by Maggie Mundy
“I love you, Cara. I’m so sorry. I let you down.” He pulled out the dagger and turned away.
The muscles in her chest clenched in spasms. Her real body arched off the table. She was healing. It was a slow process as if someone was using a red hot iron to seal her skin. The slashed edges joined together as if by some invisible surgeon. She watched as her real body’s jaw tightened as she clenched her teeth against the onslaught.
You must return now.
Cara glanced to her side and saw Rosie.
Save him for both of us. If Vincent dies I’ll be free. I’m sorry, Cara.
What was she not telling her? Why was she sorry? It wasn’t her fault. Will Seth live? Cara sent out the thought.
He can live but he may not remember. He may return in his mind to the night I gave him the power. You will have to make him remember your love.
Now, there was noise, suffering, and the smell of spilt wine and blood. She couldn’t ask any more before she was thrown back into her real form. Cara tensed every muscle in her body. The torment rippled through her again. Her body strained. She gasped for air in her lungs as if she had never breathed before or would again.
Her head rolled to the other side. She saw Seth’s back. She tried to call out. No words came. He raised a hand in the air, his fist coming down. She heard a thump and a groan. He turned to pick something up from the floor. It was the dagger in his hand.
When he lifted his head, Cara saw bruises on his face, a swollen right eye and blood dripped down his chin. If only he would look at her, she could stop this madness. He moved and she saw Vincent, stripped to the waist and tied to the chair. His face didn’t look much better than Seth’s.
“Is this bringing back a memory for you, Vincent? I’d forgotten how bad this could feel.”
“Who are you?” Vincent asked between groans of pain.
“Me.” Seth laughed. “I’m just another long-lived man like you. Did you think you were the only one? It’s ironic. I’ve wanted to die for so long. Something you did to Rosie stopped that. Now I wanted life again. You’ve taken away Cara. She was the only one who could have kept me from killing you.”
“Rosie,” Vincent said. Then, he chuckled, blood dribbling from his lip as he did so. “That whore. What were you? Her pimp?”
“I failed her. Now, I’ve failed Cara.”
“Were you the blacksmith who repaired the dagger back then? Twice, you’ve fixed the blade to kill the women you love. Rather careless, don’t you think?”
“You’re right. I should’ve done better by both of them. So, there’s only one thing left to do now.”
Cara watched as Seth took the dagger and cut into Vincent, slicing him from neck to navel. He gritted his teeth but didn’t cry out.
“Look at yourself. You can’t do this.” Vincent caught his breath for a moment.
Cara saw Seth glance down at his own chest. A line of dark red soaked into the gray t-shirt. Seth laughed, a crazed sound that saddened Cara. He cut again across Vincent’s chest, the same way Vincent had marked his victims over the years.
With each cut, Seth’s own t-shirt became soaked with blood. Tears coursed down her cheeks. She struggled to yell but nothing happened. Seth kept laughing through the pain as Vincent screamed with each new cut.
Lifting Vincent’s hair, Seth sliced into his forehead three times. Blood ran down over Vincent’s face like a curtain of red.
“You’ll die too. Don’t you understand? I can give you anything. I’m rich. Don’t throw away living forever. We can share her power. Just help me finish the ritual. Say the words with me.”
No tears were left to fall down her cheeks. Seth placed the point of the blade on Vincent’s chest above his heart. With all her strength, Cara tried to call out. Only a whisper escaped her lips.
“No.” The word came in a gasp. The blade was plunged in and blood bubbled from Vincent’s lips. His eyes rolled back and he was finally gone.
Seth pulled out the blade. He let it drop to the floor. His knees buckled beneath him. He looked at her. For one moment, their gazes connected. He smiled and collapsed to the floor.
This wasn’t fair. Rosie had said she could save him.
“Matcher.” She screamed his name over and over and finally it seemed to bring him back to consciousness. Now her voice came back when it was too late.
Matcher stood beside her. He was so pale. He looked as if he would faint. She needed him to be strong. He started to undo the ties on her hands and legs.
“What the hell’s happened?” He was shaking.
“Help me over to Seth.”
“You don’t want to see him.” Matcher placed the sheet around her shoulders.
“It’s not too late. She said I could save him.” Her legs touched the floor and gave out. Matcher supported her. She felt so weak. When she looked down, she still saw blood on her body. Her wounds had healed but she was still giddy from the effects of the blood loss.
Seth lay by Vincent’s feet. His face smeared with blood from the cuts on his forehead as his blank eyes looked up. His tanned skin looked ashen. She felt for a pulse at his throat. It was still there, but thready.
Rosie had said she could save him, but how? The dagger lay on the floor. The blade glowed with the power it had consumed. She had an idea. Whether it would work was another thing. Her hands shook. She picked up the blade and sliced into the palm of her hand.
“Shit, Cara. What are you doing? You’ve lost enough blood already.”
Matcher tried to drag her away from Seth, but she stayed firm.
She ripped open the front of Seth’s T-shirt with the dagger. She placed her bleeding hand on the wound on his chest. Nothing happened. She wasn’t going to lose him, not now, not after everything they had been through. If she couldn’t have Seth, then why the hell did Rosie save her?
Cupping her hand she let the blood pool in her palm. She dipped her finger in the sticky red liquid. She painted over the wounds on Seth’s body. He shuddered, but nothing more. His blue lips parted as he tried to pull in air. He was still alive, that was enough.
Cara leaned over his bloodstained face and breathed into his slightly parted lips. The reaction was immediate. He inhaled, making a gurgling noise in his throat.
“What the fuck,” Matcher yelled, as he moved away.
“I’ll second that statement.”
Cara turned to see Inspector Seps standing on the bottom step of the stairs. There was awe, not fear in both his and Matcher’s faces. When she looked back at Seth he was glowing. The same luminescence was on her skin.
As each wound healed, Seth arched his back. His fists clenched, but no screams came forth. When the skin edges of the final wound joined together, he relaxed. It was only when Matcher hugged her that she realized the glowing had stopped.
Seth didn’t move, his eyes remained closed. His chest raised and lowered with each intake of breath. That was all she needed for now.
“One day, I’ll tell you what I saw in your auras, but not now,” Matcher said, “Hell, Cara. I thought I was fucked up till I met you.”
Seth’s eyes opened as he struggled to speak. His voice sounded as though he had chewed on gravel. “Cara.”
It was the most beautiful sound she had ever heard. He remembered her. That was all she needed to hear. The hand that grasped hers held more strength than she would have thought possible of a man so near death.
“I’m here, Seth. I won’t leave you.” She smothered his bloodstained face with kisses.
“Look this is all romantic, if somewhat gory at the same time. I mean you brought him back from the almost dead and all. We still need to get out of here. You two may have forgotten that we have a dead body two feet away from us. Plus a Police Inspector watching.” Matcher said.
Cara
knew she shouldn’t, but she found Seth’s smile contagious as he looked at Vincent’s dead form. She would be happy to watch worms weave their way through Vincent’s skin. The dagger lay beside Seth. She felt an almost irresistible urge to hack away at Vincent until all that remained were shreds of what had once been a human being.
Cara looked towards Inspector Seps. “What are you going to tell people?”
“I need to call this in. This goes against all my years of work but no one will believe it anyway. I say we move the body upstairs to his studio. Clean up down here as best you can. Grab that painting of Shona too. I‘ll then give you ten minutes to get out of here.” Inspector Seps rubbed his forehead. “I should have retired last year when I had the chance.”
Cara dressed as Matcher grabbed tablecloths from a pile nearby and started to clean up. He shoved the cloths in a garbage bag as Seth helped the inspector with Vincent’s body.
“I’ll say it was an anonymous tip off. When I got here he knocked me out. When I woke up he was dead. One of you should write a note left by someone saying he was killing him for revenge for murdering his wife in the past. With the pictures upstairs plus Shona’s and the keepsakes, no one will shed a tear that someone played out the same scenario on him.”
“Our blood’s everywhere.” Cara said. “What about our fingerprints, hair, DNA?”
“We will clean up so that nothing is obvious. If they do come down here they will just find multiple blood types, including Shona and Melanie. The others I will suggest were probably just other victims. I must be mad. I have forty years on the force and I’ve never seen anything like this. I don’t want to again either. Do I make myself clear?”
Chapter 27
Seth lay in the back of the van as they drove away. His body ached as if it would never be whole or free from pain again. Looking up, he saw Cara glance back over the seat at him. The rage he felt when he entered the cellar and found Vincent had been overpowering. Matcher had run to Cara, but Vincent threw the boy across the room like a rag doll.
The urge to rip Vincent limb from limb was strong, but it wasn’t enough. Hurling Vincent into a wine rack and seeing him collapse to the floor, wasn’t enough either. When he turned to Cara, Seth accepted he was too late. She was bloody and lifeless, a knife impaled in her heart.
As he pulled the dagger free, he knew what had to be done. Vincent would die and so would he. It would all come to an end. It had been foolish to ever expect more. Overpowering Vincent was easy, too easy.
As he plunged the dagger into the other man’s chest, the darkness of death drew Seth too. A voice he hadn’t heard in so long called to him. It was Rosie’s telling him to return to Cara. He remembered floating above his dead body with Rosie’s ghost next to him. He’d watched Cara cut herself and paint his wounds with her blood. What had he done to deserve such love? This wonderful woman made his heart soar with affection for her
She loves you so much, Seth. Don’t leave her like this.
I’m sorry I couldn’t save you, Rosie.
You have. He’s gone and I’m free.
Cara had breathed life into him. He watched as a beam of light shone from her and attached itself to his floating form. She was drawing him back. He could sense in her mind how much she loved him. His lungs felt as if they would explode as he was drawn back into his body with a jolt. His body arched off of the floor in pain. It meant he was alive.
Seth’s head ached as things came into focus. He must have passed out. He was in some kind of moving contraption that made a strange burring noise.
“We’re almost home,” A woman said. She reached down and grasped his hand. Did he know her? It was dark in the vehicle and he couldn’t make her face out.
Home, a picture of a cottage with a forge came to mind. The vehicle stopped and they made their way inside a large building and upstairs. He had expected home to be the cottage. The woman helped him to the bedroom and sat next to him on the bed.
He couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer. “I need to go home. Take me home.”
“Later. First you need to shower and then rest. It will be all right, Seth. We’ll go home tomorrow.”
She knew his name. She had eyes like Rosie. One blue, one green but she wasn’t Rosie. He had a feeling something bad had happened but the thoughts were just out of his reach as he blacked out again. He stood in the cubicle as the water sprayed him. Everything was strange. The way the water flowed, the lights. His mind struggled through a haze to make sense of it. Peering in the mirror he saw fresh cuts on his body. They were the same cuts he had seen on Rosie. What was happening here? He made his way to the bedroom and hoped sleep would bring some answers.
Cara slept for a few hours after her shower washed away the blood from her body and hair. What she needed now was food. Seth didn’t stir as she got up and left the room. Rachel was in the living room and Cara wasn’t surprised. If she were Matcher, she would have wanted some closeness and normality around her. When he saw her, Matcher said Daniel was on the way over with Jeff and wanted to know what happened.
When the other men arrived, Cara told them everything and was amazed they actually believed it. It was official. Her friends were now as crazy as she was. The phone rang. Cara picked up the receiver and listened, then agreed. After she hung up, she said, “That was Inspector Seps. Says he needs to talk to me down at the station. This is going to be interesting.”
Seth felt as if he’d been pulled backwards from a dream to wakefulness. A woman perched beside him on a bed. She smiled at him. He didn’t know her, but she had a beautiful smile and reminded him of Rosie. If he hadn’t been a married man, he could have been tempted by a smile like that. Then, it all came back to him. His wife was dead and Rosie was missing.
Where was he? He should get himself home, sober up and find Rosie before something happened to her. He would never forgive himself if it did.
A light shone above him. It was like nothing he had seen before. A white globe glowed with no evidence of a flame. What was this place? Who was this woman?
“Where am I?” He saw the look of concern pass over the woman’s face. She had expected him to know her.
“What do you mean, Seth? You’re at my flat.” She reached out and touched his arm.
He pulled away. How did she know his name?
“Who are you?” He watched tears form in the woman’s eyes.
“What do you mean? I’m Cara.”
The name triggered pain. Agony coursed through him. He curled up in a ball, hoping the sensation wouldn’t tear him apart. Flashes of memories came to him, disconnected pictures. One thing he remembered was his home, his cottage. He remembered Rosie coming to him in a vision. She was dead. He turned to Cara.
“Can you take me home?”
Through silent tears, she nodded.
Cara was glad Jeff agreed to ride Seth’s bike back to the cottage. Seeing it out in front of the block of flats for the past month had been like having Vincent twist the knife he stabbed into her all over again. Jeff looked well now. It was fun to see Daniel find out something new about his partner. She could see them both out riding some big bike now.
Daniel had driven the van out to the cottage. Janet showed them where to park the bike around the side. She had been polite. She offered them tea and her famous cookies, but Seth stayed in the forge.
“He rarely comes out. Then again, he never did much before. He said he remembers me. At first. I didn’t think it was true but now it’s different. Maybe my cooking has brought back some memories.” Janet shrugged her shoulders.
Cara thought being at the cottage would help the anguish, but it made it worse. How could he not remember what they had together? She wished this was a dream, but she never seemed to wake up. Janet kept talking to Jeff and Daniel. Cara couldn’t focus on what they were saying. Maybe, if she ran o
ut there and threw herself into his arms he would recall something. A hand touched hers. It was Janet.
“I was just saying. I don’t know how you managed to get him home that day. I struggle to get him in the car. He used to love that bike. Don’t know if he’ll ever ride it again now. He acts like he’s never seen a car or bike before.”
Cara heard a door slam outside. Her heart beat wildly even if her brain told her differently. There was no point in getting her hopes up.
“He knows you’re here. He won’t come in. He goes to ride Dart about this time every afternoon. Then, he goes back to the forge. I’ve told him he’s a fool. He was lucky to find someone like you, but he doesn’t understand. If I was him, I’d be locked up by now I’m sure. A person isn’t meant to live as long as him.”
Cara needed to go, but had one more thing to do. She reached inside her handbag and pulled out an envelope.
“Can you give him this? I’ve written down everything. Maybe, it will trigger something. If it doesn’t, then at least I tried.” Cara didn’t bother to keep back the tears.
Janet walked around the table and hugged her. “I don’t think I should be half as calm as you, my dear. I’d have grabbed a rolling pin and smashed some sense into that stupid head of his.”
“I would if I thought it would work.”
As they walked over to the van, Cara couldn’t ignore the sound of a horse galloping nearby. She remembered the first day they had been together. They had watched his beautiful warm blood running around the field. It seemed like another lifetime. She was a fool but couldn’t draw her gaze away from the field near the cottage. He pulled the horse to a halt at the gate.
Their gazes met for a moment. Cara wanted to fool herself, but she couldn’t. There was no look of recognition there. If anything there was anger.
