by J. Kowallis
Put it all together and over the last week or two, I’ve seen a man who realized his life would never be what he expected. He lost the woman he loved, the three daughters he fathered, and their love and respect simply because he wanted to keep them safe. This week he cracked a couple pretty awful dad jokes during breakfasts, stressed over me, lectured me, and dealt with his fair share of criticism on his fatherly abilities.
He’s not perfect. He’s figuring it out as he goes along. And though I’m not a parent, I can imagine that watching me go through this is killing him, because . . . he can’t do it for me. He tried. In my timeline at least. He tried to find the staff, do the work, save me. And it got him killed.
I shift to step up and the stair creaks under my foot. Dad turns to look at me.
I give him a tight-lipped smile and lift a hand in greeting. “Sorry. Just me.”
Dad grumbles something and stalks toward me. “Can you watch him? I’m headed to the pub. Call or text me when you’re ready.”
“You’re leavi—” But he travels out of Angie’s house before I even finish the question.
Glaring into my room, I approach the man tied up on my bed. Blood still covers his nose, though it’s mostly caked and dried into crusty streaks. He lazily frowns at the ceiling, waiting.
“What did you say to him?” I ask.
Still looking at the ceiling, the bastard smiles with bloody teeth. But doesn’t say anything.
“Now you’re finally shutting up? Shocking.”
I saunter into the room and pull up the nearest chair, lowering myself into it. “If you won’t answer that question,” my voice lowers, “then at least tell me why. Why Coll? Why him? Why are you doing this?”
“Have yeh already forgotten?” he rasps.
“Yeah, I know. You spouted some crap about wanting to regain your lands and take back the power Woden stole from you or some fantasy like that.”
“Not a fantasy,” he growls. “He stole everythin’ from me. From us. From everyone. I’ve had to wait three-feckin’-thousand years to get my chance. And when that cursed staff took us back to the day me wife was killed, the only way I could survive was occupyin’ your true love,” he taunts.
“You expect me to believe you’ve harbored a grudge over some land for three thousand years? Hate so strong you’d kill off and possess your descendants century after century?”
Ruhmactír, his head still pinned to the pillow under the leather strap, glides his eyes across the ceiling, attempting to look at me. I fold my arms, doing my best to hide the inside of my palm.
“Tell me. If I were to kill ‘im again. Wouldn’t yeh dedicate your existence to endin’ me life?”
Dad.
I swallow deep and blow hot air forcefully through my nose.
“Just as I thought. Speakin’ of which, there’s somethin’ else yeh should know.” He licks his red lips and sneers.
My skin prickles, and I swallow. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“Fine,” he answers. His voice breaks a bit and he sniffs once. From the blood clotting in his nose or possibly—though I doubt it—he actually feels a sliver of emotion. “Before yeh send me on my way, mind tellin’ me where Craniarann is? The broom cupboard, perhaps?”
“Safe.” Is all I say, glad that he can’t see the birthmark on my hand.
Three sets of feet clamor up the stairs and make it to the bedroom door. When it swings open, Ruhmactír beams, blood stains all over his teeth from the blood dripping back into his throat. “Sera. And how did they get you? Ah,” he sighs, “if only yer brother were still alive to see yeh perform the craft. After all the lengths he went to, to keep yeh from the grips of me brother, Frec.”
Ruhmactír swivels his eyes back to me. “This was your doin’, wasn’t it?”
“Ignore him,” I say, walking around to the east side of the bed.
Angie points across the room. “Alina, go there, next to your sister, I’ll stand here, and Sera love, you stand on my left side. Taran, where’s Alaric?”
“He went to the pub. Let me text him.” I pull out my phone while Angie summons a large collection of Ravn crest candles. Out of the corner of my eye I see the situated candles rest on the ground. After a quick text to let Dad know that we’re about to start and he needs to come back, I see Alina’s hand. She holds it out for me. With a deep breath, I take it and then reach over Coll to take Sera’s.
Angie snaps her fingers and every single candle in the room lights. Wavering, golden flames lighten the room and with another snap, the electric lamp on the vanity turns off. Aside from the multitude of crest candles encircling the room, darkness surrounds us.
Before taking Sera and Alina’s hands, Angie walks to one of the two chairs in the corner and sets down the hexen jar after popping out the cork. “Oh shit!” she whispers. “I got so anxious, I nearly forgot. Come back here, Alina. I need to show you through the communion. Come on.”
Alina sighs and walks back around the bed and out of the room with Angie. The moment Ruhmactír opens his trap, I snap my fingers to mute him. He smiles in return and breathes deep.
Sera nervously wraps her arms around herself and steps up to the bed. “What was that?” she asks.
“What was what?”
“What yeh . . . just did. He can’t talk?”
I shake my head. “I find it easier to stand in here if I can hit the mute button.”
She looks down into Ruhmactír’s face and grimaces. “You’re a bastard,” she whispers.
Ruhmactír lifts an eyebrow.
“I hate yeh, for what yeh’ve done.”
In response, he mockingly pouts.
“I’ll break something else of yours, I swear,” I growl, leaning against the wall.
He breathes a laugh and swivels his eyes to look at me. A look that tells me, Yeah, but it’s not my body you’re breaking. Is it?
Footsteps clomp up the staircase and soon Angie enters, followed by Alina. “Have we seen your father yet?” she asks me.
I shake my head. “He’s taking a break. I could probably try to go find him.”
Angie waves a dismissive hand at me. “No, no. We need you here. I guess we wait.”
Out in the hallway, someone else shuffles, and right on time, Dad pokes his head in. Directly behind him is someone else.
Emilia.
“Obviously, you haven’t started,” Dad harrumphs.
“Not yet,” I answer, my voice rising in pitch from the absolute panic at seeing Coll’s little sister standing next to my dad. “What is she doing here? Emilia, what are you—”
“I knew yeh and Angie wouldn’t bring me. I had a feelin’ yeh were goin’ to do this today. So, I called ‘im. I want to be here when Coll wakes up.” She looks at Sera and presses her lips. “Glad to see yeh felt comfortable involvin’ Sera and not me.”
“That’s because Coll will kill me when he finds out you were here.”
Ruhmactír snorts.
“Shut . . . up,” I snarl.
Dad looks at me. I can’t read what’s there in his eyes, but he adds, “I’ll be right here when it’s time to seal the jar,” before shutting the door. From here, I get a waft of Guinness on him, but he seems to be holding his drinks pretty well. If it weren’t for the smell, I wouldn’t even think he was drunk.
“Smart idea to sober up a bit before coming back,” Angie rolls her eyes, then gives me a look of resignation.
“I barely got halfway through my first pint when she called,” he nods to Emilia, an edge to his voice. “Don’t worry.”
I give Emilia a questioning look. “How did you know his number?”
Emilia takes a breath. “I found Lotte on Facebook. She gave it to me.”
Dad picks up the hexen jar on the spare seat in the corner and sits. Angie finally finds her place and reaches out for my sister and Sera’s hands. The four of us form a rather small circle, but most of Coll’s legs, torso, and head are all centered in the middle of the loop. She takes her own ce
ntering breath and then looks at each of us.
Angie snaps her fingers, glaring at Ruhmactír and freeing his voice. “Everyone ready?”
“You’re all goin’ to die,” Ruhmactír rumbles.
I scowl at him, but Angie ignores him completely. “Why did you do that?” I ask her. “He’s just going to make this worse.”
“Because our magic has to be unfettered. And because I don’t want to risk another spell, even as small as a muting spell, to get in the way of what we’re trying to accomplish.”
“Coll’s dead, bitch,” he growls at me. “I already told yeh.”
“Go f—”
“Taran,” Angie cuts me off. She glares at me and sighs as if she’s trying to release the tension in the room. “First, we need to be connected to the ancestors. Everyone take in a deep breath.” In unison, we all watch her and breathe in the moment she does. “And let it out,” she whispers.
We all exhale.
It’s now that I notice Alina has two sticky notes pinned to her shirt and Sera is staring at them intently. Cheat sheets.
At the other end of the circle, Angie squeezes the hands of Alina and Sera and they in turn squeeze mine.
“Cahf die auslannach. Ranige cropen,” Angie whispers. The candles in the room flicker.
“Cahf die auslannach. Ranige cropen.” I say alone. Coll’s body trembles below us.
“You bitches,” he growls like an animal.
“Cahf die auslannach. Ranige cropen.” Alina sounds like a deadly apparition, making Coll’s head fight against the leather strap pulled across his head.
“Cahf die auslannach. Ranige cropen.” Though she trips a little over the word auslannach, Sera says it almost perfectly and she watches in horror as Coll . . . Ruhmactír claws at the sheets within his grasp.
Then together, the four of us repeat it again. “Cahf die auslannach. Ranige cropen. Cahf die auslannach. Ranige cropen. Cahf die auslannach. Ranige cropen.”
Ruhmactír struggles to hold back a violent burst of screams but loses the battle with himself. The candles in the room start to lift into the air, the flames dancing in time with the gentle beat of the words of the spell.
He bellows, straining against the chains holding him to the bed.
“Cahf die auslannach. Ranige cropen. Cahf die auslannach. Ranige cropen. Cahf die auslannach. Ranige cropen.”
My eyes widen as I see a hand, an actual hand move underneath Coll’s skin, running over the collarbones and up his neck. As if Ruhmactír himself is clasping at his throat from within. The veins in Coll’s body burst into colors of blue and purply-red, losing oxygen as he screams. His body jerks and the bed itself moves about half an inch forward.
“Cahf die auslannach. Ranige cropen. Cahf die auslannach. Ranige cropen. Cahf die auslannach. Ranige cropen.”
Ruhmactír jolts again—moving the bed more than three inches back—inhales a deep, rattling breath, and then screams. My heart leaps into my throat as ripples of tingling nerves travel up and down my back. Again, he arches his spine, straining against the chains, choking on his own tongue that fell back into his throat, and throws his body back. The bed shifts another two feet and the headboard slams into the wall.
“Oh, spirits,” he gags, his eyes wide and rolling back into his skull. “Stop! It’s me! It’s Coll! Don’t do this! I’m—” He jerks, clenching his eyes closed against the pain. He inhales a deep, rattling breath, and then screams. The sound is enough to splinter my ear drums, sever my nerve endings. When I stare him in the face, continuing the chant, Coll’s eyes flash open again and I nearly stumble backwards. His eyeballs have two sets of irises. Two pupils. One larger iris, one smaller. And each resembles the ferocious animalistic look of a wolf. The subdermal hands continue to claw at Coll’s throat from underneath his flesh.
The more he jerks, the looser the leather band around his head becomes.
Across from me, Sera shatters on the outside. Large tears flood her eyes, drown her skin, and seep into her mouth. All the while, she continues to chant, never missing a word. But she no longer watches him. No doubt, she can’t do it anymore. See him like this.
I’m almost there myself.
“Sera!” Ruhmactír screeches into the night, slamming his head back into the pillow after each word. “Help . . . me! Sister!”
Sera sobs, clenching her eyes tight. The crest candles around us hang in the air, answering only to the sound of our voices, the brightness of the flames increasing with each series of the spell we complete.
A wordless roar as Ruhmactír’s chest fights against the chains, his back arching, bones cracking. One more powerful jerk of his head and the leather strap holding it down breaks at the buckle. The moment it does, his neck bends back at an awkward, inhuman angle.
His arms strain against the chains, yanking, pulling. The veins in his arms threaten to rupture, snaking like living creatures over his muscles and under his skin. Even under the loud rhythmic intonation of our voices, I hear the steel chains groan. He’s weakening them. A moment later, Alina squeals when the chains wrapped around his hands snap. The end of the chain whips toward her and nearly crack against our clasped hands.
“Cahf die auslannach. Ranige cropen. Cahf die auslannach. Ranige cropen!” Alina rejoins the chanting and closes her eyes.
Ruhmactír’s hands shoot out, nearly grasping Sera. But he calls to Emilia. “Emi! Ancestors, stop them! It’s m-me. You’re brother. They’re killin’ . . . I’m . . . dyin’.”
Dad, in the corner, preemptively presses a hand to Emilia’s shoulder. A warning. A motion to prevent her from standing and reaching out to him. But it was unnecessary, because she doesn’t even budge. In fact, she looks at Ruhmactír with more hate than I’ve ever imagined her capable of.
“Go scr—” she begins, and then a wordless roar as Ruhmactír’s chest fights against the chains, his hands grasping at the linked steel. His back arches, bones cracking, links moaning. One more powerful jerk of his body and the chain around his chest snaps in two places. Emilia screams and ducks. A length of it spirals through the air and cracks against the wall over Angie’s head, leaving a dent, and crumbling plaster.
A surge of hexen power—whether our own, or Coll’s commandeered energy—swells in the room and in the corner, something cracks. I look up to see the chair Dad sat on now broken in about six different places.
With his entire upper body free of the chains, Ruhmactír reaches for the chains at his legs and pulls them apart like they’re made of licorice whips. He roars like a beast, his neck still bent out of shape and lunges for me. I gasp, choking on the words in my mouth and take a step back, but Alina—her eyes still firmly shut, grips my hand even harder. Ruhmactír slams into an invisible barrier of our magic and collapses against the bed, sweat drenching his skin.
The hand within him claws at his throat. A second joins. One after the other as his growls and roars struggle to escape his throat. Then, his body twists into a grotesque shape—his chest tensed, his arms shot out in opposite directions and his legs caught underneath him—and a wisp of dark smoke begins to waft from his mouth.
My heart beats, my own resolve shatters, and I don’t know if I can watch anymore.
“Cahf die auslannach. Ranige cropen. Cahf die auslannach. Ranige cropen.” I’m nearly screaming now, my own tears starting to creep down my cheeks.
Ruhmactír chokes on his own soul, the black smoke trying to force its way out through Coll’s expanding chest. He arches his back, crying, screaming, pleading for it to stop.
“TARAN!” He chokes, swallows down the smoke, and gags. Coll stops breathing. “STOP!” he mutters with the remaining oxygen in his lungs.
She takes my breath away.
Those words pierce my mind again and I squeeze my eyes closed as tears roll down my cheeks.
She takes my breath away.
Ruhmactír chokes and gurgles for only a moment before all his sounds finally stop. I finally peer through the haze of tears in my eyes and loo
k down at him as he soundlessly heaves, his body pleading for breath.
We’re going to kill him.
Oh, the spirits, we’re going to kill him.
“Cahf die auslannach. Ranige cropen. Cahf die—Stop, stop, he’s dying.”
Alina opens her eyes again to see Coll’s misshapen body on the bed. She grips my hand tighter, and shockingly, so does Sera, even though she still refuses to open her eyes. My sister’s intense focus sends chills down my spine, but even in this moment, I don’t know if I can say those words one more time.
“Coll,” I whisper.
Finally, a single, rattling breath grates through Coll’s bent neck. A burst of black smoke billows out of his mouth, leaks from his nostrils and escapes into the air. It immediately attempts to dart toward Angie, but it collides with that same, unseen force created by the circle of our power.
As the last of the smoke leaves Coll, his body collapses against the bed, laden with sweat, and still as a corpse.
“Now, Alaric,” Angie yells.
Dad stands and walks over, holding the hexen jar inside the circle while Alina and Sera continue to chant. Realizing I haven’t said anything for the last thirty seconds, I start to chant again, staring at the swirling smoke. Every once in a while, I see a shape in the smoke, the shape of a wolf, baring its teeth and snarling.
“Fríosen for dewig,” Dad’s controlled voice commands. Immediately, the bottom tail of the cloud of smoke is captured by the rim of the bottle and begins to withdraw into the container. For the life of me, I don’t really pay attention to what happens after that. My eyes return to Coll, his neck bent backward, his veins popped out of his skin like endless blue worms lying dead beneath his skin. No twitch, no spasm. Nothing, but a gentle, slow, and shallow movement of his chest moving up and down.