The green man interrupted Quinn’s thoughts with his own observation. “She consumed something, that’s how she gets power over those she controls. Look for a wound; find a place where he is bleeding, anything you can see. We need to know if she owns him.”
Owns him? Nobody owned Corbin but himself, and he would never willingly obey someone such as Mara. This was her fault. She controlled the dark cloud, she was the dream bringer, and she was going to be dead if Quinn got her hands on her. Quinn just needed to figure out how to get Corbin away from her.
“I wonder,” Mara crooned in that thick wet voice, “how fast your little bird would fly to you if I ordered him to…hurt you in some way?” Mara’s smile cracked her face again, and her chin slid off, leaving behind something black and slimy. Mara was rotting away right in front of their eyes. The green man spoke to Quinn quietly, never taking his eyes off the pair in front of him.
“She’s toying with you, Quinn. You see that mess? She’s been consuming so long that she can’t even sustain her body without it. The Mare are not disgusting creatures, and they are mostly humanoid by nature. She is…something else. The deeds she has wrought are etched on her skin. She made herself this way. She needs to eat to be pure again, and I think that’s why she wants you.”
Quinn still didn’t understand why Mara wanted her, why she had been essentially hunting her for the last ten years, why she…wait a minute. Hadn’t the old man said that Mara was a Mare or Mara? That she was a nightmare bringer?
“Do I have you to thank for the dreams, Mara?” The words came out much more steady than she felt at the moment. If what she was thinking was true, then Mara had been fueling her dreams for the last decade, tormenting her with half-memories.
The subject of her animosity looked very pleased with herself. “Figured it out, did you, Quinn? I couldn’t believe you got away from me the first time, and after I had gone through such an effort to get you to hold still, you had to go and create a blood bond!” Mara grew grumpy and shook Corbin violently, her hand still wrapped around his neck, long dagger nails digging in until little rivers of blood ran down his collarbone. He had grit his teeth to hold back the moans of pain, but Quinn still heard them. Silver flashed in front of her eyes, and only the green man’s hand on her arm kept her from stepping forward.
“I mean really, you were taking SO LONG to get here, I was doing my very best you know, but someone had to keep fucking. It. Up.” She shook Corbin again, and this time, Quinn heard bones creaking, and the green man couldn’t hold her back. The power spilled out of her hands and into the dirt, and thick green vines sprung out of the ground and smashed the woven barrier the green man had made earlier to bits. Pieces of wood and leaves went flying, and when the debris settled, Quinn took a defensive stance with the old man at her back and waited for Mara’s next move.
“Not. Nice!” Mara chided, and she shook Corbin again. “I’m going to make him hurt you now. I was going to wait, but I don’t want to anymore. Corbin, bring her to me anyway you need to. Mama’s HUNGRY.” Her voice dropped an octave deeper, and she let Corbin sink to the ground. He started climbing to his feet, and to Quinn’s horror, tears were coursing down his face.
“I don’t want to, Quinn. I don’t want to do it, but I can’t deny her, she took my blood, Quinn. She took my blood, and my body won’t listen,” he was full on screaming now. “Old man! Old man, kill me now, you know I don’t want this. Don’t let me hurt her, don’t let me!” He screamed so hard spittle flew out of the corners of his mouth. “We only got to ninety-nine,” he choked out as he stumbled towards Quinn.
Quinn was frantic, Mara was grinning like a lunatic, and only the top part of her face was still on, everything to the south a writhing black mess. Corbin was coming closer, fighting Mara’s hold on him but losing just the same, and the old man looked sad. He lifted his head with sorrowful eyes and told Quinn,
“I can’t take her out while she has a hold on him. It will kill him either way. He’s begging, girl. I’m not going to let him hurt you. He’d rather die.”
“Hurry the fuck up, Corbin,” the black Mara screamed, no longer even attempting to be coy. Dark smoke billowed out of her mouth, and the familiar began to take form over her head. “Bring her here it’s time to eat! To eat! I’m going to DEVOUR YOU!”
The green man raised his arm as if to do something, and Quinn felt the panic rise up inside of her. At the same time, her vines whipped up and slashed Mara across the face, removing the last bit of skin that had been hanging there. Now she was nothing but a slimy black skull, with dead white-blue eyes that looked too large without all of the regular facial features to balance them out. Mara just laughed. Corbin, on the other hand, screamed as a thick line of red formed across his face. He stopped dead in his tracks, clutching at the left side of his ruined cheek.
Something inside of Quinn snapped. The green man was whispering words in another language again, and Quinn felt the ground stirring around her. She couldn’t wait for what he was going to do. For the greater good, he was going to acquiesce to Corbin’s request, but that was not for Quinn’s greater good. Mara wanted to eat her, so she must have something worth taking inside her worthless body, and it was time to bring it out. Corbin was hers and she loved him. She had just gotten him, and she couldn’t let him die. She couldn’t let him go when he showed her that she was worth loving, she was enough. Quinn’s own life didn’t matter, didn’t matter at all because what was life without love? She had just found him, his death was unacceptable.
She had to think, what was stronger than blood? At the thought of blood, a light went on in her head. The smell of rain in the air deepened, and remembering what had happened when she touched William’s bloody face, she made a decision. Words were powerful, hadn’t the old man told her that? Words carried the power of intent, and Quinn intended to break that weak ass blood bond Mara had made by using a little blood magic of her own. She could do it, the zinging in her veins told her so. The wind around Quinn turned into a cyclone, flinging bits of dirt and rock from the forest floor. The old man held one arm up in front of his face, but some internal alarm must have warned him about Quinn because he wasn’t chanting and he wasn’t pointing his fingers at Corbin anymore.
Smart old man.
Corbin was up and moving again, although the wind made it difficult for him to get much farther than a few steps. The force of Mara’s compulsion was high, and he was leaning completely into Quinn’s swirling gale trying to gain more footing, all the while screaming for the green man to end it. That he would rather die than hurt Quinn.
Quinn would make sure that he never had to.
Weighing down her back pocket was the knife he had forced on her earlier in the day. Their argument seemed like a lifetime ago, and when Quinn pulled the blade from her pocket and flipped it open, she remembered his words.
“I would bleed for you.” She repeated them softly, but he saw her mouth the words, and his eyes widened, and his yelling got louder.
“No. Whatever you are going to do – no, Quinn. NO, QUINN!” Mara’s laughter got louder, and Corbin stepped closer and closer against the turbulence of Quinn’s wind. The green man was looking at her with a strange expression, and she thought she heard him say something about her eyes, but she may have been mistaken. Quinn didn’t care anymore. She was angry, and she was powerful, and she had magic. Her body somehow knew what to do, and for the first time in ten years, Quinn was going to trust it to make everything right.
Blood bond. It took blood to make the bond with Corbin so she would use some now. She took the blade of the small knife Corbin had been using in the garden and tested it on her thumb. A sting and a thin red line showed her that the blade was really quite sharp. That was good, but she needed more blood than she could squeeze out of that thin red line. The energy in her body had great magic to work, and she wasn’t going to get a second chance.
With a slight inhale she took the blade in her right hand and slashed across her left arm,
once. Twice. She cut as hard as she could another time and didn’t stop until she felt the resistance of bone. The green man was staring in horror, and Corbin was bellowing in agony for her to “Stop! Please, for the love of God!” but Quinn knew what they didn’t know. She had strength in blood, and she was going to show them all. Thick red lines ran down her arm and onto the ground, the pain was excruciating, and her head swam a bit from the sudden blood loss. Quickly, before anyone else would have a chance to move, she said the words,
“I release you, my raven. I release you, my love.”
Two things happened then. One, Mara let loose an unholy wail, and her teeth lengthened and grew. Her legs became knobby and covered in short course hair, and her feet were replaced by hooves. She was now showing her true form, the result of all of her misdeeds. Mara was a demon, just as foul in appearance as in temper. She gnashed her jaws together in anger as the second happening took place.
No sooner had Quinn choked out the words than Corbin’s body disappeared in a flurry of inky feathers. In his place, hovering awkwardly in the air as if someone had thrown him there, was a matte black raven, with dark eyes surrounded by a ring of copper. The raven flapped his wings and darted to and fro for a moment, then with a loud “Caw!” he flew up and away, disappearing into the trees.
Quinn’s heart shattered in agony, even though she had achieved her desired results. She felt her bond with Corbin snap and rear back like a broken rubber band, and the wound it created in her heart was bigger and more painful than the slashes on her arm. Quinn screamed and fell to her knees as Mara rushed at her, furious at the loss of her toy. The green man stepped forward as if to help Quinn, but as the two came closer to her from opposite ends, a ring of mercury light burst from her body, knocking both Mara and the green man backward, flinging them to the ground.
Fuck this. Fuck that and fuck all these things too, Quinn thought as she looked around, power scorching the ground in every direction. Her hair was whipping wildly in the wind now, and her entire vision was tinged with gray, like looking through a tinted window. It was ok, Quinn didn’t mind, she felt strong right now. Powerful and angry. The one good thing tethering her to her sanity was gone; he was gone gone, he flew away. Away like a bird, her raven was gone. They had only gotten to ninety-nine.
They had only gotten to ninety-nine.
Quinn screamed again, only this time it was a howl of fury, and it was directed at the pile of black flesh in front of her. Quinn’s vines ripped through the ground and wrapped around the struggling demon. It was funny, all she had to do was think it, and the vines obeyed. She really had been overcomplicating things before. Quinn had so much power she didn’t know what to do with it. Just kidding, she knew exactly what to do with it. She was going to destroy Mara with it; she was going to make her suffer.
Quinn stalked towards where Mara lay on the ground, bringing her mini tornado with her and kicking up stray bits of debris. Mara cursed her from where she lay, immobilized. As Quinn got closer, Mara started smiling, and she looked up just in time to see the black cloud descending upon her, trying to swallow her essence and siphon out her magic.
She had to be kidding, right? Quinn was so past being affected by the little puff of air that she was only mildly irritated. Like the buzzing of a wasp on a summer day when she was trying to enjoy a book, that was what the familiar meant to her right now. The old man yelled a warning, and with a few mumbled words and a push from his hands, the cloud exploded, sparks shooting out around it. The scent of burnt things lingered in the air briefly, before the rainy scent of Quinn’s power washed it away. Mara started struggling anew, for she must have known her time was up, and her watery pale eyes were rolling around in her bony face. For the first time, she was showing fear, and Quinn lapped it up.
It felt so good to be the one in control! As a matter of fact, she bet she could take Mara’s power from her. She bet she could inhale it like so much air and leave Mara a dry and shriveled husk of nothing on the ground. She knew she could do it, and Quinn would leave Mara alive long enough to watch as she siphoned the last of what was most important to her – power. Her vines wrapped more securely around Mara’s shaking form and started squeezing, rotating like a python around prey. The old man was yelling something behind her now, but Quinn was too busy to pay attention to him anymore. She was focused on squeezing the life out of Mara, and she wouldn’t stop until she was dust. Her vines were peppered with thorns, and with every squeeze, they bit into whatever flesh was left on Mara’s body, leaving oozing trails in the dirt. Mara screamed and screamed, but Quinn took no pleasure from it. This was work, this was duty, she owed it to Corbin and William, and anyone else who had suffered at Mara’s hands. This was retribution.
The vines finally met the path of least resistance, and with a squelching noise, they met in the middle, splitting Mara in half and showering the dirt with pitch-black blood. Mara no longer moved, and Quinn thought that she was probably dead, but just to make sure she should probably consume her, leave no trace of her to return. Mara was a demon after all. If the body wasn’t completely destroyed, she could regenerate. All it would take would be a little more consumption, another host.
Quinn wouldn’t let that happen.
She stood over the body and took a few deep breaths, testing the air. It smelled like shit, and Quinn almost puked. The green man was yelling even louder now, and she turned to tell him to shut the fuck up when the body on the ground burst into flames. They burned for a second, and then the flames were gone, leaving only a pile of ashes in its place. The ashes took flight on Quinn’s wind and were promptly blown away across the forest, much like the path the raven had taken when he had been returned his wings.
Quinn rounded on the old man, furious at the interruption, but he held his hands out in front of him and mumbled some more words that Quinn didn’t understand. His eyes were huge and impossibly green, and for a moment he looked much younger, face smoothed of wrinkles, beard a much darker color. Quinn blinked, and the vision disappeared, he was still a crotchety old man, but now he was a crotchety old man who was mumbling to himself and drilling Quinn with his deep emerald gaze. The green light that came from his hands and bathed Quinn had a calming effect, and for a moment, she didn’t move, trapped in the green man’s spell.
She was still agitated though, and the green man’s spell didn’t hold her for long. She was pissed and hurt and heartbroken. The windows of her vision tinted an even darker gray, and it was getting difficult to see through. She thought if she listened hard, she could make out some of what the green man had been saying.
“Dökkálfar,” Quinn didn’t know what that meant, but the older man’s voice was filled with wonder as he formed the word with his lips.
“Quinn,” he said, coming even closer and intensifying the calming green light. He waved his hands in front of her again, and suddenly she was looking at what seemed like a reflection, but she didn’t recognize the woman in the vision. The mirror woman looked like another version of Quinn, except her skin was the color of pewter, and her eyes had no pupils, but instead were a swirling storm of liquid mercury from cornea to iris. The woman in the reflection cocked her head to the side, much like Quinn was doing and studied the other woman in front of her. The steel gray woman also had cuts running down one arm. Cuts that were still sluggishly dripping red blood into the dirt. Was this her own reflection? Was this what she had become when she finally broke the seal inside of her and let everything go free?
She was tired, so tired. Her heart and her head hurt, and she was suddenly very sleepy. It took a herculean effort just to maintain wakefulness, and Quinn felt her lids drooping down, trying to blot out her gray tinged vision. Colored threads spun in front of Quinn, and trying to follow their path made her dizzy, so she quit trying. The old man was chanting again; he was probably up to something, but the green light felt so nice, and the colors zipping around and around her were wrapping her up in a cocoon of warmth, so she thought she might just leave h
im to his devices and close her eyes, just for a minute. Still standing, her eyelids started drooping more, and Quinn didn’t fight it. As the last of the threads sealed up the space around her, she thought she heard the old man whisper “sleep,” but she couldn’t be sure.
Then it was dark, and Quinn neither saw nor heard anything else.
For three days, the raven had flown about the forest, trying to remember what he had been doing and how he had come to be. When the memories hit him like a stone on the third day, he panicked and raced as fast as his wings would carry him, some three hundred miles back to where he had come from. The bird and the man who resided inside his body were overcome with worry. The bond had snapped, and he had immediately regained his wings. The raven was joyous, but the man was broken hearted. He had both gained and lost, won the battle but been ground into dust by the war.
Memories of what he had almost been compelled to do assaulted Corbin, and he was frantic with worry over Quinn. It had been days, what had become of her? What had become of Mara?
It was afternoon on the fourth day, with the sunlight high in the woods, when he lit on the branch of a tree in the spot where he had last felt his human heart beat. There, in the center of a cleared out space surrounded by a ring of scorched earth, was a large green cocoon. Maybe green wasn’t enough of a descriptor for this thing that stood, held up by magic, in the middle of the woods. It was easily as tall as a man and wide as two standing side by side. Every color green on the spectrum shimmered and shone as the threads that made up the cocoon wrapped around each other in a crisscross monochrome.
The raven was curious about what could be inside, but the movement to the left caught his attention first. William sat in a rusty old beach chair, the kind with the colorful strips of plastic and the latches that always broke so quickly. It sagged under his bulk, and the chair groaned when he shifted his weight. He sat hunched over, his arms tented over his knees and chin resting atop them. His electric blue gaze never moved from the shimmering green shell in front of him, but he looked tired just the same.
Northwoods Magic (Northwoods Fairy Tales Book 1) Page 16
