sam asked slyly.
The last thing I could think about was something as mundane as high-school courtship. Where I would sit in the cafeteria, and with whom, seemed of distant concern when I was still worried about surviving the weekend.
But I liked Zach. I liked him a lot more than was safe.
I liked the way his fingers played over the strings of his guitar. I liked that being around me always made him a little bit nervous and his cheeks would go red. I liked that he never seemed to know what to do with his hair.
I liked Zach.
Valentine's face swam into my vision. The colors in his eyes swirling like whirlpools and a cruel twist to his lips. He still owned a part of me. I couldn't move on until I managed to exorcise him from my life and my family wouldn't let me do it.
I shook my head to clear it. Sam was giving me a knowing a smile.
"Got it that bad, huh?"
"No. Maybe. Can we change the subject?" I asked desperately.
Sam slid her fingers across her lips, miming the motion of turning a key in a lock and throwing it away. She hummed the bridal march just loud enough for me to hear, but stuck her head firmly in a library book when I glared at her.
I turned back to the journal and was about to flip it open when I caught a small movement behind the high shelves at our side. Sam and I sat in a deserted corner of the library, tucked between religion and social sciences. On a quiet Saturday morning we had the floor almost entirely to ourselves. Still, some instinct had me sweep the grimoire into my bag and zip it closed.
Moments later a voice spoke from behind me.
"This is the best hiding place you could find?"
I turned to see Cynthie saunter down the aisle. Her fingernails made a harsh scratching sound against the metal as she trailed her fingers over the shelves.
Sam looked up with a stricken expression on her face and leaned back from the table, prepared for trouble.
"What do you want, Cynthie?" I asked as she came to a stop next to the table.
"Leonora is looking for you." She wagged her finger in my face, punctuating each word. "She's not too happy."
"And she sent you?" I asked with a sigh.
Cynthie played with the books on the closest shelf, tipping them out and letting them fall to the floor one by one. "She knew I could find you."
"Like a hound dog?"
"Very funny," she said with a grim smile. "We should leave now. We're missing the party." The emphasis her voice placed on the word party did not make it sound like a good time.
"Yeah, I got it," I said finally.
Cynthie was turning away when her gaze lit on the pile of books Sam had brought to the to table. She gave Sam a once-over and then cast me a significant glance. "Hurry up," she said over her shoulder, disappearing between the stacks.
I stood and slung my bag over my shoulder. I was about to murmur a goodbye to Sam when she suddenly spoke.
"I thought you had family stuff this weekend."
The accusation in her voice surprised me. "I do."
"With Cynthie?" Sam stood and started slamming the books together.
"Yeah, she's like a distant cousin."
"Why don't you just say it, Hex?"
"I don't understand."
"You practically push me out of your house the other day so I won't meet your family." She gathered the books up into her arms and glared at me. "Is being my friend really that embarrassing? I know I don't fit into your high society."
I was so dumbfounded by her accusations that it was difficult to formulate a reply. "You don't understand. It isn't like that at all."
"Whatever." Sam pushed past me. "I'm sure Cynthie and her friends will have some fabulous lunch that you can go to, so don't bother looking for me tomorrow. I'd hate to embarrass you."
With that parting shot she was gone.
I couldn't deal with another crisis. Making up with Sam would have to wait until school on Monday, assuming I managed to make it through the weekend.
Cynthie waited for me at the bottom of the library steps. Her car idled on the street in a clearly marked no parking zone. I slid into the passenger seat. The moment the door closed behind me, she floored the gas pedal and roared into traffic.
We drove in silence for several blocks. Cynthie spoke first. "You should be careful."
I was staring out the windo
w as the scenery flew by. "What are you talking about?"
"Your little friend," she added. "You should be careful. Secrets should stay where they belong, you know that."
"I haven't told her any secrets." Which was technically true. "She doesn't know anything about us."
"That's why I don't make friends with the humans." Cynthie never took her eyes off the road. "It makes things complicated."
"I thought it had something to do with the fact that you consider humans lesser life forms, like earthworms or bed bugs?"
"That too," she replied with a small smile.
We pulled up to the house and Cynthie had to park at the bottom of the full driveway. She cut the engine and we sat together in the silent car.
"You should go in the back," she said, giving me a disdainful once-over. "You look like a monkey dressed you in the dark."
She pulled a dress bag out of the trunk and followed me around the house. We used the servants entrance and managed to make it to my room without running into anyone.
A dress was laid out on the chair in front of my vanity table. The maid must have come through while I was gone because the bed was neatly made and there was no hint of the trail of clothes Marise had left on the floor as she stumbled to bed the night before.
"Leonora wants me to do something with your hair." Cynthie began stripping off her clothes. She stood in her underwear and bra and glared at me. "What are you waiting for?"
I yanked off the scruffy sweatshirt and jeans and pulled the dress from the chair over my head. The seams made a sound of protest as I strained the fabric. After a few moments of struggle, in which I'm sure I looked ridiculous, I finally smoothed the fabric down over my hips.
Cynthie eyed me. "Not bad."
The dress was typical of my mother, tight-fitting fabric that highlighted the curve of breast and hip before falling in elegant waves to the floor. "My mother picked it out."
"Of course she did," Cynthie scoffed. "But red is your color," she added more gently.
Cynthie was being nicer than I'd ever seen her. I wanted to ask her why, but something told me not to question my good fortune. I sat down at the vanity table and she stood behind me, running her fingers through the short strands of my hair.
"This isn't a horrible shade of brown, you know," she said. She worked a strand between her fingers. "And it isn't as coarse as it looks."
There was the Cynthie I knew and despised.
"Do what you can," I murmured sarcastically.
She worked quickly, twisting my hair up and pinning it so a few strands curled down to frame my face. It actually looked pretty good. She dumped out her makeup bag and tubes and palettes tumbled across the table with a clatter. She swiped color across my lids and cheeks, and then lined my eyes with a thick black pencil.
I met Cynthie's eyes in the mirror above my head. I wasn't sure how much gratitude to show, her attitude was unpredictable. "Thanks."
She turned away, expression unreadable. Cynthie stuffed her street clothes into the dress bag and zipped it up with more force than strictly necessary.
"I want my grandmother's journal back."
I swallowed hard. Cynthie could take back the grimoire by force if that's what she wanted to do. I couldn't just give it back.
"I don't have it." I twisted a strand of hair around my fingers, avoiding her gaze. "You can look around for it if you want."
She didn't seem convinced. "You really haven't seen it?"
"Nope." I kept my mind very carefully blank, projecting soothing thoughts of innocence. "Sorry." I kept up a mantra in my head. I don't have it. I don't have it. I don't have it.
Cynthie blinked and nodded slowly. "I'll see you downstairs."
My reflection stared back at me in the mirror. The makeup felt heavy and fake on my skin and I longed to scrub my face clean. The dress was tight in the bodice and I had to force out every breath.
An image exploded onto the mirror's surface. My dress was torn. My skin bleeding and bruised. I blinked and the image was gone.
I shivered and pushed back from the table. This wasn't my first family function and I knew from experience that the only way to make it through was to muster as much bravado as I could.
I slipped on the heels that were set out in front of the open closet door. A gauzy scarf hung over a hook on the wall and I tossed it over the vanity table, obscuring the mirror.
The small door hidden behind my clothes wasn't closed all the way, I could see the subtle differences in the wood as it cracked open. The idea of crawling inside and spending the evening hiding out in the attic was too tempting for words.
My heart constricted at the thought of going downstairs and facing everyone. Half of them actively wanted me dead and the rest would consider torturing me at least a reasonable form of entertainment. But I'd faced them all before.
Hiding out wouldn't change a thing.