Eat Your Heart Out (Descendants) Page 2

  Rachel flexed her shoulder. “Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”

  “Right,” Sid said, one eyebrow quirked and confusion in his voice. He cracked his knuckles, and Rachel noticed the cuts that has cross-hatched his hands had faded to pink. The bruising, too, had mellowed to a watery yellow, and his eyes behind their horn-rimmed glasses were brighter, more awake.

  “You look better too,” she said. “Less like death.”

  “Thanks?”

  Bruno took up position at a cleared space atop one of the greenhouse’s battered worktables, setting the folder and the urn down among the stacked terra cotta pots and jumble of spades and trowels. The light was diffuse in the greenhouse, yet the indecipherable language scrawled across the urn still glowed. It gave Rachel a headache just to look at it.

  “Now, can we finally talk about this demon?” Bruno planted his large hands on the table at either side of his treasures. Everything about the older Descendant was large, from his broad shoulders to his square jaw. Rachel was pretty sure the bit of demon he’d got was troll. “Everyone is rested, has their coffee, has used the restroom?”

  Rachel’s eyebrows shot up. A joke? The man’s face stayed completely still, his brown eyes flat. Right. Maybe not. Rachel cleared her throat and folded her hands in her lap.

  “The most important thing you need to know,” Bruno started. “Is that Abbadon is a full demon.”

  Kendra frowned. “You mean like my dad, Kai? We’ve, uh, all met full demons.”

  A muscle jumped in Bruno’s jaw. “I understand you’re friends with Rachel, but can someone explain why a half-demon needs to be here for this?” Kendra spluttered, but Bruno ignored her and craned his neck to look at Daphne.

  It was Sid who spoke up. “Kendra’s been vital on more than one occasion, Bruno. And she’s awesome at research.”

  Rachel whipped her head toward Sid. She’d never heard him defend Kendra like that. It made her heart flip over.

  Kendra beamed. “And I can tell you that the Corpus makes no mention of Abbadon. I can’t find him in any of the demon lexicons.”

  Bruno sighed like a very patient man. It made Rachel bristle. “Now,” she said, voice clipped. “What do you mean by a full demon? Kendra was absolutely right. We’ve dealt with that a lot, you know.”

  “Not this, you haven’t,” Bruno growled.

  “Excuse me?” Rachel balled her fingers into a fist. She hadn’t spent the last year protecting humans and citizen demons for nothing. Her lip curled in Bruno’s direction.

  “No,” Sid broke in. “He’s right. If Abbadon really is a greater demon, he’s different.”

  “More than different. Beyond anything you can imagine.” Bruno once again looked to Daphne. “Have you not taught her any of this?”

  Daphne kept her attention on a hanging tomato plant. “She only came into her inheritance a year ago, Monsieur Guillory. I haven’t taught her Descendant history.”

  Bruno shook his head then focused on Rachel—who set her jaw and gave him a good glare—and started lecturing. “All of the demons you’ve encountered are hybrids, of a sort. Each has human blood in them, even if just a drop. All the demons in the world today—or, perhaps I should say nearly all of the demons—have a human ancestor. But Abbadon, he is pure. That means he cannot be killed, only contained.”

  The words hit Rachel straight in the gut. Couldn’t be killed. As in, immortal? A shiver rolled down her spine.

  At his worktable-cum-lectern, Bruno nodded. “Yes, you understand now. I found Abbadon’s broken vessel in the ruins of the church and have been watching the signs. I saw the patterns here in Georgia and traveled to find Mademoiselle Chasseur immediately,” Bruno said, using their original French surname. He pushed against his hands against the table, tightened his forearms. As he did, muscles rippled and jumped just under his scarred skin. “Unfortunately, not all on the Descendants Council believe me.”

  Bruno’s eyes slid for a moment to Sid, and Rachel frowned as the boy next to her tightened. His neck stiffened, and his throat bobbed as he swallowed. His leg started jiggling faster on the stool. “Great,” he muttered.

  Rachel tried to catch Sid’s eye, but he wouldn’t look at her. “Right,” she said, her eyes back on Bruno. “So what do we do now? How to we, uh, contain Abbadon?”

  Bruno shifted on his feet. “Well, that’s where it gets”—he waved a hand through the air and looked to Sid—“foggy?” Sid nodded, and Bruno continued. “That story I told you last night is just that. No one knows how much is truth. The villagers, they couldn’t read or write at that time, and the town maire had already fallen victim to the beast. We don’t even know what it looks like or how it behaves. All of the information I’ve found,” Bruno picked up the folder and ruffled the edges of papers stuffed inside. “Some is consistent, but much isn’t.”

  “So you’re saying we’ve got an immortal, unkillable beast chilling out in Georgia, and we don’t know how to stop it?” Kendra laughed harshly. “That’s just lovely.”

  Bruno’s jaw muscle jumped again. “I’m saying we have a lot of work ahead of us. If the first Descendants could defeat the beast, we can too.”

  Bruno wanted to get right to work, but Daphne stopped him.

  “My daughter turned nineteen today. We’re going to celebrate,” Daphne said.

  Rachel sat up tall at that. “No, Mom,” she said, waving a hand through the air. “It’s not a big deal. Bruno’s right, we have a lot to do.” But she hoped more than anything that her mom would disagree. Even if Abbadon was prowling right outside the door, Rachel wasn’t sure she was ready to deal with it yet, not so soon after Willem.

  “And we’ll do it. After cake.”

  Rachel couldn’t help but smile at that.

  Kendra jumped off her stool and grabbed Rachel’s good arm. “C’mon, Rach. I made you something good.” The girl grinned, her blue eyes lighting up.

  Sid grabbed her other arm and started dragging her toward the greenhouse door. “And I knit you a blanket.”

  Rachel snorted. “I’d love to see you knit, Sid.”

  “Then come on,” Kendra said.

  They dragged Rachel all the way to the greenhouse door and out into the cooling night. The magnolia trees were thick at her back, obscuring the dirt path that led behind a couple massive houses and over the dunes to the coast. A salt breeze off the ocean played through the waxy green leaves and curled around Rachel’s nose. Abbadon slithered through her mind for a moment, but the twilight was still and silent. She shook Abbadon away and let herself be pulled across the yard and into her house.

  The kitchen was hung with streamers, and a bouquet of greenhouse flowers made the air sweet.

  “Sid helped me hang the streamers,” Kendra said with a grin over to the boy. Sid shrugged and shoved his hands into his pockets. “And your mom made you carrot cake.” Kendra dug through her massive tote bag; colored pencils, three tubes of lipstick, and a novel about mermaids fell out before she pulled out a wrapped gift. “And I made you this!”

  Daphne and Bruno joined them, Daphne with a potted plant sporting a gigantic ribbon hugged in her arms. She deposited the plant on the kitchen table next to Kendra’s gift and a third one Rachel hadn’t noticed before. Bruno didn’t join them at the table, though he did cut himself a generous slice of cake and hover nearby.

  Rachel perched on a seat and pulled the potted plant closer. Her mom pointed out each of the plants: fluffy yellow ferula stalks standing tall in the middle surrounded by a bed of weedy burdock and a ring of delicate, black-petaled hellebore. She’d cultivated the rare plants in her greenhouse especially for the occasion. Rachel put her nose to the display and coughed.

  “That smells …” Like garlic and ragweed had a pungent swamp baby.

  Daphne laughed. “It’s not the most enticing combination of smells, but these three together will help keep your entire room protected.”

  Next Rachel opened Kendra’s gift, a homemade bracelet woven of braided blue a
nd gray thread with a tiny gold charm hanging from the clasp—a dagger. Rachel held the charm up to the light and poked at it with the tip of her finger. It swung back and forth and caught the light. “This is amazing, Kendra!”

  “I totally thought I’d ruined the surprise. You caught me working on it this morning,” Kendra said. She grabbed Rachel’s hand and wound the length of the bracelet several times around her wrist. The gold dagger whispered against the base of Rachel’s palm and settled there.

  Finally, Rachel picked up the last gift—from Sid. It was wrapped in simple brown paper and felt like a book. Rachel frowned, she hadn’t pegged Sid for the book-gifting sort. It could hardly be used to stab something. Rachel pulled the paper apart to reveal a gorgeous leather volume, the blue cover faded with age and the warm smell of old paper tickling her nose. Rachel was careful as she opened the front page and read the title: “Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic Among the Azande.”

  Warmth crawled through her, settling in her cheeks. It was a history text, and an old one at that. Rachel met Sid’s eyes. He was watching her closely. “Sid, this is so pretty.”

  Sid screwed his mouth to one side and fiddled with his hands. “You like it? I know you want to study history and mythology, and I thought you might like this. I read it a while ago when I was still at university. It’s one of the classics.”

  “I love it. Really.” She turned and smiled at everyone gathered round the table. Bruno still hadn’t joined them, though he was mowing down a second helping of cake. “I love everything. Thank you, guys. This has been great.”

  Kendra bounced on the balls of her feet. “That’s not quite all.” She looked ready to burst and clapped her hands together. “I talked to Kai, and he’s invited us all to visit the mer city.”

  Daphne actually squealed and grabbed Kendra in a hug. It was a well-known secret she’d been waiting a long time for this rare invitation. Kendra spun away from Daphne and was pulled straight into Rachel. Rachel hugged her best friend tight, a grin stretched ear to ear.

  She kept an arm hooked around Kendra’s shoulders and looked at them all—her best friends, her family. Her cheeks ached from smiling, but she couldn’t stop.

  CHAPTER 4

  “Ow!”

  Rachel jumped away from Sid’s poking finger and accidentally jammed a hip bone into one of the boat seats. She sucked in a breath past her teeth, one hand going to her hip and the other to the angry red remains of Willem’s shoulder bite.

  “Sorry, did that hurt?” Rachel couldn’t see Sid’s eyes behind his dark sunglasses, but the boy’s eyebrows pulled together.

  She rubbed harder at her right shoulder and settled for a flinty glare over the top of her own sunglasses. Hunched in his seat near the stern, Bruno chuckled at the two of them then bent back over the leather-bound journal he’d been reading. Rachel eyed him: He wasn’t going on the dive and was dressed like a man who’d possibly never seen the ocean. He wore long sleeves, long pants and heavy boots all in varying shades of khaki. Then he topped it off with an honest-to-god club leaning against one knee.

  “It’s your first scar, isn’t it?” Sid’s question drew Rachel’s attention away from Bruno. He stepped closer and touched the scar again. He was gentler this time, but the touch still made Rachel fidget. His fingers were warm against her skin and made a current zing down her arm to the tips of her fingers. Sid’s hand lingered at her shoulder until spots of red flared in his cheeks and he pulled his hand away like it burned.

  Overhead, the sun warmed Rachel’s back and shoulders and glinted off the deep blue water of Breaker Cove. The ocean was slack and lapped against the sides of the speedboat. It was the definition of a perfect Georgia day on the water. Except for the bright red, jagged scar ripping across her shoulder. Rachel sidestepped Sid and pulled her wetsuit up her waist then twisted to zip it up the back.

  Alongside the anchored boat, Kendra and Daphne were already bobbing in the water, Daphne in full scuba gear and Kendra sporting only goggles and a dark blue swimsuit. Underwater, Kendra’s long-dormant half-mermaid genes would kick in, leaving no need for the regulators and oxygen tanks. Rachel watched them, the excitement bubbling as they waited for Kai. She wanted to feel that same excitement. She pressed her lips together, fingers prodding at the remains of Willem’s bite.

  Sid repeated his question, and Rachel finally nodding. “Hopefully it’ll go away.” She didn’t want this reminder sitting on her shoulder for the rest of her life.

  “It’s okay if it doesn’t though,” Sid said with a shrug. “Our scars, they’re like our own little history books. We all have them. It’s part of who we are.” To prove it, Sid reached down and pulled at the bottom of his wetsuit, peeling it up and over his calf. A shiny, raised slash cut across his skin, but it had faded with age. “This was my first, courtesy of a particularly angry water demon in the Ardennes.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “He was nine,” Bruno spoke up, his voice gruff. A scowl furrowed deep lines across his forehead.

  Rachel looked between Sid and Bruno. “But I thought you didn’t inherit until you turned ten?”

  “He didn’t.” Bruno growled.

  Sid looked away over the cove and shrugged again. “Like I’ve said before, my father was strict about my training. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t yet see the water demon.”

  “Sid, that’s …” Rachel reached out, but he shifted away, his lips tight. She shuddered to think of how frightened she would have been, just a child fighting an invisible monster. It sounded like something out of a horror story.

  Sid clapped his hands together once then snapped his mask in place. “Right. Enough about my wonderful father.” He perched at the edge of the boat and grinned around his regulator. “We’ve got a mer city to explore.”

  Rachel watched him flip over the side before she turned to Bruno. “Did his father really do that?”

  One of Bruno’s hands wandered to the heavy wooden club leaning against his leg and pulled it over his knees. His fist where he gripped the club was tight, making veins stick out along the top of his hand and worm down his forearm. “It’s not my story to tell,” the older man said before bending back over the writing.

  That only made Rachel frown more. There were times Rachel begrudged her mom for not preparing her, for keeping her in the dark. But if the alternative were Nicholas Martin … She eyed the club while she adjusted her own gear and prepared to jump over the side of the boat. “Okay, well, um …” Bruno didn’t look up from the journal. “Don’t, uh, beat anything to death while we’re under.”

  Bruno nodded. “Not unless it is deserving.”

  * * *

  The images floating before Rachel were ethereal. The bright sunlight above pierced the water and shone down on so many different variations of blue Rachel felt dizzy with it: aquamarine, turquoise, cerulean. And deeper, cobalt giving way to midnight.

  Silver flashed in the distance, the ebb and flow of a school of fish. Closer, another spark of silver flickered as the merman Grey pumped his tail. Rachel swam behind, staring at the way Grey and Kendra’s merman father Kai moved, the way the water slid around them, like it and they were connected. Next to their graceful movements, Rachel felt a bit like rag doll trying to dance. She readjusted her harness and kicked forward. Beside Grey, Kendra pulled her long body into a ball to flip in the water and looked back at Rachel with a mile-wide grin. The girl’s cloud of hair floated around her face, but there was no missing the gills slashed along the sides of Kendra’s neck. Here underwater, they opened and closed with regular beats, giving her all the oxygen she needed.

  There was something building deep inside Rachel—a pressure, a rolling, pulsing thrum of anticipation that made her insides fizzy and her fingers and toes prickly. This was it: A chance to finally see the mer city. It was an invitation most Descendants went their entire lives without ever receiving. It made her lightheaded and heavy at the same time, a mix of excitement and dread. And a terrible curiosi
ty that compelled her to swim faster, to look at everything, to try and remember every moment.

  Rachel kicked her flippered feet and surged ahead through the water toward the two mermen. They were opposite ends of the spectrum. Grey seemed to refract the light. It shimmered against his silvery skin and hair and made him nearly invisible when he turned a certain way. There was no slipping into invisibility for Kai. He pulled the light into him, absorbing it into his dark skin and throwing it back in a muted golden hue. He was darker than his daughter, larger and bolder in the powerful way he cut through the water, but there was no mistaking Kai and Kendra’s familial likeness.

  Below, the cove’s white sands dropped away as they swam out toward the open ocean. Out here, where the ocean floor was murky and far away, Rachel was reminded how much she was an intruder to this world. The oxygen tank and tubes connected to her mouth were all the confirmation of that fact she needed. She darted closer to Sid and Daphne, and was suddenly aware of the feel of the short blade strapped to her thigh. It was such a small thing, hardly a weapon in the face of all the ocean could toss her way.

  But then all thoughts of her inconsequential diver’s blade were swept from her mind. The group had arced south, toward the very tip of the cove. The sands rushed back up to meet them, and a forest of kelp swayed in the push and pull of the tides. They swam just above the green fronds, sending the plants fluttering away on the surge of their kicks.

  Up ahead, Kai and Grey contracted, their scaled tails curling up toward bare stomachs. They hung in the water for a moment then shot downward. Kendra spun to face Rachel, Sid, and Daphne.

  “Ready?” Bubbles jetted from her mouth as she spoke, but Rachel could clearly understand her. There was a rounded, musical quality to her best friend’s voice underwater, but it was still Kendra.

  Kendra grinned and then disappeared in the wake of Kai and Grey, leaving behind only a froth of bubbles. Rachel kicked forward and peered over the edge of a steep decline. Her mouth dropped open, and she had to grab for her regulator before it floated from her mouth.