by Vera Sparks
My father’s face changed as it all clicked.
“We destroyed your body and trapped your soul here, and the only way out…
”“Is with a vessel. I used whatever power I had left to track down your precious Ivy, locking onto her soul. And when she nearly died at the hands of a vampire, I seized my chance as her soul touched the ghost realm. I latched onto it and pulled her body through. Sucks I was too weak to fully complete the spell. Her damned spirit got caught between the two worlds. I had a body, but it was useless because her spirit was still bound to it. And because it was stuck in that cursed living world, I couldn’t do a thing about it. Until now, she’s been using magic, magic which comes from within. So she’s been drawing on her bond to her body, and that’s weakened it. Now she’s dying, her link almost completely severed, and once she’s gone, I’ll have my vessel out of here,” Jasmine grinned, a dark, devious expression that made my lip tug into a snarl. Even if I was out of it, I’d caught the gist of it. I was like this because of her.
“Why Ivy? If you could do such a spell from in here, why her?” my father asked quietly.
“Why not? It’d hurt you, just like you hurt me!” Jasmine snarled.
“I never meant to hurt you. Feelings change, I loved you, but that love faded. It wasn’t meant to be,” he pleaded with her.
“You meant everything to me!” she shouted as she clutched the railings with a red -ot glow.
“Well, if you really loved me, you would’ve wanted me to be happy, instead, you destroyed everything I loved,” he said, his defeated tone unnerving me. Was he saying this was over? Was I really ending here?
“I wanted to rip out your heart, just like you did to me,” Jasmine’s cruel smile made me lurch forward.
My father muttered something and waved his hand in my direction as Jasmine roared at him.
I blinked and found myself standing in a locked bedroom. He must’ve teleported me somehow.
I took in the dusty room, the furniture covered in plastic and the drapes pulled closed over the arched windows. I could tell I was still in the strange institute, but this must have been a room upstairs.
As I scanned the room, I caught my breath as I spotted it.
Me.
I lay on the bed in the same office clothing I’d worn the night Alex had attacked me. It was so strange, seeing myself like that. My body looked frail and withered, skinny and malnourished.
I slowly walked over, my breath catching as I took in the body. My body.
I still couldn’t understand what was going on, my mind stuck in a strange fog, and I struggled to stay with it, to focus on what was before me.
I was dying, my spirit fading away, and once this part of me was gone, my body would fully die. I knew that, somehow. But why was my body still even here? I could see the soft rise and fall of my chest, and realized it was in rhythm with my breathing.
Everything I’d eaten, was that all that had kept this body going? I suddenly wished I’d indulged more. I just didn’t think I needed it. But I was still linked to my body. Was the reason I couldn’t feel temperatures because my body was trapped here, where no wind blew and the temperature didn’t exist? That made sense.
All the little things were beginning to make some sense despite my foggy mind.
I flinched as I heard Jasmine shrieking, and it was growing louder.
She was coming for me.
I circled the bed to inspect my body, and spied the scar on my neck. Where Alex had torn me open. It had healed. Some things didn’t make sense, like why had it healed? Shouldn’t my body have died? Was it because I was not inside it? Or did it have something to do with my own magic, being a Sorceress? Had I saved myself somehow?
It was too hard to try to figure out, and when the bedroom door flung open, I gave up trying to understand.
Jasmine was furious, her eyes flashing dangerously as she shot towards me, moving with the jumping speed of a ghost.
She bounced off a deflective white shield ,and I frowned. I hadn’t done that, my magic felt like it was gone, like I couldn’t reach it anymore.
Jasmine rounded on my father who stood in the doorway, his glowing white hands raised.
“I won’t let you hurt my daughter,” he growled.
“I’ll kill you then. You’re still linked to your body, that makes you weak. My body is gone, I have nothing to weaken me now,” Jasmine’s voice rung out in the room as she hurled green energy at my father.
My father protected himself, but Jasmine began chanting as she turned to look at my body.
I stared numbly as my body before me began to glow softly.
“I’ll go back to the living world and destroy your body before you can return,” Jasmine said coolly before continuing her rhythmic chant.
My father cursed and shot magic at her, but she deflected his attempts easily.
He wasn’t as powerful here.
I looked down at my now glowing form on the bed. How did I reattach myself? How did I fix this? I somehow knew what she was doing. Linking herself to my body and severing my now fragile and weak spirit. She was hijacking my own body.
A single tear slid down my body’s cheek and I reached out to touch it. What a strange way to be snuffed out. Looking at my body, so close.
As my fingers touched my skin, heat shot through me and I gasped.
“No!” Jasmine wailed as she flew towards me once more.
I cried out as a strange sucking sensation washed over me and I was dragged forward. I flailed as energy pulsed through me once more, and my ghostly form rose above the bed.
I relaxed, the sudden realization washing over me with a serene peacefulness.
Jasmine was deflected again by my father as she howled and cursed, clawing at the crackling white shield between us.
My ghostly form slowly floated down over my body, and I closed my eyes expectantly.
The feelings that washed over me that followed are hard to explain.
I felt myself being yanked from the middle realm as Jasmine’s wails faded. Sickness, pain, lethargy, distress, anger. It all hit me at once and knocked the air out of me.
I blinked and groaned, glancing around as I gathered my bearings. I
was in my apartment.
Nausea washed over me and I keeled forward, bile surging forth and spewing across my white shaggy rug and tiled floor.
I collapsed to the side of my liquid vomit, my body convulsing as I curled in on myself. I could vaguely make out my limbs, so skinny and fragile. They looked even skinnier and bony than they did in the middle realm. My stomach groaned and gurgled as I whimpered. My body ached and throbbed, pain searing through it.
Otis snorted and snuffled in distress as he scuttled around me, his feet tapping on the floor frantically as he darted around me.
And then I felt it, a cool rush of air that brushed my skin.
I felt cold.
“Ivy?!”
Alex was beside me in an instant, and I cried out as he lifted me off the floor and eased me into a sitting position on the couch. Otis leaped up beside me, snorting as he stared hard at me.
“What the hell happened to you?!” Alex’s distressed voice tore through my mind and I groaned as the migraine made itself known.
His eyes fell to my neck, and I swore if a vampire could get any whiter, then he did.
“You smell completely… whole,” he murmured.
I closed my eyes, gritting my teeth against the glasslike pain that jabbed my entire body.
My mouth tasted like bile and my teeth hurt, my limbs could barely function and my head lolled to the side as I looked out my full-length window.
“Cold,” I barely managed to mumble as a shiver coursed through me. It was so cold despite the burning pain. My throat was dry and tight, and I was surprised he heard the faint word.
Alex flitted off and was back in seconds with the duvet from my bed.
He wrapped it around me as I choked and struggled to breath.
e“Your body is shutting down,” Alex murmured as he eyed me cautiously.
Of course it was. I only just got it back, and it was falling apart.
“Dad?” I suddenly remembered, the fog in my mind starting to clear. My voice came out as an ugly, soft croak.
“He’s not here,” Alex said as his eyes flicked around the room once.
I groaned again as I tried to move and gave up instantly.
Where was my daD? I’d taken him to the middle realm, was he unable to get back now?
Jasmine had said his body was left in the living world, but where?
The thought made me whimper as I trembled, the duvet doing little to warm my body.
Otis leaped back down off the couch and trotted over to the coffee table. I watched him carefully as he stood on his hind legs and inspected the ritual my father had made. I could’ve sworn his blue eyes glowed softly.
“Here, drink.”
I coughed as Alex thrust his wrist against my lips, the coppery warm taste smearing my mouth. I scrunched my nose but knew it could help me. Vampires tried to keep the healing qualities of their blood secret, but when Alex had tried to turn me over six months ago, he’d used his blood. To turn a vampire required a careful blood transfusion, but if you screwed up and fully drained someone, sometimes just loading them with a tonne of vampire blood could turn them. Sometimes.
I started slow at first as I licked the warm blood, gagging momentarily before forcing it down. But then I was lapping it up, feeling the soft work undergoing inside me as it worked on repairing whatever internal damage I had.
I pulled away, not wanting to take too much. Vampire blood could link you to the vampire if you weren’t careful, it was how sires and prodigies knew when they were needed.
I licked the warm blood from my lips as I scanned the room for my father.
Alex watched me with a deathly look as I gritted my teeth, willing the pain and nausea away. As if that would help.
“Do you know where Grey is?” Alex asked.
“I’m right here.”
Alex spun as my father appeared off to our side, dusting his brown coat off and smoothing his hair.
“Where were you?” Alex demanded as he stood protectively before me.
“Getting her body back. Seems when she touched it, she got sucked back in, fully reconnected and therefore kicked from the middle realm. Made my getting back a little difficult, especially with Jasmine,” my father explained as he hurried to my side. “Otis summoned me back. Thank god we’re linked, thank you,” he nodded down at the pig beside him, who snorted softly.
“What’s wrong with her? I gave her blood, but she looks like shit, no offense,” he gave me a soft half smile, but it was weak and disappeared as he looked me over.
“Vampire blood is good, I suspect she was having some organ failure now that she’s been restored, so that’ll help. Whatever you ate while you were mostly ghost was all that sustained this body I believe. And that wasn’t a great deal. Hell, you’re probably only alive because of what you are, your own magic protected you and kept you alive as best it could, but it’s weakened, drastically, I can feel it,” my father murmured as he waved a glowing blue hand over me.
I groaned as another wave of horrendous pain washed over me, my insides burning and churning as knives dug into every inch of my body.
“Alex, I need you to get some things for me, and be quick. She’s barely hanging in there, there’s a spell to try to balance her out and replenish her,” my father stated as he stood up, his horrified but calculating eyes dancing over me.
“Right, what do you need,” Alex nodded briskly.
My father rattled off some items, but I let myself fade away, welcoming the darkness that was reaching for me. It was hard to withstand this pain, and the thought of being free from it was too tempting.
I came to as my father chanted over a new chalk drawn diagram on the floor.
I was on my side, the cool tiles pressed against my cheek, my bones jutting out painfully against the hard flooring. I didn’t move as I lay in the center of his circle, my body refusing to co-operate and even the thought was painful. I was grateful I was still wrapped in my duvet, as the cold tiles were too much right now.
My father knelt before me as he chanted, Latin, I thought, and poured a bowl of clumpy liquid over my face.
I heard a sharp intake of breath and could just see Alex out of the corner of my eye, watching precariously from the couch with Otis right beside him. I would’ve found the sight funny if I wasn’t on the brink of death. A stark white vampire with a pig beside him. Cute.
The pain ebbed down a bit and I sighed, the nausea and inner burning fading away to a more manageable level.
“That should stabilize you for now, but we need to be careful. You need to eat small amounts at first, no matter how hungry you are. I’ll get you a few potions to help, they’ll just be vitamins and minerals with magical qualities that’ll help you get back to your normal self. It’ll take time. You were essentially comatose for over six months while your spirit did everything. It’s mind-blowing, actually, and I still can’t understand it,” my father sighed as he sat down beside me.
The haze in my mind had cleared a fair bit, and I coughed as I tried to form words as I eased into a sitting position with my father’s help. I took an extra moment to swallow, my deathly dry mouth struggling.
“Water,” my father raised a cupped hand to my lips, water appearing in his palm. I drank it blissfully, the cool, sweet water hydrating my tight throat. But it was gone too soon, and I wondered if he’d magic some more for me.
Alex appeared beside me with a tall glass of water and I gratefully accepted as I downed it with ease. I felt the cool liquid wash my insides, cleansing them. I was grateful just to wash away the taste of blood and bile in my mouth, although I should’ve spit, I was too parched to even consider it.
“What… What happened to Jasmine?” I asked, my voice a bare whisper. It reminded me of the time I had a horrid chest infection and lost my voice. I couldn’t force my words any louder.
Alex gently pried the empty glass from my hands and flitted away to get me a refill.
“She’s gone. Completely. When she lost her only way out of the middle realm, she flew into a rage. I used all the magic I could muster to break the remaining strands of her spirit tied to the realms. She’s gone now, from the living, ghost and middle realms.”
Alex returned with my second glass and I took my time with this one.
So what he was saying was she was fully dead. Completely gone.
“Your body? She said it was still here, and she’d destroy it, but it wasn’t here,” I murmured.
“No, I hid it in my vault. Otis was my connection to this world mainly,” my father informed me.
I blinked as I processed this. How interesting that he was able to hide his body away like that. Then something dawned on me.
“Monica? Maria?” I shot them worried looks as I tightened the duvet around me.
“Percy is staying with Maria at the hospital to keep us updated on both of them. She’s stable and they believe she’ll make a full recovery. Monica is in worse shape. She’s been put in an induced coma while her body recovers. She suffered broken bones and internal injuries,” my father said solemnly, his mouth a thin line of uncertainty.
I sighed, glad Maria was okay, but saddened about Monica. That woman we saw, the one we fought, it wasn’t her, just a demon wearing her shell.
“And Shaun?” I remembered. Was he still lying at the warehouses cocooned in vines?
“Evelyn and Walter, the two main Enforcer’s for the area, have collected him. He’ll be taken to stand trial before the Council,” Alex informed me as my father helped me move off the floor and join Alex on the couch. I was relieved someone had cleaned up my bile mess I’d made earlier. Even my shaggy rug looked unscathed. Maybe my father had used magic for that? God, my breath probably stunk. I felt disgusting and sickly, like a well-needed shower w
as in order. My body had still been in the office clothes from that horrid night, and a quick glance down told me that they certainly needed a wash. At least my underwear didn’t feel like I’d been defecating that whole time. I’d just put it down to magic as to why there were some things I couldn’t explain. I barely knew a thing about the middle realm or how things worked there.
Otis nudged my arm gently, and I rested one hand on his back, his coarse hair still something I was getting accustomed to.
“Will they kill Shaun?” I asked. I was pissed he’d hurt Maria, but I wasn’t convinced he deserved to die for wanting to save his moM.
“They may give him a plea deal if it was for his mother, strip him of all his magic. But it’s hard to say. Black magic is bad, but demons are worse,” my father said.
“Right,” I sighed as I slumped into Alex’s shoulder. I shivered at the touch of his cool body, but I took comfort in it.
“Just so you know, you’re not expected to come into work for a few weeks at least,” Alex reassured me.
I groaned as I closed my eyes, trying to ignore the sharp pains in my body. At least it was bearable now. But I felt like I’d been hit by a truck loaded with the flu virus and then proceeded to do an hour long workout. My body was very unresponsive to my commands, and I felt like sleep was all I wanted.
And food.
My stomach groaned in agony and I whimpered. To think I’d eaten maybe once every few days for the past six months, and that was all my body had survived on. And it wasn’t like it was worthwhile food either. I sure was beating myself up about my stupidity there.
“I’ll be right back,” Alex murmured as he gave me a soft peck on the forehead and gently pushed me onto my father’s shoulder instead. I hadn’t paid attention to him sitting beside me with Otis on his lap, but I allowed myself to be treated like a rag doll.
A brief brush of air was the only thing that alerted me to Alex’s swift departure as he flitted away.
“Hey, I know you’re not feeling the greatest right now, and things are going to be tough for a while, while you recover. But I figured I owed you this. Might help you out, take your mind off of all this,” my father said softly.
