“I hate freaking winter and spring around here…it sucks!” she groused.
We slogged on without any further issues and Silver did a bang up job piloting us all the way to the faded blue flaking paint of our house. Maggie let go of our right arm so that Silver could use both of our hands, one to hold the jacket pocket steady and the other to search in a frustratingly slow manner for the tiny bit of metal that would unlock the door.
Over the howl of the wind, Maggie said from behind us, “You didn’t forget the key right…or lose it?”
I heard the sound of the door opening then a gust of wind knocked our body forward. Since Silver still had our hands occupied trying to extract the key from our coat, she didn’t react. Someone grabbed our coat collar and yanked us inside the house. The door slammed on Maggie.
I could hear Maggie’s fist pounding as we slammed against the inside. Silver focused on the pale freckled face in front of us. The familiar scent of garlic assaulted our nostrils and I knew it was Calvin who stood with our collar tightly turned in his left fist. Our air supply quickly dwindled. A manic gleam radiated from his eyes as anger scrunched his face.
I screamed at Silver for us to switch and tried to bull my way into control, but I feared we wouldn’t be fast enough. Our hands were trapped in front of our body by the weight of Calvin’s chest as he rambled with barely contained fury and excitement.
“He said you wouldn’t be a problem, but I’m tired of waiting to kill you. You’ve ruined all of my fun, you little bitch!”
Right when Silver retreated, and I regained full control of our body, my eyes focused enough to see his free hand. The screwdriver I had left on the table earlier in the day punched into our chest.
Excruciating pain pierced me. I wanted to use my no longer pinned hands to grasp the handle and pull it free. Instead, I forced myself to slap our palms to the side of our assailant’s head. The vain attempt to box Calvin’s ears came off too weak.
Silver roared in agonized desperation. I felt her push a surge into his brain. It obliterated whatever and whoever he had ever been in an intoxicating rush before black started to steal around our vision, and we sank to the floor.
The husk of Calvin’s body fell backward, hitting with a solid thunk, as it flopped around in a dance of death. Sudden unnatural stillness signaled his end.
Glass breaking sounded from somewhere in the house, and after a few moments, Maggie appeared in the hall, huffing and soaked with cuts on her hands and face.
The screwdriver moved in my wound as I tried to pull myself more upright against the hard wood of the door.
A constant murmur of sorry over and over wore a groove in my head. Silver was already giving up. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I yelled at her as firmly as I could in our mind, “Shut up! We’re not dead yet!”
Maggie knelt beside my legs and examined the wound. She glanced to make sure Calvin wasn’t moving.
I gasped out painfully, “Don’t worry, he’s dead.”
My aunt’s eyes had terror and tears both pooled in them. “Honey, this is bad. You’re bleeding heavily enough that I think he got a hit or a knick on an artery. Can you heal this?”
Silver finally got a hold of herself. “We don’t have enough energy. I used it to smash his freaking brain in.”
I struggled to keep my thoughts clear, and I could feel our limbs losing feeling as the blood rushed to the site of the injury to pump uselessly out of our body in a steady ooze. Maggie put two fingers against our throat to take a pulse.
I raised a hand weakly to slap her fingers from our skin. “Find Kara and James, Maggie.”
My aunt wanted to argue I could tell, and a war went on behind her glassy gaze as she weighed leaving me alone against going to get help. I pleaded with my eyes and croaked out a determined, “Now, Maggie, please.”
She finally made up her mind. “I don’t want to move you, but it would be faster to get them into the house through the front. This is going to hurt.”
With that as my only warning, Maggie shoved her hands in our armpits and slid us over to lean against the toolbox James had left against the wall. It seemed like an eternity ago in a land far, far away. I’m pretty sure I screamed and cried. She got us propped in a sitting position out of the way.
Maggie didn’t stop to murmur a sorry or console me as she straightened from her crouched position and ran out, leaving the door open. I didn’t even mind the cold, wet air because it distracted me from the pain.
Silver sounded remorseful. “I’m so sorry, Cassandra. I’m so sorry. If they don’t make it back in time, just know that I love you.”
I was trying to hold onto consciousness. I didn’t have the energy to make her feel better. “Wasn’t your fault so quit your pity party. I need you to heal us when James and Kara get here. Can you do it or are you going to wimp out?”
Silver gathered her resolve. “I can heal us if you can hold us here. I think our body is trying to go into shock.”
A thought occurred to me about Calvin, so I asked her, “Calvin mentioned a ‘he’ so apparently the psycho wasn’t working alone. I guess that means we have somebody else to kill.”
Silver laughed a hysterically. “We can’t check his memories because I fried him out of existence. I didn’t even know we could. There was a flash of what was in his mind before he burned out. That boy was nuttier than a peanut butter factory. I didn’t feel anyone else squatting like a toad in his thoughts or anything.”
I almost laughed out loud, and I wasn’t paying close enough attention to our body, so our head began to sag sideways as our eyelids tried to droop shut. Thankfully a gust of wind smacked us in the face snapping me back into focus.
When someone blocked the doorway, we got a brief respite from the elements. I was too far gone to look up. I recognized Maggie’s pants before she knelt by our side. Someone else was blocking the doorway.
A sharp intake of breath preceded Kara’s frantic voice. “Move James!”
Maggie barked, “Don’t gawk, we’re running out of time. James, kneel by her legs and Kara get down right next to him. Shut the door when you get inside, Kara.”
When James came into focus in the position Maggie had indicated, his cheeks were white from shock.
Kara blurted, “Oh my God, Cassandra!”
My aunt picked up my arm, reached across to grab James’ hand and put them together. Our fingers felt like sticks of ice. James felt warm even though his fingers were wet from the rain. The sound of the wind diminished and the frigid rain cut off as Kara shut the door. She knelt. Without any further prompting, James grabbed Kara’s hand, and she took our fingers into her own.
Our body jumped painfully when the electric jolt of our completed ‘circuit’ struck. I couldn’t help myself as I cried out, making a pitiful mewling sound.
When I opened our eyes, Maggie was leaning in front of our face saying my name over and over. I managed to mumble, “I’m fine. I need to ask Silver what to do. Give me a second.”
The energy that rippled through our body was giving us strength, but we had lost a lot of blood. I didn’t know how we were going to get the damn screwdriver out of our chest without bleeding out.
Speak of the devil, Silver picked that moment to pipe in again, and she almost sounded like her usual arrogant self.
“Tell Maggie when you give the word to pull the screwdriver out a centimeter at a time. Every time it’s safe to pull, I’ll give you the go ahead. Dipshit psycho boy over there didn’t manage a straight shot at our heart because of our ribcage, but he did manage to hit us on the left side. The screwdriver still being in us is a good thing because the bleeding isn’t as bad as it could be. I don’t know how he was strong enough to punch it through. It doesn’t make any sense.”
I thought back, “Does it matter right now? Tell me when.” Out loud I said in a rough voice, “Maggie, Silver says when she gives the word, you’re to start pulling the screwdriver out a centimeter at a time, every time I say go.”
/> “Wait, you can’t remove it,” James interjected. “She’ll die!”
Maggie pinned James with her gaze as she placed her hands carefully on the shiny screwdriver handle. “There isn’t any other way, James. By the time an ambulance got all the way out here and transported her to town for surgery, she could be dead. Tell me when you’re ready, Cassandra.”
I heard Kara’s voice as a high pitched whisper in the background chanting over and over.
“Please, please, please.”
A burning sensation began to spread out from under my sternum.
Silver said, “Go!”
I seconded out loud, “Go, Maggie.”
My aunt pulled up just barely on the handle. Our body felt like it was trying to hold it in as the pain bloomed. The warm burning itching feeling increased. The grip on our fingers tightened as both Kara and James squeezed. It was slow going, and I lost count after the fourth ‘go.’
Our body felt like it was trying to hold the screwdriver inside. I didn’t know if it was the force of suction or a side effect of our tissue swelling around the foreign object to protect itself and slow the bleeding. The burning sensation in our chest had increased past the itching stage to a truly painful steady heat. I was ready for this to be over. Judging by how much of the screwdriver remained in our chest, I figured we were halfway there.
I almost passed out. Maggie smacked our cheek with a freed hand.
“Don’t pass out, Cass…you have to tell me when to pull. Stay awake!” she demanded.
Silver was quiet as she focused all of the energy from our link with Kara and James into healing us with single-minded determination. I felt her working and I didn’t want to interrupt, but I needed to know. “How much longer, Silver?”
She snapped back, “Not much. Quit bothering me.”
It seemed to me an eternity of agony passed before I started to feel stronger. The pain lessened. By the time Maggie was down to the tip of the screwdriver, I would have pulled out the damn tool myself, but our hands were busy keeping our energy flowing for Silver’s use. I was still weak, and we could probably use a transfusion of blood or plasma, but the weakness felt more like the after-effects of a mild blood sugar low, not a near death experience.
With a final ‘go’ and a faint moist sucking sound, Maggie fully withdrew the tool. I relaxed. The burning in our chest had lessened from a fiery heat to a pleasant warmth that reminded me of an electric blanket. I thought to Silver, “Are you all done, Sister?”
Silver sent back crisply, “Mostly done but you might need some Ringer’s lactate or even some plasma. Tell Maggie. I can’t create matter out of energy to my knowledge, so the blood we lost needs to be replaced.”
Maggie was next to me holding the bloody, almost instrument of my death, examining its length. I sat up letting go of Kara’s and James. The burning tingling of our circuit cut off. I missed it immediately.
I coughed to test the pull of the newly healed muscles. “I may be low on body fluids, but I think the worst is over.”
Kara burst out with, “Holy shit!” then grabbed me from the side in a hug. My neck protested being pushed sideways against her. “That has to be the most awful and fascinating thing I’ve ever seen! What happened?”
James watched us all silently and then rose to examine Calvin’s body where it still lay, limbs akimbo from its death throes.
Maggie spoke for me. “We were coming home from the clinic and that little shit, may he rot, was waiting in the house. He opened the door, pulled Cassandra inside, and stabbed her with this.” She waved the bloody screwdriver for emphasis. “I need to call Gerome. Y'all hush.”
Maggie pulled her phone out of her pocket. As she dialed, I noticed her fingers were shaking. I put a hand on the leg closest to me. Maggie’s eyes held barely concealed panic.
I murmured, “It’ll be okay, Maggie. Gerome will know what to do.” Maggie's scratch covered hand gripped the handle of the screwdriver. She'd probably busted herself up breaking a window.
How had Calvin gotten in? It didn’t make any sense to me yet. Why would he even try to kill me now? As far as I knew there was still a police presence outside the compound, and Maggie had seen Calvin pull us across the threshold. What could Calvin have possibly gained by our death, and how would he have gotten away with it?
Maggie’s sharp tone as she spoke into her phone intruded on my ruminations.
“Gerome, life or death. Find a way to get in the Web right now and I’ll meet you there. No phones.” She hung up with finality to take deep breathes then closed her eyes as she presumably entered the Web.
James came back over to our side. I crossed our legs to make room. The entryway wasn’t large, and four people sitting on the floor pushed its limits. Our legs ached from being in the same position for so long.
His mussed hair had a leaf stuck in the thick strands, but I wasn’t up to picking it out at the moment. I watched his face waiting for him to spit out whatever it was he wanted to say, hoping it wouldn’t make me hate him.
James hesitated then pierced me with his intense green eyes.
“I’m glad he’s dead. You did what you had to do. I’m glad we were around to help you. I need to know, though, how did you kill Calvin? There isn’t a mark on him, and I couldn’t feel his after presence in the Web.”
I levered myself into a more comfortable position. “After presence?”
“When you die your soul leaves right away,” Kara put in. “Wherever it goes your mind lingers in the body for a short time before it settles in the Web with all of the other ancestral memories of your clan.”
Silver warned, “Honey, if we tell them we wiped Calvin away completely as if he never existed, we might become the boogeyman, not just to them, but to everyone who finds out. Every Weaver grows up with the assumption that their memories will live on with their family. If anyone knows what we can do…it might not be good.”
I thought back angrily. “It was an accident, Silver, and I won’t fault you for it. We aren’t the boogeyman, and they saw that he tried to kill us. No lying, not with the people we want to share a trust with.”
Now I was afraid of what they would think of us. Fear made me want to lash out, but I reined myself in, pulling the impulse into myself. If I was honest, I was afraid of what we had done to Calvin, and it was likely anyone who found out about it would be too.
When I focused back in the here and now, Kara was waving a hand in front of our eyes with a look of consternation on her face.
“I know you aren’t crazy, but you look it when ya’ll are chatting it up.”
It was somewhat surreal, sitting here talking to Kara as if there wasn’t a dead body sprawled out on the floor and I hadn’t survived a screwdriver attack.
“Um, okay, sorry. I promise to work on it, even though to be fair, I can’t see my face. Silver said there is no after presence because we burned him out. No clue as to how we did it either, so don’t ask. We don’t plan on a repeat performance.”
James snapped to attention. “Burned out? As in you burned his existence out of the Web?”
I raised my chin and straightened my shoulders. “I imagine his mother and sister will have their memories of him, but his memories won’t be there.”
Both the Lee siblings looked at each other with widened eyes as they paled then turned on me at the same time. I almost cried at their absolute horror.
Maggie snapped out of her Web session and started to speak. “Gerome will be here as soon as he can. Kara and James, go back to your house as if nothing happened. We’ll get you when we’ve got this squared away. Gerome and I don’t see any reason to implicate you. When Cora Harris and the Council get involved, it’s going to get messy.”
James and Kara still just sat there.
Maggie barked, “Snap out of it and get a move on!”
Kara jumped up and pulled on James’ shirt with a murmured, “C’mon.”
My heart felt stabbed again, and I wanted to throw up and cry at
the same time. James slid his fingers into mine with that familiar electric tingle to give a small squeeze before he rose to his feet. He let Kara pull him toward the now open door. I risked one glance as they left, but James already had his back turned.
Maggie patted my knee. “Can you get around, dear, or are you feeling too weak?”
I didn’t answer out loud because I didn’t trust my emotions not to show in my voice. I leaned forward bracing myself with my hands on the floor and unfolded my legs to stand. I swayed, and Maggie put out an arm for me to lean on. I got myself straight and waved her support away.
“Calvin doesn’t have an after presence, Maggie. Silver and I burned him out.” My voice sounded dead to my ears. We were worse than the Soul Eater could ever be.
Maggie gently grabbed my upper arms. “Look at me, honey.” When I complied, she continued to speak in a very deliberate slow fashion. “What you did was in self-defense and isn’t something you would ever do again on a whim. In a moment of panic, we all doubt the decisions we make, no matter what they are. You’re alive, and that little shit is dead. I also think you might be in shock, so I need you to come over to the table and sit.”
Maggie walked backward with her hands still on my upper arms all the way to the kitchen without a stumble. Once she had me settled in a chair, she bustled over to the refrigerator and poured a tall glass of orange juice which she set in front of me with the command, “Drink this.”
Maggie flipped on the overhead light. Shapes and colors danced across the table’s glossy finished surface. She pulled a chair over right in front of mine saying, “I need to examine your chest and check your heart rate, okay?”
I took a big gulp of the orange juice, forcing myself to swallow it down against the protest of our wallowing, nauseous stomach and sat up straight. I’d been doing my best not to look at the blood on my clothing. Maggie’s gentle hands, no longer shaking I noticed, unzipped my coat to reveal my ruined shirt. The skin was beginning to itch where it stuck with dried blood.
Chimera (The Weaver Series Book 1) Page 24
