by Rue Volley
His heart ached as he stared at her mouth.
“You want me,” she whispered.
He cleared his throat.
“No,” he said.
She grinned and took a step towards him. He took one step back. She stopped and held her hand out. He looked at her skin, soft and pale. He fought the urge to grab it and place it his lips, just to taste her… to feel her on his skin.
“Oh but you do,” she whispered.
Her whisper lingered in his ears like an echo. He shook his head and steadied himself.
“You are not real,” he said.
“Oh, but I am… you should know that, Josh. You created me when you threw me away like trash,” she said.
Josh blinked and looked into her eyes.
“I did not… throw Rue away. I did the only thing I could have… She would have died otherwise.”
The girl shook her head at him slowly.
“You lie,” she said.
“No… no,” Josh whispered.
“You only think of yourself; you always have… It is you that you love most,” the girl said to him.
Josh stumbled as her words tore at him.
“No… I do not. I love her,” he said.
The girl took a step towards him and reached out to his face.
“This is your chance, Joshua Barrington, to be what you were meant to be, The Lord of Valon. Take this chance to redeem yourself. Stop tearing at your soul… fighting it,” she whispered to him.
One blade started to slip from his hand.
He tried to focus on her but his vision continued to blur.
“You are the blood and light of Valon,” she said as she reached towards his face.
He closed his eyes and took a breath, it tasted sweet like honey. The girl’s eyes rolled to black and she grinned as her fingertips almost reached his face. She suddenly cried out and grabbed at her back. Caine stood there with a blade in his hand, dripping with her blood.
“Leave you demon,” he yelled at her as he held his hand to his neck.
Josh stumbled backward and fell. He looked up as she started to glitch… like static. She cried out and looked at him as she faded from sight. Caine stood there and swayed. He fell to his side and Josh crawled to him. He leaned over him and looked at the blood flowing from his neck.
“Leave me,” Caine said.
Josh sighed and held his hand to his neck. Caine hissed as a light started to glow from Josh’s palm. The gash on his neck started to heal and Josh sucked in his breath as he broke the healing connection and fell backward, rubbing his hand. Caine sat up and looked at him.
“You healed me,” he muttered.
Josh shook his head.
“Trust me, I am just as shocked as you are, you asshole,” he muttered.
Caine shook his head and pushed himself up. Josh looked up at him and Caine reached out his hand. Josh took it after he paused… thinking maybe Caine would stab him too. Caine pulled him up and Josh clinched his fists.
“Why?” Caine asked him.
“Well, my sidekick back there is really no use to me… You, on the other hand, are real,” Josh said.
“Understood,” Caine said.
“So what the hell was that?” Josh asked him.
Caine looked up at the sky and then to the ground.
He picked up a dead blue butterfly and stared at it.
“It was Rue,” he whispered.
Josh shook his head at him.
“No way… no way was that her.”
Caine let the butterfly drop to the ground and grinned at him.
“That was a part of her… a dormant part, which you seemed to unleash.”
Josh sighed and looked at the butterfly on the ground.
“No way,” He muttered.
“Oh, but we all do… have that part of us that is pure destruction,” he said.
Josh looked at him.
“I don’t believe that.”
Caine laughed.
“So positive! I did not expect that from you. There are many things that you do not understand about our race, Joshua. It is one of many secrets that we harbor.”
Josh stared at him and decided to stop talking. He did not want to believe that something so terrible could live in himself, or in Rue especially. It tore at his heart that he could have been the reason that Rue would have unleashed such a demon. He looked at the last blue butterfly flutter on the ground and then stop moving, taking its last breath.
“We have to get out of here,” he muttered as he turned and started to walk towards the forest.
Caine watched him walk away and touched his neck.
“Only one of us will,” he whispered to himself.
Chapter 9
Colors That Bleed Into One
Theodore lay there motionless. Sam felt his face and looked back as Johnathan scrambled to his feet and ran to her side.
“Oh shit, Sam,” he said in a low tone.
Sam held Theodore’s hand and talked to him in Latin. Theodore did not respond to her. Johnathan glanced back at Brooke as she sat on the floor staring at her hands. She had them held out in front of her, ‘Oooing’ and ‘Ahhhing’ like they glowed. Johnathan looked back at Theodore and watched as color started to seep from his skin onto the floor. Sam rocked back and forth and Johnathan started to panic.
“What do we do, Sam… tell me,” Johnathan said to her.
She looked up at him and the strangest thing was happening; Sam was crying. Not a crazy cry, all girlie and out of control, but a silent one. The worst kind of cry you could witness.
“Sam,” Johnathan whispered to her.
Kai leaned down and touched her arm.
He tried to pull her up to him, but she pulled her arm away and screamed at him.
“Don’t touch me!” Sam cried out.
Kai stepped back with a painful look on his face. He looked at Johnathan, and Johnathan felt sorry for him. Kai looked like all the joy had been sucked out of him at once. Johnathan leaned down and touched her shoulder.
“Seriously, Sam… tell me, anything… I will do it,” Johnathan whispered to her.
Sam stood up and clinched her fists. She looked around the room and found what she was looking for. She flashed to piece of the mirror and picked it up. She raised her wrist and stared at it.
“What are you doing?” Kai asked her as he took one step towards her.
She gripped the mirror in her hand and continued to cry.
Suddenly Jonah flashed into the room and quickly assessed the situation at hand. He flashed to Sam, grabbed the sliver of mirror from her hand, and flashed to Theodore. He stood there staring down at him.
“Well, this is just perfect,” he said as he shook his head.
Jonah looked back at Sam and shook his head at her.
“What were you going to do, love, kill yourself to save him?” he asked her.
She threw her arms up.
“You know as well as I do that being stabbed in the chest with a portal mirror will kill us, Jonah… What do you expect me to do?” she yelled at him.
“I would hope that you would let me show you a trick and stop being so dramatic… I may be a degenerate, but I can help here. Now would you like to help, or just carry on this ‘death wish’ that you and all your siblings seem to have?” he asked her.
Sam sniffled and wiped her face. She took a breath and nodded to him. She really had nothing to say to that, because for the most part, it was true. Jonah sighed and looked at Theodore as he tilted his head. He leaned down and touched the seeping color, pooling around him.
“What a mess,” he muttered.
Sam flashed up behind him and looked down.
“What do we do?” she asked him.
“First of all, I need for all of you to not interfere… this is not going to be pleasant, but I assure you that the outcome will be fantastic.” Jonah said to all of them.
He glanced over at Brooke as she ‘Lalala’d’. He grinned and looked at S
am.
“Can I borrow her?” he asked.
Johnathan stepped back, in between Brooke and Jonah, and shook his head.
“Absolutely not,” Johnathan said.
Jonah grinned at him.
“Okay… It would be easier if I could snatch up a human, but if she is that important to you, then I will have to make it work.”
Johnathan sighed and looked down at Brooke.
She grinned up at him and waved her finger.
“You are so pretty,” she said.
Johnathan rubbed his neck and cleared his throat as he looked back and everyone was staring at him.
“What?” he asked as he held his hands out to them. “She drank my blood before we went through the mirror. Okay?”
“Oh, okay,” Jonah said as he grinned.
Theodore moaned and Sam touched his face. She grabbed at her chest and hissed.
“Jonah… please,” Sam said to him.
Jonah looked at Theodore and shook his head.
“You will be the death of me,” he whispered.
Jonah looked at Sam.
“Tell me that you have chalk, love.”
Sam nodded as she stood up quickly and started searching her pockets.
She found it and pulled it out. Her hand was trembling.
Jonah wrapped his hand around hers and smiled.
“Give it to me, Sam… Trust me, Theodore will not be fading into memory this eve.”
Sam let the chalk go and looked back at Kai. Her face softened.
He smiled at her with his lips closed. Sam looked down at Theo and shook her head.
“I don’t know why he just stood there; he knows better,” she said.
“Well, perhaps he thought someone else was coming through the mirror.”
“Yea, he expected Rue…” Johnathan said.
Jonah gripped the chalk in his hand and leaned down quickly. He started to draw symbols all around Theodore. He finished the last one and stood up, admiring his work.
Sam tilted her head and looked at the symbols he had had drawn.
“What are those?” she asked him.
Jonah tossed the chalk aside and held his hands out in front of him.
“I would suggest that you all move back a tad,” Jonah said as he held his hands out in front of him and started to chant.
Wind started to pick up in the room and Johnathan looked at Brooke. She smiled as her hair whipped around her face. He picked her up and stepped back with her in his arms. She reached around the back of him and grabbed his butt. He “Ohhh’d” loud and Kai looked at him and shook his head.
“Dog,” he yelled as he smiled.
Johnathan shook his head.
“She drank my blood, dude!”
“Uh huh,” Kai yelled back to him as he nodded his head.
Johnathan looked down at Brooke and shook his head at her. She winked at him and he sighed.
Jonah stood there and his hair whipped around his head. His face looked strained. A ball of light started to form in between his hands. It snaked out as he tried to control it. Sam stood her ground, ready to cut herself and feed her light to Theodore if this did not work. She looked down as Jonah’s light started to creep towards Theodore. All the symbols around him started to glow and then slowly pulsate.
Jonah slowed his breathing and closed his eyes. The light snaked its way around the mirror protruding from Theodore’s chest. Theodore started to shake his head back and forth and then he cried out as the light pierced the mirror and started to pull it out of him. Theodore rose from the floor with it at first, but Jonah started to chant louder and the mirror was suddenly jerked from his chest quickly. Theodore was raised up about two feet and then slammed back to the floor. His arms stretched out and he cried out again in Latin.
Sam leaned forward and Jonah stopped chanting and looked at her. His eyes were swirling black, like death itself. She froze as he shook his head and looked back at Theodore. The light, leaving Jonah, wrapped itself around his body and started to pull him up. It raised Theodore off of the ground and held him above them. Sam held her hair back as she watched him start to moan, shaking his head violently.
“You are killing him!” she screamed at Jonah as she grabbed her chest and took a breath.
Jonah pulled his hands apart and two long snakes of light left him, piercing Theodore in the chest. Theodore threw his head back and cried out as his body trembled. The light started to pierce him over and over until it looked like a blurred circle, running through his body. Theodore thrashed his arms and legs. Suddenly the snaked light stopped and a burst of light blew from Theodore like the sun. Everyone shielded themselves from the blast of light except for Jonah. Jonah stood there with his arms wide as the light entered his mouth and he bent back from the force of it.
Theodore dropped to the floor on his side and Jonah fell to his knees. He leaned forward and held his stomach as a terrible rumbling came from it. He held his mouth and pounded his fist on the floor. Theodore rolled onto his back and took a deep breath. He looked at Jonah and blinked a couple of times. Jonah finally relaxed his hand and took it from his mouth. He shook his head and pushed himself up from the floor. He shook out his hands and then tilted his head as Theodore started to sit up, rubbing his shoulder.
“Theodore!” Sam cried out as she scrambled to him.
She hit him from the side and they both fell over.
Theodore laughed and she hugged him so hard he had to push her back to catch his breath.
“Samantha Barrington… so unlike you,” Theo whispered.
Sam stared at him with tears rolling down her face. Theodore tilted his head and touched her face, letting the warm tears run onto his fingers. He shook his head and pulled her to him. He rocked her as she held onto him.
Theo looked up at Jonah and grinned.
“It would seem that you have some secrets to share,” he said.
Jonah bowed to him and cleared his throat.
He held his stomach and waved his hand out to him.
“I would love to stay and be praised for my heroics, but I will have to excuse myself. I ate something that simply does not agree with me.”
Johnathan patted him on the back and Jonah held his mouth and shook his head at him.
“You so rock, Jonah… I swear to god!” Johnathan said to him as he continued to pat on his back.
Jonah shook his head at him.
“Please, I am feeling a little nauseous… If you don’t mind, I need not be jostled.”
Kai ‘ whoo hoo’d’ and ran up to him, picking him up and swinging him around.
Jonah shook his head and pushed on him.
“I do not know how to make it more clear,” he muttered.
Kai let him go and looked at Sam and Theo sitting on the floor.
“Dude… you were so knocking on heaven’s door!”
Theodore laughed.
“Well, I do not think that God would have allowed me in so easily.”
Kai laughed and leaned down with his famous fist bump. Theodore awkwardly raised his hand and clinched it shut. Kai gave him the bump and Theo blinked and shook his hand out.
“A bit rough, don’t you think?” he asked him.
Kai laughed and helped Sam up to her feet.
Sam touched his face and stared into his eyes.
“No biggie,” Kai whispered to her.
She hugged him and looked back at Jonah.
“So what was that?” she asked him.
Jonah smiled. “Family secret,” Jonah said to her.
“Well, it was the shit, Jonah… I don’t know what you did… but it was THE shit,” Sam said as she touched his face and grinned.
“The shit it was,” Jonah said as the room laughed.
Jonah held out his hand to Theodore and he took it; Jonah pulled him up. Theodore stood there and held his hand in his, not knowing the right words to say. Sam looked at Kai and Johnathan and raised her eyebrows.
“Let’s go,” she said.
Kai nodded and Johnathan looked at Brooke. She lay on her side staring at her shoe. She had taken it off and obviously needed to inspect it. Johnathan leaned down to her and took it. She looked up at him and frowned.
“It has a scuff,” she said to him.
He smiled and scooped her up. He turned to Theodore and he grinned.
“She will be fine… Take her home and I will whip something up for her,” Theo said.
Johnathan smiled and flashed out with her in his arms. Sam grabbed Kai’s hand and pulled him along. She leaned over to him and whispered. He laughed and looked back at Theodore and Jonah.
“You coming?”
“Momentarily,” Theodore said as he looked at Jonah.
Everyone left the library and Theodore stood there staring at Jonah.
“I would say thank you, but I fear it would not be enough,” Theodore said to him.
Jonah grinned and then grimaced as he leaned over and gripped at his stomach.
Theodore leaned over too and stared at him.
“Jonah… what can I do?” he asked him.
Jonah shook his head and took a breath. He grabbed Theodore’s arm and pulled himself up.
“I would ask that you assist me back to the house.”
Theodore looked at him and tilted his head.
“Jonah, what spell did you weave?” he asked him.
Jonah sighed. “Theodore, I have lived a long time.”
Theodore touched his face and then pulled his hand from his face quickly.
He clinched his fist and his heart started to beat faster.
“Jonah… you feel…”
Jonah interrupted him. “Like death?” he asked him.
“Yes,” Theodore said in a whisper.
“It would seem that I have eaten yours,” Jonah said as he tried to grin.
He started to sway a little.
Theodore grabbed his arm and put it over his shoulder.
“I will find a way to remedy this. I assure you, Jonah… I can find...”
Jonah laughed a little.
“You will find that it is a road with no end,” Jonah said to him.
Theodore sucked in his breath and shook his head at him. He started to walk towards the door.
“You are a foolish boy, Jonah… I would of rather you let me fade to memory.”
