“You’re not letting yourself. The same power you used to talk to the demon will allow you to see in this darkness. You just have to use that power.”
“Look,” he said, desperate to leave, “I made a mistake.” He knew that wasn’t true the minute he said that. He hadn’t made a mistake in coming there. He just didn’t know what he was supposed to do now that he was there. “I shouldn’t have come.”
Pain lit up the side of his face. Only after his head jerked to the side and the sound of flesh striking flesh did he realize he’d been slapped.
She’d hit him. Or someone had.
“Open your eyes,” the woman commanded. “Open your eyes and see.”
“I—”
Another stinging slap nearly drove Warren to his knees. For a moment in the darkness, he felt like he was back in the foster homes, wakened from sleep again.
Fear and anger mixed within him. He’d always sworn he wouldn’t go back to being afraid like that. Or be bullied. Never again. He was through being helpless. All he needed to do was find the stairwell, then he could—
Someone hit him again. The blow split his lips. He tasted blood. And the rage inside him boiled over.
“Open your eyes,” the woman commanded.
Warren did, discovering that the pain had caused him to snap them closed. When he opened his eyes, he found that he could see as clearly in the corridor as if on a moonlit night. The sight startled him, and he thought for a moment someone had turned on a light.
“His eyes,” someone said.
“He can see.”
“Edith was right.”
A man tried to slap Warren, but Warren caught the man’s hand and stopped the blow. Warren felt stronger than he ever had. Even though the man was bigger than he was, he’d controlled his arm like it was nothing.
“Stop,” Warren told the man.
A paroxysm violently twisted the man’s face. His eyes rolled up into his head. Then he dropped to the floor and lay on his back.
The crowd stepped back from him. One of the men dropped to his knees and tried to wake the fallen man. He checked him quickly, holding a palm over the man’s mouth and nose, then pressing an ear to his chest.
In disbelief, the man looked up at Warren and the others. “He’s not breathing. I can’t find a pulse.”
“Joel is dead,” someone whispered.
“That boy killed him.”
Eleven
D ead.
The word reverberated through Warren’s skull. He stared down at the man.
“He can’t be dead,” Edith Buckner said. “The boy didn’t touch him.”
“I worked in an ER,” the man kneeling beside the body said. “I know dead when I see it, and Joel is dead.”
Warren’s face still burned from the slaps he’d received while blind in the darkness. But that was small compared to the confusion and disbelief that he felt as he looked at the fallen man.
“I didn’t do anything,” Warren whispered hoarsely. “I just didn’t want him to hit me again.” Memory of his stepfather and mother’s last argument came to mind.
“You spent all our money again!” his stepfather roared.
“I’m really close to breaking through,” his mother had protested. “I needed things. The money I’ve spent trying to get in touch with my power isn’t going to matter. Once I’ve achieved mastery over the arcane—”
“Mastery?” His stepfather had never been a patient man. He’d never been a forgiving one either. “You can’t even manage a house, you cow! We live in filth! I work hard all day—”
“You’re a thief! Don’t you go getting sanctimonious with me! I know what you are! You and your friends are just—”
As he always had before, Warren had hidden behind the couch in the cramped living room. His mother’s books on magic and lore filled much of the space, but there were also vid components, computers, and other stuff his stepfather had nicked that he hadn’t yet fenced.
Usually there was a lot of fighting, some hitting, and drinking that followed. He’d learned that all he had to do was stay out of the way until things got quiet again.
But that wasn’t the case that night. He hadn’t known it then, but a drug dealer that his stepfather had robbed a few days ago had figured out who he was and was tracking him down. His stepfather could leave London, grass to the cops, or die. The drug dealer had already killed one of his stepfather’s accomplices.
The argument hadn’t ended routinely.
Trapped by his own fear and anger, his stepfather had pulled out his pistol and shot Warren’s mother in the face and chest. He’d killed her, screaming curses at her the whole time, blaming her for the desperation that had sent him after the drug dealer’s score instead of playing things safely.
Unable to help himself, only eight years old, Warren had started screaming and calling out to his mother. His stepfather turned the big pistol on him. Warren had known without a doubt that his stepfather was going to kill him.
The first bullet caught Warren in the hip and spun him around. He fell, paralyzed from the pain and the blunt force. The second bullet struck the wall only inches from his head.
That was when Warren had looked at his stepfather and said, “I wish you were dead.” And he’d wanted it with every fiber of his being.
Instead of shooting Warren, his stepfather had pulled the gun to his own temple, crying and screaming for help the whole time, and pulled the trigger. The smell of burned flesh, scorched by the pistol blast, had filled the air.
All those memories spun through Warren’s thoughts. Even after fifteen years, they were never far away. A neighbor had called the police. Warren had been transported to the hospital and turned over to foster care as soon as he was well enough to walk out.
But his stepfather had deserved to die. He’d been the most fearful thing Warren had ever known. He still had nightmares about the man.
Warren didn’t even
