by Mari Freeman
“They were right. I’m sorry.” The words were a whisper.
He felt her Dragon move under her chest.
If her Demon other was still alive, so was she. He needed the Dragon to pull her back. But how did he poke a Dragon that lived inside her?
He remembered a spell his cousin used when they were kids. A wives’ tale more than a spell, really, for making a Werewolf shift on command. It was ridiculous and they were never able to make it work. But they’d been only seven, and the Werewolf they’d attempted to manipulate was only six and hadn’t even had his first change. Regardless, it was the best he could think of at the moment.
He rushed to the cabinets, breaking his circle and searching for rosemary. He rummaged through a disorganized mess of spice jars, empty water bottles and canned soup all mixed together. Cindy was far more man than woman in the kitchen. Finally he found a jar labeled “rosemary”.
He sprinkled a tiny bit of the dried herb over Sonja’s chest and dabbed some of the oil from his earlier circle-closing spell on his own forehead. It would be better if it was lavender oil, but he had what he had.
He started the incantation, chanting low and slow over her body. Calling for her darker side. He had no clue if that was the case for Demons, but he called to the Dragon.
And it responded. He saw it move again, just slightly but he saw the teal scales slither under Sonja’s chest. He put his hand on Sonja’s heart and continued to push his magic into the Dragon. He may not be able to save her, but he was sure the Dragon would call to her and be the beacon Sonja needed.
He chanted and watched as the Dragon stretched again. Her side would be damaged, but she’d be alive and here. And hopefully whole. Ray didn’t want to think about what might have happened to her if Q had gotten to her before he could.
Her hand twitched as the Dragon’s claws manifested in the lengthening of Sonja’s nails, her legs stretched and kicked as if she were trying to fight the change. He knew it hurt, but he needed her to fight back. He chanted louder and faster. The shift continued beneath his hand, still placed over her heart.
Her eyes sprang open in a pained, shocked expression. Her mouth gaped. She let out a blood-curdling scream as she sat up, clutching her side and twisting to relieve the pressure on the battered skin of her scar. She went from freezing cold to flushed and red in a matter of seconds.
He reversed the spell. Chanting for the other to sleep and dream well. He gathered her into his arms as she cradled her knees to her chest, chanting until he could feel no more of the Dragon.
Sonja’s breathing slowly returned to something close to normal. Her body eased and she lay against him. “I was gone. Sucked into the mire of Q’s mind.”
“Shhh. Rest.” He brushed the hair from her face. How had he taken such a chance with her? Never again. Never would he even let her cross the damn street against a light. He would protect her from everything and everyone.
“I can’t. We have to go as soon as Barri can quiet the Chiwa.” She tried to pull away but Ray was hesitant to let her go. “Kara’s on one of those big riverboats. I think she’s still alive, but not for long. Not if Q knows that I know where she is. And I think he knows.”
Her breathing had normalized. He kissed her on the forehead. “Okay. Let’s just wait on Barri and then we’ll figure out what to do next.” She nodded. He lifted her and carried her to the couch. “I’ll get you some water.”
“I felt you. In there. I felt you and I felt my Dragon.” She lifted her tank top and inspected the wound. Her skin had stretched and almost torn. It was red and purple and swollen at the base of her scars. “I felt that too.”
“I did the best I could to heal it as it happened, but it was fiercer than I could fight. Your Dragon is a strong little beast.” He winked at her as he handed her a bottle of water.
Sonja covered the wound and took a sip. She let her head fall back and closed her eyes. “Yeah. It is.” Sonja put her hand on her side. “Too bad I can’t call it more often. I’m stronger with it. But I still held it back and I think that makes it resent me.”
“I can’t imagine not being able to connect with it. It’s the source of your magic, isn’t it?” And he really couldn’t imagine it. His magic was part of his daily existence. He put a cold cloth under her shirt on the damaged skin. “How’s that feel now?”
“I’m okay.” She put her hand on his arm. “We can’t let him have the Chiwa, Ray. I should have listened to you from the beginning. He can’t have that much power. I didn’t sense what Q wants to do with it, but I do know it’s bad. I think he’s been influencing my behavior from the very beginning. I would have never been so reckless, never played with that kind of power otherwise.” She looked down. “I’m ashamed of the things I’ve been doing since I took that thing out of my sister’s kitchen.” She looked terrified, desperate. “Call a local Prime if you want to. I think we may need the backup.”
Ray looked at her. Maybe she didn’t have feelings for him after all, is she was ashamed of everything she’d done. Deep lines and dark circles were etched on her pretty face. She was wiped out from fighting Q’s influence for days. She had to be. He wouldn’t push her on their relationship at the moment. Those feelings had to come to her on their own, like his had, or it wouldn’t work. And if they didn’t…well, there you had it.
He stood and moved to the small window. It had been hours and Cindy was still gone. How hard could it be to find this woman? “Calling a local Prime isn’t as easy as dialing 9-1-1,” he replied. “You may get a quicker response by calling your sister and her boyfriend.”
“I figured with your police background, you’d have a connection to the Primes.” She was moving her shoulder in a circle. She was physically wrecked from a mental journey into Q’s brain.
“No. I’m esiliato. I’m not supposed to perform magic outside my property. The sight of a Prime would mean I’m in big trouble. Again.” He shook his head. “I avoid the Council and their laws as much as possible.”
She smiled at him and her eyes lit up. “You mean until I stumbled into your cave?”
“I’d done fairly well until then, yes.” He nodded and peeked out the window again. He was getting antsy. He didn’t like idle waiting. It was so out of his control.
Sonja stood, testing her legs for strength as she moved around the small room. She felt weak, as though she’d had the crap beat out of her. She still had the general feeling of being covered in Q’s murky, disgusting mind slime.
Ray was in hot water with the Council. No wonder he’d taken off with the box. Esiliato meant exiled. He was lucky to be on the mountain at all. She’d heard of paranormals in esiliato being sent to other realms—really nasty realms. She shivered. “And you still came back.” She wondered if she’d have done the same for some crazy person who showed up doing crappy magic on her property. Most likely not. “You could have turned it in. That talisman is a great find. The Council wants it badly. It would have been good for your record, I imagine.”
“Probably,” was all he said, but she knew better.
He’d given up his ticket to freedom for her.
“What happened, Ray?” She came up next to him. Her arm barely brushed his as she stood looking out the window as well.
His breath caught. Maybe he didn’t want to tell her?
“I love my magic, Sonja. So much so, it hurts me to even contemplate how you live without your Dragon. I’m good at it. And I kind of grew a reputation as a gunslinger when it came to magic. I pushed limits on what I did and when. I used it in my day job, on the human police department. I did a right fair job of making sure no one saw it. A little stun spell here, a little compulsion there.”
“That seems a bit light for esiliato.” She looked up at him. He met her gaze, his eyes intense. She could look into those eyes for hours and still find them amazing. It was as if they changed each time he blinked.
“Um…yeah, that is. It didn’t really become a problem until my human partner figured it out.
He cornered me. The man was my partner. His life depended on me every day. I felt like it was only fair to tell him the truth. So I confessed. I even gave him a demonstration, showed him what I could do.”
Sonja felt her mouth drop open. Well, that would get one in big trouble.
“Then he started wanting me to use it. I got cavalier. One night he got shot. I used blood magic to try to save him. With lots of witnesses.”
“Ray,” she breathed, knowing the story was about to got worse.
“I failed, of course. He died anyway and several humans had to have their memories wiped.” He shook his head. “It was ugly.”
He was lucky to still be in this reality. There were only a few unforgivable offenses, and letting the humans in on their world was at the top of the list. Exposure put all of them in danger. That’s why the Council had been formed, and that was the number one job of the Primes. Keep their world a secret. She could be in trouble for just being with him while he did magic under the esiliato, much less running around with a stolen, tainted talisman. “Crap.”
“There’s Cindy.” He pointed out the window, toward the courtyard gate. Cindy was coming in, leading Barri and Auntie. A sense of relief came with seeing Barri. Battling the blackness that was the talisman and fighting off Q at the same time was about to destroy her mind. She needed a break and she needed the grounding energy that surrounded Barrie.
She rushed to the door, getting slightly dizzy from moving so fast. Cindy stood on the threshold, his eyes glowing green in the early morning light. “What are you?” Sonja asked.
“That’s a grand way to welcome me back to my own home. And I’ve brought you help and everything.”
“He’s a freaking Fairy, is what he is,” Auntie proclaimed as she waltzed past the pair and into Cindy’s home. “You know how rude it is to be woken by a freaking Fairy at five a.m.?”
“Auntie.” Barri’s smooth voice stilled them all.
“Well, he is!” Auntie walked around Cindy and looked back at Barri. “And prancing around dressed like a queen ain’t helpin’.”
Sonja cringed at the derogatory comments. “Sorry,” she said to Cindy.
“Auntie. Leave him be. We’ve got important things to do and the Fairy did a good deal more than necessary to find us.” Barri patted Cindy on the shoulder on her way past the big Fairy, making her way through the unfamiliar room with the ease of a seeing person. Only when she reached the table and the talisman did she hesitate and appear to be looking around the room, analyzing.
Sonja shook her head as Auntie made her way over and helped Barri into the chair.
“Come here, child.” Barri held her hand out to Sonja. She wondered just how old Barri was. It couldn’t be more than a few years older than Sonja. “You have used it again. You risk much for your cousin. And a sacrifice will follow because of it.”
Sonja started to comment but Barri raised her hand. Auntie gave her a glass vial. Sonja smelled alcohol and flowers when she tugged off the cork. “Bring me the box and hold it above the table.”
Ray handed the box to Sonja. It didn’t feel as bad to her as it had before. That wasn’t necessarily a good sign. Barri opened the vial. “Hold it with both hands. I need to cleanse you as well as the box. You reek almost as much as it does.”
“Great. Thanks.” Sonja looked over to Ray.
He shrugged. “I don’t smell anything.”
“You’ve been wallowing in the same sty, haven’t you?” Barri remarked. She was careful not to touch the golden box, still moving as if she saw everything. “When I wet your hands with this, imagine it flowing over your body, your face and your heart. Feel it pour over you.” Barri’s cloudy eyes seemed to be penetrating her, making her a little nervous. She nodded.
Barri started chanting. “Shroud me in goodness and spiritual light. Dampen the darkness with power and might. Spirits which cling, you’re not wanted inside.”
The feel of the blood magic immediately began to swirl around the room, waving in and out of Sonja, making her dizzy. Slowly, with each pass, it began to dissipate. The trickle of the mixture in the vial eased her weakness and her pain. She did as she was told and visualized the few drops that fell onto the box and her hands as a waterfall, washing over not just herself, but everyone in the room, rinsing away the taint she hadn’t realized was so thick.
The mental water rushed away, receding into the universe of energy, leaving them all stunned into a momentary silence. Sonja dropped the box back on the table.
Barri took Sonja’s hands in hers. Barri’s were rough and calloused and marked with scars. Maybe she wasn’t as young as she appeared. “This talisman must be destroyed. The Sisters of the Dragon have managed to survive its pull so far. But it will find a way to destroy even the three of you. ”
Sonja felt a bit confused. “The three of us?” Nell had been the one to open the box in the first place, discovering the talisman, but what did Trina have to do with anything? She barely left her house. She looked at Ray.
“Can we destroy something like that, Miss Barri?” He put his hand on Sonja’s shoulder. The simple gesture comforted her. After being under the influence of the Chiwa for days, her own emotions seemed somewhat foreign at the moment. Her mind was swirling, trying to determine which emotions had been hers, which were Q’s and how much the Chiwa itself had created.
“You need try for the girls.” She tilted her head a bit as if listening to unheard voices. “And for me. It seems to keep revisiting my doorstep, and it’s stronger with each opening. Next time, I may not be able to help you.” Her head tilted back toward Sonja. That foggy gaze felt to Sonja as if it were looking directly into her soul. “If he gets it, he could use it to perform powerful magic. If he gets it, you are all lost.”
There was no way she was going to let Q have the Chiwa talisman. She’d seen the evil in him, and even without knowing his intentions, she would die before letting him have it.
“I hope you do not.” Barri stood. Sonja shook her head over the woman’s ability to read her mind as Cindy rushed to move the chair from behind her. “Waters are deeper in real life than they appear from the surface. Trust the Water Dragon.”
Sonja eased her hand over her tender side. It was better but still sore. How could she trust the Dragon when Sonja had to constantly suppress her? Barri turned and Auntie rushed past her, beating her to the door to open it. “Help them, Fairy,” Auntie ordered. “You know more about the Quarter than most.”
“Fight a Dreamstalker?” Cindy put his hand on his chest and clutched a large opal pendant hanging from a silver chain. “I…don’t know.”
“We’ll be fine,” Ray said. “We’ve asked enough of all of you.”
Barri stopped just outside the door. “Dusk. Just before the world starts dreaming is his weakest time.” She shrugged. “It’s not much, but you need every advantage.”
Chapter Fifteen
Sonja lay on the small couch with her eyes closed and her body still, but her mind was twisting and turning, trying to sort out the events of the last few days. And that was all it had been. Three days. She felt as if she’d aged ten years. Huffing to herself, Sonja couldn’t believe how sheltered she’d been back in her little North Carolina mountain town. She’d judged Nell for all her wildness and roaming but now understood her lust for adventure. Nell had gone out and captured the world, traveling and experiencing, while Sonja had stayed home to care for her father and Trina.
Not that Trina needed care, but her fire-starter sister rarely left the house for anything but to visit family. Trina lived in fear. Sonja lived a life of numbness, avoiding anything that may make her feel. Carefully, she’d created a world where she was an empty vessel who didn’t need to use her powers, who didn’t need the psychic connections her Dragon and her body craved. Avoiding those things helped her avoid the sense of constant failure and the worry of never being fully accepted, the reality of being less than half. She felt incomplete as a Demon and as a woman. She couldn’t shift, she
couldn’t complete a vision and she was horribly scarred. Half a Halfling.
She heard him snoring lightly from Cindy’s room. Ray. He’d sacrificed and risked his future for her. He’d been visibly angry when he realized she was in the vision and not with him back at the club. He’d acted as though he had real feelings for her. But could he really? She felt drawn to his magic, his character, his body and his smile, but how much of that had been Q and how much her? She was still attracted but what about feelings? How did she feel about him? Would she have risked her life for his as he was doing for her?
She reached out with her newfound abilities and tried to connect with Mi-ma. Her grandmother had been her beacon her entire life. She’d taught Sonja to center, to calm the beast within.
Mi-ma was a full Demon and her psychic abilities were strong. Sonja quickly found herself sitting on a rocker on the old front porch…
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“You really stepped in a pile of it this time, Sonja.” Mi-ma shook her head. “When you girls were little, I thought you’d be the most like your father, and I’m right again.” She handed Sonja a tall glass of ice-cold tea. Sonja marveled at how real it felt in her hand. How much she felt as if she were home and how frightened she was at the thought of where she was in reality. The smell of pine needles tickled her nose, the squeak of the porch swing chain as Mi-ma gently rocked echoed in the night.
“Why do you say that, Mi-ma?” Sonja took a sip and eased back in the giant rocking chair that had been on this porch her entire life, desperate to hold on to this place for a while and feel calm. “Nell is more like him, always off on her adventures.”
She shook her head and scrunched up her face. “Nell may wander, but you will be the discoverer. Your dad went on all those excursions not just to go, but to discover. He sought things with meaning and power. Why do you think Nell came across that blasted box in the first place? Goddess knows what else lives in that basement of his.” She shook her head and then reached over and patted Sonja on the knee. “But that’s not what you used your first psychic connection with your Mi-ma to ask, now is it? Not what you wanted at all.” She winked. “It’s that Burgess boy.”