Sacrifice

by Heather McCollum

  “Why would they even be interested in me, a simple, ordinary woman?” Her heel hit hard against the wooden planks, knocking rapidly.

  He leaned against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. “Ordinary? You are anything but ordinary. You are extraordinary.”

  She shook her head, stilling her foot. The light caught along the gold strands in the brown depths of her hair. “You’re mistaken.” She let out a little laugh that seemed to hedge on the hysterical side though she breathed with deliberate evenness. “What under heaven could possibly mark me as anything but an ordinary woman?”

  Drustan met her snapping gaze with a patient sense of hope, a hope he’d rarely felt in the past. She stilled, her eyes searching his face for answers, answers she now must know. “Anna Pemberlin, you and I shall save the world.”

  ****

  Anna watched Drustan wash their plates with water piped up from below. He could cook, was obviously literate, studied the sciences, and had the body of a god with the sultry dark look of a pirate. He was still a madman. Or a devil in the truest sense of the word.

  He left her to her thoughts during dinner, watching her, waiting on her as if she were already a queen. Queen? She huffed through her nose as she leaned against the arched opening that led to a small sitting room with a couch. Anna Pemberlin, barely fit for polite society, was to be queen? Patricia would laugh to the rafters.

  “Did you like the meal?” Drustan asked.

  Anna ignored the slight vulnerable air to the question. “No, because everything tastes like chains to the imprisoned.”

  He turned, his blue eyes serious. “I wouldn’t know any different.”

  Anna paced through the archway and leaned against the couch to study several colorful watercolors on the wall. “You are not imprisoned,” she said. “You are free to go where you wish.” She heard his footsteps behind her.

  “There are different type of prisons,” he said.

  The clock in the back of the house struck. Anna counted ten chimes. Her sister must be frantic, sending out her fiancé’s warriors to comb the night forest.

  “The bed is up the staircase,” Drustan said. “I will sleep in the study. You are safe here from everything outside and inside.”

  Anna pursed her lips against the sharp retort begging for release from her tongue. To antagonize her captor when it gained her nothing might be impetuously self-satisfying, but would only strengthen his resolve to watch her closer. She turned and strode, with the quiet confidence she employed before the all-male medical board, past Drustan. She caught the polished rail of the spiral staircase and pushed up the unique wood steps. They curved around so that she faced the couch where Drustan stood. She stopped, the intensity of his gaze catching hold of her breath.

  “Thank you for the food,” she whispered. Her cheeks pooled with heat as the words escaped despite her self-refusal. She should show him only hatred and disdain. He tipped his head in silent acknowledgement, and she hurried on.

  The gas lights blazed above stairs as they had below, illuminating a narrow hall that ran the length of the odd house. Spindles of the same polished wood as the rail lined the walkway in diagonal designs, making triangles that stretched along the hall. Two doors at the end stood ajar. One room held an oversized claw-foot brass tub with a drain that she guessed must run outside, gravity making the excise of water easy. A mirror and wash basin sat nearby along with a jake, which she used quickly.

  The second door opened into Drustan’s bedroom. More books lined one wall and a small wood stove utilized the same chimney from the fireplace below. It radiated warmth as if Drustan had banked and lit it despite him being downstairs for hours. Magic?

  Anna wrapped her arms around herself as she stood in the middle of the bedroom, rotating in a close circle. The room was orderly and completely built from wood. She felt like she was in the center of a tree itself. She shivered as she surveyed the double row of tall, rectangular windows staring at her like large, deep eyes. No one could be watching her up here in the trees, could they? Those thirteen demons? Surely Drustan would know if they were close.

  Anna turned away from the window toward the large bed protruding prominently into the room. It was carved of wood, with four posters rising toward the vaulted ceiling, each one shaped in smooth, undulating twists like the roots of the tree. Anna slid her palm up one, marveling at the satiny texture. An evergreen-colored quilt lay atop the expanse.

  Anna walked around one end of the bed and froze. In the far corner, lining the wall were framed pictures, some painted in oils, some charcoal sketches, and several watercolors. She stepped closer, her heart thrumming, begging for another breath. She inhaled; her hand rose to her mouth as she stared back at a dozen likenesses of herself. Some smiled, but most were serious or sad, even enraged.

  No wonder Drustan felt he knew her. He or someone had painted and drawn her image over and over again. She stepped closer to one that showed her face tipped upward, capturing the rays of a fictitious sun. He’d even painted in the crescent-shaped scar just under the curve of her chin where she’d fallen on ice as a child.

  Absently she rubbed a finger over the divot and fed her pounding heart with rapid breaths. Could this day become any more nightmarishly bizarre? She stared at the wall of Anna Pemberlin for long minutes. The dark window across from her reflected yet another rendition of her face, this one with an expression of confusion and worry like one near the top. But the picture that drew her eyes over and over was the charcoal where she stared out with tears coursing down her cheeks, terror darkening her eyes, making them into fathomless pits. What could she possibly be seeing to make her look so desperate?

  A brief rap at the door made her start. “I forgot the tea earlier. It is here outside the door if you care for it.” She heard a tray set on the floor and Drustan’s footsteps in the hall.

  Well he hadn’t poisoned her dinner, and he hadn’t given her over to those grotesque creatures hurling rocks. So it was quite unlikely that he would foul the tea. She cracked the door to the empty hallway and picked up the tray holding a small blue pot, cup, saucer, spoon and little bowls of sugar and cream.

  She sat before the fire and sipped the delicious tea. Yes, Drustan was quite civilized for a bachelor. In fact, everything about him and his home bespoke quality, even elegance, except for his ferocious response to the demons outside his house. The roar and lightning that seemed to come out of him had been the opposite of civilized. A part of Drustan, a part he must constantly hold in check, was wild and dangerous. Quite fitting for the king of the demons.

  ****

  “Kina? Are you here?”

  Drakkina heard the lying voice call her name. It sounded like her husband, but Eògan’s spirit was dead, having been murdered by Semiazaz a millennia ago.

  “Stop pretending,” she snapped and semi- materialized in the stone circle. Her essence hovered close to several temporal threads in case she needed a rapid escape route.

  She felt the other demons close by; still trapped in the binding she’d tied long ago in her misguided attempt to stop their growing power. And yet Semiazaz continued to pretend he had Eògan’s life essence inside him.

  “You killed Eògan,” Drakkina said.

  “He died of age four-thousand years ago, Drakkina.” The image of her beloved husband warped where he stood by the granite alter in the middle of the sarsen stones. The cropped beard of brown uncoiled into long white whiskers and Eògan’s simple clothes flowed into Semiazaz’s blue robes like an azure waterfall over rocks as he stared at her with shiny black eyes.

  “But his spirit remained with my spirit,” she said, “until you destroyed it. So don’t act as if he lives.” She shook her head, scattering the dragonflies that had alighted there. “I always know it is you, Semiazaz. The soul is seen in the eyes and yours are always as inky as tar.”

  “They weren’t always this dark,” Semiazaz said. The leader of the coven walked toward her, no doubt pulling his brethren along
invisibly with him. “Remember when we were friends, Drakkina? You, me, and Eògan? Children together, we danced among the great stones at festival each year, we learned magic together and worshipped the Earth Mother together.”

  “I remember,” she said, keeping vigilant of the shifting demons around the circle, their energies a swirling mess. “I remember finding you chanting before a bowl of human blood in those same stones when you learned to harness dark magic. You were always lusting for more power.”

  “Lusting,” he said with a slight laugh. “The only thing I lusted for was you, Drakkina. Yet you turned away from me.”

  “I turned away from the darkness that was corrupting your heart away from the Earth Mother.”

  He gave her a wry look. “I remember a girl who would give just about anything for more power.”

  Drakkina felt her cheeks warm even though she didn’t really have cheeks. The feeling of embarrassment and old regrets infused her ethereal form. “I was young and foolish,” she said. “But unlike you, I knew when to turn away from such darkness.”

  “I only sought to find more power to lure you away from Eògan to me. You know that. And yet you bound me with these…others.”

  Guilt and regret had long ago changed to hatred. Drakkina’s anger crackled through her. “You had summoned them together, brought them from Hell into this realm. Binding you had nothing to do with Eògan and yet thousands of years later, you killed his spirit in retaliation.”

  “I didn’t kill him. Merely took his essence into me.”

  “You ripped him away from me so that he no longer exists,” she retorted. “What other definition of death is there?”

  “Get on with it,” bellowed one of the more unruly demons who briefly materialized, showing a large maw of teeth. Trill. He looked like the devil the monks painted to represent Lucifer.

  Semiazaz exhaled long, as if releasing a plague on the world. “Gather your witches then,” he said. “The final battle will happen soon, Kina.”

  Drakkina narrowed her eyes. He was going to continue to call her by the endearment Eògan had given her just to drive her insane. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing it made her stomach twist each time the name slipped over his tongue.

  “If Gilla’s daughters stay hidden in time, the final battle will never occur and you will never be free to cut the strands of time.”

  Semiazaz’s essence solidified enough for him to lean against the center stone slab. “This cat and mouse game you like to play with them, keeping them hidden…” He shook his head. “It will only work for so long. If we kill even one of them or their mates, the prophecy shows Drustan coming to power. And we grow weary of waiting. Finishing this benefits all of us.”

  “You should leave Gilla’s son alone,” Drakkina said as she watched the other demons churn up enough power to show themselves, their images solidifying in a semi-circle across from her. “You torture him with your presence.”

  Semiazaz placed his hand over his chest where his non-existent heart didn’t beat. “Why Kina, it sounds as if you care for the boy, the boy you sought to kill when he was a mere week old.”

  She had panicked when she’d scried the evil outcome with Gilla’s powerful son turning dark and malicious, leading the coven of demons to destroy the temporal make-up of existence. Memories of Gilla begging her to spare her newborn son tore at Drakkina’s own vacant heart. “A mistake,” Drakkina admitted, her voice repentant despite her audience.

  A murmur rose from the twelve demonic souls, a hum of dark chuckling. “Aye,” Semiazaz spoke over it. “A lethal mistake, turning the most powerful being on this planet against you. Your brutal endeavor spun him right into my hands, the son you had refused to give me when our bodies lived.” His obsidian eyes glittered with sarcastic mirth and he tilted his head. “Ironic.”

  If Semiazaz’s evil crew thought she hadn’t noticed them inching closer, maneuvering themselves to her sides to encircle her like a net around a hare, they had also made a mistake. Drakkina’s mind chose a thread leading to the thirteenth century, but kept her mouth forming words as if she planned to continue this pointless discussion.

  “Yet all is not lost, is it, Semiazaz? You’ve seen the prophecies, the baby—” And with that she blinked out of the stones with her mouth open, flying without warning along the thread, away from 1893 to 1280. She would go to Norway to watch Erik Magnusson crowned as king and formulate her next step in this chess game to save the world. If only she’d listened to the Earth Mother all those millennia ago, how differently her existence might have been.

  ****

  Anna awoke, surrounded in luxurious warmth, and for a moment couldn’t remember where she was. She blinked up at the honeyed oaken ceiling bathed in gray pre-dawn dimness. Memories of the day before slashed through her groggy peace, propelling her up onto her elbows. She winced at the pinch of her corset that she’d slept in. The blue tea pot was gone, exchanged for a green one and what looked like a fresh cup. A plate of scones sat beside it.

  She caught her breath, looking around. He’d been in here while she’d slept. Anna slid her legs to the floor and walked over to the tea. The pot was still hot.

  “You are awake,” Drustan called through the door. Had he heard her footsteps overhead? “I have a bath ready for you in the room next door. It is warm.”

  After sleeping in her gown and restraints, her body nearly screamed for release. She’d never been one to sleep with her waist bound like some girls, hoping to force their ribs to grow inward. Yet, the thought of such vulnerability… “No thank you,” she called. “I wish to return to Kylkern Castle.”

  “Bathe first,” he said. “And eat. I would not have you look and feel the part of prisoner in my home.”

  “That’s what I am,” she retorted. “Will you force me to wash and eat then?”

  After a long moment Drustan replied. “Do what you wish, but the water will grow cold.” The wood muffled his voice, but she still detected an edge of annoyance. Good. Maybe if he found her annoying, he’d leave her alone. It worked on the men in London.

  His footfalls descended the stairs, and she cracked the door. Two bathing sheets lay folded on a small table outside the bathing room door. She grabbed the tray of tea and scones and moved them into the room next door. She set the tray on another table inside next to the steaming tub.

  There was enough clean water in it to submerge. She’d never taken such a decadent bath before. Her father had only a hip bath for the family, of which she and her sister had made great use. Anna had taken the waters in Bath several times, but the minerals gave the rooms a sickly smell. Even though they were renowned for their healing properties, as a physician she’d seen no benefit.

  Anna turned back to the door and noticed a heavy wood bar leaning along the wall. Had that been there the night before? She lowered it into place and turned to the tub. “In and out fast,” she whispered. Anna wrestled out of her costume and shook the layers out. She stepped carefully into the lusciously warm water, nearly choking on her moan as she sank down. Was it a weakness of character to relish a gift from a captor? Blazes. He was ruggedly handsome, not like the dandies that pranced around London, flaunting their barouches. A talented cook and baker as well as an artist. He was learned and neat.

  Anna huffed into the water, her lips kicking up a bubble on the surface. She’d consider herself fortunate to know him if not for the fact that he was also king to a group of real-life demons, and he was holding her prisoner. She grabbed up the soap on the side of the tub and scrubbed her heat-pink skin with extra zeal. She sank under, scrubbing both fingers through her floating hair. She rose and pushed the sopping mess from her face, catching its thickness to squeeze as she stood.

  She snagged one of the bathing sheets, wrapping it around herself as she stepped from the still warm water. A shame to waste it, but she needed to get back to Patricia. Her poor sister should be enveloped in gaiety today, her wedding day, instead of riddled with worry. Anna left fo
otprint puddles across the wood floor on her way to the window. Bright autumn leaves turned on their stems on the other side of the glass panes. The house was amazing, high up among the limbs. Drustan must have used magic to build it.

  Anna peered down to the forest floor, her breath stuttering. Drustan stood, sword grasped in his hand, shirtless. She hopped to the side even though he was standing with his bronzed, naked back to her. Muscles moved under his tanned skin as he rotated the heavy two-handed claymore, practicing balance with the lethal steel. A slight perspiration coated his body, the clear morning light dancing along his wide shoulders. He pivoted in a tight circle, powering the sword in a wide arc with such force that Anna caught her breath, imagining the foes he could easily slice in two. Was he using his magic to lift and swing? The play of muscles in his chest, back and massive arms answered “no”. His dark hair fell around his face where brows furrowed in concentration. She imagined him searching out the vulnerable spots in his foes.

  With a slow rising of his chin, Drustan’s eyes climbed up the trees to the window where Anna stood. She pulled back further so that only one of her eyes peeked down. He shouldn’t be able to see her, not tucked back along the wall. Had he felt her gaze?

  With a pivot so fast that his body blurred, Drustan pointed the tip of the claymore toward the bramble on one side of the forest.

  “Good Lord,” Anna breathed as a large black wolf stalked out toward Drustan. Could the one who’d threatened them last night have returned to finish its hunt? The memory shot nervous energy through Anna, her heart thumping. The creature’s lips curled back, showing pink gums and bright white teeth. Anna couldn’t hear the growl, but the creature snapped viciously and stalked forward as Drustan followed it with the point of his sword. The wolf was either rabid or starving to attack such an obvious threat. Still, Drustan should climb the ladder. She glanced to the deck where it lay coiled. Good Lord.

  The wolf circled Drustan, the hair lining its spine raised high. Drustan kept the blade parallel to the forest floor, the tip pointed directly at the wolf’s black snout. They moved like two dancers, paired and attached by invisible threads, their movements calculated into the resemblance of art. The wolf lunged, leaping to stand but two feet from the blade.