by Brea Viragh
“You used him! How could you do that? He has no choice. No chance to stand up to you,” I insisted, rubbing at the bruises on my throat.
“He’ll be back. He always comes back.” She hooked a finger through the golden chain around her neck. “As long as I have this, Dax is bound to me.”
I struggled off of my back and onto my feet. Struggled to stay upright when my body swayed like a sapling in a tornado. “Take me,” I murmured. “Take me now and be done with this. Don’t hurt him anymore. Let him go free and I’ll give myself over to you and your—” I stumbled over the word. “—menagerie.”
“I can’t,” Jacqueline spat. “Your soul is entwined with your demon. It was clear enough to see when you let her loose. Unless you release her to me, then I risk killing you both. I’m not willing to take the risk. I’m sorry. She’s too important.”
“Then how do I release her? Tell me,” I cried, turning onto my side against the car. The metal was cold.
She crossed the snow in two strides and took my jacket in her fist. Inhuman strength had me off my feet, dangling in the open air, her face inches away from mine. “Only you know. Until you find a way, I can’t touch you. I will not free the djinn. And I will not stop coming after you.”
“You’re touching me now,” I couldn’t help saying.
Jacqueline let me drop unceremoniously into a heap. “Find a way, Mariella. Your demon is an asset I’m unwilling to lose. Release her to me, more than just saying the words, and I’ll consider letting Dax go free in your place. But be swift. He’s bleeding out as we speak.”
Her statement jolted me back to the present and I rushed toward a pale-faced Dax. Gathered him into my arms and tried to ignore the blood seeping out of the gaping slice in his shoulder.
“You’re not going to kill me?”
“Not today, Alembic. Not today.”
“I’ll find a way to get you what you want,” I promised, looking over my shoulder at the rapidly retreating form of Jacqueline Rohn. Or whatever the hell she was. She wasn’t human, I was sure of it.
She waved a hand. “Do whatever you have to do. I’ll be coming for you tomorrow.”
I struggled to get Dax into the passenger seat of the car. My vision blurred and my breath came in heaves.
“Mariel—”
“Shut up,” I interrupted. “Don’t talk. Save your strength.”
“You have to get us somewhere.” He coughed and a spurt of blood jettisoned out from his wound to land on the dashboard.
“Not the bottle?”
“I can’t.”
Staring at the snow, nausea pushed at me. “You know I can’t drive in this. I need you to wiggle your fingers and wish away the snow for me. Can you do that, Dax? Can you wish away the snow?”
It was still there, beneath everything, like a layer of steel I couldn’t cut through. The same fear and gut-clawing anxiety. The same feeling like I was being strangled from the inside out.
Thick white flakes continued to fall in a steady stream, the accumulation now reaching the hubcaps of the car. I lashed the seatbelt across Dax’s chest and struggled not to let it touch his shoulder.
His fingers reached out to loosely loop around my wrist. “C-can’t,” he stuttered. “You have to drive.”
“You know it’s impossible.” The words were a near-howl. “I don’t drive in the snow. Ever. It’s a rule. My mother died. Do you understand me? She died from crashing in a blizzard and I refuse to do the same.”
“We’re g-going to die unless you do.”
“Fix it! Dax, I know you can fix it.”
His eyes blinked closed, his breathing uneven and his face turning an ashier shade of gray. Crap, we really were running out of time.
CHAPTER 6
I closed the door behind him and stared out at the frozen wasteland around us. “Oh God. Oh God.”
This wasn’t good. Gallons of fear pumped through me and I fought the urge to scream. To drop and let Cer take over me yet again. For the sheer release. I glanced down at the fading scars on my forearm. No new messages. No new commands.
“What the hell am I going to do?” Adrenaline vibrated through me, over me, an electric wind. I took a deep breath and let it build in the empty center of my brain. Terror gushed out of my pores and a metallic taste flooded my mouth.
Shaking to keep the blood from freezing in my hands, a sharp pain cut through my eyes and I could almost hear Jacqueline’s laugh. I didn’t care how she knew about my weakness, or why she used it against me, to push me away instead of bringing me closer, but I needed to focus. Focus on getting out of here and keeping the bleeding man in my front seat alive.
For half a second more, I stood with my eyes closed and the sharp wind biting my cheeks. My head hurt, but the feeling was returning to my hands. The fear was not beaten. It hung overhead like a large and precariously balanced boulder ready to come crashing down and crush me. But I had to at least try.
“Okay, I can do this. Cer, any advice would be appreciated. Watch over me, because if we crash, then we both die. I’m not sure that’s something you’re ready for, and I know I’m not.” I forced my feet to make their way to the driver’s side door. Forced my body to bend and slide down into the seat. Start the car. Back out of the parking lot despite the towering feet of snow in every direction.
“We’re gonna die, we’re gonna die,” I repeated under my breath.
Hopefully not, but I couldn’t stop the loop in my head. I tried to focus on the road instead of on my fear. Or on Dax and his sporadic inhales next to me. If I didn’t fight through this, wade through this, make it through this, then we were both in trouble. I tried to remember it wasn’t just about me anymore. I wasn’t the only one struggling with her chains.
If anything, he was worse off.
My face hardened as my resolve hardened. If it turned out to be the last thing I did, at least I’d go out swinging.
**
What seemed like hours later, I took Dax’s good arm and dragged him out of the car, propelling him through the snow and across the stretch of front yard to my door. In just a few minutes, I had turned from a scared and shy woman into a warrior princess. I needed a little time to process the change.
Entire body on high alert, I fished around for the keys in my pocket and felt like a juggler with a round of fireballs in the air. Keep him upright. Get the door open. Get us both inside.
I managed to stumble through the door of my house without losing my grip on Dax. Then I saw my reflection in the mirror and nearly lost my mind under a wave of terror. No, it was just me. A me I hardly recognized, with an expression of absolute seriousness.
“Come on, big guy,” I said, struggling for lightness. “Let’s get you to the dining table. I’ve got a first aid kit in the kitchen.”
Dax groaned, his body rigid, half in and half out of consciousness.
In the morning, I vowed, I would figure out a way to fix this for us. To clean up the mess I couldn’t help but feel was my fault. If I hadn’t gone to confront him at the antiques store, determined to collect my cash, then none of this would have happened.
But, a sly voice insisted from inside my head, Dax would still be a prisoner. You would still be on the radar.
True.
I set him down on a chair and let my hands flap in the air for lack of anything better to do.
He groaned, nearly slipping off the seat before I propped him upright. There was so much blood.
“Okay,” I said, more to myself than to him, standing to my full height. “First things first. We need to, um, get your shirt off. Yeah.”
He roused enough to send me a lecherous grin. “Trying to get my clothes off already?”
I did my best to ignore him. Settling down on my haunches in front of him, I carefully removed his outer shirt—the easy part—followed by his undershirt.
Dax hissed when I slipped it over his head. “Careful, woman. I’m in a fragile state.”
His skin separated and reveal
ed the layer of muscle underneath. Blood continued to drip in a slow, steady stream from a hole the size of a silver dollar. The edges of the wound looked cauterized from whatever blast Jacqueline hit him with.
“I find it extremely difficult to believe you can’t heal yourself,” I murmured, trying not to puke. Definitely not good for patient morale to see the nurse blow chunks.
“Sorry. I can’t do it.” He grimaced. “She knows me too well. She knows my disadvantages. I can’t heal myself if my master is the one who hurt me. There goes that plan.”
“Perfect. Just perfect.” I rose to go to the sink and filled a kettle of water, setting it on the stove and turning the heat on high to get it boiling. Thinking how a cup of tea would be amazing right about now.
“You’re going to have to sew me up,” Dax said.
“What?”
“Sew me up. You know, needle and thread. Otherwise, I’m not going to heal properly. If I’m doing this the old-fashioned way, I’d rather not have a huge round scar.”
“Don’t want to mar your perfect skin, eh?” I joked to cover my nerves. My fingers trembled. Hot tea could wait. I’d need the water for other purposes.
“Something like that. Come on, Mariella. Don’t go all wimpy on me.”
“I’m not going wimpy on you. I’m steeling myself.” I hunted through the drawers and cabinets until I located the first aid kit.
“Thank you,” he said after a long pause. “For what you did. I know she took you by surprise. That was her intention.”
“What did I do?” I asked, fetching a mixing bowl to use as a basin.
“You got me out of there even though you were terrified. It takes a lot of guts to face your fears.”
The remnants of nerves had my hands shaking. “Don’t thank me. You should apologize to me. You’re the one who made it snow in the first place.”
At last the water came to a boil and I brought the steaming kettle over to the table, resting it on a trivet. I reached for the first aid kit, then realized it wasn’t the kind of kit I’d need for this particular job. The sewing kit was in the other room, kept there for emergencies and rarely used unless I ripped a hole in my clothes or needed to sew on a button. I brought it into the kitchen and stared from it to Dax then back. Wondering if this was something I could do.
Focus, I mentally chided.
“I had no choice but to obey her, and I am sorry.” Naked concern filled his eyes, quickly absorbed by his machismo a second later. “Maybe it was just a way for me to get you alone.”
“You had me alone in your claustrophobia-inducing bottle. I know what you’re trying to do.”
“What?”
“Distract yourself so this hurts less,” I said.
He shook his head, then winced. “I know it’s not going to hurt less. It doesn’t help to try. It’s going to be agonizing for the both of us.”
I paused in my attempt to lace the thread through the eye of a needle. “Oh, great. You’re going to make me panic.”
“Just get this over with. And hand me something to bite down on.”
“This isn’t the old-time West. I don’t have a spare strap of leather lying around,” I said, hands frantically flying around my head. “I guess you’re going to have to take this like a man.”
I set about the odious task of sewing Dax together. Gritting my teeth and hating the way the needle, newly sterilized in boiling water, slid through his skin like a hot knife through butter.
“I swirled together some instant coffee. Have some. It will distract you.”
Dax used his free hand to grab the steaming cup I had set down beside the basin. I watched him take a sip, his eyes crossing. “What the hell did you do to this?” he asked with a cough.
“I put some whiskey in it. To help with the pain.”
“It’s disgusting!”
“Well, sorry! I was trying to help. If you’re not going to drink it, then tell me about yourself,” I said to distract him. Or distract myself. Maybe this time it would work.
“What do you want to know?” he asked after a moment’s hesitation.
“How old are you?”
Through gritted teeth, with his eyes trained on the ceiling, Dax said, “I’m four hundred and fifty-two years old.”
“That’s a long time to be alive.”
“A long time to be a slave, you mean. Everyone thinks having this kind of magic is a gift. But it’s not. It’s a fucking horrible curse. Sure, I’ve seen the march of time and the forward motion of progress. Most of it’s been from the inside looking out. Never a part of the world.”
“Have you always had a master?” I asked.
“Yes. From the instant I stepped from the smoke and ash with sentience I’ve been under someone’s thumb. Jacqueline is the latest in a long line. I will never be free until one of them wishes it so. Which will never happen.”
He watched me with hooded green eyes. His pained scowl was replaced by a careful, expressionless blank canvas.
“Seems like we’re in the same boat,” I said softly, bringing the two halves of his skin together, slow and steady. “I survived the crash but with something else in tow, and now Jacqueline tells me I will never be rid of her until I make it so. I don’t know what to do. I guess I never stopped to think about it, either. I always assumed I would die with Cer inside of me before I found a way to break whatever it is keeping us entwined.”
I stopped when Dax placed his hand over mine. “We can find a way,” he told me. “Maybe not for me, but for you. I promise I won’t stop until you’re free of your demon. Once she’s gone, Jacqueline will have no more desire for you.”
He trembled and I tried to hurry and finish the job.
“Tell me what you’ll do when you’re free. Close your eyes and describe it to me in great detail. Pretend like I’m there with you, seeing what you see.”
He watched me for a few more seconds and then—much to my surprise—he closed his eyes. “There’s a market in Morocco,” he said, “with the greatest array of spices in this world. The air fills and is almost colored by them. There are market vendors calling out with great voices. Animals and people and sights you can’t imagine. The sky is clear and calm and there is shade beneath the canopies. It is warm. Peaceful.”
I finished closing the wound as he painted the picture for me. After cleaning off the area of all blood, I stood there, rubbing first one hand and then the other. I felt rather than heard his breathing deepen.
“We would go to the coast afterward,” he told me lazily. “Bright blue water and coral. Fat lazy seabirds taking their ease on the rocks.”
I wanted to see it for myself. More than I wanted anything else in the world. Then when Dax laced our fingers together and opened his eyes, I realized I wanted him, too.
We stayed there together for a long moment. Trapped. Unable to move or think.
A sharp pain ricocheted from my wrist to my elbow. I tried to ignore it. Whatever Cer wanted from me, it would have to wait.
Nope, not waiting. I bowled over with a howl of pain, the agonizing burn of words pressing up through my skin shooting from my arm down my torso. Like opening the door to her once gave her enough autonomy to impact more than just my forearm.
“Mariella!” Dax surged to his feet then went pale.
I held out a hand to stop him before the pain forced me to my knees. “Don’t touch me. It will be over in a minute.”
“I don’t like this. I don’t like not being able to help you.”
I forced my focus down, worried when my eyes crossed and my vision went dim on the edges. “Look,” I said to Cer, “whatever you want me to know better be good. Ugh!” I doubled over again, squeezing my eyes shut against the pain. “It better be a way to stop Jacqueline. Because our last plan was a crap shoot.”
When I finally managed to open my eyes, lines of writing in blood-red adorned my skin.
She’s coming.
CHAPTER 7
I had exactly two-point-seven-five sec
onds to experience the absolute terror of the unknown before a knock sounded at the door.
Dax slipped back down into his chair and closed his eyes. “If you’re going to get that, then be careful.”
“I don’t suppose Jacqueline would take the time to announce herself?” I asked lightly.
“No, she wouldn’t. But that doesn’t mean she has no resources. She could easily send someone else to intimidate or trick you.”
“I’ll go check.”
“Mar—”
“Dax, I’m fine,” I insisted. Trying to sound sure. Confident. Sturdy. Even though my knees were shaking.
I took mincing steps toward the front and the insistent knocks. A glance through the peephole had me stifling a groan. “Aunt Lynn, this is…not a good time,” I said through the door.
“Mariella, I know where you keep the key, and I will let myself in if you don’t open this door.” Lynn was not amused. She stood on my front stoop tapping her foot, her helmet hair thick and unwavering in the brisk winter breeze. The snow didn’t bother her.
“Please,” I begged. “Please come back later. Any time as long as it’s not now.”
Lynn shouldered her bag and I watched her reach down beneath the fake rock. “You are some kind of insane,” she muttered.
I heard her clearly and knew nothing I said could persuade her to leave. Whatever she wanted with me, it was better to get it over with. As long as I kept her out of the kitchen. I so didn’t want to explain a bleeding djinn sewed up like a rag doll. “Okay, fine. I’ll open the door.”
“Finally.” She pushed past me the second I had the knob pulled. “I’m on my way to Luke’s school for a parent–teacher conference and I don’t have much time to waste.”
“Yes, hi, nice to see you. Now please leave.” I hurried after her, choking on a cloud of perfume.
“I feel bad about kicking you out of the house the other day,” she called out over her shoulder. Sniffing when she looked around at my living room—small and clean—and found it not to her liking.
“You didn’t kick me out. I left. There’s a difference. Just like you didn’t kick me out when I was eighteen. You politely told me to have a nice life,” I replied. Then found, once I started with the hand-wringing, I couldn’t stop.
