by Hadena James
With time stopped, I hunkered down into the now cool stone. I listened for Ba’al’s heartbeat and found it very faintly. He wasn’t breathing, but I hadn’t expected him to breathe. It wasn’t exactly a requirement for life with Elders. It was just something we did because we had lungs and liked to talk.
I jumped a bit when I heard a voice. It was Eli’s. It wasn’t nearly as loud as it had been.
“It hurts,” he was saying.
“How much?” Levi’s voice filtered through to me.
“More than my head being cut off.”
“Impressive. How many times?” Levi continued.
“Seven, I think. I feel like there is fire running through my veins.”
“That would be the Gargoyle’s blood in the sword. There is nothing I can do to stop the pain and heal you. Since the sword is both Elder and Witch magic, Bren might be able to do something, but I don’t know what. Especially being blind again. We are going to need a good Witch around.”
“Maybe more than that,” Anubis’s voice finally entered the conversation. “He obviously knows a lot about us and we know almost nothing about him. He may have disappeared the trolls and dragon for now, but what is to stop him from bringing them back? And do we have the manpower to fight two trolls, a dragon and a psychotic Witch?”
“If he can do all that, why only the one troll to begin with?” Levi asked.
“Because insanity doesn’t make sense,” Eli offered, his voice strained. “He probably thought one troll would be enough. We should probably tell Pendragon there is an injured troll on the island.”
“You’re right, we should, before dragons or something start eating it.” Anubis agreed.
“What do we do about our stone Gargoyle and our encased Demon?” Levi asked.
“We take them back to the motel and wait,” Anubis answered.
“How? Everyone is injured to some degree or another.” Fenrir joined the conversation.
“I’m sure there is a truck around here somewhere that someone would let us use. We did just stop a psycho Witch and a troll from eating the townspeople.” Eli offered.
“Yes, but we are the reason the Witch and troll were in town. They’ve never appeared here, always in the farm areas. The townspeople may not see us as a good thing. And we damaged a few buildings. Nothing insurance won’t pay for, but it will still irritate them.” Levi responded.
“Sad that those two things seem to offset each other. If he had eaten a few of them, they might be more grateful.” Eli sounded as morose as I was starting to feel.
I was desperate for some view of what had happened to all of them, especially since they were all injured. Normally, I find Ba’al’s wings to be comforting, now they seemed like a prison. One of the many dualities of my life.
“Well, there is always a solution,” Levi finally offered.
“Think that is a good idea?” Anubis asked.
“No, but I’ll go get him,” Gabriel answered.
I realized it was the first time I had heard him in a long while. Even more disturbing, I could hear his wings began to beat. He was going to fly. I had a very sick feeling that I knew who he was going to get. And it was not going to be a good encounter.
Chapter Sixteen
There is no doubt in my mind or anyone else’s mind that I am a “Daddy’s Girl.” There was also no doubt that I am a “Mama’s Girl.” For most, the two would be mutually exclusive. For me, it seemed to work.
Before Gabriel landed, I could hear my father shouting. I didn’t understand what he was saying, but I could bet it wasn’t good.
They landed with a thud that shook the ground under Ba’al and therefore, under me. I felt the Gargoyle shake with the force. I was willing to bet that Gabriel had landed, dad had fallen some feet.
“Damn it,” Lucifer shouted.
“I have listened to you complain for the last 30 minutes. I figured if I dropped your ass, you’d shut up for a minute and listen to us.” Gabriel scolded.
My father grumbled something that I didn’t understand, but might have been an apology.
“Done?” Levi asked. He had a tone to his voice that wasn’t often used with his older brother.
“Yes,” Lucifer sounded like a child who had just gotten in trouble for having a tantrum, which was probably exactly what it was.
“Ok, we figure you can help us with Eli to some degree. Unfortunately, we are stuck. We need Eli to heal Bren so that she can heal Eli.”
“Where is Brenna?” My father asked.
“There,” I was guessing Levi was pointing to Ba’al’s stone body.
“Wh… Never mind.” Lucifer sighed. “What do you need me to do?”
“We need someone to bring Ba’al and Brenna to the motel room. None of us are strong enough to do it at the moment. I’m actually surprised Gabriel managed.”
“He showed up half-dead, I healed him.” Lucifer responded.
“I’m wondering how we get her out of there,” Anubis said.
“I don’t know, but I wish you would hurry up!” I yelled hoping they could hear me.
“Brenna?” Lucifer’s voice came to me. I should have kept my mouth shut.
“Yes, Papa,” I answered trying to hide the dismay in my voice.
“Are you ok?” He asked.
“That’s relative at the moment.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“I am stuck inside a stone Gargoyle, I’m blind, I’m tired and I’m dying to find out what happened to everyone. What happened with the Witch? What happened to the trolls and the dragon? Did anyone tell Pendragon about the other troll?”
“Ok, one problem at a time, Brenna,” Levi answered.
“Yes, Leviathan,” I pouted. It was my turn. Being blind and stuck in the Gargoyle was doing nothing for my own disposition. I didn’t know which I wanted more, to get out or to see again.
I felt the Gargoyle begin to move. It wasn’t Ba’al moving, someone picked the both of us up. We were being carried, most likely by Lucifer and Gabriel back to the motel.
This did not seem like the ideal solution, but it was a solution and I was in no mood or position to argue. So I sat, tightly cocooned inside the stone wings and waited.
I fell on my side as Ba’al was laid down. Since it didn’t seem to be a solid structure, I was guessing we had been placed on a bed. No one was talking and I found the silence to be uncomfortable.
“Hello?” I shouted.
“We are now wondering how to get you out without damaging Ba’al, just hang on.” Anubis told me.
“Break a wing would be my suggestion,” I shouted back.
“That seems rather mean. He did it to protect you.”
“Ok, but how long will he stay like this?”
“At minimum? Six to eight hours, more likely, twenty-four hours.”
“This isn’t exactly comfortable. Ba’al is soft and velvety. Stone is not.”
“So you want us to break his wing to get you out?” Levi asked.
“It seemed better than ripping off his legs.” I pointed out.
“Will you be able to get out if we break just one wing?” Lucifer joined in.
“Um, I don’t know. It might take a little finagling.”
“In other words, we could break his wing and then realize that we have to break an arm, a leg and rip off his head.” Gabriel commented.
“I don’t know,” I moaned.
I sat quiet, thinking. They seemed to be doing the same. Again they were all silent. In the darkened quiet, I had an idea. I wasn’t entirely sure it would work, but it was worth a try.
Carefully, I felt around until I found Ba’al’s hand. It was wrapped around my shoulder, which was convenient. I wiggled a bit and pulled down the top of my shirt. I rubbed myself against him until I felt a rush of heat. His fingers brushed the Strachan mark that I bore.
In the past, it had turned Fenrir into a wolf and back, why not Ba’al?
Nothing happened. I sighed and trie
d to reposition myself to make myself more comfortable. As I moved, the stone softened.
There was a moment I believed I had imagined it. I moved my hand and found Ba’al’s chest. It moved very lightly up and down. He was changing back. I pushed myself into his hand harder. The mark felt like it had caught fire. His wings became velvety again. His breathing more regular.
It took about 30 seconds for Ba’al to become Ba’al again. He stretched, yawned and wrapped his arms tighter around me.
“Are we safe?” He asked.
“Depends on your definition of safe. We aren’t battling trolls or dragons or Witches, but Lucifer is here. I don’t think he is very happy. Open your eyes and look, I’m still blind.”
“Holy hell,” Ba’al let out a whistle. “Everyone but Gabriel and Lucifer look like they met a meat grinder.”
“I think it was the Strachan sword.” I told him.
“She’s right,” Anubis answered.
“How bad is it?” I asked Ba’al.
“On a scale of 1 to 10? It’s about a 38.”
“And Lucifer?”
“Looks like he is about to have a coronary. He doesn’t seem happy to see either of us.”
“Damn, I should have left you stone. I was safe in there. They wouldn’t break a wing or anything to get me out.”
“I don’t know whether that makes it better or worse.”
“Why?”
“Nice to know they wouldn’t break a stone wing, disturbing to know you were advocating for it.”
“Have you ever been awake and trapped within a stone Gargoyle?”
“Nope.”
“It’s boring and uncomfortable. Everything’s hard.” I wished I could take it back the moment the words left my mouth.
“Really? Touch anything other than my hand?”
“When I can see, remind me to hit you.”
Chapter Seventeen
“Eli,” I said cautiously, wondering the full extent of the wounds he had suffered.
“Yeah, Bren.”
“How bad are you?”
“Cuts, bruises, scrapes, I look like you usually do.”
“Huh,” my father muttered.
“That didn’t sound very encouraging.” I sighed. “Come here, how much magic am I going to need for this?”
“I don’t know, Bren. I don’t think you should do it blind.”
“Come here,” I ordered Eli.
He came forward. I put my hands on him and let the Demon find the injuries.
His understatement of the situation was immense. I understood why my father had muttered. I couldn’t find a single vein, artery, muscle, nerve, tendon or ligament that hadn’t been damaged. He had a skull fracture, a broken leg, a handful of broken ribs, and a punctured lung.
I took a deep breath. This had been done by the Strachan sword. I would have to do something about the magic embedded in the wounds before a healing could even begin.
The good news was he felt like he was bursting with magic. I could use that. It was Strachan magic. It would like me just like the sword liked me.
However, I still had a moment of hesitation. I could screw this up. He was a half-breed like me. Too much magic and he might begin trying to heal himself before the curse that came with the sword could be broken. He could get sick from the magic. I had thrown it up on several occasions. It was more than just unpleasant. I always glossed over the feelings associated with it. It felt like you were being torn apart.
“Bren, you don’t have to do this.” Eli told me.
“Yes I do. I can’t cure my eyes any more than you can cure your wounds.”
“They’ll heal in time.”
“Yeah, Human time. We can’t wait that long. Remember the psycho Witch that did this? He’s still on the loose. If he can summon dragons and trolls…” I stopped. Had he summoned them?
“You just had the same thought I did, didn’t you?” Eli asked.
“If your thought was about the Witch and that potion, yeah.”
“Nope, that wasn’t my thought.”
“Oh, what was yours?”
“That we needed another Witch.”
“I’m going to regret this.”
“We are all going to regret it.”
“Dad, can we have Nick?” There was a Witch pecking order, so to speak, in my family. It went Mom, me, Daniel, Eli, Rachel, Nicholas, Jasmine, Olivia and Samuel, however since pregnancy is contagious, Rachel was also pregnant.
“You think your little brother is powerful enough or mature enough to handle this?” My father didn’t yell, but I could tell it was only because I was blind.
“Well, Eli’s here, Daniel can’t do it, Rachel and mom are both pregnant, Nick is next in the power department, so yeah, we need Nick.”
“I’ll call your mother.” Lucifer dug out a cell phone and walked outside the motel.
“Here’s the deal, Eli, Nick can’t fix you. You and I both know that he doesn’t have the control needed. You’ve already healed me once, that’s a problem for you. I will need you to guide Nick in healing me.”
“I think this is a terrible idea,” Eli told me.
“Yeah, me too, but I don’t see many options. We can try to call Magnus but it’s not going to work any better than it did with me. You were cursed with Strachan magic. I think that potion and my curse, has something to do with that mark. That means they are both Strachan magic. So, we need some Strachan magic to fix the problem.”
“I don’t have a logical argument against it. I just know that I don’t like it. I don’t think it’s Strachan magic, exactly. I think there is a touch of it there, maybe assisted by the mark or something else or someone else.” He said the last with feeling.
I thought of Jasmine, sitting in her cell on the Island, visiting us both in a dream, pulling us together in a dream. Strong magic was required to do that, her Witch powers were not hampered by Pendragon. They worked different than Elder magic.
“What are you thinking?” Eli asked.
“Jasmine,” I whispered the name.
“Me too.”
“Scary.” I longed to see his face, see if he looked as miserable as I felt about it.
“What are you thinking now?”
“That this is going to hurt and no one should touch you,” I told him as I pushed the first bit of magic at him.
“Why do we always point out that it is going to hurt?” His voice was changing, it sounded strained.
“Beats me,” I pushed more magic, felt the curse fight against it.
There was another moment of hesitation. I solved it by reaching out and grabbing him. My hands took hold of his shirt and I felt the blood for the first time.
To think that my brother was standing here bleeding because some jack-ass had broken into my motel room and used a cursed sword to cut him to ribbons pissed me off. I pushed more magic. Eli screamed. Someone grabbed hold of me. They screamed and let go.
Eli tried to fall or pull out of my grasp. I held fast. More magic boiled inside of me and I pushed it into Eli. He screamed louder. His hands tugged at my hands, trying to free himself.
But it was working. I could feel the magic. It resisted less. I pushed more. I pushed until Eli sagged in my hands. I held him up and pushed one last time. The magic broke.
As it did, it rushed into me. I screamed. Eli and I both fell to the floor.
Chapter Eighteen
I could honestly say that I was tired of passing out, sleeping and being blind. I woke up with a headache, no vision and my hands felt like I had covered them in glue and let it dry. Slowly, I remembered the feel of Eli’s blood covered shirt.
“Is Eli ok?” I asked.
“Yes, I’m fine. How are you?”
“I’ve been better, I’ve been worse. Did you get healed up?”
“As much as possible. Dad and Levi did what they could, but since Levi is pretty banged up.”
“Sword?”
“Some of it.”
“Damn,” I sighed
. “I don’t think I can do it twice.”
“No need,” Nick said. “We’ve been talking for the last hour or so. You may not be able to pour magic into a curse on yourself, but you can give it to us before hand. We can’t handle as much as you, but yours is already stronger, so we shouldn’t need as much.”
“Ok, but it took a lot of magic to break the curse on Eli. Levi will be worse.”
“We thought about that already, too.” My sister Olivia said. “We checked the book, we are missing a mark. My guess is that it was stolen some time ago and since we never look, we just didn’t know until now. So, we left mom and Rachel and the rest of us packed up and came here. All hands on deck.”
“Good lord, how long was I out?”
“Eight hours, twelve minutes and forty seconds.” Anubis answered.
“Huh, that is a while.” I sighed and struggled to my feet. I didn’t hurt, but I was physically tired still.
“So how many vessels do we have?” I asked after Ba’al helped me to the bed.
“Daniel, Nick, Livi, Eli and myself,” Samuel answered.
“Five would have worked. What do we intend to do first?”
“Break your curse.”
“Let’s make sure we know exactly what we are doing. I am going to give all of you power. You are going to work together to guide the magic and break the curse that is on my eyes. Why does he keep blinding me?”
“Because it takes a lot of magic,” Eli answered.
“How much magic?”
“I passed out breaking your curse.” Eli answered. “You would have too. I don’t know how I did it the first time.”
“I do.” I answered.
“Explain it when we have a moment or two.”
“Or six or seven days. I guess we need to do this as a coven. I don’t want any magic in return. I don’t think I can handle it.”
“What do you mean?” Livi asked.
“Backlash from breaking Eli’s curse. The magic was Strachan, it was broken by a Strachan, it did what it could to fill my power reserves. I feel overcharged.”
