Steadfast(71)

Elizabeth took a couple of steps backward. Her mind was now unfocused, her breathing fast, her cheeks flushed: arousal. Human arousal. She hadn’t felt this so vividly in centuries. All the desire she had meant to inflict upon Nadia’s father was now infecting her.

“Hey, what was that flash of light?” Mr. Caldani said as he firmly guided Elizabeth out onto the front stoop, then pulled the door shut behind them and locked it.

“Flash of light?” She felt as though she’d been awakened from a dream.

“The purple? Never mind. See you later.” With that he hurried to his car. Simon Caldani was no longer affected by her in the slightest.

Whereas she—

Betrayer’s Snare, Elizabeth thought as she staggered along the street that led toward Rodman High.

Only Betrayer’s Snare could have protected that man from the enchantments she’d laid on him, and sent that enchantment rebounding back on her. She ought to have anticipated that Nadia would try this—but she hadn’t, and now, just when her concentration was most necessary, her brain was fogged with crazed desire.

Elizabeth had not felt true physical arousal for centuries. There had been some minor excitement when she’d ensorcelled Mateo before the Halloween carnival, tricking him into kissing her when he believed her to be Nadia, but that was nothing compared to this. Longing infused her, made her bones ache and her flesh clench almost to the point of pain. All the desperation she’d put into the spell for Simon Caldani was now in her, driving her to madness.

Just get to the school, she told herself. Asa will be there. He can be made to serve.

But as she wandered into the school parking lot, she saw someone else first: the tall, dark one who kept company with Mateo sometimes. Was his name Gage?

“Elizabeth,” he said, his face lighting up. He’d never made any secret of his attraction to her, not that she’d ever cared about it one way or another until now. “Hey. What’s up? Just . . . forgot my psych book in my car . . . my car here—” He pointed at the car, then stopped himself. “I’m acting like an idiot around you again, aren’t I? Mateo says I ought to . . .”

His voice trailed off as she raised her hand and cast the spell again. It was far weaker than the one she’d directed at Nadia’s father, but given Gage’s crush on her, it would more than answer.

Gage’s eyes widened. His psychology book fell into the gravel beneath their feet. He pulled her to him, forgetting where they were.

“You’ll do,” she said.

It was like one of his bad dreams, except he was awake.

Cole and his friends all huddled on the floor beneath their desks, hands outstretched to keep back the birds. The windows had all broken, and there was glass all over the floor, and even the teachers couldn’t do anything but scream.

But some of the parents came in, and once there were more of them, they could get the birds back a little—and then Daddy was there at last, scooping Cole into his arms and putting a coat over his head until they were way down the hall. For a while Cole just cried out loud, and he didn’t even feel like a baby for doing it.

“It’s okay, buddy.” Dad ruffled his hair. “It’s okay. It’s all over.”

“What happened?” Cole whispered.

“I don’t know. The birds must have seen their reflections in the glass.”

“But why were there so many?”

Abigail’s mom came by them and said, “Something is wrong in this town. Really wrong. You see it, don’t you?”

“Well, obviously,” Dad said.

“I mean, strange.” She leaned closer to both of them, and Cole felt weird, because he didn’t like seeing a grown-up as scared as a little kid. “This isn’t natural, what’s happening here. Maybe it sounds like something out of—a bad movie, I don’t know. But it’s real. You know it as well as I do. And we have to put a stop to it.” With that she stalked off, pulling Abigail behind her.

Cole watched Abigail go. “Are we not having the Thanksgiving pageant?”

“I don’t think so, buddy.”

“What did Abigail’s mom mean? Was she talking about the birds?”

Dad didn’t seem to be listening, but he said, very slowly, “About the birds, and other things.”

Nadia started getting the texts first thing in the morning. First Mateo—but his messages were blank, or garbled nonsense. At first she’d assumed she was just receiving butt texts that would stop when Mateo took his phone out of his back pocket, but they kept coming, one after another. It was like he was genuinely trying to reach her but wasn’t coherent enough to do it.

Just as she was trying to tell herself not to be stupid, a message came in from her father about the chaos at Cole’s school. Nadia was trying to think of what Elizabeth might have to gain by taking away some little kids’ Thanksgiving play when her dad texted: BTW, Elizabeth dropped by again. Seems odd. Does she have problems @ home? Might want 2 talk w/ school counselor.

At first all Nadia could feel was triumph. Elizabeth must have made her move on her father, and failed. The Betrayer’s Snare had worked.

But then she realized that Elizabeth had attacked the school, too, which meant she was springing all her traps at once. Those garbled messages from Mateo went from merely odd to terrifying.