More awake, Gavin helped force the clasp open and fell to the ground in a heap. Salazar was still thrashing on the ground, but the effects from the verbena seemed to be wearing off. They didn’t have much time.
“Gavin, listen to me, we have to get out of here now.”
She hunched over and put one of her shoulders underneath his to help him stand. They had gone a few feet towards the door when Salazar lunged into the back of Arista’s legs. Without the extra support, Gavin toppled forward. Arista rolled over and struggled to free her legs from the grip of her attacker.
Salazar’s eyes were alight with fury and froth bubbled at the edges of his mouth in reaction to the verbena. Burn marks appeared on his cheeks where the flower’s poison had leached through, incinerating the inside of his mouth. He had one of Arista’s legs trapped in an iron grip between his hands. She kicked at his face with her other foot.
“Gavin, run! Get out of here!” she yelled as he stood unsteadily.
Ignoring Arista, he dove over her and slammed headfirst into Salazar. Gavin pried at Salazar’s arms and hands enough for Arista to wiggle her leg free. She pushed herself out of Salazar’s reach.
The blutjager turned his fury to Gavin, catching him off guard with a hit to his jaw. Gavin lost his balance and rammed his head into the wall. Arista cried out and sprung forward to stop Salazar. He whirled around, directing his fiery stare at her.
“You’ll pay for this. I don’t care what she wants,” he yelled as he ran forward. Something clattered in front of Arista's feet, but she kept staring into the dark oblivion of Salazar’s eyes. She braced herself for the inevitable impact of his body barreling into hers.
But it didn’t.
He stopped right in front of her, like an invisible wall had appeared in front of him. He angrily beat at the air, unable to break through to reach Arista. She stared in confusion until she remembered the noise she heard at her feet. She looked down to find two sticks crudely tied together with a hair ribbon to form a cross.
“Need some help?”
Arista turned to see the silhouettes of Kellen, Clarissa, and Valerie in the doorway. They all stepped into the room brandishing sharpened wooden stakes. Salazar snarled at them and turned instead to Gavin, who was with him on the other side of the cross.
“Gavin, watch out!” Arista yelled.
He was slowly standing where he had fallen into the wall. But Salazar was too fast. He grasped Gavin’s throat in his hand, squeezing with all his strength. Gavin struggled, but couldn’t break the grip of the blutjager. Salazar continued to squeeze as the unrelenting foam spilled from the sides of his mouth.
Valerie pushed her way in front of Arista, handing the mermaid her wooden stake. She held a hand out in front her and a burst of air blew forth, forcing the cross on the ground to fly into the side of Salazar’s face. He screamed and clawed at the cross as it seared into his flesh, releasing his hold on Gavin in the process.
Gavin stumbled past him and Arista ran to his side to help him walk. Kellen joined them to assist on the other side. Clarissa led everyone into the hallway and Valerie backed up into the doorway. She gestured behind her with an empty hand, keeping her eyes locked on Salazar. Clarissa shoved a lighter into her waiting grip. Valerie flicked the switch on the lighter, letting the open flame dance in front of her eyes. She took a deep breath and focused her power.
Salazar tore the cross away from his face. Between the scorch marks from the cross and the ever-deepening burns in his mouth from the verbena, his fury had rendered him speechless. He bellowed a deep guttural scream as he ran at Valerie. The witch blew a steady stream of air at the flickering flame on the open lighter. The air wrapped around the fire but instead of extinguishing them, the flames enlarged and spread across the air. The stream of fire enveloped Salazar in licking flames that crawled across his body like serpents. He wailed as the tongues tore into his flesh, ravaging his skin.
Valerie flipped the lid back on the lighter and pulled the door shut, locking it with a twist of magic. She urged the others down the hallway.
Clarissa stopped in front of the next door after hearing a faint noise. She hesitantly opened the door to find James still chained to the wall.
“Clarissa, thank goodness you’re here. You have to help me,” he pleaded, struggling against the chains.
She took a step forward, but Gavin’s hand on her arm stopped her.
“No,” Gavin said, his voice hoarse and raspy. “He was willing to trade yours and Arista’s life to save himself. Leave him.”
“Gavin, we can’t abandon him here,” she said, the uncertainty showing in her voice.
He shrugged in return. “Do what you want. But if it were reversed, he’d leave you to die.”
“We can’t allow ourselves to become evil just because he already has,” she said. “We don’t have to help him, but I won’t leave him chained to the wall with no chance of escape either.”
She tugged at the chains, but the clasp remained locked. Gavin turned with Arista and Valerie and walked back into the hallway. Kellen joined Clarissa and the two of them set James free.
He stumbled when he fell to the floor, moaning in agony. “Salazar has been torturing me. You must help me get out, Clarissa.”
He held out his arms for them to help him up, but Clarissa instead turned and pushed Kellen ahead of her to the door.
“Wait, where are you going?” James yelled, his panic rising.
Clarissa stopped, her back still towards him. “I said I wouldn’t leave you locked up. The rest is up to you.”
She continued walking into the hallway as James yelled after her.
“You can’t leave me here like this, you stupid bitch! Clarissa! Clarissa, get back here!”
Kellen wrapped his arm around her shoulders as they climbed the stairs to leave the building. The others waited outside, on the other side of the open door. Clarissa stopped in the doorway, holding Kellen back with her.
“Thank you, for helping me.”
“I understand,” he said. “I’ve done a lot of things wrong, and can only make up for that by doing what’s right.”
˜
{ Chapter 38 }
The group ran down the road and through the brush until they reached the car, still hidden away.
“Do you think Salazar’s dead?” Kellen asked as they paused to catch their breath.
“Let’s not wait to find out,” Valerie said, opening the door to the car.
“Even if he’s not dead, we may still have trouble,” Arista said as she took a deep breath. “He said some things about my mother.”
“He was probably lying,” Clarissa said.
“That’s what I thought at first, too, but he said things to me that he couldn’t possibly know. Things I haven’t said to anyone here, that no one else has ever heard.”
“It could still be a trick from when he was in your mind,” Valerie said.
“I don’t think so. It’s possible she may be helping him.”
Gavin frowned as he pulled a blanket out of the trunk to wrap around his torso. “What makes you say so?”
“There are a lot of things not adding up — between the stories I heard about my mother, and what Kyla told us about Salazar. We might still be in a great deal of danger,” Arista said.
“The Oracle did say there’s a bigger problem than Salazar,” Clarissa said, looking at Valerie.
“And that could be the case,” Valerie relented. “But we can’t do anything about it standing here. We have to go.”
“But go where?” Gavin asked.
“I guess back to my place to start,” Valerie answered. “We can regroup and rest there while we decide what to do next.”
Everyone agreed there wasn’t another option. They piled into the car and headed back to the cemetery.
…
James MacMahon panted as he collapsed at the top of the stairs leading out of the basement. Once he caught his breath, he continued crawling towards the open door
way. The last remaining rays of the setting sun streamed in and he wanted nothing more than to feel that light against his skin. When he had escaped his cell, the fire was blazing in the room next door with Salazar still inside. As he climbed the stairs, he heard the piercing howls.
He heard another loud yell as he rested at the top of the stairs and scrambled to his feet. Although his legs were not as wobbly, he still felt unsteady as he took his first steps. As James walked to the doorway, it filled with the shadow of someone silhouetted against the setting sun. He held up a hand to shade his eyes, but was unable to identify the person. As he hobbled forward another few steps, the shadow moved into the house.
It was a beautiful woman with long dark hair cascading in ripples down her back. Her blue eyes were so dark he mistook them at first for black. Her silky green dress whispered against the ground as she advanced towards him. He saw the white scar running down her face and across her shoulder.
“Will you help me?” he asked taking a step towards her.
Her smile filled him with icy dread as the hair on the back of his neck rose to its ends. She casually lifted her arm and brushed his cheek with the soft backside of her hand. He didn’t notice the ring on her hand affixing a small knife across the top of her finger, its sharp point cresting over the edge of her nail.
He didn’t notice until the blade had punctured his throat.
…
The woman glided past the fallen body on the floor, paying it no heed as blood pooled around its head and neck. She walked with delicate steps down the stairs, careful not to trip on the long hem of her dress. The lights flickered, losing power for a brief moment as she walked past. The woman stopped in front of the room where Salazar remained trapped. The flames had reached the wooden door and were starting to creep into the hallway.
The woman sighed as she eyed the burning wood. She closed her eyes, directing her hand towards the door. The moisture from the air gathered around her, developing into a fine mist. Her mind pushed the mist into the door, soaking the wood. When the flames closest to her had died down, she pushed open the creaking door. Fires still burned around the room and a large mass of flesh and fabric huddled on the floor. Salazar had managed to roll over and extinguish most of the flames from his body.
She stood in front of him, tapping her toe against the stone floor. She held her hands over him and shut her eyes once more. A deluge of water, lasting only a split second, poured forth from the air and onto the huddled mass. Smoke billowed off the smoldering pile and the woman gingerly kicked at the pile with the edge of her shoe.
It rolled over enough for her to see Salazar’s face. She bent over and held her finger a few inches from his face, releasing a bolt of stinging magic into his forehead. The blutjager’s eyes shot open and he stared wildly around the room as he regained his bearings. They opened wide with fear once they settled on the woman standing in front of him.
“Mistress, I…”
“Silence.” The commanding tone left him speechless with terror. “You let them escape. You had everything I needed, right here in this very room. All you had to do was hold them until I arrived. And you let them get away.”
“It’s your daughter,” Salazar said, the rage returning to his eyes. “She’s causing too much trouble.”
Ciara Tidehli ran her hands through her hair as her own eyes flooded with anger. “Not so much for you to act this incompetent. She’s a child. Neither of us will get what we want if we don’t have her blood. You get one more chance.”
Ciara bent down and released a more powerful burst of magic into his flesh, reigniting his inflamed wounds. A blinding white light filled Salazar’s vision as the pain overwhelmed him. When he finished shrieking, she turned his face towards him to peer into his eyes with a cold stare.
“You have one more chance. If you fail again… well, being set on fire will be considered a treat.”
˜
{ Chapter 39 }
The group assembled at the kitchen table in Valerie’s home. Clarissa and Arista bandaged Gavin’s wounds, while Valerie and Kellen scavenged through the cabinets for food. Clarissa wrapped the loose end of a gauze strip around Gavin’s forearm, focusing on the task to control her anxiety. She had never seen anyone with injuries this serious.
Valerie and Kellen found enough ingredients for a hearty soup, so they all took a break to eat. The room fell silent as they ate their fill. Gavin was the first to push back his dish and look around the table.
“Before we decide what’s next, I think we need to be on the same page.”
Valerie carried dishes to the sink before jumping to sit in her favorite spot on top of the counter, leaning against the uppermost cabinets.
“I guess I’ll start,” she said. “Clarissa and I met with the Oracle.”
As soon as the word Oracle crossed Valerie’s lips, an involuntary shiver ran up Clarissa’s arm, across her back, and down the other arm. She felt sick to her stomach when the Oracle touched her and that nausea had yet to dissipate. She pushed the feeling to the back of her mind to keep listening to Valerie.
“The Oracle explained what most of us now know. Salazar is a blutjager, a rare vampire-mermaid hybrid created by the Ahnenerbe to aid the Nazis in World War II. That’s how he hunts magical creatures. However, the problem goes beyond his hunting of Arista. The Oracle says all magic is poised on the brink of destruction and the ultimate threat is not Salazar himself, but something bigger.”
Valerie caught Clarissa’s eye and indicated for her to continue.
“The Oracle says we are all needed to protect magic. To do so, there are certain events that must occur. She enhanced my gift so I’ll know when we’ve crossed those thresholds.” Clarissa paused to glance at Kellen. “We already reached the first one when Kellen betrayed Arista and attempted to turn her over to Salazar.”
Gavin was quiet as he listened to the new information. He reached over to hold Arista’s hand.
“Do we know what the other events are?”
Clarissa hesitated before answering, unsure of how much to say. “I know there are four. The Oracle said there’s one meant for each of us.”
Gavin frowned. “There are five of us here.”
“I’m already on my own path,” Valerie said, lowering her eyes. “This was my second visit to the Oracle.”
“That’s how you increased your power,” Gavin said, lost in thought. “Salazar wanted to know what you did.”
Clarissa shot an anxious look at Valerie, worried Gavin would ask more about her previous visit to the Oracle. Valerie seemed to think the same as she inadvertently let her hand drift up near her heart. But he turned his attention back to Arista.
“When we were leaving, you said your mother could be involved?”
She nodded, unable to hide the pained expression on her face. “Salazar, he knew her name. He knew why I had been drawn to the surface. I never told anyone about that. For the last several months, I dreamt about my mother. She always appeared terrified and begged me to find her, to save her. I went so long without thinking about her, I believed it had to mean something — that she might actually need my help.”
“It’s possible he captured her. He would have been drawn to her magic like he was to yours,” Valerie said.
Arista nodded, still not convinced. “He said my mother is dead, but Ciara Tidehli is still alive. I don’t know what that means. And, Gavin, remember how Kyla thought Salazar wasn’t working alone? I have a horrible feeling they may be connected.” She looked at Kellen. “You may have been right about her.”
“You couldn’t have known all this,” he said.
“Let’s say for argument’s sake that’s all true,” Valerie said. “What could she gain from working with Salazar?”
“In the years after my father died, she became withdrawn and detached. She eventually went back to the ocean by herself. It was rumored she was purposefully killing people to get revenge for my father’s death,” Arista explained.
; “Which I’d understand if Salazar were a vampire,” Valerie continued. “I mean, in theory, he still eats people and can help her kill them. Why not partner up with any old vampire running the streets then? Why would she go through the trouble to find one of the few remaining blutjagers ?”
Everyone sat considering this for a few minutes, but no one had a theory to connect the pieces.
“Salazar mentioned your mother to me, too. He said you and I have something in common with our mothers keeping secrets,” Gavin paused to look at Valerie. “Was Mom a witch?”
His sister slid off the countertop, visibly shocked by the question. “Gavin, I’m sorry. She… she didn’t want you to know.”
“But you knew?”
“I did. She told me not too long before they died.”
Clarissa watched Gavin closely, her heart breaking for him. She knew how hard it was for him to hear this, that his family was so intertwined with the supernatural powers he dismissed in the past.
“There’s something else,” Valerie said. “Mom, she knew that she and Dad would die on that boat. Someone killed them.”
Gavin stood, struggling to keep his emotions in check. He walked to the wall on the other side of the room, turning his back to the group.
“How could you keep this to yourself?” he asked angrily, still refusing to face his sister.
“Because it should have been you,” she said, her eyes brimming with tears. “You were supposed to die, not them. And I hated you for it.”
Gavin slowly turned from the wall, the stunned expression on his face giving way to grief.
“Val… Val, I’m sorry,” he said as he embraced his crying sister in his arms.
The knot in Clarissa’s stomach tightened as she watched the Payne siblings together. For so long she had kept the secret to herself, that she knew the truth of what would happen that day. She knew Gavin was supposed to die, and she would have died right beside him if they had gone on the boat. She convinced him to leave with her that day, but not to protect him. As hard as it was to admit, it was really to save herself.
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