Blood Moon (Book Three - The Ravenscliff Series) (4 page)

“That’s because she fears the return of the Madman,” Bjorn reminded him.

Devon couldn’t eat any more. He’d lost his appetite. He pushed his plate away. He didn’t have the heart to keep up this conversation. “I’ll be in the parlor,” he told Bjorn, standing. “Call me when it’s time to leave for school.”

Devon headed out of the dining room and through the foyer. He passed the tall paneled windows that looked out onto the front driveway and spied D.J.’s vintage red Camaro. Devon was glad; he could use a friend. He hurried to the front door and threw it open.

“Hey, Deej!” he shouted. “Man, I’ve got to talk with you! You here to give us a ride to school?”

His friend, sitting behind the wheel of his car, rolled down his window. “Hey, dude,” D.J. said, the early morning sunlight glinting off the metal piercing in his upper lip. He was wearing a Red Sox baseball cap low on his eyes, and his voice was a little less exuberant than usual. Most mornings D.J. would greet Devon with a hail and hearty clap on the back. Today he seemed quiet and reserved.

Devon immediately saw why. In the passenger seat next to D.J. sat Cecily. She abruptly turned her face away, long hair flinging, when Devon approached the car.

“Listen, dude,” D.J. said, looking up at him plaintively from the car window, “Cess—well, she called me—and well, you know, she asked me to come by and give her a ride to school.”

“I see,” Devon said. “So she didn’t have to ride with me.”

“Well, uh, I just, well, you know, man, I just figured I, well, that—”

Devon let out a long sigh. “It’s okay, D.J. It’s probably just as well.”

“See you at school, man,” D.J. said. “Still friends, right, dude?”

“Yeah,” Devon said sadly. “Still friends.”

Before Devon had arrived on the scene, D.J. and Cecily had been an item. Cecily had always been toying with him, and Devon was sure she’d start doing so again. It made him angry, the idea that Cecily would use D.J. to get back at him.

So he made his way over to Bjorn’s old Cadillac and climbed in the backseat. Alexander sat up front, chattering all the way to school about the howling he heard during the night. Bjorn had heard it too, but he echoed Devon’s belief that whatever it was, it wasn’t a demon.

They dropped Alexander off first, at the new elementary school he’d just started, and then continued on to the high school. “Look,” Devon said, “I’m sorry about Crazy Lady. I don’t want to get you in any trouble.”

“Let’s hope I can round her up,” Bjorn said as he pulled up in front of the school.

“If you can’t, I’ll try to catch her when I get home. Maybe we can get her back into the room before Mrs. Crandall even finds out.” He got out of the car. “But in the meantime, maybe we ought to just let her run free for a while. It must feel good after being cooped up for so long.”

The gnome just shuddered and drove away.

Devon looked up at his school. The kids were all milling around, talking in their little cliques. It was still cold enough that their breath steamed between them, but there was a hint of spring in the air, too. Devon could smell it. Maybe it was his heightened Nightwing senses that perceived it, but it was there: the smell of a thawing earth. He couldn’t wait for spring, for summer. He wanted this winter over and done with, forgotten.

“So what’s up between you and Cecily?”

He turned. It was Natalie, walking up to him, holding her books against her chest. The sunlight caught specks of blue in her jet-black hair and made her deep brown eyes sparkle. Devon smiled.

“We broke up,” he said simply.

“She said you claim she’s your sister.”

Devon sighed. “That seems possible, yeah. Maybe even likely.”

Devon expected Natalie to make a wisecrack. She and Cecily were friends but also sometimes catty rivals. Devon figured she’d come back with some insensitive quip and he’d just grunt and move on. But Natalie surprised him.

“I’m really sorry, Devon,” she said. “I told that to Cecily, too. That must be really hard. I know you guys had thought maybe—”

Devon laughed bitterly. “Yeah. We thought maybe.”

“I can’t imagine what you must be going through. I’m really sorry.”

He looked over at her. Maybe he’d never given Natalie enough credit. She was being genuine and compassionate. After all, they’d all been through a lot together: coming close to being slaughtered by a pack of demons had a way of bringing people together. He was grateful to Natalie for her kind words. He definitely felt the need for her friendship right now.

He put his arm around her shoulders and they walked into school together at the first bell.

And there, leaning with his forehead against his locker, was the fifth member of their little band of warriors: Marcus.

“Hey, man, what’s up?” Devon asked, coming around behind his friend.

Marcus turned his face slowly to look at him. Devon made a little sound as their eyes met. There it was again. The pentagram. The five-pointed star that Devon had seen hovering over Marcus’s face from time to time.

And as Devon saw it again, he realized something else:
that
was the sign the ghost had made last night! The ghost he’d seen in the secret passageway. He had made
a five-pointed star
with his hand!

“Are you okay, man?” Devon asked, leaning in close to Marcus.

His friend had deep black circles under his eyes and red, raw scratches on his cheeks and the bridge of his nose.

“I had a wicked bad night,” Marcus said. “Really bad dreams.”

“How’d you get so scratched up?” Natalie asked, peering in now herself.

“I must’ve done it myself. When I woke up, I had dried blood under my fingernails.”

“What kind of dreams?” Devon asked.

Marcus shook his head. “I can’t remember. Running … Fighting. I just know I tossed and turned all night.”

Devon knew something was up. Too many things were happening all at once: the ghost had made the sign of the pentagram, and now Devon saw it on Marcus’s face. Marcus had bad dreams and scratched himself in the night. Could there be a connection between all of this and the fact that Devon had broken whatever spell had kept Crazy Lady imprisoned? Had Devon disturbed some kind of force by doing so?

The second bell rang. “Look,” Devon said to his friends. “We need an emergency meeting after school. I don’t care what plans you have. We need to meet.”

“Demons?” Marcus asked.

“Possibly. Or something.” Devon turned to Natalie. “Tell Cecily and D.J., too. Whatever attitude Cecily is throwing my way will have to be put aside for now. It’s Marcus’s safety we’re talking about.”

His friend grabbed his shoulder. “Then you saw it again on my face. The pentagram.”

“Yeah,” Devon told him. “I did.”

“What pentagram?” Natalie asked. “What are you talking about?”

“I’ll tell you everything after school. We’ll meet at Gio’s for pizza. Tell D.J. and Cecily, too.”

They hurried off to their various classes. Devon’s first was geometry—neither his favorite nor his best—and he struggled to pay attention as Mrs. Bouchier droned on about acute versus obtuse angles and intersecting perpendicular lines. Devon prayed she wouldn’t call on him because when he looked up at the chalkboard all he saw was one big floating pentagram—a geometric shape itself, but not one being discussed at the moment. At least not by Mrs. Bouchier.

What did it mean? For months he’d seen the pentagram occasionally on Marcus’s face. Yet despite his and Rolfe Montaigne’s best efforts, they had discovered nothing about what it meant, or what it might portend. The best they’d learned was that the pentagram was usually seen as a sign of protection, that wearing the pentagram or staying within its boundaries kept one safe from supernatural harm. Maybe Devon needed to find a pentagram for Marcus to wear.

But what was it that threatened him? Were the dreams Marcus had significant? Why had that ghost appeared to Devon—and who was he? And was there some connection between all of this and the woman who was now running madly between the walls of Ravenscliff?

He had to talk to Crazy Lady again. He had to ask her about—

“Mr. March?”

Devon blinked. The teacher. Damn. She’d called on him.

“Um, I’m sorry,” he said, “would you repeat the question?”

Mrs. Bouchier folded her arms across her chest. “I’ve already asked you twice. I think instead you ought to come see me after the last bell.”

“Oh, but I can’t then. See, I have to—”

“See me after the last bell, Mr. March,” she insisted, returning to the lesson.

Great. Just great. Now he was going to have to be late to Gio’s. He had to get a message to his friends. If he wasn’t at D.J.’s car at the end of the day, he could just see Cecily stalking off, still filled with spite. She could be very impulsive like that.

He knew he couldn’t pull out his phone without Mrs. Bouchier noticing. She detested cell phone usage in her class. But he needed to send a text.

Well, he thought, a small smile slipping across his face. I don’t need my thumbs for that.

He visualized his phone in his jacket pocket. He concentrated on Natalie’s name in his contact list. And he texted her with his mind.

wait for me. i’ve got to deal with bouchier but i’ll be there asap.

Then he hit send with a simple thought.

In his mind he could see the text coming through on Natalie’s phone. She was in her English literature class down the hall. He could see her surreptitiously turning over her phone and reading Devon’s text. He smiled to himself. Yes, he was definitely getting better and better at this sorcery stuff.

After school, he endured a lecture from Bourchier, agreeing to do an extra-credit homework assignment to show he wasn’t entirely clueless about all that geometry stuff. Then he tore out of the room and ran down the hallway toward the parking lot—he couldn’t pull his disappearing-reappearing act in front of so many kids. He skidded the last few feet to D.J.’s car, where his friends were waiting for him.

“Whoa, Speedy Gonzales,” D.J. cracked.

“You were like going
really
fast, Devon,” Natalie told him. “People were noticing. You could’ve given your powers away.”

“I was afraid you guys would take off,” he said.

Cecily glared at him coldly. “Take off? We wouldn’t do that, not if it’s true that Marcus might be in danger.” She smirked. “See,
we’re
loyal. We don’t give up on friends so easily.”

Devon ignored her sarcasm. “Let’s go to Gio’s.”

Over pepperoni pizza, Devon filled them all in. About the ghost, about Crazy Lady, about her revelation about Mrs. Crandall being Devon’s mother. Cecily just snorted, hoping the others will join her in dismissing the theory, but nobody did.

D.J. wasn’t happy about something else, however. “Dude, it was not cool that you kept us in the dark so long about Marcus’s pentagram.”

Natalie defended Devon’s decision to keep it quiet. “We’ve had enough to deal with,” she argued, “what with the Madman and then the demon witch Isobel.”

Devon gave her a look of gratitude. It was nice to be defended. Cecily never did that.

“And besides,” Marcus added, “Devon told me, and that’s what counts. We planned to tell you all when we found out more.” He tried to suppress a shudder. “And if I turn out to be some kind of danger to you all, I won’t blame you if you want—”

“If we want what?” D.J. asked. “Dude, we’re in this together. That’s the way it’s always been and always will be.”

In this together
, Devon thought as they piled into D.J.’s car after finishing their pizza. Cecily continued to give him the cold shoulder. So much for togetherness.

Devon asked D.J. to drop him off at Rolfe Montaigne’s. “Do me one favor,” he said to Cecily. “Cover for me with your mother. She’d be furious if she knew I was with Rolfe, but I’m hoping he can help us figure out what’s going on.”

Cecily huffed. “I’ll do it for Marcus, not for you.”

Devon watched them drive off. He couldn’t believe how much this breakup hurt. He’d really been starting to like Cecily—a lot. Now, in a way, he was glad she was acting so childishly. It would make it easier to get over her, he hoped—to stop thinking of her as a girlfriend and more as a sister. A bratty, spoiled sister, but a sister nonetheless.

He turned and looked behind him at Rolfe’s house. It was made of stone, set into the side of a cliff, facing the sea. It was a house filled with books on magic and strange glowing crystals that contained the knowledge Devon needed to gain if he was to become a master sorcerer. He trudged toward the house, the crashing sea in his ears. The sun was already quite low in the sky, the shadows of the bare, twisted trees lengthening around him. Once again Devon longed for spring. He was so tired of cold, dark, short days.

He was looking forward to seeing Rolfe—the mysterious man who’d been the first person he’d met in Misery Point, and who’d turned out to be the key to Devon’s past. For Rolfe was a Guardian—like Ted March, one of those ancient, noble teacher-protectors of the Nightwing. But Rolfe, like Devon, had been deprived of much of his heritage by the untimely loss of his father, with centuries of knowledge failing to be passed on to the next generation. Despite helping Devon enormously over the last few months, Rolfe was still trying to learn as much as he could about the arcane lore of Nightwing magic so he might be an effective Guardian and guide Devon in his development as a sorcerer.