by Brea Viragh
“Do not do anything rash, Miss Cavaldi. We are here to talk to you and get to the bottom of the matter. Think of Israel.”
Suddenly, her shop turned from a comforting space, an area she could go to and relax, to a cage keeping her imprisoned. The Claddium members wouldn’t let her leave, not without a knock down drag out fight.
Darkness leaped with gleeful malice at the opportunity to engage.
Yes, yes. Think of the explosion, the tide turning in my favor. Think of the pain you can inflict, and how deserving they are.
“I can’t control her,” Aisanna said instead, teeth chattering. Her eyes had been rubbed raw with fury and pain. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You need to come with us.” Zelda didn’t need a word or a potion to bring forth the full force of her magic. Her brow furrowed and a ring of fire roared to life around them, keeping them penned.
“Leave me alone.”
“Aisanna—”
“I said leave me alone!”
A puppet with her master’s hand pulling the strings, Aisanna let her magic burst forth, enhanced by the slithering blackness inside of her. A wild range of emotions competed for possession of her, like rival generals in front of vast armies bent on taking the same native land. Excitement. Rage. Dread. Grief. She tried to focus on here and now, to push away the bad feelings and regain control. A creeping sense of futility infected her, the same one incubating in her heart since the first night she’d been struck with the death rune.
The dam broke, the only barrier holding back everything she tried desperately to contain.
And Darkness was thrilled.
Power sprang out from her to manifest as thick poisonous green trunks. Tiles burst from the floor as those trunks wound toward the ceiling. They burst through sheetrock and cement, metal and wood, until they reached the rooftop.
The ring of fire shrank down in surprise. Zelda drew her brows together, livid. “Miss Cavaldi, call this off! That’s enough.”
Thorns the size of a giant’s forearm grew from the stems, with points gleaming black. The thorns formed a wall around her and forced the others to retreat.
“I’m sorry,” she cried, the sentence quickly cut off. Darkness rose and she clutched at her throat. She was forced into a corner until her vision dimmed and she watched the display through a small circle of light. She was an observer in her own body. Unable to stop the tainted black power using her.
Don’t fret. They deserve everything they get. In this game, there’s no loyalty.
A second wave of vines whipped around—summoned out of nothing—and snapped at the air in front of her. They lashed out at the Claddium members like cat-o’-nine-tails, cracking anything they touched and leaving a pool of acid-like liquid in their wake.
Orestes retaliated with a wave of his own earth magic. “I have had enough of this! Cease now or you’ll spend the rest of your miserable life in the Vault.”
The vines shrank back an inch, then thickened. Grew larger and more impenetrable. That’s when Aisanna lost all hope of fighting the one who strengthened her.
Zelda recovered quickly and added her own power to the free-for-all. Flames licked the thorns in bursts that would have normally been able to melt the paint off a tanker. Instead, the plants absorbed the fire and doubled in size.
Aisanna was not one to give in to hysterics. The opposite, usually. She delegated hysterics for Karsia. However, at the realization that Darkness would never let her go, she went ballistic.
With a scream to make a banshee proud, she released the flow of magic and bolted toward the back door, gaining enough control of her legs to stumble along.
Her dark passenger found the resistance amusing.
Run, run, little one! I’ll give you this escape tonight.
Her muscles protested after everything she’d been through. She pushed on into the freezing cold. She had no place to go, no sanctuary for escape. She ran over frozen sidewalks and across blocks, ran until her vision dimmed. Her feet slowed and a slick patch of ice had her sliding into a nearby building. Needles pierced her insides and she bent over her knees, sobbing.
Sobbing and woozy-headed, Aisanna sank to the ground with dizziness swarming like bees in her ears. “Just take me already.”
As if from a distance she heard a boom, an explosion of mortar and stone when her building collapsed to the ground. Her business had been decimated.
Her vision tunneled once more until she beheld only a single point of light from a nearby street lamp.
Then she gave in.
CHAPTER 17
“We really have to stop meeting like this.” Aisanna kicked her legs back and forth and watched bright blue water ripple out from the movement. She drew her head up, feeling the heat of the sun on her cheeks. “Soon people will start to talk. We can’t have that.”
Vane chuckled, sliding next to her and rolling his dark blue jeans up to his knees. Tanned calves with dark hair to match his head cut through the water and he sighed at the sensation. “We do, daughter. We do.”
“My body isn’t in any danger, is it? Alone on the street? I’d hate to go back and find I’m half dead.”
Aisanna felt better than she had in years. Whatever dimension outside of time Vane drew her to felt good and peaceful. How much harder it would be to leave when the time came.
Lapis-colored water at the perfect temperature lapped at the sides of the lagoon-style pool. Wherever Vane went, summer followed in his wake. Birds chirped and called from nearby branches amidst a cacophony of crickets.
It was just the two of them, with their legs dangling above the deep end of a lovely infinity-edge pool, with the swollen sun high in the sky. A slight breeze rippled her hair and kept the temperature from being too hot.
Perfect, of course. She expected nothing less.
She knew logically this was a place outside of time. It felt strangely familiar to her, the stuff of a long-forgotten dream. Considering the horror waiting for her back in reality, it felt wonderful to be here—wherever they were. For a split second, Aisanna didn’t care if she died. As long as Darkness no longer controlled her.
Here, she was free of any outside influence. Her spirit once more belonged to her alone.
“She’s hurting me,” Aisanna told Vane. She glanced over and took him in, from the top of his dark head to the eyes meeting hers. Full of kindness and understanding. “She took over my body and did horrible things. I know what Zelda and Orestes said was true. She did convince that man in the club to kill those people. She used my body to do it.”
“Cecilia does not have the power to make people do things, only to exploit what is already there buried beneath the surface.” When he looked at her, there was sadness there. It seemed out of place on him. “True evil lies in people’s hearts and she can only work with what is already there. Although I am sorry for what is happening to you.”
“Cecilia.” Aisanna tested the name, her lips moving through the vowels. “She has a name.”
Vane chuckled. “Indeed she does.”
“The woman in the mirror?”
“A shade of who she used to be. A very, very long time ago, in another lifetime. I don’t have the words to explain how sorry I am.” He reached out to trail his index finger along the smooth, unmarked skin of her arm. There was no script there now. Not here. Not in this place.
“You’re sorry? Seriously?” Aisanna barked out a vicious laugh. “It’s not like I gladly opened the door and said ‘I’m through with control, I’d like to be a puppet now.’ Your apology is crap. The least you can do is tell me what it is she did to me and how to stop it.”
“I’m sorry, Aisanna. I only hope you do not give in to her. Keep up hope and be strong.”
She flung her arms into the air. “What do you expect me to do? I’m beaten down and we’re no closer to finding a way to stop her! Not to mention the love of my life hates me now.” She stopped. There was no pain in this place, she’d come to see. So why did her chest ache?
“Tell me about the script,” she demanded instead.
Vane sighed. “It’s a location spell. I suppose there’s somewhere she wants you to go. Something she wants you to see.”
Aisanna felt her own inadequacy keenly then. The weeks of fighting, the months of not knowing, and she had no idea how to save her own skin. She’d spent too much time worrying about her love life. About Elon. Briefly, she thought of how he would love it here, in the fantasy world.
“I wish I could help you,” Vane said sincerely. “I really do. Unfortunately, my hands are tied. I’m very limited in what I can offer.”
“What do you mean, limited? If she can find a way inside,” Aisanna clutched her stomach, “then surely you have a way to help us. Outside of these dreams, these illusions. The veil is thinning. You’re stronger than you were before.”
“I cannot,” Vane insisted.
“Why?”
“Because of free will.” He stared at the trees with a faraway expression. “She and I…we are keepers of the balance. One for light and one for dark. It was a choice we made to save our people, and as such, we accepted the consequences. I cannot physically intervene to stop her without tipping the scale in one direction. It is the universal law. Without it, the two planes become unstable.” He placed one large hand on the tender skin of her knee. “I would give anything to intervene. Until someone new takes my place, patches the veil once more, I can’t physically help.”
This was new information for her. “Why can’t this be simple? She’s hurting us from the inside. How is that not tipping the balance in her favor?”
“It is your reaction to her. She would not be able to get inside you unless you let her,” Vane replied. He swished his feet through the water in a circle. “The fraying veil gives her influence. Not form.”
“There is no way I intentionally let her use my body as a playground.” After more than a quarter of a century of her body belonging exclusively to herself? No way in hell. Period.
“Perhaps not intentionally, but did you do anything to keep her away?” Vane asked. “Spells, safeguards? Your sister’s amulet? You are witches with a great well of history at your disposal, yet you did nothing. Used nothing.”
Aisanna opened her mouth to retort and shut it quickly. No, she hadn’t done any of those things. She’d run like a scared rabbit, hid behind her parents’ might, hid in Elon’s bed. But never once had she thought to use magic to protect herself.
How stupid she felt now. She was the definition of stupid.
“You are witches,” Vane repeated for emphasis. “It is what you do. What we do. Astix found a way to keep Darkness out. She was strong enough to withstand the pull of evil. Cecilia—the energy that used to be Cecilia—has no power over you unless you allow it. She needs a host.”
“She wants a host?”
“Not everyone is completely pure, or completely wicked.” Vane changed tactics and kicked at the pool surface. Small waves spread out and slapped gently against the sides of the pool. “If you had been placed in a position you didn’t want, and you didn’t understand the repercussions of accepting, would you tire of it? Would you want someone else to take your place? Yes. You would want a chance to recapture the life you lost. The family you lost.”
“I suppose so.” Aisanna could understand that, absolutely. “But what can I do? The eclipse is coming, the veil will disappear, and the only person with enough power to stop it is the Harbinger.”
Before her eyes, Vane began to disappear, fading away gradually. “That, my dear, is something you need to find out on your own.”
“At least tell me how to find her. Him. Whoever it is!”
Too late. He was gone. She sighed with frustration, closed her eyes, tipped back her head.
When she opened her eyes a moment later, she was once more on the street. Cars drove by in startling regularity with headlights cutting through the haze of night.
She hadn’t lost much time at all.
Her hysteria took a backseat for the moment while she focused on what she’d done and what she had to do.
Oh God, she’d attacked two Claddium elemental heads. She’d thrown unnatural, dark power at them.
Well, damn it anyway.
Aisanna scrambled to her feet and considered her options. What had Astix said, something about finding a safehouse? She needed to pack a bag and find her sister. Would Astix still want to see her after their heated words? Probably not, but too bad.
She was a witch, dammit, descended from centuries of Cavaldi blood. They were one of the most respected families in the magical community, with members scattered throughout the world.
And it was about time she started acting the part.
CHAPTER 18
Aisanna made it to her apartment in one piece and locked the door behind her. She’d managed to elude Orestes and Zelda, though she doubted they were far behind. She had minutes at best to grab a bag and get back to the house.
With a literal sigh of relief passing her lips, she hurried into the bedroom and fumbled through her bedside dresser.
She stuffed clothes and random toiletries into a black duffel. Papers and objects with no distinct importance flew over her shoulders and plummeted to the floor. She’d no sooner zipped the bag closed when she heard the sound of a scuffle from the other room. Instantly on guard, Aisanna brought her hands up in the ready position and prepared to call on her magic.
Astix burst through the door in a flurry.
“Thank God! I’d hoped you would be here.” Astix leaned back on the door as though her small might may keep the wood closed for good. A rat’s nest of auburn hair hung around her head, her appearance crazed. “You need to get out. Now.”
She stole a look around the room and locked the door behind her.
“I thought you were going to leave without me.” Aisanna strode forward and wrapped her arms around her sister’s shoulders. “I was coming to find you. I’m sorry.”
“Out, now!”
“It’s nice to see you too.”
“Aisanna, there’s time for apologies later.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The Claddium. Orestes.” Astix grasped her sides, stooping slightly to catch her breath. “They’re looking for you.”
“Yeah, I figured they would be, after what I did.” Aisanna touched the stone at her throat lightly. “I messed up, Astix. I messed up and they’re trying to throw me in the Vault with Zee.”
“They’re what?” The last word ended on a howl.
“I know you said you have a safehouse. How long does it take to get there? And how did you know I would be here?”
“We’ll talk about it later.” Astix swiveled around and pressed her ear against the wood. “You need to get out, right this minute. I stalled them for as long as possible. But we know Orestes’s earth magic is stronger than mine.”
A prickle of fear rose until Aisanna tasted it on her tongue. She pushed it down. Astix moved until she took Aisanna by the elbow and began pulling her forward.
Pounding sounded at the front door and both girls dropped to a crouch instinctively.
Astix drew a hand over Aisanna’s mouth to stem the flow of words bubbling up. “Too late. They’re here,” she whispered.
Malicious delight coursed through her at the thought of going head to head with Orestes and Zelda one more time. Aisanna nearly rose to fight until Astix tightened her hold and jerked her head toward the window.
Her sister’s power had held the Claddium off long enough to give them time to speak. Would it hold once more?
Aisanna did not want to wait to find out. Their only option now was the fire escape.
Astix kept her eyes open and conjured up a beam of diamond from the depths of the earth. When it materialized in her hand, she shoved it through the keyhole, manipulating the qualities of both metal and mineral to keep the door closed.
A boom sounded when the front door exploded inward. Footsteps echoed down the corridor, several peop
le filing into the apartment. Aisanna recognized their voices and the echoes of a scuffle. Whoever came for her threw glass to the floor and let it shatter. They broke furniture and emptied cabinets to destroy her space. Her sanctuary.
They both scrambled across the cold floor until they reached the far wall. She shut her eyes until tears stung her closed lids and her strength was not sufficient to hold them back. Together with Astix, they moved the window up until there was enough space for them to squeeze through.
Astix held a finger to her lips. Using her version of sign language, she gestured toward the fire escape and urged Aisanna to hurry outside first. Aisanna wasted no time. With the influence of Darkness urging her to stay and fight and her limbs only half-cooperating, Aisanna shimmied her body gracelessly through the window, with her sister standing guard.
She was halfway outside when the bedroom door crashed off the hinges and landed halfway across the room.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Aisanna didn’t recognize the voice and did not stop to see if she knew the face it belonged to. Maneuvering quickly, she slid the last few feet with only the smallest help from Astix.
“You are in big trouble, young—”
With her sister right behind her, Aisanna dove into her well of tainted magic and sent a wave back into the bedroom. Screeches rose to staggering decibels when the floor erupted with venomous plants. Astix added her might, and together the two sisters took the rungs of the fire escape ladder in hand.
“Hold on!” Astix urged. She flung the latch, and the metal shot down like a missile.
They slammed into the concrete within seconds and the blast caused both to lose their grip. They tumbled to the ground with the air knocked from their chests, neighborhood trash cans crashing around them.
Aisanna saw stars when her head collided with the pavement. She’d always heard the expression and never once thought it true. Now she knew for certain.
Astix was the first to recover. Aisanna felt a tug on her hand and got to her feet with a dizzy sway.
