It’s as if the floor has just opened up. Joey’s legs feel weak, and her thoughts congeal. “My mom took her own life,” she says weakly.
He smiles. “I’ll take it as a high compliment that you believe that.”
Thunder rattles the house.
“What about the other one? Your other sacrifice?” It’s Sophie now. There’s a confident, compassionate lilt to her voice. Like a therapist, or a hostage negotiator.
He looks at her as if for the first time all night. “The other one, as you so compassionately put it, was an old woman, ninety-two. Eliza Hunstad. She was the easiest of them all. I made her death look like natural causes. No one batted an eye, not even her family.”
Joey swallows. She wants to scream, to punch a hole right through the middle of him.
But Sophie speaks before Joey can make a sound. The hostage negotiator voice is back. “You’re right,” she says with perfect calm, almost curiosity. “I believe that the magic is as much yours as it is ours. Wewould have done exactly the same as you have. All of us. And you promised your mother. I get how important that is.” The irony of this statement coming from Sophie, whose own mother walked out on her, is lost on Cal, but she’s so captivating, so believable, even Joey is lulled by her words.
He nods, maybe thinking, maybe perplexed that someone claims to actually understand him. “I’m not a bad person,” he repeats.
“Of course you’re not,” says Sophie, and her words are their own kind of magic. Joey’s head is pulsing with adrenaline. Elena looks pissed off, but there’s a sliver of fear keeping her from trying to free herself again. Sophie continues. “You’re just like us. If you hadn’t left, you’d probablybeone of us. You probably would have been initiated too. Rightfully so.”
Joey only dares to look at Sophie for a millisecond, but she sees that, since she’s started talking, she’s inched closer to him.
“You had no choice,” Sophie is saying. “I know that. I can see how painful this is for you.”
He nods. She is disarming him. It’s incredible. She’s peeling away his aggression word by musical word.
But she makes a mistake then. During one of her micro-steps, her foot collides with something that slides noisily across the floor. He realizes, then, how close she is, and he whips Elena away in one frenzied motion. Sophie has lost him, and Joey can see the fear growing as she backs away. She looks at Joey. What now? There’s nothing more to say because Cal takes the gun away from Elena’s face and points it straight at Joey. “Open your bag,” he says.
“Okay, okay, okay.” Slowly, she slides the backpack off one shoulder, then the other. She chances a look up. His rage is obvious. He is not rattled. If anything, he’s more focused on the book than ever. And he’s guessed correctly. The book is in the backpack.
But Joey notices Elena’s hard eyes staring at Sophie. Something ispassing between them. Joey doesn’t know what they’re silently communicating, but she can feel her rib cage thrumming. She moves slowly to try to buy them time.
“Okay fine, you’re right. I have the book,” she says. “I’ll give it to you. Just…” She works at the zipper, pretending it’s stuck.
“You know what, never mind,” he says. His patience has snapped. “I think I’ll just shoot all three of you and take it myself.” He aims.
“No!” It’s Sophie who has shouted. And then, she’s charging at him. He looks at her, startled. Elena uses this fraction of a second to join Sophie. They both lower their shoulders and barrel into Cal like two tight ends making the tackle of their lives. Joey crashes in too, and all four of them clatter onto the slate table.
There’s a ringing in Joey’s ears. Cal manages to shove them off with a show of massive human strength. He takes a step backward. Joey and Elena and Sophie wrap each other up. He raises the gun at their huddle once more, and they curl into each other. Joey sneaks a look under someone’s arm.
He is crimson with rage. “You—”
Then, suddenly, his foot slips on something—a book, it looks like—and he goes down hard. He lands on his back, choking on his words. The gun flies out of his hand and skids away. His head snaps back. And with it, there’s a crack like a wet branch. The sound hits one glass wall and then another, until its echo fills the whole house.
It’s a lifetime before they come up from their nest of arms and hair. He’s lying face up, eyes bloodshot and slick and wide-open. Blood is filling the grout between the tiles beneath his head, gushing out like a dam has been let go.
Joey drops to her knees and puts two fingers to his neck. She looks up at her friends. “Oh shit,” says Elena. Sophie cups a hand over her mouth.
Joey grimaces as she reaches behind his head. Grunting, she manages to lift him enough to see the wound.
Beneath his head, doused in his blood, is the glass mountain sculpture. Its peaks point upright and undamaged, but they’re caked with flesh and hair and bone.
72Elena
Joey and Sophie hike down to the spell circle while Elena waits with the body, just to make sure it all goes to plan. And it does, for the most part. It’s a strong illusion spell. She watches the mountain sculpture reappear, sparkling and pristine, on the shelf by the books. She watches the pool of blood collapse in on itself like it’s being sucked up with a straw. She checks to make sure Cal’s wound has closed up. Elena looks at his smug face. It’s still handsome, ghastly but undeniably good-looking. Brain aneurysm. That’s what they’re making it look like, and it is—to Elena’s inexperienced eye—pretty fucking realistic.
He is lifeless, but there’s no blood, no trace of what really happened. No trace whatsoever. Elena stands over him for too long. She didn’t realize she’d enjoy seeing him lying there. Never mind that he tried to kill her. That hedidkill her, according to Joey. But he took Quinn from them, and that was what Elena keeps thinking as she watches his corpse. Surprisingly, she thinks of her mother at this moment, and wonders, for once, if some of what she said was actually true. Elena hopes to god that hell is real. And that Cal Pierce is in it.
She walks down the mountain, this time boots not at all a hindrance.She observes her own footprints scrubbed away behind her, though she can’t tell if it’s the rain or the spell that’s doing it.That inexplicability, she thinks,is the magic of magic.
Eventually, she meets Sophie and Joey at the spell circle, where they’re pacing, the spell work long finished. Sophie’s face is twisted with nerves, and Joey is stoic. Elena nods—“job done”—and they return the nod. A collective breath moves between them, between the trees, between the mountains.
