The Boys Are Back in Town (17 page)

“You could be blind,” Will suggested. “If she came up to you at a party and wanted to take you upstairs, go somewhere private, you'd go, right?”

With a sidelong glare, Brian made his answer clear. “Don't be stupid.”

“I'm not. I'm making a point.”

“Which is?”

“I'd say no.”

Brian stared at him in disbelief. “Get out of here.”

Will laughed. “I know. Crazy, huh? But true. Not that I wouldn't want to fuck her brains out. But I wouldn't do it. I couldn't hurt Caitlyn like that.”

The engine made a grinding noise as the bus driver dropped into a lower gear, taking a turn onto Cherry Street. In this part of Eastborough the roads were lined with lush old trees whose branches hung out above passing vehicles, shading the street. Branches scraped the bus as they turned the corner.

“Whatever works for you,” Brian said, arching an eyebrow. “You go, be in love. Just don't forget who your friends are. We'll still be here when she breaks your heart.”

Will stared at him, then chuckled. “Asshole.”

Brian grinned. “Yep.” He paused a moment, his smile disappearing, and then glanced at Will again. “So you up for this, today?”

An odd ripple went through Will. The skin on his hands tingled and he flushed as though he had just been caught doing something terribly embarrassing. His chest tightened as pleasure warred with guilt. That was always the way it was for him with magic. He knew that it was dangerous, that there was something nasty, even dirty, about some of the things they had done. But magic thrilled him, and its allure was impossible to ignore.

Brian was looking at him expectantly, but before Will could respond, the bus began to slow, brakes letting out a high-pitched squeal. Out the window he could see the mini stop sign swing out from the side of the bus.

They got up and ambled toward the front of the bus. Dori rose from her seat and shot a dark look at them before stepping into the aisle. Brian's sister was pretty, but whenever Will caught sight of her she sneered at him, and that cut into her beauty significantly. He figured it was a kind of guilt by association—she had to hate him because he hung around with her brother—but that sneer always made him feel small somehow.

By the time he stepped off the bus on Waverly Street, Dori was well on her way up the Schnells' long driveway. The bus driver closed the door with a hiss and there was another grinding of gears as it trundled on up the street.

“What's your hurry?” Brian called after his sister. “Do we smell?”

Dori paused at the end of the path that led to the front door and glanced back at them. Her smile was venomously sweet. “Yes, since you asked. But I'm in a hurry because I've got things to do. People to see. Places to go. You two ought to try it sometime.”

She started up the walk, a new bounce in her step, exuding triumph.

“Don't you mean people to fuck?” Brian asked lightly.

Dori froze. Will could see her shudder with fury. When she turned to them again, her face was red.

“You know,” she said through gritted teeth, “you always ask me why I'm such a bitch to you. That's funny, isn't it? That you'd have to ask.” Dori sighed and shook her head. Then her gaze drifted to Will and a bitter smile creased her lips. “In case you're wondering, Will, I'm going to a party tonight. With my boyfriend. And other people. That's called a social life. You should try it sometime. Soon. Seriously. Right now Caitlyn's the only thing keeping the whole school from thinking you and my brother are either in love or building pipe bombs.”

She brushed at the air as if dismissing them. “Take a note. Take a lesson. That's as nice as I'm ever going to be to either of you.”

Once again she turned away from them, striding to the door and digging out her key. As she fitted it into the lock, Brian followed her.

“You've really never gotten over Will seeing your tits last year, have you?” Brian asked, a nasty glint in his eye. “But I'm wondering if the reason you're so pissed off is because he never asked to see them again.”

Dori ignored him, pushing the door open, then slamming it behind her and locking it again, so that Brian had to dig out his own keys. As he did so he turned and grinned up at Will.

“Guess I hit a nerve.”

Will wished he had never come. Then he remembered what they had planned for the afternoon, and another little sizzle of anticipation went through him. Dori was a first-class bitch, there was no doubt about that. She was never quite as evil to him as she was to her brother, but Will still always felt like she looked at him as though he were dog shit on her shoe. He had thought many times how nice it would be if someone could teach the little prima donna a lesson.

Now the time had come.

T
HE SHADES WERE DRAWN
in Brian's bedroom, the sunlight bleeding in around their edges. The door was locked. A circle of white candles burned in small crystal dishes on the floor, wax dripping like tears. Inside that circle, Will and Brian sat opposite one another with a number of objects around them, and between them, the book and a copper pot. According to Jean-Marc Gaudet, the copper was conducive to magic, and as such, vital to this particular spell.

Spell's probably the wrong word,
Will thought. And he knew what the right word would be, but he did not want to admit it, even to himself.

Music pounded the wall that separated Brian's room from Dori's. It was loud enough that it had to be giving her a headache, but she would be well aware that it was annoying the hell out of them and that would be reason enough for Dori to turn it up even louder. The wall shook with every beat. Will could imagine Dori in there getting ready for the party tonight, trying on different tops and tossing the rejected ones on her bed. He had witnessed the aftermath of her preparation rituals before, the mess she left behind. Even now she was likely brushing her hair out, touching up her makeup in the mirror.

The party didn't start for hours yet, but Dori would do her best to be gone before her parents got home. Her boyfriend Ian was a senior and drove his father's cast-off Volkswagen Jetta. Will figured they had less than an hour before he picked Dori up.

But if this thing was going to work, an hour was plenty of time.

If it works . . .

Will took a deep breath and let it out, trying to clear his mind but unable to, thanks to the pounding bass beat that shook the house. Dori was a bitch, sure, but she was still Brian's sister. Someone he saw almost every day. And really, how much different was she from a lot of other little sisters, especially in high school?

Even as these thoughts entered his mind, however, they were ushered away by vivid memories of Dori snickering, whispering to her girlfriends behind an upraised hand, of a thousand tiny cruelties, not the least of which was the episode only a week earlier when he had walked into the bathroom, accidentally startling her in the middle of brushing her teeth. Will had not known she was in there, and he had given her a fright, but Dori just didn't handle things the way most people did.

She spat a mouthful of toothpaste at him. “How 'bout some privacy, asshole?”

At first, Will had been too stunned even to be angry. When he eventually called her on it, she had shot him her upraised middle finger and told him he was just lucky she hadn't been taking a shower.

Will stared at one of the white candles, at the dancing flame atop it.

“Hey.” Brian waved a hand in front of his face. “You're in space. What's wrong with you? No, no, Will. I know that look. Tell me you're not going to pussy out on me.”

The music seemed to pound against his skull now, and his head had begun to ache. Despite everything, he still felt a certain reluctance, and yet Brian wore an expression that was almost desperate, eyes intense, brows knitted angrily.

“Will . . .”

“You sure about this?” Will ventured. He ran both hands over his hair, making it spike up. “I mean, no secrets, Brian. I can't stand her, but she's your sister. Isn't there someone else we can use as a guinea pig?”

Brian rolled his eyes and grabbed the plastic supermarket bag that had been propped against his thigh. He glanced at the door as if to reassure himself that it was locked and then dumped the contents of the bag onto the floor, spilling out a bruised green apple, a small ball of red yarn, a plastic baggie of mixed herbs, and two other little baggies. One held a clump of hair that Brian had collected from Dori's hairbrush over the course of several weeks. Will didn't want to look at the other bag, but he caught a glimpse of it and his stomach churned. Inside was a blood-soaked tampon.

“Can you think of anyone else we wouldn't mind giving some bad luck to whose hair and blood we could get our hands on?”

Will dropped his gaze, studying the book where it lay open on the floor in front of them. The pages were rough and yellowed, the black print in a Gothic style that often made it difficult to read.

“Hey,” Brian prodded.

“No, I'm good,” Will replied, raising his eyes. “Besides, it's only for tonight anyway, right? Just to make sure it works. Tomorrow we undo it?”

The grin barely parted Brian's lips, and the amiable effect he was going for did not reach his eyes, which remained grim. “Absolutely,” he promised.

Will nodded, making up his mind. Beside him on the floor were a box of wooden matches and a plastic bottle of charcoal lighter fluid he had snatched from his garage at home. Everyone else had gas grills, but his father still liked the old briquettes. He slid the matches and the fluid nearer to the copper pot and then reached for the book. Its leather was not soft against his fingers today. Instead it felt like sandpaper and the book itself had a terrible weight, so that he had to lean in to lift it onto his lap.

It fell open at precisely the place he wanted, the whisper of pages sending a shiver through him. His eyes burned and he had to blink several times to focus on the words, on the spell. The mantra he would have to speak was not in English but in German. Brian had translated it, but Will only remembered some of the translation—bits about flesh and blood and thwarting the fates, about suspending chance and attracting the attention of malign forces.

He had tried to forget. It didn't matter anyway because they had worked out a phonetic version so that they would be able to pronounce everything properly.

Don't want to fuck it up and curse yourself,
he thought, more than a little giddy with the surreal feeling that swept through him. Then he pinched the bridge of his nose and picked up the paper with the phonetic pronunciation, placed it beside the book on his lap. Will didn't like that word. Didn't want to have to even think it.

Dori's music still pumped through the house and his temples throbbed, his head aching worse than ever. The slivers of sunlight that peeked around the edges of the shades were not enough to dispel the shadows that seemed to gather even more closely around them, and the candlelight only made them appear to writhe and undulate.

There was a peculiar taste in Will's mouth, as though he had been chewing on aluminum foil. For a moment as he gazed down at the book, his eyes would not focus. One by one Brian picked up the things he had scattered on the floor and began adding them to the copper pot, Will watching to make certain he followed the order of ingredients as prescribed.

With a small paring knife, Brian sliced the apple into quarters and dropped them into the pot. The herbs followed, and then Dori's hair. That hideous tampon went in next. Brian shook it from the bag, not wanting to touch it, and Will tried not to watch it tumble into the pot but could not help himself.

Will's right hand began to tremble and he gritted his teeth and forced it to be still. He felt short of breath and his face was too warm, and with the music slamming the walls from the room next door he was close to just jumping up and taking off. But how the hell would he explain that to Brian tomorrow?

“Come on, man. Hurry the fuck up!” he snapped.

Brian shot him a glance that burned away any pretense Will might have tried to put up. “Relax, Will. I gave you your chance to bail. Too late to turn back now.” A smile creased the corners of his mouth. “Besides, we're just getting to the fun stuff.”

The fun stuff.
The words echoed in Will's head. There was a dark thrill in him, like the time he had caught a glimpse up Mrs. Hidalgo's dress in biology class and realized she was wearing nothing under there. Again he wanted to pull himself back, to tear his eyes away, but could not. Mrs. Hidalgo had caught him looking. She had blushed and adjusted her dress, shifted in her seat, but said nothing.

That dark thrill was delicious, and Will could not pull away.

Brian was staring at him.

“Get on with it,” Will told him, breathless.

That smile returned to his face and Brian bent to reach out for the Reebok shoe box that had only days earlier contained a new pair of sneakers. He opened the box and shoved his hand in, withdrawing a small toad, then tossed the box aside. The toad was silent but its eyes darted about anxiously and its throat bulged rhythmically.

Will took a few shallow breaths and then focused on the book and the phonetic translation. He began the chant, forcing his throat and lips around the guttural sounds so unnatural to him.

A moment later Brian joined in the chanting, but he did not have to refer to the book or to the sheet with the phonetics. It unnerved Will a little to find that Brian had committed the chant to memory, but he ignored the feeling, kept going. It really was too late to stop now. Certainly he could have broken it off, but that dark thrill held him in thrall.

Brian held the toad in his left hand, pinching it between two fingers, and then pushed the paring knife into its belly. He sliced it open over the copper pot and when its innards began to spill out, he let the dead creature tumble in with the rest of the ingredients. Blood, yes, but they had Dori's blood. This spell required
something else . . . it required life.

A sudden chill traced icy fingers along the back of Will's neck. The thump of Dori's music seemed oddly muffled. The candles flickered, throwing hideous shadows, and one of them blew out, a trailing wisp of smoke climbing above it. For a long moment Will stared at that candle. His stomach ached and his mind was filled with all manner of recriminations and second thoughts, that dark thrill now just something to be ashamed of.