Текст книги "Anna Dressed in Blood"

Автор книги: Kendare Blake

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“You have to find your way back into the world now,” I say gently.

Anna opens her mouth to speak, but I’ll never know what she was going to say. The house literally lurches, like it’s being jacked up. With a very large jack. When it settles, there’s a momentary jarring, and in the vibration a figure appears in front of us. It slowly fades in from shadow until he stands there, a pale, chalky corpse in the still air.

“I only wanted to sleep,” he says. It sounds like he’s got a mouthful of gravel, but upon closer inspection I realize it’s because all of his teeth have come loose. It makes him look older, as does the sagging skin, but he couldn’t have been more than eighteen. Just another runaway who stumbled into the wrong house.

“Anna,” I say, grabbing her arm, but she won’t let herself be dragged back. She stands without flinching as he stretches his arms wide. The Christlike pose makes it worse when the blood starts seeping through his ragged clothes, darkening the fabric everywhere, on every limb. His head lolls and then whips back and forth wildly. Then it snaps upright and he screams.

The sound of ripping that I hear isn’t only his shirt. Intestines spill out in a grotesque rope and hit the floor. He starts to fall forward, toward her, and I grab and yank hard enough to pull her to my chest. When I put myself between her and him, another body crashes through the wall, sending dust and splinters everywhere. It flies across the floor in scattered pieces, ragged arms and legs. The head stares at us as it skids, baring its teeth.

I’m in no mood to see a blackened, rotting tongue, so I wrap my arm around Anna and pull her across the floor. She moans softly but lets herself be pulled, and we rush through the door into the safety of daylight. Of course when we look back there’s no one there. The house is unchanged, no blood on the floor, no cracks in the wall.

Staring back through her front door, Anna looks miserable—guilty and terrorized. I don’t even think, I just pull her closer and hold her tight. My breath moves quickly in her hair. Her fists are trembling as she grips my shirt.

“You can’t stay here,” I say.

“There’s nowhere else for me to go,” she replies. “It isn’t so bad. They’re not that strong. A display like that, they can probably only manage once every few days. Maybe.”

“You can’t be serious. What if they get stronger?”

“I don’t know what we could have expected,” she says, and steps away, out of my reach. “That all this would come without a price.”

I want to argue, only nothing sounds convincing, even in my head. But it can’t be like this. It’ll drive her insane. I don’t care what she says.

“I’ll go to Thomas and Morfran,” I say. “They’ll know what to do. Look at me,” I say, lifting her chin. “I won’t let it stay like this. I promise.”

If she cared enough to make a gesture, it would be a shrug. To her, this is fitting punishment. But it did shake her up, and that keeps her from really arguing. When I move to my car, I hesitate.

“Will you be all right?”

Anna gives me a wry smile. “I’m dead. What could happen?” Still, I get the feeling that while I’m gone, she’s going to spend most of her time outside the house. I walk off down the driveway.

“Cas?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad you came back. I wasn’t sure if you would.”

I nod and put my hands in my pockets. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Inside the car, I blare the radio. It’s a good thing to do, when you’re sick to death of creepy silence. I do it a lot. I’m just settling into my groove with some Stones when a news report cuts through the melody of “Paint It, Black.”

“The body was found just inside the gates of Park View Cemetery, and may have been the victim of a satanic ritual. Police can’t comment yet on the identity of the victim, however Channel 6 has learned that the crime was particularly brutal. The victim, a man in his late forties, appeared to have been dismembered.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The images before me may as well be news footage played on mute. Lights on all of the squad cars ring out in red and flashing white, but there are no sirens. The police walk around in drab black jackets, their chins tucked low and somber. They’re trying to seem calm, like this happens every day, but some of them look like they’d rather be off in the bushes somewhere throwing up their donuts. A few use their bodies to obscure the view of nosy camera lenses. And somewhere in the center of it all is a body, torn to pieces.

I wish I could get closer, that I kept a spare press pass in the glove compartment or had the money to keep a few cops in my pocket. As it is, I’m lingering on the edges of the press crowd, behind the yellow tape.

I don’t want to believe that it was Anna. It would mean that man’s death is on my hands. I don’t want to believe it because it would mean that she’s incurable, that there is no redemption.

As the crowd watches, the police exit the park with a gurney. On top of it is a black bag that should normally be shaped like a body but instead looks like it’s been stuffed full of hockey equipment. I suppose they put him back together as well as they could. When the gurney hits the curb, the remains shift, and through the bag we can see one of the limbs fall down, clearly unattached to the rest. The crowd makes a muffled noise of disturbed disgust. I elbow my way back through them to my car.

*   *   *

I pull into her driveway and park. She’s surprised to see me. I’ve been gone less than an hour. As my feet crunch up the gravel I don’t know whether the noise comes from the dirt, or from my grinding teeth. Anna’s expression changes from pleased surprise to concern.

“Cas? What’s the matter?”

“You tell me.” I’m surprised to find how pissed I am. “Where were you last night?”

“What are you talking about?”

She needs to convince me. She needs to be very convincing.

“Just tell me where you were. What did you do?”

“Nothing,” she says. “I stayed near the house. I tested my strength. I—” She pauses.

“You what, Anna?” I demand.

Her expression hardens. “I hid in my bedroom for a while. After I realized the spirits were still here.” The look in her eyes is resentful. It’s the there, are you happy now? look.

“You’re sure you didn’t leave? Didn’t try to explore Thunder Bay again, maybe go down to the park and, I don’t know, dismember some poor jogger?”

The stricken expression on her face makes the anger leak out through my shoes. I open my mouth to pull my foot out of it, but how do I explain why I’m so angry? How do I explain that she needs to give me a better alibi?

“I can’t believe you’re accusing me.”

“I can’t believe that you can’t believe it,” I retort. I don’t know why I can’t stop being so combative. “Come on. People don’t get butchered in this city every day. And the very night after I free the most powerful murderous ghost in the western hemisphere, somebody shows up missing their arms and legs? It’s a hell of a coincidence, don’t you think?”

“But it is a coincidence,” she insists. Her delicate hands have formed balled-up fists.

“Don’t you remember what just happened?” I gesture wildly toward the house. “Tearing off body parts is, like, your MO.”

“What’s an ‘MO’?” she asks.

I shake my head. “Don’t you get what this means? Don’t you understand what I have to do if you keep on killing?”

When she doesn’t reply, my crazed tongue plows ahead.

“It means I get to have a serious Old Yeller moment,” I snap. The minute I say it, I know that I shouldn’t have. It was stupid and it was mean, and she caught the reference. Of course she would have. Old Yeller was made in like 1955. She probably saw it when it came out in theaters. The look she’s giving me is shocked and hurt; I don’t know if any look has made me feel worse. Still, I can’t quite muster an apology. The idea that she’s probably a murderer holds it in.

“I didn’t do it. How can you think so? I can’t stand what I’ve already done!”

Neither of us says anything else. We don’t even move. Anna is pissed off and trying very hard not to cry. As we look at each other, something inside me is trying to click, trying to fall into place. I feel it in my mind and in my chest, like a puzzle piece you know has to go somewhere so you keep trying to push it in from all different angles. And then, just like that, it fits. So perfect and complete that you can’t imagine how it was without it there, even seconds ago.

“I’m sorry,” I hear myself whisper. “It’s just that– I don’t know what’s happening.”

Anna’s eyes soften, and the stubborn tears begin to recede. The way she stands, the way she breathes, I know she wants to come closer. New knowledge fills up the air between us and neither of us wants to breathe it in. I can’t believe this. I’ve never been the type.

“You saved me, you know,” Anna says finally. “You set me free. But just because I’m free, doesn’t mean—that I can have the things that—” She stops. She wants to say more. I know she does. But just like I know that she does, I know that she won’t.

I can see her talk herself out of coming closer. Calmness settles over her like a blanket. It covers up the melancholy and silences any wishes for something different. A thousand arguments pile up in my throat, but I clench my teeth on them. We’re not children, neither of us. We don’t believe in fairy tales. And if we did, who would we be? Not Prince Charming and Sleeping Beauty. I slice murder victims’ heads off and Anna stretches skin until it rips, she snaps bones like green branches into smaller and smaller pieces. We’d be the fricking dragon and the wicked fairy. I know that. But I still have to tell her.

“It isn’t fair.”

Anna’s mouth twists into a smile. It should be bitter—it should be a sneer—but it isn’t.

“You know what you are, don’t you?” she asks. “You’re my salvation. My way to atone. To pay for everything I’ve done.”

When I realize what she wants, it feels like someone kicked me in the chest. I’m not surprised that she’s reluctant to go out on dates and tiptoe through the tulips, but I never imagined, after all this, that she would want to be sent away.

“Anna,” I say. “Don’t ask me to do this.”

She doesn’t reply.

“What was all this for? Why did I fight? Why did we do the spell? If you were just going to—”

“Go get your knife back,” she replies, and then she fades away into the air right in front of me, back to the other world where I can’t follow.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Since Anna has been free, I haven’t been able to sleep. There are endless nightmares and shadowy figures looming over my bed. The smell of sweet, lingering smoke. The mewling of the damned cat at my bedroom door. Something has to be done. I’m not afraid of the dark; I’ve always slept like a rock, and I’ve been in more than my share of dim and dangerous places. I’ve seen most of what there is to be afraid of in this world, and to tell you the truth, the worst of them are the ones that make you afraid in the light. The things that your eyes see plainly and can’t forget are worse than huddled black figures left to the imagination. Imagination has a poor memory; it slinks away and goes blurry. Eyes remember for much longer.

So why am I so creeped out by a dream? Because it felt real. And it’s been there for too long. I open my eyes and don’t see anything, but I know, I know, that if I reached down below my bed, some decaying arm would shoot out from underneath and drag me to hell.

I tried to blame Anna for these nightmares, and then I tried not to think of her at all. To forget how our last conversation ended. To forget that she charged me with the task of recovering my athame and, after I do, killing her with it. Air leaves my nostrils in a quick snort even as I think the words. Because how can I?

So I won’t. I won’t think of it, and I’ll make procrastination my new national pastime.

I’m nodding off in the midst of world history. Luckily, Mr. Banoff would never realize it in a million years, because I sit in the back and he’s up on the whiteboard spouting off about the Punic Wars. I’d probably be really into it, if only I could stay conscious long enough to tune in. But all I get is blah blah, nod-off, dead finger in my ear, snap awake. Then repeat. When the bell rings for the end of the period, I jerk and blink my eyes one last time, then heave out of my desk and head for Thomas’s locker.

I lean up against the door next to his while he stuffs his books in. He’s avoiding my eyes. Something’s bothering him. His clothes are also much less wrinkled than usual. And they look cleaner. And they match. He’s putting on the Ritz for Carmel.

“Is that gel in your hair?” I tease.

“How can you be so chipper?” he asks. “Haven’t you been watching the news?”

“What are you talking about?” I ask, deciding to feign innocence. Or ignorance. Or both.

“The news,” he hisses. His voice goes lower. “The guy in the park. The dismemberment.” He glances around, but no one is paying any attention to him, as usual.

“You think it was Anna,” I say.

“Don’t you?” asks a voice in my ear.

I spin around. Carmel is right over my shoulder. She moves to stand beside Thomas, and I can tell by the way they face me that they’ve already discussed this at length. I feel attacked, and a little bit hurt. They’ve left me out of the loop. I feel like a petulant little kid, which in turn pisses me off.

Carmel goes on. “You can’t deny that it’s an extreme coincidence.”

“I don’t deny that. But it is a coincidence. She didn’t do it.”

“How do you know?” they ask together, and isn’t that cute.

“Hey, Carmel.”

The conversation stops abruptly as Katie approaches with a gaggle of girls. Some of them I don’t know, but two or three are in classes with me. One of them, a petite brunette with wavy hair and freckles, gives me a smile. They all ignore Thomas completely.

“Hey, Katie,” Carmel replies coolly. “What’s up?”

“Are you still going to help out with the Winter Formal? Or are Sarah, Nat, Casey, and I on our own?”

“What do you mean, ‘help out’? I’m the chair of that committee.” Carmel looks around at the rest of the girls, perplexed.

“Well,” Katie says with a direct glance at me. “That was before you got so busy.”

I think Thomas and I would like to get the hell out of here. This is more uncomfortable than talking about Anna. But Carmel is a force to be reckoned with.

“Aw, Katie, are you trying to stage a coup?”

Katie blinks. “What? What are you talking about? I was just asking.”

“Well relax, then. The formal’s not for three months. We’ll meet on Saturday.” She turns slightly away in an effectively dismissive gesture.

Katie’s wearing this embarrassed smile. She sputters a little bit and actually tells Carmel what a cute sweater she’s wearing before toddling off.

“And be sure to have two ideas for fundraisers each!” Carmel calls out. She looks back at us and shrugs apologetically.

“Wow,” Thomas breathes. “Girls are bitches.”

Carmel’s eyes widen; then she grins. “Of course we are. But don’t let that distract you.” She looks at me. “Tell us what’s going on. How do you know that jogger wasn’t Anna?”

I wish Katie had stuck around longer.

“I know,” I reply. “I’ve been to see her.”

Sly glances are exchanged. They think I’m being gullible. Maybe I am, because it is an extreme coincidence. Still, I’ve been dealing with ghosts for most of my life. I should get the benefit of the doubt.

“How can you be sure?” Thomas asks. “And can we even take the chance? I know that what happened to her was terrible, but she’s done some terrible shit, and maybe we should just send her … wherever it is that you send them. Maybe it would be better for everyone.”

I’m sort of impressed by Thomas speaking this way, even if I don’t agree. But that kind of talk makes him uncomfortable. He starts shifting his weight from foot to foot and pushes his black-rimmed glasses higher up on his nose.

“No,” I reply flatly.

“Cas,” Carmel starts. “You don’t know that she won’t hurt anyone. She’s been killing people for fifty years. It wasn’t her fault. But it’s probably not that easy to go cold turkey.”

They make her sound like a wolf who has tasted chicken’s blood.

“No,” I say again.

“Cas.”

“No. Give me your reasons, and your suspicions. But Anna doesn’t deserve to be dead. And if I put my knife in her belly…” I almost gag just saying it. “I don’t know where I’d be sending her.”

“If we get you proof…”

Now I get defensive. “Stay away from her. It’s my business.”

“Your business?” Carmel snaps. “It wasn’t your business when you needed our help. It wasn’t just you who was in danger that night in that house. You don’t have any right to shut us out now.”

“I know,” I say, and sigh. I don’t know how to explain it. I wish that we were all closer, that they had been my friends longer, so they might know what I was trying to say without me having to say it. Or I wish that Thomas was a better mind reader. Maybe he is, because he puts his hand on Carmel’s arm and whispers that they should give me some time. She looks at him like he’s gone nuts, but backs off a step.

“Are you always this way with your ghosts?” he asks.

I stare at the locker behind him. “What are you talking about?”

Those knowing eyes of his are seeking out my secrets.

“I don’t know,” he says after a second. “Are you always this … protective?”

Finally I look him in the eye. There’s a confession in my throat even in the midst of dozens of students crushing the hallways on their way to third period. I can hear bits and pieces of their conversations as they go by. They sound so normal, and it occurs to me that I’ve never had one of those conversations. Complaining about teachers and wondering about what to do on Friday night. Who’s got the time? I’d like to be talking to Thomas and Carmel about that. I’d like to be planning a party, or deciding which DVD to rent and whose house to watch it at.

“Maybe you can tell us all this later,” Thomas says, and it’s there in his voice. He knows. I’m glad.

“We should just focus on getting your athame back,” he suggests. I nod weakly. What is it my dad used to say? Out of the frying pan and into the fire. He used to chuckle about living a life full of booby traps.

“Has anyone seen Will?” I ask.

“I’ve tried to call him a few times, but he ignores it,” says Carmel.

“I’m going to have to get in his face,” I say regretfully. “I like Will, and I know how pissed off he must be. But he can’t keep my dad’s knife. There’s no way.”

The bell rings for the start of third period. The halls have emptied without us noticing and all of a sudden our voices are loud. We can’t just stand here in a cluster; sooner or later some overzealous hall monitor will chase us down. But all Thomas and I have is study hall, and I don’t feel like going.

“Wanna ditch out?” he asks, reading my mind—or maybe just being an average teenager with good ideas.

“Definitely. What about you, Carmel?”

She shrugs and tugs her cream-colored cardigan tighter around her shoulders. “I’ve got algebra, but who needs that anyway? Besides, I haven’t missed a single class yet.”

“Cool. Let’s go grab something to eat.”

“Sushi Bowl?” Thomas suggests.

“Pizza,” Carmel and I say together, and he grins. As we walk down the hall, I feel relieved. In less than a minute, we’ll be out of this school and into the chilly November air, and anyone who tries to stop us is getting flown the bird.

And then someone taps my shoulder.

“Hey.”

When I turn all I see is a fist in my face—that is, until I feel the multicolored dull sting you get when someone hits you square in the nose. I double over and shut my eyes. There’s warm, sticky wetness on my lips. My nose is bleeding.

“Will, what are you doing?” I hear Carmel shout, and then Thomas joins in and Chase starts grunting. There are sounds of a scuffle.

“Don’t defend him,” Will says. “Didn’t you watch the news? He got someone killed.”

I open my eyes. Will is glaring at me over Thomas’s shoulder. Chase is ready to jump at me, all blond spiky hair and muscle t-shirt, just aching to give Thomas a shove as soon as his designated leader gives him the go-ahead.

“It wasn’t her.” I sniff blood down the back of my throat. It’s salty and tastes like old pennies. Wiping at my nose with the back of my hand leaves a bright red swatch.

“It wasn’t her,” he scoffs. “Didn’t you listen to the witnesses? They said they heard wailing, and growling, but from a human throat. They said they heard a voice speaking that didn’t sound human at all. They said the body was in six pieces. Sound like anyone you know?”

“Sounds like lots of someones,” I snarl. “Sounds like any dime-store psycho.” Except that it doesn’t. And the voice speaking without sounding human makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

“You’re so blind,” he says. “This is your fault. Ever since you came here. Mike, and now this poor schlub in the park.” He stops, reaches into his jacket, and pulls out my knife. He points it at me, an accusation. “Do your job!”

Is he an idiot? He must be unhinged, pulling it out in the middle of school. It’s going to get confiscated and he’s going to get signed up for weekly counselor visits or expelled, and then I’m going to have to break into god knows where to get it back.

“Give it to me,” I say. I sound strange; my nose has stopped bleeding but I can feel the clot in there. If I breathe through it to talk normally, I’ll swallow it down and the whole thing will start over.

“Why?” Will asks. “You don’t use it. So maybe I’ll use it.” He holds the knife out at Thomas. “What do you think happens if I cut someone alive? Does it send them to the same place it sends the dead ones?”

“You get away from him,” Carmel hisses. She slides herself between Thomas and the knife.

“Carmel!” Thomas pulls her back a step.

“Loyal to him now, huh?” Will asks, and curls his lip like he’s never seen anything more disgusting. “When you were never loyal to Mike.”

I don’t like where this is going. The truth is, I don’t know what would happen if the athame was used on a living person. To my knowledge, it never has been. I don’t want to think of the wound it might cause, that it might stretch Thomas’s skin up over his face and leave a black hole in its wake. I have to do something, and sometimes that means being an asshole.

“Mike was a dick,” I say loudly. It shocks Will into stillness, which is what I intended. “He didn’t deserve loyalty. Not Carmel’s, and not yours.”

All his attention is on me now. The blade shines brightly under the school’s fluorescent lights. I don’t want my skin to stretch up over my face either, but I’m curious. I wonder if my link to the knife, my blood right to wield it, would protect me somehow. The probabilities weigh out in my head. Should I rush him? Should I wrestle it away?

But instead of looking pissed, Will grins.

“I’m going to kill her, you know,” he says. “Your sweet little Anna.”

My sweet little Anna. Am I that transparent? Was it obvious, the whole time, to everyone but me?

“She’s not weak anymore, you idiot,” I spit. “You won’t get within six feet of her, magical knife or no magical knife.”

“We’ll see,” he replies, and my heart sinks as I watch my athame, my father’s athame, disappear back inside the dark of his jacket. More than anything, I want to rush him, but I can’t risk someone getting hurt. To emphasize the point, Thomas and Carmel come and stand by my shoulders, ready to hold me back.

“Not here,” Thomas says. “We’ll get it back, don’t worry. We’ll figure it out.”

“We’d better do it fast,” I say, because I don’t know whether I was telling the truth just now. Anna’s got it in her head that she’s supposed to die. She might just let Will in her front door to spare me the pain of doing it myself.

*   *   *

We decide to scrap the pizza. In fact, we decide to scrap the rest of the school day, and head instead for my place. I’ve turned Thomas and Carmel into a right fine pair of delinquents. On the way over, I ride with Thomas in his Tempo while Carmel follows behind.

“So,” he says, then stops and chews his lip. I wait for the rest, but he starts to fidget with the sleeves of his gray hoodie, which are a little too long and are starting to fray at the edges.

“You know about Anna,” I say to make it easy on him. “You know how I feel about her.”

Thomas nods.

I run my fingers through my hair but it falls right back into my eyes. “Is it because I can’t stop thinking about her?” I ask. “Or can you really hear what’s going on in my head?”

Thomas purses his lips. “It wasn’t either of those things. I’ve been trying to stay out of your head since you asked me to. Because we’re—” He pauses and looks sort of like a sheep, all lip-chewy and lashy-eyed.

“Because we’re friends,” I say, and shove him in the arm. “You can say it, man. We are friends. You’re probably my best friend. You and Carmel.”

“Yeah,” Thomas says. We must both be wearing the same expression: a little embarrassed, but glad. He clears his throat. “So, anyway. I knew about you and Anna because of the energy. Because of the aura.”

“The aura?”

“It’s not just a mystic thing. Probably most people can pick up on it. But I can see it more clearly. At first I thought it was just the way you were with all of the ghosts. You’d get this excited sort of glow whenever you were talking about her, or especially when you were near the house. But now it’s on you all the time.”

I smile quietly. She is with me all the time. I feel stupid now, for not seeing it sooner. But hey, at least we’ll have this strange story to tell, love and death and blood and daddy-issues. And holy crap, I am a psychiatrist’s wet dream.

Thomas pulls his car into my driveway. Carmel, only a few seconds behind us, catches up at the front door.

“Just chuck your stuff anywhere,” I say as we go in. We shed our jackets and toss our book bags on the sofa. The pitter-patter of dark little feet announces Tybalt’s arrival, and he climbs up Carmel’s thigh to be held and petted. Thomas gives him a glare, but Carmel scoops the four-legged little flirt right up.

I lead them into the kitchen and they sit down at our rounded oak table. I duck into the refrigerator.

“There are frozen pizzas, or there’s a lot of lunch meat and cheese in here. I could make some hoagie melts in the oven.”

“Hoagie melts,” Thomas and Carmel agree. There’s a brief moment of smiling and blushing. I mutter under my breath about auras starting to glow, and Thomas grabs the dish towel off the counter and throws it at me. About twenty minutes later we’re munching on some pretty excellent hoagie melts, and the steam from mine seems to be loosening up the old blood still stuck up my nose.

“Is this leaving a bruise?” I ask.

Thomas peers at me. “Nah,” he says. “Will can’t hit for beans, I guess.”

“Good,” I reply. “My mom’s getting seriously tired of doctoring me. I think she’s done more healing spells on this trip than our last twelve trips combined.”

“This was different for you, wasn’t it?” Carmel asks between bites of chicken and Monterey Jack. “Anna really knocked you for a loop.”

I nod. “Anna, and you, and Thomas. I’ve never faced anything like her. And I’ve never had to ask civilians to come take care of a haunting with me.”

“I think it’s a sign,” Thomas says with his mouth full. “I think it means you should stay. Give the ghosts a rest for a little bit.”

I take a deep breath. This is probably the only time in my life that I could be tempted by that. I remember being younger, before my dad was killed, and thinking that it might be nice if he gave it up for a while. That it might be nice to stay in one place, and make some friends, and have him just play baseball with me on a Saturday afternoon instead of being on the phone with some occultist or burying his nose in some old moldy book. But all kids feel that way about their parents and their jobs, not just the ones whose parents are ghost hunters.

Now I’m having that feeling again. It would be nice to stay in this house. It’s cozy and it has a nice kitchen. And it would be cool to be able to hang out with Carmel and Thomas, and Anna. We could graduate together, maybe go to college near each other. It’d be almost normal. Just me, my best friends, and my dead girl.

The idea is so ridiculous that I snort.

“What?” Thomas asks.

“There’s nobody else to do what I do,” I reply. “Even if Anna isn’t killing anymore, other ghosts are. I need to get my knife back. And I’m going to have to get back to work, eventually.”

Thomas looks crestfallen. Carmel clears her throat.

“So, how do we get the knife back?” she asks.

“He’s obviously in no mood to just hand it over,” Thomas says sulkily.

“You know, my parents are friends with his parents,” Carmel suggests. “I could ask them to lean on them, you know, tell them that Will stole some big family heirloom. It wouldn’t be lying.”

“I don’t want to answer that many questions about why my big family heirloom is a deadly looking knife,” I say. “Besides, I don’t think parents are enough pressure this time. We’re going to have to steal it.”

“Break in and steal it?” Thomas asks. “You’re nuts.”

“Not that nuts.” Carmel shrugs. “I’ve got a key to his house. My parents are friends with his, remember? We’ve got keys to each other’s houses in case somebody gets locked out, or a key gets lost, or somebody needs to check in while the other is out of town.”

“How quaint,” I say, and she smirks.

“My parents have keys for half the neighborhood. Everyone is just dying to exchange with us. But Will’s family is the only one with a copy of ours.” She shrugs again. “Sometimes it pays to have a whole city up your butt. Mostly it’s just annoying.”

Of course Thomas and I have no idea what she means. We’ve grown up with weird witch parents. People wouldn’t exchange keys with us in a million years.

“So when do we do it?” Thomas asks.

“ASAP,” I say. “Sometime when no one’s there. During the day. Early, right after he leaves for school.”

“But he’ll probably have the knife on him,” Thomas says.

Carmel pulls her phone out. “I’ll start a rumor that he’s been carrying a knife around school and someone should report him. He’ll hear about it before morning and play it safe.”

“Unless he decides to just stay home,” Thomas says.

I give him a look. “Have you ever heard the term ‘Doubting Thomas’?”