Demon Witch (Book Two - The Ravenscliff Series) Read online

  In the short time since Devon had defeated Jackson Muir, he had begun to feel some degree of safety at Ravenscliff. He had even, for the first time since his father died, begun to feel a sense of home. There was Cecily, and Rolfe, and the good friends he had made at school: D.J., Natalie, Marcus. He and Alexander had become buds, too, despite their initial hostility, and Devon had actually started to feel as if he had a family. After all the terrors of his first weeks at Ravenscliff, he had finally achieved a sense of security.

  Not anymore. With the mysterious attack in the parlor, the arrival of the gnome, and Mrs. Crandall’s apparent treachery, Devon decided he would once again have to always be on his guard.

  The snowstorm left about four inches on the ground, but by the next morning the roads were all plowed. “Isn’t that always the way?” Cecily asked. “A blizzard on the weekend but all clear by Monday morning. No day off from school.”

  D.J. picked them up in his car, an old red Camaro named Flo. He was a year ahead of Devon and Cecily in school, so he had his license. D.J. is seen by most people as a bit of a rebel, a tough guy with his black clothes and piercings, one through his nose and one through his chin. But Devon knew D.J. was a real softie at heart.

  “Hey, who’s got the old Caddy?” D.J. asked, noting Bjorn’s car, now safely parked outside the garage.

  “It’s our new caretaker,” Cecily told him, climbing into the backseat while Devon slipped in up front. “He’s a dwarf.”

  “Gnome,” Devon reminded her. “And he’s six-hundred-and-sixty-two.”

  “Get out,” D.J. said.

  “That’s what he claims. He spent his childhood in a mine. He’s got long fingernails hard as stone. Guess he used them for digging up diamonds or whatever.”

  D.J. shook his head. “The weirdos never quit showing up at that house, do they, dude?”

  Devon laughed. His friends had gone through the horrors of the past weeks with him, watching in terror as he had plunged into the Hell Hole to save Alexander. He knew he could trust them. Now that he was with his friends, Devon could relax and enjoy the kind of safety he no longer felt at Ravenscliff.

  At school, Natalie and Marcus were waiting for them. Marcus is neatly dressed as always, with a button-down oxford tucked smoothly into khakis. Natalie’s skirt is daringly short, even on such a cold day, and her boots are red vinyl up to the knee. She and Cecily were constantly in competition with each other, though at heart they were close friends and confidantes of each other’s secrets. To most of the kids at school each of the four was a bit of an outsider: D.J. because he dressed to shock and listened to thirty-year-old rock-and-roll; Marcus because he was the only openly gay kid in the entire school; Natalie because she refused to hang out with the cheerleaders, even though she was one of them; and Cecily because she lived at Ravenscliff, the legends of which everyone had heard.

  Devon, on the other hand, was a bit of an enigma. He could’ve hung out with anyone he chose, especially after a couple dozen witnesses watched him beat off a demon at Gio’s Pizza with one hand a while back. Of course, only Devon knew it was a demon; the kids just thought it was some punk from the next village making trouble. A group of football players had jumped up from their table and roundly clapped Devon on the back. Even the upperclassmen had hailed Devon in the hallways in the days that had followed. But Devon, while friendly to everybody, chose to stick with Cecily and D.J. and Marcus and Natalie. Now most of the kids at the school eyed him a bit suspiciously, not quite sure just what his story was.

  The five friends made an odd group, that’s for sure. But they’d become fiercely loyal to each other since living through the terrors of the Madman. During one fight with the demons from the Hell Hole, Devon was even able to share his powers with his friends. For a brief moment they’d all possessed the powers of the Nightwing. Devon would never forget how awesomely Cecily kicked demon-butt. It was like she’d been born to it. Actually, she was. Like him, it was in her blood.

  “Guess what?” Devon whispered to the group as they gathered around his locker before class. “I landed in a Hell Hole again last night.”

  “Oh my God!” Natalie cried. “You’ve got to move out of there, Devon. Come stay at my house. My parents won’t mind.”

  “Retract your claws, Natalie,” Cecily interjected. “Devon’s not going anywhere. He can take care of himself.”

  D.J. was scratching his head. “Dude, I thought you learned your lesson last time. What made you go down one of those things again?”

  “The new caretaker tricked me,” Devon said. “He said it was a way into the tower.”

  “Are you sure?” Marcus asked. “I thought there was only one way into the Hell Hole that exists under Ravenscliff, and that’s in the East Wing.”

  Devon shrugged. “That’s what I thought, too.”

  He looked over at Marcus. Once again, he saw a red pentagram hovering over his friend’s face, but it disappeared in seconds. It had been weeks since he last saw the pentagram on Marcus’s face, and he still had no idea what it meant. Devon worried that Marcus might be in danger. He’d have to talk to him about it when they were alone.

  “I need to get over to Rolfe Montaigne’s after class,” Devon told them. “I’ve got to read through some more of the Nightwing books. D.J., will you drop me there?”

  The bell signaling the first class of the day sounded.

  “You got it, my man,” D.J. said, giving him a quick salute as he sauntered off down the hall.

  Devon watched him disappear around a corner, then trudged off toward history class.

  “Devon March,” Mr. Weatherby was asking, “maybe you can tell me why King Henry the Seventh was so insecure on his throne in the early years of his reign.”

  Oh, great. He would have to call on me. With all that happened last night, Devon had given his reading assignment only a cursory glance.

  “Well, um, because he had invaded England,” he stammers.

  “Yes. Go on.”

  “And there were … other guys who had more royal blood than Henry.”

  “Precisely.”

  Devon breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Which is why,” Mr. Weatherby explained, turning to the class, “Henry executed almost all his rivals. There were many people early in his reign who tried to position themselves as more rightful rulers. But the King…”

  Mr. Weatherby droned on. Devon liked history, and especially English history, with its knights and kings and castles and high Celtic priests. He suspected his interests in these areas might have had something to do with his Nightwing heritage. But today his mind was preoccupied with what he needed to talk about with Rolfe. Devon was very grateful for Rolfe. He was the one hope Devon had for finally understanding his powers and the Hell Holes.

  But even Rolfe could only do so much. Rolfe Montaigne’s father was a Guardian, trained in the special skills of teaching and protecting the sorcerers of the Nightwing. Rolfe had been in line to become a Guardian himself, but his father had been killed when Rolfe was just a young boy, one more victim of the Madman Jackson Muir.

  That should have been enough to set up some serious bonding between Rolfe and the Muirs. But instead, Edward Muir had grown up envious of his father’s preference for the stronger, swifter Rolfe. And the young Amanda Muir, before she married Mr. Crandall, had fallen in love with Rolfe, only to turn savagely on him when she caught him with another girl. So bitter was she, Devon had discovered, that she had told the police that she had seen Rolfe behind the wheel—drunk—when his car plunged over the cliff into the ocean several years ago. Rolfe had survived, but two others had drowned. And because of Amanda’s story, Rolfe had spent five years in prison for manslaughter— for a crime he believed he did not commit.

  Now his entire being burned with a desire for revenge against the Muir family. If Mrs. Crandall knew Devon had been spending so much time with him, she’d come down hard on him.

  Maybe that’s why she set
me up. Maybe she knew I’d ally myself with Rolfe…

  No matter what his past—manslaughter, prison—Rolfe had become a hero to Devon. Devon firmly believed in Rolfe’s innocence. The only problem was, Rolfe couldn’t say for sure that he wasn’t at the wheel that night, because he was, in fact, drunk. He told Devon that he was haunted by the deaths of the two people in his car. They were both servants at Ravenscliff, a boy and a girl. The girl, Clarissa, had a tombstone out in the cliffside cemetery. Although her body was washed out to sea, somebody evidently thought enough of her to erect a memorial. Rolfe visited her grave regularly, he said, torn with guilt over her death.

  At one point Devon had thought Clarissa might have had something to do with the Madman: He could have sworn he’d seen the ghost of the Madman’s wife, Emily Muir, sobbing over Clarissa’s grave. But Rolfe said Clarissa was just a servant girl, born long after Jackson Muir was dead. So Devon had put that theory aside—for now.

  The rest of the Muir family history was just as troubled, and Devon wondered what it had to do with his own origins. Amanda Muir went on to marry a man she didn’t love, who left her soon after Cecily’s birth. Devon figured that was another reason to rule her out as his mother. He and Cecily were both fifteen, and there just wasn’t enough time between Devon’s birthday and hers to allow for another birth.

  Unless, of course, the birthday Dad had always told him was his is wrong. There was no birth certificate, after all.

  Devon shuddered. Whenever he started thinking about his real parents, he became confused and upset. It couldn’t be Mrs. Crandall; it just couldn’t be! He liked Cecily too much to learn that she was his sister. That would just warp his mind. He consoled himself by remembering that they look nothing alike. Both Cecily and her mother were fair-skinned, and Cecily had shiny red hair. Devon was dark, almost olive, with deep brown eyes and nearly black hair.

  Although Rolfe had been unable to solve the mystery of Devon’s parentage, he did have his father’s library of books and crystals, all of which had assisted Devon in assembling pieces of his Nightwing heritage. Devon’s father—his adopted father—had lived on the grounds of Ravenscliff before Devon was born. Rolfe knew Dad, and had loved him. That fact—even more than the books and the crystals—made Devon feel a special connection to Rolfe.

  “I know my roots are here,” Devon said after classes let out for the day. The five friends were walking toward D.J.’s car. “I just know it.”

  “Well, there’s that stone out in the cemetery with the name Devon,” Cecily said as she slipped into the backseat.

  “Yeah, there really ought to be a record at the town hall about who’s buried under there,” Marcus said, who was shoved in between Cecily and Natalie.

  “We looked,” Devon told him as he slid into the front seat beside D.J. and pulled the door shut. “There was nothing.”

  “You know, bro, I think maybe you just dropped out of the sky,” D.J. said, starting the car and squealing out of the parking lot.

  “Hey, I have a thought,” Natalie offered.

  “This ought to be good,” Cecily said.

  Natalie ignored her. “Maybe the Nightwing don’t have babies like regular people. Maybe they hatch out of eggs or something.”

  Cecily scowled. “Natalie, you totally got the wrong genes. Instead of a brunette, you should definitely have been born a blonde.”

  “Hey,” Natalie said, pouting. “It’s not so weird to imagine. Look at the ravens those Nightwingers always have around them. They come out of eggs.”

  “Well, I’m Nightwing, too,” Cecily said. “Everybody seems to forget that. I’m just as much a Nightwing as Devon. And I was certainly not hatched out of any egg.”

  “But you got gypped with the power thing, Cess,” D.J. said. “With your mom and uncle renouncing their heritage and everything.”

  She just snorted. “Maybe someday I’ll get my rightful powers back. They’re my birthright, after all.”

  “Consider it a blessing, Cecily,” Devon said, and he was being serious. “At least you didn’t grow up with the monsters in your closet being real.”

  They talked about other things for a while: how Jessica Milardo was breaking up with her boyfriend and the fact that Mr. Weatherby always wore shirts with pit stains. “It’s so gross,” Natalie complained. “Like a fungus or something.”

  Devon laughed. He looked out the window as they headed toward the village of Misery Point. The time comes soon, the Voice told him again, when you will need to live up to the promise of your heritage.

  They reached Fibber McGee’s, the restaurant Rolfe owned on the craggy point. It was a very popular spot, drawing diners from as far away as New York and Boston. It gave the Muirs’ restaurants a real run for their money, which was precisely the strategy Rolfe Montaigne had in mind when he returned to Misery Point after his five years in prison. Fibber McGee’s is one of the few places open all year; most of the village’s other establishments shut down for the winter. In May the population swells with summer residents and tourists. Now it was mostly a deserted collection of boarded-up white clapboard buildings, braving the fierce Atlantic wind and ice.

  “Thanks for the ride,” Devon said, hopping out of the car.

  “March on, Ghostbuster,” D.J. said.

  Devon peered into the backseat at Cecily. “If your mother asks, say I stayed after school for some extra help in geometry, and that I’ll get a ride with someone else.”

  She nodded in agreement.

  “And Marcus,” Devon added, remembering the pentagram, “call me later, okay?”

  “What about?”

  “Just call me.”

  “How about me?” Natalie said, batting her eyelashes ridiculously. Devon knew Natalie had a crush on him; she just wouldn’t seem to accept the fact that he and Cecily were an item.

  “Yeah, sure,” he told her, shrugging. “You can call me too, if you want.”

  “Too bad she’s lost her phone,” Cecily said, grabbing Natalie’s cell out of her bag.

  “Hey!”

  They laughed. Devon watched as the Camaro roared off. He knew they were heading back to Gio’s for pizza. They’d spend the day like any other group of kids. Once again Devon resented this fate thrust upon him, once again wished he could just be an ordinary boy.

  Not that he wasn’t intrigued by his Nightwing blood, and not that he didn’t find his powers awesome at times. But he was tired of living in fear and doubt. Tired of never knowing when some hand might reach out of the dark and grab him, or when Mrs. Crandall might cook up a plot to send him into a Hell Hole.

  Devon wished he could do normal things, like joining an intramural basketball team after classes. He didn’t transfer to this school until mid-semester, so it was too late to get on the cross-country team. But in the spring he was thinking of trying out for junior varsity baseball. And maybe the school play.

  But he doubted he’d ever have time for any of that. Instead he had to head to Rolfe’s and pore through ancient texts and hold magic crystals in his hand, while his friends got to hang out and eat pizza.

  He was greeted by Roxanne, Rolfe’s mysterious lady companion. “Well, good afternoon, Devon March,” she said, her strange golden eyes taking him in. She was strikingly beautiful, tall with deep brown skin and the twist of a Jamaican accent. “I suspected we might see you today.”

  “You always seem to know when to expect me, Roxanne.”

  “You are hungry. I will have the chef whip you up some food.”

  She was right, he was hungry. She must have been clairvoyant—ESP or whatever they called it. Rolfe said Roxanne was very wise. An “intuitive,” he called her.

  “Rolfe is in his office,” Roxanne told him. “You go ahead in.”

  There were only a few diners in the restaurant, out-of-towners braving the snowy cliffs, probably up from Boston. Devon hoped he might get a chance to go out to Rolfe’s house, where the books and crystals were kept. At t
he very least, he hoped Rolfe would have the time to listen to his story.

  He knocked lightly on the door. “Come in,” Rolfe commanded in his deep, resonant voice.

  Devon stepped inside.

  “Well, I was wondering when you’d be able to get here.” The older man fixed him with his green eyes. “Any trouble?”

  “Well, maybe,” Devon said.

  Rolfe rose from behind his desk and gestured for Devon to sit in an easy chair off to the side. He was a tall, dark man somewhere in his mid-thirties, with the swagger of a man who’d made his fortune the hard way and totally on his own. Five years in prison hadn’t broken Rolfe Montaigne: they had merely steeled his resolve to become as successful as he could when he got out. Just how Rolfe had made his fortune was a bit mysterious: he’d regaled Devon and his friends with talks of oil rigs in Saudi Arabia, hidden jewels in the pyramids of Egypt, strange connections in China and Japan.

  But all that matters was that Rolfe was here, now, and that he was the only one who could help Devon find any answers.

  “Tell me what’s happened,” Rolfe said, sitting opposite Devon.

  “Well, to start, I got attacked in the parlor.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t worry. It wasn’t a demon. I think they’re still pretty securely locked in their Hell Holes. This was a human. Or maybe a ghost that felt like a human. He grabbed my throat then ran off.”

  “Did you get a look at him?”

  “No. It was dark.”

  “But there are no men living at Ravenscliff.” Rolfe smiled. “Except you, of course.”

  “Ah, but there is now. The new caretaker arrived shortly after the attack. But it wasn’t him.”