Betwixt (29 page)

“No,” he repeated, and began backing away from father and daughter, toward the forest from which he’d sprung.

“Nix?” Jacob said.

“What the hell, Nix,” Neve said. “Are you okay? You’re freaking me out.”

He squinted against the sight of her. Her pretty hair, a moment ago mashed to her skin with sweat, light and dry now, waving
when her head shook, glinting. Her tilted dark brown eyes. Nix had always thought brown-eyed blonds were the prettiest. The
shaking, buzzing, unholy light around her that grew with every second passing. Her obliviousness to it. Her perfect, stupid
innocence.

Pet.

Neve Clowes was going to die. Soon.

“Nix,” Jacob repeated as he backed away faster. “Listen, I’m sorry. Come back. You need some ice.”

He did not stop. He stumbled over something, fell, and scrambled up, then turned and ran into the trees, their voices echoing
behind him.

“Nix? What’s going on?”

He heard Neve’s call but didn’t stop. He was running through the trees again but didn’t know where. Just away. Away from Neve,
now burning in the light that had been around her father. He had not made it go away, only moved it. He had saved Jacob, but
condemned Neve.

Light and shadow whipped around him. Pine needles and empty space. A universe of light and shadow, mutually dependent, balanced.
How had he thought he could just make part of it go away?

T
HE DOORBELL OF
1515 N.E. S
CHUYLER RANG
, just as it had countless times before. A pleasant two-tone peal that normally made Ondine happy. She liked visitors, even
talked to the Witnesses once in a while. But not now. Now she felt like being alone.

Never had Ondine felt so little like seeing another human being. She wanted to sit in her dining room doing exactly what she
was doing now — erasing her mind, erasing what she had seen, so that she could at some point go to sleep. The snatches of
rest she had caught in Morgan’s car were just that: torn and ragged bits of something like sleep, but terrifying and confusing,
not at all soothing. She was dead tired and needed to think about what she had to do after she’d rested.

The bell rang again. Ondine let her hands drop from her eyes to the table in front of her. It was Nix at the door, she knew.
He’d come to apologize. She’d have to speak to him, go through
the motions of kindness that had once seemed to her as effortless as breathing. She didn’t want to be kind. She wanted everything
to return to the way it was a few weeks ago, before her parents had left. That’s what she wanted. To be a girl again, safe
at home. To be Ondine.

She reached the door and pulled it open.

“You’ve got five minutes.”

The words shot from her mouth, but she swallowed them almost as quickly. Moth stood in the sun squinting, his bug-eyed black
sunglasses perched atop his head. He was playing the penitent, but Ondine knew it was an act.

“That’s a bit long for me.”

She was almost too shocked to speak. “I have nothing to say to you,” she replied tersely. “Especially not a comeback to one
of your sick attempts at a joke. Get out of here before I call the police.” Before she could shut the door and pull the cell
phone from her jacket pocket, Moth took a step forward and placed his hand against it. Ondine could feel the strength in his
hand, the resolve. He’d push if she did. Harder.

Her legs weakened. In the mountains there were people around, but here, on N.E. Schuyler, it was a quiet Thursday morning
and everyone was inside. An image of her brother Max — thirteen and nearly six feet tall — flashed before her. How could she
have wanted him to go?

The smile faded from Moth’s face, and though his hand was still on the door, his voice turned soft, almost pleading. “Ondine,
please. I know this is painful.”

“No —” She was shaking her head, still trying to shut the door. She heard herself begging, her voice jagged. “Please … just
leave me alone.”

His hand dropped. “I can’t.”

Though she should have slammed the door in the boy’s face, she didn’t. Instead she paused, hand still clutching the cell phone
she’d retrieved from her pocket.

“What?”

“This is real. We’re — real. Please. I can prove it to you.”

Ondine stared. His fragility gave her strength.

“I don’t know who you are, James Motherwell, or what you’ve gotten yourself into, but I don’t want any part of it.” She was
calmer now, her voice more measured. She’d tell him what he wanted to hear. “I’ll pretend like none of this took place. But
if you try to call me, if you come here again —” She breathed and remembered the conversation she’d had with Moth the night
of her party. “Please, just stay away, Moth. Otherwise, I’ll go to the cops and have you arrested.”

The boy’s eyebrows furrowed, not from fear but exasperation. He blinked, hard. She swallowed.

“It’s not going to do anything, Ondine.”

She watched him move away from the door. He was preparing
to leave. What she said about the police must have convinced him. She wanted to believe the scene was over, but something
about Moth’s voice as he spoke made her look at him one last time. The sun was behind him and his green eyes were trained
on hers.

“This is not a joke. You’re in danger. To know what you know now, and not to do anything … you have to be prepared. You have
to understand what you are. You were passed out for a lot of what Viv said and we don’t get many chances. Now Bleek knows
it’s you and he’ll come and get you, Ondine. He’ll come to kill you. Your ring and I are the only people who can help you.”
Here Moth paused and stepped closer. Ondine was afraid to move. “You’re not alone,” Moth whispered, and she found herself,
incredibly, listening to him, though she knew she shouldn’t.

“I’m calling the police right now….” She flipped her cell open but waited to press the buttons.

“I only want you to hear this. We
know
you. Viv has known you since you were born. She saw that this would happen, that you would have to go through this — this
confusion. You belong with us, Ondine. Viv —”

Ondine could barely speak. “You’re crazy, Moth. You’re crazy.”

For once he stayed quiet. He looked out to his right, down N.E. Schuyler, and shook his head. He was muttering.

“She told me how hard it would be. I don’t know why I didn’t listen —”

“You have to go now. Please. Go. Go tell someone. Get help. You’re sick. You’ve been brainwashed.”

He swiveled his head back to her and said one more thing as she was closing the door. She managed to do it — close the door
— but not before she heard Moth’s last words, the words that now had her breathing hard, crying, losing the strength in her
legs, letting herself slowly sink to the ground with her back against the door, where she sat rocking herself, not knowing
what to do next.

“Call your father, Ondine. He’ll tell you where it started. Ask him if he remembers Viv. Your father knows.”

I
T STARTED WITH A HISSING
from the steaming thicket around her.
Morgana.
The forest breathed and Morgan with it.

The bank of green and black shimmered and expanded. As far as Morgan knew, she was alone. She had dropped Ondine off, dumped
her things at home (or was it the other way around?), then just as quickly headed into the trees — awake — for the first time
since she was twelve years old. Here was where it had started, and here was the only place she knew to run to.

Something seemed to be straining to come out.
Morgana,
she heard again, and wheeled, but when she turned, the same
disorienting vegetal chaos greeted her: twisting vines; overlapping leaves; and behind it, an inky, mysterious blackness so
dense that even the shafts of morning light that fell from the sky like shards of milky glass could not pierce it. Night ruled
here, and Morgan began to wonder whether she was asleep, whether this was just one long dream — the toad, the girl with the
fangs, the Ring of Fire — when from behind a screen of nettle came Bleek, smaller than she remembered. Instead of his red
fleece and Gap khakis he wore a black-leather fighting costume with straps and buckles and what looked to Morgan like metal-tipped
scales. He was clean-shaven and his receding corn-husk bowl cut had been shorn so close to his head that his bald skull seemed
to glow when he crossed under a slice of light toward her.

Morgan stopped and waited. Even from several yards away, the man’s tensile strength and tarry eyes unnerved her. She held
her breath and tried not to move, though she could not help but shiver in the misty coolness, cursing herself that she had
dropped her jacket along with her backpack at home. Bleek appraised her: tennis shoes to thin white sweater to black, still-damp
hair. Morgan felt the hair on her arms stand up. She knew what her nipples must have been doing under her sweater and she
hugged her arms closer. She was frightened, but sensed he would not hurt her.

His feet scraped the muddy ground.

“Morgan le Fay.” He smirked and slithered nearer. “Humans
can be so —” He smiled crookedly, his eyes downcast in some imitation of flirtatiousness. “So
instinctual.
So beastly instinctual.”

Bleek looked her up and down again. She felt her stomach turn.

“Morgana,”
he whispered.

She waited, unsure what to do next. What had Viv told them?
There are cutters out to hurt you. Changelings who have chosen the dark path. One is familiar to you already.
Of course the woman had meant Bleek. And Neve — Bleek must be using Neve somehow
,
she reasoned, untangling the associations that had formed among her small group over the last weeks leading up to the Ring
of Fire. But why? For simple enjoyment, as Viv had said? The hassle hardly seemed worth it. If Neve
was
at the Ring of Fire, as Morgan had overheard Viv telling Ondine, she must have been brought by Bleek. But for what purpose?
And what did it all have to do with dust?

She stared at the older boy —
cutter,
she reminded herself. Evil, chaotic, insidious. But what was he, really? And why was he dangerous to the others, but not
to her?

Or was he?

One thing Morgan was sure of was that she wasn’t going to do anything until she had more information. Whatever Bleek was,
and whatever she herself was, were more similar than Viv imagined.
Bleek
— Morgan winced inwardly at the improbable
name. And they say you can’t judge a book by its cover. He was a dark disturbance, a shadow after her own heart, which was
beating shallowly now, fluttering.

Morgan knew that what would ultimately happen depended on moments like these. Each decision stacked up like a line of dominoes.
If one fell, everything would be lost. She was not stupid. Bleek’s … what was it? Flirtation? It was hardly as sweet as that
… had little effect on her, though she knew she’d use it.

Coyly, so coyly, she spoke.

“Fancy meeting you here.”

Should she smile now? Bleek was so close she could see the open pores on his hairless skin, the ripples of wrinkles around
his black eyes. She breathed, inched her chest forward, tilted her head, and lowered her eyelashes.

Bleek blinked.

“Disgusting little slut. Stupid bitch.”

He struck her. Not with his hands, Bleek was not meant to use his hands. He struck her with a bolt of something, an electric
current that transfixed Morgan and sealed her to her place. She felt her hair fly about her. She felt her feet fasten to the
ground. She tried to raise her hands but they would not move.

“Deceptive minx.” Bleek opened his mouth and his jagged white teeth shone. Despite his harsh words, he was smiling.
“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing. Do you know what your problem is, Morgana?”

She looked down. The ground seemed to move in waves beneath her.

“You think you’re special. You think there hasn’t been anyone like you. An ambitious girl with a beautiful face and a blessed
body.” He sneered. “The thing is, your tits won’t get you anywhere in Novala. There are thousands of you burned at the door.”

He spit the last words and Morgan felt the air shake around her.

“Fuck you, you pathetic drug dealer, dumb redneck —”

“Quiet!” He jolted her again. This time she felt her tongue lock to the top of her mouth. She tried to move it but only gagged.
“Do not underestimate me, Morgana. Let this be your first lesson. You like lessons, don’t you?”

He circled, yellow-rimmed eyes upon her.

“We have not chosen the dark path for nothing, love.” She felt the coffee she’d had on the drive with Ondine inch up her gorge.
“There’s very little that a cutter won’t learn, or do, for his own gain. Or hers.” He smiled condescendingly. “Our instincts
are sharper, for we’ve had to hone them on creatures just as lightning quick as we are.”

He stopped, walked up to her, and flicked a taut nipple.
It was a shocking gesture, both intimate and violent. Again Morgan felt a current root her to her place, though not as painfully
as before. Though she had to restrain herself from smacking him across the face, she stayed quiet, as she knew Bleek wanted
her.