Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
“Idon’t think this is a good idea,” I whisper.
Charlie and I are in the woods. We’ve just passed the graveyard and crossed right into the trees.
I’ve never been this far out of Sweet Tooth.
I look back behind us and swallow hard. I don’t know if I’m more nervous about going after the demons or leaving Sweet Tooth for the first time.
The full moon is shining so bright that I can see the graveyard from here.
The entire swath they cut through the trees is about five feet wide, which isn’t big in the grand scheme of things but it’s plenty big when the demons are mini.
A demon path, if you will.
“This is the best idea. This is the only idea,” Charlie says as he stomps on ahead of me.
He’s been power walking since we left the Hall of Worship.
We went straight to my house to grab a few “demon ass kicking supplies” and then headed right for the woods.
Demon Ass Kicking Supplies consists of Charlie’s possessed games book, a knife that he swears is only for “ceremonial use,” two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, two flashlights, a thermos of coffee, a length of rope, a mini bat (not for ceremonial use) and a half-charged cell phone.
I tug at my beanie and hoist my bag higher on my shoulder.
“Charlie, shouldn't we wait for Buffy? She’s patrolling tonight with the,” my throat gets tight when I think about how I wasn’t included in her war on the demons but I keep talking, “with the others. They’re the ones that are supposed to handle the demons. Not us.”
I hate saying that. It sounds like ash on my tongue but in the power walk from the Hall of Worship to my house and then to the woods I had some time to think and cool down and I came to two conclusions.
The first being that Buffy’s right, this is dangerous, and the second being that I have no idea how to be a witch so how can I help her?
“Maybe we should go back,” I say. “We can wait for her to come back and tell her what’s going on with me and your book.”
He laughs, the sound bitter and harsh. “Wait for her? Why would we do that when she’s not even being honest with us? You heard her. She’s been tracking the demons. Has plans to go after them and didn’t even tell us.”
“Charlie…” He’s hurt. I understand it because I am too. “She’s got a lot going on. We both know that and-”
“Do you know who went after Buffy when she was fighting Ichabod?” he asks.
I swallow hard because I know it was him. We all do. “Yeah,” I whisper. “You.”
“Right. Me. And I was the one who made Wrath a god too.”
My chest goes tight and suddenly my feelings of being left out don’t seem so big anymore. Charlie was there in ways I couldn’t when I was a Blossom.
“And after all of what we’ve been through, those fucking demons blew up my house and I was almost in it and she didn’t think to tell me she’s been studying them?
Didn’t you hear Nina and Sunday? They’ve been working with her and we all know if Buffy is after the demons then so is Wrath. Even Elijah had a job to do tonight.”
“He’s organizing Halloween not demon hunting,” I tell him gently. “The most they’ve trusted him with are his flags.”
“I’m a good friend, right?”
“Of course you are, Charlie.”
My words hang in the air when Charlie stops walking and looks at me. The moonlight casts shadows over his face and it’s hard to make out his features but I don’t need to see his face to know how he feels.
“I try really hard to be a good friend. I’d love to organize Halloween. Me. I-I would have done it if they asked but they didn’t. They gave me the mushroom treatment and kept moving.”
“Mushrooms? What do they have to do with anything?”
“Left me in the dark,” he says with a tired sigh. “There’s another part about making me eat shit but we’ll call that a draw. Doesn’t change the fact that they did that to you too, Meadow.” My heart feels heavy in my chest again when he mentions that. I’ve been trying not to think about it.
“You’re right.”
“I know I’m right and that’s why we’re going to go out and do our investigating on these mini-demons. If we play our cards right we’ll put them down tonight and show the gang exactly how valuable Charlie Valencourt and Meadow Atlier are.”
I smile when he says that. “I like that. We are valuable.”
Charlie high fives me. “We are. We’re fully formed people with value, not secondary characters to Buffy’s Big Bad Adventure.
She’s going to see that,” he pauses, “she has to. There’s too many secrets going around.
This is going to let us drag it all out in the open so we’re not sitting on anything top secret.
Me with this goddamn book.” He slaps his hand on his backpack and keeps talking. “And you’re a witch now.”
“I tried to tell her tonight but there wasn't enough time but Sunday knows,” I tell him. Charlie’s definitely hurt, there’s no other reason he’d have dragged me out here to kick demon ass as his only back up. “If she knows I bet Buffy will too by the end of the night.”
“That tracks. She’d smell another BWIT easy.”
I roll my eyes. “That’s not a thing, Charlie. She did say I reeked of magic, so you’re right about the smell thing.” I give myself another sniff but I can’t pick anything up. “Do I smell funny to you?” I ask, holding out my arm to him.
“BWIT is a thing because I’m making it a thing. It'll catch on a lot faster if you stopped fighting me.”
We walk in silence for a few minutes and it’s nice even if I’m terrified by the wide open space of it all.
Every time there’s a rustle in the trees or a twig snapping, I nearly scream bloody murder.
I don’t know how Outsiders do this. I’m a nervous wreck after fifteen minutes out in the world.
There’s a rustle and a snap to the left of us and my heart rate goes up to 5,000.
“What was that?” I whisper and move behind Charlie because I’m a modern woman and that means I’m not above using a man as a shield in the woods at night.
After everything I’ve been through, it’s my right to have a man meet his untimely end at the hands of a mini-demon while I stand idly by. I earned that much, didn’t I?
Charlie looks off in the direction of the rustle. “I don’t know. A rat?”
I throw myself up onto Charlie’s back and scream. “There’s rats in the woods?!”
He gags and staggers forward but keeps his feet while I try to climb higher. “I don’t know, I’m not a scientist!”
“I want to go home!” I wail.
“Meadow, this really isn’t BWIT energy.”
“To hell with BWIT energy.” I squeeze Charlie’s neck tighter and he chokes. “I don’t care. You said we were going to kick mini-demon ass, not be hunted by wood rats. What if it bites me?”
“Look, it was probably just a deer or a raccoon. It’s getting colder out here.
Definitely not the season for rats,” Charlie assures me and after another strangled choking sound from him I loosen my grip.
“Or it could be a bear…” Charlie says, looking around once I’m back on my feet. I pick up a stick and hit him with it.
“That’s not any better.” I smack him again.“Stick with the demons. I’d rather it be the mini-demons than a bear.”
“Okay, I’m sure we’re currently being stalked by a hundred mini-demons and that’s what you heard. There. Does that make you feel better?”
“Infinitely better,” I tell him and I’m not lying. I’d face off against a demon any day before a pack of rats. Charlie mutters something about rats and demons and size to danger ratio but I don’t listen because up ahead in the moonlight I see something.
“What’s that?” I ask, pointing at the reddish orange light flickering through the trees. Of course Charlie isn’t looking where I’m pointing. He’s turned a whole 180 degrees away from where I’m pointing, staring at the dark trees.
Charlie rubs at his brow and makes a show of looking into the trees. “I’d say a rat but-”
I sigh and turn Charlie around to face what I’m looking at. “Does that look like a rat to you?” I ask. There’s red light spilling out of the clearing. It flickers and moves like it’s alive.
“Not unless they learned how to rave.” He blinks, eyes going wide at the sight of the red light. “Big no. What the fuck is that?”
“Exactly. Come on,” I tell him and march off into the trees.
“Meadow, slow down,” he whisper-screams at me when I start jogging down the path the demons have cleared towards the light. “Wait for me.”
I slow my pace but just barely. “Hurry up,” I whisper-scream back. There’s a pull that’s dug into my ribs and is jerking me forward step by step towards the light. Whatever is there, I know. I’ve seen it before. I don’t know how, but I do.
The demon path ends in a clearing, the red light that pulled me here shines bright from a fissure in a rock.
There’s a twenty foot boulder sitting smack dab in the middle of the clearing and at the center of it there’s an opening no bigger than a foot across that stretches the length of it.
Red light pours out of it and paints the ground in crimson.
I’ve seen this before.
“Okay, what’s with the demonic night light?”
I shake my head. “I dunno but I know this place.” I look around and spin in a circle, trying to get my bearings.
I’ve never set foot outside of the accepted boundaries of town.
There’s no way I’ve been here before but still…
the trees look familiar but they’re different now.
They’re in color even if it’s not much color.
The red light flickers and I think it’s fire making the light but how can a fire be inside of a rock?
It can’t be a fire, right? But if it’s not a fire then…
I suck in a sharp breath. “It’s like the light.”