by Tara Brown
He is still alive and that is the least weird thing I've seen all morning.
She seethes at me. “How the hell? How? I can see it on his face, Nene. Jesus Christ. Jesus. You can't do this to me and to you. Your mother would—”
My face snaps up and she drops to her knees. She covers her face and sobs.
“What? What did you say?” I gasp.
She shakes her head and looks at him. “We need to run, Rayne.”
He looks at her and then at me.
“How could you let her live without knowing?” His sentence makes no sense in comparison to all the other things in the air, floating around. It feels like any minute they will rain down on me, and I won't live through the shock of everything. I have a dreadful sensation inside of me that everything is a lie—like I'm in a dream or a movie.
“You said ‘my mother.’”
She shakes her head, ignoring me. “You can't let them have me, Van Helsing. Kill me or let us run.”
I put a hand out. “Whoa! Whoa! Wait a minute. You said ‘my mother?’ Who the hell are you? Aren't you my mother?”
She turns to face me and her face fills with rage. Her eyes are glowing green. She covers her face again.
“She isn’t like you. She's a witch. She's an earth witch.” His words are deadpan and cold. “I told you, their eyes glow.”
She puts her hands out to him. “Let us run. I promise you'll never hear from us again.”
He glances at me. “What are you?”
I spit at him. “What are you? What is she? What is a fire witch or an earth witch? WHAT AM I?”
He looks at her and points at me. “Look how you've raised her. She is defenseless.”
I shake my head and scream, “SOMEONE EXPLAIN THIS TO ME NOW!”
She sobs in a heap on the floor. “I failed you.”
He waits for her to speak, but she doesn’t. “You're a succubus of some sort, Rayne. She's your guardian I would bet. She is raising you the way you should live. Working to keep your powers at bay.” His eyes dart to her. “But why? Who is she?”
She sobs louder and then her sobs become a fit of laughter.
She laughs like a crazy woman. She smiles at me and whispers, “I failed you, Rayne.” And then she is gone.
“Damn. We have to leave now.”
I look at him. “I'm not going anywhere with you. I want answers. Actually, damn the answers. Get the hell out of my house right now. My mother just vanished, vanished. Did you happen to catch that? She stabbed you repeatedly, and yet, here you stand. What in the hell is going on?”
He laughs. “I will answer the questions. Just stop cussing and freaking out. You sound nuts.”
I cry and laugh, mostly out of frustration. I want Willow and the answers to the questions I have.
“I sound nuts? I sound nuts? I wonder why. Maybe because you make questions and chaos.” I'm a heap on the floor.
He stands and crosses the room in one of his huge steps. He looks down on me, threatening me with the sheer size of him. Double my size. Maybe triple. “We are leaving now. I'm not screwing around. If there is something you need, like absolute must have, get it now. I need to find her lair.”
My lips tremble. “W-w-what?” I laugh hard. I am losing my mind. I want to pull my hair out, burn the friggen house to the ground, and blow his car up. Then I want to turn myself in for killing the man on the grass. That’s what I want to be able to do.
Instead I sit, frozen and lost. I sit and wait for things to make sense.
He looks around and walks to the kitchen. He plays with the cupboards. I glance over. He's standing in front of a doorway I never knew existed. It's a secret entry inside of the pantry. He looks at me. “You should probably come with me.”
I don’t move. My feet refuse. They need answers. Answers about the secret room in the pantry and the secret mom I've never met.
He walks to me and grabs my hand. I can barely get to my feet as he drags me across the floor. It burns where he touches me, but the feeling of the pain is becoming a comfort. I think it's the only real thing in my life.
He drags me down the old creepy stairs. They go down in a circular motion, like a castle tower would. The walls are brick, like the stairs. It's dark. My eyes light up immediately. I see perfectly.
I walk to a bench at the bottom of the stairs and flick a switch on the wall.
He looks around slowly. I don’t get how he can be so calm.
“This is her lair.”
I snort.
“Hey, don’t laugh. She's probably in here with us. Earth witches are crafty.”
I look around but don't see her. When he couldn’t see her, I could.
“Can she kill you?”
He shakes his head. “No. I'm death for her. My blood, my skin, my spit, my sweat, everything about me is designed to kill you. All of you.” Watching him rip the knitting needle from his throat and grab her savagely was bizarre. The way he dragged her downstairs, burning her skin, was beyond bizarre.
My skin shivers.
“What's a succubus?”
He walks to where a huge shelf is lined with books. He grabs a book and carries it to me. He blows the dust off and hands it to me.
The writing is like nothing I've ever seen.
“What's this book?”
“It's her grimoire and journal. If anything can tell us what you are, it'll be that. She will have kept track of things with you. Changes.”
He walks back to the table and mixes something. He starts a fire and points to the stairs. “There isn’t anything in here. It's all just magic crap.”
I look around and shiver. I grip the book to my chest. The room is small. Books and herbs and vials line shelves and sit amongst debris on the tables. There is no light or windows. The walls are the same bricks from the stairs.
I can see chalk drawings on the floor and walls. Like she had some sidewalk chalk and went crazy with it.
The fire spreads fast. I hear a vial break. He turns and pulls me up the stairs.
He drags me out to the car, and I try not to look back. I try not to see the happy house that I grew up in. The house I loved more than anything in the world, along with the mother I loved more than I loved myself. I try not to remember scraping my knee and the way she kissed it and bandaged me. The way she mothered me, but never let me call her mother.
She wasn’t my mother. My heart is broken. Seeing the smoke start to creep out the windows and the broken front door is killing me. I want my mom. I don’t care if she gave birth to me or not. She is my mom, even if she never let me call her that. Tears burst from my eyes.
He starts the car and we drive away as the flames engulf the house.
My life ends.
My old life is gone, and the mixed bag of bullcrap that has become my new life needs to be sorted through.
I look at him and try not to love him. I try not to feel everything when I look at him. I hate the way I make him everything. “What's a Van Helsing? She called you a Van Helsing.”
He pauses and watches me for a moment before answering, “Your natural enemy. I am the hunter of the things you all are.”
I furrow my brow. “Wait, like Dracula vs. Van Helsing? Like the movie with Kate Beckinsale?”
He nods. “You really want to mock me after all of the crap that's happened?”
“The Wolfman?”
He looks pissed.
I laugh. “The Swamp Thing?”
“Keep laughing. Whoever was coming for you or hid you with an earth witch is going to be pissed when they find out you're missing.”
“So, all of it's true? Vampires, werewolves, mummies? Witches and goblins and trolls and faeries?”
“No mummies—that’s stupid. No zombies or goblins. Try to focus on the plausible beings. They're all true. Like vampires and faeries. Shifters are what you would call werewolves. The shifters are the only ones you probably would get mixed up. They are either wolves, foxes, or lions, or other things. Some are cats and
some are dogs and never do they fall in love.” He looks at me and smiles bitterly. “Like things like us.”
I know the pain in my eyes and the hurt crossing my face is visible. I don’t care.
“Do you love me?” I ask.
He laughs. “I can't. Like I said, you're under my skin, but I can't love, not something like you. I should have killed you the first time I realized.” His words cut me. It's deep, and I know I will never heal from the way he says “something like you.”
“Why didn’t you?” My voice is angry.
He shakes his head. “I don’t know. I just know that I can't live without you.”
I shudder. I just want to talk and not feel anything. I've pushed down my feelings about Willow. I can't let myself acknowledge his confession about his feelings. It's a path I don’t want to tread upon. Not yet.
“When did you know I was different?”
“The day you ran away from me.”
“When you slapped me?”
He knits his brow. “I can never redeem myself for that. I need you to know I am truly sorry for it. Truly. I wouldn’t normally have hit you, a girl. You caught me off guard. I mean—I hit the things, like vampires and shifters and stuff. But not regular girls.”
I believe him. Mostly because I want to. But I can't let him know that. “You're irrational. You beat up those other guys. The guys I dated. I know it was you.”
He looks straight ahead and drives like a nut. “It was wrong. I know that. I was just so angry and drunk. I get angry thinking about anyone touching you.”
My skin shivers again. “That’s creepy.”
He doesn’t say anything else. I look down at my hands and the dried blood. Wyatt's blood is mixed with the blood from the guy I think I killed. No, I know I killed. I know he was dead when I left him there alone on the grass.
I look at the book and trace the weird letters. “Can you read this?”
“Some of it.”
He puts a hand over mine and I wince from the pain. “We'll figure this out, okay?”
I pull my hand away. My stomach pains and the burning on my skin are too much to add to everything else.
We drive in silence. I glance over at him and wonder when I'll be able to be away from him. If ever. My sick obsession with being near him has been getting worse all day. It's overtaken the things I am truly devastated about. I have a sickness. I should be terrified of him. I should be running for my life. I should call the police. I need help.
I look out the window and see we're back in Burlington. He pulls up in front of a house. It's small and white and sort of looks like my house. My old house that now sits in a pile of rubble and ash. With my old life.
He gets out and runs up to the door. The waitress answers. No, not waitress, fire witch.
She looks at me as he talks. She looks defeated. He motions for me to come. I put the book down and climb out of the car
I'm shivering. I hug myself and walk up the steps
She glares her fiery eyes at me. “Nice. I friggen help you and you sell me out to him?”
“I didn’t know. I still don’t know. I didn’t know you lived here. I don’t know anything.”
She rolls her eyes and flashes the fire at me again. “He can sniff us out. Our energy clusters around where we live.”
He crosses his arms impatiently.
She puts her hands on either side of me. I want to fight her and struggle but warmth seeps into me. I shiver and let the warmth creep in under my skin. It’s the best I've felt all day.
“I don’t know what she is, but it's not succubus. It's her way of feeding, yes, but whatever her powers are, they're locked away. I wouldn’t mess with this one, Wyatt. You Van Helsings get too cocky. Let her go back to school.”
He smirks. “How long did you know what I was?”
She laughs. “Please. I spotted you from the minute we met. That’s why I had my guards up. If I help you, you leave me alone?”
He nods once. She drags me into the house with Wyatt following.
Her house is cute and clean. She points to a couch. I sit down. She kneels and lights some candles. She puts her hands into the fire and makes a ball. She puts the fire up to my face. The heat of is intense.
“Take her hand.”
He takes my hand and she looks at me. “You sure you want this?”
I shake my head. “What?” I'm almost biting my lip from the pain of his hand over mine.
“If I handfast you in magic, it's like being married in the magical world. It'll stop the pain when he touches you and stop you from feeling sick all the time. But you'll be together. Like together—together.”
I think for a second, but the burning is getting to be too much. I nod quickly. I am tired of being tired and feeling sick. I want to be with him anyway. If I'm really honest.
She places the ball of fire over our two hands. She lets it go and it falls onto our hands. I scream in pain. Wyatt winces. The fire rips through my hand. I see our skin melt and our hands are one for a second. The skin retreats and forms two hands again. The fire licks and burns. As the flames die, so does the pain.
My cheeks are wet with tears. I look at her. “What was that?”
She laughs. “I now pronounce you man and wife. Good luck, kid.” She looks at him and drops her gaze. “I have to ask you to leave. If anyone saw you here—”
He lifts me by my hand. “Of course. Thank you.”
I stutter, “H-h-husband and w-w-wife?” I cradle my burnt hand. “I thought you were kidding. Like we could date or something?”
She ignores my simpering. “You're gonna have to run.”
“Where? Where should I go? My house burned down.” I almost sniffle again but I don’t. There must be a quota for how much one person is allowed to cry in a week.
“You can come with me.” He looks at me and squeezes my hand. I want to belong with him. His touch is cured. No pain in my stomach, no burning or sparks. His touch feels like I always wished it would. The dirty feeling in my stomach is gone. His grin makes my stomach flutter, but it's in a normal boy-girl way.
He looks at her. “You're free. Free to do magic and be who you are. I can't guarantee it will be that way if you decide to practice like your ancestors. Keep the guard up. Apparently, something wanted her hidden away. Not sure if that means it's coming here or Plattsburgh, but either way, I would be careful.”
She nods and walks us to the door. “I know.”
He ignores her and walks out. He gets into the car. I walk out onto her porch and shake my head. “You know? You know what's searching for me?”
She nods once. “I know, but I can't help you. Find the earth witches, Rayne. They’ll help you. I can't.”
I look down. “Well, uhm . . . thanks. I guess.”
She lifts my chin and gives me a severe look. “Don’t thank me yet. He has no magic over you, but that doesn’t mean he will let you live. Keep your eyes open. He and his kind don’t ever do anything without a reason. And usually that reason has something to do with killing one of us. Don’t trust him or anyone like him.”
I want to stay with her. For whatever reason, I like her. I pause and watch him. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
I look back at her and marvel at the fiery eyes. “How did you know what I was? How did you see me when he couldn’t.”
She crosses her arms and smirks. “The Van Helsings think they're so powerful, but the witches of the earth have learned to block them. You had a powerful spell around you, protecting you from things like him. I could see it—it and the dead things that hang off of it. They told me about the dream. They said to say that and you would believe. They wanted you out of the restaurant.”
“Dead things? You mean the whispering dead?”
She looks around. “Yup. Slow things down one day and have a chat with them. Let them take you home. Good luck with him though. He's a piece of work.”
My frown is fixed when I look at him. My feelings for
him are still at war with each other. “Can I get a magical divorce?”
She laughs and closes the door. “Good luck.”
I walk to the car and try not to think about what she said, or didn’t say.
Chapter Nine
We don’t go back to school. I don’t know why. I don't want to know why. My constant stomachache is gone. My feelings of intense and unnatural love for Wyatt have gone with the stomachache.
It was like we crossed a state line, and all of a sudden I looked over and was disgusted. The memory of his hand whipping across my cheek makes me feel a new kind of sickness. It's as if a veil has been lifted, and I see him for what he is, just a boy.
He looks more relaxed.
I can't relax. My fingers dig into my palms. I'm pretty sure I've drawn blood with my nails.
The scenery flies past us. I've lost track of where we are.
I want Willow. I want yesterday. I would take the stomachache back if it could be yesterday. Yesterday, when I was getting dressed and crying over the phone, with the woman I believed to be my mother. I want that back, more than I want anything. I want to be free of the life I took in the grass. The debt of the dead man feels heavy, as it should.
He smiles at me. I just watch him.
We've been driving for six hours. My back is aching and my legs are cramped. He's only stopped for gas once.
“When we get there, let me do the talking, okay?” Talking to whom?
I want my cell phone. I want to phone the police and confess and tell them the dead man was my doing. I want to snuggle on my bed and have Michelle stroke my head, while Mona Photoshop's pictures of us. I want so many things. Yet, all I do is stare out the window and watch as countryside I have never seen before flies by me at an unnatural sped.
The car swerves when he tries to hold my hand. My natural fear of him has started to sink in. Somehow now, I see the things I should have seen all along. I see the way his eyes look through me and the brutal strength in his voice and hands. He could choke the life out of me, and I don’t think I could stop him. My natural fear doesn’t have common sense. She is just a jerk who hates the man next to me, as much as she wants him. I don’t know where I fit into that scenario.
