“What’s wrong with you?” he asked, concern in his voice and on his face. Then his mouth dropped. “Ah, your curse. You really beat yourself up when it comes to letting someone best you, don’t you?”
He was making it worse. “Shut your mouth!” But it was me that dropped my head to the bed clutching my stomach, wishing for my failures to go away. If only to please my curse. I slowly sat up. “Why did you kill them? To spite us?”
“To be fair, I was only doing what I was told. In all honestly, it’s better to die in pieces than to die by everything that will come with the end.”
I materialized Ben and Jerry—got as far as his neck before the collar threw me against the wall. I coughed up a groan. “We’ll never let the Devil have his reign.”
“You’re right,” he agreed. “It won’t be his reign.”
I rolled my eyes despite the pain. “You honestly expect the Devil will let Harvest take the one thing he’s predestined to have?” I laughed. “I can imagine the horned monster sitting on his throne right now sipping on the blood of his victims or whatever it is he does while he lets Harvest do everything that’s needed for him to rise from Hell.”
“You underestimate Harvest.”
“And you underestimate a Reaper,” I replied with cold eyes, but then I exhaled loudly. “To think I considered you smart at one point. I acknowledge that Harvest is powerful, but neither him nor Satan will rise up.”
“If that’s what you think, but he’s bested your family twice now.” I gritted my teeth as he continued. “You wouldn’t believe the mass of demons he’s collected since his confrontation with you guys. Demons came to him willingly after he managed to break fate and bring the end upon us sooner. The Devil should be worried.”
“You know you’ll die long before you get to see the outcome?”
“Hear me out, there’s no reason I can’t try to help your family when the end comes. We have tricks up our sleeves. Power you wouldn’t believe. I wasn’t lying when I said I think I can save you from the end.”
I grabbed the collar. “I don’t believe a word you say. I’m just pissed that I won’t be the one that will get to kill you! The moment my family realizes I’m gone—if not—”
“Are you about to say Jackal?” he asked with a knowing smirk.
I saw no reason not to smile back. “He’ll probably be here before the fam. Too bad the big guy will be too furious to let me kill you myself. Happened with your brother.” I said the last part just to piss him off.
He chuckled, clearly amused about something. “He’s not coming, Maureen.”
I ignored him. “He’d come even if I ignored him every day for a year. He’s persistent, unwavering—”
“Even without those wretched hearts he was cursed with?” There was something in his expression. Something confident and dangerous.
I straightened my back against the wall. “Even without them, he’d still be mine.”
His lips rolled in disgust. “He’s not coming. He doesn’t even know who you are now. I took away his feelings, then I took away his memories of you.”
Ice filled my chest. “What?”
Was that shriveled up voice mine?
“About your family, they’re the only issue here, but I don’t see why we can’t work something out. A little barter, Maureen. It’s a chance to save you and your family months from now. Let’s be honest here, it’s not looking good for you guys.”
“Jack,” I whispered.
“Are you crying?”
Those words were all I could take. I was going at him again with my thin blades. Of course I was knocked back, but I didn’t let that stop me. I kept trying and trying until my neck burned.
“Would you stop?” he groaned. “I haven’t had a chance to cloak you yet, and I’ll need to before your family regrows their limbs.”
I channeled fate’s eyes so that I could see the chain residing in his chest. Instantly, my hand wrapped around it. The collar worked to push me away from him but what it didn’t understand was I didn’t have to be close to him. And I wasn’t. I saw his fate in the depths of his eyes as I yanked hard, and he crashed onto the floor.
“Wait, Maureen, no,” he said quickly, raising his hands. “You’ll never find a way to live on after the end if not for me.”
“I’m not searching for a way to live on. We’re going to stop it,” I gritted out.
“Then you’re a fool,” he spat. He tugged at his own chain, and I forgot the bastard could figure it out with my hand gestures. I gripped tighter and yanked. His head smacked the floor again. “Put it down!” He tried to order me with the collar. Funny thing. It never reacted. It didn’t know what to react to. A chain that it couldn’t see? How could it react to such an order?
Bet the witches forgot to put that in the collar’s will. Now I was a little pissed that I didn’t think of my eyes when Gavin had kidnapped me.
“Put down what?”
He stared at me, eyes warped and crinkled in fear. He realized it too. “We’re friends.”
“No, we’re not.” I quirked a brow, eyes glinting, and it was empowering to watch him squirm. “You made sure of that the second you met me. I didn’t know it then, but you made sure to tell me how you connived and used my curse against me with your brother.”
“Only because he saw you first,” he whispered.
Strangely, I believed him.
“Well, congratulations, you get to see me last.”
I twisted his chain around Ben until it broke free from his body. Newt’s body thudded against the floor, and my curse flourished like wildfire.
It didn’t last long when I remembered everything else. I materialized some clothes on, briefly letting my mind drift to who I wanted to think about—who I wanted to be with. I would find Jackal and forget the fears that came with Newt’s words. I had to focus on getting to New York City first.
I faded to the human world. Instead of a busy city, I was greeted with a giant crater. It was all that was left of New York City. My ears stung. So much screaming. So much panic. So much death. Lost souls floated in masses around the crater—we’d have to ascend all of them. Today was not a good day. Today was a failure.
Police squad cars and a battalion of ambulances were parked near the crater but none of them could get close just yet. Flames poured from the hole. Firefighters from several companies worked desperately spraying it down. Slipping past the water, I dropped into the crater in search of my family. I saw Payne before he saw me. He was busy with something. Once I was closer, I could see that he was picking someone up—
“Dad!” I rushed to him, but he waved me off.
“We’re fine. We were blown to bits but we’re fine.” I turned to August limping toward us. I cringed a little at his face. One of his eyeballs was still forming. I’d rather see any of them in full skeletal form than to see that odd deformity.
“He’s right.” Dad ran his fingers through his dark hair before shifting into Grim Reaper form. “Bloody hell! We made sure to keep the witches separated during the fight so that the explosion we foresaw with our senses didn’t come to pass. So, what the hell was that?” Dad asked as he leaned away from Payne. His voice was thicker, more powerful and vibrant when in this form.
“It wasn’t witches. Just one witch,” August muttered darkly.
“So they have an Isabella on their side?” Sebastian came up behind me. “That’s all kinds of bad news.”
Dad clasped his hand on Payne’s shoulder. “We could have lost you if you had shown up any sooner.” Then Dad turned to Sebastian. “You didn’t bring Isabella, did you?”
“No, she wasn’t with me when I got the warning. Thank fate. She’s with her coven.”
“There are no survivors.” Barron was utterly still as he spoke, but his rippling red essence flared around him. The longer we let him simmer, the worse he’d get. I drifted over to him and placed my hand on his back, communicating with my touch that I understood. No, we didn’t encounter his rage, b
ut we all felt the helplessness. His gaze sharpened then came up to my neck. “What the fuck happened? Explain this?”
He tugged at the collar I had forgotten about. I reached around and unlatched it, letting it fall to the ground with a heavy clink. “It’s over. I killed him.” I gave my brother a pat and then peered around. “We have so much more to worry about.”
“Jack hasn’t glued back together yet?” August was searching around as he asked.
“Jack was here?” I let go of Barron with a small thread of hope. I wiped my forehead with a laugh. I was sort of shaking with that news. Newt had lied. Relief spread through me. I thought of my mark on his chest, briefly linking myself to him. I found him, but he wasn’t here. He was back at the cave I’d found him in. Strange. I thought he’d be here with me. For me. Some sort of trepidation threaded through my heart, but I ignored it.
“The witch did something to him before I got a chance to stop her.” August waved his hand and snorted. “Not that I was even prepared for her to say fucking ‘Boom’ and blow everything up.”
“Look at all of them,” Joy stumbled along the wreckage and fire beneath our feet as she stared around at all the lost souls waiting for us to send away. Several were watching us, and I was pretty sure I heard one of them asking Prudence if he was going to Hell with tears in his eyes. “What do we tell them?”
“Nothing we say will be what they already don’t know,” August elaborated with his hands. “Half of the city is gone.”
“That’s what she means.” Sebastian gave him a glare. “It’s shitty all around.” He turned to Joy. “But there’s no need to comfort them. Who knows if they even remember this life on the other side?”
“That’s heartbreaking,” Joy said lowly. She was the first to open up the passage and began guiding them into the light.
“It’s not sad when you don’t even know the meaning of the word. All your hurts and pains… All your troubles are gone.” Prudence’s voice was monotone as she ushered the souls into the passage, but her words weren’t. “They’ll know peace which we’ll never know, not even in our dreams.”
“I don’t want to forget my troubles, not even pain. I am what I am because of everything I’ve been given. I wouldn’t trade my memories for any amount of peace.” Kitty bit off a piece of whatever snack she held, slapping a soul on his butt. “How about you?” she asked him.
“As long as I’m not going to Hell, I’ll say good riddance. I was deep up my ass in debt.” He covered his mouth. “Shit, am I allowed to say that? Shit!” he said again.
She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. You must not be too bad, he’s letting you in.” She gestured toward the passage he was closing in on.
He clasped his hands together. “Thank, God!”
“You do that,” she told him, trying to swat at his translucent jean-clad ass again but he was already gone.
Joy gave her a disbelieving scowl. “Am I the only one that has any finesse when dealing with the dead?”
“Crying with and for them isn’t exactly what I’d call finesse,” Payne told her.
Joy’s cheeks lit up, but she said nothing. And that was how the next couple of hours went. There was constant teasing and bickering among us, but deep down we were nothing but sullen—broken with our failure to save the lives that hadn’t meant to die today.
When we were finished with the last of the souls, there was nothing else we could do. The humans were stuck with the wreckage. They would tend to the ones wounded from the outskirts of the explosion. They’d mend and repair, like they always did. As for everyone that had been in the perimeter of the explosion, Barron was right, no one survived. Not that they could.
When everyone started heading out, I was afraid to move. My feet suddenly felt like lead. Jack slipped through my consciousness almost constantly in an irritating cycle. I could ignore his empty presence no longer. “He hasn’t shown up,” I finally said with a clipped tone. I didn’t even know who I was talking to.
It was Barron that answered, “He was here with us. I couldn’t imagine he just left.” He kicked a flame with his boot. “Check the rubble. Maybe he takes longer to regenerate than we do.”
“He’s not here.” I pushed my hair off the nape of my neck. “I feel him through the mark. He’s at the cave in which I found him.”
Barron paused, studied my expression. “You’re not saying something.” I felt the heat of his stare on the side of my face where he stood next to me. “Jesus, Maureen! Are you crying?”
I touched my cheeks as the tears slid down.
“What’s wrong?” August stepped in front of me, scrutinizing me in a way that would normally make me lash out.
“I’m scared,” I finally slipped out.
“What?” Barron staggered. He wasn’t the only one surprised by my breakdown.
“Today was a failure and more will happen, but we’ll save the world in the end.” Sebastian said in the mist of flames.
“It’s not the world that has her in tears, but her heart,” August muttered uneasily. “Spit it out.”
“He’s not here!” I yelled, swinging my arms out like they’d understand what I meant.
“And?” August frowned, scratching his forehead.
“He’d be here right now if Newt’s words had been a lie!”
“Would you please make sense?” Barron tried not to sound like an ass but he did, anyway.
“Jack became Jackal again. I might have killed Newt, but he took away Jack’s memories of me.” My voice was calm, but my hands shook at my sides.
“Are you sure?” Sebastian asked finally.
“He would have come for me, killed Newt before I’d even awakened, and then he would have came back here with me and helped any way that—”
“She’s right,” Barron interrupted. “I don’t feel his presence. I didn’t even feel it after I regenerated enough to walk. He seemed resilient in his will to help us, and then he vanishes while we’re all blown up?”
“Yeah.” August wiped his jaw. “Anti-Isabella did something to him right before her big kaboom. Besides, he’d be here. He had that same pussy-whipped expression about him that Sebastian’s got.”
“Don’t call her anti-Izzie,” Sebastian warned, completely overlooking or not caring that August used old human slang to call him wrapped around Isabella’s finger.
“I’m not sure why this matters. Jack carries your peacock on his stomach. He’s your lover or whatever—” August shrugged his shoulders in a tired gesture.
I stiffened. “He what?”
“It’s true.” Sebastian nodded. “We all saw it when he lifted his arms earlier peeking beneath his shirt. You haven’t seen it? It must have just happened since he hadn’t noticed it either.”
“Jack is my soulmate?” I croaked, on the verge of passing out I was so delirious. So deliriously happy.
“Go and see for yourself.” Barron faced Sebastian. “Can you get your witch to work on a spell or potion of some sort in case he really doesn’t remember shit?”
Sebastian nodded. “I’m sure her coven knows one… Go on, Maureen. Your pride’s temporarily stripped and you know it. Jack’s forgotten memories has brought out a side of you we’ve hardly gotten to know and even still, it’s not ours to see.”
“I’m not—”
“Do you find Mom weak because of her love for Dad? How about Dad? Do you find him weak?” I shook my head slowly as Sebastian probed me with his hard stare. “Love is not weakness, and there’s no way that peacock would have shown up if one or both of you hadn’t realized that love. So go to him instead of expecting him to come to you when you know he can’t. Not because he wouldn’t since it sounds to me you know that he would. Go because it’s your turn. Go because there’s no pride when it comes to love. Go to him when he doesn’t even know what he’s waiting for.”
“There’s nothing wrong with not going,” August told me. Sebastian was about to start yelling, but August continued, “I don’t want a l
ove like our parents—I don’t even understand it, but it looks like you do.”
“Go kiss him and make him remember!” Joy squealed.
I cringed at her delight while Prudence’s usual blank expression actually showed a hint of annoyance.
“Let us be happy for you.” Mom came up and wrapped her arms around my waist. “I know which of my children view love like it’s foreign unless it’s between family.” She tipped her head to the side and gave August, Prudence, then finally me a slight glare before she softened her expression. “You understand it. I know all my children do. It’s simply something you can’t really have or know until it smacks you in the face. Sometimes it’s instant. Other times it builds up like a storm. It’s different for everyone, but the beauty is the same. It’s all real. Honest and true and for us, it’s everlasting. That’s why it only happens once.” August muttered something under his breath. Mom scowled. “Shut up, August, before I bend you over my knee.”
I wiped my eyes and slowly stepped out of Mom’s embrace. For the first time since I was a child, I had a startling realization that maybe I was like my mom—not only in my dreams or in the wishes of my childhood. She was resilient. Jackal was resilient. And I was stubborn. Couldn’t that be one and the same?
I was persistent in my pride, but now I’d be for love. For simply me.
I materialized a scrunchy in my hand as I pulled back my dark hair and tied it in a ponytail, tightening it before I smiled. “How soon can your witch get that memory potion?”
Grinning, familiar faces stared back at me.
_____
I faded outside the cave right at the entrance. It was no longer snowing here, but the snow—in no hurry to melt soon—still clung to the mountains. It was just as cold as before. I shivered and materialized an extra layer of clothing on then stepped inside. I materialized a torch and lit it even though my eyes had no problem in the dark. The warmth was a nice comfort.
With no memory spell or potion, I was left on my own to see if he did indeed forget about me. I scratched my fingers over the warm wool over my legs then flicked my ponytail off my shoulders—nervous jitters. I could handle it though. As much as my fear messed with me, I was just as determined to walk in there and tell him his sun and moon rises and sets on me. A little on the sappy side, but that was just the way it was going to be with me. I thought he knew that… Well, he did.
Jackal's Pride (Seven Deadly Book 2) Page 24
