"No! We are the nonunionized employees of the Revealer Demons from the sixth level of h.e.l.l. It's a really sweet deal. The demons gave us the reveal spell to use, which sends the souls of every creature we snuff straight to the Revealer realm. Apparently supernatural souls are a hot commodity down there, and the demons promised to keep the coven coffers stocked, and in the old days keep the pitchfork-wielding nut jobs at bay."

I walk over to the couch and carefully brush some gla.s.s aside with my wrapped-up hand. I sit down because I'm starting to shake-but I'm not sure if it's from the cold or from what Dani's just said. "No money is worth working for demons. Why would we do that?"

"Because the demons were smart! Well, depending on which side of the agreement you're on, but they set it up so it was unlikely any witch would try to break it," Dani says. "Five members of the original coven agreed to sign their souls away-"

"What?"

"They agreed to sign off on their souls until their daughters are born and get the reveal spell. I won't even get into the ceremony and blood swapping they subjected us to, or the fact that all the other coven members are basically parasites living off the hunters- but once the kid has the spell, the mom's soul is free and clear, and the next generation is on the chopping block until they have kids. And so on and so on and so on."

"Oh, come on, no mother would agree to that!"

Dani throws her hands in the air. "But they did-they have! They even use spells to make sure they have girls and get pregnant around the same time. Everyone was acting like I'd lost my mind for being freaked that our mothers knowingly signed off on our souls! I told them not only was there was no way I was gonna do that to my kid, but effective immediately I was off the hunt.

"Of course you have to appreciate the irony seeing as I'm the one without a soul now." She slides her tongue across her sharp teeth. "But you wouldn't believe how many talks with Helena I had to sit through. It was maddening having her acting all smug, and "we're doing it for the good of mankind" when she doesn't have a lien on her soul!

"Finally I just pretended to give in and said I'll hunt, just back the h.e.l.l off!' I had no intention of keeping my word, though, and that's why I was gonna leave after the ghost.

"But," Dani continues, "I have to imagine the first witches were pretty bad off, way back when-what with people always trying to burn them, and hangings, and such. And maybe they didn't have a lot of food and the winters were harsh-blah, blah, blah, but to keep this going for three hundred years, well, there's no excuse."

I'm thinking losing your soul, or getting personally dragged off to h.e.l.l might give a person pause, but I don't want to bring that up since Dani is newly soulless. But soul or no soul, handing your kid over to demons is all kinds of wrong. "So, if I don't have a girl to take the reveal spell and fulfill the covenant, I lose my soul?"

"Yeah," Dani says. "Of course now I feel a little silly about making such a fuss about that part, seeing as it isn't as bad as I thought, but no one has the right to stick it to a kid like that."

I don't even know what to say. Generation after generation of coven woman have traded their own souls for their daughters'. And here I was thinking deactivating our necklaces and sending us to get roughed up by vamps was about as low as you could get.

"I just don't understand how could they do it," I say finally.

"I don't have a clue! But, wait, it gets even better. Hank told me something Helena et al didn't share on my birthday." Dani bites her lip, and the tips of her canines hang slightly lower than the rest of her teeth. "Hank and some other folks are on the coven bankroll! We're paying vamps and other werewolves to get names and locations-basically they're snitches. I probably should have staked Hank just for ratting out his own kind, but like I said, he's in so much trouble for turning me that his days are probably numbered anyway. Surreal, huh?"

"Yeah," I say in a whisper.

"Hank said they've even gone so far as to lure people from out of the country to meet quotas."

I look at Dani, sitting across from me on the couch, wishing I could blink my eyes and wake up from this nightmare. The breeze blowing on the back of my head through the broken window is the only thing that convinces me this isn't a dream.

So," Dani continues, "we need to call Margo, Sascha, and Z and tell them I'm okay."

I raise my eyebrows.

"Well, okay enough," she says. "But it's time to figure out how we're gonna give the coven one long overdue a.s.s kicking!"

"Urn." I pause, wondering if everyone is going to accept the new Dani. "That sounds good and all, but you know, maybe I should talk to them first-you know-alone." I shrug. "Just in case."

Dani laughs. "You're right, I could totally see Margo asking questions after she's already staked me. I mean, look what she did to Kelsey."

I hate to admit it, but I think she's painted a fairly accurate picture.

Dani smiles. "There is something I need to do anyway."

My stomach knots up. "You're not going after Helena, arc your "Well, she totally deserves a good bloodletting, but if that's what you're worried about-no, I'm not. I don't plan on sinking my new choppers into anyone who doesn't want me to."

"You can't turn anyone who wants you to, either!"

"I know! I know! Just because I'm short a soul doesn't mean I don't know the difference between right and wrong." She tilts her head to the side. "I don't think it would bother me if I did do the wrong thing-but still, I know the difference. And really, we've been murdering people since we were thirteen, can you really say offing Helena is any worse than staking some poor vamp?"

"There's a big difference-Helena's human and alive."

Dani raises an eyebrow.

"Sorry-that was insensitive of me, but with you walking and talking right in front of me, it's hard to think of you as dead." I shake my head. "Or undead." I sigh, and don't want to think about all the wolves and vamps we've killed who were probably like Dani.

"Well, you don't need to worry. I'm not planning on confronting anyone- yet. I'll be good.

I promise." Dani gives me a wide-eyed innocent look.

"Do you still have your cell phone?" I ask.

"Yeah, the battery is getting low, though. I should make a list of things for you to get from my house later-my charger, some clothes, and maybe Mr. Cuddle Bear."

I give her a look.

She c.o.c.ks her head. "If any vamp makes fun of him, I'll just have to stake 'em."

I shake my head. "Okay, I'll call everyone, and once I make sure everyone is on board, I'll call you and we can figure out our game plan together."

Dani takes my hand in hers and squeezes it tight. Tears well up in my eyes again.

I shake my head. "I really am sorry. I can't believe this is happening."

Dani reaches over and hugs me. I try very hard not to flinch or pull away as her skin ices mine. "The important thing is we end the covenant," she says. "And if a demon wants to drag me off to h.e.l.l-so be it. It's not like I have anything left to lose."

Dani stands up and purses her lips. "I'm thinking you're probably not ready to see me turn into a bat yet?"

"Yeah, probably not," I say, wondering how much a person can process in one day.

"It's really totally awesome, though, because when I morph back-I'm still dressed!" Dani smiles like that is the coolest thing in the world, and I wonder if I'll ever get used to seeing her with fangs.

I force myself to smile back at her. "Cool."

"Okay," Dani says. "I'll wait for your call, and hopefully I'll have some good news for you, too. Oh, wait. Is my hair okay? I can't see my reflection, which is kind of a b.u.mmer."

"I thought you didn't care about stuff like that anymore."

Dani rolls her eyes. "I may not care about my thighs, but I don't want to walk around looking like I'm homeless." She runs a hand through her hair. "So?"

I reach out and brush her bangs to the side. "You're good to go."

"Great!"

She skips out into the night, and I stand in the shop, shaking.

Dani's a vampire.

My father doesn't know me.

My mother sold my soul.

My boyfriend is most likely a lying rat.

I take a deep breath.

I head over to the clothesline holding the ghost b.a.l.l.s. I unhook the first one and smash it into a corner of the workshop. The ball bursts apart and I smile despite the tears pouring down my face.

I pick up the next one, and scream as I throw it in another corner. I pick up a third and wing it out the broken window. The ball makes an unsatisfying splash in the pond and I pick up the next one, aim for the front window, and let it fly. It smashes through a bottom pane, and I realize I'll run out of b.a.l.l.s long before I'm done crying.

17.

Sascha, Z, and Margo are all staring me.

"Well, isn't anyone going to say something?" I ask. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror over my dresser and see my eyes are still red and puffy. I glance at the mall photo-booth pictures of Dani and me tucked into the edge of the gla.s.s, and realize the overwhelming sadness I'd felt an hour ago has been replaced by a deep desire to make the coven pay for what they did to her-what they did to all of us.

"Well?" I repeat.

Zahara looks down and fiddles with one of the stuffed animals on my bed, and Margo and Sascha exchange looks.

I let out a long exasperated breath. "Dani is not a coldblooded killer." I pause. "That would actually best describe us, seeing as most of the vamps we've staked were probably just trying to eek out an existence, instead of busying themselves making an army of the undead like our mothers led us to believe."

"You can't know that," Margo says finally. "Dani could be lying!"

"Look, Dani could've gotten me any number of times, but she didn't. And really, between what you already know about the coven, and what Michael said, does it really seem so out there that our moms lied so we'd happily stake any vamp they sent us after?"

Margo shakes her head. "She's a vampire! And I know she was your best friend, but-"

"I thought we were all friends with her!" I say. "I can't believe you guys are bailing on her like this, and I can't believe you'd think I would put any of you at risk. Are you really going to trust our mothers over Dani?"

Margo puts one hand on her hip. "Even if any of this is remotely true, I don't believe for one second my mom is in on it. She would have told me!"

"Oh, yeah," I say, "like she told you she swapped your soul for hers when you were still in diapers?"

"She told me when the time was right, because she didn't have a choice!" Margo yells.

"And it's all worked out! No one's lost their soul for three hundred years!"

"Except Dani," Zahara snaps. She looks around at us with tears in her eyes. "Our mothers could have stopped this. They could have sacrificed their souls so we'd be safe."

"And Dani would still be alive," I add.

"Are you going to sacrifice your soul, Z?" Margo asks. "Are you going to break the cycle?"

Zahara lowers her head again. "I don't know. What does the ceremony involve?" she says quietly like she's not sure she really wants to know. "The one with the demons?"

"Dani didn't say much about that," I say. "Maybe she figured she'd dumped enough on me."

Sascha looks at Margo, who scowls and shakes her head. Margo starts picking lint b.a.l.l.s off my flannel sheets.

"Okay," Sascha says. "I really don't think telling you is going to get anyone carted off to h.e.l.l." She shakes her long hair out around her shoulders and sighs. "When a hunter's daughter is one year old, a demon is summoned from the Revealer Realm. Instead of the traditional 'cake and ice-cream party,' the mother makes a cut on the baby's foot with a ceremonial knife. They fill a cup with the baby's blood, and the demon drinks it. Then the demon makes a cut on its hand, and they gather it in a smaller cup and-"

"Oh, no," I say.

Sascha nods. "Yeah, they give it to the baby. The blood exchange pa.s.ses on the reveal spell and binds the child into the covenant."

Z and I exchange wide, horrified looks.

Sascha gets up and grabs her cape from my desk chair. "Apparently there's a spell so the baby doesn't feel anything." She reaches in the pocket and pulls out the flask, and slaps it into my hand. "Welcome to my nightmare."

I give the flask back to her. "You know, Sascha, I think we need to be as sharp as possible right now." I look her in the eyes. "All of us."

Sascha nods and puts the flask on my nightstand.

"So we need to figure out what we're going to do," I say. "We need to figure out how we're going to break the covenant."

Margo pinches her lips together and squints her eyes. "If we do anything, someone could get taken!" She looks directly at me. "I'm not willing to risk my family-we just have to go along and do what we're supposed to. And," she sniffs, "my mother may have gone through that ceremony-because there really isn't any choice-but I'm not buying into that nonsense about paying vamps and wolves to work for us!"

"Look, I think we should do some digging in that room at Connor's house," I say. "There's a ledger doc.u.menting kills, and a bunch of other notebooks and papers I didn't have a chance to look at. Some of it's got to contain records." I look at Margo. "Maybe records of other employees."

"Oh, right," Margo says. "You think we're just gonna waltz over there and Helena is going to let us have at it?"

I sigh. "Hopefully, Helena is still meeting with our mothers, but you know, I'm not sure Connor will let us in."

"We could cloak ourselves," Sascha says, looking at me sympathetically.

"Yes!" I say. "And we can have Michael take us. He can distract Connor while we sneak in and go to the room."

"Good idea," Z says.

Margo stares at Zahara like she's betraying her. "You don't seriously think we'll find anything, do you?"

"I'd love more than anything if we didn't," Z says.

"Are you with us?" I ask Margo.

"Fine, but I'm not expecting to find anything."