by Zandria West
‘I… ’ I can’t speak. I try, but the words just don’t come.
‘Let me tell you: they’re not. All they want is to stop it from happening. And how better to prevent it than by using a binding spell on you? That way they can track you wherever you go. Oh, the danger is too great, you couldn’t possibly go anywhere alone, they tell you. They have to be there to protect you. They even know your every thought, am I right?’
Again, my gaze flickers to Alex.
‘My guess is they’ll protect you right up to the point at which you hand the key over to them. Then they’ll have no further use for you. Are these really people who you’d trust, Lana? I use the word people loosely of course… Do you think your father would have wanted you to put your life in their hands?’
She doesn’t know, I realise suddenly. She doesn’t know that it was my father who asked Gabriel to protect me. Dad asked him to make the binding. He entrusted Gabriel with my life. I feel a sudden rush of relief. She’s trying to manipulate me and twist the truth the way she always does. It’s the same old Clarissa I’ve always known.
‘You seem to think you know a lot about what they want,’ I say, meeting her gaze. ‘So how about you? What is it that you want?’
‘Only to help you. I know you’ve never liked me, Lana, but I do feel very close to your family. I feel a certain sense of responsibility. You find yourself mixed up in something very serious, and you should not face it alone.’ She reaches for Jamie’s hand and squeezes it and I can’t decide which I want more: to throw up or to hit her.
I shake my head. ‘Nope. I don’t believe you. You fucked our father over. Now you’re using my brother’s grief to get to him too. I don’t believe a fucking word you say.’
‘That’s because of these –’ Clarissa smiles and raises her hands and whispers something, and in an instant the Bondmarks on my arms and back are sheer agony. It’s like they’re being pulled, gouged, sliced – she’s going to tear the signs from my very flesh. Blood starts to run down my forearms. It feels as though my back is being shredded. I scream from the pain.
‘You’re hurting her!’ Jamie yells. ‘Stop it!’
‘Did you think it would be easy?’ Clarissa turns to him. ‘Did you think it would be clean? The demons have marked her as their own. To reverse the binding will be hard and painful but it’s the only way to save her. It’s the only way you’ll get your sister back. This is what you wanted, Jamie. This is what you asked me to do.’
I turn to my brother, tears streaming down my face. ‘Tell her to stop! Help me Jamie… Please…’ I beg him, but he turns away. Too much of a coward to watch what is happening to me. There’s another sharp wave of agony, more blood. I bite my lip to stop myself from screaming but I can’t keep it in. I moan. I try to pull away but there’s no escaping it. There’s so much blood, it’s soaking my clothes, pooling on the floor. My head is spinning. Everything in the room feels too close and too far away, both at once.
I hear my brother sobbing.
Then, I feel it. The bond is starting to tear. It’s like a terrible, icy void opening inside me. The loneliness, the loss… The pain of losing my connection to my protectors is even greater than the physical torture she’s inflicting on my flesh. I can’t bear it.
The room spins faster. My legs give way beneath me and everything dissolves into blackness.
32
ALEXANDER
I’ve fucked up mightily. I should never have given in. I should have chained Lana to the fucking bed rather than let her step right into danger like this. I knew this would happen. In my bones. In my fucking blood. I knew.
Now she lies unmoving on the floor.
And there’s nothing I can do. I sense Reuben’s fury emanating from where he’s standing, frozen beside me. If the sorceress allows us freedom for even a moment, Reuben will rip her to pieces, or die trying. But the woman who Lana calls Clarissa, the witch I know as Garenda, is not stupid enough to allow us the freedom to harm her.
So basically, we’re waiting to die. If the sorceress doesn’t kill me, I’m sure as hell that Gabriel will.
I watch as Lana’s twin crouches beside her. He’s crying and shaking her, trying to wake her. The goddamn fool. He caused this. He’ll have to live with the guilt of it. Because there’s no way that Garenda is benevolently trying to save Lana, however smooth her words. She’ll break the binding so we’re unable to help her. Then, if Lana won’t give her what she wants, she’ll kill her, slowly, while we are forced to watch. Then she’ll kill us too, just because she can.
So, Alexander, what’s the fucking plan?
I never don’t have a plan. I always know my next move – my next dozen moves. I don’t get caught out. My feelings for Lana have undone me, and now I will have to watch her die. This is why it doesn’t pay to feel. It doesn’t pay to care. It never does. It leads to fucking poor decision making. Even though I know it’s useless, I try so hard to clench my fists that I’m probably about to start sweating blood.
Jamie is arguing with Garenda. Pleading. Yelling. He’s realised his mistake. I see him look my way, a desperate look like things have gone so badly he’d even stoop as low as to accept my help. But there’s nothing I can do.
The worst thing is, I can feel my connection with Lana fading. I don’t know if it’s because she’s unconscious, or because Garenda has used her power like a sledgehammer to shatter the bond between us. Whatever the cause, it’s terrible. I can’t bear to lose her when I’ve only just found her. I try so hard to reach her. I search for her thoughts, for even a glimmer of her consciousness. It’s there, but very, very faint. She doesn’t respond to me at all. It’s like I’m yelling at the sky.
Suddenly I realise the room has gone quiet. The sorceress is standing directly in front of me, watching me. A second later, I feel the spell loosen enough that I can move. I take a big, deep breath of air. My body throbs weirdly with the remnants of the magic.
‘I’m in a bargaining mood,’ Garenda smiles. ‘The girl obviously means something to you. So here’s the deal: her life for what you know of the key.’
‘I don’t know anything about any key,’ I splutter.
‘Wrong answer,’ Garenda says, then she turns and makes a twisting motion with one hand and Lana cries out. I watch in horror as she jerks and convulses on the ground, her eyes rolling back in her head. I’m scared she’s going to choke on her tongue or something. All I want is to grab her, to hold her tight, to keep her safe, to comfort her, but I know if I make a move it will just make things worse.
‘What the hell…?’ Jamie yells and tries to rush Garenda, but she raises a hand. She doesn’t trap him like she did us, he can still move, but it’s like someone’s turned a film of him to super slow-mo with the sound on mute. If everything wasn’t so fucking awful it would be funny, like an old slap-stick comedy that you’d expect to watch in black and white.
Garenda turns back to me. ‘Let’s try that again. The key. What do you know about it? How do I find it? Where is it hidden?’
I frown, look down at Lana on the ground. Her blood is pooling now. She’s lost so much blood. In my experience, that much blood loss if left untreated is almost certain to result in death.
‘I don’t know anything about any key. That’s Gabriel’s side of the business. You’ll have to ask him.’
Garenda narrows her eyes at me and all I want is to destroy her. I feel the ache in my jaw and a rush of power surge through me as my teeth descend. All my predator instincts have triggered. Every single cell in my body longs to tear her limb from limb. I hold myself steady.
Garenda smiles. ‘Oh, Alexander, you misunderstand me. I am not your enemy. Do you really think the Barrier benefits you and your kind? Imagine a world without it, a whole wide world open for your taking... There’s so much sweet blood in the human world, too much. Humans have lost their natural predators. The balance is gone. They have nothing to fear. It was a mistake, when the Great Witch first made the Barrier. I told her so my
self. It would be a mistake again now to remake it. So, tell me Alex, what more do you know of this key the Great Witch made? Where is it hidden? How does it work?’
I go to say I don’t know, but I see how her hand tenses, like she’s ready to blast Lana with another hit of pure pain. I have no idea what’s powering this woman, but she’s got some serious fucking juju going on.
‘There’s a ritual…’ I say quickly. It’s probably true. Shit like this usually involves a ritual of some kind. ‘I don’t know the details though. I think Gabriel does.’ Also, probably true. As much as Gabe doesn’t like to talk about it, the Great Witch was his mother so I’m sure he must have picked up a few bits and pieces from her along the way.
I look down to where my angel lies, so pale, her gorgeous blue hair spread around her head like the halo she deserves. I can hardly bear to look at her arms, but I force myself. The place where my sign should be is just a bloody mess. I feel like someone is cutting my fucking heart out with a scalpel; the damage is so complete and so precise. I long for Lana with a longing stronger than blood-lust, deeper than the desire to protect her that Gabriel’s magic has bound me to.
But Lana is dying and I’m standing here watching.
‘Let me help her,’ I beg. Her pulse is fading away to almost nothing. I can feel it go.
Reuben is still trapped behind me. Beside me Jamie runs infinitesimally slowly, a look of horror on his face. Garenda raises an eyebrow.
‘Why would I do that?’
‘Because she’s lost too much blood. She’ll be gone in a matter of minutes if you just leave her like that…’
Garenda looks thoughtful, studying Lana where she lies in a rapidly growing pool of blood on the ground. She turns back to me and for a moment I think I see something in her eyes: something human. The surge of hope that rushes through me is a bigger hit than any drug.
Then Garenda smiles and I feel the leaden weight of despair fill my heart.
‘Do you know what?’ she says. ‘I’ve decided I don’t care.’
33
GABRIEL
I’ve faced down a thousand horrors, shattered ancient enchantments using the power of my blood, and spoken forbidden words in a lost tongue all to raise her from the dead.
None of it has improved her mood, though.
My mother brushes the dust from her dark gown and frowns as she looks around. Her hair flows in long, bone-white ringlets down past her shoulders and her eyes retain the bright, sharp light they had in life.
I bow my head again, still not certain whether it’s safe to meet her gaze. You might think this would be an occasion for joy – the reunion of a mother and her son. If you knew my mother, though, you would know that it wasn’t. A cry for help is a sign of failure, in her eyes. The Great Witch never abided failure.
Suddenly she grasps my arms, her grip as hard as newly wrought steel. She looks into my eyes. She looks through me, I don’t know how else to describe it. She murmurs some words, though my mind is unable to recall them the moment their resonance stills – that was always one of her tricks. She’d wipe away all traces of where she’d been, of what she’d done, of how she’d done it. Probably a wise move for a sorceress as powerful as she was, but it made life difficult for me as her pupil, and as her son.
The next moment I see her standing at the far end of the chamber, facing the wall, deep in thought. What happened between here and there, or how long it took, I have no idea. I always have this dizzying sense that my consciousness is a twisting, unreliable, tricky thing when I’m with her.
‘The Goddess makes all come to pass as she sees fit,’ she murmurs, clasping her fingers before her as though in prayer.
If she’s invoking the Goddess, I take that as a bad sign. Generally, my mother’s idea about what was a wise course of action and what the Goddess would set in train were two very different things, and whenever they found a collision course, the consequences would go down in history as catastrophic.
‘Can you help me?’ I ask, taking a tentative step towards her.
‘Of course.’
I swallow. She had always prepared for my failure. She’d expected that I would have to bring her back from death’s embrace. The enchantments that protected and held her here were designed to allow it. I, too, never doubted that I would need her before the end.
‘Come,’ she says. ‘Garenda has your Lana now. I’ve seen it. She is attempting to tear the Bondmarks from her with brute force, fool that she is.’ She laughs, a cold deadly sound that echoes around the chamber. ‘That is how little understanding she has of the workings of my magic, even after so many years.’
‘She’s what?’ I say. I had not dared to test the bond for fear of opening it to Garenda. I’d never dreamed that she would make such a direct attack on Lana. Now, while I am stupidly buried deep beneath the earth conversing with the spirit of my dead mother, my greatest enemy has Lana and is trying to break the bond between us and will probably kill her in the process. Where’s Alex? Reuben? Have they done nothing to protect her? How could this have happened?
I want to swear. I want to turn and leave this chamber, run back up those terrible stairs to the surface, find them, save Lana, and kill Garenda with my bare hands. A sudden sharp pain in the centre of my skull reminds me why I can’t. I cannot defeat Garenda while she has possession of me.
‘Come, Gabriel,’ the Great Witch says again. She turns and gestures for me to approach. I stand before her. She places her hands on either side of my head and closes her eyes. I feel her touch like a shimmer of energy. Then, it is as though I have no choice in the matter, in one swift action she pulls me into the darkness with her.
Garenda is waiting. I can’t see her, but I sense her presence, hideous and terrifying, wishing only to wield power and inflict pain. My mother flares as brightly as a fresh-struck match, and for an instant the darkness is illuminated.
Harm me and I will kill Lana. I have her right here. She is utterly at my mercy. The whisper fills my mind. I shiver with horror.
‘I forbid it,’ my mother cries. ‘Whatever power the Goddess vested in you, she has permitted me to withdraw…’ There’s a sudden darkening, a rumble like something huge and heavy shifting beneath us.
Ah, but I no longer source my power from your beloved Goddess, Garenda murmurs. I feel my mother tense beside me.
‘What then…?’ she asks. It is the first time I’ve heard her sound hesitant.
You did not think I would discover your secret, Moranna?
I feel an electric prickling all over my skin. It is the first time in over a thousand years that I have heard anyone say my mother’s name. She buried it deep under layers of magic, hidden from all but me, in order to prevent any from using it to gain power over her, even in death.
You were never strong enough to hold the worlds apart, oh Great One… Garenda’s voice crackles with sarcasm. You called on forces you did not understand. That was your reason for secrecy. It was your pride, was it not, that led you astray?
I try to turn to my mother but in her place all I sense is a sudden whirling mass of energy, shifting and twisting, as though too agitated to hold form.
What was the deal that you made, Witch? The Dark God, the one you cannot name, agreed to give you the strength to create the Barrier. Surely there was a price? There is always a price…
I shiver, a feeling of sick horror overtaking me.
‘I am sorry,’ my mother’s voice quavers. The sound of it is all around me, filling the cavern. ‘It is true, Gabriel. He twisted my words, as I should have known that he would…’
‘What?’ I cry out, true fear sparking within me now. ‘What are you talking about? What have you done?’
You see Gabriel, I told you… you have already lost… I sense Garenda’s smile within me. She glows with the joy of victory.
‘No! Please, mother, you must help me…’ I beg, looking blindly around myself for a glimpse of her. The swirling energy has subsided now but I’m not sure what
has taken its place in the dim dark of the cave. All I feel is a reluctant heaviness.
Finally, she speaks.
‘I promised you help, my son. That at least I can give you now,’ she murmurs in my ear, her voice gentler than I have ever heard it. ‘Do not judge me too harshly once it is done.’
In an instant, my mind is no longer my own: she sears it with all the energy of her soul. I feel filled with a power beyond imagining, a power to reshape worlds. I sense Garenda trying to hide, but she cannot. She is found, instantly. There’s a terrible scream, a sound filled with agony and loss. I can’t tell whether it is Garenda’s voice or my mother’s or whether it is Lana’s voice echoing through the bond, for I sense her now as clearly as though she were standing beside me, and she is in great pain. Then it is done. I know the moment my mother completes her work, I feel the sudden shift through every cell in my body. Garenda’s connection to me is severed and I am in the darkness.
Gradually my eyes adjust, and I make out the figure of my mother, though she has faded now to little more than a vague apparition in the dim light.
‘He made me promise,’ she says, her voice mournful and low. ‘He allowed me to draw on his strength, but he made me promise. The enchantment that made the key was his, not mine. It is Lana. She is the key. She will be his conduit to return to this world, and my son, you cannot allow that to happen. You must protect her until she comes into her power and the Barrier is re-made. Then you must kill her. It’s the only way to prevent the Dark God’s return.’
I flinch at her words as though at a blow. ‘Kill her? Never! I can’t –’
