“It was purely an accident,” I said. “She’s our ticket home if she can get her shit together. It’s Annabelle and Isabelle.”
“The one who sent me here?” Ramon asked, confusion on his face.
I nodded. “There will be opportunities for revenge later. But right now she’s our only way out of here. And for the time being, Annabelle is AWOL and it’s just Isabelle. Not sure where Annabelle went.”
“Most likely the baron,” Ramon said.
“Baron Samedi took her?”
Ramon nodded. “A new soul appears, a human one at that, it will certainly garnish his attentions.”
“Well, hopefully the baron knows she’s here to bring him back to Earth… to fulfill Nico’s bargain.”
Ramon grabbed my hand and led me through the darkness. “Your brother isn’t far. He doesn’t associate with the others. He’s not like them… he doesn’t belong here.”
“Has he found the light yet? The other nightwalkers…”
Ramon shook his head. “No light. No nightwalkers. Just as it was before, I haven’t been able to find any of them.”
We cleared a cloud of wraiths and entered a dark clearing. The farther we moved from the wraiths, the quieter it became. No more shrieking. No more agony. Just a single whimper. And there he was—Edwin—not at all like the other wraiths. He resembled a ghost of himself. But it was my brother. I almost shed a tear.
He looked up at me, curious.
I reached into my backpack and retrieved the fetish. This was it… finally…
Then a bright light darted out of nowhere; the fetish burned in my hand like sunlight.
I screamed. “What the fuck!”
As I turned, I saw her: Alice… standing there with a giant grin on her face. My jaw almost hit the floor. “Alice… how did you…”
Alice shrugged. “Nico burned my body.”
“He what?”
Alice grinned. “That’s why I sent the nightwalkers here to begin with. To make a bargain with the baron that any deal he might strike with Nico would require that he stake me and return my body to the Order.”
I wanted to scream. Nico had to have seen this coming—he had to have known it would complicate my plans, otherwise he would have said something about it. But if he had told me, I would have gotten rid of Alice some other way. Instead, I trusted him. He said he’d “take care” of her… and now I knew what that meant.
“That light you used… what kind of magic was that?”
Alice laughed out loud. “Call it celestial magic.”
“What the fuck is that?”
“A gift from the angels,” Alice said. “It’s how I’ve resisted your allure and, later, your compulsions. It’s how I know I’ll be able to show Edwin the way to the light.”
“Don’t go with her, Edwin,” I said.
When I said his name, it was like he came to life. Something vivified him, and it was like he suddenly recognized me. I could see a fury in his ghastly face as he charged my position.
“No, Edwin!” Alice shouted.
Edwin struck my body, and a warmth filled me from the inside. I could hear him screaming inside my head, laughing uncontrollably even as he shrieked.
“What the hell!” I protested.
“He possesses you now,” Alice said.
I took a deep breath even as I tried to drown out my brother’s voice—it was like he’d lost his mind, speaking only gibberish. I suppose one century and nearly half of another one in hell would do that to someone. The fetish… it was supposed to work because it contained something of his essence and a blessing of a Ghede Loa. But my body… I might not be human anymore, but something of our DNA must’ve remained in my flesh. We were siblings, we shared the same blood. I was something of his essence. And as a vampire, it was the blessing of a Ghede, Baron Samedi, that made me what I was.
Holy shit, I thought. In absence of the fetish, I’d made my own body draw him to me in the same way.
Alice grinned and took a step back. “Not my plan, but this’ll do.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Alice, what’s happening?”
“What do you think is happening?” Alice asked. “He’s bound to you now.”
“Then he won’t move on…”
“You’ll wish he had,” Alice said.
“No, this is fantastic. It’ll be just like Annabelle and Isabelle… I can live with this. And I won’t have to worry about dying…”
“Trust me,” Alice said, “you’ll be back. To be possessed by a spirit of one who only knows torture, who has lived a hell he didn’t deserve… you’ll be begging me to get him out of you before you realize it.”
“You could do that?” I asked.
“If you’re both willing,” Alice said. “I can still remove him from your body by my celestial powers and bring him into the light.”
“Then why didn’t you do that before?” I asked. “You had your chance when you were in hell before.”
“Like I said, his mind is warped by this torture. This hell. I was here to counsel him. To help him become willing… But alas, perhaps a moment away from this place, albeit piggybacked on your warped mind, will be all it takes for him to desire the heavenly eternity that should have been his long ago.”
Ramon grabbed my arm from behind. “Mercy, we’ve got to go. Annabelle is back, and she has the baron. It’s time.”
I nodded and looked back at Alice one last time; her face was split by a shit-eating grin. Truth be told, I wasn’t sure how she existed here at all. She appeared like me, like Ramon, with a body—not as a wraith, as I’d expect. It had to be on account of the celestial magic she claimed to wield… but was that magic, anyway?
I looked and saw Isabelle—or was it Annabelle… they looked so alike—zap two vampire wraiths with a bolt of green magic, each wraith dissipating on contact. Where these wraiths went, I had no idea.
“Isabelle or Annabelle?” I asked.
“Isabelle,” she said. “But Annabelle is back. She’ll take over soon.”
I nodded. “Ramon said you have the baron, somehow?”
Isabelle nodded. She shouted “Beli!”—the same name she’d used when she summoned her blade. Only this time the blade didn’t appear.
“Why isn’t it working?” I asked.
“When we summon Beli on Earth he appears as a blade,” Isabelle explained. “But he’s truly the spirit of a dragon…”
I rolled my eyes. “A dragon? Seriously?”
“What, don’t think that dragons exist? It’s okay. Most people don’t believe in vampires, either.”
I heard a loud roar as a massive beast appeared out of the darkness.
“I’m back in control,” Annabelle said. I could tell by her tone—when Isabelle talked it was like there was a kindness to her voice. Her face glowed. Annabelle tended toward the resting bitch face.
“So Hermione’s back in Hogwarts?” I asked.
“Are you referring to Isabelle?”
I nodded. “I figured the analogy worked.”
“If Isabelle is Hermione, who does that make you? Bellatrix Lestrange?”
I shrugged. “Nah, she’s not evil enough.”
“She killed Dobby, what do you mean not evil enough?”
I shook my head as I admired the massive beast that had landed in the tar-like substance around us. Not much intimidates me—but a fucking dragon? Why I had a hard time accepting it when I’d seen so many strange magical and mystical things I couldn’t explain. Still, I was ready to get out of here.
The last thing I wanted was to see Alice again. And if riding a dragon was my only way out of hell, then I’d take two tickets. One for me, one for Ramon. Technically Edwin, too. But I had to sneak him on. He probably didn’t meet the height requirements for a ride like this, anyway. Truly, though, I wasn’t about to tell Annabelle what had happened. The less she knew, the better. It was only a matter of time, I suspected, before we were at odds again.
“Beli,” Annabell
e said, “take us back to the Academy. As close to when we left as you can manage.”
37
ALL THREE OF us—though if you count possessed familiars, it was five of us—crashed into the dormitory floor. The dragon was gone, now reformed into a blade which Annabelle quickly released.
“Holy shit,” Pauli said as we crashed into the floor. “You all look like a hot mess!”
“What’s he doing here?” Ashley, Annabelle’s sister, said on spotting Ramon.
“The better question,” I said, staring at Pauli, “is why is he here?”
A loud bang rattled the floor beneath us. Apparently I wasn’t going to get an answer to my first question. I’d assumed he’d remain restrained—but I’d only compelled Pauli to tell them to restrain him. I didn’t actually compel the headmistress herself. Just what I needed, another issue to deal with. As if I wasn’t distracted enough by the gibberish Edwin was mumbling in my mind.
“What the hell is going on here?” I asked.
“We’re under attack. Everyone’s down there trying to fend them off,” another one of my supposed temporary classmates, whose name escaped me, interjected. She was a cute girl. I think she belonged to College Erzulie, which explained, in part, why I hadn’t taken enough interest in her to learn her name. What good would someone training in love magic ever do me?
“Fend off who?” Annabelle asked.
“The vampires,” Ashley said. Apparently she belonged to College Erzulie also. “We thought if we used our love magic we could distract them enough to get Mom and Dad out of there.”
“Oh fuck,” I said. “You pissed off Nico? And you tried to use love magic on him? We’re vampires. We don’t love.”
“Could have fooled me,” love magic girl said. “Why else did you guys just leave to go rescue your boyfriend?”
I wasn’t about to entertain her line of misguided logic. Instead I looked at Annabelle. “Look, you have what Nico wants, right?”
“Yes,” Annabelle said. “Isabelle can retrieve it. I think it’s a cigarette…”
I nodded. “That’s what Baron Samedi stores his souls in.”
“The baron said Nico just had to smoke it and he’d get his soul back, and the baron would be passed along with it.”
“Must be some strong shit in that joint,” I said, smirking.
“You’re telling me,” Annabelle replied. “Kind of a weird way to swap souls around, don’t you think?”
“Well, Nico wants to die a human death,” I said. “The say that cigarettes will kill you.”
Annabelle chuckled. It was probably the only moment of genuine levity we’d had together. It wasn't going to last, though. We had to confront Nico. We had to end this. After what he’d done—betrayed me with a bargain that set Alice free—I was more than willing to see him meet his end. Aside from the fact that that’s exactly what he wanted.
We rushed—all of us—from the dormitory downstairs, where Nico was apparently causing quite a ruckus. He stood there, Annabelle and Ashley’s parents enthralled behind him.
“Wait!” Annabelle shouted. “I found Baron Samedi. He intends to fulfill his bargain with you, provided you’re ready.”
“Mercy,” Nico said, looking at me, “is this true?”
“Yes, sire.”
“If you found Baron Samedi,” Nico said, returning his stare to Annabelle, “where is he?”
Annabelle extended her hand. Her eyes began to glow and the cigarette appeared in her hand.
Nico lunged at Annabelle. “You will not deceive me again!”
“Nico, I’m trying to…” Annabelle struggled beneath his grip.
“You’re trying to trick me… cast me into the land of the dead. But I haven’t survived this long—I haven’t gotten this close to have you damn me again!”
“That’s not what I’m doing…” Annabelle muttered as she was being crushed under Nico’s weight.
“Get off of her, you brute!” I shouted.
“Excuse me?” Nico said, glaring at me in a fury. “How dare you speak to your maker in that tone.”
“She’s trying to save your ass, give you what you wanted, but the last eighteen years in hell have fucked you up in the head. Listen to her…”
Nico stared at Annabelle, gripping her by the hair with one hand and squeezing her neck with the other. “I want to do this… I can feel the hunger, the craving…”
“Nico,” I shouted. “Stop. She isn’t lying. No tricks. Enthrall me if you must, make me tell you the truth.”
Nico stared at me, his red, beady eyes matching and meeting my own. “She was trying to use magic…”
“The baron gave this to me as a wraith, you dumb fuck,” Annabelle said. “I need to summon it. That requires magic.” Annabelle kneed Nico in the balls. He didn’t flinch, but I appreciated the girl’s spunk. “I knew you didn’t have balls,” she said.
I smirked. Maybe she and I had more in common than I’d thought. We both had familiars now, it seemed, though mine was more like an annoyance—as little brothers are prone to be—than anything as helpful as hers. And we both didn’t put up with shit from the males in our lives.
Annabelle handed Nico the cigarette. “You know, they say these things will kill you.”
Okay, now the bitch stole my joke!
Nico smirked anyway as he placed it to his lips, extended a finger to evoke a flame from its tip, and lit the cigarette. That flame entranced me the way he’d enthralled Annabelle’s parents who stood behind him… All of that power…
Take it…
What the fuck? Was that Edwin’s voice in my head?
I felt my body move… Holy shit. He could use my compulsion abilities, and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
As Nico took a draw from the cigarette, his eyes changed… he was human again… and the next thing I knew my fangs were in his neck, sucking the blood from his arteries. I felt the power. For just a moment I could sense all of Nico’s progeny, all around the world. I knew where they were. I knew what they were doing. I could feel the power of fire in my veins. And I felt the baron… He’d thought he was getting Nico’s body. Now, he was trapped in mine. Trapped with Edwin. And all this power…
I released my bite. Horrified looks filled the room. Rage filled Annabelle’s face as she summoned her blade.
Let her attack. Then kill them all…
Before I could act on Edwin’s second compulsion, I felt someone grab me from behind. I felt a pain on my neck, a burning consume my body…
Pauli… and whatever the hell possessed him…
All the power, leaving my body. The baron left, too. The only thing that remained was Edwin. He was bound to me by blood…
Everything faded to a blur. Were those screams I heard? I didn’t know. Perhaps it was just a loud ringing in my ears.
I felt my body move through the air. Was someone carrying me? Or was I actually floating? I wasn’t in hell. I had to still be alive. Well, undead.
“Come now, ma chérie,” a voice echoed. His voice was distorted, but only one person I knew called me that. “I’ve got you.”
Something about his voice, in spite of the pain, in spite of it all, let me know that everything was going to be okay.
38
IT TOOK A while until I was back on my feet. Nico was gone. Ramon was being Ramon, though surprisingly he hadn’t ripped anyone’s limbs from their bodies in a while. They really should have twelve-step groups for vampires like him. Hi, my name is Ramon, and it’s been ninety days since my last dismemberment. I was proud of him.
The world was a different place without Nico in it. The closest feeling I could compare to it was when I lost my father.
Nico got what he wanted—he died. His body wasn’t revived after I bit him, so far as I knew, so he didn’t turn again. But I also deprived the baron of his host… and that was bound to come back to haunt me somehow, someday, eventually.
Perhaps, though, he’d think I’d suffered enough. I lost my compulsion ab
ilities, which meant if Nico fell off the wagon again, we’d be back to the old stake-in-the-heart routine.
But it was a good thing my compulsion abilities were gone, because now Edwin couldn’t access them. I tried to drown out his voice.
The things he wanted me to do… He’d gone to hell as a child. He’d been raised by vampire wraiths, for all intents and purposes. The thoughts he spoke into my mind would make Lucifer himself blush. And to think, Alice thought he should go to heaven?
I tried to reach out to Maman Brigitte. I figured if anyone knew how to get Edwin out of my head and back into a fetish like originally planned, it would be her.
But she wouldn’t give me an audience. Not after what I’d done to Nico. Not after I’d prevented her husband, the baron, from returning by killing the host he’d intended to inhabit.
I knew where Annabelle lived. But I was reasonably certain she was done with me, too.
Ramon was there and, bless his heart—did I actually say that?—he was doing what he could to help me out. But with Edwin in my ear, I’d become something of a catty bitch. It was all I could do not to unleash my rage on the world, to resist his constant urging, his warped demands. The only way to make him shut up was to give in.
But there was hope.
Alice had said that celestial magic could separate us again. Since the word celestial meant the heavens, and Alice had said an angel had given her the powers, albeit before she became a vampire, I had at least a little hope that there was a way to get Edwin out of my head.
I just couldn’t let him go to heaven himself, or move on in any sense. Even if he went to the human hell, which frankly I felt he deserved, I figured it would mean the end of me. Separating him from me might mean risking the true death. But I had to get him out of my head. An eternity like this, with his ravings in my head, was driving me bloody mad.
The End of Book 1
The Legacy continues in Bloody Mad - CLICK HERE
“IT’S A BEAUTIFUL day in the neighborhood… A beautiful day…” I skipped along the sidewalk through the French Quarter. It was a little game I’d played with Edwin to hopefully distract him from his barbaric obsessions. It was also a purely random way to identify my next victim.
Gates of Eden: Starter Library Page 91
