“She’s not even your friend!”
“No, but she could be. And if I don’t save her, we’ll never know, because we won’t get the chance to start over. I get it—you’ve had hundreds of years to stew and brood and blame the universe for your sorrow and misfortune—but I’m only twenty-one, and I don’t intend on being angry for the rest of my life. These folks are what make life worth living.”
“But—”
“Don’t interrupt me, I’m not finished. I’m sorry—truly sorry—that your life was less than satisfactory, that you had to suffer because of an unjust society and unfair standards, but this is my life, and I won’t let you, or some cycle, dictate how things are going to end.”
“You are going to die, thinking like that.”
“Don’t you worry about me.” I close my eyes and place my palms over my heart, still clutching the dagger in one hand. “I’m no stranger to adversity. You know that better than anyone ever could.”
And just like that, Lancelot disappears. His voice shushes and I feel him return to the depths of my subconscious.
I glance down at my hands, flipping them over, admiring the signs of the zodiac on my fingers.
My fingers. My body. My choice.
“I’m sorry, Lancelot. Your pain made you bitter, but I won’t let mine swallow me like a river.”
Both Morgana and Emrys drop to their knees at the same time, the muffled sound a signal, promptly calling my attention toward them.
Morgana folds in two, her body no longer the great magickal bastion it once was. Her fading golden aura reinforces the severity of the circumstance—just how much she’s sacrificed to be here, to do this—and I make the split-second decision to dive at the Merlin with my dagger in my mouth, cat-like reflexes manifesting all of a sudden.
But I miscalculate the distance between us, overshooting things by several inches, and soon find myself deeply woven into a nest of smelly velour and skin that feels like tissue paper.
The old man is a lot stronger than I’d anticipated.
When he raises his staff and whacks me on the crown of my head, a thunderous yowl rumbles inside my rib cage and rips through my throat, because it feels like my skull has just been fractured into a hundred tiny pieces.
Both Arthur and Mordy start screaming at the Merlin, hurling demands at the walking corpse, threatening to tear him from limb to limb, but their words fall on deaf ears and he grabs me by the throat. His movements are surprisingly fast, and knobbly thumbs jam into my windpipe, the asphyxiation restricting my airflow.
“A life for a life,” I hear his raspy voice say. “You want the girl? Fine. He’ll work.”
The Merlin must do this sort of thing all the time, because I see a full galaxy’s worth of stars in a matter of seconds. My legs go slack and everything clouds over, the strangulation cutting off my oxygen.
Holy fuck. Am I dying? Being choked out by a crusty old white dude is not how I imagined going out. Talk about lackluster.
“What are you doing?” a soothing voice asks. “Wake up, Ocelot. No, no—it is not time for you to join me just yet.”
“Join you?” Mictēcacihuātl. “Well, I had no intention of calling on you until this goddamn thing with Emrys was over, but I guess my plan wasn’t foolproof, and here we are. What else could I do?”
“What else? You have so much potential inside of that little body, so much to offer everyone, to offer the world. For the longest time you fought the darkness, the gloom, your other half. Now’s the time to accept who you are, what you’re going to become, and remember that when you do this, you’re doing it for all of humanity, not just for yourself.”
“Jesus, lady, way to push all of this shit on me. Why not Mordy? Or Morgana? Why me? Those two are far more competent, and established in who they are as people, and as witches. You’ve seriously got the wrong guy. I just got taken out by a geriatric wizard because I have shitty spatial awareness, and you expect me to somehow stop Armageddon.”
“Who created the First Sun? Why is cacao so delicious? How was man able to steal fire from the heavens? Does it really matter why you were chosen? Sometimes things happen, and there’s no real rhyme or reason behind them. All I know is that you are the only one who can stop this madman. You don’t have to be big, or famous, or strong, or even the most intelligent person in order to right a wrong. The mightiest of warriors are brave, courageous and willing to sacrifice everything for the people they love. But I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. Your power has just begun to develop, and if you look deep within yourself, you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about.”
“What do you expect me to do? Transform myself into something I’m not?”
“Yes, actually.”
“What? I’m not a superhero, for Christ’s sake.”
“Our people believe that when a woman gives birth, they give birth to two spirits—man and animal. The nagual. The day you were born, your body became host to three souls, not two. Why the Divine Mother chose to do this, I’m not sure, and it is not for me to question. It is unusual, certainly, but nothing harmful. You’ve already met one of the two, and I can’t think of a better time than now…to meet the other.”
“You mean to tell me there’s something else lurking in the depths of my psyche? Something not human, like a beast? No wonder I’ve been fucked-up all these years. My brain is a congested roadway. Well, how the hell am I supposed to rouse whatever else is in here? To turn into a werewolf or whatever? Mictēcacihuātl?”
When she doesn’t answer, I know this is a task that I must complete on my own, so I concentrate on my goals—stopping the Merlin, saving my friends, waking my new roommate—and dam the flood of thoughts currently cascading around me. Treading through a sea of doubt, I delve into each memory, every corner of my mind, trying to unearth hidden meanings and anything that might be helpful to me at this time.
I have no way of knowing just how long I’ve been in here, no way of keeping track of time, and just when I’m about to give up—to turn around and say fuck it—I hear a deep guttural meow. A cat. Not a wolf, or a falcon, but a cat. It makes sense—in some weird, practical way—that my nagual would be a cat.
A pair of white-ringed blue eyes appear before me, and the sensation is oddly similar to looking into a mirror.
Not just a cat, but an ocelot. Why didn’t Mictēcacihuātl just say so, instead of holding some psychic pep rally?
I don’t have to communicate with the animal because we share the same thoughts, which is actually a very good thing, because how the fuck do you verbally or mentally communicate with a wild cat?
Once we’ve established what we’re going to do to the Merlin, I give myself over to the nagual and we leave the spiritual realm, or my subconsciousness, or wherever the hell it was we were.
The transformation is largely spiritual. My body doesn’t undergo any special changes or mutations, no new hair growth or claws, no overbite accompanied by long fangs—nothing cool like that—just an awakening of instincts I’d never known I had.
Still squirming in the Merlin’s grasp, the ocelot within tears at the old man’s face, my fingernails digging into centuries-old skin. Enormous amounts of coalesced pus and blood run down my arms in a matter of seconds. The smell would normally sicken me, but something about it excites the nagual, and he overpowers the Merlin, knocking us both over.
His screams don’t bother me nearly as much as they should, perhaps because he is literally trying to kill me, or perhaps because they fulfill some dark need of mine, a need I’ve suppressed all my life—but whatever the reason, I’m thankful that it’s him, not me.
An ensemble of voices—from Arthur, Mordy, Morgana and Gwen, who must’ve appeared while I was speaking with Mictēcacihuātl—assails me, teeming with a mixture of relief and terror, adding to the intense anxiety I now feel.
The nagual sinks my teeth into the Merlin’s neck. Salt and iron pour into my cheeks, and I gag on the taste, swallowing the thick, bi
tter fluid in one big gulp. After a few minutes of wriggling in my arms, the Merlin’s body wilts, a tree whose roots have gone far too long without any rain. His body is heavy against mine and I roll him over, trying to catch my breath and to not vomit all over myself.
Arthur rushes to my side.
“G-God. Lance! W-what? Oh my God. Are you okay? I—I thought you were dead.” His words come out in a jumble, half-sobbing, half-laughing. “What the fuck? It is over? Is he dead?”
“I think so.” I’m covered in Merlin’s fluids, and all I want to do is lie down somewhere. “Is Tammy okay?”
“Yeah, Gwen and Olivia got to her before it was too late. I tell ya, Gwen is somethin’ else.”
I lean my head into Arthur’s shoulder, exhausted and broken. “Can we go home now? I hurt all over. I just want to sleep.”
“And sleep you shall,” a voice croaks beside me.
Before either of us have time to react to his voice, the Merlin bounds forward like a pop-up book, jabbing me in the side with Xiuhcoatl.
The pain is so severe that I can’t do anything but weep, my words dissolving in my mouth before they have time to escape. I keel over and curl into a ball. Death has come to greet me, and I can feel this body dying, am aware that no prestigious knight is coming to save me—that no wild beast can shift me out of this reality.
The last thing I see before closing my eyes is Arthur ramming Excalibur into the Merlin’s exposed rib cage.
* * * *
Now, I’ve read about out-of-body experiences before, listened to people’s testimonies, researched the statistics and even watched YouTube exposés on the matter. They’re a certain type of phenomenon where a person’s essence leaves their body and essentially travels without it. Many have claimed to have done this, but left behind no paper trail or anything that could validate their claims.
I am not a skeptic, but at no point in my life did I ever expect to witness such an event. Clairvoyance and soothsaying—anything dealing with the third eye or psychic abilities, really—have never been a strong point of mine. Always something better left to Gwen. Or so I’d thought anyway.
Because here I am, floating above my body, which I assume is dying, given the fact that my loved ones are scrambling around me, trying to save me from succumbing to my injury. Their auras are so strong, so bright that it looks like a zigzag rainbow is occupying most of the room.
Down below, Arthur has my head cradled in his arms and is petting my face, while tears run down his. Mordy and Morgana are dragging the Merlin away from where Arthur and I are. Olivia and Gwen are standing behind us, in front of a wall that someone has smeared blood all over, in the shape of a pentacle.
A few moments later I see Gwen take Arthur into her arms, while Mordy and Morgana lift me by my arms and legs and place me in the middle of the room. Olivia bends down in front of Arthur and takes his hand as well as Gwen’s into her own, then gently guides them up from their seats.
After I’m secured in the middle of the concrete floor, covered in a huge pool of my blood, Olivia holds out her hand, and within seconds her palm catches fire like a sparkler. An object materializes in her hand once the fire turns into smoke, and I’m soon able to identify it as a small chalice of some sort.
Their voices are barely audible, but I’m able to make out something about blood and a Grail.
Then Olivia instructs everyone to slice into their hands and dribble blood into the cup. Not a lot is needed, she explains, just a few drops.
A bloodletting ceremony.
The five of them form a pentagram—Olivia by my head, Mordy by my left hand, Morgana by my right hand, Gwen by my left foot and Arthur by my right foot.
Olivia kneels down beside my body, and parts my lips with the metal cup while everyone looks on with concerned faces.
“Lance,” she says. “Oh, Lance, it wasn’t supposed to end like this. Not again.” I see Olivia’s body transform into that of an elderly woman with a fragile, delicate frame, one that better fits her age. One that is as old as, if not older than, the Merlin’s.
Viviane. The sea crone. The Lady of the Lake.
“With this blood I give thee life, a blessing from the horned god and his wife. Oh, please renew the balance now, restoring his life if ye shall.” Then, turning to face my friends, Olivia says, “In order for this blood spell to work, you must each trade something precious. For me, the only thing left to give is my ability to return once this frail body fails me. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Viviane,” Morgana speaks. “Are you asking us to give up our ability to be reborn? To end the cycle here, with Lance?”
Viviane nods. “That is precisely what I am asking.”
Morgana laughs hysterically, and starts crying. “Of course we’ll do it, you old hag. Do you not see how tired we all are? How worn thin we’ve become? We just want to sleep. For our spirits to finally rest. None of us expected my curse to have this effect, that it would last this long.”
After that, the pentacle on the wall ignites and begins to spin in a counterclockwise motion, because even though Morgana was the only one to speak, I can only assume Arthur, Mordy and Gwen have offered their answers to the five-pointed star in silence.
“Farewell, you fools,” Morgana barks. “I never wish to see you ever again!”
Before the ritual is complete, a loud rumbling calls our attention to the area where Emrys had been laid earlier by the twins. The floor beneath his body cracks, and quickly opens like a hungry mouth, trying to guzzle down whatever’s in its path. Several seconds later a green shoot sprouts from the ravine, followed by spindly branches, and a tree that looks more like a hand with fingers than a burgeoning plant.
“The earth has come to claim him,” Gwen says. “Blessed be!”
I’m so glad to hear her voice, to know she’s made it.
“We’d better get the hell out of here before it claims us, too. Arthur, you grab Tammy. Mordy, do you think you can handle Lance?”
“But the ceremony,” Olivia protests. “What about your brother?”
Looking straight at me, Gwen replies, “As far as I’m concerned, we’ve done all we can. The rest is up to him.”
* * * *
Alternating red and blue lights rouse me and I bolt upright, awakened by the low murmur of voices in the distance. Stuffy and pulsing, my head feels like I’ve got the worst hangover of my life, and every muscle aches as though I’ve just ran a marathon, or what I assume it feels like after you’ve run one anyway.
Is this what happens to your joints when you die, or just when you’ve been brought back to life? Because fuck…
When I rotate my side, the skin across my rib cage burns, like a shave that’s too close, a feeling that spreads across my lower back. I lift my shirt to inspect the area where Emrys stabbed me with Xiuhcoatl, which is extra-sensitive to the touch. But much to my surprise, the should-have-been-fatal laceration has already fully healed, and a white scar has taken the place of where the wound should be.
The rapid sound of boots clashing with gravel calls my attention to Arthur, who is now sprinting toward me.
“You’re awake.” His voice is unusual, an uncanny mixture of desperation and jolly. His arms slide around my shoulders and I rest my head against his. “Oh God, Lance. Thank you, Jesus.”
“Hey,” I say, weakly. “Where is everyone?”
Arthur shakes his head and puts up a finger.
“How’s Tammy?” I ask. “Is everyone okay? Did anyone else get hurt?”
Arthur wags his head and I give him a moment. I suppose I would react in a similar manner if something like this had happened to him. To any of my loved ones. I can’t begin to imagine what or how he currently feels.
When I finally pull away from his taut embrace, I see that his eyes are red and puffy, sagging and enclosed by dark circles. His pants are torn and he is missing his overcoat. There’s no telling how long I’ve been asleep, but I can see that he’s been crying the whole time.
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I’ve never been so happy to see another human being in all my life.
He swallows and says, his voice breaking every now and then, “The cops are on the other side, looking for the Merlin. Olivia’s been arrested, and Tammy was already taken to the hospital. They tried to take you, too, but Morgan wouldn’t let them. She said you passed out from drinking too much. How do you feel?”
“Truly happy to be alive for the first time in my life, I think. Where are the swords? How are we going to explain everything?”
“There’s nothing to explain. Olivia took the blame for everything. She told the cops we had come up here with beer and were drinking out back when one of us heard Tammy screaming. We found her tied up and called the cops.”
“But what about Emrys?” I ask, the sight of a blue jay suddenly catching my eye. “What happened to his body?”
The bird lands on a branch in one of the oak trees that we tried to rescue, and turns its head toward me, as if it’s interested in hearing what Arthur has to say. Mordy never fully explained who or what the bird was, other than calling it a spy, so I can’t be certain of its true intentions, but I don’t appreciate the way it’s gawking at my boyfriend.
“Who knows? When we went back down into the basement, there was nothing there. No blood, no tree, no floor even, just a bunch of busted-up shit.”
“Galantine? Excalibur? Xiuhcoatl?” I lower my voice and lean in toward Arthur, but keep the winged informant in my line of vision. “Are Morgan and Mordy both safe?”
“Gone. I’m tellin’ you, it’s looks like an unfinished construction site down there. I don’t know what the fuck happened after we left, but it looks like everything went straight to hell. As for Mordy and Morgan, they’re just fine. Exhausted, I think, but not seriously injured or nothin’.”
“God, that’s a relief.” I briefly look away from the bird and survey the yard, noticing that half of the trees are still adorned with hand-painted paper charms. I don’t ask Arthur if the police officers had anything to say about them, because of the likelihood that they wouldn’t believe us anyway.
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