Incubus (The Daughters Of Lilith) Page 7

I opened my eyes at the rich masculine voice. Mr. Hart stood by our table, smiling down at Cassie. Cassie’s eyes bulged slightly as she struggled to swallow a bite of food.

  “Mind if I take a seat?” Mr. Hart pulled the empty chair beside Cassie out and sat, placing something on the table in front of him. Cassie and I saw the black and pink notebook at the same moment. Cassie’s eyes widened, and she turned on Royal.

  “What did you do?” Cassie looked mortified.

  “Before you skin me alive, just listen.” Royal glanced at Mr. Hart. “Talk fast, drama man.”

  “Royal,” Cassie hissed.

  “Your friend has done me a huge favor, Miss Ang,” Mr. Hart said.

  Cassie glanced back at him, her cheeks flushing a rosy red. “It’s just Cassie,” she mumbled.

  Mr. Hart flipped open the notebook to a drawing I hadn’t seen before. Cassie had taken her earlier sketches of the gown and fleshed them out. What had been beautiful before was simply stunning now. It seemed to be two dresses, one of which was worn over the other. The inner gown was snug from the shoulders to the waist, with tight sleeves long enough to cover most of the back of the hand. Below the waist, the dress flowed into a full skirt, which hung in luxurious folds all the way to the floor. The outer dress was open along the sides from the top of the shoulder to the hips, revealing the form-fitting curves of the inner dress beneath. One corner of the outer dress was tucked up into a low-slung sash across the hips, revealing the swirling skirt of the inner dress. There was something both simple and luxurious about the draped fabric. To top the entire costume off, an understated metal circlet rested on the figure’s head.

  “What were you thinking for this material?” Mr. Hart gestured reverently at the overdress.

  “Uh,” Cassie glanced around, looking like a deer caught in the headlights. “I was picturing a silk dupioni,” she said.

  “And for the detail fabric here?” He brushed the narrow sleeves peeking out from under the billows of fabric of the outer dress. “Satin brocade?”

  “Actually, I was thinking cut velvet, since she’s a queen,” Cassie said.

  Mr. Hart shook his head slowly. “That’s fantastic,” he said slowly. “What kind of palette?”

  Cassie sat up a bit straighter, pointing out elements of the drawing as she talked. “Since it’s a tragedy, I was thinking the costumes should all be in muted gem-tones. So the outer dress is a grayish sapphire color and the inner dress, the cut velvet, is a light silver. You could even use the inner dress on its own for the scene where the queen is almost burned at the stake.”

  “Perfect. You’re hired.”

  Cassie looked up, startled. “Hired for what?”

  “Costume design,” Mr. Hart said, as though it were obvious. “Royal’s already told me you’re completely capable of making all of these garments.”

  “But—” Cassie shook her head, struggling to process what was happening. “There must be 30 costumes in that show.”

  Mr. Hart looked aside, calculating silently for a moment before speaking. “46.”

  “I can’t sew that fast,” Cassie said faintly, her face falling.

  “Of course not,” Mr. Hart replied. “We’ll get some parents to help with the chorus. You’re in charge of the hero costumes. Guinevere, Arthur, Lancelot, Mortimer. Don’t worry,” he said when Cassie’s mouth opened in protest, “you’ll have plenty of hands to help.” He placed a hand on the notebook, giving Cassie a confident smile. “If what I’ve seen is any indication, you’re going to ace this class.”

  “Class?”

  “Cassie, the level of skill you demonstrate in these drawings is worth an AP credit at the very least. I wouldn’t be surprised if these costumes got you a college scholarship.”

  Cassie’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “A scholarship?” We all heard the excitement in her voice. A smile broke out over her face, and for a moment she was the old Cassie, impish and confident and eager for a challenge.

  Mr. Hart’s smile broadened. “All in good time. Are you in?”

  “She’s in,” Royal said, satisfaction shining in his eyes.

  Cassie turned on Royal with a wicked grin. “On one condition,” she said, holding up a finger. “I’ll need an assistant.”

  “Done.” Mr. Hart stood and offered Cassie his hand. She shook it, grinning. “I’m hoping to hold our first meeting with the design team on Friday after school. Does that work for you?”

  “It does.”

  “Great. Don’t forget to bring your assistant.” Mr. Hart gave Royal a bland smile and left.

  Royal looked between Cassie and the retreating Mr. Hart, suddenly finding himself on the spot. “Wait, you don’t mean me?”

  “You got me into this,” Cassie shrugged. “Did you think you’d be able to walk away scot-free?”

  Royal’s eyes narrowed unhappily. “I admit, I hadn’t thought it through that far.”

  “It does seem like a fair penance,” Lucas murmured.

  Royal glared at him, but I could tell his resistance was fading. After a moment, Royal sighed. “Right. I’ll assist you. As long as you don’t expect me to do any sewing. Or take notes. Or run errands. I don’t make lunches. The occasional coffee is negotiable.”

  “Perfect.” Cassie looped her arm through Royal’s. “First step, fabric samples.” She looked at me, beaming. “What do you say, Braedyn? Want to join us? It’ll be just like old times.”

  I smiled at Cassie’s enthusiasm. “Sure.”

  Royal glanced at Lucas. “You too, Lucas. You’re one of us now. That means if you’re in it for the good times, you have to take part in the crazy-girl escapa—ouch!” Royal made a face as Cassie kicked him lightly under the table.

  “Don’t scare him,” she chided sweetly.

  Lucas gave me a warm look. “I’m in.” He took another bite of enchilada.

  Cassie pulled her notebook closer and opened it to a fresh page. “Maybe we should try—” she started sketching, abandoning the thought mid-sentence.

  Royal caught my gaze over the table and smiled. Silently I mouthed, thank you. Royal nodded, glancing back at Cassie. I had a feeling we’d all get pulled into the Coronado Prep theater scene this semester. But seeing Cassie this happy made it totally worth it.

  After school, Lucas and I found a spot to sit on a retaining wall along one edge of the theater building. We were waiting for Cassie and Royal to join us. Cassie had wanted to run a few ideas by Mr. Hart before our fabric-hunt began.

  “So what is this place?” Lucas asked.

  “It’s a specialty fabric store. It’s near Old Town,” I said. “It’s got some material, but Cassie likes it because they’ve got books and books full of fabric samples that you can order. She knows that place inside out.”

  “You’re telling me the whole store—all they sell is fabric?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, I should bring a book.”

  I hit Lucas on the shoulder playfully. “Tread carefully, mister. Or else you’ll be dreaming of pink taffeta for a month.”

  “You wouldn’t do that to me,” Lucas said, half-pleading.

  I was getting ready to laugh at his forlorn expression when I heard something from behind the theater. Lucas and I turned toward the sound in the same moment.

  “What was that?” But I knew, even before we heard another meaty crack, followed by a half-grunt, half-sob. We ran around the side of the theater.

  Three seniors ringed a smaller, fair-haired boy. Two of them held his arms while the third, an athletic guy with his shirtsleeves rolled up, swung a fist hard across the smaller boy’s face. The boy hung between them, taking the impact with a hoarse cry. His glasses were on the ground, but I recognized him anyway. That skinny boy from the mission. The athletic boy hit him again, and he gave another sharp grunt of pain.

  “Hey,” I called, rushing forward. “What are you doing? Leave him alone!”

  The seniors glanced up at me. The skinny boy struggled to stand up between the two
guys holding him. One of them, a freckled boy, recognized me and grinned.

  “Dude,” he said to the athletic boy. “It’s the chick from that fight at the mission. You better do what she says or she’ll beat you up.”

  The athletic senior frowned at me, his eyes flat and hard. “You’re defending this prick?” I turned back to Lucas, hoping for some help. In answer, Lucas folded his arms across his chest, unwilling to get involved. The senior took this for an answer and swung at the boy again.

  I darted forward and blocked the punch, redirecting the senior’s momentum to send him stumbling to the side.

  “What the hell?” he shouted at me. But the second he made a move forward, Lucas was there with a hand on his shoulder, preventing him from getting any closer.

  “I told you,” the freckled boy said, howling with laughter. He and his friend released the skinny kid, who stumbled to his knees, scrabbling in the dirt for his bag. He must have fallen earlier; I could see the dirt along one side of his head, matted in his short blond hair.

  The athletic boy’s features clouded with anger at his friends. “What are you doing? You’re letting him go?” The other seniors hesitated, glancing down at the skinny boy.

  “Come on, man,” Lucas said softly. “You made a mistake. Don’t make it worse.”

  The senior looked from Lucas to me and back, then shrugged Lucas off angrily. “Whatever. You want the little dweeb? You can have him.”

  He stormed off, with his snickering friends in tow.

  I turned back to the new boy. He clutched his backpack tightly in one fist, avoiding my gaze.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “If I’d wanted your help, I would have asked,” he snapped.

  Lucas snorted in disgust and turned his back on the skinny boy.

  “Why are you being such a jack-hole?” I snapped back. “In case you didn’t notice, I’m the reason those seniors aren’t grinding you into a bloody pulp right now.”

  The skinny boy ignored me, kneeling in the dirt to collect the books and papers that had spilled out of his backpack when the older kids had attacked. With an exasperated sigh, I knelt beside him to help gather his things up. He glanced at me, his face red. I held a book out to him. After a long moment, he took the book from me gingerly.

  Lucas shook his head but thankfully refrained from comment. He ran to chase down some loose papers before they could blow away. The skinny kid eyed me as we worked collecting his things.

  “I’m Braedyn,” I said. I picked another book up off the ground and spotted his mangled glasses.

  “Seth,” he replied.

  I handed him the glasses, and when he took them our hands brushed. With the touch, Seth looked up, and I saw his unguarded expression for the first time. His eyes were a vibrant, warm blue I’d only ever seen on postcards of the Caribbean. But it was the emotion within his eyes that caught my breath. He looked vulnerable. Scared.

  “Thank you,” he said quietly. Stripped of its customary venom, Seth’s voice was pleasant. It had a texture to it, a sort of raspy warmth I could listen to all day.

  “Sure,” I said, feeling awkward.

  Seth put his glasses on and bent to grab another book off the ground.

  I turned away to collect some more loose papers. But as my eye fell on the pages in my hands I froze. A drawing stared up at me. Inky claws, leathery wings, spiky silver teeth—there was no mistaking this for anything but a Lilitu. I let my eyes slip to the other pages papering the ground all around me. Page after page was filled with research on the Lilitu, symbols like the ones on a Guardsman’s dagger, sketches of the old mission.

  I looked up and saw Seth watching me with the strangest look on his face—a sort of curious surprise.

  Lucas joined us, holding a stack of loose-leaf pages. “Here,” he said, thrusting them at Seth.

  Seth and I stood together. Lucas saw my expression and glanced at the pages in my hands. His eyes widened slightly before darting back to Seth.

  “Thanks,” Seth said, his voice hoarse. “I’ll take those.” He snatched the pages out of my hands, bent to retrieve his backpack, and hurried back into the heart of campus.

  “He’s researching Lilitu,” I whispered.

  “Why?” Lucas wondered aloud. We watched Seth’s retreating back until he darted into a building and out of view.

  “Hey, guys, there you are!” Cassie waved at us from the door of the theater building. Royal followed her out, slipping on his sunglasses against the afternoon glare.

  Lucas glanced my way, a question in his eyes. I shook my head slightly. We couldn’t go with Cassie and Royal to the fabric store. Not until we’d told the Guard about the new student at Coronado Prep with the backpack full of research on the Lilitu.

  Cassie bounded over to us, face alive with excitement. Guilt twisted my insides, but this couldn’t wait. Cassie would just have to understand.

  Chapter 5

  The drive home was full of speculation. Lucas and I discussed the extremely remote possibility that Seth was some kind of random Lilitu hobbyist who’d just happened to move to Puerto Escondido on the eve of the final battle. Add to that the fact that we’d run into him poking around the old mission, and we couldn’t dismiss the truth staring us in the face; Seth knew Lilitu were real, and he was actively researching them right now.

  Which opened up a vast ocean of questions. Who was Seth? How did he know about Lilitu? What did he know about the mission? Why was he poking around out there - and how did he happen to be there just as we went back to investigate? Did he know about the seal? What drew him to Puerto Escondido in the first place?

  “Hale will know what to do,” Lucas finally said.

  A few moments later, I pulled into the driveway in front of my house. As September edged closer to October, the old oak trees of the neighborhood were beginning to shed their leaves, carpeting the road on either side in deep golden drifts.

  We got out of my car, crossed through the lawn, and climbed the front steps to the Guard’s house. We’d hoped to find Hale at home, but in the foyer we saw that the living room was packed. Lucas and I looked at one another, curious, and walked inside.

  A stranger sat in the center of the group. She looked to be in her early fifties, with comfortable curves and soft wispy hair edged in gray at the temples. She was riffling through some papers, chewing absently on her lower lip. When she found whatever it was she was looking for, she pushed her glasses up on her nose and straightened.

  “Yes, here it is. Note the date on that page, Mr. Thane.” She handed a paper over to Thane, who took it eagerly.

  “1628.” Thane’s breath caught and he pored over the page. “But the original?”

  “It was locked in a vault at the Library,” the woman answered. “I obtained these copies close to 30 years ago, before they’d done any digital archiving. Thank heaven.”

  “How much of the library was destroyed?” Hale asked, grimly.

  “Oh, it was destroyed in its entirety,” she said, surprised at the question. “Leveled, Mr. Hale. Did you expect anything less?”

  Dad sat back, unsettled. The woman looked up, peering at us through her spectacles.

  “And these young people are...?” she asked.

  “My daughter, Braedyn,” Dad said quickly. “And this is Lucas Mitchell.”

  “Pleased to make your acquaintances,” she said. “I’m Angela Linwood.”

  “She’s an archivist for the Guard,” Dad explained. “Leadership thought we could use a hand.” I glanced at Dad, sensing his unease. His eyes warned me to watch what I said. Which could only mean Angela didn’t know I was a Lilitu.

  “Why?” Lucas asked, glancing at Thane. “You’re in over your head?”

  “Linwood is the acknowledged expert on Lilitu outliers,” Thane said in strained voice.

  Hale cleared his throat. “She’s been reassigned to our unit.”

  “Oh?” I asked, trying to keep my voice level. “For how long?”

&n
bsp; “Permenantly, I expect,” Angela said. She adjusted her glasses and gave me a warm smile. “You look to be about the same age as my son. Come here, dear. Let me introduce you.”

  Angela gestured past us. Lucas and I turned, noticing for the first time that a blond boy was sitting at the edge of the Guard’s bay window. He sat, arms crossed, a patchwork of darkening bruises covering one side of his face. I stifled a gasp. It was Seth.

  “They go to my school, mom,” Seth said. He walked forward, blushing hotly.

  “Ah, you’ve met?” Angela’s eyes sharpened, an unvoiced question hanging in the air. She turned to study Lucas critically.

  Seth’s blush deepened. “It wasn’t him. Actually,” Seth glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, “they kind of broke it up.”

  Angela’s expression warmed instantly. “Well, then, you have my thanks.” She gestured at a pair of empty chairs against a wall. “Pull up a seat. We’ve got serious business to discuss.”

  After we were settled in our seats, Hale leaned forward. “You were saying something about precedent?” he prompted Angela.

  “Yes, precisely.” Angela nodded toward the paper in Thane’s hands. “The most recent recorded encounter with a female Thrall was almost 400 years ago. And it happened right here, in Puerto Escondido.” She rustled through a few more sheets of tightly scrawled notes. “Roughly the same time as the Guard’s only recorded encounter with—where is that page? Ah, here.” She looked at Thane triumphantly. “1628.”

  “You’re not saying you think—” Gretchen looked to Thane for confirmation.

  Thane took the new sheet of notes from Angela and scanned it for a long moment. “Interesting,” he murmured. “Of course, you’re assuming a great many things. But it would explain some of the peculiarities surrounding this case.”

  Lucas and I shared a bewildered look.

  Dad noticed our confusion. “I think you’d better go back to the beginning, Linwood.”

  Angela looked up. “Pardon?” Dad nodded his head in our direction, and she pursed her lips. “Yes, of course. I was intrigued when Terrance told me your group had encountered a woman in Thrall,” she explained. “It’s been a sort of side project of my work for the Guard, researching curiosities in our history.”