Queen of Lies

by Kel Carpenter

  “Time for what?” I asked, leery about where she was going. She smiled again, and this time, it held an edge of sadness.

  “Acceptance.”

  Acceptance?

  I wasn’t sure if I liked the direction this was headed.

  “You want me to accept that thing, don’t you?” There was a bite to my words, but not enough for what I knew Violet was asking.

  “I’m not asking you to do anything you aren’t ready for.” Her words were resigned, staunch, and unmoving. I crossed my arms over my chest and watched them both. Violet was cold, cruel, and clinical in her assessments. It made her my greatest advisor, even if I didn’t know who or what she was.

  “There’s more, isn’t there?”

  The grim resolve on her face spoke volumes. She nodded stiffly and my shoulders deflated. I didn’t expect her to offer her hand, and I was hesitant to take it after last time.

  “Let’s take a walk, shall we?” she said softly. Something about her tone left no room for discussion. I accepted her hand and found us transported yet again.

  The yellow house with a white picket fence was not what I expected. It looked the same as when I left it. Alpine Larch and all. I waded through the unkempt grass to the rock where I used to sit with my father while contemplating the universe.

  “When she first died, you tried to deny. You hoped. You pleaded, and eventually you were consumed in anger. Rage.” She took a seat beside me, kicking her legs out in front of her. “It led you to make a deal with me. To bargain for a revenge that has always been yours to take. I gave in and yielded to your desires because I care for you in a way I have not cared for another in a very long time.”

  On the other side of me, another sat. I didn’t look at the demon, but I sensed her. Similar, yet entirely different from Violet.

  “But when we surfaced from the veil, we were not complete. It made you even more unstable. Volatile. You turned on everyone in your life and alienated them. You fell into a depression of sorts. Grieving is what the humans call it, but you are a Supernatural and a demon. Grief is never so simple.”

  Spanning before us was the sunrise coming over the mountains. Only it was frozen, and we were suspended in time.

  “And then you broke. Again, except this time you want to change. You want to heal, but there is only one way how. The dragon knows this. Your signasti knows this. They will help you, but it is you who must do the work.” I dug my bare feet into the earth, flexing my toes around the bits of grass and compact dirt.

  Do the work?

  Why did it seem like this was only the beginning?

  “Because it is,” Violet replied. I wasn’t even phased that she answered it. Weirder things have happened. “The last step, and the hardest one to reach, is acceptance. If you want to feel and be whole, you must look at yourself and accept it. Just as you accepted me, you must make room for the demons. For the vulnerabilities. You must accept that you are who you are and take your destiny into your own hands—or history will repeat itself.”

  “Repeat itself?” I asked. Violet nodded solemnly.

  “You are not the first to come along with such great power. Your parents warned you what would happen should you stray down the road of every matter manipulator before you. They tried to fix you before you were even broken.” She sighed heavily and shook her head.

  “But I am broken,” I said. “And I don’t know how to put myself back together. But I don’t want to merge with that thing or be angry at the world anymore.” Violet made a tsk sound and clicked her tongue.

  “That thing is part of you and it always has been,” she said sternly. “You will never be whole without it. You have tried for years, and for years you have failed. If you truly want to get better, then you need to make some sacrifices and let go of your assumptions about how the world should work, or what your demon is.”

  If I ever had a moment in my life where I felt like I might be speaking with a higher power, this was it. Violet was giving me the ultimatum: get myself together and let go of all the rest…or be like this forever.

  Did I want to change enough to do that? Enough to be that?

  Yes. Yes, I did.

  To end the pain and the suffering, to give my life meaning again, to be able to continue without constantly feeling like I was jumping from one extreme to the other…I would do almost anything.

  I blinked, opening my mouth to tell her my decision, but we no longer sat on a rock beside an old tree. We stood in a room with black marbled floors, streaked with gold. Beside me, a canopy bed made of ebony wood held a frail girl wrapped in golden sheets. The firelight danced across her skin, paler than it’s ever been. Only once have I ever had an out of body experience like this, and it was just as trippy then.

  “Is that really me?” My voice never sounded so small.

  Violet nodded.

  “How? How is this possible?”

  “Time is passing faster than you realize. You spent more time in the darkness than before, and I could not reach you until you were ready to talk. It is only your strength and will of mind that is keeping you alive at this point.” Violet walked over and brushed the hair from the fragile girl’s face. She didn’t respond. Didn’t stir. “Eventually you will have to wake, and when you do, the choice will have to be made.”

  The choice.

  She said it like it was that simple. Like I could just choose to be normal.

  To be happy.

  “It is a choice. You don’t see that now because you’re so deep in your anger and grief that you think there is nothing you can do, but all that does is take away your authority. You can choose to be better. To be happy.” She raised her eyebrows and gave me a knowing look. “But you have to remember to choose that every day, in and out—and eventually it will come naturally.” I walked toward her and the girl on the bed. She was so very pale, and her hair so very dark, that her sallow cheeks and eyes looked like bruising.

  “If I choose to try and change, what will happen to me? To us?” I didn’t glance at my demon, but I could feel her shifting uneasily. Did she have thoughts? Feelings of her own? It seemed like she did, but then again, I had never acknowledged her. Never let her speak. I didn’t know.

  “You’re only going to get one shot at this, Selena. If you succeed, you will be more powerful than they ever imagined. You will change the world for the better.” I didn’t say anything as I stared at the girl in the bed. That couldn’t be me. It’s not possible. She looked like she was…dying.

  I was dying.

  “But if you fail, if you don’t accept yourself and your future—you will doom them all. Your enemies will win, and you very well may damn yourself to an eternity of madness. Your signasti too.”

  “I…” My voice trailed off before I could get the words out. “I don’t want to be the person I was…or am, but I don’t know how to get better. I don’t understand how to fix this, but I can’t live like this.” I swallowed hard.

  “Then you know what to do. You’ve known it all along,” Violet said to me. She gripped my hand in hers, giving me the strength I needed to look up. My demon stood across from us, watching me warily. She was as hesitant of me as I was of her.

  I steeled myself. Straightening my spine with a resolve that had my heart hammering as it pushed blood to my head. My ears pounded with a pressure that settled on me trying to force us together.

  “You have locked her away for so long that you are equally scared of each other. Neither of you are inherently evil, but you aren’t good either. You’re neutral beings, some of the only ones in existence.” I took a tentative step towards her and Violet walked beside me. Across the room, the demon took a step towards us. Raising her hand, a question in her eyes.

  “That gives you the power to choose, and your decisions will change the foundations of the world as we know it.”

  I’d heard those words before.

  From an old lady in a tent with a bag full of chicken bones and a yellow smile.

 
“The Crone told me that,” I said.

  “If you succeed, it will not be the last time you see her,” Violet replied cryptically. How could she possibly know that? How could she know any of this?

  She looked at me and I stared into her hypnotic eyes. There was something about Violet I always found unsettling, like the color of her eyes itself held secrets.

  “I have no reason to believe you, but I don’t know who to trust when I can’t even trust myself,” I said. She raised her hand to my cheek and turned my face to the other entity: the demon that waited, hand raised and arms open.

  “You trust the people who have nothing to gain from you. Those who you’ve hurt, but that still try to help you. You look inside yourself and learn to love what you see. She is a part of you that has been waiting a very long time to be accepted.” The demon took another step towards me, and I took a shallow breath. “She helps you when you need her, and you lock her away every time. You want to know where to start? Look at her.”

  I did. I looked long and hard, watching the way she averted her eyes. Savage she may be, but that didn’t make her evil. Violet was telling the truth there. What merging with this being would do, I had no idea. It terrified me to consider it, but I had tried things my way and lost.

  If my way didn’t work, it was time to try another.

  Slowly, but steadily, I raised my hand.

  “Come,” I whispered, flinching at the hope in her eyes.

  Was I really so cruel not to see that before? So hopeless in myself that I didn’t look elsewhere, even at the thing living inside of me?

  Violet turned adjacent to me and held out her hand for the demon who took it. We stood as a married couple would, prepared to say our vows and promises. This joining would not be like any other. An unholy trinity.

  A chance at something new. A reach for balance.

  A gamble at what it means to be whole.

  I stared at my demon and I did not feel afraid.

  “You said I only get one shot,” I said under my breath. “Tell me what I have to do.”

  We made a pact, right then and there. A union, of sorts.

  Sealed by a single touch.

  I didn’t even get the chance to pray that I wasn’t a foolish idiot before my eyes cracked open.

  Awake and alive, after being gone far too long.

  Part II

  Chapter 16

  I gasped once, inhaling a breath of fresh air. My back arched off the bed, aching and stiff. How long had it been since I moved? I had no idea, but I was going to find out.

  Twisting my fingers in the silken bed sheets, I heaved myself up into a sitting position. My muscles protested loudly with a series of snaps and pops, but I was feeling better already. Lighter. Freer.

  Just as Violet promised, my demon was with us, experiencing all of these things as if it were the first time. I suppose it was for her since she had been locked up every time before. Already my mind was relaxing as a tension I didn’t know I had began to evaporate. She was content for us to move and stretch at will, not making any sudden grabs for power like before.

  Tentatively, I swung my legs around and shuffled closer to the foot of the bed. The firelight licked at my skin. I basked in its warm glow as I slipped my legs over the edge of the bed and extended both hands.

  The demon in me was mesmerized by the fire. It had never seen anything so pure. It danced on the edge of destruction, depending on how you used it. A contented warmth spread in my chest, and there was nothing unnatural or extreme about it this time. It didn’t burn.

  I crouched down before the fire, sinking to my knees on the plush rug. The fibers tickled my overly sensitive skin and a laugh escaped my lips.

  It wasn’t a caustic or cruel sound. More like wind chimes.

  Light and free. I had never felt so free.

  Without thinking, I extended my hands towards the fire, brushing my fingers over the flames.

  So warm… I could curl up inside of it. The flames didn’t move for me like they had my sister, but I was impervious nonetheless. They heated my skin, but they didn’t burn. They’d never burned. I guess I knew why now.

  Voices carried from down the hall. It was strange how they sounded so clear but not close. It didn’t make sense. I pulled back from the flames and rose to my feet. My legs were clothed in loose fitting sweatpants, and an obscenely large t-shirt bunched around my waist. If it weren’t for my butt, the pants would have fallen off.

  I turned away from the fire to search for clothes. The magic drawers ought to have something. I reached for the one that usually contained tops and pulled out the first thing I saw. Except…it was too big.

  That can’t be right.

  I placed it back in the drawer and pulled open another. Sweats. All the wrong size. Then I went to another. Jeans. Still far too large.

  Okay, looks like the magic safe house was broken because this was all meant for Aaron. Still, I dug through the drawers and the closet, and while all of it was men’s clothing, a few pieces looked like they might fit me. I swapped out the baggy t-shirt for one that I found in the back of the closet with The Beatles printed on it. It was still loose, but not so loose I was swimming in material.

  Pants were a bit trickier. I debated going in the boy short underwear, but I found a pair of male boxers that looked about the right length for actual shorts. After rolling them a couple of times, they fell to mid-thigh and fit me almost perfectly.

  I stepped out of the closet and looked to the door again. If I concentrated, I could hear a lot more than voices down the hall. Grunts and growls sounded further away, followed by a—was that howling?

  Must be the strip club, I supplied easily enough. That was a perfectly logical conclusion.

  My feet were silent as I padded across the cool marble floors. They didn’t feel as cold as they used to. Come to think of it, everything was warmer.

  That was a little odd, but maybe it was just me. I had no idea what effects my body would feel from merging with my demon. Whereas Violet by herself turned me cold, and I alone had been burning, this combination seemed to be the most comfortable.

  It was definitely the easiest on my mind.

  I hadn’t needed to focus on so many barriers now.

  It was refreshing.

  My fingers brushed over the door handle and I lightly opened it.

  But the safe house wasn’t what awaited me.

  While the bedroom was an exact copy of the one from the safe house, this living room was not. A crackling fireplace burned in the center with black leather couches positioned around it. The room was small. Cozy. It only had a single door apart from the one I stood in, and that one was framed by bookshelves on either side, and an abbreviated bookshelf sat snugly over the doorframe. They ran from the floor to the ceiling, roughly twelve feet above.

  So. Whoever lived here liked to read. I’ve heard of stranger things.

  What also surprised me was that it was entirely empty. I could have sworn I heard voices…my gaze went to the other door. The sounds were slightly more pronounced now, but still muffled. Whoever it was must be on the other side of that door.

  I crossed the living space, ignoring the tremble in my veins. My fingers closed around the handle as I took a deep breath. Somehow, the air tasted cleaner here.

  Well, that definitely can’t be right. There’s no way we could have left Las Vegas without me knowing.

  Or so I thought.

  It didn’t open to a room. It opened into a hallway. I popped my head out, and once again, no one was there. Only beige walls with fancy lighting. This door sat at the very end of the hallway, with six more doors on either side before it opened at the very end.

  I couldn’t tell anything more about it from here, except that it had an oddly familiar metal railing that shined in the startling light. I swallowed hard, cringing at the scratchiness of my throat. I needed something to drink when I found someone.

  My feet carried me down the hallway on their own accord. I hadn�
��t even realized I’d moved until I was standing at the very end looking over the railing. It opened into a large room that looked almost like a ballroom, just smaller. This landing was three floors up and it appeared the room had a semicircular shape. Down below, an opulent staircase led from the first to the second floor, but this floor didn’t have a connecting staircase. A simple elevator with one button was placed where the staircase was below.

  If I had to bet, that elevator was my magic elevator, but still left me with the question of where the hell am I?

  I eyed the drop from here to the floor below. It looked to be less than forty feet. Surely I could jump that? I’d jumped twice as far before, and while that was out of necessity, my demon was quite curious about the actual confines of my body now that all three of us were here.

  I didn’t think as I hooked my hand around the railing and swung myself over it. I was falling before it even occurred to me, and landing on the balls of my feet when a girl’s scream pierced my ears. I clapped my hands over them, flinching away from the noise.

  “Ohmigawd—are you alright—what just happened—who are you?”

  Her questions assaulted my senses, putting an end to my blissfully peaceful return to the world of the living. I eyed her cautiously, my demon both wary of another being so near us, and curious about the other living creature.

  She had beautiful dark brown locks of hair swept back into a French braid with a few loose strands framed around her face. Suddenly, her panicked reaction made sense. She couldn’t have been older than twelve or thirteen—and she certainly wasn’t like Milla, whose personality was quiet and reserved.

  “Do you need a doctor? That was like, an insane jump. Only a couple of Shifters I know could even make it, and no offense, but you’re looking a little wild, if you know what I mean.” The girl babbled on, completely oblivious to my lack of a response.

  “Where am I?” I rasped. It was nearly a croak, given how dry my throat was. I swallowed again, hoping to clear it.

  “Just outside Carson City, of course. This is the main residence,” she boasted proudly. A shadow of a girl I once knew shone in her face, but that was a different time. A life before monsters and demons, where the only thing we had to worry about was getting her through history.