I look back toward the clearing, vaguely making out the movements of a body slumped against a tree. I know in my heart it’s Rune. He’s alive at least, though it’s hard to say for how long.
“Is that why you’ve killed so many of us, you monster?” my mom fires back. “Just racing to get to the last one so you could feast on the innocent for eternity?”
I throw another glance back toward Zev, and see that he’s starting to rise. I may not know who to trust, but I know I’m not ready to see any of these strange, beautiful men die.
When I turn back, I see my mom slowly raising her wand.
“Mother,” I say in my most admonishing voice. “Do not.”
I expect her to ignore me, but instead she looks at the ground and starts to cry.
“Oh, Sunshine,’ she whispers between sobs. “Why won’t you let me save you?”
Her words strike a chord, and I see how painful this is for her. She knows she hasn’t earned my trust, and yet I think she truly believes that I’ll die without her help. But then, her expression shifts, a new malice in her eyes and a harsher tone in her voice.
“Don’t you see what this magic becomes?” she wails, gesturing to the fire and devastation all around us. “There’s no end to this, Sunshine. Everyone will always want to achieve the greatest power, to live forever, to rule over the others. There’s only one way to end this.”
She lowers her wand and reaches out to me with her other hand. “Give me the baby, Bernadette. She is the sacrifice that will save us all. Her death will end the wars forever.”
A collective gasp comes from the Order members behind my mother. A figure steps forward and removes her hood--it’s Joe’s wife, Betty. She hovers over my mother’s shoulder and speaks while keeping her eyes on me and the vampire.
“What are you talking about?” Betty asks. “The objective was always to save the child, Lauren.”
“No,” my mom says firmly. “It was always to save our families, our husbands and brothers, our sisters and mothers… our daughters.”
She turns her attention back to me. “I’m asking you to do something impossible, Sunshine. No mother could ever willingly harm her child.”
Except you, I think to myself. By trying to take my baby from me.
“But this goes beyond your pain, or mine, or my mother’s. You have a chance to end so much suffering. If we don’t do the right thing, these cursed magic creatures will haunt the world for another million years.”
This whole time, my mom has been trying to convince me of the evil forces conspiring against me. I know she believes what she says, but she’s lost sight of who the real monster is.
I look down at Rain--cold, hungry, and crying. I need to get her away from here. Away from the witches who are supposed to be her family.
I turn to Darius, whose eyes have been locked on my mother this whole time, every muscle in his body ready to spring into action and save the baby he pledged to protect.
That’s it. The pledge.
He takes his eyes off my mother to look at me, a hesitant expression on his face. I know he heard my thoughts. “Bernie…”
“Darius,” I say, not giving him a chance to stop me. “Take the child.”
“What are you doing?” my mother yells, her wand hand raised again.
“I’m taking your advice, mother,” I say, with every ounce of sass I can muster. “I’m doing the right thing.”
I hold Rain out toward the vampire. He’s the only one who can keep her safe right now, and that’s all I care about. “Take the child.”
He looks at the baby so tenderly, a sort of compassion on his face I never thought could have existed. And then he raises his gaze to me.
“No.”
I don’t understand. Neither does my mother or any member of the Order, who all seem dumbstruck at the scene unfolding before them.
“Darius, I’ve broken the pledge,” I say. “All I want is for her to be safe, away from all this, and you’re the only one I trust to make that happen. Please, Darius, take my baby.”
He pushes Rain back into the nook of my arm, then reaches up and touches my cheek.
“She’s safest with you. Your love for her is as strong as any magic, and has already kept her alive against all odds. I refuse to take her from her mother, no matter what.”
When I open my mouth to object, he inches closer, wrapping an arm around me while keeping his other hand on Rain.
“I can’t allow any harm to come to the child,” he says softly, his dark eyes penetrating all the defenses I had built up around my heart. “But I can’t allow any harm to come to you either. I followed the star that night expecting to find a savior for my people. Instead, I found a savior for my own soul, and I will not let her go now.”
For the briefest moment, all the fear drifts out of me as I lose myself in Darius’ eyes, feeling secure in the midst of this madness.
“All right,” I say, knowing I can’t change his mind and realizing how much I need him by my side. I linger on his eyes for a second longer, finding strength in them that I know I’ll need for the fight ahead.
And then, before I can turn away, Darius and I are hit with a blast of magic that sends me flying back several feet and crashing into the snow. My grip on Rain tightens as I hold her close to my chest and pray she isn’t hurt. The wind is knocked out of me and my head spins from the impact.
I look around frantically for Darius and scream when I see him.
He is on fire. Blue flames licking at his flesh, burning him from the inside out. I try to crawl to him, but every part of my body flares with pain and I fall back when I realize my right leg is broken. Darius crashes to the ground flailing wildly as flames engulf his entire body. His cries are excruciating and echo through the forest as the trees themselves seem to absorb his pain.
“What have you done?” I scream as my mother stands over him, wand pointed down, smoke still curling from the tip. Then she turns, her face a mask void of any emotion, as she locks her gaze with mine and takes a step toward Rain and me.
Chapter Twenty-One
“You stupid girl.” My mother’s voice is cold, harsh, absent any warmth it once held. She moves toward me slowly, wand still raised. I push my heels into the earth below, trying to put as much distance as possible between us and this murderous lunatic who is my mother. My heart is hammering in my chest, cold sweat slicking my skin, tears burning my eyes as I glance over to Darius, his body now still and smoldering in the snow.
“After all the horrors you’ve been through in the last few days,” my mother says, taking another step forward. “After watching your grandmother lose her mind and live the rest of her life in agony, destroying her husband’s life in the process. After growing up without a mother, you still can’t see where all the trouble stems from.”
I stop scooting along the ground, knowing I won’t get away. Hopefully, I’ll have better luck hurling words.
“You’re blaming all those things on my child? Every problem for the last fifty generations can be pinned on this tiny, defenseless girl?”
“It’s what she represents, Bernie,” my mother says, a little exasperated with my defiance. Not sure what else she expected.
“You won’t understand now, you’ll probably hate me until I’m dead and gone, but this is the only choice.” My mom softens her voice, toning it down so she sounds more like the woman who almost won me over just moments ago. “Please, Sunshine. Hand her over. Don’t make me hurt you as well.”
It’s a sweet attempt at saying the most hateful thing ever, and I’m not buying it.
“Oh, mom.” I’m overrun with emotions, but my voice is calm and clear. “All these years wishing I had one more minute with you, could see you one last time. And now I just wish you really were dead.”
Her face twists with anger, then she stands tall, composes herself, and aims her wand at me. “Me too, Sunshine. Szünet.”
There’s a flash, and then I feel nothing. No pain, but also no c
old, no touch. I know Rain is pressed against me, but I can’t even feel her. My thoughts still tumble around in my mind, my eyes still see, but it’s like my head has no body. Every effort to move a leg or an arm fails. As my mother reaches down and extracts my baby from my arms, all I can do is watch through blurry, tear-filled eyes.
“Please don’t,” I mouth, my lips barely moving while the sound stays trapped in my throat.
She lifts Rain and tucks her under her chin, gently cooing as she walks away from me, toward the fire. “What a sweet girl you are. What a sweet, beautiful girl.”
What a goddamn psychopath.
I fight to move again, but it’s all for not. Whatever connection there used to be between my brain and body has gone offline. I’ve still got control over my eyes, and I look as far as I can in every direction.
I can barely make out Zev in my periphery, and I’ve got no clue if he’s breathing or not. Rune’s too far away, hidden amongst the trees, at least that’s where I hope he is.
Darius is much easier to spot. Not twenty feet away, I see smoke rising off his motionless body. Fear hits me in the gut at the sight. I know vampires are hard to kill, but a witch’s fireball seems like it would be deadly to just about anyone.
I shift my eyes back towards my mother, helpless to do anything but watch as she waves her wand and summons a platform of blue fire under her feet. It lifts her into the air, hovering above the open flame. Along with my baby.
“Gather round,” she announces to her followers. The forest has fallen silent, save for the sound of footsteps shuffling across the snow-covered earth. Rain doesn’t even cry. She seems to be in some kind of trance. The eerie quiet is much worse than the cacophony of battle from earlier. Paralyzed from the neck down, my baby dangling above a sprawling fire, and all I hear is pounding, merciless silence.
“I know you’ve fought to save the Last Witch,” my mother says as the Order members circle around the fire. “But as you’ve seen here tonight, it’s an impossible task. It took everything we had, every spell we could muster, to fend off just three attackers, and more will come.” She gestures to the woods, as if enemies lurk there even now. “The vampires, the werewolves and the fae will have armies at their backs. Kingdoms to come against us, if we do not end this now. Who amongst us wants to die at the hands, teeth, or claws of these abominations?”
There are murmurs from the circle, voices offering both agreement and protest.
“Remember that this was never about a single child,” my wretched mother continues. “This was about all of our futures, and the future of humanity. This is about righting centuries of wrongs that our ancestors had to endure at the mercy of those monsters!”
She’s talking about my princes, men who risked so much for me and for Rain. How could this be my reality? The three sent to steal my child, once the most frightening of foes, now lay around me dying, because they chose to defend me and my baby from the mother I thought to be long dead. So many twists of fate, and all so cruel.
I hear muffled whines coming from Rain, still under my mom’s control. I choke on my sobs, wishing more than anything that it was my body hanging above that fire. If only Tilly had sacrificed me after I was born, shattering my mother and putting an end to these magical tragedies. So many lives could have been saved, and I’d have never experienced the greatest loss of all.
But Nanny would have never done that. She broke herself trying to bring her daughter back. I feel that connection to her now, stronger than ever before. I recognize the love she felt, and the sacrifices she made because her heart told her to. God, I wish Nanny was here. To comfort me, and to talk some sense into her craven daughter.
My chest burns, and I feel like it’s the actual sensation of my heart giving out. Rain is about to die and I have nothing left to live for, so why should my heart keep beating?
“The Order should vote,” a woman yells, interrupting my mother’s tirade. “It’s how we’ve always addressed issues in the past. We’ve thwarted the attack and we’re safely convened at the coven fire. Let us vote, Lauren.”
“There isn’t time for a vote!” my mother shouts back. “You think the attack is over? That we’re safe? Each and every one of us will die if we don’t act swiftly.”
The threat of death seems to quiet her dissenters, yielding control back to my mother.
“We stand before the First Fire, ignited by the Fates, the sacred flames that have burned even as our numbers dwindled. We now have the chance to restore the order they once sought to create, by letting the flames consume the Last Witch, bringing an end to the powers that have long been a source of death and destruction among ours and all races. This child’s sacrifice will quench these eternal flames, allowing the great magic to consume itself, and thus end these powers forever.”
As she lifts my baby into the air, the burning in my soul becomes almost unbearable. I want to move so badly, to break free of this pain, but my body won’t allow it.
I want to scream, to rage against what is happening. And then, just as I think I’m about to succumb to the heat building in my chest, a soft amber glow shines in the sky. Perhaps my heart did burst, and this is my journey to the other side. Or maybe Rain has been fed to the fire, and the world is twinkling with the magical brightness that existed in that beautiful, perfect baby.
Bernie, my dear.
I hear the voice in the same way I hear Darius when he speaks to my mind, but it is not the vampire who speaks to me now.
It’s Tilly.
Nanny?
A shimmering form appears before me, clarifying within the amber glow, a silver wisp that takes on the form of my grandmother. She steps forward, her translucent arms outstretched, her body an effervescent figure pulled straight from a dream, hovering just about the snow. The glow from her being washes the whole forest in a warm, golden light.
My eyes snap from her back to the fire, to the scene I’d looked away from because I thought it might kill me to watch. My mother is frozen, holding Rain above the fire. Everyone is frozen.
Everyone but Nanny and me.
What did you do? I ask the figure before me.
I have slowed time, but only for a moment. I’ve come to give you back what I took from you so long ago. Nanny approaches me, kneeling to touch my cheek with her ghostly finger. Warmth infuses my skin, and I feel tears slide down my cheeks as sensation in my body slowly returns.
I have to go now, Nanny says, stroking my cheek like she did when I was scared as a child.
Where? I ask, still feeling stuck in something between a dream and a nightmare.
No one knows. She smiles gently. That is the great adventure, to discover what life looks like on the other side of the door we call death. Thank you for bringing me. For releasing me.
What’s she talking about? What did I do? Nanny, what do you mean?
You called out to me, your voice a source of pure love. When I heard you, I knew it was okay to let go, she says, her tone so calm and sweet as she delivers this crushing news.
No! I feel my heart crack open, emotions too big to bottle up spilling out of it even as my body refuses to feel it all. I need you. Rain needs you. Don’t leave us.
Oh child, I’m not leaving you. I’m leaving an old body in a hospital bed. I’ll always be in here. She removes her hand from my cheek and places it over my heart, and I watch in awe as a blinding light flashes in her soul and pushes through her hand and into me, filling the cracks that have formed at my core. As I fill with that light, that magic, my body comes to life again, pulsing with every sensation. My broken leg mends itself and my very skin begins to glow with the kind of power I have never felt or even imagined in my life.
Nanny’s eyes are full of light even as the rest of her begins to fade. I commited a great act of evil that was inspired by the greatest love when I stole your magic to bring your mother back. It is not for witches to interfere with the destinies of others. My beautiful granddaughter, I am giving you back your destiny. I will b
e here, watching over you. Watching over Rain.
My body burns, but this time it is a welcome fire that sparks my soul to life, a part of me I didn’t even know was dead until now.
But at what cost? My Nanny has almost entirely disappeared. The outlines of her body are fading like smoke dissipating on the wind. Only her face remains clear. Her eyes, still full of so much love.
But girl, know this, she says, her voice becoming faint even in my mind. It was always you.
And then, she is gone. I feel it the moment her soul departs this world, as all the power she released slams into me.
I scream.
The sound of my voice rings through the forest, waking up all the creatures who live here, driving magic into each leaf, each blade of grass, each stray rock.
Time--which was at a standstill--now snaps into motion, my mother moving to sacrifice my child over the fire. The whole interlude with Nanny happened in the blink of an eye, so my mom never saw Tilly. She doesn’t see what has changed in me.
With instinct born of desperation and fear, I push it all out of me, every drop of magic I feel swelling within. I can’t tell if I’m reigning power in from the natural world or if it’s all emanating from my own being. I’m acting without thinking, and the result is a tsunami of electricity.
Light crashes over the Order, my mother, everyone near me.
While the world bends and shakes around me, I set my intention to one thing only.
Save Rain.
I must save Rain.
My eyes stay focused squarely on my baby as wave after wave of brilliant light crashes through the others. They scatter and fall to the ground, stunned or unconscious. If a fallen witch tries to stand back up, she’s immediately struck down again. Meanwhile, Rain floats gently on a soft, glowing cloud, safely above the fire.
My gaze never leaves her as I walk to the fire’s edge. She’s hovering just above the flames, the same ones that were meant to consume her life, and yet I feel no fear. She’ll wait for me. She is safe.
A Werewolf, a Vampire, and a Fae Walk Into a Bar Page 20
