by Rhys Lawless
“When the witches took her lover away from her, the man she had chosen to marry and share a life with, a man her parents did not approve of, Avalis became enraged. She couldn’t see any more witches take what wasn’t rightfully theirs because they had more power.
“So she cast a spell on all of them. The witches her parents had created lost their powers and they could only ever get them back by a process of ignition. If they wanted to be more than human again, they’d have to pass her tests. Then, and only then, would she grant them their powers back.
“Rhafnet and Ealistair were not happy. They’d hoped their daughter would rule by their side, but she betrayed their trust. They schemed to kill her and stop her from ruining their plans. The child they’d once longed for was now their mortal enemy.
“But Avalis’s compassion and love made her stronger than death. When Rhafnet and Ealistair came to murder her, she sacrificed herself to keep her parents from ever hurting anyone else. And so both husband and wife became trapped in the confines of the earth, where the secrets of the universe converged.
“And as for Avalis, she gave up her mortal body so her spirit could transcend and keep guard over her parents so they could never be free,” Caleb said, his voice croaky by the time he’d finished.
“Avalis,” I said. “She’s our only hope, right?”
Mother Red Cap nodded, and Caleb turned the pages of the book.
“But how? If she was meant to protect the ley lines and her parents are free, something’s happened to her, right?” he asked.
“This is just a story, my dear boy. Everything is open to interpretation.”
“I’ve never heard of Avalis,” Caleb said. “I’ve heard Rhafnet mentioned before and Ealistair, but never her name.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time the witches erased history to rewrite on their own terms. My guess is someone didn’t like the original and wrote Rhafnet and Ealistair with Avalis’s qualities, as the loving, compassionate gods that created witches,” Mother Red said.
“But now what? How do we invoke her?” I asked.
Caleb leafed through the pages faster than necessary.
“I think…I think I found it,” he said and read the passage. “Just like Avalis was made of blood and love, so can she be invoked in the same way. But be warned. Only a witch of immense power can take on her spirit.”
“Blood and love. What does that mean?” I asked.
Caleb pursed his lips as he quietly read the rest.
“It’s a sex ritual,” Mother Red Cap said. “One I’ve not heard of before.”
“Will…will you take on Avalis?” Caleb asked her, and Mother Red Cap laughed in his face.
“Me? Why would I take on her spirit?”
“To help us take Rhafnet and Ealistair down. You read what it says. Only a witch of immense power can take her on,” Caleb said.
Mother Red Cap put her hand on Caleb’s face and tugged at his cheek.
“The reason I survived for so long, dear boy, is because I’ve stayed away from witch politics.”
“But this is not witch politics. We need you. They’re planning on decimating humanity.” Caleb pleaded with her. “You can’t just sit and do nothing.”
“I have and I will. But you don’t need me to take them down. You’ve got you.”
Caleb laughed and pulled away from her.
“I can’t believe you’re saying this. If they destroy everyone where does that leave you? You’d be no better than Graham.”
“My decision is final.” Mother Red Cap raised her voice. “And I won’t have you challenging it.”
“Where am I going to find a powerful witch to take on Avalis’s spirit? Ash?”
“You don’t need one. You’ve got yourself.”
“I’m not powerful. I’m barely even a witch,” Caleb said, and I hated seeing him cutting himself this short.
Mother Red Cap stepped away and got closer to her fire pit where she sat down and took a cigar out of her robes.
“Now,” she said, lighting it in the fire. “If that were true, why the hell did the ley lines open?”
She had a point. Only the sacrifice of five powerful witches could have let Christian tap into the ley lines, and Caleb had died on that rooftop, the ley lines had opened, and Ealistair and Rhafnet had been released.
“I’m not a witch of immense power. Don’t make me laugh,” Caleb said.
“Maybe not,” I said. “But you’re a witch who will do anything to stop a war.”
Fifteen
Caleb
As much as they were trying to convince me they were right, I knew they were wrong. My death on the ley line was just a fluke that had worked because of circumstance. I was not a powerful witch, nor could I stop those demons, gods, whatever the fuck they were supposed to be.
“I can’t do this,” I told them and left to take some air.
It had been another long night, and I’d found myself yet again having next to no rest.
As I came out of Mother Red’s den, the morning coolness hit me, right in the core, and it took me a few moments to realize why.
There was something in the air. Something completely unnatural. I didn’t know if I was the only one who could feel it, but I knew I wasn’t making it up.
Was this what was happening to the world? Was this the effect Ealistair and Rhafnet were having by being on this plane? How much worse could things get if they weren’t stopped?
A lot.
If their history was anything to go by, fiction or not, there had to be an element of truth in there. And these beings would stop at nothing to get what they wanted. More death, more destruction, more innocent blood spilled.
“Hey,” Wade called behind me a few moments later, moments that felt like decades inside my head.
I glanced at him before focusing again on the green water of the canal.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“How desperately I need my bed and a boatload of sleeping pills until all this goes away,” I said, but Wade only shook his head disapprovingly.
“No, you’re not. You wouldn’t be able to live with yourself if you let the world go to shit.”
“Yeah, well, there’s not much I can do either way,” I said and decided to walk the soreness in my legs off.
If I wasn’t going to get any decent sleep, I might as well get some exercise. Not that I needed any more tension on my poor body. The non-stop adrenaline rush over the last few days had been more than enough to knock me out cold for a week straight.
“There is. You heard Mother Red Cap,” he said, joining me by my side.
I blew raspberries and a jogger looked at me in a funny way.
“Is it so hard to believe you’re a strong witch?” he asked.
“I don’t have to believe it because I’m not. I was never the strongest at the army, or even a half-decent vampire for that matter. Why would I be a powerful witch?”
“First of all,” Wade said, and he stopped me by putting the back of his hand on my chest, “that’s bullshit because you killed a gang of elves all by yourself, so I bet you were a kickass soldier and vampire. And second of all”—he put his index finger under my chin and made me look at him, at his ocean blue eyes that I could get lost in for hours—“we both know you’re going to do this sooner or later, so why delay the inevitable? You can’t resist a good adventure, and you know it.”
How had he come to know me so well over a month? Was I such an open book that he could read me without even trying? Or had he got his memories of me back and had failed to tell me?
He was right of course. I might not be a lot of things, but give me a new, shiny yarn and I’d follow it to the very end, like Theseus through the maze of the Minotaur.
“Fine,” I said and turned to go back inside Mother Red Cap’s den. “Let’s go read that ritual.”
Wade patted his chest over his heart and grinned.
“Already made a copy. Come on. Let’s go,” he said and gav
e me his hand to take.
Out of all the things you’d think a couple would be excited about trying, the last thing I’d thought would get my heart fluttering would be to hold Wade’s hand in public. But it did. It was the most normal thing we’d done since we’d met.
“Do we really have to drink each other’s blood?” Wade asked, grimacing.
“I don’t know. Maybe. What does the ritual say?”
It’s not like I had ancient sex rituals every day.
“You seem awfully unnerved by this,” he said.
“I did used to be a vampire, you know. So, it’ll be like walking a day in the life for you, and a trip down memory lane for me.”
We came out on the high street and were just about to go into the underground when an ambulance zoomed past the traffic after another one. I paused for a second and looked down the road. More ambulances and police cars had turned their sirens on and were filing down the traffic.
“Something’s happened,” I said. “They must have done something again.”
Wade pulled his phone out and scrolled through his news app.
“Southwark Bridge has been hit. They’re saying there was an earthquake that split it in two,” Wade said.
“But London doesn’t get earthquakes. We need to hurry. The longer we wait, the stronger they’ll get.”
We went underground and took the quickest route to Kensington, to Wade’s house, and once we were in the security of his not-so-humble abode, he retrieved the copy he’d made of the ritual.
It didn’t make for light reading, that was for sure. The majority of the ritual was normal stuff, building up to euphoria, things we did anyway. It was the next step that tripped me up, and it wasn’t because of the blood involved.
“Are you ready for this?” Wade asked while I re-read the same line, and I thought I could detect some hesitance in his voice.
“Are you?” I gave his hand a squeeze. “You don’t have to do this, you know. It’s too soon for such a—“
“I’m fine. We don’t have an option.”
There was always an option. It might not be the popular one, but there was always one. And I didn’t want to scare the man away or scar him for life.
“Are you sure, sure?” I repeated.
“I never thought I’d invoke a demon with an orgasm.”
I laughed. Even in the darkest of times, he still had a sense of humor.
“We can make a habit of it if you enjoy it.” I chuckled and gave him my hand to take. “But seriously, that’s way too big a commitment. You’ve only just met me. Performing the mating—“
“It’s fine. I want to,” he said. “If I wasn’t sure before, after tonight I’m certain.”
This wasn’t a walk-in-the-park kind of ritual, and I didn’t even know if it was possible to undo it if he ever changed his mind. What I did know was that we needed to take Rhafnet and Ealistair down. We could worry about the rest later.
I guided him to his bedroom with the copy at hand. I lay down in bed, and he squeezed next to me. If it had been any other time, we’d have ripped each other’s clothes off and he’d already be inside me. But this was different.
I took my gloves off and caressed his hair. If this had been a normal encounter, I’d have let him into my head the moment I touched him. But I wasn’t ready for it yet. I wanted to know he was.
“If we do this, there’s no turning back,” I said. If we do this, you are stuck with me. For life.
Good, he replied. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I’d have loved to tell him he didn’t know what he was getting himself into, but I didn’t know, either. This was a whole new territory for me as it was for him.
Are you scared? he asked me.
Shitless, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. What if you change your mind? What if you get bored of me? What if—
“Listen to me, Caleb Carlyle. I will never change my mind. I will never get bored of you. You and I? We’re meant to be, okay? We fell in love twice in a lifetime. I want to make sure this time it sticks.” I heard him loud and clear.
Besides, if you mate with me there’s less chance of being claimed by a broody familiar, he added, and I chuckled.
Or we both get claimed by one and we make a sexy throuple. Two could play that game.
Wade’s hand came up to my neck, and he wrapped it around me, giving my neck a light squeeze, and then he gave me a tender kiss.
“Never. I’m not sharing you with anyone ever again. You hear me?” He growled and my lips trembled, awakening my cock.
“Yes, master.”
Mmm, I like that. Say that again.
“Claim me, master,” I managed to say, but the rest came out in a flurry of laughter and hysterics. “Make me yours, master.”
Wade removed his hand from my neck and slapped me.
“Don’t ruin it, asshole. I was trying to set the scene here.”
I don’t know what you’re talking about. What did I ruin? I’m still hard.
I can see that, he replied and groped me with his free hand while the one that had slapped me returned to its rightful position by my neck.
I wanted to grope back, feel his hardness, but he didn’t let me. I shouldn’t have said the word “master” because he took it too literally, and now I was in trouble.
Put your hands behind your back, he said.
Are you crazy? I’m not lying on my hands. They’ll go to sleep.
Both hands tightened around my sensitive spots, and my cock throbbed in his hand.
Traitor penis. Couldn’t even pretend I wasn’t enjoying this or something. It just had to say its piece and give Wade what he needed.
You either do it yourself, or I do it for you. Your choice, he said.
What kind of a dick Sophie’s choice move was that?
Ah, who was I kidding? I wanted him to dominate me as much as I wanted him inside me.
No! I said defiantly, and his eyes glistened with need.
Oh, yeah, baby. I wasn’t going down without a fight. He removed his hand from my neck and tried to push my shoulder down so I was lying on my chest, but I wasn’t going to be manhandled.
I pushed him away from me, but it was like trying to keep two magnets from coming together.
He pushed his elbows against the inside of mine, bending my arms and closing the distance between us, and to make sure I didn’t go anywhere, he sat on my crotch, not the worst place to take a seat, admittedly.
Wade grabbed my wrists and tried to pin them over my head. I used all my strength to push back, twisted my arm so he would release me, and I only managed the one hand, which I immediately wrapped around his neck and squeezed.
“Oh, fuck. Why are you doing this to me?” He choked.
“Because you asked for it.”
Okay, fine. But you gotta go a little rougher on me. That’s like being choked by a baby angel’s kiss.
Is that right? I said and squeezed harder. I felt his cock grinding on my crotch, and before I could reach for it, Wade placed my hand there himself, sliding it under his jeans.
Harder, he said. I can take it.
Sure?
He nodded before closing his eyes and letting a groan out.
I clenched harder at his neck, and his face went red. My other hand, the one wrapped around his cock, palmed it hard, the friction of the fabric and my hand making him tense.
I could feel his orgasm rising like a glass of water that was about to overflow, and his pain, the tightness around his larynx, suffocated me too.
He came hard and fast in his pants, wetting my wrist and his underwear, and I eased the pressure on his neck as he came down for a kiss and a cuddle.
“I hate you,” he said.
“No, you don’t.”
He raised his head to meet my gaze and grinned.
“No, I don’t. You’re right. Now, stop messing with me and let’s make it right.”
He got off me and slipped his underwear off. I wiped my hand on the duvet
and watched him unzip my pants and pull them down.
Then, he proceeded to take mine and his T-shirts off and strip us both down until we were both stark naked.
Before he joined me back in bed, though, he left the room, and I lay my head back on the mattress.
It felt like a warm embrace around my body, and I appreciated it. It had been a wise choice to get him the new mattress. I couldn’t wait to have wild nights of sleeping on it.
Who could have told me a week ago I’d be in bed about to have sex with my boyfriend to invoke a demon inside me? This was some weird territory we were getting into.
Wade returned to the room with a Swiss Army knife and placed it by the bed.
“Are you sure you don’t want to kill me?” I asked him and laughed before he could take it personally.
I couldn’t even begin to imagine how twisted this must have felt for Wade. He’d never had to do any odd crap like this with any of his lovers. Not only was he going to give himself entirely to me, but he was also going to drink human blood for the first time in his life. The least I could do was make this comfortable for him.
“I thought since we’re missing the fangs, we might need this,” he said and lay down on top of me, kissing my nose. “Stop worrying. It’ll be fine. I’m fine.”
Wasn’t it damn, cotton-candy sweet of us to worry about each other like that when the world was ending out there? My heart warmed at the thought that even if it all came to an end, I’d at least have Wade by my side as my one and true mate.
He started us off with French kisses and light grinding, but the moment I made our connection two-way, his boner returned in an instant, feeding off my horniness. He sucked me off, and I sucked him off, but it was all more mechanical than anything else.
As much as we tried to deny it, we were both scared of what would happen next, but we knew what we had to do to stop the apocalypse.
“You know what?” Wade said. “No. If we’re going to perform a ritual that will bind us for life, I sure as hell am not going to perform it like a robot, out of duty.”
