Steadfast(37)

Murder. Asa was talking about murder. Once, Mateo would have thought he wasn’t capable of that, not unless somebody he loved was in danger, and it didn’t seem like it would be easy even then.

Back then, he’d thought Elizabeth was one of the people he loved most.

I could, Mateo realized. If it was Elizabeth—I could.

He opened his mouth, closed it again. The words refused to come at first, but he got them out. “How do we get to her?”

Asa’s grin broadened. “I like a man who isn’t afraid to admit he wants revenge. I like it very much. You’re wise to act now, before Elizabeth gets her claws into Nadia. Deeper into Nadia than they already are.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, come on. She’s been trying to recruit Nadia. You know this.”

“Yeah, but Nadia would never go for that.”

“She wouldn’t? Are you positive?” Rising onto his knees, Asa made a great show of looking around the beach. The driftwood behind him had been scorched black. “I don’t see her here with you now.”

“We’re all kind of freaked out after last night.”

“If I were young and in love, I wouldn’t let that stop me. Fate has given you absent mothers and highly distracted fathers. Why on earth aren’t the two of you wrapped around each other in carnal delight—tonight, tomorrow night, pretty much any second you’re not eating or sleeping? Or in study hall, once known as chemistry. Could you believe they made us watch Code of the Ancient Maya? How is that science?”

“Nadia and I don’t need dating advice from Satan, okay?”

Obviously bored, Asa held up one hand and made the universal symbol for blah blah blah. “My point is that you’ve left yourself vulnerable. Left Nadia vulnerable. The only thing more compelling than love is power. Trust me: In hell you get plenty of lessons about that one. If magic is still the first thing in Nadia’s life—not you—isn’t it possible that she’ll always choose magical power in the end? Even if that means giving you up?”

“This is the part where you start twisting my mind around,” Mateo said. “I know what you’re doing.”

Asa just laughed. “Keep telling yourself that. The denial can only go on for so long, but you might as well enjoy it while it lasts.” He rose to his feet, brushing sand from his jeans. “I’ll tell you another truth, Mateo. Another hard fact for you to ignore until it’s too late. In every romance, one person loves the other more. Sometimes it’s a lot; sometimes it’s such a slight difference that nobody could ever tell—nobody, that is, except the one who’s loved a little less. He’s always aware of that patch of shadow where the sunlight doesn’t fall. That fraction between how far he’s reaching and how far away she is. The difference between loving and loving absolutely. Nobody else can even see it, but the one who does more than his share of the loving? Eventually he can’t see anything else.”

Mateo wanted to tell Asa he was wrong, but the words seemed to die in his throat. It couldn’t be true . . . could it?

“Oh, look at the time.” Asa made a great show of stretching and getting to his feet. “I should go. We’re finishing Dickens tomorrow. It’s a pleasure to have books again, you know. No libraries in hell.”

As he heard the soft crunch of Asa’s shoes against the sand, Mateo knew he should say something, anything, to let Asa know it wouldn’t be that easy to tear him apart from Nadia. By the time he turned around, though, the demon had vanished as if he’d never been there at all.

Another exciting night here at the bustling media center of Captive’s Sound, Verlaine thought.

She sat behind the desk at the town paper, the Guardian, which came out only once a week and mostly just printed advertising circulars. Verlaine had an internship here, which meant less “covering news of importance to the town” and more “hanging around in case anybody drops off classified ads.” They let her write stories, even ran them on the front page, but Verlaine had yet to see any evidence that either the editors or the citizenry appreciated her hard work.

They don’t just ignore me. They ignore my writing. They ignore anything that comes anywhere near me. It’s like there’s this—chasm between me and everybody else in the world.

She took a deep breath, then another. Deliberately she wound her gray hair into a smooth bun at the back of her neck, which hopefully worked with the whole “sexy secretary” vibe she was going for with this 1960s rose-colored sheath dress. At least she was in control of her look.

But what did it matter how she looked, if nobody was ever going to look at her?

The bells on the door jingled, and she looked up—then scowled. “What are you doing here?”

“Would you believe a personal ad?” Asa said.

“No. Elizabeth pulled that trick last month. I wound up in the hospital for a few days as a result. Now I have a Taser and a much more selective policy about who gets to advertise in the paper.” Verlaine did not have a Taser. In fact she’d gotten no further than thinking it might be a good idea to have one around. But Asa didn’t know that.

He leaned against one of the counters and looked up at the endless musty volumes of back issues that lined the walls. “I wouldn’t have thought this place could afford to be ‘selective’ about much.”