My family has a secret.
“What are you doing in my room?” Connie asks.
I look up at my sister and close the Umbra. She rests her hands on her hips. “I was just looking up something in Mom’s Umbra.”
“What?”
I shake my head. “An incantation. It’s not there though.” I close the Umbra and put it back on Connie’s shelf. She looks at me like she doesn’t believe me. She always gets this twisted shape on her mouth and her nose twitches a little when she thinks I’m lying.
“I’m going for a run.” I say, and bolt out the door before she can question me again. I would tell her, but I don’t have any answers. I don’t even know what my questions are.
My run leaves me at the Nucleus House. The cat is there with Poncho, who looks up at me before I sneak off to the computer. Today the demon Azsis only pulls up fifty-one results. I sit down, ignoring the way my sweaty legs fuse into the plastic chair, and start reading.
Chapter Twelve
Twenty-five search results later, and all of them are the same crap over and over again. The other ones almost seem completely pointless to look at. I search for Alfie and Emmaline, but there’s nothing on them in the database. How does one person—let alone two—disappear from existence?
Pizza?
Ric texts me.
It’s been a long day.
“Finding everything?” Poncho asks as I stand from the computer.
Nothing is more like it. “Not really,” I say with a sigh. Ric texts me back
with olives
and I glance at Poncho. “You coming to the Pairing tomorrow?”
“I don’t mingle with ceremonial events. Too many people,” Poncho says. “I wish you the best of partners.”
I grab my keys and leave. I wish the same for myself.
Ric turns up the music and some techno-pop dance number blares through his computer. I came here so he could cheer me up. I’d spent the whole run home and shower and pizza pickup thinking about Emmaline Spencer. What could she have done, to be completely obliterated? I should ask Gran. She knows everything, especially about our family, but if I ask her then I’ll have to explain why I was in her Umbra, how I found the Alfie/Emmaline Spencer connection by searching for a demon for a ritual that she will most definitely not approve of. She didn’t even want me to know about Alfie Spencer.
I pop another tortilla chip in my mouth.
“How are the girls doing?” Ric asks, referring to the Enforcer finals.
I move my hand like a teeter-totter. “There are a few good ones. The boys?”
“Same,” he says. “Except William Prescott—as in the Triad Prescotts. He’s really showing all of us up, as expected. I don’t know why he’s even there.”
I shrug. “Can we talk about something else?”
Ric answers by turning up the music and singing loudly. I bob my head with it and eat another chip, looking around the familiar room. I love Ric’s house. Where mine is all antiques and heirlooms, his is sharp edges and black accessories. There’s this weird painting above the television that looks like multicolored squares layered over each other—but it forms this awesome silhouette of a weird-looking horse. Or maybe it’s a dog. Gran would never have something like that.
Ric sings along to the chorus, and then stops mid-sentence. “You seem different lately. I thought it was the test, but it’s not.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s something off,” he says. He spins around in the chair to look at me. “You seem, I don’t know, more angsty?”
“Angsty?” I gasp. I have to yell over the music. “I am
not
angsty.”
“You are—angsty
and
feisty. It’s a weird combination for you; it makes you reckless.”
Who is this other angsty/feisty Penelope he’s referencing? I don’t know her. I’m not angsty. Feisty, maybe. I pick up one of the pillows from his couch and twist the tassel around my fingertips.
“You talk like you’ve seen me this way before.”
“I have, once,” Ric pauses. Then he yells and throws another pillow at me. “Tell me you aren’t kissing Jason Prevoy again!”
I throw the pillow back at him. “Never! I’m not kissing anyone.”
“Aha! Bitterness,” he says, pointing at me. “Who do you
want
to be kissing?”
“No one,” I say, probably too quickly. But my mind drifts to earlier and how close Carter was to me and—
“Liar! Your face is red!”
“My face is
not
red.” It so is.
Ric laughs at me. “And you’re protesting. Do you have a boy toy? Who is it? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t,” I say.
“Penelope Grey. Tell the truth. Who is it?”
I’m quiet for a few seconds while I process what to say next. How much can I tell him? He won’t leave me alone until I tell him something. I sigh. “His name is Carter.”
“Carter, the mysterious hot boy who caused your hatred of my gender a couple of mornings ago? How did that happen?”
I bite my lip. Ric doesn’t look away. I roll my eyes. “Long story. He sort of sneaked up on me.”
“They always do,” he says, a silence stretching out between us. He gets this look on his face that says all I need to know: he’s checked out, lost in his own memory. Good. There’s a bounce as Ric tosses himself onto the couch next to me.
“Okay, so you want to kiss this hot Carter boy?”
“Ric! No. Okay? No. He’s a friend.”
“Mmm-hmm, just a friend?” He pauses. I don’t reply and he bops me on the nose. “Right. You can’t say ‘just’ unless you have a secret you don’t want to share.”
“Stop,” I say.
Ric gasps at me in mock horror. “Admit you want to kiss him.”
“Stop it!” I say, grabbing his shirt. Ric laughs and puts his hands up.
“Okay,” he says. I let go of his shirt.
He moves the pillow around and leans back. “But if you kiss him you have to tell me. There’s no withholding information.”
“Fine,” I say. He doesn’t say anything, but I’m pretty sure I’m blushing again. “Let’s watch a movie or something.”
We flip through channels until we find some British chick flick
.
He doesn’t really want to watch it, but gives in. The whole time I think about Emmaline because just like the main character in the movie, someone is keeping a family secret—and it’s only a matter of time before the truth will come out.
It’s only ten when I go home, but between the events from the day, Emmaline thoughts, and Ric pausing the movie every four minutes to talk about the Pairing tomorrow, I’m exhausted. It’s hard enough with so much going on but it’s even worse when your best friend is worried about his future because he’s being forced to pair with a girl. Not that he minds girls. It’s really sort of unfair with so much expectation on Partners to get married. We both just hope he’s Paired with someone who can kick ass.
Inside, Gran is doing a crossword puzzle and Pop is rocking in the chair, eyes closed, while an episode of
I Love Lucy
plays.
“Ready for tomorrow?” Gran asks.
“I’m tired,” I say.
“Big day tomorrow. Big day,” she says, and then she looks back at her crossword puzzle
Connie is laughing on the phone with Thomas when I get upstairs, and I wave at her from outside her doorway before turning into my bedroom.
When I close my eyes, Emmaline Spencer is everywhere. I can see her face—similar to mine, but her eyes are covered and her mouth is zipped shut. No one wants her to speak. I find her locked away in some closet. I pound on the door and scream her name. She doesn’t answer because she can’t. She tries to speak, but it comes out as this screeching sound so loud that it pulls me back to reality.
The screeching is still there—and then I realize it’s my phone. I answer the call, still groggy from my dream. Carter’s voice is all singsong like on the other end. “Ready to go on a track?”
I blink and glance at the clock—11:48 pm. “It’s late,” I say.
“This was part of our deal. I can’t control when the demons are on the move,” Carter says quickly. I can hear the excitement in his voice over the phone. “Come on, Pen. We’ve got to go before I lose the demon.”
I bite my lip. I shouldn’t go. Gran would flip out if I she found out I wasn’t here. I’m being Paired tomorrow—it’s serious business. But that’s really out of my hands. I’m curious, and honestly, I don’t want to say no. I don’t want to go back to sleep either.
“Meet you in ten?”
“No need. I’m already outside.”
Chapter Thirteen
The night is chilly and the air is motionless, like it’s waiting to see what we’ll do. We’ve been following a demon that looks like an old man with a beard that touches the ground. The tips of the beard are dark, while the part at his nose is white. One of its pants legs is shorter than the other, and it’s only wearing one sock with a red stripe. Every few steps it hunches over, looking through the trash bins and knocking on brick walls. The streetlights flicker above it two and three at time with each step it takes.
A beep sounds next to me. Carter mutters something and quickly reaches into his pocket. His phone is blinking red and yellow with a small hum radiating from it.
“What is that?” I ask.
“It’s the tracker I made.”
“A tracker?”
“That demon.” He points to the old man and looks at me grimly. “It’s supposed to find lost things. I’ve been tracking it since that night before I met you, trolling the network for a clue.”
There’s a network? A network of what—demons? I look toward the old man demon. It’s digging in a trash can.
“Why are you tracking this specific demon?”
Carter sighs, focused on the demon. “I’ve been searching for clues for years, Penelope. This demon, Vassago, is my last hope.”
The way he says it, I can tell it isn’t something he wants to admit. His voice is low and his gaze focused on the demon Vassago. If Vassago can find lost things, then this may be the best mission I’ve been on. I’m missing a lot of things—answers, a demon, my essence. Maybe it can help me too.
Then again, it seems to have lost something of its own. That or it has a secret love affair with trash.
“What’s it looking for?” I whisper to Carter.
“Depends on who’s asking, I guess,” Carter says. “Some people say a sock, others a love, a soul.”
“What are you looking for?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer me, but his face changes. His jaw tenses, his eyes get darker.
Carter has a secret.
What am I doing here? Carter wants help from a demon who finds lost things but can’t find its own lost sock? I’m an idiot for thinking this was a solution. We can’t trust demons. We kill them; we don’t ask them for help. That’s like opening the door and letting them into our world for a snack.
Vassago moves down the road and stops at this shady-looking black wall. It knocks again, nothing new there. The wall cracks open and it slides inside. That’s new. I steal a look at Carter, who’s already walking that way.
“Whoa, you aren’t planning to follow it in, are you?”
Carter raises an eyebrow. “Scared?”
“That’s stupid. I didn’t sign up to let you lead me to my impending doom.”
He grabs my hand. “I have a plan, Pen. There’s a masking spell that can hide us, and we can sneak in, talk to the demon, and sneak out.”
“That’s a little too much sneaking. And a masking spell? Those things take a freaking lot of power.”
“You’re right. It’s too bad that girl I met isn’t here. I bet together we could access ‘a freaking lot of power,’” he says. His face is bright, like a kid at Christmas, and has a smile so big that I want it to wash away all my worries.
That’s what he wants me for. This has bad idea written all over it. My head tells me that I should leave, and I’m risking a lot just by being here with him. Still, I can’t leave. I don’t want to. If I walk away I may be leaving someone who can help me get answers.
I’m nodding and Carter pulls me closer. His hands are on my waist and chills run up my spine. “Okay,” he says quickly. The magic between us is stirring in my gut again. “Let’s say the masking incantation. ‘
Let the seen be hid from sight until the morning light.’”
Incantations in English sound so lame, but I repeat after him. I’ve never cast a spell over myself—and definitely not one that alters the way others see me. I create a picture in my head to call on the magic, mostly because I’ve done it enough to know it helps.
Carter and I are in the middle of a crowded street, slowly dissolving into nothing. No one notices us as we walk past them.
We repeat the incantation again together. Suddenly, my whole body is pins and needles and springs—like I’ve been sitting the wrong way for too long and it’s falling asleep.
“I think it worked,” he says.
“I’m a walking pincushion, so I’d say yes.”
Carter leads me by the arm across the street, until we stand side by side in front of the wall. I run my hands across, scouring the wall for some kind of entrance. I know the wood is under my fingertips, but I don’t feel it. Carter knocks against the wall, the same way we saw the demon do it. Nothing happens.
“How do we get in?”
“We open it.”
“How—”
Carter grabs my hand and mutters another incantation. I repeat it, but I try more to imagine it all in my head.
The dark door opening. Us finding Vassago. Finding answers.
The wall bursts open. Shards of metal and wood fly out at us; we duck. The air around us is filled with wood dust. We’re both coughing as we walk through the gaping door.
Inside, everything is dark. Through the dusty air, I see round green bar lights with broken glass hanging from the ceiling. The walls are dark and the floors are a shade of gray that’s had one too many cups of coffee spilled over it. My feet stick to the floor and I’m glad I didn’t wear my pink glittery shoes.
A few people—well, not people so much as demon-possessed people and straight-up demons—all look toward the hole. One demon-man with half-melted skin and missing teeth hisses from the bar, drink still in its hand.
“Stay close to me,” Carter whispers.
I follow Carter through the bar. Pool tables fill the back of the room in clusters, the felt covers ripping in places where sticks were jammed too hard across the surface. It smells like rotten eggs, urine, and day-old vomit.
One of the demons steps out of the shadows with a towel over its slimy blue shoulder. A few other demons follow it and examine our hole, confused. I release a breath as more of them explore. A demon dressed in human skin with ripped jeans and a Mohawk yells from the sidewalk.
“What happ—?” I start to say. Carter covers my mouth with his hand. A few heads turn and look around the room. Some of the demons at the hole start yelling until everyone joins them.
“You’re invisible, not silent,” Carter whispers in my ear.
Good to know.
We stand, unmoving, against a wall. There are about fifteen demons muttering, yelling over one another with human voices and high-pitched demonic sounds. One demon, the size of a linebacker with broad shoulders and golden-brown scales, sits at the bar. The others band together, using magic to repair the hole in the wall. Goldie chugs back his drink and sniffs the air.