by Eli Constant
He doesn’t rise to the bait. I say things like that too often during our little sessions.
“You need to be comfortable. Your bed, perhaps?” Without waiting for an answer, he strides towards my room, skin book in hand.
I don’t stand up immediately to follow, thinking about what might happen if Kyle shows up and Liam and I are in my bedroom together, but it’s late—going on eleven—and if he’s not here now, I doubt he’s coming. Getting up, leaving my mug behind, I check my phone in the kitchen. Still no text message. He could at least text.
When I get to the bedroom entrance, I lean against the doorframe, arms crossed. Liam is flipping pages, perched on the end of the bed. After a moment, he looks up.
“Well, lie down so we can get started.” He eyes my street clothes. “You might be more comfortable if you change as well. Something loose-fitting and not constricting.”
“What, you think the spirit is going to care if I’m in jeans and a shirt?” I scoff, but I walk to the dresser and pull out the ugliest nightgown I own. It’s long-sleeved, falls to my knees, and is covered in squirrels wearing top hats. I change in the bathroom, and quirk a smile when Liam looks me up and down and sighs. I can only imagine how queenly I look.
I fluff pillows, pull back the comforter, and lay down, feeling supremely awkward with Liam—still sporting his long white hair rather than his human-esque glamour—sitting on the bed.
“Here we are,” he finally says. “I had the traditional spell, but I think your powers require a small modification.”
I don’t say anything. I’m suddenly nervous and not at all sure what I’ve gotten myself into.
“Now close your eyes. Think of someone you know, someone you know well might ease the process. Hold them in your mind.” Liam’s voice has lost its teaching edge. Now it’s soft, shadowed. It’s the way you hear therapists talk to their patients on television when they’re trying to hypnotize them or ease them into a past-life regression. “Focus, Victoria. I can feel your mind wavering.”
So I focus. And, at first, I think of Kyle. Then my brain floats towards Mei, who I’ve not hung out with nearly enough lately. Though, she’s also not been calling and texting me as much. I’d gotten irritated with her a few times, so maybe it was my fault. One time, I’d really snapped at her. Also though… I wonder if she looks at me and sees what she went through. I’d saved her, but I could have prevented her being kidnapped at all had I figured it out sooner about Dr. Sherwin.
I try to refocus, wanting to think about Kyle and make this as easy as possible. My brain doesn’t want to cooperate, scrolling through what feels like everyone I’ve ever met.
But, finally, I land on someone I don’t know. At least, not in person.
The arsonist. The murderer. The mystery.
And once I’ve thought of him—and of the fires, and the dead family, and the women with their hearts missing—I cannot stop thinking of him. Or her, for that matter. It could be a her? Couldn’t it?
I gather the possibility of their soul, the evil that must reside within them, into my mind like bubblegum stuck to a shoe on a warm day. I yank the idea of their spirit towards me, one stringy hot bit at a time.
“Good, Victoria. Whoever you’re imagining, stay focused. I can feel your power. Think of something meaningful to that person, something integral to their personalities.”
All I can think is fire.
Burning. Flame.
Singed skin.
Hot window glass.
Nails in windows.
And so much death.
Chapter Fourteen
“Move towards them, Victoria.” Liam urges me. “I can feel that you’ve connected. Now move. It should feel like a tether, from the middle of your conscious mind. Pull along it, walk the path. It should be clear now, clear enough to see as if it were real enough to touch.”
I can feel my face scrunching up in a cringe. The path is clear, and scorching. Sparks tickle my face, flame licks at my feet as I progress. I want to rush back; I want to think of Kyle or Mei again. But I cannot.
Because the Firestarter is within my reach. If I can glean some information, any information, to help Terrance, I have to keep moving.
I know, rationally, that my body has not left my bed. But irrationally? I feel like I am a thousand miles away from Liam now. So far from Bonneau, my lineage, and my life, that I might never return again.
There’s a shadow in the distance now.
It grows closer as I continue to pull myself along the mystical rope.
A second, shimmering form is off to the side. When I turn to look directly at it, it disappears. It is not the spirit I am here to find. Not the soul I am tracking. So I set my eyes back on the darkness. It is a swirling cloud, vaguely human-shaped. Tall and broad. Male, I feel like. Or the tallest woman I’ve ever seen. Well, maybe not the tallest—this past Christmas, I’d been insanely jealous of a woman who could reach the magnolia style wreath on the highest shelf. She hadn’t even had to go on tiptoes. I mean, I’m not a short woman. I’m maybe even taller than average. But that sort of height as a female. That’s called power. Except, maybe, when you’re shoved into an airplane seat with your knees banging against the built-in table.
Focus, idiot. I reprimand myself. I do that too often—sink into random, stupid thoughts whilst faced with a serious situation. Because mentally rambling is a hell of a lot easier than dealing with impending, shadowy reality.
I stop a few feet away from my goal. Liam is still speaking, instructions that I can no longer hear. I am consumed by the spirit and my connection with it. I can feel the aliveness of it, that it is still bound to its human vessel. I wonder if I can use my other powers whilst engaging in spirit location. I lift my hand and wonder if I’m actually moving, or if everything is only happening within my mind.
I call not only to the spirit, but also to the blood of the body. I call to what Liam once called the ‘Christ link’. It is not only the death in an aging body, the little decays that mark us through time, but a link to the very beliefs that flow through us. I don’t know if I buy into that, that a body can be marked by a Christian sentiment. But the ‘Christ link’ is like the supernatural version of the God particle. It is a spark, of varying intensity, inside each person.
In this shadow, in the arsonist, the Christ link is so weak that I can barely find it, let along grasp ahold of it with my power. The spirit is dark, at a genetic level. And there is magic. The arsonist is rank with it. As I reach for it, it reaches for me. Pieces of the shadow, like a spray of volcanic ash, rushes towards me. It wraps around my outstretched arm and tightens. I push back. I’m the Blood Queen. It is just a spirit.
A powerful spirit.
A magical spirit.
A person in real life that sets fires, kills families, and kills women for their hearts.
“Victoria, My Queen.” Liam’s voice pushes through the fog around me. The undulating ash tightens around me. “Your powers are weak in this state. Observe, Victoria. Do not attempt to interact. Who have you reached, Victoria? Who have you tracked?” His voice begins to fade again, tatter at the edges, until his voice is just a buzzing at the back of my brain.
“Who are you?” A new voice enters the equation. It is a harsh whisper, the thrum of a growl beneath the words. “You have power. I feel it. Feel it even though you are…” the voice hesitates, considers maybe, “not projecting exactly. You’re not a witch. What are you?”
The ash pulses against my arms, squeezing so hard that a real arm would begin to turn purple at the fingers. But it is not my real arm. I’m not really here. I pushed forward, towards the pillar of smoke. The volcanic ash tendrils move with me, never letting slack form in its grip.
“Show me your face,” I say forcefully. “Why are you doing this? Why would you want to open a Hellmouth in Bonneau? It’s dangerous, for humans, for supernaturals. You have magic, you should know better.”
“Dangerous for supernaturals,” the voice repeats my
words, amusement obvious. Male. The tendrils of the spirit release me. It pulls back like an octopus arm, waving up and down through water. “It is a fount of power for our kind. It is a savings bank of untapped funds. And it will be mine. The landscape of the world will change.”
A face begins to form from the smoke. The impression of a nose, the dual hollows of eyes, the slightest impression of lips. It’s not enough. I need to see. “Too cowardly to show yourself all the way, huh? Big, bad, and strong enough to kill a bunch of innocents, but you’re hiding behind smoke and mirrors.”
“They weren’t all so innocent,” he says with a scoff. “Weaklings, the lot of them. Halfling witches. Pitiful things. Whispers of power, barely a thimble-full between them all. Yet, they served their purpose.”
“Their purpose? You mean, letting their hearts be fucking ripped out? Dying to get you access to a bunch of really dangerous fucking magic?” I spit the words out, but I feel weak, I feel myself fading. How long have I been on this journey? Caught, in this in-between existence? I hear something, just the glimmer of something. I should know what it is, but I’m feeling fuzzy. I’m feeling… unborn.
“Are you feeling tired?” The smoke face flickers, for a moment I see a hint of pale beneath the black. “Weak. Like you’re losing your grip on reality. You are new to this, aren’t you?” Smoke face moves closer, the flickering continues. More paleness. An eye. A raging green, like toxic chemicals—the kind that produces super villains.
“Victoria! Victoria, come back!” Liam’s voice is screaming. There is exhaustion in his words. “Come back!”
My eyes feel heavy. They’re not even my eyes though. They’re the… ghost of my eyes. Because none of this is real. It’s an illusion. I’m not really here.
“You’re thinking that this isn’t real, so you can’t be dying. I know that look. So very new to this magic.” Smoke face is only a foot from me now, and the drowsiness becomes overwhelming. I can’t look at him any longer, but I have to. Because the ash is giving way to even more paleness. I see two eyes now, both violently green. I see his nose, with the hook on the end and the bump near the top. I see his mouth, the way his lips have a gray-ish hue rather than pink. I see him.
I see the arsonist. And he doesn’t seem to care.
Because I’m dying. Which is obvious to me now.
I turn away. I stumble back down the rope towards Liam, towards my bedroom and my body. I fall, my hands pushing into a ground that has become soft like cotton balls. It makes it hard to rise again, but I struggle to my feet. I walk uneven, my feet sinking into the ground further and further until I’m sunken past my knees.
“Victoria!” Liam’s scream sounds again. Power pushes with it. It kisses me, strengthens me. I push forward. The rope in my head, pulsing back towards the arsonist, yanks so hard that I fall backwards, into the soft ground.
“Stay and die! Stay and die!” The arsonist taunts me. I wonder if he has followed me. Can he follow me? I have to get out of here. I have to get home. I move to my knees and I begin to crawl. I’m so close. I can see a shimmering ahead and the outline of my room, floating in the air. I can see myself lying on the bed. Liam is kneeling next to me; his hands rest against my forehead, his eyes are closed. He’s reaching for me.
“Victoria, hurry! Your life force is fading! You cannot spirit walk this long!” His power reaches me again. I move. I move.
I push my head through the shimmering pool and I fall through like Alice through the glass.
***
“Your pulse is still weak, My Queen. You must rest.” Liam pushes me back down onto the pillows. It’s the second time I’ve tried to get off the bed. My head is still swimming, but not as bad.
“Liam, I need paper and a pencil. I need to draw him before I forget what he looks like.” I make a small movement next to my nose. The hook. The little hump. I can close my eyes and see the lime acid green of his eyes.
“You almost died, Victoria. It can wait.” He’s frustrated, understandably so. I hadn’t exactly known what I was risking focusing on the arsonist, but I couldn’t lie and say I’d thought it was a completely safe thing to do.
“I swear to God, get me paper and a pencil or you are never allowed in my house again. I’m not kidding, Liam. This man has killed people, killed children.” I sit up fast, and I surprise him. He doesn’t immediately shove me back down. I pay for it though—my vision darkens like an eclipse is setting across the ceiling lights.
“Please rest,” Liam says, fussing over me, his hands fluttering uselessly above my body. “I’ll get what you’ve asked for.”
“Was that so hard,” I sigh out, happily falling back to the softness of the bed. “It’s not like I actually want to trade my life for paper. You make it so hard sometimes though, Liam. Besides,” I close my eyes, my voice fading from exhaustion, “am I your Queen or not?”
“Yes, you are my Queen. And you mean too much to risk.” He leans forward and kisses me lightly on the forehead, then I hear him move away from me.
I hate that I pass out then, because I’m fighting like hell not to.
***
Coming back to the world slowly, like someone who nearly lost her life in a spirit realm whilst squaring-off with an arsonist, who… I guess is also a warlock. Is that the term? A male witch? Or is it something different. I remember reading something in Grandmother’s journals. That witch is non-gendered, someone born with powers. And a warlock is someone who’s made a deal for power, or increased power.
It’s dark in my room, but Liam’s left the bathroom light on and the door cracked. I wonder where he’s gone, surprised that he’s left me. I switch on the light next to me. There’s a sketchbook and roll of drawing pencils on the bed stand next to me. They’re mine, but I can’t even remember where they’d been. Down in storage maybe? It’s been so long since I’d drawn or painted anything.
I sit up in bed, propping up the pillows so I have something soft against the headboard. Then I cross my legs and open the sketch book. It’s a medium size, like copy paper. Big enough for my purposes. I begin moving the 2B across the paper. The curve of his chin. The soft mouth, a little too full on the bottom. I pay particular attention to the eyes. I wish I had colored pencils or pastels. Not that I need them to remember the green. The passiveness. Usually, you can see evil in the eyes. His had been neutral. Remorseless. Focused on his end game, rather than the tragedies he’s left in his wake.
That’s absolute evil, in my book.
The person who can kill without blinking. The person who still sees pretty in the mirror after transgressing.
I pick up my cell and dial Terrance. We know what the killer looks like. Maybe we can stop him. Maybe we can keep Bonneau Hellmouth-free.
Chapter Fifteen
I watch the sun rise over the trees. I see how the early rays fall on the blossoming flowers of Spring. And I imagine my little town with a gaping portal to hell slap-dab in the middle of it.
Terrance is picking me up at ten to go to the neighboring county. It’s only six. I shower and change, putting on funeral day clothing. It’s my most professional-looking attire, and I figure I better look the part if Terrance is vouching for me to his friend Dan.
I’m on my second cup of coffee when Liam breezes into the kitchen from my bedroom.
“The window again, really? I’m going to nail them shut.” As soon as I say the words, I cringe. It’s an awful thing to say, an awful thing to think about. It rushes me into Dominique’s memories—trying to save his children but being unable to open the door or windows. I swallow. “I keep them locked now.”
“I left one unlocked,” he says casually, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world to crawl through a woman’s window rather than walk through her door. I thought we’d broken that habit.
“Why didn’t you just use the door, Liam? Haven’t we had this talk a million times?”
“We have,” he says slowly. “But I thought it might be best. In the event your bear made an
appearance, it would be easier for me to avoid him.”
“Oh…” I say, surprised he’s thought through that and that he’d do that out of respect for me and Kyle. Unless, actually, he’d done it to avoid another beast-mode incident.
“That was thoughtful. Thank you.” I took a sip of coffee, avoiding eye contact. He was rummaging through my cupboards, pulling random things down. Flour. Vanilla. Baking powder. “What are you doing?”
“Have you eaten?”
I shake my head, then realize his back is turned to me. “No, I’ve not. I’m not hungry really.”
“You need to eat, Victoria. You’ve had a very trying ordeal. I still do not understand why you chose to go after the killer. What part of pick someone safe and familiar did you not understand?”
“And why didn’t you warn me that spirit tracking, locating, whatever, could kill me?” I try to be just as casual as Liam. I’m not very successful.
“If you had followed direction, you would have been in no danger. You would have soul-met with someone safe. You would have returned. There would have been no harm.” He gets a bowl and whisk and sets about making what I’m fairly sure is pancakes. I want to direct him to the mini chocolate morsels in a drawer, but I don’t.
“So, because I should have followed directions, you didn’t tell me the danger involved?”
“Precisely.” He measures vanilla and adds it to the bowl.
“You know that’s a little screwed up, right?”
He turns, eyebrow quirked. “Well, you’re alive. And now you know how dangerous spirit location is?”
I chug the rest of my coffee and stand up. “Surprise, surprise, I have even less appetite than I did before. I’m going to call Kyle.”
I grab my phone from the kitchen table and walk back to the bedroom, closing the door behind me.
Kyle doesn’t answer his house line or his cell. So I call the bar. And he does answer, but he waits until the line’s rung five times. Or maybe he didn’t have his phone on him. “Hey, Tori.” He sounds awful. Like halfway in the grave awful.