Magic Incarnate the Box Set 1-3, page 82
“I miss my mommy. And my daddy. And my baby.”
“You have a baby? A sister or a brother?”
“Sissy. She has yellow hair. I sleep with her at night. I always sleep with her…” She starts to sniff.
“Oh. A baby doll. When I was your age, I used to sleep with a baby doll too.”
“You did?” She rubs her nose into my shoulder. My bare shoulder. This dress has spaghetti straps. Yuck.
“Yes I did.” No, I didn’t, but that’s okay.
I tell her all about my supposed doll the rest of the way. One house down from hers, I set her on the sidewalk.
“You go on up to your house and knock on the door, okay?”
“You’re leaving?” She bites her lower lip.
“Yes, but I’m gonna keep an eye on you.”
“That’s what he said.”
“Who did?”
“The man who took me. He said he had a toy for me, but he didn’t. He said he would take away my mommy if I cried. I didn’t cry, even when he didn’t give me a toy. I don’t want my mommy to go away.”
I kneel down to her level. “Your mommy didn’t go anywhere. She’s right inside your house.” I point to it.
She doesn’t even look. “My mommy didn’t come for me. I wanted to cry at times. It hurt.” She touches her chest.
“Sometimes, it does hurt. Sometimes, it’s good to cry. You were very brave, Betty. I’m proud of you.”
“But what if he comes back?”
I shake my head. “He won’t. I’ll make sure of it.”
“But he said he would watch me if I tried to go away. He and that lady.”
“What lady?”
Betty shrugs. “I want my mommy!”
She dashes away, and I duck behind the porch of the house next door. Betty knocks so loudly on the house that I wince.
The door opens. “Betty!” a woman shrieks. “Oh, honey, I was so worried! Are you all right? Are you hurt? What happened?”
Betty’s crying, her mom is crying, and her dad joins the crying party too. Even I have to wipe away tears.
As soon as they close the door behind them, I slink through the shadows and make my way to the library. It’s a bit of a ways from Betty’s house, and I was three blocks away when my heart starts to beat off rhythm. Something’s off. Something’s not right.
My gaze rovers around, and it lands on a solid in the darkness on the side of the house across the street. My beast ears enable me to hear the soft whisper of a window opening.
What in the world?
Then it hits me. It’s a demon—a kidnapping in progress!
“Fire!” I shriek. I grab rocks and throw them at the windows of the houses closest to me. “Fire!” I call again as I race across the street. “Fire!”
Lights illuminate the houses, banishing away the darkness and creating more shadows. It’s too hard to see the demon to recognize the human host, but a female voice clearly whispers, “You might have thwarted this, but it’s not the end.”
“Oh, yeah?” My words are garbled. My fangs are out in full force.
“Now Julie will be the next target.”
I blink, and the demon’s gone. I don’t see her anywhere, and I can’t smell her. It’s as if she had never been here at all.
People are grumbling and questioning whether to call the police or the fire department, and I can’t risk being seen. Head down, I dash down one of the remaining three blocks to the library, but then I hang a left and go to the Fullers. The demon’s threat rings on a loop in my mind. Julie’s been threatened. I can’t guard her and keep her safe myself, but maybe someone else can convince them to help themselves.
My feet are sore from hitting the pavement for so long, and I leave the sidewalk behind in favor of the grass on the side of the house to reach the back door.
The front door opens. “Come in.” Mrs. Fuller’s quiet voice pierces the silence. She closes the door behind me. “Are you and everyone all right?”
“Vince is fine,” I assure her, hoping and praying I’m not lying.
“But something is amiss.”
“Yes. Julie, Julie Stoker, has been threatened.”
Her eyes widen even as her lips purse, making them smaller. “What can I do to help?”
“Try to convince the Stokers to leave town. Go on a vacation. Something. Anything.”
She rubs her temples. “I doubt they’ll do that. Can I… Should I leave an anonymous tip with the police?”
Maybe that will do more harm than good—especially if there’s a demon controlling another police officer—but we have to do at least something.
I nod. “That’s fine.”
“I’ll call them first. They… I’ve been talking to Maggie a lot lately since Bri’s been gone and with Vince… They aren’t handling it well, honestly.”
I wince. “But I thought Bri…”
“She pretended to be away at a special school, yes, but she’s been in town and hasn’t seen them, and frankly, I’m not sure what’s going through her mind.”
That’s because she’s not in her right mind.
I honestly forgot about the special school story she concocted while she and Vince ran off to find me. She told me about it, but then we came back, and everything had been so crazy that I forgot about her needing to “transfer” back when we had been pushing her to go to school. Had she ever showed up? There had been talking about tutoring, but that was Gavin, not her. Bri lied about seeing her family, and I can’t pinpoint a time when the demon started to possess her.
“We’re helping her and Vince and everyone. As best we can.”
Her smile is wide, but her eyes… the sadness in them is paralyzing. “I take it you all are the reason why Betty returned safely home.”
I shrug and jerk my thumb toward the door. “Maybe, but I have to get back to it.”
“Understood. We all have our roles to play. I just hope…”
“Don’t you worry, Mrs. Fuller. Everything will work out.”
Her grin turns wan. “I wish I had your faith.”
Her words haunt me almost as much as the demons’. I give her a quick hug, and I’m off and running again. In no time, I’m at the library. The beautiful Roman-inspired columns are a welcome sight, the faint starlight giving them an ethereal glow.
Breathing in and out, I race a quick lap around the library. No shadows or demons that I can see. That makes me feel better. The doors are all locked, and knocking on the back door doesn’t have Vince coming to unlock it.
Okay, now I’m getting worried.
The windows are better sealed tighter than at Officer Wallace’s house, and my panic level is rising sky high. What am I going to do?
From the corner of my eye, I see movement inside of the library. It’s Vince. What is he doing? He has something in his hands, and he’s bringing it to his throat…
Oh no!
Screw this. My paw crashes through the window, and I heave my way in. Glass shards spray everywhere, inside of the library, and I’m cut as I jump in, and I’m cut again as I land on my paw, hand, and knees. I’m fully human again as I reach Vince. The scissors in his hands are bloody. He’s already marked up his throat. His hands are visibly shaking, zooming toward his throat and inching back. He’s fighting it, and I’m reminded of Mr. Venator, when I tried so hard to remove my hand from his chest so that I could spare his life instead of taking it.
“Vince!”
His eyes widen, but he doesn’t look away from the scissors. “Help me.” His words are hardly audible.
“Just drop the scissors.”
“I can’t,” he says through gritted teeth. Sweat beads on his brow, glittering in the starlight from the broken window.
It would be so easy for me to knock the scissors away, but he has to fight it off himself… if he can.
“You can. You will. It’s important for you.”
“I’m not even running,” he mutters.
“What?”
“Mom always said not to run while carrying scissors that I’d hurt myself. I’m not even running, and the scissors might kill me.”
He’s cracking jokes? At a time like this?
“You’ve just got lousy luck,” I say.
He’s slowly inching the scissors back, away from his neck. “I can’t.”
“Can’t what?”
“Die.”
“Why not?” If he can focus on what he has to live for, maybe that will give him the strength to fight off the demon’s influence.
The demon. I didn’t see one. Does that mean the demon’s inside of him? Is he fighting off possession? But it seems that when Bri’s doing that, she breaks out in a terrible fever, although maybe that’s because the demon has been inside of her for so long and has his talons in her deeper.
“My parents. They can’t lose another son.”
“And they won’t,” I promise.
The scissors are the farthest they’ve been since I came inside. My breathing comes easier until the scissors suddenly move blinding fast, fast enough that if it lands a blow, the blades will penetrate his skin deeply.
Chapter 37
My throat closes. I try to scream his name, but all that comes out is a strangled garble cry. I try to move, but my body is paralyzed. I’ve been so good lately, but now I’m stiff as a board, unable to blink, forced to be a bystander as the scissors…
…bury themselves into a book. At the last moment, Vince moved his head to the side, out of the way.
My control over my body resumes, and I fall forward. The scissors drop to the carpeted floor as Vince catches me.
“Thank you,” he murmurs into my ear, holding me tight against him, almost too tight to be comfortable.
“You did it, not me.” I cling to him. Vince has been my anchor. While my world fell apart with my discovery that my mom is really my aunt and that my birth mom went to witches to conceive me and that I wasn’t human but magic, he grounded me. He kept me happy. He understood the pain I’ve gone through with loss.
My first love.
“You’ve always been there for me.” His fingers thread through my hair, pulling me even closer.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“You aren’t,” he agrees, “but I am.”
I can’t shake my head because of the grip he has on me, holding my head to his chest. “No—“
“I know.” His exhale shifts through me. “I know that if you have my way, I won’t die. But, Crystal, life isn’t fair. We know that better than most.”
“It’s because of me.” My chest is so tight that I can’t get enough air. I feel like I’m suffocating. My vision’s a little spotted, so I close my eyes.
“Is that what you think?”
“Betty’s been a target. Julie’s been threatened. My mom and her new husband. Bri. You. Of course it’s because of me.” How can he think otherwise? It’s why I stayed away from Claymore for so long after I was reborn. I wanted to keep my loved ones safe.
Only they weren’t safe with me gone, and they aren’t necessarily any safer with me here either.
“Maybe I deserve this.” He stares at the books to his left, his gaze vacant.
“Deserve this? For what?”
He just shakes his head. “We’ve all done things we regret. We all carry our burdens. We all make mistakes. We all make choices, and we have to live and die by our actions.”
“Vince…” He’s scaring me. “What mistakes are you talking about? What choices?”
“Don’t worry about me.” His smile is weak as he grabs my hand. “I’m just rambling.”
“You’re worried about something. More than dying. More than Hell.” I try to get a reading on him, to get a beat on his soul, and I’m dumbfounded by what I think I see. “You think… You think you deserve to go to Hell?”
“I think you should let me go.”
“Let you… Vince, no. I saved Betty. Heck, I gave my life to save the world. I would rather die again than—“
“Sh.” Vince pulls me close for a heart-crushing embrace. He strokes my hair. “I know you would do anything for me, for Bri… for the town. You can’t die. You’re the only one who has taken down demons. You have to stick around and do what you can to take down the rest of them.”
“But—“
“Crystal, I’m not going to have a week. I might not have a full day.” He pulls away only enough to tap his heart. “I can feel it. Death. It’s cold, Crystal. So cold. What’s it like to die?”
“It’s terrible,” I murmur. “It’s majestic. It’s confining and freeing. It’s releases all of your worries and stress. And then it’s nothingness. And then… there’s light.”
“There really is light at the end of the tunnel?”
“Yes.” I can’t bring myself to smile.
“Won’t be light for me. Don’t worry. I promise I won’t gnash my teeth down to nubs.”
“You won’t because you aren’t—“
His kiss steals away my words, but it doesn’t make me feel any better. He does feel cold, strikingly cold compared to how feverish Bri’s been lately.
The first kiss is all about quieting me, but with the second, there’s a shift, and it turns bittersweet. A long kiss.
A long goodbye.
Something I can’t—won’t—accept.
There’s something akin to peace in Vince’s face when I step back. He opens his mouth, but I put my finger to his lip to stop him.
“Come with me. Back to the Venators. I’m not leaving you here alone.”
“I… All right.”
Holding hands, we leave the library through the busted window. I feel guilty about the damage, but I don’t have the money to offer to pay for it. I don’t even have a house to live in anymore.
We take a long, leisurely stroll through town, and we don’t bother to stick to the shadows. It’s almost morning, and curfew will be over. Time for another day in a town that’s doomed.
Gavin opens the door as we climb the porch steps. His gaze takes in Vince’s face, our joined hands, and then he faces me. “Betty?”
“She’s home now. Bri?”
“Still sleeping.”
Vince yawns. “Sleep sounds like a good idea. Not how I want to spend my last hours but…” He releases my hand and heads to the living room.
While he sits on the recliner near the couch Bri’s occupying, I’m transfixed by the seemingly sleeping forms lying on the rug. Mom. And Officer Wallace.
I kneel beside them. “Have you tried to…“
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Nothing.”
I nod and brush Mom’s hair back. She looks so peaceful, like she’s sleeping, but from the small movements of her eyes beneath her eyelids, I know she’s still mentally trapped.
Over my shoulder, I glance at Bri. My mom and her husband are at risk now, until they can be brought back.
If they can be brought back.
Gavin follows my gaze. “Want them moved to my room?”
“Yes.”
It’s not easy, and we more drag than carry them, but we manage to fit them both on Gavin’s bed.
I take a step back and appraise them. Their hands are joined. “Did you do that?”
He smiles sadly. “I’ll give you a minute,” he says, and he closes the door.
My heart breaks, seeing them so still. So close and yet so far away still.
“Mom.” I walk around to her side of the bed and grip her other hand. “Mom. Please. Come back. Come here. You aren’t here. You aren’t on earth. What you’re seeing… it isn’t real. Listen to me. Listen to my voice. Come back to me.”
I pause and wait and watch.
No change.
“Mom, you’re lying in a bed. You aren’t out and about. You aren’t cooking. I’m not… Vince is sleeping. He’s dying. Marked for Hell. So is Bri. I don’t… I don’t know how to save them. Please. I need your help. The witches, they’re too busy trying to help Sapphire Belladonna. I need you.”
Still nothing. I’m holing her hand so tightly she should be pulling away.
“I can’t. I can’t handle this. I don’t want you to be gone. I can’t lose Bri and Vince. And the demons… Yeah, I’ve taken down two, but… I can turn into a beast, and it frightens me. I’m dangerous, Mom. I’m afraid that I’ll lose control. I hate it. The beast.”
Mom’s wearing a beautiful dress, one with a beautiful multicolor floral pattern on it. It must be new. Officer Wallace is wearing a burnt orange dress shirt and tan pants. Maybe they had been about to go out when Mr. Venator showed up and put their lives on hold.
“I also have the Gift of the Living, did you know that? But it’s balanced out with the Touch of the Dead. Now that’s a scary power. I don’t want it. But I have used it.”
I release her hand to wheel over Gavin’s desk chair.
“Mom. Hear me. Come back. Find the will to leave that place behind. I know you’re happy there. I know life seems perfect. And I also know that real life isn’t perfect, that you won’t be happy. That it’s terrible right now. That Claymore is in trouble. But I need you. I need your help. Please.”
For minutes or hours, I try to convince her to snap out of it. I even tap into my Gift. Nothing affects her.
Finally, my voice goes hoarse. I can’t talk more even if I want to. I’ve done all I can think of. For now, they’re trapped.
Tears stream down my face. My forehead rests on our joined hands, and the tears fall onto our fingers.
My mom’s out of reach. I can’t help them.
But there are others who need help. My parents aren’t the only ones.
Not bothering to wipe away my tears, wearing them like badges of honor, I leave the room and close the door then open it again to pop my head back inside. “I will see you again.”
I dash to her and give her a hug and then hug Officer Wallace too. Only then can I leave them behind.
In the living room, Gavin and Vince are talking in hushed tones, but they fall silent as I approach.
I shake my head. “I’m going to go check on Julie,” I whisper, casting a glance at the sleeping Bri.
“Do you want me to come with?” Vince asks.
“You should stay here, I think. I won’t be gone long.”
