But Elaine’s eyes were screwed shut.
It’s not over.
A great tearing ripped through her and brought torment without end. A high-pitched cry erupted from the bottom of her gut and echoed around the stone room. Her whole being shredded like cheap muslin into thousands of pieces. She wrenched her eyelids open to check she remained whole. Flipping her hands over, she saw that whatever was happening only writhed inside her.
Knowing that didn’t help. She couldn’t ease this agony. She clutched her stomach, collapsed to the floor and curled in on herself. If she could make herself as small as possible, perhaps the pain would abate. Pulling her knees close to her body, she quivered as the torture swept up and down her until finally and suddenly it stopped.
She couldn’t move. So quickly had it gone it felt as if her stomach had been ripped from her. Silent, she laid there, her eyes closed, afraid it might come back.
She jerked as a hand touched her shoulder.
“It’s over, Aurelia. It’s over.”
Elaine pulled her up to lean against her and stroked her hair.
She was too spent to resist. She’d been hacked out of the spiral of life and death and paid the price for doing so. She prayed for sleep, and thankfully, as her mother’s warmth soothed her, unconsciousness came.
Aurelia woke in her bed, not knowing how long she’d been out. The aches and pains were gone, and she felt no different than she had before entering her mother’s sanctuary. Still wretched. Still fighting against the inevitability of what was yet to come.
She stayed in bed, not wanting to see either her mother or Hame, her heart battered by both of them. Her body demanded rest and she dozed, waking again when the door opened.
She saw his silhouette. He didn’t speak as he crept in, closed the door and climbed onto the bed to lie beside her.
Did he think he could crawl into her bed and everything would be as it was before? They may only have each other now, but she wasn’t about to let him off that easily. She pretended to sleep. Regulating her breath was harder than she’d expected.
“I know you’re awake.” His words tickled her ear. “You’re trembling like a little earthquake.”
She forced herself to remain stoic. She wouldn’t let him back into her heart.
“Do you hurt as badly as I do?”
Yes.
“Who knew becoming immortal was such hard work?”
In spite of everything that had happened the night before, her hand sought his. For better or worse, they were now joined by something that went far deeper than love.
He didn’t say anything else, and soon she slept. The weight that had crushed her lifted slightly, and she breathed easy for a while.
XVIII
“First, you give me eternal life, and now you want me to take away the lives of others?”
Aurelia was shrieking, she knew that, but her mother had just told her what she expected her to do with her immortality.
“You don’t have to wring their necks, if you don’t want.” Elaine’s unwavering tone had returned. “Burn their power out for all I care, but the fewer there are who can wield the magic, the better.”
“Why can’t you do it? Xadrak was able to kill Loic, why can’t you do the same?”
“I will do what I can, but I will need you to help me.”
“You’re turning me into a killer.”
“You became one when you incinerated Henri.”
She had done a good job of suppressing the reality of what she’d done to Henri, but Elaine was right. She’d burned the bastard to ash.
“He deserved it,” Aurelia snapped back. “I don’t even know these witches.”
“Fine. Get to know them. Then kill them.”
Hame laughed from his chair by the wall. Aurelia glared at him, but he just smiled sweetly.
“I can’t believe you’re laughing at a time like this.”
His face smoothed into one of serious introspection. He held his hands up as a way of offering his apology—or surrender. She sneered at him.
“I won’t do it,” she said.
Her mother glared. “We’ll see.”
“No, I will,” Hame said.
Aurelia snorted.
“Fine,” Elaine said. “Don’t kill them. Then see what happens when Xadrak sends them to hunt you and Hame down.”
“Let them come. I’ll deal with them then.” Her mother opened her mouth to object, but she snuck in first. “I said, I’ll deal with them then.”
The certainty on Elaine’s face wavered. “No, this is important. I won’t simply be there to fight Xadrak, I’ll be working to send him back to earth.”
Aurelia’s eyes bulged, thinking she’d misheard. “You can’t be serious!”
“I have to force him back into a mortal form.”
“And I’m supposed to let him wander freely?” Bile cloyed at the back of her throat. Xadrak couldn’t become human again. She couldn’t allow his evil to infect other innocent lives.
“When he’s human, he’s manageable,” Elaine stormed over her objections. “If he becomes a threat, burn him out. If that doesn’t work, kill him, and I will fight him on the astral and send him back again. He has to be on Earth to return through the portal.”
“You want me to be his minder?”
“In a sense. Hame will help you too. He’ll use his abilities to keep an eye on Xadrak.”
“Absolutely not,” Aurelia said. Not after what happened to Loic.
“He will be safe while Xadrak is on Earth, and I’ll protect him when in the astral. You don’t have to worry for his safety.”
Hame didn’t say anything, just sat there with his face smooth and shoulders relaxed. She wondered if he and Elaine had already had this conversation.
“And what will you do while you’re up there and Xadrak is down here? Surely you can come back to Earth.”
“I can’t risk it. I need to search for the key.”
“Hame will find it.”
“He might and he might not.”
Their arguments volleyed back and forth, neither willing to give ground. No matter what she said, Elaine remained adamant her death was the only option available to them.
“You don’t need to die to do any of this,” Aurelia pleaded. “You can stay here with me. We’ll find these witches together, convert them to our cause, instead of his, and find another way of wrestling him back into a mortal body.”
“I wish we could, but it’s impossible.”
She tried hard to keep her hurt from tipping over, but her mother’s weak declaration of surrender nudged it over the edge.
“You don’t want to try.” Her words jabbed. “You’d rather leave me than fight to stay.”
Elaine’s face flushed and her eyes flared, but Aurelia ran. She hurried into the tunnel, the pain propelling her through the ether back to Hame’s hut. She needed space to think.
Hame bridled at being stuck with Elaine, but at least he was able to send his mind away. Hunched over the scrying bowl, he located Aurelia. He wished he could go to her and give her some of the comfort she’d given him. Then Elaine spoke and the vision of faded.
“What did you say?” he asked.
“You will look after Aurelia, won’t you?”
“That’s what I’m trying to do.” One day he’d be able to scry without the bowl, but for now it was the easiest method. He peered into it again.
“Do you know how I’m going to die?”
The woman rubbed him raw. He still hadn’t forgiven her for putting Loic in harm’s way, but he wasn’t totally uncaring. And the plaintive tone in her voice made his anger so petty. She was going to die. She knew it and she was forcing herself to not fight it. Realizing what she was going to lose, he saw her for what she was—a mother terrified of losing her child.
“I’m sorry, but it will be by Xadrak’s hand,” he said as gently as he could.
She gave a few quick small nods and closed her eyes, seeming to become as cold
and hard as diamond. “I will not let him,” she whispered.
He didn’t have the cruelty in him to tell her it was going to happen whether she willed it or not.
Her eyes opened, lit with a fire that made a blacksmith’s furnace seem dim. “My death will be my own and unsullied by his foulness. I will choose the time and the method. He shall not win.”
“You would commit suicide?” He stood and faced her.
“Better by my means than his.” She held his gaze.
“Aurelia will not let you.”
“No, but you will.”
He tensed. “I will not help you end your life.”
“Why not? You are fine with giving me my execution orders, yet giving me peace and a death I choose, you baulk at?” Her spine straightened. “If it cannot be changed, then I will embrace it, but in the way I see fit.”
He felt her pain, could see she was doing her best to make a bad situation better. What would Aurelia think of him if he allowed Elaine to do this? Yet how would she feel if Xadrak tortured and killed her mother? He sighed, wished he’d never had that damn vision.
“I will not help you end it, but I will grant you peace. I will distract Aurelia so she will not stop you.”
“How I wish—”
The vision hit hard. Aurelia’s terror slammed into him, blocking out all else.
All the saliva in his mouth dried and his lips opened and closed without emitting any sound until he wrenched himself back and forced out a few words.
“He has her.”
Without her mother there to guide her, Aurelia relied on the little she knew about projecting onto the astral so she could hunt Xadrak. Her stomach hopped about, but necessity drove her. After a few attempts, with desperation providing some missing skill and dumb luck doing the rest, she appeared on the astral. She stood in an otherworldly copy of Hame’s hut and then, once she’d fashioned a shield, she ventured into the forest. Familiar yet not, her concentration faltered, threatening to slam her back into her body with spine-snapping force. She quickly corralled her focus.
Once outside the hut, the world shifted beneath her as she sped towards her old home in Carcassonne. The grey and empty streets looked like the ones she’d walked along for most of her life, but there was a difference. It took her a while to realize what it was, and then it came to her. There were no shadows. There was no sun, yet everything was lit and flat.
She walked down the unreal streets, past the illusory houses until she reached the one where she’d killed Henri. If she was going to find the demon, this was the best place to start.
She risked much. She trembled if she stood still too long and she kept looking over her shoulder, spooked by shadows that weren’t there. But she had to do something to protect her mother, and right now that meant forcing Xadrak back to Earth, however that could be achieved.
She imbued her shields with more power and entered the hovel she’d once called home. The first room was empty, as was the second, but instead of a bed, Henri’s ashes lay heaped in the center. It seemed that even on the astral her deeds were writ large.
“You get your temper from me.” His voice hissed behind her.
Cockroaches scuttled inside her as she spun to protect herself. Her shields brightened, but they only illuminated Xadrak more. He towered above her in all his terrible glory—his horns of oily black, his eyes of brimstone red, and his wings the shade of charcoal. He shredded her shield with one swipe and grabbed her.
Squeezed in his fist, her bones creaked. She wasn’t here in body, but the effect was the same. Panic stuttered her power, and what should have been a blast of light that could burn through anything was nothing more than a flicker that could barely singe a hair. Pulled nearer to his vile maw, his sharp teeth lathered with saliva, she screamed, the sound pulling up from her toes and erupting out of her mouth.
And with it came the thought that Hame was wrong.
Elaine wouldn’t be the one to die.
Aurelia’s screams guided Elaine and she swooped in behind Xadrak, wielding a burning sword. With a vengeful roar, she plunged it into the foul demon’s back. Though he was only spirit, the blade slowed as if it speared through flesh. Sinara craved it, remembering when she’d done this to him in Crion.
Xadrak dropped Aurelia and reared around to face Elaine. The sword disappeared as his contortions ripped it from her grasp. It had wrought damage, but not enough to kill him. He was a hideous thing, made of black tar from the pits of Hell. He advanced on her, but a flash burst against his back.
“Get out of here!” she screamed at Aurelia as Xadrak spun back towards their daughter.
“I’m not leaving you!” Aurelia shouted.
She had to goad Xadrak into killing her and not her daughter. Aurelia wasn’t strong enough to withstand another attack.
“You are a coward, Xadrak,” she roared. “You know you cannot beat me, so you go for the weakest and easiest kill.”
He looked over his shoulder at Elaine. “Destroying your bitch daughter will bring its own rewards.” He marched towards Aurelia, and she blasted him with a jet of power. He staggered but did not go down.
“Liar,” she cried. “You were always afraid of facing the strongest of the Ikiri-rai, and now you quake in fear before two lowly humans. You will never win.” She released her own magic and it burned into his back.
He snarled and couldn’t ignore her assault. She summoned another sword as he spun.
“You were always the weak one, Sinara. The moment I fucked you, you became nothing but a whore for my pleasure. And now, I’m going to shove my claws in you.”
He charged, and Elaine rushed forward to meet him. She had no hope of defeating him like this, but she would die in battle and take as much of him with her as she could. Her blade barely pierced his chest before he grabbed her. Her sword failed, and his putrid contamination poisoned her spirit. She grunted as his fists squeezed her.
There came another explosion from Aurelia, but Xadrak paid it no heed. His eyes locked onto Elaine’s face and soul-deep hatred burned within him. She wrestled to break loose. He was going to crush her and then Aurelia would seek to avenge her. She couldn’t let that happen.
I’m sorry, my darling.
She summoned her power and slammed it into Aurelia. The force knocked her unconscious and sent her hurtling back to her earthly body. She whispered a farewell, laced with a wish that when they met again Aurelia would have forgiven her.
Xadrak’s hands ripped into her, shredding her apart. She held to her hope like a raft in a flooded river, keeping the agony from drowning her mind, from feeling that pain. She would not give him that.
She would not give him her terror or her suffering.
Her connection to the Earth severed and she gained a small amount of power, enough to jettison her tattered soul from his grasp and fly along the astral breezes, far away from his sight and his power.
Hope carried her and hope kept her from fading.
Aurelia woke with her mother’s name on her lips. She tried to sit up, but her body screamed in protest. The hut was dark. Night had fallen. Yet none of it had been a dream.
Only a nightmare.
She had killed her mother.
She touched her sides and winced at the pain that lanced through her. Bruises covered her, erupting from the trauma of having been slammed back into her body. But she didn’t linger. She had to get home.
Gritting her teeth, she forced herself off the bed. Her power had rejuvenated enough during her unconsciousness to enable her to travel to her mother’s cave. Once inside she called Hame’s name as she staggered from room to room. No one answered.
She entered the corridor to the bedrooms, and her mother’s door stood open. Inside, Hame slept in the chair. She let him be.
Elaine lay in the bed, beneath the covers, not breathing. She seemed so small; if life had made her large and strong, now there remained this empty husk. Aurelia crawled over the bed, pulling Elaine’s body close to her, tryi
ng to hug her, trying to stir her. But she would not wake. She knew this but she had to try, the terrible sadness thundering inside her. Grief ate her strength, so she let her mother’s body rest and held onto her cold hand.
She didn’t know how long she stayed there, but eventually her tears stopped and she was left with the realization that had she not defied her mother repeatedly, none of this would have happened.
She shouldn’t have killed Henri.
She shouldn’t have gone into the astral to face him.
While she knew the past could not be changed, she kept throwing herself against its sharp indictments and cutting herself until she bled. Lost opportunities, harsh words, and regret were all she had left.
That and a mission.
And for her penance, she would see it done.
Or die trying.
II
One pebble at a time
1792
I
The wood block split beneath the blow of Hame’s axe. He’d chopped more than he needed, but there was little else to occupy him. He’d tidied the cottage, made the bed, even cleaned out and relit the hearth. And still the bats flapped in his stomach.
The afternoon sun beat down, the forest air stifling and oppressive. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, lined up another piece of wood, raised the axe and brought it down with a satisfying grunt. The two halves fell either side.
A cough came from behind him.
So. He’s arrived.
His hand slid up to grip below the axe head. He squeezed the handle and the pressure quelled his anticipation only to have it come fluttering back when he turned.
Burning Blood: Bonds of Blood: Book 2 Page 10