Steadfast(42)

“I didn’t know it would be him,” Asa said. “But I should have guessed. I didn’t. I’m sorry. For what it’s worth.”

“It’s not worth much.” Verlaine leaned farther back in her chair. She felt tired, as though she’d been awake for days. Her temples throbbed from the crying she’d done, and all she wanted was to go into Uncle Gary’s hospital room and curl up beside him on the bed. Maybe if she did, when she woke up this would only be a horrible dream.

Nadia got to her feet then to face Asa; apparently she was the only one here who had heard anything interesting. “What do you mean, you should have guessed?”

“If you expect me to explain Elizabeth’s work, forget it. I’ve given you some very helpful suggestions—which you seem determined to ignore while she keeps going.” Asa folded his arms. The black coat he wore was long and lean, zippered in a sideways slash across his chest, with a sharp collar that turned up in back. He couldn’t look more like a demon without putting red plastic horns on his head, Verlaine thought.

Yet the look in his eyes as they met hers didn’t seem demonic at all.

“Wait,” Nadia said. She put up her hands as though she were holding something back, and her gaze turned distant. “Hang on. Elizabeth will keep going. She’ll keep taking people out.”

“Is that not obvious?” Asa frowned. “I’d have thought at least that much would’ve sunk into your brains by now. I overestimated you.”

Nadia didn’t seem to pay any attention. “But the people she’s chosen don’t have anything to do with witchcraft. They aren’t falling sick at one location or one time of day. So there’s another purpose behind what she’s done. It’s like—it’s like Elizabeth doesn’t care who she hurts—but she has to hurt someone.”

Asa’s expression didn’t change, but Verlaine could sense that Nadia was on to something. “Keep going,” she whispered to Nadia.

“She’s building on pain itself. There’s only one thing you build on pain. Only one. That’s not what she’s doing. It can’t be.” Nadia’s eyes were wide now, but not with exhilaration, even though she definitely, positively had to be on to something. Instead she looked afraid.

Very quietly Asa said, “I take back what I said about overestimating you.” With one last glance at Verlaine, he stalked down the hallway; his shoes made no sound against the floor. Verlaine watched him go and thought the room was colder without him. There was no reason that should make her feel even more alone, and yet it did.

Verlaine said, “He’s going because he can’t help you work against Elizabeth.”

“No, he can help us against Elizabeth,” Mateo said, which surprised her. What did Mateo know about demons? “He just can’t help us against—”

“—the One Beneath,” Nadia finished for him. “Oh, my God. He’s coming.”

Verlaine shook her head. “The One Beneath can never, ever enter our world. You said so! Not without destroying every barrier between His realm and ours. Right? That has to be right.”

“His realm is hell,” Mateo said. “You mean, we’re talking about hell on Earth?”

“Stupid!” Nadia’s voice broke. “How was I so stupid? I should’ve seen it before. The road has three sections—but I never learned about it as a road. I learned about the three barriers between the One Beneath and our world. First He would have to break the boundaries of hell. Then He would have to create a bridge between His world and ours. Finally, He’d break through to our world and . . . end it.”

Verlaine and Mateo exchanged glances. Even her misery about Uncle Gary was eclipsed by the dawning fear within them all.

Nadia was certain now. Everything about the way she stood, the determination on her face, even the way she now stepped in front of them both, made it clear that no doubt remained. “That’s what Elizabeth did at the Halloween carnival. She broke the boundaries of hell. She completed step one. And now she’s hurting all these people, keeping them in pain indefinitely, because she’s using them for step two. She’s using them to build the bridge for the One Beneath.”

Verlaine shuddered as Mateo repeated, “Hell on Earth.”





14


AFTER THEY LEFT VERLAINE AT THE HOSPITAL, MATEO had a crash course on the apocalypse.

He went home with Nadia, luckily arriving there while her father and brother were out, so they could skip the fake small talk and head straight to her attic. Nadia quickly found the symbol in Goodwife Hale’s Book of Shadows and showed him the notes in her own that talked about the three barriers that stood between the world he knew and, as he put it, “total Ghostbusters-style, dogs-and-cats-living-together, mass-hysteria Armageddon.”

“Pretty much.” Nadia had yanked her hair back in a ponytail, her eyes blazing with an energy that was part anger, part adrenaline. “It never occurred to me that Elizabeth would try this. I never thought it was something even a Sorceress would want. They draw their power from the demonic realm. Destroying the barriers means even destroying herself. She’s willing to die if it means she takes the whole world with her.”

Mateo nodded. He knew now what he had to do, no matter how much it horrified him, no matter how hard it would be. “If she’s willing to die, well, that makes it easier.”