Chapter 14: Chapter Fourteen

As Nik, Retta, and I hurried down the steps of Zenith at the end of school, I was kinda surprised I’d made it out alive. No one else had tried to kill me. No more weird demon-hare zombies had gone for my throat. And the icing on the cake—no one had shared another embarrassing video of me around the school. These days, that counted as a win.

We headed to Retta’s car and got in. I took the shotgun seat, slinging my bag into the footwell. The pungent smell of dead demon-hare wafted through the vehicle.

“Don’t let that thing drop any juices in my car,” Retta said, giving me the side-eye.

Our plan was to swing by Geiser’s first. I wasn’t about to go and meet Retta’s Shapeshifter contact without my bow as protection, and Nik wasn’t about to let me go anywhere without having conducted some kind of special spell on my bedroom to keep Geiser out.

In the rearview mirror, I watched him staring silently out of the window. The dark, brooding look I’d first attributed to assholery, I realized now, was actually a look of agony. Torture. Nik appeared to be carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. I was determined to do whatever it took to lift some of the load.

Retta drove us to Geiser’s mansion. As we drew up the driveway, she whistled.

“Mom will be pissed when I tell her how extravagant her rival’s house is,” she said. “Not that she’d be surprised. We all know that white dudes get paid twenty times more than everyone else.”

“Hear, hear, sister,” I replied, climbing out of the car.

We headed inside the house. There didn’t seem to be anyone around. Emerald was at cheer practice tonight, Heidi at band. Geiser would be at the office, so that just left Mom. Oh yeah, and a shit ton of maids.

As Retta paced inside the mansion, running her fingers across the impeccably dusted porcelain vases, I wondered where Mom had got to.

“Hello?” I called. “Anyone home?”

The Erlik maid emerged from the living room, feather duster in hand. She gave me a disgruntled look. “Can I get you anything?” she asked in a forced polite voice.

I shook my head. “No, sorry, I wasn’t calling for you. I was just wondering if my mom was around, that’s all.”

“Miss Delacour went to town to do some shopping.”

Miss Delacour? My parents hadn’t gotten divorced. Mom had no reason to revert to her maiden name.

I raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you mean Mrs. Foxglove?”

“She asked me to call her Miss Delacour until the wedding,” the maid replied in a thin voice.

A horrible sensation washed through me. Mom was in so deep with Geiser. First she’d replaced Dad with him. Then she’d erased her life in Bear Mountain. Now she couldn’t even stick with the Foxglove name for a few more months. She’d prefer to revert to Delacour, to the name of the people who’d ostracized her for marrying an Elkie. No doubt Geiser—on Conrad’s advice—had encouraged it; Delacour would sound far more appealing to the voters’ ears than a typical Elkie name like Foxglove.

How the hell was I going to untangle her from this mess?

My thoughts reeled as I headed upstairs, Retta and Nik following.

It was only once I was inside my room with the door shut that it occurred to me Nik was now standing inside my bedroom. You know, the place where I walked around in my underwear. The place where I slept. Naked…

Though Nik’s face remained as impassive as always, the way his owl’s amber eyes darted about the place made me think he was at least acutely aware of the situation.

I let out a little cough of embarrassment.

“Come on, Magic Boy,” Retta said to Nik. “Get your thing done so we can leave.”

Nik flashed her a cool look, clearly not appreciating her bossiness. But he began working on my door nonetheless, muttering under his breath in Latin as he worked in a methodical manner, touching every inch of the doorframe.

I went over to the closet to fetch my bow. Retta flopped onto my bed.

“Hey, what’s that?” I heard her say.

I tipped my head round the closet door to see her gazing at the far wall. There, lying against the skirting board where I’d thrown it last night, was the necklace Geiser had gifted me.

“That,” I said, walking over and picking it up, “was Geiser’s shallow attempt to buy my affection.”

“No,” Retta said, unfurling her long legs over the side of the bed and gesturing for me to bring it to her. “That’s a veiling necklace.”

“A what?” I asked, walking over and depositing it into her outstretched palm.

Retta held the blue gem up to her face, inspecting it with a scrutinizing look. “Oh yeah. I’m one hundred percent sure. I had to do a midterm paper on these babies.”

“What does it do?” I asked.

“It accentuates Mage powers,” Retta explained. “But if non-Mages abuse it to get Mage powers, it has side effects, like Vanpari losing their teeth or Elkie…”

Her voice faded away as she realized—at the exact same time as me—what the veiling necklace’s intention had been.

“That fucker was trying to get my Elkie ears to disappear!” I cried, clenching my fists.

Of course the gift from Geiser was an attempt to deal with his stepdaughter’s Elkie problem.

“Or he was trying to help you become a better Mage?” Retta suggested without conviction.

I shot her a look. “Really? Help me? Geiser?”

“You’re right,” she said, bringing her hands up into a truce. With a softer voice she added, “That sucks, Theia. I’m sorry.”

I paced away, shaking my head in disbelief as it all fell into place.

So that’s where my powers had come from. The veiling necklace. And that’s why they’d disappeared overnight. I wasn’t brilliantly gifted at magic at all. Geiser had known I was going to make the candles blast a foot into the air because of the necklace. He’d planned it all. His delight had just been at knowing it was working, and that my ugly ears would soon shrink away.

I turned back to Retta. “The upshot is I’m not as Mage as I thought I was. Identity crisis averted.”

She nodded. “But those white fireball blasty things were really handy. Maybe you should wear the necklace again in case we need them?”

I touched my ears protectively. “And risk losing these beauties? That’s a hard pass.”

Just then, Nik finished muttering his Latin spell. He looked over his shoulder at us.

“All done,” he announced. “Now no one will be able to step over the threshold without you explicitly inviting them. Which is better than a lock, don’t you think?”

I had to agree. “Thanks,” I mumbled, still not completely over the fact he was standing in my sacred sexy-dancing place.

With my room now secure from any more late-night intrusions, we headed out the house and piled back into Retta’s car to enact part one of the plan.

As we drove through the streets of NYC, everything felt different. In just one day there’d been a tangible shift in the atmosphere. There was a feeling of foreboding, of distrust. Some of the coffee shops that had been opened yesterday remained closed today. There were hardly any different classes mingling. I shuddered.

Once we’d parked up, Retta led us to a rundown part of town. I couldn’t help but feel even more wary. I gripped my bow tightly, ready to spring into action.

We stopped beside a large metal garage door with a smaller door cut into it. What the heck was this place? And what was someone of Retta’s ilk doing associating with people who lived somewhere like this?

Retta rapped her knuckles against the metal. “Cora? You there? It’s Retta.”

A moment later there came the sound of scraping metal as a bolt was drawn from the other side. Then the smaller door was heaved open.

There stood the coolest-looking Celestial girl I’d ever seen. Far from the pious religious freaks at Zenith, this girl was a punk, with choppy, dyed-black bangs and bloodred wings. Her baggy jeans were flecked with paint and there was a silver ring through her septum.

“Retta, ohmygod!” she squealed, throwing her arms around Retta. “What are you doing here? I thought you were avoiding us because of the whole…” She stage-whispered, “…Lucas thing.”

Retta’s expression stiffened. “This is Nik and Theia. We need to speak to Aaron. Is he in?”

“Sure, come in,” the Celestial girl said. She moved away from the door to let us through. Unlike Trevor, her feathered wings were small, neat, and delicate, barely stretching past her waist. “I’m Cora, by the way.”

We emerged into a warehouse-style room. It was dingy, with lamps dotted around the place. The only natural light came from the crescent moon shining through a dirty skylight in the ceiling. Next to a battered leather couch were a variety of scattered beanbags and a large wooden coffee table covered in weed paraphernalia. Dotted all around the room were large canvases with abstract-style oil paintings in various states of completion. Most of them depicted gruesome scenes of bloody Celestials with torn wings.

“Did you paint these?” I asked Cora, looking at the art with a mixture of revulsion and awe.

“Yeah,” Cora smirked. “It’s a form of therapy for me. I had a bad childhood.”

“Oh.”

How awful must her childhood have been if painting angels having their wings torn off was therapeutic?

“Help yourself to coffee,” Cora added. “Beer. Wine. Whatever. I’ll fetch Aaron.” She went off down the hall.

I looked at Retta. “She’s a moon-class Celestial? How does that work?”

Retta took a beer from the fridge. She offered me one. I shook my head.

“She’s still sun-class,” Retta explained. “She just schedules herself with the moon-class for college. She was raised in this really strict religious sect. Her family shunned her for not following the faith. Which kinda opened up the opportunity to attend the best art college in New York, which just so happens to be a moon institution.”

I thought again about Nik belonging to dual classes, about the moon-class not actually being nocturnal. Mages didn’t have to choose where to draw their magic from, and it looked as if suns and moons didn’t really have to stick to their divided hours either. There was way more movement than I’d ever considered and way less need for segregation.

“And you’re friends with a nocturnal Celestial because…?” I asked Retta.

“Because none of the other kids at my church smoke weed and pierce their septums, duh,” Retta replied.

Just then, I heard a sound from down the hall. I turned, expecting to see Cora again. But instead, a huge guy with long golden hair emerged from the darkness.

I could tell straight away he was at least part Siren. He was tanned, topless, muscular, and looked like he’d been carved from marble. I felt my legs weaken beneath me.

Bleary-eyed from having just woken up, he strode into the living room, caught sight of Retta and froze. His pale-blue eyes locked on her like he was seeing a ghost.

“Hey,” he mumbled.

Retta seemed uncomfortable as she shifted from foot to foot. “Lucas. How’s it going?”

“Fine.” He spoke in a clipped monotone. He went over to the kitchenette and picked up the coffeepot. “Why are you here?”

“I’m with my friends,” Retta said, pointing at us. “We wanted to ask Aaron something Shapeshifter-related.”

He frowned. “You’re here to see Aaron? Right. Okay.” He sounded disappointed. His gaze roved over to where Nik and I were awkwardly lingering. “Hey.” He gestured with his coffee mug toward Nik. “I know you. You’re that kid. The moon-class defector.”

Nik looked incredibly uncomfortable. “I’m Mayor Storm’s son, yeah,” he replied.

“Cool.” Lucas took a sip of coffee. Turning to Retta, he said, “Does your mom know you’re hanging out with a Geiser groupie?”

“I’m not,” Nik said forcibly. “I’m anti-Geiser.”

“We both are,” I added, feeling the need to leap to his defense.

Lucas looked at us both suspiciously. “Good for you,” he replied dispassionately. Then he gave Retta a final parting look before sauntering off, taking his huge, beautiful, bulking, bulging body away from my lustful gaze.

I shook my head to snap out of my trance, then turned to Retta. “What was that about?”

“We have history,” was all she’d say, leaving the rest to my imagination.

As much as I’d have loved to stand there grilling Retta on her past conquest with an uber-buff Siren boy, there was another pressing curiosity demanding my attention.

I looked at Nik. “Why did he call you a defector?”

Nik seemed to bristle. “Bit of a harsh way to describe it, but when I switched, the moon-class were peeved. I mean, no one likes it when one of their own switches and I’m kinda high profile, being the mayor’s son and all. So the press were all over it.”

Poor Nik. He’d really been through it. Leaving home, switching classes and suffering the backlash, all for his Vanpari friends. He must be so loyal. It only made me like him more.

Finally, I heard movement from the corridor. Cora reappeared and, this time, she had a shy-looking guy in tow. He was average height, not short, not tall. His hair was brown. He was slim and had a timid way about him. He was basically the opposite of Lucas in appearance and demeanor, and exactly everything I’d not expected from a Shapeshifter.

I’d always been taught not to trust Shapeshifters. Shapeshifters could only shift into the appearance of something they’d seen before. Though the terms of the peace treaty made it illegal for them to shift into any other person—effectively meaning they could only ever imitate animals—it was still anxiety-provoking to meet one, because there was always that lingering possibility they’d steal your identity.

“Hey Aaron,” Retta said when she saw him.

“Cora said you wanted to see me?” he replied in an uncertain voice that suggested he thought such a thing was improbable.

“Yeah. We wanted to ask you something.” Retta gestured to me.

I pulled the demon-hare from my bag.

Aaron looked at it with confusion. “What’s that?”

“It’s a demon-hare,” I stated. “But when it attacked me, it looked Vanpari.”

His head snapped up. “It shifted?”

“Right before my eyes,” I said. “When it died, the Vanpariness just seeped out of it and it reverted to its original form.”

“Look at its ass,” Nik said. “Flank. Whatever it’s called.”

Aaron did as he was instructed. He looked at the weird series of numbers branded into the flesh of the creature. “That’s a lab code,” he said.

“Do you think it escaped from an experiment or something?” Retta asked. “Could that be possible? To turn a demon-beast into a Shapeshifter?”

Aaron paced away, patting his chin contemplatively. “Theoretically, yeah,” he began. “There are potions that can do that.”

“Potions?” I repeated. “To give a non-shifter shifting abilities?”

He nodded. “You know that whole thing with a cauldron and frog’s legs and hubble bubble and all that? Those kinds of potions were banned during the peace treaty. The recipes were supposed to be destroyed. But obviously you can still find them all on the night web.”

Curiosity swelled inside of me. “What’s the night web?”

Aaron took a breath, as if he was a little frustrated by my high-schooler ignorance. “Well, you know what night magic is?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And you know night magic is banned?”

“Yes,” I deadpanned, growing tired of the condescending way he was speaking to me.

“Well, the night web is the bit of the internet that you can only access through special software. It means your activities online can’t be traced or tracked. It’s full of banned spells, night-magic talismans, recipes, all of it.”

“Including ones that could imbue shapeshifting abilities?” Retta asked.

Aaron gave her an affirmative nod. “Yup. So the way we shift is by mimicking the appearance of something we’ve seen. It’s like we take a snapshot photograph of someone. When we want to look like them, we’re actually just putting up a glimmer to fool the beholder into seeing the photograph. We don’t actually change. It’s all an illusion. A type of magic. Easily mimicked with a potion. If you know where to find such a potion.”

Nik cleared his throat. “So if someone injected this beast with one of those potions and then showed them a Vanpari, they’d be able to turn into one?”

Aaron scratched his head, looking uncertain. “I guess. But with a Shapeshifter it’s a voluntary act. I don’t know how you’d convince a demon-hare to put up a glimmer.”

“It would have to be changed forcibly,” Retta added.

“Which adds a whole other level of illegal,” Aaron said. He had a perplexed expression on his face as he studied the demon-hare. “This is kind of creeping me out. Where did you say you found it?”

“It was in the playing fields at Zenith,” I told him.

His eyebrows drew together. “Zenith? Oh, right, that’s the sun version of Eclipse. The posh school. I thought it was closed.”

“The moon part closed,” Nik explained.

Aaron clicked his fingers. “Right, that’s it. I was watching it on the news when I woke up this evening. Eclipse chose to move to a different premises underground to protect its students from some targeted Vanpari attacks or something, right?”

Huh. So the story had been spun a different way by the moon-class press. Neither version was the truth. I wondered if anyone in the press ever told the truth, or if there was always a bit of bias coloring every story.

Aaron prodded the hare. He looked perturbed. “Can we put this away?”

He handed it to me. I stashed it back in my bag.

I wasn’t sure how it fit into the puzzle or whether it even did. But it was definitely significant. From what Aaron was saying, the only way the demon-hare could’ve appeared in the guise of a demon-Vanpari-hare was if someone had deliberately created an illegal potion to turn it—and crucially, it had been done against its will. Why someone would want to create such a potion didn’t take much of a leap of imagination…

“Is everyone thinking what I’m thinking?” I said aloud. “That this has something to do with Geiser?”

All eyes turned to me. It was Nik who answered.

“I wouldn’t put it past him. He’s powerful enough to get hold of a banned potion.”

“And protected enough to use it,” Retta added.

“And mad enough to want to,” I finished, feeling a shiver creep up my spine.

“Which begs the question: why?” Retta asked.

We all paused, looking from one person to the next.

“He could have used it to make people appear Vanpari so they can start ruckuses and stir up anti-Vanpari sentiment,” Nik suggested.

“While paying jerks like Trevor to start fights with Vanpari and blame it on them,” I agreed.

“Like a double-pronged attack,” Retta said. “Make everyone jumpy, scared, easier to exploit.”

Just then, my cell phone buzzed. We all leaped a mile.

I checked my phone and saw a message from Mom demanding me home for dinner. The last place I wanted to be right now was back home. If Geiser used illegal potions and hired schoolkids to beat up Vanpari, then I wouldn’t put it past him to have me assassinated in my sleep. But then again, I had Nik’s spell to protect me. A little flame of warmth flickered in my stomach at the thought.

“We’d better go,” I said, realizing the time. I looked around for my bow. “Hey, where’s my…”

“Here,” Cora said.

She’d been so quiet this whole time, I’d completely forgotten she was in the room. I looked over and saw her sitting on the battered couch inspecting my bow intently.

I strode over and snatched it up. “Don’t touch that,” I snapped.

She looked up at me with big, scared eyes. “I’m sorry!” Pink seeped into her alabaster cheeks.

I felt guilty straight away. “It’s sacred,” I explained, my voice softening. “We pass them down through the generations. It’s kinda not cool to touch an Elkie’s bow.”

As I spoke, I saw the color drain from Cora’s face. Something I’d said had rattled her.

“What is it?” I asked.

Cora shook her head. “Nothing.”

But it evidently wasn’t nothing. She looked freaked.

“Cora… Is there something wrong?” I asked.

Cora chewed her lip as if deliberating. Then finally she blurted, “Bows are passed down through the generations. So they’re connected to the deceased?”

At the mention of the D-word, a cold shiver washed down from my head to my toes. “Why did you say that?”

“Because I’m right,” Cora said. “Your bow is connected to someone deceased, isn’t it?”

I felt my jaw stiffen as I tried to hold in the grief that always overcame me when I thought of Dad.

“Yes,” I said. “So?”

“So whoever it’s connected to is trying to communicate with you.”

Her words hit me like a truck. I felt myself sinking down into the couch beside her. Retta, Nik, and Aaron were right there in a second, hovering beside me.

“Why would you say that?” I asked Cora, my heart fluttering in my chest.

She looked worried for me. “I didn’t mean to spring it on you that way. But some Celestials have connections with the other realms.”

My throat was too dry to speak.

“You mean like Heaven?” Nik’s voice came from somewhere behind me.

There are as many theories about what happens after you die as there are types of Daimon. Everyone has a different opinion. I wasn’t even sure if I believed in the afterlife at all, let alone Heaven itself.

“Kinda,” Cora said. “My specific connection is with Limbo.”

My heart dropped. “Limbo?”

I felt Retta’s hand grip my shoulder. “That doesn’t sound good.”

Cora’s expression of concern seemed to only grow. “It’s not. I’m sorry, Theia. Limbo’s where you go when you have unfinished business on Earth. People’s spirits end up there for a whole range of reasons, particularly parents who have younger kids they feel compelled to protect.”

My voice was suddenly small. “Dad’s stuck in Limbo?”

“I think so,” Cora said softly. “He’s trying to tell you something.”

My mind was spinning. I felt like I could pass out any second. “What do you mean?”

Cora paused, then took my hand. “Have you ever done a séance?”

I shook my head.

“Would you like to? Do you want to speak to your dad?”

I pulled my hand from hers and gripped my mouth. I’d never wanted anything more in my life. “Yes…” I said breathlessly.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Nik said.

I nodded. Now the option was on the table, there was no way in hell I couldn’t take it.

Cora held her hands out for my bow. As uncomfortable as it made me to have someone else touch it, I passed it to her.

Cora laid the bow in her lap, her hands spread against it. “Ready?”

I looked over at my friends. They were wearing the same intense expression, like they knew this was a bad idea. But what else could I do? My dad was stuck in Limbo. Possibly because of me. I had to hear his message.

I turned back to Cora and nodded decisively.

She closed her eyes and began to mutter under her breath. Unlike the Latin spells that Mages used, the language Cora spoke seemed even older. A form of Gaelic, I guessed. This was some next-level Pagan shit.

Suddenly, a green swirly smoke began to surround us.

“What the…” I whispered.

Retta’s hand on my shoulder squeezed even tighter.

I could feel my heart hammering against my rib cage. This was hands down the freakiest experience of my life.

The smoke thickened, swirling more intensely. It felt like a strange electric storm was forming all around us.

Then, as if coming from a million miles away, a voice began to speak.

The voice felt like a dagger in my heart. It was a voice I’d not heard for a whole year. It was my dad.

“Danger,” he moaned.

My heartbeat pounded even harder, so hard I felt like it could break a rib.

“Dad?” I squeaked.

“Danger,” his voice repeated. Then, “Geiser.”

I could feel the blood drain from my face. Dad was warning me about William?

“I—I know he’s dangerous, Dad,” I stammered into the swirling green smoke. “I’m going to stop him.”

“Vanpari,” came my dad’s strange, echoey voice.

“Vanpari?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

“Ally.”

Suddenly, through the smoke, a strange face emerged. It looked like Dad but wrong, his expression twisted as if in agony.

I screamed. The face and green swirls immediately disappeared.

My heart thudded over and over. I could hardly breathe. All around, the others were watching silently, sympathetically.

“I—I saw him,” I stammered. “My dad…”

My emotions overwhelmed me. I grabbed my bow and ran.