Sorcerers of the Nightwing (Book One - The Ravenscliff Series) Read online

  “Do I know the place?” The bartender laughed. “Everyone in Misery Point knows Ravenscliff. How could we not? That family owns half the freakin’ town.”

  “They’re very wealthy, I was told.”

  “They’ve got more money than God.” She grabbed a dishcloth and began wiping down the bar. “The Muirs practically built this village. Bought the fishing fleet, started the tourist trade, everything. There was nothing here before the Muirs. Every schoolkid knows the legends of Ravenscliff—how old Horatio Muir built the house out there on the point and how all the ravens descended on it and came to live there.”

  “Ravens?”

  “Yup. You know, the big black birds. My grandfather remembers when the place was covered with them. That’s how it got its name. There aren’t any ravens up there anymore, but the place is still the creepiest thing you can imagine.”

  Devon laughed. “I was told all I’d find there are ghosts.”

  Her eyes twinkled. “You were told right. Ghosts and a few crazy real live people.” She grinned. “I’m Andrea, by the way. You?”

  “Devon,” he told her. They shook hands.

  “So you’re really going up to that house to live?”

  He nodded. “Mrs. Crandall is my guardian. My father died. I kind of got left to her in the will.”

  “Weirdness,” Andrea said. “That’s one odd lady. Her daughter’s pretty cool, though. Cecily. She comes in here to hang sometimes with her friends. She’s about your age.”

  “Well, that’s good. I was beginning to think it was only going to be awkward and boring up there.”

  Andrea shrugged. “Well, those are two adjectives that definitely describe this town. I don’t know what the place you came from is like, but Misery Point can be pretty bleak. Especially, like, in January, February, March. Nobody’s around and most everything except this here dive is closed. Summertime, that’s a different story. In the winter, we’re just under three thousand people, but at the peak of the season—Fourth of July through Labor Day—we’ve got something like fifty thousand tourists crammed in.”

  “Wow.”

  “You know, I think it’s the name. You’d think it would keep people away, but no. Everybody wants to say they’ve been to Misery Point and back. Us poor townies—we kill ourselves in the summer trying to accommodate all of them. I suppose we should be grateful. It’s their dollars that keep us all living from September to May.”

  “I’ll be sixteen by summer,” Devon said. “I’d like to get a job.”

  “They’ll be plenty of them in the summer. So you’re what? A sophomore?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got to start school here in a week. Coming in midsemester is kind of weird. I’m not looking forward to it.”

  “Cecily will take care of you. She’s got her own little clique of friends. It’s not a bad school. I graduated a few years ago. It’s a regional, so that’s cool. At least you’ll meet kids from outside Misery Point.” She fiddled with the ring in her eyebrow. “So you think you’ll stay here for good?”

  Devon looked off towards the windows. The rain continued to crash against the glass. “I don’t know,” he told her. “For now, I have no choice. But later …”

  His words faded off. Ever since the will was read, Devon had wondered how long he’d stay in Misery Point. Part of him had rebelled against the idea of leaving Coles Junction and his friends. He missed Suze and Tommy—and especially his dog Max—like crazy. But another part of him had been compelled by the Voice: The answers are there in Misery Point. Who you are. What you are.

  In the hours after Dad had died, the heat in Devon’s room had ratcheted up twenty degrees. In his grief, Devon hadn’t thought he was strong enough to withstand whatever it was that haunted him. But he was—just as he’d always been: with just one sharp look and a wave of his hand, his armoire had slid across his room, blocking his door. The knob had turned and rattled, but nothing had gotten in.

  The answers are here, the Voice was telling him.

  And Devon agreed: I knew that from the moment I stepped off the train.

  “Anybody tell you about the kid?” Andrea was asking.

  Devon returned his eyes to her. “The kid? Oh, you mean the little boy at Ravenscliff.”

  She nodded. “‘Little boy’ is a deceptive description. Try monster. Try gremlin. Do you know why they kicked him out of the school he was going to in Connecticut?”

  Devon grinned. “I’m afraid to find out.”

  Andrea let out a hoot. “He set the curtains in the cafeteria on fire. The cafeteria! Now, I could understand the headmaster’s bedroom, or the math classroom—but the cafeteria!”

  Devon shook his head. “Sounds like a kid with a severe case of I-want-attention-and-I-want-it-now.”

  “Yeah, Alexander Muir is definitely twisted. Growing up in that house, I can understand.”

  “Too many ghosts?” Devon smiled.

  Andrea shrugged. “Hey, that’s what they say.” She leaned in towards him. “You can still hear Emily Muir’s screams at Devil’s Rock. And this is firsthand information, buddy. I’ve heard them myself.”

  “Whoa,” Devon said. “Screams? Devil’s Rock?”

  “Yeah. It’s the highest point overlooking the sea, out at the end of the Muir estate, the very tip of Misery Point. Emily Muir threw herself off the cliff fifty years ago. It’s said she found her husband with another woman.”

  Devon grinned. “Sounds like some bad horror film on Lifetime.”

  “Scoff if you must, but her husband is the worst ghost of all. Jackson Muir. My parents remember him from when they were kids. He was a real live person then, living in that house, and he terrorized the village. They say he was a warlock.”

  “Warlock? You mean like the kind they turn out at Hogwarts?”

  She tossed the dishrag at him. “Hey, I’m just repeating what I’ve been told. Poor old Jackson Muir, though. None of his spells could bring his precious Emily back, and so he died in grief and guilt, you know, cuz he’d been cheating on her.”

  “You’re just trying to freak me out,” Devon told her.

  Andrea smirked. “Have I succeeded?”

  “No.” He took another sip of coffee. “I don’t scare easily. Never have.”

  “Well, you just watch out for yourself. Mrs. Crandall is just this side of Looney Toons. I’ll see her driving along in that Jaguar of hers. She’ll show up in some local shop all covered up with silk scarves so that you can hardly see her face and then she’ll haggle over the price of a ten-dollar pair of sandals.” She leaned over the bar. “And do you know what else is weird about that family? They’ve only got one servant. One! Can you imagine? For that big house? Why, I can barely keep my little one-room apartment clean, and they’ve got fifty!”

  “Fifty rooms?”

  “Yup. Can you imagine?”

  No, Devon couldn’t. But somewhere in those fifty rooms he was convinced he’d find a clue to who he was and where his strange powers came from.

  “More coffee?” Andrea asked.

  “No, thanks,” Devon said, draining his cup. He looked over his shoulder. Rolfe Montaigne still hadn’t emerged from the back room. “Is there a phone I could use? I can’t get reception on mine.” He showed her the lack of bars on his phone.

  “Get used to that, buddy. Our insufficient cell towers are legendary. The tourists are always griping about it, but whenever town meeting brings up the issue, the locals always vote it down.” She rolled her eyes. “People here seem to think too many cell towers will give them brain cancer or something, or allow the government to spy on them. You’ll see. This town is rather paranoid.”

  “Well, I need to call a cab to get me to Ravenscliff.”

  “They didn’t even send a car to get you?”

  “They were supposed to, but no one was there.” Devon took his wallet out of his jacket pocket and withdrew a five-dollar bill, setting it on the counter just as he noticed Montaigne come out of the back room. “That guy gave me a
ride here.”

  Andrea looked off in Montaigne’s direction and made a face.

  “You aren’t messed up with Rolfe Montaigne, are you?” she asked.

  “No, he just gave me a ride. Why? Shouldn’t I be?” Devon looked at Andrea intently. “He told me he went to jail for murder. Is that true, or was he just trying to scare me?”

  She snorted. “I’ve told you enough horror stories tonight,” she said. “Don’t get me started on Rolfe Montaigne. I’ll call you a cab. There’s only one guy in town.”

  Devon thanked her. She headed to the other end of the bar to make the call. Devon looked around at the other people in the bar, waiting to see if he picked anything up from them. Nothing. No voice. No heat.

  But he knew there were people in this town who held the truth he sought. And he’d find them. Fate—or whatever—had already brought him into contact with one: the mysterious Rolfe Montaigne, who, after waving to Andrea, walked straight past Devon and out of the place without saying another word. In moments, Devon could hear the engine of the Porsche kick in. The headlights cast their light through the windows behind the bar as Montaigne drove off.

  “The cab will be here in about five minutes,” Andrea told him when she returned. “Stop in again. You’ll need to get out of that house often if you want to stay sane.”

  Devon promised.

  Even before the five minutes were up, the cab honked from outside. Devon rushed out to meet it. The rain had eased up. The windshield wipers flicked back and forth only every few minutes. The driver was a squat man with leathery skin—a fisherman by day, Devon imagined—and dark eyes under a heavy brow. Like everyone else, he was surprised when Devon told him his destination was Ravenscliff, arching a furry eyebrow at him in his rearview mirror. But he said nothing and drove on.

  The moon reemerged from the dark gray clouds overhead, a shy child peeking around a corner past its bedtime. Its light was hesitant, unsure: it came and went, but it was bright enough to illuminate the jagged wet rocks on the side of the road and the roiling sea beyond. The white caps of the waves seemed unbearably cold to Devon. He listened as they crashed on the beach below.

  Finally, up ahead, standing against the moonlight on the top of Devil’s Rock, he saw Ravenscliff. It was little more than a shadow at first, a silhouette, as if it were a painted backdrop on a Broadway stage.

  “There she is,” the cab driver croaked.

  “Yes,” Devon replied, his eyes caught.

  “I don’t much say anythin’ to the folks I drive,” the man told him, glancing sharply in the rearview mirror. “And God knows I see enough that I could say somethin’. I pick up drunks and take ‘em home to their wives. I pick up politicians and bring ‘em to their mistresses. I don’t say nothin’. Never have. But tonight, I’ll give you a tip.”

  “What’s that?” Devon asked. They rounded a curve on the seaside road and began the snaking drive up the hill. Ravenscliff loomed over them now, black and foreboding, poised on the edge of the cliff.

  “You do whatever business you have up there and leave,” the cab driver said. “Don’t ask no questions. Just do what you came to do and get out.”

  Devon kept his eyes on the dark mansion. There were only two windows lit, both on the first floor, and their light seemed dull and uninspired, as if hesitant to disturb the shadows. A tower rose from the east end of the house into the black-violet sky.

  “I’m afraid that will be difficult for me to do,” Devon explained. “I’m going to live there.”

  The driver grunted. “Well, I feel sorry for you, my boy. I worked for Edward Muir once, on one of his boats. He thought he owned me. Don’t let him do that to you.”

  The cab driver pulled over to the side of the road. Ravenscliff was still some yards in the distance up the hill.

  “Why did you stop?” Devon asked.

  “This is the end of the line for me.”

  Devon laughed. If anything, he wasn’t surprised: he might have expected such behavior, given everything else that night. “What?” he asked. “Are you afraid the werewolves will be set loose upon you if you drive any closer?”

  “Might be,” the man said, and he seemed utterly serious.

  Devon was angry. He got out of the cab, lugging his heavy suitcase behind him. “Here,” he said, thrusting three dollars through the front window. “Don’t bother looking for a tip because you won’t find one.”

  “Don’t matter. Just wish you’d take mine.” The driver made a U-turn and headed back down the road, leaving the boy alone in a swath of moonlight, light rain misting his face. Below, the monotonous crash of the waves drowned out the sound of the speeding cab as it descended the hill back into the village.

  Devon looked up at the house ahead of him. Another light had appeared: in the topmost window of the tower. “There,” he said. “The place is coming to life.”

  Yet, trudging forward, he wished he could have believed that. Instead, he whistled in the dark, warding off evil spirits with his happy tunes, clutching his suitcase in one hand and the medal of the lady and the owl in his pocket in the other.

  Devon’s friend Suze had been easily frightened. Back in Coles Junction, they’d all go to the movies—Devon and Suze and Tommy and whoever else might be hanging with them that day. They loved scary movies: 28 Days Later and Drag Me to Hell and even Shaun of the Dead. Suze would get all neurotic whenever the music got creepy, and Devon would have to reach across in the darkness and take her hand, reassuring her. Sometimes, walking home, they cut through an old churchyard corridor. The only light in the corridor came from dim yellow lamps high up on the stone wall every few yards. Bats were known to fly along this route, their high-pitched cries only slightly more horrifying than the sound of their slippery wings beating against the cold stone. Suze would hear the bats and start to run, her hands covering her hair, begging for Devon to follow. But Devon was simply fascinated by the flying rodents. He caught sight of their eyes: little red embers in the shadows.

  Whenever Suze got really frightened, Devon remembered, she’d start humming or singing to herself. “Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way,” she’d sing, even in the direst days of summer. Those little tunes: as if the bats would be lulled to sleep, the ghosts shamed into submission, the demons driven back to the depths all because of the forced frivolity of one young girl.

  Yet now Devon hummed the same little tune himself. For the first time, he admitted to a little fear himself. He could feel the heat building the closer he came to the great house. And he could hear voices behind the wind: not the Voice that guided him, but the voices of others. The voices of the eyes that had stared out at him from the darkness of his closet since he was six.

  Not more than two yards from the front gate, Devon stopped walking and looked up. Through the rusted iron spears of the gate, he could see the house twist its way upward. The clouds were gone, and the moon, emboldened, claimed the sky. There was enough light now to make out the facade of the house: rain-slicked black stone worn by decades of sea wind. The wood of the house was as ebony as the stone: dark old wood, crusty with the salt of the sea. Ravens or no ravens, Devon found the name of the house appropriate. It was as black as a raven’s wing. Monstrous gargoyles like those on medieval French cathedrals protruded from the higher reaches of the house: hideous clawed and winged creatures that Devon knew were all too real.

  Had the builder of this house known it too?

  A sudden wind, chill and damp, fought him as he approached. You can’t stop me, Devon thought. No matter how hard you try, I’ve come here to find out the truth. The truth that’s been kept from me all my life.

  He passed under the front gate and started up the long driveway. It curved toward the main entrance then continued out beyond the house to smaller buildings. Devon walked with a briskness that belied the strength of the wind. His gait was as much to reassure him as the little tunes that still came forth from his lips: “Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way …”
>
  Someone—something—was watching him. He was suddenly convinced of it.

  Be on guard, came the Voice. He half-expected at any moment to be pounced upon by some creature from the dark bushes that lined the driveway, some crazed animal with long teeth and red eyes.

  But when he spotted his watcher, he saw that it was decidedly human. Devon lifted his eyes to the tower. The moonlight revealed a man—or at least, something that had the shape of a man—watching his arrival from an aperture in the crenelated turret.

  Devon stopped in his tracks. He felt the weight of his body leave him, rising from his bones and evaporating like steam. He tried to fix his gaze upon the man above, but whenever Devon’s eyes settled, the man seemed to vanish completely into the shadows. He could only see the man in his peripheral vision, as if whoever stood atop the tower existed not there but somewhere else.

  Yet for the seconds that Devon did actually see the man, all sound ceased: the steady beating of the waves against the rocks below, the hooting of birds from the woods around him, the pulse of his heart in his own ears. It was then that the words of the old woman on the train echoed in his mind, startling the stillness like the cry of a gull:

  “You’ll find no one there but ghosts.”

  Creatures in the Night

  How long he stood there staring at the tower Devon wasn’t sure, but something roused him from his trance, as if some unseen hypnotist had snapped his fingers. The Voice maybe—but Devon wasn’t sure he actually heard it or what it might have said. Perhaps it was simply the light in the topmost tower room going out, leaving the upper floors of the house in complete darkness once again. Or maybe it was the rain, starting again, wetting his face with hundreds of damp little tongues.

  Gathering his wits, Devon took the final steps to the house. He knocked upon the door using the rusted brass ring that hung there. It reverberated with a deep, cavernous echo, as he suspected it might.

  The front door of Ravenscliff was opened not by a servant—the lone servant Andrea had said the family employed—but by a woman Devon could not have expected. She was tall, titian-haired, and startlingly beautiful, of indeterminate age, her chin raised imperiously, with a sharp, striking profile and very long neck. She wore a simple but elegant black dress. Her hair was gathered in an elaborate French twist worn at the back of her head, and a single strand of pearls adorned her bare throat. Her eyes were large and set far apart, and they widened without blinking when she saw Devon standing there.