[Sacrifice Me 08.0] Season Two: Part 2

by Sarra Cannon

  “What I will do with this child is none of your business,” she said. “Go.”

  Her eyes flashed with a dozen rainbow colors of light, and I stepped through the portal, never to return again.

  The dream faded, and I sat up on the hard floor, gasping for air.

  Oh my God, the fairy had saved a boy. A crow boy.

  Mary Krista held my head in her lap, her eyes wide with panic.

  “Oh, thank God,” she said. “I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to wake you. We need to go, Franki. Now.”

  My brain was foggy, and I struggled to sit up. She pressed a vial of liquid to my lips.

  “Here, drink this,” she said. “It’s an antidote to the sleeping potion. I’m not sure how quickly it will work. I’ve been trying to get you to take it for ten minutes now, but you kept pushing me away in your sleep.”

  “Bad dreams,” I muttered, still struggling to shake off the memory of what I had just seen. Who was that child? And what had the fairy wanted with him?

  I downed the bitter-tasting potion and nearly gagged on it.

  “It’s terrible, I know, but I had to work with what I could find,” she said. “How are you feeling?”

  I sat up all the way and took several deep breaths. I needed to forget the dream. It had no meaning to me now, and I had more important things to worry about.

  Still, seeing that face...There was something about that child, but I couldn’t seem to place him.

  “Franki? Are you okay?”

  I shook my head, trying to wake up and bring myself back to the moment.

  I wasn’t sure I was in any shape to be sneaking into the Mother Crow’s room right now, but I didn’t have much choice. It was now or never, and I certainly didn’t like the idea of never.

  “Better,” I said. “Did you bring any water?”

  “I’ll get some from the bathroom,” she said.

  She came back a second later with a small vial full of water.

  “Sorry, that’s the only thing I have,” she said. “I didn’t think to bring a glass with me.”

  “It’s fine,” I said, drinking down the sip of water. It at least helped to clear out some of the bitter taste in my mouth.

  “Can you stand?”

  “I can try,” I said.

  I took her hand and slowly stood up, my legs wobbly underneath me. Whatever dose of that potion I’d been given by the Mother Crow, it had been twice as strong as any other throughout the day. Being repeatedly drugged no doubt had a cumulative effect, as well, and I’d been forced to eat and drink it all day.

  I shook my head, trying to clear the cobwebs that seemed to be growing around my brain.

  “I need a minute before I can do this,” I said, motioning toward the couch. “Help me sit down for a second.”

  “Franki, we really don’t have much time,” she said. “After what happened at dinner, the Mother Crow is suspicious of me. She said I couldn’t be trusted, and she put two extra guards on watch tonight. They’re doing a quick check of the village to make sure everyone’s asleep, and they’ll be back in a few minutes. If we don’t do this now, we might not get another chance.”

  I noticed for the first time that Mary Krista seemed to be holding onto her side as she helped me to the couch.

  “Did she hurt you?” I asked as I sat down.

  “A little,” she said. “But nothing I haven’t dealt with before. I’ll be fine.”

  “Does she do that a lot? Hurt her own family?”

  “Anyone who doesn’t fall in line immediately or obey her orders very specifically gets punished,” she said. “That’s why everyone does what she says and is terrified to refuse or betray her.”

  “She’s a monster,” I said, thinking back to the dream. Monster didn’t even begin to describe her, really.

  “That’s why we have to get you out of here,” she said.

  “I have to be strong enough to get that book first,” I said. “Just let me sit for a minute. Keep an eye on the door.”

  Mary Krista nodded and went to stand by the door, while I did my best to meditate and clear my mind.

  Once, when I’d been trying to learn to use my powers, Harper had sat with me and told me about a technique that had worked for her in the beginning. She cleared her mind completely and imagined a vast expanse of nothingness.

  Then, in the nothingness, she would focus on a single item. For her, it had been a blue butterfly—the image of her instructor’s spirit animal.

  I decided to use her technique now, but instead of a butterfly, I imagined an orb of light.

  It appeared inside the darkness, hovering in my mind’s eye. I focused all of my energy into the light, drawing strength from it and feeling it blossom in my core and spread through my entire body.

  If I was going to do this, I would have to stay focused on the light.

  Mary Krista paced the floor nervously, and I knew I was out of time. The other guards would be back any minute, and I couldn’t afford to lose this chance.

  I opened my eyes, but I kept my mind focused on the void. The light in the darkness.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  “I’ll meet you by the front door,” she whispered. “Hurry.”

  I shifted to the pure smoke of my demon form and flew down two sets of stairs until I’d reached the door at the end of the first-floor hallway. The Mother Crow’s bedroom.

  My ability to get into that room depended on my own connection to the Mother Crow, but it was just a hunch that this would even work. It was possible that walking inside would set off some kind of alarm or trap and this would all be over.

  But I refused to let my mind turn to thoughts of worries and failure.

  Instead, I focused on the light and the strength of my power.

  And I walked through the door.

  The stench of decay nearly knocked me back, but I stood my ground and covered my face with one hand.

  The Mother Crow lay on a large wooden sleigh-bed carved with intricate depictions of birds in flight. She snored softly, but she was still. Sleeping.

  The room was completely dark, and I wished I’d been blessed with the ability to see clearly in the darkness like some demons. Unfortunately, that was not one of my gifts, so I’d have to do the best I could.

  I didn’t dare conjure even a dim orb of light, for fear of waking her.

  Instead, I shifted again to demon smoke so that I could move quietly throughout the room without risking a creaky board or tripping on a shoe. I searched for the Mother Crow’s personal library, expecting to find a bookshelf or a chest somewhere in the room.

  But most of this room was completely bare except for the bed and small closet full of black robes.

  Her journal of spells had to be here somewhere, though. Everyone I’d spoken to said she left it in her room and never let anyone else touch it.

  From what Mary Krista had told me when we discussed the plan earlier, the journal I wanted was a leather book with a black stone embedded in the center of the cover.

  As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I searched everywhere I could think of. The nightstand next to the bed, underneath the bed itself, the closet, and even the small bathroom. But the book was nowhere to be found.

  Chills ran down my spine as I looked toward the unmoving lump in the center of the bed.

  I nearly dropped my positive thoughts and focus on the light as I moved toward the sleeping crow, but I fought to hold on. If I let the darkness in, she might sense my presence and wake up.

  And as I got closer to her, my worst fears were confirmed.

  The Mother Crow was lying on her back, the leather journal clutched against her body with both hands.

  I closed my eyes and breathed in, nearly gagging on the putrid smell that filled the room.

  I could do this. I had to do this.

  And I had to do it quickly.

  I cleared my mind until there was nothing but a ball of pure, white light floating in the darkness. I filled that light
with all my love for Rend and for my dearest friends, and when I was certain the light was as strong as it could be, I opened my eyes and looked to the Mother Crow.

  Her bony, decaying fingers wrapped around the book, and I took solid form next to her bedside and reached forward, very slowly.

  Carefully, I grasped the edge of the book and tugged it downward.

  The book didn’t move, but the Mother Crow turned slightly toward me, shifting her weight in the bed.

  I held my breath, struggling to hold onto the light despite my terror. I kept my eyes on hers, praying they wouldn’t open and find me here.

  I counted to five and when she didn’t open her eyes, I tried again. Her hands clutched the book so tightly, I was never going to get it away from her without yanking it free and waking her up.

  Instead, I held onto the light inside of me and imagined her fingers loosening their grip, letting go of the book so that it would slide easily into my hand.

  It took several tries and great focus, but finally, slowly, she relaxed her hands and the book came free.

  I shifted quickly to fly from the room, but the moment I reached the doorway, a shout sounded outside in the village and an explosion rocked the house.

  I turned just as the Mother Crow’s red eyes popped open.

  She sat up and threw one hand forward to close the door, but I pushed forward, flying out just as it slammed shut behind me.

  With a racing heart, I flew down the hallway and toward the front door, but Mary Krista wasn’t there. The door was wide open, and the village beyond was in chaos.

  But one pair of eyes met mine as I shifted back to my human form, the book clutched in my trembling hands.

  Rend had come for me.

  An End To You

  Rend

  Our plan to sneak into the crow village was shot to hell when a guard appeared at the top of the steps leading out of the altar. We hadn’t even gotten more than a few steps inside when she sounded the alarm and created a swirling black barrier that held us inside the center of a stone pavilion there at the heart of the village.

  The demons who had joined us immediately started working together to break down the barrier, focusing all of their energy on finding a way through so that I could get to Franki.

  The wind swirling around us kicked up a notch as a second, third, and fourth guard joined the first. This was going downhill fast, and my hope of getting in and out without waking the whole damn village slipped away as women and children came outside to gather on their front porches.

  Some of the women scooped up the youngest girls and carried them away to the house closest to the village exit, hiding indoors.

  Silas joined the other demons, blasting fire against their wind barrier, but it didn’t seem to be doing anything but making noise.

  Connery tugged on my arm and pointed to the large red house on the end. “She’s in there,” he said. “I can feel her, Rend. She’s close.”

  The moment I looked up at the red house, a haze of black smoke took form and Franki appeared. Our eyes met through the swirling darkness, and my heart leapt into my throat. She was alive.

  “We have to figure out a way to take down this barrier,” I shouted to Mary Kathryn.

  She nodded and grabbed Silas’s shoulder. She shouted something up at him and pointed toward a woman standing in the shadows near the house. I hadn’t noticed her before, but she was casting some type of magic. Lightning?

  Silas took a wide stance and began casting a large ball of flames.

  Mary Kathryn worked beside him, casting an equally powerful storm between her hands. Lightning flashed inside the black mini-storm as it grew in power and magnitude, and I could see now that the woman on the other side of the barrier was doing the same.

  “Stand back,” Mary Kathryn shouted to me, and I moved behind them.

  “Now,” Silas said.

  He threw his flames into the storm that Mary Kathryn had conjured just as she pushed it forward with all the force in her small body. The woman on the other side of the barrier threw her spell at the same time and they collided against the barrier.

  A giant crack of lightning pierced through the wall of dark wind, shredding it as the four guards fell to the ground. The wind died down, and I shifted and flew toward Franki.

  She laced her hands in mind, and we ran down the steps just as the Mother Crow appeared in the doorway of the red house.

  Her eyes lit the night with the color of blood and rage. She opened her mouth, and a loud caw escaped her lips, strong enough to shake the ground beneath our feet.

  Beside me, Connery took his wolf form and growled, stanced ready to leap, but I held out my hand to still him as I pushed Franki behind me.

  I quickly glanced around to take stock of our situation. The four guards were still unconscious on the ground surrounding the pavilion and most of the other crow women had retreated inside after the Mother Crow appeared.

  Mordecai, Joost, Erick, and Cristo stood at the four corners of the pavilion with ropes of black smoke extending from their hands. I followed the ropes to see that they had managed to block most of the doors after the women went inside.

  A handful of crows, ready to fight, had gathered their power into their hands as they stood on the steps of their houses, but so far, no one had made a move. They seemed to be waiting for orders from the Mother Crow.

  “Release Franki from this spell,” I shouted to the Mother Crow as I gathered my own special form of venom in my hands. A thick, bubbling ball of green acid grew between my fingertips, snakes writhing inside.

  “Or what?” the Mother Crow asked, stepping onto the porch. “You’ll kill me? I don’t think so. If you kill me, she dies, too. We’re linked now forever, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”

  “I’ll kill every girl in this village,” I said. “I’ll end your line forever. Find another girl to take, but release Franki now, or I swear to God, you’ll wish you had.”

  “You don’t scare me, demon,” she said. She gathered a powerful spell on her fingertips as green poison oozed from her fingernails. “I would end you all right here if I wasn’t scared I would hurt the girl. I can’t have her damaged or this will have all been for nothing.”

  She let the energy drop from her hands and took another step forward.

  “Take her,” she said. “Take her home. Enjoy your final days together, but know this. When the time comes, she will return to me. She won’t be able to resist it.”

  The guards stirred on the ground, sitting up and struggling to stand.

  I glanced around to see that the women preparing to fight had come closer. We were evenly matched in numbers, but did I really want this to come down to a fight?

  If I’d thought I had any real hope of convincing the Mother Crow to let Franki go, I might have stayed, but there was no way this woman was willingly releasing Franki from the spell. We were out of options, and the crows were quickly moving in on us.

  “I will put an end to you before this is all over,” I said, taking a step backward toward the altar.

  The others took my cue and started down the steps toward the door below.

  “I look forward to watching you try, demon,” she said.

  I kept my eyes on the Mother Crow and her guards, waiting for some kind of attack, but they stood down, releasing their power as we filed into the narrow entrance and made our way down the steps.

  Mary Kathryn took the hand of the woman who had helped us break through the barrier, and together they opened the shifting doorway back to the village in Peachville.

  “Hurry,” Mary Kathryn said. She conjured a wall of dark wind, similar to the barrier that had been held up by the guards earlier, locking us into the small room beneath the altar, and keeping everyone else out.

  I took Franki’s hand and shifted, flying through the portal doorway and into the village in Peachville. The place where we’d first made love. And when we were safe and everyone had come through and blocked the doors, I
took her into my arms and held her close as she trembled.

  We were together now, but as we clung tightly to each other, I knew that the battle to save us both was far from over.

  Episode Six

  Hauntingly Beautiful

  Franki

  Rend’s arms closed around me, and it felt so much like coming home that I never wanted to leave again.

  I’d spent most of my twenty-one years of life wishing I could meet my family and be a part of something, but now I realized that sometimes the things we wish for are not what’s truly best for us. Oh God, if I had grown up in that village, who would I have become?

  A Favored One? A mindless follower of an evil witch?

  What I’d truly wanted was exactly what I’d found at Venom. A love that had changed me for the better. Friends who would risk their lives to save me.

  This was my family, and if I was going to die, I wanted to be surrounded by them when the time came.

  “Are you okay?” Rend asked, finally pulling away to look at me. “Did she hurt you?”

  I shook my head. “I’m mostly okay,” I said. “But Rend, that spell—”

  “I already know,” he said. “We’re going to find a way to release you. I promise.”

  There was still such hope, such determination, in his eyes. And I wanted to believe him. I wanted to be able to find hope, too, but we were running out of time. At most, I had maybe two days left.

  Being further away from the Mother Crow might help, and if Rend could use his alchemy to keep me awake, I might be able to extend my life by a few days. But then what? What was a few days compared to the lifetime we’d hoped to share?

  “Franki?”

  A small voice whispered near my ear in the confined library of the Peachville village, and I turned to see a woman whose face I knew as well as my own.

  My eyes widened, and tears spilled onto my cheeks. I brought a hand to my mouth, stifling a sudden sob that threatened to choke me. How long had I waited for this moment? Could she really be here now? Right in front of me?