I stared ahead, unwilling to look at her or talk to her. How could I face her after taking away both of her brothers?
"Damnit, Rose, look at me!" She reached out to grab me, but before we made contact, my power lashed out, wrapping around her and squeezing.
The dark current sucked back into me as fast as it had unleashed itself. We both froze, stunned and scared. Tammy was doubled over in pain from the inadvertent attack.
I scooted back on the bed, feeling sick. "Go. Just go and leave me. Get away! Get away!"
She straightened herself with effort and backed out of the room, watching me like I was a dangerous animal that needed to be put down.
In the silence, the weight of what I'd just done settled on me.
Shaking, crying fresh tears when I thought I had no more to cry, I realized how truly evil I'd become. I could now hurt people without even touching them.
No one would ever be safe around me again.
NINE
The Firstlings of My Heart
BLAKE
from this moment
The very firstlings of my heart shall be
The firstlings of my hand
— William Shakespeare, Macbeth
HUMANS HAVE GREAT capacity for love, which also gives them great capacity for suffering. I thought I'd known suffering in the demon dimensions, but I couldn't really understand what it meant to hurt until I discovered what it meant to love.
As I sat and watched Rose sleep, her body contorted in pain and face a mask of misery, I knew both love and suffering in equal measure, and I cursed the human form that gave me this breadth of experience.
She woke with a start, her eyes swollen from tears and skin pale. Blood seeped through the bandages on her leg, likely from self-inflicted abuse while she slept. It seemed she wouldn't allow herself a moment's peace, not even while unconscious.
When her eyes landed on me, she pressed herself against the headboard of her bed as if trying to disappear. "You have to leave before I hurt you, too."
Her voice sounded unused and rough.
I poured a cup of water and sat on the bed next to her. "Drink this. You need it. You can't hurt me, Rose. We're the same."
She accepted the cup with slow, halting movements and sipped it once before setting it down.
I embraced her before she could protest and breathed with her until her body slumped into mine at last.
Rubbing her back, I offered what little consolation I could find. "I'm here. It's okay. You're not alone."
"I killed them both, Blake. And it's getting worse. I hurt Tammy." She looked up, tears in her eyes. "Is she okay? Did I… "
"She's fine. They're all downstairs talking with Father Patrick and Drake." They had been the ones to petition on my behalf to let me into Rose's room, knowing I might be the only one to break through to her. And the only one she couldn't hurt.
"I have to leave, get out of here before it happens again. I've brought them nothing but grief since I came into their lives." She choked back a sob. "They must all hate me."
With my finger, I tilted her chin up so she'd make eye contact with me. "No one hates you. How could they? You are the most amazing woman I've ever met, Rose Wintersong. If you could only see you the way I see you, you'd never say another harsh word about yourself." From my pocket, I pulled out the charm necklace I gave her before she ran off with Derek. "Here, this is yours. Please keep it. It was meant to be a memory keeper of your love for Sandy."
She plucked the silver locket from my hand and opened it, covering her mouth as more sobs shook her. "I miss her so much. I couldn't hurt her, and she never judged me or abandoned me. She died saving Derek's life."
I wondered if she could see me as someone different than the Blake who had set fire to the cabin. The fire that had taken Sandy's life.
As if reading my mind, she stroked my hand. "It wasn't you. He isn't you. You may have his body, but you're your own person. You get to make your own choices in life."
My throat clogged with unshed tears.
She clutched the locket in her hand, then slipped it over her head. "She died trying to save him. She was braver than me."
I poured her more water, sensing a shift in moods. "What do you want to do now?"
This time she drank the whole glass and accepted a bowl of grapes someone had left for her, eating each one as if it were an entire meal. "I have to save them. I won't be able to live with myself if I don't."
I sensed the truth in her words. She didn't mean it as a metaphor or cliché. Looking at the seeping wound on her leg, I knew that she meant it literally. If she didn't save the O'Conner brothers, she wouldn't be able to live. I couldn't let that happen.
"What can I do to help?" As much as I didn't want Derek in the picture anymore, I couldn't allow her to suffer.
"I need you to help me communicate with the demon dimension. I need to find my father and learn what he knows."
I pulled away. "No. Absolutely not."
"You asked how you can help. This is how. If you won't, then I'll try it on my own. I have the spell, I just thought it would be smarter to have help."
I shook my head. "Nothing about this idea is smart, no matter whose help you have. You don't know what you're asking. You have no idea what they're like, what that place is like. All the stories you've heard of the Christian hell? Multiply that by an eternity of pain and you might start to get a glimpse of an idea of what the demon dimension is like." I grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to look at me. "Are you listening? They feed on pain. They need it. They will destroy you just to get a decent meal, and you will never recover. Never."
"That's all the more reason why I have to do this. Derek and Dean are already there, suffering in all of those ways you just described. I will not leave them there." She stood, perhaps for the first time in two days, and steadied herself on the dresser when she realized she couldn't put pressure on her injured leg.
As inappropriate as it was, the site of her in yoga pants and a form fitting cotton shirt aroused me. I hadn't fed since I'd been in this dimension. I would have been out of control by now if I hadn't had some of her demon power when we fooled around the night before she left with Derek.
She'd saved me more suffering than she could imagine, and my desire for her caused more suffering than I thought possible.
I rushed to help her. "Sit. You can't walk in your condition."
"I'm going to get help. Father Patrick might know something. You can help me, or get out of my way. Those are your choices."
Scenes from my childhood flashed through my mind. The beatings bestowed on me by parents to increase my pain threshold. The days and nights of listening to prisoners howling in agony. The guilt when my family glutted on that pain.
How could I let the woman I loved see into the world I was from? She would see into the true me and never look at me the same again.
With renewed energy and stubbornness, she limped to the bathroom and locked herself in. The toilet flushed, water ran, drawers opened and closed, and she emerged looking less like death.
"Are you going to help or not?"
I sighed, knowing I was defeated in this. "I'll help, but you have to promise to do exactly as I say, or you won't make it through this alive."
TEN
Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble
ROSE
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
— William Shakespeare, Macbeth
THE COLD AIR stung my cheeks as Blake carried me outside toward the rose garden that now looked more like a dug up grave. The ceremony would be more effective on sacred ground, and the garden was as sacred as it could get.
I'd insisted on walking and had tried, but my leg wouldn't bear the weight. I wondered if it would ever heal properly, but I didn't really care all that much.
Something had died in me. I could feel it. Even the pull of Blake's sexual energy had little effect on me. The pain in my leg barely registe
red. All of my attention had pooled inward, sucked up by the misery in my heart.
Father Patrick drew symbols on the ground, with Drake helping him. Ocean had tried to come, but I refused to even be near her or anyone else. I didn't even want Father Patrick and Drake near me, but he'd assured me that they were protected by other forces.
Since we needed his help, I didn't argue. I had no energy left as it was.
Blake set me down in the middle of a circle and pulled out a knife and bowl. "Any portal into the demon dimension requires a blood sacrifice. I'd do it for you, but it has to be human, or at least part human."
"Does witch count?"
He cocked an eyebrow. "Yes."
Father Patrick stood and nodded. "It's ready."
Drake approached with the codex Jasmine had found the communication spell in.
We'd already gone over the details, what to do and when. My heart thumped in my chest, and my stomach clenched as waves of nausea threatened to overwhelm me. Drake had already started speaking a language I didn't understand in low tones. I wondered when and how and why he'd leaned to speak in demon tongue. Was there a big call for this at their school?
Thinking of their mansion brought back all the talks and plans Derek and I had for our future. A future with children of our own and working with the kids at the paranormal school. A future full of love and laughter.
Blake was talking.
I tried to focus on his words.
"There must also be a gift of pain, beyond the cut for blood."
Thinking of my crushed heart, I shrugged. "I've got that part covered. There's nothing you could do to me that would hurt more than what I'm already experiencing."
He nodded and I held out my wrist as Drake droned on. With a quick swipe that I didn't even feel, Blake opened my skin, and blood trickled into the bowl.
I stared at the red liquid with a certain detachment, as if it were a movie and not my own life force pulsing out of me.
"This is just going to open a portal for communication, nothing more. You'll be able to talk to someone on that end and ask questions. You should be safe, and I'll be here if anything goes wrong. But it takes a lot more than this to cross over. Just be careful. Demons are tricky and manipulative. They never do anything for anyone without expecting something greater in return. You'll have to be prepared to give up something, and they will try to make it seem insignificant, but it won't be. Don't promise anything without talking to me first, okay?"
My body shook, from the cold or nerves, I didn't know. "We've already gone over this, Blake. It'll be fine."
He covered the cut on my arm with white gauze and tape and sat next to me, holding my hand. "Focus on your pain and send it to the bowl with your blood."
I wasn't sure how to send my pain anywhere, but I focused on the metal bowl and imagined my pain as a real thing—not that hard to do, considering how much of me it had eaten up—and I directed it to my blood.
A flash of light burned my eyes, lighting up the night with oranges and reds, and then it was gone, and the bowl was empty. No blood.
I pulled off the gauze Blake had put on my arm, and a small scar remained where the cut had been.
Cool trick, but I didn't feel anything else happening. I'm not sure what I was expecting. Some red magical phone to start ringing with a scary demon voice on the other line? A ghostly vision haunting me?
Nothing. Just the clear winter sky and cold ground that was freezing my ass.
I turned to ask Blake what we did wrong, but he had a look of terror on his face as he stared forward, his hand clenching mine.
"Rose, you have to leave. Now." Blake whispered, but he might as well have shouted.
"What? No! I need to talk to someone. I need answers."
I didn't budge as he tried to push me out of the circle.
Father Patrick called my name, but his voice faded until I couldn't hear him anymore.
Night closed in around me, cutting me off from everyone. I held up my hand, the one Blake had been holding, and grabbed for him,, but he was gone.
"Blake? Father Patrick? Drake? Where are you guys?"
For the first time, I felt fear. Real fear.
Fog swirled past me, and the cold turned to steam, then heat, and my body broke out in a sweat.
A flash of lightning silenced the world around me, and a dark mist clouded over my vision, sticking to my clothes and body, filling my lungs and stinging my eyes. I cried out, but there was no one there to hear me.
The mist pulled something out of my body, something I needed. Something important.
Then I was the something being pulled out, being severed from my form. "No! Put me back. I need my body."
Like losing a limb. No, not like that. That's a tangible pain. This was like dying without losing consciousness. Like being cut in half and living through the pain. Never dying, but always dying.
Death without release, only more pain.
My body faded way as the dark mist carried me, my essence, my soul, into another world—a world that didn't know about light or love or hope.
A world that fed on darkness and pain.
A world, Blake warned me, I'd never survive.
ELEVEN
Darkness Tell Us Truths
ROSE
And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray's
In deepest consequence.
— William Shakespeare, Macbeth
Dear Diary,
Who are we, really? Are we the product of our genetics? A blank slate that our environment fills up with ideas? Can we ever change?
I'm hoping we can. I have to believe that the blood pumping through my veins doesn't define me. If it does, we're all in trouble.
I STILL WORE a body similar to the one I'd just been ripped from, still felt all the physical sensations of my environment. Heat, pain, ache, hunger.
The hunger was new. I hadn't been hungry when we did the ceremony, which was supposed to be a simple talk, not a yank-me-from-my-body trip to the demon world.
The hunger, it gnawed at me, making me empty and desperate.
It wasn't the kind of hunger that could be fed by a sandwich. No, this felt soul deep and connected to my awful power. I shuddered imagining what exactly this darkness in me wanted to consume before it would stop tearing me apart from the inside out.
Bent over, shivering despite the oppressive heat, huddled in a corner in a dark, dank room, I made myself as small as I could and surveyed my surroundings.
I could see why Blake wanted to leave this place so badly, why he was willing to sacrifice someone to stay on our world. The darkness seemed alive, as if it would devour any color or light that had the audacity to penetrate this dimension.
Fires burned in pits dug deep into the rocky ground. Around me stood tall walls of stone, built so high I couldn't view the ceiling, if there were any at all. Hallways branched out in multiple directions and screams of agony echoed through the chamber. Fear and pain squeezed my heart. Derek was here, and one of those screams was his.
His need, his hurting, pushed me to take action. I'd come for answers, and I intended to find them.
Standing, I strode with confidence I didn't feel toward one hallway, when a hunched over demon with blue skin and black eyes grabbed my wrist and pulled me into a shadowed corner.
A scream escaped my throat, and he covered my mouth with his scaly, clawed hand. "You not be making noise here. They find you and eat you they will. And that path, the one you be on, that take you straight to the mouth of the dragon. You not be wanting that."
Struggling against his wiry body, his thick skin scratching me, I pushed him away. "Get off me. What are you? Who are you?"
I wanted to run, to get away from this creates with eyes that sunk into nothing, but what was the point of being here if I refused to talk to a demon?
"You be the one calling, I be the one answering."
Body shaking, I forced myself to stand and face him. "I wanted to talk, not come here in person. I was told the ceremony was only for making contact."
He shook his head, thick brick red hair as coarse as a horse's tale fell around his misshapen, hideous face. "Twas for talking, but you be feeding the fire too much pain with your blood. It too sweet to resist. We needed to taste more."
Ugh. Oh God, I almost puked. They pulled me here to feed on me?
"You have friends of mine trapped here." Friends. No. Family. My whole heart. "I need to get them back."
The ground trembled beneath us, and the fire pits shot out sprays of red light. I braced myself against the wall as a roar filled the cavern. "What was that?"
"That be the demon dragon." A forked tongue the color of raw liver poked out of his shriveled mouth. "You not be wanting to meet him. He eat pretty thing like you and live on that sweet pain for long time."
Did that mean… ? "Is that where my friends are? Derek and Dean." My heart thumped as an old memory resurfaced. A little girl taunting me. My power slipping out for the first time. Her dead eyes. "And Donna. I need to get the three of them out of here." Would there be anything left of her to save?
He inched closer, his rancid breath gagging me. "That be where all lost souls live. They be our meals, parceled out one scream at a time to our starving world while dragon gluts himself on their tears."
Another demon marched through the cavern dragging someone behind him. The poor beast screamed out a sound like pigs being slaughtered. The larger demon, skin the color of dried blood, entered the dragon's hall without looking our way.
"That be a guard. He feeds dragon."
Seduced by Power Page 5
