Blood Moon (Book Three - The Ravenscliff Series) (7 page)

Okay, ninety-nine percent certain.

What’s the matter with my inner Voice? It’s supposed to intuitively tell me things that I can trust. Why is there a nagging little doubt now?

Even with his doubts, however, he could not bring himself to reconcile with Cecily. There were still too many questions, too many fears. So he spent his time with Natalie. It was actually not so unpleasant. Natalie was extremely pretty, but even more important, she was sweet and considerate. Cecily had often had temper tantrums and punished Devon with the silent treatment. It was actually pretty nice to hang out with someone less mercurial. They could talk about a million things, and Natalie never got all cranky and annoyed at anything. At lunch, he sat with Natalie in the cafeteria; Cecily sat at another table with D.J. Their little band of demon hunters was in danger of breaking up.

Especially with Marcus’s absence. The day after Devon’s confrontation with Mrs. Crandall, they’d all been alarmed to see that Marcus wasn’t in school. He wasn’t answering any of their texts and hadn’t tweeted or posted anything online in more than twenty-four hours. Devon was worried. After class, he’d headed over to Marcus’s house.

His father had answered the door. “Marcus is in bed. He’s … uh, not feeling well.”

“Can I see him?” Devon asked.

“Um, well,” Marcus’s dad had said, looking back over his shoulder. “It’s Devon, Gigi. Can he go up and see him?”

“Have him come inside,” Marcus’s mother had called.

It was a plain, ordinary house, no skulls or crystal balls, just a simple, flowered sofa, a La-Z-Boy recliner, and a television set. Marcus’s school photos hung on the wall. It had reminded Devon of the house where he’d grown up, that small little two-bedroom place in Coles Junction, New York, where he’d lived with Dad. There’d been no secret panels and portraits of somber, mysterious ancestors. Devon had felt a pang of homesickness walking into Marcus’s house, and not for the first time did he wish he could go back in time. Things were so much simpler then.

Marcus’s mother had stood in front of him in a housecoat, wringing her hands. She had looked terrible, as if she’d been up all night. “Marcus is sleeping,” she had told him. “He’s … he’s had a rough time.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Devon had asked.

“The doctor isn’t sure. He’s been … sleepwalking. Has he seemed any different to you?”

“Well, he told me he’d had some bad dreams the other night,” Devon had replied, wondering if he should reveal anything about the pentagram to Marcus’s parents. He’d decided against it; they never would have believed it.

“Bad dreams, bad dreams,” Marcus’s mother had said, putting a hand to her head and sitting down on the couch. She’d started to cry.

“It’s okay, Gigi,” her husband had said, placing a hand on her shoulder.

“Can’t I go see him?” Devon had asked.

“No,” Marcus’s mom had said between tears. “I don’t want you seeing him. It’ll be a while before he gets back to school. He needs to recover …”

Devon had left there feeling helpless. He’d tried to will himself into Marcus’s room but found he couldn’t. There was something shielding his room. Devon worried that he was failing his friend.

Now, days later, it struck him what Marcus needed.

A pentagram.

To protect him.

How could I have been so stupid not to realize it before?

That’s why I had seen it on his face.

A pentagram was for safekeeping. And Marcus needed to be kept safe—from what, Devon wasn’t sure, but he was in some kind of danger.

If only I had a pentagram to give him …

But I’m a Sorcerer of the Nightwing. Of
course
I have one to give him.

Devon stopped back at Marcus’s house again after school. The kid’s poor mom seemed even more haggard when she opened the door.

“No, he’s still not feeling well,” she said.

Devon dropped his hand into the pocket of his denim jacket. Sure enough, there was something in there that wasn’t before. He withdrew a silver necklace with a small five-pointed star hanging from it.

“Would you give this to him?” Devon asked, handing the necklace to Marcus’s mother. “Tell him it’s from me. He’ll recognize it. He should wear it.”

“Wear it?” she asked, accepting the gift.

“Yeah, it’s kind of like a good luck charm.”

The mother agreed to give it to Marcus. Devon turned to leave, imagining the worst about his sick friend and cursing the limits of his powers to find out what was really going on.

In the days that followed, the earth continued to thaw, and spring made its stealthy return to Misery Point. There were still some cold, windy days, and a couple of dustings of snow, but in the village shutters were being removed from the windows of shops that had been closed for the winter. Flower boxes were suddenly sprouting blue and yellow pansies, and getting a table for lunch at Stormy Harbor restaurant sometimes now meant waiting in line.

The moon was no longer full, so there were no more sightings or encounters with the beast. Rolfe, after much effort, had given up on the crystals: although they offered some intriguing portraits of the Muir family, they’d told him nothing about sorcery—or about the creature or its origin. The night it had attacked him, the beast had also apparently killed a couple of dogs and frightened a girl who was walking home from Stormy Harbor. If the girl hadn’t managed to get into her car as quickly as she did, the thing would certainly have attacked her, too. The police followed up on several leads, including Roxanne’s call, but they were unable to find the beast.

Devon knew they wouldn’t have to worry about it for another month, when the moon was once again full.

Except for the fact that Marcus remained out of school, things seemed, in fact, to fade back to normal. That was, if the occasional rampage through the walls by Crazy Lady didn’t count. Any discussion of her identity was strictly forbidden; whenever Devon tried to raise it, he was silenced by Mrs. Crandall, who snarled he’d “done enough damage.” Nor did she permit Devon to try to see her—even when he argued that with his powers, he might be able to contain her. On his own, Devon found himself just as frustrated in his attempts: trying to encounter Crazy Lady again in the secret passageways, hoping to press her for more answers, he met with failure every time.

She’s avoiding me
, Devon thought.
She knows how to give me the slip. I have to remember she’s got powers, too.

For a while, Bjorn managed to get her confined to one room, playing games with her and bringing her some of her favorite treats, like hot fudge sundaes. But inevitably Crazy Lady disappeared on him again and took to running through the walls of the house, making Mrs. Crandall absolutely wild. Alexander thought it was a hoot, banging on the walls back at her, making a game out of it. Cecily complained that the noise was giving her a migraine, and so she was out of the house as often as she could be, ordering D.J. to drive her to the mall or take her to the movies.

Devon tried not to process any lingering feelings he might have had for Cecily. It was best to just forget them. Instead, he concentrated on Natalie, with whom he texted until two a.m. every night.

After about a week, they were all thrilled when Marcus returned to school. But he was reluctant to talk about his illness. He was kind of bruised and he’d lost some weight, but otherwise he seemed okay. Devon noticed he was wearing the pentagram and made his friend promise not to take it off. Marcus agreed, but also insisted that it was over—that whatever had ailed him was done, finished, and they should all stop worrying about him.

With the arrival of spring came Devon’s birthday. As he fell asleep the night before the big day, he wondered again if he would be sixteen or seventeen when he woke up in the morning. He dreamed of his dad—Ted March—the only father he ever knew. “Dad,” Devon asked him, “will I ever know the truth?”

“Maybe you already do, my son,” his father told him.

It became one of those long and meandering dreams, where images flowed together, where one thing led to another without any rhyme or reason. Dad’s image was followed by Cecily, then Natalie, and then the beast, howling at the moon. Its howling became drawn-out, almost musical, until, absurdly, it was as if the beast were singing “Happy Birthday.”

“Happy birthday, dear Devon …”

He opened his eyes. Someone was stroking his face.

A dream, or …?

It was dawn. Pink light streamed into his room, flickering against his wall.

Devon looked up.

Yes, someone really was sitting on the edge of his bed, stroking his face and singing to him.

It was Crazy Lady!

“Happy birthday … to yooooooou!”

And then she threw back her head and laughed. That shrill, maniacal sound.

Devon sat up in bed.

That wasn’t the light of dawn flickering on his wall.

His room was on fire!

Devon leapt out of bed. His dresser, his desk, the curtains at his window were all aflame. The fire crackled, hopping impishly from the curtains to the wall.

And Crazy Lady, her hair teased out wildly, just stood there and laughed.

“You’re trying to burn the house down!” Devon screamed. “You’re trying to destroy Ravenscliff!”

She laughed even more hysterically now.

Devon spread his arms wide and concentrated.
You better not think this is showy
, he told whatever Nightwing forces were out there.
I’m doing this to prevent this whole place from going up in smoke!

Instantly, the fire snuffed itself out, leaving only blackened, smoldering debris.

Crazy Lady covered her mouth and giggled, then turned and slipped through an open panel in Devon’s wall. He started after her, poking his head into the panel that he’d never even known was there, when he heard a scream.

Cecily.

He hurried quickly into the hallway. Smoke billowed down the corridor.

“Fire!” he could hear Cecily shouting. “My room is on fire!”

Alexander, too, was running into the corridor in his pajamas, his round pudgy face contorted in terror. “There’s fire in my room! The house is burning down!”

“Oh, no, it’s not,” Devon said, once again stretching out his arms and concentrating—this time on extinguishing every flame in the house.

He succeeded—only too well. Even the pilot lights in the stove and the hot water tank were snuffed out. Mrs. Crandall was none too pleased at such an ostentatious display of his powers.

“But if Devon didn’t do what he did, the whole house would’ve burned to the ground,” Alexander said later that morning as the household gathered in the parlor. “He has such cool powers.”

Mrs. Crandall just sighed and sent the boy upstairs to get ready for school.

“Well,” Cecily said after he was gone, “Alexander is right. I have to give credit where credit is due.” Her green eyes made contact with Devon’s as she wrapped her pink terrycloth robe tightly around her. “Thank you, Devon.”

He looked away, not wanting to be reminded of how he once felt about her. “Do you want me to fix the fire damage?” Devon asked Mrs. Crandall. “I can probably repair most of it …”

“If you are going to use hammer and nails and paint, fine,” said the mistress of Ravenscliff. “But not any sorcery.”

Devon made a face. “Then I guess you’ll need to call a carpenter.”

“If I may be permitted to say so, ma’am,” Bjorn said to Mrs. Crandall, “she’s getting to be a real danger. One never knows when she’ll strike. I thought she was happy and content last night. I brought her a hot fudge sundae. She seemed so good-tempered. But she must have been plotting, even then. Next time we might not be so fortunate. Master Devon might be at school …”

“Well, what do you propose we
do
, Bjorn?” Mrs. Crandall snapped. “Every time you capture her, she slips away again, since the spell of confinement has been broken.” She shot a withering look Devon’s way.

“Well, if I may be so bold to suggest, ma’am,” Bjorn offered, “maybe a new spell ought to be cast.”

Devon knew Bjorn meant him. He was the only one at Ravenscliff—other than Crazy Lady—who had any powers left.

“No more spells,” Mrs. Crandall said weakly, sinking down into her chair. “It stirs things up. It lures things this way …”

“But if she tried to burn the house down once,” Cecily argued, “she’ll do it again.”

“Can I even
do
it?” Devon asked. “I mean, if she’s got powers, too, who’s to say I can contain her?”

“She’s never known how to use her sorcery properly,” Mrs. Crandall said. “She was never adequately trained.” She eyed Devon coldly. “Not that you
were
, Devon, but you have, over my objections, been making progress.”

Making progress?
Devon could really get into it with her on that point, arguing that rescuing Alexander from a Hell Hole and defeating an undead demon witch was considerably more than just “making progress.” But he held his tongue.

“I would be willing to try,” Devon said, “on the condition that you tell me who she is, and what she knew about me. It seems only fair, if I’m to be the one who contains her.”

Mrs. Crandall seemed appalled. “You would bargain over the safety of this family?”

“Yeah, Devon,” Cecily said, coming around to stand beside her mother. “That seems really selfish.” She crossed her arms over chest and thrust her chin up. In that moment, Devon thought, mother and daughter had never looked more alike.

“Look,” Devon argued, “you’re asking me to imprison someone against her will.”

“A
sorceress
, Devon, who is becoming more dangerous by the day.” Mrs. Crandall slapped the arm of her chair. “What if she gets it into her mind to open the door to the Hell Hole? What then?”

It was a thought that took Devon aback. Yes, what then? In his mind’s eye he could see the portal in the West Wing—that bolted metal door behind which the demons slithered and scratched, begging to be set free. Only a Sorcerer of the Nightwing had the power to open that door, or seal it shut.

“All right, all right, I’ll do it,” Devon said. “But I still want answers. And if you won’t give them to me, I’ll find them elsewhere.”

“Just locate her and keep her in one room,” Mrs. Crandall said. “I hate the very thought of allowing you to use sorcery in this house, but I’ve no other choice. Just bind the basement room with mystical energy to keep her from breaking free, energy that would also surround her even on walks we might take in the courtyard.”

“No,” Devon said. “I’m not putting her back in the basement. Or in the tower, either. Now that we know she exists, she ought to live in a normal room. She can’t be treated like a prisoner, even if she is. She needs help. There must be some kind of help we can get for her.”

Mrs. Crandall laughed derisively. “What? Like some Nightwing psychiatrist?”

“Well, yeah.” Devon turned to Bjorn. “There are doctors for sorcerers, aren’t there? There must be.”

“Well, yes,” Bjorn said, nodding his little head, “there are shamans and other practitioners of the mind and body who work with Nightwing. In fact, ma’am, I recommended one for the lady when I first came here …”

“She needs no quack doctors, Nightwing or otherwise,” Mrs. Crandall insisted, cutting him off. “Devon, you may put her in my mother’s old room. I’ll allow that. It’s well appointed, with a lovely view, but far enough removed from the rest of the house so as to keep us out of harm’s way.”

Devon figured for now that was as much as he’d get out of her. “Okay,” he said. “So what do I do? Just concentrate …?”

“There was a time,” Mrs. Crandall said, a certain wistfulness creeping into her voice, “when all I would have had to do was blink one eye and all this would be accomplished. It’s an easy task, easily performed, when one has had the best teachers.”

“Which you
did
, right, Mother?” Cecily asked, eager for stories of her mother’s Nightwing past, stories she was usually so reluctant to reveal.

“Oh, yes,” said Amanda Muir Crandall, a faraway look in her eye. It was the first time Devon had ever seen her nostalgic for her days as a sorceress. “Thaddeus brought in some wonderful teachers …”

“Thaddeus,” Devon said softly. He knew Thaddeus Underwood was the name his father, Ted March, had used while he was a Guardian here at Ravenscliff. If only he had taught Devon in the way he had taught the Muirs, educating him in all the mysteries and majesty of the Nightwing, rather than keeping his heritage a secret for so long …

“Oh, Mother, I so wish you hadn’t renounced your powers,” Cecily said. “Then I could be a sorceress, too …”

“No!” Mrs. Crandall snapped out of her reverie. “It was too dangerous a life! We are better off as we are, living as ordinary people.” She stood and pulled her daughter to her. “I couldn’t bear losing any more of my family.”

She looked over at Devon deliberately.

“And that means you, too, Devon,” she said, her voice tender. “So please be careful. Do what you must, and then let us be done with it.”

Devon didn’t have time to ponder Mrs. Crandall’s words long, whether by calling him a part of her family she was admitting he was her son. She was out of the room before he could say another word, hustling Cecily upstairs and leaving Devon in the parlor to concentrate on corralling Crazy Lady.

Everybody seemed to have forgotten it was his birthday.

He sighed. It was a lot to ask a guy to do: summon energy to contain a fellow sorcerer, all before getting ready for school.
School
—it hit him that his books and geometry homework were on his desk. They were just smoldering ashes now. Great, just great.

“Concentrate,” he told himself, trying to block out any other thoughts. He stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by the relics of the Muir family’s Nightwing past. Horatio Muir’s eyes stared down at him from the wall. Devon took a deep breath. “Concentrate on finding Crazy Lady.”

But he couldn’t see her. He wasn’t concentrating hard enough, he supposed. He pressed his palms against his temples and closed his eyes. “Come on, Crazy Lady, wherever you are,” he murmured. “Fun and games are over. You went too far this time, trying to burn the house down. Waking me up and singing—”

He opened his eyes.

“How did she know it was my birthday?” he asked out loud.

She’s a sorcerer
, he told himself.
She has an inner Voice of intuition, too
.

But maybe she was
there
, when Mrs. Crandall gave birth …

“Concentrate,” he commanded himself again, but now there was a sound to distract him. The soft sound of crying. His eyes darted around the room. They came to rest on the portrait of Emily Muir.

Jackson’s wife—whose ghost haunted this house and Devil’s Rock. Whose prayerbook had been in Crazy Lady’s room …

Devon approached the portrait. How pretty Emily had been, so blond, so innocent. And yes, the eyes of the portrait were dripping tears.

“Are you trying to tell me something, Emily?” Devon asked. “Something about what’s happening here with Crazy Lady? What was your connection to her?”

The tears just rolled down the oil paint, one after another.

Devon knew the legends. He’d heard them the first day he came to Ravenscliff. How, one stormy Halloween night, Emily had found her husband with another woman and, in despair, had thrown herself from Devil’s Rock. Devon knew, having confronted Jackson Muir in the Hell Hole, that the tragedy profoundly determined the course of the Madman’s subsequent evil, so great was his grief and guilt.

Devon returned to concentrating on finding Crazy Lady, but again had no luck. She’d kept herself hidden from him before; she clearly did not want to be found. She was pitting her sorcery against his.

He sought out Bjorn and told him that if he couldn’t find her with his mind, they’d have to do it the old-fashioned way—with their eyes and ears. He also determined that he’d need to miss school—who knew how long finding an insane sorceress would take? It was just as well, since his homework was charred beyond recognition.

Bjorn took the basement and first floor; Devon headed into the West Wing. It always creeped him out going in there. This was where the portal to the Hell Hole existed, in the secret room with no windows. There was a portrait in there, too, that Devon found fascinating: of a boy who looked exactly like him, in the clothes of an earlier time, further evidence of a connection between himself and Ravenscliff.

He didn’t need to check the secret room, however; if Crazy Lady were at the Hell Hole, he’d feel it. Every cell of his body would be vibrating. Instead, he explored the passageways within the walls of the West Wing. He slunk down the narrow, cobwebby corridors, sometimes not more than a foot wide, holding his magic globe of light in his hand. What better place for her to hide out in, in a part of the house that had been closed off, unused since the time of Emily Muir.

Of course, Devon reasoned, Crazy Lady might have discovered the sorcerer’s trick of invisibility. He could have been walking right past her and never have known it. A sorcerer could make himself or herself invisible to all senses, including the sense of intuition. Rolfe called it the “Cloak of Obscurity”—he’d read about it in one of the books. Devon had used the trick to avoid detection by Isobel the Apostate.

So Crazy Lady knew her sorcery.
She’s good
, Devon thought. Mrs. Crandall might claim she’d never been trained adequately, but it was clear that she’d learned enough to remain undetected.

There must be another way to find her
, Devon told himself. If she was physically invisible
and
shielded from his Nightwing gaze, she was going to win their game of hide-and-seek every time.
There’s got to be another way …

How he wished he’d had a Guardian in the way most Nightwing kids had. Not that Rolfe hadn’t been trying to do his best, but he was often as much at a loss as Devon. If only Devon had been able to go to the great Nightwing school run by Wiglaf in the fifteenth century. Devon had met Wiglaf during his trip into the past and had seen firsthand how awesome it would have been to have a Guardian who’d really known his stuff, who could have taught him all the finer points of sorcery. Wiglaf would have known what to do, how to nab Crazy Lady …