“Did I make you sad? I'm sorry if I did something wrong.”
I grabbed his hands and pressed them to my cheeks to nuzzle. “You definitely do not make me sad. I'm so happy I was able to meet you and become a part of your life, Ben. I'll always protect you.”
“Promise?” He pulled a hand away and stuck up his pinky.
“Promise.” I intertwined mine with his.
Satisfied with our vows, Ben turned around to continue his leaf-stomping escapades. I laughed at the sound effects he made with every movement. He grinned at me, clearing trying to show off now that he had my attention.
“Do you see the bunny over there, Ben?” I tugged him close and pointed across the yard to the animal as it ate something it found. It perked up at our voices, its nose twitching.
My phone rang again, alerting me to a text from Sue.
Suzanne: What’s going on, sugar? You, Cole, and John didn’t show up for work today.
Cole didn’t show up for work… Did that mean he knew that we knew it was him? This was not good.
“I’ll get it for you, Mama.” Benjamin declared before taking off towards the poor rabbit.
“Ben, come back here. Let’s not chase the bunny.” I stood up but was utterly ignored as he continue to chase it and squealed with laughter.
As soon as he rounded the corner, I took off after him. I couldn’t let him out of my sight. “Benjamin, you need to get back here right now.”
Ben stood in the middle of the driveway looking up nervously at a man that stood, hands in his pockets and wearing that ridiculous pencil tie. Cole.
My blood instantly boiled. I pulled Ben behind me. “What are you doing here?” I spat out.
Cole tutted. “Is that any kind of way to talk to your dear coworker? When you didn’t show up for work, I knew you must’ve figured something out… Especially with the failure of my men. I assure you, it won’t happen again, not when I’ve found out what you were hiding.” He laughed, his face warping into a grotesque smirk that seemed nothing like the dorky man he'd presented himself as up until now.
“You aren’t taking him or anyone else ever again, Cole.” I squared my shoulders and felt my magic building up starting at my chest. It was churning heavily inside of me as if it was also angry.
Behind me, Ben screamed. I whipped around to see him snatched up by a man. Just as I reached out for him, someone else grabbed me from behind, their arm pressed so tightly against my throat that I couldn’t breathe. I gasped, trying to call out for Atohi or Johannes. I could only pray they heard Ben.
I clawed at the man on me, my nails biting into the flesh of his arm. He pulled it away only long enough to clasp a metal collar around my throat. A similar one was placed around Ben’s.
My magic fizzled before coming back with a vengeance. It surged through my core before coming out in a blinding white light that blasted away the man behind me. I could hear his scream almost as loudly as the crack of the metal around my neck.
There was a dizzying flurry of movement as Johannes and Atohi pierced the light. I fell to my knees. Despite the lack of something around my neck, I still couldn’t breathe, and my world was spinning. The last thing I heard was Johannes’s wail of despair.
~~~
I awoke to the sound of arguing. My head throbbed and my mouth felt dry.
The voices stopped when I reached a hand up to rub at my face. What had even happened? I felt like I had gone on a weeklong bender.
I tried to think back, mentally retracing my steps. I remembered going out on the porch… the man and woman in Johannes’s front yard… Evangeline waking up… and Johannes telling me not to go outside with—
I shot upright with a gasp. Ben.
I needed to get up and find Ben. I needed him in my arms. He had to be safe, he just had to be. In my panic, I started to hyperventilate. Atohi tried to grab my attention by squeezing my cheeks to face him, but I could only stare at Johannes as I locked eyes with him over Atohi’s shoulder. His eyes were glassy, his face a mixture of anger and hatred. It told me what I was too afraid to ask. Ben was gone.
No, no, no.
Ben was never supposed to be involved in any of this and now… No, I couldn’t even think it.
“I have to find him.” I pushed away from Atohi and tried to kick the covers off to leave.
My legs gave out on me as soon as I tried to stand. I braced myself on the bed as Atohi reached out to help. “What—What’s wrong with me?” Even my speech was slightly slurred.
“You used too much magic, Alice.” Atohi gently helped me steady on my feet. “You need to get back into bed and rest.”
“I can't rest, I need to go look for Ben!” I slumped against the broad expense of his chest. He was so warm that it tempted me to listen to him, but I couldn’t.
“Alice, get back in bed,” Johannes snapped. “Your defiant attitude is what got us in this situation in the first place,”
Atohi frowned at him. “Hey, I know you're angry, but she’s clearly upset.”
“No, Atohi, it's okay. He’s right.” My breathing had slowed, but my chest still constricted painfully every few breaths. It helped ground me. I deserved this pain and suffering for what I had let happen.
Atohi pressed his lips together but didn’t disagree with me. “We'll get him back, Johannes,” he said, lowering me back to sit on the bed.
Johannes paced the length of the room before stopping in front of a dresser to lean against it, his shoulders heaving before he picked up a trinket and threw it to smash against the far wall. I flinched at the noise but didn’t say anything. “I haven't been able to sense him since they disappeared. They had to have a magic user with them. There’s no other way they could’ve evaded us. Why didn’t Benjamin go to one of his worlds?”
“They used these collars…” I reached up and winced as I rubbed at my throat. “It blocked my magic for a second before it snapped… but I don’t think Ben could get his off.”
I pressed a hand to my face and held my breath to prevent the sob that was working its way out. Tears burned my eyes. Why was this all happening?
“Alice, we will find him,” Atohi whispered as he pulled me to him and let me cry into his chest. “We managed to capture the man that grabbed you.”
“That’s… That’s amazing. But how are we going to get him to talk?”
“I called your friend Eldris. I knew if I interrogated the man, I would end up…” Killing him. The words were unspoken, but they were clear. Johannes cleared his throat. “Fae are cunning and diligent when given a task and incredibly gifted in potions.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” I asked and swung my legs over the side of the bed, again using Atohi to steady myself. “Let’s get our answers.”
Chapter Eighteen
The thick smell of blood hung so heavily in the air that the metallic taste coated my tongue the moment I opened my mouth. I stood with my arms crossed over my chest against a wall in Johannes’s basement. I had insisted on being in here, but it was quickly becoming something I couldn’t stomach.
I could feel my magic wanting to reach out and heal him even though I knew he was the enemy.
He screamed, and I closed my eyes as if that would make it not real.
John picked up a twisted glass sculpture from a small table next to the man. It reminded me of a Victorian lachrymatory bottle. As he held it up, I could see a shimmering liquid swirled in it.
“Are you interested in talking yet?” John asked, his voice a thundering boom in the cramped space.
The man spit at John’s feet. “If I tell you, they’ll kill me. If I don’t, you’ll kill me. So what’s the point?”
John smirked. “That’s where you’re wrong. We aren’t going to kill you.”
Stepping from the shadows where he’d been watching like a predator stalking its injured prey, Johannes leaned down beside the man, which was no small feat with his large Ghoul body. Swirling tendrils of his magic grasped at the man as if they h
ad a life of their own.
Fear could easily be read in the blackened eyes of our captive. Johannes was terrifying with his large wolf skull with two rows full of fangs that just begged to sink into flesh. It was like looking into the face of death itself. “We’ll keep you alive to keep torturing until we find my son.” Though clearly angered, Johannes’s voice was a purr even with the static-like distortion of his voice in this form. "Only then will we allow you to die.”
Johannes laughed. A chill went down my spine. He was on my side, but he still frightened me in this form. He was entirely skeletal aside from the magic that poured from his eyes and the magic that morphed his lower half as he levitated.
“This lovely device is something of my own design,” John marveled as he pushed the man’s shirt from where it had ripped to find the spot on his chest just above his heart. The glass pressed in, lightly piercing his skin as blood welled around the tip. “This is actually a special Fae glass that dissolves. As it does this, the poison contained will spread through your body, which will be particularly excruciating.”
My whole body quaked as I watched. We needed information to get to Ben, but this just wasn’t right.
Johannes glanced over at me. “Take her outside, brother.”
Atohi, who had been guarding the doorway, nodded and grabbed my hand and led me up the stairs.
The scream that rang out behind us made my stomach squeeze. I couldn't stop myself from retching by the trash cans once we were outside. My throat burned as the bile worked its way up. Atohi rubbed my back while my chest heaved.
“Does none of this affect you?” My voice was sharper than I had intended.
He lifted his hands, looking helpless. “I've been detached from humanity for so long, Alice. My ability to walk around outside that house hasn’t even sunken in as being real yet, let alone the rest of this. And now I'm being asked to help the man who held me captive. Brother or not, I was Johannes’s prisoner. I'm trying my best to forgive him, but my mind is reeling at everything right now.”
He walked a few feet away, head tilted back to look into the sky. He looked so troubled. I whispered his name.
It was a long few seconds before he went on. “And now... After finally getting my freedom, a freedom which you helped grant to me, and I can never thank you enough…” He breathed out slowly. “I find out that Zella had a child with him.”
When he turned back around, the look of hurt in his eyes was like a violent punch to the gut. He looked so broken in that moment. If there was anything left in my stomach, I might’ve thrown up again.
“You loved her, didn't you?” I said. “You were in love with her.”
All of this had happened decades before I was even born. I had no right to be hurt or feel a sense of jealousy. And yet, I couldn't stop the pain from blossoming. I didn't know how many times I’d need to tell myself to stop.
He seemed unsure of what to say, mouth opening and closing. Finally he sighed. “I was. I never told her because I thought she would reject me. She hadn't shown any outward interest in being with someone—me or Johannes or anyone else. I just assumed she had little interest in losing her new freedom from Hecate to becoming a wife at the time. Apparently I was wrong.”
“Do you only have an interest in me because I look like her?” I choked on the words, shocked at myself for letting them slip. “Because I’m related to her?”
He swung around to look at me. “Why would you ask me that?”
“Because I'm scared that when you look at me, all you see is the ghost of her.”
We stared at each other, my sudden confession looming heavily in the air.
“Is that what was bothering you last night?” he asked quietly, slowly approaching me like he was afraid I’d dart off, which was a safe assumption.
I shifted my weight from foot to foot as I tried to maintain eye contact with him. “That’s not…” I paused and took a deep breath. I had spent so much time telling Johannes not to hide things from me and Atohi; I needed to be honest myself. “Yes, it was. You all have these amazing memories of her, she brought you all together, and I’m… I’m just the little girl that has completely obliterated everything.”
Tears slipped down my cheeks that I didn’t bother to wipe away. What did it matter anymore if he saw me being a complete mess? “I’ll never be her, and I can’t help thinking that when all of you, Johannes and Ben included, look at me, you’re not seeing me. I’m Alice Barlow, I’m not Zella.”
Atohi smiled, which only made me more confused by the entire situation. “Come here, Alice.” He opened his arms wide.
I sniffled and crossed my arms petulantly. “No…”
He sighed before coming and sweeping me up. “Alice, you’re so adorable.”
“There’s nothing adorable about any of this…” I grumbled against his shirt.
“While it’s true that I was initially drawn to you because of your relation to Zella, it’s not why I stay.” I tried to pull back to look at Atohi’s face as he spoke, but he held on tighter. I frowned; he didn’t want me to look at his face when he confessed. “Your laugh, your smile, the shenanigans you help me get into, that’s all you, Alice. I would never, ever want you to be Zella, because I love you how you are…”
Love? Atohi loves me? “You can’t just give me that kind of confession and not let me see you.” I laughed lightly, trying desperately not to let more snot run down my face.
“I think it’s exactly that sort of confession.” Atohi stroked my hair.
“Atohi, I—”
“We’ll talk about it later, when we save Ben and try to make a new normal for us, okay?” He finally pulled away and gave me a wide smile. “You can see this handsome face now, are you happy?” He wiggled his eyebrows.
I snorted on a laugh and quickly pressed my sleeve to my nose. Oh, God, I’m so gross. Snot, tears, snorting; I was a picture of grace right now.
“No more tears, okay? We’ll figure this out.” Atohi tugged me to the middle of the yard and laid both of us down in the cool grass.
“I’m really sorry for snapping at you… You didn’t deserve it,” I apologized.
“With this much stress happening, I don’t think we can blame anyone for what they say right now.”
I knew he had to be talking about Johannes earlier. His worst nightmare was being realized. Ben was his everything, and he’d been stolen. But we’d get him back. We had to get him back.
“You know,” Atohi started. “For so many years, all I wanted to be able to do was feel the sun on my skin.”
“What else would you like to do?” I rolled over to face him, my head resting on his bicep.
This was a welcomed distraction from our harsh reality. I knew that what Johannes and John were doing in the basement was necessary to get information we needed, but I knew his screams were something that would haunt me for a long time.
“I want to go to the theater. I could hear all the noise when I passed the building, and I want to know what the movies are like now.”
“You are in for a real treat. I’ll take you to a 3D movie.” I could only imagine how amazed he’d be watching how far technology had come with movies.
“I eagerly await our date.” He squeezed me.
“The first time I’d ever seen a 3D movie, my dad had taken me to a theme park that had all these dinosaurs. I was so excited and practically bouncing in my seat… until the 3D pterodactyl flew at my head. I screamed so loud Dad had to take me outside.” I could feel Atohi’s chest rumbling with laughter he was holding back. “Don’t laugh! It was scary. I couldn’t even look at a dinosaur toy for years after that...”
“Have you tried calling your father?”
“Not yet. I’m… I’m scared that he’ll reject me again, you know?” I wasn’t sure how much more I could take when it came to my father. He and Grandpa had been all I had for so long.
“You should try again… After we get Ben back, maybe you could talk to him and make him see that Mag
i aren’t monsters. If I was able to… I’d like to go back to my tribe to see my parents, but I’m sure they’re long gone from this world.”
I chanced a look at his face. His eyes were sad as he watched the clouds above our heads. Atohi hadn’t ever gotten to see his family after he was taken to Hecate. He must’ve been hurting so much.
I held out my pinky to him. “What’s this for?” he asked.
“I promise that we will always be family, and nothing will change that.”
He locked his much larger digit with mine. “Promise.”
We stayed like that, staring at the sky and thinking on what had happened in the last twenty-four hours, until we heard the back door slam. We shot up and watched Johannes, who was back in human form, and John walk toward us.
“Did… Did you guys get any answers?” I asked, though nervous to hear the answer.
John fixed his shirt cuffs before clearing his throat to speak. “Let’s go inside and talk.”
~~~
When we entered the living room, Chesca was sitting beside Evangeline on the couch. The Arachnid Magus looked at us cautiously as we entered.
“Evangeline made us some tea,” she said as she poured a few cups. Her hands were uncharacteristically shaky.
Chesca must’ve heard everything that had been happening to the man in the basement. I completely understood how rattling it was. I couldn’t handle it at all.
I sat in the armchair closest to Chesca while Atohi sat in the other. John and Johannes both stood, arms crossed over their chests.
John began, “The man that was detained was mostly used as hired muscle and didn’t know much, but,” he turned to Evangeline, “I’m hoping with your knowledge, you’ll be able to fill in the missing gaps.”
Evangeline nodded, her platinum hair slipping over her shoulder as she hung her head. “I’ll help however I can.”
Chesca looked between the two of them before narrowing her eyes at him. “How can we be so certain we can trust this man? I do not even know who he is.”
“Go on, introduce yourself.” Johannes nodded toward John. I could see he was trying so hard to maintain his normal composure, but it was written in the clench of his jaw and furrow of his brow that he was just not okay.
Eyes Like Autumn (Seasons of the Magi Book 1) Page 23
