by Jen Ponce
Anger warred with pity. I wanted to hate him but that emotion seemed too good for him. He didn’t deserve that much energy. “Go away.”
His eyes turned up to me. “I didn’t kill him. I wanted to but I didn’t. I saved him.”
A hand on my arm. Kroshtuka beside me, lending me strength. He helped me to my feet. I wanted to sag into him but knew I had to deal with Ellison. “You did, at that.”
He stared at me, uncertainty painting his face in shadows and creases. “I am ready to die.”
“That’s too bad because you don’t get that kind of relief. I condemn you to live a long life here on Midia without any power.”
“No. Please! Just kill me. Kill me.”
His voice broke but I hardened my heart against him. Hadn’t Vasili and Tytan both taught me that the worst thing to happen to a Skriven was the loss of their power? “Maybe in a thousand years we’ll see about your redemption. Until then, suffer.”
I turned my back on him and walked away.
I sat in the shade of a tree that dropped tiny white blossoms all over me as Kroshtuka tended to his people. I could have left already, but didn’t feel up to it quite yet. I felt stained, destroyed by the events of the day and didn’t want to return to my children with the dust of it on my skin.
Some of the Meat Clan planned to stay in Galleia, to work on destroying the slave trade. Krosh gave them his blessing and they promised to report to him in a moon’s cycle. I wondered how successful they’d be when they weren’t even allowed past the city gates, then decided they would have the most success blocking traders from even getting to the city.
When his people were either on their way back to Odd Silver or off to save the world, Krosh came to me and pulled me into his arms. Blossoms fell into his dark hair and where ever they touched him, they glowed.
I held him tight, knowing this might be the last time I saw him for a while.
“I will Dream of you, Devany.”
I shut my eyes and breathed in the earthy smell of him. “I hope so. It might be a while before I’m able to return.”
“When you do, we’ll have our hunt.”
A reluctant smile lifted my lips. “I’ll win.”
His chuckle warmed me and lifted some of the gloom. When we separated, he held me by the shoulders for a moment before dropping his hands. “You will return.”
“I will. Please stay safe.”
He pulled a thick, wooden ring from his finger and held it out to me. “Heartwood. It will help you find me in the Dreamlands. Wear it at night and we will meet again.”
I put it on, curling my fingers around it so I wouldn’t lose it until I found a chain for it. “Goodbye. And thank you.” I hadn’t realized how hard it would be to leave and I had to walk away before he saw my tears. I made a hook and stepped through to the shed in my backyard. The air held that early morning crispness to it. I wondered what day it was this time and hoped I hadn’t missed Christmas.
I got the spare key buried in the frozen dirt of a flowerpot and let myself in. The tree was up and there were presents under it. The house was decorated with what looked like every ornament, garland, and knick-knack we owned, plus some. I saw Ann’s touch in the pagan creche on the front table and the holly wreaths with ankhs and pentagrams dangling from the green boughs. There were a few symbols I didn’t recognize and wondered if Arsinua had participated with her own traditions and what holiday they were for in Midia.
I went to the kitchen and looked at the digital clock for the date. Christmas Day.
A perfect end to a nightmare.
-THIRTY-TWO-
Christmas was amazing. After I’d taken a quick shower to wash the dust and blood from my body, and put on clean clothes, I’d gone back down to wait until morning. Seeing the looks on the kids’ faces when they saw me very nearly caused me to sob but I managed not to blubber all over them and ruin everything. We shared presents and reveled in being together. Arsinua told the story of the Creation of Midia, which was the one main holiday the witches celebrated in her corner of the world. She made sure the kids knew it was just a story, albeit a strange one they’d never heard before.
After the presents, Ann, Travis, and Arsinua disappeared into the kitchen to get Christmas lunch started, insisting I stay with the kids. Liam sat behind me on the couch, playing his new game while Bethy oohed and ahhed over her iPod. I sat with them, happy that they were all right and that I’d gotten home for Christmas.
I thought of Tom and wished with a melancholy fierceness that he could have been here. His kids would grow up without him and that didn’t seem right.
“You okay, Mom?” Bethy laid her hand over mine and squeezed. “I’m thinking about Dad too.”
“He would’ve hogged the game. And the stuffing,” I said.
“Dad loved stuffing,” Liam agreed. “And the turkey skin. Hey, maybe this year the rest of us will get some.”
“Maybe. If I don’t eat it all.” I shrieked when Liam rubbed his knuckles on my head.
“Ann didn’t want to cook a turkey or a ham. She wanted to do some sort of fake meat thing. Her and Travis got into a fight.” Bethy slid her finger across the screen but her eyes were distant and she didn’t seem to see the player at all. “Do you think Dad is still around? You know, like a ghost or something?”
Since I couldn’t say no without feeling like a liar, I asked, “Why?”
She pursed her lips. “Well, sometimes I think I see him. Hanging around. Looking after me. And Liam. And sometimes I smell his aftershave.”
“Me too.”
I craned a look at my son, who was still pushing buttons on his controller. “You do?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, maybe he is around, watching over you guys to make sure you brush your teeth and take care of each other.” As if in answer, Tom’s soul inside me swooped and shivered, making me feel all weak inside. “And if he is, then that would be okay, wouldn’t it?”
Bethy pursed her lips. “I guess. Do you think we could get on one of those ghost shows?”
Liam snorted. “They don’t want nice ghosts, duh. They want scary.”
I held up my hands. “Before this devolves into an argument I just want you both to know I love you. Very much. And if your Dad is hanging around, it would be because he loves you too.”
“We know, Mom.”
“That’s right. I forgot I had know-it-all kids in my house.” I got hugs from both of them and held them a little longer than they wanted me to. Kroshtuka had been right. They survived without me. As a parent, those moments when I realized my kids wouldn’t be with me forever, that they’d grow up and have lives without me, were painful and strange.
I went upstairs and took another, longer shower, missing the bubbly hot springs water of Odd Springs but not the no-privacy part. Or the no-shampoo part. After I was clean, my hair wrapped in a towel, I was brushing my teeth when I spotted a familiar face in my mirror.
Tytan, looking not so rakish or even very much like himself, stood in his usual unwelcome spot in my bathroom. His clothes were torn, his hands dirty. The look on his face both terrible and sad. I got a firm hold on my towel.
“Are you okay?”
He didn’t answer me, just stood there looking damaged. I wanted to hug him but he looked so distant I stayed still.
“It hurts.”
“What does?”
Again he didn’t answer. A muscle jumped in his jaw. His throat worked. “This soul inside me. It hurts.” The last few words came out so roughly, I waited for him to start crying but he didn’t. “Why does it hurt?”
“I don’t know.” I wished I had an answer for him but I didn’t. I could only hope that something remained of Jasper and that he wasn’t suffering. “I’m sorry. Sorry I didn’t save her.” I hesitated. “Will you make Jasper know? That I’m sorry?”
“He’s here. Inside me. We aren’t separated as you and Neutria are. He’s deeper. Part of me. He talks to me constantly though and dredges u
p memories.” Tytan stopped and stared down at his feet. He looked like a man counting to twenty or thinking about baseball to keep his mind in line. “Memories of things I did when I was Skriven.” His eyes met mine again. Jasper’s eyes. “Do you think it’s fair that I pay for things Ravana ordered me to do? Do you think I should be punished for crimes committed in ignorance?”
What would it be like, I wondered, to live conscience-free for millennia, only to have all the mental consequences rush back at once? Awful. “Jasper is punishing you?”
“No. Yes. I can’t stop thinking about everything.” His hands dug through his hair, pulling at the black strands. “Thousands of years, Devany.”
And a thousand more. Unless Ellison gave in to the temptation and killed Tytan and Jasper both. “It’s called a conscience, Ty. Listen to it and it might help you see the world a little differently.”
“I don’t want to see the world differently. I want to be free of it.” The anger made his voice shake. Anger and exhaustion. He had bags under his eyes, something I’d never seen on the Skriven, ever.
“Now you know how I felt that night we collected the ingredients to make a Formless One.”
His shoulders slumped. “I already remembered their names. Each and every one. Do I have to now be haunted by memories of them as well? They were already dying, Devany. I did nothing to them and yet they are in my mind, whispering their sorrows to me and it hurts. Here.” He rubbed at his chest with his hand.
“Yeah. Empathy. It sucks. Seriously Ty, get over yourself. This is a grand opportunity for you to become something more than just an Originator’s whipping boy. You are more alive now than you’ve ever been. You have the soul of an amazing man inside you. Let him help you become something greater than you are. Don’t stand here and whine to me. That’s not the Tytan I know. The one who let himself be tortured to keep his psycho maker from learning more about me isn’t this sniveling dude standing here now.” I hitched up my towel and circled him. “The Tytan I know would be figuring out the new him and would be doing it with a smile and pervy joke.” Was I going too far? Was my own unwillingness to see him so broken down going to end up pushing him over the edge? Drive him to do something stupid like kill himself or give himself to Ellison?
I stopped when I’d come full circle, standing in front of him with a hand on my hip.
He still didn’t look like himself but there was a spark of the old Tytan in his new grey eyes. Then he turned the full force of that gaze on me. “I kept Ravana from you because I didn’t want her to get the heart.”
Ouch. It hurt a bit that it hadn’t been to protect me but at least he was talking without the stink of desperation that made me worry for his life. I opened my mouth.
“No, stop.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What?”
He held up a finger, clearly pissed. Then he said, “That’s not entirely true.”
“What? I’m confused.”
Jasper speaks to him. Tells him to be honest. Neutria chittered, her spider laugh walking over my skin like a thousand ants marching.
“I kept Ravana from you because I didn’t want her to have the heart.”
Way to rub it in, Ty. “Yeah, you said that already.”
He cursed.
“Keep your voice down please. I don’t want anyone charging in here.” It would be hard to explain me in a towel with a dude in the bathroom.
“She would have killed you.”
“And?”
“Gods damn it.” He stepped forward and pulled me toward him. It had the surreal quality of a black and white movie clip, especially when his lips touched mine and instead of the instant lust his touch usually induced in me, it was just a kiss.
Just a really, really good kiss.
Damn it.
He let me go and stepped back. I still had the top of the towel clenched tight in one fist. My lips pulsed with the beat of my heart.
He said, “She wanted to kill you, Devany. And I have come to care for your presence in my life too much to let that happen.”
Oh.
“I have to leave for a while. Figure out if I can live with myself.” A ghost of a smile as he held up his hands, chest level. “No whining, I promise. Just let me be. Call me only if your life’s in danger.”
“Right.” I caught myself before I touched my fingers to my lips. “You can. Live with yourself. It’ll take some adjustment, but all good things do.”
He looked unconvinced that it was a good thing but didn’t argue. He left my bathroom the same way he’d come, and I was left staring at the space he left behind.
About the Author
Jen Ponce is an urban fantasy, horror, and romance writer who has been looking for awesome books with strong female characters since falling in love with Pippi Longstocking. Go Pippi! She grew up loving Wonder Woman, zombies, and magic and that's led her to writing kickass women and oogy monsters.
Jen, her boys, cats, and goldfish live in Western Nebraska despite her yearnings to live somewhere warmer. (Jen would also like to point out that the cats aren't hers, they are her boys' cats. She loves them but she is not a crazy cat lady—just crazy.)
You can drop her a line at www.JenniferPonce.com
See her blog at: www.JenniferPonce.com/skunkblog
Visit her author page on Amazon at: http://bit.ly/JenPonceAuthorAmzn
Tweet her at: www.Twitter.com/JenPonceAuthor (She looooves tweeting and she always follows back.)
Would you do me a favor? At the very end of this book, you'll have the opportunity to rate and share my book to your Facebook and Twitter accounts. If you have friends who would love my book, would you mind sharing this with them? Also, if you loved my version of a kickass woman and you want to defend your choice of oogy monster (so far, it's neck and neck between Neutria and Nex … even though Nex doesn't really have a neck) would you mind leaving a review? It will help other people find my stories so they can fall in love with the floating head and trailing intestines of Nex or the bloodthirsty enthusiasm of Neutria. Thank you!
More Books From This Author
The Bazaar—Book One of the Devany Miller Series
Humans are disappearing. A witch makes a desperate bargain with a demon. An ordinary woman discovers the extraordinary power inside her. And it all starts at … The Bazaar.
Blood Curse – Sat at #1 on the Gay/Lesbian horror bestseller list on Amazon.
If vampires couldn't be killed by stake or sword, who would they fear?
Things That Creep
A collection of fantastical horror stories sure to keep you up at night, or drive you slowly mad. (Because scary is fun!)
