Gideon shook his head. “I’m not sure. I’ve never encountered anything like it before. It felt like…” He furrowed his brow, trying to form the words. “Like a black hole. It sucked in all the energy, becoming this indistinguishable darkness that’s almost impossible to look at directly. But what I do know is that it’s powerful, and it’s very hungry.”
I leaned back in the rickety kitchen chair, and it all hit me. I realized exactly what this weird meeting and trunk of magic weapons was about.
“You’re going to try to kill it,” I said. “And you want me to help.”
“A creature like this doesn’t just go away,” Gideon elaborated. “We can’t run from it, and even if we can, that only means that it will harm others. I’ve spent my entire adult life trying to protect those that society forgot or threw away.” He shook his head. “I can’t just leave this thing running loose to kill anything it wants.”
“We have protections,” Mom insisted. “There’s the weapons, and this book is full of incantations to protect you and to ward off evil. I wouldn’t let you join us if I thought you couldn’t be kept safe.”
“You don’t have to talk me into it,” I said. “This thing has been attacking my home and my family. I want to stop it just as much as you do. I’m in.” I squeezed my mom’s hand, trying to reassure her that I could handle this. “Just tell me what I need to do.”
46. tenebris
As I tore the ticket of an older woman with a strong Southern drawl and two pudgy grandkids, I mumbled vade retro me tenebris under my breath.
The creature—demon/monster/whatever—didn’t usually show itself until late at night, and Gideon was convinced it would be untraceable. The plan was to wait for the creature to find us, since it came to the campsite nearly every night. Once the carnival closed, we would prepare to fight back, so when the creature came, we would be ready.
The morning had been filled with preparations and lectures on weapons and memorizing incantations. But we still needed the money, so in the afternoon, we went to work. As Gideon frequently said, the show must go on, so on it went.
Mom had taught me incantations, and they were all in Latin, so I kept repeating them over and over to make sure I got them right when I needed them. The one she told me was the most powerful—vade retro me tenebris—meant “get behind me, darkness.”
When I asked her why they were in Latin, she’d simply shrugged and said, “These spells are quite old, and when they were made, that’s what they spoke. And since they work, there’s no reason to change them.”
The day had been long and hot, and it was hard to focus on anything. The biggest distraction—other than preparing to fight off a creature I didn’t understand—was Gabe. Not his presence, but his absence.
I kept scouring the crowd, looking for him, but he never appeared. We hadn’t had plans today, not officially, but we had seen each other nearly every day since I’d gotten to Caudry. And then last night, we’d shared something really special, before he’d left suddenly.
He’d told me that he was falling in love with me, and when I said, “Me too,” I’d meant it. I felt more for Gabe than I had for anyone else, and I thought he really meant it too. I felt it in the tender way he touched me.
There had been other boys before Gabe, ones who said all the right words and promised a devotion that I didn’t ask for, but only for the night. The next day, they’d be gone without a trace, and I’d never really minded. It was better that way.
But Gabe was different. I believed the words he’d told me. He wouldn’t just end things that way. Just vanishing into the night never to be heard from again … would he?
The day was filled with too many important things to be done, so there was no time for me to go looking for him. When the carnival began to close for the night, I realized sadly that last night might very well have been the last time I ever saw him.
I didn’t linger on that thought, though. There would be plenty of time for heartache in the future. Right now, I needed to focus and prepare for whatever the night had in store for us.
Mom hadn’t done any readings today to help keep her strength up, and when I returned to camp, she was already setting things up. With incense burning in one hand and a mixture of herbs in the other, she walked around the campsite, doing a cleansing ritual to chase away darkness.
She smiled briefly at me but quickly returned to the task at hand, so I went over to join Hutch where he sat at the picnic table outside his camper. He had one of the swords I’d seen inside my mom’s trunk, and he attempted to spin it, but his injured shoulder hampered his mobility, and the sword fell to the ground.
“You’ll have to be more careful with that if you want to survive,” Luka commented, leaning against the open doorway of his motorhome. His shirtless torso revealed no signs of scars, or any of the damage that had been inflicted on him last night.
“I’ll be fine,” Hutch mumbled as he scrambled to pick up the sword.
I sat down beside Hutch. “How is it going here?”
“Good. Your mom’s been trying to get us ready,” Hutch replied. “Roxie’s over with Gideon, picking out a weapon.”