by Sierra Cross
“No, he won’t,” Matt said, “but don’t worry, I’m here to put him out of his misery.”
“That’s my Matthew.” Alana’s face couldn’t hide the pleasure his words brought her.
“What? Matt, you can’t do that, we’re a coven.” I spoke with an urgency that I hoped was believable. “You’ll never be able to live with yourself.”
“Once I kill you, the coven bond will be broken.” Matt gave me a pretty convincing evil smile. “And I’ll no longer feel any connection.”
He threw his arms down, like he was trying to call witch magic but nothing happened. “Take down the barrier, and I’ll finish them.”
With the toe of her shoe, she pushed the obsidian dust aside. The break in the pentagram separated the filaments of magic, creating a makeshift doorway in the glowing field. “They’re wily,” Alana said. “Drag them through one at a time. The warlock first, I think. I have some reservations about killing the witch.” Alana flared her nostrils, smelling the air. “She’s been marked by another Caedis. Don’t want to start any territorial battles...but it can’t be helped. She knows too much.”
Marked by another Caedis? My stomach roiled. Tenebris’s scent couldn’t still be clinging to me. I’d expelled all the green magic that lingered inside me. Hadn’t I? Suddenly my skin itched all over, and I had the desperate, illogical need to take a shower. Was it possible that I was somehow still connected to that misogynistic Caedis?
Matt stepped through the opening in the dome. My muscles tensed as he roughly grabbed Asher’s arm. Matt leaned down, was he whispering in Asher’s ear? It happened so fast, maybe he didn’t say anything at all. What was Matt’s plan? Should I run through the opening while I had the chance?
I crouched, poised to leap after Matt as he crossed back through with Asher. The Caedis turned and raised her hand in my direction. “Don’t even think about it.” With a flick of her toe she moved the obsidian dust back in place, re-securing the field.
Matt turned his back to Alana, aiming his hands at Asher. “I actually think I’m going to enjoy this,” he said. “You always were such a ham.” He called his magic to his hands, and I stared at the gathering glow, gold with blue threads. I’d never seen Matt form a firebolt before. “Constantly showing off your superior magic skills.” Matt looked down at his fingertips with a dissatisfied expression. Effort showed on his brow as he concentrated. Slowly the blue filaments receded, leaving only pure witch magic burning before him. “Well, tell me, teach, how do you like this.” The firebolt on his hands was larger than any blast even Asher had conjured. Was he drawing this from that hidden, pulsating place in his core? And what the hell was he doing with it? Energy continued to build, the blast growing larger and larger. He wound up, aiming at Asher’s heart.
My breath caught. Then I realized what he was trying to do—the trick Matt had seen me use in battle, a way to send magic to coven mates in need of a boost. But was Asher strong enough to absorb that much power? On the other hand, I was guessing any less wouldn’t be enough to affect a Caedis. I still couldn’t keep myself from screaming, “No!” as the energy left Matt’s hands.
The swirling bolt of power slammed into Asher’s body. All his muscles twitched and shook. Was he absorbing it? Or was it ripping his body apart? My heart stopped its rhythmic beat. His body arced off the wall with the force of the power that crashed into him. But it wasn’t searing his flesh.
For a split second, I saw Asher reanimate like a deflated tire being pumped with air. His eyes fluttered. Then he…winked at me? With the speed of decades of battle practice, the energy he’d taken in bloomed on his hands. He sent it flying straight at the Caedis. At the same time, Matt spun and threw again, melding his wonky blasts with Asher’s.
Caught off guard by the flood of power, Alana slammed to the ground, her flesh blistered. She landed sprawling on her back, arms flung wide. One hand brushed a gaping hole in the obsidian pentagram, creating an opening, but I was too stunned to move.
The Caedis let out a keening wail as a glamour I didn’t realize she was wearing faded. Her eyes were now a solid black with no whites, her hair a shocking white. Spell tattoos ran along the fingers of both hands. She raised one hand to deflect the golden blasts that were pelting her. With the other she fumbled in her pocket. A moment later she flung a spellbead and was gone.
Chapter Thirteen
I ran through the opening in the glowing green dome. We were free, but Asher was on borrowed time. “It’s moving up his neck.”
“I need to get to his wound,” Matt said, taming the golden magic on his hands to sleek wisps of energy.
“Be gentle with me, big boy,” Asher croaked out. “It’s my first time.”
I knelt and cradled Asher’s head on my knees. Carefully, I pulled back the sides of his tattered shirt and slipped it off his shoulders.
Matt dropped down beside us on the floor, glowing hands hovering over the ugly burns that spread across Asher’s chest. “You ready for this?” Matt asked. Even now, I knew a part of him found it hard to show this side of himself.
“You’re right, it’s a big step for us,” Asher said in a raspy voice. “Why don’t we keep talking it over till the poison invades my brain?”
Matt swallowed hard. Hands glowing gold, he scooted up so his knees were up against Asher’s ribs. “The area that is affected is so large,” he explained. “I’m going to need to have more skin to skin contact.” He reached over and moved Asher’s head from my lap to his. Wrapping his arms around the warlock’s neck in a big bear hug, Matt placed his big rough hands and the length of his forearms on Asher’s expansive wounds. The golden magic was pulsing, finding its mark.
Asher let out a sigh as the healing light hit his skin. The black in his veins was fading, skin returning to its normal color. A shiver ran through me, remembering exactly how good Matt’s brand of healing felt.
Matt moved his hands in a slow circle across the wounds, the wisps of gold magic thrumming and hovering between their bodies. Asher relaxed into the relief, moaning softly. As Matt moved the poison, his teeth clenched and jaw muscles rippled with tension. Something I never saw when he was healing me. It was, I realized suddenly, the price for his gift—he was feeling all the pain of the injury as it passed through him. I couldn’t take my eyes off this moment, a moment of total trust between two men who had not exactly warmed to each other on sight. A luminous sparkly stream of magic floated through the room. The cold stone walls that surrounded us no longer seemed ominous in the face of the connection that we were sharing. Pain was transformed to pleasure, relief, and joy. All the emotions floated through me on the coven bond that joined us together.
As the last lesion on Asher’s chest knitted back to smooth skin, Matt cleared his throat. “Yeah, I think that’s good.” Matt’s face was drawn, circles under his eyes. “His body is going to have to do the rest.”
The taxi slowed to a stop in front of a tiny market with cigarette adverts in the store window. The narrow building was crowded in a sea of other narrow buildings. In the low-rent neighborhood of El Raval, every inch of ground was covered by stone or brick or concrete. We obviously couldn’t go back to our original hotel room. The festival crowd had invaded this neighborhood as well, but the taxi driver assured us we’d find a room here.
The building next to the market was so narrow I didn’t even realize it was a separate building until I saw the diminutive sign that said, Hotel. Thankfully, a vacante sign glowed in the window.
Asher’s life was no longer in danger, but it would take some time for his body to recoup its strength. Right now, he couldn’t even hold his head up. Matt had to prop Asher up against the taxi while I wrestled the money out of his pocket. The warlock’s forehead flopped against my cheek, and he managed to smile up at me, “Dig a little deeper, luv.”
Matt wrapped his arm under Asher’s shoulder and shuffled him to the hotel door. A group of men drinking beer in front of the market laughed and called out, “Borracho!”
“Yes, he’s drunk,” Matt said to the men, smiling as if everything was funny, and Asher wasn’t just back from the brink of death. “Muy borracho.”
Moving Asher was an exercise in patience. I reminded myself that I’d needed seventeen hours of sleep after the time Matt healed me. His limbs tripped Matt up, but having Matt carry him would look too odd. Besides Asher had to sign for the hotel.
Everything was compressed in the tiny lobby. Matt’s flannel hung loosely over Asher’s shoulders, covering the burned and tattered shirt. The clerk looked up from his cigarette, unamused, and once again I heard the word for drunk. Matt laughed and made a joke in Spanish. The clerk hesitated, then finally reached for the room key.
We got the only room left available—of course it was on the top floor, with no elevator. Once we cleared the sight of the lobby, Matt went to throw Asher over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. A pained groan escaped the warlock despite his best efforts to keep silent.
“Not so rough,” I said.
Matt nodded and scooped him up like a child.
I ran ahead of them and turned the old-fashioned key in the lock, revealing a tunnel-like room that was so small and narrow there was barely room to walk around the bed. A window at one end, door at the other. There was no other furniture. The suitcase-sized closet had three shelves and four rickety hangers. Matt deposited Asher on the bed and lifted Asher’s wrist to check his pulse. The veins were no longer black.
Matt was about to step back when Asher snatched him by the wrist. I was sure Asher was going to make some crude comment about the healing, to deflect the intimacy of the connection. Instead, Asher looked up into our guardian’s face and simply said, “Thank you.” A look passed between them, a reinforcement of a bond that has been forged with a kindness and sacrifice. Then Asher closed his eyes and fell into that deep post-healing sleep.
“That was a beautiful thing you did,” I said, in awe of Matt’s talent.
“Yeah, only good thing about being a Mal I guess.”
My jaw dropped. “Don’t do that to yourself,” I said. “Don’t talk about yourself like you’re evil.”
“Maybe I’m not evil, yet.” He looked at me, eyes full of sadness. “But nothing’s changed, Alexandra. I’m still a ticking time bomb. When all this is over, I have to turn myself in, for the good of—”
“I thought we were past this.” I was angry now. “What about that huge firebolt you threw today?” He looked away, almost cringing, as if the memory hurt him. But I wasn’t about to let it go. This was life or death. “You used your witch power. To save our lives.” And thanks to my last coven vision, I knew it was only a sliver of what he was capable of. I also knew what that power felt like inside him—and there was nothing evil about it.
He shook his head. “Can we talk about something else?”
“Not until you watch the video,” I said.
He blew out an impatient breath. “No video is going to change the fact that I’m an abomination.”
No, you aren’t, I thought. And I’ll prove it to you. Out loud I stuck to cold logic. “Then why not watch it? If it changes nothing for you and means so much to me—”
“I’m not watching it.”
“What, are you scared of it or something?” I snapped, then stopped as the realization hit home. Holy shit. That was it. I sat on the bed, hugging my knees, and looked him in the eye. “Matt, I have a dumb confession to make,” I said. “I used to think that you never got scared.” He snorted, and I quickly continued, “Not fair, I know, holding you to some superhuman standard. But you gotta understand that’s how people see you, how I’ve always seen you. A fearless mountain of strength. But today, I know you were scared. I knew because the coven connection sucked me into your consciousness when that you were with the Caedis at that awful compound.”
He blinked. “I thought I sensed you there,” he said in a near whisper. “You know, the thing I was most afraid of was that that demon’s army would kill me before I could get back to help you and Asher. That you two would die because of me.”
Right. Definitely the thoughts of an evil man. Not.
“I think you’re scared to watch Masumi’s video,” I said, “because what if it turns out I’m right, and Mals and Deviants aren’t evil? That would mean you suffered all your life for nothing. Grew up motherless for nothing. Hated yourself for nothing.” I’d expected him to cut me off with a logical argument by now, but he was just staring at me, listening intently. So I went on. “And worse, if Mals and Deviants aren’t evil, then it means some of the laws you uphold are based on lies and cruelty. Your vow to the guardians, the one that keeps us apart, would be meaningless.” I reached over and grabbed Matt’s hand. “And if the good guys aren’t always good, then things really aren’t as simple as we thought. And you’re right, that’s really damn scary. But what if it’s all true? The Matt I know, my guardian, doesn’t hide from the truth.”
Matt looked away, letting out a long, soft breath. Then he turned back to me and held out his hand. “Show it to me.”
I hit play on Masumi’s video and handed him my phone.
The average-sized bed was wall-to-wall human. Asher was passed out on his side, while I was tucked up close to Matt, spooning his huge body from behind. I forced myself to re-watch the video from over his shoulder. By the time we got to the last clip, Matt was trembling, tears coursing down his cheeks. I’d promised Masumi I’d watch it to the end, but I hadn’t made Matt promise.
“Do you want me to turn it off?” I said.
He shook his head. “No. I’ll watch them all,” he said in a hoarse voice.
A skinny young girl in a hospital gown shivered in the corner of a sterile confinement cell, clutching a beat-up stuffed bear. Her reddish hair was tangled and dirty. She couldn’t be any more than eight.
“Marisa, tell us where the rest of the kids went,” an unseen woman’s voice demanded of the child. “Tell us where they’re hiding.”
Marisa clenched her lips tight.
A beefy tech in a white uniform stepped into view, grasping a cattle prod by its plastic grip.
“How many humans have you killed?” the unseen voice asked.
“I haven’t hurt anybody!” Her voice was high, her eyes—bright orange eyes— round with fear.
“Take the toy away from her.”
The man in the uniform reached for the bear and the girl clung to it ferociously, grunting and howling. “No, Kavon gave me that bear!”
“Don’t dawdle, take it,” the woman demanded. “She knows their location.” As the woman talked off-screen, the tech touched the child’s side with the end of the pole, and she lit up like Christmas tree with the voltage that was sent through her. Amazingly it didn’t seem to harm her.
Then, slamming her slight body against the painted cinderblock wall, he ripped the stuffed animal from the girl’s grip.
Oblivious to the pain, the girl’s arms frantically flailed after the stuffed bear. The tech held it just out of her grasp, like making a dog jump after a toy. The child’s whimpers grew to panicked gulps.
“If you want it back, Marisa, you’ll answer our questions.” He placed the flat of his hand on her chest, pinning her to the wall, holding the toy at arm’s length in front of her.
The girl opened her mouth…but only the wail of an animal issued forth, a piercing cry of anguish and pain. She panted hard, struggling against the tech’s hold. Muffled sounds were heard off-screen, the unseen woman yelling, “Get him out of there. The drugs aren’t inhibiting her change—she’s too strong!”
The girl’s body morphed to a snarling wolf, jaws snapping at the tech. But the man landed a solid blow across the canine sending it flying. The sound of keys rattling and feet shuffling were heard, along with the animal yelping in pain. The wolf shifted to bear. Its massive paw swiped across the tech’s midsection. Out of the massive wound tumbled a flood of blood and organs. “Team One, hold position. Do NOT enter that chamber. It’s too late,”
the woman yelled from off-screen. “Wait till she shifts back then put that monster down.”
I turned away, refusing to watch the final moments of this clip a second time. Now that I had met the kids hiding at the defunct guardian facility, it was exponentially more painful. But it hardly made a difference whether I looked or not. Those images had been seared into my brain—as Masumi had predicted—and the sounds re-conjured them to my mind’s eye with perfect clarity. The echo of gunfire ripped at my heart.
Matt watched to the very end. He listened as Masumi made her case, but his eyes were so clouded with tears that wanted to fall, I didn’t think he could focus on the screen. His shaking hand dropped my phone to his lap and he stared straight ahead, like his brain had too much to process. He pinched his nose and rubbed his eyes with his hands. I shimmied out from behind him and slid myself onto his lap. I tugged at his shoulders. He resisted and turned away to hide his face.
“It’s okay to cry,” I said. “You’ve lost so much.”
“I’m fine,” he insisted, despite the battle he was waging against his tears.
“It’s okay.” Gently, I pulled him toward me. His body only gave an inch. “It’s okay.” He grunted with the effort of warring against the emotional flood inside him. “It’s okay.” I gave another gentle tug. “It’s okay, Matt.” I put hand on the back of his neck. Our skin met and heat rose in me at his touch. He let me steer his head to my shoulder. “It’s okay,” I said again and he melted into me, his enormous shoulders rocking in a sob. I held him as the dam crumbled to dust, as his body lost the fight for control and his grief took over. The minutes stretched as his body, wracked with sobs, lay pressed to mine. Until the well of tears was empty. He pulled back and looked me in the eye, and it was a look I’d never forget. The walls between us had fallen. I sensed his vow no longer kept him at bay. The storm of emotions that coursed through him had opened him up, laying his soul bare.