Another door to the right led to a white-tiled bathroom. After sliding open the glass shower door, he crouched, inspecting the floor. A swirl of earth remained near the drain, and a single black hair. Jack. Tobias plucked it from the drain and rose to grab a tissue from the counter. He carefully folded the hair into the tissue and tucked it into his pocket.
He rubbed his eyes, staring at his reflection in the mirror. His straight hair had grown unkempt in the past couple of months, and though he’d built up his physique in Boston, the past few days had taken a toll. He hadn’t remembered to eat, and his high cheekbones stood out sharply. Shadows underlined his dark, almond-shaped eyes. His skin, normally a deep bronze, had taken on a pallid hue. I need to remember to keep my strength up if I’m going to defeat the beast.
He swallowed hard. Jack must have stood in this very spot not long ago, gazing at his own pretty face while drooling over Fiona and fresh human hearts.
Focus, Tobias. He shook his head, returning to the empty bedroom and crossing to the wardrobe. Pulling open one of the heavy doors, he scanned its contents. Empty hangers jangled from a bar along the top and a few rumpled T-shirts lay below. On a shelf near the bottom sat a scrying stone. Tobias picked it up. It was as opaque as a crone’s eye. A crack ran through its center. Useless. No wonder he’d left it behind.
He crouched down, rolling open a drawer only to find it empty. But the second drawer was not. Behind three rows of neatly folded black and gray socks was a long, black leather satchel. A smile curled his lips as he pulled it out and carefully reached inside, his hand gripping a smooth hilt. Unsheathing the knife revealed a sharp steel blade with a smooth obsidian handle. An athame. It was nearly a foot long. He inhaled deeply. If he’d had this in the past few weeks, his encounters with the Harvesters would have been much more successful.
A white design marked the hilt: two concentric circles, the inner of which contained a triangle. It was the symbol of Emerazel, the fire goddess. A shiver slithered up his spine. This was a dangerous sort of magic.
As he ran his fingers over the inscribed seal, footfalls approached through the living room. Tobias’s stomach lurched, and he shoved the knife into his pocket, muttering the cloaking spell. Within his clothes, the athame was invisible.
“The Champion said it was left here,” said a guttural voice from the other room.
“We’re nearly the only ones still serving him, you know,” answered a deep voice.
Tobias’s pulse raced. Jack’s Harvesters were here. And they would know how to find the monster. He pulled the athame out of his pocket, and prowled into the living room. This was what he’d trained for.
CHAPTER THREE
Fiona
Crammed between her schoolmates in an idling van, Fiona nestled against Mariana’s shoulder. The rumbling of thunder outside grated at her nerves, and her eyes burned with fatigue.
For three nights, she had lain awake on a stiff cot in a basketball court, listening to the echoes of crying and snuffling. But as soon as she’d closed her eyes and started to melt into the gentle embrace of sleep, she’d jerk awake again, Jack’s blue eyes vivid in her mind. It was his fault my schoolmates died—his fault Tobias was forced to watch his girlfriend hang on the scaffold. She swallowed, blinking back tears. She’d been an idiot to trust him.
To make matters worse, guilt pierced her whenever she thought of Thomas, left behind in Maremount with no one to help him. She had no idea if he was alive or dead. In a way, it was her fault he’d been left behind, since he’d been searching for her when the portal closed.
And where is Tobias right now? She sat up straight, the thought prickling at the back of her mind. He’d been acting unpredictable lately. She hadn’t known him for very long, and he’d never said much about his past—nothing about his parents, or Eden. Even before she’d died.
Fiona’s gaze darted to Alan. He drew sea creatures in his notebook, a gentle buzz of music emanating from his headphones. He’d become more withdrawn in the past few days, too. I guess that’s what happens when an ordinary person finds himself holding a bloody knife over a dying man’s body.
To her left, Mariana drew a spider web on the back of her hand with a black pen. Fiona leaned forward to peer over her friend’s shoulder at the rain outside. The wide expanse of concrete steps across from Faneuil Hall was nearly empty in the storm. Under the dark clouds, it almost looked like night. But even without the storm, Downtown Boston was deserted while everyone hid in their homes, locking their doors against Harvester attacks.