by Hadena James
“Bren, you need to be healed.” He told me.
“I know, but I don’t think I can stand to be touched,” I told him.
“Oh,” Eli frowned.
“Exactly,” I tried to move my head and found it didn’t work.
“Why did you do that? We have beings that can fly?” Ba’al asked me.
“Instinct,” I told him. “I didn’t want to be wyvern food. I dropped my obsidian dagger. Could you find it?”
“You didn’t drop it, you fell on it,” Ba’al told me.
“Ok then, when you pull it out, make sure I get it back,” I told him.
“I don’t think I’ll be pulling it out.” Ba’al gave me a look.
“Do I look worse than Cerebus?”
“Yes.”
“Huh,” I thought for a minute.
“Daniel, I’m cursed, aren’t I?” I finally asked.
“Yes, to suffer.” He told me.
“You can’t break it, can you?”
“No, we are going to need help from a lot of Witches to break it.”
“How is he that powerful?”
“We’ll find out when we capture him again.”
“Ba’al, Gabriel, go to the house. Make sure everyone gets there ok. Take Ani and Fen with you. I want my family protected. Not just my mother and my sibling and my sister-in-law. My entire bloodline needs to be protected.”
“You want us to leave you here?” Ba’al asked.
“Yes, I think you guys are part of the reason I didn’t pass out. You are acting as a sort of life support for the critically injured.”
“You’re probably right,” Anubis said, he wasn’t anywhere near where I could see him. “We will go.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Some form of beautiful irony brought the moon into my line of vision after the Overlords had gone. I stared at it. It looked massive.
“Papa, you are going to have to do some of the healing,” I finally sighed. “I can’t have the others touch me.”
“I know Bren, I’m just not sure how much good I will do,” he responded.
“Still healing yourself?” I asked.
“Yes,” he admitted.
“Ok, then we wait.”
“For what?”
“Anything,” I sighed again. After the exhale, I didn’t bother to take another breath. Fate was sometimes a cruel and fickle mistress. My central nervous system wasn’t built like a human’s, I could feel everything. Destroying my spine didn’t stop the pain. It only ensured that I felt more pain.
“We can’t just sit here and do nothing,” Asmodeus said.
“Well, we can’t touch her, she’ll have to do some healing on her own,” Levi snapped.
“Actually,” Daniel leaned over me. “I know how to help the pain. You aren’t going to like it though.”
I sucked in air, “what do you have?”
“Gregorian, we can summon him back. He helped before with your pain.” Daniel told me.
“Is anyone here well enough to gather that much magic? Gregorian is not a small creature.”
“Me,” Daniel said.
“I don’t know if you’ve looked in a mirror lately, but you’re burnt to a crisp,” I told him.
“I know, but I’m not doing anything about it. I was waiting to see what kind of healing you had available. I’m not very good at it.” He gave me a sheepish grin.
“If you can summon him without bringing anything else over, that’s fine,” I told my youngest brother.
“I can,” he grabbed Ezra and opened the book.
It took him three tries, but he finally got the spell right. There was a flash of light, a loud pop and Gregorian stood there. Only a portion of his head was visible.
“Demon,” he said to me.
“I need some pain relief, Gregorian.” I told him.
“You look bad, Demon.”
“I feel worse than I look.”
“Not possible,” Eli chimed.
“Gregorian help,” he lumbered over to me, clearing the area with his massive body. Only dragons and Cerebus were larger than the chimeras.
His giant head came into view. He opened his mouth, lolling his massive tongue around. I closed my eyes and felt myself get covered in Gregorian slobber. This was only marginally better than Fenrir goo. However, it took most of the pain away. I breathed and it didn’t hurt.
“It is temporary,” Gregorian reminded me.
“I know and it will make me very sleepy,” I smiled at him. “How are the wee ones?”
“Good, come see them soon.”
“I will,” I promised.
“Gregorian help everyone,” before anyone could react, the chimera began licking everyone around me.
“Better?” He asked.
“Yes,” Lucifer told him. “Thank you for helping my daughter and the rest of my family.” His voice cracked.
“Demon good, deserve the help,” Gregorian looked at Daniel.
“Send me home?” Gregorian asked.
“Yep,” Daniel did the spell in reverse and the chimera disappeared.
“How do you feel now?” Daniel asked me after a moment for our eyes to readjust.
“Less like I was slammed into concrete and more like I was just pummeled by a freight train,” I told him.
“Good,” he touched my skinned arm. “I’m gonnna need a lot of help.”
He wasn’t talking to me; he was talking to the others. I closed my eyes as I felt hands touch me. It felt like hundreds, but I knew it was an illusion. The healing began.
Healing is a lot like getting hurt. You feel everything repair itself, pop back into place; shove out what can’t be used. In some cases, it is just as painful. The only difference is that Demons take the pain upon themselves. It makes it almost a pleasant experience.
However, tonight, it sucked. I felt every ligament, nerve, muscle, bone and fiber in my body rebuild, repair or replace itself. Once, Eli put his hand over my mouth to stop me breathing. If I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t scream. I understood.
They stopped. I could stand. I wasn’t healed completely. There were still broken bones and damaged ligaments and torn muscles, but even a gaggle of Demons can only do so much at one time.
“Feel better?” Levi asked.
“Not in the least, but the situation has improved.” I told him.
“How do we get home?” Nick asked.
“Good question,” I looked. The cars outside the motels were toast.
“Oh, I have a suggestion,” Eli gave me a look.
“I am not flying,” I told him. I was pretty much done with flying.
“What other choice do you have? Where are we going to get enough cars to pack us all home?” Eli asked.
“You guys fly, I’ll drive. Then we only need one car.”
“You can’t drive anymore than I can sprout wings and fly,” Lucifer scolded me. “The chimera magic is going to make you sleepy soon.”
He had a point. I wasn’t feeling it yet, but I would be. I looked around.
“There are no Gargoyles or Angels or Fey among us?”
“You think we drove here?” Mammon asked.
“Yes.” I told him.
“There’s an airport, Bren, a small one, but one none-the-less. We got a small plane there.” Beezel informed me.
“I guess that’s better than being carried in flight,” I frowned again. “We still haven’t got cars.”
“True, but I think the locals would happily drop us off at the airport.”
“Where’s the wyvern that attacked me?” The thought popped into my head.
“Dead,” Begor informed me.
“Sometimes, it’s nice to have uncles as crazy and powerful as myself,” I finally smiled, stretched and the first wave of sleepiness washed over me. “We should hurry.”
“No,” Lucifer put his hand on me. “We will hurry, you sleep.”
And as though I were a child, Lucifer picked me up. He wrapped his arms under me and cradled me. I took in a
breath and under the smell of soot, blood and everything else; there was the scent of my father. He smelled like cinnamon and apples. He smelled like home. I fell asleep before he could take a step.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“Oh my lord,” my mother raised her hands to cover her mouth as I got out of the car and walked up the path to my house. I had known my appearance would shock her. I still hadn’t looked in a mirror, but the skin on my arm wasn’t back yet, so I was betting the skin on my face wasn’t either. Plus, I had fallen from some distance less than three hours earlier.
“Hi mom,” I walked past her and plopped down on our communal couch. The room became hushed. My uncles’ mates were there. My cousins were there. My siblings’ mates were there. All of their offspring were there.
I didn’t care if I hushed a bit of noise while everyone stared at me. I had other things to worry about. The questions from earlier were still nagging me.
“Are you ok?” My sister, Rachel, finally asked.
“It could be worse,” I told her. It actually had been worse, but I didn’t add that. I still hurt. Even the roots of my hair seemed to hurt, but it was a manageable hurt. I no longer felt like screaming with every movement. Either the chimera spit was still working as a painkiller or I had gotten used to it. Smart money was on the chimera spit.
“Are you in shock?” April, one of Mammon’s adult children, asked.
“I don’t think so,” I frowned at her.
“You are missing skin, don’t frown,” Hannah told me. “It looks weird.”
“You are the second person to tell me that, but I have a feeling, it would be worse if I smiled. Besides, we have more important things to talk about than my injuries. Like are all of you ok?”
“Yeah, Ba’al and Gabriel showed up just in time, I think,” April admitted.
“We arrived with back-up. Nothing we could do to save the houses, I’m afraid, but no one got eaten.” Gabriel came in carrying a glass of soda and a plate of cookies.
I took the soda and the cookies. The cookies were oatmeal, date and chocolate chip. My favorite, my mother had been busy baking.
“Was it our Witch?” I asked, knowing the answer.
“Had to have been, he jumped through space/time at the motel. Beat us here. Luckily, the houses he hit first had already been cleared. We sent out a call and had Gargoyles, Angels and Fey in place to move the others by the time he arrived at them. A few were injured, but the Demons are taking care of them. Nasty business,” Gabriel informed me.
“Very nasty,” Ba’al gave me a look. “You look like hell. You go through a meat grinder after we left?”
“I look worse than when you left?” I felt myself frown even harder.
“Yes,” he told me.
“Then I look about the way I feel, I imagine.”
“No, if you looked as bad as you felt, you wouldn’t be sitting on that couch or anywhere else for that matter. You’d be flat on your stomach somewhere.” Ba’al corrected.
“That bad? Interesting and so not the point.” I changed the subject as my mother came in. She was tugging Daniel towards me.
“Mom, he isn’t five anymore, let go of his hand,” I told her.
“I would scold you for that, but I would feel bad based on how you look,” she frowned at me. “Stop frowning, you’ll get wrinkles in your forehead.”
“You stop frowning,” I told her.
She moved her hand to her own forehead, felt the frown lines and tried to smooth them out. She failed. They remained.
“I just can’t believe, oh my god, Brenna. What happened to you?”
“I fell.”
“You fell?” She narrowed her eyes at me.
“From about a mile up, Elise,” Anubis interjected.
“Oh good lord, why aren’t you healed?”
“Because we can’t heal here, not entirely,” Daniel snatched his hand from her. “She’s been cursed.”
“What do you mean, she’s been cursed?” My mother now turned to Daniel.
“Exactly what I said. The Witch put a curse on her, she is healing like a mortal, even worse, the Demons can only do so much to speed it up. Right now, she is covered in chimera spit and I cast a spell to help with the pain, both will wear off eventually, when it does…” He spread his arms wide.
“So we break the curse,” my mother touched my hand. She drew it back fast, like she’d just been bitten by a snake.
“That would be the other problem, I’m not sure we can.” Eli finally came in. He kissed his mate gently on the cheek. “I thought I had, but I only got a part of it or something. It isn’t like a curse I’ve ever seen.”
“I have,” my mother hung her head.
“It’s like Anubis’s,” I said.
“How’d you…” She looked at me, questioning.
“Gregorian said he couldn’t eat the Witch because the Witch was magically tied to Anubis. I have a theory about it, but I am waiting for everyone to get here before we start talking about all my questions and theories.” I told her.
“We are all here,” my mother told me.
“No, we are still missing two uncles,” I corrected her. “We will need them as well. I still don’t have a good concept of exactly what is going on, but I think talking it out will help.”
“Start talking,” my mother instructed.
“Nope, I want everyone involved; I think my uncles play a key role.” I clammed up and met her stare. It took a few minutes, but she finally looked away and started tending to other things.
Chapter Thirty-Four
It took another two hours for my uncles to arrive and join the group. My mother had been cooking for the entire time. It was what she did when she was pregnant and in a bad mood. She cooked and forced everyone else to eat it. Luckily, she wasn’t getting her portions quite right, so there was never enough to go around.
“Great, let’s talk,” I told them as they got settled in.
“About?” Begor asked.
“I have some serious questions about this Witch and what and why he is doing what he’s doing.” I told him.
“Fire away, but slowly,” Gabriel told me.
“First, why Windsor?” I looked at them. “Does that make any sense to anyone?”
“Not really, maybe so he wouldn’t be noticed?”
“Exactly, that is the only thing I can think of, but honestly, if you didn’t want to be noticed, there are better places than Windsor, Missouri. First off, it’s small, but it isn’t tiny and it isn’t nearly as remote as some places around here. There is still Sedalia and Clinton, both of which are good sized towns, both less than 30 miles away. It will be in both those newspapers tomorrow, which means it will be in the other newspapers the day after. So why Windsor?”
“To get noticed?” Hannah offered.
“If you really wanted attention, why not Kansas City or Springfield or St. Louis or Columbia or one of the other large towns in Missouri? Why not Rolla, it has an installment of the University? Why not Joplin? Why not West Plains? There are better places if you want to get noticed.”
“St. Charles, Wentzville, Lake of the Ozarks, Hannibal, these are the places I would hit if I wanted to get noticed.” Anubis offered.
“Exactly, so he picks Windsor? Why? If you didn’t want to be noticed, why not Hatton or Perry or Shelbina or Taos? If he wanted to be noticed, why not a big town? It isn’t even on a major highway or interstate,” I pointed out.
“To get us away from KC?” Fenrir offered.
“But we weren’t that far away. 90 miles or so, less if you consider how the crow flies. It took you guys how long to fly back?” I looked at Ba’al.
“About 30 minutes, a little less.” He informed me.
“Ok, so less than thirty minutes for a Gargoyle and Angel to fly here from there. So, really, we weren’t that far away. So why there?”
“Amish?” Anubis offered.
“Think our Witch is Amish?” I asked again.
“Not rea
lly, but what did Windsor have?” He countered.
“If he wanted Amish or Mennonites, they are easy enough to find in Missouri.” I told him.
“Yes, but what if it was a combination of some factors. We were away from KC, there was a stringent religious group and something else,” he offered.
“What was the something else though? Was he a local at one time? I didn’t get that impression. So what called him there?”
“Guaranteed to get us and not one of the other Hunter groups?” Ba’al suggested.
“Troll with a controller, he was guaranteed to get us anyway,” Anubis told him.
“Exactly, it doesn’t make sense. We weren’t far enough away that we couldn’t help the Elders here. We weren’t in a big city, where headlines would have been screaming about it, but we also weren’t cut off, so it is bound to make the news. So what was it that brought the Witch to Windsor in the first place? I feel like if we can answer that, we’ll have our first real clue.”
“What about that potion?” Daniel asked.
“What about it?” I looked at him.
“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about it. He had an awful lot of it. Either he’s a very powerful Witch or he is being used by a powerful Witch.” Eli added.
“Well,” I took a deep breath and avoided eye contact with either of my parents. My brothers wanted me to say what they were thinking, but too chicken to say.
“Well what?” My mother asked.
“I think that Jasmine made the potions, before she went away.” I finally spat it out.
“Jasmine?” I could feel my mother boring holes into me with her glare.
“I think that’s how he got the mark too. I think that is why he is using a spell to keep his face hidden. I think he is trying to avoid being recognized. I think we might know him.” I stopped breathing while I waited for one or both of my parents to explode.
“Oh it gets worse,” Eli said. “I think Jasmine told him how to sew the mark onto himself. I think she told him how to use it and what it would do.”
“Oh hell,” my mother suddenly stood and ran from the room.
She came back carrying two books. One I recognized, it was the Strachan Family Book of Marks. The other was older, the cover was damaged. There were no words legible.
