“I keep it in a little box in my room.” He sprung up and went through the only other door in the apartment. We waited anxiously as I heard him throwing open drawers and then a loud curse. He dashed back into the doorway, very spry for an old man.
“No,” Rayner said, getting to his feet. “Don’t tell me.”
“Mr. Van der Berg, I—I must tell you that I have no idea what could have happened. I swear to you, the box was there just a week ago! I see it…all the time…” He broke off into his own language, too flustered to find anymore English.
“Someone could have stolen it,” Silvus said.
“Stolen it? Someone broke into my apartment? What a terrible thing! How would they know!”
“Warlocks know many things,” Silvus said.
“Oh— There was a man here. He said the apartment had sent him to spray for pests. But I was always with him.”
I started to get a slow, sinking feeling at the very mention of ‘a man’. It could have been any man. I don’t know why I thought it was not just any man, and that maybe the bad feeling I had when I walked in here wasn’t coming from Svetlana after all.
“Well…as far as you remember,” Silvus said. “Let me search the spot where you kept the lock of hair.”
I followed Silvus into the room and when I walked in, I clutched the back of his jacket. “Silvus…I feel like…he was here.”
“Something is wrong,” Rayner said, kneading his head from the other room. “I thought it might be true from the start. Johannes is just playing with us.”
“You mean…I let in…” My father looked shaky now. “He seemed like a normal young man. He spoke Belarussian.”
“Don’t feel bad about it,” Silvus said. “Of course you didn’t expect anything strange, and it wouldn’t have been hard for him to trick you, considering that you were not expecting him to steal the hair. The man we’re looking for is, like me, a warlock and a vampire, so he probably bewitched you. An ancient, on top of that…he is Rayner’s sire. Well—you don’t have to understand any of it. Just know that we will manage the situation now and I think you’re safe but just in case, I’m going to put up some protective spells here and it might be best if you can stay home for a week or two. He has been known to use family members as bargaining chips.”
“He has played us for fools!” Rayner said. “Always one step ahead! It should never have gotten this far.”
“I don’t know what we could have done,” Silvus said. “But he doesn’t have all the leverage. He has the hair. We have all the other bits. And they’re in different places, well hidden. By allowing us to get the bones in Hawaii, he showed his own hand. He wants these pieces too. I do believe that he needs them for his own spell as well, seeing as he has gone to such lengths.”
And if he threatens to kill my sisters if we don’t give him the six other pieces, what will we say?
I was terrified, and I could see that the rest of the clan was all thinking of this too. Silvus alone was calm and focused, waving his wand over the drawer. After a moment, a piece of paper appeared out of thin air.
Meet me in the village where Svetlana was born. I have the sisters and I am prepared to leave their bodies where they will never be found. Bring the bones and my future wife, Alissa.
—Johannes
He wants to bargain for my sisters…and if I don’t come, he will leave them for dead in the ‘Exclusion Zone’?
But there was only one thing I knew that Father Joshua—Johannes—truly wanted in exchange.
My life.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Alissa
It was a good thing I was used to putting on a brave face. I hated to leave the old man who had been Svetlana’s father, not knowing if I would ever see him again, or if Rayner might have to give him terrible news when they next met.
I clutched the map he gave me, the one that led to our old house, until it was crumpled and sweaty.
If this was what it came down to, I would have to sacrifice myself for my sisters. I had always been prepared for this. But my spirit still raged, and especially now. I had seen the long history I shared with these men. It was full of mistakes and struggles and resistance, but also love and joy and growth and adventure. How could I give that up? How could I let it all end here?
“Wait—“ Silvus held up a hand.
We were deep in the Exclusion Zone at this very moment, after a few anxious days making contact with a young Belarussian witch who helped to guide us through, but she wouldn’t go any farther. She was not immune to radiation poisoning, and neither was I—nor were Carrie and Joan. We didn’t know how long they had been there now, or how dangerous it might be, but it would be a cruel trick if their lives were shortened…
“Alissa, come with me.”
“Oh? To that house? Silvus, this isn’t on the map.”
“Yes, but there were many wizards in Belarus,” Silvus said. “And since no one has been here in so long, there may be a few treasures. Do you feel that tingle in the air?”
“We really don’t have time for a treasure hunt,” Rayner said.
“But…it might be something we can use against him,” Silvus said. “Just let me look in this house.”
A few snowflakes were dancing down from a drab sky. The house was abandoned, like others we had seen, with a tree growing out of the front window. He pushed open the door and peered inside, where that same tree had broken through floorboards in what was otherwise still an untouched but dusty living room, with armchairs, a lamp, and books with reading glasses perched atop them, along with a stove and a bed.
Silvus doubled over as if in pain.
“There’s a charm on the house,” he said, backing out again. “I should have known. They know how to keep vampires out around here…”
My eyes moved to a red and white woven cloth that adorned one corner, with traditional weaving, and I wanted to touch it but I wondered if I could anger some witches’ spirit. “Is it because of this?”
“Yes, that’s—it must be some witches’ magic,” he said. “Casting spells as she weaves.” He took a few more steps back. “It’s good magic, but it doesn’t like me. Tell it your name and ask if you can have it.”
“My name is Alissa Johns,” I said. “Or Svetlana Kravchenko. I can tell your spirit was here…Miss Witch. I don’t know if you’ll like me either, because I am with a clan of vampires and clearly you were trying to protect yourself against them. But I’m going to save my sisters and I need all the help I can get.”
Magic comes from sacrifice, the cloth seemed to say to me. Are you ready to make that sacrifice?
I swallowed. “I…I know what I have to do,” I whispered.
Then you may have my protection.
I took the dusty cloth down from where it was hanging and wrapped it around me like a shawl. I could feel that it was good magic. It was magic that would protect good witches, and it would help me protect my sisters, and…
Would it help me protect myself?
Maybe. But something would have to be sacrificed.
I was starting to feel the way magic worked, like the see-saw we used to play on at school—one child bouncing up while the other went down. If we wanted to defy the laws of nature, something had to go up and something had to go down. It made me wonder why anyone wanted to dabble in magic in the first place.
Silvus was waiting for me a few feet from the house, while the others hung back on the overgrown road.
“Silvus,” I whispered. “This is a good witch’s magic, but…I’m not sure it’s what we need. I’m a little afraid of what it might do.”
“Alissa,” he said to me, just as softly, like we both instinctively knew that Rayner shouldn’t hear this, “I am a good warlock. That is, I might have been kicked out of Etherium when I became a vampire, and I’ve made some mistakes. But I want to live by the principles of goodness. Order…fairness…and love.” He straightened the cloth on my shoulders.
“My real mother is also a Sinistral
witch,” I said. “And she didn’t seem so bad. What is the difference? I always thought Sinistrals were bad, but…”
“It’s more complicated, as you see.”
“Silvus, you’ll be okay too, right?”
“I’ll be fine. I don’t know what will happen, but I do know it’ll be fine, dearest. Sad things happen, you know. You can’t stop them, and you wouldn’t really want to live a life without any sadness.” He turned back to Rayner and the others.
Obviously, Silvus had not planned to stumble on some abandoned witch house and find this magic for me. I’m sure he didn’t know it was here. But I had this terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. Well, I already had that, but now the focus of it shifted a little. I didn’t say anything, just opened the map again.
We reached the house at dusk. We had wandered a road that hadn’t really been a road for a long time, and passed abandoned farms and tiny villages. The only sounds were animals, and plenty of them, so it made me think of the end of the world Father Joshua was always talking about. But the animals seemed so at home among the overgrown cottages that it didn’t seem entirely terrible, either. I thought this place might be a wasteland, and it wasn’t.
I checked the cottage against a photograph that the old man had given me, and except for the vines growing over the windows, it was all just the same: weathered brown wooden walls and blue and white window frames, with a smaller outbuilding set off from it.
I had been so nervous and shaky the whole way here, but now it felt like all my nerves had burned off and I was almost excited to see my sisters. I shoved all the bad thoughts aside, like I could put them in a box and save them for later.
“Johannes!” Rayner called. “Come out and face me. I am not meeting you inside.”
The door creaked open. Those same shit-brown shoes I had spent too much time looking at, the tidy suit, the hollow-eyed grinning face…it made me shudder.
I was numb from head to toe.
“Alissa,” Father Joshua said. “You look lovelier than ever.”
“Where are my sisters?” I growled. My eyes had shifted down instinctively, and then I made myself look at him.
“Here. Come out, Carrie. Alissa is here.”
“Carrie!” I screamed, as soon as I saw the first glimpse of my sister’s face. She was clutching Joan, and she looked as pale as a corpse, and worse than afraid. Fear is hot and alive, but after fear comes numb resignation. I had never seen Carrie reach that point before. No little girl should have to. “Carrie, I’m here!”
“Alissa…” Carrie’s voice was hesitant. I couldn’t believe I was seeing my sister, after so long apart. But she had suffered. And I wasn’t there for her. Now and then I’d even been enjoying myself.
“Carrie, I’m so sorry. I’m here to rescue you. He’ll never hurt you again. I swear.”
Carrie retreated, her eyes dull with terror. I felt my whole body shaking with rage. I imagined drowning Father Joshua like I did with Father Bogdan. But I didn’t even know if it would work on a vampire. And he knew all too well that I had no training in magic.
“That’s right, Alissa.” Father Joshua smiled at me with his fake kindness. “I’m so glad to see you. I know you are struggling with your rightful destiny, but deep down you know what you need to do. I will let your sisters go if you come with me. It’s just that simple.”
Rayner snorted. “Johannes—you know I will never agree to this. Not in a thousand years will I give up Alissa.”
“Well, if you prefer to have a girl who has watched her sisters die, right before her eyes, while you are helpless to save then…”
“I won’t let that happen either. I’ll kill you.”
“My child…I will kill you,” Father Joshua said. “Your quest to keep the Blessed Thrall is a hopeless one. The witches of Amsterdam didn’t protect her from you for seven lives just to let you have her in the end. No matter where you go, I’ll find you. You know how it works. I am your lord—and I am a warlock. I am your superior in every way. You probably wondered how I knew you would come to Belarus and got here ahead of you. Maybe you think I’m some sort of super spy? I always know where you are because I made you.”
“Is that true?” I asked Rayner.
“I do have some sense of my clan,” Rayner said. “And they have a sense of me. It’s never that precise.”
“But you’re not a warlock,” Father Joshua said. “You were just a very unlucky shoemaker.”
“No…a lucky one. Despite it all.” Rayner seemed to brace himself for a fight. “So that’s it, then. You’re saying you will find me anywhere I go, unless I kill you.”
“That’s right. But I can feel the blessings that have been showered upon me, and I think you will find it a difficult battle. Shall we get to it?”
“Every bit of life left in my body will be devoted to your destruction,” Rayner said, throwing off his jacket.
“We’re getting Medieval,” Thom said, glancing at Jie. They both edged in front of me, to protect me, but I was so angry I knew I would fight too.
Silvus took out his wand. The real battle would be between those two, I thought, unless I could manage something of my own. Maybe Waldemar could help. I might be young and inexperienced, but he wasn’t. I wondered if I should call him now, or wait for the right moment. I didn’t know the first thing about fighting strategy. The cost of messing up seemed too high to contemplate.
“May the blessed blood of the Ethereal children nourish me!” Father Joshua seized Carrie and drove his fangs right into her neck.
Carrie screamed.
“What the devil!?” Silvus blasted Father Joshua and knocked him back off of her. Carrie fell to her knees, holding onto Joan for dear life. I ran to her side now, forgetting the dangers of getting close to Father Joshua. But Silvus had knocked him flat, anyway.
“Carrie…”
“Alissa…I’m…so sorry.”
I took Joan from her. “What are you sorry for?”
“He made me…drink…”
“What did he make you!?” I grabbed Carrie in my other arm. I swear to every god that has ever existed, that if he hurt my little sister I will find a way to make him suffer.
Father Joshua shot back at Silvus as Carrie slumped in my arms. “Uhhuhh…” She made a pained noise and then she started twitching.
I realized that Thom and Jie were beside me, trying to ask me and Carrie if we were all right. I had been so focused on Carrie that I hardly realized, but now Carrie was convulsing violently. It reminded me of the purification spell, but her convulsions were much more intense and now I couldn’t hold her anymore. I tried to hold her down so I could try a healing spell but as soon as I got ahold of her, she collapsed.
She was completely still.
“I poisoned her,” Father Joshua said.
“Why!?” I put my hands on her cold skin, and tried to cast a healing spell. “Waldemar! Waldemar, please help me!”
I touched her neck. No pulse? Or could I not find it?
Rayner slammed a fist into Father Joshua’s gut and he let out a low “ugh” but then I saw him smiling a little maniacally as their fighting broke out in earnest. Rayner got in a few good blows on Father Joshua and I started to think maybe he could be bested. I was holding my breath, watching them trade blows and dodges so quickly that they seemed to blur together, while Silvus stayed close, looking for an opening. He didn’t want to risk hitting Rayner instead. But then my heart was tugged back to the unconscious, fragile, beloved sister in my arms—one thing from my old life that I had always loved without question.
Waldemar appeared and immediately put his hands on mine.
Carrie craned back her neck and let out a bloodcurdling scream.
I jumped, but I was relieved. Screaming was much better than when I thought she might be dead and gone. “Carrie! You’re alive! Where does it hurt?”
Her eyes darted, as her teeth grew into fangs.
“Carrie!” I screamed. “Carrie—no! Oh no…”
>
“Oh, you fucking rat,” Thom said, shooting over to Father Joshua himself. “Did you turn that little girl?” He tore Father Joshua away from Rayner and threw a hard blow to his jaw.
Father Joshua murmured something in Latin, the words soft at first, then growing louder, and a ball of white, semi-translucent energy formed around him and pushed Thom back.
“Ethereals bless me,” he said. “Heal my wounds so that I may continue to humbly serve the way of order.”
“I don’t fucking believe this shit,” Thom said, as the mark on Father Joshua’s face vanished.
“I don’t know what your trick is,” Silvus said, “but you are an insult to Etherium. There is nothing—nothing—right or good about what you’re doing. You turned a child.”
“That is your perspective.” Father Joshua drew a pistol. “I’m doing what I have to do to protect my people against the end of the world.” Thom backed up as Father Joshua pointed the pistol at him. It could have—and probably did have—the rose quartz bullets in it. “I had to do this,” Father Joshua said. “Now, she is linked to me too.”
“That is the most despicable thing a vampire can do,” Thom said.
“At least we know where he stands,” Rayner growled.
At the same time, Jie whipped Carrie away from me and held her in his arms. My sweet little sister was struggling against him with surprising strength and looking at me like she didn’t recognize me anymore. “Blood…blood…,” she moaned.
I was left clutching Joan, who was starting to scream.
“Carrie is hungry,” Father Joshua said.
“There is no just god that would curse a child this way,” Silvus said. “I beg the Ethereals to gaze upon their servant and ask if he is worthy of their magic!” Silvus’ wand crackled.
Father Joshua looked furious at him now. “I bar you from speaking their name, Sinistral demon!”
They were tense a moment, with Rayner and Thom looking like they wanted to get back to fighting with fists, while Jie was holding Joan and looked like he didn’t know what to do with a screaming baby. I wanted to take her back in my arms and comfort her, as I used to do with Carrie when she was born. I loved my baby sister then, her sweet baby smell, her giggling—I understood now that it was because Carrie didn’t know the darkness of the world yet. She could have grown up like the human girls who laughed with their friends and fell in love as they pleased, but now she was damaged, and I couldn’t just wave a wand to fix her.
Love Me Madly Page 20
