CHAPTER TWELVE
“I loved him,” Eleanor whined, her chin trembling with anger. I could barely hear her as I stared at Evan’s body, feeling that my whole world was falling apart. “I loved Jonathan. We could have had such a wonderful life together. We would have been happy together, but he wouldn’t leave her. He wouldn’t leave Isadore.” Eleanor spat my mother’s name into the air as if it disgusted her. It probably did. Inside my head, the puzzle pieces clicked into place; the unhappy woman in the wedding photos had been Eleanor, which is why she was gazing at my father. My parents had hidden me with humans where she was never supposed to find me. My mother had been the love of my father’s life, though Eleanor saw her as nothing but an obstacle to her happiness with my father.
“No, you wouldn’t, he would never have left my mother!” I was certain of it. I crept upwards, slowly at first, not sure if she would lash out at me. Robert lay dead at Astra’s feet and she seemed to be nudging him with her toe. It almost appeared that she wasn’t quite certain and thought he might get up with some encouragement. Violet flecks danced on her fingertips.
Eleanor’s face tightened and she glared at me as if I had just uttered the most stupid thing. “That’s why I killed her. I simply waited until he went out and left her at home. She was with you. I watched you both through the window playing happy family, talking about Daddy coming home. All I had to do was knock at the door and she answered it. It was so easy,” Eleanor’s eyes took on a faraway look and I edged backwards. “Don’t move,” she hissed, snapping her attention back to me, her lips twitching upwards at the edges into a strange semblance of a cruel smile. “She was dead before she could even say hello. I snapped her neck. I didn’t have to check if she was dead but I did anyway. When I bent down to touch her neck and feel for life, I didn’t know Jonathan had come back. He shouldn’t have come back!”
I could see the scene in my mind but I didn’t know if I was imagining it or remembering something I once witnessed. I could envision Eleanor, a much younger Eleanor, stooped over my mother’s inert body in the little porch of our home. I could also see myself, tiny and afraid. The magic hanging about us, cloying and raw, was palpable.
“He saw you with Isadore dead?” I urged her to continue but my heart didn’t want to hear what she had to say. I wanted to clamp my hands over my ears and block it all out. Instead, I waited.
“He shouldn’t have come back. He shouldn’t have come back for hours and by then, I would have been there to comfort him. I would have helped him get over her. There was nothing to stop him loving me once she was gone.” Eleanor was hysterical with what she saw as the injustice meted out to her.
“He would never have loved you.” The voice of reason and I were going to have to sit down some day so I could tell it to shut up during life or death moments.
“Of course, he would have! I would have left Robert and given myself to him. Jonathan would see the sacrifice I made and would have loved me all the more. He always saw the good in others.”
“You would have left your own child?” I couldn’t imagine how a parent could abandon their own blood. I consoled myself that at least I knew, for certain now, that my parents never turned their backs on me, even though I never really believed that they had. It was strangely comforting to know that I was loved and hidden from harm all these years until I could defend myself.
“Marc would have been fine with Robert. They didn’t need me, not like I needed Jonathan.” I scanned the room for Marc, then what I could see of the hallway. I couldn’t see a body so I assumed he was alive, at least, and within earshot; and my heart pined for him. I wondered if Robert had ever known or suspected what Eleanor had done. I concluded that a part of him had to or he wouldn’t have come to warn us; the puzzle pieces clicked just a bit too late for him. He tried to warn me, even hide me again, just as my parents did, in plain sight with people who would protect me, but he was too late and fell into his wife’s trap. It was almost too horrible to be true. Eleanor intended to kill us all.
“Why didn’t you kill me?” Did she think she would become my mother or had she planned to get rid of me, the last obstacle between Jonathan and her?
“The moment I realised Jonathan had seen me, he disappeared. I could smell his magic in the air as he snatched you from inside the house and disappeared. He was back within minutes. He tried to get to Isadore but I pleaded with him. She was gone; I could take her place. I could love him more than she ever did.” Eleanor paused and, if I hadn’t seen her murder her own husband, then refer to my mother’s death with such indifference, I might have pitied her psychosis.
“I tried to show him. I tried to take him inside so I could give myself to him, show him what a wonderful wife I would be to him, but he was furious. I could see the disgust in his eyes. He hated me and I couldn’t bear it. I stabbed him and I stabbed and I stabbed; and eventually he died too, leaving me covered in his blood. It shouldn’t have happened. He should have been free the moment Isadore was dead. He should have been free to love me. She was the only problem; she always got everything she wanted.”
“He would never have loved you,” I whispered again. “Never. You are pathetic, sad, deluded and evil. How could anyone love someone like you?”
Eleanor screamed and the veins in her forehead heaved as she shook. She locked her eyes on me and I saw her mouth barely moving as she started murmuring. Behind me, there was a tremendous hiss and rush of air so I could barely hear her. But before I could begin to puzzle what she was voicing, I fell to the side as my arm was roughly yanked down. Just seconds later, the bolt whistled through the airspace my head had occupied only moments earlier. Continually ducking my head was getting to be a very nasty, albeit necessary, habit.
Newly crouched on the floor, I could see Evan lying on his back, his shoulder at a strange angle to the rest of his body. He was bleeding from a jagged cut on his cheek and more blood oozed from wounds across his body. Even in his unconscious state, I could see his face contorted in pain. It was all I could do not to lurch towards him and cover his body with mine.
Kitty caught my eye and shook her head. “You would be totally exposed,” she warned. “Stay down. He’s not going anywhere and I can see him breathing.”
I nodded obediently, heaving with relief. I could just make out his chest rising and falling in shallow breaths. Kitty was right anyway. Unconscious, Evan was hardly a target. Eleanor might even assume he was dead from across the room. If I threw myself out there, she would have me in her line of sight and I didn’t know if I could defend myself against her superior strength. Even worse, Evan was definitely no longer a participant in the fight.
I sank from my crouch to the carpet and took a moment to catch my breath, but when I saw Meg lying on the rug a few feet away, sprawled on the floor, it was all I could do to stifle a scream. I hadn’t even realised she had snuck into the room. The bolt meant for me had hit her squarely in the chest and, judging by the hole it left behind, Meg was quite clearly dead.
Kitty gripped my hand. “She would have wanted it this way.” Before I could twist my neck to glance at her in bewilderment, Meg’s corpse began to shrivel and disintegrate, her body sinking into itself. Her pretty, aged features collapsed and became nothing more than ash, enveloped in her cardigan and long floral skirt.
“What the fuck?” I didn’t usually curse but after seeing an old lady’s bones crumble to dust in front of my eyes, it seemed to be the appropriate comment.
“Well, she was a vampire,” muttered Kitty. “That’s how they, you know, go.”
“She was a vampire?” I repeated incredulously. Sweet old Meg? It would have been hard for me to believe if I hadn’t seen her ashes still smouldering slightly in front of me. What else didn’t I know?
“Yes, not particularly by choice, but out of necessity.” Kitty was huddled up next to me now as the air crackled over our heads. I wondered where the rest of our household was. I hoped they had the good sense to hide or find a way to break the hold Eleanor h
ad over the house.
“Why would anyone consider it necessary to be a vampire?” I asked.
Kitty hurriedly explained. “Well, her only daughter was really sick and had two little children of her own; then Meg got sick too. Cancer, I think, though they couldn’t diagnose it back then. The daughter died and Meg knew her poor health would jeopardise her being able to raise the little ones. So one night, a vampire was passing through and Meg asked to be turned so she wouldn’t die and could survive to look after her grandchildren until they were grown. It was an awfully brave thing to do, losing her life just to bring up those kids. What would have happened to them otherwise? They might have starved or been put to work.”
“Wouldn’t social services have looked after them?”
“Not a hundred years ago, honey.”
“Where are the grandchildren now?”
“Oh, dead a long time I think. Lived until they were old and had grandchildren of their own, thanks to Meg.”
“And she still kept on living?”
“She wasn’t sure how to end it, but she sure was fed up of it. Especially when Dynasty finished.”
“You’re kidding?”
“Meg did not joke about Dynasty. Whoa... incoming!”
Kitty and I hit the floor at the same time as the sofa exploded in a heap of foam and ticking fluff. We scrambled to hide behind the last intact sofa, my hands nudging Kitty along until she squawked at me.
“Stella.” Eleanor’s voice boomed over the melee in a curious mix of venom and cajoling. “Stella, I know where you are. There’s no point in hiding. There’s no time for hide and seek. Let’s end this, Stella. Let’s end it now. This should have happened years ago. You’re on borrowed time.”
I surveyed what I could see. Evan, bleeding, and totally out of it, Meg’s ashes, Kitty trembling next to me but whether from fear or anger now, I couldn’t tell. The part of the house I could see from the side window was in flames and I could hear shouting. I hoped no one was inside that wing. I pressed myself down and sent out a pulse into the room. Just like before, the strength of Eleanor and Astra’s magic made it like walking through jelly, slow and awkward; but I found traces of other beings in the room. We weren’t alone. Quickly, I drew back into myself. After a moment, I craned my neck slightly to the left and could just make out Marc and someone else. Yes, the Chinese print jacket sleeve I could just see told me Étoile had returned with Seren and was standing next to him.
“Étoile and Marc are on the other side of the room,” I whispered, my voice barely audible, but Kitty nodded.
“Come out Stella and they can all go,” coaxed Eleanor.
My eyes connected with Marc and I could just see him give a single shake of his head and my heart went out to him. How appalling it must be to see your mother, the person who raised you, murder your father, attack your friends as well as her own son, and worse, not be able to do anything about it. For the first time, I felt lucky that my powers were already part of me and only needed to be tamed to do my bidding.
“The hell you will,” I yelled back. “You won’t leave any of them alive.” I didn’t add, not even your own son. It seemed too cruel and I hardly wanted to rub Marc’s face in it.
Eleanor laughed and strangely there was a note of joy in it. I had to catch myself from gasping. She was actually enjoying the murder and mayhem and if I wasn’t certain before, I was now. I had to end this. Eleanor couldn’t be left to destroy any more lives.
I stood and faced the devil.
She grinned at me, the sardonic smile dancing on her lips, her eyes steady but somehow not there. The Eleanor that I had first met in New York was the same twinset and pearls Eleanor here now, but all shreds of humanity had vanished. This one was sinister and destructive and hell-bent on annihilating me. My heart clamoured in fear.
“Come here, Stella.”
“Not a chance.”
“We should be friends, my dear.”
“I refer you to my last answer,” I replied caustically.
“We could change the world. Your power and mine. Imagine! There is nothing we couldn’t do.”
I nodded at Astra who was rocking on the balls of her feet. “Look how your last experiment turned out. No thanks.”
Eleanor didn’t even spare a glance for Astra. My friends’ sister stood behind the older woman, shifting so that she was swaying slightly instead of rocking, but otherwise not doing anything. She wasn’t even eyeing up the opposition. Instead, she looked faintly bewildered, like a puppet whose strings had fallen now that the puppet master was looking for a new toy. I struggled to pity her after what she had done to Evan.
Eleanor’s smile fell and her face took on the ghoulish air of someone utterly possessed. I couldn’t understand why she was bargaining with me; perhaps she was under the same delusion that caused her to think my father would love her after she disposed of my mother. Perhaps, in her deranged mind, she really thought I might consider joining her.
“Last chance,” she crooned.
“The answer will always be no.”
“Oh Stella, what a mistake you have made. You will have to watch your friends die. One by one, each and every one of them. I’ll let you determine the order, if you like?” The words slipped out like she was offering me something delicious.
“You won’t hurt anyone anymore.” My voice was firm. I think. Inexplicably, I noticed a mist was rolling through the room, rising from the carpet. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Kitty sitting with her eyes closed, muttering a spell. She said she could control the weather and now she was trying to blind Eleanor with it. Smart.
“Is that a question, dear Stella?” Eleanor laughed and behind her, Astra shrieked in echo until Eleanor swatted her and she recoiled in silence, a tear rolling down her pallid, mask-like face. Eleanor looked at the mist coiling about her feet with amusement. “Let’s start with Kitty, the little weather witch, shall we?” She extended a hand towards our hiding place and began to mutter an incantation. Kitty was drawn into the air, her chin pointing to the ceiling as her legs flailed. She clawed at her throat, her spell shattered, as an invisible hand squeezed and held her mid-air.
“Shall I tear her limb from limb? Or strangle her? Maybe, I should turn her inside out.” Eleanor let the various tortures drip from her tongue like she was reeling off the specials of the day. “Or shall I save that for last?”
Kitty screamed. The pitiful shriek drew Astra’s attention and she smiled wanly at her as Kitty’s left arm stretched above her and cracked. Her legs jerked in the air.
“One down, three to go,” Eleanor warbled in a sing-song voice, wagging her finger at Kitty.
Kitty whimpered and her face lost all colour as her right leg bent at an unnatural angle.
“No. No!” I cried. I could feel the electricity coursing through my veins as my fury rose. “You. Will. Not. Do. This!”
I focused the way Evan taught me. I obliterated the room from my consciousness, taking no note of the pain and fear in the room. I shut out Eleanor’s mocking laughter and Kitty’s terror. I found Astra’s madness and pushed her back. I vaguely registered her shout as I hurled her into the television, knocking DVDs off the shelves to clobber her one by one. The flames and ripped furniture, the glass, the ash and Kitty’s mist retreated to the edges of my peripheral vision. I locked my gaze on Eleanor and reached out with my hand to summon my essence. I called with my mind, my heart, my body and my soul. I had never felt more connected to my magic as it rushed through me, light shooting from my fingertips and burning through every pore. I felt the air hot and heavy around me as I glanced off the blows Eleanor aimed at me like they were nothing more than static electricity.
I thrust my hand further forward and yelled. The magic streamed from me into the open and after a moment of horrified silence, the screaming started.
It could have been seconds or eternity for all I could tell of the time passing. I felt the last of the magic fade around me and recede from my fingers. I blink
ed and when I refocused, Eleanor was kneeling, her head thrown back and her face ashen and lifeless. She began to slide down until she crumpled on the floor, with her head coming to rest at Robert’s feet. Astra hadn’t moved from where she landed, her legs splayed under her. Her mask was slipping and she looked more perplexed than frightened as if she didn’t quite know how she had come to be here. Slowly, she started to move her lips. It took me a moment to realise she wasn’t reciting a spell but instead, singing a nursery rhyme. “Twinkle, twinkle, little star...” she whispered in her soprano tone.
I barely registered the flash of blue as Étoile darted across the room from her hiding place and threw her arms around her sister, crushing her arms at her sides. It was more like a straightjacket than an embrace. She nodded at me and they vanished.
“Stella. Stella,” Kitty moaned. She had fallen from the invisible grasp of Eleanor’s incantation, now that the magic had died with its issuer, and was slumped against the armrest of the sofa. Her skin had taken on a puce green hue and her whole body was convulsing with shock. Marc rose from his hiding place, visibly shaken and scrambling towards her. I wondered if he could feel the magic simmering around him. No, not around him, I corrected myself, coming from him.
He wouldn’t look at me as he dashed past and when I finally turned my eyes from the devastation and rested them on my outstretched hand I could see why.
There sat Eleanor’s heart, the red pulpy mass of muscle in my palm, the arterial tendrils draping over as blood dripped to the floor in a staccato rhythm.
It beat for a few moments more, then, very decisively, gave one last shudder and stopped.
Finally, Eleanor’s sadistic, vindictive heart was just as dead as the rest of her.
Illicit Magic (Book 1, Stella Mayweather Series) Page 14
