by Ramona Wray
The film was all lips and skin and kisses and an alarming shortness of breath. Us, he was showing me us, and this time his face wasn’t even blurred anymore. And yes, de rigueur, he should’ve worn a white powdered wig, but he wasn’t; his blond hair was long, silky, and always pulled back by an elegant ribbon. Long-haired Lucian? (Insert annoyed but deep sigh here.) The pain was shattering, which only made the emotion coming from the past that much sweeter. Soothing. Like a soft breeze caressing a fresh burn, relieving the sting.
“For goodness’ sake, Katherine, fight it!” he shouted from somewhere far away, sounding panicky. “Block the pain!”
“I … don’t … know … how!” I spewed through gritted teeth, seeing him hazily, my eyes yo-yoing from the images of the past to those in front of me. To focus on just one item was impossible. I was adrift on a sea of sweet misery.
“Hell’s bells, just will it! You can make it stop!”
The film stopped, and with it went the soft breeze, leaving behind only the sting and the burning. The pain was getting so atrocious, my eyes were already rolling back in my head. Total loss of consciousness was just around the corner. I screamed, begged, cried and, somewhere in the middle of gulping what I believed to be my final breaths, it stopped. With an abrupt snap, it all ceased. The relief was something heavenly, so I spent the next minute just marveling at it like a dental patient tripping on laughing gas. Beyond the fact that it didn’t hurt anymore, nothing else mattered.
Until … it did. His fingers still entwined in mine were the first details that penetrated. And when that sank in, I simply knew that it really was me who’d shut off the pain. No idea by what means, or even how I knew it, but I did, which meant that, once again, he’d told me the truth. It didn’t matter, though. I had no desire to think about it. No other need but to cause him pain, to have him suffer, too. So I slapped him. I slapped that flawless, petal-soft face with the ferocity of a lioness.
“You moron! Do you have any idea how that felt?”
He was massaging his cheek. My handprint burned pink against his pale skin.
“Do you have any idea how it feels to be left behind? And now, worse, to be rejected by you, time and time again? I just needed you to remember. Me.
Us. I want you to … want me again, Katherine,” he finished in a drowned undertone.
Gnashing my teeth, I said, “Look, I get it. I do, and I am sorry, but I can’t help how I feel. And you need to stop trying to force me like this. I’m the one dying here! How do you figure that by hurting me some more you’re balancing things? I’m in pain, either way.”
The blue tendrils jerked between us and his eyes closed slowly. “But you’re not the only one, that’s what you don’t get. And it all keeps on happening simply because you’re too stubborn to listen.”
“Listen to what?” I exploded, arms flapping in the air. “There’s nothing we can do, nothing we can change. Things are what they are. We pissed off a powerful witch and now we’re trapped. End of story.”
He made another howl-type noise. “Four hundred years, Katherine. Don’t you think we’ve had enough?”
“What I think, what you think, for that matter, doesn’t mean a thing. We’re still cursed.”
“See, that’s where you’re wrong. You can change it. The hex, our lives, all of it, you could change it if you wanted.”
Like throwing a flaming rag into a tub filled with ice, my anger was instantly cold. “Change it? How?”
He snorted. “Elizabeth was powerful, Katherine, but for the hex to work she’s loaded you,” he poked at my chest, “with her power.”
“Which means?”
“Oh, for the love of all things sacred! Do I really need to explain this every single time? We’re only wasting time.”
“Cut it out!” I bit back, folding my arms over my breasts. “Say what you mean.”
“You’re a powerful witch, too. You can summon legions. Command legions! You can forge alliances that wouldn’t just finish the hex but give us everything we could ever need. Freedom. A life that could stretch on forever. Happiness. Time to be with each other.”
“And when you say ‘alliances,’” I said in a whisper, afraid of even thinking it too loudly, “you mean … what, exactly?”
His eyes became two orbs of blue ice, yet it wasn’t the coldness that bothered me most. No, what disturbed me was his absolute lack of doubt. He wasn’t conflicted about this. All he struggled with was random annoyance at having to, apparently, explain it to me again. And that’s when it finally hit me. Why I couldn’t feel for him, why I couldn’t even stand breathing next to him for longer than a few minutes without getting antsy. Lucian ... he had this sort of twisted vibe about him. Almost as if walking the earth for so long under the power of the hex had made him into something not quite human anymore. There was a hunger about him, a lethal desperation that reminded me of the tigers I’d seen at the zoo stalking in their cages; you just knew that if they ever broke free, there’d be carnage involved.
“You know what I mean, Katherine.”
“Actually, I don’t. Spell it out.”
“Even without the memories from your past, you’ve lived enough to know that there’s more to the world than meets the eye. There’s power to be —”
I hit the roof. “Power? But wasn’t it exactly this ‘power’ that landed us in this tight spot to begin with? And now, what, we make it better by messing with more of it? Sure, why not? I’m always up for a little digging up my own grave. It’s such a pleasant pastime nowadays. If you’re stupid enough to try it.”
Calling him stupid didn’t seem to leave a mark, though. Nor did the sarcasm even get him to blink.
“The idea that all power corrupts was introduced by someone smart who wanted everyone to fall in line,” he answered coolly. “In the right hands, power can be a useful tool. It doesn’t have to master you. It can be mastered. It can be liberating, exhilarating, but not necessarily intoxicating.”
My expression grew colder, too. “Actually, it was a British historian, Lord Acton, who said it. And you know what the end of it was? ‘Absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ Keep that in mind while you cut to the chase. Exactly who do you propose I should ask for help? Demons? Angels? Other witches? Or maybe werewolves? Vampires?”
Again, not even a blink from him. “Don’t be stupid. There’re no such things as werewolves and vampires. As for other witches, to my knowledge, you’re the most powerful in the world. Angels?” He barked a bitter laugh then. “No, I don’t think so.”
“That leaves the demons,” I said dryly, “which brings me back to my initial point. Stupid.”
“Why?” he asked curtly.
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m about to die, dude! I’d like to avoid ending up in hell, thank you very much.”
The same brittle laugher twisted his beautiful mouth. “Oh, stop being so naïve, dude! You are bound to this world. No matter how many times you die, you’ll never get to see either hell or heaven. You’ll just be waiting somewhere. Waiting to come back.” He paused. “Just as I’ll be doing, down on the other side. Waiting for you.”
Low blow. To go with it, the frostiness in his eyes melted into longing. Sadness. And all kinds of other emotions that made it hard to shout at him again.
“Look, Lucian, I’m really sorry for … I’m just sorry.” I took a deep breath. “But I’ll never try to finish it by asking a demon for help. I may not ever see heaven, but that doesn’t change what’s in my heart. What you’re asking me to do is wrong.”
He went completely ballistic. “No! You know what’s wrong? Me, having to watch you falling in love with him. Me, having to content myself with seeing you once in over a century. Me, missing you. Me, being forced to watch you die, over and over again. That’s what’s wrong, Katherine.”
If anger were a perfume, then right now he was drowning me in it. There was no time to fall back; one moment I was staring at his face twisted in aggravation, and the next he had me flattened a
gainst his body, with his soft, fragrant lips pressing on my own. What was that taste, caramel apples?
It wasn’t the kiss itself that made it so hard to break away. Not even his impossibly silky lips. Or the sweet scent of him that had to be what childhood smelled like, innocent and sugary. It was the tendrils between us that kept me right where I was. Those invisible fingertips, legions of them, touching and probing and swamping me in sensation. Rich and magnetic, and so much of it, as if seeking to make up for all seventeen years of emptiness. I was sinking, sinking all the way down into waters both velvet and electric.
To fight him off was to swim against the current; it was to stick your hand into an open flame and then watch, feeling it burn. I didn’t want to do it, but I did it anyway. Pushing, and hitting, and biting, I tried everything, but the arms molding me to him were tighter than a vise. He wasn’t letting me go. Struggling was like wrestling a freaking bear: nothing gave!
“Oh, I needed this,” he whispered with a dark satisfaction. “It’s been too long.”
“Let go of me!” I hissed, still wriggling in his hold.
He pulled back just a little, so that his lips only just touched mine. In between, soft blue electricity was already knitting the edges of the small gap together. “Please, Katherine! Remember this, pet. Remember us,” he pleaded softly.
Warmth pooled in my stomach, no longer caressing but burning. “I don’t want to. Let me go!”
I pushed and tugged at his arms some more, with the same outstanding diddly-squat to show for it. His grasp was pure steel around me. I could go on playing Xena until the second coming; it still made no difference.
“You sure about that? Are you sure you don’t want to be with me?” he purred seductively. “Rumor has it that you’ve never been with anyone. Since you’re so fixated on dying, why not give me tonight? Don’t push me away, Kat, my fearsome little cat.” His lips kissed my eyelids, my cheeks, my hair, everywhere they could reach. “Stay with me tonight. Let me show you what you’re about to give up. What you’ve been missing, hmm?”
The embarrassment burned in my cheeks, scorching and, sadly, very plain to see. Where did he get off asking around about my private life? And then laughing at me for it? Taunting me like this? Anger welled up in me like the high tide. Bracing my fists against his chest, I pushed myself back as far as I could until our eyes were level.
“Snooping into my life doesn’t change anything. You’re no one to me, understand? If you were the last person on earth, I still wouldn’t let you anywhere near me.”
At that same moment, the parking lot lights came on. Maybe because of it, or as a result of what I’d just said to him, I found myself free of his grasp.
He looked stricken. Even paler than usual, his eyes empty, the blue all washed out. “No one, huh?” he asked, so softly that I could barely make out the words.
For a moment, I wished I could take it back. It was a lie anyway, and a cruel one at that. Lucian had his issues and his many faults, but a part of me, likely, the Marie Antoinette wannabe with the high-piled and feather-trimmed updo, didn’t want to see him suffer. He was stuck in this situation because of something we’d done together and now things were all messed up and he was alone. Obnoxiously prying into my life, saying and doing all the wrong things, but still alone. Except, it was all getting to be too much. I was humiliated, scared, and about to die. So, in the end, I didn’t take it back.
“Go away,” I rasped instead, not waiting for a reply.
Three steps later, he called after me. “You’re lying. You feel for me, too, I know you do. You’re drawn to me. Don’t pretend otherwise. It’s how you should feel, Katherine. You’re meant to be with me!”
I kept on walking.
“I love you! What’s so wrong about wanting to be with the girl I love? Huh?”
Without stopping or even glancing back, I answered, “It’s wrong because I don’t love you.”
There was no response, only a freak gust of wind that swept the parking lot unexpectedly, cold and hissing like a pit of vipers. Shuddering, I peered over my shoulder. He hadn’t moved, and in the odd light his skin was something of a mirage, almost glowing somehow. He looked like a sculpture chiseled in
crystal, as perfect as it was unfeeling, lit from the inside, but by a cold fl ame.
“Good luck tonight,” he wished me.
That shook me, acting as a reminder that there were other things to worry about. Practical aspects needing to be considered. Hallelujah for those redeeming practicalities; they were the glue still holding me together.
“I’ll finish just after midnight. You should come by my house to get the potion, in case,” I swallowed hard,“you know, if I can’t make it back to J.”
If my boyfriend killed me before that.
He nodded once. “I’ll be there.”
Maybe I should’ve said more, but what was left to say? By now, it was all empty.
Chapter: Twenty-Seven
I marched up to my car feeling uncomfortable but not at all unsure. Maybe four hundred years back, Lucian and I really had been crazy in love with each other, but today we were both different people. Maybe way back then, forcing a girl to kiss you was the thing. Who knows? But in present-day America, that could land you in jail, so even try it?
Then again, there were lots of other things that didn’t make much sense.
Why would Ryder send J to a mystical sleep?
To force my hand, because he wanted to stay here that badly?
Or to convince me that he was such a horrible creature that I should never consider helping him, that he really did belong to the grim in-between realm and that I should send him there?
I wanted to believe the latter because it painted him more like the boy I fell in love with. Good. Golden. Caught between a rock and a hard place, with the hex forcing him to take my life, no matter what, and doing the best he could with what he had. Except, if I didn’t work the blood-spell, I couldn’t wake up J, either. What happened if I died before she woke up? What then?
Still, when all was said and done, Ryder wasn’t acting like a potential sore loser. He knew he could go down, and maybe naming me his heir was his subtle way of saying that I should do it. That I should take him with me when I left the world. That he was okay with it.
Lucian, on the other hand, was anything but okay with letting the chips fall where they may. He wanted me to break the cycle, to finish the hex, by any means necessary. Not only did he think we should ask demons for help — which, hello, nuts! — but also my instinct told me that this scheme had little to do with my own interest. Breaking the hex was something he wanted, not for me, or even us, but for himself. He cared less about my dying, again, than about himself being stuck behind waiting more than another hundred years for his next shot at changing my mind. He’d made himself crystal clear; his ambitions included freedom and a long, possibly eternal life to enjoy it. The only way for it to happen was if he persuaded me to make a few new friends, the kind that had horns and were traditionally residing in hell. But he was willing to press for it, unbothered by the costs. My soul be damned! Now, if that spelled “love” in any language, then obviously I couldn’t read, because from where I stood that looked a lot like selfishness and greed.
I pulled up by the side of the house, in too much of a state to rummage around for the garage remote.
And what about his insane expectations that he only needed to show up and, presto! We’d just pick up where we’d left off ? To actually assume that I would sleep with him because I was a virgin and about to die, of all the dumb, demented reasons. Then again, maybe it was another seventeenth-century thing, in which case somebody should really point out the “live in the now” concept to him.
Since I was seriously flipping out, the neatly folded note taped to my front door didn’t register at first. I was about to slip inside the house when I caught sight of it. My pulse moved straight to rumba mode; it didn’t take a genius to figure out who’d left it there. I ya
nked it from the door with shaky fingers, almost ripping it in two as I fumbled to open it. The light on the porch was scant, which forced me to charge inside and seize the first lamp I could get my hands on.
The handwriting was beautiful, calligraphic, and put down with care. It read,
My dear Lily,
I know that, by now, you probably found out all about our past and the things I couldn’t tell you. And you have a right to hate me — God only knows how much I hate myself! I know that, no matter what I’ll say now, it won’t make a lot of difference. But, please, believe that I love you. I loved you from the very moment I saw you; even though I knew it was wrong, even though it led to nothing but pain for both of us.
I came by your house a few times, and I also called you. I know I don’t deserve to be heard. I never deserved you, but I still have no doubt that we belong together. Our time with each other may seem short, and it may even feel like stolen moments, but they’re still ours to be had and they were always meant to be, in spite of all. So, please, let me talk to you! I’m sure you know that time is running short. Let’s talk before it runs out. Please, just answer your phone.
Yours Always,
Ryder
By the time I was done reading, my eyes spilled salty droplets onto the paper, smudging the ink. My hands quivered on the cell; I’d forgotten that I set it on silent mode, and now I found there were thirteen missed calls, all from the same number. It only made me wail harder. Maybe it was seeing it right there, black on white, no room for interpretation, no ambiguity left at all. His confession, plain and explicit. He really was the villain. He really was Lex Luthor. The Joker. My Doomsday. However deceivingly white, the hat he wore was lined in black.
But that wasn’t all I cried for. I’d never been one for daydreaming; what’s the point when you can absorb everyone else’s dreams through a simple touch? There isn’t any room left for your own. But now, flopped onto the fainting couch, I realized something. I had been fantasizing. Under the layers of things forced into me through the years, memories, hopes, regrets, and fears that weren’t mine, right at the bottom, there was a secret stash made up of my own dreams. Things I was ever so quick to forget about because I never really thought they could come true. But some did. Hearing a boy, someone I cared about, telling me that he loved me; that had happened. And I cried now not because I’d lived to see it, but because in none of my dreams did the boy say those three words via a note, which was also an apology, for the fact that soon he’d have to kill me.