by Kiki Howell
Not until he voiced it did he realize that the thought had been at the back of his mind since he’d pulled his sword free from the body of his last kill. Up until today, he’d been fairly optimistic about their chances of surviving this however long it took Kirsten to find their way home. Now, though, he realized that their odds weren’t too good.
Maybe he’d known all along but had put up a good front to keep Kirsten’s spirits up. She certainly seemed shocked by his admission. She watched him for a long moment, then all but folded to the ground, sitting by the fire, her arms wrapped around her raised knees.
“This,” she said, addressing the flames. “You want to know why I couldn’t be with you? This is why. Because just like you said, you won’t be able to kill every single demon that comes your way. Because you’ve wanted to fight demons for as long as I’ve known you, and one day it occurred to me that you’ll never stop. You’re going to keep fighting as long as you’re able to hold up a sword. And one day a demon will kill you. And it might be tomorrow, or in twenty years, or forty, but I could never live like this, wondering if tonight is the night that the man I love will die. So it was better not to love you at all.”
In all the years they’d known each other, he’d never heard her sound like this, so sad, so resigned, accepting the idea of his death as a fact she couldn’t change. Her tone more than her words hit him like a closed fist to the solar plexus, and it was all he could do not to double down in pain. He sat down gingerly at her side, struggling to find words.
“So you...” He licked his lips. His mouth felt dry. The fire, inches in front of him, seemed to give out no heat at all, or at least much less than radiated from Kirsten, and he wasn’t even touching her. “You gave up on us. You decided all on your own that I wasn’t worth the effort.”
From the corner of his eye, he could see her shake her head.
“I didn’t decide anything. I just realized that waiting for you to die was killing me, day after day. And I’d die for you, Jacob. If I could make sure you’d live by giving my life for yours, I’d do it. In a heartbeat. But that wouldn’t be enough, would it? You’d keep going back, night after night. And sooner or later you’d die. And this time I wouldn’t be there to save you.”
As hard as he tried, he couldn’t understand. It made no sense to him. He’d never seen things that way.
“Everybody dies, Kirsten. I’d rather die doing something important than stay home and die of old age.”
Her head snapped toward him. “Even if it meant staying home with me?”
His mouth opened, then closed again without a sound. It took him a while to manage to speak.
“You can’t ask me that,” he murmured. “You can’t ask me to choose—”
“But I didn’t ask you to choose,” she cut in. “I knew I’d lose if I gave you an ultimatum. I’d already lost. So I left. What else was there to do?”
Jacob stared at her, uncomprehending. All these years, as he wondered why she’d left him, what he’d done to drive her away, this had never occurred to him. She’d always seemed proud of him for fighting demons. How could he have guessed that this was what hid in her mind? Had she given him clues? Even in hindsight, he couldn’t think of a single one.
“I do plan to fight as long as I’m able to,” he said slowly. “But that doesn’t mean I’ll die fighting. You know I’m stronger than regular people. You know I heal faster, too. I’ve never been really hurt. Look how fast I healed from that infection.”
“Just because you haven’t been hurt yet doesn’t mean you won’t. And for what, Jacob? To show your fathers what you can do? To impress them?”
He snorted.
“You know me better than that. It was never about impressing anyone.”
She shifted to face him fully. The expression on her face was one of pure agony. It twisted Jacob’s guts.
“Then what is it about?” she demanded, her voice trembling. “We were barely more than kids the first time you told me you wanted to spend your life fighting demons. I didn’t think much of it then, but I realized later that you meant it. Just a teen, and you had your whole life planned out. Why, Jacob? I can understand wanting to protect people, wanting to keep your town safe, but your whole life? Why do you have to sacrifice everything like that?”
It dawned on him suddenly whom he was talking to. This was Kirsten. This was the one person he’d trusted so much even as a teen that he’d told her about his fathers being vampires when he’d kept that secret from everyone else. This was the woman he’d never ceased to love even after she’d shattered his heart. And the reason why she’d done that, the reason why she’d felt it necessary to hurt both of them was because he’d kept another secret from her, the one that explained what she couldn’t understand.
He’d told her minutes earlier that, if they were going to die here, he wanted to at least understand why she’d broken up with him. Maybe she deserved to understand it, too.
“There’s something,” he started, grasping for words. “Something I never told anyone. About who I am. What I am.”
When he faltered, she frowned at him. “Is this about your father being a vampire? I already know that and it doesn’t explain...”
Her words trailed off when he took her hand and cradled it between both of his.
“No,” he said softly. “It’s not about my father. It’s about my mother. It’s about what she did to get pregnant with me.” He could almost taste bile at the back of his throat. He swallowed hard and kept going. “I told you she used magic. She wrote journals about it. She didn’t go into a lot of details, but... There are passages in which she talks about... about feeling like she’s opening a door to another place. About tapping into a source of power that’s not from our world. That’s from a different dimension.”
Kirsten’s face reflected nothing but confusion.
“Every time I come across a demon,” Jacob pushed on, “if I’m alone, it sniffs me, and tries to talk to me. Every time. It’s like they recognize something in me. Like they can smell it. Maybe it’s in my blood, I don’t know. It doesn’t smell any different to me. But they know. They all know.”
Kirsten shook her head.
“Know what, Jacob?”
He tightened his hands over hers.
“Do you know the very first demon appeared the night I was born? And it happened just a few blocks away, too.”
“Are you saying...”
He nodded.
“That’s why I’m fighting. That’s why I have to fight. This is not something that’s randomly happening outside of me. It’s something that happened because of me. Because my mother was desperate to have me. She used her magic, and created a way for me to exist, but by doing so she invited demons into our world. I fight demons because it’s my fault, Kirsten. Every person who dies because of a demon dies because I was born.”
Over the years, when he’d contemplated once or twice telling someone about this, he’d always imagined they’d be horrified, or disgusted, or maybe they’d pity him. He never thought they’d answer the way Kirsten did, with just one word.
“Bullshit.”
Blinking several times, he frowned at her.
“I’m not lying,” he started, but she didn’t let him go on.
“I believe you. No one would make up a story like that. But no one with any sense would blame themselves for it all either. Whatever your mother did, you didn’t ask for it. You’re not responsible for her actions. And anyway, do you believe she did this on purpose? Do you think she understood what would happen?”
“Well, no,” Jacob admitted. “From her diaries, it doesn’t look like she understood what she did, but—”
“But nothing.” Kirsten squeezed his hand. “She made a mistake. It doesn’t mean you have to offer every drop of your blood as...”
All of a sudden, her eyes widened. Her fingers tightened even more over Jacob’s until he could feel her nails digging in.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “Yo
ur blood. Back in the woods. You were hurt. I had your blood on my hand when I did the spell. I think I touched the ingredients with that hand. If what you said is true... If you are linked somehow to this world, to the demons...”
“You think that’s how we got here in the first place,” he said, grimly, when she didn’t finish.
“Not just that. I think that’s how we’re going to go back.”
THE FACT THAT JACOB was stubborn was not news to Nicholas. It had become apparent early on as Jacob was growing up, and if nothing else the way Jacob had ground down Andrew’s objections over his choice of career had proved the strength of will of their son. The difference was that, back then, Nicholas had been, more or less, on Jacob’s side. Today, he was firmly on Andrew’s.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Andrew said. “Regardless of what you want, the diaries are gone. I burned them. There’s nothing to show to anyone.”
Jacob crossed his arms over his chest as he stepped forward into the room. His eyes never left Andrew. What he pulled from this observation soon became clear.
“You’re lying,” he said in a tone of utter confidence. “You could never throw away anything that belonged to my mother. You’d sooner burn yourself than burn her diaries.”
Jacob certainly had a point there.
“Which is why I burned them,” Nicholas interjected. “I knew your father would never do it, so I did it myself.”
Those piercing green eyes turned to Nicholas, who returned the look straight on.
“You’re lying too,” Jacob said, shaking his head. “For one thing, you always said you didn’t believe it was true. For the other, you two were talking about it when I walked in. If the diaries were gone, there’d be no point for you to agree on a unified front.”
“I still don’t believe it’s true,” Nicholas said, happy for the tangent he was being offered. “There’s no proof—”
“No proof?” Jacob’s laugh chilled him to the bones. “What about the fact that my blood opens the way between Earth and wherever the demons come from? Isn’t that proof enough for you? All right. What about the fact that demons recognize me as something different? They sniff me like I’m one of their own. They try to talk to me, and only grow angry when I don’t reply. Are those proof enough? Believe me, it's enough for me. It's way more than enough. If there’s the slightest chance the key to stopping them is in those diaries, we have to take it.”
“Even if it means your death?” Andrew challenged, his words colder than the most unforgiving winter.
“We don’t know that’s what it’d mean,” Jacob said. “But yes. Even if. The same way I go and fight when demons are sighted even though I know I could end up dead, and for the same reason. For the same reason you fight, Dad. My mother did this. You know it, and I know it. And I’m not saying she knew, I’m not saying she did this on purpose. But on purpose or not, she did it. She can’t fix it. But maybe she can help us fix it.”
Alongside Nicholas, Andrew’s body was as still, as unmovable as a rock.
“No,” he said flatly. “I’m not risking your life. Not even for that.”
“Who said we’d be risking his life?”
Kirsten walked into the room, coming to stand by Jacob, her hand easily slipping in his. Her lips were pressed together as she considered Jacob, Nicholas and finally Andrew.
“I love your son,” she said, her voice calm but strong.
Nicholas’ eyes flicked toward Jacob just long enough to witness the burst of happiness her words created in him.
“I love him so much,” she continued, “that I left so I wouldn’t have to watch him die. And I came back so I could do my best to stop him from dying. Do you think I’d do anything to put his life in peril now?”
...
Chapter Twenty-Two
“I need a few drops of your blood.”
Kirsten’s voice trembled, as did her hands, when she asked for Jacob’s blood. He’d watched her in silence as she assembled her ingredients and carefully mixed them in the clean egg shell she’d been using as a bowl. He’d been very quiet ever since admitting his last secret to her, as though he still expected her to react differently.
She understood his thinking, understood why he’d kept this to himself even when he’d told her his fathers were vampires, but more importantly she now understood why he’d always been so determined to fight demons.
For so long, she’d feared he had some sort of death wish, or an inexhaustible need to prove himself to his fathers. His real reason for fighting was at the same time much easier to understand, and much crazier. Later, when they were home and safe, she’d try again to convince him that none of it was his fault; she was sure he’d barely heard her the first time, but she would say it, again and again, as many times as it took.
Jacob had picked up his sword, and now he approached it to his palm, but he seemed to change his mind.
“If I need to fight again,” he said in a low voice, “I’d better be able to hold my sword. You do it.”
He shifted his grip on the sword, offering it to Kirsten hilt first. When she took it, he tugged his shirt out of his pants, exposing his abdomen.
“Keep it shallow,” he said, holding the shirt up and out of the way.
Kirsten swallowed hard. The sword weighed more than simple steel in her hand. She didn’t want to hurt him, but this was their one chance to go home. It had to be. And she had to do this.
Biting down on her bottom lip, she gripped the hilt with one hand and the flat of the blade with the fingers of her other hand to have the best control over the blade as she could. She approached the sword sideways against Jacob’s side until the edge was pressed to his skin. She shifted the blade minutely. Jacob drew in a hissing breath at the same time as a bead of blood pearled against the sword.
“Never ask me to do that again,” Kirsten said shakily, grateful when Jacob drew the sword out of her hands.
He didn’t reply, but after she’d pressed the egg shell to his side to allow a few drops of blood to trickle in, he let his shirt fall down and touched her shoulder. She met his eyes and lost her breath at what she saw in the familiar green. If she’d tried to convince herself before that he looked at her through the eyes of a friend and nothing else, it was now useless to deny the presence of a lot more than that in his gaze.
“I won’t,” he said, “but only if you never ask me again to believe you don’t love me.”
She had no idea what to reply to that, no idea where their respective revelations would leave them and what was still ahead. She could only think of one way to answer. Leaning forward, she pressed her closed lips against Jacob’s mouth, then pulled back again.
“Hold on to my arm,” she murmured, and closed her eyes for a second.
This was it. The moment of truth. If this didn’t work, then they’d probably remain in this world for the rest of their lives, be it decades more or only hours. With one finger, she mixed Jacob’s blood to the rest of her improvised bowl’s contents. At the same time, she recited those words she’d first come up with to summon light. Later, she’d try to understand how blood had changed the spell when the incantation was the same. Maybe it’d even help her understand how Jacob’s mother had unwittingly opened a path between worlds to begin with, and how to close it. But before she could think about that, the spell needed to work. It was time to go home.
And they did.
ONE SECOND, THEY WERE up a hill made of rocks and dust, under the strangely colored sun of this world.
The next, darkness pressed upon them, but it was instantly familiar. The air smelled and tasted different, and as Jacob heard Kirsten take in a deep breath he remembered how she’d seemed to struggle with breathing when they’d first come to the other world. Above them, the stars formed patterns that Jacob had learned to recognize over years of spending a good part of his nights outside. Even the moon was there, as though to welcome them back.
“We’re back,” he said, grinning at Kirsten.
“We’re home,” she replied, flinging one arm around him for a quick hug.
He let her go with regret, though with the hope that there’d be more hugs in their future. Looking around them, he tried to get his bearings. They weren’t in the same woods where he’d battled those two demons what seemed like ages ago. Instead, they appeared to be in a park.
Yes, definitely a park, he thought as he spotted a jungle gym. The next moment, he knew exactly where they were and he couldn’t help but laugh.
“What is it?” Kirsten asked, following his gaze as though seeking the source of his amusement.
“Do you remember the park where I taught you how to skate?” he asked.
Her eyes widened as she took in their surroundings.
“Are you sure?”
Jacob nodded. “Definitely. I spent entire summers here.”
After days without being able to recharge, both their phones were dead, and Jacob felt some trepidation as they started walking toward his home. How had his fathers taken his disappearance? Not well, he guessed. Andrew was quick to worry, but after so long even Nicholas had to be out of his mind. Jacob could easily imagine that they’d torn through the woods, looking for clues. He’d be surprised if they hadn’t contacted Julie. The mage was thousands of miles away, but she was still one of the most powerful magic users they knew, and a close friend to boot.
“What are you thinking about?” Kirsten asked as they turned onto his street.
“I’m thinking my dads must be sick with worry,” Jacob said.
“Oh.”
The quiet sound drew his eyes to her. Why had she sounded so... he wanted to say disappointed, but it didn’t make much sense.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked back.
“The same thing I’ve been thinking about for five years,” she said, looking straight ahead of her. “You.”
It was Jacob’s turn to let out a quiet, “Oh.”
“Can you forgive me?” she went on. “If I’d only—”
