by Liddie Cain
I turned into Columbus Park feeling pretty bleak. Felix let me know that they were about to come to where I was, so I stopped and sat down on one of the benches near some of the chess tables. Felix and Brinna were walking up to me after a few minutes. There were beings in existence that could monitor telepathic communications, so meeting and talking about anything sensitive was wiser.
“Anything?” Felix asked.
“No. Just staff in all of his houses. Conall met me and sent some pixies in to search the houses and they found nothing.”
“Same for his office building.”
“Starting to feel like we are going about this the wrong way. It would be dumb to bring her here.”
Brinna asked quietly, “If you were going to be using as much magic as he would have to do to conceal Roz, what part of your dominion would you do it in?”
“New Orleans,” Felix automatically answered. “There’s always a lot of supernatural activity, and it wouldn’t get noticed there.”
Brinna left it at that, hinting as the angels normally do.
Then it hit me. “And for this dominion, you would choose Salem.”
“Brinna, if you would do the honors so that I may remain undetected?” Felix held out his hand to her. She took it and mine then transported us behind the Gallows Hill museum in Salem. There were people walking around on the front side of the building so we moved silently as we began to look around. Brinna had already motioned for me to stay closer to her because it would be more unusual to see a rogue vampire in this smaller city.
We turned down Washington Street, passing the Salem City Hall and the Bewitched Statue. There were plenty of humans walking around, some dressed in the witch hats that they sell in the tourist spots. Brinna did steer us around a group that was crossing the street after leaving a restaurant, pointing at the man in the back and mouthing the word witch. He looked around, feeling that something was close to him but didn’t zero in on us as we walked quickly away. There were plenty in this area that were the descendants of the real witches of Salem masquerading as normal humans. Finally, when we were mostly alone, Felix sighed.
“All I can feel is Brinna.”
“Me, too.”
One of the burner phones beeped with a message from an unknown number as we continued walking. After reading it, I stopped and read it out loud.
“Running late for our date but got you a Rose. Address to meet you?”
Felix smirked. “Clever of her. Maybe she remembered something from her time up here with Monroe’s clan.”
I sent back our location and asked if that was okay. I read out her response.
“No, that won’t work. Meet at Northshore Mall in Peabody? Need to check on my pet dove at home, and it is nearby.”
“What would be close to that?”
I shrugged. “I haven’t spent much time here, but it sounds like she is saying that Roz is at a house close by. I’ll try to look it up.”
We kept walking and crossed into Riley Plaza, which was an outdoor monument that was dark and deserted at this time of the day. I was still researching on my phone when Felix took in a sharp breath.
“Proctor.”
“What?”
“From the witch trials. John Proctor. Monroe was his master, and when he was hanged, Monroe got his soul. His house was in Peabody. That land is always humming with power because of all the wards and runes Proctor did there.”
I looked it up, nodding. “There is a house that is a historical landmark there.”
“With one of the Proctor descendants living in it. The wards in that place would keep us from being able to sense her.”
“Can we cross them?”
“Monroe wouldn’t be able to get in if we couldn’t.”
We both turned and grabbed Brinna’s hands so she could sneak us in. The angel was smiling brilliantly as she closed her eyes and transported us.
Rozalyn-
There was something very wrong. My mind was so clouded, but even as I fought to drag myself back from the dark, I knew something was missing. There was no Felix. My eyelids would not obey my command to open as I could feel myself being moved, but I could hear the sounds of insects and felt the cool outside air on my skin. Someone touched my forehead, and I couldn’t hold onto my thoughts anymore. The darkness swallowed me again, and I faded back away.
I had no concept of how long it was until I started to wake up again. My surroundings had changed; there was the smell of smoke and some kind of incense. Low voices murmured somewhere close.
“...should see if she remembers so we know this will work.”
“There won’t be much time until they come for her.”
“It will take some time to find her.”
Then a woman spoke from right beside me. “She is beginning to wake.”
I dragged my eyes open then. The woman was older and seated, watching me with a pinched face. Her hair was silver and swept up into a bun. She wore a plain blue dress but a long necklace with a large blue stone with veins of white and gold through it. She looked over her shoulder for a moment before turning back to speak to me.
“I have covered you with a robe. Do not try to get up or I will be forced to make you go back to sleep.”
“Where am I?” My mouth was pretty dry, and speaking was difficult. “How long have I been here?”
“You are a guest of Master Monroe’s. You arrived here a little more than six hours ago.”
The memory of being grabbed right after Jason and Barden had fallen lifeless sprang to my mind. Panic started to take hold, and I sat up, gripping the robe closed in front of me.
“My friends, Jason and Barden. Are they dead?”
“I do not know.”
She stood up, walking across the large bedroom I was being kept in. Three others sat on the other side of the room eating. Once I noticed, I realized that both of them were immortal. I couldn’t identify what the woman was, I had never felt an aura like that. The man, who looked familiar, was a vampire and drinking blood from the wrist of a human man.
The immortal woman watched me as the older one picked up a plate of food and carried it back over to me. She set a plate on the bed beside me that had a bagel and sliced apples on it. I had no interest in eating but picked up an apple slice and took a bite of it. When the immortal woman stood and walked toward me, the older one left the room.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Diana. I need to do some work with you now that you are awake.”
“What are you?”
Her face was guarded as she answered, “A succubus.”
I looked across the room at the vampire again. The human had left. His face clicked in my memory. “And you’re Tate. I remember you.”
“Yep,” was his short response. He made no move to come closer, and I figured he was just here to be the muscle. Diana was rearranging the chair and a small table that the older woman had been using. I searched for Felix. I reached out for him, harder than I had ever tried before. But I didn’t feel anything. I even tried repeating both his and Mac’s names in my head. All I felt was isolation.
I hadn’t noticed that Diana had already taken a seat beside me. She said softly, “They cannot sense you through the wards on the house.”
My heart sank, knowing that it would be hard for them to know where I was. “Why am I here?”
“Monroe requested it. No more questions or Tate will make you his next meal.”
Tate grinned at me. “See what that bliss blood will do for me.”
I cringed, looking back at Diana. She swept her long blonde hair back over her shoulder and appeared to be focusing intently on me. After a moment, she shook her head. “I’ll need Daniel.”
Tate huffed, but he left the room to go retrieve him. Diana asked quietly, “Is Felix a good master?”
“Um, I’m not sure how to answer that. He doesn’t really act like a master. He just kind of watches out for everyone.”
“That is lucky for you.”
<
br /> “I’m Felix’s girlfriend, not his employee.”
She reached over and lifted the robe over my right side. “This is the mark of Felix. It makes you his property.”
“Oh, that. I think it was for protection.”
She released the robe and sat back again. “I once wore Monroe’s mark, when I too were human.”
“He made you into a succubus?”
“Yes. A long time ago.”
Tate and Daniel walked back into the room. I could tell I would dislike Daniel immediately. He rolled his eyes demeaningly toward Diana. “I cannot do the memory regression like you can. I already told you this.”
“And she isn’t attracted to women, so I need you to get me in.”
“Into where?” I asked.
Diana sighed. “Your head. Dream magic doesn’t work if there isn’t any lust.”
“Hate to tell you but he ain’t doing it for me, either.”
Daniel’s face instantly showed his irritation. “Get her ready, then.”
She motioned for me to lay back flat. I had no way to overpower them, so I decided cooperation was the wisest choice at that moment. I did as she asked. A moment of silence passed before I felt his intrusion into my mind. It was gentle, like a caress of his essence against mine, and Mac’s face that he brought to my mind. Diana leaned in closer and let out a breath as she too slid into my head. Daniel retreated as she moved in. He grunted and walked back out of the room as she took over.
Memories began to take shape in my head. Darby and I were watching a movie at home together, then Sunday lunch with my parents from several years ago where my dad had given my mom an anniversary present of emerald earrings. The scenes started coming faster and made my head whirl, then they vanished.
Diana made a disappointed sigh but slowly crept her way back into my mind. I realized she was going back into the past once the memories of Darby and I painting the spa before it opened surfaced. It all felt like they were dreams. Diana leaned closer to the bed, pulling me further and further back. Then there was Mac, before we broke up, before he left for his internship. We were in his old bed and about to make love. My heart swelled, and tears slipped across my eyelids from how much I missed him.
“Such love,” Diana breathed out. “That’s what I was looking for.”
The memory got brighter in my mind, more and more like a dream, until it pulled me all the way into it and I drifted back off to sleep.
The dream faded as soon as I was pulled into it. I was thrown farther back into the past, to the first time Mac kissed me after a high school football game on my parent’s front porch. Then I was curled up on the couch watching Star Wars with my dad, which faded back into my mom taking me to shop for clothes before my first day at middle school.
Moments of my childhood lived around me. I felt every emotion like it was happening in real life. It broke the barrier of childhood amnesia, and suddenly I was dreaming of running around the house pretending to be a princess while my mom was singing. Then I was learning to walk with my much younger parents kneeling in front of me with happy grins and coaching me to take another step.
Then in my mother’s arms in my nursery, everything blurry but her beautiful face smiling down at me as she rocked me for bedtime.
A void surrounded me then. It was just a grey fog with a glowing white sky above me. There were no memories to have further back than my birth. I was self-aware again, knowing that Diana was pushing me toward something still but not knowing how or what to find. The fog would rush past me sometimes, but I was alone and had no purpose in this space. It seemed endless.
Darby’s laugh cut through the fog. I turned, looking around myself. Would she be able to sense me if I found her? I started walking where I thought I heard her. I called out for her, but there was no voice to be had in this meaningless void. I was nothing. The outline of someone emerged far away in the fog. I walked toward it, feeling urgent.
The light hit her face. It was Darby, but it wasn’t. This woman had beautiful green eyes and freckles and blonde hair that flowed down across her back. She looked at me and smiled with great affection. But I still recognized her as Darby, and this wasn’t Darby.
As the fog receded, I could now see the sand on the beach I was walking on and hear the gentle lull of the waves washing toward us.
Darby held out her hand. “Come, Alidia. Run with me!”
I laughed. “Wait! Naomi!”
Naomi grabbed my hand, her great wings spreading out from behind her as she braced to run across the beach. She laughed again, and I knew her as Darby who had once been Naomi when we were born in heaven at the same time as angels. My wings folded around me, and I knew myself. I was the child of the archangel Azrael and guardian angel Hanna.
Naomi’s father was Eziel and her mother Ariel, the archangels. And her older brother was Cyrus. Felix. Cyrus was Felix. Cyrus had already risen to be an archangel to stand beside his father. I was in love with him. It was the same overwhelming love that I had felt as Roz for Felix, but it was younger and much more innocent here at this time. My life was only pure as Alidia. There had been no strife. Naomi had grown up in a happy home with loving parents and an older brother that she adored. There had been no neglect or abuse or sexual harassment from her mom’s random boyfriends that Darby had faced.
“Cyrus told me to bring you,” Naomi whispered then pulled me into a run. The water flowed over our feet as the breeze whipped back through my red hair and across my snow white wings. I felt the excitement of seeing Cyrus and ran even faster. Naomi giggled and pushed herself to keep up with me. There were cliffs in front of us, and the beach ran all the way up to the hillside.
There, standing against the rocks and glowing with inner grace, stood Cyrus. I let go of Naomi’s hand and sprinted across the beach as fast as I could run. When I got closer he took a couple large steps then caught me as I flew into his arms. His mouth met mine as he pulled me back toward the hillside again.
Naomi laughed and tugged at one of his wings. He broke his kiss and smiled affectionately at her, scooping her up with one arm and spinning around in the sand. She laughed carelessly, only ever knowing trust for him and being certain that he would not let her fall. I sat down on the sand, tucking my wings up behind me, and watched them play fight with each other.
From the sky, their mother Ariel descended. She landed beside me and greeted me with affection. My own mother followed a moment later and sat down on the other side of me. She laced her arm across my shoulder, a quiet soul, but her smile was beautiful as she watched Cyrus and Naomi.
Ariel was taunting them on from where she sat beside me. “Take him down, Naomi! Like I showed you!”
Naomi giggled, grasping Cyrus’s wrist and trying to pull him across her back to flip him over onto the ground. He looked back at Ariel and shook his head at her. Ariel motioned for him to just go along with it. He gave a playful roll of his eyes then practically flipped himself over Naomi as she continued to try and pull him. He landed on his back on the sand, and Naomi did a victory dance around him.
I winked at my mom then sprinted over to them, leaping through the air and coming down with my elbow into his abdomen. He was quick enough to brace for most of the impact but still made a good grunt. Both of our mothers were cackling as Cyrus got to his feet, threw me over one shoulder and Naomi over the other, and started charging towards the ocean. We were both protesting loudly as the memory began to fade.
“Tell Monroe that it’s her.” Diana’s voice jerked me from that dream. I woke back up gasping for breath. I wanted to reject it as I sat up on the bed again, but more of my life as Alidia began falling into place, and my immediate connection to Felix made perfect sense.
“You’ve got to let me go,” I whispered. Diana ignored this plea. I realized that she looked exhausted. The sky outside of the window was the orange and red shades of a sunset. It had taken Diana the entire day to break through my suppressed memory. She got up and left the room. Tate was gone, leavi
ng me alone with the older woman, who was human but had a magical aura.
“You’re a witch?” The woman raised an eyebrow at me but nodded. “What’s your name?”
“Gloria Proctor.”
“Gloria, please help me get out of here. You have no idea what he is going to do to me. I’m a good person.”
She sniffed. “Monroe is my master. I cannot disobey him. I might not approve of him harming a young girl, but I serve him just as generations of Proctors have done before me. Now into the bathroom with you. Time to let you relieve yourself and get freshened up. No funny business. Tate is still waiting to take a bite of you.”
I nodded, letting her grab my arm as I slid out of the bed and walked into the bathroom. She stayed with me but did turn her back to give me some feeling of privacy. Once I had finished, she took me back into the bedroom and gave me a bowl of stew but cut me off when I tried to talk to her again.
More of my past life began to filter into my mind as I ate the stew. It wasn’t possible to access the memories on command. They seemed to surface in relation to sounds or smells or what I was feeling. I was slowly becoming lost in a memory of Cyrus flying beside me above the clouds when Gloria grabbed my arm again.
“Time to get you ready.”
She pulled me out of the bedroom and down a narrow set of stairs that seemed to be the back of the house. This house seemed to be ancient. The steps led down into the kitchen, but we kept on going to what I guessed was a large formal drawing room. There was no furniture in the room, though, only a large circular ball that looked like branches held together by twine. It had crystals and live plants woven into each spot where the branches were wrapped together by the twine.
Gloria walked me straight to it and reached out and lifted a latch. It split vertically, wide enough for her to push me into it. I dug in my heels and tried to keep her from getting me into it. I had barely started to struggle before Tate painfully grabbed the hair on the back of my head and lifted my feet off of the floor. He shoved his body up against my back and breathed against my ear. “I would love to taste you.”
