by Mary Duke
Damari snapped. “Don’t say that!”
“What?”
“Don’t even think of it like that. You are going to be fine. You are going to make it through this.”
“What makes you say that?” I questioned. “Hell, what makes you think that?”
“Because.”
“Because why? Is there something else I don’t know? Do you know something I don’t? From where I stand, with what I’ve already felt, I don’t see how it’s possible.”
“Stop! Please, Narah. Just stop. You just need to believe you’ll make it through this. Give me hope that you will pull through. I have to have hope. I can’t lose you...I don’t...I can’t.”
I leaned up and kissed his lips.
“You can get through this, I will make sure of it,” he whispered, his eyes locked on mine.
That was what I needed. Though I already knew I wasn’t alone, I needed to hear someone say that I wasn’t going to be abandoned. I know my parents didn’t up and leave me, I know it wasn’t a choice they made, but it didn’t change the way I felt.
Abandonment was something I’ve battled with since the day I walked into my home and no one was there...and as the days and weeks passed, no one came back. I went through a phase when I wanted nothing to do with anyone. I convinced myself that I didn’t need anyone; I could do it all on my own. I convinced myself that those who depended on anyone were stupid and weak. That was until I met Foley; only then did I convince myself that it was okay to trust again, and that only happened after the tenth time she saved my ass or refused to leave when things were looking sketchy.
“Thank you,” I said, leaning up and giving him one more kiss. The weight of the world that I carried on my shoulders didn’t seem as heavy as it had twenty minutes ago.
“Anytime,” he said rubbing my side.
“I guess we should go and see what they’ve found,” I said standing back up.
Damari joined be and grabbed ahold of my hands. “Before we go back in there, there is one more thing I want to make clear. I know we’ve only known each other two months, but in those two months I feel like with the conversations we’ve had, the connection we’ve had...”
I finished his sentence, “that we’ve known each other forever.”
“Exactly. I don’t want you to think that I don’t see the pain this shit is causing you, and I don’t want you to think I am okay with that. Believe me. Believe fucking me. If I thought for even a second that you could live with yourself running away from this, I would pick you up and carry you as far as I could. I wouldn’t think twice. I wouldn't look back. And I sure as hell wouldn’t think of you any differently. However. You Narah, you’d never let it go. You’d spend the rest of your life beating yourself up, doubting every move that you made, and questioning every decision. That right there would tear you apart and would be...”
“A million times worse than what I’m going through right now,” I agreed. “There would be no overcoming it, no chance at getting over it.”
Damari nodded.
I took a deep breath and, though my heart still hurt, at this moment I felt peace.
Before I even opened the door I knew we missed something. I could hear Foley through the door. “Oh come on, that’s the most far-fetched line of BULLSHIT.”
I glanced back at Damari before slowly opening the door.
“It’s here,” Storm argued with her. “In black and fucking white. Cat. On a goddamn piece of paper TIED with STRING to one of KAMARA’s rib bones.”
“What now?” I questioned, trying to evaluate the obviously heated situation.
“Storm is claiming that he found a bone with Cat’s name on it.”
“Not claiming,” Storm corrected. “It’s right fucking here.”
“I don’t get it,” I said. “I thought you said it was your family who divided Kamara, not you.”
“It was,” Cat assured me. “I wasn’t even born yet. Hell, I wasn’t born for another nearly 100 years.”
“Lies,” Storm spat.
Kyrell stepped in, attempting to be the voice of reason. “Listen, there has to be a reason for this. There always is. Fighting and pointing fingers isn’t going to get us any answers. Now, Cat, tell me if I’m crazy, but I’ve read that faye families, the ones that have special gifts such as yours, are known to have several different talents thrown into the line. Do you know if anyone else in your family has had special talents?”
“Yes,” Cat nodded. “Both sides of my family have been gifted.”
“Alright. Now, by chance do you know if any of them were able to see the future...anyone who may have worked with Xander?”
Cat thought for a minute. “Perhaps. I mean, my great aunt Regina did say she would get visions of the future, but they were more like prophecies, and they were usually of people she never knew. She always saw the extreme end or beginning of things. She swore they were useless.”
Kyrell shook his head and took the bone from Storm, untying the note. “There are many who have seen too far into the future to recognize them and cast their gift off as a curse.”
“Really?” Cat questioned. “That would have to suck. I mean knowing things, but not knowing for when they would matter, or for whom.”
“Yes, drives the best of them mad,” Kyrell agreed. “Now here,” he said holding the piece of paper out in front of her. “I want you to clear your mind. Think of nothing. Expect nothing. Let what may happen, happen.”
“What do you think’s going to happen?” Cat questioned, looking at both sides of the scrap paper Kyrell held in is hand.
“You’ll know if I’m right.”
“And if you’re not?”
“Then you’ll tell me, I’m sure.”
Cat closed her eyes and grabbed ahold of the paper. Images flooded her mind. Chants. Spells. Curses. Faces. A warning.
Kyrell caught her as she fell forward, gasping for air.
“What did you do?” I questioned looking at Kyrell.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Obviously.” I snapped back, as Cat began to cough up black sand.
Foley kneeled down beside her. “This isn’t something he has done,” she assured me. “Cat’s been given a warning.”
Once the coughing stopped, Cat sat up, leaning against Foley.
“I take it I was right?” Kyrell questioned.
She nodded still trying to catch her breath. “It was a warning,” she confirmed. “Xander gave my family the ability to practice magic. If we didn’t help him, he would take away our ability to do magic, our whole line.”
“That would explain a lot,” Foley said.
Storm rolled his eyes, “Yeah, sure.”
“The curse still runs in our veins; if any of us were to go back on the deal, to reverse the spell...”
“Wait a second,” Kamara said. “Are you saying Xander created your line?”
Cat shook her head. “I don’t know. This woman, she was just talking a million miles an hour. I saw flashes of conversations...but, it would make sense. She...she’s the oldest relative that I’m aware exists. I just assumed that the records of all the others were lost.”
Kamara began to pace nervously.
“What is it?” I questioned, sensing something was off with Kamara.
“Take that bone,” she said frantically. “Take it. We have to find it. I have to know what else he took from me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“My grimoire. My book of spells. I have everything in there. The good. The bad. Things I don’t even want to bring up. If he got his hands on it. If someone has their hands on that...” she shook her head, her nerves beginning to fray.
I took the bone from Kyrell, squeezing it between my hands, absorbing it and the magic. More of Kamara’s memories flooded in before my eyes. Thoughts raced through my mind that were not my own.
My fingers began to feel numb, and my world began to spin before it all stopped.
Chapter Five<
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“Something doesn’t feel right,” Kamara said the second we came through the other side of Cat’s gate and were standing in an old office.
“No,” Kyrell agreed. “It doesn’t.”
“Do you feel that?” I asked, my hand instinctively covering my mouth.
Damari nodded, covering his as well.
“It’s Dark magic,” Foley answered.
“Raw, Dark Magic,” Cat added.
“Where is it coming from?” Kyrell questioned.
“There,” Kamara answered. “Behind that door.”
“What’s behind that door?” Kyrell questioned looking over to her as he reached for it.
“I don’t know. I don’t remember this being here.”
Kyrell nodded, shifting into his Reaper form, before turning the handle and slowly opening the door. “BUCKLE UP!” Kyrell screamed looking back at us.
My eyes met with Damari’s but only for a split second before we both morphed into our wolf forms.
Until this moment, I had wished I’d gotten to one of their facilities where they were testing their magic on my people before they left it. However now that I’m standing here, and I see what’s happening, hear their cries, and feel some level of their pain, I’ve changed my mind.
Kamara kneeled beside me. “I don’t know how much of this you can feel, but I feel more alive than ever. I want to help, and I believe I am...well, we are, strong enough. Do you think we can work together?”
I nodded. It wasn’t like I had a choice.
Kamara reached out and placed her hand on the top of my head, and for the first time I actually felt her. She was right, though she may not have been fully alive, her presence here was growing.
Instantly she was inside my head. It was the strangest feeling I had ever felt. “Okay,” she said. “Can you still hear me?”
“Yes,” I answered. “It sounds like I am talking to myself.”
“Great,” she replied. “What about you Damari, are we connected?”
There was no answer.
“Damari?” I questioned looking at him.
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Where’d Kamara go?”
“It’s complicated,” I answered.
“Listen up,” Kyrell said turning back towards me. “There are at least twenty wolves down there. I don’t see any signs of hell’s creatures, but there are rings; it only takes one of them slipping one of the things on one of their fingers. We need to be quick, and we need to leave no one alive.”
Damari snorted. “Who made him the leader?”
“He was the first to open the door.”
“So it shall be, I guess.”
It wasn’t until we were halfway through the hanging bodies that us being there was even known. Once we were spotted, however, the situation changed in an instant.
The light went out, leaving us all temporarily blinded by the darkness. Though with Foley, Cat, and Kyrell, the darkness didn’t last long.
Magic whizzed over my head, and the sounds of impact were undeniable.
“Okay, I’m going to try something,” Kamara said, her voice echoing inside my head as we closed in on one of the others running from us.
“You have ten seconds and he’s mine.”
Magic began to radiate from my body in waves. Not only could I feel it, I could see it.
The man that was running from me fell to his knees, his hands clinging to his throat.
“What are you doing?” I questioned.
“Returning the favor,” Kamara answered, the waves of magic growing stronger.
I focused on making the flow of magic stop, as I stood over his body, clamping my large jaws over his head before jerking and ripping it from his body.
“I’m not into torture,” I said. “Your help is not needed.”
“Narah,” Kamara tried to plead with me.
I tuned her out, instead focusing on Damari and his thoughts as I tried to find him.
“A little help!” Storm yelled, his voice frantic.
I didn’t know where the others were, but he sounded close. Before I could turn to find him, he cut between two of the hanging wolves in front of me, his pursuer right on his heels.
I growled, smacking my teeth together, hoping to catch the attention of the Crimson wolf. It worked. However what I didn’t know was that that one Crimson wolf was not alone, with it were two Crescent wolves
“One vs. three,” I said to myself. “Nothing you haven’t done before.”
“Two vs. three,” Kamara corrected me.
“Like I said, I don’t need your kind of help.”
“I’ll play by your rules, but don’t let your pride be what gets you killed. Your people need...”
I tuned her out again, launching at the first wolf, as Storm began winging curses at the other two. Something was wrong. Damari’s cries of agony consumed my every thought. My teeth tore through the flesh of the second wolf, tearing one of his arms from his torso. I glanced back at Storm, as Damari’s cries grew louder.
“GO! Storm yelled. “I got this.”
I took off in his direction, I didn’t know what I would find, nor did I know why no one else was there to help him.
When I found him, my heart sank. I changed back into my human form so I could find out what the hell was going on.
“One of those witches got her hands around him,” Foley tried to explain, as she attempted to hold him down.
Dropping to my knees beside him, I questioned. “What did she do?”
“I’m not sure entirely. It’s as though he is stuck in transition.”
Kamara’s voice grew louder in my head until I was unable to tune her out.
“Narah, I can fix this. You can fix this.”
I could hear Damari’s heart beat faster, as all of his muscles again contracted. “I CAN’T!” I yelled aloud.
“You can. I know you can. We just have to work together.”
The first man’s face we came to appeared in my mind, the agony her magic had caused him, the power high I felt.
“Narah,” she repeated my name. “If we don’t do something now, he will die.”
I shook my head, my eyes locked on his. “Just tell me what spell it is, there are four here who can probably do it better than I can.”
Kamara grew angry, her voice now bitter. “Do you love him?”
“What?” I questioned not expecting to hear those words.
“Do you love him,” she repeated.
My shoulders sank, and with them the wall I’d built in my mind to keep her out. “Yes.”
My body moved, and though I felt it, I wasn’t in control. I watched as my hands rose, and I heard my voice muttering words I had never heard in my life, as magic began once again flowing from my fingertips.
After a few seconds Damari’s body quit shaking, his muscles eased, and his heart slowed back down to a normal pace.
“It’s done,” Kamara said, her voice once again back in my head.
“Did it work?” I questioned staring down at his motionless body.
“I did all I could. He will be weak, as will you...but he will live.”
My heart skipped a beat as control of my body came back to me; I scooted myself closer to him, lifting his head off the concrete floor and onto my lap.
His eyes slowly opened, before they closed again, as a sigh of relief escaped his lips.
“We got the last of them,” Kyrell said from behind me.
“Who was it?” I questioned, my eyes still focused on the ragged rise and fall of Damari’s chest.
“The Crescent’s and the Crimson wolves, a hand full of witches and wizards...from what Cat and Storm said, none of them are from the same coven. They’re all stragglers.”
“Smart,” Kamara said, now appearing beside me.
“Excuse me?” I questioned.
“If all the magic came from one source not only would it be easy to stop, it would also have limitations,” sh
e explained. “If their magic comes from across the board, not only is it nearly impossible to stop, the possibilities are quite limitless.”
“How so?”
Cat answered my question, “Because where one witch may lack, the other one may excel.”
That I understood. “How many of these guys are still alive?” I questioned looking around at all the people hanging from chains.
“All of them,” Foley answered.
“Seriously?” I asked, studying a few of the closest ones.
“Yes.”
“Are they all asleep?” I questioned. “I thought you said all the witches here were dead, doesn’t that break the spell?”
“Yes,” Foley repeated. “However not only does it appear as though the witch who cast the spell is not here, I also believe that these wolves are not simply asleep; I believe their souls are tapped.”
“All these wolves are being harvested?” I questioned, instantly feeling like I was going to throw up.
The only thing Foley could do was nod.
“What can we do?” I asked, hopeful that someone had an idea.
Foley was the first to speak. “I don’t know of anything.”
Kyrell followed, “That’s something I’ve been thinking about since I teamed up with Damari.”
I turned to Cat. I didn’t know her, and to be honest I didn’t know if I could trust her...but at the moment I was desperate.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Unless I have the spell used to sedate them and tap into their power, I have no way to reverse it.”
“Can’t any of you try something...” I pleaded. “Anything?”
“Trying to save them would be too risky,” Kamara said, standing in front of one of the women, running her hand down the side of her face. “Unless a full reversal was done, there is no guaranteeing they’d go back to who they were. They’d be broken.”
“We can’t just leave them like this.”
“You’re right,” Kamara said.
“You can’t,” Cat snapped, her temper once again showing through, “seriously be willing to try to wake them up. The pain they would be in...”
“No,” Kamara said closing her eyes and looking back towards the rest of warehouse, filled with our kind. “There is only one thing we can do.”
“No,” I said placing Damari’s head on the floor and standing up. “You can’t.”
