“Sure, nothing. You’re itching to argue with me, but something’s got you down.” An approaching car’s headlights briefly illuminated his father’s face; he was studying Mateo intently, so much so that Mateo wished he could squirm out of the way. “You know I heard about the sleepwalking, right?”
He didn’t want to talk this over with his dad. Not even a little bit. But he had to talk about it with someone, and there wasn’t anybody else. “I was hoping it kinda got lost in the mass hysteria.”
“Nothing gets past me. You hear that, Mateo? Nothing.” This was almost laughable, considering that Mateo was now Steadfast to a witch, and one of his “oldest friends” had been outed as a Sorceress, and Dad had missed all of it. But Dad’s voice was gentle as he continued, “Anybody can sleepwalk. Lots of folks do it. Doesn’t mean anything, except I’m going to put on another set of locks, because I don’t want you tripping on the steps. Are people giving you a hard time?”
“Only slightly harder than usual.”
“Listen to me. It’s all crap. Everything they say about that curse. Pure. Crap. I watched your mother go through this. All those years she had to take it alone—alone except for your grandmother, which if you ask me, was worse—but you don’t have that problem, okay? You’ve got me. You’ve always got me.”
Mateo knew a lot of guys didn’t get along with their parents; sometimes he was extremely grateful to be the exception to the rule. “Okay. Good to know.”
“And not just me! You’ve got your friends: Gage and that girl, the one with the weird hair—”
“Verlaine.”
“Something like that. Plus you’ve got your girl, huh?”
Mateo remembered how Nadia’s dark hair felt in his hands, the way she smiled at him, how she’d fought through the cold waves to save him from drowning—the memories shone inside Mateo like a shaft of light. “Yeah. I’ve got Nadia.”
“Then hang in there.”
Just when Mateo thought he might be able to stand telling his father a little more, he saw headlights approaching on the road—on both sides of the road. “Hey. That guy, is he passing or what?”
“Watch it. You get crazy people on the highway these days.”
Ahead of them, blue and red lights began to flash. The police? They weren’t speeding, so why would anybody try to stop them?
Mateo realized then that the cops weren’t pulling over the truck. They were blocking off the road completely.
As they reached the blockade, he also saw that these weren’t just police cars. Behind them was a line of vans and trucks. Mateo pulled over to the side, and Dad rolled down his window. “Officer? What’s going on?”
“Return to your vehicle,” said a stiff voice through a megaphone. “This county is under quarantine, under orders of the Centers for Disease Control.”
Quarantine.
The government thought Elizabeth’s dark magic was a plague or pandemic. They were going to rope off Captive’s Sound from the rest of the world to protect people from a disease that didn’t exist.
But that meant every single person in town was now trapped there, within Elizabeth’s reach, unable to escape.
18
VERLAINE HAD THE STORY UP ON THE LIGHTNING ROD home page by eight a.m.
Town Under Quarantine said the headline in the largest type that would fit on a standard page view. People could click through to see the photos she’d taken last night; since she couldn’t sleep anyway, she’d driven along every road that led out of town as far as she could, until she reached the vans and barricades. The sight of government people in white coats conjured up a few conspiracy theories, but while they were fairly rude about making her go back, they didn’t stop her from taking pictures. So apparently no top secret, illuminati-type stuff was going down.
Verlaine hadn’t been able to nail down an interview yet, but she’d been able to find other records of CDC quarantines and how they worked. That gave her material for an info box about how nobody was allowed to leave town, but how these things normally only lasted a few days—until the scientists figured out just what kind of disease they were dealing with.
In this case, the disease was magic. The CDC was good at lots of things, but detecting magic wasn’t one of them. That meant the quarantine might be going on a while.
She’d sent tons of material to the Guardian editors, too, assuming Mrs. Chew would ever go ahead and post it. In the meantime, though, anybody eager to learn more about what was happening in their hometown should be led to the Lightning Rod through a simple Google search. Mr. Davis couldn’t tell Verlaine she’d overstepped this time. Even Desi Sheremata would have to notice the good work she’d done. The basic updates had gone up an hour ago, in which time the site had received . . .
. . . nine hits. And one comment awaited moderation.
Nine. A total of only nine hits. People in town had to be panicking. Medical vans were parked all over the place, everyone had a relative in the hospital, and nobody much could know what was going on. Didn’t they have to be online, looking for information? Didn’t they care what was happening to this town?
She tried to think of something constructive to do. The only thing that came to mind was the one comment she had to moderate, so she opened it up. It read:
Awful, how only the most beloved members of the community have been struck down. Mavis Purdhy with her twins at home who need her—Riley Bender, the homecoming queen—Gary Turner, a caring father—and now so many more, but all of them so dearly missed. It’s as if someone wanted to cause as much pain as humanly possible.
Then again, this amount of pain isn’t entirely human, is it?—Asa
Great. Her only page views were coming from demons who wanted to taunt her.
Verlaine hit Discard as Spam, then flopped down on her bed, pulled a pillow over her face, and wished the entire world would just go away.
The last time Nadia had staked out Elizabeth’s house, Verlaine had suggested that she was maybe pushing things too far.
So this time, Nadia hadn’t told Verlaine about it.
She had ducked behind a neighbor’s hedge, partly shrouded by a spell of shadow; this wouldn’t make her totally invisible, but it would make people less likely to turn her way. Nadia wasn’t sure how long she’d have to wait. She was pretty sure Elizabeth didn’t get out much. Not likely to run to Costco, or join a book club. Still, obviously Elizabeth left her house sometimes, and the next time she did, Nadia intended to seize the chance.
Nadia had brought her phone and earbuds, a thick coat, and even a folding seat her dad used when he went camping; she was prepared for the long haul.
Which was why it surprised her so much when, not ten minutes later, Elizabeth’s door opened.
Elizabeth had forgotten what it was like to feel weak.
The muscles in her body obeyed her only sluggishly; her skin burned with what she dimly remembered as fever. She wanted water to drink, so much that at first she thought her old thirst had returned—but it was just this sickness having its way with her.
“We call it infection,” said the demon as he led her along the street. “Are you conversant enough with the twenty-first century to understand infection?”
It was what modern people believed in, instead of evil spirits. Fools. “I want it done with.”
“Then come with me,” he said. He spoke slowly now, as though to a child; Elizabeth wished to scold him for it, but in truth the fever made it harder for her to understand. “The only drugstore in town has been sold out of every useful item since yesterday. But my parents have supplies at my house.”