CHAPTER 32
“So it turns out I’m a demon,” I told Jenna the next afternoon.
We were sitting in our room, or, more accurately, she was sitting. I was still in bed, where I’d been pretty much ever since Cal and Mrs. Casnoff had dragged me back to Hecate. Cal had been able to repair most of the damage done to my feet by my crazy bare-footed run through the woods, but my hand was another story.
I looked down. My left hand was fine, but the right had three long gashes across my fingers, palm, and the heel of my hand. They were puckered and angry looking, the edges of each slash a vivid purplish-red. Cal had done the best he could to heal them, but the demonglass had done too much damage. I’d probably always have scars.
Or maybe Cal just hadn’t had much magic left after trying to revive Elodie. He and Mrs. Casnoff had come crashing into the clearing only moments after I’d cut off Alice’s head and watched her body dissolve into the dirt. Cal had run to Elodie right away, but we’d all known it was already too late. Anna had told me Cal couldn’t raise the dead, but he had tried that night. Only when it was obvious that Elodie was gone did he turn to me and take the blade out of my hand.
On the way back to the school, I’d been pretty out of it, but I remember Mrs. Casnoff telling me that Alice’s body had been buried in the cemetery, along with a few other demons. That’s why the angel had held the blade of demonglass—just in case any of them ever managed to get out.
“You people are more prepared than the Girl Scouts,” I’d muttered. Then I’d fainted.
“I always thought you were pretty evil. I just never wanted to say anything,” Jenna said now. Her voice was light, but her eyes were sad when she looked down at my hand.
I’d gotten most of the story from Mrs. Casnoff that night. She hadn’t lied when she’d told me that Alice had been changed through a black magic ritual. She’d just neglected to tell me that Alice’s ritual had been a summoning incantation, designed to bring forth a demon and make it do your bidding.
I had no idea what anyone would ever need a demon for. Errands? General evil tasks that needed doing around the house?
But demons are tricky, and so instead of becoming Alice’s do-boy, it had stolen her soul and made her a monster. Since she was pregnant at the time, her baby had been a demon too. Lucy had married a human, so Dad was half demon, making me only a quarter demon.
“But,” Mrs. Casnoff had told me as Cal had tried to heal my hand, “even a diluted amount of demon blood can result in enormous power.”
“Great,” I’d replied, my hand on fire as Cal’s white magic raced over it.
Mrs. Casnoff had known what I really was all along, of course. That’s why she hadn’t been able to sense Alice. She thought she was just picking up on my demon vibes.
“So what happens now?” Jenna asked, getting off of her bed to sit gingerly on the edge of mine. “What about Archer and your dad?”
I shifted, wincing as my hand bumped against my leg. “I haven’t heard anything about Archer other than what you told me about how he and his family have dropped off the face of the earth. Apparently there’s a big group of warlocks out hunting for him.”
And what they would do when they caught him. . . ? I didn’t want to think about it.
“Cal thinks he and his family probably ran to Italy,” I continued, trying to ignore the pain in my heart. “Since that’s where The Eye is based, it seems like a safe bet.”
To my surprise, Jenna shook her head. “I don’t know. Something I overheard in Savannah. A few witches were talking about the L’Occhio di Dio contingent in London. There’ve been a few sightings of a new guy with them. Dark-haired, young. Could be him.”
My chest constricted.
“Why would he go there? He’d be right under the Council’s noses.”
She shrugged. “Hiding in plain sight? I just hope they catch him. I hope they catch all of them.” Her eyes were cold as she said it, and a little shudder ran through me.
“As for my dad, I don’t really know. The Council always knew he was half demon, but I guess since he’d never attempted to eat anybody’s face and was super powerful to boot, they decided it was okay to make him Head, so long as no other Prodigium found out what he really was.”
“And Mrs. Casnoff knew too?”
“All the teachers did. They work for the Council.”
Jenna reached up and started twirling her pink streak.
“So you’re not a witch,” she said. It wasn’t a question. Now my wince had nothing to do with my hand.
I wasn’t a witch. I never had been. Mrs. Casnoff had explained that the powers of demons are so similar to those of dark witches that it’s easy for a demon to “pass” as a witch, so long as she doesn’t do anything crazy, like . . . well, like drinking the blood of a bunch of witches to make herself stronger.
I’d liked thinking of myself as a witch. It was a lot nicer than demon. Demon meant monster to me.
Jenna suddenly reached over and started scratching the top of my head. “What are you doing?”
“I was seeing if you have horns under all that hair,” she said, giggling.
I swatted her hand away, but I couldn’t help smiling back. “I’m so glad my monsterness amuses you, Jenna.”
She stopped playing with my hair and wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “Hey, speaking as one monster to another, I can tell you it’s not so bad. At least we can be freaks together.”
I turned and dropped my head on her shoulder. “Thanks,” I said softly, and she gave me a squeeze in return.
There was a soft rapping at the door, and we both looked up. “It’s probably Casnoff,” I said. “She’s checked on me like five times already today.”
What I didn’t tell Jenna was that the last time we had talked, I’d asked Mrs. Casnoff what all this meant for me.
“It means that you will always be incredibly powerful, Sophia,” she’d answered. “It means that, like your father, you will be expected to use this power in service to the Council.”
“So I have a destiny,” I said. “Crap.”
Mrs. Casnoff smiled and patted my hand. “It’s a glorious destiny, Sophia. Most witches would kill to have your power. Some have.”
I’d just nodded because I couldn’t tell her how I really felt: I didn’t want to be Sophia, the Great and Terrible. That sort of thing should belong to girls like Elodie, girls who were beautiful and ambitious. I was just me: funny, sure, and smart, but not a leader.
Sitting there that night with Mrs. Casnoff, Cal still holding my hand even though all of the magic was out of him, I’d asked the one question that had been buzzing in my brain.
“Am I dangerous? Like Alice?”
Mrs. Casnoff had met my eyes and said, “Yes, Sophia, you are. You always will be. Some demon hybrids, like your father, are able to go years without any incident, although he is accompanied by a member of the Council at all times just to be cautious. Others, like your grandmother Lucy, are not so lucky.”
“What happened?”
She looked away and said, very quietly, “L’Occhio di Dio did kill your grandmother, Sophie, but with good reason. Despite living thirty years without ever harming a living soul, something . . . something happened to her one night, and she reverted to her true nature.”
She took a deep breath and said, “She killed your grandfather.”
There was no sound for a long time until I asked, “So that could happen to me? I could just snap one day and demon-out on whoever is with me?”
And when I said that, all I’d been able to see was my mom lying bloody and broken at my feet. My stomach rolled and I’d tasted bile.
“It’s a possibility,” Mrs. Casnoff answered.
And then I asked Mrs. Casnoff if there was a way I could ever stop being a demon—if I could ever return to normal.
She had studied me for a long time, before saying, “There’s the Removal. But it would almost assuredly kill you.”
Her answer was still sitting like a stone in my chest. The Removal might kill me.
It probably would kill me.
But if I lived the rest of my life as part demon, I might kill someone. Someone I loved.
The door opened, but it wasn’t Mrs. Casnoff standing there. It was my mom.
“Mom!” I cried, leaping out of my bed and throwing my arms around her. I could feel her tears as she buried her face in my hair, so I hugged her even tighter and breathed in her familiar perfume.
When we broke apart, Mom tried to smile at me, and reached down to take my hands. I couldn’t hold back a soft cry of pain, and she looked down.
I thought Mom would cry again when she saw my hand, but she just raised it to her lips and kissed the palm, like I was three and had a skinned knee.
“Sophie,” Mom said, smoothing my hair away from my face, “I’ve come to take you home, okay, sweetie?”
I looked back over my shoulder at Jenna, who was trying really hard to ignore us, but I saw the hurt look flash across her face. If I left, Jenna would have no one. So much for being freaks together.
I took a deep breath and turned back to my mom. I didn’t know if I would be strong enough to look in her eyes and tell her what I had to say, what I’d known I had to do as soon as Mrs. Casnoff had given me her answer.
Then, before I could say anything, I saw Elodie walk by my doorway.
Rushing out, my heart in my throat, I wondered if Cal had saved her after all. Maybe she’d been recovering in the school this whole time, and they just hadn’t told me.
The hall was empty except for her, and she had her back to me. “Elodie!” I cried, running up to her. But she didn’t look at me, and I realized I was looking through her.
She walked on, pausing in doorways like she was looking for someone—just another Hecate ghost stuck here forever. I knew she deserved it, in a way. She and her friends had summoned a demon and paid the price.
I watched her for a long time, until she finally faded into the late afternoon sunlight. We’d never really been friends, but she had given me the last little magic she’d had inside her so that I could defeat Alice, and I would never forget that.
And in the end, it was seeing Elodie that gave me the strength to turn to my mom and say, “I’m not going home. I’m going to London, and I’m going through the Removal.”