Death (Cursed)

by Tara Brown

  I cross my arms, "I say we try. We can't control O monster and besides, she won't do anything to help us. We get her here and let Trist cut her head off."

  Lorri rolls her eyes, "He doesn’t cut her head off. It isn’t actually Highlander. Jesus save me from this. No. He just needs to reason with them. Make them believe it is the greater good." Blake snaps his fingers, "Chaotic good. Of course, they are the chaotic good. If they think it's for the best they'll do it. We tell them he is still in with the baddies. He has an in. He has been invited to go meet up with the bad ones. They give him the magic and we go as a group and kick ass."

  Lorri nods, "All that but you stay here. You're delicate."

  Blake looks annoyed.

  Dr. Jekyll looks at Roland, "We can help."

  Roland looks grave but nods, "As you wish sir."

  Lorri claps, "Excellent. Let's get Tristan back to being Tristan and get the magic back."

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Aimee

  Tristan smiles and nods politely. He isn’t lying. He just isn’t telling the whole truth. Only Lorri and I are allowed to be apart of it all. No one else can hold their thoughts.

  "You will kill our mother, brother?" The voice still freaks me out.

  He nods, "Of course. You ladies know how I feel about it all. I want Jonathan dead. I want him to pay for what he's done to us all."

  The sparkly dead glow in her eyes make my skin crawl. She looks at Lorri and I and then nods. "Take my hand."

  Tristan takes a breath and puts his hand into hers. She looks up into the sky. The clouds hovering above us clear, except for one dark cloud. A bolt of lightning strikes their hands. They both lift off the ground, shaking and convulsing. Tristan drops to the ground on his knees, as O drops in a heap.

  "They're gone." He whispers. He moves his hands making the magic sparkle through them. He grins, "Guess I'm ready then."

  His eyes are sinister.

  I have a bad feeling.

  We flash back to the mansion and gather the forces. We wink in groups to the forest in Florida, where the wolves wait. I drop to my knees and let them maul me when I see them.

  "I missed you guys." I whisper. Luke whines and stomps his wolf feet.

  "I know. We're going now."

  Lorri leads us through the woods.

  "This is where you came last time?" I look at Sam and ask.

  He nods.

  Roland leaps into the air and phases mid air. He is a huge black wolf. Hanna gasps. None of us have ever seen it.

  I look back at Aleks. "I love you." I mouth.

  "Me too." He says softly.

  "Do it now Sarah." Lorri says softly. We can see each other but nothing can see us. Sarah has worked hard at developing the talent and is finally able to make us all invisible.

  I can feel the line when we cross it. The darkness hovers in the air like a black cloud. I instantly feel uncomfortable. The wolves growl softly. Hanna and the doc look savage. He won't change into the beast either. He and her both will be the beast but in control.

  My insides hurt. I just want Ari. I want her so badly. I know Lucas feels the same. He is skin and bone almost and his fur is not glistening like it does. He looks exhausted and lackluster.

  We cross a dirt path. Ben is out front. He walks, sniffing and searching it out.

  We stop when he stops. Lorri looks at little Sarah, "Still good?"

  Sarah nods. She looks like she is concentrating very hard. She is the only one who can control her talents completely. The other kids are still a little nutty when they get scared..

  Her tiny face makes me distracted. I'm scared one of us is going to die protecting her.

  Sam stays close to her.

  I hear them before we can see anything. A man laugh and talking. It's Jonathan. My skin shivers.

  I wink into a tree just above us. There is a small village in the forest. Just some shanty huts with dirt paths between them. The houses are old and decrepit looking. Jonathan is standing outside next to a girl with dark hair. She is tied to a pole in the middle of the path. She has whip marks that look like they're healing. I feel instantly angry and sickened. It's Ari. She is filthy. Her clothing is torn and gross. After everything she has been through, this is too much. Phillip isn’t there. No one else is. It's Jonathan and Ari. He rubs something down her cheeks and then stops. The wind changes. He lifts his face into the air like a dog smelling.

  "Shit." I whisper and wink back to the ground. "He can smell us I think."

  Lorri nods, "Guaranteed. What are you getting Trist?"

  "Bad juju. These witches are bad. They're almost as strong as I am. Phillip is here. I can feel him. The earth might not fight with me here. It's tainted." He puts his hands out, "Ari is sick. We need to hurry." He makes a face.

  "She's tied to a pole in the middle of the road there. It's a dirty little village of sorts. Gross. I saw Jonathan but no one else."

  Lorri flexes her fingers, "Chances are he knows we're here and is ready. Are we ready?"

  We all nod. We have no real plan. Ari always wrecks our plans anyway.

  We creep from the damp forest and into the village. The electricity in the air is too much. I gag from the stench of the humidity and dead animals. To the right carcasses and skins make a pile. In the distance I can see Ari.

  Lorri looks at me and nods, "Aimee you get Ari and Tristan and I will get Jonathan. Sam, you come with me in case he winks. We track him." Her whisper is so silent I almost miss it.

  She holds a hand up with three fingers. She lowers one. My heart races. She lowers two. My palms sweat. She lowers the third and I wink. I touch Ari and am blasted across the dirt yard. Lorri has Jonathan in her hands but he just stands and laughs.

  Tristan blows the pole where Ari is tied up, sending her flailing. I wink and catch her. Lucas is instantly with me, nuzzling her.

  Suddenly they come out of the house. We must be visible because they raise their finger, chanting. They look like regular women but their eyes are black.

  They all point at Tristan.

  His fingers and hands shake.

  "Lorri!" He cries out. Lorri winks to him but is blown across the dirt road. Ben is attacking one of the witches. He kills her on the road. Her body becomes a black blood puddle.

  I look around at the pandemonium.

  Lorri is being held to the ground. Jonathan is still standing laughing. He seems to not be real. Ben leaps at him but he doesn't wound. He doesn’t budge. He laughs. The witches chant. Aleks is flashing and killing but the witches don’t stop. The ones still standing don’t defend themselves. They chant. There are at least twenty of them still standing.

  "He's glamour. Jonathan's not really there." Lorri shouts.

  Hanna and her father are ripping and tearing. Both are covered in blood. It looks savage and disgusting, watching them kill unarmed women who don't fight back. They chant even as they are ripped limb from limb.

  Tristan screams again. His fingers twitch, "LORRI!" He screams. His hand whips from his own neck and shoots a bolt at the ground in front of me.

  "MOVE." He screams.

  I grab Ari and Luke and wink. I leave them in the living room at Marcus's and wink back. I grab the first witch and suck. She tastes like the best thing I ever ate. Dirty filthy death.

  We murder every one of them to the sound of Jonathan laughing his head off. As the last witch drops dead, Tristan vanishes.

  Jonathan stops laughing and grins, "Thanks for finishing it for me. I didn’t know how I would get him to get the magic from his sisters." And then he too is gone.

  Lorri screams and her and Sam are gone.

  Sarah is crying in the middle of the dirty road. I can hear her but not see her. She isn’t making anyone but herself invisible. She must have panicked and dropped the guard.

  "Sarah. Come to me." I whisper. I feel her next to me when I can see her again. I pick her up and wink her to Marcus's. I hold her tightly.

  Aleks is there instantly with Ben,
Hanna, Roland and the doc.

  We stand in the middle of the living room, covered head to toe in black blood and disappointment.

  We have failed. In every way possible. Well, except for getting back Ari. She is nearly unconscious on the ground and looks like she might die any second. So the success feels less than that.

  Ben and Roland leave the room with the black blood coating their muzzles. Lucas sits and cries sad wolf sounds that break my heart. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to fix her. I don’t know anything, except that if she dies I will never heal. None of us will. She is the bane of our existence but she is the heart as well.

  His soft wolf sobs are killing me.

  "Go change." I say.

  He looks at me. His green eyes are filled with tears. "Go change. I won't leave her side."

  He stands and leaves.

  The children are crying. Even Anne.

  Lucas and Ben come running back in. Lucas is pulling is shirt on.

  "Aimes." He says.

  I shake my head, "I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. I, we need Lorri and Sam and Dorian." I'm shaking.

  "She needs to be examined." The doc looks at Marcus, who is sitting on the couch in a bathrobe and greasy hair. "Want to help me, old friend?"

  Marcus looks at him and then back at the TV.

  "MARCUS!" Doctor Jekyll shouts.

  Marcus climbs off the couch looking hideous. "Fine. Jesus. Stop the shouting." He walks toward the lab. Dr. Jekyll lifts Ari up off the floor and carries her towards the lab. Lucas and Ben follow. I stand, frozen in the middle of the room. I don’t know what to do.

  Sarah sobs in my arms. She never should have seen any of that. Any of the death and horror. The witches never even fought back. We slaughtered them and they let us.

  Abbey gets up from the couch and picks Sarah out of my arms. She winks at me and carries the sobbing child down the hall to a bedroom.

  "Everyone get cleaned up, so when Lorri gets back we're ready. Her and Sam will know where they went." Aleks says to everyone and walks over to me. He takes my hands in his. That's when I notice the blood for the first time. I pull my greasy hands away from his and wipe them on my pants. I can't get it off. I'm scrubbing to the point of it being raw. He grabs me and flashes us to his house in England. We are in the old bathroom. I stand there frozen as he undoes my pants, "She's going to be okay."

  I tremble, "I can't lose her. I just can't."

  He looks down at me and stops my breath, "Hey. You won't."

  He pulls my shirt off and starts the old shower. The water smells funny. He says it is how the water smells in the country. I just know it's hard to wash my hair with it.

  He lifts me into the shower when he has us both naked. He takes a facecloth and rubs a bar of smelly soap against it. He starts at my arms and slowly scrubs. He is gentle but thorough.

  He lifts my arms and does my armpits and under my breasts. It would feel like an invasion of privacy with anyone else, but somehow with him it's intimate. I don’t scrub myself with him, ever. He isn’t forcing me. He's charming me.

  I need him to. I need to feel something.

  He rinses and soaps up again and makes his way south. I feel my body tense up. He leans into me and kisses my lips slowly, but doesn’t stop his hands from taking the cloth between my legs. The roughness of it makes me moan into his kiss. His tongue in my mouth is slow and lazy. Distracting.

  He turns me around and rinses the cloth. He scrubs my legs and butt cheeks while kissing my neck and back.

  He stands and tilts my head back. His huge hands run the shampoo through my hair. He massages and scrubs. I moan again. His erection is against my back but I don’t get the feeling that this is a happy ending shower. He rinses my hair and conditions. He dumps tons on the top of my head. I wince but don’t say anything. He scrubs it in and rinses too. That should be interesting later.

  When he's done he turns me back around.

  "My turn."

  I smile and look up at him. He hands me the cloth and the soap. I scrub it on there, "You'll smell like pretty roses too."

  He grins. I start with his face and scrub the soap in. He laughs as I push his face into the water. He sputters. I never realized being so tall and close to the showerhead would be a pain. He sputters again. I pull him out of the water, "Sorry."

  He swallows and makes a face. I stifle a laugh and scrub his neck and shoulders. They're muscled and thick. My fingers dig in. He raises an eyebrow at me. I drag it down his meaty pecs and chiseled abs. I don’t remember to soap up. I just rub the cloth and eventually my other hand, dropping the soap.

  "Aimes."

  I look up, "Sorry. Right." I bend down and get the soap. I stand, red faced and continue. I lather the soap in my hand and start scrubbing his belly.

  "Don't use the wash cloth on that." He nods at his erect cock.

  I let my fingers drag down the shaft and slide my soapy hand up and down. He moans and I grin. His moans are like a food of sorts. They satisfy something inside of me. I stroke his thick cock, until I notice he is pushing against my hand. I stop and rinse him off. He bites the fat part of his lip. I shudder and turn him around. I stand on my tiptoes and pour a huge amount of shampoo into my hand. I realized I used the same amount I would use. I look at his short hair and grimace. I put it on and lather. He laughs. I know he can feel me bathing his head in shampoo. It takes forever to rinse it out.

  "Do you need conditioner?" I ask.

  He shakes his head.

  I lather his back and rinse it off. He spins sharply and pins me to the cold tiled wall of the shower. He lifts me into the air but I shake my head, "We have to go. I need to see her."

  He growls, "Aimes."

  "I need to."

  He puts me down. I'm aching with hunger and needing him, but it's not right. I rinse once more and climb out. I hear the water change in power. I grin.

  "Making it cold?" I ask.

  He doesn’t answer. He makes a grunting noise. I pull back the curtain as he turns it off and pass him a towel.

  "You're trying to kill me." His light blue eyes flash anger. I laugh at him and walk to his room to throw on his clothes.

  I'm pulling on my ass kicking boots when Giselle comes in, "Aimes, we have a development." Her face looks funny. Shane is behind her.

  I jump up off the bed and grab his arm. He looks at me like I'm crazy.

  Giselle shakes her head, "Chill Aimes. He's fine."

  I'm lost, "What?"

  Shane takes my hand off of him and looks at Giselle adoringly.

  "What did you do?" My tone is skeptical.

  "I charmed him. Watch this." She looks into his eyes and speaks slowly, "Shane, dance on your toes and spin like a ballerina."

  He goes on his toes and spins like he has known how his whole life.

  "What did you do?"

  She shakes her head, "Not a clue. I had him against the wall and told him to stop being so naughty and then he did. So I told him to kiss my hand and call me your highness and he did." She looks excited. I laugh. It's nervous and frightened.

  "Can you do it to anyone?"

  She shrugs, "I don’t know."

  Aleks walks into the room in a towel. Giselle grins at him, "You kiss me as hard as you can." Aleks frowns at her, "No, thank you?"

  I laugh, "Okay it doesn’t work on him."

  She looks bummed by that.

  "Shane stop spinning." She says it and he does. "Now tell Aimes what you told me."

  He looks confused, "Which part your highness?"

  I laugh, "This is sick. You need to make him stop being a servant. It's creepy."

  "The part about the south of France thing."

  He turns like a robot and speaks, "When I was with Jonathan, he said he bought a chalet in the south of France, for Lillith to live in until Tristan killed her. His plans had to keep changing cause you guys were changing things. He wanted Ari dead, so no one could change the time again. She has a poison spell i
nside of her that is going to kill her, slowly. They wanted to try to take her power before she died. Also he needed Tristan back. He made me wipe Phillip's mind and tell him that everything he knew was a lie. He believes Ari is the problem. That Lorri is the devil, for real. Jonathan wants the power to be in Tristan so he can kill his mother and take her powers. She is weak. Really weak. When she dies Jonathan is going to make Tristan do spells on him to make him more powerful than anything. More powerful than you or Lorri or God. Marcus made me eat Hanna to change her into the beast. Jonathan made Marcus brainwash me to be an all-consuming monster. Giselle's kisses taste like honey…"