[Sacrifice Me 08.0] Season Two: Part 2

by Sarra Cannon

  And I wasn’t ready to die.

  The Power Of His Love

  Franki

  I showered and walked around the small bedroom, thinking about what I’d learned in the last memory.

  The sapphire priestess had tricked the Mother Crow into thinking she could open her own gate, and whatever she’d put in that spell instead had started the major decay the Mother Crow was facing now.

  And yet, she was obviously still searching for the right magic to open that gate.

  The other major part of the memory was the Mother Crow’s reaction to Solomon’s power. She’d been so sure that his darkness would complement her own, but in the end, what she hadn’t been expecting was his pure love for my mother.

  I’d heard before that the reason she sent Solomon’s stone away was that his raw power had accelerated her decay when she’d tried to draw from it, but that hadn’t been the whole story. It wasn’t just his power that had damaged her.

  It was the power of his love. His light.

  I stood very still, letting that truth sink in for moment. I’d been so afraid of my father’s darkness that I’d never even considered the fact that he could be anything else.

  But wasn’t I the product of that love? Wasn’t it in my very DNA?

  No wonder the Mother Crow had been so determined to cast this soul-transference spell on me specifically. This was about more than simply wanting my body or my power.

  This was a personal vendetta for her. Proof that she was more powerful than the love that sought to destroy her.

  But if Solomon’s light had hurt her and almost destroyed her, I surely had the same kind of power running through my veins today.

  I replayed the memory in my mind, watching it like scenes from a movie. I focused on the part just before she’d managed to encase him in the stone.

  For a moment, his power had overcome her completely. It had burned her. Almost controlled her.

  She had felt compelled to walk away, and if she hadn’t been able to resist him, she would have obeyed him.

  Did I have that kind of power locked within myself?

  I walked over to the bed, preparing to start another meditation session, when the door clicked open and a woman I’d never seen before stepped inside.

  She was carrying the familiar wooden tray, but there was a sense of urgency in her movements as she closed the door behind her and set the tray on the table.

  “Franki, I’m so sorry I couldn’t come to you before,” she said, practically running into the bedroom.

  My mouth opened in shock.

  She’d called me Franki.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  Her hand fluttered to the stone embedded in my chest, and her eyes filled with tears.

  “Your mother’s going to kill me for allowing this to happen,” she said. “I swear, I didn’t know what the Mother Crow had planned for you. I would have done anything to prevent it, I promise you.”

  I stepped away from her, not knowing whether she was an angel sent to help me or another trickster sent to distract me from my purpose.

  “How do you know my mother?” I asked.

  “Mary Kathryn is my best and oldest friend,” she said. She smiled up at me, placing her hand on my cheek. “My name is Mary Krista. I had to pull a few strings to get stationed at your door tonight, but I don’t think anyone suspected I wanted to talk with you. I’ve had to do some terrible things to become one of the Mother’s Favored, but if I can help you now, it will have all been worth it.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t understand,” I said. “How could you possibly help me?”

  “I can help get you out of this place,” she said. “I know it isn’t much, since the stone is already in place and the transfer has begun, but I can get you away from here and back to your friends.”

  I swallowed and searched her eyes, looking for the lie. The betrayal I’d come to expect from anyone who offered a helping hand and asked nothing in return.

  Nothing was ever too good to be true. So what was she hiding?

  “You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t trust you,” I said. “I’m not about to walk into some kind of trap.”

  She laughed. “Gosh, you’re so much like your mother, it’s scary,” she said. “She’s stubborn, too, you know.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve never met her.”

  Sadness clouded her blue eyes. “I know, child,” she said. “But maybe there’s still time.”

  “You know where she is?”

  “She moves around a lot, just like we do these days, but she’s safe. We meet in secret every so often so I can tell her where we are,” she said. “I just saw her a few days ago, before you were taken. I have a way to leave messages for her, but she hasn’t been responding. It might be a few days before she’s able to get to the village and check on my message, but I’m hoping I can get word to her before…”

  Her voice trailed off, and she glanced at the stone again.

  “Do you know if there’s any way to stop the transfer?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “No. Once it’s begun, the only way to stop it is for the person who initiated the spell to cancel it herself,” she said. “And the Mother Crow will never do that.”

  I walked away, my hand trailing on the bedspread. I needed to think quickly. To decide if I could trust this woman or not.

  “Come, sit down with me and eat,” she said. “You’re going to need your strength.”

  Well, there was one way to find out if she was trustworthy or not. If she planned to harm me or help me. Though I didn’t much like the idea of possibly getting drugged again.

  “You’re right,” I said. “I’m starving.”

  “It’s an effect of the spell, I’m afraid,” she said. “It takes a lot of energy to transfer a soul to a new host. The Mother Crow has been eating a lot, too, but the decay of her body is getting worse.”

  “Well, that’s appetizing,” I mumbled.

  Mary Krista laughed. “Sorry,” she said. “What else would you like to talk about while you eat?”

  I sat down in my familiar spot on the floor near the tray, and she sat down on the couch.

  “Tell me about my mother,” I said.

  I picked at the chicken and vegetables on my plate, nervous to take a bite. I’d had enough of the Mother Crow’s memories for one day, and since it was dinner, I worried the evening dose might be the worst of all. Something to make me sleep for ten hours straight.

  “It’s okay to eat,” Mary Krista said. “I promise, there’s nothing in your food tonight. I made it myself.”

  She pulled a small vial of grey liquid out of her pocket.

  “This is what I’ve been instructed to put inside your food. A little drop on each thing and then pour the rest into your water,” she said. “They told me that sleeping helps you to absorb the Mother Crow’s energy. When you’re resisting her, the transfer takes longer.”

  “I knew it,” I whispered.

  “But I did not put this into your food, because I’m going to need you to be wide awake,” she said.

  “For what?” I asked, finally succumbing to the hunger and taking a bite of the chicken. It was delicious.

  “For getting you out of here,” she said. “The patterns of life here in the village are old and familiar, like rituals. We are all active during the day, but once the Mother Crow has gone to sleep, everyone settles in their houses to rest. By ten tonight, everyone should be sound asleep. They’re trusting me to keep an eye on you, and the only other guards have been placed at the village’s entrance to make sure you can’t leave if you manage to escape.”

  “And how are we supposed to get past them?” I asked between mouthfuls.

  “We don’t have to,” she said. “Beneath the altar in the center of the village, there’s a doorway. It can lead to any number of places, but I know how to shift the locations.”

  My eyes widened. “The shifting doorway,” I said. “There’s one in Peachv
ille. The woman who pretended to be my mother used it a few months ago to take me to a vampire’s castle for a ritual sacrifice.”

  She cringed. “Yes, the same type of doorway,” she said. “It was created by a fairy named Sabine.”

  “I know of her,” I said. Sabine had created Venom. “She seems to have her hand in a lot of things.”

  “She has no loyalties to any one group,” Mary Krista said. “Only to herself. The Mother Crow asked her for these doorways and for the magical ability to create these secret villages.”

  “And what did Sabine ask in return?”

  “I have no idea,” she said. “I never actually met the fairy myself. She put these doors in place long before I was born.”

  “And the Mother Crow now has the ability to spawn these villages anywhere at any time?” I asked.

  “It takes at least a month for the magic to regenerate,” she said. “So she wouldn’t be able to move us now. Not for another few weeks since we just recently settled here.”

  “That’s good to know, at least,” I said.

  “But you wanted to hear about your mother,” she said. “You eat. I’ll talk.”

  “Deal,” I said.

  “We were born just two weeks apart from one another, your mother and I,” she said. “Girls are such a blessing in this place, and there had been several boys born before us, so we were treated well. We were also both very talented from a young age. Inseparable in our lessons, though your mother was a bit more powerful than I ever was.”

  I smiled. It was nice to hear about her, even if I might never meet her.

  “We were both declared Favored Ones at the age of thirteen,” she said. “Back then, it felt like such an honor. Now, it feels like a curse.”

  “If you were so close, why did you stay when she left?” I asked.

  “Because I made a promise to your mother that if she was ever able to get out of this village, I would stay and keep an eye on things. Make sure the Mother Crow had no idea where to look. Warn her if the trackers got too close,” she said. “I owed her that much. I was the one who’d been ordered to take you from her arms shortly after you were born, and I was helpless to put a stop to the Mother Crow’s plans. I’ve never really forgiven myself for that.”

  “What could you have possibly done to stop it?” I said. “You can’t blame yourself for that. She would have killed you.”

  “Then maybe I should have given my life to help the two of you escape,” she said. “Knowing how it’s all turned out now, I wish I had. After your mother left, some suspicions fell on me, and I had to do things I regret to gain the Mother Crow’s trust again, but if I can help you now, I will be able to die in peace.”

  I pushed what was left of my vegetables around on the plate.

  I waited for the familiar grogginess to take over now that I’d eaten most of my food. I downed what was left of the water and sat for a long moment, paying attention to my body.

  But there was no fatigue. No pull toward sleep.

  She’d been telling me the truth.

  “There’s a book,” I said, finally, taking a leap of faith. “Mary Evelyn was telling me about it. The Mother Crow keeps it in her personal library. It’s a journal of some kind, I think, with many spells written inside. Mary Evelyn said the soul transfer spell is in there, and I want to find it. Maybe there’s more information about how to stop it. Do you know where the book is?”

  Her eyes widened. “I’m sure this spell is kept in the Mother Crow’s private journal. It’s where she writes down all of her more important spells, but it’s always kept in her bedroom,” she said. “No one is ever allowed inside her room. There are wards blocking anyone but the Mother Crow from entering, and if anyone else were to even touch that book, it would kill them in an instant.”

  I sighed, my hand touching the piece of stone that remained visible in my chest. “Well, sadly, that’s an advantage I have over the rest of you.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “I am becoming the Mother Crow,” I said. “Her memories, her power, it’s all twisting itself through my insides like a virus.”

  “Oh my God,” she said, bringing her hand to her mouth. “But Franki, going into her room is too dangerous. We need to get you out of here. Away from her. It might delay the transfer enough to give you time to find another way.”

  “Not before I get that book,” I said. “I need to know everything I can about the spell itself. I need to know how it’s cancelled. What words need to be said or what ritual needs to be performed.”

  “I don’t see how that’s going to help you,” she said.

  “You don’t need to see it,” I said. “You just need to help me get to it.”

  She chewed on her bottom lip and crossed her arms around her middle. She kept shaking her head, as if trying to talk herself out of allowing me to do this, but in the end, she finally looked up at me.

  “Then we need a better plan,” she said.

  The Hollow

  Rend

  I opened the door to the castle slowly, and only just enough to let us sneak through the cracks. I brought Connery inside with me, and Azure and Silas followed.

  We all reformed just inside the castle doors. The stairs leading down to the dungeons were just to our left, and I motioned for the others to follow me.

  The Hollows could not speak, but they could hear just fine. We had to be as silent as possible.

  We crept down the dark stone stairs with nothing but the light of a small torch on the wall to guide our steps. There were three levels of dungeons, and I had no idea where Mary Kathryn was being held.

  I stopped at the first landing and made a signal to Connery. He stepped toward the door, sniffing at the cracks between the floor and the wood. He shook his head, and we continued down to the second floor.

  This time, he nuzzled my hand and tapped nine times on the floor with his giant paw.

  Nine vampires. The others who had helped us defeat the Devil.

  I wished I could walk in and rescue all of them, but that would have to come another time.

  We were here for one person tonight, and I prayed we would find her downstairs. If not, we’d be making a trip to Raum’s personal castle, which would be a lot harder to infiltrate since none of us had ever been there before.

  Besides, Raum would likely be there, which would present an entirely different problem.

  I motioned for the group to continue to the final dungeon, and three floors down, Connery gave me the sign I’d been hoping for. A simple nod of his head.

  I’d expected to find at least one Hollow guarding the doors at each level, but there was no sign of them. I’d only been down here once before to the first level of cells, just for a few hours before my final ceremony to become a vampire. They’d held me here while they prepared the witches above, and I remembered it as well as if it had been a week ago rather than a century.

  If this third level was arranged like that one, I knew that just inside that doorway, there was a long hall full of cells. At least forty, though they were all empty when I’d been here.

  At the time, two Hollows had been stationed here at the door, while two more roamed inside, keeping watch on the cells. I remembered it, because it had seemed strange for them to keep watch on the entire dungeon when I was the only one in there. But it was more that they were mindless animals, repeating motions they’d been carrying out every day of their lives.

  But where were the two that were supposed to be stationed here?

  If we had to face at least four together inside, it would be a real challenge.

  “When we go in, Azure, I need you to block the doorway somehow,” I said. “Any magic will do. Just while we’re in the dungeons, I don’t want anyone to be able to get in or out until we let them. That way, we can avoid being overrun.”

  “I have just the thing,” she said, smiling.

  “Connery, what can you sense down here?” I asked. “The crow witch?”

&nbs
p; He nodded.

  “Any vampires?”

  He signaled a no, which brought some relief to my heart.

  “Hollows?” I asked.

  He tapped two times on the stone floor.

  “Two inside,” I said. “But what about the ones normally stationed at the doors? Shouldn’t there be at least one?”

  “The ones stationed at the doors make the rounds between the dungeons and the small cells just outside the ritual rooms,” Silas said. “It takes them about half an hour to make the full round, so it looks like we lucked out for timing. If we manage to get inside before they come back, they might never know we were here.”

  “Then let’s get in there,” I said, surprised to find that maybe I did still have a little luck left in my life. “Everyone ready?”

  I drew a gypsum bomb from my bag and watched as Azure and Silas did the same. Our weapons all still carried residue from the previous ones we’d used to coat the blades, and I hoped that would be enough.

  “Azure, seal that door as fast as possible,” I reminded her.

  She nodded, her eyes locked on the door and a new, green glow circling her hands.

  I took a deep breath to steady my heart and threw open the door. I rushed inside and nearly collided with the first Hollow.

  He removed his glasses before I had the chance to react, and he focused the black, empty sockets of his eyes on me, freezing my body in place and preventing me from shifting.

  Connery growled and leaped past me, tackling the Hollow and taking it to the ground. His teeth ripped through the Hollow’s arm, detaching its hand completely.

  With its gaze off of me, I had expected to regain motion, but I was still trapped in its magic. Silas pushed past me and slammed the glass bottle into the Hollow’s eyes. The gypsum potion leaked into the dark sockets, and the golem writhed in pain as its face disintegrated.

  The Hollow kicked at Connery, sending him flying with a whimper as he crashed into the bars of an empty cell. He stood and bared his teeth, leaping again toward the Hollow’s leg in revenge.