by Jaymin Eve
I knew exactly where I was.
Outside the large bay windows was an expanse of green meadow I had played in hundreds of times as a child. I was at my gran’s house, where I had been heading when I was kidnapped.
Trevor was solemn as he tilted his head back to face me. “Don’t bother to call for help, the entire house is magically sealed. No sound in or out. No magical powers in or out. This is a dead zone.”
The two men moved fast through the house. Everything was open and well-lit, Gran’s polished timber floors shining brightly, skylights and windows letting in all the natural sunlight. She had new curtains, with bright purple roses patterned across them. It was the complete opposite of my dungeon in the basement. Hell, with a slice of heaven above.
I was trying not to think too hard on where they were possibly leading me. Or where my grandparents might be. Had Trevor hurt them too?
I briefly considered breaking my mute standoff. Maybe I could goad Trevor into doing something stupid, or giving me some information, but every time I opened my mouth nothing came out. Part of me knew that if I made even a single noise, I would just start screaming and never stop again. The rage and pain and hurt inside of me was a real thing, dark and stormy, just waiting for an outlet. The darkness grew in my mind again, and I tried to calm down. I sensed that if that pit of murky tendrils got out of control, I would lose something very important. Like myself.
My eyes were fluttering like crazy as the light burned them. Weak and tired, I wouldn’t last much longer in this state, but I also couldn’t give up. Not now that I knew my family might be in trouble.
The hallway wound through the lovely home. I’d imagined living here one day … after I’d finally given up on the dream of the log cabin by the Stratford forest.
The Compass cabin.
Tyson and I could just never get our timing right, and now I had no hope for a future with him. No hope in general. Just a burning desire to enact revenge and figure out what had happened to my family. This was what kept me fighting.
They dragged me to the sun room at the back of the house. There were two people standing against the windows, sunlight streaming in across them.
I had more than one question answered in that moment.
A scream built up in my throat and it took everything inside of me not to let it loose. God, no! I suddenly knew exactly what this new form of torture was going to entail, and frankly I would not survive it. My mom’s gaze met mine from across the room. Joy Carter was magically bound across her wrists and ankles, her beautiful icy blue eyes locked on me, large and shiny, the way they looked when she was about to cry. My lips trembled and my body shook as I strained to get to her.
Behind her was my gran. My father’s mother. Yeah, she was not in trouble at all. She had set this entire thing up. Fury rocked through me, greater than I had ever felt in my life as I glared at her, fighting against SOB.
I should have known. It had been a cryptic call from my grandmother – something about important family news – that had made me run from Stratford. I’d been ordered to come straight home as it was a life and death situation. I’d jumped on the first flight, and before I even made it out of the private supe airport, I was ambushed, hit with stunning magic of some kind, and the next thing I knew I was waking up in my torture chamber. I thought this was all on my cousin, that he’d lost his mind thinking I had some special magic in me.
I was wrong. Trevor was the lackey. Gran was the instigator.
She stepped forward, dragging my mother with her. “Hello there, Grace.”
She sounded like Gran, a cold, deadly version. Her dark eyes did not twinkle as they had when I was young. They were lethal and predatory.
“Grace!” she repeated.
There was something slimy about the way she said my name, so many dark and shadowy undertones. It was like staring into the face of the devil and knowing they were here for you, to punish you. She took a step closer, a smile brushing up the corners of her cheeks. She was old, even for a supe, so there were fine lines and grey hairs starting to show. “Are you ready to help us, Grace? You’re an adult now. Your energy is beginning to wake.”
God, I wished she’d stop saying my name. Every time, a chill ran down my spine. I didn’t reply. My eyes were locked on my mother, who looked frantic. She opened and closed her mouth, but since no sound emerged, they must have silenced her. Somehow Gran was getting around the magic blocker.
“I will give you one last chance,” Evil Gran said. “One last chance to be part of a revolution. You hold the key to a lot of power. To Faerie. You can choose a side, dark or light.”
My head swiveled in her direction, and SOB’s arms tightened around me – I’d half-forgotten he still held me. This was the first time she had mentioned Faerie, which would have been a huge information breakthrough, except I still had no idea what she was talking about. How could a dying world, one that had a mass evacuation of supes from it many years ago, hold anything she wanted? And what the hell did it have to do with me? Dark and light? Uh, that was a no-brainer.
Those thoughts fled my mind as Gran let out a chuckle, a deep rasp of breath that gave me those same chilling sensations. She was about to make both mine and my mom’s lives hell.
“You’ve left me no choice, Grace. If your father was here, he would agree with what I’m about to do.”
Where is my father? Grandpa? I wanted to shout at her, ask all the questions, but there was no time. Swiftly, she held a knife against my mother’s cheek. I struggled harder, fighting the brute holding me captive. Silent screams racked my body, my voice refusing to emerge even though there was so much pain inside of me that it would eventually have to go somewhere.
Darkness burst across the back of my eyes, like ink running in rivulets through my mind and into my blood, as the ruin-carved-blade slid into my mom’s flesh without any resistance. I could do nothing but fight and stare while my gran carved an intricate path of destruction across her cheeks. Red bloomed bright against the golden sheen of skin, dripping down to spatter across the tiled floor.
“You can stop this, Grace. All you have to do is give me what I want.”
“She refuses to speak. I don’t think she knows how to give it to you, Gran.”
Trevor seemed frustrated, his words short and clipped. But he did have one thing right. I had absolutely no idea what she wanted from me. If it was in my power to give her anything, I would, to save my mother.
Gran took a step closer to me. I recoiled as far as I could, slamming my head into SOB’s chest. The energy she was rocking vibrated against my own and lifted all the hairs on my body. The deadening spell on this house was doing nothing to hide her darkness, and the darkness that had been within me for weeks now wasn’t worried about evil-Gran. If anything, it seemed to like her.
“Grace just needs a little visual encouragement,” Gran said to Trevor. “The power is within her. We know this to be true. Those ice bastards might have figured out how to hide it, how to banish us, but they couldn’t get rid of it altogether. So now all we have to do is figure out the key to unlocking it.”
I really wished crazy people would stay at home, keep their insanity to themselves, and not bother the rest of us. Be great if they didn’t breed also, but since I wouldn’t be here without her, I might have to shelve that wish.
When she was done monologuing, Gran went back across the room and proceeded to slice the other side of my mother’s face. I hung limply across the arms of my captor, completely spent of all energy. Well, almost all. The darkness inside of me, swirling hot and stormy, filling me, infiltrating every part of my essence, felt scary, untamed, and completely out of my control.
Unable to look away any longer, I met my mother’s eyes again, hoping she knew how sorry I was that this was happening to her. The moment our gazes clashed, she smiled. I had seen that look many times in my life and I knew exactly what she would say to me if she could talk.
This was not my fault.
I w
ished I could believe that.
She trembled as more deep cuts were swirled across her skin, Gran grinning as she slipped the knife lower and lower, grazing her jugular, moving down her collarbone. My energy pulsed, the shadows dancing. Each press of the knife could be my mom’s last. Even if we hadn’t been in this magical dead zone, those wounds would take a long time to heal. I recognized the blade; it was from our family treasury, forged by fey blood in the land of Faerie. It was rumored to be able to kill any magical creature.
My body started to heat and pulse in time to whatever magic remained inside of me. The darkness that had been building within me was also renewing my witch energy.
Making a split-second decision, I struck out at SOB, who had let his guard down. Two hits into his carotid artery and I was able to slip free, tumbling roughly to the floor. I scrambled to my feet and charged straight for Gran, who also had not been expecting the attack, slamming into her, knocking my mom out of the way. Gran and I smashed through the glass wall behind us.
I felt and ignored the cuts as we landed hard on the ground and Gran let out a huff of air. Most of my new wounds didn’t bother me, but a particularly hot pulse of agony in my right arm drew my attention. Holy shit. The fey blade was sticking out of my shoulder.
As soon as I realized it was there, the throbbing took over my skin, filling me with an energy I did not know or understand. Or so I thought. Apparently my own magic knew this energy very well. Both powers collided, and I felt a rush of light and strength like no other.
Some of the shadows receded, and for the first time screams echoed from my throat. I arched my back and threw my head side to side as I fought against the pain and pressure. My skin tightened, and it felt like I was actually going to explode and release all of the energy pounding within me. A chill stole over me; my veins filled with ice; tingles ran up and down my spine. This icy energy latched onto the shadows and pushed them even farther down, until they were nothing more than a mere sliver of darkness in the pit of my being.
I felt like I should be freezing; my temperature had plummeted, but instead there was a sense of invigoration about me. I was free.
I was still on top of my grandmother, holding her down, so even though her chuckles were low and breathless, I could hear them with ease. “I knew you just needed a little inspiration,” she said through those bursts of laughter.
I wasn’t a fighter; my skills were in healing and the gentler art form of magic. I could commune with nature, soothe wild animals, breathe life back into those who were almost gone, but never had I been one to choose violence. Until now.
My fist crashed into the older sorceress’ face, all of the magic inside of me giving the hit an extra burst of strength. A circle of red, and then blue, lit up her wrinkled cheek, and there were small flakes of ice left behind when I drew my fist back. Shadows darted up through me again; the darkness liked my violent streak. I felt their satisfaction. Which would have normally scared me, but I was done with being a victim, I would embrace my dark side if it meant escaping and saving my mom.
I hit my gran again, and her laughter cut off as her head lolled to the side. Voices behind me grew louder and I knew I only had seconds to get back up to defend myself before I would be attacked. Rolling to the side and standing, I wrapped both hands around the hilt of the knife still firmly lodged in my shoulder. The second I touched it the pulsing increased, and my breath gasped out in icy fogs of air. Clenching my jaw, I fought through the black spots dancing across my vision, and counting to three in my head, sucked in a deep breath and yanked that bitch right out of my arm. Or attempted to at least.
The blade was sharp, but serrated along the lower half, and there was more than a little resistance as I tried to pull it free. The footsteps closed in, and panic warred with my adrenalin. I pulled harder. Just when I was about to give up and leave it there, it finally slid free from my shoulder. Blood poured from the wound, but I did nothing but give it a cursory glance before I gripped the knife in a fighting stance, my hand slippery with blood.
Focusing on Trevor, the ice in my chest, which almost felt like fire as it burned through me, started trickling out through my body and into my limbs. Drawing on all the training I’d ever had, I used my new frosty power and released it in one blast toward my cousin and SOB, both of whom were circling me. I had no words to direct specifically, only pure energy with a single thought: destroy them.
A huge beam of light washed across the yard, so strong and bright that I could see nothing before me, not even the house. There were shouts as my cousin and SOB tried to figure out if they should attack or flee. It sounded as if they were blind. Wasting no time, I headed toward the house, or where I thought it was. I needed to get to my mom.
Before I could reach the building, though, the light faded from my fingertips and the world came into clear and sharp clarity. Most of the frostiness from within me was gone, but I still felt an icy fire residing in my center.
I immediately looked for my attackers. What. The. Hell? I blinked a few times, trying to figure out what I was seeing. Everything was frozen. My gran was half up off the ground, her face in a haggard scowl. My cousin and SOB were about five feet from me, arms out in an attack pose. I had not managed to blast them away unfortunately, but they were covered in a thin layer of frost, which seemed to be holding them in stasis.
That wasn’t the weirdest part of it either. Where my mother had been standing was now a swirling portal of energy, pretty much filling the sun room. My mom was gone. My legs shook as I took a step closer to the house, desperately trying to understand what my magic had just done.
“Mom!” My whispered-shout was barely audible. I might have actually forgotten how to use my voice in all the time I’d been suppressing it.
My bare feet crunched through the shattered glass littering the green lawn, adding a few more injuries to my broken body. I’d done a real number on the windows when I’d tackled Gran. I hadn’t thought I’d hit her that hard, but somehow I’d blown out the entire wall to land both of us about fifty yards away. At least now I knew why it took my cousin so long to get to me.
When I finally reached the house, there was still about a meter of brick on the bottom of the wall, so I used it to hoist myself up into the sunroom. A quick glance over my shoulder reassured me that whatever magic had frozen my captors was still in full effect. I had time to examine the swirling mass of white sparkling energy that had somehow appeared in this room. I had a sneaking suspicion that this, along with the frozen assholes, were products of the blade still clutched in my hand. This was not my normal energy, so I could only assume I’d borrowed from the magic of this weapon.
I kept about three feet between me and the powerful portal. Its energy smashed against mine, or more accurately, called to mine, which had that ice at my center expanding again – as I tried to see if my mother had been knocked down somewhere close by.
“Mom?” I tried again, my voice still a rasp.
I stepped a little closer, but I couldn’t see her anywhere, or feel her energy. She must have fallen through the portal. I debated with myself – should I get help or just go straight after her? It was hard to know what to do. I was in no condition at all to be saving anyone. I could barely put one foot in front of the other.
But it was my mom. I couldn’t leave her.
Wiping my clammy hands across the filthy rags of clothes I’d been wearing for weeks, I sucked in one deep fortifying breath, lifted my leg, and slid it into the silver. A heat, almost too much to bear – mostly due to the chill in my body – engulfed it. I hesitated, hovering in the portal, one leg in and the rest of me out.
Just as I was bracing myself to make the final step, someone grabbed me from behind and yanked me back, away from the portal. Away from my mother. Into the arms of the bastards who had been doing their best the last few weeks to completely destroy everything that I was.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Trevor looked a combination of annoyed and e
cstatic. He shivered, glaring at me. “What did you freeze us with?”
I had no idea, and I wouldn’t tell him even if I did.
He smiled, a broad grin, and a quiver of fear hit me. He kept a tight grip on my left arm as he dragged me back across the broken glass toward the other two magic users standing silently, waiting. I fought him, but he was strong and determined and I was quite injured. Blood still dripped down my arm from the knife wound, peppering the ground as we walked.
The blade was no longer in my hand. Shit. I must have dropped it when he grabbed me. Looked like I would be facing them weaponless. In all of my twenty-five years, I had never seen my gran look as happy as she did right then. Her grin was broad, black eyes sparkling, cheeks rosy. I continued struggling, but I was no physical match for my cousin, and within seconds I stood between the three of them.
Gran, who was a couple of inches shorter than me, patted me on my cheek. For a second there it had almost looked like warmth flashed across her eyes, but the moment she opened her mouth I knew I was mistaken.
“Thank you for all of your assistance, my dear. This is exactly what I needed from you.” She gave my cheek one last pat, shifting around to face Trevor. “We need her locked back in the basement until I find … him. Once I make contact, I’ll know how to find the others, and then we can destroy the cage.” Her eyes flicked across to SOB. “Get rid of the witnesses.”
Apparently, SOB’s usefulness had just run out.
In a blink of an eye Trevor, pulled out a sword from a spine sheath. It was the length of his arm, and he must have had it magically disguised. I’d never seen him use it before; he preferred to be more hands-on with his torture.
SOB let out a curse and was reaching for his own weapon when my cousin whipped his sword around, cutting clean through his neck. The mage’s head, still wearing a look of absolute shock, bounced across the green lawn. I wasted no time caring; his death was no loss to the world, and more importantly I was about to go back in my cage. There was no way Trevor was taking me down without a fight.
