The Sins of Our Fathers, page 26
Billy’s anger melted away as he pushed himself to his feet. It was replaced with a kind, serenity that surrounded him. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end.
“Here, kitty, kitty,” he said and ran toward me at full speed. I didn’t have time to shift or launch into the air. He hit me hard in the midsection, and when I fell back, he landed on top of me.
Kill him, Ever.
“It didn’t have to be like this,” he said as his hands circled my neck.
“What else can you do?” I croaked out as his fingers lifted off my neck one by one and bent backward.
“Argh,” he cried out in pain as his body lifted off me, and I threw him against the wall.
He disappeared again, and I flew to Ike. “Can you walk?”
He only shook his head, so I rested my hand on his shoulder and searched everywhere around the room using my sight, hearing, and every other sense he’d ignited. Billy couldn’t come near us without being seen, but I knew he wouldn’t give up.
A gun cocked from the other side of the room. My chest tightened at its warning. I squeezed Ike’s shoulder and zeroed in on the distance and location of the gun’s sound. My breath held in my chest. I listened for the signs of Billy’s life. He’d brought a weapon he didn’t have to be close to me to use.
“Billy don’t do this.”
I concentrated on the space between me and the origin of the gun’s sound. I wouldn’t be able to see the bullet to move it with my mind. The air came first. I closed my eyes and moved every particle, including the bullet, to the wall above the workbench.
I kept everything moving as another shot was fired.
“I’ll kill him, and we can be together. With our powers, we can rule the world.”
“I don’t want to rule the world, Billy.” He was always misguided. He’d been born into a family that murdered its only heart. He stepped closer to Ike and me. He couldn’t beat me with the bullet from farther away, but he couldn’t stay invisible if he were this close, either. Billy stepped back and forth in and out of invisibility until he calculated the limitations of the spell.
“This is new,” he said. “It isn’t a power. You’ve cast a spell. You and your galère.”
“That’s what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it? A place to belong.”
Billy’s laugh was void of any jovial feelings. “Oh, Ever, you will never understand. How could you? Being born to a mother and father who love you?”
“Tell me, then. I’ll share your pain, Billy.”
“You already share more than you realize. Disappearing is not my only power. I could read the words in my mother’s books.”
A book came flying through the air and became visible in enough time for me to catch it before it hit my face. I didn’t open it. I had to keep my focus on Billy and whatever else he fired my way.
“Open it,” he demanded.
“Why don’t you just tell me what it says?” I put a few feet between Ike and myself. I wanted Billy to come into view, for the gun to be vulnerable.
“My mother knew your father.” He lied again. He’d taken my only living weakness to this workshop and beat him, and was trying to use my dead father against me. “He wasn’t just a marine. He was a witch hunter, exposing witches had been a profession in his family since before the Civil War. He was good at it, too. Until he met your mother.”
“Billy, this is pathetic.”
“Read the book, Ever.”
“Give me the gun, and I’ll read it.”
He laughed. “Instead of killing your mother the way he had mine, he fell in love with her, and then you came along.”
Billy stepped into view and just as quickly fell back and invisible. I focused on the area he’d just been standing in.
“This is where the story turns tragic. So, the witch hunter falls in love with a witch and has a daughter, but the one witch who turned him was the one cursed to kill him. Your father died because he didn’t kill your mother first.”
“It’s like fiction is your calling.”
“Read the book,” he roared from the corner behind me.
I spun around. “If he killed your mother before he met mine, how is it even in the book?”
“My mother was a special kind of witch. She was a bridge. It was written when the four of you were born. When your grandmothers couldn’t witness your lives from heaven any longer, but it wasn’t until you moved home that it appeared in my house. I think my mother thought I’d help you, and you’d save me.” Billy had an ironic smile. He shrugged as if he were talking about a television show episode from the night before. “The departed tried to warn my mother about him. She wrote it all down, but she couldn’t protect herself alone, and then she left me here with a monster.”
I faltered a step. I grabbed the chair in front of me. Give him hell.
Billy stepped into view with the gun pointed at Ike’s head. I ripped it from his hand and held him in the air. The gun dropped as he hovered above Ike.
“You’ll never get out of here alive with him,” Billy said.
A shot rang out. Billy’s body fell to the floor of the shop.
Ike was holding the gun in his free hand. His eyes were fixed on me. “A witch can’t kill another witch, but I can.”
Billy lay lifeless on the floor next to Ike’s feet that were still tied to the chair legs. “What?” My mind fought to take it all in. Ike killed Billy. Billy was dead.
“I was just keeping my promise.” I ripped my sight from Billy’s open and empty eyes and faced the love of my life. Ike’s stare bore into me. Horror, either at the situation or what he’d done, settled onto his bruised face. His breaths were shallow.
“To who?”
“To him.” He glanced down at Billy in disgust. “I told him a year ago if he ever touched you again, I’d kill him.”
Everything I knew about honor slipped away as I beheld the man who would take a life for me. “Ike.” I kissed the side of his face and his forehead. He winced. “What’s hurt?” I ran my hand down his arm and over his thigh. I leaned back and looked at his feet.
Ever, I need you to say something, Ruby thought with a desperate voice.
I rested my head on Ike’s shoulder to touch him in as many places as I could. I have Ike. He’s alive. Billy is not.
Oh . . . Thank God. What is Mr. Frank doing here?
He’s the hunter, and he has the house set to explode once you’re in there, I said.
An eerie pause filled my mind followed by the knowledge of the closure Ruby was capable of providing. Say the word, and he’ll never hunt again. It was an offer only Ruby could make. She wanted to kill him, but because Ike had been taken from me, she’d let me decide his fate.
May God forgive me. Keep him inside, I told my fire witch.
“Sorry.” I focused back on Ike. “What hurts?” I ran my hand down his arms and legs, gently feeling for any wounds. Ike could barely hold his head up.
“If I had to guess, I have some cracked ribs and a concussion.” He swallowed hard.
I touched his swollen and bloodied lips. “Ike, not hearing your voice almost killed me. You can never stop speaking to me again.”
He rested his hand on my back.
“Why didn’t you answer me?”
“I told you. I didn’t want you anywhere near Billy Roberts.”
“You’re impossible.”
“I love you.” The statement hit me the same way it did every time he’d ever said it before.
“You’re a lover.” I kissed his bruised forehead.
Wow, Ruby thought. Explode it did. Where are you?
The shop behind Ty’s house. I could use some help over here.
We’re on our way.
“I can’t wait to get you out of here.” I looked around the shop, hoping the solution on how to move him was somewhere nearby.
By the way, my mother is going to kill you for going alone.
I lowered my head almost to his lap.
“What?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing now.”
“Ike!” his mother screamed as she flew into the room.
“Oh, good,” Ike said. His sarcasm was beautiful evidence he was still exactly the same as the last time I’d seen him, but his voice was weakening.
She practically tripped over Billy’s body as she made her way to her only son.
“None of this is good.” She kissed him on the cheek and then turned his head with the tip of her finger to see his injured eye. “I’m going to kill someone.”
“I already did,” Ike said. His voice was soft and low. Gisel looked at Billy, who was lying on the floor in a pool of blood.
“We have to get you to the hospital and get this place cleaned up. Where is Ty?”
“They’re gone through the weekend.”
“Where’s that horrible motorcycle of yours?”
“The last I saw it, it was at Rowan.”
“We’re going to need it.”
Ruby appeared as we were helping Ike out of the chair he’d been tied to for days. She didn’t say a word, only looked from Ike to me with sympathy. She stepped behind us and spat on Billy’s face.
“Do you know how to ride a motorcycle?”
“Are you asking? Or my mom?”
“I am,” Gisel said.
“I can get it. Where’s the key?”
“In my dorm. The top drawer of my desk.”
“Do you need help?” I asked, knowing I wouldn’t be able to leave Ike’s side if she did.
“No. I’ve got it. I’ll be back in a few.”
“Hurry. I want to get him to the hospital as soon as possible.”
“Mom, I’m fine.” Ike rolled his good eye.
Helene
WE HAVE HIM. He’s okay. Come to Ty’s house on Stewart Road when you can. Bring the minivan. The Virago are all worked up tonight.
Xavier was still standing behind me in the backyard, waiting for me to look him in the eyes, but I couldn’t.
“You can’t face me unless you’re lying to me.”
I turned. “I’m sorry.” He deserved so much more, but today was the one day I couldn’t give it to him.
“We could have been killed. I took you there thinking I knew what was going on. They’re not going to let this go.” He wasn’t afraid of the Virago. He was irate with me. “What have you done? Why?”
“Someone took Ike. Ever and the rest of my house went to find him. We thought it was the Virago, and we wanted to make sure the majority of them were not available when they went.
“You used me.” His glare bore into me.
“I had no choice. They wouldn’t meet with me unless you arranged it.”
“That isn’t what I’m talking about. Why couldn’t you tell me the truth, even if you kept it from them?”
My mind betrayed me and the look on Sloane’s face when she said I shouldn’t trust him came back to me. It was followed by Gisel’s warnings and the final decision to exclude Xavier from the plan. I couldn’t have kept it from him forever, but I didn’t want to hurt him.
He walked over until he was in front of me. His height and power were on full display. I leaned back on my heels. My muscles tightened.
“My God, Helene. I would never hurt you.” He was appalled by my reaction to him.
“I know.” I closed my eyes, trying to regain my sanity. “It’s this day. It’s playing with my mind.”
“How have you kept this from me?” He tilted his head, putting the pieces together.
“I asked Ever to teach me how to hide my thoughts.”
“The sky . . .” He closed his eyes and shook his head in disgust. “I’ve been a fool.”
I reached up and grabbed his face, forcing him to look at me. “No you haven’t. I love you.”
“Obviously not, Helene, or maybe you’ve forgotten what it means to love someone.”
“You can’t understand because you’ve never had a child. She was in danger. Gisel’s son was missing. I couldn’t take any chances with them.”
“You shouldn’t have viewed me as a chance. I would have protected Ever as my own, because she is yours.”
“I know that! I’m sorry. We didn’t have a lot of time, and there were more than my feelings to consider.”
“There always are with your coven.” He turned to walk away. “Did he know?”
“Ike is his son.” I wouldn’t lie again and tell him Isaiah had been excluded. “Xavier, please don’t go.”
“Why don’t you focus on the sky some more?” He disappeared and left me standing by the fire pit in my backyard. I wasn’t sure if he’d taken off or how far he’d flown, only that the world was an empty place without him.
I wanted to throw up, and I would have if I allowed myself even a second more to think about what Xavier’s leaving meant. Later. I would try to fix this later. Instead of wallowing, I went to Ty’s house and helped removed any evidence that we’d ever been there. Billy’s body was taken by Sloane and Lovie, never to be seen again. Once I was positive there wasn’t even a hint that something had happened in the room, I flew home and waited for Ever to return. They were at the hospital with Ike, waiting for him to be treated for the injuries he’d sustained in his motorcycle accident. I should have gone, too, but there were enough worried souls desperate for his release.
My mother’s coven’s spells had been overturned.
I flipped on the basement light and descended the stairs as if I was entering the kingdom of the dead. The last remaining remnants of my mother’s coven’s spells were preserved in a coffee can on the shelf in the basement. It held a small notebook and a votive candle. I pulled out the sheets of paper, which seemingly held a recipe for banana bread and a bulk of blank pages. I stared at it until it transformed in my mind to a list of spells.
“What are you doing down here?” Sloane asked.
“When we overturned the curse, every spell our mothers’ coven cast was reversed as well.
“What?”
“I’m afraid you heard me.” I focused on the list in front of me.
The first line read: Reinforce structure of Borough Hall.
The historic building in the center of Woodstown had partially collapsed during the storm that ensued when we overturned the curse. The list of other spells was four pages long.
The second line read: Stop the voices in Evan’s head.
“I’m going to throw up.” I ran upstairs and heaved into the kitchen trashcan.
Ever
I WATCHED HIM sleep. Counted every breath Ike took. Memorized the shape of his lips and the movements of his closed eyes. I clung to him. I could have lost him. If it weren’t for my father’s warning . . .
Ike’s arm twitched. I ran my hand up it and kissed his shoulder. We were sleeping in his mom’s bed until he healed. No one even blinked an eye when I moved my blanket and pillow in there with him. They’d let me stay home from school for two days, but tomorrow, I’d have to return. Somehow, I’d leave him in the capable hands of both his parents and the rest of our family. The thought of walking out the door tore at me. I couldn’t spend eight hours in the Woodstown High School when the place I belonged was right next to Ike.
The prom was the following weekend. I wasn’t going without him, which meant I wasn’t going at all. I hadn’t told anyone because I knew there would be arguments from everyone, including Ike. It was perfectly clear in my mind. I was going to be where Ike was. Not at a dance I couldn’t care less about. We could sell my dress online for all I cared.
I had just finalized my resolve when my mother stuck her head in the room. She saw Ike was sleeping and closed the door again without a sound. I slipped out from under the covers and followed her down the hall and into her room.
“He’s getting stronger every day,” she said.
“He’s doing great.” I fell onto her bed. “How are you doing?” Rebecca Callahan’s journals were stacked on top of each other on her nightstand.
“I’m not sure. I think I might be numb. I’m afraid to let myself feel anything.”
“He loved us. He said he was sorry.” My father’s role in Rebecca’s death and the murders of six other witches had been detailed in the journal. My mother would have been number eight.
“So much about his family, his father in particular, makes sense now.”
“Grandpop asked me once if I thought I could fly.”
“He did?” She sat on her bed with me. “When?”
“When we went to the lake with them over summer break. I was standing on the end of the dock and looking at the sky.”
“You were six that summer.”
“I know, and I could fly.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him only witches could fly.”
“Oh Ever, your father would have killed you.”
“Apparently, for real. I wonder what Grandpop would have done if he’d found out. Do you think he’d kill his own blood?”
She picked up the top journal and flipped through the pages. “I honestly don’t know. Based on the way your father hid our powers, maybe.”
“That’s so sick.” I never felt that warm “Pop Pop” thing with my grandfather, so him being a hunter explained my natural aversion to him. “Mr. Frank wanted to avenge Dad’s death?”
“I suppose he knew that he would get the whole coven if he could get to you.”
“Are there others out there?” What I was really asking was would I ever be able to sleep again and know Ike was okay. That he’d come home from work and love me the way he had when he’d left in the morning. If my children would be safe. Witch hunters were a new enemy. One I wanted no part of.
“I don’t know.” She dropped the book and hugged me. “We’re trying to find out as much as we can about them. We can’t be the first coven to survive a meeting with a hunter.” She let me go and shook her head in disgust. “How could I not have seen it?” She exhaled loudly. “I am terrible at choosing men.”
“Have you talked to Xavier?”
“He won’t speak to me, and I don’t blame him.”
“Well, you didn’t choose him. If I have the story right, he found you. A couple of times.”
“He feels betrayed. By me. I did this.”
