by Marta Szemik
“You’re stupid to believe him.” I laughed too, but they remained wary; keeping their focus on us, and only us, would be tricky.
“Where are the kids?” the second one asked.
I’d practiced deceiving demons and seekers every day. Today was just another test, and I hoped my heart would not give away my children’s location. The speed of the blood flow through my body remained constant as I regulated the rhythm of my pulse. My focus held on the demons instead of the yellow Hummer with tinted windows parked among the other cars.
“After today, you won’t even think about my children,” I warned.
“You sure about that?” the freezer taunted, twirling his finger.
The gesture was familiar. I looked down at my feet. Blue light circled my Dockers and my father’s shoes, holding our feet immobile. Ekim’s eyes found mine.
The demons grinned.
“Ah, you’ve seen this magic before,” the freezer said.
At this point, I knew William was watching the scene unfold, but he wouldn’t come to help. He couldn’t. Our priority was protecting the children.
“Where are they?” the demon asked again, his jaw clenching with impatience.
“You. Will. Never. See. Them,” my father grunted.
“So you think. Once you’re out of the way, we’ll get them.” The mover laughed. “Soon, your kind will be extinguished.”
A car at the end of the parking lot shook as if it were affected by an unseen earthquake. The mover lifted his palm higher, and the car hovered above the asphalt, its metal vibrating and squeaking as the pressure built and pushed it upward. The demon swept his hand toward us, and the car zoomed through the air like a plane. I braced my glued feet, shoving my arms up to deflect the vehicle, but it stopped just short of hitting us.
“Kill them,” the freezer ordered.
“I . . . I can’t.” The mover’s gaze flew from the car to his hand. Frowning, he flexed his arms, but the car hung like a feather caught in an updraft. “I’ll do it the old-fashioned way.” The mover sped toward us but jolted to a stop halfway, as if he’d hit a low barrier. His upper body continued forward, his nose almost touching the asphalt before he sprang back upright. Blue light shone under his feet.
I smirked, and my father laughed. We knew the culprits helping us.
“But you can’t . . .” The freezer’s face sagged.
The air spun behind the demons, fluttering the backs of their cloaks. The entrance to the vortex enlarged until the force sucked the demons in. The car crashed to the ground beside my father, and the blue light disappeared from around our feet. I glanced at the smashed Miata as we hurried across the lot; its owner would not be happy.
William waited with the twins in our rented yellow Hummer. The paint shone bright against a lowering sky; the clouds ready to break and release the pressure. He pointed to the twins as I jumped in the back between the two booster seats. “They passed out as soon as the vortex closed.”
The twins didn’t need the seats, but knowing they were buckled properly soothed my worries and prevented possible confrontations with law enforcement. Even with our abilities, I made every effort to make them part of a normal human world, or as normal as we could allow.
“They do look drained.” I brushed my hand over the twins’ pudgy cheeks. They hadn’t lost their baby fat. Now that they rested, their rosy complexions paled. “I’ll have to thank Eric for showing them those powers.”
William laughed. “Say it.”
This time, I did roll my eyes.
“Come on. You know what I want to hear,” William teased.
“I was wrong. There.” I crossed my arms.
“You’re cute when you know your mistakes.”
Yes, I experienced a surge of apprehension when Eric and the siblings first told me they’d be training the kids as early as six months old. I wanted them to remain kids, to enjoy their childhood. But when a seeker tried to kidnap the twins on their first birthday while we were in Pinedale, I realized training them was a necessity. They had to know how to protect themselves. And they did a great job helping us, as well.
The first raindrops hit the windshield and I buckled my seatbelt.
“I don’t like the warden,” my father said suddenly, staring at the open logbook in his lap. He flipped its pages in haste, crossing out tallies with a red pen.
“You don’t have to, but it’s better this way.” William leaned back to kiss me. The sweetness of his lips flowed through me like honey, soothing aches and regrets from the past.
“There’s just something odd about the way he looks at you, Sarah,” my father continued. “Like you’re the next in line to go into that room.”
I chuckled. “The vampire wouldn’t be able to drain me.”
“Don’t joke about things like that.” He lifted his gaze from the logbook. “I must say, you handled yourself well in there.”
“What happened?” William asked.
“I shoved the warden.”
William’s eyebrow rose. “Good for you.”
In truth, I didn’t recognize my newfound rage, but I liked it and wanted it to be me. It had been a long time since I’d had a good fight with the seekers. Hostility and the intensity of a violent force revived me. When Xela stole my body, she also took the rage of a vampire, leaving only resentment toward my friends and family, though I never let them sense it. Perhaps they knew and tiptoed around my every wish, but that wasn’t what I wanted. My only wish was to be me, the me I didn’t think I’d ever regained, and that included ferocity.
Today, the demons reminded me of our battle against Aseret, when I discovered my strength four years ago. Four years. I sighed. Our only fight since then had been against one seeker and a few demons, all of whom were weakened and destroyed before I had a chance to sweat.
I didn’t mind the quiet; it allowed us to concentrate on raising the twins. But the mover and freezer we’d encountered today showed magic I’d forgotten; it reminded me of the strength I missed.
Blood rushed through my veins as my gut warned me of a stirring in the underworld. I could smell it in the air, almost taste it on the tip of my tongue. Anxiety prickled up goosebumps along my arms, and I tightened the grip on my seatbelt to control the jitters.
It passed.
“You’re sure the demons didn’t see them?” My fingers twined into the auburn curls of each twin.
“Yes, they were discreet with their powers.” William buckled his seatbelt.
“Good. Smart little cookies. We’ve been training them beyond what a three-year-old should be exposed to.”
“Except they’re not your typical three-year-olds.” He turned the key in the ignition.
Silence.
William tried again.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“Don’t know.”
“Did you have a problem before?” my father asked.
“No, this is an almost new vehicle. And the tank was filled when I took it.”
The Hummer was William’s favorite car. He owned one in the jungle and washed and polished it every day before tucking it under a tarp on one side of the cabin.
Ayer opened his eyes. “Let me try, Papa.” He wiggled in his seat and twirled his finger. A red stream of light flowed from his fingertip to the ignition. The car purred to life.
I looked at William; his face reflected my questions. The twins’ abilities had grown beyond what we understood. Like sponges, they absorbed the skills we taught them. Eric and the siblings took care of the demon training; our parents showed them how to hunt; we tried to instill whatever human aspects we could. Each new skill had to be demonstrated or explained before they tried it; that was the only way they could recognize it and connect it to their training. But this one was new. And, for the second day in a row, the stream was red. Not blue. Red; underworld’s magic.
“Who showed you how to do this?” I asked.
Ayer shrugged.
“Was it Auntie Mira?”
He shook his head.
“Eric?”
“No. He told me not to say.”
I twisted to face him. “Who, baby?” I asked, struggling to keep the urgency from my voice. “Who told you not to say?”
Crystal opened her eyes. “Lord Aseret, Mama. It was Lord Aseret.”
Chapter 4
Lord Aseret.
Crystal’s words still rang in my ears. The hours that passed as we flew back home felt like days. The twins now slept in their bedroom, guarded by Ekim and Atram, who wouldn’t leave their bedside. William, the siblings, Eric, and I sat in the sun room. Mira sipped her coffee, staring at the top of Eric’s head. He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees as he massaged his scalp with his fingers. The evil-bender hadn’t said anything in over half an hour. Eric had tested the children’s skills at the emerald lake but wouldn’t talk about it. We’d been debating how to approach the children and how to protect them. Now the sun had set, and our discussion had stalled. How in the world did Aseret get to our children, and when? They’d never been left alone, and our cabin in the Amazon had been sealed off from the world by the orchids. No one knew about it. No one.
William poured me orange juice. Drops of condensation travelled toward the jug’s rim as it filled my glass.
“Thank you.”
He kissed the top of my head.
“The children are ready.” Eric broke his silence as if woken by an alarm clock.
“They’re three. They’re not ready,” I growled.
“Their mark can appear at any moment. The keepers had said the prophecy will be active as soon as the imprint is there.”
“How do they know about Aseret?” I asked, looking from Xander to Mira, then Eric.
“He could be speaking to them through a vortex,” Eric suggested. “The children seem to know more than they’re willing to share. I can’t make them tell me what they’re hiding.”
“It’s not a vortex. You would have felt one.” Xander got up and paced the room.
“What are you thinking?” Mira asked.
“I don’t know, but the only time they’d be most vulnerable would be while sleeping.” He focused on their room.
“You think he can get to them in their sleep?” Mira stood and moved to her brother’s side.
“It’s possible. How else?”
“Wait.” Willow’s hushed voice crossed the room before she rushed out of the lab. Treading across the marble floor she pushed her geeky glasses to the top of her head, lab coat floating behind her. “They mentioned a man in their dreams so casually, I thought nothing of it.”
“When was this?” William asked.
“Two nights ago.”
I gripped my mother-in-law’s shoulders. “Willow, tell me exactly what they said.” Then, realizing what I was doing, I released her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so harsh.”
Willow rubbed her arm, and guilt for loss of control swept through me. She sat down alongside William. “It’s fine, Sarah. We all love them. They said the warlock is not their concern. I didn’t think anything of the conversation. They made me feel it wasn’t important at the time.” She covered her mouth.
It wasn’t unusual for the children to trick one of us by controlling our emotions, but it was always done in a playful way. Up until now, they hadn’t used their ability with purpose, or perhaps we just didn’t know about it.
“But why would Aseret not be their concern?” I asked.
“Maybe they weren’t talking about Aseret,” Eric murmured under his nose.
“Then how do they know his name?” William said, taking his mother’s hand in an effort to ease her worry.
Mira placed her cup on the table, then straightened and looked around. “Why don’t you guys ask them?”
Everyone stared at her as if she’d fallen off the moon, but perhaps she was right. Why speculate? If the twins already knew about Aseret, why not ask them? I chewed my thumb as the thought brewed in my mind. With my eyes shut, I listened to their systematic breathing contemplating whether I should wake them up and keep them without sleep for as long as I could.
“He’s getting to them.” Willow’s face and voice were tight. After she had been held captive in the dungeons, developing a serum to hide the children became her obsession.
“And I couldn’t foresee it.” I regretted my inability to predict the future. My and William’s demonic energy had transferred to the children in the form of other abilities.
“Sarah, Mom, we won’t let him near them. And I think they’re better prepared than we expected anyway.” William put his arm around his mother’s shoulders. I loved his tenderness toward her and leaned in closer on his free side, sandwiching him between us.
“Prepared for what?” I asked.
“To bind Aseret.” Eric stood and took over Xander’s pacing from one end of the glass wall to the other. Xander took his spot. Beyond the window, the forest blackened, impermeable, except for the glow of a few light bugs. Looking at the flickering points outside, I shivered.
“I thought he was bound,” I asked.
“Yes, to the underworld, but that does not prevent him from recruiting minions,” Xander explained.
“The kids are meant to bind Aseret to the hereafter.” Mira took Eric’s spot on the ottoman. It seemed like the trio of siblings and evil bender were playing musical chairs, switching the routine between them.
“And you didn’t tell me before because . . .” I coaxed.
“Because you don’t need to concern yourself with the problems of the underworld. We do.” Mira sat down at my side. “What they need from you is to be a mother they love more than life.”
“Tell me about the hereafter,” I insisted, zipping up my vest. “I want to understand.”
“It’s where your mother’s soul is.” Eric placed his hand on my shoulder as he sat on my other side, squishing in between me and William.
“If we bind Aseret too early to the hereafter, the lost souls will feel his wrath. We’ve been rushing to find all the bodies to reunite them with their souls for their last breath before Aseret is sent there,” Mira added, pushing up her sleeves.
“The children will open a doorway for Aseret. He will be locked within it, unable to harm the souls,” Eric said.
“How exactly do you bind a corporeal demon like Aseret to the hereafter?” I began to chew on my thumb.
“He’ll have to be killed,” Eric explained, turning my attention toward him, “but his death is not enough. We cannot let him die until the hereafter is in order.”
“But he’ll be locked up anyway,” I said, trying to follow, tapping my fingers on my knee.
“It’s a precaution. We cannot take the chance he’s not locked up and only bound.” Mira took another sip of her coffee.
“Otherwise he’ll torment the hereafter,” William added.
Mira nodded. “He’d use the energy of the remaining spirits to gain strength and possibly reincarnate.”
“Of course it couldn’t be simple, could it?” I chewed my thumb again. William reached over Eric and pulled my hand away from my mouth. The reddening blotch on my finger would remain for few seconds.
“It’s not so easy to get rid of him. Killing him too early may not be the best strategy,” Eric said.
“Great! And I suppose Aseret knows what the children are meant to do?”
They didn’t have to answer. I could read the truth on their faces. The gut feeling I’d had earlier returned. The underworld stirred; the warlock was trying to get to my children. “How long have you known about this?”
“This morning. The keepers told me this morning,” Eric whispered.
I pushed the empty ottoman away with my foot. It squeaked on the marble floor before hitting the glass wall of the lab.
Sarah, don’t do anything stupid, Eric warned in my mind.
“I’m going to the tree house.” I gripped the side of the coffee table so hard I left indents in its edge.
> William sighed, probably because he’d have to replace the trim again.
“We’d better leave as well,” Eric said. “Xander, we could use your help with the souls tonight.”
Xander made his do-I-have-to face but didn’t complain.
“Come on, sugar, maybe we can find more bodies.” Eric slid his arm around Mira’s waist.
“If you can keep your hands off each other,” Xander mumbled under his breath. Their constant touching and kissing when they thought no one was watching didn’t bother me and Xander had stopped asking them to get a room six months ago. I had assumed their open affection no longer bothered him, but I guess I was wrong.
My three watchers disappeared in a void of twirling light that closed with a purple lavender mist.
“I have work to do.” Willow went back to the lab, murmuring to herself about the serums.
Atram and Ekim, my father, resumed their app development on their iPads by the twin’s bedroom door.
William’s gaze skidded toward the two vampires’ impending work before he turned to me. “I’m coming with you.” He scooted closer to my side and rubbed the dent in the table with his fingers.
“No, please stay with the kids,” I said. “I won’t be long.”
He wrapped his arms around me. “You’re not going to the tree house, are you?” His brows high, he leaned back to look at my face. I missed his loving eyes, longing for his lips to bless mine the way they used to, when we met.
“Am I that obvious?”
“I know you.” He kissed my forehead. “I know who you are, better than Eric does.”
William must have read Eric’s face. My husband confirmed what I’d doubted inside: who I was. Did he know my true feelings of regret? Of course he knew; he was my other half. I couldn’t hide much from him.
“Just promise me you’ll be careful,” he said as we stepped out onto the porch. The air was still, the way it always was before a storm. But I knew the weather over the clearing was supposed to remain pleasant for a while, and this calmness felt out of place. Perhaps wearing jeans wasn’t the best choice tonight.
“I promise.” I leaned my head on his chest. “You’re the only one who keeps me grounded.”
