Saki huffed at her brother and Felix snorted. Hiro glanced around as my coven didn’t meet his eyes. There was too much baggage with why I could so easily access the talisman—I thought.
I licked my lips and considered what I was going to say. I didn’t want Hiro to hate me and mine. Even though my mother was eminently hate-able as evidenced by how much I hated her right then.
“It’s a long and ugly story,” I started.
Hiro examined my face for a moment, maybe he could read it since it was similar to his? I was coming to like him more and more which made what I had to say so much more difficult.
“The Keeper of the St. Angelus Thinning used to be my grandparents. They died. I don’t actually know which one was the keeper and which one just helped out.”
Hiro’s head cocked as I said that and I knew he was probably comparing to his own family, to his badass Grandma Ruby.
“They were killed by a witch or whatever that had been possessed with a ton of ghosts.”
Hiro winced and Saki gasped.
“My Great Aunt Dominque was the next keeper. The same person killed her.”
“Gods, Rue….”
“Then my mother took up the talisman. She must have tried to kill that witch and failed. Somehow she survived.”
Hiro cleared his throat, maybe thinking ahead in the story? Maybe realizing where it had to go?
“She tried to unbind the talisman from her, but she failed. She locked up Hallow House for the next true heir or whatever, left the talisman inside, and ran. St. Angelus hasn’t had an active keeper since then.”
“But it’s a hugely active thinning,” Hiro said. “I…that’s bad.”
“Since Hallow House is open now, the Hallows have been waiting for the talisman to show back up, to find its keeper, but it hasn’t been able to—”
“Because,” Hiro said, “It’s bound to your mother.”
“Yeah,” I sighed and then said, “Martha, may I have the talisman please?”
There should have been a lady in a lake or a sword in the stone or a mystical light that transformed me from iffy prince to battle-ready hero. But there wasn’t. A drawer opened and inside was a blade as long as my forearm, etched in runes and black as ether.
What did happen that was far more terrifying was that my soul recognized it. As if it had long since felt it and knew it. When I picked up the talisman, it felt as though it were reaching back. And when I grasped that rune carved handle, I had never felt anything more familiar.
Something I did not want to feel.
“Holy Hecate,” Hiro said, reaching out to almost, but not quite, run his fingers over the blade in my hand.
“I can’t believe you took it up,” Felix said. He did reach out and touch the talisman. His gaze met mine, and we both seemed to think back to the many, many times I had said how I did not want this moment to come. And I hadn’t. I still didn’t. But what I wanted didn’t matter in the face of what was happening to Bran. I hadn’t been joking about how I would do anything, anything at all to save Bran.
“It will hurt your mother if you forcibly take it from her,” Hiro said.
“Not as much as losing Bran will. Plus, Mother should have released it long ago. This shouldn’t be what it has come to.”
I didn’t feel bad about my mother’s pain. At all. I wasn’t sure if that was because I was so angry with her. Or because karmically she deserved it. Or because I knew she would do it herself, 1000 times over for Bran.
“So…you’ll help me slay a ghost?”
“You know one that needs to be sent through the ether?” Hiro’s question clarified what would be happening and I caught the lesson. I gave him a quick grin as I said.
“To be honest, any ghost would be fine to save Bran, but yes…there’s something happening in the Old Cemetery near the college.”
We took the station wagon, leaving Saki with Cyrus, Jessie, and Chrysie. Felix, Hiro, and I went to find the ghost. The Old Cemetery was on the St. Angelus College campus and surrounded by the huge oak grove that wove through the campus. I had once seen a coven meeting here in black cloaks. It had scared me at the time, but I didn’t know about St. Angelus catering to necromancers. The gravestones were large and carved like the ones from previous centuries. Now, people got the tiny little plaques that didn’t interfere with lawn maintenance.
The cemetery even had a mausoleum, a family crypt, those fences that threw the terrifying kind of shadows as the sun fell. It was dark. The sun had set since Hiro had arrived with Saki and night ruled in her full glory.
“How do we make her come out,” I asked, not caring that the graveyard was creepy. They’d never bothered me before, and I wasn’t going to let it bother me now.
“There are ways…but…they’re dangerous.” Hiro sounded hesitant and maybe a bit worried. Or was that just me hoping that he would care if something happened to me? Maybe it would be better for his family if Bran and I lost the fight against this haunt. He and Saki could go back to Boston and pretend that they had never heard of me. They wouldn’t have to tell their mother what their father had done and they wouldn’t have to see her grieve a crime against her marriage that had occurred more than 19 years ago.
None of that mattered now. I needed to get the ghost, bind the talisman, and move on to the bigger problem of Bran. I didn’t care about the supposed danger of what I was about to do. It was nothing compared to what I planned. “What would work?”
“An imperfect pentacle, a bleeding necromancer doing poorly contained magic using the ether.”
“What will happen to me?”
“You’ll have to fight the ghost and win. But the wound and the broken substandard pentacle will make you an easier target.”
“Ok,” I said. “Back off, I have to do this myself right?”
I brought Hiro to make sure I didn’t die. I didn’t want him to interfere before then. If I got pretty hurt, I needed them to bring me home. Felix would take care of that and knew who to call. Hiro was probably trained enough to keep us alive.
I dropped to the grass and formed a pentacle using spelled pebbles I carried in my witch bag. I let my hand shake slightly as it came together, ignoring my muscle memory and the twang in my mind that said all was not right. I pulled out the talisman and sliced my forearm, letting my blood drip onto the ground without any attempt to stop it and then I took hold of the ether, inside of the St. Angelus Thinning since the first time I had learned about the calling of Keeper.
Minutes passed without anything happening. Waiting was not good for me. It let me remember my daddy and why he shouldn’t love me. It made me think about all the times I’d disappointed him. Was he remembering those times too? Was he thinking about how I had never fit as his daughter? Now, he didn’t have to be secretly ashamed of my moral apathy and my willingness to make Mindy Harper cry that one time. Or the time I had set Jennifer Golde’s front yard on fire.
A tear rolled down my cheek as I thought of him and how unworthy I was of my daddy. I was so glad it was dark, no one could see me. My hand gripped on the talisman and I realized how much better off the world would be without me.
Except, Bran. I couldn’t leave my sister behind. The need to end the pain fought with my need to protect my sister. The ghost could just come. I would send it on its way and then I could take care of Bran, and then myself. My frustration was mounting, my need to just end it all when I realized I was freezing. And terrified. And so epically sad.
This ghost was good. It was manipulating my emotions when I was expecting it to come.
“You…” But there wasn’t a curse that was good enough for what it had done. It had almost gotten me to leave Bran behind. I would never do that. But…Hiro HAD warned me. He had told me I would be vulnerable. I just didn’t think it would matter.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” I sang.
An eerie giggle filled the graveyard.
“I almost had you,” the echoing, child-like voice sang.
> Gods, I prayed, please don’t be a kid ghost.
And maybe the ghost heard me. And maybe ghosts could alter their form. I don’t know. But the ghost was gray, with twin braids, and a uniform so very reminiscent of Saki and Tane. I felt sick looking at them.
“Do they look…” I was going to ask Hiro if he noticed the resemblance.
“Yes,” he and Felix answered before I could finish.
“Sweet Hestia, mother of the gods,” Felix began.
The ghost turned slowly towards Felix and rose into the air.
“Don’t say that word,” the ghost screeched.
Felix flinched and backed up. I started forward, but my broken pentacle held me back.
“No,” I yelled and the ghost giggled again. Giggled and then a flood of branches from the oak grove rose into the air, spun like arrows taking aim and flew at Hiro and Felix.
“Felix,” I shouted. “Hiro!”
I banged on the wall of the pentacle, trapped and unable to help before I remembered the talisman. I wondered…I stabbed out, right at the pentacle wall and then fell out of it. I face planted on a grave and pushed myself up. I had heard a painful scream and wanted to beg the universe to not take either of them, but first the ghost.
“Are you contaminated, little witch?” The ghost laughed as it rushed me. I dove away instinctively and barely missed being ran through by the creature. I had no idea what that would have done to me, and I calculated in the back of my mind how terribly my mother had set me up for failure by sending me to be the keeper without any training.
I wanted to rush to Felix and my brother, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t let myself be distracted from the ghost and lose the war for all of us.
It dove at me again, and this time, I side-stepped. Perhaps the ghost didn’t recognize a talisman. Perhaps it had died after the last time there was an active keeper in St. Angelus. Perhaps, it was sure it could take me.
I slashed out and hit the ghosts arm. It shrieked, but did not back off the fight. It rose high in the air and cannoned down towards me. I moved back, tripped over a gravestone and rolled frantically to the side.
I didn’t make it and the ghost got me in the shoulder. The chill numbed my entire left hand. I could feel nothing, except sadness and self-hatred. I wanted it to be over. I needed me to be over. To be done.
But no…
I couldn’t let Bran be taken over. I couldn’t leave her when I knew she was counting on me.
I stood up, lamed in my left side, but I had my magic, my ruthlessness, and a talisman to make my own.
“You’ve got more fight in you than the last one,” the ghost laughed evilly and I realized that whoever had died was someone else’s loved one. It made me so angry. So very, very angry and that cut through the sadness to give me a clarity of purpose.
“It comes from being a snake,” I told the ghost. “When you’re a monster…”
The adorable, terrifying little ghost laughed her high-pitched echoing laugh and came at me. This time, I did not dive away. This time I let her dive right into my center and as she did, I stabbed down, getting her in the spine with the talisman. She shrieked and burst into a spatter of shadows while I fell to the ground.
I don’t know how much time passed. I couldn’t move, couldn’t see anything but the cloud-covered black sky. It was almost as dark as my heart. But in the sky, there was a beauty in the sort of navy pitch to it all. There was beauty in the stars that peeked through here and there. There was beauty in the quiet of the night.
I felt my mind coming and going, but I clung stubbornly to my consciousness, trying to move my numb legs, my numb arm. To check on my brother and my Felix.
Gods, I prayed, don’t let me fall yet. Don’t let me fail my family.
I blinked stupidly when the sky disappeared and slowly formed into my brother’s face. “Rue! Are you ok?”
“I can’t move,” I said.
“The numbness wears off.”
“Is Felix ok?”
Hiro didn’t answer.
The horror that hit me was almost more than I could handle, “Is he alive?”
“Yes,” Hiro said, hoarsely
“Call the number in my phone for Portia Hallow. She’s a good healer.”
Hiro didn’t even question. He dug through my pockets, finding my phone and making the call. I wanted to ask questions, I wanted to move to Felix, to slither over and hold his hand and let him know he wasn’t alone. I wanted not to be broken on the ground, unable to help.
Hiro left me to take care of Felix and I had never felt more useless.
Portia brought Finn and his team. I could hear Monica call Felix’s name and hear him try to comfort her. I’m not sure her worries were assuaged but my mind calmed a bit as I heard him speak. From what I could pick up, he was hurt, but it wasn’t terrible. He wasn’t dying.
Thank Hecate.
They had brought lamps and people. They were moving Felix, focusing on him like I wanted even though I was incapable of moving. Finn dropped down by me. He was checking me over, telling me I was stupid when he saw it. His hand shook as he picked up the talisman and as he did, I felt in my soul, that was mine. It was connected to me. And his touching it was not ok.
“You found it when you needed it,” his voice was flat. Not accusing. He must have realized what I had done. I had taken it for my own and the calling he had been so religiously serving without the tools he needed.
“I would have given it to you if I had realized you could make it your own.”
His jaw tightened. There was a darkness under his eyes, strain at the edge of his mouth that proclaimed his distress.
“They told me not to say anything. They said you would take it for your own. They said you wouldn’t have interfered with the dark witch and Mandi if you didn’t want to be the keeper.”
I shook my head, sad for us both. I still didn’t want to be the keeper. It was my calling—at least for now.
“I never wanted this,” I told him. And maybe because he was broken down, he listened for once. “I never wanted to be keeper. This happened because I need to help my sister.”
It took Finn several attempts to swallow before he was successful, and then he croaked out, not unkindly, “Even with the talisman, she’s gone, Rue. You just haven’t accepted it yet.”
I didn’t argue. I didn’t have faith in my plan, why should I let anyone else tell me how stupid it was.
Chapter 15
Portia gave me a potion that let me move after about a half hour. They had lifted me into one of the cars and brought all of us to Portia’s clinic. The sun was rising by the time that I was able to move freely, but Felix was still either in surgery or recovery. It didn’t matter where other than he was still alive and they wouldn’t let us see him.
“You’re the keeper now,” Hiro said under his breath, so only I could hear. He held Saki on his lap while my coven and the keeper team were spread out around the waiting room.
“Yes,” I whispered back.
“Now what? I still don’t see how it will help your sister,” Hiro said. He sounded sorry about saying it, and I could see in his gaze, because it matched my own, that he was sorry.
“Have faith,” Saki said.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, showing that pic of my daddy and I. I almost didn’t answer, but…hearing his voice was something I craved. I needed to hear if he still loved me.
“Rue,” he said after my greeting, and he sounded worried. “Your mother…”
Oh. Of course. My mother had the talisman torn from her soul. I wanted to be sorry for it, but I wasn’t. What I was sorry about was that my daddy knew it because he was there with her. He hadn’t left yet. As he should have.
I assumed she was alive. No one had mentioned death as a risk.
“Is she conscious?”
“No,” Daddy said, paused, and then asked, “How did you know?”
“I broke her bond on the talisman so I could try to help Bran.”
; Monica overheard and stood to grab my arm. “You risked Felix for your idiot sister? You faced off a ghost you don’t have the training to fight for someone who cannot be saved?”
“What does that girl mean that Branka cannot be saved?” Daddy’s voice cracked and I heard the horror in his voice. More powerfully, I felt it through the instincts of my heart. He was crumpling.
I jerked my arm away as Chrysie rose, inserted herself between me and Monica and made her back off.
“Get away from me, vampire,” Monica shrieked.
“Get out of here,” Chrysie said in a tone I had never heard before. It was low, deadly, and chill as a blizzard.
“Daddy,” I said, trying to ignore the others as my coven and the keeper team faced off. “Bran is…not in a good way.”
How to explain the rolling red, yellow, and black eyes? The demon voice? The bite on my arm? The way Bran’s possessed body had held my little sister and threatened her very life.
“That girl said…” Daddy was crying. His voice trailed off because he was choking on it. “I thought…I thought…with witchcraft.”
“Witchcraft can’t fix everything,” I said, my own tears falling.
“But it could take my life,” he said.
Was that a flash of anger? Was it terrible that it made me happy for him to be angry? To not feel just dumbfounded and lost?
“Daddy,” I said, carefully. I didn’t want to give him false hope, but I didn’t want him to give up. “I’m not done trying to save Bran yet.”
He sniffed and then seemed to straighten his spine. It certainly felt that way through our connection, “If anyone can do it…”
He cleared his throat and finished.
“I have faith in you, Veruca, my baby. I always have.”
My hands were shaking from the force of keeping my emotions in as much check as possible. I wasn’t able to speak though and keep myself contained.
Daddy cleared his throat again and asked, “What do I do about your mother?”
Something to focus on, thank the gods.
“Call Hazel. Tell her that I forcibly removed the talisman from Mother.”
Sisters and Graves: A Rue Hallow Mystery (The Rue Hallow Mysteries Book 4) Page 10
