Hexed (25 page)

Bianca and Mandy sulk off toward the bathroom, Julia hot on their heels. But that’s it: just those three girls in the entire room of students appear the least bit upset with the decision, and the rest cheer as though they’re genuinely happy. And for the first moment, I realize that maybe not everyone loves Bianca. Maybe other people realize what a terrible person she is. It makes me feel sort of bad for her, which is shocking after the whole Sears dress debacle.

But then I see Bishop, and all thoughts of Bianca slip away. He’s inside, leaning against one of the turret-peaked columns that border the room, his hands plunged deep in the pockets of his suit pants, his wing tips crossed at the ankles. He looks up at me from under the bowler hat that sits cocked slightly forward on his head, under which spills his familiar tangle of black waves. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him in anything but rocker clothing, and though I’m not entirely sure this doesn’t qualify as that, it makes me suck in a little breath. That, and the fact that he shouldn’t be here. And since he is, I guess it means everyone else has given up on the Priory too.

Bishop tips his hat and sends me a crooked grin, and I find myself smiling back before I remember that I’m supposed to hate him.

An arm wraps around my middle, and I jerk my gaze away from Bishop as the crowd begins chanting, “Kiss, kiss, kiss!”

Before I even get a chance to process what’s happening, Devon dips me backward and plants a wet kiss on my lips. For a moment, I’m too shocked to react, but then I realize that Devon’s kissing me, kissing me in front of the whole school, in front of Bishop, and that it’s not what I want. I put my hands onto his chest to push him away, but it’s too late. He’s already pulling me back to my feet.

And Bishop is gone.

Panting for air, I scan the columns at the back of the room, desperate to find him. But a strange movement in the room catches my attention. I squint into the darkness, sure that my eyes are playing tricks on me, because what I just saw
cannot
be right. Then the massive, green-spiked tail of the papier-mâché dragon flicks again, and my doubts are cast aside. The dragon is coming to life.

W
hen I scan the length of the dragon’s body, I find that the rest of it is as lifeless as any arts and crafts project should be. But I know it’s only a matter of time before the whole thing roars to life along with its tail, prepared to rip me—and anyone standing in its path to me—to shreds.

Panic sucks all the air out of my lungs, and I forget what I’m supposed to do next. I’m only vaguely aware of what’s going on around me. Mrs. Malone speaks into the microphone and people stare at me frozen onstage, but all I can think is that Bishop’s abandoned me. He saw me kiss Devon and was so pissed that he took off, leaving me to die at the hands of the Priory. But then the fire alarm sounds, and I remember I was supposed to run at the first sign of the sorcerers, run far and fast so that none of the students get stuck in the battle zone, and when we were clear, Bishop and Jezebel would attack. Bishop must have activated the alarm when he realized I’d panicked and not come through on my end of the plan.

Devon tugs my arm, trying to lead me offstage as Mrs. Malone attempts to reassure the confused crowd.

“Calm down, students. I’m sure this is just an error and that we can resume the evening shortly, but until the fire department arrives and we can ensure your safety, I’ll have to ask that you all file into the parking lot.”

Students grumble and groan, collecting their purses and jackets from the tables. Some even line up outside the bathroom.

When I dart a glance back at the dragon, it blinks—a heavy-lidded blink—as though waking from a deep sleep.

I snatch the microphone from Mrs. Malone. “Come on, people, get outside! There’s a fire in the kitchen! You’re all going to die!”

Hysteria races through the crowd. Students cram into the doorways as though sucked there by a vacuum, and our principal flies offstage, running around like a headless chicken, trying to rein in the chaos. So, overall, much more effective than Mrs. Malone’s announcement.

“What are you talking about?” Devon asks. He’s been with me onstage and knows that I haven’t been near the kitchen. “Let’s get out of here,” he says.

I shake free of his grip. “You go ahead.”

His eyebrows draw together, and he glances back anxiously at his friends’ retreating backs. “Everyone’s probably leaving for the party,” he says, actual pain in his voice that he’s not part of everyone.

“Go ahead. I’m not feeling well.” I give him a not-so-little shove toward the stairs. He stumbles back, with the most affronted look on his face. A low, throaty rumble sounds from behind him. Devon spins around just as the dragon’s twenty-foot-long, papier-mâché body morphs into the scaly green skin of a lizard, its massive batlike wings expanding with a whisk of air from either side of its muscular shoulders. High-pitched screams erupt from the clog of people in the doorway.

“Holy shit!” Devon scrambles down the stairs, plastering himself against the wall as he passes the beast without so much as a backward glance at me.

Of course I wanted him to leave so he wasn’t killed. But still. What a gentleman!

I root my feet to the stage, fighting the intense urge to flee along with everyone else. I have to remind myself that the point was to lure the Priory out, that Leo won’t kill me until I’ve broken the spell; the dragon is just a scare tactic. But that’s really, really hard to do when china shatters as the dragon climbs to its feet, bones cracking as it extends its long, curved neck to full length. The animal yawns, revealing two rows of serrated, sawlike teeth and a thin red serpentine tongue.

Why, oh why, couldn’t this year’s homecoming theme be Care Bears?

I stumble backward.

“Indigo, what are you doing?” Mrs. Malone pokes her head in the door. “Come on out here, it’s … dangerous.” She spots the dragon, and her eyes go wide. She lets out a bloodcurdling scream and stumbles from the room.

The dragon sniffs the air, then snaps its head toward me so fast I shriek. Bishop? Jezebel? The Family? Any time now, don’t be shy. I know we agreed you’d all stay back until Leo shows his face, but I think a dragon is a good time to intervene too.

The dragon takes a huge breath that puffs up its chest, then exhales, blowing snapping flames across the room, so close to my face that my cheeks sting as though I’ve just come inside from the cold. I flatten myself against the wall so that I’m not burned. Just when it feels like my face is melting off, the fire finally, mercifully, sucks back into its mouth. But the dragon’s not done with me yet.

It takes one step closer to me, rumbling the earth, talons-for-nails clacking against the parquet flooring. Its mouth opens again, and it doesn’t take the third-highest GPA at Fairfield High to know what’s going to happen next, what’s going to happen if I don’t get out of here.

A familiar heat burns up my chest, and I slam it down hard and fast. I’m not even sure what’s happened until I’m ten feet in the air, looking down at the dragon’s fiery breath flaming below me. I’m flying! And from my new vantage point, I spot Bianca, Julia, and Mandy pressed up against the wall outside the bathroom. The fire sucks back into the dragon’s yawning mouth. Following my line of sight, it snaps its head in the direction of the girls. And oh, it’s so very tempting to let him have a snack and hope he’s too full for a main course. The dragon sniffs the air.

I sigh. “Get out of here!” I yell. “Run!”

Bianca stumbles for the door, Julia and Mandy staggering behind her. “I—I knew you were a freak!” Bianca yells.

A hard clapping sounds from deep within the shadows of the room. Leo emerges, smirking. “Brava! You’ve finally learned to fly. Thought you’d never do it.”

I press a hand over my heart; relief oozes through me like warmed caramel at the sight of him, of his marred cheek and half-frozen smile. It means that help is on the way. The break in pressure makes me falter in the air. I fall hard onto the stage, pain slicing up my spine as my crown clatters in front of me.

Leo misinterprets my reaction as fear. “What? You thought we weren’t watching? Oh no”—he shakes his head—“I’ve been watching everything you do, Indigo. I probably know you better than you know yourself. Favorite cereal? Cocoa Puffs. Favorite shampoo? Pantene Curly Hair Series. Your best friend is Paige Abernathy, your next-door neighbor, though it was Bianca Cavanaugh before that. You hate pumping gas, so you let your car run on empty for days until you fill it up. Let’s see, what else?” He taps a finger on his chin.

An involuntary shudder passes through me. “I get it,” I say. I stagger to my feet and push my sweat-dampened tendrils away from my face, sweeping my gaze around the room. Where are they?

Leo tips his head to the side. “Looking for your friends?”

“She doesn’t have to look far.” Bishop sits at a table with his feet up on a chair. He plucks a grape from a tray on the table and pops it into his mouth. And the fact that he isn’t panicked at the sight of a huffing dragon not twenty feet away makes my shoulders relax a tiny bit.

“Give us the Bible and we won’t kill you.” Jezebel enters through the kitchen doors doing her confident, swaying walk.

Leo speaks without even turning to face them. “I think it was you who once said that the one with the knife gets to make the rules. Well, I think the same principle applies here, with the dragon.”

“You think we’re scared of your crappy dragon?” Jezebel throws her head back and laughs.

Speak for yourself, Jezebel.

Leo nods. “Fair enough. But maybe one of my talented colleagues can summon more impressive magic for you. Shall we see?”

The double doors burst open, and men and women clad in suits almost as severe as their expressions file into the room. Ten. Twenty. Thirty …

A chill passes over me, despite the heat and sweat soaking the air inside the Athenaeum.

If Leo can summon a dragon on his own, I don’t want to know what dozens of sorcerers can do together. The Family—where is the Family?

Bishop stands.

“Oh, not so confident anymore?” Leo laughs. As if on cue, the dragon stomps closer to me, rattling dishes off the tables. It paws the air between us. I yelp and leap back, its claws narrowly missing my face.

Leo perches on the end of a table on the opposite side of the dance floor from Bishop. “Just quit being so damn stubborn, Indigo, and break the spell.”

I look to Bishop for direction. He nods at Jezebel, and not an instant later, they both materialize in front of me. Jezebel holds a hand skyward, and the roof of the Athenaeum blows out in a mass of white stucco shards and red cloth.

“Hold on tight.” Bishop grabs me around the middle, and the three of us dart straight up through the ragged hole in the roof, a storm of debris falling around us. We zip high into the cold air above the clouds, and I don’t bother pointing out that I can fly now, not wanting to test my brand-new skills when the Athenaeum is now just a white speck in the darkened cityscape below, and the hundreds of high schoolers milling around outside look as tiny as ants. A homecoming they’ll never forget.

Now that we’ve escaped, the full weight of reality hits me: we failed. My plan failed epically. Not only did we not get the Bible back, or kill Leo, or defeat the Priory, but I exposed witches to the public, ruined homecoming for my peers, and destroyed a city monument. I don’t even want to think about the consequences.

“At least we got out!” Bishop yells over the wind, as if sensing my disappointment and shame. He squeezes me tighter.

“Spoke too soon!” Jezebel yells. She nods behind her.

It’s so far away that at first I think it’s a bird. But it’s fast,
really
fast, and it’s not long before I can clearly see the veined wings of the dragon snapping up and down against the twilight sky.

“Oh hell!” Bishop shouts.

“Couldn’t have said it better myself!” Jezebel yells.

“What are we going to do?” Bishop asks.

No one speaks, the dragon’s flapping wings—growing louder and louder—reminding us that every second counts.

“Follow me.” Jezebel plunges down suddenly, like a pelican diving for fish. Bishop grips me tighter and follows suit. I’d always thought he didn’t hold back any of his power when flying with me in tow, but now I know that he did—a lot. Because the speed at which we descend toward the ground knocks the breath out of me. Yet, by the time we reach the ground, Jezebel is already lifting up a manhole cover. She tosses it aside like it weighs no more than a penny, and a dank, mildewy smell similar to wet clothes left to dry in a washing machine wafts up.

Reading my mind, Jezebel says “Ew” and pinches her nose. Then, without even crouching down, she drops into the dark hole, only a splashing noise to indicate that she’s landed.

“Jezebel.” My hair hangs around my face as I grip the sides of the hole and peer inside, but it’s too dark; I don’t see anything.

“Hurry up, it’s coming.” Bishop pushes my back.

I do a shoulder check and find the dragon fast approaching, cutting across the star-specked sky at an alarming rate. The fear that had gripped me earlier comes surging back like a jolt of electricity. I kick off my heels and take a leap.

The bottom is farther than I anticipated, and needles of pain shoot up my legs as I splash-land into calf-deep water. I buckle to my knees, hands braced against the gritty-yet-slimy bottom of the sewer for support, shuddering as I consider all the things that could be making the water slimy.

“Out of the way!”

Not a second later, there’s another splash as Bishop leaps into the hole after me, and then a quiet
pop
as the same taper candle we used for summoning lights up Bishop’s face and the faded redbrick walls behind him. “Come on.” He snags my arm, and we noisily slosh through the muddy water, the heavy, wet taffeta gown sucking against my legs, tripping up my steps despite its short length.

We make it only feet away from the hole we dropped through when a thundering boom shakes the walls. I scream and clutch Bishop’s arm, and he presses my head protectively against his chest. The echoes of the boom still resonate when it is replaced by a squealing roar so high-pitched it makes my ears ring. A taloned paw reaches into the sewer and angrily claws around left and right.

“Quit cuddling and run!” Jezebel yells, waving us toward her from her spot just inside the circle of light cast by the flickering candle.

Bishop pulls me farther into the narrow, snaking bowels of Los Angeles County. The dragon doesn’t follow—can’t follow—but I’m smart enough about the workings of the Priory to know that doesn’t mean we’re safe.

Almost as soon as I have this thought, I become aware that the cold, thick water that was licking my ankles not too long ago now reaches to my knees.

“The water’s rising!” Hysteria breaks my voice, thoughts of drowning in a sewer constricting my throat.

The others don’t respond, as if they noticed already and didn’t want to scare me.

Jezebel’s boots splash three feet ahead of us, leading the charge. “Just keep running,” she says between struggles for air. “We’ll get out at the next sewer cover.”

But it’s kind of hard to run underwater. The cold liquid rises up around the tops of my thighs, an awkward depth too high to run in and yet too shallow to swim in, and I have to lift my legs higher and higher to make any headway. Jezebel’s three-foot lead becomes twenty, and I gasp and struggle for air. Even tyrannical hellish cheerleading training under Bianca’s regime has left me unprepared for this task.