The Hunt (2 page)

Eve had a hard time believing her mother was or ever had been sensitive about anything. She was a heart surgeon, and she had the God complex that pretty much came with the job. But her father had said it would bother her mother if she knew Eve had discovered the truth about descending from a
witch, although neither her mother nor her father believed that was the real deal. They thought villagers had called Eve’s great-great-great-grandmother the Deepdene Witch because she’d been a little odd and had never remarried after her husband died young.

But Eve knew the truth. Her great-great-great gran had had the power to throw fire from her hands, a fire that could be used to battle demons. Unlike her mother, Eve had inherited the same ability.

‘No worries. Your mom’s all the way downstairs,’ Jess answered.

‘Good. I told her you, Luke and I were going to be up here studying. I left out the part about how we’re going to be studying my fire-shooting woo-woo powers.’ She couldn’t believe it had only been a few months since those powers had started expressing themselves. She and Jess talked about them so casually.

‘Leaving things out is pretty much the only way to handle parents,’ Jess said. ‘For example, I didn’t mention that on Friday-night prowl we took the train to Brookhaven and tried to convince one of the guys at Tattoo Lou’s that Jenna was old enough to get inked.’

Eve laughed. ‘Yeah, I left that part out too. I said we
went to the movies. Which we did – after. How much fun was it though?’

‘How much fun was what?’ Luke asked, appearing in the doorway.

‘Sorry. What happens on the prowl goes into the safe,’ Jess told him.

‘And the safe goes to the bottom of the ocean,’ Eve added. ‘Which, I gotta say, is where your jacket belongs,’ she teased, smiling at him.

Luke ran his hand down the sleeve of his corduroy jacket. Yes, corduroy, with brown buttons that were definitely too big. ‘What?’ he asked.

‘So many, many things,’ Jess answered.

Yet somehow he still managed to look ultra-cute wearing the thing. The tan colour set off Luke’s longish blond hair and those green eyes of his to perfection, even though the jacket looked like it should belong on some fifty-year-old college professor whose eighty-year-old mother still bought his clothes for him. Not Luke’s usual style. Not that Luke put any thought into what his style was.

‘Unlike you two, I have more important things to think about than clothes,’ Luke said.

Eve shook her head. ‘Look how he thinks that’s something to brag about,’ she told Jess. Although,
since her town had been infested with demons a few months ago, Eve had started thinking about fashion a lot Jess. She, Eve Evergold, high-school freshman, had been the only one with the power to kill Malphas, the soul-stealing master demon.

At least Eve hoped that’s what had happened. All she knew for sure was that Mal had disappeared along with his demon minions after she zapped him with every ounce of power she had in her body.

Luke took off the jacket and flung it over the back of Eve’s desk chair. Then he opened his backpack and dumped a bunch of candles onto the bed between Eve and Jess. ‘I thought these would be good for you to practise on. It seems like the thing you need most is control over your power. If you can figure out how to light a candle without melting it or blasting it apart, that’d be a good start.’

Jess picked up one of the candles and set it on the corner of Eve’s desk. ‘Try it, Evie.’ She and Luke got settled on the bed to watch.

Eve nodded and stood up. For a wild moment she thought about asking if they wanted popcorn to eat during the show. Then she let everything nonessential fade from her mind. She shifted from foot to foot, shook out her hands and fingers, then went still.
She locked her gaze on the little votive candle and concentrated on feeling the power within her. She hadn’t used it in a while, hadn’t wanted to. She’d wanted to go back to regular life in her regular – celebrity-studded, millionaire-strewn – little town.

But off and on she’d smelled wood-smoke. The smell she associated with the demon Malphas and his minions. It was fall. Wood-smoke wasn’t an out-ofthe-ordinary scent, but Eve needed to be ready in case the smell wasn’t coming from fireplaces or bonfires. That was the whole point of today’s ‘study’ session.

She pulled in a long, slow breath and released it just as slowly. She was fully charged. She could feel the power there, waiting for her, a bright, hot reservoir. Eve narrowed her focus down to the candle’s wick. She needed to give it a flick of power, just a quick touch.

Her fingertips began to vibrate as she readied herself. She heard her hair start to crackle with electricity. The sensations jerked her back to that final moment with Malphas, who’d stood in front of her looking like the boy she’d been crushing on, with his chocolatebrown eyes, his crooked smile.

Revulsion cut through Eve and her power burst from her fingers in long bolts of fire-edged lightning.
The candle exploded. A tiny piece of wax struck Eve on the cheek. The velocity made it as hard as a pebble. She rubbed the sore spot with her thumb. ‘Maybe we should have borrowed some safety equipment from the bio lab. Some goggles at least.’ She looked over at her friends. ‘You OK?’ They both nodded.

Luke flicked a tiny piece of wax off the knee of his jeans. ‘So what happened with the …’ He opened his hands, making one of those explosion noises that boys seemed to learn before they acquired language.

‘I – I thought about Mal,’ Eve admitted. ‘And I just lost it.’

‘My mom just brought some goggles for Ringo – well, sunglass goggles,’ Jess said, picking a piece of wax out of one of her short braids. ‘They’re called Doggles. She read that UV light is as bad for dogs’ eyes as it is for humans’. Next time I’ll bring them. They’re actually kind of cute.’ Jess was the best at coming up with a little distracting chatter when it was needed most. Eve definitely needed a moment to recover.

‘Would it be OK if I puke in your wastebasket?’ Luke asked Eve. ‘I’m not sure I can make it to the bathroom.’

‘You’re going to criticize Ringo the poodle’s fashion
choices when you came in wearing that?’ Eve nodded towards the jacket on the back of the chair.

‘Yes. Yes, I am,’ Luke answered. ‘Dogs shouldn’t have fashion choices. They should have a leash, a collar, a couple of tags. That’s it.’

Eve grabbed another candle and set it in position at the edge of her desk. She was doing this. She pictured that reservoir of liquid light inside her. She pictured herself dipping a bottle in and filling it. Her arms began to feel fizzy inside, as if warm champagne were flowing down them, the bubbles gently popping.
That’s right. Nice and easy
, she coached herself. She raised her arms, aiming her hands at the candle, keeping her eyes on the wick.

The fizzy feeling intensified, the bubbles popping fast.
Now!
Her fingers turned to sparklers, but the dashes of light didn’t come close to reaching the candle, even though it was only about two metres away.

‘What were you thinking about that time?’ Jess asked.

‘Tinky Winky,’ Eve answered. She and Jess had had a serious
Teletubbies
obsession for a few months during kindergarten. They’d only answer people when they were addressed by the Tubby names they’d
come up with for themselves. ‘Actually I wasn’t really thinking about anything except the power. I was visualizing it, trying to keep it in check.’

‘Emotion has a big part in the strength of your power,’ Luke reminded her. He would know. The very first time her power had started expressing itself, Luke had been teasing her and out came the sparks.

They’d barely known each other. And what Eve
had
known she hadn’t really liked. But Luke had stepped up. He’d been by her side – along with Jess – through almost every moment of the demon crisis.

‘Shall we taunt you?’ Jess sounded a little too eager. ‘Or you could just think about Luke’s jacket.’

‘Are we still on that?’ he protested.

‘For a few more days at least,’ Eve told him, shooting him a wink. She walked over to the desk and straightened the candle’s wick.
Because, yeah, that was definitely the problem
:
crooked wick
, she thought as she backed up into her zapping position.

Almost half an hour later she was putting her twelfth candle into position. ‘What’s the score?’ she asked Luke.

‘Seven explosions, four meltings, the one where you knocked the candle off the table and four fizzles.’

‘Fizzies,’ Jess corrected. ‘We decided to call them fizzies.’

‘They’re all going to be fizzies, or whatever we’re calling them, pretty soon,’ Eve said. ‘I’m losing juice.’ She could only zap for so long without her power getting too low to even send sparks from her fingers. The bigger the zap, the more power got used up. ‘Come on, lucky number twelve,’ she called, flexing her fingers a few times.

‘I didn’t know twelve was lucky,’ Luke said to Jess.

‘Come on. Twelve, like a dozen. Good things come in dozens,’ Eve explained.

‘Lords a-leaping,’ Jess offered.

‘It’s drummers drumming,’ Luke corrected. ‘I’m a minister’s kid. I know every hymn and carol there is.’

‘Drummers drumming.’ Jess smiled. ‘I like. Drummers are sexy.’

‘I was thinking more like cookies or, yum, donuts, but OK,’ Eve said. She gave her fingers one last flex. ‘Here goes.’

She felt the fizzing move from her chest across her shoulders.
Harder
, she urged herself as the tickling sensation moved down her arms. In response, the current moved faster, and the bubbles felt as if they were coming to a boil. Bigger and with more of a
ping
when they popped.
This could be it!
she thought as she let the power surge out of her fingers.

A beautiful bolt of orange-tinged lightning zigzagged across the room. When the tip touched the wick, the candle lit. The small yellow flame was a beautiful, beautiful sight.

‘Woo-hoo!’ Jess cried.

‘Woo-hoo!’ Eve echoed, exhilaration filling her … until the candle began to smoulder as the wick sank down into the quickly melting wax.

Eve began to drop her arms But she jerked them back up as a high-pitched shriek cut through the room. Her heart slammed against her ribs. Her power slammed through her body. Too late, she realized that the sound was only the smoke detector. She couldn’t stop her power from jumping free with a crackling whoosh. A second later flames were consuming Luke’s jacket.

‘What’s going on?’ Eve’s mother called from downstairs.

‘Smoke detector! Candle!’ Eve shouted back. ‘We got it.’

Jess started whacking at the jacket with one of Eve’s pillows while Luke dumped his Coke over it. Eve grabbed another pillow and waved it under the
smoke detector. The wreck that was her room – burned jacket, plus tortured candles, plus bits of wax everywhere – was not something she wanted to have to explain to her mom.

She waved the pillow harder. The jacket fire was out, but the burned corduroy – yes, corduroy – was still producing a lot of smoke. She dropped the pillow, dashed over to the windows and threw them all open. The alarm was still squealing.

She grabbed her desk chair, swept the jacket off it, then dragged the chair across the room, climbed onto it and ripped the batteries out of the alarm. It finally shut up. ‘See, Mom. It was nothing!’ she yelled as she stepped back down. ‘We’d better clean this place,’ she told Jess and Luke. ‘My power is getting really low anyway. That last blast took a lot.’

‘But for a second you got it,’ Jess said. ‘You lit the candle perfectly.’

‘Yeah, I did.’
After more than a dozen tries
, she silently added. She needed a lot more practice if she was going to be able to control her power. She caught a whiff of smoke. Not from the candles. Wood-smoke. Drifting in through the open windows.

Was something out there? Something evil? Something like Mal?

I have to keep practising. Practising, practising, practising
, Eve thought.
I have to be ready … for anything
.

‘You did this on purpose. Don’t even try to deny it,’ Luke accused, and Jess began to giggle.

Eve turned and saw him staring at the soggy, smouldering ruins of his jacket. ‘I didn’t. I swear. In a war there will be casualties.’ She moved up next to him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders.
Some nice muscles there
, she couldn’t help noticing.

For a few seconds they stared in silence at what remained of the jacket. ‘And, Luke, you gotta know,’ Eve added, ‘it was truly hideous.’

‘Eve, Eve, OMG, you’re not going to believe this!’ Jess cried as she raced down the hallway towards her best friend on Tuesday morning at school.

‘What? We’ve only been apart for twenty minutes – and nothing exciting ever happens in homeroom,’ Eve replied. She opened her locker and quickly checked her lipstick in the mirror on the inside of the door.

‘I wasn’t in homeroom. Vic and I got permission to use the office Xerox machine to cop—’ Jess stopped mid-sentence. ‘Doesn’t matter what we were copying. Just cheerleading stuff. What matters is that the chief of police was in the principal’s office, and he was telling her that Kyle Rakoff’s dead!’ she finished in a rush.

Eve shivered as power whispered through her body, sizzling. She wrapped her arms around herself as if that would help her control it. She knew from past
experience that intense emotion made it unstable.

‘Kyle? But he’s my lab partner. I saw him just yesterday,’ Eve protested. As if having seen him yesterday meant that he couldn’t possibly be dead. ‘What happened?’

‘They aren’t sure. Chief Grotte just said that they found his body in the woods. It wasn’t easy to identify him.’ Jess pressed her hand against her throat. ‘He was … He was all torn up. His face and everything. Just torn to pieces. They didn’t know who it was right away.’

A locker slammed behind Eve, even though no one was close enough to touch it.
I did that
, Eve realized. Her power was rising out of her control. She had to get a grip before she started accidentally setting things on fire, because that was never pretty. She started her trying-to-calm-down slow breathing.