Toril lifted up the book, and recited the Wiccan incantation called When the Demon Leaves that meant Dana would be expelled from Beth’s body. Toril had placed a suggestion in Beth’s mind, ordering her to plunge the knife into Toril once Dana entered her body.
One curse, two, the bewitching of three.
When the demon leaves you, plunge the knife into me.
Maybe I’ll die, maybe I won’t
When the demon leaves you, its body I’ll smote.
Toril closed her eyes, stood over the table, and waited for Beth and her demon to react.
It would not be long now.
Demon Two:
Chapter 18
I found myself in unfamiliar surroundings. From the décor of the place, it certainly didn’t look like the headquarters of the infamous Wiccan Circle that would have appeared to have taken on some rather unsavoury students over the course of its existence.
It just looked like a normal house. A large one, that was for sure, but relatively normal in all other aspects.
Lunabelle placed a finger to her lips and ushered me through a number of corridors.
Finally, we came to a small room. Lunabelle waved her hand and a number of candles illuminated, giving the room a warm glow.
“I’m going to ask you some questions, child, and I want direct answers.”
Here’s the thing. I knew everything was pointing to this moment, the handing back of my Mirror. Yes. After all, it was mine, wasn’t it? Nan had bequeathed it to me. I only needed to know what to do with it once it was in my possession again. Maybe Lunabelle could answer that for me.
“Provided I can ask you one afterwards.”
“I cannot guarantee that, child.”
Maybe this was how my life was supposed to be, but that didn’t mean I had to like it.
“Fair enough. Fire away,” I said reluctantly.
“What did your Nan tell you about the Mirror of Souls?”
I could only answer it as I saw fit. “Practically nothing. I didn’t have it in my possession for that long before she died. She just said it collected souls, and that it would imprint itself on me. When she died, my markings hardened and solidified.”
“Did it ever occur to you that your Nan might be insane, or at the very least, senile?”
“No way.” That was true. Nan’s mind was as sharp as anything.
“Did you know that I knew your Nan?”
Oh now she’s got me. But it was impossible. The woman I was looking at could be forty, forty-five, and at a stretch, fifty. Lunabelle would need to be much older than that if she knew my Nan. Then the older-than-I-thought-witch hits me with another revelation.
“I knew her when she was a child.”
“Now that I find hard to believe.”
“Maria. That was her name. She was fascinated with demons, devils and witchcraft.”
That sounded harsh, and even if it were true, I felt I needed to defend the kind old lady. “Actually, my Nan was very spiritual.”
“I am not saying to the contrary, child. But it is this interest that brought her to Devil’s attention.”
“Do you believe in the Devil?”
“I believe in man’s power to destroy himself, and for that, no devil, or demon is required.”
She continued. “Now, Romilly, I want to know exactly what your Nan told you from beyond the grave. You know what I’m talking about. Your old wood cabin. The burned out CD player that in normal circumstances could not have made a sound. Yet your Nan communicated through it to speak with you. What did she say?”
I paused before answering, in part because I knew Lunabelle would not like to hear me repeat what Nan said, but also in part because I felt Lunabelle was just putting me through the motions. If she knew about the voice from the CD player, what did she need me for? She knew what it said!
“She said I must use the Mirror to break the Circle.”
Lunabelle sat quiet for a moment. I did not know what she was going to do next. Somehow I had to get the Mirror from her, back into my keep. We played the non-verbal face poker a while longer. I think even Lunabelle was surprised that I let her speak first. But then she dropped the bombshell, one even I wasn’t prepared for.
“I agree with her.”
“Why would you destroy something you have worked so hard to believe in?”
“I’m a witch, Romilly, not a fortune teller. I can’t see the future. I can cast spells. I can even predict with some accuracy what might happen, but I don’t visualise it, not in the way I would truly like to. But you can, can’t you? That’s your gift.”
Or a curse, I thought ruefully.
“Sometimes I can see it, but not as plainly as you’re suggesting, Luna.”
This was a problem. I had all but forgotten about the instructions from a broken CD player, After all, I thought I was going mad, and with good reason too. If a CD player started talking to you, wouldn’t you think you were crazy? I mean, actually there, in the town hall of Crazy Town, InsaneVille? Nuttyhampton?
“What I’m merely suggesting is that you need to tell me the truth, not a bastardised version of it. What did she say? I will not ask you again.”
I tried to remember. I really thought that was what she said; how I remembered it. Lunabelle was well ahead of me.
“She told you that it ends when you break the Circle. Isn’t that what she said? What do her words mean to you?”
Actually, that version made more sense. I knew that witches liked to impress a thought, a certain way of thinking on people. The wand was theatre, to some extent. A prop to literally bewitch and hypnotise us.
“I thought it meant that the Circle had to be destroyed. I didn’t understand it then, I am not sure I understand it now. I put it out of my head because Toril was my…”
I paused way too long, not just for Lunabelle, but for myself. What was Toril to me? What did she represent? A force for good or evil? Her actions suggested the latter. She was not so blindly following her cursed book. If the book told her to push me into a ball of flame, that’s what she would do. It’s what she had done.
“Toril is…Toril is…”
“A conundrum, my child. And like all difficult equations, there is a solution.”
“And what would that be?”
“Sometimes it rights itself. Other times, action has to be taken to wipe the problem away. Or to swish it, isn’t that what you non-Wiccan folk call us - wand wavers?”
I could not remember any situation where I had used the term wand waver.
“It sounds offensive. There probably isn’t any instance where I would use it.”
Lunabelle smiled, offering me the kind of expression that said you’re a nice girl, why are you involved in this mess?
“I was the one who fixed your injuries in the woods, I’m sure you know that now. I need to know what you’re planning to do with the Mirror. You know why I am asking too – you harbour a demon far worse than that Irish friend of yours. Dana would have killed your friend at any time before now if it so suited her. In a perverse manner of speaking, she must really like your friend.”
In that case, my demon must absolutely love me.
“I tried to remove the demon using the Mirror. Stupid, yes. But I thought it was the right thing to do at the time.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, child. The best of us make mistakes. Indeed, the ones who don’t make mistakes, don’t take risks, don’t challenge things…well, they never rise to anything special.”
“I really don’t want to be special, Luna. I would like this demon out of me. I would like the Mirror to be destroyed.”
“Let’s take your second point first. Why do you want the Mirror destroyed?”
There were many reasons why I wanted it out of my life. Demons could come through it, yet I could not banish my own to the void. If the odds were so weighted against the Mirror’s owner, why would she want to keep it? That’s the sort of question I should have asked Nan when she first gave it to
me.
“It represents everything that’s wrong with my life. I want it destroyed, and yet it was the last thing my Nan gave to me.”
“You have an emotional attachment to something that is destroying you?” asked Luna. “That doesn’t sound logical to me.”
“I don’t think the Mirror is about logic.” God, somewhere in Gorswood I could hear Toril preparing a Kill Romilly Now spell.
“You know, Romilly, I studied a version of the book Toril possesses. I went through each page, each line, each word, looking for meaning outside of a basic spell or foretelling. Only the One Witch could view three pages of the book that I myself could not. I am the most experienced witch in Gorswood, yes – even more than Tori-Suzanne Withers. Yet I was not privy to the book’s most secretive content. It has taken my entire life to understand that I would not be allowed to see what a young upstart like Toril might be permitted to view. It was our Bible. I could have destroyed that book at any time, but I did not know the consequences of that action. So I did not take it.”
“I believed my Nan wanted me to keep the Mirror until a great battle was over.” Yes, I believed it. Stop the Zerythra breaking through, keep evil at bay, all that good stuff. It was all working out well in that respect. But with the loss of Jacinta; Beth and myself now eating for two and not in the way a happy expectant mother would want. Then we had to contend with Toril going all rogue on us, just because a damned book told her to.
Was I so different? It was easy to criticise Toril, but the fact remained that I was doing the same, albeit with a different tool. My mind said one thing, Toril’s another, Beth was different again. How could we win if we remained so divided? What would we lose this time? I could cope with losing my mind. But once my body was gone, that was pretty much final, wasn’t it? I had to live. Just for a little while longer.
“You’re going to tell me something I’m not going to like, aren’t you?”
“You thought walking off into the night with Toril and Beth was mission complete, didn’t you?”
“I hoped.” There was no point arguing to the differ. It had been Toril’s idea to place the Mirror under a protective spell. How I rued that decision now.
“You can regret any decision you like. It doesn’t change anything. You think by worrying about the problem, it will go away.”
“I think I’ve done pretty good up until now.” I was so good now at convincing myself that my lies were in fact truth. The old girl, who looked little older than Toril’s mother, was having none of it.
“Fine,” said Lunabelle, placing her palms flat on the table. “I suppose with your thought process, I can stab you in your stomach and watch you stop the bleeding. Then again, you can ignore that it’s happening, and go on your merry way, can’t you?”
Lunabelle had patched me up for a reason. I didn’t think for a moment she was physically going to re-open that wound, but my head hurt like hell from her cryptic mind games.
“You want to know if I can be trusted. Well, I can tell you that I brought you here today to return your Mirror to you. You were in error to try and remove the demon yourself. I expect you didn’t know your own mind at that time, so I don’t blame you. But it must be removed from you before you get your Mirror back.”
Lunabelle explained to me what was going to happen. She was going to place the Mirror in full view and although she knew Belial would not go into it or be destroyed by it; she intended to use it to deflect the demon elsewhere.
I told her I would not do anything that resulted in her death. I had seen enough of that.
“Those that try to halt the march of death will find its arms most welcoming.”
Lunabelle was practised at giving cryptic statements, and sometimes, there was a justification for using them. But I did not like any of this – she would have to find something better than glib statements, and I felt that was one.
“You will have to do better than that, Luna. Tell me something I don’t know, that I should know.” I could hear her words in my head.
There isn’t time, child.
Make the time, otherwise I am leaving now.
There are those, here in the Circle, who will try to stop you. If you turn from me, I have no doubt they will succeed.
I will take my chances.
Lunabelle sat back in her chair, closed her eyes, clasped her fingers together and pressed them to her lips. Taking a huge intake of breath, she made good on my statement.
“Your Nan was a witch.”
Okay, so that was a good one. It didn’t mean it was true. I tried not to look surprised, but I could not have done my job too well, because Lunabelle’s often stern expression relaxed into a smile. Of all the things I thought she was going to say, that would have been bottom of the list.
“Ah, I think I’ve got your attention now. First, we will deal with our problem, you and I. Then I will tell you all you need to know, and perhaps some things you wished I had never told you.”
I didn’t know if Lunabelle was saying all this to preserve her own life. If Lunabelle was harmed, I would never know the truth or the lie behind her statement.
“I just hope,” I paused, trying to gauge her reaction, “that you are telling the truth.”
At the time, I didn’t know that just like Beth, I was insisting on another way. Fortunately Lunabelle was on song with me. It had to go somewhere. To someone else.
She extended her hand to me and asked me to take it. When I did so, I saw a man standing behind her, with a knife in his hand. I could not make out his face in the darkness. At first I thought it was Curie, but that didn’t seem right. In fact, I had never met this man before.
I felt something burning in my hand, but Lunabelle held on anyway. After a few moments, the burning sensation stopped. When she turned over my hand, I could see a name branded into it.
Her look told me not to say a word out loud, but to listen to her thoughts again, and pass her some of my own.
The man who is going to kill me is called Denzel.
Who is Denzel?
He is a member of the Circle.
A friend of yours?
Not exactly.
What do I need to know about him?
That he is as evil as your old sparring partner Curie. We must use your demon to stop him.
I’m to deflect the demon towards the Mirror, and he goes into this ‘Denzel’. What then?
Use your hands on him. All your emotions. Your love, your hate, your every passion. You’ll force the demon to return to his home. You can do it. You can send him there. Are you up for this?
Will this Denzel die?
He will.
You don’t seem disturbed by that.
Would it help if I was? I have known him for far longer than you’ve been alive. But you won’t comply if it’s me, will you?
I think you’re a force for good.
I am, child.
So that’s it then? He dies?
He dies.
I didn’t like it. Didn’t like any of it.
I’m not a killer, Luna.
You killed one of the zombie-girls, didn’t you? This is the same. A demon that must be destroyed. And Denzel will try to stop me. Your vision proved what will come to pass if you do not have the courage to act.
Okay. Okay then. I will just have to do this.
Lunabelle broke the contact with my malformed hand, and as she did so, the burn marks featuring the name of the man I was about to kill disappeared also.
“We have had a stay of execution, child. When we entered this room, I cast a spell that would throw Denzel off about our exact whereabouts. If you feel any compassion for him, remember that after he kills me, he will kill you, and your Toril, whatever she is to you, will have suffered at his hands for nothing.”
“I just can’t believe another member of the coven would want to kill you.”
“I am the only member of the coven to come into contact with that Mirror of yours,” said Lunabelle calmly. “Right now, I s
tand between Denzel and the Mirror.”
“But he can’t handle the Mirror,” I suggested.
“He doesn’t have to. His Master will not be far away, and he, I assure you, can handle it.”
She kept her gaze on me for the entire time. “I am about to remove the protection of the spell, child. Are you ready?”
I shrugged my shoulders. Lunabelle took it as a sign I was as ready as I was going to be.
***
I expected Denzel to make an entrance, crash through the door or something, but he appeared behind Lunabelle just as I imagined. His dark skin just about separated itself from the shadows behind him.
Dark Winter: Last Rites Page 26
