by Rob Cornell
"If you let me die," he said, "you will set off the largest supernatural war this city has ever seen."
"Tell me what happened to my dad and I'll give you your damn blood."
His breast bone had turned to wet powder and I could now see his black heart. I doubted any blood I gave to him would save him now. He was too far gone, and if I didn't get answers out of him now—
He twitched, coughed. Blood sprayed the ceiling of the limo. I felt some speckle my cheek. It was as hot as grease snapping off a flattop grill.
"Tell me," I shouted. My throat went raw. I nearly choked on my own rage.
Goulet sputtered a few more times, then his mouth fell open and black blood oozed off his bottom jaw and down his chin. He went still.
The sizzling and melting stopped. Then his dark heart suddenly caught flame. The flash of fire lasted a second or two, then Goulet burst into dust. A fog of ash plumed in the limo, coated the nearby window, the seat, and my sweaty face.
There sat my chance at answers, a pile of dust in the back of a stretch limo.
I threw back my head and about bayed like a werewolf.
A glint of something in the vampire dust caught my eye. I sifted through the chalky substance and pulled my father's pocket watch out of the mess. Most things vampires carried on their person when they turned to dust became dust with them. Maybe some bit of enchantment remained in the watch to protect it. I didn't care. I was just glad to have it back.
Clutching the watch in my hand, I climbed out of the limo, then headed straight for the black van.
The vamp in there with my mom must not have been paying attention, probably thought they had already won. He didn't see me coming, didn't even know I was there until I rolled the side door wide.
I didn't have a gun, and all that power I had gathered to fight off Goulet's thrall had left me drained. So getting the drop on the vamp didn't amount to much when I had no good way to attack him. My anger and adrenaline had pushed me forward without a plan.
But I felt a little buzz at the back of my mind, like a psychic nudge from my subconscious. A weird way to describe it, but I couldn't think of anything better.
No matter what it was, it made me realize I had made a rash assumption. My battle with Goulet hadn't drained me. In fact, I felt a swell of power I'd not felt in a long time.
Not since I’d been branded.
The realization took a second, long enough for the vamp sitting next to Mom on the van’s bench seat to raise the Uzi in his hands. But not long enough for him to pull the trigger.
I harnessed the wind, swirled a gust around behind him, then pulled the gust out, carrying the vamp with it.
He tumbled out of the van, limbs tangled. The Uzi skated away across the blacktop.
He shot to his feet quickly and dropped his glamour so he could snarl at me with full ugly vamp face.
More power coursed through me, power that didn't feel like my usual stuff. It didn't exactly come from without, but it didn't have the same magical flavor as the magic I'd been born with.
I held my hand out to draw flame. The fire came instantly and in a startling bright blue. I'd never conjured anything like it before. But the power in its heat was undeniable.
The vamp’s eyes widened, their red glow flaring.
I threw a ball of my new blue flame. If I'd blinked I would have missed the vamp’s instantaneous disintegration when the flame hit. There one second, a dust cloud the next.
I spun toward Mom, a giddy lift in my chest. I felt high and a tad hysterical. If someone had told me a funny joke, I may never have quit laughing.
But the sight of my mom in shackles was anything but humorous.
My anger burned in me as hot as my blue fire. I called that fire again, engulfing my hand with it. Then I gripped the chain between the cuffs around my mother's wrists. I squeezed until I felt the metal soften in my grip. A few second more and the chain gave way, pulling apart like golden taffy.
The moment the chain broke my mother gasped as if she'd been holding her breath for an age.
She threw herself at me and wrapped her arms around me in a bear hug twice as big as she was. The chains clinked behind me. But this time they sounded like chimes.
Then she pulled back, her eyes wet and wide.
"The power in you..." She pressed her hands against my cheeks, then against my shoulders, down my arms, as if she were checking to see if I was really there.
"I've never sensed anything like it from you before."
"Don't ask me where it came from. I'm just glad it came when it did."
Mom looked down at my clenched fist. She gently lifted it between us and uncurled my fingers away from Dad's watch.
"It can't be the watch,” I said. “There's no magic left in it."
She smiled. "Magic comes from so many places, Sebastian. Not just what we're born with. It comes from passion, pain, rage. And from love."
I wrinkled my brow. "I don't remember this lesson growing up."
"That's because you didn't listen. You were always so dependent on raw power. You couldn't see all the magic around you."
My mouth hung open, but I didn't know what to say. I felt like I had lived in a cave my whole thirty-two years and had only now come out to see the sky. I also felt kind of dumb.
"It's okay," she said, as if she knew what I was thinking. "We never stop learning. And some things only come when we're ready to hear them."
"Pretty damn good timing tonight."
Then something struck me.
The silence. Crickets chirruped in the weeds surrounding the parking lot. The faint sound of traffic several blocks over touched the edges of my hearing. Nothing else, though.
No shouts.
No gunfire.
"Damn it," I said. "Sly and the others."
Mom set her jaw and raised her hands. She whispered a word, and green light sparked around each cuff of her shackles. They snapped open and fell to the ground with a double clank.
Without another word, we ran for the school.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Together, Mom and I ran down the hall to the classroom. Before we reached the doorway, a tiger padded out from inside the room, limping on one paw. Its orange fur was matted with blood, thickest around its mouth. It looked up at me and stopped.
Mom and I came to a halt as well. The muscles up my back and through my arms tensed to near breaking point at the sight of Fiona covered in the blood of my best friend and those who had put themselves forward to help me. The acid in my churning stomach bubbled up my throat and burned.
I held out my hand. The blue flame came easily. I took a deep breath through my nose, the hot air from the fire curling the hairs in my nostrils.
Fiona lowered her tigress head, as if accepting her death sentence.
I remembered the first time I had seen Fiona in tigress form. The moment had felt like something intimate, an expression of her trust in me, and my acceptance of her true nature.
What a bunch of bullshit.
"Sebastian."
I looked to my mother at my side.
"Don't," she said.
"Why? She's betrayed me. Betrayed you."
"You can't kill her in cold blood."
I turned back to Fiona. "I'll get over it."
I was about to throw my flame when Sly rushed out of the doorway. His clothes were covered with blood, making his shirt stick against his chest like a second skin. He carried the silver sword, its blade also coated with blood.
"Stop," he said.
His wild eyes looked all the wilder with the spray of blood across his face.
I hesitated, despite the urge, the need to burn this traitor to a crisp.
"She saved our lives, brother," Sly said. "All of us. We'd be dead if she hadn't turned on those vamps."
My throat filled with a scream, but I swallowed it down. My anger had carried me to an edge and I wasn't sure I could find my balance enough to step back.
Heat grew stronge
r and stronger around my hand. I couldn't burn myself with my own magical flame, but I had never felt as much heat as I did from this blue flame. Between that and the strain of holding my magic at bay, I couldn't stay like that for long. I either had to throw the flame or let it go.
I stared at the bloody tigress before me who had nearly gotten everyone I had left to love killed. And she had told me not that long ago that she had loved me, too.
Tears blurred my vision.
"Sebastian," Mom whispered.
I opened my hand, and the flame evaporated.
The tiger hunched down to the floor. Her fur rippled like a mirage, then drew away to show skin. Her body melted and reformed until Fiona stood on her hands and knees, naked, but still covered with gore. Her tears made the blood run down her face in pinkish streaks. She looked up at me pleadingly. "I'm sorry."
"Shut up. The only reason I haven't killed you is because you helped them at the end. But don't think for a minute I'll ever forgive you."
She hung her head. Her blood-matted blonde hair hung down, obscuring her face. Which was just as well. I couldn't stand to look in her eyes anymore.
I lifted my gaze to Sly. "The Maidens?"
"Fine," he said, then his face soured. "Except for Wendy."
"Get them out of here. We don't know if more vamps will be on their way when they don't hear from Goulet."
He turned and stalked into the classroom without another word.
I forced myself to look down at Fiona again. "What was this all about?"
"Goulet took my mother two years ago. I don't know where. But he said I'd never see her again if I didn't watch over Judith while she was at the home."
"Why?"
"I don't know. I was just supposed to observe. And when she came to, Goulet seemed to get uptight. Or...excited. I'm not sure. Maybe both."
"And you're telling me you have no idea what they wanted with her?"
She shook her head, her face still directed toward the floor.
The smell of the blood had started to coalesce around us. It smelled like pennies with a hint of decay. Definitely vamp blood.
"Goulet mentioned he was reporting to someone else,” I said. “Who was he talking about?"
"I don't know. I only reported to Goulet."
"Well, you aren't at all helpful are you?"
She raised her head. "I'm so—"
"I told you not to apologize. I can't stand to hear it."
"They have my mom," she shouted, her voice reverberating down the cinderblock hall. "You should understand that more than anyone."
"You could have told me."
"He would have killed her."
I shook my head. "We could have worked something out. We could have found a way. But you've been lying to me for so long..."
My throat closed. I couldn't say anymore.
Sly came out of the room with the Maidens, all robed, following him.
"We need to bolt, brother."
"Go," I said. "We'll be right behind."
He lingered a second longer, then waved the Maidens along and they hurried down the hall toward the school’s back exit.
I swallowed until I thought I could speak again without suffocating. "What's going to happen to your mom?"
More tears streamed down Fiona’s bloody cheeks. "Where's Goulet?"
"Dead."
She rose to her knees and covered her face with her hands, unconcerned or unaware of her nakedness. Through her sobs she said, "Then so is she."
My stomach bubbled with a mix of pity and hate. I was genuinely sorry that Fiona had lost her mother, but I couldn't forgive her for her years of lies. If she had been honest with me, we might have found a way to get her mother back. Just like we had found a way to get mine back.
I shook my head, then turned, took Mom by the elbow, and headed down the hall away from Fiona.
"Sebastian," she called.
I stopped, but didn't turn.
"I do love you. That was real."
"I know," I said. "But it doesn't matter anymore. If I ever see you again, I will burn you to the bones."
I heard her gasp.
Mom gave me a worried look.
If I looked as enraged and sick as I felt, I probably looked foreign to her. Hell, I felt foreign to myself.
Without another word to Fiona, Mom and I left the school.
Chapter Thirty-Six
A week and a half later days later, Mom and I stood on the threshold of the Maidens of Shadow’s apartment door. Angelica let us in. She spoke softly. The weight of sorrow permeated the place as she welcomed us in. A chill ran through me at its touch. This was sorrow made tangible by magic. I had a feeling the black witches would feed on their own sorrow over their loss for a while. It could make for some powerful magic.
Angelica took Mom down the hall toward the back of the apartment. Another of the witches came out of the living room. Her name was Kimber, if I remembered right.
"This will take some time," she said. "You should go. We'll call you when we're done."
I had wanted the chance to say another word or two to Mom, but she was out of sight in one of the back rooms.
"She'll be fine," Kimber said.
I nodded and left.
I stepped out into the chilly night, my breath puffing in the air. Odi stood on the sidewalk waiting for me.
"You okay?" he asked.
"I'd feel better if Mom wasn't in the care of black witches."
"I still can't believe that shit. You should have called me. I could have helped."
He'd said that at least a dozen times already. I had dodged the comments each time with a noncommittal grunt. But I had a feeling he would keep saying it until I gave him a better response.
"Let's go," I said. "We're going to practice some magic while we wait."
He raised an eyebrow, but didn't argue. And I could tell by the spring in his step as we headed to my car (now recovered from the house) that he was excited to get another lesson, since the only one I'd really given so far, I had botched.
I drove to the Pepsi plant in Forest Park, not far from the Maidens’ apartment. After hours, the huge parking lot was abandoned. It would give us enough space that if we screwed anything up, no one would get hurt. And, in this case, I was as likely to screw up as Odi.
At our feet lay a small pile of loose concrete and asphalt I'd collected from around the lot.
"We're going to try some animation spells," I said.
He wrinkled his brow. "Animation?"
I nodded and pointed to the pile. "We're going to make a mini golem out of that."
"What about fireballs and hurricanes?"
"That'll come, but I think it's best we work on some small..."
I tucked my hands in my pockets and regarded the pile of rocks. I heard my Dad's voice.
There is no small magic.
"We need to work on some subtle magic first."
"Huh. Never seen you do anything like this."
I laughed. "First off, you haven't seen much of what I can do at all. Secondly, I haven't done anything like this. We're going to learn together."
Turned out Odi had a good sense of how to make the rocks come together and form an awkward sort of human shape. He got the rocks to do a funny dance.
I got it to walk about three feet before it fell apart.
Luckily, neither of us made the rocks blow up and pepper our faces with hard pebbles. That would have hurt my pride more than my face.
I don't know how long we spent playing with rocks, but the buzz of my phone in my pocket surprised me.
It was Angelica. They were finished.
I tried to ask her how it went, but she hung up first.
Odi and I rode back to the apartment in silence. Odi, thankfully, sensed that I wasn't capable of small talk—something he excelled at, much to the chagrin of my poor ears.
Angelica greeted me at the door. I had left Odi downstairs again. I doubted the Maidens would have invited a vampire into
their place, so I wanted to avoid the awkwardness of all that.
I stepped into the hall. Kimber had Mom by the hand as they came up to meet us. Mom looked a little woozy, but otherwise unfazed.
"Did it work?" I asked.
Mom looked to Angelica.
Angelica said, "It could take some time."
"How much time?"
"A century," she snapped. "But hopefully less."
Not very helpful, but I didn't press. For a black witch coven, they had done a lot of favors for me already.
"Thank you," I said. "For everything. You all aren't as black as I expected."
"We didn't do it out of the goodness of our hearts," she said with a sneer. "Sly paid a price worthy of the help. And Wendy had already made the deal to work on the old lady. That's the only reason you're here right now."
"Fine. But still, thank you."
"You can thank me by making sure we never cross paths again."
Okay, maybe they were plenty black.
After I dropped off Odi—whose presence Mom took surprisingly well—I drove to the hotel Mom and I were staying at until the Ministry straightened things out with local law and decided what to do about our house. Technically, the Ministry offered a sort of insurance against paranormal catastrophe, but like any good insurance agency, they wanted to fight the claim for as long as possible.
Fine with me. I wasn't sure if I could move back in, even if they did have to rebuild from scratch. New house, but same home. And too many memories hung like ghosts around that place at the moment.
We had a set of adjoining rooms, one for Mom and one for me. I left the door between them open so I could listen for her in case she had any adverse side effects from the Maidens’ ritual.
A fucking century.
I hoped Angelica had been exaggerating. While both Mom and I could live that long, neither of us could stand to wait that long to have her memories back. Goulet had gotten under my skin with all his damn hints. The only way I would learn the truth was if Mom could remember it.
The hotel wasn't a fleabag kind of place, but the bed still felt more like a board than a mattress.
It took me forever to fall asleep. And when I did, I had a dream that somehow encompassed everything—my near turn, my branding, my obligation to Odi, Mom's missing memories, and Dad. Everyone was gathered in a huge hall, the kind you rent for a wedding. We were all dressed in suits, too. Just like the ones Goulet's lackeys wore.
