Faustine (9 page)

“Look. I never said I could make it this weekend. I have other plans,” I said.
Like a coronation
. “And even if I didn’t, I have a boyfriend.”

“That she does,” Ryker said, as he walked over to us and planted a kiss on my forehead.

I so wished I hadn’t said
boyfriend
in front of Ryker. He wasn’t really my boyfriend; I was just using him as an excuse. My face had turned bright red. Luke, who had walked in with Ryker and seen the flush on my cheeks, began to snicker.

Taylor looked at Nicole, “Did you know about this?”

Nicole pouted. “Well, sort of. We all met Ryker Saturday night. I didn’t know he was her boyfriend, though!”

“Well, this is a bit awkward, Sis,” Fitch said, clearly annoyed. “I could have hooked up with someone else had you not insisted....”

“Oh, don’t be a baby! You still have plenty of time. I’ve got to go,” she said, and stomped off, clearly annoyed.

“You sure you don’t want to go with me?” Fitch asked looking at me.

I nodded.

“Okay, well, this was a waste of time! Later,” he muttered, and walked off.

It was time to go to my next class. Thank goodness! I was momentarily spared from having to explain the boyfriend comment to Ryker. I sure hoped the rest of the day would go a bit smoother.

Not so.

Just before I stepped into math class, my phone vibrated. I took a peek just in case it was important–like my dad. Not Dad; in fact, I didn't even recognize the number.

The text was short:

I need you. Meet me in the upper girl’s restroom.

-your sister

My sister? Half sister, obviously. What was she doing at my school? Did she go here? I guessed I’d better go and find out what was up. The text sounded urgent.

“Faustine?” Luke asked from behind me.

“Are you in this class?” I asked, moving to let him pass.

“I’m in all your classes, remember?”

“Oh, yeah. Go ahead. I’ve got to do something.”

“Like what?”

“It’s not important; go on in.”

“Look, I’m gonna follow you anyway, so you might as well tell me what’s up. Something is definitely going on, I can tell from your look. You’ll never be a poker player.”

I handed my cell over to him.

“We’d better hurry,” he said, taking me by my hand and pulling me through the corridor and up the steps.

“Wait! Luke! Do you know her?”

“Of course I do!”

“You might have mentioned that my sister goes to our school. Don’t you think? What’s her name?”

“Kismet.”

“Kismet? What kind of a demon name is that?” I asked.

“She’s not a demon. Not even a half demon. Her mother is an angel. She’s a very rare hybrid. We don’t have a classification for her. She seems to be some kind of heightened angel. She’s a loner and certainly wouldn’t contact you if she wasn’t in danger. Come on! Hurry!”

We ran along in the quiet of the never-ending corridors until we reached the restroom. Luke didn’t knock; he just barged into the girls’ room and stopped dead in his tracks. On the mirror above the sink:
Eat that, demon Princess
was written in red marker. Luke stared at it, then went over to the sink and threw up.

“Luke?”

He fell to the ground, his face planted in the palms of his hands. I had a good look around. I opened every stall. There was no one, nothing. No flayed body, no signs of struggle, no shreds of clothing, no drips of blood. Nothing.

“Luke, there’s no one here. Could this be a hoax?” I suggested.

“A hoax?” he whispered. “How?”

“Oh, I don’t know!”

“It’s not a hoax, Faustine,” he said, picking up a small white scale from the floor. “This is from her necklace. She always wears it.”

I thought about this for a moment. “Couldn’t she have dropped it the last time she was in this restroom?”

Luke reached for his cell phone and punched in some numbers. As he put it to his ear, a look of concern crept over his face. “She’s not picking up.”

“Where are the rest of my siblings?”

“The twins, Jaques and Mariel, are in Paris. Portia is in London, Maximillian is in Tokyo, and Katerina is here in New York.”

“Contact Katerina first and find out if she’s okay. Then, let’s contact the rest,” I said, pacing around the restroom, trying to figure out what to do next. Why was this happening? Could one of my siblings be behind this? We needed to figure out if they had alibis for the last two incidents. Dorian had already left for London, so this was up to me. But what could I do? I didn’t have a clue. I was just grateful that we didn’t have a gory body to deal with this time.

“Look, I have to be honest. I’m at a total loss. What the heck am I supposed to do about this? Apart from cleaning that mess up,” I said, pointing to the mirror.

“We need to find your father. We need to find out what’s happened to Kismet,” Luke said.

Talk about stating the obvious! Sheesh.

“Going back to what I suggested before, let’s ask Neave and Tessa to help us locate them. They might be able to use that white scale you found to help locate Kismet. But in all honesty, I don’t know. What do you think?”

“I thought Dad said that we should use Cassandra to help us; otherwise, it could be a diplomatic nightmare.”

“Yeah. But, to tell you the truth, I didn’t really take to Cassandra. I’m not sure I can trust her. Besides, I have my own witches right here. I just don’t want to waste any more time. I’m going to get Neave and update her. I want you to call my siblings and confirm their safety and locations for me. Weren’t they all supposed to come over and meet me? When is that going to happen?”

“I haven’t gotten around to it yet, Princess....”

“Luke!” I pleaded, “do it now!”

I left him in the restroom rubbing off the red marker mess with paper towels while I went to find Neave. I waited outside her classroom until the bell rang, then pulled her aside. “Let’s go.”

“Go where?” she asked, as I pulled her along.

“Home.”

“Did you get passes?”

“Passes?”

She sighed. “Faustine, they won’t let us just walk out of school halfway through the day. We’ll need permission.”

“Okay. Let’s get it and go.”

“It’s not as easy as all that. You’ll need to call your mom first, then she’ll have to call the school office with a good excuse for us to leave early,” she explained.

“That’s silly. Besides, we don’t have time for that.”

“But....”

“Don’t worry, I’ll sort it out.”

“How?”

“Ryker.”

“Right.”

While I had assumed that Ryker would just
wander
us out, it turned out that he couldn’t, not the both of us. So, he helped us bust out of the downstairs restroom. It was a clumsy maneuver on my part as I fell, head first, into the bushes below the window. For sure, it was not a pretty sight, not a moment I’d want captured on YouTube. After the three of us had removed the leaves and twigs from all sorts of awkward places, we made a run for it and didn’t stop until we got to my building. We were all completely out of breath. The plan was to go up to my apartment and get something that belonged to Dad. Then, we’d go down to the security of the basement hideaway.

As we entered the building, we were too pooped to take the stairs, so we made for the elevator. But, before we could even push the
up
button, a nerdy-looking man wearing a pinstripe suit came out of the elevator.

“Neave? What are you doing out of school? Are you all right?”

“Um. Yeah. Faustine, Ryker, this is Tessa’s husband, Robert,” Neave explained. Then, Neave turned to Robert and continued. “Faustine isn’t feeling well, so Ryker and I are bringing her home.”

“Yes, your eyes do look bloodshot,” Robert remarked, looking at me suspiciously. “I trust you’ve called Lady Annabel, and that you’re going back to school, Neave?”

“Yeah,” she said, as she scrambled into the elevator with us. As soon as the elevator jerked to life, Neave shuddered. It was a long shudder that shook the elevator.

“What was that?” I asked, dumbfounded.

“I just had the darkest, most hollow feeling. It left me cold, shivering.”

“Wow, that was some
shiver
,” I pointed out. “What caused that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it has something to do with what’s going on with you and your siblings. We are dealing with some dark forces. I can feel it.”

Surprise, surprise. We weren’t dealing with fairies and Christmas elves, that’s for sure.

“Ryker, are you sure you want to be around for this?” I asked.

“I’m not leaving you to deal with this on your own,” he said firmly. “I’m staying. Let’s get what you need.”

The elevator finally stopped, and we made our way to my apartment. I went into the spare bathroom, which my dad used during his visits, and got his hairbrush. There were still some strands of his hair tangled up in the bristles.

“What else do you need, Neave?”

“For what? What exactly is it that you want me to do?”

“Find my dad!”

“And you think I can do that how?”

“You’re the witch! Don’t you have a spell or something? I thought all you would need is something of his, and you’d mix it up with whatever, say a spell and....”

Ryker started chuckling. “Faustine, you’ve been watching way too much television.”

“Look, I’ve just done a few minor spells. It takes years for witches to grow powerful enough to cast complicated spells. I wouldn’t know where to start to help you find your dad,” she said with a shrug.

“What about your mom? Do you think she could help?”

“I don’t think so. You could ask, though.”

I felt defeated. How else would I track my father? I needed some kind of indication, vision of where he was or what had happened to him. “Neave, let’s talk to your mom.”

W
hen I updated Tessa, telling her everything, and asked her for help, she was beside herself with worry, but she just wasn’t powerful enough to help. Unfortunately, she confirmed what everyone else had already told us: we needed to contact Cassandra or an equally powerful witch. Tessa was adamant that we needed to hurry and find someone who had access to the Book of the Dead. It was Neave who tentatively suggested that her grandmother might be able to help. At first, Tessa seemed a bit reluctant, but she eventually agreed that this was the least complicated option.

So here we were, on our way to Neave’s grandma’s house in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania. It was just the four of us: Tessa, Neave, Luke and I. Ryker had stayed behind at Tessa’s request. We had rented an SUV for the occasion, which Tessa was driving while the rest of us took in the amazing country sights.

“Gorgeous, isn’t it?” Tessa remarked. “Do you remember our last visit?”

“Only vaguely. What was I? Five?”

“Just four, actually. I’m not surprised that you don’t remember. I brought you and Neave for a weekend of tubing at Camelback Mountain. We had such fun, and when you saw the skiers, you wanted to give skiing a try. I enrolled both of you in beginner ski school; you turned out to be a natural. Neave, not so much,” she smiled.

“Mom, you know I hate heights!” Neave protested.

Neave had developed vertigo as a child, and the condition had become increasingly worse over the years. Now, it was so bad that she was even afraid to go sledding.

“So, where are we going exactly?” I asked.

“Just another half an hour or so,” Tessa replied. “Once we pass Canadensis, it’s only about another fifteen minutes. We are, however, going to have to go off-road to get there.” Tessa warned.

 I was glad we were in an SUV when Tessa drove off the main road and headed into what seemed like a field. We drove across it, holding on to the sides of the car as it bumped over the rough terrain, until we reached a dirt road on the other side. Following the dirt road wasn’t much better, and the SUV was covered in mud when we finally arrived at the wooden cottage surrounded by rose bushes. It had been more like an hour ride than the half hour Tessa had indicated.

I braced myself as Tessa knocked on the door. I wasn’t sure what to expect.

“Get her out of here!” the older lady shrieked as soon as she laid eyes on me. “A demon!”

“It’s okay, Mom,” Tessa explained. “This is Faustine. She’s a half demon, but harmless.”

The lady regarded me with suspicion. “There is no such thing as a harmless demon–half or not,” Pauline, Neave’s grandma, declared firmly.

Perfect
. “Miss Pauline, I assure you that I mean you no harm. I’ve come to beg for your help.”

“Another demon!” Pauline said, her saucer eyes looking past me to Luke, who had decided to join us despite promising that he’d wait in the car.

“This is Luke, another half demon who means you no harm,” I reassured her.

“Mom,” Tessa sighed. “Let us in. That was a long drive. I need a drink. Why on earth do you choose to live so far from anywhere?”

Pauline looked at Luke and me unhappily, but stepped aside to let us through the door. She hung back while we followed Tessa and Neave into the kitchen.