“I’m sorry, Nai,” he said, hanging his head and holding out his hand to keep Desmond back. “The vessel was needed elsewhere, but it… I’m afraid it wouldn’t have mattered.”
“What do you mean?” I growled.
“You’re a living vessel, Nai. A pure soul. Nothing, not even a corpus vessel would draw the demon from you.”
“Pure? Me?” I would have laughed if it wasn’t for the fact that the terrifying truth hit me at that moment.
Jem and I were not perfect opposites. Through our father, the demon that was now trapped inside of me had split our soul at the moment of conception. Our mother somehow knew this and took a blood covenant, allowing aunt Gia’s mystic blood to enter ours. There was just enough to give us doubts and balance out what was supposed to be a perfect imbalance in our souls. But by doing this, she also made us pure souls. Pure in that we were new whole souls, not necessarily good, as I had previously thought.
Now, with the wraith inside me, I became a living vessel. Like with my father and Mr. Marsden, the Discordant was trapped, only this time, there was no escape. Nothing, not even a corpus vessel, could lure a Discordant from inside me. I was the last stop on this crazy train and there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot I or anyone else could do about it. And that pissed me off royally.
I’d been damned since before I was born. Had we lived, I would have come to the same end; hosting a demon while gutting my brother for the Discordant’s cause. Had we stayed dead, I would have burnt in Hell for sins that I had no way of repenting because they weren’t my fault. There was no escaping fate. The Creator had said as much every time we had met. I just hoped that it would remember this when it came time to pass judgment on my soul. From the looks of things, that would be happening much sooner than I would have liked. Taking a deep, steadying breath, I looked Harry in the eye.
“I… I’m not…” I faltered. I really didn’t want to die. “I’m not brave. Just get it over with. Do it quickly.”
“You know what this means, don’t you?” he asked, his eyes flicking to the glittering knife in Desmond’s hands.
“I have to make a sacrifice,” I said. The only thing keeping the terrified tremble out of my voice was the bitter anger at the futility of it all. “I don’t exactly have much of a choice, do I?”
“Are you willing to go into this with your eyes open or will we need to sedate you?”
A cold chill ran through me.
“Are you going to cut out my heart?” I asked, trying to keep the tremble from my voice and failing. I was stalling, but I didn’t care. Seth was the martyr soul, not me.
“We will need to extinguish the source of your conflict,” Desmond reminded me, eyes downcast, unable to meet mine.
“The source…” Suddenly, I began to laugh and all eyes were on me. Harsh memories of summers on the beach and middle school locker rooms flooded my mind. The source of my conflict. Now that was one hell of a loophole!
“I’ll need a moment,” I said and focused my energies inward.
I took a deep breath, feeling the tug of the energy field inside me where the wraith was trapped, guiding it from the aching cavity in my chest. Compressing the chaos into a small enough package proved difficult, but I managed, pushing the volatile spirit down. When it was where I wanted it to be, I reached down and began unlacing my left boot. Finally, I had a means to end not just the wraith’s hold over Blackbird without ending my life, but also the means to destroy the one source of insecurity that had been holding me back my whole life.
“Let’s do this.”
Chapter 13
Forgiveness
The memories blurred into a muddled mess as the demon realized I was digging around in Gary’s mind, but it didn’t matter. I’d seen enough to know who he was and why I was now chained to a stone altar in the woods. I felt a strike across my face that likely broke my nose.
“I bet you think you’re clever, you nosey little fool.”
The voice was Mr. Marsden’s, but it was lower, more sinister, and had a gravelly pitch that made me realize it was the demon, not the counselor. The same demon who had possessed my father and made him perform a ritual to split his own child’s soul. The same demon who still planned to turn me into a gateway for the Discordant, with or without my sister’s help.
“I… um…” I stammered, swallowing hard against the thumping of my own heart, taking down a bunch of blood from my sinus cavity as well. As bad as my nose was bleeding, I’d be lucky if I didn’t choke to death before Mr. Marsden had a chance to use me as a portal. “Please… There’s got to be another way,” I begged, feeling my tears soak into the blindfold over my face.
“Silence him!” the demon commanded.
I heard a low, throaty chuckle and a rag was dropped over my face. I tried to turn away, but my mouth was covered and my nose was non-functioning, so I inhaled the sharp sting of something chemical. Almost instantly, I felt my extremities go numb and a fog was weaving its way into my head.
“Jem.”
I blinked into the sudden brightness of the midday sun. I was in a field of tall grass with wildflowers that seemed to go on forever.
“Jem, listen to me.”
“Mom? No, you’re not… huh?”
I turned and for a moment, I wondered if I’d slipped out of the Cycle, but the woman in front of me was not a manifestation of the Creator. It was truly my mother. Yet, she was different. Surrounded by a slight shimmer, she appeared more like a fairytale mirage. I lifted my hand, but she stayed just beyond my reach.
“You don’t want to do that, Jem. Touching death is the fastest way to unravel all of its mysteries.”
“Death? Mom, what’s happening?”
“You’ve crossed the veil, Jem.”
Her words were pleasant, but her eyes were hooded with sadness. I recognized the expression as the one she had always had when she was watching Nai and I together and she thought we weren’t paying attention.
“Is this… am I?”
“This is the Summerland, Jem,” she explained. “This is the afterlife for my kind. You can’t stay here though.”
“Summerland…” I dug deep into my brain. “So you were a witch. A mystic too, weren’t you?”
“A solitary, yes. Gia was my mentor.”
“You knew,” I said. It came out as more of an accusation than I’d meant.
“I did,” she admitted with a sad smile. “Jem, you need to understand. That thing wasn’t your father.”
“I know,” I said, tensing. “He… wait a minute. Where is dad?”
“His soul has passed through. He was a non-believer.”
“Passed through? But…” I was confused. “I saw Heaven… I saw you and dad and even Rufus…”
“You saw only what would have been, Jem. Your soul would have recovered in a Heaven of your creation. Each soul has its own path and destiny.”
“And now…” I choked. “Now that I’m dead…”
“You’re not dead, Jem,” my mom assured me, placing her hand near, but not on, my shoulder. It felt as if an icy cold breeze was blowing on a blazing hot summer day. “You’ve only been brought to the brink of death so that your soul can be severed clean, leaving your body a preserved gateway to the Discordant realm.”
“Um… Is that supposed to be better?” My voice was little more than a panicked squeak. That mom remained calm and serene as she described the horrors was not at all helping the situation.
“Do you remember what I’d told you? Do you remember what you have to do?”
“I…” I thought back on the words that had haunted me for the last few weeks. “Nai… I’m to forgive Nai.”
Mom smiled. “You did hear me. Forgiveness is crucial, Jem.”
“But Nai…” I began to panic again. “She’s not… it’s not her. The wraith, the one who got dad…”
“Hush,” she said and put a finger to her lips. “I do not need to hear the particulars. Your father is in a better place. His torment has en
ded. Your sister’s, however, has just begun.”
I wanted to ask what that meant, but I felt as if I was being dragged away. Mom receded, taking the sunlight and the field of flowers with her, leaving me insubstantial in an empty void. One by one, my senses began to return. I felt the hard surface of the stone at my back and the heavy weight of the chains pinning me down. I began to hear frantic yelling and several voices, some familiar, some not. The sharp sting of smoke hit my nostrils and I realized that I was once again in the clearing by the river. Alive, apparently, but for how much longer I didn’t want to think about. I opened my eyes, but was met by darkness and momentarily panicked until I remembered the blindfold.
I let out a winded “oof!” as something fell onto my chest, crushing the air from me. A low, growling, and unfamiliar voice issued from somewhere just overhead.
“Within my power…”
With a sharp tug, the blindfold was ripped from my head. As my eyes adjusted, I wished it had been left on.
“N-Nai?”
“I command the guardians of the realm…”
Instead of Mr. Marsden, my own sister was kneeling on my chest, staring down at me with a deranged look in her eye and a silver dagger raised high above her head.
“To stand aside…”
“Nai? What are you doing?”
For a moment, I thought I saw clarity and the dagger slumped slightly, but just for a moment.
“Nai, it’s not your fault! Nai!” I cried, remembering my mother’s warning.
I held my breath, waiting for some sort of miracle or sign that it had worked. Nothing happened. I began to panic. Did I really forgive Nai or was I just saying the words that I thought she needed to hear?
“Dammit, Jem! I don’t want to kill you!” she hissed as she convulsed, her head thrown backward. Perhaps I was getting through after all.
“I forgive you!”
“You what?” Nai’s own voice was back, but she still held the blade over me.
“I forgive you!” I repeated, louder this time, with more conviction, squelching down every little bit of doubt. I believed! I really did! It wasn’t Nai. I knew this. Still, nothing happened. But then her eyes rolled and her rigid arms went slack, dropping the dagger a little more.
“Oh for fuck sake, Jem! I don’t know if you’re fully aware of this or not, but there’s a friggin’ demon inside of me who is trying to make me kill you. This may not be the best time to- ugh!” There was a blur and I felt the weight of Nai lift off of me. I lifted my head to see what had happened and felt a hand on my shoulder, pushing me back down, banging my head on the rock in the process.
“Ow!”
“Dammit, son, hold still!”
“Harry?” I stopped fighting against the unseen force. Harry tugged at the chains and let out a frustrated noise when they didn’t budge.
“We’re going to get you out of here, but first I need to make sure Desmond doesn’t kill your sister before we have the demon trapped.”
“Desmond?”
I lifted my head again and saw Nai on the ground and Desmond holding her down. The blade in his hand shone with an unnatural light that radiated power. It was also dangerously close to her chest.
“Desmond, no! Not yet!” Harry called out as he rushed off.
I heard a metallic noise by my head and a second later, the chains slipped off of me. I sat up and immediately got dizzy. When the world stopped spinning, I saw Seth kneeling next to me with the chains in his hands.
“Keys,” he said, noting my bewildered expression. “The girl had them,” he added, indicating the slumped form of Emma behind me.
“Is… is she dead?” I asked, bile rising up as I noticed Gordon and a few others were also lying in the clearing.
“No, just unconscious,” Seth assured me. “The spell will make them all think they suffered a massive hangover. No one will remember much of what happened here tonight. Though to be fair, they’ll have forgotten anyway once Nai is gone.”
“Oh. I guess that’s… Wait a minute!” I sat up, sputtering. “When Nai’s gone where?”
“Calm down, Jem.” Seth put his hand on my shoulder. “She’s taken the wraith into her and we don’t have a corpus vessel.”
“No…” I sank to the ground. “No… I can’t let that happen. I…”
“Save your strength, Jem. There’s nothing you can do,” he said, holding me in a surprisingly firm grip. “She made the decision. She spared you and will die a martyr for her sacrifice.”
“What? No!” The fog in my head cleared at Seth’s words and I yanked myself from his grip. Toppling off the altar with clumsy limbs, I scrambled to my feet and stumbled forward.
“Nai! Wait! You don’t have to do this!”
“Jem! Stay back!”
Desmond tried to grab me, but I twisted away, pushing Harry out of the way to kneel on the ground next to my sister, who was grinning like a crazy person and untying her shoes.
“Nai, please. Don’t do this.”
She looked up at me in bewilderment.
“Don’t be an idiot, Jem,” she chided and tossed aside her boot. “I’m not killing myself for anyone, not even you, dear brother.”
She tugged off her sock and extended her bare foot upwards, into Harry’s face.
“Well, what are you waiting for? There it is! There's the source of my conflict. And hurry because I don’t know how long I can keep him there.”
For a moment, Harry’s bewildered expression matched my own, but then he saw what I had missed. A small nub of flesh that didn’t belong. Nai’s sixth toe. It had been a source of conflict for her entire life. I know other kids had made fun of her for it. She’d begged our mother to have it removed, but mom insisted that it wasn’t a medical necessity. Mom was against most medical procedures. I had to wonder if she hadn’t somehow known. She had to have known. After all, she had begged me to forgive my sister for hurting me and in the end, that had saved both of our lives, even if it wasn’t in some magical way like I’d expected.
“Well if that don’t beat all,” Harry muttered in fascination as he accepted the glowing ethereal blade that Desmond offered. “This is going to hurt, but there shouldn’t be much blood.”
“Just do it fast,” Nai gasped through gritted teeth.
But Harry had other ideas. There was a whole ritual involved in preparing the corpus vessel. I would have found the whole thing fascinating if it weren’t for the fact that it was kind of gross and to be honest, Nai’s toes had always kind of freaked me out. As Harry chanted, Desmond walked a circle around us, pouring holy water and some kind of silvery-pink dust around. When Harry stopped chanting, he looked at Desmond, who nodded.
When the blade came down, I don’t know who screamed louder, Nai or me because Nai’s nails sunk into my bare arm with enough strength to draw blood.
“To the fire! Quick!” Harry called out and rushed to where the bonfire still burned.
I helped Nai to her good foot, noting at least that she wasn’t bleeding. The blade must have cauterized the wound. I let her lean on me as we hobbled to the fire just in time to see it flare with a golden light as Desmond threw a few pieces of wood of the cross onto the embers.
There was more chanting. Latin this time, at least, that’s what it sounded like to me. Their voices seemed to coax the flame higher and hotter. Once it was a towering pillar of pure white flame, Harry threw the corpus vessel, now wrapped in a plain white strip of muslin, into the fire. As he did, the flames grew black and an anguished cry echoed through the clearing. When it died away, so did the black flame, leaving only the golden flame from before.
“It is done,” Harry said quietly.
There was a soft rustle in the underbrush and I turned to see Donna. Her hair was disheveled and her face and arms had small cuts. In her hands, a smoke filled orb glowed with a murky, yet sinister aura.
“Is that…” Desmond’s question hung unanswered, but Donna nodded. I noticed then that she was shaking and looked as
if she was going to be sick. She turned to Harry.
“Please,” she whispered. “I can’t hold it for much longer.”
I gasped when I realized that I knew what it was. She was holding a memory. Not just any memory, but the forbidden knowledge of the Ultimate Truth. The longer Donna held it, the more her curiosity would grow until she couldn’t hold back any longer. Being human, or at least part human and not an agent of Order, Donna would be driven as mad as Mr. Marsden had been.
With a dramatic huff, Harry turned his back to her. I couldn’t believe it! After everything Donna had done to help, Harry was going to let his religious prejudice get in the way of helping her.
“No!” I shouted, but Seth put a hand on my arm and told me to wait. Desmond joined Harry and they began their chant again. When the flame was once again a pillar of white, Seth took the memory from Donna and threw it into the fire.
“Oh thank the god- er… the powers that be!” Donna said as she sank to the ground.
“You can thank whoever you want,” Harry said, turning away from the fire and hunching down to where Donna had fallen. “I reckon you seen things I’d rather not think about.”
“I caught a glimpse,” she said, nodding.
“How is he?” Harry asked, tilting his head toward the area where the body of Mr. Marsden had been left.
“He won’t remember much,” she said with a wince. “He’s going to need some rehabilitation and it isn’t likely that he’s headed back to his job any time in the near future, but that might not be such a bad thing. I can’t believe they let him back without a full exam anyway.”
“That was… rather brave…” Harry seemed to have a hard time offering Donna the small compliment.
“Thanks,” Donna said, looking grateful. “We’re going to go take Gary to the hospital. The story is that we found him wandering along the highway and suspect his amnesia is back.”
Harry got up as well and began the ritual for putting out the fire.
“You have a really dopey smile right now,” Nai said, but I noticed her tone was lighter than usual.
“The wraith’s gone, pagans and Christians worked together for the greater good, you saved my life, and no one died. It’s a bit like a happy ending, don’t you think?”
Rise of the Discordant: The Complete Five Book Series Page 35
