Flames, page 15
I swallowed. “Like I said, he’s not himself.”
“I am myself.” Naelen gave me a wounded look. “That’s the whole reason I’m doing this. If I wasn’t cutting off the fingers, then Jacques would completely take me over. But I offer him the blood and violence, and he backs off and gives me space.”
“Who’s Jacques?” said Reign.
“You think it’s fun cutting off people’s fingers?” said Naelen.
“People’s?” I said. “It was only the one guy last night, right? You didn’t do anything this morning, did you? You told me you just went for breakfast.”
“Don’t worry about it, Clarke,” said Naelen. “I can see it’s upsetting you. It seems to be upsetting Reign too. I promise you guys, I’ll never do it in front of you. If you’ll both put it out of your mind, we can all pretend it’s not happening.” He got off the couch. “I’m feeling a little… unfresh. I think I’ll take a shower.”
I pressed my lips together. Oh, God, that was Jacques. He was overtaking Naelen, bit by bit. The obsession with cleanliness was another tell. What the hell was I going to do?
Naelen gave us a little wave and left the living room.
Reign collapsed into the couch, a look of horror on her face. “Clarke, what the hell is going on?”
“He did a ritual,” I said. “He took some awful, evil man into himself so that he’d have the power to break the mating bond. The man’s name is Jacques, and he’s taking over Naelen’s body.”
Reign let out a little sob. “You can’t be serious.”
“I tried to stop him, but I was too late. I don’t know how long it’s going to be before he goes into full-on psychotic mode.”
Reign moaned. “Oh, no. No, no, no.”
“I’m sorry.” I dragged my hands over my face. “I wouldn’t have involved you, but I thought you’d ground him. He adores you. He’d do anything to take care of you, and I thought he’d try to be a better man for you.”
“No way, Clarke, you’re the only person he’s ever changed for.”
I sprang off the couch. “The showering is part of it too. Apparently, Jacques is a clean freak.”
Reign buried her head in her hands. She was quiet for several moments, her shoulders shaking.
Was she crying? Should I comfort her? Yeah, right, how could I do that? I couldn’t tell her it was going to be okay, because I couldn’t be sure that it actually would be.
Reign’s head popped up. “Oh, hell.”
“What?” I said.
“Well, last night when I was drunk, I might have… called my mom.”
“Okay…?” I said. I wasn’t following this.
“Yeah, I was in such a good mood. It was before you guys left the party, and everyone was being so cool with you, and I might have called my mom and told her that you were the new toast of the town, and that she needed to lead the pack in accepting you into dragon society, because, after all, you did save my life, and if she snubbed you, it was going to make her look awful.”
“Okay…?”
“Well, she said that her and dad were going to come by Naelen’s house again today to apologize and ask you two to lunch, and that means they might be coming by any minute.”
“It’s still morning,” I said. “We just had breakfast.” I checked my phone. Oh, it was that late? Damn. I shoved my phone back in my pocket. “Why don’t you call them and tell them not to come. I don’t think Naelen should be seeing his parents right now. He’s not exactly polite to them typically, and he can get really mad with this Jacques thing in him.”
“I can try,” said Reign, who was already dialing her phone. She held it to her ear, tapping her foot. “Damn it,” she said a moment later, dropping the phone. “Voicemail.”
“Leave a message.”
“My mother never checks those.”
“Text her,” I said.
“She has attitude about texts. Especially when they aren’t grammatically correct.”
“So?” I said.
“Fine, I’ll try,” said Reign, typing rapidly on her phone.
Naelen appeared back in the living room. His hair was wet and he was dressed in different clothes. “Reign, you and your generation. You come to someone else’s house, and then spend all your time on your phone. It’s kind of rude, don’t you think?”
Reign looked up from her texting. “Sorry?”
“Put your phone away,” said Naelen.
“Look, I’m just texting—”
“Put your phone away, or I’ll cut off one of your fingers,” said Naelen pleasantly. “That would teach you a lesson, wouldn’t it?”
I gaped at him. “You wouldn’t dare.”
Naelen shrugged. “I don’t know why you keep getting so bent out of shape over fingers, Clarke.”
“You going to cut off my fingers? If Jacques needs a sacrifice and there’s no one else around, am I fair game too?”
Naelen sighed. “It’s not as if you type for a living or play a musical instrument or anything.”
“Are you listening to yourself?” I said, shaking my head. “How can you not realize that this isn’t you? This is Jacques. He’s influencing you.”
There was a knock at the door.
Reign cringed.
Naelen furrowed his brow. “Another unannounced visitor?”
“It’s Mom and Dad,” said Reign.
“Oh, really?” Naelen laughed. “Now, you know who could seriously stand to lose some fingers?” He started for the door.
“Naelen, no,” I said, running to block his path.
He took me by the hips and moved me out of the way.
I leaped onto his back.
He pried me off and threw me down on the floor. He laughed. And then he continued out of the living room and into the dining room. He rounded the corner and was out of sight.
Reign had her fingers to her lips. “Oh, God, oh, God,” she said.
I got to my feet and ran to get my bow and arrows. I’d had them with me in the cab when I’d headed to Penny’s, and now they were propped up in the corner next to the couch. With my weapons in hand, I rushed after Naelen.
“Naelen,” came the voice of Naelen’s mother from the kitchen. “We just came by because we realized we were rude to your little friend the last time we were—” Her voice broke off and she screamed.
I skidded into the kitchen, yanking three arrows out of my quiver and notching the first one.
Naelen was standing behind the kitchen island, looking nonchalant.
His parents were floating in the air, backs pressed into the kitchen cabinets. His mother was still screaming.
“Naelen,” I said. “Put them down.”
He ignored me. He pointed at the countertop knife block across the room. Two knives flew through the air and halted, hovering, the tips of the blades pointing at each of his parents.
“You two are seriously the worst parents a boy could have.”
Naelen’s mother let out a little sob.
He ignored her. “You have no idea how badly you screwed me up. No idea at all.”
“Naelen,” gasped his father. “Please—”
“I’m so desperate,” Naelen continued, “for love and acceptance—real love, not the kind that comes from a biological impulse—that I’ll share my girlfriend with another man, and I’ll do a ritual to take an evil spirit into my body. I just can’t live without her, you see? She’s the only real thing I’ve ever had. You two aren’t real. You two deserve so much pain.”
“Naelen, don’t,” I said. “You don’t want to do this. This isn’t you.”
He glanced at me over his shoulder. “You going to shoot me, Clarke? Really? I do all this for you, and your response is to shoot me?”
My hands shook. I was hesitating, and the longer I hesitated, the harder it was going to be to take the shot. I could put an arrow somewhere nonlethal, someplace that would stop him, hurt him bad, but not do any permanent damage.
Naelen raised his hands, and both of the knives started to zoom at his parents.
I let loose the arrow.
It hit him in the shoulder.
The knives froze in midair.
He let out an annoyed grunt, reached back and pulled the arrow out. He wasn’t even bleeding, and he didn’t bother turning around. “You’ll have to do better than that, Clarke.
I let loose another arrow.
This time, it burrowed in the back of his skull.
He just laughed. He pulled that one out too and dropped it on the floor. He stepped forward and wrapped his hands around the handles of the knives. “Maybe I’d rather do this hands on, Mommy and Daddy.”
Jesus Christ, was nothing going to stop him? I remembered what Eden had said about how he’d grow a new head if I cut that one off.
I reached inside my shirt and pressed the monocle against my flesh.
Immediately, I could see the threads that were flowing away from Naelen’s body. As a dragon, he made the magic threads just by existing, and they were attached deep inside him. I began to pull at the threads, unravel everything. I reached in and tugged them all out, not taking any care at all.
See, with magical creatures, the threads made up who they were. With, say, a gargoyle, I could reach in and take apart the magic that made the gargoyle exist. So, when I was undoing magic on a magical creature, I was always careful not to undo the wrong kinds of magic. But I was desperate to stop Naelen, so I just ripped out handfuls of magical threads.
He fell to the ground, motionless.
His parents fell down too.
I dropped to my knees, letting out a cry. I felt for Naelen’s pulse.
And then…
The world was swimming. God damn it. I had used the monocle without any dice in my system, without a magical object to bolster my power. I was going to pass out now. I struggled, trying to hang on for just one more—
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I woke up and my head hurt. I was lying somewhere soft…
I sat up, shaking myself, opening my eyes. I was lying on the bed in Naelen’s plane. From the feel of things, we were in the air. I stumbled to my feet and went to look out the window. Yup. There was the ground. Way down there.
“Clarke?”
Naelen’s voice.
Okay, I had stashed some dice in the bedside table before we went to the Order. Where was it?
“Clarke, are you awake?”
I riffled through the drawers as quickly as I could, looking for the small plastic bag. There! I snatched it up.
“Clarke, you’re awake.”
I straightened, tucking the bag into my pocket. No time to take the dice now. I just hoped I could defend myself.
Naelen smiled at me. “That was some shit you pulled back there.”
“What did you do to your parents?”
He crossed the room, stopping on the other side of the bed. It stretched out between us. “Does it matter? They’re assholes. I don’t care about them. Why do you care?”
“I care about you,” I said. “I don’t want you to do something you’ll regret.”
“Why would I regret it?” he said.
“Because, if you didn’t care about your parents, it wouldn’t hurt that they didn’t care about you,” I said. “Deep down, you don’t want anything to happen to them.”
He rolled his eyes. “That’s the silliest thing I ever heard.”
I swallowed. “You hurt them, didn’t you?”
“Look, when I woke up, there were cops everywhere, and Reign was crying, and you were on some ambulance stretcher, and it was a madhouse. So, I grabbed you and left. We’re happier on the road anyway, right?”
“You didn’t hurt them, then?”
“No, I didn’t,” he said. He held out his hand to me. “That make you feel better? Come here.”
I cocked my head to one side. “Are you lying to me? Are you telling me what I want to hear?”
He let out a frustrated sigh. “Are you going to come here or am I going to have to come get you?”
I hesitated. And then, with slow and careful steps, I went around the bed to him. I tried to smile at him.
He grabbed my hand and pulled me close. He kissed me.
Augh. He still kissed like Naelen, and it made me want to cling to him and push him away at the same time.
He released me, making a face. “I need to brush my teeth now.”
I sagged in relief. The clean-freak thing was disturbing, but if it kept me from having to be intimate with the Naelen-Jacques hybrid thing, I was okay with that.
Naelen disappeared into the bathroom off the kitchen.
“So,” I called to him, “where are we going?”
He rinsed out his mouth and gargled. Then, humming to himself, he came back out. “Well, that’s a surprise.”
I twisted my hands together. “Am I going to like the surprise?”
He just laughed.
* * *
When the plane landed, I got up the courage to ask Naelen about my phone.
“I don’t know where it is,” he said. “You didn’t have it on you when we left my house.”
“When you took me off an ambulance stretcher and to the airport, you mean,” I said.
“That’s right,” he said. He was opening the door to the plane.
We climbed out together. We were at an airport somewhere, and it was hot and muggy outside. We could have been anywhere. I didn’t see any distinguishing characteristics around us, just planes and buildings and grass, and trees in the distance.
Naelen put his arm around me. “Why are you asking about your phone?”
“I wanted to call Reign,” I said.
“Why?”
“Just to check in,” I said.
“You don’t think I would hurt Reign, do you?” He started to lead me across the tarmac toward the airport.
“Well, you were threatening to cut off her fingers right before everything got crazy,” I said.
“Yes, but that’s just her fingers,” said Naelen. “I wouldn’t really hurt her.”
I was too stunned to even know what to say to that. Naelen was toppling off the edge here, and he’d brought me along for the ride. Without my phone, I couldn’t even get in touch with Eden to find out if she knew anything about how to stop him.
When we got inside the airport, I discovered that we were in Tennessee, which did me no good whatsoever. I didn’t know anyone in Tennessee. I had no idea why we were here at all. Naelen steered me through the restaurants and shops until we got to the car rental place. He handed over his credit card and rented us a sports car.
At least this part felt normal. Of course, when we did this, usually, we were going to help someone, not… do whatever it was that Naelen wanted us to do.
“Why are we here?” I said as we got into the car.
“I told you,” he said. “It’s a surprise.”
“I don’t know anyone who lives in Tennessee,” I said.
“Well, maybe the person we’re going to see doesn’t really live here, not exactly. But this person happens to be here, so it’s all the same in the end.” He started the car and pulled it out onto the road. Then he switched on the radio and turned up the volume. He began to bob to the music, looking happy and carefree. “Stop looking so worried, Clarke,” he said, grinning. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
But as we drove, I felt more and more anxious.
The scenery around us changed from trees and fields of grass to high rise buildings and stop lights. Once we made it through the city, the area petered out into strip malls and housing developments before fading into farmland. We went past barns, cows, woods, and open sky.
Naelen kept the radio loud, tuned to a pop station. He rolled down his window and let his elbow hang out. His hair was blown back from the breeze.
I gazed at him. He was a very attractive man, with wide, wide shoulders and thick arms, and the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. I had fallen for this man, and I didn’t think I would ever feel for another person what I felt for him.
But I was losing him. Whatever was him was being slowly chewed up and digested by Jacques. Soon, there would be no Naelen left. And I was going to have to destroy the monster than wore his face.
I peered out at the scenery streaming past, and I did my best to hold in my grief. Naelen might be sitting right next to me, but he was dying.
Eventually, Naelen took out his own phone. He instructed me to put an address into the GPS. The electronic voice on the phone began to tell us where to turn and how long it would take us to get to our destination.
I didn’t ask what our destination was. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know anymore.
Eventually, we pulled into the driveway of a one-story white rancher house. I’d never seen the house before in my life. I had no idea where we were.
Naelen got out of the car and stretched, whistling to himself.
I got out too.
The door to the rancher opened.
Logan poked his head out. “Naelen? I thought you just wanted to send me something in the mail, not show up here.”
Naelen just laughed. “Can we come in, Logan?”
I shook my head at Logan.
Logan noticed, but he lifted his chin and addressed Naelen. “Yeah, sure, buddy. Come on in.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Inside, the place where Logan was staying was basically empty. There was a kitchen with all the appliances, but no table or chairs. I could see it through a doorway off the living room, which was where we came in. The living room was similarly bare. The only thing in it was an inflatable mattress against one wall. It was covered in a sheet. There was a Chinese takeout box lying on the floor next to the bed.
Other than that, there was no furniture.
Logan shut the door behind us, scratching his jaw. “What brings you two out here?”
“He did the ritual and summoned Jacques,” I said, the words coming out of me in a rush. “He wanted to end the mating bond, and Cunningham told him it would work to do that, and that Naelen would be able to fight off Jacques, but he can’t, not really. He’s just fading so fast, and—”
“If you weren’t being so prissy about how many fingers I cut off, Clarke, I wouldn’t be fading,” said Naelen.
